TO BE CLEAR! I DO NOT THINK COMPETITIVENESS IS HURTING 40K! THIS THREAD WAS CREATED TO START DISCUSSION AND TELL STORIES!
STOP ASSUMING EVERYONE ON DAKKADAKKA HATES YOU!
It's a pretty controversial topic that I see comes up once or twice every edition but I was wondering what people now think after the last few months of 8th edition.
Many of the current arguments I see on DakkaDakka complaining about nerfs, buffs, OP units, ect... Often have people arguing that all of it would not be a problem if people were not so competitive in 40k?
For example:
1. People argue things like "soup" armies wouldn't be as effective if people only played fluffy lists.
2. GW wouldn't nerf units if people didn't abuse them.
3. GW wouldn't overly buff/price factions or units if they didn't think competitive players would mass buy them despite them being the minority.
the list of arguments go on...
However, there is also a counter argument arguing the problem has nothing to do with competitive players or it shouldn't matter.
1. if GW was good enough dev they could balance both the casual and competitive styles of gameplay.
2. people shouldn't be punished for enjoying a certain style of play.
3. It's GW fault for allowing players to build competitive lists and we shouldn't blame the person who uses them.
These are just a few short arguments I see a lot for both sides and in no way cover all the ground.
So I guess my big questions are:
Is competitiveness ruining/ruined 40K?
Why is it ruining 40k/ what really is ruining 40k?
And how would you fix it/ how would you stop people complaining?
RULES!: Be civil (I know this is a lot to ask for DakkaDakka) and respect that people enjoy playing games in different ways (Even if you do not agree with those ways).
Automatically Appended Next Post: Personally I am on the line. The reason why I dislike competitive players is purely down to me being in an area of exclusively competitive players... every week I wade through tables of unpainted grey lists that make my blood boil! They obviously table my army every week because I've put a lot of time crafting it to be a narrative army (I only play with no-named characters and painted troops so i'm slow for my to add reinforcements to counter the current meta) rather than a good army. I just don't understand how anyone derives fun from it if they don't, on the side, focus on other aspects of the hobby as well (why not just load up a computer game and play that rather than spending 100s of dollars on plastic and not painting it, not reading the lore and just wanting to win at something).
But I 100% understand that there are different styles of gaming for everyone. I really think a solution is to separate the two modes and for GW to push alternative game modes solely for those who want a casual narrative style of play. Have a sort of DnD but with your armies or have a night every week in all GW shops for a narrative driven force with no named characters, ect... I can't really find anyone I want to play with regularly. right now in my local GW and that sours the game for me.
Mostly because I think the fault lies a bit with 40k in trying to bill itself as a competitive game.
Honestly, if I really had to put money down on whose ruining it, it's "casual" players who aren't casual at all but closet competitive players. People who don't want to or can't spend the money to keep up and rock out on the tournament circuit, but still want to win games at their local club. Anything that might make them adapt or change is bad, because they can't or won't spend the money to adapt or change, and they also can't handle getting beaten.
I've played Narrative players who were enjoyable and tough to play against but took losses in stride, and against "narrative players" with exaggerated air quotes, lol.
It's not ruined the game, but it's certainly ruined discussion online. All anyone talks about is the most competitive levels of play and when people ask advice they'll only get responses assuming that they're going to be playing at high level tournaments. Likewise, people automatically assume that everyone is playing against WAAC super lists.
Mostly because I think the fault lies a bit with 40k in trying to bill itself as a competitive game.
Honestly, if I really had to put money down on whose ruining it, it's "casual" players who aren't casual at all but closet competitive players. People who don't want to or can't spend the money to keep up and rock out on the tournament circuit, but still want to win games at their local club. Anything that might make them adapt or change is bad, because they can't or won't spend the money to adapt or change, and they also can't handle getting beaten.
I've played Narrative players who were enjoyable and tough to play against but took losses in stride, and against "narrative players" with exaggerated air quotes, lol.
I see this point of view. I think that can be a problem and puts people off in the narrative games who were expecting a fun game. The reason some armies make my blood boil isn't me down to losing. It's down the the game being over in 10 min after me waiting a few hours for a table. XD It's not fun... I think what draws me to 40k is the whole idea that a little universe is going on right in front of you and if my guys turned up to battle a bunch of unpainted lines of lascannons with Girlyman stood there waiting, they would probably just go home. XD
The other part of the problem is GW rules writing and points costing are on two different worlds entirely.
Case and point for me is the current release of the Custodian codex and how grossly under-priced custodian guard are.
two comparisons, a fully kitted out custodian guard costs the same amount as a crisis suit with a burst cannon (I know that Tau codex isn't out yet, but even so, a base crisis suit without weapons should be cheaper than a custodian without weapons.)
Likewise, a chaos lord with largely similar stats and base weapons (Bolt pistol and chainsword) with some concessions costs way more than a fully equipped custodian, and a custodian will win that fight every single time.
As an addition, part of me feels like this will eventually be fixed somewhat over time (Or just slap-patched) but with Custodians just coming out, GW are looking to sell that line, and it kinda feels like they're selling the model line at the cost of the game itself...
Sim-Life wrote: It's not ruined the game, but it's certainly ruined discussion online. All anyone talks about is the most competitive levels of play and when people ask advice they'll only get responses assuming that they're going to be playing at high level tournaments. Likewise, people automatically assume that everyone is playing against WAAC super lists.
Thissss!!! 100%!!! Every assumes I'm a competitive player so brings out their most competitive lists... I get the same for MTG... I have a themed deck and this dude tore it apart and couldn't understand it's a theme for fun and not for competitive play. It's a huge reason why I think there should always be two worlds to any game and they should have ways of separating them. I know 40K has open play mode but people don't ever play it or use it properly.
I don't think 40k is ruined. It's not a great game, but it's fun, so it achieves that. Competitiveness is certainly not ruining it (but I did vote that I can see others' thoughts on why it is).
But, I do think that if GW spent just a LITTLE MORE on making the game good, it could be a lot better.
The complaints you hear here is not even a grain of sand compared to the silent majority that are enjoying the game in the way they want to be competitive or not.
a lot of the competitive vs casual can be fixed with a little bit of social interactions and talking out a game before committing time and effort into something.
but sure some things could be better if GW spends the time and actually fixes things this time around with their new biannual update scheme.
I think it comes down to 'you can't be having fun wrong', yes 40k has some swingy power imbalances that make pick up games harder than it should be but with a bit of discussion most groups / stores usually find some form of social contract way to play that the majority are fine with, even practicing tournament 'power-lists' are fine with a bit of warning
No. It never has, and likely never will. Any negatives attributed to allegedly over competitive/WAAC/donkey-cave players can be equally attributed to extremely fluffy/CAAC/donkey-cave players that care too much about not winning and telling other people how to enjoy the game.
Why is it ruining 40k/ what really is ruining 40k?
It isn't ruining 40k. The rules of 40k are ruining 40k. That and people of any stripe telling other people how to enjoy the game and/or trying to attribute the blame of the game's problems on a set of players.
And how would you fix it/ how would you stop people complaining?
By fixing the game. The most play tested edition certainly doesn't seem very play tested, and all from a company with decades of experience and the most money to throw at the best devs and editors and testers. There isn't an excuse for how wonky and poorly executed the game is these days. Its a confused mess that is still terribly balanced, and fails as both a competitive, tournament ready game and as a viable narrative, campaign focused game.
You'll never stop people complaining; and that's fine. People complaining is feedback from people who care enough to write large responses. Discussion is good, differing opinions are good. The game will never be perfect, but it can always get better. When we're all arguing over the merits or cons of a 5pts difference on a 200pts model, that's when we know we've achieved an excellent level of balance.
As usual, if you're blaming players, chances you're part of the problem. Outside of the actual donkey-caves, most players just want to have a good time pushing models around the table. Some people enjoy fighting for a challenging win with optimized lists, while other players like setting up one off scenarios, while yet others enjoy long campaigns or cut throat tournaments, or any combination thereof. The guy who yells at people, rubs cheeto dust on your models, fails to shower, and is otherwise a rude donkey-cave, yeah, that's a person who's ruining 40k. Someone who likes to play at tournaments? No, not an issue for the game.
I need a "no more than any other game that can be played competitively" option. Sure, you can have TFGs - and there's a lot of potential in this medium for them to happen - but I don't find any more significant impact on me or the community. Maybe we don't address it as well as, say, D&D because there's not as strong of an interpersonal requirement, but that's not the fault of the game.
GW's exhausting inability to manage its rules content and solidify its concept of what it wants the game to be is really the issue. They try to sell 40k as too many things, and in the process does none of them well, and GW's attempts at fixing things are generally very poorly handled.
Now, competitiveness has issues, not everything about it is great, but if GW ran a better ship, we'd have dramatically fewer issues.
Other people's behavior can only have as much impact on us as we let it.
From my rather limited experience tournament's are a pretty fun atmosphere and while I did get duped a few times by sneaky gits my time was rather well spent.
Also having created and maintained a competitive gaming group for a few years now I can tell you that what I say is true. One of my players, a kid of 19 once put it best. The store clown was being a jerk to him but he smoothly brushed the comments away and afterwards said to us: "oh that person doesn't have the power to upset me. I just ignore him when he gets like that, to argue is to play into his game.". Pretty wise words for a 19 year old and something we all should consider.
Once waac players realize their antics no longer disrupt your game, the attitude soon fades. When That Guy can't get anyone to play with him, he either shapes up or ships out. Either way, we the normal player who strives for consideration and respect are unaffected and indeed made better for the experience. We don't have to resort to derision or wait on the judgement of a faraway corporation or even rely on an event judge or store employee. We can solve the problem simply by modifying our reactions to poor behaviour and making sure that we don't stoop to such levels ourselves. Competitiveness in and of itself is a healthy attribute when nurtured properly and handled with restraint. It brings another level to any gaming hobby and can be quite enjoyable when approached with the correct mindset. It's not for everyone, but then again that's the point of the hobby being open to anyone.
TLDR. You can't change external factors to regulate the behavior of individuals within a social setting, abberant behavior will always find a way to do what it wants. You can only control your own behaviour, and how you react. By controlling your own actions you thereby mitigate the effects of other people's decisions on your own life. Stop caring about what other people think, play more games with your friends, make new friends and in general; chill.
I mean, yeah, the competitive players are ruining 40k. But so are the non-competitive players. And also, really, probably anywhere that GW takes 'community feedback' from.
It's not turning out to be the 40k anyone wants, but it's hashing out to look like the 40k everyone deserves.
Competitiveness generally does a game a lot of favors. A game that holds up to competitive play will support a casual environment just fine; at least far better than a poorly balanced game the community attempts to self police. The problem usually stems from a game that doesn't hold up has enough exciting elements that people try to stick with it and make it work rather than just playing a better game. Different players tweak the game to suit their preferences and stop playing by the same rules and notably, stop playing by the same rules as the developers.
Currently, 40k has a rather interesting dilemma. It's a game that has been neglected by its developers long enough to form a pretty entrenched mindset of community self repair whose developers are attempting to regain control of and earnestly appear to be improving. It wants to be the game players want, but players aren't accustomed to playing the game the developers provide.
I will say, the most problematic mindset I've encountered in wargaming is the one that expresses a casual attitude, but assumes they are entitled to win. It's the attitude that immediately looks to change the game after a loss, rather than reflecting on what they could have done to change the outcome. Taking responsibility for your game is important. You need to identify what it is you really want to play, how much you really want to win, and how realistically those two things coexist within the reality of the game. Sometimes you can make those things work via self improvement; sometimes you have to decide to compromise one or the other for the sake of reality (like wanting to be a 5'2" pro basketball player) and sometimes you have accept that the game doesn't support what you want out of it and probably should look for a better game.
Marmatag wrote: Isn't this supposed to be the play the way you want edition? No one is forcing you to play with competitive rules and matched play restrictions.
It just so happens that the ITC combined missions are far and away the most fun and balanced way to play 40k right now.
So much this, seriously.
The rule book has Matched Play (competitive), Narrative Play, Campaign, and on and on. In short, *most* of the game styles are designed to be played outside of a tournament-style, strictly competitive mindset.
It's a miniatures war game, what's the point if not to compete? You want to roleplay, get a D&D group or find someone who wants to RP40K with you.
This sounds like a problem with developing a regular group of like-minded players who want to play the game in the same style you do.
If you are a competitive player that enjoys treating 40k like pro-sports the answer is a resounding NO.
If you are a narrative player that wants to play against armies from the narrative and engage in games that aren't about min/maxing optimization, your answer will be a resounding YES.
You will find the skew has always favored competitive play though. This means if you aren't wanting the pro sports version of 40k, you may have an uphill climb to find players like you in your area.
I think it is only part of the problem. The other part is the attitude that most competitive players have. The WAAC mentality, where you throw away your decency to win and have gakky tactics like slow play and rushing. That type of player is what is ruining 40k.
I like a good challenge, but I like my opponent to enjoy the game as well.
It is part of the problem IMHO. Nevermind the fact 40k is not and never has been designed as a competitive game, it's mainly the fact that competitive players are so willing to ignore everything that makes 40k worth playing (IMHO) over other games with much better balance and rules.
The other issue is GW cannot properly balance the game, so it's very easy for competitive players to mix and match and min/max things without care for the fluff or backstory. If GW was better at balance, there wouldn't be "Must take" or "Never take" options in lists.
Nope. The problem lies with the community and it's ability to communicate.
If you're asking how good a unit is and you provide zero context you're probably going to get the WAAC perspective. The nice thing about balancing is that SO FEW units fall into that "never take" bucket than ever in the game's history.
Sim-Life wrote: It's not ruined the game, but it's certainly ruined discussion online. All anyone talks about is the most competitive levels of play and when people ask advice they'll only get responses assuming that they're going to be playing at high level tournaments. Likewise, people automatically assume that everyone is playing against WAAC super lists.
This is true too and a big problem with the competitive mindset in general; it trickles down to affect everything even though the vast majority of people will never need to worry about the national meta that you see at like LVO or Adepticon or SoCal Open. Yet everything is treated as though you are building a list for that and you are frequently told to drop or rework an entire list due to some boogeyman that you likely will never face, instead of being told how to use what you have available.
Marmatag wrote: Isn't this supposed to be the play the way you want edition? No one is forcing you to play with competitive rules and matched play restrictions.
It just so happens that the ITC combined missions are far and away the most fun and balanced way to play 40k right now.
So much this, seriously.
The rule book has Matched Play (competitive), Narrative Play, Campaign, and on and on. In short, *most* of the game styles are designed to be played outside of a tournament-style, strictly competitive mindset.
It's a miniatures war game, what's the point if not to compete? You want to roleplay, get a D&D group or find someone who wants to RP40K with you.
This sounds like a problem with developing a regular group of like-minded players who want to play the game in the same style you do.
This is often easier said than done, especially when many local communities are built around a store, where the only events are monthly tournaments and pickup play is often just a mirror of that.
The other problem is that GW's content for non tournament play is largely either total garbage or just doesnt exist. GW's campaign supplements have historically been pretty picture books that give a couple variant pickup/tournament style missions, usually with a huge arbitrary bonus for one side or trivial table special rule to represent some sort of fluff, and maybe some formations in 7E. Other games give detailed force outlays, preset terrain layouts, detailed scenario rules, explicit rewards, detailed campaign trees, etc.
I once entered a 40k tournament. It was one of the most unpleasant experiences I ever had in the hobby. Suffice it to say, I now only do casual pickup games with my friends. For me, 40k is a relaxing way to unwind once a week, away from the pressures of life.
Competitive players always struck me as a joyless and miserable lot, never having an actual fun or enjoyment out of playing what amounts to a game of toy soldiers. Typically I see a sea of unpainted grey plastic for their armies, usually the flavor of the month.
Conversely, some of the best games that I ever had was with a Guard player who had loving painted and converted his army. He stuck by it all through 6th and 7th, despite all the competitive players complaining how bad Guard was. He had real love for his army. He and I always had incredibly fun and engaging games, and I always liked playing against him. I was fine with losing against him as long we both had a thrilling closely-fought game.
Sim-Life wrote: It's not ruined the game, but it's certainly ruined discussion online. All anyone talks about is the most competitive levels of play and when people ask advice they'll only get responses assuming that they're going to be playing at high level tournaments. Likewise, people automatically assume that everyone is playing against WAAC super lists.
But what's the point of discussion otherwise? You can only have so many conversations about "I like this unit" before you actually do an analysis. If you're just talking like that, there's no dialogue.
Marmatag wrote: Isn't this supposed to be the play the way you want edition? No one is forcing you to play with competitive rules and matched play restrictions.
It just so happens that the ITC combined missions are far and away the most fun and balanced way to play 40k right now.
Your second point is debatable, but your first point, while technically correct, is 100% dependent on your area. Most areas are at the very least Matched Play only, and some are also ITC competitive style. If you don't want to play that style, and you're in an area like that, you either conform or you don't play at all. That's not really "play the way you want edition" when one way is touted as being "balanced" and the othr two are touted as being "unbalanced"
Gree wrote: I once entered a 40k tournament. It was one of the most unpleasant experiences I ever had in the hobby. Suffice it to say, I now only do casual pickup games with my friends. For me, 40k is a relaxing way to unwind once a week, away from the pressures of life.
Competitive players always struck me as a joyless and miserable lot, never having an actual fun or enjoyment out of playing what amounts to a game of toy soldiers. Typically I see a sea of unpainted grey plastic for their armies, usually the flavor of the month.
Conversely, some of the best games that I ever had was with a Guard player who had loving painted and converted his army. He stuck by it all through 6th and 7th, despite all the competitive players complaining how bad Guard was. He had real love for his army. He and I always had incredibly fun and engaging games, and I always liked playing against him. I was fine with losing against him as long we both had a thrilling closely-fought game.
And I've *never* had a bad experience at a tournament. I think maybe you went in with an incorrect perception on how tournaments operate.
Your second point is debatable, but your first point, while technically correct, is 100% dependent on your area. Most areas are at the very least Matched Play only, and some are also ITC competitive style. If you don't want to play that style, and you're in an area like that, you either conform or you don't play at all. That's not really "play the way you want edition" when one way is touted as being "balanced" and the othr two are touted as being "unbalanced"
This is 100% not GWs fault. If people like that more then you're going to have to work a little harder to get a group together. My FLGS is mostly competitive, but the local GW store never fails to be casual and offers support for all aspects of the hobby.
Case and point for me is the current release of the Custodian codex and how grossly under-priced custodian guard are.
two comparisons, a fully kitted out custodian guard costs the same amount as a crisis suit with a burst cannon (I know that Tau codex isn't out yet, but even so, a base crisis suit without weapons should be cheaper than a custodian without weapons.)
Likewise, a chaos lord with largely similar stats and base weapons (Bolt pistol and chainsword) with some concessions costs way more than a fully equipped custodian, and a custodian will win that fight every single time.
A chaos lord is doing much more than just attacking with that pistol and chainsword. And that chaos lord with termie armor is going to rofl-stomp the custodes.
The TAU point, a crisis suit is much more maneuverable, and has many more weapon options.
Finally, both have more wounds, which is the primary stat when looking at a units base cost. The second being what it does for the army, third is the gear and stat line.
Game's aren't fun when they're unbalanced - competitive is a way of testing the limits of the game; if it's not balanced, or there are poor rules, they'll show up there.
I want my game to be balanced.
I don't want to look through my codex and know that 90% of the units aren't worth taking - to the point where I'm actively hindering myself by taking them.
I want to be able to take the units that I enjoy, and have a reasonable expectation that they'll do what they're supposed to.
Now, if I'm expecting unit X to be a super unit that does everything and doesn't have a reasonable counter - that's on me. No unit should do everything; they should have a purpose (melee, shooting, meatshield, etc), a reasonable ability to carry out that purpose, and a weakness that can be brought to bear by the enemy to counter them.
Gree wrote: I once entered a 40k tournament. It was one of the most unpleasant experiences I ever had in the hobby. Suffice it to say, I now only do casual pickup games with my friends. For me, 40k is a relaxing way to unwind once a week, away from the pressures of life.
Competitive players always struck me as a joyless and miserable lot, never having an actual fun or enjoyment out of playing what amounts to a game of toy soldiers. Typically I see a sea of unpainted grey plastic for their armies, usually the flavor of the month.
Conversely, some of the best games that I ever had was with a Guard player who had loving painted and converted his army. He stuck by it all through 6th and 7th, despite all the competitive players complaining how bad Guard was. He had real love for his army. He and I always had incredibly fun and engaging games, and I always liked playing against him. I was fine with losing against him as long we both had a thrilling closely-fought game.
And I've *never* had a bad experience at a tournament. I think maybe you went in with an incorrect perception on how tournaments operate.
I went in with as a blank slate hoping for a good time. I left feeling very let down. Different experiences for different people I guess. I have no desire to waste my time and money on that sort of event again.
I have no interest in tournaments. I am quite satisfied with my decision. I am quite fortunate to have a small circle of friends and acquaintances to have fun and relaxing games.
If the amount of complaining online about the competitive scene is any indication, then I believe I made the correct decision.
Tournaments ruined 40k because it was those exact tournaments and there players that caused the abomination of 8th edition to exist, 8th is not a war game and is not warhammer. While people are open to play what they want it’s disappointing because those of us that do not like 8th either have to stop playing or write our own rules for any new models.
On another note i always found it funny when 8th enthusiasts told those of us that don’t like it to stop playing and stop crying but when they complained about 7th and where told the same they would never stop because they love the game (bit stupid if you ask me)
Marmatag wrote: Isn't this supposed to be the play the way you want edition? No one is forcing you to play with competitive rules and matched play restrictions.
It just so happens that the ITC combined missions are far and away the most fun and balanced way to play 40k right now.
Your second point is debatable, but your first point, while technically correct, is 100% dependent on your area. Most areas are at the very least Matched Play only, and some are also ITC competitive style. If you don't want to play that style, and you're in an area like that, you either conform or you don't play at all. That's not really "play the way you want edition" when one way is touted as being "balanced" and the othr two are touted as being "unbalanced"
Absolutely correct - it is debatable and 100% my opinion
At the end of the day, I would argue regardless of game mode, no one enjoys losing badly, with the feeling they couldn't achieve anything. I feel - personally, my opinion - that the ITC scenarios, played with a 2.5 hour game time restriction at 2000 points, eliminate that. The scores will generally be close, and you can point to specific decisions - in game or list building - that harmed your chances to win more accurately than if you looked at the game and said, "well, it was eternal war, but i got tabled on turn 4, so i didn't control any objectives. I guess that makes it 0-18, wow."
The book missions and scenarios for narrative should be greatly fleshed out, but they're meant to be the basis for forging your own narrative (c). You can buy adventures in D&D and run through them with your mates, but i don't think that many people actually do that.
I like Dakka, but I wouldn't for a second consider it a good source of positivity for the game. People here tend to quickly sway way too much in one direction or another. As such, we see arguments that are a bit hyperbolic, and situations that are incredibly uncommon are treated as if they're happening every single game.
Competitiveness is its own thing, and the very competitive folks will remain competitive regardless of the system. They will try to break it each and every time they can, because that's what they do. You can't fight that person's nature, you can only embrace it. And lots of people will complain about the competitive scene, because they want to break into that competitive scene, but the barrier to entry is really high. There's also the times when someone completely unprepared for a competitive game goes against a competitive gamer, and gets so hurt (and with game lengths being what they are, it takes a long time to go through this getting hurt process) that they feel the need to vent.
But your average game?
No. The average game is great. Most of the really OP things are so blatantly OP that people don't bring them in their casual games, and the competitiveness gets quickly sidetracked to something else (like competitive painting).
I don't want to look through my codex and know that 90% of the units aren't worth taking - to the point where I'm actively hindering myself by taking them.
I would say the issue is more one of skill than of competitiveness on its own.
First up a solid rules system balanced for the competitive market and based on the approach of aiming for multiple viable combinations within armies is never a bad thing. Solid rules and balance provides a platform for players of all skill levels.
The issues come more when the power difference between an average army and a competitive one is great. Ergo when more power is weighted to army abilities than to army use.
You see this a lot in something like Magic the Gathering - a pro level deck might win the match in two or three turns (some even on turn one if they get a good hand).
The other issue is more local, but in general its "easier" to run any club or organisation on the competitive end than it is on the casual end. Competitive allows for easy build up of campaigns and tournaments that not only easily generates interest and its own schedule, but can also be used to turn income (pay to compete) to help cover costs (Magic the Gathering is, again, king as that even has booster draft which is a game mode that requires pay to compete to get the boosters).
This element is not in any way unique to Warhammer. It's the same in many other hobby groups. Most sports, photography, horse riding, aircraft flying et c.... the competiive event can "Spoil" things for the casual person of lower skill or who has less dedication/time/money/desire to compete at a higher level.
However its also a reflection on how many groups don't always push or help other members internally - and here I'd say wargames are possibly at the worse end of the scale. Whilst there's loads of "how to build" there are very few discussions on how to play well. So the difference in skill can be great and the resources to aid improvement far fewer - at least if you want help beyond a list
Game's aren't fun when they're unbalanced - competitive is a way of testing the limits of the game; if it's not balanced, or there are poor rules, they'll show up there.
I want my game to be balanced.
I don't want to look through my codex and know that 90% of the units aren't worth taking - to the point where I'm actively hindering myself by taking them.
I want to be able to take the units that I enjoy, and have a reasonable expectation that they'll do what they're supposed to.
Now, if I'm expecting unit X to be a super unit that does everything and doesn't have a reasonable counter - that's on me. No unit should do everything; they should have a purpose (melee, shooting, meatshield, etc), a reasonable ability to carry out that purpose, and a weakness that can be brought to bear by the enemy to counter them.
But... almost everything you said happens in 40k. 90% of the units aren't worth taking (that number might be an exaggeration) and you actively hinder yourself by taking them. Many of the units people enjoy do not do what they're supposed to do. Your argument is more against 40k than for it.
Yeah, this is an important question. I like to play fluffy lists, but I like to win with them and optimize them within the bounds of the fluff. To some players, I'm probably a horrible person, and to others, and easy and unwitting fool to be trounced, lol.
TeAXIIIT13 wrote: Tournaments ruined 40k because it was those exact tournaments and there players that caused the abomination of 8th edition to exist, 8th is not a war game and is not warhammer. While people are open to play what they want it’s disappointing because those of us that do not like 8th either have to stop playing or write our own rules for any new models.
On another note i always found it funny when 8th enthusiasts told those of us that don’t like it to stop playing and stop crying but when they complained about 7th and where told the same they would never stop because they love the game (bit stupid if you ask me)
I didn't like 5th, 6th, or 7th, I effectively stopped playing for 10 years, trust me, you find other things to fill the time. Loved Warmahordes while I was gone, provided some useful perspective on the game when I finally came back for 8th.
Personally, I like 8th, they've fixed many of the longstanding problems I had with the rules and expanded possibilities in an interesting way with detachments and keywords. But I also realize this is my opinion, so, YMMV.
Competitive people are going to be competitive. They're going to break any game they can because it's something they enjoy (for better or for worse).
Overly competitive stuff doesn't ruin 40K for me, because I don't attend tournaments and won't play competitive minded players.
GW could curb 90% of the "spammy" armies by writing better rules, and I don't necessarily mean different rules. I mean more technical proficiency when wording things, doing more research on rules interactions and generally play-testing it more. If GW doesn't have a "bash brothers" group of people who intentionally try to break stuff when it's written...they should. I have a couple of buddies I bounce my games off of because I know they're rules-lawyers and game-breakers. It's occasionally a valuable asset.
Having said that...GW has no real vested interest in an incredibly tight, well written set of rules. They need "just good enough" to push copious amounts of grey plastic. I don't fault them for this. It isn't the GW of the 90's anymore (a bunch of DND playin', weed smokin', metal listening crazy geeks running everything). GW needs the rules balanced or imbalanced just enough to sell lots and lots of models - something they've done quite well this past 6-7 months.
At the end of the day the control is really in the players' hands. There's nothing you can't fix or tweak in a casual setting amongst friends. People who want to attend tournaments need to go into them with the mindset that GW is not here to build a perfect, balanced tournament game...they're just not. So you're going to be playing a slightly warped/twisted/broken product. GW will step in and nerf the occasional broken unit, but they're not going to go back and re-write your codex for you.
Competitiveness is only a problem when casual players find that competitiveness is forcing them to be more competitive than they want to be. It's an issue of mismatched expectations/playstyles within a playgroup, it isn't an issue with some nebulous idea of "the 40k community" because the vast majority of us will never play a game with each other.
Generally I think it tends to mean "not caring about anything but winning" so everything is on the table. Multiple detachments to gain the most CP, soup lists that cherry-pick only the best options (as opposed to a fluffy combined arms list), ignoring the fluff and background (e.g. taking brimstone horrors with a death guard force just because they are the most points-efficient), spamming of the most points efficient units regardless of anything else.
Basically, I think most people mean the true definition of "WAAC": Somebody who only cares about winning within the framework of the game, and to hell with everything else about 40k beyond how it functions as a game. "Legal within the rules" is the only criteria.
Generally I think it tends to mean "not caring about anything but winning" so everything is on the table. Multiple detachments to gain the most CP, soup lists that cherry-pick only the best options (as opposed to a fluffy combined arms list), ignoring the fluff and background (e.g. taking brimstone horrors with a death guard force just because they are the most points-efficient), spamming of the most points efficient units regardless of anything else.
Basically, I think most people mean the true definition of "WAAC": Somebody who only cares about winning within the framework of the game, and to hell with everything else about 40k beyond how it functions as a game. "Legal within the rules" is the only criteria.
Cool, I think that's a great starting point.
I don't think it's ruining/ruined 40K, but that's just based on my personal experience.
Those lamenting the competitive nature of competitive 40k don't have the strongest legs to stand on. Not that there aren't good points made all the time, but the expectation and goal is to smash and win, from what I can gather.
For the rest of us, I think it can be a problem. I'm not trying to bring that kind of list, and I'm not trying to play against it. I still want to bring a potent list that is a challenge for my opponent to defeat, and likewise I want the opponent to do the same for me. Between it all, we'll roll some dice, laugh at ourselves and each other, disagree about rules but come to the conclusion together that it doesn't really matter how the game ends, as long as we're having fun. I have had about 2 opponents ever, out of maybe 20 (I usually play the same people repeatedly) that rubbed me the wrong way.
Most people I've played with just want to have fun with their little army men and nerd out in every possible way. I like this edition more than 6th or 7th, so whatever complaints I have are minor. Some units are better than others, oh well. Best not to take it too seriously.
Generally I think it tends to mean "not caring about anything but winning" so everything is on the table. Multiple detachments to gain the most CP, soup lists that cherry-pick only the best options (as opposed to a fluffy combined arms list), ignoring the fluff and background (e.g. taking brimstone horrors with a death guard force just because they are the most points-efficient), spamming of the most points efficient units regardless of anything else.
Basically, I think most people mean the true definition of "WAAC": Somebody who only cares about winning within the framework of the game, and to hell with everything else about 40k beyond how it functions as a game. "Legal within the rules" is the only criteria.
Eh its all semantics at this point but i recall a WAAC is all of that and the kinda person that goes above and beyond that to win including cheating, slow play, stuff like that that doesnt involve the rules it self.
it is winning at "ALL" Costs.
you can be competitive ignore fluff, cherry pick and do a detailed breakdown of points to efficiency ratio and still have a fun time playing against them.
Generally I think it tends to mean "not caring about anything but winning" so everything is on the table. Multiple detachments to gain the most CP, soup lists that cherry-pick only the best options (as opposed to a fluffy combined arms list), ignoring the fluff and background (e.g. taking brimstone horrors with a death guard force just because they are the most points-efficient), spamming of the most points efficient units regardless of anything else.
Basically, I think most people mean the true definition of "WAAC": Somebody who only cares about winning within the framework of the game, and to hell with everything else about 40k beyond how it functions as a game. "Legal within the rules" is the only criteria.
WAAC is not necessarily (and often is not) equal to competitive play.
The drama from Tony and LVO? That's WAAC. The 95% of the rest of the tournament is "competitive".
Generally I think it tends to mean "not caring about anything but winning" so everything is on the table. Multiple detachments to gain the most CP, soup lists that cherry-pick only the best options (as opposed to a fluffy combined arms list), ignoring the fluff and background (e.g. taking brimstone horrors with a death guard force just because they are the most points-efficient), spamming of the most points efficient units regardless of anything else.
Basically, I think most people mean the true definition of "WAAC": Somebody who only cares about winning within the framework of the game, and to hell with everything else about 40k beyond how it functions as a game. "Legal within the rules" is the only criteria.
2 comments:
1) Multiple detachments to gain the most CP isn't WAAC, I don't think. It's sensible. There's no reason to run a battalion with an extra HQ and 3 extra elites when it could be a Battalion and a Vanguard for +1 CP. Not doing so is just dumb for no reason.
2) Not all fluffy lists are combined arms. Imperial Guard Armoured Regiments, for example, are explicitly forbidden to have much, if any, infantry component, and Khorne Daemons won't bring any psykers.
Competitive players have less than zero effect on you if you wanna play casually.
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Unit1126PLL wrote: 2) Not all fluffy lists are combined arms. Imperial Guard Armoured Regiments, for example, are explicitly forbidden to have much, if any, infantry component, and Khorne Daemons won't bring any psykers.
The point of splitting the guard like that is to stop too much being under the command of a single person. Armoured Companies and Infantry Companies ALWAYS work together, that's the entire point.
BaconCatBug wrote: Competitive players have less than zero effect on you if you wanna play casually.
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Unit1126PLL wrote: 2) Not all fluffy lists are combined arms. Imperial Guard Armoured Regiments, for example, are explicitly forbidden to have much, if any, infantry component, and Khorne Daemons won't bring any psykers.
The point of splitting the guard like that is to stop too much being under the command of a single person. Armoured Companies and Infantry Companies ALWAYS work together, that's the entire point.
They always work together except where they don't, like the novel Gunheads for example. Or Fifteen Hours. Or one of the short stories in the Planetkill novel, though I forget the name. Oh, and Baneblade, there's several scenes where superheavies are left to their own devices. In Shadowsword there are several battles fought either by the superheavies alone or with like, 6 Black Templar bikers and no one else. Oh, and don't forget that one story in the Imperial Guard codex where an air-defense regiment fought alone on a planet with no support and achieved a kill ratio of 99,999 to 1 because unexplained reasons.
In any event the point is that IMHO 'competitiveness' is things like if you mix and match stuff, you simply cherry-pick the best options regardless, just because the rules allow you. E.g. taking two Blood Angels captains identically equipped with jump pack, thunder hammer, whatever the new Captain Smashf-er is (Count Smashf-er, because Blood Angels?), without actually have the marines to justify why there are two captains just there on the battlefield along with whatever. That's the sort of unfluffy/cherry-picking stuff I mean. Two blood angels captains, then Celestine and some guard with tanks, just there because it's the most efficient/best units to take for whatever reason. I find often the general rule is this: If you have to come up with some fluff to justify your list, you're basically just coming up with an excuse to justify your min/maxing; a truly fluffy army will be readily apparent (e.g. if you had a mixed infantry/tank guard regiment, it should be apparently fluffy but if you have to justify why you're only taking mortars and LR punishers, you're justifying cheese)
RE: the detachment and whatnot, that's part of why I hate the detachment concept, and feel they should limit it to where you cannot take a second detachment without completely filling out the first (random thought: Maybe they should change it so you CAN but if you don't completely fill one detachment, you don't get the CP for the secondary detachments). It shouldn't be strictly better to take 1 battalion and 1 vanguard than a single detachment with 3 hq and 3 elite and 3 troops; there should be a reason/reward to have them all in one detachment as opposed to taking multiple detachments. That IMHO is something that needs to be fixed. You should be trying to limit the detachments, not game them by taking the minimum across multiple detachments.
I think full on competitive people are definitely a problem because so much discussion turns into whats the most optimal choice.
Plus some competitive people are just jerks who take it way too far and try and cheat to win. Then there are people who just actively seek out the most broken thing to play like scatbike spam.
While they are probably the minority overall they're definitely an issue.
Of course they can't really be singled out as the sole issue because someone wrote the broken rules in the first place.
RE: the detachment and whatnot, that's part of why I hate the detachment concept, and feel they should limit it to where you cannot take a second detachment without completely filling out the first (random thought: Maybe they should change it so you CAN but if you don't completely fill one detachment, you don't get the CP for the secondary detachments). It shouldn't be strictly better to take 1 battalion and 1 vanguard than a single detachment with 3 hq and 3 elite and 3 troops; there should be a reason/reward to have them all in one detachment as opposed to taking multiple detachments. That IMHO is something that needs to be fixed. You should be trying to limit the detachments, not game them by taking the minimum across multiple detachments.
Extra slots in detachments provide flexibility and the ability to take a fast attack choice without needing to take 3 of them. Plenty of armies have no real ability to fill up a detachment. If anything, this suggestion would make the cheap guard addition the only option, because that's about all that can fill up a detachment with enough points to start another.
I dunno, I think arguments based on fluff sorta highlight how subjective the entire issue is. At most times I could not be less interested in how "fluffy" a list is given their representation in the fiction of the game. I believe that limiting one's view of the IP and how that translates on the tabletop based just on that stuff is extremely myopic.
For example, I've seen repeatedly over the years: "That wouldn't happen." Grey Knights wouldn't ever be heretics, there would never be a sorcerer dedicated to Khorne, etc. Except, if the player decides that's what they want in their army, it would happen. It did happen. That's what's playing out on the tabletop, because they used their imaginations and felt no need to constrain themselves based on the minute slice of the universe GW has presented us.
Neither side is right or wrong, except when it looks down on the other for not sharing their perspective.
I dunno, kinda rambling at this point, but I think you get the gist. Find like-minded players if you can, or make do with the players available to you, or focus on the hobby if that isn't possible, or find something else. There should be room enough for everyone.
BaconCatBug wrote: Competitive players have less than zero effect on you if you wanna play casually.
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Unit1126PLL wrote: 2) Not all fluffy lists are combined arms. Imperial Guard Armoured Regiments, for example, are explicitly forbidden to have much, if any, infantry component, and Khorne Daemons won't bring any psykers.
The point of splitting the guard like that is to stop too much being under the command of a single person. Armoured Companies and Infantry Companies ALWAYS work together, that's the entire point.
They always work together except where they don't, like the novel Gunheads for example. Or Fifteen Hours. Or one of the short stories in the Planetkill novel, though I forget the name. Oh, and Baneblade, there's several scenes where superheavies are left to their own devices. In Shadowsword there are several battles fought either by the superheavies alone or with like, 6 Black Templar bikers and no one else. Oh, and don't forget that one story in the Imperial Guard codex where an air-defense regiment fought alone on a planet with no support and achieved a kill ratio of 99,999 to 1 because unexplained reasons.
Wayniac wrote: RE: the detachment and whatnot, that's part of why I hate the detachment concept, and feel they should limit it to where you cannot take a second detachment without completely filling out the first (random thought: Maybe they should change it so you CAN but if you don't completely fill one detachment, you don't get the CP for the secondary detachments). It shouldn't be strictly better to take 1 battalion and 1 vanguard than a single detachment with 3 hq and 3 elite and 3 troops; there should be a reason/reward to have them all in one detachment as opposed to taking multiple detachments. That IMHO is something that needs to be fixed. You should be trying to limit the detachments, not game them by taking the minimum across multiple detachments.
I don't understand why you feel this way.
And there actually is a good reason for having them all in one detachment: if you're only allowed to have 3 Detachments. You want a Supreme Command of Inquisitors to lead your army? Fine, take your fun & fluffy conclave. Then you want a Marauder Bomber to represent your Inquisitors leveraging their influence with the Imperial Navy? Boom, 1 Super-Heavy Auxiliary detachment. Then you want a battalion of Storm Troopers, as Inquisitors are wont to do - BANG! 2 HQs and 3 Troops of Storm Troopers.
Suddenly, you want to take assassins, and you can't anymore... unless you put them in the Battalion, or just take 1 with the Supreme Command. Womp womp.
I find detachment shenanigans largely go away when you stick to the "recommended" limit of three detachments. And I have always made a point of doing so.
BaconCatBug wrote: Competitive players have less than zero effect on you if you wanna play casually.
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Unit1126PLL wrote: 2) Not all fluffy lists are combined arms. Imperial Guard Armoured Regiments, for example, are explicitly forbidden to have much, if any, infantry component, and Khorne Daemons won't bring any psykers.
The point of splitting the guard like that is to stop too much being under the command of a single person. Armoured Companies and Infantry Companies ALWAYS work together, that's the entire point.
They always work together except where they don't, like the novel Gunheads for example. Or Fifteen Hours. Or one of the short stories in the Planetkill novel, though I forget the name. Oh, and Baneblade, there's several scenes where superheavies are left to their own devices. In Shadowsword there are several battles fought either by the superheavies alone or with like, 6 Black Templar bikers and no one else. Oh, and don't forget that one story in the Imperial Guard codex where an air-defense regiment fought alone on a planet with no support and achieved a kill ratio of 99,999 to 1 because unexplained reasons.
But yeah. Always.
TIL Bad Writers = Canon.
That's why the Ultramarines use Multilasers!
Yep. It's funny how in an entire galaxy such weird gak could happen.
Not really gonna add anything useful to WAAC tournaments and fluffy-at-all-costs bashing each other who is to blame, but it just so happens, that I've read the very White Dwarf that introduced 6th ed yesterday and damn, this was so entirely different "introductory" WD than when 8th hit. Nothing about competetiveness, everything about cinematic feeling and "little but flavourfull rules" sprinkled all over the place...
When 40K history includes so "imballanced" editions like 2nd, 6th or 7th which were intended for self-governed story-driven play and editions like 3rd-5th and 8th aimed at entirely different experience, then it is absolutely "normal" to have endless argument between "tournament" and "fluffy" crowds...
Yes. The focus on competitive players and their feedback is a negative one. It's also quite frustrating to see their lists get reported on and then show up in more casual environments.
Kanluwen wrote: Yes. The focus on competitive players and their feedback is a negative one. It's also quite frustrating to see their lists get reported on and then show up in more casual environments.
This is an issue in any game that has a competitive scene. You see the competitive mentality and lists trickle down to everything, even local areas where people will never even see close to the top tables at a GT.
Generally I think it tends to mean "not caring about anything but winning" so everything is on the table. Multiple detachments to gain the most CP, soup lists that cherry-pick only the best options (as opposed to a fluffy combined arms list), ignoring the fluff and background (e.g. taking brimstone horrors with a death guard force just because they are the most points-efficient), spamming of the most points efficient units regardless of anything else.
Basically, I think most people mean the true definition of "WAAC": Somebody who only cares about winning within the framework of the game, and to hell with everything else about 40k beyond how it functions as a game. "Legal within the rules" is the only criteria.
2 comments:
1) Multiple detachments to gain the most CP isn't WAAC, I don't think. It's sensible. There's no reason to run a battalion with an extra HQ and 3 extra elites when it could be a Battalion and a Vanguard for +1 CP. Not doing so is just dumb for no reason.
2) Not all fluffy lists are combined arms. Imperial Guard Armoured Regiments, for example, are explicitly forbidden to have much, if any, infantry component, and Khorne Daemons won't bring any psykers.
Just speaking on #1, I think it's probably referring to always "needing" a specific detachment. For example if you wanted to play a pure SM list, competitively some would say "you can add a battalion or a brigade of AM for cheap" to squeeze your options for the most benefit. I can understand why that would appeal to some but I can imagine for a lot of players, they don't want to be forced to buy models and books for things they have no real interest in to be competitive. Like if I want to play Space Marines, I want to play pure Space Marines and at least be somewhat competitive, not imperial soup or basically AM but with only 5 models of the units I'm actually interested in. Same idea can be applied for units that are considered an "auto-include".
... but I also kind of don't. Maybe it's been beaten out of me by playing RTS games, but I have learned to recognize that what I want (an army of all-Teutonic Knights in AOE 2, or all Siege-Tanks in Starcraft, or all surface-to-air missiles in World in Conflict, or all T-64BVs in Wargame: AirLand Battle) isn't always what's very good, and that one must either decide to not be competitive, or shape up and change what they want.
I find detachment shenanigans largely go away when you stick to the "recommended" limit of three detachments. And I have always made a point of doing so.
I mean, that's technically as much guidance as we get for point limits and we're pretty good about sticking to 2000. I do agree the limit of 3 is needed to provide some interesting tradeoffs in which faction buffs you get out of your detachments and which ones you're willing to give up.
That could be an issue, perhaps. I've always always always stuck to the 3 detachment limits for all my armies regardless of size, and oftentimes it forces me to make hard decisions.
Maybe that's a place where the rules could be improved.
3 detachments still seems like too much for most people. Maybe it's different if you always start with a superheavy to fit in your 3 baneblades, but 3 detachments still means a lot of "Why would I take this in one, let me take multiple" kinda things. I have heard the UK has some limitations where you can't take a detachment more than once, so no taking 2 spearheads to max out on heavy support, as an example.
Unit1126PLL wrote: That could be an issue, perhaps. I've always always always stuck to the 3 detachment limits for all my armies regardless of size, and oftentimes it forces me to make hard decisions.
Maybe that's a place where the rules could be improved.
In general, having a standard play format is pretty important for giving designers something to shoot for. Another thread mentioned costing of buff auras and the like and that stuff very much breaks down how well points system scales (but so do IGYG mechanics, so that ship has long sailed). I think an official tourney packet developed with help from the TOs of some of the major cons is probably the last big thing GW needs to do to prove they're serious about supporting the game competitively at this point.
... but I also kind of don't. Maybe it's been beaten out of me by playing RTS games, but I have learned to recognize that what I want (an army of all-Teutonic Knights in AOE 2, or all Siege-Tanks in Starcraft, or all surface-to-air missiles in World in Conflict, or all T-64BVs in Wargame: AirLand Battle) isn't always what's very good, and that one must either decide to not be competitive, or shape up and change what they want.
Maybe it says more about GW balancing and rule writing more than anything, but to me trying to balance competitiveness and fluffiness is ideal. I guess at this point I'm just being an optimist
LunarSol wrote: I mean, that's technically as much guidance as we get for point limits and we're pretty good about sticking to 2000. I do agree the limit of 3 is needed to provide some interesting tradeoffs in which faction buffs you get out of your detachments and which ones you're willing to give up.
Honestly, I'm pretty loose when it comes to fluff in my army construction, I typically go where the math (points/detachments/time limits) takes me, or I just go for fun and don't really care about the rest (my definition of fun perhaps differing from some).
But I play in a pretty competitive group and we treat 3 detachments like the word of god, you bring anything more to a table, you will be asked to re-write and return.
Although, to be fair, I find 3 detachments provides more than enough variety to keep the soup spicy, anything more than that really is going to start seeing your CP spread very thinly.
... but I also kind of don't. Maybe it's been beaten out of me by playing RTS games, but I have learned to recognize that what I want (an army of all-Teutonic Knights in AOE 2, or all Siege-Tanks in Starcraft, or all surface-to-air missiles in World in Conflict, or all T-64BVs in Wargame: AirLand Battle) isn't always what's very good, and that one must either decide to not be competitive, or shape up and change what they want.
Maybe it says more about GW balancing and rule writing more than anything, but to me trying to balance competitiveness and fluffiness is ideal. I guess at this point I'm just being an optimist
I've accepted that being truly fluffy sometimes means being uncompetitive. Which is funny, and kind of like the fluff. In 5th edition, no tanks could score, and it was unfluffy for a fresh armoured company to have less than 10 tanks, so I lost damn near every game. You can even look in my post history from "Back in the day" and watch me argue with peregrine who said "take fewer tanks you'll win more" and me saying "no, armoured companies have 3 squadrons of 3 and 1 command tank just like the fluff!!!!!"
Competitiveness doesn't ruin games. People wanting to win at any cost ruins games. Every game and every sport suffers from it; there will always be some who will bend or break the rules, even if it does hollow the victory.
Plus some competitive people are just jerks who take it way too far and try and cheat to win. Then there are people who just actively seek out the most broken thing to play like scatbike spam.
You're playing it fast and loose with the competitive term there. Do you think narrative players don't cheat?
Of course they can't really be singled out as the sole issue because someone wrote the broken rules in the first place.
It's a game that pits player vs. player. It's the very definition of competitive, since each player is "competing" to win.
So no, competitiveness is not ruining the game. Poor sportsmanship, however, can possibly ruin it for some players if they deal with that a lot. Thankfully for me, the people I play with play competitively, but for fun, and they don't get hung up on losing. We have our intense moments of frustration from bad dice rolls, but nothing that strains our sportsmanship.
I don't really know if it is ruining the game in this edition. In my opinion i think that it ruined the 3.5 CSM codex. It allowed a lot of personalization and much more fluffy armies than right now in 8th edition with their own codexes... But people then only took the best units and gak from that codex, abusing the system and indirectly doing that GW scrapped all those cool concepts and released the dull 4th edition CSM codex...
I always have thought that the people ruined that codex, but it is true that a big part of that was due to GW's inability to make proper restrictive rules. They wrote a fluffy codex that enabled the player to make a nice chaos legion army list, but instead of enforcing the restrictions to make the codex balanced, they just let to choose everything from the codex and mix and match all, so one would find abominations like the siren DP lists or things like those...
In this edition i think the problem is a bit similar to what happened in the 3.5 chaos codex. GW has tried to make a very loose system, to allow the player to make the lists as fluffy as possible... But they forgot that there are people who really do not give a gak about the fluff or the story or the universe of 40k and only want to smash someone in a game, so the at-first-glance good system of keywords and detachments has became an abusive pile of crap, with people really doing things and making lists that GW never thought about... Probably with the IMPERIUM in one only faction GW was thinking in a fluffy and nice list of some IG regiment with an inquisitor and an astropath, but people instead comes up with gak like Guilliman and hundreds of imperial assasins and mortars or whatever the insanity lists are right now...
I think that is the problem. People thinks that 40k is a competitive game when it is not. Warhammer 40k is a universe, a fantasy-future world. The game is supposedly the representation of the many battles and wars of that universe. But then it fails loudly, when one start to see abomination lists that in no way can represent anything from the universe.
So yes, in a way the competitiveness is ruining the game, because GW are bad game designers, they cannot figure out with all their resources the same things that some players think in 5 minutes, and when they try to fix the things they cut all the tree, instead of removing the rotten fruits...
Why is it ruining 40k/ what really is ruining 40k?
It is destroying its essence. Before anyone says it again. No. Codex: Daemonhunters et al. are not the same as the current situation by orders of magnitude. So, no, it was not a thing the "random accumulation of similar things" to make an army list. From my experience, in 3rd or 4th edition there were not "pick the best" multi-faction armies, an army was done with a codex... I think i have read that in 6th or 7th things were even worse... well, that is really sad and that would mean that 40k is really a pile of garbage that is not possible to save.
The "3 ways of play" and all that is very nice if all the people that you play with agreed to play one less competitive game. If not and all the people come with an experience with points and a balanced game = having point cost, then the people will play with point cost. In practice the others "way of play" are not really good the very moment one player decides that he wants to win...
And how would you fix it/ how would you stop people complaining?
The problem is not the people as GW. People will always try to break the game and make everything they can to win, destroying its essence if it is necessary...
GW nowadays is trying to sell as many models as possible, and they make the rules according to this, upgrading or nerfing each unit accordingly. That way is impossible to have a balanced game. The drift of GW seems to be carrying us to a very dark time of "everything is valid".
In a perfect world, to fix the game and make it a bit more balanced and above all that, make it a proper representation of the 40k universe, the solution would be to go back to the restrictions and do them a lot of more rigid. That would mean 1 codex = 1 army. 1 army = 1 detachment. Go back to the Force Organization Chart. Go back to restrict too powerful units to 0-1 in an army. Restrict some other powerful units or combination of units with only one for every X points. Stop the "soups" nonsense and go back to a better way of portraying the 40k on the tabletop.
open your eyes, and swallow the red pill of truth. The matrix has you.
GW is a miniature company NOT A GAMING COMPANY.
They already stated in the past that they are in the business to sell miniatures not table top gaming.
They used formation detachments to push new lines of miniatures in 7th ed. nothing new has changed. they are pushing new miniatures through their manipulation of their published rules.
this is nothing new. GW has been doing this the entire time.
"Do not try and bend the spoon (meta balance), that's impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth...there is no spoon (meta balance). Then you'll see that it is not the spoon (meta balance) that bends, it is only yourself." Spoon boy The matrix
CadianGateTroll wrote: open your eyes, and swallow the red pill of truth. The matrix has you.
GW is a miniature company NOT A GAMING COMPANY. They already stated in the past that they are in the business to sell miniatures not table top gaming.
They used formation detachments to push new lines of miniatures in 7th ed. nothing new has changed. they are pushing new miniatures through their manipulation of their published rules.
this is nothing new. GW has been doing this the entire time.
"Do not try and bend the spoon (meta balance), that's impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth...there is no spoon (meta balance). Then you'll see that it is not the spoon (meta balance) that bends, it is only yourself." Spoon boy The matrix
They can repeat that until the cows come home, it won't make it true. I doubt many people would buy the models if not for the game, at least nowhere near as many people play the game. They are a game company that doesn't want to devote the effort to making a good game, so they claim they aren't a gaming company to justify it. That's been the case since probably around 5th edition, the time when all their good designers left for greener pastures.
CadianGateTroll wrote: open your eyes, and swallow the red pill of truth. The matrix has you.
GW is a miniature company NOT A GAMING COMPANY.
They already stated in the past that they are in the business to sell miniatures not table top gaming.
They used formation detachments to push new lines of miniatures in 7th ed. nothing new has changed. they are pushing new miniatures through their manipulation of their published rules.
this is nothing new. GW has been doing this the entire time.
"Do not try and bend the spoon (meta balance), that's impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth...there is no spoon (meta balance). Then you'll see that it is not the spoon (meta balance) that bends, it is only yourself." Spoon boy The matrix
I wonder how many times people are going to pull out that quote from before Kirby left.
Surely now as I scan the horizon nothing has changed. Nothing, I say!
We have a thriving 40K community here with local tourneys every couple of months. Local tourneys are a great way to keep the scene going. At the FLGS we play Matched Play and the odd Narrative. On my basement gaming table we play narrative. I'm not seeing any ruining of the game.
If you go to high-level tournaments then you have to go in with your eyes open and check your ego at the door - its probably going to get bruised.
I don't really know if it is ruining the game in this edition. In my opinion i think that it ruined the 3.5 CSM codex. It allowed a lot of personalization and much more fluffy armies than right now in 8th edition with their own codexes... But people then only took the best units and gak from that codex, abusing the system and indirectly doing that GW scrapped all those cool concepts and released the dull 4th edition CSM codex...
I always have thought that the people ruined that codex, but it is true that a big part of that was due to GW's inability to make proper restrictive rules. They wrote a fluffy codex that enabled the player to make a nice chaos legion army list, but instead of enforcing the restrictions to make the codex balanced, they just let to choose everything from the codex and mix and match all, so one would find abominations like the siren DP lists or things like those...
In this edition i think the problem is a bit similar to what happened in the 3.5 chaos codex. GW has tried to make a very loose system, to allow the player to make the lists as fluffy as possible... But they forgot that there are people who really do not give a gak about the fluff or the story or the universe of 40k and only want to smash someone in a game, so the at-first-glance good system of keywords and detachments has became an abusive pile of crap, with people really doing things and making lists that GW never thought about... Probably with the IMPERIUM in one only faction GW was thinking in a fluffy and nice list of some IG regiment with an inquisitor and an astropath, but people instead comes up with gak like Guilliman and hundreds of imperial assasins and mortars or whatever the insanity lists are right now...
I think that is the problem. People thinks that 40k is a competitive game when it is not. Warhammer 40k is a universe, a fantasy-future world. The game is supposedly the representation of the many battles and wars of that universe. But then it fails loudly, when one start to see abomination lists that in no way can represent anything from the universe.
So yes, in a way the competitiveness is ruining the game, because GW are bad game designers, they cannot figure out with all their resources the same things that some players think in 5 minutes, and when they try to fix the things they cut all the tree, instead of removing the rotten fruits...
Why is it ruining 40k/ what really is ruining 40k?
It is destroying its essence. Before anyone says it again. No. Codex: Daemonhunters et al. are not the same as the current situation by orders of magnitude. So, no, it was not a thing the "random accumulation of similar things" to make an army list. From my experience, in 3rd or 4th edition there were not "pick the best" multi-faction armies, an army was done with a codex... I think i have read that in 6th or 7th things were even worse... well, that is really sad and that would mean that 40k is really a pile of garbage that is not possible to save.
The "3 ways of play" and all that is very nice if all the people that you play with agreed to play one less competitive game. If not and all the people come with an experience with points and a balanced game = having point cost, then the people will play with point cost. In practice the others "way of play" are not really good the very moment one player decides that he wants to win...
And how would you fix it/ how would you stop people complaining?
The problem is not the people as GW. People will always try to break the game and make everything they can to win, destroying its essence if it is necessary...
GW nowadays is trying to sell as many models as possible, and they make the rules according to this, upgrading or nerfing each unit accordingly. That way is impossible to have a balanced game. The drift of GW seems to be carrying us to a very dark time of "everything is valid".
In a perfect world, to fix the game and make it a bit more balanced and above all that, make it a proper representation of the 40k universe, the solution would be to go back to the restrictions and do them a lot of more rigid. That would mean 1 codex = 1 army. 1 army = 1 detachment. Go back to the Force Organization Chart. Go back to restrict too powerful units to 0-1 in an army. Restrict some other powerful units or combination of units with only one for every X points. Stop the "soups" nonsense and go back to a better way of portraying the 40k on the tabletop.
I pretty much agree with this but still with there was a middle point where I could have inquisitors fighting along side marines and ig, or have different types of demons fighting along side each other... maybe limit named characters to only brigades. No idea... the best way to solve the problem seems to be to make two games. A narrative dnd game and a competitive tournament.
Btw, to me competitive means to win at all costs (super cheese and abuse) and to be a super sore loser.
I think the problem is that 40k is a game which tries to be all things to all people. This works fine if you have a group of like minded people to play with regularly. That said, I think 40k has been having something of an identity crisis since the latter part of 5th when GW started trying to shoehorn in units that should never really have been part of this scale. I miss the less abstract sandbox style of 2nd ed or the streamlined simplicity of 3rd/4th. 8th doesn't seem to be a bad system all things considered but it seems to have abstracted things to the point where the models are really just window dressing. You could almost turn it into a card game.
Personally, my current interest is in more detailed, less abstract smaller scale games such Necromunda and Shadow War. I'd love to see rules for a "combat patrol" style game based on the SW ruleset.
Competitiveness in itself isn't a bad thing at all. Poor unit balancing and/or cyclical deliberate overpowering / underpowering as a marketing tool are the core of the problem. Players not wanting to use units that are cruddy, and wanting to use units that are effective is only to be expected.
If you were going to rewrite 40k as a tight competitive ruleset you would probably start by throwing at least half of the available tabletop options on the bonfire. There would be far less redundancy/excess fat and there would be distinct advantages to playing one faction over another.
This doesn't really fit GW's business model of releasing new shiny stuff all the time. The only way they could do it effectively would be to release a tournament ruleset, which isn't a terrible idea. Perhaps they could start up a separate company or division purely for hardcore gamers.
The complaints you hear here is not even a grain of sand compared to the silent majority that are enjoying the game in the way they want to be competitive or not.
a lot of the competitive vs casual can be fixed with a little bit of social interactions and talking out a game before committing time and effort into something.
but sure some things could be better if GW spends the time and actually fixes things this time around with their new biannual update scheme.
100% this ^^^
If someone needs balance, go play chess. What other game is as diverse as warhammer? It is a game of comic book action science fiction, it is supposed to be ridiculous and fun. It is as competitive as you make it.
In my time of playing 40k I have not attended a "major tournament" so the types of players I game with tends to not include the mythical donkey cave WAAC hyper competitive players (which do exist). I find alot of players are like me, or shades of it. And I would refer to myself as a "min/maxer".
A min/maxer wants to win, but wont go against the idea of what he wants to play to do so. For instance, when I play DnD, I pick a class that I am interested in playing and that compliments the roleplay of the char I am making. One the class is picked I will then do my best to make the most out of it rules wise as possible. I do not pick due to power level but on what I find interesting.
For instance. When I got into 40k from 8th edition fantasy I picked necrons simply because I liked the new models that had just been released. It turned out that they were the top dog WAAC faction for some time due to flyer spam and decurion. The more I played them the less I liked them. The playstyle was not my cup of tea. And worse, when I won a game it seemed to be due to list power rather than luck/tactical choices during play. So I sold my Necrons and started my black legion list because I was getting into the lore of chaos. At the time chaos marines were bottom barrel. I did not care. I went to making the best lists I could with what I had to work with. And I very much enjoyed every win because it was from a position of being a underdog. When I switched from BL to Thousand Sons I did not mimic the Magnus + DP spam lists that were taking tournaments.
To make a long story short. I think it is a call to lump players into groups. More often than not players exhibit a wide range of thoughts and wants from the hobby. How that relates to this thread is that I think it is dangerous to label players as competitive only. Some may be competitive but play narrative.
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Enigma of the Absolute wrote: If you were going to rewrite 40k as a tight competitive ruleset you would probably start by throwing at least half of the available tabletop options on the bonfire. There would be far less redundancy/excess fat and there would be distinct advantages to playing one faction over another.
This doesn't really fit GW's business model of releasing new shiny stuff all the time. The only way they could do it effectively would be to release a tournament ruleset, which isn't a terrible idea. Perhaps they could start up a separate company or division purely for hardcore gamers.
Id have to disagree a bit. Alot can be done better by GW while not throwing the baby out with the bath water. They are particularly bad at point cost. Alot of the time that is driven by sales and marketing (custodes currently) and some is just sheer idiocy (888 point lord of skulls). If they stopped intentionally under costing the new hotness to push sales and did a better job 40k would be much more balanced.
Does competitive play ruin 40K? Yes, in my opinion, somewhat. War games by their very nature are meant to be competitive exercises. The problem is that Warhammer 40K is a game that generally draws two sorts of people - competitive players who play the mechanical side of the game and casual / narrative players who (usually) want to play less competitively but are more interested in playing because of the fluff side of the game. In my experience, the two sides rarely enjoy a game together because they want different things out of it.
Competitive play is about winning, although not necessarily WAAC. It's turning up with a perfect list and playing it to achieve victory. That is fine when it is competitive versus competitive. More often than not though I see competitive players using that same style against less competitive players and casual players, usually to detriment of the opponent's enjoyment of the game. It is almost as if some competitive players cannot tone their play style down to accommodate the play style of their opponent. That however is not the fault of the game but the problem of having two different play styles. I sometimes wonder whether traditional historical war gaming has the same issue?
Some may disagree with me here but I have found that the 8th edition rules do not support a competitive style of play very well. It is too easy to break the mechanics. However, if played for a fun and casual format that isn't built around using and abusing the mechanics of a much simpler system that we have had before, it works fantastically. It is a war game so it is going to have tournaments and competitive events but I don't feel that that is where the heart and soul of 8th edition lies.
Table wrote: Id have to disagree a bit. Alot can be done better by GW while not throwing the baby out with the bath water. They are particularly bad at point cost. Alot of the time that is driven by sales and marketing (custodes currently) and some is just sheer idiocy (888 point lord of skulls). If they stopped intentionally under costing the new hotness to push sales and did a better job 40k would be much more balanced.
Sure, but I've been in the hobby for over 20 years now and people say the same thing every year. It's like the guy who says "I'm going to get in shape this year, I just need to cut out the junk food and start exercising" and then does neither of those things. When there's a will there's a way and GW simply doesn't have the motivation to balance their games to that degree. That's why my proposal is to have a team dedicated to competitive and tournament play. This would hopefully result in fewer unhappy match ups between hyper competitive and casual/fluff players as it would be agreed from the outset which ruleset would be used.
I was a former hardcore competitive player and honestly I'll always be competitive. I am interested in the narrative now more, but the real reason behind me not wanting to play competitively are basically two pointers:
* I got burnt out on having to play TFG on a regular basis at the GTs.
* I got burnt out on having to chase the meta and constantly buy new stuff, assemble new stuff, and paint new stuff that I had no interest in but was broken powerful to stay competitive on a regular basis (usually yearly, sometimes twice a year having to re-calibrate my entire list or faction)
I got bored of seeing the same armies and burnt on playing models that had no interest for me other than they were the mathematical coefficient to my sweet winning.
I'd also disagree that the "new hotness" IS always under priced. people like to claim it is, but we've seen plenty of cases where a new unit comes out and is a turd right from the start as well. Custodes IMHO aren't under costed so much as "more realisticly costed for what an elite unit SHOULD be" the units are good but people aren't talking about them as uber great for the points. in fact the only unit that seems to be captuing peoples minds are the bikes.
auticus wrote: I was a former hardcore competitive player and honestly I'll always be competitive. I am interested in the narrative now more, but the real reason behind me not wanting to play competitively are basically two pointers:
* I got burnt out on having to play TFG on a regular basis at the GTs.
* I got burnt out on having to chase the meta and constantly buy new stuff, assemble new stuff, and paint new stuff that I had no interest in but was broken powerful to stay competitive on a regular basis (usually yearly, sometimes twice a year having to re-calibrate my entire list or faction)
I got bored of seeing the same armies and burnt on playing models that had no interest for me other than they were the mathematical coefficient to my sweet winning.
I lost interest in the competitive scene for the same reasons. You can still soldier on with a single faction and sometimes it's more fun to try to eke out something competitive from an army that isn't top tier. But the tournament scene seemed to become more extreme from the late 00s onwards to the point at which if you weren't taking a top tier list is was hardly worth showing up.
Casual, Narrative and Competitive are all valid play styles and should be supported; WAAC is not and should never be.
As for ruining the game it's a mix. Players that run the numbers and point out X is better than Y, "Dont run Y!" are not the problem, they're a symptom.
The problem boils down to how things aren't being properly tested and / or active power creep in codexes. If everything was 'balanced', Competitive, Casual and Narrative players would become the same player group (After all, everything's balanced) but WAAC would still stand out.
Table wrote: Id have to disagree a bit. Alot can be done better by GW while not throwing the baby out with the bath water. They are particularly bad at point cost. Alot of the time that is driven by sales and marketing (custodes currently) and some is just sheer idiocy (888 point lord of skulls). If they stopped intentionally under costing the new hotness to push sales and did a better job 40k would be much more balanced.
Sure, but I've been in the hobby for over 20 years now and people say the same thing every year. It's like the guy who says "I'm going to get in shape this year, I just need to cut out the junk food and start exercising" and then does neither of those things. When there's a will there's a way and GW simply doesn't have the motivation to balance their games to that degree. That's why my proposal is to have a team dedicated to competitive and tournament play. This would hopefully result in fewer unhappy match ups between hyper competitive and casual/fluff players as it would be agreed from the outset which ruleset would be used.
Never said they would, only that its possible. But I understand your statement.
Competitivness is one part, GW not properly playstesting agasint cheese is another part of the problem.
The playtesting they do seems to be from the perspective of how the armies should be played; mono force vs mono force.
Then players comes in an breaks stuff whit their soup mixing cuz they cant stand having weak elements in their armies, something that began in 7th if not sooner.
This is why there should be more limitations in matched play sutch as making soup lists illegal and a limit to how many identical units one can bring.
I don't care about the competitive scene and find most of their lists and playstyles boring. But I like that they find loopholes and undercosted units and since 8th edition can make GW to actually balance them, which is a win for casual players like me, too.
lolman1c wrote: Is competitiveness ruining/ruined 40K?
Depends on how you define competitiveness but the short anwser is no. Games tend to become more balanced the more competitive players it has. This is due to the fact that when you have people looking critically at a game they find imbalances and discrepencies, and point them out so they can be corrected. The idea that people wanting to win will somehow make the game worse seems naive to me. The competitive players don't make the rules they just play with them. GW is responsible for the creation of the rules, and as such responsible for the balance and how fun the game can be.
lolman1c wrote: Why is it ruining 40k/ what really is ruining 40k?
I think it is a plethora of things, the main cause being GWs pay to win buisness model. They have no way to sell the models they make, so they make rules for a game and make the perticular thing they want to sell a bit better then everything else.
lolman1c wrote: And how would you fix it/ how would you stop people complaining?
You will never stop people from complaining, and if you do then you have probably become tyrant, or there is nobody to complain.
Fixxing the problem is a bit more complicated. You need to get rid of the pay to win model, create a relativily well balanced game, and then decide what kind of business model you want to run. Some sort of equilibric system where having multiple armies is not only viable, but encouraged would be the best.
As an example you could create Hub armies with sub-factions that focus on specific aspects of that army. Then within the sub factions you create units that are specific to that Army. Then when you start putting out new models you can simply revamp old lines when somebody has a defiler that's 10 years old it's not really a stretch that they might want to replace it even if they already have one. You could do this with every single faction Tau have farsight enclaves so you create a codex for farsight enclaves and you create some unique suits for that army and whenever it comes time for them to get an update of you revamp the base models for the hub armies and add a couple of modification sprues so that some other armies can take advantage as well. The key to maintaining balance here would be you have to pick your army faction in some way.
I'm not sure I understand. How is competition between players ruining the game? Are players playing with different goals in how they want the game to be played when they are playing against each other?
Darsath wrote: I'm not sure I understand. How is competition between players ruining the game? Are players playing with different goals in how they want the game to be played when they are playing against each other?
Quite possible. Not everybody cares one whit about who wins or loses. What they do care about however is interesting story that comes out of game and that is rarely case if one army roflstomps other. And 40k being unbalanced as hell means if both players aren't playing on same level means often just that.
One player uses what models he likes or feels appropriate for scenario. One goes for mathematically most efficient and even exploits rules as hard as possible while staying within RAW. You can guess who's going to win.
I don't enjoy competitive wargaming. My only real brush with it was a few local Warmachine tournaments, and I decided I didn't like the idea. I play wargames to refight a battle, not just to play an abstract game to see who wins. If I wanted to do that, I'd take up chess.
So, from that point of view, competitive play doesn't affect me. Where it does affect me is when it drives game development. Warmachine stripped out any vestige of morale/psychology rules, which was one of the reasons I stopped playing, in the name of tournament play. I like the way 40k is going, with open, narrative and competitive play being different - that way they can remove something from the tournament scene without affecting the rest of us.
Competitive play is about winning, although not necessarily WAAC. It's turning up with a perfect list and playing it to achieve victory. That is fine when it is competitive versus competitive. More often than not though I see competitive players using that same style against less competitive players and casual players, usually to detriment of the opponent's enjoyment of the game. It is almost as if some competitive players cannot tone their play style down to accommodate the play style of their opponent. That however is not the fault of the game but the problem of having two different play styles. I sometimes wonder whether traditional historical war gaming has the same issue?
It can do, BlackLobster (the infamous “big cats in Normandy” approach to WW2 Germans comes to mind) but the difference is generally that you can point to history to explain why this thing could/could not have happened. GW army lists are rather more generic than that - for instance, take the Falklands War. According to “Codex: HM Armed Forces (1982 edition)”, we may well have been more comfortable taking Chieftains and mechanised infantry with air cover provided by the ultramodern Tornado’s of the RAF. Obviously, real life considerations had different ideas.
BlackLobster wrote: Competitive play is about winning, although not necessarily WAAC. It's turning up with a perfect list and playing it to achieve victory. That is fine when it is competitive versus competitive. More often than not though I see competitive players using that same style against less competitive players and casual players, usually to detriment of the opponent's enjoyment of the game. It is almost as if some competitive players cannot tone their play style down to accommodate the play style of their opponent. That however is not the fault of the game but the problem of having two different play styles. I sometimes wonder whether traditional historical war gaming has the same issue?
Casual play is about fluff, although not necessarily FAAC. It's turning up with a perfect story and playing it to achieve victory. That is fine when it is casual versus casual. More often than not though I see casual players using that same style against less casual players and competitive players, usually to detriment of the opponent's enjoyment of the game. It is almost as if some casual players cannot tone their play style up to accommodate the play style of their opponent. That however is not the fault of the game but the problem of having two different play styles. I sometimes wonder whether traditional historical war gaming has the same issue?
Btw, to me competitive means to win at all costs (super cheese and abuse) and to be a super sore loser.
You definitely should have clarified that.
This forum has a bad habit to use terms like WAAC really fast and loose. Winning at ALL costs is a whole stretch from simply being competitive.
I didn't want to clarify that because I know it means many things to different people. The point of this post was to generate discussion and not to interject my own opinions into the original question (only writing my own opinions in later posts in response to arguments).
Btw, to me competitive means to win at all costs (super cheese and abuse) and to be a super sore loser.
You definitely should have clarified that.
This forum has a bad habit to use terms like WAAC really fast and loose. Winning at ALL costs is a whole stretch from simply being competitive.
I didn't want to clarify that because I know it means many things to different people. The point of this post was to generate discussion and not to interject my own opinions into the original question (only writing my own opinions in later posts in response to arguments).
Which then feeds miscommunication and divide. I'm certain more than a few people walked away from this thread with the wrong impression.
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Daedalus81 wrote: Nope. The problem lies with the community and it's ability to communicate.
If you're asking how good a unit is and you provide zero context you're probably going to get the WAAC perspective. The nice thing about balancing is that SO FEW units fall into that "never take" bucket than ever in the game's history.
Plus some competitive people are just jerks who take it way too far and try and cheat to win. Then there are people who just actively seek out the most broken thing to play like scatbike spam.
You're playing it fast and loose with the competitive term there. Do you think narrative players don't cheat?
Of course they can't really be singled out as the sole issue because someone wrote the broken rules in the first place.
Hooray for no personal responsibility!
Probably. I can only speak of my experience.
People who cheat and act like jerks are responsible for their actions. So are the people who make dumb rules. There's a fair bit of responsibility there.
I didn't want to clarify that because I know it means many things to different people. The point of this post was to generate discussion and not to interject my own opinions into the original question (only writing my own opinions in later posts in response to arguments).
Honestly, equating competitive with WAAC makes you an extreme minority, and I'm sure most people will find your definition to be largely incorrect. There's a reason we have the term WAAC, and its to specifically divide the line between people who enjoy going to tournaments and playing with a slightly higher intent to win, vs people who slow play, excessively rules lawyer, have shady dice rolling practices, or are otherwise donkey-caves.
Frankly, equating WAAC with competitive is actually part of the problem. If you equate people who play competitively as automatic WAAC, then you're already judging people and are part of the problem of what's ruining 40k.
Btw, to me competitive means to win at all costs (super cheese and abuse) and to be a super sore loser.
You definitely should have clarified that.
This forum has a bad habit to use terms like WAAC really fast and loose. Winning at ALL costs is a whole stretch from simply being competitive.
I didn't want to clarify that because I know it means many things to different people. The point of this post was to generate discussion and not to interject my own opinions into the original question (only writing my own opinions in later posts in response to arguments).
Which then feeds miscommunication and divide. I'm certain more than a few people walked away from this thread with the wrong impression.
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Daedalus81 wrote: Nope. The problem lies with the community and it's ability to communicate.
If you're asking how good a unit is and you provide zero context you're probably going to get the WAAC perspective. The nice thing about balancing is that SO FEW units fall into that "never take" bucket than ever in the game's history.
I think that feeding divide can be a good thing sometimes. When people fight it out you can often gain the best and most passionate arguments. Even if there is only 1 good post in 99 I think it is worth it. however, that's not what I was trying here... I just didn't want to define it because I think people all have a definition in their mind. Nobody would come out as a WAAC player if everyone was hating on them but by simply saying competitive lots of people come out and defend it and I can gain an understanding for their argument.
In terms of people getting burnt out... I was reeeeealy sick of playing Death Guard armies that were just primed Nurgle Green for the first few months of 8th edition.
This thread would have been better off titled,
COMPETITIVENESS IS RUINING 40K FOR ME
To the OP, dude you play in a competitive environment but want a casual one. 40k is a competitive game, a game with objectives and win/loss conditions.
You can't walk in to a public gaming environment and expect to play a casual fun fluffy game against a stranger. You need to find likeminded players and build a crew, play garage hammer, get to know people and engage with them and agree games in advance with conditions that suit you both.
For me being able to log in to twitch and watch the final of the largest competitive 40k gaming event in our hobbies history and revel in the glories of players like Nick Nanavati(Brown?) is simply awesome extension of our hobby. Its like a sport. But I still meet my buddies on a Friday night with a few beers and a bottle of rum and throw dice for fun and build legends that last decades like the time my buddies Daemon prince spawned itself through an act of hubris or the time a lone cultist dealt the last wound to an avatar on a charge. Go find your fun bro but don't hate on others doing the same thing.
Also WAAC is massively different from competitive!!!
The only thing ruining 40k is people who complain unceasingly about 40k and GW, while still playing GW's game and buying GW models. Constructive criticism is be a good thing. Mindless complaining on the other hand is just stupid and tiresome. It is not that I never complain about GW or 40k, but there are people who take it waaaay too far and I can't stand those people. 40k is something I do for fun (and I imagine that everyone who plays 40k ultimately does so for fun), and all that negative energy isn't really contributing to fun.
Nithaniel wrote: This thread would have been better off titled,
COMPETITIVENESS IS RUINING 40K FOR ME
To the OP, dude you play in a competitive environment but want a casual one. 40k is a competitive game, a game with objectives and win/loss conditions.
Not really. If 40k truly was competive game it would have been designed as one rather than as super crappy as one.
Not really. If 40k truly was competive game it would have been designed as one rather than as super crappy as one.
Hmm
Iron_Captain wrote: The only thing ruining 40k is people who complain unceasingly about 40k and GW, while still playing GW's game and buying GW models. Constructive criticism is be a good thing. Mindless complaining on the other hand is just stupid and tiresome. It is not that I never complain about GW or 40k, but there are people who take it waaaay too far and I can't stand those people. 40k is something I do for fun (and I imagine that everyone who plays 40k ultimately does so for fun), and all that negative energy isn't really contributing to fun.
Nithaniel wrote: This thread would have been better off titled,
COMPETITIVENESS IS RUINING 40K FOR ME
To the OP, dude you play in a competitive environment but want a casual one. 40k is a competitive game, a game with objectives and win/loss conditions.
Not really. If 40k truly was competive game it would have been designed as one rather than as super crappy as one.
No you miss my point. Something being Truly competitive to me is a subjective statement. I'm saying when you engage in a game of ANY sort that has a win/loss condition you are competing in the simplest sense of the word.
I think you're suggesting that because the game isn't designed from the ground up to be competitive then it isn't going to make a good competitive game. You are absolutely right which is kinda why ITC missions go a long way off the rulebook win/loss conditions to try and achieve it and why literally hundreds of players in the US and UK take part in organized play and compete on a weekly basis but in tournaments where rules are applied above and beyond the scope of the rulebook from GW.
I think part of the frustration is that it's often mutually exclusive. You can't really "play competitive" without sacrificing all the flavor and often the fluff of the army. In a game like 40k where the fluff/background seems to be the main appeal (otherwise, why not play the myriad of games with much better rules?), it's a little disheartening if, for example, you really like playing a certain faction and are constantly told to bring in elements from a different faction, sometimes ones that completely break the army theme (e.g. bringing in Tzeentch daemons in a Nurgle force) simply to get a competitive advantage. That feels like something that should be avoided at all cost; the fact it has become the norm to ignore the background for the sake of winning/being competitive means that "competitive 40k" leaves a sour taste in the mouth, because it feels like it's ignoring the main good parts of the system to focus on the poorest parts (i.e. rules and balance).
There's also the issue with competitive gaming in general, not specific to 40k, in that often an area that starts to get a competitive itch often follows it to the exclusion of all else. Many areas already refuse to even touch power level, to say nothing of narrative or open play; it's matched play, points, eternal war/maelstrom/ITC missions only, now and forever because they are too afraid of the other things being abused to actually put in restrictions to stop it from happening such as agreements before the game (basically a requirement in non-matched games) or even just refusing to play somebody if the contract is broken (e.g. if they agree to power level, then turn up with a total cheese list because they can).
Again, this is not specific to 40k, that particular part happens in most games with any sort of competitive style where you see all the other styles slowly dwindle away. Auticus is a perfect example of this; his areas are almost all dominated by the competitive tournament crowd to where it is a monumental effort to get somebody to try something different. My area is similar but less tournament focused, but there is basically only matched play. GW's whole stuff about "three ways to play" doesn't actually exist; I would have to basically hunt for somebody willing to not use points and the (IMHO) bland eternal war/maelstrom missions (nobody here really likes ITC missions) or, god forbid, just want to throw down with a few units and come up with some crazy ad-hoc scenario and have a good time. People are too afraid of "but what if my opponent took X" to take steps to ensure that your opponent won't bring X.
Wayniac wrote: I think part of the frustration is that it's often mutually exclusive. You can't really "play competitive" without sacrificing all the flavor and often the fluff of the army. In a game like 40k where the fluff/background seems to be the main appeal (otherwise, why not play the myriad of games with much better rules?), it's a little disheartening if, for example, you really like playing a certain faction and are constantly told to bring in elements from a different faction, sometimes ones that completely break the army theme (e.g. bringing in Tzeentch daemons in a Nurgle force) simply to get a competitive advantage. That feels like something that should be avoided at all cost; the fact it has become the norm to ignore the background for the sake of winning/being competitive means that "competitive 40k" leaves a sour taste in the mouth, because it feels like it's ignoring the main good parts of the system to focus on the poorest parts (i.e. rules and balance).
There's also the issue with competitive gaming in general, not specific to 40k, in that often an area that starts to get a competitive itch often follows it to the exclusion of all else. Many areas already refuse to even touch power level, to say nothing of narrative or open play; it's matched play, points, eternal war/maelstrom/ITC missions only, now and forever because they are too afraid of the other things being abused to actually put in restrictions to stop it from happening such as agreements before the game (basically a requirement in non-matched games) or even just refusing to play somebody if the contract is broken (e.g. if they agree to power level, then turn up with a total cheese list because they can).
Again, this is not specific to 40k, that particular part happens in most games with any sort of competitive style where you see all the other styles slowly dwindle away. Auticus is a perfect example of this; his areas are almost all dominated by the competitive tournament crowd to where it is a monumental effort to get somebody to try something different. My area is similar but less tournament focused, but there is basically only matched play. GW's whole stuff about "three ways to play" doesn't actually exist; I would have to basically hunt for somebody willing to not use points and the (IMHO) bland eternal war/maelstrom missions (nobody here really likes ITC missions) or, god forbid, just want to throw down with a few units and come up with some crazy ad-hoc scenario and have a good time. People are too afraid of "but what if my opponent took X" to take steps to ensure that your opponent won't bring X.
There are 3 problems here:
1) Fluff players who don't understand the fluff. Just to use your example: Yes, Tzeench and Nurgle hate each other. But if it came down to "kick the God-Emperor in the teeth and take his lunch money together" or "fight amongst ourselves for eternity" they'd absolutely choose the former. Much like how Necrons and Blood Angels could fight together against a foe (yes, this happened in the galaxy). Warhammer 40,000 is a big place, and you can justify damn near anything with the fluff. Some things are RIGHT OUT, but not a lot.
2) Mechanics vs fluff disconnect. The problem with gaming in general is all this weird and wonderful background stuff has to be translated into the game. Just look at the Elder Scrolls series; in the fluff, there are space ships, orbital weapon stations, entire armies of summoned Daedra to serve a dark lord, etc. but in the games you get like, 15 people and Martin Septim to fight back the "hordes" of Mehrunes Dagon, which consist of like thirty Daedra. It's just mechanically impossible to replicate the background adequately. The same is true in Warhammer, and it's even worse because of the fluff discordance. In certain novels/stories, the Leman Russ can go toe-to-toe with the hammerhead on equal footing. In the Guard codex, the Leman Russ is the BEST TANK EVUH and unbeatable. In the Tau codex, the Hammerhead is the BEST TECHNOLOGY EVUH and unbeatable. How do you reconcile those on the tabletop?
3) Fluff players who don't like losing. This is me, and I admit it's one of my flaws. I run a superheavy tank company, and by rights that means I should be easily wiped out by something like a Necron Pylon or a whole bunch of Neutron Onagers or Predator Annihilators or something. And this happens on the table top. I've gotten better about accepting it (what's really helped is writing the fluff after the battle and realizing that me getting utterly annihilated is actually about what could be expected), but I would be better served by just accepting that in the fluff, and in the rules, certain armies just can't hack it against other certain armies, and losses must be accepted. I got really good at accepting this in 5th edition with my Leman Russ tank company, who couldn't even score objectives, but for some reason I must've lost it. Either way, I've accepted that most competitive lists crush me, and that's fine, but not for everyone.
tneva82 wrote: If 40k truly was competive game it would have been designed as one rather than as super crappy as one.
If 40k truly was narrative game it would have been designed as one rather than as super crappy as one.
Isn't that always the case, though? It's because 40k is designed to be everything to all people and fails at everything as a result. The poor rules are bad for competitive play and bad for narrative play. Yet that's really neither here nor there because nothing will ever fix that; you know that as well as anyone.
Wayniac wrote: You can't really "play competitive" without sacrificing all the flavor and often the fluff of the army.
On the other hand, it often seems like you can't "play casual/narrative" without sacrificing all of the fluff. I can't even count the number of times I've seen "casual" or "fluffy" lists that were just a bunch of random units thrown together that had nothing to do with any element of the background fiction. Far too often it's people assuming that because they made terrible unit/upgrade choices from the point of view of winning the game it must automatically make it "fluffy" by default.
There's also the issue with competitive gaming in general, not specific to 40k, in that often an area that starts to get a competitive itch often follows it to the exclusion of all else. Many areas already refuse to even touch power level, to say nothing of narrative or open play; it's matched play, points, eternal war/maelstrom/ITC missions only, now and forever because they are too afraid of the other things being abused to actually put in restrictions to stop it from happening such as agreements before the game (basically a requirement in non-matched games) or even just refusing to play somebody if the contract is broken (e.g. if they agree to power level, then turn up with a total cheese list because they can).
The same applies to casual/narrative gaming. A group that gets a casual itch follows it to the exclusion of all else, shunning anyone who dares to bring an army that beats them. A group that gets a narrative itch follows it to the exclusion of all else, insisting on always playing unbalanced story-based missions where a competitive contest is impossible. I've seen plenty of people/groups who pick a play style other than competitive tournaments and insist on it to the exclusion of all else.
Also, power levels are ignored because it's an incredibly stupid and broken system that has no reason to exist. Making your point system less accurate and poorly balanced does not, in any situation, add to the game.
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auticus wrote: I think 40k and old WHFB and now AOS main failings is that it doesn't know what it wants to be.
Its trying to be everything.
Thats the problem with it IMO.
Nah, 40k's main failing is that it is made by incompetent rule authors (I hesitate to call them game designers given their utter lack of ability at game design), so that even with a coherent vision of what it should be the game would still be terrible. The lack of design focus is bad, but it's insult to injury at that point.
Never change Peregrine. I voted Meh, probably, because it is one of the problems, but only because most people in the hobby (at least it seems so from looking at Dakka) struggle to communicate properly and adjust to each other's play styles.
Nah, 40k's main failing is that it is made by incompetent rule authors (I hesitate to call them game designers given their utter lack of ability at game design), so that even with a coherent vision of what it should be the game would still be terrible. The lack of design focus is bad, but it's insult to injury at that point.
Well, 40k has not been built as a competitive game.
There is not even a component of the game which aims at competitive play and GW does even say so.
A competitive game requires balanced armies, a strikt ruleset (not a cartoon-esk one), appropriate missions, and a clock based setting.
Have a look into WHM and steamroller and you know what I mean.
auticus wrote: I think 40k and old WHFB and now AOS main failings is that it doesn't know what it wants to be.
Its trying to be everything.
Thats the problem with it IMO.
I think its less about not knowing what it wants to be and denying what it is. You can claim to not be competitive all you want, but if your primary game mechanic is to put two players against one another and play until someone wins; well, it certainly quacks like a duck to me.
40k's issue is that its built on pretty dated game design; its core comes from an age before Catan created the era of meaningful decisions that define modern gaming. Mostly the game needs a stronger win condition to shift player decisions into something more interesting than attrition. From there the game turns need to be reduced to where tabling isn't very practical and there will be far more interesting choices to make during the game to make the system less of a predefined gear check sort of encounter.
LunarSol wrote: 40k's issue is that its built on pretty dated game design; its core comes from an age before Catan created the era of meaningful decisions that define modern gaming. Mostly the game needs a stronger win condition to shift player decisions into something more interesting than attrition. From there the game turns need to be reduced to where tabling isn't very practical and there will be far more interesting choices to make during the game to make the system less of a predefined gear check sort of encounter.
I disagree with this on a couple of points.
Catan doesn't mark an era of gaming, at least not in this context. It's absurd to suggest that nobody had meaningful decisions until Catan showed up to introduce the concept, and Catan's mechanics have little or no application to the wargaming genre. The primary thing Catan did that is noteworthy is succeed in that very difficult balance between being simple enough to be accessible to a mass audience as a casual game and deep enough for players to stay interested in it.
40k's problem is not attrition and tabling, it's a lack of interesting decisions in getting to that point. Terrain doesn't matter, range doesn't matter, movement doesn't matter, all that matters is how efficiently you optimized your dice and how well you identify your priority targets each turn. 40k could be a much more interesting game by fixing these flaws, even if the win conditions were 100% unchanged since 5th edition. And making the game shorter to prevent tabling would be a disaster. A game that short would be far too short for interesting moves and counter-moves to develop, and would almost always feel like you're cutting it short and declaring a winner far too early.
Nithaniel wrote: This thread would have been better off titled,
COMPETITIVENESS IS RUINING 40K FOR ME
To the OP, dude you play in a competitive environment but want a casual one. 40k is a competitive game, a game with objectives and win/loss conditions.
You can't walk in to a public gaming environment and expect to play a casual fun fluffy game against a stranger. You need to find likeminded players and build a crew, play garage hammer, get to know people and engage with them and agree games in advance with conditions that suit you both.
For me being able to log in to twitch and watch the final of the largest competitive 40k gaming event in our hobbies history and revel in the glories of players like Nick Nanavati(Brown?) is simply awesome extension of our hobby. Its like a sport. But I still meet my buddies on a Friday night with a few beers and a bottle of rum and throw dice for fun and build legends that last decades like the time my buddies Daemon prince spawned itself through an act of hubris or the time a lone cultist dealt the last wound to an avatar on a charge. Go find your fun bro but don't hate on others doing the same thing.
Also WAAC is massively different from competitive!!!
Get off your high horse dude. My thread was not to start an argument for or against anything. It was for people to discuss with each other what THEY feel hurts the game. Hence why it was a poll and not just a rant about competitive players.
Also, just to play devil's advocate here, why not flip this around: Why can't the competitive minded people "find likeminded players and build a crew, play garage hammer, get to know people and engage with them and agree games in advance with conditions that suit you both"? What makes them the default approach, and everything else has to be segregated into its own?
This is the old argument I've seen repeated dozens of times across dozens of mediums for years and years. It was the same thing in WoW when you had people who wanted to speedrun dungeons versus people who didn't; it was always "if you want to take your time, make your own group, the default should be going as fast as possible" without ever actually answering the question why it should be the other players and not them (or, worse, simply twisted the question around without answering it).
What makes them the default approach, and everything else has to be segregated into its own?
* the community's acceptance that that is the default overall
* the heavy skew of forum and facebook topics that center around optimizing lists making it the default vs topics and threads about narrative campaigns
* the distinct lack of public narrative events vs the over abundance of min/max tournament events makes it the default
What makes them the default approach, and everything else has to be segregated into its own?
* the community's acceptance that that is the default overall
* the heavy skew of forum and facebook topics that center around optimizing lists making it the default vs topics and threads about narrative campaigns
* the distinct lack of public narrative events vs the over abundance of min/max tournament events makes it the default
Survivorship bias.
There is no need to deeply discuss narrative campaigns in the same terms, because you can deal with everything right then and there.
If you actually wanted to discuss narrative you'd make a post about a branching campaign you set up and not worry so much about points or competitiveness.
Wayniac wrote: What makes them the default approach, and everything else has to be segregated into its own?
This is a competitive game. It has victory conditions, and there's only one winner at the end of it. That alone makes the default approach competitive. This game isn't an RPG, not even close, so playing it with the specific intent not to win or via some elaborate scenario or campaign will always be the exception.
It may be (survivorship bias), but when you have competitive gaming pretty much always on the table, always being discussed, and always having an event running for it compared to other styles of play, it is easy to meld it into the default.
Competitive matched play is the sun shining bright in the sky. Other forms of play are as asteroids or other night time objects that you have to struggle to see and find.
What makes them the default approach, and everything else has to be segregated into its own?
* the community's acceptance that that is the default overall
* the heavy skew of forum and facebook topics that center around optimizing lists making it the default vs topics and threads about narrative campaigns
* the distinct lack of public narrative events vs the over abundance of min/max tournament events makes it the default
Since I joined this site I tried to start a couple narrative threads. I remember one fall when one of them gained wind for something like three-four days and then died, while competetive-centered OP/UP/fix_this/fix_that/GW_hate threads can go for dozens of pages without even trying. The current status quo is tournament-centered and all narrative talk is pretty much deviation. There is more narrative approach in Painting&Modeling section, especially from some people that don't even play actual games... Judging from thread history there was way more narrative threads demand during 7th than it is now with 8th, when pretty much everything devolved to "discovering the still unformed 'meta'"...
It's also worth noting that competitive gaming is about the only way you can have a community.
The reason narrative and fluff gamers are the ones that have to find each other rather than competitive players is that, in the end, everyone wants to optimize their lists.
As soon as someone asks "Which is better, armoured sentinels or scout sentinels?" Then they're asking a question that competitive players are far better at answering than narrative players.
I suffer from this too. Every time I see (or hear in my FLGS, or whatever) "which superheavy is best for me to build" I have to decide what they mean. If they mean "best" from a Narrative perspective, the answer is probably a Baneblade, since it's the "default" Imperial superheavy and is probably the most common. From a competitive perspective, it's the Shadowsword, because it's pretty awesome. And from a casual perspective, it's none of the above, because apparently Imperial Guard LOWs are ridiculously OP and unfun.
Wayniac wrote: Also, just to play devil's advocate here, why not flip this around: Why can't the competitive minded people "find likeminded players and build a crew, play garage hammer, get to know people and engage with them and agree games in advance with conditions that suit you both"? What makes them the default approach, and everything else has to be segregated into its own?
This is the old argument I've seen repeated dozens of times across dozens of mediums for years and years. It was the same thing in WoW when you had people who wanted to speedrun dungeons versus people who didn't; it was always "if you want to take your time, make your own group, the default should be going as fast as possible" without ever actually answering the question why it should be the other players and not them (or, worse, simply twisted the question around without answering it).
It sounds like those people have arranged things to their liking and are perfectly happy with it. The basic problem is that CAAC players want everyone else to change to suit them, and refuse to accept that most people are fine with how things are. There's also the often-repeated narrative that all anyone talks about is tournaments and optimising which is simply and observably not true if you go out into the real world and meet other people playing the game - there's at least four distinct groups, including truly competitive players, players who like tournaments but aren't worried about trying to win them, players who will turn up to a tournament just to get three or five games against new people, and players who wouldn't ever bother with it but equally don't care that "competitive" gaming exists.
Then there's the fifth, or Dakka, types who are obsessed with competitive play even though they claim to hate it and actively disavow participating in it.
Unit1126PLL wrote: It's also worth noting that competitive gaming is about the only way you can have a community.
The reason narrative and fluff gamers are the ones that have to find each other rather than competitive players is that, in the end, everyone wants to optimize their lists.
As soon as someone asks "Which is better, armoured sentinels or scout sentinels?" Then they're asking a question that competitive players are far better at answering than narrative players.
I suffer from this too. Every time I see (or hear in my FLGS, or whatever) "which superheavy is best for me to build" I have to decide what they mean. If they mean "best" from a Narrative perspective, the answer is probably a Baneblade, since it's the "default" Imperial superheavy and is probably the most common. From a competitive perspective, it's the Shadowsword, because it's pretty awesome. And from a casual perspective, it's none of the above, because apparently Imperial Guard LOWs are ridiculously OP and unfun.
Please dont take this as anything but a friendly ribbing but........................you sure like to talk about super heavy tanks alot.
Unit1126PLL wrote: It's also worth noting that competitive gaming is about the only way you can have a community.
The reason narrative and fluff gamers are the ones that have to find each other rather than competitive players is that, in the end, everyone wants to optimize their lists.
As soon as someone asks "Which is better, armoured sentinels or scout sentinels?" Then they're asking a question that competitive players are far better at answering than narrative players.
I suffer from this too. Every time I see (or hear in my FLGS, or whatever) "which superheavy is best for me to build" I have to decide what they mean. If they mean "best" from a Narrative perspective, the answer is probably a Baneblade, since it's the "default" Imperial superheavy and is probably the most common. From a competitive perspective, it's the Shadowsword, because it's pretty awesome. And from a casual perspective, it's none of the above, because apparently Imperial Guard LOWs are ridiculously OP and unfun.
Please dont take this as anything but a friendly ribbing but........................you sure like to talk about super heavy tanks alot.
I do, it's true, because I prefer to speak on things I'm experienced with. I don't think it makes my point any weaker, or illegible. Does it? I would hope it makes it stronger, considering I'm speaking from a position of experience.
Peregrine wrote: 40k's problem is not attrition and tabling, it's a lack of interesting decisions in getting to that point. Terrain doesn't matter, range doesn't matter, movement doesn't matter, all that matters is how efficiently you optimized your dice and how well you identify your priority targets each turn. 40k could be a much more interesting game by fixing these flaws, even if the win conditions were 100% unchanged since 5th edition. And making the game shorter to prevent tabling would be a disaster. A game that short would be far too short for interesting moves and counter-moves to develop, and would almost always feel like you're cutting it short and declaring a winner far too early.
I think I agree, but perhaps through a different line of argument. 8th edition lethality is increased (because terrain doesn't matter, range doesn't matter, movement doesn't matter, and because rerolls are plentiful, and because synergies abound), which incentivizes building toward extreme lethality (or toward extreme durability). Without a reduction in lethality, there are no units on the table to make 'interesting decisions' with. The pendulum has swung too far toward, "making my opponent pick up their models is fun," and too far away from, "making my opponent make difficult decisions about what risks to take is fun."
It's not ruining 40k. In fact, I think it creates healthy feedback in order to help towards balance. Even online competitive video games, with millions of points of data collected, can not be truly balanced. But it gives designers feedback to how they can improve their game. The original starcraft, often looked at as one of the most balanced online competitive games, took years to find that balance. Even then, with the latest re-release last year, they decided to keep a lot of the bugs and quirks from the original game that have since become a part of the competitive scene.
GW is now giving the competitive scene more attention and that is better for the game overall in the long run. I think people just need to understand there will be growing pains. This is the same thing many other games experience through their life, both tabletop and digital.
But what if its GW designers basic intent to make interesting decisions not be a design consideration? What if they want to appeal to a wide audience wherein rolling tons of dice and making your opponent remove models wholesale is fun, and having to use tactics and strategy is considered frustrating?
auticus wrote: But what if its GW designers basic intent to make interesting decisions not be a design consideration? What if they want to appeal to a wide audience wherein rolling tons of dice and making your opponent remove models wholesale is fun, and having to use tactics and strategy is considered frustrating?
Will the feedback at that point matter?
What kind of tactical strategies do you feel 40k needs that isnt already in the game?
Personally i find that the biggest issues in 8th is a lot of ranged weapons are just too strong and a decent amount of effects end up getting negated too easily. like moral, leaving CC penalties being a big one.
you can deal with the ranged weapons with more LOS blocking terrain and the large cities my group plays with, we find that the game is often never decided turn one or two. ususally 3 and on wards.
the other ones are ususally baked in making it hard to play against so you end up defaulting to kill mode.
The game is not built to be copetitive from a design-standpoint, but it's stll mostly talked about in this way - whether it be online or in FLGS.
People might get the impression that the competitiveness is ruining the game, but the reality is that the game is just not very well designed and that competitiveness exposes all those underlying issues.
Once the discourse shifts away from the game and to the fluff and the miniatures themselves (which all of this, hands down, has ever really been about), that's where a lot of fun can be had.
Of course, you can have fun playing the game competitively, too, if you are so inclined, but you are really trying to fit a square peg into a round hole for the sake of playing competitively with the minatures you love.
LunarSol wrote: 40k's issue is that its built on pretty dated game design; its core comes from an age before Catan created the era of meaningful decisions that define modern gaming. Mostly the game needs a stronger win condition to shift player decisions into something more interesting than attrition. From there the game turns need to be reduced to where tabling isn't very practical and there will be far more interesting choices to make during the game to make the system less of a predefined gear check sort of encounter.
I disagree with this on a couple of points.
Catan doesn't mark an era of gaming, at least not in this context. It's absurd to suggest that nobody had meaningful decisions until Catan showed up to introduce the concept, and Catan's mechanics have little or no application to the wargaming genre. The primary thing Catan did that is noteworthy is succeed in that very difficult balance between being simple enough to be accessible to a mass audience as a casual game and deep enough for players to stay interested in it.
40k's problem is not attrition and tabling, it's a lack of interesting decisions in getting to that point. Terrain doesn't matter, range doesn't matter, movement doesn't matter, all that matters is how efficiently you optimized your dice and how well you identify your priority targets each turn. 40k could be a much more interesting game by fixing these flaws, even if the win conditions were 100% unchanged since 5th edition. And making the game shorter to prevent tabling would be a disaster. A game that short would be far too short for interesting moves and counter-moves to develop, and would almost always feel like you're cutting it short and declaring a winner far too early.
I don't really disagree with anything here. I mostly use Catan as the benchmark when the reference point for a baseline "board game" moved away from Monopoly. There were certainly better games than it before, but its still a useful flag in the timeline.
I also agree there are certainly other ways to make the game more interesting, with range not mattering being the big one. I just suggest shifting the win conditions to scenario more as a means of doing so without overhauling the stat and combat engine. It's dated and clunky, but workable with a shift towards doing things other than killing. I think there's more room for counterplay in less turns than you think (Infinity is full of it in 3, but its a very different system for other reasons) but it would only work if objective play had enough back and forth to swing the game around in fewer turns.
I'm not a competitive player by a long shot, but I believe competitive players are necessary for any miniatures game. They push for easy to understand rules, provide a counterbalance to over-complex fluff based rules and are always the loudest voices pushing for balance (even as they try to privately break it).
WMH is a good example. It's heavily influenced by competitive play, but this has generated a clean ruleset that makes casual game much more pick up and go than most game systems. Even infinity benefits from this and Warhammer 40k seems to be getting influenced as well - even if it still maintains that silly LOS rule.
auticus wrote: But what if its GW designers basic intent to make interesting decisions not be a design consideration? What if they want to appeal to a wide audience wherein rolling tons of dice and making your opponent remove models wholesale is fun, and having to use tactics and strategy is considered frustrating?
Will the feedback at that point matter?
What kind of tactical strategies do you feel 40k needs that isnt already in the game?
Maneuvering and movement is relatively benign and next to useless. ALpha striking and point and click is fairly standard I've found. There are no facings of the troops or vehicles so you can move willy nilly and not have to worry about getting in a bad position because everything moves very fast and has no facing considerations.
Cover and terrain is for the most part not existent and managing the battlefield doesn't really exist anymore.
The most important aspect of the game from a competitive standpoint will largely be the power of your list vs the power of your opponent's list. Listbuilding. Its a game about maximizing lethality in your list and then managing dice probability. The second skill you need is target priority. After that, there isn't much to the game of 40k. Or AOS now either.
The game of 40k has always had issues feeling like a battle, but the modern game feels nothing like a battle and entirely like a board game or close to a board game.
Its fine on things like a rhino or more accuratly square classical tanks like in Flames of war or team yankee but try and dived up a wave serpant or a land speeder.
Maneuvering and movement.. is pretty useless when people focus more on alpha striking domination but when playing against people that dont bring massive meat walls or spams long range lascannon type weapons it becomes pretty important for the objective game.
cover.. yeah that really needs some fixing. (though as imp fist i just ignore it )
yeah dunno what to do about any of that other than greatly increasing the terrain density and giving them all functions.
im lucky enough to have a group that doesnt go overboard in the power game and so its often pretty even and objective reliant outside of horrable luck.
Wayniac wrote: Also, just to play devil's advocate here, why not flip this around: Why can't the competitive minded people "find likeminded players and build a crew, play garage hammer, get to know people and engage with them and agree games in advance with conditions that suit you both"? What makes them the default approach, and everything else has to be segregated into its own?
This is the old argument I've seen repeated dozens of times across dozens of mediums for years and years. It was the same thing in WoW when you had people who wanted to speedrun dungeons versus people who didn't; it was always "if you want to take your time, make your own group, the default should be going as fast as possible" without ever actually answering the question why it should be the other players and not them (or, worse, simply twisted the question around without answering it).
It sure seems like the competitive players have done exactly what you are asking for: formed a group of like-minded players and organized the games. The problem is that non-competitive players keep trying to change the competitive group rather than making their own group.
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auticus wrote: But what if its GW designers basic intent to make interesting decisions not be a design consideration? What if they want to appeal to a wide audience wherein rolling tons of dice and making your opponent remove models wholesale is fun, and having to use tactics and strategy is considered frustrating?
Will the feedback at that point matter?
Then GW is spectacularly incompetent, determined to make a terrible game, and not going to change their idiocy until it punishes them in their profit numbers. But we have to assume that there's at least a marginal level of intelligence at GW, otherwise expecting anything but an exercise in masochism from the game is a hopeless cause.
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LunarSol wrote: I don't really disagree with anything here. I mostly use Catan as the benchmark when the reference point for a baseline "board game" moved away from Monopoly. There were certainly better games than it before, but its still a useful flag in the timeline.
It's not a useful flag at all, because that "shift" had more to do with Catan's success from a business point of view than any revolution in game design. Catan replacing Monopoly (a terrible game that never should have been as popular as it was) happened because Catan found the right combination of mechanics and marketing luck to break into the casual audience and start selling a ton. It makes no sense to use it as any kind of reference point in the wargaming genre.
I also agree there are certainly other ways to make the game more interesting, with range not mattering being the big one. I just suggest shifting the win conditions to scenario more as a means of doing so without overhauling the stat and combat engine. It's dated and clunky, but workable with a shift towards doing things other than killing. I think there's more room for counterplay in less turns than you think (Infinity is full of it in 3, but its a very different system for other reasons) but it would only work if objective play had enough back and forth to swing the game around in fewer turns.
The problem is that with IGOUGO (a bad mechanic that needs to die, but you're not considering major changes) doesn't leave enough time for interactions in a short game. You can't go back and forth when you can only activate each of your units 3-4 times per battle and you have to do all of them at once before your opponent responds.
What makes them the default approach, and everything else has to be segregated into its own?
* the community's acceptance that that is the default overall
* the heavy skew of forum and facebook topics that center around optimizing lists making it the default vs topics and threads about narrative campaigns
* the distinct lack of public narrative events vs the over abundance of min/max tournament events makes it the default
Survivorship bias.
There is no need to deeply discuss narrative campaigns in the same terms, because you can deal with everything right then and there.
If you actually wanted to discuss narrative you'd make a post about a branching campaign you set up and not worry so much about points or competitiveness.
If the rules are made up and the points don't matter, how can competitive people ruin the game? They can ruin A game, but not THE game.
This is what gets me about this thread. The entire premise (for some) is some people who don't care about winning are upset that other people, who are winning, are doing so the "wrong way". Which implies that they all want to win.
The thing about that is either they cheated, or they played by the rules. If the former then they auto forfeit, risk being banned, and are subject to other forms of punishment. If the latter the player has found a weak point in the gaming system which should be fixed. That loophole exists because of poor rule writing, which is the responsibility of GW not the players.
This problem would almost disappear if GW simply created a balanced game system.
auticus wrote: But what if its GW designers basic intent to make interesting decisions not be a design consideration? What if they want to appeal to a wide audience wherein rolling tons of dice and making your opponent remove models wholesale is fun, and having to use tactics and strategy is considered frustrating?
Will the feedback at that point matter?
What kind of tactical strategies do you feel 40k needs that isnt already in the game?
Maneuvering and movement is relatively benign and next to useless. ALpha striking and point and click is fairly standard I've found. There are no facings of the troops or vehicles so you can move willy nilly and not have to worry about getting in a bad position because everything moves very fast and has no facing considerations.
Cover and terrain is for the most part not existent and managing the battlefield doesn't really exist anymore.
The most important aspect of the game from a competitive standpoint will largely be the power of your list vs the power of your opponent's list. Listbuilding. Its a game about maximizing lethality in your list and then managing dice probability. The second skill you need is target priority. After that, there isn't much to the game of 40k. Or AOS now either.
The game of 40k has always had issues feeling like a battle, but the modern game feels nothing like a battle and entirely like a board game or close to a board game.
Scale creep is also an issue. 40k's physical scale is a legacy of the RT/2nd ed era and those games were generally played with far fewer models than current era 40k. Of course 3rd ed was a conscious move to make a ruleset which scales upwards whereas the far less abstract RT/2nd ruleset scales well downwards but very poorly upwards. This seemed like a no brainer for GW because gamers wanted to use a larger proportion of their collection in games and it also meant that they could sell more miniatures. To put things into perspective, a standard 1,500pt game in 2nd ed would have contained little more than half the number of models in an equivalent size. 3rd ed onwards is too abstract to make a smaller scale game particularly interesting whereas 2nd ed becomes laborious above 2,000pts.
2nd ed, for all its flaws, remains a far more tactically rewarding game than anything that has been released since. Part of the reason for this is that it's the "correct" rules scale for 40k's physical scale. You have fewer turns which punishes poor placement and strategies. You have a greater range of tactical options - overwatch and screening can both be used to great effect. Close combat is time consuming but very tactical. That's not to say that 2nd is the be all and end all (I'm taking off those rose tinted spectacles) - it's just a different game and GW simply have never done a very good job of transitioning 40k into a different rules scale.
Going back to my original point, I think this is due to a mismatch between he physical scale and rulescale. 40k's physical scale still places an emphasis on the individual model which doesn't really fit in a more abstract system (except at the level of larger models and special characters). Basically it's been caught in a no man's land between 2nd ed and Epic. Why don't they fix it (and I mean really fix it)? Because it sells. They people who buy GW miniatures want the high detail of 28mm and they want to be able to field large collections in games. Clearly this is more important to them than the integrity of the ruleset.
Well, truth has been spoken above by several discutants:
Terrain doesn't matter, range doesn't matter, movement doesn't matter, all that matters is how efficiently you optimized your dice and how well you identify your priority targets each turn.
The game used to be a battle in former editions. I can add here my experience from about 50 tournaments and participations at German GTs (which are dead now).
Now it feels like very close to a board game.
wuestenfux wrote: Well, truth has been spoken above by several discutants:
Terrain doesn't matter, range doesn't matter, movement doesn't matter, all that matters is how efficiently you optimized your dice and how well you identify your priority targets each turn.
The game used to be a battle in former editions. I can add here my experience from about 50 tournaments and participations at German GTs (which are dead now).
Now it feels like very close to a board game.
The biggest issue with 40k currently is it's incredibly outdated turn structure. You want more tactics and a more active game turn where choices matter? Get rid of IGOUGO. Start using alternating activation. Bring in terrain rules like these
Spoiler:
Line of Sight Rules
You can trace Line of Sight from any part of your model to any part of the target unit. For the purpose of targeting I recommend using 7ths targeting rules (I.E. wings, antennae, banners) do not count as a part of the model, meaning you cannot draw los from or too these bits. That is just my personal preference, do what you want.
Targeting Occupied Terrain Occupied Terrain is any terrain that has a unit within the terrain feature. Units that occupy a Terrain feature can see and be seen through it. Units that Occupy Terrain gain Cover from the terrain. A unit is considered to be occupying the terrain if all of it's models bases are at least partially within the terrain or meet it's other requirements. Models that do not have a base must be at least 50% within the terrain to be considered to Occupy it.
Intervening Terrain Intervening terrain is any terrain that sits between you and the target unit but is not occupied by the target unit. You can trace LoS over a single piece of Light terrain. A second piece of Light terrain and/or Dense terrain will block LoS normally. Targeting a unit over intervening Terrain confers a -1 to hit penalty.
High Ground If your unit is on a piece of raised terrain they may have high ground. A unit with high ground can ignore all terrain and los blocking terrain features when targetting units on a lower level so long as they can still actually trace line of sight to the unit. To repeat, you still need to be able to trace line of sight, but the target unit would gain no benefit from any intervening terrain. I personallyuse a lot of the Mantic Battlezones. So each layer up in my terrain is 3". So we use that 3" marker to determine height. Again, do what you want.
Intervening Units If you cannot trace LoS to your target unit without tracing a line through an enemy unit the intervening unit counts as Light Terrain. That means if your target unit is behind both an enemy unit and a piece of Light terrain that unit is untargettable because your LoS is blocked (just like 2 pieces of light terrain). For this you are counting the entire unit and the spaces between models as 1 object. You cannot trace LoS between models in the same unit to get around this. You would need to actually be able to trace LoS around the entire unit to not be effected by the unit.
Monsters, Vehicles, and Titanic When targeting any unit with the MONSTER or VEHICLE Keyword you ignore any intervening units when tracing Line of Sight treating them as Open Ground. When targeting any unit with the TITANIC keyword you ignore all intervening units and Light Terrain treating them as Open Ground. In addition treat all Dense Terrain as Light Terrain for the purpose of tracing LoS on TITANIC units.
Flier Units with the Flier battlefield role can be targeted freely treating all terrain and intervening units as Open Ground so long as you can still trace Line of Sight. Do the same for any LoW with the FLY Keyword.
Terrain
All terrain has 3 features.
1) Line of Sight
2) Cover
3) Difficulty
1] Line of Sight
There are 3 degrees of effect terrain has on LoS.
-Open Ground: No effect on LoS. This terrain piece can be shot over as though it was not there. Example: A water pool or river.
-Light: Blocks LoS to some extent. You can draw Line of Sight over a single piece of light terrain. A unit cannot draw LoS over 2 pieces of light terrain. Barricades, grassy hills, light copse of trees, smaller ruins/
-Dense: Dense Terrain blocks LoS entirely. Dense cops of trees, ruined whole buildings.
2) Cover
All terrain has a cover value that is a bonus to your Sv roll (Ex. +1). This bonus is granted to any unit entirely within or meets the requirements of the terrain feature.
3) Difficulty
All terrain has a difficulty value. This value is a penalty to the Movement Value of any unit that enters or attempts to move through the terrain. It is possible the Difficulty of the terrain is a 0 meaning it does not impact movement at all. They may also have special considerations such as "Impassible to VEHICLES".
So for example, the baricades that make of a Aegis Defense Line and thus AGLs themselves would be
LoS: Light
Cover: +1 - The unit must be within 1" or within 1" of a model from their unit that is within 1" of the terrain to occupy the terrain. This unit only gains the benefit of cover from units targeting them from the opposite side of the terrain.
Difficulty: 1
Thus tracing LoS over these baracades would impose a -1 to hit to any unit that is not occupying it. Provides a +1 Sv bonus to any unit that is occupying it, and eat up 1" of Movement to cross over it.
Ruined Building could be.
LoS: Dense
Cover: +1
Difficulty: 1 non-INFANTRY
You could not target units on the other side of the building even if you could trace LoS. Units that occupy the terrain gain a +1 SV bonus and any noninfantry would loose 1" of movement by entering or trying to pass through the terrain. Driving some bikes over the rough surface of the ruins is hard on them and the ruins make navigating the landscape difficult for anything that is too big and/or lacking the dexterity that Infantry have.
In addition. I propose that Character Targeting is changed to make it so a character cannot be targeted with shooting if the character is not the closest visible unit and within 3" of another friendly unit. This way they need to maintain a semi unit coherency to keep their protection AND a closer unit behind some LoS blocking terrain won't save them.
Any unit with Sniper Weapon/rules will also ignore intervening units when tracing LoS.
Now positioning, terrain, who you activate, when, and for what purpose all have far more impact.
It's 40ks incredibly outdated turn structure that is causing the most damage. Update that and your most of the way to a far more enjoyable and far more interesting game where choices matter.
Amishprn86 wrote: Saying 40k Comp is ruining 40k is like saying the NFL is ruining local football leagues.
Dont want a comp game, talk to opponent. The game is a social game meant to talk to each other about how you want to play.
Exactly this.
The problem here is that some people want to play balanced TAC games, but it won't happen because it's simply not possible. Competitive 40k is already balanced as in less than a year we had tons of different lists that won at tournaments, and half the factions don't even have the codex yet.
On the flip side games among friends, in which both lists are toned down and tailored in order to enjoy a fair match, are usually quite balanced as well.
If you want to play a balanced game with TAC lists change hobby.
Nithaniel wrote: 40k is a competitive game, a game with objectives and win/loss conditions.
Not really. All wargames have win/loss conditions, otherwise they wouldn't be much fun, and last forever. That doesn't make them competitive - plenty of games involve a GM, for example, or rely on cooperation between the "opposing" players to determine the scenario, starting conditions, forces and terms of victory. 40k came from that sort of background, I think.
Nithaniel wrote: 40k is a competitive game, a game with objectives and win/loss conditions.
Not really. All wargames have win/loss conditions, otherwise they wouldn't be much fun, and last forever. That doesn't make them competitive - plenty of games involve a GM, for example, or rely on cooperation between the "opposing" players to determine the scenario, starting conditions, forces and terms of victory. 40k came from that sort of background, I think.
I think this is also part of a problem (not necessarily the 40k problem). People can't always understand that it doesn't have to be a win or lose game. I remember the best times I had in 40k before I moved were with scenarios that would always mean I would lose. (Like hold out against endless hordes of boyz pretending that I had to stave them of to evacuate civilians) or co-op games witha gm of sorts controlling an OP huge army. I even suggest co-op games at my local gw now (even just 2v2) and i get this look of confusion.
That's another thing. Usually with those "last stand" scenarios, winning doesn't necessarily mean destroying the enemy. For example, the 2nd edition Codex Tyranids had a few special missions. One of those was a six turn game, in which any destroyed Tyranid units could return, with no limit; if the Tyranids completely wiped out the enemy, they won. If even a single gretchin or Imperial Guardsman remained, it was a win for the other side.
scenarios for 1st edition would have things like secret victory conditions for each player on a team game (for example, if the 2nd in command gets the opportunity, killing the supreme commander unit is a win for that particular player, but not necessarily their side as a whole).
Even in ordinary scenarios, if it starts going against me, then I'll redefine my "success" criteria - from winning the game, to achieving any of the scenario objectives, to keeping particular units alive, to taking the enemy with me. I still "lose", but that doesn't matter.
Nithaniel wrote: 40k is a competitive game, a game with objectives and win/loss conditions.
Not really. All wargames have win/loss conditions, otherwise they wouldn't be much fun, and last forever. That doesn't make them competitive - plenty of games involve a GM, for example, or rely on cooperation between the "opposing" players to determine the scenario, starting conditions, forces and terms of victory. 40k came from that sort of background, I think.
In RT (maybe even 2nd) 40k suggested the use of a GM, but from 3rd on (the overwhelming vast majority of the game's life and most of its growth and popularity) this hasn't been even remotely the case.
For better or for worse, 40k is a competitive game, not a cooperative story telling experience with a GM. It is not an RPG or even RPG-ish, as some here would like to claim. You can work with your opponent to come up with whatever special scenario and conditions you want, but you're ultimately still competing where one person wins and the other loses. That is competition by definition, and therefore, makes the game competitive.
For it not to be competitive, it would have to be cooperative, in which both players work together to achieve the same goal. That is not 40k in the slightest. That's an RPG, of which there are several great 40k based options, which you can even use your minis with if you so desire.
I think a bigger issue is that 40k is a company sized game that is played with increasingly larger scale, without rules that have scaled correctly. There's a big reason why most battalion/brigade sized wargames are like 15mm or even less as the baseline, not 28mm (although many support 28mm as a variant if you really have that room). That alone makes the game an unbalanced mess because you have minor details about individual squads alongside superheavies and flyers that can wipe out squads in a turn. Fundamental disconnect.
Yes, it's true that since at least midway through 2nd and 3rd, they removed the requirement for a GM, the game has always been closer to a shared experience than a truly competitive game. What I mean is, yes by definition it's a competitive game since it has two players trying to "defeat" the other, but unlike many competitive games 40k wants to encourage you to tell a story about the battle rather than just try to win. I think it really is its own genre because of that alone; it's not cooperative (although it can be, I guess). It's competitive, but not in the traditional sense (although it can be, see current competitive 40k, although whether it can be GOOD at that is up for debate), it's more like a "Shared Wargaming Experience" like the historical games Warhammer originally evolved from; those games were competitive too by virtue of having Player 1 versus Player 2, but were something more than just trying to bust out anything possible to win the game. In a historical game you'd basically never see somebody only pick the best options allowed to them, just because they could, even if doing a fictional or hypothetical scenario that wasn't simply a refight of Waterloo or Gettysburg or what have you (where often the battle dictated the units available). And those games had barely any restrictions at all due to being early in wargaming's history; it was 100% on the players who knew there was no enjoyment in just taking all artillery and cavalry simply because "the rules let me".
At some point in wargaming, we lost that mindset, and it became "well it's competitive so try to win" and "the rules let me take X, so I'll take X". 40k still wants to hearken back to those days of yore.
All wargames are competitive and have always been competitive by the definition that they are one person vs another.
All wargames have the potential to be the den of the professional player and breeding ground for WAAC.
However not all games have done so. Battletech, for instance, I've only run into a couple of WAAC players and thats going back thirty years this summer. Battletech is also strongly used to tell a story in a campaign despite being competitve in that its player vs player.
Historicals are the same. They are one side vs another. Identical to 40k! But the WAAC players there are definitely in a minority and the players work it like a story telling experience.
I've used 40k and WHFB and AOS for story telling experiences for twenty plus years now. So they definitely CAN be used for that and work just fine for that, the same as Battletech and other historicals.
It can be competitive and also adhere to a story wherein the players aren't trying to take their LVO lists all the time. In a sense that makes it also (in addition to) cooperative in that players understand the game is busted, the game rules are hot garbage, but they enjoy the story and want a fairly even non lopsided stomp fest because they don't want to chase the meta and have to constantly change out armies.
Its not a black or white one or the other thing at all. Battletech and historicals could also be cutthroat pro sports play, but those communities largely don't go there.
WM/H is another good example of a great world that I've never once seen a campaign played iin because its community is 99.9% pro sports tournament players.
WM/H could make for a great storytelling experience. But its community won't let that happen.
Its still a wargame just like Battletech and historicals and AOS and WHFB and 40k. Ultimately its a person making the choice that a competitive game should only be about powergaming and min/max play or a person actively deciding they understand that toning down the list with their opponent doing the same can make for just as much a competitive experience.
The same could be said for actual scenarios in which you can run 40k in where you have a scenario designer choosing forces for the entire battle for all sides. This is how historicals have always run. THis is also how battletech often runs.
Wayniac wrote: I think a bigger issue is that 40k is a company sized game that is played with increasingly larger scale, without rules that have scaled correctly. There's a big reason why most battalion/brigade sized wargames are like 15mm or even less as the baseline, not 28mm (although many support 28mm as a variant if you really have that room). That alone makes the game an unbalanced mess because you have minor details about individual squads alongside superheavies and flyers that can wipe out squads in a turn. Fundamental disconnect.
100% agree. The scale of the game is just bonkers at this point. Flyers and superheavies have no reason being in the average 40k game.
Yes, it's true that since at least midway through 2nd and 3rd, they removed the requirement for a GM, the game has always been closer to a shared experience than a truly competitive game. What I mean is, yes by definition it's a competitive game since it has two players trying to "defeat" the other, but unlike many competitive games 40k wants to encourage you to tell a story about the battle rather than just try to win. I think it really is its own genre because of that alone; it's not cooperative (although it can be, I guess). It's competitive, but not in the traditional sense (although it can be, see current competitive 40k, although whether it can be GOOD at that is up for debate), it's more like a "Shared Wargaming Experience" like the historical games Warhammer originally evolved from; those games were competitive too by virtue of having Player 1 versus Player 2, but were something more than just trying to bust out anything possible to win the game. In a historical game you'd basically never see somebody only pick the best options allowed to them, just because they could, even if doing a fictional or hypothetical scenario that wasn't simply a refight of Waterloo or Gettysburg or what have you. And those games had barely any restrictions at all due to being early in wargaming's history; it was 100% on the players who knew there was no enjoyment in just taking all artillery and cavalry simply because "the rules let me".
By this argument, every wargame is a Shared Wargaming Experience. There's nothing special about 40k compared to any other sci-fi/fantasy game in the basic experience. Every other wargame is fundamentally as competitive or as cooperative as 40k, no more or no less. GW writing in a blurb or two about 'Forging the Narrative' does not make the game some special snowflake of story telling perfection that no other wargame manages to achieve. Of course any wargame of any stripe benefits from establishing even a quick story/reason the forces are battling and coming up with a satisfying conclusion, but again, this is not unique or special to 40k. Firestorm Armada had the exact capability and desire to be a Shared Wargaming Experience as 40k. So has every single other wargame I've played.
What you're talking about is simply the mindset of two players playing any game. 40k is a competitive game, full stop, and is as cooperative as the players want it to be, which is true of every wargame. A true cooperative, story telling experience is called an RPG.
At some point in wargaming, we lost that mindset, and it became "well it's competitive so try to win" and "the rules let me take X, so I'll take X". 40k still wants to hearken back to those days of yore.
If 40k is truly trying to hearken back to anything (I don't think they are) they're doing a terrible job.
Nithaniel wrote: 40k is a competitive game, a game with objectives and win/loss conditions.
Not really. All wargames have win/loss conditions, otherwise they wouldn't be much fun, and last forever. That doesn't make them competitive - plenty of games involve a GM, for example, or rely on cooperation between the "opposing" players to determine the scenario, starting conditions, forces and terms of victory. 40k came from that sort of background, I think.
In RT (maybe even 2nd) 40k suggested the use of a GM, but from 3rd on (the overwhelming vast majority of the game's life and most of its growth and popularity) this hasn't been even remotely the case.
For better or for worse, 40k is a competitive game, not a cooperative story telling experience with a GM. It is not an RPG or even RPG-ish, as some here would like to claim. You can work with your opponent to come up with whatever special scenario and conditions you want, but you're ultimately still competing where one person wins and the other loses. That is competition by definition, and therefore, makes the game competitive.
For it not to be competitive, it would have to be cooperative, in which both players work together to achieve the same goal. That is not 40k in the slightest. That's an RPG, of which there are several great 40k based options, which you can even use your minis with if you so desire.
Just bootstraping here as this is most relevant post to what I have to add:
I've pointed this out in some previous discussions on this topic, but a large part of disagreement about whether 40K is or isn't competetive boils down to english dictionary... In Polish, words usable for describing games have completely different scope of meaning and we don't really have this part of discussion. Meaning of "competetive" that is used here to describe "the very essence of having winning conditions and two opposing sides that each try to win" have two major translations in polish - one is "rywalizacja", wchich simply means rivalry/confrontation, but the second one is "współzawodnictwo" and translates vaguealy as "taking part in cooperative effort to have a contest" which encompass various degrees of direct rivalry between players but have much larger cooperative part in it. To say "comptetive" as in "made for tournaments and organised competition" we use precise word "turniejowy". Basic word to describe tabletop wargames is "bitewny" which translates to "battle game".
A huge different between many 40K players seems to boil down to understanding 40K rivalry either directly, as "any man for himself" or "organising details of a game together but then trying to outsmart eachother within mutually agreed conditions". Former tend to blame GW for any and all failures to provide a coherent platform of contest, as they want to have rules and conditions as independent from players themselves as possible, the latter seem to have much larger margin for self-governing restrictions/interpretations/houserules/managing rules flaws etc... And this difference does not translate directly to "competetive vs casual" but comes across it as there are both attitudes present in both of those groups.
And besides, where does this idea that 40k is a good narrative game come from? Aside from an occasional side box about "FORGE THE NARRATIVE" GW's support for narrative-based games is virtually nonexistent. You get what, a few pages at the back of the rulebook, and an alternate set of malestrom objectives? Where are the rules for creating and advancing characters? Where are the guidelines for how to create a scenario game that is balanced well enough to be interesting (something that is not easy to do)? Where are the "historical" scenarios with suggested force lists for each side? It seems like most of the time when people say 40k is a narrative game what they really mean is that it's a bad competitive game, so therefore it must be narrative by default.
Peregrine wrote: And besides, where does this idea that 40k is a good narrative game come from? Aside from an occasional side box about "FORGE THE NARRATIVE" GW's support for narrative-based games is virtually nonexistent. You get what, a few pages at the back of the rulebook, and an alternate set of malestrom objectives? Where are the rules for creating and advancing characters? Where are the guidelines for how to create a scenario game that is balanced well enough to be interesting (something that is not easy to do)? Where are the "historical" scenarios with suggested force lists for each side? It seems like most of the time when people say 40k is a narrative game what they really mean is that it's a bad competitive game, so therefore it must be narrative by default.
Well, 40k isn't actually a good game for anything other than very laid back, light-hearted "Hey let's throw down some models and roll some dice and not take it seriously" kind of things. But we know this already. I'm honestly surprised you didn't throw in a few "GW designers are incompetent and need to all be fired" jabs like usual.
Peregrine wrote: And besides, where does this idea that 40k is a good narrative game come from? Aside from an occasional side box about "FORGE THE NARRATIVE" GW's support for narrative-based games is virtually nonexistent. You get what, a few pages at the back of the rulebook, and an alternate set of malestrom objectives? Where are the rules for creating and advancing characters? Where are the guidelines for how to create a scenario game that is balanced well enough to be interesting (something that is not easy to do)? Where are the "historical" scenarios with suggested force lists for each side? It seems like most of the time when people say 40k is a narrative game what they really mean is that it's a bad competitive game, so therefore it must be narrative by default.
Well, 40k isn't actually a good game for anything other than very laid back, light-hearted "Hey let's throw down some models and roll some dice and not take it seriously" kind of things. But we know this already. I'm honestly surprised you didn't throw in a few "GW designers are incompetent and need to all be fired" jabs like usual.
He did on the very top of a previous page of this thread
Peregrine wrote: And besides, where does this idea that 40k is a good narrative game come from? Aside from an occasional side box about "FORGE THE NARRATIVE" GW's support for narrative-based games is virtually nonexistent. You get what, a few pages at the back of the rulebook, and an alternate set of malestrom objectives? Where are the rules for creating and advancing characters? Where are the guidelines for how to create a scenario game that is balanced well enough to be interesting (something that is not easy to do)? Where are the "historical" scenarios with suggested force lists for each side? It seems like most of the time when people say 40k is a narrative game what they really mean is that it's a bad competitive game, so therefore it must be narrative by default.
Well, 40k isn't actually a good game for anything other than very laid back, light-hearted "Hey let's throw down some models and roll some dice and not take it seriously" kind of things. But we know this already. I'm honestly surprised you didn't throw in a few "GW designers are incompetent and need to all be fired" jabs like usual.
He did on the very top of a previous page of this thread
Yeah but he normally does it every chance he gets.
Anyways... I absolutely think a big issue is that 40k is not meant to be played as a "serious business" game. Yet people seem to want to force it to be that sort of cutthroat, quasi e-sport mindset game. So right out of the gate there is a fundamental disconnect over the style of the game.
Blacksails wrote: For better or for worse, 40k is a competitive game, not a cooperative story telling experience with a GM. It is not an RPG or even RPG-ish, as some here would like to claim. You can work with your opponent to come up with whatever special scenario and conditions you want, but you're ultimately still competing where one person wins and the other loses. That is competition by definition, and therefore, makes the game competitive.
True, but not in the way a lot of people seem to think - The game has never been designed such that winning a game is the only point of playing. It's true of something like Chess - no-one plays Chess, Go, Draughts, etc, because they're interested in the look of the pieces, or because they want to recreate a "historical" event. It's true to an extent of Warmachine - there, you play to defeat your opponent; there's no other reason to bother turning up. With the majority of historical wargames, that need not be the case, and I think GW's games (apart from Shadespire) aren't like that either. When I play a game of 40k, I play to win. However, I don't choose my army to win; I choose an army based on the background, which may or may not be the "best" army list. I do my best to win the game, because that provides the challenge for both sides, but I honestly don't care who wins, as long as we all had fun doing it. I've seen people discussing the best way of achieving a 1- or 2-turn victory and I think "what's the point? Why would I want to play a shorter game?" It is a story telling experience, in that when we talk about 40k it's about what cool things a unit or hero did on the battlefield, not about what I did.
So yes, 40k is competitive in that one player wins and the other loses (unlike Warhammer Quest Silver Tower), but it's not competitive in the sense that I'd want to take it seriously to the point of awarding any sort of recognition for being better than someone else at it.
Blacksails wrote: For better or for worse, 40k is a competitive game, not a cooperative story telling experience with a GM. It is not an RPG or even RPG-ish, as some here would like to claim. You can work with your opponent to come up with whatever special scenario and conditions you want, but you're ultimately still competing where one person wins and the other loses. That is competition by definition, and therefore, makes the game competitive.
True, but not in the way a lot of people seem to think - The game has never been designed such that winning a game is the only point of playing. It's true of something like Chess - no-one plays Chess, Go, Draughts, etc, because they're interested in the look of the pieces, or because they want to recreate a "historical" event. It's true to an extent of Warmachine - there, you play to defeat your opponent; there's no other reason to bother turning up. With the majority of historical wargames, that need not be the case, and I think GW's games (apart from Shadespire) aren't like that either. When I play a game of 40k, I play to win. However, I don't choose my army to win; I choose an army based on the background, which may or may not be the "best" army list. I do my best to win the game, because that provides the challenge for both sides, but I honestly don't care who wins, as long as we all had fun doing it. I've seen people discussing the best way of achieving a 1- or 2-turn victory and I think "what's the point? Why would I want to play a shorter game?" It is a story telling experience, in that when we talk about 40k it's about what cool things a unit or hero did on the battlefield, not about what I did.
So yes, 40k is competitive in that one player wins and the other loses (unlike Warhammer Quest Silver Tower), but it's not competitive in the sense that I'd want to take it seriously to the point of awarding any sort of recognition for being better than someone else at it.
You are a great example of competetive translated as "współzawodnictwo" player I described above.
One note, it is possible do to that in Warmachine; the background is rich enough and PP does try to put out narrative scenarios. But the game itself encourages so many gamey maneuvers and preciseness that it's incredibly difficult to do because the game rules and playstyles are so focused on that sort of competitive, "gaming the system" "ah ha gotcha" type of approaches that narrative play is incredibly hard to do.
Wayniac wrote: Well, 40k isn't actually a good game for anything other than very laid back, light-hearted "Hey let's throw down some models and roll some dice and not take it seriously" kind of things.
It isn't good at that either. In fact, "light-hearted not-take-it-seriously" gaming is arguably the thing 40k is worst at. A silly game to laugh at and not take seriously does not cost thousands of dollars, hundreds of painting hours, and 3+ hours per game to play.
Blacksails wrote: For better or for worse, 40k is a competitive game, not a cooperative story telling experience with a GM. It is not an RPG or even RPG-ish, as some here would like to claim. You can work with your opponent to come up with whatever special scenario and conditions you want, but you're ultimately still competing where one person wins and the other loses. That is competition by definition, and therefore, makes the game competitive.
True, but not in the way a lot of people seem to think - The game has never been designed such that winning a game is the only point of playing. It's true of something like Chess - no-one plays Chess, Go, Draughts, etc, because they're interested in the look of the pieces, or because they want to recreate a "historical" event. It's true to an extent of Warmachine - there, you play to defeat your opponent; there's no other reason to bother turning up. With the majority of historical wargames, that need not be the case, and I think GW's games (apart from Shadespire) aren't like that either. When I play a game of 40k, I play to win. However, I don't choose my army to win; I choose an army based on the background, which may or may not be the "best" army list. I do my best to win the game, because that provides the challenge for both sides, but I honestly don't care who wins, as long as we all had fun doing it. I've seen people discussing the best way of achieving a 1- or 2-turn victory and I think "what's the point? Why would I want to play a shorter game?" It is a story telling experience, in that when we talk about 40k it's about what cool things a unit or hero did on the battlefield, not about what I did.
So yes, 40k is competitive in that one player wins and the other loses (unlike Warhammer Quest Silver Tower), but it's not competitive in the sense that I'd want to take it seriously to the point of awarding any sort of recognition for being better than someone else at it.
Right, 40k is as competitive as the two players want it to be, but its nevertheless a competitive game. You can use it to tell a story in a campaign, where that story is inevitably one player defeating the other, or you can play it to determine simply who is the better player without any story telling, and every range in between. My point was simply that 40k is a competitive experience at its core even if you dress it up by adding in cooperatively decided narrative elements. If I'm playing a last stand scenario because my opponent has pushed my forces back to my final port and I need to hold off the enemy for 5 turns for 95% of my forces to be evacutated, ultimately I'm still competing against my opponent to survive and see if I don't lose completely, or maybe live to fight another day.
I'm fundamentally a narrative player by most standards, having learned wargaming with a great group who constantly ran campaigns or at least came up with plausible scenarios for the forces, and I always play with the army I want to use (optimizing within the theme I want), but I always play with the aim to win the battle, and I expect my opponents to do the same.
When I RPG, I expect myself and my group to work together at all times to achieve the goals we all want, which is a true cooperative experience.
AndrewGPaul wrote: It's true to an extent of Warmachine - there, you play to defeat your opponent; there's no other reason to bother turning up.
That is not true at all. WM/H has just as much of a narrative element as 40k. It has tons of fluff, models representing that fluff, a separate RPG line set in the same world, even a Black Library equivalent publishing fiction outside of the game entirely. Sure, it isn't always represented in the tabletop mechanics, but it's not like 40k does a great job of representing its fluff or supporting story-based gaming.
So what is when you don't consider who won and lost but where story and thus next game's scenarios and forces go?
Win or lose irrelevant. Story is what matters. As it is we are often talking about what to do mid-game so practically both players giving inputs on both armies. Almost like 2 players on both armies.
tneva82 wrote: So what is when you don't consider who won and lost but where story and thus next game's scenarios and forces go?
Win or lose irrelevant. Story is what matters. As it is we are often talking about what to do mid-game so practically both players giving inputs on both armies. Almost like 2 players on both armies.
It sounds like you're just playing with fancy painted army men and at that point, the rules don't really matter to that type of 'playing'.
tneva82 wrote: So what is when you don't consider who won and lost but where story and thus next game's scenarios and forces go?
Win or lose irrelevant. Story is what matters. As it is we are often talking about what to do mid-game so practically both players giving inputs on both armies. Almost like 2 players on both armies.
So why even "play" a "game" at that point if you're going to barely care about the rules and ignore the win/loss result? Just write a story together and maybe paint some models to go with it, you don't need game rules.
What tneva82 describes is style of play that is more "discovering the world of simulated possibilities" embedded within ruleset than "playing a competetive game" but rules do matter exactly the same as in "competetive setting of rivalry". Players do not have full freedom of "making up everything", and debates help keeping the result of the encounter as close to optimal "solution" of a scenario. It is very close to what I like about 40K the most and there is pretty much no other game that is suited to this as well as 2nd, 6th or 7th ed 40K is. It is a very niche usage of 40K however and it is very hard to find players with such attitude. The results of such games are more about "what particular models/units/characters in the game setting" can achieve than what players can achieve (largely because cunning and deceit are out and games are played in a largely cooperative way).
Playing this way can give a very deep insight of how entire rules system works, which parts of scenario/terrain/army selection were most influential to the result. They are in fact very educative. You can think of such games as cooperatively solved "40K solitaires" and can be deeply analytical.
Edit: just to add to this - this style of play is pretty much impervious to min/maxing and other list abuses, as too obviously broken matchups simply generate boring/disfunctional games - "easy mode solitaires". Llist building have entirely different goal of building as interesting encounter as possible and lists variation becomes key. But this is completely unsuited for pick-up environment.
I don't think competitiveness ruins 40k. People being childish about winning or losing ruins games. You can be very competitive without being a poor sport. Competitiveness can hurt unit diversity if units are poorly balanced, but I'm not sure if you can blame poor balance or people optimizing. Now being salty about not being able to play some units because another army is too strong for you is a balance issue. Your opponent rules lawyering you or slowplaying in a timed match are competitive problems.
Tournaments will be what they are, the strongest, tightest lists played in the most aggressive and "abusive" ways possible to win. And to a degree this is the social contract in agreeing to play in a tournament (Or prove certain nurgle units are op apparently)
Competing by dictionary.com "to strive to outdo another for acknowledgment, a prize, supremacy, profit, etc.; engage in a contest"
But truly competitive play is being a competitor, or being able to make an army or unit work from a non-optimal or even disadvantageous position. Making the best use of any or every unit, regardless of what it is. You are becoming supremely able with the entirety of models available to you, and increasing your attractiveness as an opponent to new players and potentially new strategies.
I would propose if you are a "competitive player" but you consistently win, especially if you smash, that you should intentionally play down with weaker and non-optimized units, and have the match be a contest, leave a viable outcome for your loss. If your into seal clubbing you opponent, its time to buy a barrel, some fish, and a shotgun.
40K is often compared to competetive games like chess or go in such discussions, but there is one other "classical" competetive game - Bridge. Bridge is unique, because it is competetive and cooperative at the same time and you don't beat your opponents by decieving/directly outsmarting/outmanouvering them, but by being better at solving a particular, unique puzzle (deal) and comunicating this solution to your partner, so you can execute this solution. But every particular deal is "fixed" and there is nothing else to do besides being as close to optimal with your solution as possible. You don't have any means to alter the deal but it does not mean, that "rules don't matter and there is no point in playing a game". Bridge is a sport, and besides Chess it is the only "mind sports" recognised by International Olympic Comitee.
What I described above as "40K solitaires" is pretty much the same intelectual effort as playing Bridge and me and my wife adopted such style exactly because our long, long sport Bridge history.
pumaman1 wrote: I would propose if you are a "competitive player" but you consistently win, especially if you smash, that you should intentionally play down with weaker and non-optimized units, and have the match be a contest, leave a viable outcome for your loss. If your into seal clubbing you opponent, its time to buy a barrel, some fish, and a shotgun.
That is not competing, it's giving free wins to your opponents. List construction is part of the game, and part of competition. You can make the argument that a person who is seal clubbing should find tougher opponents and stop wasting their time on a game like that, but deliberately sabotaging yourself so that you increase your chances of losing is the exact opposite of competition.
tneva82 wrote: So what is when you don't consider who won and lost but where story and thus next game's scenarios and forces go?
Win or lose irrelevant. Story is what matters. As it is we are often talking about what to do mid-game so practically both players giving inputs on both armies. Almost like 2 players on both armies.
It sounds like you're just playing with fancy painted army men and at that point, the rules don't really matter to that type of 'playing'.
Yep, definitely its those awful dismissive CAAC type players who are the problem here. Always bullying people and forcing them to play their way.
All I know is, if I had the magic power to make just a couple people running tournament level competitive lists either learn to lighten up when they're playing a new player with no experience and a limited model collection/budget or prevent them from preying on those players, I'd have a gaming group three times the size of the one I have now.
on a micro-scale, a group of gamers forming a "CAAC" clique and ostracising people for playing "too competitive", and competitive gamers acting as gatekeepers and chasing off new blood are both separate problems. But on a macro scale, the latter happens in my area FAR more than the former, and the worst competitive gamers get is a somewhat reduced pool of opponents, as people punch their ticket playing against their army and decide it's not what they're looking for.
I'd have an equivalent problem with WAAC gamers (here defined as people who don't care for a challenge and instead view playing against a new player or tailoring their list to beat an opponent as "strategy" rather than a jerk move) with CAAC gamers (people who shame and actively ostracise people for playing too competitive lists) if they were anywhere near an equivalent occurrence.
I do not consider someone politely declining a game because they know it will be one sided and it's not the kind of game they want to play to be any kind of attack or unfair. People who take tournament level TAC lists, with 4-5 detachments all different factions or subfaction tactics, killer combos or optimized spam are going to have a harder time getting a pickup game in a group that doesn't always play at that level. Given that most people pack up their army and bring it to play with them, it's pretty silly to expect them to be able to "up their game" in a pickup setting. Technically speaking the same is not true of a more competitive list, you can always take fewer points worth of models, and I have many tournament gamers who like their combos and powergaming who are perfectly happy to dive into a 1500-vs-2k contest if they know their opponent is new or just has a mostly hobby oriented list.
The fact that you and peregrine can only imagine "CAAC" or laziness or whatever as the sole motivation for a person to not be able to keep up with the current meta while simultaneously understanding that this is a hobby that costs thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours is pretty telling in this discussion. Tons of people lack the simple money, time, and inclination to keep their list up with the joneses, and play with what they have or what they like the look of. I stopped buying things for the quality of the rules they have years ago, and I'd advise anyone to do the same unless they're completely unattached to their collections and completely willing to fund new units with the sales of their existing units when metas change. We're in the Dark Reaper/Shining spear and Catachan Basilisk/LRBT spam meta currently. Say that out loud and think about how freaking silly that would sound in late 7th edition.
40K is often compared to competetive games like chess or go in such discussions, but there is one other "classical" competetive game - Bridge. Bridge is unique, because it is competetive and cooperative at the same time and you don't beat your opponents by decieving/directly outsmarting/outmanouvering them, but by being better at solving a particular, unique puzzle (deal) and comunicating this solution to your partner, so you can execute this solution. But every particular deal is "fixed" and there is nothing else to do besides being as close to optimal with your solution as possible. You don't have any means to alter the deal but it does not mean, that "rules don't matter and there is no point in playing a game". Bridge is a sport, and besides Chess it is the only "mind sports" recognised by International Olympic Comitee.
What I described above as "40K solitaires" is pretty much the same intelectual effort as playing Bridge and me and my wife adopted such style exactly because our long, long sport Bridge history.
I don't see how any of that applies to your ideas about 40k. In bridge you're still competing against an opponent, not working collaboratively with them to solve a problem. Your goal is to be better at the game and if you see a chance to deceive or out-maneuver them you're certainly going to pounce on that opportunity and not say "hey, I think this is a better solution for you". But what you're talking about in 40k is both sides of the "game" working collaboratively to solve it. And at that point what is there to solve? Of course you can "win" a "game" of 40k where one person/team controls both armies. "Hey, this side would win if the other side just moved over here, well conveniently they just did". Without the opposition there's nothing to solve, no intellectual effort, just pushing models around a table and pretending that it has some kind of meaning.
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the_scotsman wrote: Yep, definitely its those awful dismissive CAAC type players who are the problem here. Always bullying people and forcing them to play their way.
You say that with sarcasm, but it sure seems to happen awfully frequently.
Given that most people pack up their army and bring it to play with them, it's pretty silly to expect them to be able to "up their game" in a pickup setting.
Then why is it reasonable to expect the competitive player to tone down their army?
The fact that you and peregrine can only imagine "CAAC" or laziness or whatever as the sole motivation for a person to not be able to keep up with the current meta while simultaneously understanding that this is a hobby that costs thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours is pretty telling in this discussion.
That's a rather blatant straw man there. Could you stop making up stuff and claiming that I said it?
pumaman1 wrote: I would propose if you are a "competitive player" but you consistently win, especially if you smash, that you should intentionally play down with weaker and non-optimized units, and have the match be a contest, leave a viable outcome for your loss. If your into seal clubbing you opponent, its time to buy a barrel, some fish, and a shotgun.
That is not competing, it's giving free wins to your opponents. List construction is part of the game, and part of competition. You can make the argument that a person who is seal clubbing should find tougher opponents and stop wasting their time on a game like that, but deliberately sabotaging yourself so that you increase your chances of losing is the exact opposite of competition.
I think I would very much like participating in a 40K tournament in which for every game played you are asigned a randomly chosen list (from a pool of pre-composed lists) to play a single scenario repeatedly, and overall results of a tournament are created by comparison of relative performances of players, with highest scores of each round being a benchmark point. This way list building is out of the scope and can no longer be used as an excuse for poor personal skill/performance.
pumaman1 wrote: I would propose if you are a "competitive player" but you consistently win, especially if you smash, that you should intentionally play down with weaker and non-optimized units, and have the match be a contest, leave a viable outcome for your loss. If your into seal clubbing you opponent, its time to buy a barrel, some fish, and a shotgun.
That is not competing, it's giving free wins to your opponents. List construction is part of the game, and part of competition. You can make the argument that a person who is seal clubbing should find tougher opponents and stop wasting their time on a game like that, but deliberately sabotaging yourself so that you increase your chances of losing is the exact opposite of competition.
I didn't say craft an un-winnable list, but craft a list where you have to play tactically to win. Play-down, not dead.
Between the haves and have-nots, you don't need your best most excellent list to win, really you can bring 3rd string characters and still probably win, but you actually have to try. This makes you practice turn 4/5 strategies and overcoming a disadvantage you might see in a tournament later, but using lower power units against weaker opponents. Or gives the other player a chance to legitimately play past turn 1.
I also presume you don't have an infinite number of people to play against within a reasonable travel area. So you don't always have the other "top 100 worldwide" players available at all times
tneva82 wrote: So what is when you don't consider who won and lost but where story and thus next game's scenarios and forces go?
Win or lose irrelevant. Story is what matters. As it is we are often talking about what to do mid-game so practically both players giving inputs on both armies. Almost like 2 players on both armies.
It sounds like you're just playing with fancy painted army men and at that point, the rules don't really matter to that type of 'playing'.
Yep, definitely its those awful dismissive CAAC type players who are the problem here. Always bullying people and forcing them to play their way.
All I know is, if I had the magic power to make just a couple people running tournament level competitive lists either learn to lighten up when they're playing a new player with no experience and a limited model collection/budget or prevent them from preying on those players, I'd have a gaming group three times the size of the one I have now.
on a micro-scale, a group of gamers forming a "CAAC" clique and ostracising people for playing "too competitive", and competitive gamers acting as gatekeepers and chasing off new blood are both separate problems. But on a macro scale, the latter happens in my area FAR more than the former, and the worst competitive gamers get is a somewhat reduced pool of opponents, as people punch their ticket playing against their army and decide it's not what they're looking for.
I'd have an equivalent problem with WAAC gamers (here defined as people who don't care for a challenge and instead view playing against a new player or tailoring their list to beat an opponent as "strategy" rather than a jerk move) with CAAC gamers (people who shame and actively ostracise people for playing too competitive lists) if they were anywhere near an equivalent occurrence.
I do not consider someone politely declining a game because they know it will be one sided and it's not the kind of game they want to play to be any kind of attack or unfair. People who take tournament level TAC lists, with 4-5 detachments all different factions or subfaction tactics, killer combos or optimized spam are going to have a harder time getting a pickup game in a group that doesn't always play at that level. Given that most people pack up their army and bring it to play with them, it's pretty silly to expect them to be able to "up their game" in a pickup setting. Technically speaking the same is not true of a more competitive list, you can always take fewer points worth of models, and I have many tournament gamers who like their combos and powergaming who are perfectly happy to dive into a 1500-vs-2k contest if they know their opponent is new or just has a mostly hobby oriented list.
The fact that you and peregrine can only imagine "CAAC" or laziness or whatever as the sole motivation for a person to not be able to keep up with the current meta while simultaneously understanding that this is a hobby that costs thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours is pretty telling in this discussion. Tons of people lack the simple money, time, and inclination to keep their list up with the joneses, and play with what they have or what they like the look of. I stopped buying things for the quality of the rules they have years ago, and I'd advise anyone to do the same unless they're completely unattached to their collections and completely willing to fund new units with the sales of their existing units when metas change. We're in the Dark Reaper/Shining spear and Catachan Basilisk/LRBT spam meta currently. Say that out loud and think about how freaking silly that would sound in late 7th edition.
I don't know why you're responding to me, or even using me as some sort of example of not understanding a 'casual' mindset. At no point have I expressed that people have to "keep up with the meta", in fact, I explicitly stated that I'm the kind of person who plays what I like to play.
Either way, WAAC and CAAC are equally problematic and toxic. Everyone else is usually some blend, or happy mix, or flexible player who plays on a range of tournament style games to campaign style games happily.
The exact reason I got out of competitive GW games was that. I got tired of having to rebuy my army once or twice a year. Its expensive, takes a lot of my time to paint, and it burnt me out.
I openly defend tournament play as the seat of such a playstyle and anyone that complains that tournaments are filled with WAAC players is to me a redundant statement.
However, the world is not black and white and I don't feel that tournament play should be the only way people play regardless of if they are in a tournament hall or a casual game, nor would I defend the notion that if you are playing a campaign and taking forces that are not optimal because the scenario calls for it that you are somehow a bad player or that 40k is not suited for such play because you should always be taking a min/max list at all times.
In that regard, THAT mentality to me can ruin groups and areas (the idea that if you aren't going balls to the wall 24/7 that you are wrong) because I've seen it run scores of players off to other things.
I see the same thing in warcraft when guildies only want to speed run dungeons and treat the game like the super bowl 24/7. People lose interest in that and bail.
If you want to grow the hobby and grow the game you need to provide an environment for all playstyles... not just one. And yes that goes the same for "COCK" play (casual at all costs lol) you shouldn't be ostracizing or bullying players that want to power game. Its just as toxic.
pumaman1 wrote: I didn't say craft an un-winnable list, but craft a list where you have to play tactically to win. Play-down, not dead.
Still not competition. It's like a football team deciding that they want more of a challenge and deliberately fumbling the ball to the other team. You'd never expect to see that in a competitive football game, because sabotaging yourself is not competition.
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nou wrote: I think I would very much like participating in a 40K tournament in which for every game played you are asigned a randomly chosen list (from a pool of pre-composed lists) to play a single scenario repeatedly, and overall results of a tournament are created by comparison of relative performances of players, with highest scores of each round being a benchmark point. This way list building is out of the scope and can no longer be used as an excuse for poor personal skill/performance.
I guess you could do that, if you wanted to eliminate the skill of list construction and understanding the metagame. But the logistics of such an event would be borderline impossible to accomplish, and if you're going that route you might as well remove the randomness factor and give each player the same lists to use (playing both sides of each game so it isn't mirror matches).
But I have seen games where professional teams "rests" its usual starters against a weaker team and plays its second string/back up players instead. That team is still competing just not at its highest capabilities.
40K is often compared to competetive games like chess or go in such discussions, but there is one other "classical" competetive game - Bridge. Bridge is unique, because it is competetive and cooperative at the same time and you don't beat your opponents by decieving/directly outsmarting/outmanouvering them, but by being better at solving a particular, unique puzzle (deal) and comunicating this solution to your partner, so you can execute this solution. But every particular deal is "fixed" and there is nothing else to do besides being as close to optimal with your solution as possible. You don't have any means to alter the deal but it does not mean, that "rules don't matter and there is no point in playing a game". Bridge is a sport, and besides Chess it is the only "mind sports" recognised by International Olympic Comitee.
What I described above as "40K solitaires" is pretty much the same intelectual effort as playing Bridge and me and my wife adopted such style exactly because our long, long sport Bridge history.
I don't see how any of that applies to your ideas about 40k. In bridge you're still competing against an opponent, not working collaboratively with them to solve a problem. Your goal is to be better at the game and if you see a chance to deceive or out-maneuver them you're certainly going to pounce on that opportunity and not say "hey, I think this is a better solution for you". But what you're talking about in 40k is both sides of the "game" working collaboratively to solve it. And at that point what is there to solve? Of course you can "win" a "game" of 40k where one person/team controls both armies. "Hey, this side would win if the other side just moved over here, well conveniently they just did". Without the opposition there's nothing to solve, no intellectual effort, just pushing models around a table and pretending that it has some kind of meaning.
The beauty of Bridge is that there is no way of deceiving anyone except for very edge and sigular cases of "impass" and entire game is about "manouvering". And yes, you are in part working collaboratively with your opponents to solve a problem, as you are giving eachother informations during "auction" phase. I don't want to dwell deeper into Bridge in a 40K game, but I think you personally could benefit greatly from learning how to play this game. It could change your view on how different mental challanges can be how awarding and exciting they can be. The point of Bridge in particular is to have better knowledge about a game system itself - you can have an evening in which you did not won a single deal and yet be clearly the best bridge player at the table and your opponents clearly acknowledge this. What I described above in relation to 40K solitaires is straight adaptation of that mindset and one of the very few that can give a real mental challange in a game system as ill-suited to any serious play as 40K is. But we already discussed this a couple of times and you seem to be continuously unable to understand what I'm describing.
Maybe it's just me but have seen away more competitive people refuse to ever play anything that isn't the 100% most optimal list, all the time, friendly game or tournament prep, and basically scare away others from playing because they pull no punches, than this mythical "CAAC" person who plays random assortments of junk together and complains/cries cheese when they get beaten by somebody putting any thought into a list. What I normally see is "CAAC" being applied (by some people here usually) to anyone who is putting more than "is this the best choice" into selecting an option.
pumaman1 wrote: I didn't say craft an un-winnable list, but craft a list where you have to play tactically to win. Play-down, not dead.
Still not competition. It's like a football team deciding that they want more of a challenge and deliberately fumbling the ball to the other team. You'd never expect to see that in a competitive football game, because sabotaging yourself is not competition.
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nou wrote: I think I would very much like participating in a 40K tournament in which for every game played you are asigned a randomly chosen list (from a pool of pre-composed lists) to play a single scenario repeatedly, and overall results of a tournament are created by comparison of relative performances of players, with highest scores of each round being a benchmark point. This way list building is out of the scope and can no longer be used as an excuse for poor personal skill/performance.
I guess you could do that, if you wanted to eliminate the skill of list construction and understanding the metagame. But the logistics of such an event would be borderline impossible to accomplish, and if you're going that route you might as well remove the randomness factor and give each player the same lists to use (playing both sides of each game so it isn't mirror matches).
Again... sports teams do play their 2nd and 3rd string players when its not a competition. It lets the players on their team get game time who normally wouldn't, and puts the game more back into balance, because a 0-100 game isn't fun for any participant or audience. And its only sabotage if you don't play the objective. If you refuse to take objectives, or fire at your opponent, yes, you missed the point. but if you bring 2-3 more squads of tactical marines and 1 less las-pred, you are hardly so crippled you can't even play anymore.
And as noted, it also lets you practice high stakes situations/maneuvers you are more likely to see when you are bringing your tournament list to a tournament.
pumaman1 wrote: Again... sports teams do play their 2nd and 3rd string players when its not a competition. It lets the players on their team get game time who normally wouldn't, and puts the game more back into balance, because a 0-100 game isn't fun for any participant or audience.
Not really true. Teams put in their reserves to get those reserves some practice and protect their key players from injury, but they only do it once the game is clearly decided in their favor and the chances of losing are zero no matter how many of their best players are sitting on the bench. Making the game more "balanced" is not in any way the goal because if there's any uncertainty about their chances of winning they're going to keep their best players in until the game is decided.
And its only sabotage if you don't play the objective. If you refuse to take objectives, or fire at your opponent, yes, you missed the point. but if you bring 2-3 more squads of tactical marines and 1 less las-pred, you are hardly so crippled you can't even play anymore.
And as noted, it also lets you practice high stakes situations/maneuvers you are more likely to see when you are bringing your tournament list to a tournament.
Building a list that is weaker than optimal is exactly identical to refusing to take an objective or "forgetting" to shoot with a unit. List building is part of the game just like any other part, and deliberately making poor decisions there is not competing.
pumaman1 wrote: I didn't say craft an un-winnable list, but craft a list where you have to play tactically to win. Play-down, not dead.
Still not competition. It's like a football team deciding that they want more of a challenge and deliberately fumbling the ball to the other team. You'd never expect to see that in a competitive football game, because sabotaging yourself is not competition.
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nou wrote: I think I would very much like participating in a 40K tournament in which for every game played you are asigned a randomly chosen list (from a pool of pre-composed lists) to play a single scenario repeatedly, and overall results of a tournament are created by comparison of relative performances of players, with highest scores of each round being a benchmark point. This way list building is out of the scope and can no longer be used as an excuse for poor personal skill/performance.
I guess you could do that, if you wanted to eliminate the skill of list construction and understanding the metagame. But the logistics of such an event would be borderline impossible to accomplish, and if you're going that route you might as well remove the randomness factor and give each player the same lists to use (playing both sides of each game so it isn't mirror matches).
Removing randomness from 40K generates entirely different gameplay experience and changes battle-plans and flow of the game entirely. Tried that quite a lot of times - mostly during scratch building rules for new homebrew units. In times of internet forums and netlisting, "skill of listbuilding" doesn't really exist in the first place, so my solutions doesn't remove anything other than personal illusion of players playing strong lists and thinking they are skilled tacticians. Mirror matched solution is good, but it generates a lot smaller scope of skill and depth of game system understaning required to win such contest - you are basically measuring ability to understand core rule set and one particular list. When you must collect points playing everything ranging from weak but plentiful horde armies to superheavy detachment then you can pretty much "sort" players by their skill and knowledge of entire 40K.
And yes, I agree that logistics of such event would be very hard even for GW themselves, but this is IMHO the only format of REAL skill testing tournament in such game as 40K. As long as there are no tournaments like this I don't intend to be bothered by attending any.
nou wrote: And yes, you are in part working collaboratively with your opponents to solve a problem, as you are giving eachother informations during "auction" phase.
That's not collaboration, that's competition. You are giving them information, but it's information that is chosen to maximize your chances of winning. Collaboration and altruism have nothing to do with it.
you can have an evening in which you did not won a single deal and yet be clearly the best bridge player at the table and your opponents clearly acknowledge this.
I honestly don't see how this is possible. Assuming you play enough games for the random variation of the cards to average out a player who loses every game can't possibly be the best player. If they were the best player they'd win instead of losing.
What I described above in relation to 40K solitaires is straight adaptation of that mindset and one of the very few that can give a real mental challange in a game system as ill-suited to any serious play as 40K is. But we already discussed this a couple of times and you seem to be continuously unable to understand what I'm describing.
You're right, I don't understand. I don't understand how you can talk about having a mental challenge in a "game" where you control both sides and can make them do whatever you want to create the outcome you want to achieve. What exactly is there to solve? You don't have to anticipate the other side's strategy, deceive them into taking your bait and opening up a game-winning opportunity, etc. You just decide what the outcome is going to be and then push models around the table until you're satisfied with it.
pumaman1 wrote: Again... sports teams do play their 2nd and 3rd string players when its not a competition. It lets the players on their team get game time who normally wouldn't, and puts the game more back into balance, because a 0-100 game isn't fun for any participant or audience.
Not really true. Teams put in their reserves to get those reserves some practice and protect their key players from injury, but they only do it once the game is clearly decided in their favor and the chances of losing are zero no matter how many of their best players are sitting on the bench. Making the game more "balanced" is not in any way the goal because if there's any uncertainty about their chances of winning they're going to keep their best players in until the game is decided.
And its only sabotage if you don't play the objective. If you refuse to take objectives, or fire at your opponent, yes, you missed the point. but if you bring 2-3 more squads of tactical marines and 1 less las-pred, you are hardly so crippled you can't even play anymore.
And as noted, it also lets you practice high stakes situations/maneuvers you are more likely to see when you are bringing your tournament list to a tournament.
Building a list that is weaker than optimal is exactly identical to refusing to take an objective or "forgetting" to shoot with a unit. List building is part of the game just like any other part, and deliberately making poor decisions there is not competing.
Thank you for putting it like that.
It isn't my fault you're not willing to put in the effort to make a competitive list. You can scream "netlist" all you want like people that screamed "netdeck" in Yugioh and MTG do, but nevertheless you're the one making bad decisions, not me. I'm not even sure why it would make you feel any better. "My opponent only won because they brought cheese". That's right, champ, tell yourself that.
Building a list that is weaker than optimal is exactly identical to refusing to take an objective or "forgetting" to shoot with a unit. List building is part of the game just like any other part, and deliberately making poor decisions there is not competing.
Holy gak. I don't think I've ever read something so arrogant and condescending before, and I've been here a long time. This mindset is pure toxic. You can be "competitive" without essentially saying "Only take the most 100% optional thing or feth off"
nou wrote: Removing randomness from 40K generates entirely different gameplay experience and changes battle-plans and flow of the game entirely.
Yes, but I'm not talking about removing randomness from the game itself, only in your proposed list selection method. You set out a series of fixed game tables with specific armies and missions. AvB, CvD, EvF (using multiple copies of each table for larger events), with all of the armies being as different as you like. Each player then plays each of the six armies, playing both sides of each table, and totals up their win/loss record for final scoring. That removes the chance for a player to randomly get better armies given to them compared to their opponents and puts everyone on the same level. Each player has played the same missions with the same armies, so it's purely a test of on-table skill.
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Wayniac wrote: Holy gak. I don't think I've ever read something so arrogant and condescending before, and I've been here a long time. This mindset is pure toxic. You can be "competitive" without essentially saying "Only take the most 100% optional thing or feth off"
You're right, you can't be competitive. Anything less than 100% is playing less competitively. I leave it up to you to decide whether playing competitively is an appealing goal or not. You are of course free to decide that it's not your thing and play with a less-competitive approach.
Building a list that is weaker than optimal is exactly identical to refusing to take an objective or "forgetting" to shoot with a unit. List building is part of the game just like any other part, and deliberately making poor decisions there is not competing.
But who is the better player, the one who can ONLY win with Best tier list, or the one who overcomes Best tier with Good tier? and are you really that good taking best tier and beating mediocre-to-bad tier? It is actually less skilled to always bring the heavy artillery when less is sufficient.
In your area, if its tournament grade all the time, and no new players ever show up, then i get why you need to bring your A game every time, and doing any less is sabotaging yourself. But as much as its "part of the game" its 1 part of a very multi-part game
pumaman1 wrote: Again... sports teams do play their 2nd and 3rd string players when its not a competition. It lets the players on their team get game time who normally wouldn't, and puts the game more back into balance, because a 0-100 game isn't fun for any participant or audience.
Not really true. Teams put in their reserves to get those reserves some practice and protect their key players from injury, but they only do it once the game is clearly decided in their favor and the chances of losing are zero no matter how many of their best players are sitting on the bench. Making the game more "balanced" is not in any way the goal because if there's any uncertainty about their chances of winning they're going to keep their best players in until the game is decided.
And an addition here: putting in the reserves is usually less fun for the audience to watch, not more fun. Not only is it a very clear sign that the outcome of the game has been decided and there's little point in watching anymore, it's usually accompanied by a boring style of play as both teams are content to just run the clock out and end the game without really trying to accomplish anything. Run straight up the middle three times, punt. Run straight up the middle three times, punt. Repeat until finally time runs out and the game ends with neither team making any effort to run anything but the most basic plays. I don't think this happening in 40k would add anything of value to the experience.
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pumaman1 wrote: But who is the better player, the one who can ONLY win with Best tier list, or the one who overcomes Best tier with Good tier?
The player who doesn't make the stupid decision to sabotage themselves with a weaker list in an attempt to prove how "skilled" they are. The best player is the one who makes optimal decisions at every point in the game, including during list construction (which is part of the game).
Peregrine wrote: Not really true. Teams put in their reserves to get those reserves some practice and protect their key players from injury, but they only do it once the game is clearly decided in their favor and the chances of losing are zero no matter how many of their best players are sitting on the bench. Making the game more "balanced" is not in any way the goal because if there's any uncertainty about their chances of winning they're going to keep their best players in until the game is decided.
You must not watch the NFL. Week 17 (the last week of the regular season) is notorious for teams "resting" their regular starters for the whole game and even say that they're going to do so well before the game starts.
Teams that rest their starters in week 17 are doing so because they are already in the playoffs so losing the game doesn't matter.
It does show that in pro football that every game is not played with the A++ roster but ultimately can be argued against by simply pointing out that the team is still going to the playoffs where they will always field their A++ roster.
Now what this is really showing, as these threads always show, is that there is a giant gulf between power gaming and those that are 100% into power gaming, and storytelling gaming, where the two sides will never reconcile with each other.
The player who doesn't make the stupid decision to sabotage themselves with a weaker list in an attempt to prove how "skilled" they are. The best player is the one who makes optimal decisions at every point in the game, including during list construction (which is part of the game).
I mean, if we are going to go fencing, and you bring a gun, yeah, you overpowered me easily, but you didn't demonstrate skill.
OR if they other players faction only has access to 8" long rusty rapiers, but you have 24" long perfect condition steel ones (codex discrepancy) there is nothing the other player can do to bring a 100% list in your eyes, but they are bad because they don't buy your faction to play 100% in your eyes? you won't agree, but you do mistake force and skill. And i dare say in general you would be a seal clubber. If you are surrounded in seal clubbers, then you are doing what it takes to compete. but if you have new/novice/developing players, and keep applying the club, you don't develop, and they have a bad time
auticus wrote: Teams that rest their starters in week 17 are doing so because they are already in the playoffs so losing the game doesn't matter.
It does show that in pro football that every game is not played with the A++ roster but ultimately can be argued against by simply pointing out that the team is still going to the playoffs where they will always field their A++ roster.
Now what this is really showing, as these threads always show, is that there is a giant gulf between power gaming and those that are 100% into power gaming, and storytelling gaming, where the two sides will never reconcile with each other.
This is probably the most accurate statement here. We have seen everything from "We don't really care and play a story" to "I want to play a decent list but not ignore fluff" to "Anything less than 100% optimal isn't real competitive, who cares about the fluff/background winning is all that matters"
The player who doesn't make the stupid decision to sabotage themselves with a weaker list in an attempt to prove how "skilled" they are. The best player is the one who makes optimal decisions at every point in the game, including during list construction (which is part of the game).
I mean, if we are going to go fencing, and you bring a gun, yeah, you overpowered me easily, but you didn't demonstrate skill.
OR if they other players faction only has access to 8" long rusty rapiers, but you have 24" long perfect condition steel ones (codex discrepancy) there is nothing the other player can do to bring a 100% list in your eyes, but they are bad because they don't buy your faction to play 100% in your eyes? you won't agree, but you do mistake force and skill. And i dare say in general you would be a seal clubber. If you are surrounded in seal clubbers, then you are doing what it takes to compete. but if you have new/novice/developing players, and keep applying the club, you don't develop, and they have a bad time
Your comparison would be significantly less stupid if you were allowed to bring guns to a fencing tournament.
That being the case I would advise to not try to argue with a die hard power gamer if you aren't into that side of the game. No one will change anyone else's mind.
The best you can do is accept that power gaming is indeed the default of tabletop gaming in today's culture, and to work on finding people that don't want to be power gamers 24/7. We have a few now in our campaign group that go to the LVO and adepticon and compete but also know how to dial it back and enjoy campaigns too.
Its not a huge group but I don't think it needs to be.
Trying to convince a die hard power gamer in today's esport culture that narrative gaming / storytelling gaming is viable is like whizzing into the wind. You're going to get rained on. And its not water.
it is more reasonable to expect a competitive player to tone their list down given two people who brought a 2000 point list because neither player can bring different models, but the more competitive player can bring fewer points.
You know, because the models are physical objects, and it's much easier for the one guy to play with fewer of them than it is for the other guy to pull more competitive stuff fully assembled and painted out of his ass, or any other orifice.
You are suggesting that two people who would rather spend the few hours they have a week to play a match that could be close are somehow less...honest? Honorable? Than a guy who would rather play for half an hour and spend the rest of the time basking in that glorious dopamine high of winning.
In the theoretical, floaty world of the internet, CAAC is as much of a crime as over-competitive WAAC, and it's equally reasonably to expect someone to "up their game" as it is to expect someone to tone down.
in the real, physical, actual world where everyone lives and plays 40k, models are real pieces of plastic that obey newtonian laws of matter (I.e., are not often in the habit of popping spontaneously into existence) and the actual frequency of overcompetitive players running off newer or returning players by stomping them with netlists is far, far higher than the frequency of CAAC jerks running off poor, oppressed competitive players who just want to bring their A game and challenge their towering intellects with honest, honorable competition.
nou wrote: And yes, you are in part working collaboratively with your opponents to solve a problem, as you are giving eachother informations during "auction" phase.
That's not collaboration, that's competition. You are giving them information, but it's information that is chosen to maximize your chances of winning. Collaboration and altruism have nothing to do with it.
you can have an evening in which you did not won a single deal and yet be clearly the best bridge player at the table and your opponents clearly acknowledge this.
I honestly don't see how this is possible. Assuming you play enough games for the random variation of the cards to average out a player who loses every game can't possibly be the best player. If they were the best player they'd win instead of losing.
What I described above in relation to 40K solitaires is straight adaptation of that mindset and one of the very few that can give a real mental challange in a game system as ill-suited to any serious play as 40K is. But we already discussed this a couple of times and you seem to be continuously unable to understand what I'm describing.
You're right, I don't understand. I don't understand how you can talk about having a mental challenge in a "game" where you control both sides and can make them do whatever you want to create the outcome you want to achieve. What exactly is there to solve? You don't have to anticipate the other side's strategy, deceive them into taking your bait and opening up a game-winning opportunity, etc. You just decide what the outcome is going to be and then push models around the table until you're satisfied with it.
Peregrine wrote:
nou wrote: Removing randomness from 40K generates entirely different gameplay experience and changes battle-plans and flow of the game entirely.
Yes, but I'm not talking about removing randomness from the game itself, only in your proposed list selection method. You set out a series of fixed game tables with specific armies and missions. AvB, CvD, EvF (using multiple copies of each table for larger events), with all of the armies being as different as you like. Each player then plays each of the six armies, playing both sides of each table, and totals up their win/loss record for final scoring. That removes the chance for a player to randomly get better armies given to them compared to their opponents and puts everyone on the same level. Each player has played the same missions with the same armies, so it's purely a test of on-table skill.
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Wayniac wrote: Holy gak. I don't think I've ever read something so arrogant and condescending before, and I've been here a long time. This mindset is pure toxic. You can be "competitive" without essentially saying "Only take the most 100% optional thing or feth off"
You're right, you can't be competitive. Anything less than 100% is playing less competitively. I leave it up to you to decide whether playing competitively is an appealing goal or not. You are of course free to decide that it's not your thing and play with a less-competitive approach.
@first part: you should really try to learn Bridge as it is impossible to argue with you about something you have no clue about... Number of possible bridge hands is larger than 600bln, there is no way that randomness "evens out" during a single casual evening. Bridge tournaments provide rigid deals to all players to solve simultanously in each round. All other points you make in this part are just other misconceptions about Bridge, but it is understandable, as you are not Bridge player and are unwilling to even study wikipedia article about it or have an actual open mind on what I'm trying to picture here.
@second part: yes, I missunderstood your "remove randomness" here, but pretty much the same answer applies: the more you limit possible encounters the narrower "data sample" about player's understanding of 40K you'll gather, but your "finall score sorting" will be more acurate within the limitations of the scope. The question here is how much 40K skill is in the core rules and how much within different codexes/factions interactions and knowledge about them and how much exactly list draw from "tier pools" would alter "ideal" results. Such format could be organised in couple of different ways and for large number of participants having tiered pools of randomly drawn lists would be a bit more practical than providing 100 of identical armies... But that is purely academic excercise nevertheless.
This is yet another example that your POV on "why to play games" is limited to "rigid skill testing" and games are sorted only by ability to measure skill, however it might be defined, as long as it is strictly deterministic. I must say, I find this attitude puzzling...
The player who doesn't make the stupid decision to sabotage themselves with a weaker list in an attempt to prove how "skilled" they are. The best player is the one who makes optimal decisions at every point in the game, including during list construction (which is part of the game).
I mean, if we are going to go fencing, and you bring a gun, yeah, you overpowered me easily, but you didn't demonstrate skill.
OR if they other players faction only has access to 8" long rusty rapiers, but you have 24" long perfect condition steel ones (codex discrepancy) there is nothing the other player can do to bring a 100% list in your eyes, but they are bad because they don't buy your faction to play 100% in your eyes? you won't agree, but you do mistake force and skill. And i dare say in general you would be a seal clubber. If you are surrounded in seal clubbers, then you are doing what it takes to compete. but if you have new/novice/developing players, and keep applying the club, you don't develop, and they have a bad time
Your comparison would be significantly less stupid if you were allowed to bring guns to a fencing tournament.
It represents his access to something i don't have and cannot have an answer to.. and i guess you stopped reading from there with the follow up rapier v rapier.. but yeah, feth me right?
But it's why i started with a definition of what is "Competing" and part of it is a contest. if it is no contest, you aren't competing.
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In the theoretical, floaty world of the internet, CAAC is as much of a crime as over-competitive WAAC, and it's equally reasonably to expect someone to "up their game" as it is to expect someone to tone down.
I actually agree with this to a degree. You should strive to become better, to be a better "general," or take the time to make narrative battles ahead of time if that's your thing. But it takes time and experience to develop skill and power (as well as the very real cost to build armies), so the impetus would be on the powers who "can't lose" to tone it down to where it "can lose" (not will lose) and essentially coach through experience those players up until everyone is competing all out.
And depending on how they tone it down, even the stronger player can get useful practice and experience to use in high level play if they need to overcome a bad roll/unlucky circumstance in "full play"
While I'm personally a strong supporter of "if there's a winner, its competitive" I do think there are aspects to game rules that can make it better suited to what I like to refer to as "cinematic" play. A lot of this, I think comes from elements like what an army consists of and how it is able to interact with the table.
For example, Warmachine's biggest issues with playing in a more narrative manner is just that models don't interact with terrain well. The game has fantastic precision in its rules, but that means that a forest in the wrong place can shut an army down and in general any sort of veriticallity is best ignored. I will say that theme forces as of late have done a nice job restoring cohesion to force construction though and making tournament armies feel more narrative than the hodgepodge of MK2.
I will concede that 40k does some things that make it more suited to a cinematic game. There are a lot of highly abstracted interactions that allow models to be placed somewhat freer. The sloppy nature allows players to position a little more for style and play on boards that are a lot more decorative in nature.
Batman is a game in which I've long felt the rules interfere with its attempts to create a cinematic experience. Their scenario system helps, but you really need to be conscious of how little models move to keep models from getting stuck on terrain. 2nd Edition improves this a lot, but its an example of a game with a lot of highly cinematic elements that can break down due to terrain interactions. Malifaux is often in the same boat.
For me, the game that best blends cinematic gameplay with competitive precision is probably Infinity. A lot of it is just that models aren't limited to a single move in a turn, so its easier to interact with terrain at the cost of additional orders. It requires more communication between players to keep things precise, but its a good mix of styles in my experience.
I have to agree that in reality CAAC players are more of an internet boogeyman. In theory as The_Scotsman say they are equally bad as WAAC players. But in reality they aren't as common.
And I say this living in Spain, the country of CAAC players.
Galas wrote: I have to agree that in reality CAAC players are more of an internet boogeyman. In theory as The_Scotsman say they are equally bad as WAAC players. But in reality they aren't as common.
And I say this living in Spain, the country of CAAC players.
My theory for this is that they tend to die off naturally by forming tiny cliques, getting more and more casual until they write their own entirely homebrew game system and nobody can ever join them, like an inbreeding population of animals. I'm familiar with a couple groups in my area that did this, I went and played with one once, brought my all-metal Vostroyan guard army with all the goofy equipment (7th ed when they were crap) and got told to not come back because they didn't like that I was spamming leman russes. I had three, all battlecannon/lascannon, which in 7th were utterly useless.
WAAC players tend to be solo, and bop from group to group trying to find more people who don't know about their gak. A cancer vs a deadly genetic disease.
The player who doesn't make the stupid decision to sabotage themselves with a weaker list in an attempt to prove how "skilled" they are. The best player is the one who makes optimal decisions at every point in the game, including during list construction (which is part of the game).
I mean, if we are going to go fencing, and you bring a gun, yeah, you overpowered me easily, but you didn't demonstrate skill.
OR if they other players faction only has access to 8" long rusty rapiers, but you have 24" long perfect condition steel ones (codex discrepancy) there is nothing the other player can do to bring a 100% list in your eyes, but they are bad because they don't buy your faction to play 100% in your eyes? you won't agree, but you do mistake force and skill. And i dare say in general you would be a seal clubber. If you are surrounded in seal clubbers, then you are doing what it takes to compete. but if you have new/novice/developing players, and keep applying the club, you don't develop, and they have a bad time
Your comparison would be significantly less stupid if you were allowed to bring guns to a fencing tournament.
It represents his access to something i don't have and cannot have an answer to.. and i guess you stopped reading from there with the follow up rapier v rapier.. but yeah, feth me right?
But it's why i started with a definition of what is "Competing" and part of it is a contest. if it is no contest, you aren't competing.
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In the theoretical, floaty world of the internet, CAAC is as much of a crime as over-competitive WAAC, and it's equally reasonably to expect someone to "up their game" as it is to expect someone to tone down.
I actually agree with this to a degree. You should strive to become better, to be a better "general," or take the time to make narrative battles ahead of time if that's your thing. But it takes time and experience to develop skill and power (as well as the very real cost to build armies), so the impetus would be on the powers who "can't lose" to tone it down to where it "can lose" (not will lose) and essentially coach through experience those players up until everyone is competing all out.
And depending on how they tone it down, even the stronger player can get useful practice and experience to use in high level play if they need to overcome a bad roll/unlucky circumstance in "full play"
You're damn right I stopped reading beyond that because NOBODY has access to a gun in a fencing tournament but everyone has access to the same models in 40k.
Your comparison is bad and you should feel bad for even making it.
auticus wrote: Teams that rest their starters in week 17 are doing so because they are already in the playoffs so losing the game doesn't matter.
It does show that in pro football that every game is not played with the A++ roster but ultimately can be argued against by simply pointing out that the team is still going to the playoffs where they will always field their A++ roster.
Now what this is really showing, as these threads always show, is that there is a giant gulf between power gaming and those that are 100% into power gaming, and storytelling gaming, where the two sides will never reconcile with each other.
This is probably the most accurate statement here. We have seen everything from "We don't really care and play a story" to "I want to play a decent list but not ignore fluff" to "Anything less than 100% optimal isn't real competitive, who cares about the fluff/background winning is all that matters"
"We don't really care and play a story"
"I want to play a decent list but not ignore fluff"
<< I occupy the space between these. I don't care about fluff and I don't care about having everything the best if I can form a cohesive force with many tools.
"Anything less than 100% optimal isn't real competitive, who cares about the fluff/background winning is all that matters"
Just on the idea of sports teams, in soccer and rugby if a team is playing a vastly inferior team (usually a cup match where they can play teams in lower divisions) they will very much run a reserve team. Not only to avoid injury to its first choicers but to give the second stringers a chance in a competitive environment and see how players will react to that.
I don't think it is a stretch of an analogy to apply that to wargames, why not play a weaker list to test yourself (as the sports teams are testing their depth)?
Then again I suppose I find comparing the contest in Games Workshop games to professional sport absolutely absurd in the first place possibly due to not having the "competitive mindset"!
You're damn right I stopped reading beyond that because NOBODY has access to a gun in a fencing tournament but everyone has access to the same models in 40k.
Your comparison is bad and you should feel bad for even making it.
Ah classy. Making the internet what it is since 1990, ignoring full arguments because metaphor is hard.
And everyone's" equal access" to the same models means everyone run the same identical 100% optimized list, forget playing a different faction. Not every faction, has equal strength, and not everyone has "the best" factions models. so no, the average player does not have equal access. Unless they have very great wealth, and can buy multiple of most new units just in case later this edition, or editions later it becomes optimal.
You're damn right I stopped reading beyond that because NOBODY has access to a gun in a fencing tournament but everyone has access to the same models in 40k.
Your comparison is bad and you should feel bad for even making it.
Ah classy. Making the internet what it is since 1990, ignoring full arguments because metaphor is hard.
And everyone's" equal access" to the same models means everyone run the same identical 100% optimized list, forget playing a different faction. Not every faction, has equal strength, and not everyone has "the best" factions models. so no, the average player does not have equal access. Unless they have very great wealth, and can buy multiple of most new units just in case later this edition, or editions later it becomes optimal.
Part of gittin gud in 40k is ignoring what you like in favor for what is best and being skilled at selling existing models to get new models to stay on top of the meta.
auticus wrote: Part of gittin gud in 40k is ignoring what you like in favor for what is best and being skilled at selling existing models to get new models to stay on top of the meta.
How about improving your performance using the models that you like? Who decides what units/models are "best"? My answer is the guy(s) who win all the time. And when they disagree then that means that there really isn't any "best".
Your answer is money makes the difference since you are required to buy new models to stay on top of the curve. My answer is the player makes the models perform and that if you like a certain model/unit then you can work to make it "gud".
I've fought this battle for many many years. You'll never change it. Power gamers are not going to take mathematically weaker armies to prove that they are good, because they know that they are playing the game on a harder difficulty than the other power gamers who will still be playing on easy with stacked lists. Their mindset is likely 100% like they are running a pro sports team, and they aren't going to take a 2nd string team to a tournament when they have access to the new england patriots.
As to who determines what is best and people disagreeing? Look at any of the big tournaments. You'll notice that most of the top lists are very similar. There is usually a very tiny handful of root builds and some minor variations.
auticus wrote: Oh 40k is absolutely pay to win. No question.
I've fought this battle for many many years. You'll never change it. Power gamers are not going to take mathematically weaker armies to prove that they are good, because they know that they are playing the game on a harder difficulty than the other power gamers who will still be playing on easy with stacked lists. Their mindset is likely 100% like they are running a pro sports team, and they aren't going to take a 2nd string team to a tournament when they have access to the new england patriots.
Replace that with the philadelphia eagles then if you like the point is if you have access to a top tier team freely, power gamers are always going to take the top tier team.
They aren't going to try to play Madden with the Miami Dolphins or the Dallas Cowboys or the Cleveland Browns to prove a point.
In 40k they aren't going to take a 2nd or 3rd tier army to prove a point either.
auticus wrote: Oh 40k is absolutely pay to win. No question.
I've fought this battle for many many years. You'll never change it. Power gamers are not going to take mathematically weaker armies to prove that they are good, because they know that they are playing the game on a harder difficulty than the other power gamers who will still be playing on easy with stacked lists. Their mindset is likely 100% like they are running a pro sports team, and they aren't going to take a 2nd string team to a tournament when they have access to the new england patriots.
who lost. btw
That's why you won't see anyone bring the Patriots in tournaments anymore. They're garbage tier now. Sell that stuff and get some Eagles, n00b.
auticus wrote: Replace that with the philadelphia eagles then if you like the point is if you have access to a top tier team freely, power gamers are always going to take the top tier team.
They aren't going to try to play Madden with the Miami Dolphins or the Dallas Cowboys or the Cleveland Browns to prove a point.
In 40k they aren't going to take a 2nd or 3rd tier army to prove a point either.
But surely if you win Madden with the Cleveland Browns (or even some mid tier team, I don't follow the sport) you are undoubtedly the best? Unless it is just not possible to do so, in which case aren't we ultimately admitting it's all about the list building? And when everyone brings the same list it's largely about the dice?
All this does is re-confirm my opinion that GW games are no real test of skill (in game) and never have been once you get past total noob stage. At which point, why play them? To tell a story maybe?
auticus wrote: Replace that with the philadelphia eagles then if you like the point is if you have access to a top tier team freely, power gamers are always going to take the top tier team.
They aren't going to try to play Madden with the Miami Dolphins or the Dallas Cowboys or the Cleveland Browns to prove a point.
In 40k they aren't going to take a 2nd or 3rd tier army to prove a point either.
There were 500 or so people at LVO. How many do you think switched factions for the tournament? I find it pretty hard to pick the best faction when there are codexes coming out multiple times a month, sell my army, and paint up a whole new one.
You might enjoy this fantasy strawman to attack competitive players, but aside from a small portion of players willing to do it you're also ignoring the steps that GW has taken that have absolutely punished those taking that direction. Anyone got storm ravens for sale?
"We don't really care and play a story"
"I want to play a decent list but not ignore fluff"
<< I occupy the space between these. I don't care about fluff and I don't care about having everything the best if I can form a cohesive force with many tools.
"Anything less than 100% optimal isn't real competitive, who cares about the fluff/background winning is all that matters"
My theory for this is that they tend to die off naturally by forming tiny cliques, getting more and more casual until they write their own entirely homebrew game system and nobody can ever join them, like an inbreeding population of animals. I'm familiar with a couple groups in my area that did this, I went and played with one once, brought my all-metal Vostroyan guard army with all the goofy equipment (7th ed when they were crap) and got told to not come back because they didn't like that I was spamming leman russes. I had three, all battlecannon/lascannon, which in 7th were utterly useless.
I assume you won your game? Groups formed around the idea that they don't care about winning tend to get very upset when they lose.
So funny the people here who would play basketball with their 8 year old children, and just charge and dunk on them, and yell in your face, because "best players use best tactics, git gud."
or you just dunking on a "child" and powergaming a "child" doesn't take any talent.
There is no fantasy strawman and I'm certainly not attacking tournament power gamers.
Pretty much everyone I've talked to has talked at length of the final tables and how the armies were pretty much all same-ish.
The final game was a mirror list for the most part where the winner wrote the list for the guy that lost.
How many switched factions for the LVO? No idea. I know locally the tournament team that went came back and a good number of them have their armies for sale right now and are building new armies from what was king at LVO.
I've heard that is a common occurrence. Enough to form the opinion anyhow coupled with my own decade long experience as a powergaming tournament player that went to several GTs a year. I know when I was a powergaming GT attendee, I switched armies regularly as did my teammates and most of our opponents as well. I have an entire downstairs of my house filled with a solid dozen full armies from the past that I just haven't sold that I hold on to.
Of the 500 or so LVO attendees, only a fraction are the git gud pro sports players. Many of them make it to the final tables. The guys going for fun of course aren't taking the top meta lists, but neither are they winning the LVO and are likely not going to be on dakka or bols or anywhere else telling people to min max 100% of the time or you aren't really competing.
pumaman1 wrote: So funny the people here who would play basketball with their 8 year old children, and just charge and dunk on them, and yell in your face, because "best players use best tactics, git gud."
or you just dunking on a "child" and powergaming a "child" doesn't take any talent.
Wait are you implying that casual players are children?
I don't see how competitive players can be ruining the game.
As for faction switching - uh... yeah? If you are serious about doing well in tournaments there is no way you are sitting on one army.
I mean we like to say how 40k is a complete rip off - and perhaps it is - but active tournament participation is not cheap.
Maybe I am mistaken, but unless you live in Vegas simply attending the LVO must cost hundreds of dollars (internal flight, 2-3 nights in a hotel, food and beer money etc).
I don't think people who go to many tournaments are the same as people who go "right, got my 2k points sprayed and dry brushed, I don't expect to have to buy another model for 4 years".
pumaman1 wrote: So funny the people here who would play basketball with their 8 year old children, and just charge and dunk on them, and yell in your face, because "best players use best tactics, git gud."
or you just dunking on a "child" and powergaming a "child" doesn't take any talent.
Wait are you implying that casual players are children?
In terms of models collected, experience with the game, knowledge of all units capabilities/threats beyond their own codex, etc, maybe. Old time casuals not at all, that's the choice they made to prioritize fun for both players over the W, but many "casuals" are just new or developing players (in my anecdotal experience over 5 years)
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Tyel wrote: I don't see how competitive players can be ruining the game.
As for faction switching - uh... yeah? If you are serious about doing well in tournaments there is no way you are sitting on one army.
I mean we like to say how 40k is a complete rip off - and perhaps it is - but active tournament participation is not cheap.
Maybe I am mistaken, but unless you live in Vegas simply attending the LVO must cost hundreds of dollars (internal flight, 2-3 nights in a hotel, food and beer money etc).
I don't think people who go to many tournaments are the same as people who go "right, got my 2k points sprayed and dry brushed, I don't expect to have to buy another model for 4 years".
Tournaments are absolutely for that level/kind of play.. but there is the other 85% of the time..
You're damn right I stopped reading beyond that because NOBODY has access to a gun in a fencing tournament but everyone has access to the same models in 40k.
Your comparison is bad and you should feel bad for even making it.
Ah classy. Making the internet what it is since 1990, ignoring full arguments because metaphor is hard.
And everyone's" equal access" to the same models means everyone run the same identical 100% optimized list, forget playing a different faction. Not every faction, has equal strength, and not everyone has "the best" factions models. so no, the average player does not have equal access. Unless they have very great wealth, and can buy multiple of most new units just in case later this edition, or editions later it becomes optimal.
As long as you choose the correct faction and buy models that have been consistent in power, then everyone has equal access. That's a hard truth. You can deny it all you want.
That's why competitive players are necessary to find the imbalances in the game. So there isn't any choosing of the wrong army.
You're damn right I stopped reading beyond that because NOBODY has access to a gun in a fencing tournament but everyone has access to the same models in 40k.
Your comparison is bad and you should feel bad for even making it.
Ah classy. Making the internet what it is since 1990, ignoring full arguments because metaphor is hard.
And everyone's" equal access" to the same models means everyone run the same identical 100% optimized list, forget playing a different faction. Not every faction, has equal strength, and not everyone has "the best" factions models. so no, the average player does not have equal access. Unless they have very great wealth, and can buy multiple of most new units just in case later this edition, or editions later it becomes optimal.
As long as you choose the correct faction and buy models that have been consistent in power, then everyone has equal access. That's a hard truth. You can deny it all you want.
That's why competitive players are necessary to find the imbalances in the game. So there isn't any choosing of the wrong army.
My heroes. You're right, I didn't need the dozens of new players I've lost over the years after they get frustrated getting curbstomped week after week by people who have no interest in helping them learn the game.
Yeah, I love this mentality of putting the ultra-competitive players as some sort of hobby heroes that we all praise because they are fixing the game GW don't want to fix! I'm sure when a guy brings his Riptide-Wing to the scalation league at his local shop ,of 16 people where 9 are new players, is just because he wants to make a point towards GW, to make a better game for everybody!
You're damn right I stopped reading beyond that because NOBODY has access to a gun in a fencing tournament but everyone has access to the same models in 40k.
Your comparison is bad and you should feel bad for even making it.
Ah classy. Making the internet what it is since 1990, ignoring full arguments because metaphor is hard.
And everyone's" equal access" to the same models means everyone run the same identical 100% optimized list, forget playing a different faction. Not every faction, has equal strength, and not everyone has "the best" factions models. so no, the average player does not have equal access. Unless they have very great wealth, and can buy multiple of most new units just in case later this edition, or editions later it becomes optimal.
As long as you choose the correct faction and buy models that have been consistent in power, then everyone has equal access. That's a hard truth. You can deny it all you want.
That's why competitive players are necessary to find the imbalances in the game. So there isn't any choosing of the wrong army.
My heroes. You're right, I didn't need the dozens of new players I've lost over the years after they get frustrated getting curbstomped week after week by people who have no interest in helping them learn the game.
I don't want to play against someone that can't be bothered to do their best and do the math for it.
My heroes. You're right, I didn't need the dozens of new players I've lost over the years after they get frustrated getting curbstomped week after week by people who have no interest in helping them learn the game.
I don't want to play against someone that can't be bothered to do their best and do the math for it.
This post epitomizes what the anti-competitive crowd are heralding. Especially in light of Scotman's point.
auticus wrote: Replace that with the philadelphia eagles then if you like the point is if you have access to a top tier team freely, power gamers are always going to take the top tier team.
They aren't going to try to play Madden with the Miami Dolphins or the Dallas Cowboys or the Cleveland Browns to prove a point.
In 40k they aren't going to take a 2nd or 3rd tier army to prove a point either.
I basically do this in other games (more on games based on skill). I'll equip a gun that's considered terrible then use it to get top scorer to prove a point. In 40k though that cannot work... i've seen armies stand still (no joke, never even moving a model) and beating overpriced bad units.
pumaman1 wrote: Tournaments are absolutely for that level/kind of play.. but there is the other 85% of the time..
And some of that 85% of the time is also for serious competitive play. Why do people keep acting like tournament-style games must be the exception to the rule, some kind of special event that you do occasionally but never the default style of play?
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pumaman1 wrote: So funny the people here who would play basketball with their 8 year old children, and just charge and dunk on them, and yell in your face, because "best players use best tactics, git gud."
or you just dunking on a "child" and powergaming a "child" doesn't take any talent.
No, because nobody playing basketball against their small children would see that as a competitive game. Are you honestly comparing less-skilled 40k players to small children who are mentally and physically incapable of success in their chosen game/sport?
Galas wrote: Yeah, I love this mentality of putting the ultra-competitive players as some sort of hobby heroes that we all praise because they are fixing the game GW don't want to fix! I'm sure when a guy brings his Riptide-Wing to the scalation league at his local shop ,of 16 people where 9 are new players, is just because he wants to make a point towards GW, to make a better game for everybody!
Well you see these people don't go to shops anymore because nobody would put up with their attitude, so they go onto forums and make up absurd boogeyman (CAAC) and fit the narrative to where they are the hero. Also none of the people here advocating the ultra-competitive are playing eldar, so they're hypocrites by their own logic. Seriously guys, not playing eldar is the exact same as purposely forgetting rules and making bad tactical decisions! /s
I don't think competitiveness is ruining 40k, and I don't think casualness is ruining 40k. 40k has some jank rules and the balance is all over the place, so people making it into a competitive game are going to have a warped mindset. That doesn't mean it can't be competitive, it just changes your perspective on the game. Unfortunately the problem lies with being now being unable to see other perspectives. Even GW says 40k and AoS have '3 ways to play!' in their books.
Its pushing toy soldiers around a miniature battlefield, no matter how competitive you play it. At the end of the day, its a hobby, that people get many things out of. Trying to force your way of enjoying something on someone else just makes you look like a jackoff. And that doesn't mean I'm saying competitive people need to bring weaker lists, in fact I wouldn't even bother those kinds of people for a game in the first place, I'd let them play 40k their own way.
The comparison between soccer/football and competitive 40k is ridiculous.
You're comparing a well paid job supported by millions of fans with a hobby played among amateurs and friends.
A more fair comparison could be with 40k and a football/soccer match played by a group of amateurs at a park. If the teams are not balanced everyone would agree to shuffle them, in order to enjoy the game. At least that's what I've always done with my soccer group.
When it comes to play against 40k newbies I'll always bring very casual lists, what's the problem in doing that? Winning the game is not the goal, making it last 4-7 turns is.
Blackie wrote: A more fair comparison could be with 40k and a football/soccer match played by a group of amateurs at a park. If the teams are not balanced everyone would agree to shuffle them, in order to enjoy the game. At least that's what I've always done with my soccer group.
Well yes, because that friendly soccer game is not a competitive event.
When it comes to play against 40k newbies I'll always bring very casual lists, what's the problem in doing that? Winning the game is not the goal, making it last 4-7 turns is.
Who is disagreeing with the idea of bringing weak (and simplified) lists for teaching newbies the game?
Well yes, because that friendly soccer game is not a competitive event.
If competitive game was only present in tournaments fine, the problem is several players want to be competitive in friendly games at stores. WAAC dudes play competitive lists even outside competitive events.
Blackie wrote: If competitive game was only present in tournaments fine, the problem is several players want to be competitive in friendly games at stores. WAAC dudes play competitive lists even outside competitive events.
Why are you assuming that a game at a store is not a competitive event, and competition can only happen in tournaments? The problem here is that certain anti-competitive players have tried to declare that they own all in-store gaming and the default must be poorly optimized lists, and you need to make special arrangements to play with a well-designed list.
Other WAAC dudes also play non-competitive lists in narrative campaigns and still cheat to win, try to bend the rules and make the game unfun for everyone.
The likelihood of any given person being a dick does not depend on the kind of game and army they play.
Blackie wrote: If competitive game was only present in tournaments fine, the problem is several players want to be competitive in friendly games at stores. WAAC dudes play competitive lists even outside competitive events.
Why are you assuming that a game at a store is not a competitive event, and competition can only happen in tournaments? The problem here is that certain anti-competitive players have tried to declare that they own all in-store gaming and the default must be poorly optimized lists, and you need to make special arrangements to play with a well-designed list.
What? Is this really your LGS? I find it takes only a couple minutes of discussion to settle on a game type and army list with someone. I don't think I've ever heard of 'anti-competitive players' that say you can never bring stronger lists.
And what if the guy you're playing against doesn't look up tournament lists and just brings what he owns. Is that the 'special arrangement' that is such a burden? I don't understand faulting anyone for that. The majority of 40k players don't look up lists online, let alone tournament winning ones.
Blackie wrote: If competitive game was only present in tournaments fine, the problem is several players want to be competitive in friendly games at stores. WAAC dudes play competitive lists even outside competitive events.
Why are you assuming that a game at a store is not a competitive event, and competition can only happen in tournaments? The problem here is that certain anti-competitive players have tried to declare that they own all in-store gaming and the default must be poorly optimized lists, and you need to make special arrangements to play with a well-designed list.
Because they're friendly games, period. I'm not against competitive games, I'm against playing only (or mostly) competitive games in a store or any other friendly environment. I'd like to play the entire codex of the armies I own, which means that I enjoy any type of the game, the most competitive ones, the total casual ones and every shades between the opposites. The only important factor is to face lists with similar levels of competitiveness.
Against a poorly optimized list you can always tone down yours, against a tournament list there's nothing you can do unless you bring another tournament list. And with lots of factions you can't even play against those super competitive lists, because there are litterally 0 chances of winning the game.
Blackie wrote: Because they're friendly games, period. I'm not against competitive games, I'm against playing only (or mostly) competitive games in a store or any other friendly environment. I'd like to play the entire codex of the armies I own, which means that I enjoy any type of the game, the most competitive ones, the total casual ones and every shades between the opposites. The only important factor is to face lists with similar levels of competitiveness.
Why are you assuming that playing a game in a store means that it is is "friendly", and that friendly games must be played with poorly optimized lists? I understand why you wish to play a game against a poorly optimized list, but what makes your preference the default that must be used for games in stores?
Against a poorly optimized list you can always tone down yours, against a tournament list there's nothing you can do unless you bring another tournament list.
Of course there's something you can do. You can tone up your list to match the tournament list, just like the tournament list can be toned down to match the weaker list. Stop putting the entire burden of matching list strength onto one player and allowing the other to bring whatever they want.
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Don Savik wrote: I don't think I've ever heard of 'anti-competitive players' that say you can never bring stronger lists.
Clearly you haven't encountered the kind of whiny CAAC players I've met. Consider yourself lucky.
And what if the guy you're playing against doesn't look up tournament lists and just brings what he owns. Is that the 'special arrangement' that is such a burden? I don't understand faulting anyone for that. The majority of 40k players don't look up lists online, let alone tournament winning ones.
But why shouldn't they be expected to? You're expecting the tournament player to create an alternate list, so why shouldn't the non-tournament player have a matching expectation?
Blackie wrote: If competitive game was only present in tournaments fine, the problem is several players want to be competitive in friendly games at stores. WAAC dudes play competitive lists even outside competitive events.
Why are you assuming that a game at a store is not a competitive event, and competition can only happen in tournaments? The problem here is that certain anti-competitive players have tried to declare that they own all in-store gaming and the default must be poorly optimized lists, and you need to make special arrangements to play with a well-designed list.
What? Is this really your LGS? I find it takes only a couple minutes of discussion to settle on a game type and army list with someone. I don't think I've ever heard of 'anti-competitive players' that say you can never bring stronger lists.
And what if the guy you're playing against doesn't look up tournament lists and just brings what he owns. Is that the 'special arrangement' that is such a burden? I don't understand faulting anyone for that. The majority of 40k players don't look up lists online, let alone tournament winning ones.
What-ifs can be just as likely to have the opposite happen. What if the guy you are playing does look up tournament lists and just brings what he normally plays. Why would he need a special arrangement for his bread and butter? I don't understand faulting someone for that either. More to the point: I have heard far more people whining and moaning about "OMG ________ ARE BROKEN WHY WOULD YOU PLAY THEM IN A CASUAL GAME" than I have heard people go "UGH SUCH A CASUAL LIST PLAY BIG OR GO HOME." Speaking from personal experience on TTS, I have pulled out a cutthroat list and taken one look at my opponents army then swapped. I have not had someone swap when I took a more casual fluffy list to play. Its much easier to be the change you want to see and assuming cutthroat instead of casual is easier to change from.
Why are you assuming that playing a game in a store means that it is is "friendly", and that friendly games must be played with poorly optimized lists? I understand why you wish to play a game against a poorly optimized list, but what makes your preference the default that must be used for games in stores?
Of course there's something you can do. You can tone up your list to match the tournament list, just like the tournament list can be toned down to match the weaker list. Stop putting the entire burden of matching list strength onto one player and allowing the other to bring whatever they want.
That's not what I said, or at least I didn't mean that. I was saying that in a friendly meta winning at any cost shouldn't matter, so if someone brings a competitive lists and no one else can have a fair match with him, that player deserves to watch the others play
What I meant to say is that in a friendly meta games conditions and lists should be arranged and discussed before starting to play in order to have a more balanced game. People that are not willing to make any compromise with other players are toxic, unless those players actually own only that specific models.
But usually competitive players have large armies since competitive units change quite frequently and they can certainly tone down their lists with no problems. While the typical casual player is more a collector and a hobbist and can't really tone up his list properly, not to a tournament level of competitiveness at least.
Peregrine wrote: Why do you keep assuming that "friendly" and "competitive" are opposing concepts?
I'm not. I said that players need to arrange their lists before playing. Which means they can both be competitive. "Friendly" and "Refusing to tone down a list that is overpowered for the meta" are opposing concepts.
For the record I play with and against competitive lists sometimes and I don't go to tournaments.
Peregrine wrote: Why do you keep assuming that "friendly" and "competitive" are opposing concepts?
I'm not. I said that players need to arrange their lists before playing. Which means they can both be competitive. "Friendly" and "Refusing to tone down a list that is overpowered for the meta" are opposing concepts.
For the record I play with and against competitive lists sometimes and I don't go to tournaments.
But what about refusing to tone up a list to match the stronger lists? Is that also un-friendly TFG behavior?
Tournament cut throat play is not the norm, and neither is pure fluff narrative.
The truth is the vast majority of games are in the middle. People just getting together and playing some games, trying to win, and not being cut throat exploitative dicks about it.
That is not meant to be a insult to tourny players or their play style. It's just a fact of what high competitive play is. Excelling in that arena is about fine tuning, trimming fat, and squeezing out every advantage you can get.
Most people don't do that. Don't have the TIME to do that. Most players are interested in just getting in a game and having it be fun.
Toning up a list to that kind of cut throat level takes a lot. It takes a level of understanding of refinement and loop holes that a casual player just might not have a head for or any interest in getting their head around. I know that vs these targets a Rupture fex is better than an Exocrine and vs those targets the Exocrine wins out. But thats mostly because I started and have read every post in the 70-some-odd page nid codex tactica thread. If I wasn't watching that I would never give that much of a gak. But that kind of knowledge is needed to "tone up" to the competitive level. You even need to understand, at least a little, about all the opponents your likely to meet.
You just can't expect most other players to have the know how to tone up.
Peregrine wrote: Why do you keep assuming that "friendly" and "competitive" are opposing concepts?
I'm not. I said that players need to arrange their lists before playing. Which means they can both be competitive. "Friendly" and "Refusing to tone down a list that is overpowered for the meta" are opposing concepts.
For the record I play with and against competitive lists sometimes and I don't go to tournaments.
But what about refusing to tone up a list to match the stronger lists? Is that also un-friendly TFG behavior?
Definitely, it's exactly the same kind of behavior.
It's just something more uncommon as people that usually refuse to tone up their list do that because they don't have more competitive options in terms of available miniatures to chose from, while those ones who refuse to tone down their lists do that because they want to win, no matter if the game lasts 30 minutes. I haven't seen yet someone that owns a competitive 2000 points army and no other miniatures in his collection that can tone down his list.
Again- the objective of 40k is to win. The point is to have fun. Stop fething confusing them. People wanting to win a game are not bad people and should not be tarred with the same brushes as WAAC players.
Grimtuff wrote: Again- the objective of 40k is to win. The point is to have fun. Stop fething confusing them. People wanting to win a game are not bad people and should not be tarred with the same brushes as WAAC players.
For you maybe. Don't generalize. It's not objective for us here at all.
Grimtuff wrote: Again- the objective of 40k is to win. The point is to have fun. Stop fething confusing them. People wanting to win a game are not bad people and should not be tarred with the same brushes as WAAC players.
For you maybe. Don't generalize. It's not objective for us here at all.
Don't be so obtuse. It's a competition with a winner and a loser, how you go about that is down to you but that doesn't change the fact that no one goes into a game thinking "I sure hope to lose this game!".
Grimtuff wrote: Again- the objective of 40k is to win. The point is to have fun. Stop fething confusing them. People wanting to win a game are not bad people and should not be tarred with the same brushes as WAAC players.
For you maybe. Don't generalize. It's not objective for us here at all.
Don't be so obtuse. It's a competition with a winner and a loser, how you go about that is down to you but that doesn't change the fact that no one goes into a game thinking "I sure hope to lose this game!".
For you. But just because it's so you obviously mean it HAS to be so to everybody else eh?
How nice of you to claim you know how it works for us better than we do. Maybe tell lottery numbers for next week while you are at it?
Grimtuff wrote: Again- the objective of 40k is to win. The point is to have fun. Stop fething confusing them. People wanting to win a game are not bad people and should not be tarred with the same brushes as WAAC players.
For you maybe. Don't generalize. It's not objective for us here at all.
So when you play 40k do you do your best to not gain first blood, slay the warlord, line breaker? Do you avoid objective markers? Draw un-achievable objectives from your deck and then throw your fist in the air in victory?
Your playing a game with victory conditions. The objective of the game is to complete them. Just like the objective of the game LIFE is to reach the end with the most value. The reason you play might not be to win, but when your playing i hope your trying to win. It could generally be a pretty crappy experience for your opponent if your not even trying.
Case and point for me is the current release of the Custodian codex and how grossly under-priced custodian guard are.
two comparisons, a fully kitted out custodian guard costs the same amount as a crisis suit with a burst cannon (I know that Tau codex isn't out yet, but even so, a base crisis suit without weapons should be cheaper than a custodian without weapons.)
Likewise, a chaos lord with largely similar stats and base weapons (Bolt pistol and chainsword) with some concessions costs way more than a fully equipped custodian, and a custodian will win that fight every single time.
A chaos lord is doing much more than just attacking with that pistol and chainsword. And that chaos lord with termie armor is going to rofl-stomp the custodes.
The TAU point, a crisis suit is much more maneuverable, and has many more weapon options.
Finally, both have more wounds, which is the primary stat when looking at a units base cost. The second being what it does for the army, third is the gear and stat line.
That chaos terminator lord is not going to rofl-stomp the custodes, at best with decent wargear, he will kill 2 of the 3 that make up his points cost before being cut down himself if he gets to attack first, if it's the other way around you might as well just remove the model there and then.
Manoeuvrability does not mean anything this edition without decent cover rules to back it up and make it worthwhile. heck, from a base marine to a jump marine, the change is 4pts for a doubled move stat and the ability to ignore intervening terrain, so for a lesser stat block (BS, WS, A, LD, Sv) but more maneuverability, shouldn't a base crisis suits equal a base custodian guard, not outcost them? and if wargear options increase point cost, then shouldn't an imperial land raider cost a fair bit more than a chaos one? because at the moment both cost 239 pts base.
Lastly, Wounds are not the primary stat for deciding a units points cost otherwise a chaos spawn would cost more than a base terminator, not the same. Also, crisis suits and custodian guard have same wounds, so moot point on that front.
Grimtuff wrote: Again- the objective of 40k is to win. The point is to have fun. Stop fething confusing them. People wanting to win a game are not bad people and should not be tarred with the same brushes as WAAC players.
For you maybe. Don't generalize. It's not objective for us here at all.
Don't be so obtuse. It's a competition with a winner and a loser, how you go about that is down to you but that doesn't change the fact that no one goes into a game thinking "I sure hope to lose this game!".
Maybe not but many go into it think "I wonder who wins this battle, the Orks or the Space Marines". It's as valid as cut throat tournament play and everything in between.
The hard to read English aside, the article mostly just sticks its nose up in the air about the idea of 'friendly play' and berets non-competitive players. It doesn't really offer any new insights that haven't been presented in the thread before. Is there a need for clean play? Yes. Can you take that too far? Yes. There was nothing clean or entertaining about watching people out-rules lawyer each other. Rules-lawyering is indeed antithetical to the idea of clean play, which is much more on the side of RAI and not RAW.
Grimtuff wrote: Again- the objective of 40k is to win. The point is to have fun. Stop fething confusing them. People wanting to win a game are not bad people and should not be tarred with the same brushes as WAAC players.
For you maybe. Don't generalize. It's not objective for us here at all.
I'm guessing you've never played a TCG at your shop either have you?
Peregrine wrote: Why do you keep assuming that "friendly" and "competitive" are opposing concepts?
I'm not. I said that players need to arrange their lists before playing. Which means they can both be competitive. "Friendly" and "Refusing to tone down a list that is overpowered for the meta" are opposing concepts.
For the record I play with and against competitive lists sometimes and I don't go to tournaments.
But what about refusing to tone up a list to match the stronger lists? Is that also un-friendly TFG behavior?
What if that person can't? What if they don't have the funds / time to build a better army? Or they just don't have the head/mindset to get the whole competitive / points to worthwhile use / mathhammer thing?
The latter is me. I'm a 40-something chap, intelligent and I read through my codex / rules repeatedly but I don't have the mindset to see what works on that competitive level or what is worth it's points under the meta or what have you. So how does that work for me? In reality we would learn that about each other and just not play, but would it hurt for you to play a toned list for a fun game?
Find like-minded gamers. A wargame by definition is gonna be competitive. But if you want a fluffy list that may not be quite as effective in the table, make your intentions known.
Ive been sitting in this fluffy infantry based CSM night Lords list for YEARS now, and have no desire to play it when footslogging space Marines will always be garbage.
Likewise, some people have no issue playing LOW games, while others don't find it fun.
Peregrine wrote: Why do you keep assuming that "friendly" and "competitive" are opposing concepts?
I'm not. I said that players need to arrange their lists before playing. Which means they can both be competitive. "Friendly" and "Refusing to tone down a list that is overpowered for the meta" are opposing concepts.
For the record I play with and against competitive lists sometimes and I don't go to tournaments.
But what about refusing to tone up a list to match the stronger lists? Is that also un-friendly TFG behavior?
What if that person can't? What if they don't have the funds / time to build a better army? Or they just don't have the head/mindset to get the whole competitive / points to worthwhile use / mathhammer thing?
The latter is me. I'm a 40-something chap, intelligent and I read through my codex / rules repeatedly but I don't have the mindset to see what works on that competitive level or what is worth it's points under the meta or what have you. So how does that work for me? In reality we would learn that about each other and just not play, but would it hurt for you to play a toned list for a fun game?
It appears you would be a delicious seal, ripe for clubbing, and then blamed/accused that it's your fault the game was bad.
I suppose that when I PLAY a game i am there to PLAY, and have fun, win or lose. I will try to win, try to make good moves etc, build unique/novel/amusing/maybe even trolly lists in addition to competitive ones to keep enjoying it, and hopefully my opponent does too. Generally when its close, we both have a very good time.
When I started 8th after a long absence I got my butt handed to me. But after the games I'd talk to the regulars and not only fixed up my list but figured out a lot of in game tactics.
I feel people are confusing just jerks with WAAC or CAAC players. Losing to a better list doesn't have to be a terrible experience if you are learning from it. Winning isn't a good experience if you are playing with a jerk (although I really do like beating the tar out of the local neckbeard but then I usually feel bad because I have a lot of good things going for me in life in general and I kinda feel his only "powerful" moments are pwning n00bs).
I mean there are limits to what people should have to accommodate. If you bring an all assault centurion list to game night then get mad when you get ROFL stomped and then just cry about everyone at your local is a WAAC jerk take a look in the mirror. On the other hand if you get your jollies from beating 8 year olds at your shop with their dark imperium list with your reaper+shining spear spam list it's not a WAAC vs CAAC issue at that point.
Peregrine wrote: Why do you keep assuming that "friendly" and "competitive" are opposing concepts?
I'm not. I said that players need to arrange their lists before playing. Which means they can both be competitive. "Friendly" and "Refusing to tone down a list that is overpowered for the meta" are opposing concepts.
For the record I play with and against competitive lists sometimes and I don't go to tournaments.
But what about refusing to tone up a list to match the stronger lists? Is that also un-friendly TFG behavior?
What if that person can't? What if they don't have the funds / time to build a better army? Or they just don't have the head/mindset to get the whole competitive / points to worthwhile use / mathhammer thing?
The latter is me. I'm a 40-something chap, intelligent and I read through my codex / rules repeatedly but I don't have the mindset to see what works on that competitive level or what is worth it's points under the meta or what have you. So how does that work for me? In reality we would learn that about each other and just not play, but would it hurt for you to play a toned list for a fun game?
It appears you would be a delicious seal, ripe for clubbing, and then blamed/accused that it's your fault the game was bad.
I suppose that when I PLAY a game i am there to PLAY, and have fun, win or lose. I will try to win, try to make good moves etc, build unique/novel/amusing/maybe even trolly lists in addition to competitive ones to keep enjoying it, and hopefully my opponent does too. Generally when its close, we both have a very good time.
Thank you. And that is exactly how a game is supposed to be played.
Peregrine wrote: Why do you keep assuming that "friendly" and "competitive" are opposing concepts?
I'm not. I said that players need to arrange their lists before playing. Which means they can both be competitive. "Friendly" and "Refusing to tone down a list that is overpowered for the meta" are opposing concepts.
For the record I play with and against competitive lists sometimes and I don't go to tournaments.
But what about refusing to tone up a list to match the stronger lists? Is that also un-friendly TFG behavior?
What if that person can't? What if they don't have the funds / time to build a better army? Or they just don't have the head/mindset to get the whole competitive / points to worthwhile use / mathhammer thing?
The latter is me. I'm a 40-something chap, intelligent and I read through my codex / rules repeatedly but I don't have the mindset to see what works on that competitive level or what is worth it's points under the meta or what have you. So how does that work for me? In reality we would learn that about each other and just not play, but would it hurt for you to play a toned list for a fun game?
Literally the opposite applies. Why does the weaker list get preferential treatment in this scenario?
Peregrine wrote: Why do you keep assuming that "friendly" and "competitive" are opposing concepts?
I'm not. I said that players need to arrange their lists before playing. Which means they can both be competitive. "Friendly" and "Refusing to tone down a list that is overpowered for the meta" are opposing concepts.
For the record I play with and against competitive lists sometimes and I don't go to tournaments.
But what about refusing to tone up a list to match the stronger lists? Is that also un-friendly TFG behavior?
What if that person can't? What if they don't have the funds / time to build a better army? Or they just don't have the head/mindset to get the whole competitive / points to worthwhile use / mathhammer thing?
The latter is me. I'm a 40-something chap, intelligent and I read through my codex / rules repeatedly but I don't have the mindset to see what works on that competitive level or what is worth it's points under the meta or what have you. So how does that work for me? In reality we would learn that about each other and just not play, but would it hurt for you to play a toned list for a fun game?
The irony here is that balancing around the competitive scene lessens the delta between toned lists and "casual" lists. If the game was more balanced, there would be less effort here, because things would be generally more useful but based on scenarios rather than abusing the most undercosted thing.
In general you see competitive players talking about what needs to be toned down more than what needs to be toned up, because that's an easier discussion. So when competitive players call for a nerf to a specific unit, that actually benefits Johnny Casualgamer, because he's more likely to have a "fun game" as there's less to abuse.
It's odd to me the idea that competition is what ruins competition.
If one disdains competition, then why does it matter if one loses when playing a game? If the opponent is reasonably polite, how can it ever be a drawback to lose, even if badly?
The idea that competition and fun are separate things is false and ridiculous. If one can't have fun the same way as one's opponent, one should seek other opponents, not shame those without the same mindset.
amanita wrote: It's odd to me the idea that competition is what ruins competition.
If one disdains competition, then why does it matter if one loses when playing a game? If the opponent is reasonably polite, how can it ever be a drawback to lose, even if badly?
The idea that competition and fun are separate things is false and ridiculous. If one can't have fun the same way as one's opponent, one should seek other opponents, not shame those without the same mindset.
A good post, it's a social game as much as anything. You can "curb stomp" the hell out of me if I get a pleasant social interaction over a hobby that we both enjoy.
Anyways shouldn't someone have posted that old White Dwarf pic with the Dwarf Slayer and the dragon by now? It basically the /endthread for these discussions but I cannot find it.
Peregrine wrote: Why do you keep assuming that "friendly" and "competitive" are opposing concepts?
I'm not. I said that players need to arrange their lists before playing. Which means they can both be competitive. "Friendly" and "Refusing to tone down a list that is overpowered for the meta" are opposing concepts.
For the record I play with and against competitive lists sometimes and I don't go to tournaments.
But what about refusing to tone up a list to match the stronger lists? Is that also un-friendly TFG behavior?
What if that person can't? What if they don't have the funds / time to build a better army? Or they just don't have the head/mindset to get the whole competitive / points to worthwhile use / mathhammer thing?
The latter is me. I'm a 40-something chap, intelligent and I read through my codex / rules repeatedly but I don't have the mindset to see what works on that competitive level or what is worth it's points under the meta or what have you. So how does that work for me? In reality we would learn that about each other and just not play, but would it hurt for you to play a toned list for a fun game?
Literally the opposite applies. Why does the weaker list get preferential treatment in this scenario?
For the very reason that I mentioned. If you have that sort of player why wouldn't you tone down your game?
But as I said if you know what sort of player you both are you probably should just not play each other. I'm not saying that every casual player is unable to play up but some people don't have that ability in them.
BlackLobster wrote: What if that person can't? What if they don't have the funds / time to build a better army? Or they just don't have the head/mindset to get the whole competitive / points to worthwhile use / mathhammer thing?
The latter is me. I'm a 40-something chap, intelligent and I read through my codex / rules repeatedly but I don't have the mindset to see what works on that competitive level or what is worth it's points under the meta or what have you. So how does that work for me? In reality we would learn that about each other and just not play, but would it hurt for you to play a toned list for a fun game?
So, what you're saying is that the player with the competitive list should spend time and money to provide alternate models, learn your codex and list well enough to tone down their list appropriately, and figure out the necessary changes, all so that you don't have to spend the same time and money. Why is only one player allowed to say "it's too much work" here?
Desubot wrote: Why is it so hard to just ask your opponent if you want to play casually or competitive or some where else in the spectrum
i highly doubt anyone would bite your head off for wanting to play one way or another.
Because it can often be very hard to work out what a "competitive" and "casual" list really is; at least if you are not dealing with the polar extremes of either type of list.
What is casual? Taking "bad" units or a "poor list" or only using a very "Fluffy" list (that might or might not be any good). Is it pausing half way to go to the pizza store; is it sort of slapdown whatever no points or army limits lets just do something nuts etc....
In general the issue si the skill difference between the two players. If hte skill difference is large then the less experienced/knowledgeable player is typically going to build and play a poorer list and army than the more skilled; even if the more skilled tries to dumb things down, generally, they are going to find it hard not to play at their best, or at least to play well.
Now granted once two people have played a few games they can sort of measure each other up and build and play a little more casually within a persons weaknesses or suchlike to try and give each player a fun game. So it can be possible, but it can also be really rather hard.
In general the best view is to either find otherp eople of a similar skill level to play or the more experienced tries to teach the less experienced so that the less experienced improve their game
These topics always amuse me. We have a bunch of people who apparently don’t like competitive players, their lists, mindset, or hygiene but despite loudly and repeatedly stating their desire to simply have fun care deeply about winning and losing. Maybe it’s becuase... you are playing an inherently competitive war game 99% of the time in the context of one-off competitive matches using GWs poor balancing mechanics -hoping your opponent happens to magically and non-verbally pick up on how powerful your list is, how experienced you are, and your willingness to play something that’s obviously a competitive game of miniature soldiers.
What you’re looking for are things liked campaigns, themed and restricted army lists, alternate scenarios, tiered leagues, etc...
That’s awesome, in fact it’s my preferred way of playing these days; except it’s madness to keep showing up for pick up games and single matches expecting everyone to conform to some sort of quasi-competitive and nebulous idea you have concerning the correct way to build and play 40k.
In its raw form, it’s clearly a competitive game between 2 people. It’s not a great competitive game, in fact it’s rather poor at it, but that’s what it is. If you have a problem with that you need to be pro active about setting up alternate ways to play, like the aforementioned list. Yeah, it’s a lot of work, which is why most people just play matched(read- competitive)games using the official rules.
The hard to read English aside, the article mostly just sticks its nose up in the air about the idea of 'friendly play' and berets non-competitive players. It doesn't really offer any new insights that haven't been presented in the thread before. Is there a need for clean play? Yes. Can you take that too far? Yes. There was nothing clean or entertaining about watching people out-rules lawyer each other. Rules-lawyering is indeed antithetical to the idea of clean play, which is much more on the side of RAI and not RAW.
My point was the comments from the redditors who oppose that article to a very high degree.
BlackLobster wrote: What if that person can't? What if they don't have the funds / time to build a better army? Or they just don't have the head/mindset to get the whole competitive / points to worthwhile use / mathhammer thing?
The latter is me. I'm a 40-something chap, intelligent and I read through my codex / rules repeatedly but I don't have the mindset to see what works on that competitive level or what is worth it's points under the meta or what have you. So how does that work for me? In reality we would learn that about each other and just not play, but would it hurt for you to play a toned list for a fun game?
So, what you're saying is that the player with the competitive list should spend time and money to provide alternate models, learn your codex and list well enough to tone down their list appropriately, and figure out the necessary changes, all so that you don't have to spend the same time and money. Why is only one player allowed to say "it's too much work" here?
BlackLobster wrote: What if that person can't? What if they don't have the funds / time to build a better army? Or they just don't have the head/mindset to get the whole competitive / points to worthwhile use / mathhammer thing?
The latter is me. I'm a 40-something chap, intelligent and I read through my codex / rules repeatedly but I don't have the mindset to see what works on that competitive level or what is worth it's points under the meta or what have you. So how does that work for me? In reality we would learn that about each other and just not play, but would it hurt for you to play a toned list for a fun game?
So, what you're saying is that the player with the competitive list should spend time and money to provide alternate models, learn your codex and list well enough to tone down their list appropriately, and figure out the necessary changes, all so that you don't have to spend the same time and money. Why is only one player allowed to say "it's too much work" here?
Glad to see black and white are the only two colors here. If it isn't extreme it doesn't exist! WOO!
BlackLobster wrote: What if that person can't? What if they don't have the funds / time to build a better army? Or they just don't have the head/mindset to get the whole competitive / points to worthwhile use / mathhammer thing?
The latter is me. I'm a 40-something chap, intelligent and I read through my codex / rules repeatedly but I don't have the mindset to see what works on that competitive level or what is worth it's points under the meta or what have you. So how does that work for me? In reality we would learn that about each other and just not play, but would it hurt for you to play a toned list for a fun game?
So, what you're saying is that the player with the competitive list should spend time and money to provide alternate models, learn your codex and list well enough to tone down their list appropriately, and figure out the necessary changes, all so that you don't have to spend the same time and money. Why is only one player allowed to say "it's too much work" here?
Glad to see black and white are the only two colors here. If it isn't extreme it doesn't exist! WOO!
Of course it doesn't. This is the internet, ruled by machines. Only 1's and 0's are viable options.
BlackLobster wrote: What if that person can't? What if they don't have the funds / time to build a better army? Or they just don't have the head/mindset to get the whole competitive / points to worthwhile use / mathhammer thing?
The latter is me. I'm a 40-something chap, intelligent and I read through my codex / rules repeatedly but I don't have the mindset to see what works on that competitive level or what is worth it's points under the meta or what have you. So how does that work for me? In reality we would learn that about each other and just not play, but would it hurt for you to play a toned list for a fun game?
So, what you're saying is that the player with the competitive list should spend time and money to provide alternate models, learn your codex and list well enough to tone down their list appropriately, and figure out the necessary changes, all so that you don't have to spend the same time and money. Why is only one player allowed to say "it's too much work" here?
In my experience the competetive player has a larger collection, because they have been evolving their lists as editions/metas change. And any competetive player worth their salt will already know enough about opposing lists/units etc. to adjust accordingly.
Or imagine it like this. You're the older one of two brothers, you're 15 and he's 9. You're going to wrestle, and you demand that he step up and match you. He doesn't because he can't, he's practically half your size, and you quickly smash him over and over every time. You do this for 3 hours or so. Maybe he has fun for the first 30 min, but for the rest he's crying because you just keep flooring him.
You're not reighteous, you're an ******e.
As the competetive player you have the upper hand. Man up and game like a gentleman. Cut your list up if you have to and play lower points or whatever, bringing less synergy, or change the scenario so they have a chance and you have a challenge. You'll undoubtedly know the game better so the responsibility is on you.
BlackLobster wrote: What if that person can't? What if they don't have the funds / time to build a better army? Or they just don't have the head/mindset to get the whole competitive / points to worthwhile use / mathhammer thing?
The latter is me. I'm a 40-something chap, intelligent and I read through my codex / rules repeatedly but I don't have the mindset to see what works on that competitive level or what is worth it's points under the meta or what have you. So how does that work for me? In reality we would learn that about each other and just not play, but would it hurt for you to play a toned list for a fun game?
So, what you're saying is that the player with the competitive list should spend time and money to provide alternate models, learn your codex and list well enough to tone down their list appropriately, and figure out the necessary changes, all so that you don't have to spend the same time and money. Why is only one player allowed to say "it's too much work" here?
In my experience the competetive player has a larger collection, because they have been evolving their lists as editions/metas change. And any competetive player worth their salt will already know enough about opposing lists/units etc. to adjust accordingly.
Or imagine it like this. You're the older one of two brothers, you're 15 and he's 9. You're going to wrestle, and you demand that he step up and match you. He doesn't because he can't, he's practically half your size, and you quickly smash him over and over every time. You do this for 3 hours or so. Maybe he has fun for the first 30 min, but for the rest he's crying because you just keep flooring him.
You're not reighteous, you're an ******e.
As the competetive player you have the upper hand. Man up and game like a gentleman. Cut your list up if you have to and play lower points or whatever, bringing less synergy, or change the scenario so they have a chance and you have a challenge. You'll undoubtedly know the game better so the responsibility is on you.
You've clearly never even babysat a 9 year old if you think they'll get tired of wrestling you when you don't let them win.
And honestly if the casual player doesn't want to buy new models and wants everyone to conform to them, that's their problem. The hobby isn't as expensive as you're making it to be. Time consuming? Oh sure I'd agree with that (at least when it comes to painting). If youre gonna buy something though you shouldn't have issues using it unpainted as long as you have other painted stuff.
So no, it isn't being a "gentleman" stepping down your list.
I don't think there's actually a significant difference between a competitive and casual 40k player.
What exactly is the cut off point between the two? Is an eldar player too hardcore to play with if he has as many dark reapers as he can fit in a list? What if that's part of his fluffy Altansar list that's led by Mugen Ra and he's been collecting a mostly reaper based army for years and years prior to this codex arbitrarily deciding that reapers get to be busted now? Is 2 units of reapers too many? What if a friend that's in a summer long narrative league with you has 1 unit of every aspect warrior but decides to pick up a second box of reapers for his birthday mid season because that 1 unit is performing so well for him lately that he wants more, is he now a competitive player for caring about results in any fashion? What about the person who plays an army that currently has a very low win rate but is doing everything in their power to maximize its strengths and win games? They're playing with the 'competitive' mind set but are only getting a 'casual' win rate.
As long as the game has conditions to win and lose, imbalances in the armies will effect all levels of play. Imbalances are just seen through a magnifying glass in a more competitive environment, when That Guy goes fluidly from stormravens to brimstone horrors to conscripts to dark reapers over the last 6 months and never stops dominating tables at his local game store more through his wallet than his tactics that it becomes an obvious boogeyman to blame the player, and not the flaws in the system that enable him.
In my experience the competetive player has a larger collection, because they have been evolving their lists as editions/metas change. And any competetive player worth their salt will already know enough about opposing lists/units etc. to adjust accordingly.
Or imagine it like this. You're the older one of two brothers, you're 15 and he's 9. You're going to wrestle, and you demand that he step up and match you. He doesn't because he can't, he's practically half your size, and you quickly smash him over and over every time. You do this for 3 hours or so. Maybe he has fun for the first 30 min, but for the rest he's crying because you just keep flooring him.
You're not reighteous, you're an ******e.
As the competetive player you have the upper hand. Man up and game like a gentleman. Cut your list up if you have to and play lower points or whatever, bringing less synergy, or change the scenario so they have a chance and you have a challenge. You'll undoubtedly know the game better so the responsibility is on you.
There's a whole number of self proclaimed 'fluffy', 'casual' players who have armies as large, if not larger, than self proclaimed 'competitive' players. If we're going to talk about theoreticals, its equally plausible for a fluffy player to have the same or more options in list building than a competitive player, ignoring of course the fact that most players fall somewhere in the between.
Given the very likely case that both players have similar sized armies to choose from, its of course only logical for the players to meet at a middle ground; the competitive player tones down a little while the casual player tones up a little.
Blacksails wrote: There's a whole number of self proclaimed 'fluffy', 'casual' players who have armies as large, if not larger, than self proclaimed 'competitive' players. If we're going to talk about theoreticals, its equally plausible for a fluffy player to have the same or more options in list building than a competitive player, ignoring of course the fact that most players fall somewhere in the between.
Yeah, are we going to just forget about people like the fluff players who build an entire space marine chapter, way beyond what you can field in a normal game, because they love the fluff concept of having one and are very dedicated to their hobby? Perhaps "casual" means having a small collection if you use it in the sense of "making a low investment in the hobby", but in the common context here where it means "not playing competitively" there are lots of "casual" players who have huge collections.
Blacksails wrote: There's a whole number of self proclaimed 'fluffy', 'casual' players who have armies as large, if not larger, than self proclaimed 'competitive' players. If we're going to talk about theoreticals, its equally plausible for a fluffy player to have the same or more options in list building than a competitive player, ignoring of course the fact that most players fall somewhere in the between.
Yeah, are we going to just forget about people like the fluff players who build an entire space marine chapter, way beyond what you can field in a normal game, because they love the fluff concept of having one and are very dedicated to their hobby? Perhaps "casual" means having a small collection if you use it in the sense of "making a low investment in the hobby", but in the common context here where it means "not playing competitively" there are lots of "casual" players who have huge collections.
Addendum: Consider also that said fluffy/casual player's large collection with many options doesn't mean they've got many good options. The fact that I've got a lot of Deathwatch Marines doesn't make them less terrible.
In my experience the competetive player has a larger collection, because they have been evolving their lists as editions/metas change. And any competetive player worth their salt will already know enough about opposing lists/units etc. to adjust accordingly.
Or imagine it like this. You're the older one of two brothers, you're 15 and he's 9. You're going to wrestle, and you demand that he step up and match you. He doesn't because he can't, he's practically half your size, and you quickly smash him over and over every time. You do this for 3 hours or so. Maybe he has fun for the first 30 min, but for the rest he's crying because you just keep flooring him.
You're not reighteous, you're an ******e.
As the competetive player you have the upper hand. Man up and game like a gentleman. Cut your list up if you have to and play lower points or whatever, bringing less synergy, or change the scenario so they have a chance and you have a challenge. You'll undoubtedly know the game better so the responsibility is on you.
There's a whole number of self proclaimed 'fluffy', 'casual' players who have armies as large, if not larger, than self proclaimed 'competitive' players. If we're going to talk about theoreticals, its equally plausible for a fluffy player to have the same or more options in list building than a competitive player, ignoring of course the fact that most players fall somewhere in the between.
Given the very likely case that both players have similar sized armies to choose from, its of course only logical for the players to meet at a middle ground; the competitive player tones down a little while the casual player tones up a little.
Owning large armies means nothing if changing units doesn't increase significantly the level of competitiveness of the army. I have 5000+ points of drukhari if I consider some upgrades but I can't play a fair game against a top tier list. On the flip side I own almost twice the points in orks but with them I can play against a top tier just bringing one list, a green tide, which is a style of playing that I really hate. Approx 15.000 points of stuff reduced to one list, that I also despise, in order to play a TAC game against tournament players? No thanks.
Talk before playing, tone up or down your list or the opponent's one. I'd always tone down my list in order to match the same level of competitiveness that the opponent may have, and I'm also willing to face a list which is clearly better than mine. But not a list that basically auto-wins, I don't see any point in doing that.
I'll always seek a more balanced game. Winning, and of course losing, in turn 1 or 2 doesn't interest me.
A guy that has a whole space marine chapter is not casual. His a hardcore fan. When a players has the tools and dont want to try and make a stronger list with what he has I can see the point. (I personally could do a meta list of commander and drone spam but i dont because i hate how it plays. But at the same list I wouldnt complaint of a player using a meta list agaisnt me unless doing it by surprise in a prearranged battle with weaker lists)
But for most of the time, casual players are normally casual players with barely enough models for a 2000 army, with the models they buyed because they liked how they look. And lets be honest here and realistic. The amount of times one of those caduals was driven out because of a cutt troath competitive player is magnitudes higher than the amount of situations where a totally new guy to the hobby that is competitive to the core and looked for a very powerfull list before buying it was driven out because he was bully by a bunch of those infame CAAC. I, living in Spain, land of CAAC players, were thinking of using forgeworld is sin, can tell you, that the first situation is common. The second one I havent seen it happen once.
BlackLobster wrote: What if that person can't? What if they don't have the funds / time to build a better army? Or they just don't have the head/mindset to get the whole competitive / points to worthwhile use / mathhammer thing?
The latter is me. I'm a 40-something chap, intelligent and I read through my codex / rules repeatedly but I don't have the mindset to see what works on that competitive level or what is worth it's points under the meta or what have you. So how does that work for me? In reality we would learn that about each other and just not play, but would it hurt for you to play a toned list for a fun game?
So, what you're saying is that the player with the competitive list should spend time and money to provide alternate models, learn your codex and list well enough to tone down their list appropriately, and figure out the necessary changes, all so that you don't have to spend the same time and money. Why is only one player allowed to say "it's too much work" here?
Actually read what I posted. I'm mainly talking about an opponent who has nowhere near the skill of yourself and maybe never will. Are you really always going to stop all over them until they either stop playing your or worse, potentially leave the game? Why does it hurt your ego to not be a good sport and come down to their level once or twice?
I don't think it's even a case of competitive versus casual anymore. What this thread is showing me is that more skilled players arent interested in being good opponents for someone of a much lower skill.
And this answers the question of why the "casual" player can't up their game. If they are not skilled enough (yet hopefully) then they can't up their game.
BlackLobster wrote: I'm mainly talking about an opponent who has nowhere near the skill of yourself and maybe never will.
"Never will" is, almost all of the time, not an accurate statement. Anyone can be pretty good at 40k if they want to invest the effort. Very, very few people are just permanently hopeless and never going to improve. But quite a few people decide that they don't want to improve, but still expect the better player to make up for their refusal and save them from ever having to improve.
What this thread is showing me is that more skilled players arent interested in being good opponents for someone of a much lower skill.
And many lower-skill players aren't interested in being good opponents either.
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Blackie wrote: Owning large armies means nothing if changing units doesn't increase significantly the level of competitiveness of the army.
But it sure does remove the "I'm too poor to afford better units" factor. If you can afford to buy 5000 points you can afford to buy some strong units in there so you can play a competitive list. So why should you be entitled to buy only the units you want to buy, while other players have the full burden of buying alternative units and altering their own armies to suit your choices?
Pancakey wrote: Crowdsourcing rules from a few "competitive players" is the current issue.
It's really not. Overly competitive players are a good source for playtesters and they'll see how far the game will bend with extreme results. This is how you playtest yet GW don't appear to do this method.
the point is if you have access to a top tier team freely, power gamers are always going to take the top tier team.
