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I'll admit from the start that I'm not playing 40k competitively, and I think it's pretty awful for that purport. My local gaming group has only seen one or two flyers, never mind Screamer/Seer/Grav/whatever-stars, multiple riptides, or and of the other utterly broken things that I see here on the internet. I suspect that at least some of that is due to a much less tournament-dependent 40k scene in the UK.

However, what I was wondering is that if some armies are by their nature far more powerful than others, has anyone ever considered taking a page from the world of sports, and thought about introducing a handicap system?

For example, If Tau are better than BA, then you would expect Tau to win a greater %age of games than BA - and therefore be able to quantify exactly how much of a points break to give a BA army to bring them up to the Tau's level.

A similar system was used when I was in an amateur bowling league, and in that case it was designed to partially balance out player skill - the better bowlers still had an advantage, but not nearly as crushing as would otherwise be the case.

In this instance it would be for an even better cause - a 40k handicap system would be designed to cancel out ARMY imbalances, allowing player skill to come to the fore and removing the current reliance on powerful armies and units, rather than good players.

Has anyone else ever tried this out, or had thoughts along these lines? Are there any sports-people who think this might work, or say why not? Would the biggest problem actually be persuading people to do it, and if so could you institute it on a smaller scale in a local group?

Various forms of handicap (generally refers to as composition scoring) have been tried over the years, yes.

It has been tried out, but mostly focusing on units instead of armies.

The main problem is reaching an agreement between the players about which units need nerfing/buffing and how much.

I guess you could try doing something like take a 2000 point event and making that the base line for armies that win 50% of the time. Then giving/taking away points based on win percentage.

SO ever percentage point would be worth 20 game points.

So Eldar who win 62% of the time would play 240 points down so at 1760.

where as Blood Angels who win about 38% of the time would play with 240 extra points so they would be at 2240 points.

There are however, a number of issues with this.

1.) Other handicaps (such as in bowling) are based on player skill. This does not happen here so a new eldar player who builds bad lists is handicapped while a great BA player gets a buff, making their game very one sided.

2.)Lack do data/tracking. Right now there is one site for tracking this data but not every event uses it. So the events can be skewed. Furthermore there is not an equal sample for each army (BA only have 138 games in the system, whereas eldar have 1307). So it is hard to make decisions about armies with little data. For example inquisition has 3 total games, and a win rate of 66%.

3.) Allies need to be accounted for which dilutes the data even further.

IN reality to do something like this you would need to make it Player + faction handicapping and have all events uses the ranking system (even if they don't use the handicap). That way you track a players successrate with a faction and handicap that player. But even then due to wide differences in local player skill you end up with a tangled mess.

Bowling works, because a score of say 220 is always the same no matter where you play, and no matter who you play. Where as a Win in a local RTT is not the same as a win at a national GT etc.

There are advocates for a points handicap system in my group.
The sad part is that they're not based on any army. They're based on me. :( It's been suggested that I give a 20% handicap to any opponent. (Which I think may be a little much.)

When grey knights were out, it took me all of 1 hour of looking at the codex to come up with an inquisitors+henchmen in chimeras with 3x dreadknights and some razorbacks of marines as a 2k list. I then challenged a salamander player to beat me with 2500 at his disposal.

I lost one razorback, two marines, and coteaz almost periled himself to death. Everything else was ok. Dreadknights were wounded a bit.

An in group handicap on a player by player basis would be far more fair than one based on army choice.

Like I said above, just track your win loss rate and handicap as above, capping out maybe at a 25% reduction in points.

Play and if they is too much, tweak it and try again.

Also consider giving other players a buff so it is not just a handicap have all players be at between +/- 25%.

Seems like an odd rule. Someone buys a 1500 army and then after a year or two the rule kicks in and he suddenly has to play with 1200pts . But the 1200pts army could suck now and he probably wouldn't just be able to cut 300pts from his 1500pts list . Same for those with bad armies start with 1500pts , then you suddenly have to play 1700 , but to do that you need to buy more models , if you don't it would be like playing with a points handicap , only with a bad list . But the real thing about it would be the 200extra points wouldn't guarantee a better win ratio. So someone could be playing a year with a bad list , then another one with the +200points and in the end get the results that his army still sucks.

Very true essentially that is why I said handicapping per player is slightly better, but good players will still beat bad players.. Also going from 1500 to 1200 would mean based on above that you win 70% of your games against your entire meta. Which can happen but is not the norm for most I would assume.

 da001 wrote:
It has been tried out, but mostly focusing on units instead of armies.

The main problem is reaching an agreement between the players about which units need nerfing/buffing and how much.

This, pretty much. The only thing more absurd than the idea that 40k is, or should be a balanced game is that its fan base will be able to agree on what balance would even look like.

If you think that you're bringing an army that's too strong, and want to bring things more into balance, then just play a weaker list. The tau codex doesn't require you to take a triptide list, after all.

This is what Warhammer World currently use for Throne of Skulls.

They take the highest scoring people from each race and add this, which gives an overall winner.

"Margin of victory - At the end of the event, we work out the average score of each of the races in attendance. We then compare that race’s top scoring player to that average score of all the players of that race. The amount which that player beat the average by is called the Margin of Victory. Eg: John came top of the Space Marine players by scoring 25 Battle Points overall. The other Space Marine players scored 19, 18, 14 and 12 respectively. Thus, the average Space Marine score is 17.6 and John’s Margin of Victory is 7.4."

 Ailaros wrote:

 da001 wrote:
It has been tried out, but mostly focusing on units instead of armies.

The main problem is reaching an agreement between the players about which units need nerfing/buffing and how much.

This, pretty much. The only thing more absurd than the idea that 40k is, or should be a balanced game is that its fan base will be able to agree on what balance would even look like.

If you think that you're bringing an army that's too strong, and want to bring things more into balance, then just play a weaker list. The tau codex doesn't require you to take a triptide list, after all.

It certainly is a preeminently viable list for competitive play. Self-nerfing isn't doing you any good in a tournament, and I find it absolutely absurd that you think 40K cannot be balance. It can be balanced, and very easily. What it would take, however, is GW actually putting the effort in of listening to their players, and not just sticking their fingers in their ears and saying "Well, don't play that way". GW's answer to broken, OP units is to not use those units... which is terrible advice, both for them as a model-making company and for the game as an experience.

Balancing the rules is not the responsibility of the fans, it's the responsibility of the designers... unfortunately, the designers do not seem to have the ability or the inclination to do what needs to be done (such as proper playtesting) to balance their rulebooks. GW could also, quite obviously, do with an Editing team, not just for typos and misspellings, but a Technical Editor that enforces a clear, concise method of expression in all publications that involve game rules and mechanics.

I do believe balance is possible. It is just a matter of statistics and coordination. I am not sure coordination is possible though...

It is easy to do a list of quite obvious game-breakers (riptides, heldrakes, re-rollable 2++ invul, wave serpents, battle brothers...) and try it out. Keep tweaking the list adding the new unbeatable combo and that´s all. More and more viable lists will be found by players and more and more balance will be achieved. It is not possible to get in a single step, but if every few months changes are made according to statistic results, the game will eventually get fixed. IF a certain balance is achieved, then we can considerate buffing the bad units.

The problem is to coordinate the players. And telling the competitive player who has bought 4 riptides that they need to be fixed "for the Greater Good".

And keep in mind that perfect balance is not the goal, since it is not possible. If, say, we can get five viable lists, and do the same for all factions, that would be a good start.

 Psienesis wrote:
(...)
Balancing the rules is not the responsibility of the fans, it's the responsibility of the designers... unfortunately, the designers do not seem to have the ability or the inclination to do what needs to be done (such as proper playtesting) to balance their rulebooks. GW could also, quite obviously, do with an Editing team, not just for typos and misspellings, but a Technical Editor that enforces a clear, concise method of expression in all publications that involve game rules and mechanics.

Well said.

However, I don´t think it is gonna happen any time soon.

Local scene uses a Swedish Comp variant. The Swedes have a system based on the mathematical analysis of tournamen statistics to work out their weighting. It's used primarily because it tries to place restrictions in the most objective way possible and eliminating opinion from the design.

I'm pretty sure the developers don't like this, as well. Having spoken to ex-GW guys scattered around the country, they all pretty much share the same sentiment. It's management that's killing this game, not the devs. I miss the "jovial" days of blame it on Ward...

Handicap systems of various types have been tried over the years. The problem is that they almost all invariably hammer as least as many armies that don't need to hammering as those that do, and ultimately there's almost always a new level of stuff within the new paradigm that's just as bad.

Warhammer World's method is interesting, and probably the least likely to impact fair lists, but I'm not really sure how much difference it truly makes.

I utilize a handicap system, although I've lapsed recently. The original idea was to keep track of your total games against an opponent, and for every two victories you have over them, handicap yourself by 5% of your overall points.

 Jimsolo wrote:
I utilize a handicap system, although I've lapsed recently. The original idea was to keep track of your total games against an opponent, and for every two victories you have over them, handicap yourself by 5% of your overall points.

Wouldn't it better to give them the 5% increase and then ween them back down? By pulling punches like that, does it really get them to play better?

Just thoughts. I usually just actively take crappier units or stupid upgrades to make squads lose points efficiency. I then allow my opponents to ask me my thoughts as we play if the game is for fun or for getting better at the game. It was very enjoyable to see someone take a fluffy army, course correct but keep in the same goal of the theme, and become more powerful. Usually it came down to proper play, such as a new Eldar player not fully utilizing his Farseer properly.

da001 wrote:]I do believe balance is possible. It is just a matter of statistics and coordination.

Psienesis wrote: I find it absolutely absurd that you think 40K cannot be balance. It can be balanced, and very easily.

It can't be balanced, nor should it be.

Psienesis wrote:Self-nerfing isn't doing you any good in a tournament

Sure, but what's the point of a tournament. To win? 40k doesn't test player skill.

Vaktathi wrote:The problem is that they almost all invariably hammer as least as many armies that don't need to hammering as those that do

Right. Getting 40k players to agree that something is balanced is usually an effort in pointless futility. Generally regimes like this decide what is "balanced" by who screams "cheese!" the loudest.

 Ailaros wrote:
It can't be balanced, nor should it be.

I would stop pimping your 40k thesis until it passes peer review. As it stands and I pointed out, it's heavily critical with an opinionated slant, takes an aggressive stance on specific codecis, and fails as an analysis because wargames arein't a void; you cannot look at 40k alone and say it's good or not good because it's a microcosm.

There's proof enough that GW isn't looking to so hot in the market. The ability to enjoy their game is strongly tied to that.

 TheKbob wrote:

There's proof enough that GW isn't looking to so hot in the market. The ability to enjoy their game is strongly tied to that.

No. it's not.

Prices, lack of communication, lack of support for a greater variety of games, etc...,etc... are all causes of their demise. The game is the main reason they aren't gone yet.

 Zweischneid wrote:

 TheKbob wrote:

There's proof enough that GW isn't looking to so hot in the market. The ability to enjoy their game is strongly tied to that.

No. it's not.

Prices, lack of communication, lack of support for a greater variety of games, etc...,etc... are all causes of their demise. The game is the main reason they aren't gone yet.

If the game was good and well written, people wouldn't need more communication as they wouldn't be waiting on FAQs to make their army playable.

Edit - Deleted because I realized it was pointless with these stubborn people.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

 Zweischneid wrote:

No. it's not.

Prices, lack of communication, lack of support for a greater variety of games, etc...,etc... are all causes of their demise. The game is the main reason they aren't gone yet.

If the game was good and well written, people wouldn't need more communication as they wouldn't be waiting on FAQs to make their army playable.

Boom.

 Ailaros wrote:

da001 wrote:]I do believe balance is possible. It is just a matter of statistics and coordination.

Psienesis wrote: I find it absolutely absurd that you think 40K cannot be balance. It can be balanced, and very easily.

It can't be balanced, nor should it be.
(...)

While I find your opinions quite interesting and your thoughts on the game both insightful and remarkable, and while I completely respect you in any possible conceivable way, this is what I thought when I read the link you provided about the lack of balance being good for 40k:


Where to begin?

People is not talking about "personal balance". If that were the goal, then every player should play with the same list. There are tournaments that use this format, but few of them. And they work, since they are the perfect way to prove who is the best/luckiest general. But most of us do not really care about that: we want to play with our list.

The desired balance is not a personal balance, but a unit/list balance. People want to bring to the table whatever they want, and still have a decent chance of winning. Of course, list-building should be still important, so every single unit should add something of value to the faction. Variety! Which is exactly the contrary to what this article is saying.

Lack of variety is good to determine personal balance, true, but this can be achieved right know. What we want is the possibility to use a fluffy / fun list with a decent chance of survival. This is balance between units: when every Codex has many viable units, options and builds.

"I could show up with an army of nothing but cultists brandishing pistols and knives, and you could show up to a game with nothing but heavy tanks festooned with machine guns and flamethrowers, and we'd both have an equal chance of winning. Is that what 40k players want? No. We think that the cultist player SHOULD LOSE to the tank player, and that a balanced game here would be a worse game. "

Whaaaaat? No way. A properly made army should be able to deal with any other army. Every single possible faction should have the tools to solve any problem. You are theorizing that if all units are good, then any combination of units are good. Not the case! An army composed of only one type of unit is boring and easy to neutralice in a good system. Balance (defined as "all units are good at something") means VARIETY. If a little amount of effort has been used when writing the rules, mono-armies should always fail, since using the same tool for anything should never work. Units should bring something different to the battle, and thus many different types of units should be needed to create a good army.
And what happen when the game lacks balance? You get some units that are so good that they can do anything. Get 4 Riptides or some screamerstar and wait to see if you are lucky. Boring game. Unwanted game. Lame game. Unbalanced game.

" The reason that you have a game with such staggering complexity (compare the rules of 40k to the rules of Chess) is so that you can have a game that's deep, and have plenty of inroads for meaningful player decisions. "

No it isn´t. There is no balance, so you just take 4xRiptides and that´s all. You point and click. There is no possibility of "meaningful player decisions" when the game is rock-scissors-paper. The game ends as soon as it starts: if you brought scissors to the table, that´s all. No need for tactics. In tournaments that allowed Escalation we saw games that ended turn 2. Just roll some dices to see if unit A destroys everything or fails, and if it fails the second player roll some dices to see if unit B do the same. Unbalance does not make the game decision-depending. It is just about luck and the list you brought, which is just another type of luck in a scissors-rock-paper environment.

"One could argue that different armies would still play in different ways even if they had equal chances of success. We run into the same problem as above, though, as it means that any random style would be just as likely to win the same as any random combination of units would be just as likely to win. Either sitting back and killing stuff with heavy weapons or rushing forward on bikes and killing stuff with special weapons needs to have a difference in power level, or else it will have the same impact on the game as the iron vs. shoe choice, which is to say that it's a meaningless choice. You wouldn't actually HAVE different armies if the armies were equal. They would be different only in aesthetic."

I really don´t get this. If different combinations of units play in completely different ways, if some of them are faster, other are tougher, other use X advantage, how it comes they are different only in aesthetic? If all units bring something to the field, if there is no such thing as "power level", all units will be used. And all armies will be different. And all will have a chance to get into turn 5 after a fun game between two players, instead of a one-sided match.

Conclusion:

"People are drawn to 40k for its depth and wealth of meaningful player decisions. Players like that they're able to choose which pieces they put on the table, and how they put them down on it (unlike Chess). People like to come up with combinations, and have that diversity be meaningful. Even hard-core Strategizers are drawn to 40k for this reason (otherwise, they'd just play Chess)."

This is no longer about 40k. The article is talking about list-building. And nothing else. The player comes up (more like copy-pastes from the Internet) with some combinations, deploys the army and that´s all. From there on, scissors/paper/rock. No tactics, no in-game decisions, no fluffy list, no narrative, no hard fights, only list building and luck. Also, it is reducing all Codexes to five, six units. Killing the variety. Making the game unbalanced and thus simplifying it.


So no. Balance is possible. Balance is good.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:


If the game was good and well written, people wouldn't need more communication as they wouldn't be waiting on FAQs to make their army playable.

I hear their Hobbit Game is fantastic*, well written, needs barely any FAQ and is everything the balance-fetishists and tournament-freaks could ever hope to see from a GW-game.

Of course, nobody cares. GW's balanced game certainly cost them a lot more than their "poorly balanced" one.




*as GW-haters tend to use the term in describing allegedly superior non-40K-games.

I'm not a fan of the Hobbit or JRRT's Middle Earth. Haven't been for the 30-odd years there have been games to play in it. Wasn't even a fan of the MMO, and I love MMOs, because it was broke as hell on release... because a single PC race/class combo was OP as hell. I, playing an Elf Bard, breezed through content that was tripping up entire parties of other players (who weren't playing Elf Bards), because the class was a one-person Screamerstar or Riptide spam. There was *nothing* that class couldn't do at the time.

And so I got bored.

But GW's handling of the Hobbit franchise has actually been pretty good. For several years, as indicated by their financial reports, it was one of their top-selling products. However, trying to claim that it failed because it was balanced, or that its balance failed to cause a mass migration of 40K players is... disingenuous, at best. Many (most?) people play 40K because the sci-fantasy setting is what attracts them. Lots of people get bored with swords & sorcery fantasy, which is why WFB is still second-fiddle to 40K and pretty much always has been.

 Zweischneid wrote:

I hear their Hobbit Game is fantastic*, well written, needs barely any FAQ and is everything the balance-fetishists and tournament-freaks could ever hope to see from a GW-game.

Of course, nobody cares. GW's balanced game certainly cost them a lot more than their "poorly balanced" one.

*as GW-haters tend to use the term in describing allegedly superior non-40K-games.

Swing and a miss. But thanks for playing.

BONUS ROUND:

Oh, which of the two Hobbit players did you hear that from?

I thought no one played the Hobbit because the models were just okay and the prices were out of this world.

 TheKbob wrote:

 Zweischneid wrote:

I hear their Hobbit Game is fantastic*, well written, needs barely any FAQ and is everything the balance-fetishists and tournament-freaks could ever hope to see from a GW-game.

Of course, nobody cares. GW's balanced game certainly cost them a lot more than their "poorly balanced" one.

*as GW-haters tend to use the term in describing allegedly superior non-40K-games.

Swing and a miss. But thanks for playing.

BONUS ROUND:

Oh, which of the two Hobbit players did you hear that from?

It has by far the highest rating on Board Game Geek from all GW-Games.

It's predecessor - the LOTR Strategy Battle Game (a.k.a. the game that Mat Ward wrote), is actually is up there with Warmachine.

Also, A Town Called Malus below


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 TheCustomLime wrote:
I thought no one played the Hobbit because the models were just okay and the prices were out of this world.

Yes. But the same is true for 40K too.

Both 40K and the Hobbit suffer from high prices, bad communications, goofy sculpts in the mix, and other GW-problems.

But one is (reasonably) balanced and the other one purposefully, almost aggressively not.. One is going strong, the other basically dead weight.

 TheCustomLime wrote:
I thought no one played the Hobbit because the models were just okay and the prices were out of this world.

Pretty much this. The Lord of the Rings game never had a chance after they doubled (or however much of an increase it was) the prices of the boxes whilst cutting the number of models in half. Not to mention when they rejigged the whole army building part of it which made it way more complicated and limited.

It's a shame. I have a lot of fond memories of the Lord of the Rings game. Me and my brothers got the big boxed sets as joint Christmas presents when they came out (Built ourselves a Deeping Wall out of cereal boxes. Fun times ). They were good value for money. Nice models, a full size colour rulebook, whippy sticks, some scenery and dice. Also, it was pretty well balanced as a game. Heroes were heroic but killable. No overpowered cheese builds.

 Zweischneid wrote:
But one is (reasonably) balanced and the other one purposefully, almost aggressively not.. One is going strong, the other basically dead weight.

And you're absolutely insane if you think that balance is the reason why. The LOTR games suffer from being yet another 28mm army-scale fantasy game in a crowded market. They're competing with all the non-GW games, and they're also competing with GW's other fantasy game. The LOTR license should have been able to attract players, but GW's marketing failures* have ruined that plan. So what's left is a game that just doesn't offer much incentive for existing fantasy players to give up their major investment in their current games and build new LOTR armies. And that means that new players see people playing those other games, realize that buying LOTR stuff means never having anyone to play with, and buy the same game that all their friends are playing.

Contrast this with 40k, where it's one of only a very small number of 28mm scifi games and the only one to include army-scale battles with tanks/aircraft/etc. If you're interested in that kind of game then 40k is your only option, regardless of how badly balanced it is.


*Not surprisingly GW's best sales from LOTR came when they were aggressively marketing it to fans of the IP instead of just putting some ads in White Dwarf occasionally. But since this is GW their conclusion was "growth is scary, we'd better stop doing this or people will expect us to do more marketing", not "let's see if we can do this with our other games".