Okay. We all know GW is at fault for not being able to produce codexes with perfect internal balance, where each unit is worth considering. But we all know blaming GW will get us nowhere. If we, as a community want to do our part in fixing 40k, aka actually changing stuff, we need to really change our mentality. Because if we dont start with ourselves, how can we expect our opponents to?
When I look at armylists, I realize 4 out of 5 times that people see it as an exercise of putting their grey cells to work in how to maximize damage while not exceeding the points value, rather than seeing it as a framework that allows you to bring some of your collection to the table and show off your modeling and painting progress to your friend you'll be playing against. People tend to forget 40k is a 2 person game, not a 3D equivalent of playing a video game where you develop the mentality of slaughtering all your enemies. Saying that in 40k, both players want to win isnt far from the truth. But more importantly, both players want to have fun. How many of us give thought to that when we spend hours modifying our armylists?
It seems only 3 out of 10 people play games of 40k as an opportunity to see each other's collection. It seems only 3 out of 10 people have "favorite units" in their army based on the way they look, or their background, rather than the amount of damage they inflict on the battlefield.
The reason why you see the same units over and over again in the meta is not (only) because GW sucks at writing balanced codexes, but because we as a community have done our part in powergaming. When we build lists, we think about what causes maximum distruction for its points rather than what unit looks cool/stylish/awesome lorewise and thus include it in our army. When a player starts a new army, he ends up getting advice of what units are must haves based on their battlefield performance rather than what units have the most aesthetically pleasing sculpts. And so, he ends up buying the former and does his part in creating the situation we have today. Advice like "one is none, two is one" subliminally influences people to spend their money more on acquiring an effective armylist than a varied collection. And then they act all surprised and get angry when their codex gets updated and good units become meh and meh units become good (case in point: the Dark Eldar update). We are the reason we see Riptides and Wraithknights, Tigurius and Centurions, Flyrants and Night Scythes instead of Sniper Drones and Harlequins, Cassius and Scout Bikers, Genestealers and Lychguard. We are part of the problem, and part of the reason why the battlefields of 40k dont get to see most of the variety of miniatures in the GW catalogue.
It's kinda like in a traffic jam - everyone hates how he is stuck in a traffic jam, views it as a foreign, blockading entity ruining his day, but doesnt realize he is part of the traffic jam.
Sounds like you just don't like competitive players period. Well guess what some players have fun playing competitively.
What you are complaining about is how competitive gaming is done. There are objectively better units so you take the better units as they increase your chance of winning more. The problem 40k has is that the power difference between units is so great that a casual list has no real chance of winning against competitive lists. That is all GW's fault because they have written the rules very poorly to make such a polarizing power difference happen. What you are complaining about is missing the big picture.
If the game was well made, it would be suitable for any kind of play. If its unsuitable for competitive play, it seems to me like the problem lies with the game.
GW is ruining 40k. People playing the game they want to with the models they want to isn't what's ruining it.
All games that have a winner and a loser are competitive in some way. The key goal for any good company is to cater to both with solid, balanced rules that enable fair and even tournament play as well as fair casual play with people who might not care beyond look/feel of a unit.
GW fails at both for 40k. The rules are too abusive to allow balanced competitive play, and the same rules make narrative play hard because you can have unbalanced forces in what should be a balanced scenario.
Take for example a hypothetical narrative campaign involving Space Marines and Eldar. The Marines are assaulting and Eldar controlled world and need to destroy an objective that is key to the battle (maybe some kind of shield generator or weapon that is preventing the Imperial fleet from landing). For this game, the Marine player takes a lot of Terminators because he feels that something this important would go only to the bravest of his Marines, the 1st Company, and he likes Terminators more than Sternguard/Vanguard. So his force has a lot of Terminator squads, maybe some Dreadnaughts in Drop Pods or whatnot.
The Eldar respond to this by sending a fast moving contingent of warriors to intercept the Terminators before they can destroy the objective - the Eldar player thinks this can be done best by an entirely mobilized army with Jetbikes and troops in Wave Serpents, as the Eldar need to arrive fast. So he takes an Autarch on Jetbike, some Jetbike squads, maybe some Dire Avengers in Wave Serpents, or Falcons or any of the tanks, basically anything that would be highly mobile.
Is this scenario balanced? Will both players have a good time in this game?
That's the issue. There is too much of a gap between everything in 40k that it hurts casual/narrative gamers just as much if not more than the competitive players. A competitive player can and will take the "best" units, fluff be damned in most cases. A narrative player will rarely take a unit that doesn't fit the theme or concept of their force, even if that unit is better than on the tabletop. Who do you think bad rules hurt more, the person who doesn't care as long as the unit is good, or the person who doesn't care if the unit is good?
Nothing is "Ruining 40k" in particular, honestly. There'll always be a few holes in a ruleset this huge no matter how long it runs for.
My biggest beef with GW themselves is that they don't market. At all. Would they have to gouge prices quite so much if they ran adverts instead of relying on word of mouth, fancy shop windows and guys required by their job to jump down your throat about starting an army if you so much as come in to browse their fiction section? Probably not.
That said, this thread does have a degree of a point: Every time I hear about a big tournament, it's always the spamming netlists with no personality I hear about. I've never had any inclination to compete in those events because frankly, that sounds like it would suck all the joy out of the affair for everyone else. I'd take a strong list, but not one with no coherent theme picked purely by trying to balance the ratios of each of the "best units" in the codex.
The idea that a game which has a winner and a loser should not be played competitively is just absurd to me. Not unless it's really a casual game (which 40k is not, it has a fething huge rulebook, costs hundreds if not thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours investment from a player and then a game itself takes several hours... billiards can be a casual game, 40k can not).
My only problem with 40k is ther only one right way to build any army because if you dont you doing it wrong my first ig army was all infantry no tanks and people laughed at told me that a stupid way to play ic when i switched to mec vets and tanks i got called a waac so what bs
Competitive play is not what is ruining 40k. Incompetent games design is what is ruining 40k. And selfish prats with an over-developed sense of self-entitlement are making it worse.
If you want to play 40k competitively, play against other competitive players.
If you want to play narrative games, play against other narrative gamers.
If you want to play competitive games with your favourite units (read: have a chance of winning with crap armies), play against people with the same attitude, or talk to your opponent about what kind of game you want, or try out a different format (such as Highlander etc).
If you want a casual game, don't go to a tournament and whine and moan about how cheesy everyone else are.
If you go for a pick-up game at a store or a club, don't demand that everyone else conform to your idea of what fun 40k is. You can ask for it, but you have to be a special kind of dick to expect that your way is the only way.
AllSeeingSkink wrote: The idea that a game which has a winner and a loser should not be played competitively is just absurd to me. Not unless it's really a casual game (which 40k is not, it has a fething huge rulebook, costs hundreds if not thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours investment from a player and then a game itself takes several hours... billiards can be a casual game, 40k can not).
To be fair here, you're completely right.
But the problem is that the word "competitive" has been a little tainted in this context so that it can mean the sort of person who builds a themeless power list that doesn't take his opponent's fun into account. (Which really, is the only underlying problem with doing so. Sure, it's not the "wrong way to have fun", but it's a two player game so you'd better find people who don't mind it)
You should absolutely be competitive during play unless you're walking a new player through it.
"You're having fun wrong!"
No. Some people enjoy the thrill of a competitive game where both players do their best. I don't view the game as an excuse to view our collections. I view the game as a game. I'm there to play and have fun. Unfortunately, in order for me to have fun, I need a fair fight. I don't need to win, but I need to think I can win.
I'm a very fluffy player and this lack of balance drove me away. Showing up with my fluffy armies with no chance of winning was very un-fun for me.
That said, this thread does have a degree of a point: Every time I hear about a big tournament, it's always the spamming netlists with no personality I hear about. I've never had any inclination to compete in those events because frankly, that sounds like it would suck all the joy out of the affair for everyone else. I'd take a strong list, but not one with no coherent theme picked purely by trying to balance the ratios of each of the "best units" in the codex.
It sounds like we have a similar approach to the game, I'm not in the least interested in the competitive side of things, and I infinitely prefer a varied list over a spammed list. My mantra when putting together is "competitive units, not competitive lists." Which is not to say I don't try and win, at least putting up a fight in defeat is important for both players to enjoy a game IMO, but it more reflects that while I would take 20 Flesh Houmds with a Herald in my Daemons list, I would never field 60.
However, the reason you always hear about spammed net lists winning and placing in tourneys is solely, 100% down to the design of the game. Tournaments, by their very nature, take a game which is already adversarial and focused on deciding a winner and a loser, and focuses that down into a laser beam, removing all other considerations. 40K, as it is now, suffers so badly in terms of the relative efficiency of it's units that all but a handful of options in most codexes become an effective handicap in that environment. Couple that with the apparent desire of GW to replace any sort of player involvement with random dice rolls, removing player skill further and further from deciding he outcome, and that's why you get spam lists - the most efficient choices with the flattest probability curves for their damage output.
You wait for 10th Ed, on the current trajectory it'll be the "on a 4+ I win edition." Both players continually roll off until one rolls 4+ and the other doesn't, that player is then considered the winner - both players then spend the ensuing 5 turns telling the story of how it happened.
But if one fluff player spends extra cash and buys those extra sniper drones or lych guard and he plays against another fluff player that plays let say eldar his ass will be wooped twice. He will lose the game and he will be spending more cash the the eldar player for an army that doesn't work.
The only moment when this wouldn't be a problem is , if w40k was either very cheap to play or somehow all player had unlimited cash to spend on armies.
AllSeeingSkink wrote: The idea that a game which has a winner and a loser should not be played competitively is just absurd to me. Not unless it's really a casual game (which 40k is not, it has a fething huge rulebook, costs hundreds if not thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours investment from a player and then a game itself takes several hours... billiards can be a casual game, 40k can not).
To be fair here, you're completely right.
But the problem is that the word "competitive" has been a little tainted in this context so that it can mean the sort of person who builds a themeless power list that doesn't take his opponent's fun into account. (Which really, is the only underlying problem with doing so. Sure, it's not the "wrong way to have fun", but it's a two player game so you'd better find people who don't mind it)
You should absolutely be competitive during play unless you're walking a new player through it.
But building a list is part of the game, if I'm playing competitively, then I'm building a competitive list. It seems odd to me that I should be trying to guess what my opponent will find fun while building my own list. The only time I would do that is when my opponent and myself get together before playing and write our lists together in a way we think will be balanced (which I have sometimes done with mates, but really is not practical most the time).
I'd consider taking a bad list the same as taking a bad gun or load out in a video game... I might do it for a laugh or when I know I'm so much better than my opponents that it won't matter, but as a matter of course I won't do it.
I do actually identify more as a fluffy player than a competitive player, the problem I have is that, for me, the fluff gets completely and utterly destroyed by the terrible rules. For me, the fluff is tied to the rules, I can't avoid looking at the stats and comparing them in my mind, I'd have to actively block my mind to avoid math hammering things
It's also a problem when many people (at least people I know) simply play with the collections they have painted. If they want to change around units, they'd have to actually paint the new unit to field it. Maybe that's an oddity, but it seems most my mates only build an army up to the points level that most people play.
Though I do definitely agree we corrupt the word "competitive" in 40k. By the common usage of the word "competitive" I think 99% of people would identify as being competitive, we've just warped the meaning so that competitive only means "those people who take it more seriously than me".
Makumba wrote: But if one fluff player spends extra cash and buys those extra sniper drones or lych guard and he plays against another fluff player that plays let say eldar his ass will be wooped twice. He will lose the game and he will be spending more cash the the eldar player for an army that doesn't work.
The only moment when this wouldn't be a problem is , if w40k was either very cheap to play or somehow all player had unlimited cash to spend on armies.
Yeah, except that fluffy Eldar lists aren't the same as competitive ones, there are plenty of units in the Eldar codex that a fluffy player may take that a competitive one absolutely would not touch.
Two fluffy players are probably more concerned with the story of the game rather than the outcome, also, so I'm afraid your point is based on some rather tenuous suppositions.
Besides, Sniper Drones are pretty effective against a Wraith list...
AllSeeingSkink wrote: The idea that a game which has a winner and a loser should not be played competitively is just absurd to me. Not unless it's really a casual game (which 40k is not, it has a fething huge rulebook, costs hundreds if not thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours investment from a player and then a game itself takes several hours... billiards can be a casual game, 40k can not).
To be fair here, you're completely right.
But the problem is that the word "competitive" has been a little tainted in this context so that it can mean the sort of person who builds a themeless power list that doesn't take his opponent's fun into account. (Which really, is the only underlying problem with doing so. Sure, it's not the "wrong way to have fun", but it's a two player game so you'd better find people who don't mind it)
You should absolutely be competitive during play unless you're walking a new player through it.
But building a list is part of the game, if I'm playing competitively, then I'm building a competitive list. It seems odd to me that I should be trying to guess what my opponent will find fun while building my own list. The only time I would do that is when my opponent and myself get together before playing and write our lists together in a way we think will be balanced (which I have sometimes done with mates, but really is not practical most the time).
I'd consider taking a bad list the same as taking a bad gun or load out in a video game... I might do it for a laugh or when I know I'm so much better than my opponents that it won't matter, but as a matter of course I won't do it.
I do actually identify more as a fluffy player than a competitive player, the problem I have is that, for me, the fluff gets completely and utterly destroyed by the terrible rules. For me, the fluff is tied to the rules, I can't avoid looking at the stats and comparing them in my mind, I'd have to actively block my mind to avoid math hammering things
I'm hardly going to tell someone to take a bad list, but there's a difference between a good list and a netlist spam list. The former is fun to play against, but say... Three annihilation barges, two Command Barges and an entire sky full of Night Scythes that carry only the useless 5 warrior tax to get them on the board is obviously going to be as much a chore as a challenge for anyone who hasn't taken the same attitude.
So, what would be your argument against a "net list" that was, in fact, the player spending hours refining their list on the tabletop, only to end up with the same list because of the imbalances in the codex and therefore a certain inevitability?
That player has put long hours into developing their list, is it fair to paint them in a negative light for making good choices?
Azreal13 wrote: So, what would be your argument against a "net list" that was, in fact, the player spending hours refining their list on the tabletop, only to end up with the same list because of the imbalances in the codex and therefore a certain inevitability?
That player has put long hours into developing their list, is it fair to paint them in a negative light for making good choices?
Having done the research himself doesn't make much difference, though certainly he'll be better at playing the units to their strengths and synergies than someone who used google as a shortcut to the same place. They're called netlists because you can get them by googling "Best (faction) Army", not because you necessarily did so.
The question here though, is are his choices actually good? If he's playing that list against people with the same attitude and both are having fun, yep.
If his choices lead to him having difficulty getting a game after a while because he's putting his opponents off, then that's probably a good indication his list isn't as "optimum" to the situation as he thought. If he's causing multiple people to consider it a chore to take hours out of their day to play him, likely the only game they'll get this week in a lot of cases, then it's not me who's painting him in a bad light.
If the game were better written, his choices would be nearly redundant and how he used them on the table would be the chief determinant of if he won and how he treated his opponent would be the main factor in if the game was enjoyable.
If the game were better written, his choices would be nearly redundant and how he used them on the table would be the chief determinant of if he won and how he treated his opponent would be the main factor in if the game was enjoyable.
Well, that's honestly pretty much entirely unrealistic.
Even a faction with limited choices ought to have about 30 non-named character choices, once you take both their codex and the inevitable forgeworld expansion into account.
Multiply that by a substantial number of factions and take into account that's more or less the minimum, and you expect perfect balance whilst still striving to make everything unique? It's almost a miracle they've stayed on top of it as well as they have, frankly.
The problem is with the way "Competitive" is used.
Consider if both players had the exact same armies, down to the same models. So that the skill of each player is what determines the outcome. That is "competitive."
That is also Chess.
However, Loading an army with the best units and manipulating the rules so that you have nearly zero chance of losing..... that is not "competitive."
That is WAAC.
If the game were better written, his choices would be nearly redundant and how he used them on the table would be the chief determinant of if he won and how he treated his opponent would be the main factor in if the game was enjoyable.
Well, that's honestly pretty much entirely unrealistic.
Even a faction with limited choices ought to have about 30 non-named character choices, once you take both their codex and the inevitable forgeworld expansion into account.
Multiply that by a substantial number of factions and take into account that's more or less the minimum, and you expect perfect balance whilst still striving to make everything unique? It's almost a miracle they've stayed on top of it as well as they have, frankly.
No one is expecting perfect balance. GW get no where near it though.
But the huge number of options isn't as daunting as you think once you start breaking it down in to modifications of base stats. You start by figuring out what different abilities are worth, then when you start running in to combinations that make things stronger, you make them more expensive, when you have combinations that don't stack, you make them cheaper (like realising powerfists aren't worth as many points to a guardsman as they are to a thunderwolf riding space wolf). Then you start playing games and adjusting as necessary, then you let a wider community start playing it and get some feedback to implement changes.
As edition changes start rolling around you can then identify specific rules that lead to imbalance (things which can't simply be balanced by points values but are actually unbalanced at their core... like the AP system). You then change those things with new editions.
Is it easy? No. But if you paid me a decent full time wage I'm pretty sure I could nut out a system sufficiently balanced and certainly more balanced than GW's in an edition or two, not 27 fething years.
Perfect balance isn't necessary. Writing units to where one isn't the obvious choice to take and others are ridiculously less useful isn't hard at all. You just have to care about more than your customers' wallet.
When it is common for people to snigger at people using certain units from a codex because they "suck" compared to the optimal choice, there's something wrong with the game.
If the game were better written, his choices would be nearly redundant and how he used them on the table would be the chief determinant of if he won and how he treated his opponent would be the main factor in if the game was enjoyable.
Well, that's honestly pretty much entirely unrealistic.
Even a faction with limited choices ought to have about 30 non-named character choices, once you take both their codex and the inevitable forgeworld expansion into account.
Multiply that by a substantial number of factions and take into account that's more or less the minimum, and you expect perfect balance whilst still striving to make everything unique? It's almost a miracle they've stayed on top of it as well as they have, frankly.
All of these points would be valid, if there weren't copious other games that did a lot better than GW do. One could cut them some slack for perhaps offering more factions and options than most other games, but how hard would it be, considering they're a multi million pound, publicly traded, global company, to spend 40 grand a year on a couple of guys whose job it was to monitor the incoming emails (they wouldn't even have to engage and reply, just keep an eye on the inbox) and produce a monthly, or even quarterly, FAQ document in an effort to moderate any unintentional problems that real world play testing throws up?
To achieve better balance wouldn't be hard at all really. To achieve an acceptable level of balance I think would be a decent amount of work... but then that's why you pay game designers. What initially might seem difficult suddenly doesn't look so bad when you actually have someone whose job it is to make it happen.
What I do as my day to day job would sound really difficult for someone who's not being paid to do it... for me it's just a matter of course.
SlaveToDorkness wrote: Perfect balance isn't necessary. Writing units to where one isn't the obvious choice to take and others are ridiculously less useful isn't hard at all. You just have to care about more than your customers' wallet.
When it is common for people to snigger at people using certain units from a codex because they "suck" compared to the optimal choice, there's something wrong with the game.
Isn't hard at all? Sure. A good idea to lazily do so? Nope.
Dungeons and Dragons 3rd edition had six million players, and was horrendously unbalanced between magical and non-magical characrers.
Dungeons and Dragons 4th edition was very finely balanced by comparison... And lost over 80% of the customer base. It was a complete disaster that threw out everything that came before in the pursuit of "balance", and the results were catastrophic.
I always point to Magic: The Gathering as an example of a game that is similarly very open-ended, while supporting very fun competitive AND casual play. I very much enjoy the competitive circuit of Magic, and it's a very demanding game (requiring impeccable deck building and play if you want to stand a chance).
But importantly, Magic has good support for just thrown-together amateur decks - it's fun to just slap-dash a couple of decks together, or to build a weird silly concept deck, and then have at it. More often than not, these un-optimized decks are workable and there's room for interesting play against each other.
40k by comparison just falls down on it's face when it comes to both competitive and casual play. Just last night I was watching two new players play, and one dude was just unwittingly dominating the game, and eventually tabled his opponent with minimal losses. When I was talking to them post-game, neither really understood why that had happened - and that's really symptomatic of bad game design.
Isn't hard at all? Sure. A good idea to lazily do so? Nope.
Dungeons and Dragons 3rd edition had six million players, and was horrendously unbalanced between magical and non-magical characrers.
Dungeons and Dragons 4th edition was very finely balanced by comparison... And lost over 80% of the customer base. It was a complete disaster that threw out everything that came before in the pursuit of "balance", and the results were catastrophic.
And what about all these wargames on the market growing by leaps and bounds that are far more balanced than 40k?
DanielBeaver wrote: I always point to Magic: The Gathering as an example of a game that is similarly very open-ended, while supporting very fun competitive AND casual play. I very much enjoy the competitive circuit of Magic, and it's a very demanding game (requiring impeccable deck building and play if you want to stand a chance).
But importantly, Magic has good support for just thrown-together amateur decks - it's fun to just slap-dash a couple of decks together, or to build a weird silly concept deck, and then have at it. More often than not, these un-optimized decks are workable and there's room for interesting play against each other.
40k by comparison just falls down on it's face when it comes to both competitive and casual play. Just last night I was watching two new players play, and one dude was just unwittingly dominating the game, and eventually tabled his opponent with minimal losses. When I was talking to them post-game, neither really understood why that had happened - and that's really symptomatic of bad game design.
The key advantage Magic has is that if you play, you're likely to have a decent back catalogue of cards (I had boxes and boxes when I played, and I only really played for two or three years) so if you wish to build a new deck, you're only looking at a few hours to pull all the cards, stick them in some protectors and you're ready to go.
A 40K army, while arguably a similar financial investment to a top level Magic deck, represents hundreds, if not thousands of hours, potentially, of your time.
That's an awful lot of wasted time if your list turns out to be bonk. (Or, as I've been caught out before, codex or edition changes suddenly screw you half way through.)
For all that, WOTC do seem to be a good reference for a company that actively manages it's game and try to maintain as balanced a format as possible.
Blacksails wrote: And what about all these wargames on the market growing by leaps and bounds that are far more balanced than 40k?
The ones I've barely heard of that don't have their own store? Great, when they actually overcome the crushing monopoly GW has and offer regular games I might actually care.
Local wargames club plays several non-GW games, but they're pretty much all historical, which is almost an entirely different market.
Blacksails wrote: And what about all these wargames on the market growing by leaps and bounds that are far more balanced than 40k?
The ones I've barely heard of that don't have their own store? Great, when they actually overcome the crushing monopoly GW has and offer regular games I might actually care.
Local wargames club plays several non-GW games, but they're pretty much all historical, which is almost an entirely different market.
What does that have to do with anything?
If you've not heard of them, that's your failing.
If they don't have their own store, good, because you're paying for GW's stores when you buy their product whether you use one or not (and they cost GW a LOT)
My local club plays multiple systems, with 40K being the main one as you'd expect, including Historicals, Warmahordes, Fantasy, X Wing and Infinity. Anecdotal evidence is anecdotal.
Blacksails wrote: And what about all these wargames on the market growing by leaps and bounds that are far more balanced than 40k?
The ones I've barely heard of that don't have their own store? Great, when they actually overcome the crushing monopoly GW has and offer regular games I might actually care.
Local wargames club plays several non-GW games, but they're pretty much all historical, which is almost an entirely different market.
Whether or not you care about them is irrelevant to the point.
You made a point that one game went from being poorly balanced to well balanced and lost customers. I'm saying other games are far better balanced than 40k and are growing rapidly. Meanwhile, GW has been in a slump and recently took a hit to their revenue.
Its irrelevant if your local area plays other games or not for the point I'm making.
SlaveToDorkness wrote: Perfect balance isn't necessary. Writing units to where one isn't the obvious choice to take and others are ridiculously less useful isn't hard at all. You just have to care about more than your customers' wallet.
When it is common for people to snigger at people using certain units from a codex because they "suck" compared to the optimal choice, there's something wrong with the game.
Isn't hard at all? Sure. A good idea to lazily do so? Nope.
Dungeons and Dragons 3rd edition had six million players, and was horrendously unbalanced between magical and non-magical characrers.
Dungeons and Dragons 4th edition was very finely balanced by comparison... And lost over 80% of the customer base. It was a complete disaster that threw out everything that came before in the pursuit of "balance", and the results were catastrophic.
Really? I'd say it failed because it changed the game too much. It failed because WotC failed at marketing research and didn't realize their customer base was very conservative and large changes would upset them. It also failed because WotC shared a basic system for designing RPGs that created their largest competition, said competition then used promises of familiarity but better balance to woo people into playing their game.
In addition I can't recall anyone saying, "Damn 4e sucks because I'm not an omnipotent god wizard lording it over my plebian fighter friend". I heard complaints like "Everything is too samey", "The skill system sucks", "Fighting takes too long".
And since I know it'll be brought up because I said the S word. Balance can be achieved by sameness, but is not the only way to achieve acceptable balance (see Starcraft).
Blacksails wrote: And what about all these wargames on the market growing by leaps and bounds that are far more balanced than 40k?
The ones I've barely heard of that don't have their own store? Great, when they actually overcome the crushing monopoly GW has and offer regular games I might actually care.
Local wargames club plays several non-GW games, but they're pretty much all historical, which is almost an entirely different market.
What does that have to do with anything?
If you've not heard of them, that's your failing.
You're saying Games Workshop is being "Ruined" by their management.
They have a near absolute monopoly, good fluff and models, and rules it's quite easy to learn and have fun with so long as you don't have to deal with a few fringe player types.
Besides the costs being pretty nasty, and there are a few mitigating factors there if you use online discounts, battleforces and conversions, (Even moreso if you play outside the store and can mix and match model sources) there's not a hell of a lot of issues actually worth getting this worked up about. Like I said, the main issue is their clumsy business practices, not the system itself. And the idea that "balance" is an ideal more important than diversity and enjoyability is an illusion I lost when D&D imploded and lost everything that made it fun.
So yes, what reason have I to look into alternative games and sink a few hundred pounds to get far less guaranteed games against a much smaller pool of players?
SlaveToDorkness wrote: Perfect balance isn't necessary. Writing units to where one isn't the obvious choice to take and others are ridiculously less useful isn't hard at all. You just have to care about more than your customers' wallet.
When it is common for people to snigger at people using certain units from a codex because they "suck" compared to the optimal choice, there's something wrong with the game.
Isn't hard at all? Sure. A good idea to lazily do so? Nope.
Dungeons and Dragons 3rd edition had six million players, and was horrendously unbalanced between magical and non-magical characrers.
Dungeons and Dragons 4th edition was very finely balanced by comparison... And lost over 80% of the customer base. It was a complete disaster that threw out everything that came before in the pursuit of "balance", and the results were catastrophic.
I'm fairly certain you are oversimplifying the issues of the DnD 3rd to 4th changes. They changed it into more of a miniature based video game than any attemp at "balancing" it. The issues players had stemmed more from the sweeping changes than heavy handed balancing.
Plus, DnD is a cooperative game which really isn't comparable to 40K. Unless your point is that GW would completely lose their market share if they actually tried to balance their game. Which is laughable.
Blacksails wrote: And what about all these wargames on the market growing by leaps and bounds that are far more balanced than 40k?
The ones I've barely heard of that don't have their own store? Great, when they actually overcome the crushing monopoly GW has and offer regular games I might actually care.
Local wargames club plays several non-GW games, but they're pretty much all historical, which is almost an entirely different market.
What does that have to do with anything?
If you've not heard of them, that's your failing.
You're saying Games Workshop is being "Ruined" by their management.
Actually, I'm saying 40K is being ruined by their mismanagement of the game, whether that lies with management or the designers can only be speculation at this point.
They have a near absolute monopoly, good fluff and models, and rules it's quite easy to learn and have fun with so long as you don't have to deal with a few fringe player types.
Actually, given the overall size of the market, and the many numerous small players, it's possible they don't hold a monopoly in any sense, let alone an absolute monopoly. Unless you're defining the market as 40K (and even then, there's plenty of third party bits and counts as model makers taking a percentage of that market to undermine any argument of "absolute" monopoly.)
I also refuse to acknowledge that gamers who play a game to win are in any way a "fringe."
Besides the costs being pretty nasty, and there are a few mitigating factors there if you use online discounts, battleforces and conversions, (Even moreso if you play outside the store and can mix and match model sources) there's not a hell of a lot of issues actually worth getting this worked up about.
There are a lot of issues. If you think I'm getting worked up, you're projecting, I'm just disagreeing with you, because this is a discussion and I don't agree with much of what you're saying.
Like I said, the main issue is their clumsy business practices, not the system itself. And the idea that "balance" is an ideal more important than diversity and enjoyability is an illusion I lost when D&D imploded and lost everything that made it fun.
Not really, it's an irreconcilable mix of the two. The 40K psychic phase, for instance, has two valid ways of being played, neither of which appears to work as intended. We are months from publication and this issue is yet to be addressed.
Balance is not the enemy of diversity, both are possible.
So yes, what reason have I to look into alternative games and sink a few hundred pounds to get far less guaranteed games against a much smaller pool of players?
That's becoming less and less of an issue as better games gain greater traction and GW fail to react appropriately. If this was 2001, I'd agree that there weren't really any valid alternatives, but now there's plenty, several of which are cheap enough to get into to make getting two factions perfectly viable, meaning all you need is someone willing to give it a go to have a game.
The problem with comparing DnD to 40k is that DnD has a DM, and there are no winners or losers in DnD. So imbalance is not that much of an issue because a DM can modify rules on the fly or tailor the scenario for the players, and the players aren't trying to "win" at DnD anyway: it's a cooperative effort.
Imbalance on a game with winners or losers are a different subject matter.
Azreal13 wrote: If they don't have their own store, good, because you're paying for GW's stores when you buy their product whether you use one or not (and they cost GW a LOT)
I think that's mostly speculative. Your only paying for GW's stores if the stores aren't making enough sales to pay for themselves. It's like when people complain about having to "pay" the huge amount of money AAA video game publishers put in to advertising... except the advertising increases sales numbers so in reality it's probably reducing what you might be paying if the advertising wasn't there. I think of GW stores much the same way.
Though these days I don't think their stores mean as much as they used to. I got in to 40k because of a friend and an FLGS.... but if it wasn't for the local GW I wouldn't have stayed 40k, so in reality it made a lot of money off me (even if I wasn't always buying direct from it). Not sure how much that applies these days though.
Personally, I think the big problem lies in how tournaments have evolved from what they used to be when GW first organised them...
Back when I attended my very first Grand Tournament, there were no prizes beyond some shiny trophies. And you had trophies not just for the 'Best General', but also for the painters, the 'nice guys', an overall title and even a trophy for the most inept luckless wonders who couldn't roll a 3+ for the life of them! (admittedly, I came top 3 for Murphy's Luck every single year I played... )
This gave EVERYONE a reason to drop money on the event, as every aspect of "The Hobby" at the time was represented. Guys who were highly competitive and loved to win games would duke it out for the Best General award, while the painters would vie for the Best Appearance award. The majority of us who went just to enjoy a weekend of gaming had the Sportsmanship and even the dreaded Murphy's Luck awards to aspire to.
Eventually the system even added in some additional awards for a player-voted 'Best Army', 'Best Single Model' and even an award for the best looking army list! (ie: one of the winners was a Space Wolf player who did their list up in a fur-bound tome, while another winner was an IG player who built their own dataslate!)
Nowadays though, prize support tends towards product or even actual cash, which has only fostered a very cutthroat mercenary mentality among players. This is easily the absolute worst thing that has happened to the game.
Once people see actual monetary value is on the line, they become entirely different. Now winning is the absolute only thing that matters, because there's a visible form of profit to be made by being as filthy & underhanded as is possible within the rules to win.
As a personal experience, the last time I went to the LGS's 2.4k Fantasy 'Tournament', the prize for 1st place was $75 of store credit, 2nd was $25 and 3rd was $10. That was it.
It was easily the most miserable time I've ever had gaming. My Daemons faced off against 2 HE Light Covens toting their obnoxious BotWD, while my 3rd game was against an angry WoC who was just p-off he'd lost his first two games and had, "wasted his whole day for no profit."
It was pathetic and sad. Every filthy trick imaginable was pulled, rules were bent unless you caught it and called an opponent out. Sportsmanship was non-existent.
Now Fantasy is all but dead at this store because only the most ruthless @$$hats are left, practicing endlessly for their imagined pro-circuit 'Tournament' competitions.
Then there's Astronomi-con, the last 40k event I attended.
The prize support for it is trophies, with hardware for all the old GT categories, and even a 'Best Terrain' award for those guys who help out and provide the tables & battlefields for the weekend! Best of all, the product itself is simply raffled off as door prizes. (good-bye mercenaries looking to make a buck!)
Sure there's still the Competitive types who vie for the Generalship & Overall awards, but the atmosphere is so much more relaxed and friendly than any of the other events I've been to over the past 6-8 years.
TL;DR: Offering monetary prizes/profit is what's ruining the game, because it fosters and even encourages people to be d-bags to eachother.
Experiment 626 wrote: TL;DR: Offering monetary prizes/profit is what's ruining the game, because it fosters and even encourages people to be d-bags to eachother.
Except the problem extends well beyond tournaments. I don't attend tournaments at all (at least not for many many years) and I still see the balance as a problem.
And since you're talking about Fantasy... 8th killed fantasy around this area. Like a bullet to the head of a wounded animal, 8th ed killed whatever semblance of life Fantasy had.
Sir Arun wrote: Okay. We all know GW is at fault for not being able to produce codexes with perfect internal balance, where each unit is worth considering. But we all know blaming GW will get us nowhere. If we, as a community want to do our part in fixing 40k, aka actually changing stuff, we need to really change our mentality.
Honestly, this actually seems like a terrible idea to me. If people stop buying 40k stuff until GW improves its rules, then that might actually be enough to make them come out of their bubbles and do some actual market research.
However, if we just fix their game for them, what is their incentive to actually improve their rules?
Dungeons and Dragons 3rd edition had six million players, and was horrendously unbalanced between magical and non-magical characrers.
Dungeons and Dragons 4th edition was very finely balanced by comparison... And lost over 80% of the customer base. It was a complete disaster that threw out everything that came before in the pursuit of "balance", and the results were catastrophic.
This seems like a really awful comparison.
Yep, D&D3.5 had a lot of balance issues. However, and this is really important, it wasn't a competitive game. The players cooperated to complete an adventure - rather than competing against one another. Furthermore, there was also a impartial judge who could alter the adventure on the fly to take account of any disparities in the power levels of the characters.
Also, it wasn't just that 4th was balanced, it was that it was an entirely different game. It played like a World of Warcraft RPG. And, there was so little freedom - virtually every spell and ability was "Zap" in one form or another (most had no functional difference to melee or ranged attacks). Monsters lost all customisation - with no spells, feats, templates or any such. And, none of this was necessary to balance the game. I'm not even convinced it was about balance, so much as boiling down the classes to WoW archetypes (tank, healer, damage dealer etc.) and adding "cool" new races, like those stupid dragon things.
In addition, it also destroyed a ton of classic D&D fluff. I can't remember all the details, but I know several classic settings were either destroyed or changed completely (so, most of the people who liked D&D's background weren't happy either).
Finally, other companies had made games based on the d20 system - with ones like Pathfinder even being entirely compatible with D&D3.5. So, Wizards effectively ended up competing with themselves - because 4e was not compatible with the multitude of 3.5 supplement books people had bought, but Pathfinder was.
Please don't pretend that the only problem with D&D4e was that its balance was too good.
Azreal13 wrote: If they don't have their own store, good, because you're paying for GW's stores when you buy their product whether you use one or not (and they cost GW a LOT)
I think that's mostly speculative. Your only paying for GW's stores if the stores aren't making enough sales to pay for themselves. It's like when people complain about having to "pay" the huge amount of money AAA video game publishers put in to advertising... except the advertising increases sales numbers so in reality it's probably reducing what you might be paying if the advertising wasn't there. I think of GW stores much the same way.
Though these days I don't think their stores mean as much as they used to. I got in to 40k because of a friend and an FLGS.... but if it wasn't for the local GW I wouldn't have stayed 40k, so in reality it made a lot of money off me (even if I wasn't always buying direct from it). Not sure how much that applies these days though.
Not especially speculative, GW list their cost of sales as approx 23% of revenue - that's design, manufacture etc..
Their net profit, based on the last report, would have been somewhere in the region of 12%.
That means somewhere in the region of 65% of GW's revenue is spent on things other than designing and making the things they sell. Outside of Nottingham, there really isn't much else that they can be spending it on.
This is relatively consistent if you go back too, so it isn't like things like fancy webstore redesigns are throwing this out significantly. The stores represent a significant cost for GW.
The D&D comparison isn't even useful, as you are comparing a refereed, cooperative, open-ended game with a non-refereed, competitive, single match game.
Balance in D&D isn't even considered between the players and the DM'ed opposition, as there is no rule preventing the DM from attacking the players with 12 Balors at 1st level.
People who want a 'narrative' game, or 'cooperative' play, or who want to play more free-form, less rules driven, less 'competitive' games can always simply ignore parts of a more balanced, better constructed rules set. It's trivially easy to agree to play a game with no points limits, or uneven points limits, or without even paying attention to the points, or allowing unit composition that isn't in the rules.
Taking a game that is poorly balanced and constructed and coming up with rules with your opponent to make the game more competitive is hard. That is why, in fact, we have game designers.
It would be possible to play 40K by just using the models and constructing a narrative between the two players. "My Space Marines run over here from that ruin to the cover of this burning Chimera." "OK, I try to pick them off with my shuriken catapults as they cross the open ground."
That game would give you maximal narrative freedom, but I wouldn't expect people to pay for the rulebook.
On the other hand, a rulebook which was well-balanced* and well-written** could be used by competitive and casual gamers alike, and the casual gamers would find it trivially easy to disregard rules as necessary. I've never seen any rulebook that prevented you from taking uneven forces or making up special characters in your own personal games.
*I'm not sure why anyone takes a poster seriously who talks about perfectly balanced rules. Nobody expects a game with 'perfectly sculpted models' or 'perfectly written novels', but for some reason, the absence of 'perfectly balanced rules' is an argument against rules balance.
**It also seems to be the case that many people assume that a well-constructed, comprehensive rule set must also be a huge, intimidating, confusing wall of text. You can have a poorly written rule set no matter how tight (or loose) the rules are. Attempts at game balance don't immediately result in impenetrable rules-weaving.
I hate fluffy players man, they are ruining the game.
All I want is a hard well faught game where tons of things die and who can win goes back and for back and forth. But how can I be blamed when the bring Vanguard Veterans and I a Knight? Ofcourse Im going to win. But they just whine when they loose despite bringing a subpar list.
Its kinda sad really.
hotsauceman1 wrote: I hate fluffy players man, they are ruining the game.
All I want is a hard well faught game where tons of things die and who can win goes back and for back and forth. But how can I be blamed when the bring Vanguard Veterans and I a Knight? Ofcourse Im going to win. But they just whine when they loose despite bringing a subpar list.
Its kinda sad really.
So if the Knight had worse rules, you wouldnt have invested £85 to get it, am I correct?
I love when people talk about all these other games that are way better than 40k... which ones are those again?
Warma-hordes and Infinity have some aspects that are leaps and bounds better - but overall neither game can hold a candle to 40k; especially when you consider the depth and breadth of the game.
FoW and Xwing are cool - if you are into that sort of thing, I'm not, but now we are really talking apples and oranges.
As for "GW is ruining 40K" ...that's just ridiculous. GW is 40K, and the game has evolved over decades now into an awesome and fun game that people enjoy all over the world. It has flaws, it ALWAYS had flaws... if you think they are "ruining" it now, then you've not been paying attention because it's always been like this and if that doesn't work for you, fine, but there was no 'golden age' of perfect 40k if it's not now. That said, yeah it is ridiculous priced and I totally understand that gripe, but it has literally never been 'cheap'.
I love it when people post a bunch of opinions in a manner to suggest they're anything other than one person's view.
I'd say 40K is GW right now, rather than the reverse, I mean Fantasy has been in the toilet for years, and they clearly have little interest in doing anything with the LotR licence now but fleecing collectors.
Now, who is responsible for the state of those two games?
hotsauceman1 wrote: I hate fluffy players man, they are ruining the game.
All I want is a hard well faught game where tons of things die and who can win goes back and for back and forth. But how can I be blamed when the bring Vanguard Veterans and I a Knight? Ofcourse Im going to win. But they just whine when they loose despite bringing a subpar list.
Its kinda sad really.
So if the Knight had worse rules, you wouldnt have invested £85 to get it, am I correct?
Yes, but it would go in my display case, Along with Khan on foot, My Incubi, Lylyth, Vanguard Vets, Captain in Terminator armor and the severed head of the last guy who touched my minis.
Blacksails wrote: What depth and breadth does 40k that other games don't? Care to elaborate?
Are you serious? ...for one - background; how does warma-hordes or infinity compare? ...not even on the same continent. How about number of factions? ...nope; hope about unit variety? ...nope? How about scalability? ...nope (sure Infinity does small scale way better but that's all it does).
C'mon I get it - you hate GW, but seriously you needed me to answer this?
Yep, D&D3.5 had a lot of balance issues. However, and this is really important, it wasn't a competitive game. The players cooperated to complete an adventure - rather than competing against one another. Furthermore, there was also a impartial judge who could alter the adventure on the fly to take account of any disparities in the power levels of the characters.
While technically you are right, in a cooeprative RPG people are still competing gainst each other, for spotlight time and story agency. Everyone (or almost) wants to be King Arthur, not the squire who carries his weapons and grooms his horse.
Azreal13 wrote: I love it when people post a bunch of opinions in a manner to suggest they're anything other than one person's view.
I'd say 40K is GW right now, rather than the reverse, I mean Fantasy has been in the toilet for years, and they clearly have little interest in doing anything with the LotR licence now but fleecing collectors.
Now, who is responsible for the state of those two games?
Yeah cuz I'm the "one person" playing 40K all over the world at all times. And Fantasy is not in the toilet either, it's really gaining momentum here, even prior to the End Times stuff it was really picking up, but End Times has been a big hit - worldwide. I agree about LotR though...
What "State of those two games" are you referring to?
Blacksails wrote: What depth and breadth does 40k that other games don't? Care to elaborate?
Are you serious? ...for one - background; how does warma-hordes or infinity compare? ...not even on the same continent. How about number of factions? ...nope; hope about unit variety? ...nope? How about scalability? ...nope (sure Infinity does small scale way better but that's all it does).
C'mon I get it - you hate GW, but seriously you needed me to answer this?
Infinity and WMH backgrounds are both very very in depth. 40k has like 10-20 years head start, but lately it's not been anything special. Number of factions, again, years head start. Infinity and WMH has the same, if not more units per faction. 40k doesn't scale well either.
So nothing to do with gameplay. Further, background is entirely subjective. Some of 40k's latest additions have been subpar, to say the least.
How about number of factions?
Why is number of factions important? Counting all loyalist marines as one faction, we have 11 factions, plus Knights and Sisters as sadly underdeveloped. Firestorm Armada has over 15.
unit variety?
Well, variety is going to be hard to quantify. Are you counting every variant of a marine in power armour as a different unit? If so, then sure. If not, well things start to even out among the different games available.
How about scalability?
Not sure what you mean, unless you mean how 40k can be played between 500 and 3000pts regularly? If so, other games can scale quite well too. Firestorm Armada can played from a handful of frigates up to a dozen batteships and dreadnoughts per side.
C'mon I get it - you hate GW, but seriously you needed me to answer this?
C'mon I get it - you love GW, but seriously you need to be such an ass about answering a simple question?
I don't hate GW. I dislike a lot of what they do currently, and I feel like they're harming 40k, but that doesn't mean you should dismiss anything I have to say because you think I hate something.
Blacksails wrote: What depth and breadth does 40k that other games don't? Care to elaborate?
Are you serious? ...for one - background; how does warma-hordes or infinity compare? ...not even on the same continent. How about number of factions? ...nope; hope about unit variety? ...nope? How about scalability? ...nope (sure Infinity does small scale way better but that's all it does).
C'mon I get it - you hate GW, but seriously you needed me to answer this?
Infinity and WMH backgrounds are both very very in depth. 40k has like 10-20 years head start, but lately it's not been anything special. Number of factions, again, years head start. Infinity and WMH has the same, if not more units per faction. 40k doesn't scale well either.
Hmm wow ok. I'll just point out, that in 40K, however flawed you may think it is, you can play Kill Team, Zone Mortalis, 1000 points etc all quite easily - you can also play 25,000 points Apocalypse. That is scalability that neither of those games can even come close to matching. You are holding 40K to a standard far beyond any of these other games.
LordBlades wrote: While technically you are right, in a cooeprative RPG people are still competing gainst each other, for spotlight time and story agency. Everyone (or almost) wants to be King Arthur, not the squire who carries his weapons and grooms his horse.
Somewhat. Though, I'd say this is as much to do with the players as the rules (if not more so). For example, whilst they may not see themselves as squires, many players also don't want to be the party leader.
In addition, this is another place where a (good) DM comes in. e.g. if a rogue isn't getting much chance to shine, he can add in more stuff where the rogue's skills will come in handy - locks to pick, traps to disarm, chances to use 'interaction' skills (bluff, diplomacy), areas where stealth is useful, etc.
Okay, scalability, maybe 40k is a bit better. But everywhere else, other games are as good, or better than 40k. Don't get me wrong I quite like 40k but other games are far better. Infinity and WMH to continue the two you bought up are both better balanced and both far more tactically deep.
Blacksails wrote: What depth and breadth does 40k that other games don't? Care to elaborate?
Are you serious? ...for one - background; how does warma-hordes or infinity compare? ...not even on the same continent.
How about Star Wars? Or are we overlooking X Wing because that doesn't support your point?
How about number of factions? ...nope;
Well, there's what 12 for Warmahordes? 8 for Infinity?
The GW has 19 tabs on the website, but I'm not sure I'd count Officio Assassinorium, inquisition or Stormtroopers as factions in their own right, they've just been hived off to diversify the books and milk more cash. So more, yes, but not ridiculously more, and let's not forget that all the Power Armour armies share a good percentage of DNA.
Heck, even X Wing is up to three, and the likes of Bolt Action and Flames of War must be in the double figures.
hope about unit variety? ...nope?
I'm not prepared to do the homework for the numbers, but as the thread is ostensibly about competitive play, what does it matter how many more units 40K has when so many aren't viable in a competitive environment (and some barely useable outside of narrative campaign games.)
How about scalability? ...nope (sure Infinity does small scale way better but that's all it does).
C'mon I get it - you hate GW, but seriously you needed me to answer this?
Scaleability?
Is it illegal to play 500 point Infinity games, or 300 point Warmachine ones? No.
Are they much fun? No idea, never played them at that size, but if you're using the exercise in futility that is Apocalypse to call 40K scaleable, you're deluded.
At smaller scales, they all play well IME.
But let me say again, using the word hate because you haven't got a better argument does nothing but undermine any validity your other points may have. Argue smart or concede the point.
I will just answer to the topic.
Competitive Play is what is keeping 40 k Alive.
The normal Beer and pretzel player got his Army, is hanging out with some Friends and having casual games.for example i play very competitive, only against certain Friends i play fluff lists.
Competitive Play Means, you have to go with the Flow.
When i want to Play my tau competitivly i buy 3 yvhara from forge.
Or 3 barracuda for air superioritY.
When the rvarna First came out i bought 3 of em because they Had superior rules.
Riptide spam? 3 of em please.
Eldar? 4-5 Wave serpents.
Necrons?
I got 6 necron flyers here.... In 7th they are not that competitive anymore so i Had to buy wraithwing and immortal spam.
I guess the normal competitive player is spending alot more in the Hobby than Otto or Joe, Buying his scorpion Warriors just to be up to Date.
In my Meta every competitive player has the 7th Edition rules, from the bp Players only 10%.
winterwind85 wrote: I will just answer to the topic.
Competitive Play is what is keeping 40 k Alive.
The normal Beer and pretzel player got his Army, is hanging out with some Friends and having casual games.for example i play very competitive, only against certain Friends i play fluff lists.
Competitive Play Means, you have to go with the Flow.
When i want to Play my tau competitivly i buy 3 yvhara from forge.
Or 3 barracuda for air superioritY.
When the rvarna First came out i bought 3 of em because they Had superior rules.
Riptide spam? 3 of em please.
Eldar? 4-5 Wave serpents.
Necrons?
I got 6 necron flyers here.... In 7th they are not that competitive anymore so i Had to buy wraithwing and immortal spam.
I guess the normal competitive player is spending alot more in the Hobby than Otto or Joe, Buying his scorpion Warriors just to be up to Date.
In my Meta every competitive player has the 7th Edition rules, from the bp Players only 10%.
However if the game was balanced people would still buy models. They'd just buy models they liked as opposed to models that were broken in the game.
Well about scale, a game doesn't need to be able to field a thousand models and giant titans in order to be considered as good as 40k in that regard. Using Firestorm Armada as an example, you can play from the smallest skirmish to the largest fleet battle imaginable. The rules in FSA accomplish what they set out to do in terms of creating rules that represent small capital vessels and fighters up to dreadnoughts (and leviathans in the future). Games like X-Wing also scale well for anything you'd want to use it for that the rules were designed for. Being able to recreate the Trench Run with dozens of models per side means it has great scalability too.
Unless Gunhazard's standard is anything other than what 40k does, this isn't going to go very far. Different games were created for different purposes. Because a game doesn't have giant titans doesn't mean its in any way inferior.
ImAGeek wrote: Okay, scalability, maybe 40k is a bit better. But everywhere else, other games are as good, or better than 40k. Don't get me wrong I quite like 40k but other games are far better. Infinity and WMH to continue the two you bought up are both better balanced and both far more tactically deep.
No, your original point was valid.
There's absolutely no reason that you can't do the things mentioned in other systems. Perhaps the equivalent of Kill Team (shall we call that Infinity Lite?) for Warmachine doesn't exist officially, but there's nothing stopping a player developing it for themselves. Heck, individual models already act separately to a point in Warmachine, you're half way there with the game mechanics, you just need a specialists system.
Perhaps other, younger, games haven't expanded everywhere that 40K has yet, but there's no reason that they can't be adapted to larger or smaller games.
Blacksails wrote: What depth and breadth does 40k that other games don't? Care to elaborate?
Are you serious? ...for one - background; how does warma-hordes or infinity compare? ...not even on the same continent.
How about Star Wars? Or are we overlooking X Wing because that doesn't support your point?
I didn't include Star Wars because it's entirely different type of game ...c'mon now. So basically if 40k is better it's because they had a 10-20 year head start; but if Stars Wars is better with an entire pre-existing movie, book, comic, and toy franchise it's because GW is bad at games?
How about number of factions? ...nope;
Well, there's what 12 for Warmahordes? 8 for Infinity?
The GW has 19 tabs on the website, but I'm not sure I'd count Officio Assassinorium, inquisition or Stormtroopers as factions in their own right, they've just been hived off to diversify the books and milk more cash. So more, yes, but not ridiculously more, and let's not forget that all the Power Armour armies share a good percentage of DNA.
Heck, even X Wing is up to three, and the likes of Bolt Action and Flames of War must be in the double figures.
hope about unit variety? ...nope?
I'm not prepared to do the homework for the numbers, but as the thread is ostensibly about competitive play, what does it matter how many more units 40K has when so many aren't viable in a competitive environment (and some barely useable outside of narrative campaign games.)
How about scalability? ...nope (sure Infinity does small scale way better but that's all it does).
C'mon I get it - you hate GW, but seriously you needed me to answer this?
Scaleability?
Is it illegal to play 500 point Infinity games, or 300 point Warmachine ones? No.
Are they much fun? No idea, never played them at that size, but if you're using the exercise in futility that is Apocalypse to call 40K scaleable, you're deluded.
At smaller scales, they all play well IME.
But let me say again, using the word hate because you haven't got a better argument does nothing but undermine any validity your other points may have. Argue smart or concede the point.
Hah you were saying about one man's opinion? ...Apocalypse is awesome, and my own group plays it often (check my blog); In the blog community I've seen it embraced and enjoyed in groups and clubs all over the world. If you don't like - well that's you then isn't it. Don't try to make this about one word either, that's just a ridiculous distraction, because you "haven't got a better argument".
40k's "scalability" is what's help ruining it. I don't want a game where my foot slogging zerkers are going up against fliers and titans. The game needs to decide what scale it is and focus on that. (Or have different versions of rules.)
Also, I think WMH's fluff is superior. It's more multi-faceted and characters prime motivations are more than "Honor," "Kill everthying" and "Murder murder!"
ImAGeek wrote: Okay, scalability, maybe 40k is a bit better. But everywhere else, other games are as good, or better than 40k. Don't get me wrong I quite like 40k but other games are far better. Infinity and WMH to continue the two you bought up are both better balanced and both far more tactically deep.
No, your original point was valid.
There's absolutely no reason that you can't do the things mentioned in other systems. Perhaps the equivalent of Kill Team (shall we call that Infinity Lite?) for Warmachine doesn't exist officially, but there's nothing stopping a player developing it for themselves. Heck, individual models already act separately to a point in Warmachine, you're half way there with the game mechanics, you just need a specialists system.
Perhaps other, younger, games haven't expanded everywhere that 40K has yet, but there's no reason that they can't be adapted to larger or smaller games.
I'm sorry but this is just rubbish. Those other games cannot "do the things mentioned"... you could write your own rules I suppose; which is apparently ok for warma-hordes but means GW is evil for 40k. I don't know why I even bother - so your argument is - one day these newer games might be able to do what 40k does, so 40k is bad... wow.
ImAGeek wrote: Okay, scalability, maybe 40k is a bit better. But everywhere else, other games are as good, or better than 40k. Don't get me wrong I quite like 40k but other games are far better. Infinity and WMH to continue the two you bought up are both better balanced and both far more tactically deep.
WMH will scale right up to crazy lvls, it isn't realy made for it but you can play 5 Warcasters/warlocks a side 500 points. The games are crazy and very time consuming, but way better scaled and even than 40k is scaleing up.
On topic, I have a hard time believing that it's the desire and players ruining 40k.
For me it's that 40k has no idea of scale, on one side you have players turning up with elite army's posibly 20 models a side, with others turning up with 50 or 60.
With then other players turning up with super heavy tanks and walkers that by all right would completely destroy both other opposing forces in a real narrative.
40k has points, and the ability to craft missions to scale. They could with ease scale the games better, so players could be more able to find the place they want to play. And empower players to shift between them.
Like the old style of apocalypse adding super heavy units with 40k being separate.
One of the biggest flaws this brings to 40k for me is that the army's often seem to be trying to play separate games, they are different since someone said they are and there is no real thought to how an army with these resources would deploy and fight in battles of different sizes.
This is entirely separate from the competitive aspect, and I don't ever go into a game thinking I have to win, but I do go into to win. And when I take my fluffy style army that I should enjoy, it's a hindrance to my enjoyment of the game.
MWHistorian wrote: 40k's "scalability" is what's help ruining it. I don't want a game where my foot slogging zerkers are going up against fliers and titans. The game needs to decide what scale it is and focus on that. (Or have different versions of rules.)
Agreed I'd rather see Kill Team and Apocalypse fleshed out into their own games (large scale 40k as it's own game, that sounds familiar...), with rules designed specifically for their scale.
I'm sorry but this is just rubbish. Those other games cannot "do the things mentioned"... you could write your own rules I suppose; which is apparently ok for warma-hordes but means GW is evil for 40k. I don't know why I even bother - so your argument is - one day these newer games might be able to do what 40k does, so 40k is bad... wow.
Is your argument any better?
You've really just been insulting and dismissive by calling people haters.
Maybe I could make a more compelling argument if I started my post off with 'This is rubbish', threw in something about you being a hater or white knights or something, then finish off with something like 'wow', or 'good try' or 'I don't know why I bother'.
If you don't know why you even bother, then do us all a favour and stop.
And what about all these wargames on the market growing by leaps and bounds that are far more balanced than 40k?
I will be happy when there is just one other scifi wargame that supports large scale battles and has a large collectible miniature range for me to select from. Oh, with models that cost less than GWlol.
MWHistorian wrote: 40k's "scalability" is what's help ruining it. I don't want a game where my foot slogging zerkers are going up against fliers and titans. The game needs to decide what scale it is and focus on that. (Or have different versions of rules.)
Agreed I'd rather see Kill Team and Apocalypse fleshed out into their own games (large scale 40k as it's own game, that sounds familiar...), with rules designed specifically for their scale.
You do realize this already exists right? ...there was a 6th edition release of Kill Team with it's own rules. Granted it cannot compare to Infinity for the single-model player type game but it's fun still.
And Apocalypse has it's own book and rules that really make a HUGE difference. Super large-scale 40K is difficult - but with the Apoc rules it works.
ImAGeek wrote: Okay, scalability, maybe 40k is a bit better. But everywhere else, other games are as good, or better than 40k. Don't get me wrong I quite like 40k but other games are far better. Infinity and WMH to continue the two you bought up are both better balanced and both far more tactically deep.
No, your original point was valid.
There's absolutely no reason that you can't do the things mentioned in other systems. Perhaps the equivalent of Kill Team (shall we call that Infinity Lite?) for Warmachine doesn't exist officially, but there's nothing stopping a player developing it for themselves. Heck, individual models already act separately to a point in Warmachine, you're half way there with the game mechanics, you just need a specialists system.
Perhaps other, younger, games haven't expanded everywhere that 40K has yet, but there's no reason that they can't be adapted to larger or smaller games.
I'm sorry but this is just rubbish. Those other games cannot "do the things mentioned"... you could write your own rules I suppose; which is apparently ok for warma-hordes but means GW is evil for 40k. I don't know why I even bother - so your argument is - one day these newer games might be able to do what 40k does, so 40k is bad... wow.
No, my argument is, as it always has been, that if 40K were a better written game then all these discussions about fluff vs competitive to which unit in x codex is best and how the game is unfun because of x or y unit would evaporate.
Anything else that I've written about in the thread has been an attempt to mop up the cerebral effluent that inevitably leaks all over the place when people try to defend the indefensible because of some utterly unvalued loyalty or desire to justify the time and effort that has been invested.
I will be happy when there is just one other scifi wargame that supports large scale battles and has a large collectible miniature range for me to select from. Oh, with models that cost less than GWlol.
The good news is that there are rulesets for 28mm larger scale sci-fi.
The bad news is that you'd either have port over the unit rules yourself, or dig up a suitable fan made one.
I'm sorry but this is just rubbish. Those other games cannot "do the things mentioned"... you could write your own rules I suppose; which is apparently ok for warma-hordes but means GW is evil for 40k. I don't know why I even bother - so your argument is - one day these newer games might be able to do what 40k does, so 40k is bad... wow.
Is your argument any better?
You've really just been insulting and dismissive by calling people haters.
Maybe I could make a more compelling argument if I started my post off with 'This is rubbish', threw in something about you being a hater or white knights or something, then finish off with something like 'wow', or 'good try' or 'I don't know why I bother'.
If you don't know why you even bother, then do us all a favour and stop.
Thanks for that compelling argument Blacksails... the thing is there are plenty of reason to be a GW 'hater', price as the top reason ...but then there is just ridiculousness that we have here, like "one day these newer companies might do what 40k can do, so 40k is bad at game design". Those other games cannot compare to 40k in scalability ...that is a actual FACT. When you try to back it up with - 'well we could write our own rules for warma-hordes to make it work' - that makes you look like a hater for the sake of hating.
No one here is a hater, with or without the quotations.
Using it does nothing to help any point you try to make because it immediately puts people on the defensive. If you have a point to make, do so without trying to classify everyone who thinks anything negative about 40k as a hater.
Further, nothing said is ridiculous. Most of these games are fairly new, especially compared to 40k. 40k can considered to be bad design for reasons outside of what other companies have or haven't done. I don't know where or how you've created that.
You seem to be caught on scalability. Fine, 40k can scale up to the largest. Doesn't mean 40k is any way superior because you field giant titans.
You do realize this already exists right? ...there was a 6th edition release of Kill Team with it's own rules. Granted it cannot compare to Infinity for the single-model player type game but it's fun still.
And Apocalypse has it's own book and rules that really make a HUGE difference. Super large-scale 40K is difficult - but with the Apoc rules it works.
Hmmm really? I remember Kill Team getting stuffed in some mission book, is this stand alone version still available?
Also I'm not sure if you realize you're doing it, but that post feels like you're trying to make me look stupid. The tone is rather offensive and has the side effect of you looking a bit jerkish.
40k's advantage comes in the narrative/artistic potential. People may mock the 'Forging a Narrative' sidebars and complain about the price of the models but I have yet to come across another game that encourages model conversions or customized armies/stories in the way 40k does.
40k doesn't shine in pick-up games or tournaments, that's where the rules balance issues start to become problematic. Its great strength is in the sort of things you can do with a consistent long-term playgroup with narrative campaigns and homemade missions, when you've got an incentive to make sure the person you're playing with will still talk to you after the game.
Blacksails wrote: No one here is a hater, with or without the quotations.
Using it does nothing to help any point you try to make because it immediately puts people on the defensive. If you have a point to make, do so without trying to classify everyone who thinks anything negative about 40k as a hater.
Further, nothing said is ridiculous. Most of these games are fairly new, especially compared to 40k. 40k can considered to be bad design for reasons outside of what other companies have or haven't done. I don't know where or how you've created that.
You seem to be caught on scalability. Fine, 40k can scale up to the largest. Doesn't mean 40k is any way superior because you field giant titans.
"Nothing said is ridiculous'? ...? ...I'm scratching my head on this one. And I am certainly not the one to bring up the comparison to other games/companies dude.
Now we are getting somewhere though, I NEVER said 40K was way superior because you can field giant titans... but there are things 40k can do, that other games cannot. 40K can play small games, both Kill Team and Zone Mortalis are awesome games... and it can play large; Apocalypse rocks even if it doesn't appeal to everyone.
Further you might prefer the fluff of warma-hordes / infinity, and it might actually be a lot cooler (I don't think so), but neither have the depth that 40k fluff/background has - that is also FACT.
You do realize this already exists right? ...there was a 6th edition release of Kill Team with it's own rules. Granted it cannot compare to Infinity for the single-model player type game but it's fun still.
And Apocalypse has it's own book and rules that really make a HUGE difference. Super large-scale 40K is difficult - but with the Apoc rules it works.
Hmmm really? I remember Kill Team getting stuffed in some mission book, is this stand alone version still available?
Also I'm not sure if you realize you're doing it, but that post feels like you're trying to make me look stupid. The tone is rather offensive and has the side effect of you looking a bit jerkish.
Sorry SilverDevilfish, no intent to make you look stupid. Check this out; also the Apocalypse book is totally worth it if you intend to play huge scale games.
How do you define depth of fluff? By the amount of it? Its quality? Its uniqueness?
You can put FACT in capital letters all you want, but you have to actually make some kind of point or support your assertion.
Regardless, this is also off topic. The original point being that competitive players are not what is ruining 40k, but that GW is the driving force behind any failings, perceived or otherwise.
What dyou mean by depth though? Because I think they are as deep and in depth as 40k... If you mean there isn't as much, then again, 20 year advantage...
AnomanderRake wrote: 40k's advantage comes in the narrative/artistic potential. People may mock the 'Forging a Narrative' sidebars and complain about the price of the models but I have yet to come across another game that encourages model conversions or customized armies/stories in the way 40k does.
40k doesn't shine in pick-up games or tournaments, that's where the rules balance issues start to become problematic. Its great strength is in the sort of things you can do with a consistent long-term playgroup with narrative campaigns and homemade missions, when you've got an incentive to make sure the person you're playing with will still talk to you after the game.
That's not really that unique to 40k, other games may do it differently.
40k players may encourage it, but GW doesn't previde anything extra for it than lots O bitz.
Good yes, but not that huge when there is so much potential out there.
I have conversions in all my army's for all my games, I have different styles for army's in different games.
And we create naritive so for all theses different games as we play.
40k has a great setting, but I think it's trying to set it up to high to say it's some simply amazing thing that's just better than other stuff.
Apple fox wrote:
WMH will scale right up to crazy lvls, it isn't realy made for it but you can play 5 Warcasters/warlocks a side 500 points. The games are crazy and very time consuming, but way better scaled and even than 40k is scaleing up.
This would be a terrible game. You could also use a 50' table and play the entire Ultramarine Chapter (the $12,000 bundle). Or you could get a root canal.
Apple fox wrote:
On topic, I have a hard time believing that it's the desire and players ruining 40k.
You can look at the OP's assertion two ways: that 40k is ruined by competitive players, or that 40k is a poor game for competitive players. I think both views of the same opinion are valid, but I would add a caveat: 40k is a poor game when a competitive player is matched against a casual player. 40k is a great game between two casual players, and is a workable (but not great) game between two competitive players. This is my opinion, only.
In my opinion, 40k is a fictional scifi universe with collectibles that you can model. There is a game system which allows you to play with those collectibles with rules that range from mediocre to poor, and such a variety of units that I doubt game balance just by points allocation is possible. That doesn't mean it can't be fun, it just means that it's easy to abuse army lists.
There are other game systems which are primarily gaming systems that are the opposite: they have models that you can collect (of varying quality, depending on the company), with rules that range from mediocre to great. Most other game systems are designed for quicker and pickup games, because this is what the market, in general, wants.
This doesn't make 40k, and especially WHFB bad; it just makes them different. You have to *want* and enjoy modelling and collecting tons of models, and eagerly await new releases. If this isn't so, 40k is probably a poor choice.
Apple fox wrote:
For me it's that 40k has no idea of scale, on one side you have players turning up with elite army's posibly 20 models a side, with others turning up with 50 or 60.
With then other players turning up with super heavy tanks and walkers that by all right would completely destroy both other opposing forces in a real narrative.
40k has points, and the ability to craft missions to scale. They could with ease scale the games better, so players could be more able to find the place they want to play. And empower players to shift between them.
Like the old style of apocalypse adding super heavy units with 40k being separate.
One of the biggest flaws this brings to 40k for me is that the army's often seem to be trying to play separate games, they are different since someone said they are and there is no real thought to how an army with these resources would deploy and fight in battles of different sizes.
This is entirely separate from the competitive aspect, and I don't ever go into a game thinking I have to win, but I do go into to win. And when I take my fluffy style army that I should enjoy, it's a hindrance to my enjoyment of the game.
See, this cuts both ways. I think it's fantastic that you can pit an Imperial Knight army (like, 6 imperial knights) against a hoarde of Orks and see what happens. When the Orks are decimated, bring out the Tyranids, and see what happens. I think that's a fun afternoon, even if I'm on the losing side. Of course, I'm not going to repeat it if it's a pointless battle. But it's cool that the game system allows that type of matchup. Most games are not like this, but it's the kind of thing that happens on a Christmas holiday, when friends are over, and someone posits "what if".
On the other hand, if one guy only ever wants to play with his detachment of 6 IK's, well, that isn't very interesting to play against, and they would not be a good fit for me as an opponent.
But I get your point and accept that in a pickup scene, this type of disparity sucks, and it would be nice if the rules at least had a mode that forced more unit balance. Still, it wouldn't matter, because generally speaking, new players to 40k get stomped against competitive players because they don't have the right units, and there isn't much they can do until they expand their toolset.
I just don't really happen to care -- this isn't a detractor to me, as I clearly fall into the category of hobbyist who like to collect models, and occasionally play with them, as opposed to the category of gamer who likes to play the game, and occasionally model new stuff
Now we are getting somewhere though, I NEVER said 40K was way superior because you can field giant titans... but there are things 40k can do, that other games cannot. 40K can play small games, both Kill Team and Zone Mortalis are awesome games... and it can play large; Apocalypse rocks even if it doesn't appeal to everyone.
Further you might prefer the fluff of warma-hordes / infinity, and it might actually be a lot cooler (I don't think so), but neither have the depth that 40k fluff/background has - that is also FACT.
By depth, do you mean volume? Because, while I do prefer 40K fluff to most other games, and indeed, most other fictional universes in general, making a subjective assertion and stating it fact, as well as equating quality with quantity, are dangerous things to be doing. There's some truly, truly awful BL books out there, as wells as some codex fluff that can make certain people get red and shouty at the merest mention of it.
You prefer 40K fluff? Fine. There is a lot of 40K fluff? No problem. But you seem to be trying to make some sort of factual argument based in your preferences. Not cool.
As for Scaleability, I think you're going to have to explain what you understand by the term, because you seem to be arguing that 40K scales because you can play big games and small games. I'm curious why other games can't?
EDIT
Largely ninjad by Blacksails - that makes us 15 all for ninja tennis so far today.
Now we are getting somewhere though, I NEVER said 40K was way superior because you can field giant titans... but there are things 40k can do, that other games cannot. 40K can play small games, both Kill Team and Zone Mortalis are awesome games... and it can play large; Apocalypse rocks even if it doesn't appeal to everyone.
And there are other games that provide things that 40k can't do. Like having more balanced armies, for example. Or having clear rules. A lot of players don't care if a game scales well if the rules are all over the place.
Now we are getting somewhere though, I NEVER said 40K was way superior because you can field giant titans... but there are things 40k can do, that other games cannot. 40K can play small games, both Kill Team and Zone Mortalis are awesome games... and it can play large; Apocalypse rocks even if it doesn't appeal to everyone.
Further you might prefer the fluff of warma-hordes / infinity, and it might actually be a lot cooler (I don't think so), but neither have the depth that 40k fluff/background has - that is also FACT.
By depth, do you mean volume? Because, while I do prefer 40K fluff to most other games, and indeed, most other fictional universes in general, making a subjective assertion and stating it fact, as well as equating quality with quantity, are dangerous things to be doing. There's some truly, truly awful BL books out there, as wells as some codex fluff that can make certain people get red and shouty at the merest mention of it.
You prefer 40K fluff? Fine. There is a lot of 40K fluff? No problem. But you seem to be trying to make some sort of factual argument based in your preferences. Not cool.
I don't think we really need a semantics argument to know what 'depth' means. Even without the Black Library fiction, going just by codex fluff we at least have more than the other games. Again I'm not saying it's better, that is certainly subjective to the reader. And I agree with you Azrael about the Black Library books, some are total crap, just awful... but some are great.
As for Scaleability, I think you're going to have to explain what you understand by the term, because you seem to be arguing that 40K scales because you can play big games and small games. I'm curious why other games can't?
Going from small to big ...yeah that is scalability. And you know those other games can't... Does that automatically make 40k better - no, I never said that; but that is just one reason I personally believe it's a better game.
I don't think we really need a semantics argument to know what 'depth' means.
Oh, but we do. Otherwise I can do this.
"Warmachine's fluff is depthier. FACT."
See, I don't need to defend that, or create an argument to back up my claim, I can just put FACT at the end of it, then dodge any questions about what I mean by depthier, thereby proving my point.
Now we are getting somewhere though, I NEVER said 40K was way superior because you can field giant titans... but there are things 40k can do, that other games cannot. 40K can play small games, both Kill Team and Zone Mortalis are awesome games... and it can play large; Apocalypse rocks even if it doesn't appeal to everyone.
And there are other games that provide things that 40k can't do. Like having more balanced armies, for example. Or having clear rules. A lot of players don't care if a game scales well if the rules are all over the place.
And you know what, sure this might be true and that was said back in my original post. Though I certainly don't think the rules are more 'clear' in Infinity at least and just like 40K there are units (tags) without answer.
You might not care about scalability at all, totally fine; not my point at all.
Sorry SilverDevilfish, no intent to make you look stupid. Check this out; also the Apocalypse book is totally worth it if you intend to play huge scale games.
Cool. It's defiantly a step in the right direction. Though I more so meant they should make versions of these that are their own entity. In other words instead of being part of the 40k product line, be their own product lines. That way these games could eventually gain units tailored to them instead of just converting 40k units to them and units that maybe don't fit 40k as well but are perfect for these games could be kept in these games. You still get the scalability, it's just more well organized and distinct for people who only want to play at certain levels.
I don't think we really need a semantics argument to know what 'depth' means.
Oh, but we do. Otherwise I can do this.
"Warmachine's fluff is depthier. FACT."
See, I don't need to defend that, or create an argument to back up my claim, I can just put FACT at the end of it, then dodge any questions about what I mean by depthier, thereby proving my point.
Lol. I guess you could say, factually, that there are more published words of Warhammer 40k fiction than any other game world. As in, if you add up the word count of 40k lore, it will exceed pretty much any other game world, except maybe some Dungeons and Dragons worlds. I track of D&D titles too many years ago. But quantitatively, no other tabletop game system has as many books published as 40k, not even close.
I'm not sure anyone has actually read it all, a whole lot of it is pretty bad, and the printed stuff is horrifically, awesomely expensive. But, there IS a bunch of really good fiction, too.
I don't think we really need a semantics argument to know what 'depth' means.
Oh, but we do. Otherwise I can do this.
"Warmachine's fluff is depthier. FACT."
See, I don't need to defend that, or create an argument to back up my claim, I can just put FACT at the end of it, then dodge any questions about what I mean by depthier, thereby proving my point.
Sure when you half-quote to take things out of context... but I guess "nothing is ridiculous" right Blacksails? What do they call the Black Library equivalent for Warmarchine?
Sorry SilverDevilfish, no intent to make you look stupid. Check this out; also the Apocalypse book is totally worth it if you intend to play huge scale games.
Cool. It's defiantly a step in the right direction. Though I more so meant they should make versions of these that are their own entity. In other words instead of being part of the 40k product line, be their own product lines. That way these games could eventually gain units tailored to them instead of just converting 40k units to them and units that maybe don't fit 40k as well but are perfect for these games could be kept in these games. You still get the scalability, it's just more well organized and distinct for people who only want to play at certain levels.
Kill Team is definitely very cool. Quite popular at my FLGS, actually.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Gunzhard wrote: Sure when you half-quote to take things out of context... but I guess "nothing is ridiculous" right Blacksails? What do they call the Black Library equivalent for Warmarchine?
I didn't need to quote anything more. You originally said 40k has more depth of fluff, then added FACT.
Then you dodged the question asking to clarify what you meant by depth. Quantity? Quality? Uniqueness? Variety?
Then I illustrated how your argument seems to be fleshing out with a comical version of it.
You haven't proven or explained how 40k has more depth of fluff. You've asserted it, then failed to make any sort of argument. You alluded to there being more fluff, but you never clarified what you intended by depth, leaving the point unsubstantiated.
Sorry SilverDevilfish, no intent to make you look stupid. Check this out; also the Apocalypse book is totally worth it if you intend to play huge scale games.
Cool. It's defiantly a step in the right direction. Though I more so meant they should make versions of these that are their own entity. In other words instead of being part of the 40k product line, be their own product lines. That way these games could eventually gain units tailored to them instead of just converting 40k units to them and units that maybe don't fit 40k as well but are perfect for these games could be kept in these games. You still get the scalability, it's just more well organized and distinct for people who only want to play at certain levels.
Kill Team is definitely very cool. Quite popular at my FLGS, actually.
Yeah I have friends that weren't really interested in paying a ton to get started in 40k but were interested when we played Kill Team. Honestly it'd be cool to see it get flushed out even more and get more support. But now that I think of it wasn't there a fan group that was basically doing this? I remember seeing it in a thread at some point.
I don't think we really need a semantics argument to know what 'depth' means.
Oh, but we do. Otherwise I can do this.
"Warmachine's fluff is depthier. FACT."
See, I don't need to defend that, or create an argument to back up my claim, I can just put FACT at the end of it, then dodge any questions about what I mean by depthier, thereby proving my point.
Sure when you half-quote to take things out of context... but I guess "nothing is ridiculous" right Blacksails? What do they call the Black Library equivalent for Warmarchine?
You do realise PP have a publishing branch and have a bunch of novels out right? So if your definition of depth is 'has novels about it' then WMH is just as deep as 40k.
MWHistorian wrote: 40k's "scalability" is what's help ruining it. I don't want a game where my foot slogging zerkers are going up against fliers and titans. The game needs to decide what scale it is and focus on that. (Or have different versions of rules.)
Apple fox wrote:
WMH will scale right up to crazy lvls, it isn't realy made for it but you can play 5 Warcasters/warlocks a side 500 points. The games are crazy and very time consuming, but way better scaled and even than 40k is scaleing up.
This would be a terrible game. You could also use a 50' table and play the entire Ultramarine Chapter (the $12,000 bundle). Or you could get a root canal.
Apple fox wrote:
On topic, I have a hard time believing that it's the desire and players ruining 40k.
You can look at the OP's assertion two ways: that 40k is ruined by competitive players, or that 40k is a poor game for competitive players. I think both views of the same opinion are valid, but I would add a caveat: 40k is a poor game when a competitive player is matched against a casual player. 40k is a great game between two casual players, and is a workable (but not great) game between two competitive players. This is my opinion, only.
In my opinion, 40k is a fictional scifi universe with collectibles that you can model. There is a game system which allows you to play with those collectibles with rules that range from mediocre to poor, and such a variety of units that I doubt game balance just by points allocation is possible. That doesn't mean it can't be fun, it just means that it's easy to abuse army lists.
There are other game systems which are primarily gaming systems that are the opposite: they have models that you can collect (of varying quality, depending on the company), with rules that range from mediocre to great. Most other game systems are designed for quicker and pickup games, because this is what the market, in general, wants.
This doesn't make 40k, and especially WHFB bad; it just makes them different. You have to *want* and enjoy modelling and collecting tons of models, and eagerly await new releases. If this isn't so, 40k is probably a poor choice.
Apple fox wrote:
For me it's that 40k has no idea of scale, on one side you have players turning up with elite army's posibly 20 models a side, with others turning up with 50 or 60.
With then other players turning up with super heavy tanks and walkers that by all right would completely destroy both other opposing forces in a real narrative.
40k has points, and the ability to craft missions to scale. They could with ease scale the games better, so players could be more able to find the place they want to play. And empower players to shift between them.
Like the old style of apocalypse adding super heavy units with 40k being separate.
One of the biggest flaws this brings to 40k for me is that the army's often seem to be trying to play separate games, they are different since someone said they are and there is no real thought to how an army with these resources would deploy and fight in battles of different sizes.
This is entirely separate from the competitive aspect, and I don't ever go into a game thinking I have to win, but I do go into to win. And when I take my fluffy style army that I should enjoy, it's a hindrance to my enjoyment of the game.
See, this cuts both ways. I think it's fantastic that you can pit an Imperial Knight army (like, 6 imperial knights) against a hoarde of Orks and see what happens. When the Orks are decimated, bring out the Tyranids, and see what happens. I think that's a fun afternoon, even if I'm on the losing side. Of course, I'm not going to repeat it if it's a pointless battle. But it's cool that the game system allows that type of matchup. Most games are not like this, but it's the kind of thing that happens on a Christmas holiday, when friends are over, and someone posits "what if".
On the other hand, if one guy only ever wants to play with his detachment of 6 IK's, well, that isn't very interesting to play against, and they would not be a good fit for me as an opponent.
But I get your point and accept that in a pickup scene, this type of disparity sucks, and it would be nice if the rules at least had a mode that forced more unit balance. Still, it wouldn't matter, because generally speaking, new players to 40k get stomped against competitive players because they don't have the right units, and there isn't much they can do until they expand their toolset.
I just don't really happen to care -- this isn't a detractor to me, as I clearly fall into the category of hobbyist who like to collect models, and occasionally play with them, as opposed to the category of gamer who likes to play the game, and occasionally model new stuff
Actuly we play a huge game like that and it was fun, tough and it take 2 days. But not playing massive games like that often also.
I never mean that 40k shouldn't have these larger scale games, a Titan against a horde of orcs is cool and makes for a great naritive.
But GW needs to separate them. They could do this 2 ways, ether name the types of games, or seperate them by point scale. Players turning up for apocalypse style games can expect a Titan no matter the points, but a skirmish battle up to a 1000 points will never have a heavy tank(anything over a defined amount) to make suggestions.
This is a definition of scale that helps players find games they want to play, a refinement of the systems.
Right now, I am put in the same system as players who want to play those big units, despite having no interest and none of my own. It makes a game need negotiations than simple discussions.
Right now people complain my eldar army is too competitive, and it was originally converted in 3rd edition.
Not a single wave serpent, dire avenger or farseer used is younger than 10 years old. Lack of balance hurts casual players. Far more than the mindset of competitive does for me:(
I now have a second army for eldar, hoping to get games with it, but who knows..
I think GW just needs to work on its narrative, and how the games scale much much better. Despite what people say, and it's intention as a rule set, I think 40k scales awfully myself.
And even then it's a selling point that comes at the end of a long list off things I think the game needs first.
Added quote, hop it works >.< trying to make sense also...
Blacksails wrote: I didn't need to quote anything more. You originally said 40k has more depth of fluff, then added FACT.
Then you dodged the question asking to clarify what you meant by depth. Quantity? Quality? Uniqueness? Variety?
Then I illustrated how your argument seems to be fleshing out with a comical version of it.
You haven't proven or explained how 40k has more depth of fluff. You've asserted it, then failed to make any sort of argument. You alluded to there being more fluff, but you never clarified what you intended by depth, leaving the point unsubstantiated.
Once more; what do you mean by depth?
I happen to agree with Gunzhard, so here is my opinion of GW having more fluff depth than PP.
1. There are quantitatively more stories told about more characters in the 40k universe
2. If you write a giant timeline with a bullet for everything that happened in the universe, the 40k one would be monstrously huge, orders of magnitude longer than other worlds
3. There are movies, video games (a lot of them!), audio books, etc. to contribute to the fluffy-ness. Some are pretty good. Others are bad on an epic scale.
I make no assertion as to GW fluff being "better" than WMH fluff. In fact, I enjoy both, just like I like both games, and have thousands of dollars of models from both companies. Why can't I can't have pizza on Tuesday, and fried chicken on Wednesday, without one of them sucking?
Now we are getting somewhere though, I NEVER said 40K was way superior because you can field giant titans... but there are things 40k can do, that other games cannot. 40K can play small games, both Kill Team and Zone Mortalis are awesome games... and it can play large; Apocalypse rocks even if it doesn't appeal to everyone.
And there are other games that provide things that 40k can't do. Like having more balanced armies, for example. Or having clear rules. A lot of players don't care if a game scales well if the rules are all over the place.
And you know what, sure this might be true and that was said back in my original post. Though I certainly don't think the rules are more 'clear' in Infinity at least and just like 40K there are units (tags) without answer.
You might not care about scalability at all, totally fine; not my point at all.
What do you mean TAGs have no answer? Do you play Infinity?
AnomanderRake wrote: People may mock the 'Forging a Narrative' sidebars and complain about the price of the models but I have yet to come across another game that encourages model conversions or customized armies/stories in the way 40k does.
Indeed.
In fact, GW is so committed to people converting models, they frequently don't include enough special weapons in each squad. Want more? Get converting!
Also, they're so in love with conversions that they remove units that everyone converted models for, just because they don't have official models. Conversions are fine, so long as we're making enough money from them. Otherwise, throw them on a fire for all we care.
Blacksails wrote: I didn't need to quote anything more. You originally said 40k has more depth of fluff, then added FACT.
Then you dodged the question asking to clarify what you meant by depth. Quantity? Quality? Uniqueness? Variety?
Then I illustrated how your argument seems to be fleshing out with a comical version of it.
You haven't proven or explained how 40k has more depth of fluff. You've asserted it, then failed to make any sort of argument. You alluded to there being more fluff, but you never clarified what you intended by depth, leaving the point unsubstantiated.
Once more; what do you mean by depth?
Now, is 'comical version' anything like a 'ridiculous' version? ...I believe you are intentionally being difficult to try to drive home a point, but cool. So ...quality and uniqueness - can we make any judgement or are those entirely subjective? - really they are subjective ...so that leaves quantity and variety and those we can certainly measure however. Do I need to go on?
More importantly do you even care or will you just disagree with anything that sounds remotely pro-GW? ....because with all of the great reasons to complain about 40K, arguing scalability and depth of background/fluff seems 'comical'.
Blacksails wrote: I didn't need to quote anything more. You originally said 40k has more depth of fluff, then added FACT.
Then you dodged the question asking to clarify what you meant by depth. Quantity? Quality? Uniqueness? Variety?
Then I illustrated how your argument seems to be fleshing out with a comical version of it.
You haven't proven or explained how 40k has more depth of fluff. You've asserted it, then failed to make any sort of argument. You alluded to there being more fluff, but you never clarified what you intended by depth, leaving the point unsubstantiated.
Once more; what do you mean by depth?
I happen to agree with Gunzhard, so here is my opinion of GW having more fluff depth than PP.
1. There are quantitatively more stories told about more characters in the 40k universe
2. If you write a giant timeline with a bullet for everything that happened in the universe, the 40k one would be monstrously huge, orders of magnitude longer than other worlds
3. There are movies, video games (a lot of them!), audio books, etc. to contribute to the fluffy-ness. Some are pretty good. Others are bad on an epic scale.
I make no assertion as to GW fluff being "better" than WMH fluff. In fact, I enjoy both, just like I like both games, and have thousands of dollars of models from both companies. Why can't I can't have pizza on Tuesday, and fried chicken on Wednesday, without one of them sucking?
So depth of fluff is literally just amount of fluff? Because again, 40k has what, 10? 15? Years on WMH, so there's obviously going to be more fluff. That doesn't mean there's more depth to the fluff.
Apple fox wrote: Actuly we play a huge game like that and it was fun, tough and it take 2 days. But not playing massive games like that often also.
I never mean that 40k shouldn't have these larger scale games, a Titan against a horde of orcs is cool and makes for a great naritive.
But GW needs to separate them. They could do this 2 ways, ether name the types of games, or seperate them by point scale. Players turning up for apocalypse style games can expect a Titan no matter the points, but a skirmish battle up to a 1000 points will never have a heavy tank(anything over a defined amount) to make suggestions.
This is a definition of scale that helps players find games they want to play, a refinement of the systems.
Right now, I am put in the same system as players who want to play those big units, despite having no interest and none of my own. It makes a game need negotiations than simple discussions.
Right now people complain my eldar army is too competitive, and it was originally converted in 3rd edition.
Not a single wave serpent, dire avenger or farseer used is younger than 10 years old. Lack of balance hurts casual players. Far more than the mindset of competitive does for me:(
I now have a second army for eldar, hoping to get games with it, but who knows..
Added quote, hop it works >.<
Well, we are in agreement then I totally agree that GW needs to offer games for "What if..." narratives to "competitive" or pickup skirmish battles, or whatever you want to call those. Players who want to play superheavies versus players who don't is usually an awful matchup.
At the FLGS that I frequent, almost everyone who plays 40k has superheavies, and it's getting to the point where many of the regulars have at least 1 or 2 Forgeworld pieces. I too wish, for the benefit of the game, new players and casual players, that there was a mode in the game that made it possible to play without multiple $100-$200 models.
Blacksails wrote: I didn't need to quote anything more. You originally said 40k has more depth of fluff, then added FACT.
Then you dodged the question asking to clarify what you meant by depth. Quantity? Quality? Uniqueness? Variety?
Then I illustrated how your argument seems to be fleshing out with a comical version of it.
You haven't proven or explained how 40k has more depth of fluff. You've asserted it, then failed to make any sort of argument. You alluded to there being more fluff, but you never clarified what you intended by depth, leaving the point unsubstantiated.
Once more; what do you mean by depth?
Now, is 'comical version' anything like a 'ridiculous' version? ...I believe you are intentionally being difficult to try to drive home a point, but cool. So ...quality and uniqueness - can we make any judgement or are those entirely subjective? - really they are subjective ...so that leaves quantity and variety and those we can certainly measure however. Do I need to go on?
More importantly do you even care or will you just disagree with anything that sounds remotely pro-GW? ....because with all of the great reasons to complain about 40K, arguing scalability and depth of background/fluff seems 'comical'.
You bought up depth of background and scalability...
So depth of fluff is literally just amount of fluff? Because again, 40k has what, 10? 15? Years on WMH, so there's obviously going to be more fluff. That doesn't mean there's more depth to the fluff.
Depth *to me* means, how many heroes exist in the game world? How many stories are there of the heroes?
Depth does not equal quality (which is highly subjective anyhow). The question was, what does depth mean, and I tried to answer that. I don't believe the 40k universe is superior to the WMH universe (or vice versa). I just believe that if you want to be a 40k historian or fluff guru, it would take longer for you to read all the fictional histories and know the details about all of the key narratives.
Blacksails wrote: I didn't need to quote anything more. You originally said 40k has more depth of fluff, then added FACT.
Then you dodged the question asking to clarify what you meant by depth. Quantity? Quality? Uniqueness? Variety?
Then I illustrated how your argument seems to be fleshing out with a comical version of it.
You haven't proven or explained how 40k has more depth of fluff. You've asserted it, then failed to make any sort of argument. You alluded to there being more fluff, but you never clarified what you intended by depth, leaving the point unsubstantiated.
Once more; what do you mean by depth?
Now, is 'comical version' anything like a 'ridiculous' version? ...I believe you are intentionally being difficult to try to drive home a point, but cool. So ...quality and uniqueness - can we make any judgement or are those entirely subjective? - really they are subjective ...so that leaves quantity and variety and those we can certainly measure however. Do I need to go on?
More importantly do you even care or will you just disagree with anything that sounds remotely pro-GW? ....because with all of the great reasons to complain about 40K, arguing scalability and depth of background/fluff seems 'comical'.
So if is it subjective... wh are you calling a FACT?
And I don't believe quantity and variety = depth at all.
Blacksails wrote: I didn't need to quote anything more. You originally said 40k has more depth of fluff, then added FACT.
Then you dodged the question asking to clarify what you meant by depth. Quantity? Quality? Uniqueness? Variety?
Then I illustrated how your argument seems to be fleshing out with a comical version of it.
You haven't proven or explained how 40k has more depth of fluff. You've asserted it, then failed to make any sort of argument. You alluded to there being more fluff, but you never clarified what you intended by depth, leaving the point unsubstantiated.
Once more; what do you mean by depth?
Now, is 'comical version' anything like a 'ridiculous' version? ...I believe you are intentionally being difficult to try to drive home a point, but cool. So ...quality and uniqueness - can we make any judgement or are those entirely subjective? - really they are subjective ...so that leaves quantity and variety and those we can certainly measure however. Do I need to go on?
More importantly do you even care or will you just disagree with anything that sounds remotely pro-GW? ....because with all of the great reasons to complain about 40K, arguing scalability and depth of background/fluff seems 'comical'.
You bought up depth of background and scalability...
Oh yes; I just wasn't expecting, in attempts to bash literally anything GW does, people trying to stretch out an argument that warhmachine or infinity can match 40k in those regards. Warmahordes and Infinity do plenty of things better than 40k however as I also said originally.
So depth of fluff is literally just amount of fluff? Because again, 40k has what, 10? 15? Years on WMH, so there's obviously going to be more fluff. That doesn't mean there's more depth to the fluff.
Depth *to me* means, how many heroes exist in the game world? How many stories are there of the heroes?
Depth does not equal quality (which is highly subjective anyhow). The question was, what does depth mean, and I tried to answer that. I don't believe the 40k universe is superior to the WMH universe (or vice versa). I just believe that if you want to be a 40k historian or fluff guru, it would take longer for you to read all the fictional histories and know the details about all of the key narratives.
Yeah I agree, but again, there's 15 years extra of fluff. It's nothing to do with the quality of the fluff or anything to do with the developers etc, it's just a matter of timing.
Apple fox wrote: Actuly we play a huge game like that and it was fun, tough and it take 2 days. But not playing massive games like that often also.
I never mean that 40k shouldn't have these larger scale games, a Titan against a horde of orcs is cool and makes for a great naritive.
But GW needs to separate them. They could do this 2 ways, ether name the types of games, or seperate them by point scale. Players turning up for apocalypse style games can expect a Titan no matter the points, but a skirmish battle up to a 1000 points will never have a heavy tank(anything over a defined amount) to make suggestions.
This is a definition of scale that helps players find games they want to play, a refinement of the systems.
Right now, I am put in the same system as players who want to play those big units, despite having no interest and none of my own. It makes a game need negotiations than simple discussions.
Right now people complain my eldar army is too competitive, and it was originally converted in 3rd edition.
Not a single wave serpent, dire avenger or farseer used is younger than 10 years old. Lack of balance hurts casual players. Far more than the mindset of competitive does for me:(
I now have a second army for eldar, hoping to get games with it, but who knows..
Added quote, hop it works >.<
Well, we are in agreement then I totally agree that GW needs to offer games for "What if..." narratives to "competitive" or pickup skirmish battles, or whatever you want to call those. Players who want to play superheavies versus players who don't is usually an awful matchup.
At the FLGS that I frequent, almost everyone who plays 40k has superheavies, and it's getting to the point where many of the regulars have at least 1 or 2 Forgeworld pieces. I too wish, for the benefit of the game, new players and casual players, that there was a mode in the game that made it possible to play without multiple $100-$200 models.
It has bring 40k to a tense spot, we have bleed out players like no other game. It's sad to see.
ImAGeek wrote:Yeah I agree, but again, there's 15 years extra of fluff. It's nothing to do with the quality of the fluff or anything to do with the developers etc, it's just a matter of timing.
Mostly, yeah. However, Black Library pumps out fiction faster than I can (or want to) read, and this isn't the case with PP. The amount of fluff that gets added to the 40k universe each year is insane, but a lot of it isn't really high quality.
A lot of the WMH fluff is pretty decent.
Either way, the time I have to read fiction is pretty limited these days and competes with my time for modelling, so it's not like I can keep up with either :(
Apple fox wrote:
It has bring 40k to a tense spot, we have bleed out players like no other game. It's sad to see.
Yeah, for sure. As someone else mentioned, rules like Kill Team make the 40k universe much ore attractive to skirmishers and is a better competitive and pickup setting. Personally, scenarios and campaigns are my thing. I hope that GW sees the popularity of such things, and promotes them over the free-for-all that is easy to turn into a train wreck.
Now, is 'comical version' anything like a 'ridiculous' version? ...
Yes, which was the point. I find your argumentation to be ridiculous at times. Like when you avoided a question about defining depth, despite asserting something as fact that may be mostly subjective.
I believe you are intentionally being difficult to try to drive home a point, but cool.
Funny, I feel the same about you.
So ...quality and uniqueness - can we make any judgement or are those entirely subjective? - really they are subjective ...so that leaves quantity and variety and those we can certainly measure however. Do I need to go on?
Exactly my point. You're using depth as some sort of catch-all term, when many of the qualities about the fluff are indeed subjective. Stating there's more 40k fluff is true. Stating its better is subjective. Even more varied, to an extent, but admittedly it'd be difficult to nail that one down too.
So really, we can be both agree 40k's fluff doesn't have more depth as some sort of fact. There's more of it, and some may find it more enjoyable, but that doesn't mean it qualifies as some sort of absolute fact its better, or depthier, or whatever. Fluff, of all things, is by and large going to vary from person to person in what they like. Even within 40k, there are people who dislike entire aspects; marines for example are disliked by some but loved by others.
More importantly do you even care or will you just disagree with anything that sounds remotely pro-GW? ....because with all of the great reasons to complain about 40K, arguing scalability and depth of background/fluff seems 'comical'.
You're arguing it as much as me. And yes, I do care and I do agree on some points. Contrary to what you may think about me, I don't disagree with people for the sake of disagreeing with them. I'd appreciate if you didn't try and slight me like you're doing.
Things we both agree on are that, factually, 40k has a larger selection of fluff. With a such a head start though, I'd certainly hope so. Technically though, we have the Star Wars universe too, with X-Wing, but I suppose its debatable which one is larger. Subjectively, I greatly enjoy the 40k universe, something we both agree on.
So depth of fluff is literally just amount of fluff? Because again, 40k has what, 10? 15? Years on WMH, so there's obviously going to be more fluff. That doesn't mean there's more depth to the fluff.
Depth *to me* means, how many heroes exist in the game world? How many stories are there of the heroes?
Depth does not equal quality (which is highly subjective anyhow). The question was, what does depth mean, and I tried to answer that. I don't believe the 40k universe is superior to the WMH universe (or vice versa). I just believe that if you want to be a 40k historian or fluff guru, it would take longer for you to read all the fictional histories and know the details about all of the key narratives.
And yet, Quantity does not equal depth. Reading into the motivations of most of the characters in 40k, it boils down to 'death to the...' Or 'honour for the...,' and one can arguemost factions are simple (and arguably, homogenous and boring) repetitions of a single theme (space wolves being Vikings in space for example, and their wolf/fang/clawnouns, blood angels and bloodnouns etc)
Depth implies deeper thoughts, motivations, (crucially!) details, history and intentions. Forgeworld and codex:grey knights. Compare Kaldor Draigo to the siege of vraks. The latter is deep. The former? Not so much. And bring fair, a lot of 40ks fluff boils down to fairly one dimensional bolter porn. As much as I love the imperial armours, being cynical, you can boil down the three whole books to 'the imperials won, because they threw more bodies into the meatgrinder than the defenders had bullets'. And As I say this, please note that I love the imperial armours- I have all of them.
So yeah, 40k (specifically forgeworld) has great depth but only some of the time. The rest of the 40k lore arguably boils down to dates and the names of battles. Or (a) a play on battles where the bad guy almost wins, and then the cavalry comes and saves the day, (b) battles where every one dies in a heroic last stand, or (c) wins a phyrric victory through immense sacrifice.
War machine? Yeah, the lore is deeper than folks realise. Check the rpg. 4,000 years of great in depth history. It's a living breathing world. And one that is incredibly characterful, intimate, gritty, and exciting. The character centric nature of the fluff adds to the depth. Individual likes, dislikes and motivations. Haley and Denny being sisters. Butcher killing sorscha's dad. Gaspy and goreshade's plotting. Simple examples but it really gets you under the skin of the characters.
No, if you're selling 40k on its depth, you should focus rightfully on forgeworld. The rest though? Yeah, I disagree.
ImAGeek wrote:Yeah I agree, but again, there's 15 years extra of fluff. It's nothing to do with the quality of the fluff or anything to do with the developers etc, it's just a matter of timing.
Mostly, yeah. However, Black Library pumps out fiction faster than I can (or want to) read, and this isn't the case with PP. The amount of fluff that gets added to the 40k universe each year is insane, but a lot of it isn't really high quality.
A lot of the WMH fluff is pretty decent.
Either way, the time I have to read fiction is pretty limited these days and competes with my time for modelling, so it's not like I can keep up with either :(
Apple fox wrote:
It has bring 40k to a tense spot, we have bleed out players like no other game. It's sad to see.
Yeah, for sure. As someone else mentioned, rules like Kill Team make the 40k universe much ore attractive to skirmishers and is a better competitive and pickup setting. Personally, scenarios and campaigns are my thing. I hope that GW sees the popularity of such things, and promotes them over the free-for-all that is easy to turn into a train wreck.
I have actually stopped reading all black library :(
Campaigns and missions books that are put out with some spirit and care, even kill team rules are rather lacking, with fan support they have worked there way up. But these are things that GW just has to get better with, pp and infinity put out some great stuff with what must be less resources. Other game systems and other stuff that shouldn't be , but are putting out better quality than GW. And that just shouldn't be,
I'd definitely say that 40k fluff "depth" of late has been rather lacking the last few editions, most of the stuff I personally find best hasn't been reprinted in years if not decades. The old RT/2E story of the building of the Gargants is probably the most evocative piece of 40k fiction ever I think.
There's plenty of thing out there with expansive and well fleshed out fluff, D&D has far more material than 40k does, X-Wing has the entire Star Wars universe, PP's stuff is much more expansive than many realize, and if you want to go the full monty, try matching the literature out there for WW2 to build on for Flames of War.
40k has some great stuff, but is not top dog in either quantity, quality, age, or variety. To say nothing of the fact that it's been largely stuck in the same spot for *five* editions and sixteen years now. The best stuff isn't even coming out of GW's core studio anymore, nor even particularly Black Library, but rather Forgeworld.
Tons of us are having a blast with 40k, we do this thing where we talk to our opponents and figure out what kind of game we want to play instead of freaking the feth out about everything all the time and running in circles.
Las wrote: Tons of us are having a blast with 40k, we do this thing where we talk to our opponents and figure out what kind of game we want to play instead of freaking the feth out about everything all the time and running in circles.
But this is the point, if it was a balanced game, you'd be able to just bring an army and play, as opposed to having a discussion beforehand about 'oh what expansions are we using? Super heaves allowed? Are we playing competitive lists, or fluffy?' Etc.
Las wrote: Tons of us are having a blast with 40k, we do this thing where we talk to our opponents and figure out what kind of game we want to play instead of freaking the feth out about everything all the time and running in circles.
Tons of us are not having a blast with 40k. Because we're actually humans with different personalities who do not necessarily agree on what kind of game we want, rather than emotionless clones, interlinked via a hive mind.
Las wrote: Tons of us are having a blast with 40k, we do this thing where we talk to our opponents and figure out what kind of game we want to play instead of freaking the feth out about everything all the time and running in circles.
Lol... There you go. Yeah, you can't treat 40k like starcraft.
Las wrote: Tons of us are having a blast with 40k, we do this thing where we talk to our opponents and figure out what kind of game we want to play instead of freaking the feth out about everything all the time and running in circles.
But this is the point, if it was a balanced game, you'd be able to just bring an army and play, as opposed to having a discussion beforehand about 'oh what expansions are we using? Super heaves allowed? Are we playing competitive lists, or fluffy?' Etc.
Or maybe the nature of the game is to be a huge tool box of options for you to play with or without?
Las wrote: Tons of us are having a blast with 40k, we do this thing where we talk to our opponents and figure out what kind of game we want to play instead of freaking the feth out about everything all the time and running in circles.
Tons of us are not having a blast with 40k. Because we're actually humans with different personalities who do not necessarily agree on what kind of game we want, rather than emotionless clones, interlinked via a hive mind.
I don't even know how to respond to this. You do understand how talking and like, societies work right?
What a refreshing view of things. I agree somewhat with the OP. Army selection does not have to be compeditive at all, but gameplay probably will be. Even compeditive players can hold back when making a steamroller list, and then have an honest challenge winning with a less then optimal list.
Often this makes for a fun game, instead of one that has an obvious outcome in turn 1. Everyone likes to win, but i personally prefer hard won victories.
Las wrote: Tons of us are having a blast with 40k, we do this thing where we talk to our opponents and figure out what kind of game we want to play instead of freaking the feth out about everything all the time and running in circles.
Tons of us are not having a blast with 40k. Because we're actually humans with different personalities who do not necessarily agree on what kind of game we want, rather than emotionless clones, interlinked via a hive mind.
I'm not even a pro-GW guy, but you cannot literally say anything good about 40k on dakka-general without getting slammed hah. If you humans cannot at least agree on what kind of game you want, you can hardly blame the system (40k). My group does still love 40k, despite it's flaws, and we also love Infinity; in both cases actual human communication is required however.
Gunzhard wrote: but you cannot literally say anything good about 40k on dakka-general without getting slammed hah.
Well, no, not when your only "contribution" is a self-congratulatory comment that does nothing but arrogantly deride anyone not enjoying the game from a position of smug self-superiority.
Gunzhard wrote: If you humans cannot at least agree on what kind of game you want, you can hardly blame the system (40k).
Why?
Why is it wrong for some to like Lords of War and some to dislike them? Or for some to like the idea of super-heavies and for others to dislike them?
Allowing all elements would be fine if the bloody game could actually balance them.
I'm not even a pro-GW guy, but you cannot literally say anything good about 40k on dakka-general without getting slammed hah. If you humans cannot at least agree on what kind of game you want, you can hardly blame the system (40k). My group does still love 40k, despite it's flaws, and we also love Infinity; in both cases actual human communication are required however.
Welcome to the internet Remember though, that the average player is very proud and close-minded when discussing "game balance" and what to do with it, and considers the opponent his enemy. "cutting a deal" like agreeing on anything beforehand or even suggesting "holding back for a more narrative game" will seriously hurt his honor and make him feel like less of a man. Braying like a maniac at the community is much more effective, and leaves the player both blameless and powerless to influence the game in any way other then making are more merciless list then last time.
Why is it wrong for some to like Lords of War and some to dislike them? Or for some to like the idea of super-heavies and for others to dislike them?
Allowing all elements would be fine if the bloody game could actually balance them.
That's the whole point, Magellan. There's something for everyone in the game, so use your social skills and play with people who have a similar attitude to your own, it's pretty sick. If this is that much of a hurdle to you then there's always Catan.
Why is it wrong for some to like Lords of War and some to dislike them? Or for some to like the idea of super-heavies and for others to dislike them?
Allowing all elements would be fine if the bloody game could actually balance them.
That's the whole point, Magellan. There's something for everyone in the game, so use your social skills and play with people who have a similar attitude to your own, it's pretty sick. If this is that much of a hurdle to you then there's always Catan.
Which as he said would be fine if they were balanced. That's the point. The game balance is horrible. No ones saying the idea of Titans and superheavies and such is objectively bad, just that they aren't balanced.
I don't think we really need a semantics argument to know what 'depth' means.
Oh, but we do. Otherwise I can do this.
"Warmachine's fluff is depthier. FACT."
See, I don't need to defend that, or create an argument to back up my claim, I can just put FACT at the end of it, then dodge any questions about what I mean by depthier, thereby proving my point.
Sure when you half-quote to take things out of context... but I guess "nothing is ridiculous" right Blacksails? What do they call the Black Library equivalent for Warmarchine?
Why is it wrong for some to like Lords of War and some to dislike them? Or for some to like the idea of super-heavies and for others to dislike them?
Allowing all elements would be fine if the bloody game could actually balance them.
That's the whole point, Magellan. There's something for everyone in the game, so use your social skills and play with people who have a similar attitude to your own, it's pretty sick. If this is that much of a hurdle to you then there's always Catan.
Which as he said would be fine if they were balanced. That's the point. The game balance is horrible. No ones saying the idea of Titans and superheavies and such is objectively bad, just that they aren't balanced.
I wouldn't entirely disagree with you here. There are some units that just don't fit with the game balance, like the Revenant Titan for example. But I don't believe in throwing out the baby with the bathwater because it's really not all that bad, and those rare hypothetical matchups are not enough to make me give up on the system. In all cases communication makes an enormous difference in enjoyment level. I get sometimes you're stuck with limited opponents, which is not an issue for me, but really talking it out, with any game, does help make it more enjoyable.
Is there any other thing in your life that you actively participate in screaming "I don't like this!" Instead of just stopping and moving on?
First of all, "don't use them" is hardly as easy as you say. If you show up to 40k night at your local store and want to play a pickup game you don't get veto power over your opponent's list. If you have a long list of conditions that have to be satisfied before you're willing to play you will quickly get a reputation for being "that guy" and most people will decide that it's not worth the trouble of making a special list just to play against you. Have fun sitting in the corner awkwardly wishing you could have a game.
Second, what makes you think that "if you don't like it then move on" is a valid argument? If I quit 40k because of issue X it doesn't mean that X is no longer a problem, or that I can't criticize X.
Is there any other thing in your life that you actively participate in screaming "I don't like this!" Instead of just stopping and moving on?
First of all, "don't use them" is hardly as easy as you say. If you show up to 40k night at your local store and want to play a pickup game you don't get veto power over your opponent's list. If you have a long list of conditions that have to be satisfied before you're willing to play you will quickly get a reputation for being "that guy" and most people will decide that it's not worth the trouble of making a special list just to play against you. Have fun sitting in the corner awkwardly wishing you could have a game.
Second, what makes you think that "if you don't like it then move on" is a valid argument? If I quit 40k because of issue X it doesn't mean that X is no longer a problem, or that I can't criticize X.
I don't like playing with super heavies and I make that known to my opponents. Every once in a while i can compromise and play against one, again it's all discussion. I have never had the above situation happen. Being an adult is pretty easy.
Las wrote: If that's how you feel then don't use them. Again use your bloody people skills. Or just don't play 40k if you straight up don't like it.
Is there any other thing in your life that you actively participate in screaming "I don't like this!" Instead of just stopping and moving on?
Ah,the GW advocate's "Learn To Play."
"You must hate this or love it, you are not allowed to hold mixed feelings, have a desire for improvement while still playing or enjoy some aspects and not others."
Yet another lightweight argument without any merit.
Las wrote: If that's how you feel then don't use them. Again use your bloody people skills. Or just don't play 40k if you straight up don't like it.
Is there any other thing in your life that you actively participate in screaming "I don't like this!" Instead of just stopping and moving on?
Ah,the GW advocate's "Learn To Play."
"You must hate this or love it, you are not allowed to hold mixed feelings, have a desire for improvement while still playing or enjoy some aspects and not others."
Yet another lightweight argument without any merit.
Pretty sure he never said anything about 'must love or hate'. And further I've never seen you say anything good about 40K, or for that matter, even let a positive comment regarding 40K go by unchecked.
You certainly are welcome to hate it though, or hold mix feelings, or desire improvement... but if you really do dislike the game, it would seem logical to just move on.
Las wrote: If that's how you feel then don't use them. Again use your bloody people skills. Or just don't play 40k if you straight up don't like it.
Is there any other thing in your life that you actively participate in screaming "I don't like this!" Instead of just stopping and moving on?
Ah,the GW advocate's "Learn To Play."
"You must hate this or love it, you are not allowed to hold mixed feelings, have a desire for improvement while still playing or enjoy some aspects and not others."
Yet another lightweight argument without any merit.
Says the guy throwing up a straw man. I have mixed feelings about 40k too, I'm sure everyone on this forum has issues with GW and 40k. Get real.
Gunzhard wrote: Who said there is anything wrong with that? ...I think the point was, take a minute to talk about it. So the likes can make nice with the dislikes.
I'm confused about how this will help.
Player A doesn't want to play against fliers.
Player B loves fliers and wants to use them.
What sort of agreement do you see them coming to, regarding fliers, which will satisfy both parties?
Well this is assuming only 2 players exist in your community? ...which I do realize is the case for some folks sadly. Why not play a game with and then another without? ...or agree not to use 3 helldrakes but instead just 1... I don't get the issue/problem(?).
What if you want to play Infinity and I don't? ...how can we satisfy both parties? This is less a game issue but more a people issue it seems to me.
tarnish wrote: What a refreshing view of things. I agree somewhat with the OP. Army selection does not have to be compeditive at all, but gameplay probably will be. Even compeditive players can hold back when making a steamroller list, and then have an honest challenge winning with a less then optimal list.
Often this makes for a fun game, instead of one that has an obvious outcome in turn 1. Everyone likes to win, but i personally prefer hard won victories.
In the same vein, the fluffy players should bring a better list so competitive gamers have more fun.
So, what conclusions can you draw from the fact that I'm still here?
That I, fundamentally, enjoy aspects of 40K while acknowledging it's problems and enjoying debating the whys and wherefores with people on the net perhaps?
What I struggle with is people who don't seem capable to have a reasonable discussion, and are so unquestioning in their devotion they seem to take anyone who makes any sort of critical noises as some personal affront.
Not you, Gunzhard, necessarily, but you have been playing that role quite admirably ITT.
Las wrote: If that's how you feel then don't use them. Again use your bloody people skills. Or just don't play 40k if you straight up don't like it.
Is there any other thing in your life that you actively participate in screaming "I don't like this!" Instead of just stopping and moving on?
Ah,the GW advocate's "Learn To Play."
"You must hate this or love it, you are not allowed to hold mixed feelings, have a desire for improvement while still playing or enjoy some aspects and not others."
Yet another lightweight argument without any merit.
Says the guy throwing up a straw man. I have mixed feelings about 40k too, I'm sure everyone on this forum has issues with GW and 40k. Get real.
No strawman, you literally said "if you don't like it, don't play it" which is the same thing we see time and again and falls so woefully short of acknowledging the nuances of the situation it's hilarious.
Las wrote: Tons of us are having a blast with 40k, we do this thing where we talk to our opponents and figure out what kind of game we want to play instead of freaking the feth out about everything all the time and running in circles.
And other games are balanced so that I don't have to talk to my opponent to figure out what kind of game I want to play, I can just start playing with minimal negotiations prior. I don't quite get why 40k people seem to think that having a discussion about the game you want to play before actually playing it is a good thing somehow. You should be having banter during the game, not negotiating a peace treaty prior to even playing just to make sure that both of you are going to have fun. Does this not come off as some kind of flaw with the game?
Gunzhard wrote: Who said there is anything wrong with that? ...I think the point was, take a minute to talk about it. So the likes can make nice with the dislikes.
I'm confused about how this will help.
Player A doesn't want to play against fliers.
dont have enough for 1500 w/o the heldrakes?
Las wrote: There's something for everyone in the game, so use your social skills and play with people who have a similar attitude to your own, it's pretty sick. If this is that much of a hurdle to you then there's always Catan.
I wonder what would happen, if a car company said this is our product we sell to you , now go fix it yourself to make it run.
What if you want to play Infinity and I don't? ...how can we satisfy both parties? This is less a game issue but more a people issue it seems to me.
Only those are two different games that require different terrain and different tables. And I would like to point out that fluff vs non fluff or casual vs non casual is a problem almost non existent in other systems. The only thing coming close to it is playing mangle metal and someone bringing gorshade to summon infantry in 15 pts games.
Las wrote: I don't like playing with super heavies and I make that known to my opponents. Every once in a while i can compromise and play against one, again it's all discussion. I have never had the above situation happen. Being an adult is pretty easy.
And what's your point? The fact that you can play fewer games of 40k and "solve" the problem by declining to play against anyone who doesn't agree with your opinion doesn't mean that there was no problem. Better games don't suffer from this need to negotiate and refuse to play against things you don't like. A better version of 40k would have superheavy rules that are balanced and don't create such polarized opinions, and there would be no need to negotiate about using them (just like you don't have to negotiate about whether you should be allowed to take tactical squads). The fact that GW either refused to do it this way or was unable to do it this way is a clear sign of incompetence, and everyone responsible should be fired.
Las wrote: There's something for everyone in the game, so use your social skills and play with people who have a similar attitude to your own, it's pretty sick. If this is that much of a hurdle to you then there's always Catan.
I wonder what would happen, if a car company said this is our product we sell to you , now go fix it yourself to make it run.
What if you want to play Infinity and I don't? ...how can we satisfy both parties? This is less a game issue but more a people issue it seems to me.
Only those are two different games that require different terrain and different tables. And I would like to point out that fluff vs non fluff or casual vs non casual is a problem almost non existent in other systems. The only thing coming close to it is playing mangle metal and someone bringing gorshade to summon infantry in 15 pts games.
It's more like if a company sold you a car and then told you you had to drive it yourself.
Las wrote: There's something for everyone in the game, so use your social skills and play with people who have a similar attitude to your own, it's pretty sick. If this is that much of a hurdle to you then there's always Catan.
I wonder what would happen, if a car company said this is our product we sell to you , now go fix it yourself to make it run.
There have been plenty of cars that you could fully customize.
What if you want to play Infinity and I don't? ...how can we satisfy both parties? This is less a game issue but more a people issue it seems to me.
Only those are two different games that require different terrain and different tables. And I would like to point out that fluff vs non fluff or casual vs non casual is a problem almost non existent in other systems. The only thing coming close to it is playing mangle metal and someone bringing gorshade to summon infantry in 15 pts games.
We have Infinity tournaments here, but I've never met anyone that A) knew all of the Infinity core rules (let alone the factions) or B) knew much about the Infinity fluff.
And you can absolutely play Infinity using the same terrain and a portion of a 40k table. If we are the only 2 gamers in the area I don't see how it's any different if you want to play Infinity and I don't - or if you want flyers in 40k and I don't ...you can talk it out, or don't play.
No, when to make the mission system work I have to house rule it to make it work at all or when to make gear or unit combination I have to use out of GWFAQ like the ETC rules pack, then am not "driving" am fixing stuff GW should have fixed.
Also peregrin, this may not be a problem for people in US or UK, but if here someone said he doesn't want to play with flyers 100% of nid armies would automaticly become illegal. If I told my friend to not bring NDKS, because they more or less give him a free turn 1 win against me , then he suddenly has an under 800+pts army and can't play normal games. The refuse to play against unit X, only works in places where people own and carry with them more then normal sized armies.
And you can absolutely play Infinity using the same terrain and a portion of a 40k table. If we are the only 2 gamers in the area I don't see how it's any different if you want to play Infinity and I don't - or if you want flyers in 40k and I don't ...you can talk it out, or don't play.
I don't know how your w40k tables look like, but even if one has over 25% terrain on the table, then in infinity it would be guy who goes first dies ARO turn one. Specialy if opponents has MSV2 or HMGs.
Las wrote: There's something for everyone in the game, so use your social skills and play with people who have a similar attitude to your own, it's pretty sick. If this is that much of a hurdle to you then there's always Catan.
I wonder what would happen, if a car company said this is our product we sell to you , now go fix it yourself to make it run.
What if you want to play Infinity and I don't? ...how can we satisfy both parties? This is less a game issue but more a people issue it seems to me.
Only those are two different games that require different terrain and different tables. And I would like to point out that fluff vs non fluff or casual vs non casual is a problem almost non existent in other systems. The only thing coming close to it is playing mangle metal and someone bringing gorshade to summon infantry in 15 pts games.
Well, aside from the fact that cars and board games are not good comparisons as you cannot die from bad rules, and that most cars have a utility purpose while most games are only for entertainment..... This is exactly what happens with cars. They are sold with shortcomings all the time, which companies do not fix until future model years. If it isn't a manufacturing defect, it won't be fixed even if it sucks. Likewise, GW will replace broken sprues and write errata.
Just like car companies, some cars are better than others; and some cars are better for some thing than others while being totally useless for other purposes -- like that shiny Ferrari when you need to move a couch. And you know what? When you drag race cars, it's not fair either. The guy with $3000 tires will probably win. Unless the cops come pr the guy runs into a street lamp
I remember trying a game of killteam back in 4th. I took goon squads of tactical marines, he took a fluffy killteam squad of unmodded genestealers. The game scaled perfectly for a gw game - i had no chance to win, and was just pushing models around and removing them while he played the game.
At some point you need to blame the game and not the player. 40k doesn't scale. Playing a large game or a small game is something you can do with any game, but 40k has the same glaring problems at any scale.
Just like car companies, some cars are better than others; and some cars are better for some thing than others while being totally useless for other purposes -- like that shiny Ferrari when you need to move a couch. And you know what? When you drag race cars, it's not fair either. The guy with $3000 tires will probably win. Unless the cops come pr the guy runs into a street lamp
First of all there is absolulty no card firm that adds their cars as having to be fixed when bought. Second even if not all cars are good for everything, then sports cars are for racing , transport cars are for transporting etc. Some are cheaper, some are better etc. W40k is bad for tournaments, because it creates an enviroment where top 16 are offten 50% of one army , and it is offten not a new army no one prepared. It is bad for casual games, because even if sit down and talk about fluff etc, and eldar or necron army will beat that 1ksons army 9/10 times. It is also a horrible B&P game, because it costs too much and takes too much time played, to be called that.
Talys wrote: This is exactly what happens with cars. They are sold with shortcomings all the time, which companies do not fix until future model years. If it isn't a manufacturing defect, it won't be fixed even if it sucks. Likewise, GW will replace broken sprues and write errata.
Yes, and you know what happens when a car company does that? We criticize them for it and say "don't buy this ". Only in 40k do we see this bizarre trend of people excusing poor quality and turning it into something to be proud about.
Just like car companies, some cars are better than others; and some cars are better for some thing than others while being totally useless for other purposes -- like that shiny Ferrari when you need to move a couch. And you know what? When you drag race cars, it's not fair either. The guy with $3000 tires will probably win. Unless the cops come pr the guy runs into a street lamp
This analogy fails because 40k isn't good at anything. The things that make the game bad for competitive play aren't the result of fine-tuning 40k to be the perfect casual/narrative/whatever game at the expense of competitive play, they're inexcusable game design failures that hurt the game no matter how you try to play it. 40k only "succeeds" as a non-competitive game because those players have a higher tolerance for house ruling away the worst of the problems, not because GW is helping to support that kind of environment.
Torga_DW wrote: I remember trying a game of killteam back in 4th. I took goon squads of tactical marines, he took a fluffy killteam squad of unmodded genestealers. The game scaled perfectly for a gw game - i had no chance to win, and was just pushing models around and removing them while he played the game.
At some point you need to blame the game and not the player. 40k doesn't scale. Playing a large game or a small game is something you can do with any game, but 40k has the same glaring problems at any scale.
I actually love Kill Team, I think it's one of the best ways to play 40K right now.
I think it is important to make a distinction between balance and bad choices though. I wasn't playing through 4th, so I've no way of knowing whether Genestealers were really that bad, so I'm not implying anything WRT your example specifically, but not every unit needs to be brilliant all of the time in every list at every points level, it is ok for a unit to need specific support to work well, it is not ok for a unit to be an auto take or made redundant by a flat out superior choice.
Las wrote: I don't like playing with super heavies and I make that known to my opponents. Every once in a while i can compromise and play against one, again it's all discussion. I have never had the above situation happen. Being an adult is pretty easy.
And what's your point? The fact that you can play fewer games of 40k and "solve" the problem by declining to play against anyone who doesn't agree with your opinion doesn't mean that there was no problem. Better games don't suffer from this need to negotiate and refuse to play against things you don't like. A better version of 40k would have superheavy rules that are balanced and don't create such polarized opinions, and there would be no need to negotiate about using them (just like you don't have to negotiate about whether you should be allowed to take tactical squads). The fact that GW either refused to do it this way or was unable to do it this way is a clear sign of incompetence, and everyone responsible should be fired.
You cannot compare tac squads to super heavies. Despite the hysteria over the fact their rules are in the BRB, the precedent of their being "an option" is crystal clear to people who don't swim in a sea of semantics. 40k is a whacky, kinda bloated space fantasy game where crazy gak happens and is a lot of fun for people who get what it is. You're yelling at an apple for not being an orange.
Torga_DW wrote: I remember trying a game of killteam back in 4th. I took goon squads of tactical marines, he took a fluffy killteam squad of unmodded genestealers. The game scaled perfectly for a gw game - i had no chance to win, and was just pushing models around and removing them while he played the game.
At some point you need to blame the game and not the player. 40k doesn't scale. Playing a large game or a small game is something you can do with any game, but 40k has the same glaring problems at any scale.
I actually love Kill Team, I think it's one of the best ways to play 40K right now.
I think it is important to make a distinction between balance and bad choices though. I wasn't playing through 4th, so I've no way of knowing whether Genestealers were really that bad, so I'm not implying anything WRT your example specifically, but not every unit needs to be brilliant all of the time in every list at every points level, it is ok for a unit to need specific support to work well, it is not ok for a unit to be an auto take or made redundant by a flat out superior choice.
At the time tactical goon squads were all i could field as a marine player. There was really no choice to be made, and since he didn't upgrade his kill team i didn't get any upgrades for my goons. Not that it would have made a difference. He just picked a unit that was good, and the game was over at that point (although we went through the motions of deploying, rolling dice, pushing models around, etc). A unit doesn't need to be brilliant, but having a decent chance to win for both players might be nice on occasion. When the game is broken straight from out of the box, thats not a problem with the players.
Las wrote: You cannot compare tac squads to super heavies.
Yes I can. They're both parts of the "standard" game according to GW. The fact that you (and a lot of other players) may have created your own house rules that put additional conditions on their use does not change this. In fact, by creating your own version of how to use superheavies you're conceding the argument: the game as published by GW sucks, and you have to fix it yourself.
Despite the hysteria over the fact their rules are in the BRB, the precedent of their being "an option" is crystal clear to people who don't swim in a sea of semantics.
Why should anyone care about "precedent" from previous editions of the game? This is like demanding that we use 5th edition wound allocation because it was crystal clear back then how it was supposed to work.
You're yelling at an apple for not being an orange.
No, I'm yelling at an apple for being rotten and full of worms. See my previous post: 40k doesn't suck for competitive play because it's great for other environments, it sucks for competitive play for the same reasons that it sucks for casual/narrative/whatever play. The only difference is that non-competitive players are more frequently willing to house rule away GW's failures and play their own version of 40k. But that doesn't erase GW's failure to support non-competitive play.
Talys wrote: This is exactly what happens with cars. They are sold with shortcomings all the time, which companies do not fix until future model years. If it isn't a manufacturing defect, it won't be fixed even if it sucks. Likewise, GW will replace broken sprues and write errata.
Yes, and you know what happens when a car company does that? We criticize them for it and say "don't buy this ". Only in 40k do we see this bizarre trend of people excusing poor quality and turning it into something to be proud about.
Just like car companies, some cars are better than others; and some cars are better for some thing than others while being totally useless for other purposes -- like that shiny Ferrari when you need to move a couch. And you know what? When you drag race cars, it's not fair either. The guy with $3000 tires will probably win. Unless the cops come pr the guy runs into a street lamp
This analogy fails because 40k isn't good at anything. The things that make the game bad for competitive play aren't the result of fine-tuning 40k to be the perfect casual/narrative/whatever game at the expense of competitive play, they're inexcusable game design failures that hurt the game no matter how you try to play it. 40k only "succeeds" as a non-competitive game because those players have a higher tolerance for house ruling away the worst of the problems, not because GW is helping to support that kind of environment.
And yet Lexus owners do not go on Chrysler forums bashing Chrysler cars endlessly, it say blanket statements like "Chryslers fail at everything". Anyhow, your assertion was to imagine if car companies treated a car like a gaming company with their game, which is what I was responding to.
I, for one, think 40k is more fun (as defined by my preference to spend MY time) a game than WMH, X-wing, it Malifaux. Like the OP and several other people here, the folks who don't want to talk to me about what kind of game they want to play -- I don't want to play any type of game with, anyhow, so list stacking is not a problem for me.
Las wrote: You cannot compare tac squads to super heavies.
Yes I can. They're both parts of the "standard" game according to GW. The fact that you (and a lot of other players) may have created your own house rules that put additional conditions on their use does not change this. In fact, by creating your own version of how to use superheavies you're conceding the argument: the game as published by GW sucks, and you have to fix it yourself.
Despite the hysteria over the fact their rules are in the BRB, the precedent of their being "an option" is crystal clear to people who don't swim in a sea of semantics.
Why should anyone care about "precedent" from previous editions of the game? This is like demanding that we use 5th edition wound allocation because it was crystal clear back then how it was supposed to work.
You're yelling at an apple for not being an orange.
No, I'm yelling at an apple for being rotten and full of worms. See my previous post: 40k doesn't suck for competitive play because it's great for other environments, it sucks for competitive play for the same reasons that it sucks for casual/narrative/whatever play. The only difference is that non-competitive players are more frequently willing to house rule away GW's failures and play their own version of 40k. But that doesn't erase GW's failure to support non-competitive play.
I don't give a damn about how the game is "meant to be played" because quite frankly that definition does not exist explicitly and varies from person to person. People have a great time with 40k, you're countering that by saying that doesn't matter because they're not playing in a way that is less fun for them? Who would do that? 40k is a game that can require prior discussion because of how huge of a game it is. Many of us are fine with that and even see it as a positive.
It's not a problem for you, but it is an inherent problem in the game due to bad design. Good for you that you have avoided the problem, but that doesn't mean the problem doesn't exist.
Talys wrote: This is exactly what happens with cars. They are sold with shortcomings all the time, which companies do not fix until future model years. .
But that's ok. If your new car brakes poorly in wet conditions, you can just have a discussion with the other drivers on your streets before you drive anywhere, so that they can make allowances for your car's difficiency.
Talys wrote: This is exactly what happens with cars. They are sold with shortcomings all the time, which companies do not fix until future model years. .
But that's ok. If your new car brakes poorly in wet conditions, you can just have a discussion with the other drivers on your streets before you drive anywhere, so that they can make allowances for your car's difficiency.
And this is exactly why playing 40K will kill you and your family, and possibly other (drivers?) players.
ImAGeek wrote: It's not a problem for you, but it is an inherent problem in the game due to bad design. Good for you that you have avoided the problem, but that doesn't mean the problem doesn't exist.
It's only a problem at your hypothetical gaming store where everyone's a complete dick and no one will play with you if you attempt conversation.
ImAGeek wrote: It's not a problem for you, but it is an inherent problem in the game due to bad design. Good for you that you have avoided the problem, but that doesn't mean the problem doesn't exist.
It's only a problem at your hypothetical gaming store where everyone's a complete dick and no one will play with you if you attempt conversation.
No, it's a problem in any situation where you have the choice of play a guy who has an army or unit you have a problem with or don't play at all because nobody else is available. Whether that's a quiet, rainy Wednesday afternoon with nobody else in the store, a club where an even number of players have turned up and all paired off or any other similar situation you wish to contrive.
Not everyone has the luxury of playing frequently in busy environments with copious opponents, sometimes one has to make do, and because of the issues within the game, that can result in a less than stellar gaming experience.
ImAGeek wrote: It's not a problem for you, but it is an inherent problem in the game due to bad design. Good for you that you have avoided the problem, but that doesn't mean the problem doesn't exist.
It's only a problem at your hypothetical gaming store where everyone's a complete dick and no one will play with you if you attempt conversation.
Yeah places like that ONLY exist hypothetically, there aren't people like that anywhere...
The fact of the matter is this. If the game was well designed, the problem wouldn't even exist, hypothetically or no.
ImAGeek wrote: It's not a problem for you, but it is an inherent problem in the game due to bad design. Good for you that you have avoided the problem, but that doesn't mean the problem doesn't exist.
It's only a problem at your hypothetical gaming store where everyone's a complete dick and no one will play with you if you attempt conversation.
Yeah places like that ONLY exist hypothetically, there aren't people like that anywhere...
The fact of the matter is this. If the game was well designed, the problem wouldn't even exist, hypothetically or no.
Well why the hell would you play those people in the first place?
Also, both you an azrael are missing the fact that thousands of 40k players don't even consider it to be a problem in the first place. It's just a thing that comes from having such a gigantic game.
Talys wrote: This is exactly what happens with cars. They are sold with shortcomings all the time, which companies do not fix until future model years. .
But that's ok. If your new car brakes poorly in wet conditions, you can just have a discussion with the other drivers on your streets before you drive anywhere, so that they can make allowances for your car's difficiency.
More likely, in our part of the world, you don't have snow tires, the roads are slippery, and you slide and get into an accident and hurt someone that is equipped properly for the weather. Could this be possibly any more off topic with 40k General Discussions?!
Hmmm. Ok, you have a bright red Corvette, so you turn around a corner and a Gargantuan Squiggoth Stomps you, just to prove that only Ork red wunz go fasta. Since you are on an open road, there is no cover save. You die instantly a horrible death. If you had just selected a librarian with invisibility for your transport, the Gargantuan Squiggoth would have instead crunched the Datsun.
See, now we have related cars and automobile safety to 40k.
Well why the hell would you play those people in the first place?
Also, both you an azrael are missing the fact that thousands of 40k players don't even consider it to be a problem in the first place. It's just a thing that comes from having such a gigantic game.
YES, thank you. If Joe is an ***hole, why would you play with Joe? Why would you say, "I want to play a fair game with Joe, even though he's an ***hole"? Isn't life way too short for that?!
Absolutely, there are jerks that frequent the several FLGS that I visit. I can spot them a mile away. There are also lots of really fun, interesting people that I'd like try gaming with; frankly, more than I will ever have time to. As part of an cognitive and social species, my first reaction to seeing a gaming opponent isn't, "HULK SMASH!".
I mean, I occasionally play hockey. My goal is not to hospitalize the other guy, y'know?
Well why the hell would you play those people in the first place?
Also, both you an azrael are missing the fact that thousands of 40k players don't even consider it to be a problem in the first place. It's just a thing that comes from having such a gigantic game.
YES, thank you. If Joe is an ***hole, why would you play with Joe? Why would you say, "I want to play a fair game with Joe, even though he's an ***hole"? Isn't life way too short for that?!
Absolutely, there are jerks that frequent the several FLGS that I visit. I can spot them a mile away. There are also lots of really fun, interesting people that I'd like try gaming with; frankly, more than I will ever have time to. As part of an cognitive and social species, my first reaction to seeing a gaming opponent isn't, "HULK SMASH!".
I mean, I occasionally play hockey. My goal is not to hospitalize the other guy, y'know?
Because joe and his friends hank, bob and william are the douchebags that frequent the club. If you want a game, you'll be playing one of them. Otherwise you won't be playing, period. And yes, it is better to not play - thats a big part of why i don't play.
ImAGeek wrote: It's not a problem for you, but it is an inherent problem in the game due to bad design. Good for you that you have avoided the problem, but that doesn't mean the problem doesn't exist.
It's only a problem at your hypothetical gaming store where everyone's a complete dick and no one will play with you if you attempt conversation.
Yeah places like that ONLY exist hypothetically, there aren't people like that anywhere...
The fact of the matter is this. If the game was well designed, the problem wouldn't even exist, hypothetically or no.
Well why the hell would you play those people in the first place?
Also, both you an azrael are missing the fact that thousands of 40k players don't even consider it to be a problem in the first place. It's just a thing that comes from having such a gigantic game.
Besides, as much as you're being dubious about a store where everyone plays like a complete cock, I'm equally dubious of your store where players line up to submit their lists for your approval until you find one you deign worthy to play against.
You're right that most of the time players rub along more or less ok, but the fact that this situation exists even hypothetically is demonstrative of a deeper issue with 40K that just doesn't exist in any game I'm aware of.
It's one thing to sell a flawed product when you're effectively the only option, as was the case 10 or 12 years ago, it's another to not address that issue when your competition are taking chunks out of you left right and centre.
I never said anything about submitting lists. You're being ridiculous. What I said was that talking with people about what kind of game we want to play works fine for me and that I've never had a problem with it.
Talys wrote: YES, thank you. If Joe is an ***hole, why would you play with Joe?
Why are you making the assumption that having strong opinions about how to play the game makes you a ? If I want to play with my superheavies and you want a game between 5th edition armies that doesn't mean either one of us is a . Nor does it make either of us a if we don't want to "negotiate" and play a game that doesn't include the (incompatible) things we want.
And yes, you can "solve" the problem by never playing a game with me, but the whole point here is that shouldn't be necessary. Better games don't require negotiation and compromise about what parts of the game you're going to include, you just say "hey, let's play a 1500 point game" and play. GW could make 40k that kind of game, they just lack the desire and/or ability to do so.
Las wrote: It's just a thing that comes from having such a gigantic game.
No, it's a thing that comes from having a poorly designed game. Other complex games don't have this problem.
And really, 40k isn't all that big. It has a ton of rules bloat, but very shallow strategy and most of its units/rules are subtle variations of a few standard archetypes. Contrast this with MTG, where there are far more individual "units" and interactions between those "units". And yet somehow WOTC manages to make a game with nowhere near 40k's level of division between "casual" and "competitive" players. Why? Because they don't accept "the game is too big" as an excuse for publishing garbage. The understand that a large game requires lots of playtesting and development work, and they invest the time and effort required to do it right. GW could do the same with 40k, but they're a bunch of incompetent morons who think that the best part of the hobby is buying more GW™ Products™.
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Las wrote: What I said was that talking with people about what kind of game we want to play works fine for me and that I've never had a problem with it.
And the point is that "what kind of game we want to play" should involve things like creating your own missions/characters, how much story you want to put into the game, etc. It should NOT involve things like what units you're allowed to bring or what house rules you need to use to fix GW's mistakes. There is absolutely no reason why you should have to negotiate about those things instead of just setting a point limit and being confident that any two lists you create will produce a fun and balanced game.
I think the whole thing is that talking it out with your opponent is okay but you shouldnt have to if the game in any way was balanced. Take 5th edition for example I meet up with my opponent and the only discussion that is needed is what points level we are playing, if he wants a type of competitive or casual game and what army is he playing. Its simple now in 7th are you taking any super heavies? Any allies? How about fortifictions?
It has seemed to me from the beginning that GW use the rules of their game to boost sales of their product. They want to sell as many models as possible, and this is a good way to make sure people invest in their product line as the game changes. It prevents people from ever finishing their collection. But I think the competitive players have allowed GW to take this to the absolute extreme- and both parties are at fault IMO.
Unfortunately, customers that want to play to win above all are the players that really drive this behavior. These are the players that will ditch their entire army as soon as a bad codex comes out or another army gets to the top of the mathhamer pile.
That's exactly what GW wants. Someone that will start from scratch and buy hundreds or thousands of dollars of new models with just a few scratches of GW's pen.
I think a lot of this hobby would be better if people played as if they were actually building an army that would fit with the universe. Just my opinion, here is why.
I have an elder player in my group, surprise surprise on elder btw, playing behind aegis defense lines. I don't know much about eldar, but it looks pretty stupid to have grav tanks sitting behind a wall with a bunch of stationary guardians just standing there.
And when people ask him about the nonsense he does, he will always use this form of logic.
"If ___ amy can have [insert some outrageous hypothetical rule or unit scenario] then my _____ can get way with having __"
That is just horse gak logic, justifying bad behavior with worse behavior and it ruins the game. Is it his fault GW wrote the rules that way? Nope. But its his fault for exploiting it at the expense of everyone else's good will and good time. There is such a thing in the world as discretion, an most people who have social skills use it. Unfrtuantely, the type of hobby we have does tend to lend itself to people who may have below average social skills, just simple fact.
I feel like it shouldn't be too much to ask that if I'm going to play your army, I should be able to know GENERALLY speaking what to expect. I shouldn't need to see your list and I sure as hell shouldn't need to know every possible rule modifications and combination that your codex could ever run to have an idea of what I'm going up against.
It just seems so much more enjoyable to me to have a fluff based collection of models, with a focus or theme I'm building towards than it does to constantly keep up with GW's latest decisions on how the game works just so you can WIN something.
In short, I agree with the OP that people tend to do a poor job of respecting the overall hobby and instead just trying to put together the most brutal list.
Yes, it seems more enjoyable to YOU. That doesn't mean everyone will get enjoyment the same way.
You can't blame people for playing to win and using broken units, or tactics that are counter to the fluff, or buying the new broken model. The badly written rules are what allows this, and if they enjoy playing that way, that's their prerogative. But if the rules were well written, again, things like that wouldn't crop up.
Stop blaming players for problems in the game just because they enjoy playing a different way to you. To quote various people in the thread so far, 'just don't play those people'.
True, but I can blame them for playing into GW's profiteering scheme and making this game less about playing out the story of 40k and more about an arms race who can spend the most money on their models.
Talys wrote: YES, thank you. If Joe is an ***hole, why would you play with Joe?
Why are you making the assumption that having strong opinions about how to play the game makes you a ? If I want to play with my superheavies and you want a game between 5th edition armies that doesn't mean either one of us is a . Nor does it make either of us a if we don't want to "negotiate" and play a game that doesn't include the (incompatible) things we want.
And yes, you can "solve" the problem by never playing a game with me, but the whole point here is that shouldn't be necessary. Better games don't require negotiation and compromise about what parts of the game you're going to include, you just say "hey, let's play a 1500 point game" and play. GW could make 40k that kind of game, they just lack the desire and/or ability to do so.
Geez, that's not what I'm saying at all, man. I'm saying if someone is a dick, regardless of what he game he plays, whether it's poker, 40k or WMH, I'm not going to play with him.
It doesn't matter if the person is "competitive" or whatever. If they won't even have a normal conversation, why should I waste my time playing a game with them, since I probably won't be entertained? If I want to play random games with random strangers, there are PC games with good matchmaking algorithms. If I'm playing with a real human across from me, I want to have at least some of the social aspects of that human contact.
Regarding superheavies: if I happen to be at an FLGS and I have some models with me to play (which I admit is super rare, but it does happen), and someone says, "Hey, you wanna play a 1500 point game?", I will probably respond, "Sure, I have some time. Whatcha got?" and progress from there. If they say, "I left my big models at home" or "My baneblade isn't painted yet" or "I just started, and I have are the Chaos guys from Dark Vengeance", I'm going to say, "no problem, I'll just take my Knight off my list".
If they say, "Six wave serpents and thirty fire dragons", I'll reply, "Thanks man, I'll pass -- I didn't really bring the right kind of models to play that kind of game and I'd get curb stomped."
See, that wouldn't be such a hard conversation, right?
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VanHallan wrote: True, but I can blame them for playing into GW's profiteering scheme and making this game less about playing out the story of 40k and more about an arms race who can spend the most money on their models.
I pity anyone who starts into a 40k or WHFB who is not prepared to spend THOUSANDS of dollars over a couple of years, because that's what you'll do if you love the game, love the hobby, and want the new stuff that gets released. And there is guaranteed to be new, cool stuff.
If you want to spend a couple hundred dollars and play a tabletop wargame, play something else. You will be happier, I guarantee it.
40k is not a pay to win game (like a TCG). It is, however, a universe in which the manufacturer clearly states that they produce miniatures for hobbyists, to which there is a game context. If you don't like the toy soldiers and fluff, there is zero point to the game context.
Talys wrote: If they won't even have a normal conversation, why should I waste my time playing a game with them, since I probably won't be entertained?
The point is that it isn't a normal conversation. Other games don't require it, and it is only necessary because GW sucks at writing good rules. The fact that the 40k community has not only accepted this requirement, but embraced it and declared anything else to be TFG behavior, is just sad.
See, that wouldn't be such a hard conversation, right?
Only because you left out the "what do we do about it" part that inevitably happens when you don't agree.
It is, however, a universe in which the manufacturer clearly states that they produce miniatures for hobbyists, to which there is a game context.
Which is blatant idiocy intended to keep the investors (most of which don't know anything about the game) from dumping their shares. It's an excuse for why their product sucks, put in terms that a non-gamer might be satisfied by, not a legitimate way to design a game.
Las wrote: I never said anything about submitting lists. You're being ridiculous. What I said was that talking with people about what kind of game we want to play works fine for me and that I've never had a problem with it.
No, you're right, you didn't.
You also failed to address the issue of what happens when the players aren't able to negotiate an amicable compromise. ("I've brought my IK list." "Oh, my army isn't really equipped to deal with that, I don't normally like to play against Superheavies" "ah, well, I live an hour away and these are the only models I have with me" *awkward silence*)
So I just filled in the gaps in your logic with an image that amused me.
VanHallan wrote: It has seemed to me from the beginning that GW use the rules of their game to boost sales of their product. They want to sell as many models as possible, and this is a good way to make sure people invest in their product line as the game changes. It prevents people from ever finishing their collection. But I think the competitive players have allowed GW to take this to the absolute extreme- and both parties are at fault IMO.
Unfortunately, customers that want to play to win above all are the players that really drive this behavior. These are the players that will ditch their entire army as soon as a bad codex comes out or another army gets to the top of the mathhamer pile.
This is not true, though it's easy to see why you might come to this conclusion. GW has stated time and again that they are a miniature company first, and a game company second. They make cool miniatures that are collectible, and they have multiple new releases pretty much every single week. It is pretty much impossible to buy, model, and paint everything that GW manufactures, even if you did nothing else with your life.
Therefore, you are correct in that collections will never be done, but this isn't an arms escalation where the new product is better than the old product; it's more often a collection issue, where if you like faction X, there is new stuff for faction X at least once a year, and more often than that if you factor in reasonable allies you might have on your army.
Do you HAVE to have the new units? Of course not. Are the new units sometimes really good. Yes! However, sometimes, they are not good, too -- this week, for example, it's Blood Angels tacticals, and people all say, "WHY?!" -- and yet, most blood angels players will buy at least one box (even though they don't need any more tacticals, tacticals relatively weak, and there is no compelling playing reason that you can't just use your old models).
VanHallan wrote: True, but I can blame them for playing into GW's profiteering scheme and making this game less about playing out the story of 40k and more about an arms race who can spend the most money on their models.
No, you can't, because casual players do the exact same thing.
In the Blood Angels rumor thread, a dozen people who already own tactical marines are losing their gak over the new BA-exclusive Tactical marine models, talking about how they're going to buy five boxes and they've already pre-ordered X amount, yadayada.
Do you think competitive players will be buying up those kits? No. Why? Because tactical marines are garbage. They're one of the worst troops choices in the game unless you're using them in a Salamanders drop-pod list (which in itself isn't even especially competitive), yet fluff-bunnies are gearing up to buy them anyway because they "look cool" or "they match my fluff".
Who's buying up the Dark Angels flyers? Casual players. Tau flyers? Casual players. Bullgryns? Warp Talons? Casual players. Chosen? Casual players. etc etc. All these crap units that no competitive player would be caught dead using because of their poor rules designs get gobbled up by fluff-bunnies, and that directly encourages GW to not give a gak about their rules. Casual players buying models completely irregardless of the competency of their game design is as directly responsible for the ass internal balance you so commonly see in codices as competitive players buying models specifically because of how good a model's rules are.
So it's silly to wag your finger at one group and not the other.
But the reality is that it shouldn't even matter. It's entirely Games Workshop's fault, because if they designed their game better, you wouldn't have this system in which a list comprised of cool, fluffy units gets demolished by a rock hard competitive list. If GW designed their game better, you would have a system where player A can design his list based off of units' rules while player B based his list off of fluff/themes, and the game wouldn't be particularly lopsided, coming down to player skill rather than list optimization. That is good game design, and as noted in this thread multiple times it's something that other hobbyist games manage to achieve despite having comparable or superior depth to 40K.
Talys wrote: If they won't even have a normal conversation, why should I waste my time playing a game with them, since I probably won't be entertained?
The point is that it isn't a normal conversation. Other games don't require it, and it is only necessary because GW sucks at writing good rules. The fact that the 40k community has not only accepted this requirement, but embraced it and declared anything else to be TFG behavior, is just sad.
Fair enough that you think so; I actually have pretty long conversations with people before I ever play with them. I enjoy socializing with human beings, and since my playtime is limited, I play with the people I find most enjoyable to play with =]
Only because you left out the "what do we do about it" part that inevitably happens when you don't agree.
What do you mean? I cited an exact example, of me saying, I'll pull my Knight. Or, that I'd pass on the game with the guy who has fire dragons and wave serpents.
Which is blatant idiocy intended to keep the investors (most of which don't know anything about the game) from dumping their shares. It's an excuse for why their product sucks, put in terms that a non-gamer might be satisfied by, not a legitimate way to design a game.
Investors is a whole other discussion (please, let's not go there in this thread, which has nothing to do with investors). I think that it's legitimate to recognize that some companies are miniatures first, game second; other companies are games first, miniatures second.
Choice is a good thing.
I spend 3-4 hours a day modelling (whatever I can squeeze out, after 10pm or so) -- that's about 100 hours a month; I spend about 7 hours twice a month playing games, or about 15 hours total gaming. I cherish both time blocks
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@BlaxicanX
I have bought most of the models you mention, and I have already preordered 2 boxes of BA tacticals -- not because they are competitive, or because I'm casual or whatever. I bought them because they are cool models, and I will probably rarely field any of them.
I probably won't even field the BA tacticals, because I intend for them to be 10+ hour paint jobs (each) and I don't want to damage the models.
VanHallan wrote: Right, they're a miniatures company that realizes if Genestealers are supreme units in one codex, people will buy lots of them. And then the next codex, if we make them worse, people will buy new models to fill the force org chart with something that fills the shoes of last editions gene stealers. You don't think GW does that with purpose?
I have bought most of the models you mention, and I have already preordered 2 boxes of BA tacticals -- not because they are competitive, or because I'm casual or whatever. I bought them because they are cool models, and I will probably rarely field any of them.
I probably won't even field the BA tacticals, because I intend for them to be 10+ hour paint jobs (each) and I don't want to damage the models.
Indeed. And you doing this encourages GW to not care about their rules. Why should they put effort into their rules when people will buy the models based off nothing more then their appearence?
I don't blame you for that, though. You're a customer, you have a right to buy models for any damn reason you like. The onus is on GW to make good rules, not you.
VanHallan wrote: Right, they're a miniatures company that realizes if Genestealers are supreme units in one codex, people will buy lots of them. And then the next codex, if we make them worse, people will buy new models to fill the force org chart with something that fills the shoes of last editions gene stealers. You don't think GW does that with purpose?
VanHallan wrote: Right, they're a miniatures company that realizes if Genestealers are supreme units in one codex, people will buy lots of them. And then the next codex, if we make them worse, people will buy new models to fill the force org chart with something that fills the shoes of last editions gene stealers. You don't think GW does that with purpose?
Nephilim.
I don't know what that means. Can you explain?
The Nephilim/Dark Talon was the big fancy expensive kit for Dark Angels when their codex came out and is also one of the worst units in the codex.
The same happened with the Tau's flyer
and Daemon's Burning Chariot of Tzeentch (which literally did not function rules wise)
All of the models listed above were brand new kits for those armies. If GW's plan is to nerf existing models and make the new units more viable you'd think they'd at least make those units playable. The fact that serveral new units were complete garbage competitively shows that GW is just inept at making rules.
Talys wrote: Fair enough that you think so; I actually have pretty long conversations with people before I ever play with them. I enjoy socializing with human beings, and since my playtime is limited, I play with the people I find most enjoyable to play with =]
There's a difference between socializing and negotiating what rules you're going to allow. Examples:
Socializing: "did you see the football game last night? No way {team} is going to the playoffs this year!"
Rule negotiation: "I think superheavies are overpowered, how do you want to remove yours from your army?"
Socializing: "wow, that's really well painted, how did you do that?"
Rule negotiation: "you brought too many Riptides, could you take some out?"
And really, if you like social gaming the last thing you want is pointless rule negotiation that takes away time that should be spent on more interesting conversations.
What do you mean? I cited an exact example, of me saying, I'll pull my Knight. Or, that I'd pass on the game with the guy who has fire dragons and wave serpents.
That's not solving the problem, it's avoiding it. If I want to use X and you don't want me to use X you don't have any easy solution, and one of us isn't going to be happy. Or neither of us will be happy because we don't play the game at all.
Investors is a whole other discussion (please, let's not go there in this thread, which has nothing to do with investors).
No, let's go there. Investors are entirely relevant when we're talking about GW saying stupid stuff to keep the investors happy. And that's what "we're a miniatures company" and "what our customers love most about games day is buying more GW™ Products™" are. Anyone who plays the games knows how stupid it is, but it's just plausible enough to a non-gamer shareholder that they might not declare GW a failure and dump their shares.
I think that it's legitimate to recognize that some companies are miniatures first, game second; other companies are games first, miniatures second.
And you know what those miniatures companies do? They don't publish rules. GW is using this as nothing more than an excuse for why they publish garbage.
Choice is a good thing.
Yeah, we really need choices between a good meal at a restaurant and a plate of moldy food with shards of broken glass in it. The point the "choice" argument ignores is that this isn't a choice between different preferences, it's a choice between a product and an alternative product that is superior in every way.
I spend 3-4 hours a day modelling (whatever I can squeeze out, after 10pm or so) -- that's about 100 hours a month; I spend about 7 hours twice a month playing games, or about 15 hours total gaming. I cherish both time blocks
What does this have to do with anything? Improving rule quality doesn't mean sacrificing model quality. It's not like the sculptors/mold designers/etc are writing the rules, they're two separate parts of the company.
VanHallan wrote: Right, they're a miniatures company that realizes if Genestealers are supreme units in one codex, people will buy lots of them. And then the next codex, if we make them worse, people will buy new models to fill the force org chart with something that fills the shoes of last editions gene stealers. You don't think GW does that with purpose?
Nephilim.
I don't know what that means. Can you explain?
The Nephilim/Dark Talon was the big fancy expensive kit for Dark Angels when their codex came out and is also one of the worst units in the codex.
The same happened with the Tau's flyer
and Daemon's Burning Chariot of Tzeentch (which literally did not function rules wise)
All of the models listed above were brand new kits for those armies. If GW's plan is to nerf existing models and make the new units more viable you'd think they'd at least make those units playable. The fact that serveral new units were complete garbage competitively shows that GW is just inept at making rules.
VanHallan wrote: Right, they're a miniatures company that realizes if Genestealers are supreme units in one codex, people will buy lots of them. And then the next codex, if we make them worse, people will buy new models to fill the force org chart with something that fills the shoes of last editions gene stealers. You don't think GW does that with purpose?
Nephilim.
I don't know what that means. Can you explain?
The Nephilim is a brand new unit. It's rules are utter garbage. Explain GW's policy there.
Hanlon's Razor; Don't attribute to malice what can adequately explained by stupidity.
GW is frankly too incompetent too have some manner of overarching scheme in place to buff or nerf units to control sales when they can't even get the base rule set to work properly.
^^ agreed.
Any of the "new" Nid heavies back this point up too.
WS3 all round, no frags, poor saves, little utility, mixed/undefined roles on the battlefield, generally overcosted, few biomorphs, lack of theme.....we could go on.....
I do believe GW has some good ideas with units (that they want to sell) but others are utterly bizarre. Makes one believe it is pure "rule of cool" :(
A company focused on miniatures will release miniatures, regardless of whether it's good or bad for the game. I'm ok with this, and frankly, I would buy a nice model even if it had no rules to play at all. I know many people aren't ok with that, and that's fine too.
I happen to be fine with GW rules, and like them better than other rules, even while recognizing that GW rules are flawed. You know what, I liked first edition AD&D rules too, knowing they were deeply flawed. I still play BattleTech, even though that has problems, and I like Axis & Allies, and many other games with goofy rules. They are still really fun games.
re: Investors. Look at the 5 year chart (GAW). The stock price is 535GBP today, the 52 week low is 470GBP, the 52 week high is 745 and the 5 years ago it was about 250GBP. Looking at long term trends, it steadily increased in value until 2013, when it dropped precipitously, then climbed up, and has gone up and down. It's ROE is 15.51%. P/E ratio is 14, net profit is 6.48%. Price/Cashflow of 8.55 is actually not bad, and they have some cash in the bank.
At 173M GBP market cap and 123M sales, without any fantastic growth or prospect for, it's not an exciting stock. You're not gonna retire on GAW. However, it's a far cry from distressed equity, and the value looks ok, or slightly under.
And guess what? Analyst recommendation as of Friday 5 Dec 2014? BUY.
The long term trends of every company is to steadily increase in value.
But shrinking by double digits YOY is terrible for a PLC with no plausible explanation, and am even bigger drop in profits is also a problem, albeit less so.
I do agree that this topic has been done to death though, and is massively OT.
A few more weeks and we'll have a whole load more info to chew on, but considering management have already declared performance this half is "broadly in line with expectations" I wouldn't get too excited, as that's the same phrase they used when they posted the last drop in profit and revenue.
Talys wrote: A company focused on miniatures will release miniatures, regardless of whether it's good or bad for the game.
This has nothing to do with the topic. The problem is not GW releasing miniatures that are inherently bad for the game, it's GW's rule authors being a bunch of incompetent morons. Nothing they've released is impossible to write good rules for, if GW had competent game designers and was willing to invest effort into making good rules.
{irrelevant numbers}
We already talked about this on some other thread, so if we could please forego the discussion on whether analysts care about 40k rules.
And you completely missed the point. My argument had nothing to do with the actual numbers involving GW's share price, it was about where the claims in question come from. The "we're a miniatures company, not a rules company" attitude comes primarily from GW's messages to its own shareholders. It isn't a sensible guiding principle for their rule authors to work by, it's propaganda whose sole purpose is to prevent complaints about the poor quality of the rules from damaging share prices. A shareholder might hear about all the forum complaints and wonder if the company is a good long-term investment, and that kind of statement is intended to let the shareholder dismiss the complaints as a noisy minority that has nothing to do with GW's "true" market.
Azreal13 wrote: The long term trends of every company is to steadily increase in value.
But shrinking by double digits YOY is terrible for a PLC with no plausible explanation, and am even bigger drop in profits is also a problem, albeit less so.
I do agree that this topic has been done to death though, and is massively OT.
A few more weeks and we'll have a whole load more info to chew on, but considering management have already declared performance this half is "broadly in line with expectations" I wouldn't get too excited, as that's the same phrase they used when they posted the last drop in profit and revenue.
As you say, soon, there will be threads unending on the next financials
So leave this poor thread to the endless back and forth about what's ruining 40k, or whether it's the crown jewel of gaming or moldy food. It gives me something to do while a hockey game which I have no interest in plays
@Peregrine -- those numbers may be irrelevant to you, but to the one professional analyst tasked with following GAW, it means, Buy.
Talys wrote: @Peregrine -- those numbers may be irrelevant to you, but to the one professional analyst tasked with following GAW, it means, Buy.
Sigh. Would you please read what I said before responding to it? I didn't say they're irrelevant in determining whether to buy or sell GW stock, I said they're irrelevant because share price has nothing to do with my argument. I don't care if GW stock is $1 per share and crashing or $1000000 per share and expected to increase, that's entirely separate from the question of where GW's "we're a model company" attitude comes from. And the answer is that it comes from GW's statements to their shareholders where, like any company, GW bends the truth to put the best possible spin on everything.
Talys wrote: @Peregrine -- those numbers may be irrelevant to you, but to the one professional analyst tasked with following GAW, it means, Buy.
Sigh. Would you please read what I said before responding to it? I didn't say they're irrelevant in determining whether to buy or sell GW stock, I said they're irrelevant because share price has nothing to do with my argument. I don't care if GW stock is $1 per share and crashing or $1000000 per share and expected to increase, that's entirely separate from the question of where GW's "we're a model company" attitude comes from. And the answer is that it comes from GW's statements to their shareholders where, like any company, GW bends the truth to put the best possible spin on everything.
Sure thing, but the original assertion (I thought it was you, if not, sorry) that I was responding to was that investors were fleeing. I agree that this has nothing to do at all with whether it's a model company, or whatever, and that GW, like every other company, bends the truth to put the best possible spin on the numbers. This just makes them a public company, not a good or bad one. This is also why I asked to drop the whole investor thing... also because it's massively OT.
I will point out that public companies have vastly different pressures than private ones, and this dramatically changes the focus and culture of a company. I was an executive in a company that went public, and from one month to the next, you could swear it was a whole different company.
The problem is they have no interest in who their customers are and why. They're like the techpriests of mars following an ancient diagram of a machine that used to work really well and now isn't working so well anymore. They've been applying the holy incense (price rises) and chanting the liturgy of quality, but without knowing what the problem is they're not likely to fix it.
If you ignore the non-core side of their business you'll see that its been flatlining for years now, with noticable drops when they do certain events (like row embargo combined with raising prices in america). So instead they claim that this is all part of the plan, instead of admitting that they don't have a clue and don't want one.
And encouraging their remaining customers to divide into factions and go after each other will only get them so far. Life in the imperium of kirby is brutal and short, and only the high lords get to reap the benefits. Competitive play is not what is ruining 40k.
Sir Arun wrote: Okay. We all know GW is at fault for not being able to produce codexes with perfect internal balance, where each unit is worth considering. But we all know blaming GW will get us nowhere. If we, as a community want to do our part in fixing 40k, aka actually changing stuff, we need to really change our mentality. Because if we dont start with ourselves, how can we expect our opponents to?
When I look at armylists, I realize 4 out of 5 times that people see it as an exercise of putting their grey cells to work in how to maximize damage while not exceeding the points value, rather than seeing it as a framework that allows you to bring some of your collection to the table and show off your modeling and painting progress to your friend you'll be playing against. People tend to forget 40k is a 2 person game, not a 3D equivalent of playing a video game where you develop the mentality of slaughtering all your enemies. Saying that in 40k, both players want to win isnt far from the truth. But more importantly, both players want to have fun. How many of us give thought to that when we spend hours modifying our armylists?
It seems only 3 out of 10 people play games of 40k as an opportunity to see each other's collection. It seems only 3 out of 10 people have "favorite units" in their army based on the way they look, or their background, rather than the amount of damage they inflict on the battlefield.
The reason why you see the same units over and over again in the meta is not (only) because GW sucks at writing balanced codexes, but because we as a community have done our part in powergaming. When we build lists, we think about what causes maximum distruction for its points rather than what unit looks cool/stylish/awesome lorewise and thus include it in our army. When a player starts a new army, he ends up getting advice of what units are must haves based on their battlefield performance rather than what units have the most aesthetically pleasing sculpts. And so, he ends up buying the former and does his part in creating the situation we have today. Advice like "one is none, two is one" subliminally influences people to spend their money more on acquiring an effective armylist than a varied collection. And then they act all surprised and get angry when their codex gets updated and good units become meh and meh units become good (case in point: the Dark Eldar update). We are the reason we see Riptides and Wraithknights, Tigurius and Centurions, Flyrants and Night Scythes instead of Sniper Drones and Harlequins, Cassius and Scout Bikers, Genestealers and Lychguard. We are part of the problem, and part of the reason why the battlefields of 40k dont get to see most of the variety of miniatures in the GW catalogue.
It's kinda like in a traffic jam - everyone hates how he is stuck in a traffic jam, views it as a foreign, blockading entity ruining his day, but doesnt realize he is part of the traffic jam.
Let's get this thread back on topic somewhat. Frankly, your argument has so many holes I don't even know where to begin. Any game with a winner and a loser is inherently competitive. Once you pass the point of kindergarten, playing a game with a winner and loser that you aren't trying to win seems a little ridiculous. I'm a competitive person at heart. I don't like to lose. I don't care if I'm playing beer pong or my team is playing for a national championship, losing sucks. With any other game, you don't have this great divide between players like me and players who just want to have fun. I also play WMH with a menoth "net list" and guess what? Nobody ever complains about my list. I'm not sure why a WAACTFG is decided by the list he brings rather than his actions during the game. This is something unique to 40k that stems from the incredible lack of balance.
To whoever said 40k "scales better than any other game", that argument is also ridiculous. They tried to take a skirmish based rule set and turn it into a mass battle rule set. They can't quite decide which one they want it to be. Things like the current wound allocation do not belong in a mass battle game. Things like a riptide do not belong in a 500 point game. 40k scales poorly as it cannot seem to choose whether it wants to be a skirmish game or a mass battle game. The rules bloat does not suit a huge game and the model imbalance does not suit a small game.
I do not see how blaming the players for wanting to win an inherently competitive game is going to get us anywhere. What we need to do is blame GW for writing rules with too much bloat, too much randomness and virtually no attempt at balance. Bloat prevents it from being a good mass battle game, imbalance prevents it from being a good skirmish game or good tournament game, randomness prevents it from being a good narrative game, price and complexity prevent it from being a good beer and pretzels game. Whatever you want 40k to be, it fails. It doesn't fail because of the players, it fails because of the incompetence of the people writing the rules. The "we make models, the rules are an afterthought" excuse doesn't hold a lot of weight when you must spend a minimum of over $100 just on rules. If the rules are so inconsequential, why are they so fething expensive?! Because, as peregrine stated, it is an excuse to the shareholders and gullible customers in case they happen to see everyone complaining online about how bad the rules are.
Veteran of The Long War wrote: Ill repeat what a friend once told me: GW fans are like a Hospital Ward full of battered housewives, still making excuses for their husband GW.
Exactly, I'm sure actual victims of domestic abuse would agree, when your toys are not exactly how you want them, it's just like getting beaten by your husband.
Veteran of The Long War wrote: Ill repeat what a friend once told me: GW fans are like a Hospital Ward full of battered housewives, still making excuses for their husband GW.
Or, there are people on the world with different opinions as you as to what makes a hobby and game exciting and fun to them. You never know.
Meh. What I wrote was stupid. Gunzhard makes a far better point than I.
Talys wrote: This is exactly what happens with cars. They are sold with shortcomings all the time, which companies do not fix until future model years. .
But that's ok. If your new car brakes poorly in wet conditions, you can just have a discussion with the other drivers on your streets before you drive anywhere, so that they can make allowances for your car's difficiency.
And this is exactly why playing 40K will kill you and your family, and possibly other (drivers?) players.
Hey, it wasn't my analogy...
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Veteran of The Long War wrote: Ill repeat what a friend once told me: GW fans are like a Hospital Ward full of battered housewives, still making excuses for their husband GW.
Does the insensitivity involved in comparing people who buy toys to victims of domestic abuse really need to be pointed out to you or your 'friend'?
Talys wrote: This is exactly what happens with cars. They are sold with shortcomings all the time, which companies do not fix until future model years. .
But that's ok. If your new car brakes poorly in wet conditions, you can just have a discussion with the other drivers on your streets before you drive anywhere, so that they can make allowances for your car's difficiency.
And this is exactly why playing 40K will kill you and your family, and possibly other (drivers?) players.
Hey, it wasn't my analogy...
Just to be clear, it wasn't mine either >.< I was responding to someone else's crazy analogy of toy soldiers and tabletop games to... how nobody would put up with cars if they were poorly made.
The problem here is that poor balance isn't just something that comes up when playing "jerks". It happens everywhere because you can have grossly imbalanced forces through no fault other than the fact the player wants to field a particular army type and the rules suck for that army. I don't know why this nonsense always gets trotted out that "just don't play with TFGs" because even if you don't, you still get screwed. This isn't a problem that goes away if you play other casual players, it's a problem that infests the entire game and, for whatever reason, constantly gets ignored by the people defending it as though it's some magical scenario that never occurs unless you play some cutthroat competitive TFG.
When I last wanted to play 40k I wanted to do an all Terminator army, because I loved the fluff for it and I thought it would be awesome to have a 1st Company strike force, the kind assembled for the most dangerous missions that require the best of the best. I even had reason in my fluff to include some Militarum Tempestus forces and even an Imperial Knight as allies, again the idea being these are elite units that would come together for some key mission.
Let's say I have my all Terminator army (with a few support units, like a Venerable Dreadnought and a gunship because they are cool), and I go to the shop and get a game against a fluffy Eldar player who plays Saim-Hann. Since he's Saim-Hann he has a ton of Jetbikes and everything is mobile because that's how Saim-Hann operates. While setting up the game, we forge a quick narrative about a strike force of elite Space Marines landing to occupy an objective that the Eldar control, while the Eldar try to repel them; we even talk about doing a small campaign if our schedules allow in the coming weeks to get in a few more games; the ideal situation for any GW gamer. Now, when we actually play the game he will, under virtually all circumstances, absolutely crush me in a game because Jetbikes are good and Terminators are bad under the rules of the game. We are both playing fluffy armies, neither of us are playing cutthroat competitive, but one army is vastly superior to the other for basically what amounts to no reason at all, just because it is.
What do you do in a situation like that? My opponent isn't a jerk, he's playing a fluffy army. It just happens that because the rules of the game are so unbalanced and bad, his fluffy army is much better than my fluffy army, because reasons. The fact something like that is even possible speaks volumes as to just how poor the rules for 40k is, because there should be trade offs. So my Terminator army is small but extremely durable, very hard to kill and hard-hitting when they strike back. His army is very fast but extremely fragile, so when I do hit him it's devastating. We should have an approximately (within a few percentages) equal chance of winning the game, with the winning factor ultimately coming down to whoever has the better tactics. 40k does nothing to ensure a situation like that.
That should be clear red flags that there are major flaws in the game. 40k's poor rules hurt the narrative players much more than the competitive ones - a competitive player usually doesn't care a lick about the fluff beyond the barest minimum possible and has no qualms taking whatever units are the best for their purposes. A narrative/casual/fluff player is going to get royally screwed because they are the guys MOST likely to pick units based on how they look or how they fit into the theme of the army, and not care about how they perform until it bites them in the ass by costing them games, at which point they usually say feth it and go back to just collecting figures for display, because who the hell wants to play a game that you lose because you picked units that you like and they aren't good because the rules suck?
Veteran of The Long War wrote: Ill repeat what a friend once told me: GW fans are like a Hospital Ward full of battered housewives, still making excuses for their husband GW.
Exactly, I'm sure actual victims of domestic abuse would agree, when your toys are not exactly how you want them, it's just like getting beaten by your husband.
I'm done here.
This. Considering there are very likely people on this board who have been affected by domestic abuse in some way, I'd stray from invoking it as an analogy for a model company.
Veteran of The Long War wrote: Ill repeat what a friend once told me: GW fans are like a Hospital Ward full of battered housewives, still making excuses for their husband GW.
Are you sure you've made that analogy offensive enough?
I think it's more an issue of priorities. To some, the good outweighs the bad in 40k. For me, the bad outweighs the good. My priorities are fun, fluffy and fair battles. GW doesn't give me fair and I need fair to have fun. I don't care if I lose, but I need to know that I can win. Too often in 40k I lost before the game started. That's not fun. And, for a long time the fluff battles kept me going, but then they added loyalists summoning demons, elite units outright sucking and basically punished fluffy players for playing. So, I lost my three priorities of the game. For some, their priorities are different. I don't think they're 'battered' foolish or stupid, I just think they have a very different idea of what makes a good game.
To the OP, I agree partially with what you´re saying. Players are a part of the problem whether they admit it or not, but the core lies at the rules.
Veteran of The Long War wrote: Ill repeat what a friend once told me: GW fans are like a Hospital Ward full of battered housewives, still making excuses for their husband GW.
<insert analogy of haters, a mental ward, acute depression & paranoia here>
It´s a shame really, some folk using so much of their time and effort on trying to spread the hate.
Just played 4 games of 40K over the weekend, hitting 70 matches of 7th this year. Had a an absolute blast.
Bad taste is bad taste. This forum doesn't exist in a vacuum. Some of us would like to discuss things without childishness. That includes dismissing with tired "white knight SWJ" deflections.
VanHallan wrote: Dudes, I think you should take the white knight armor off and relax a little bit. 0 women were harmed during the typing of that analogy. Get a grip.
No, I don't think we're going to 'relax' about jokes involving domestic violence. Regardless of whether anyone was 'harmed' by it, it was an offensive and insensitive thing to say.
So, the topic, eh?
Edit - No, seriously guys, the topic. The point has been made, and any further comments in that direction will be removed.
heartserenade wrote: Okay, the meat of what they're saying (without the weird comparisons) is:
1) In any other service/product, if the product/service is faulty they don't make the customers fix it themselves.
2) GW customers keep on defending GW in spite of GW not caring for their own customers.
Discuss.
There are tons of customer service horror stories out there about companies refusing to refund/deal with defective or inadequate merchandise. I certainly don't think that's limited to GW.
While GW does lots of things I don't like, I still get enough enjoyment out of their product/service/performance that I'm willing to give them my money. In that regard they aren't any different from Apple, Microsoft, Sean Connery, Metallica, General Motors, Wal-mart, or Lowe's.
If they've crossed the line for you, and you no longer wish to give them your financial support, that's okay. It's a personal boundary that's going to vary from individual to individual, and I'm not there yet.
I think we need to make a distinction here for the conversation to be productive.
40K is not faulty, it operates, in the main, as it is intended, while it may sometimes be difficult to figure out the intent behind certain rules and procedures, to the point where a judgment call is needed, I doubt there are very many games that literally stop because of a rules dispute and never resume (even if it comes down to the dreaded 4+)
An entirely more appropriate phrase, I feel, is "fit for purpose."
One could argue there is something inherently faulty about 40K, but I think the stronger argument is whether or not it measures up to it's customers needs and expectations, or how it is sold by the company in the first place.
It appears to me there is a massive disconnect between what the game devs are trying to create.
An open game 'sand box' where people who think and play exactly like they do can create cool and fun narrative games by 'making stuff up as they go along.'
And the way GW plc want to present the rules and games as a ' professionally developed to support random pick up games and organised competitive play.'
However, even as a game written for 'open narrative play, with lots of player co-operation.'The 40k rule set is still very over complicated and poorly defined.*
*As a rule set has a clearly defined function.(To instruct players how to play the game.)The 40k rules can be objectively compared to other rule sets in terms of clarity and brevity of the rules.
OK guys, i dont believe that competitive play is ruining 40K, I DO BELIEVE HOWEVER that people who waoc are the ones who are RUINING it. honestly i'm an extremely new player, and when i go to my LGS there isnt a single person there who says play with what you WANT, its play with this model or that model.... those will win you games, or USE THIS ARMY you'll win....
point is I DONT CARE ABOUT WINNING, i want both me and my opponent to be able to enjoy showcasing our models, and having fun with the game, i want to be able to laugh about my opponents bad luck... and be able to laugh when the tables turn and i'm having the bad luck.... nobody ever stays for after battle reports to talk the game over and see how hey went or how to better the list or army.
If we all decided to make a list based on fluff and casual play, AS WELL as competitive, then just before you play your opponent ask them "is this a competitive game or just for fun"
everybody wants to enjoy the game.. not be wiped out turn 3(or have one unit left)
and its not really GW fault, its the people who write/rewrite the codex's they dont take enough time for it. like take the DE codex... all they did was remove every single named character except urien, and Drazhar i believe, and urien is in a supplement, fluff is pretty much the same, a few models got moved around(changed battlefield role), and we lost the harlequins, if they're not doing so right now i believe they should take EVERY codex look at it deeply and begin looking at ways to balance the codexes or include more variety for all the codexes... not really fair when alot of armies have named special characters and we're going up with a generic HQ unit.....
asdrubeal vect124 wrote: OK guys, i dont believe that competitive play is ruining 40K, I DO BELIEVE HOWEVER that people who waoc are the ones who are RUINING it. honestly i'm an extremely new player, and when i go to my LGS there isnt a single person there who says play with what you WANT, its play with this model or that model.... those will win you games, or USE THIS ARMY you'll win....
I'm not seeing a problem with players here. I'm seeing a problem with a system whereby using the models you want to use greatly decreases your chance of winning.
That being said, a while ago I posted an IG list on Warseer and asked for advice. The response I got can be summed up as "units X, Y and Z" are the most broken right now - so scrap everything else and just spam those." Thanks for the help, I guess...
point is I DONT CARE ABOUT WINNING, i want both me and my opponent to be able to enjoy showcasing our models, and having fun with the game, i want to be able to laugh about my opponents bad luck... and be able to laugh when the tables turn and i'm having the bad luck.... nobody ever stays for after battle reports to talk the game over and see how hey went or how to better the list or army.
Ok, but 40k is a competitive game - wanting to win is not wrong.
Players should be able to use the models they want, and still have a good chance of winning.
If we all decided to make a list based on fluff and casual play, AS WELL as competitive, then just before you play your opponent ask them "is this a competitive game or just for fun"
everybody wants to enjoy the game.. not be wiped out turn 3(or have one unit left)
Sigh. As has been said before, this argument just doesn't work - because it assumes that any fluffy lists must also be uncompetitive. This is not the case. An Eldar list with a ton of Wave Serpents and Jetbikes is fluffy. So is a DE list with just wyches, Bloodbrides, Hellions and Succubi. But, whilst both of those lists are fluffy, they are not even remotely balanced against one another.
Furthermore, why should there be a difference between competitive and fluffy lists? To me, that's just awful game design.
and its not really GW fault, its the people who write/rewrite the codex's they dont take enough time for it. like take the DE codex... all they did was remove every single named character except urien, and Drazhar i believe, and urien is in a supplement, fluff is pretty much the same, a few models got moved around(changed battlefield role), and we lost the harlequins, if they're not doing so right now i believe they should take EVERY codex look at it deeply and begin looking at ways to balance the codexes or include more variety for all the codexes... not really fair when alot of armies have named special characters and we're going up with a generic HQ unit.....
Sorry, but it's not just the codices - it's the core rules as well. 5th had pretty solid core rules, with some unbalanced books. But, 7th is just a mess - it's a system that's trying to encompass everything, but utterly fails at it because it's so unfocussed.
asdrubeal vect124 wrote: and its not really GW fault, its the people who write/rewrite the codex's
That would be the development team, which is an internal team, meaning they are GW employees and thus are representing the company. So yes, as long as Kelly and the Crud (and others) are working at GW it is GWs fault.
then perhaps they need to STOP selling 40K for awhile and take a very very good look at their game... also because it allows us players a chance to catch up(those with no money) i think if they decided to do that, and only sell the current products they have, it will probably be good and they can tell current players AND new players that the 8th edition is getting a VERY serious look, and they WANT to keep us all playing.... i havent noticed any "broken" or OP units except maybe the Reavers in DE( i dont really play anything else) with cluster caltrops
I think people are always ready to quickly point out that they don't care about winning. However, I think when they start losing enough games consistently, this attitude starts to turn around.
asdrubeal vect124 wrote: and its not really GW fault, its the people who write/rewrite the codex's
That would be the development team, which is an internal team, meaning they are GW employees and thus are representing the company. So yes, as long as Kelly and the Crud (and others) are working at GW it is GWs fault.
oh my apologies then i'm wrong
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Accolade wrote: I think people are always ready to quickly point out that they don't care about winning. However, I think when they start losing enough games consistently, this attitude starts to turn around.
my win/loss/tie streak below
0/50/2
i'm still same attitude
Sir Arun wrote: Okay. We all know GW is at fault for not being able to produce codexes with perfect internal balance, where each unit is worth considering. But we all know blaming GW will get us nowhere. If we, as a community want to do our part in fixing 40k, aka actually changing stuff, we need to really change our mentality. Because if we dont start with ourselves, how can we expect our opponents to?
When I look at armylists, I realize 4 out of 5 times that people see it as an exercise of putting their grey cells to work in how to maximize damage while not exceeding the points value, rather than seeing it as a framework that allows you to bring some of your collection to the table and show off your modeling and painting progress to your friend you'll be playing against. People tend to forget 40k is a 2 person game, not a 3D equivalent of playing a video game where you develop the mentality of slaughtering all your enemies. Saying that in 40k, both players want to win isnt far from the truth. But more importantly, both players want to have fun. How many of us give thought to that when we spend hours modifying our armylists?
It seems only 3 out of 10 people play games of 40k as an opportunity to see each other's collection. It seems only 3 out of 10 people have "favorite units" in their army based on the way they look, or their background, rather than the amount of damage they inflict on the battlefield.
The reason why you see the same units over and over again in the meta is not (only) because GW sucks at writing balanced codexes, but because we as a community have done our part in powergaming. When we build lists, we think about what causes maximum distruction for its points rather than what unit looks cool/stylish/awesome lorewise and thus include it in our army. When a player starts a new army, he ends up getting advice of what units are must haves based on their battlefield performance rather than what units have the most aesthetically pleasing sculpts. And so, he ends up buying the former and does his part in creating the situation we have today. Advice like "one is none, two is one" subliminally influences people to spend their money more on acquiring an effective armylist than a varied collection. And then they act all surprised and get angry when their codex gets updated and good units become meh and meh units become good (case in point: the Dark Eldar update). We are the reason we see Riptides and Wraithknights, Tigurius and Centurions, Flyrants and Night Scythes instead of Sniper Drones and Harlequins, Cassius and Scout Bikers, Genestealers and Lychguard. We are part of the problem, and part of the reason why the battlefields of 40k dont get to see most of the variety of miniatures in the GW catalogue.
It's kinda like in a traffic jam - everyone hates how he is stuck in a traffic jam, views it as a foreign, blockading entity ruining his day, but doesnt realize he is part of the traffic jam.
Whats awesome is how this title of this thread was probably first used before 95% of the players were even born.
Accolade wrote: I think people are always ready to quickly point out that they don't care about winning. However, I think when they start losing enough games consistently, this attitude starts to turn around.
Not necessarily. I think it depends on the maturity of the player. I have to admit that in my late teens and early 20s I was pretty WAAC. Now that I am in my 30s I attach more importance to having a good time with people I like.
So alltogether I have to agree to the OP, the problem is partly in the people. This place here is a bad place to discuss this, though, since an internet forum about a game will have a higher-than-average rate of players who like competitive play - those who rather enjoy sitting together are less likely to post in forums about it.
Sure man. People that want to win in stuff they spend tons of cash on are just not mature enough. Am sure all those people playing sports are playing to lose , because all we mature people know that wining or even wanting to win is bad.
Whats awesome is how this title of this thread was probably first used before 95% of the players were even born.
I doubt it. I seen Andy Chambers talk about the "new" 2ed chaos turning out the way it did, because he wanted chaos to be more streamlined for tournament too. This means at least in 2ed w40k was played the way it is played now. In RT it was based on RPG stats, but I can hardly imagine people played to lose back then.
asdrubeal vect124 wrote: and its not really GW fault, its the people who write/rewrite the codex's
That would be the development team, which is an internal team, meaning they are GW employees and thus are representing the company. So yes, as long as Kelly and the Crud (and others) are working at GW it is GWs fault.
oh my apologies then i'm wrong
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Accolade wrote: I think people are always ready to quickly point out that they don't care about winning. However, I think when they start losing enough games consistently, this attitude starts to turn around.
my win/loss/tie streak below
0/50/2
i'm still same attitude
In order to have fun, I need a good chance at winning. 40k doesn't give that to me as often as I'd like. If I wanted to just show off my models, I'd post pics in the gallery section.
I want a fair game. That's not too much to ask for. And since fair games are rare because GW can't be bothered to balance their codexes. Though they have gotten a little better, there is still horrible internal balance. Auto-takes and auto-leave on shelfs are evidence of poor writing.
In order to have fun, I need a good chance at winning. 40k doesn't give that to me as often as I'd like. If I wanted to just show off my models, I'd post pics in the gallery section.
I want a fair game. That's not too much to ask for. And since fair games are rare because GW can't be bothered to balance their codexes. Though they have gotten a little better, there is still horrible internal balance. Auto-takes and auto-leave on shelfs are evidence of poor writing.
Well said.
I think it's the difference between losing a hard-fought battle, and losing because you brought rock and your opponent brought paper.
In order to have fun, I need a good chance at winning. 40k doesn't give that to me as often as I'd like. If I wanted to just show off my models, I'd post pics in the gallery section.
I want a fair game. That's not too much to ask for. And since fair games are rare because GW can't be bothered to balance their codexes. Though they have gotten a little better, there is still horrible internal balance. Auto-takes and auto-leave on shelfs are evidence of poor writing.
Well said.
I think it's the difference between losing a hard-fought battle, and losing because you brought rock and your opponent brought paper.
so your saying that because you can afford to buy those models and your opponent can't its fair that you smash them into the ground?
or are you saying that if they can't afford the models your going to change your list so that its fair?
from what i understand of what your saying. its that you dont care what your opponent has, just so long as you bring your most competitive army list and are merciless???
correct me if i'm wrong
"Competitive play" isn't hurting 40k any. Overly competitive players, WAAC with poor attitude, and bad sports in general are hurting the community.
Any game can suffer from "try-hards, elitists, uber competitive" players. I have played competitive MtG, raiding/pvp in wow, competitive esports (way back like 8-10 years ago), among other things. The thing that any competitive environment has in common is that you have people who will take it too seriously, only care about winning, and develop elitist condescending and rude attitudes. Some people just enjoy a competitive environment, and that's fine. When people take it too far, that's when it drains the fun of others around them. I've seen this in all kinds of games, independent of their balance. These things don't hurt the actual game any, but they do hurt the community. People stop enjoying themselves, stop playing, find other groups, or even develop poor attitudes towards the game themselves.
If I play in a competitive environment, and set up against some uber spam list, against a well spirited opponent, I will still have fun. Playing in a casual environment against a not as optimized list where my opponent is overly competitive or just a poor sport is no fun, even if his list would normally be enjoyable to play.
Yes there are balance issues, and many others, for GW to fix in 40k. But there will always be competitive play, there will always be donkey caves, and this is a separate issue.
In order to have fun, I need a good chance at winning. 40k doesn't give that to me as often as I'd like. If I wanted to just show off my models, I'd post pics in the gallery section.
I want a fair game. That's not too much to ask for. And since fair games are rare because GW can't be bothered to balance their codexes. Though they have gotten a little better, there is still horrible internal balance. Auto-takes and auto-leave on shelfs are evidence of poor writing.
Well said.
I think it's the difference between losing a hard-fought battle, and losing because you brought rock and your opponent brought paper.
so your saying that because you can afford to buy those models and your opponent can't its fair that you smash them into the ground?
or are you saying that if they can't afford the models your going to change your list so that its fair?
from what i understand of what your saying. its that you dont care what your opponent has, just so long as you bring your most competitive army list and are merciless???
correct me if i'm wrong
You're wrong.
I'm not even sure how you got that out of what we said. All we said was that we want fair and close battles. As long as we get that, we don't care who wins. No one mentioned affording models, smashing opponents or merciless competitiveness. (Seriously, how did you get that out of it?) It's not about the competition. It's about having an even chance of winning. (barring player skill) No one should lose because they play ___ army or brought ___ units.
I think its sad that 40k players don't understand the concept of fair games. They're so used to paper rock scissors that they confuse fair with WAAC power gaming.
or are you saying that if they can't afford the models your going to change your list so that its fair?
I'm saying people shouldn't *have* to change their lists, just because GW sucks at balance. Nor should people need to by the newest models just to stay competitive.
from what i understand of what your saying. its that you dont care what your opponent has, just so long as you bring your most competitive army list and are merciless???
Are you sure you quoted the right person?
I'm saying that it shouldn't matter what I bring or what my opponent brings. If we both bring 1500pt lists, then those lists should be reasonably balanced - that's the entire point of having point costs in the first place. I'm saying that if one person starts off with a big disadvantage before the game has even begun - because of the list he's using - then that is a serious problem with the game.
I'm saying that I don't mind losing, as long as I had a reasonable chance of winning. When I play, I want to feel that I won or lost because of the choices I made during the game - not because my list was stronger than my opponent's or anything like that.
or are you saying that if they can't afford the models your going to change your list so that its fair?
I'm saying people shouldn't *have* to change their lists, just because GW sucks at balance. Nor should people need to by the newest models just to stay competitive.
from what i understand of what your saying. its that you dont care what your opponent has, just so long as you bring your most competitive army list and are merciless???
Are you sure you quoted the right person?
I'm saying that it shouldn't matter what I bring or what my opponent brings. If we both bring 1500pt lists, then those lists should be reasonably balanced - that's the entire point of having point costs in the first place. I'm saying that if one person starts off with a big disadvantage before the game has even begun - because of the list he's using - then that is a serious problem with the game.
I'm saying that I don't mind losing, as long as I had a reasonable chance of winning. When I play, I want to feel that I won or lost because of the choices I made during the game - not because my list was stronger than my opponent's or anything like that.
ok i apologize for the misunderstanding, BUT, if your opponent isn't as skilled at playing as you, or as competitive then he/she isnt going to be looking for specific choices or be hyper critical about his/her choices during the game, in other words... i think a game between somebody who is a casual gamer VS a competitive gamer, is just as unbalanced as GK VS Chaos demons
asdrubeal vect124 wrote: OK guys, i dont believe that competitive play is ruining 40K, I DO BELIEVE HOWEVER that people who waoc are the ones who are RUINING it. honestly i'm an extremely new player, and when i go to my LGS there isnt a single person there who says play with what you WANT, its play with this model or that model.... those will win you games, or USE THIS ARMY you'll win....
point is I DONT CARE ABOUT WINNING, i want both me and my opponent to be able to enjoy showcasing our models, and having fun with the game, i want to be able to laugh about my opponents bad luck... and be able to laugh when the tables turn and i'm having the bad luck.... nobody ever stays for after battle reports to talk the game over and see how hey went or how to better the list or army.
You might not care about winning, but wouldn't you get burned out if you ALWAYS lost? Who wants to always lose because they want to play something that fits their fluff or what they think is cool, and it sucks in the game.
If we all decided to make a list based on fluff and casual play, AS WELL as competitive, then just before you play your opponent ask them "is this a competitive game or just for fun"
everybody wants to enjoy the game.. not be wiped out turn 3(or have one unit left)
and its not really GW fault, its the people who write/rewrite the codex's they dont take enough time for it. like take the DE codex... all they did was remove every single named character except urien, and Drazhar i believe, and urien is in a supplement, fluff is pretty much the same, a few models got moved around(changed battlefield role), and we lost the harlequins, if they're not doing so right now i believe they should take EVERY codex look at it deeply and begin looking at ways to balance the codexes or include more variety for all the codexes... not really fair when alot of armies have named special characters and we're going up with a generic HQ unit.....
ok thats my rant have a nice day
It definitely is GW's fault, because they should still be caring about balance. They shouldn't do stupid things like look and see that everyone is playing a Captain or Chaplain and not a Librarian, so buff the Librarian and nerf the Chaplain, because they haven't in 20 years gotten it through their head that they are designing a game for OTHERS, not a game for themselves. The fact that they play like utter trash or purposely gimp themselves to make a battle report less one sided (which is something they admitted to doing in the past) doesn't mean everyone else does it. Their responsibility is to create a balanced set of rules that everyone can use, from cutthroat tournament players who perfect their gameplay to collectors who bring their models out once a month to narrative gamers who play campaigns to create short stories of their characters.
ok i apologize for the misunderstanding, BUT, if your opponent isn't as skilled at playing as you, or as competitive then he/she isnt going to be looking for specific choices or be hyper critical about his/her choices during the game, in other words... i think a game between somebody who is a casual gamer VS a competitive gamer, is just as unbalanced as GK VS Chaos demons
The difference is, a casual player can improve by learning new tactics and such - but a bad unit will remain bad until a new edition/codex (and many don't get improved even then).
asdrubeal vect124 wrote: OK guys, i dont believe that competitive play is ruining 40K, I DO BELIEVE HOWEVER that people who waoc are the ones who are RUINING it. honestly i'm an extremely new player, and when i go to my LGS there isnt a single person there who says play with what you WANT, its play with this model or that model.... those will win you games, or USE THIS ARMY you'll win....
point is I DONT CARE ABOUT WINNING, i want both me and my opponent to be able to enjoy showcasing our models, and having fun with the game, i want to be able to laugh about my opponents bad luck... and be able to laugh when the tables turn and i'm having the bad luck.... nobody ever stays for after battle reports to talk the game over and see how hey went or how to better the list or army.
You might not care about winning, but wouldn't you get burned out if you ALWAYS lost? Who wants to always lose because they want to play something that fits their fluff or what they think is cool, and it sucks in the game.
i understand that, but as i've gotten used to losing, i dont entirely bother with compeititve list making anymore, i make the lists to suit me and only me, which is very pleasing for me, and didnt you look up to see my post of my W/L/T ?? i havent won a single game since playing W40K but i still LOVE it for the models, the painting and just straight-up talking to players who ENJOY the game excluding the tournaments
If we all decided to make a list based on fluff and casual play, AS WELL as competitive, then just before you play your opponent ask them "is this a competitive game or just for fun"
everybody wants to enjoy the game.. not be wiped out turn 3(or have one unit left)
and its not really GW fault, its the people who write/rewrite the codex's they dont take enough time for it. like take the DE codex... all they did was remove every single named character except urien, and Drazhar i believe, and urien is in a supplement, fluff is pretty much the same, a few models got moved around(changed battlefield role), and we lost the harlequins, if they're not doing so right now i believe they should take EVERY codex look at it deeply and begin looking at ways to balance the codexes or include more variety for all the codexes... not really fair when alot of armies have named special characters and we're going up with a generic HQ unit.....
ok thats my rant have a nice day
It definitely is GW's fault, because they should still be caring about balance. They shouldn't do stupid things like look and see that everyone is playing a Captain or Chaplain and not a Librarian, so buff the Librarian and nerf the Chaplain, because they haven't in 20 years gotten it through their head that they are designing a game for OTHERS, not a game for themselves. The fact that they play like utter trash or purposely gimp themselves to make a battle report less one sided (which is something they admitted to doing in the past) doesn't mean everyone else does it. Their responsibility is to create a balanced set of rules that everyone can use, from cutthroat tournament players who perfect their gameplay to collectors who bring their models out once a month to narrative gamers who play campaigns to create short stories of their characters.
^-----------------------------------------^
you have it exactly right there, where it should be balanced from tourny players to collectors who take their models out once a month BUT couldn't GW take players from the world and ask them to come in and "edit" the codexes to be more balanced???
you have it exactly right there, where it should be balanced from tourny players to collectors who take their models out once a month BUT couldn't GW take players from the world and ask them to come in and "edit" the codexes to be more balanced???
No, because that would require them to leave their happy bubble of complete denial.
ok i apologize for the misunderstanding, BUT, if your opponent isn't as skilled at playing as you, or as competitive then he/she isnt going to be looking for specific choices or be hyper critical about his/her choices during the game, in other words... i think a game between somebody who is a casual gamer VS a competitive gamer, is just as unbalanced as GK VS Chaos demons
The difference is, a casual player can improve by learning new tactics and such - but a bad unit will remain bad until a new edition/codex (and many don't get improved even then).
not if they dont have a chance to get to the point of LEARNING the tactics... but yeah a bad unit will remain bad until a new edition comes out OR a house rule is made for that unit...(happend ONCE xD )
i cant really say much new except that GW has to actually take a look at what they've gone and done with the game... i first got in at 6th edition and the rules seemed confusing, now i'm having to learn 7th edition which has a bunch of new rules which i'll not have a chance to actually use because they dont feel like updating anything from my codex... but they think it's completely fair to remove like 8 special characters, and nerf a bunch of the weapons @_@
you have it exactly right there, where it should be balanced from tourny players to collectors who take their models out once a month BUT couldn't GW take players from the world and ask them to come in and "edit" the codexes to be more balanced???
No, because that would require them to leave their happy bubble of complete denial.
Exactly this. GW has this idea that everything they do is great, and if you don't like it then you aren't the kind of customer they want. It goes hand in hand with them proudly saying that market research isn't something that's needed in a niche market, when it's actually needed MORE because you don't reach as many customers in a niche market.
asdrubeal vect124 wrote: ok i apologize for the misunderstanding, BUT, if your opponent isn't as skilled at playing as you, or as competitive then he/she isnt going to be looking for specific choices or be hyper critical about his/her choices during the game, in other words... i think a game between somebody who is a casual gamer VS a competitive gamer, is just as unbalanced as GK VS Chaos demons
And this is different from other games how? In any game that involves skill level, matching up an experienced/competitive player versus a novice/casual player can result in a lopsided match. This is what you'd expect from a fair game. The imbalances in 40k actually tend to make this worse by making it so easy (and expensive) to screw up the first very step of the game - selecting and purchasing the models for your army.
Yes, they could. Will they? No! They have stated time after time that the purpose of the rules is to sell more models, period. They don't care about balance. They don't care about fluffy bunnies being able to play with GT lists. This is why they nerf some things and buff others every edition. It isn't based on in game effectiveness, it's based on which models aren't selling. As long as they make rules to sell models instead of making rules to have a balanced game, we are going to have this problem.
To some people complaining about rock, paper, scissors in 40k, that is balance. That's basically how WMH works. 40k is NOT rock paper scissors balance. 40k is "are you bringing a gun or a slingshot?" That's how widely things vary in power. There are some units that are bad against everything and some units that are great against everything, often for similar point cost to the awful units. I would be happy to have RPS style balance in 40k, it's better than what we have right now.
but then couldnt it be reverse psychology because they think we could go buy EVERY model, then if a model gets nerfed and another gets better then we can just switch them out...... doesnt make sense...... RAGE!!!!! BURN GWTO THE GROUND XD jk jk jk jk
asdrubeal vect124 wrote: but then couldnt it be reverse psychology because they think we could go buy EVERY model, then if a model gets nerfed and another gets better then we can just switch them out...... doesnt make sense...... RAGE!!!!! BURN GWTO THE GROUND XD jk jk jk jk
asdrubeal vect124 wrote: but then couldnt it be reverse psychology because they think we could go buy EVERY model, then if a model gets nerfed and another gets better then we can just switch them out...... doesnt make sense...... RAGE!!!!! BURN GWTO THE GROUND XD jk jk jk jk
That was a meaningful contribution.
well i was being serious about them thinking we'll just buy every model, so if it gets nerfed we'll switch it out... no need to be sarcastic
When you cut through the nonsensical way he phrased that, I believe he meant GW intentionally nerfs/buffs things to invalidate your army list and force you to buy a new army when the codex gets updated even if you aren't switching factions. I'm not sure how that's reverse psychology but I believe that's exactly what GW wants you to do. Their own business decisions caused their customer base to shrink which also flooded the secondary market with armies. They're now trying to punish the remaining customers for their own bad business decisions in the past by squeezing them for every penny they can get.
Toofast wrote: When you cut through the nonsensical way he phrased that, I believe he meant GW intentionally nerfs/buffs things to invalidate your army list and force you to buy a new army when the codex gets updated even if you aren't switching factions. I'm not sure how that's reverse psychology but I believe that's exactly what GW wants you to do. Their own business decisions caused their customer base to shrink which also flooded the secondary market with armies. They're now trying to punish the remaining customers for their own bad business decisions in the past by squeezing them for every penny they can get.
Except there's as many examples of new models being very underwhelming too. Never attribute to malice what could be down to stupidity I feel very much applies to GW.
Toofast wrote: When you cut through the nonsensical way he phrased that, I believe he meant GW intentionally nerfs/buffs things to invalidate your army list and force you to buy a new army when the codex gets updated even if you aren't switching factions. I'm not sure how that's reverse psychology but I believe that's exactly what GW wants you to do. Their own business decisions caused their customer base to shrink which also flooded the secondary market with armies. They're now trying to punish the remaining customers for their own bad business decisions in the past by squeezing them for every penny they can get.
It's mostly just not testing in meaningful ways, I think, since new things can suck just as much as old ones, but I do think that they deliberately shift things around from time to time. Just they aren't good at it.
Toofast wrote: When you cut through the nonsensical way he phrased that, I believe he meant GW intentionally nerfs/buffs things to invalidate your army list and force you to buy a new army when the codex gets updated even if you aren't switching factions. I'm not sure how that's reverse psychology but I believe that's exactly what GW wants you to do. Their own business decisions caused their customer base to shrink which also flooded the secondary market with armies. They're now trying to punish the remaining customers for their own bad business decisions in the past by squeezing them for every penny they can get.
It's mostly just not testing in meaningful ways, I think, since new things can suck just as much as old ones, but I do think that they deliberately shift things around from time to time. Just they aren't good at it.
They don't understand their own game enough to make shifts an any kind of meaningful way.
Toofast wrote: When you cut through the nonsensical way he phrased that, I believe he meant GW intentionally nerfs/buffs things to invalidate your army list and force you to buy a new army when the codex gets updated even if you aren't switching factions. I'm not sure how that's reverse psychology but I believe that's exactly what GW wants you to do. Their own business decisions caused their customer base to shrink which also flooded the secondary market with armies. They're now trying to punish the remaining customers for their own bad business decisions in the past by squeezing them for every penny they can get.
It's mostly just not testing in meaningful ways, I think, since new things can suck just as much as old ones, but I do think that they deliberately shift things around from time to time. Just they aren't good at it.
They don't understand their own game enough to make shifts an any kind of meaningful way.
Well they have said that they basically decide stats based around what they think it should be, and go from there. I think a large part of the problem is that they don't playtest enough or in meaningful ways. Their "playtest" probably consists of just a regular game with the model with the stats they think it should have, and they tweak it based on that. So if they play utterly stupid in the game, they might think something is too weak and buff it but it ends up being too strong, or vice versa. They don't playtest specific occurrences or setup specific conditions to really test things in the real game (also maybe because they aren't good enough to consider doing it) so that's why I think a lot of things suffer.
Even in the old battle reports, you would see them doing absolutely stupid tactics for whatever reason, either they just didn't know any better, or were trying a gamble or what. After all it used to be a running joke that any battle report that Jervis played in, he would lose (although according to Andy Chambers, Jervis actually was a good player). However they also said a few times that they would refight a battle report if things went too lopsided, so chances are they would do the same thing in playtesting, and that also means that they aren't testing specific combinations or maneuvers to see how they work out, they're basically taking the thing and using it how they want to. While there's nothing wrong with that as far as how to play, it's a terrible way to playtest because when you playtest you should be trying to break it or do strange combos so you can be aware and fix it.
asdrubeal vect124 wrote: is it possible to BUY enough shares of GW to "OWN" the company? or does it not work that way?
correct me if i'm wrong i'm not a financial person i dont have a clue how stocks work
Yeah, that's pretty obvious.
That is the entire essence of what a PLC is, if you own one share, you get one vote at the AGM on various issues (such as new people to be in charge, etc)
GW have approx 33m shares in circulation, so if you bought say 3.5m, you'd have a good say, if you wanted control, then you'd need at least half in theory, but in practice you can effectively have control with less depending on how the rest of the shares are owned.
GW shares are currently around £5 each, so it isn't small potatoes, even though they're a small company by publicly traded standards.
If you had $129,000,000 you could buy 51% of GW shares. If I had that kind of money, I would be buying an island, exotic cars and exotic women, not a failing toy soldier company.
asdrubeal vect124 wrote: is it possible to BUY enough shares of GW to "OWN" the company? or does it not work that way?
correct me if i'm wrong i'm not a financial person i dont have a clue how stocks work
It's possible, you could buy them all to gain total ownership or buy 51% to gain a controlling stake (effectively the same thing if all you want to do is dictate how it runs)
You'd need a huge amount of money to do it, but it's possible. However, given that Tom Kirby is one of GW's largest shareholders, and that the other big ones are all hedge funds, you may face some bidding wars as well.
asdrubeal vect124 wrote: is it possible to BUY enough shares of GW to "OWN" the company? or does it not work that way?
correct me if i'm wrong i'm not a financial person i dont have a clue how stocks work
It's possible, you could buy them all to gain total ownership or buy 51% to gain a controlling stake (effectively the same thing if all you want to do is dictate how it runs)
You'd need a huge amount of money to do it, but it's possible. However, given that Tom Kirby is one of GW's largest shareholders, and that the other big ones are all hedge funds, you may face some bidding wars as well.
Kirby's at 13%, you could make him an irrelevance, and hedge funds aren't emotional, offer them a return and you'd likely be ok.
RTS (though not a miniatures company) would disagree with this statement. It is quite possible for the company to be its own ruin.
If GW were more aware of their customers, they'd realize that there's a problem and work to fix it. It's their game so it's their responsibility.
Sir Arun wrote: Okay. We all know GW is at fault for not being able to produce codexes with perfect internal balance, where each unit is worth considering. But we all know blaming GW will get us nowhere. If we, as a community want to do our part in fixing 40k, aka actually changing stuff, we need to really change our mentality. Because if we dont start with ourselves, how can we expect our opponents to?
When I look at armylists, I realize 4 out of 5 times that people see it as an exercise of putting their grey cells to work in how to maximize damage while not exceeding the points value, rather than seeing it as a framework that allows you to bring some of your collection to the table and show off your modeling and painting progress to your friend you'll be playing against. People tend to forget 40k is a 2 person game, not a 3D equivalent of playing a video game where you develop the mentality of slaughtering all your enemies. Saying that in 40k, both players want to win isnt far from the truth. But more importantly, both players want to have fun. How many of us give thought to that when we spend hours modifying our armylists?
It seems only 3 out of 10 people play games of 40k as an opportunity to see each other's collection. It seems only 3 out of 10 people have "favorite units" in their army based on the way they look, or their background, rather than the amount of damage they inflict on the battlefield.
The reason why you see the same units over and over again in the meta is not (only) because GW sucks at writing balanced codexes, but because we as a community have done our part in powergaming. When we build lists, we think about what causes maximum distruction for its points rather than what unit looks cool/stylish/awesome lorewise and thus include it in our army. When a player starts a new army, he ends up getting advice of what units are must haves based on their battlefield performance rather than what units have the most aesthetically pleasing sculpts. And so, he ends up buying the former and does his part in creating the situation we have today. Advice like "one is none, two is one" subliminally influences people to spend their money more on acquiring an effective armylist than a varied collection. And then they act all surprised and get angry when their codex gets updated and good units become meh and meh units become good (case in point: the Dark Eldar update). We are the reason we see Riptides and Wraithknights, Tigurius and Centurions, Flyrants and Night Scythes instead of Sniper Drones and Harlequins, Cassius and Scout Bikers, Genestealers and Lychguard. We are part of the problem, and part of the reason why the battlefields of 40k dont get to see most of the variety of miniatures in the GW catalogue.
It's kinda like in a traffic jam - everyone hates how he is stuck in a traffic jam, views it as a foreign, blockading entity ruining his day, but doesnt realize he is part of the traffic jam.
Competitve players shows whats broken, they don't break the game they show whats broken...
And with just some modicum of work GW could have the best expertise at their fingertips when balancing the game.
It's interesting that nobody who plays WMH, infinity, malifaux, etc complain about competitive players ruining the game. It's not that competitive players and "just for fun" players don't exist in those games, the companies just know how to write rules so that 2 different types of player can have a game without it ending on turn 3 reregardless of tactics.
Toofast wrote: It's interesting that nobody who plays WMH, infinity, malifaux, etc complain about competitive players ruining the game. It's not that competitive players and "just for fun" players don't exist in those games, the companies just know how to write rules so that 2 different types of player can have a game without it ending on turn 3 reregardless of tactics.
This is literally the exact opposite view that I've heard about Warmachine from anyone I've spoken to not on a forum. I keep hearing it's competitive and cheesy.
But ultimately, all games can be cheesed to some extent, and competitive players will always find a way to do that. I've never seen a game that could accommodate competitive and friendly players, together, where both have fun in equal measure.
The best wa to have fun is to make sure, no matter the game, that you and your opponent are on the same page as to what kind of game you're looking for.
So now length of time a game has existed is an excuse? GW is fully ruining their own game largely because they have made a ton of sweeping changes to it rather than small tweaks to improve mechanics/ balance. Better balance would be very easy to achieve, But Gw is unwilling to do things like release beta test rules for public use. If they did it is unlikely the worst abuses would make it through.
Sir Arun wrote: Okay. We all know GW is at fault for not being able to produce codexes with perfect internal balance, where each unit is worth considering.
Las wrote: Give it 20 years and the bloat will come for them too.
I doubt it. GW's rules bloat problem doesn't exist because the game is old, it exists because it's a game run by people who just add more rules without any guiding vision of how the game is supposed to work.
Toofast wrote: It's interesting that nobody who plays WMH, infinity, malifaux, etc complain about competitive players ruining the game. It's not that competitive players and "just for fun" players don't exist in those games, the companies just know how to write rules so that 2 different types of player can have a game without it ending on turn 3 reregardless of tactics.
This is literally the exact opposite view that I've heard about Warmachine from anyone I've spoken to not on a forum. I keep hearing it's competitive and cheesy.
But ultimately, all games can be cheesed to some extent, and competitive players will always find a way to do that. I've never seen a game that could accommodate competitive and friendly players, together, where both have fun in equal measure.
The best wa to have fun is to make sure, no matter the game, that you and your opponent are on the same page as to what kind of game you're looking for.
I generally keep my mouth shut about it, because it's not in my nature to badmouth games, but yes, WMH can be cheesy too, and at the FLGS, you hear it all the time, especially from new players.
As you say, pretty much *any* game gets cheesed by people. All lists are not equal, and you can't just pick whatever you want, add it up to 50 points, stick it on a board and expect decent results (I mean, not even close...). However, WMH is a lot more forgiving because:
(a) the vastly smaller pool of possibilities and unit types restricts huge imbalances
(b) the unit counts are way, way lower
(c) the price range of models is about $6 - $100 (and it's not like you're going to stack colossals) -- whereas GW models range from $2 to $200 for core models, and up to a thousand dollars for ForgeWorld stuff. And there are a bazillion models to choose from if you choose IoM, which is what a ton of people choose as their first faction.
To your point: personally, I think that on forums it's simply a case of great frustration at GW for some people, so they pick another game to say, "See, this is better" -- except it often comes out as, "See, this is perfect".
Las wrote: Give it 20 years and the bloat will come for them too.
I doubt it. GW's rules bloat problem doesn't exist because the game is old, it exists because it's a game run by people who just add more rules without any guiding vision of how the game is supposed to work.
Who knows. For PP to be profitable in the long run, it needs its playerbase to keep buying new stuff. Especially since all PP is monopose, there isn't really a reason to collect multiples; and anyhow, most people who collect to model spend way more money on GW than PP. No, I don't have a statistic -- but I know a lot of gamers and modellers locally, and the ones that have 1,000+ completed model collections are pretty much all GW or historical. I have never walked into an FLGS with a display case with hundreds of painted WMH models, but these are in almost every shop that sells 40k/WHFB.
So, long-term, PP generates money by writing fluff and books (but that only goes so far), by new edition rules every few years (since that's a free cash grab), and by creating rules that make new units attractive. Or, new units with attractive stats.
Ultimately, I'm sure they would love if more people bought more of their models.
They've already started down the dark path -- as they replace metal minis with plastic ones, and keep the price the same (or raise them). Remember when the battleforce box sets were metal instead of plastic?
Las wrote: Give it 20 years and the bloat will come for them too.
I doubt it. GW's rules bloat problem doesn't exist because the game is old, it exists because it's a game run by people who just add more rules without any guiding vision of how the game is supposed to work.
Especially when you consider the game actually shrunk from 2nd -> 3rd. Rules bloat is not the same as having an expansive universe, I totally expect the universe to expand over the life of a game (though there's arguments to be made for the occasional consolidation there as well). Rules bloat like 40k has is less to do with how big the universe might be and more to do with poor rules management and writing.
I really like the original post, and I agree to some extent, as I have had many unpleasant games against Spam or Cheese lists in my FLGS but almost never in a game at a mate's house or mine.
So to me it does come down to people interacting with other people, and on a larger scale than in a lot of games. It is because we spend so much money and time and thought into preparing for these games that--for some people--the victory or defeat becomes so significant. It's a lot different from picking up a PS4 controller or pulling out a Monopoly board. Who wants to spend a ton of money and toil away converting, basing and painting only to get massacred on the tabletop by someone who has a Cheesy Spam list with a basecoat and some drybrushing and decals? (Sorry for the generalization, but it's a lot of what I've seen) When that happens, odds are the social interaction that occurs during and after this pummeling is not going to have a lot of "value added."
So it matters who you play against, and in what context. If it's competitive, then gloves are off--you are going for the win. And if some people are "math-hammery" (I'm not) and are just more successful at winning, they are generally not going to avoid this in order to be polite or make someone feel better about their painting skills.
But it is a hobby too--and in that context, we have painting contests, and Army on Parade displays, and you always feel good when someone compliments your fine-looking force. That should be satisfying in its own right, and it is part of 40k in my opinion and experience.
The bottom line is: it's hard to win this game, and some people take that part of it more seriously than others. Other people are talented painters, or modellers, and love the aesthetic. Both types can play this game, but both cannot necessarily take equal satisfaction in both areas. It's hard to find a group of gamers (or just colleagues or people in general) who can get along, encourage one another, and enjoy one another's company, and that is certainly true in 40k. But I still like the game, and the hobby, and will also keep looking for good people to play a game against, even if I don't win.
This is literally the exact opposite view that I've heard about Warmachine from anyone I've spoken to not on a forum. I keep hearing it's competitive and cheesy.
Competitive - yes. Cheesy - no? Are things over the top? Yup. Thing is, everything is over the top, when everything is broken, nothing is.
You need to realise that a lot of the things folk complain about (fluffy vs power gaming, cheesy, competitive play etc) are really only complaints when seen through the prism of gw gaming, which is a narrow skew. Because sadly. the 40k player base does a great job of being a fractured mess at its own throat most of the time.
This is literally the exact opposite view that I've heard about Warmachine from anyone I've spoken to not on a forum. I keep hearing it's competitive and cheesy.
Competitive - yes. Cheesy - no? Are things over the top? Yup. Thing is, everything is over the top, when everything is broken, nothing is.
You need to realise that a lot of the things folk complain about (fluffy vs power gaming, cheesy, competitive play etc) are really only complaints when seen through the prism of gw gaming, which is a narrow skew. Because sadly. the 40k player base does a great job of being a fractured mess at its own throat most of the time.
I don't know what game you're playing, but WMH can be plenty cheesy, and it's filled with just as many people I don't want to play with as 40k. This might shock you, but there is are many people who actually enjoy 40k, and have a great time playing it and being immersed in the hobby.
It might also shock some of the peeps posting to threads like this that some people find WMH, it's small scale, and lack of unit diversity underwhelming. I strongly prefer 40k.
In my opinion, either game is enjoyable with people who are fun to play with, and a waste of time, with people that are ***holes.
Talys wrote: For PP to be profitable in the long run, it needs its playerbase to keep buying new stuff.
But that has nothing to do with rules bloat. 40k's rules bloat isn't driven by the need to keep people buying stuff, it's the result of incompetent rule authors who don't care enough to avoid it. You can avoid rules bloat by doing three things:
1) Getting rid of old rules when you add new stuff. That doesn't necessarily mean removing units/models though. For example, if you want to add a more complicated wound allocation system to 40k you might get rid of the different types of power weapons to make up for it. Or some of the USRs could be cleaned up to make room for the new thing. Or maybe you release a new skirmish variant that adds more detail to characters but removes all of the vehicles/MCs/etc. The important thing is that you keep the complexity level relatively constant so that a new player doesn't get overwhelmed.
2) Keeping complexity in the unit/army rules, not the core rulebook. Expansions/army lists/etc are much less of a contribution to rules bloat than the core rules because they aren't all used at the same time. If I'm playing C:SM the new Tau codex doesn't have much impact on me. If I don't play games with the new planetstrike expansion those rules don't matter to me. Etc. Where rules bloat really kills a game is when the core rules, which every player has to learn, start getting too complicated. But as long as you keep the core rules relatively clean and simple you can release a lot of profit-increasing "secondary" products without worrying too much.
3) Making "avoid rules bloat" a priority. Some degree of complexity is ok, the real problem comes in when you start adding three rules to do the job of one or complex rules with minimal gameplay impact because you aren't paying enough attention to how complicated the game is becoming. The Fear USR is the perfect example: most of the time it does nothing at all, and when it does work it doesn't do very much. Does this rule really add anything to the game? No. The nice thing about this part of avoiding rules bloat is that you aren't sacrificing anything (other than a little development time and effort) to gain it.
They've already started down the dark path -- as they replace metal minis with plastic ones, and keep the price the same (or raise them).
But what does this have to do with rules bloat? In fact, it's an argument against the inevitability of rules bloat. If a company can make more money from model changes alone then the need to keep selling new stuff doesn't depend on adding new rules.
I strongly disagree with this. 40k's rules suck, from beginning to end. There is nothing worth keeping, and a proper redesign of the game would involve deleting the entire rulebook and starting over. GW could improve things a lot by fixing the superficial issues, but they'd still have the problem of trying to build a modern-style scifi game on the broken foundation of a 1980s fantasy game. Things like IGOUGO, the melee-focused stat line in a shooting-focused game, etc, would continue to be terrible decisions no matter how clear and balanced the rules became.
I don't know what game you're playing, but WMH can be plenty cheesy, and it's filled with just as many people I don't want to play with as 40k. This might shock you, but there is are many people who actually enjoy 40k, and have a great time playing it and being immersed in the hobby.
It might also shock some of the peeps posting to threads like this that some people find WMH, it's small scale, and lack of unit diversity underwhelming. I strongly prefer 40k.
In my opinion, either game is enjoyable with people who are fun to play with, and a waste of time, with people that are ***holes.
'Cheesy' and 'people I don't want to play with' are two different things. And yes, there are tfg's in WMH who I refuse to play, who noobstalk and have done a great job of driving people away from the hobby, and it think they're unwanted, and bad news for the game too. But if you put down bradigus wold war, or Haley, I'm gonna have a go. Cheesy? Not when you have a plan! here's the thing. Hit me with something hard in WMH? Well,fine. I can play that game too and give as good as I get. different story to wave serpents and vespids. that all being said, I think some casters (Haley, denny) need a redesign. Not because they're op, or cheesy. But because they're 'not fun' to play against. At least IMO.
As to bring 'surprised' that folks enjoy 40k enjoy playing it, and being 'immersed' in the hobby - eh, no. Not surprised at all. I think if you've got good mates with a similar mind set, it can be great fun. Even then though, I've seen some heads shook, and eyes rolled. I don't play 40k, but I too still am among those who 'actually enjoy 40k'. Imperial armours. The recent fw heresy stuff. Etcetera. As to being immersed in the hobby - you should see my painting/modding desk at the moment. I've got iron fangs, steelheads, infinity's operation ice storm.. And a limited edition sm captain from a few years ago I'm gonna enjoy painting.
And why would things 'shock' me about WMH? Not everyone wants skirmishes (I'd rather play epic or dzc for those massive battles though, to be fair). Lack of diversity? Meh, I'll disagree here. I'd rather have ten or twenty 'real' options than 40k's hundred pseudo options where only two are ever worth taking. But I'll raise my issues with WMH. Jack marshals are lacking. Tough Is a pita. Id like to see a way to allow people to play jack-heavy builds a bit easier than it is now. I'd like to see some asymmetric mission types and a campaign book. They're getting there, but they need to sort out their plastics. Pp get legitimate criticism too.
I completely agree with the OP. Even though I would slightly change the core message to "competitive players are ruining the game for themselves". My enjoyment of the game is not impacted by their mad ravings at all.
They say they like the competitive play, yet they complain about every under average dice roll, every new codex release and every stupid meta that emerged solely from the drive to win as much and has hard as possible. Because someones gotta be at fault (it couldn't possibly be them) all the hate goes towards GW and even individuals in management.
Of course the competitive player would do everything different given the chance. What they just don't realize is the simple fact that you cannot balance a game of such a scale and scope. More balance would only yield less variety and more of the same in different army colours. Balanced 40k is a pipe dream. GW knows that and so they smartly try do drive the game in a different direction, namely a shared and positive gaming experience where the focus is strictly not on winning. The win and the loss is just a storytelling device amongst many.
Of course every competitive players loves competitive play, right? The thing is, I don't complain 24/7 about the things that I love, I take them for what they are. And if they turn out to be something that I can't love anymore I turn around and go, but severe cognitive dissonance is holding all those players hostage.
Just let it go man. Let it go. Don't post in the thread that's about why you left the game on the forum that is about the game cause then you haven't left the game yet. Your quest for self affirmation only leads to further pain. Let it go. Play war machine. Let it go.
bearseamen wrote: I completely agree with the OP. Even though I would slightly change the core message to "competitive players are ruining the game for themselves". My enjoyment of the game is not impacted by their mad ravings at all.
They say they like the competitive play, yet they complain about every under average dice roll, every new codex release and every stupid meta that emerged solely from the drive to win as much and has hard as possible. Because someones gotta be at fault (it couldn't possibly be them) all the hate goes towards GW and even individuals in management.
Of course the competitive player would do everything different given the chance. What they just don't realize is the simple fact that you cannot balance a game of such a scale and scope. More balance would only yield less variety and more of the same in different army colours. Balanced 40k is a pipe dream. GW knows that and so they smartly try do drive the game in a different direction, namely a shared and positive gaming experience where the focus is strictly not on winning. The win and the loss is just a storytelling device amongst many.
Of course every competitive players loves competitive play, right? The thing is, I don't complain 24/7 about the things that I love, I take them for what they are. And if they turn out to be something that I can't love anymore I turn around and go, but severe cognitive dissonance is holding all those players hostage.
Just let it go man. Let it go. Don't post in the thread that's about why you left the game on the forum that is about the game cause then you haven't left the game yet. Your quest for self affirmation only leads to further pain. Let it go. Play war machine. Let it go.
To be fair, balanced does not mean boring, homogenous or yielding less variety.
bearseamen wrote: I completely agree with the OP. Even though I would slightly change the core message to "competitive players are ruining the game for themselves". My enjoyment of the game is not impacted by their mad ravings at all.
They say they like the competitive play, yet they complain about every under average dice roll, every new codex release and every stupid meta that emerged solely from the drive to win as much and has hard as possible. Because someones gotta be at fault (it couldn't possibly be them) all the hate goes towards GW and even individuals in management.
Of course the competitive player would do everything different given the chance. What they just don't realize is the simple fact that you cannot balance a game of such a scale and scope. More balance would only yield less variety and more of the same in different army colours. Balanced 40k is a pipe dream. GW knows that and so they smartly try do drive the game in a different direction, namely a shared and positive gaming experience where the focus is strictly not on winning. The win and the loss is just a storytelling device amongst many.
Of course every competitive players loves competitive play, right? The thing is, I don't complain 24/7 about the things that I love, I take them for what they are. And if they turn out to be something that I can't love anymore I turn around and go, but severe cognitive dissonance is holding all those players hostage.
Just let it go man. Let it go. Don't post in the thread that's about why you left the game on the forum that is about the game cause then you haven't left the game yet. Your quest for self affirmation only leads to further pain. Let it go. Play war machine. Let it go.
You definitely could balance a game 'of such scale and scope'. Balanced 40k is only a pipe dream because we all know GW won't pull their finger out and balance the damn thing, not because it's impossible to balance. I'm sure it wouldn't even be that hard, and Games Designers are literally paid to write games, they should be able to write balanced rules. It's literally their job. And a game can be balanced and still have variety. Balance doesn't mean everything is literally the same, we're not asking for chess like perfect balance here.
And seriously people need to stop bringing up this whole 'just move on' thing. I'm pretty sure most of these people who post negative things about 40k either still play 40k and just aren't happy with aspects of it, or used to play and are monitoring the state of the game I case they maybe would like to play again if it sorts itself out. People are allowed to discuss games on a game discussion forum, even if they don't play them anymore. It's so annoying to constantly read 'just move on.' People who have stopped playing the game might still love the setting, the models, aspects of the game. They can still talk about a game they used to play. I mean what would even be the point of a forum if everyone just agreed with everyone all the time. There'd be no discussion at all.
Please, explain to me how you want to balance 40k.
What it boils down is that "balance" becomes a subjective term. The game has been setup by GW in a way that it allows for changes where ever deemed necessary. If a tournament organizer feels like rule X is broken it is perfectly fine to change that rule. Players can then decide whether they agree to that standard of balance or not. The goal is ensure that the game is fun to play. We cannot talk about seeking out objective balance though. We have no idea what objective balance even is. Any definition of balance excludes many, many factors that might also play a roll. What do I mean by that? You could state that army A is balanced if it beats army B 50% of the time.Thats an arbitrary definition of balance. It doesnt factor in unit composition, player skill, table setup, scenario etc.
It gets even more difficult when you talk about unit balance. When is unit A balanced? Every definition you come up with either includes too little OR so much that its not measurable anymore.You can judge balance by tournament result and / or army appearance. Thus an army could be unbalanced if its over-represented in the top 5. But what if that army is just particular cool and players like to play it? The over-representation of that army in the top 5 is a statistical necessity if more people are playing it. You are also ignoring the impact of the metagame when you look at balance like that.
It gets worse when you start looking into balance testing. If you have the assumption that unit X is too strong you have to change its power in small increments, one change at a time, and observe the impacts of those changes over a significant sample size - something that is possible with the big data that a game like LoL or SC2 offers, but a sheer insurmountable task for 40k. What you cannot do is carpet bomb the game with changes, as you won't be able to tell which change caused a difference in result. With 40k it is also hard to make any statistical observations. Matches take long, player skill is not controlled for (unlike games that use an ELO system) and there are tons of other random variables that interact with the game result. If you want to talk about objective game balance it has to get mathy at some point.
It's easy to get mad about re-rollable 2+ saves. It's just as easy for a tournament organizer to disallow them. That is a subjective decision that makes no assumption over the statistical balance of the game. I am convinced that the aspect of balance does not fit with 40k. Look, I heard that sisters of battle do not perform well. Some say the are UP. So in the mission of balance, what do you do about that? You give them all the stuff that makes other armies strong, right? A fat deathstar with a 2+, psipowers that give extra protection, a unit with efficient long range anti-armor fire etc.If you've done all that you will soon realize that every army is essentially the same thing with a different skin.
If you step back from 40k and look into other nontraditional competitive sports it becomes very obvious that balance / "tight rules" is most likely a pipe dream. StarCraft:Broodwar has been a competitive "sport" for almost two decades, with leagues, tournamemts and large price pools. The game has never been truly balanced, with lots of lopsided matchups, maps or tournament formats. Modern games such as SC2 or League of Legends do not have the slightest chance of achieving global balance by virtue of their relative youth and grand scope.
The industry of competitive online gaming has never been that big, with global leagues and price pools spiking millions of dollars for single events. Large industries are gathered around these systems, which declare competitive game balance as one of their focal points. Game balance is a subject of constant development that is heavily driven by scientific methods. And despite all that time, money and development effort, none of these games will ever reach a state of true balance, no matter how you loosely you choose to define that term. It's the very nature of a gaming system that is large enough to allow for almost infinite variables interacting with each other.
Looking back at 40k which is not only much larger than other games (for comparison, SC:broodwar had 3 races, with about as much unit choices as any codex) but also not hard-coded (we play it on a table using tape measure), it becomes glaringly obvious that the game cannot be truly balanced, ever. Probably not even remotely. On top of the large scale and scope of 40k, GW is not even trying, explicitly so! In their mind its not meant as a competitive sport, and they treat it as such.
I'd not say that competitive play is ruining a game on the whole. It's ruining a game for fluffy armies that are in for other aspects of the game. That's why different player types exist. To make life easier for everyone. Not to generate hate or something.
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-off he'd lost his first two games and had, "wasted his whole day for no profit."
