The good news is that Warhammer 40,000 is in a pretty good place at the moment, so there won’t be any seismic changes, just a handful of balancing tweaks.
Would you agree with that sentiment? Why or why not?
Also, do you think that limiting soup/CP/detachments/etc. (any such myriad of changes to end the Loyal 32 powering a Castellan) counts as "balancing tweak" or "seismic change"? In other words, is it something we are likely to see?
I think it's in a good place, but as always there is still room for improvement. I fear we won't see a single change to Knights until they've maximized their sales off these models.
I'd be tempted to dismiss it as marketing waffle but I wouldn't be surprised if GW truly believes it. I think 40k is moving further and further from being in a good place, in all honesty. Frustratingly, I don't think huge rule tweaks across multiple individual units is really needed to help reign things in - just something to rebalance soup against mono-Codex armies and a few changes to the worst offenders.
You only have to look at how GW handled the nerf to Fly to see how clueless they can be about their own rules though, so I see little chance of things improving massively.
I mean, relative to the cavalcade of disasters that 6E and 7E were, it is in a good place.
For GW, and 80% of people who buy GW stuff, I'm sure that 40k 8E is "Good Enough", and the game has certainly turned around relative to the last couple of editions.
That doesn't mean that the game doesn't have major issues, that there arent blatant balance issues, or that the game is perfect. I'd say we're back to a 5E level of balance issues in terms of scale. We still have lots of units nobody will touch in almost every army, many units that are basically autoincludes, stupid powerful combos, allies/soup issues, CP and stratagem abuse, etc.
But for GW and most people, it is good enough. GW isn't making a tightly balanced competitive tactical combat game, they make a sandbox RPG-lite simulator that gives people an excuse to play with plastic soldiers. From that perspective, the game is in a good place.
Frankly i say they have improved however there are still issues and not updated armies (rulewise) especially in regards to Fw indexes which have been taken over by the gw rules Team but have been Terribly neglected.
That said it has massively improved compared to 7th but that is a relative statement and there is only one way from Rock bottom and that is up.
Despite people trashing marines they're still capable. Soup also isn't generally the boogeyman it's made to be.
Will GSC and assassins screw the meta? I have no idea. Will CSM get new tools to make them cut a little deeper into competitiveness? It seems possible.
Just saw the article and knew that there would be a rapid response here!
I actually am inclined to agree that it's in a good place.....for the most part. I'm shocked that they state only minor tweaks incoming, especially with the consistent report of soup and CP excess problems.
However, I did notice that the image accompanying the article clearly shows Imperial soup....so maybe that's a hint that some changes may come about.
But if it's mostly in the realm of tournaments/competitive play where the issue of soup is causing the problems, surely it's the responsibility of the TOs to make the relevant changes? It's not like they have a problem making changes to mission packs etc. If they can manage to do that, then the game sits well for the rest of the population who get tired of their units getting hit with a nerf bat just because of how it interacts in a soup based list, rather than by itself within it's parent codex.
Why are we waiting for GW to fix competitive 40K when the game plays perfectly well in any other setting? I woudl love to see ITC step up and initiate some rules to curb the prevalence of soups, or the associated issues that surround soup (the CP generation/use rather than armies having mixed detachments)
topaxygouroun i wrote: I wouldn't even dream of ever attending a tournament with anything below an 80% representation of Castellans and mixed Aeldari, obviously.
I enjoy the competitive scene of this version of 40k about as much as I enjoyed the WHFB 7th edition post the Daemons release.
Eh... I've attended 3 8th edition tournaments so far in the past few months.
First tournament was won by Chaos Daemons. I think second was a guy with 3 Stormravens, a Knights detachment of a Crusader + 2 Helverins, and Loyal 32, and I'm pretty sure I got 3rd with Cadian Guard + Terryn Knights (2 Knights Gallant, no Castellans).
Second tournament was won by Dark Eldar, 2nd place was Admech + Raven Guard Marines, 3rd place was Knights (Castellan, Gallant, Crusader) + Minimal Guard.
Third tournament was won by Space Wolves + Admech, I got second with my Cadian Guard + Terryn Knights, and third was Orks.
Of those 9 lists in Top 3 at those 3 tournaments, only one had a Castellan, and only 1 Aeldari list. Sure, there were a lot of Castellan lists at these games, but I personally never had trouble with one. Sure, it would spend a turn and take out some of my tanks, but next turn a Gallant would one hit KO it. Or it would fire at my Gallant, and I'd simply absorb all it's shooting with my 3++ save and then kick it's teeth in.
There is a huge difference in what you play against at actual tournaments vs what you think you'll play against. I haven't seen one "single castellan + guard" list yet, for example. I've seen a single Ynnari player too. Don't avoid going to tournaments just because you don't like the internet meta.
Strategems work as a force multiplier, and when you stack them 2 or 3 deep on top of a relics and warlord traits on a unit that alreay costs more than 300 points... Well multiping big numbers several times ends up with an even bigger numbers.
Allies are in a good spot. (Boo hoo soup. Yeah we heard you.)
Word of the phoenix is probably too powerful.
But tau just won a big tounament with gene stealers as a runner up. All factions are playable, except grey knights. Many factions making it to tap tables.
I think strategems needs some serious work to get it right. Like a complete re thinking, strategems 2.0, but failing that a simple rule so knights, and other heavyweights cant get an invul above 4+. And I think its good.
There is a huge difference in what you play against at actual tournaments vs what you think you'll play against. I haven't seen one "single castellan + guard" list yet, for example. I've seen a single Ynnari player too. Don't avoid going to tournaments just because you don't like the internet meta.
There is also a huge difference between most tournaments and huge events like LVO. Events locally to me have been won by Necrons, Sisters of Battle, and Drukhari. The world is a bit more diverse than whatever comes out of the big US tourneys.
Was anyone really expecting them to say that the game needed work? That they had a number of concerns about the state of the game?
Of course they said the game is in a good place, this is the only thing they could say, no PR or Marketing douche is going to let them come out and actually state anything meaningful.
bullyboy wrote: I'm shocked that they state only minor tweaks incoming, especially with the consistent report of soup and CP excess problems.
Small changes can have large effects.
This is true and hopefully there is something that changes the meta without going too far in the wrong direction. Overall I'm happy with the game as it currently stands. I have my lists that I can take to a competitive event and I have my fluff lists which I love to take for a spin with friends. Would it be better if these were the same thing? Sure, but that kind of balance is probably impossible to achieve.
Warhammer 40,000 is most certainly not in "a good place" if one uses any metric other than GWs' profits. The core game is shallow and repetitive. It still is not balanced, despite many FAQs, the current incarnation of Chapter Approved, the March FAQ, or GW's own claims on social media. Most of the new releases from the past two years are soulless, superficial sculpts. The prices are as absurd as ever, and climbing.
Kill Team is a perfect example of wasted potential. The game could have been a deep, tactical game that allows players to customize the equipment of each mini, creating individuals and yes, telling stories. Instead we got low-model count 8th edition with some tweaks.
If you are Kevin Rountree and Co. the game is absolutely fantastic, because you have discovered that so long as you maintain a basic social media presence and claim that the game is "balanced," "strategic," and "amazing," that the quality of your miniatures, your rules and their affordability don't matter in the slightest.
There are far better games to play. Infinity, Malifaux, Maelstrom's Edge, the newly-kickstarted Zone Raiders, to name a few. GW survives because they have Space Marines, a background that until recently was pretty awesome, ubiquity, and a strong base of fans that will support them no matter what. (Remember, even during the Kirby years GW was profitable) Imagine a world where GW's rules and prices matched the coolness of the lore and aesthetic.
I play at tournaments regularly, there are a lot of Knight lists around, sure, but the majority of my games haven't been against Knights or Ynarri (In fact I haven't played a game against Ynarri in my last 15 tournament games.)
These are usually 30 man+ events, mostly 60 mans so the mid-size indie tournaments (not ITC, as people don't run that much here). I'm also not playing on the bottom tables, I haven't won a tournament bigger than a 20 man in the last year, but I've been playing top 3 tables round 3 or 4 and top 5 tables round 4 or 5 in pretty much all of them. Last tournament I went to I played against:
I can't remember as much detail from earlier tournaments, but that isn't a weird draw to play against. I finished 15th/60 coming off a draw against the Aeldari list, which I was a little unhappy with as I played badly in game 3 and lost due to my own incompetence and drew with the Aeldari due to time being called on the round. Top 3 at that tournament were:
1st) Aeldari Venom Spam
2nd) Imperium Deathwatch/Blood Angels/Ad Mech
3rd) Knights + Guard (not sure which Knights were in it)
Despite people trashing marines they're still capable. Soup also isn't generally the boogeyman it's made to be.
Will GSC and assassins screw the meta? I have no idea. Will CSM get new tools to make them cut a little deeper into competitiveness? It seems possible.
and expecting GW to make massive buffs to marines is proably unrealistic. it's premature, GW'll wanna see how the new vanguard stuff works out for Marines before making alterations
Drager wrote: I play at tournaments regularly, there are a lot of Knight lists around, sure, but the majority of my games haven't been against Knights or Ynarri (In fact I haven't played a game against Ynarri in my last 15 tournament games.)
These are usually 30 man+ events, mostly 60 mans so the mid-size indie tournaments (not ITC, as people don't run that much here). I'm also not playing on the bottom tables, I haven't won a tournament bigger than a 20 man in the last year, but I've been playing top 3 tables round 3 or 4 and top 5 tables round 4 or 5 in pretty much all of them. Last tournament I went to I played against:
I can't remember as much detail from earlier tournaments, but that isn't a weird draw to play against. I finished 15th/60 coming off a draw against the Aeldari list, which I was a little unhappy with as I played badly in game 3 and lost due to my own incompetence and drew with the Aeldari due to time being called on the round. Top 3 at that tournament were:
1st) Aeldari Venom Spam
2nd) Imperium Deathwatch/Blood Angels/Ad Mech
3rd) Knights + Guard (not sure which Knights were in it)
Sounds about right. I think Knights are around a lot because they complement literally every other Imperial list in existence so well, that many Imperial lists just include them for the hell of it. That and the models are amazingly cool. A well-painted Knight is one of the best looking models in this game, IMO. It's unfortunate that I see so few that actually take the time to do them justice.
8th is still really unfun and it's hamstrung by it's bare bones core rules that requires stacking layers of buff mechanics to give the illusion of depth. Past editions had core rules that actually generated interesting gameplay but a core rules only game of 8th (aka using index armies) is completely bland. Everyone talks about balance bring better (checkers is balanced but it ain't much of a game) but the game in it's current state is a shell of it's former self with the same "multiple rules source" bloat issue that people raged about with 7th.
Vankraken wrote: 8th is still really unfun and it's hamstrung by it's bare bones core rules that requires stacking layers of buff mechanics to give the illusion of depth. Past editions had core rules that actually generated interesting gameplay but a core rules only game of 8th (aka using index armies) is completely bland. Everyone talks about balance bring better (checkers is balanced but it ain't much of a game) but the game in it's current state is a shell of it's former self with the same "multiple rules source" bloat issue that people raged about with 7th.
But why would you play a "core rules only" game of 40k?
The game is fine overall and a vast improvement concerning depth compared to 6th and 7th edition. Balance is also quite good, there's no unit I'd rate as bad aside from some Forgeworld units. Units being too strong is usually not a problem in a casual meta as you can settle that with your opponent beforehand.
GW adds more and more expansions again but they outright stated that they see 8th edition as a toolbox for players and as that it works fine. If rulebook + index is too bland, buy Codizes. If that's still too bland, add campaign rules. Or play Cities of Death/ planetstrike or whatever. Or add battle honors. There are many things you can do, but you don't have to.
Only downside of the game is the IGOUGO-system but that's not about to change in this edition.
Drager wrote: I play at tournaments regularly, there are a lot of Knight lists around, sure, but the majority of my games haven't been against Knights or Ynarri (In fact I haven't played a game against Ynarri in my last 15 tournament games.)
Round 1: Chaos + Helverins (Random draw)
Round 2: Nids (Table 3)
Round 3: Guard + Castellan and 3 Wardens! (Table 2)
Round 4: Thousand Sons (Table 5)
Round 5: Aeldari (Quins/Craftworlds) (Table 3)
yet in this event 50% of the games you played were vs the 2 biggest "winners" in current 40K. Knights (you did play Helverins...I guess it counts) and Aeldari soup. Still nice to play vs TSons and nids but knights are still the meta overall, and not sure if this will change for the Imperium. Now it's just going to be Knights/IG/<insert 3rd elite faction here> and an assassin reinforcement slot.
Drager wrote: I play at tournaments regularly, there are a lot of Knight lists around, sure, but the majority of my games haven't been against Knights or Ynarri (In fact I haven't played a game against Ynarri in my last 15 tournament games.)
Round 1: Chaos + Helverins (Random draw)
Round 2: Nids (Table 3)
Round 3: Guard + Castellan and 3 Wardens! (Table 2)
Round 4: Thousand Sons (Table 5)
Round 5: Aeldari (Quins/Craftworlds) (Table 3)
yet in this event 50% of the games you played were vs the 2 biggest "winners" in current 40K. Knights (you did play Helverins...I guess it counts) and Aeldari soup. Still nice to play vs TSons and nids but knights are still the meta overall, and not sure if this will change for the Imperium. Now it's just going to be Knights/IG/<insert 3rd elite faction here> and an assassin reinforcement slot.
How do you figure? It's pretty much accepted that Chaos Knights are not very good, since they lack the stratagems that make the Imperial Knights so powerful. Any list with 4 Knights isn't really meta either, since it's absolutely hard-countered by so many things. It's a very rock/paper scissors style, which you don't often see winning tournaments. Aeldari soup is pretty meta, true, but it depends on the list. Quins/Craftworlds at least doesn't have the Drukari detachment you normally see in meta, so he can't use Vect, so it's not as hard as it can possibly be.
The good news is that Warhammer 40,000 is in a pretty good place at the moment, so there won’t be any seismic changes, just a handful of balancing tweaks.
I don't know what to think about it. But this looks like GW will never fix GK :(
Well I guess they can't get feedback from tournaments and playtesters, when no one plays GK.
The good news is that Warhammer 40,000 is in a pretty good place at the moment, so there won’t be any seismic changes, just a handful of balancing tweaks.
I don't know what to think about it. But this looks like GW will never fix GK :(
Well I guess they can't get feedback from tournaments and playtesters, when no one plays GK.
To be entirely fair to GW, GK cannot be fixed by an FAQ. They need a ground-up redesign in a new codex to be viable.
They had 2 CA, WD every month and ton of FAQs, they have a site. They know the army is bad, what do they lose from puting out a free pdf with beta codex? Also if they knew that they can not fix the GK codex, they shouldn't have lied about the "great" changes coming in 2018 CA. I had to walk to school whole december, because I joined buying it.
But all in all what I think is unimportant. If GW thinks the game is doing great, then it probably is.
I would tend to agree, though after two years I am still waiting to see what they do with EC and CSM in general before I can even start planning that part of my soup and though I am salty that R&H have been apparently abandoned.
Karol wrote: They know the army is bad, what do they lose from puting out a free pdf with beta codex?
The assumption that somewhere locked away in a GW vault is a Grey Knights ruleset that magically fixes the army, and can be magically deployed is...interesting.
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Excommunicatus wrote: I would tend to agree, though after two years I am still waiting to see what they do with EC and CSM in general before I can even start planning that part of my soup and though I am salty that R&H have been apparently abandoned.
If the Vigilus II index page is to be believed, Renegades are getting something in that book. What that actually translates into, I have no idea.
Sterling191 wrote: If the Vigilus II index page is to be believed, Renegades are getting something in that book. What that actually translates into, I have no idea.
Renegade Legions, different from Renegades & Heretics.
Karol wrote: They know the army is bad, what do they lose from puting out a free pdf with beta codex?
The assumption that somewhere locked away in a GW vault is a Grey Knights ruleset that magically fixes the army, and can be magically deployed is...interesting.
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Excommunicatus wrote: I would tend to agree, though after two years I am still waiting to see what they do with EC and CSM in general before I can even start planning that part of my soup and though I am salty that R&H have been apparently abandoned.
If the Vigilus II index page is to be believed, Renegades are getting something in that book. What that actually translates into, I have no idea.
Renegade content in that book is allready known as "the purge" red Corsairs, etc, basically 3-4 of the better known bigger warbands / upstarts.
Karol wrote: They know the army is bad, what do they lose from puting out a free pdf with beta codex?
The assumption that somewhere locked away in a GW vault is a Grey Knights ruleset that magically fixes the army, and can be magically deployed is...interesting.
.
It would be hard to make it worse. Right now any change would be nice. Strikes and GK termintors were costed like primaris marines and dudes in gravis armour. Over 8th ed, primaris recived substential point drops. If they can't write rules, then why not at least make strike costs 17pts? No magic involved.
Karol wrote: If they can't write rules, then why not at least make strike costs 17pts? No magic involved.
Because changing the price of one unit doesnt rectify any of the underlying structural issues with the army, and making a change for no reason other than to make a change is exquisitely bad management.
Sterling191 773029 10385925 wrote: If they can't write rules, then why not at least make strike costs 17pts? No magic involved.
Because changing the price of one unit doesnt rectify any of the underlying structural issues with the army, and making a change for no reason other than to make a change is exquisitely bad management.
Only GK right now are not in a state where GW can try to make them better, and there is some mythical risk to make them too OP. Would a 17pts strike break the game? Would it make people drop other armies and start GK, soup them in everywhere ? I would say no. So if GW is unable to deliver a good GK army, then they should at least make it possible for people already with GK armies to have fun with the stuff they have. I mean everyone here tells me there are two things you can do with a w40k army. Play tournaments. GK suck for that. Or you can play for fun outside of tournaments. Well I play outside of tournaments. I don't find GK very fun to play outside of those.
Plus this was just an example. Why not let GK heros actually use their relics, and not limit them to characters that are never played because they are bad. Or I don't know sit down for 4-6 hours and invent 4-6 new GK stratagems. Those could even be copies of already existing ones, so GW would have to strain themself too much.
Maybe they can never "fix" Grey Knights. Doesn't mean they should give up on making them more playable and fun. Even if ultimately the same problems persist, some improvements can be made.
Maybe they can never "fix" Grey Knights. Doesn't mean they should give up on making them more playable and fun. Even if ultimately the same problems persist, some improvements can be made.
Choosing not to make a random and arbitrary price change to a single troop unit isn't remotely giving up on the army though.
If the flaws are structural, the fix has to be structural. it's not something one can (or should) bandaid. Bite the bullet and fix the overall problem.
Plus this was just an example. Why not let GK heros actually use their relics, and not limit them to characters that are never played because they are bad. Or I don't know sit down for 4-6 hours and invent 4-6 new GK stratagems. Those could even be copies of already existing ones, so GW would have to strain themself too much.
You realize you're talking about fundamental structural changes right?
Sterling191 wrote: If the flaws are structural, the fix has to be structural. it's not something one can (or should) bandaid. Bite the bullet and fix the overall problem.
Which would be fine for a brand new codex, but not so fine for an errata or faq done in the mean time when a brand new codex probably doesn't fit in their release schedule.
You realize you're talking about fundamental structural changes right?
How long would it take them write a FAQ that Grey Knight strikes cost 17pts now and it is a beta rule? And lets assume they are using proper english, not something I use. An hour ? This isn't the biblical times. Jervis Johnsons does not have to craft a stella out of basalt for a rule of law to take effect.
If the flaws are structural, the fix has to be structural. it's not something one can (or should) bandaid. Bite the bullet and fix the overall problem.
so how do you fix the structural problem of GK? there is a limited number of units they have. GW is not making any new non primaris models. So even if a new codex would come out, the chance of a nerf is higher then the chance of a fix. GK also don't have access to primaris, but even if they had, having access to them does not fix the problem of units like strikes, termintors, paladins, purificators , you know GK units in general.
I mean I get being weary about something like codex marines. It is hard to "fix" it when there is gulliman in it. But there is no such problem with GK, and if there is they just have to make the changes a beta rule, and a beta rule they can make void at any moment. 17pts strikes start warping the meta too much, well then GW just pulls the rule. Maybe makes them 18 pts, or replaces it with something else. I mean no one is asking for GKSB being -5 rend D4 rapid fire 6. GK the way they are now are clearly over costed, I think anyone can agree on that. Plus if GW is REALLY worried about GK souping, then just added a rule that GK can't ally with any imperial army. Or that the beta rules can only be used if the army is a mono GK one. So if someone decides to slam a castellan with those GK strikes they are suddenly back to their 20+pts cost.
Melissia wrote: Which would be fine for a brand new codex, but not so fine for an errata or faq done in the mean time when a brand new codex probably doesn't fit in their release schedule.
I don't disagree. The ultimate decision point is what is the point at which GW decides GK get moved to the front of the line. Short of that happening, nothing is really gonna happen.
How long would it take them write a FAQ that Grey Knight strikes cost 17pts now and it is a beta rule? And lets assume they are using proper english, not something I use. An hour ? This isn't the biblical times. Jervis Johnsons does not have to craft a stella out of basalt for a rule of law to take effect.
Karol, every single time somebody tries to agree with you, you move the goalposts. So by all means please continue to rant about how 17 points will both fix GK, while at the same time lamenting the fact that the basic mechanics of your army dont work and need a rework that takes more than an hour to put together.
Well, Sisters have waited about twenty years and are finally having plastics hyped up directly by GW instead of merely by GW employees, so shall we set the clock?
GW has already proved with their FAQs and CA that they do not want to change GK rules. GK aren't bad for a month. They are bad the entire edition, and from what I have been told on this forum, they were not that great in 7th edition either.
So if GW is not able to write good rules for GK, or maybe it is not possible, although I doubt it considering custodes and DW exist and are an example of working elite marine lists, then the only other way to give the army a chance is point drops.
Waiting for, as you said it, magical idea GW suddenly has and turns in to a great GW rule set for GK just won't happen. Plus it would require a new codex. And GK being a primaris less marine army are probably going to be the last codex GW thinks about updating. They may even not update it at all. I mean why bother if the army does sell, and they don't know how to write the rules.
Because changing the price of one unit doesnt rectify any of the underlying structural issues with the army, and making a change for no reason other than to make a change is exquisitely bad management.
This is nonsense. Units can only be bad relative to their cost. If unit is bad, making it cheaper can make it good. It might not be the most inspired fix, but it is definitely much better than no fix at all.
Melissia wrote: Well, Sisters have waited about twenty years and are finally having plastics hyped up directly by GW instead of merely by GW employees, so shall we set the clock?
So I am going to be 33 when GK are going to get a good update? Well here is for hoping that mucoviscitosis won't kill me before that.
Because changing the price of one unit doesnt rectify any of the underlying structural issues with the army, and making a change for no reason other than to make a change is exquisitely bad management.
This is nonsense. Units can only be bad relative to their cost. If unit is bad, making it cheaper can make it good. It might not be the most inspired fix, but it is definitely much better than no fix at all.
This. Lets use a non GK example. Possessed are considered to be a bad unit. What if they costs half the points, how many chaos armies would use them? What if CSM were 9-10pts? what if a dire avanger cost less then a eldar guardian?
Reemule wrote: (For me 40K is only 2K armies using ITC rules)
40k from GW's perspective =/= ITC-hammer
I don't care what prism they view it from, as long as when I play it, the way I play it, it works.
And right now it does. I'm looking forward to the tweeks. For me the tweeks I'd like to see them fix some of the GCS rough patches, and I'd like them to change the CP system from detachments to points.
Because changing the price of one unit doesnt rectify any of the underlying structural issues with the army, and making a change for no reason other than to make a change is exquisitely bad management.
This is nonsense. Units can only be bad relative to their cost. If unit is bad, making it cheaper can make it good. It might not be the most inspired fix, but it is definitely much better than no fix at all.
This. Lets use a non GK example. Possessed are considered to be a bad unit. What if they costs half the points, how many chaos armies would use them? What if CSM were 9-10pts? what if a dire avanger cost less then a eldar guardian?
This is like, the 50th topic you've derailed with your "GK suxxors" speeches. Everyone on this forum knows how you feel, so please stop. Find a cheaper, or even free hobby -- your on the internet you can find one, or repaint/rebash your minis into a different Space Marine army already.
Karol wrote: This. Lets use a non GK example. Possessed are considered to be a bad unit. What if they costs half the points, how many chaos armies would use them? What if CSM were 9-10pts? what if a dire avanger cost less then a eldar guardian?
If you make a unit too cheap it doesn't make the rest of the army good, it just makes the unit too cheap. You'll see a bunch of them, perhaps as allies or perhaps even filling out whole lists. It'd be like the old gladius lists where you threw tactical marines at the table because they were basically free.
GK need to be as expensive/more expensive and stronger, they are supposed to be elites not orks.
Karol wrote: This. Lets use a non GK example. Possessed are considered to be a bad unit. What if they costs half the points, how many chaos armies would use them? What if CSM were 9-10pts? what if a dire avanger cost less then a eldar guardian?
If you make a unit too cheap it doesn't make the rest of the army good, it just makes the unit too cheap. You'll see a bunch of them, perhaps as allies or perhaps even filling out whole lists. It'd be like the old gladius lists where you threw tactical marines at the table because they were basically free.
GK need to be as expensive/more expensive and stronger, they are supposed to be elites not orks.
That doesn't work in 8th. Elites fail as a concept in 8th. There is just not enough upside in the base mechanics. Cheaper is better.
This is nonsense. Units can only be bad relative to their cost. If unit is bad, making it cheaper can make it good. It might not be the most inspired fix, but it is definitely much better than no fix at all.
Single variable analysis is the height of lunacy. But by all means, please jump on the "17ppm Strikes will fix everything" bandwagon.
If a unit's functional parts arent functional, especially in a faction that flat out doesnt work within its own ruleset, no cost will make it a working unit.
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Excommunicatus wrote: Wants to use a wrench as a hammer, blames manufacturer that the wrench doesn't do a good job.
This is nonsense. Units can only be bad relative to their cost. If unit is bad, making it cheaper can make it good. It might not be the most inspired fix, but it is definitely much better than no fix at all.
Single variable analysis is the height of lunacy. But by all means, please jump on the "17ppm Strikes will fix everything" bandwagon.
If a unit's functional parts arent functional, especially in a faction that flat out doesnt work within its own ruleset, no cost will make it a working unit.
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Excommunicatus wrote: Wants to use a wrench as a hammer, blames manufacturer that the wrench doesn't do a good job.
Exactly.
Yeah, that's false. There is a price point for every unit where it is neither autotake nor autopass. Just because GW can't find it for some units doesn't mean much. I think they are intentionally squeezing 1W loyalist power armor out of the game.
Because changing the price of one unit doesnt rectify any of the underlying structural issues with the army, and making a change for no reason other than to make a change is exquisitely bad management.
This is nonsense. Units can only be bad relative to their cost. If unit is bad, making it cheaper can make it good. It might not be the most inspired fix, but it is definitely much better than no fix at all.
While I want to agree with you, due to soup you are wrong. Soup makes it so the problem might not be just adjusting the points for GK models, but points for several other models. Like Strike squads. If you adjust them to 16PPM (about where I think they should be in a monocodex game... Well look at all the options you just invalidated for all those other forces..
Its a huge rabbit hole topic that I know your aware of, but for what your saying to be right, you actually talking about Guardsmen getting repointed, and then Conscripts, and then scouts, and then Tac, and then Intercessors, and then Strike squads.
Now it doesn't feel like a minor tweek...
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Excommunicatus wrote: Wants to use a wrench as a hammer, blames manufacturer that the wrench doesn't do a good job.
To be clear, If your a wrench manufacter, and the vast majority of your customers are using it for a Hammer, and you keep calling it a wrench.. who is the failure here again?
Yeah, that's false. There is a price point for every unit where it is neither autotake nor autopass.
And that price point is entirely dependent upon every other unit in the ruleset. Deliberately removing the dependent variables in this particular equation as Crimson demands (other units) means you're guaranteed to draw a conclusion that's hilariously wrong.
Because changing the price of one unit doesnt rectify any of the underlying structural issues with the army, and making a change for no reason other than to make a change is exquisitely bad management.
This is nonsense. Units can only be bad relative to their cost. If unit is bad, making it cheaper can make it good. It might not be the most inspired fix, but it is definitely much better than no fix at all.
While I want to agree with you, due to soup you are wrong. Soup makes it so the problem might not be just adjusting the points for GK models, but points for several other models. Like Strike squads. If you adjust them to 16PPM (about where I think they should be in a monocodex game... Well look at all the options you just invalidated for all those other forces..
Its a huge rabbit hole topic that I know your aware of, but for what your saying to be right, you actually talking about Guardsmen getting repointed, and then Conscripts, and then scouts, and then Tac, and then Intercessors, and then Strike squads.
Now it doesn't feel like a minor tweek...
Came here to basically say this, but you've already articulated it.
Totally agree, you can't just make GK cheap and say 'job done'.
Karol wrote: This. Lets use a non GK example. Possessed are considered to be a bad unit. What if they costs half the points, how many chaos armies would use them? What if CSM were 9-10pts? what if a dire avanger cost less then a eldar guardian?
If you make a unit too cheap it doesn't make the rest of the army good, it just makes the unit too cheap. You'll see a bunch of them, perhaps as allies or perhaps even filling out whole lists. It'd be like the old gladius lists where you threw tactical marines at the table because they were basically free.
GK need to be as expensive/more expensive and stronger, they are supposed to be elites not orks.
That doesn't work in 8th. Elites fail as a concept in 8th. There is just not enough upside in the base mechanics. Cheaper is better.
This is not entirely true. Elites just can't be your entire army. Having some elite elements, supported by cheap chaff does very well. Take Deathwatch for example. If GKs get to a good place, I could see them competing as a detachment alongside a knight, guard and an assassin.
I look at usage rates and win rates and get a pretty good idea of what needs to happen. It's pretty clear that 21 and 13 are not the correct numbers for strike dummies and tactical dum dums.
Karol wrote: This. Lets use a non GK example. Possessed are considered to be a bad unit. What if they costs half the points, how many chaos armies would use them? What if CSM were 9-10pts? what if a dire avanger cost less then a eldar guardian?
If you make a unit too cheap it doesn't make the rest of the army good, it just makes the unit too cheap. You'll see a bunch of them, perhaps as allies or perhaps even filling out whole lists. It'd be like the old gladius lists where you threw tactical marines at the table because they were basically free.
GK need to be as expensive/more expensive and stronger, they are supposed to be elites not orks.
That doesn't work in 8th. Elites fail as a concept in 8th. There is just not enough upside in the base mechanics. Cheaper is better.
This is not entirely true. Elites just can't be your entire army. Having some elite elements, supported by cheap chaff does very well. Take Deathwatch for example. If GKs get to a good place, I could see them competing as a detachment alongside a knight, guard and an assassin.
Deathwatch is propped up by their ammo, not their armor or anything else that makes them "elite". There really is no benefit to elites outside of some possible benefit in ITC format. Elites are a failure in 8th for the most part. There are a few exceptions like Bullgryns, Grotesques, etc.
The good news is that Warhammer 40,000 is in a pretty good place at the moment, so there won’t be any seismic changes, just a handful of balancing tweaks.
Would you agree with that sentiment? Why or why not?
Sales are strong; there are more tournaments than there used to be and they tend to sell out. They will know more than we do what footfall in their stores is like but in the ones local to me the managers say it is good. Taken from a very broad perspective I think they are entitled to say that.
To games workshop, sales of warhammer 40,000 is equivalent to health of warhammer 40,000, being the profit-based business that sells the game.
In that light, 40k is pretty much perfect. Games workshop is among the most profitable businesses in Britain, which is...frankly astounding considering that "niche" is an extremely charitable term when it comes to their product. From a "kids these days" perspective you'd think 50+$ boxes of unpainted miniatures you have to glue together and paint yourself so you can play a tabletop game with handmade terrain would be about as relevant as a print newspaper sold out of a video rental store marketed towards users of Myspace.
Xenomancers wrote: LOL - Some people get it. The game is making tons of money so it's in a good place. Balance be damned.
I know people want 40k to be a game it isn't meant to be, but even so - it is actually in a pretty good state relatively speaking.
This thread was always going this way, but balance is both relative and not a priority for many people. I really don't get why people who think balance is a top priority are still here in all honesty.
Excommunicatus wrote: Wants to use a wrench as a hammer, blames manufacturer that the wrench doesn't do a good job.
To be clear, If your a wrench manufacter, and the vast majority of your customers are using it for a Hammer, and you keep calling it a wrench.. who is the failure here again?
Still you, no matter how many weasel words you use to illegitimately bolster your *ahem* 'point'.
It's in a super good place
>record sales
>record tournament attendance
>statistically armies are getting more and more balanced
If they keep the pace with incremental rules changes and model line updates 40k will keep exploding in popularity. It's nice being able to see different armies each week competing and even winning tournaments and just knowing the fact that GW is constantly working on balance is such a huge improvement over where they used to be
Xenomancers wrote: LOL - Some people get it. The game is making tons of money so it's in a good place. Balance be damned.
To be fair, it couldn't be doing so well money-wise if it wasn't doing something good game-wise.
Are there still balance issues? You betcha, but it's far more balanced than so, so many of the prior editions.
I think the biggest issue people struggle with is that they really hoped 8E was going to be the end-all, be-all edition for balance.
And honestly, I feel that is always going to result in a let-down. There are just too many factions/models and rules to ever have an air-tight balance 40K edition.
But 8E has certainly made it closer than any prior edition and continues to tweak for said balance. Enough people recognize this that the sales have been positively impacted.
Ergo, 40K is in a pretty good place
Okay. So 8th edition is IMO the best edition since 2nd. But that's where my praise begins and ends. The Imperium gets way too much and the Xenos get way too little and Chaos are jammed in the middle. This is the reason I've not played since beginning of 6th edition until recently coming back, and it's why I'll probably lose interest again soon. It would behove them to remember they have created a game without protagonists. And indeed, everyone will pick their own protagonists of this story, since literally every faction is varying shades of black to dark gray with no white. As for what they've been doing while I've been gone... From the discussions I've had with people who still play around my parts (which is distinctly less than it was when I took a break) it seems like Custodes is universally hated. Not only is it antithetical to established lore to have Custodes running around the galaxy and fighting like an army, the models are pretty lame and they're unfun to play and underwhelming to play against too. Imperial Knights are universally disliked too. (By "universally" I mean both Imperium players and players of other factions or both) Primaris Space Marines have one little camp that loves them and a slightly bigger camp who vehemently hates many of its units.
So to me it seems that while they are writing some decent rules for a change, the product they are releasing is monotonous and uninspiring, and many armies feel like they're completely forgotten by GW, which leads to the game hemorrhaging players of said armies. Get ready to see a lot of Space Marines vs. Guard vs. other Space Marines games, they'll be the only ones left soon.
Custodes are not at all universally hated. I some people who dislike playing AGAINST if that's what you mean. But generally they've been extremely popular from my experience.
The thing is too, releases are always going to skew towards the factions that sell. Marines sell. It's the heroic human trope. Doesn't matter whether they're really the good guys, to a lay person they superficially are the faction they'll identify most in terms of the fantasy they want to fulfill.
Marines will always get the most love, it simply doesn't make sense to treat all factions equally.
Came here to basically say this, but you've already articulated it.
Totally agree, you can't just make GK cheap and say 'job done'.
But a point drop can be done. We are talking here about an esotheric change of rules, that requires GW doing stuff they will not do, they don't know how to do, they tried to do and failed etc. It is like expecting a drunk stop drinking.
As for 17-18pts strikes creating game breaking imbalance, even if I used them as just an example, which unit would they invalidate? Not primaris, no DW vets, technicaly tacticals, but tacticals are bad because scouts exist. People wouldn't be taking IG instead of the loyal 32. 17pts is still a lot of points and those 17pts still have 1w and GK rules.
If you make a unit too cheap it doesn't make the rest of the army good, it just makes the unit too cheap. You'll see a bunch of them, perhaps as allies or perhaps even filling out whole lists. It'd be like the old gladius lists where you threw tactical marines at the table because they were basically free.
GK need to be as expensive/more expensive and stronger, they are supposed to be elites not orks.
Now I have my doubts that an orc cost 17pts per model or 40 pts per nob. Elite stuff only works this edition when it is fast, above avarge in melee and shoting and resilient. GK don't have have speed, they can't have resiliance, because our kits don't come with stormshields, so we are stuck with normal marine saves and you can't be very deadly in melee with 1A, 2 if you dual wield. Imagine you had orcs that cost 17pts and had 2A each, how horde do you think the army would be?
This is not entirely true. Elites just can't be your entire army. Having some elite elements, supported by cheap chaff does very well. Take Deathwatch for example. If GKs get to a good place, I could see them competing as a detachment alongside a knight, guard and an assassin.
That 20pts strike is the chaff of GK. Do you want to know how much a termintor or paladin squad costs ? Also if you take knights and IG, there is zero a GK detachments brings to the mix, both of does don't do better, or which you couldn't get from other imperial armies. And it is not just a bit worse. I know people tried to run knights in suprem detachments, alongside IG and imperial knights, but in the end the conclusion was that it is just better to run IG+IK, and skip on the NDK GMs.
Now I have my doubts that an orc cost 17pts per model or 40 pts per nob. Elite stuff only works this edition when it is fast, above avarge in melee and shoting and resilient. GK don't have have speed, they can't have resiliance, because our kits don't come with stormshields, so we are stuck with normal marine saves and you can't be very deadly in melee with 1A, 2 if you dual wield. Imagine you had orcs that cost 17pts and had 2A each, how horde do you think the army would be?
Now, I agree with ya on most of your points that GK should be cheaper, but I do find it funny that the best ork models are indeed 17 pts each with 2A.... Lootas and Tankbustas. Both of them come with insanely good guns though, so they make up for it, and can use Grot Shields to be even more resiliant, but still, it's 17 points per model for T4 6+ SV orks.
This is like, the 50th topic you've derailed with your "GK suxxors" speeches. Everyone on this forum knows how you feel, so please stop. Find a cheaper, or even free hobby -- your on the internet you can find one, or repaint/rebash your minis into a different Space Marine army already.
I dont have the money to buy a new army. All my money is stuck in w40k, the next money I may spend on something hobby maybe will come in 2 years, that is if I don't get sick or don't need stuff for school. I did ask people around my store to use GK as counts as, there is no army that has anything that works or looks like GK termintors and I have 15 of those. I have 5 strikes, and again there is no army with simiular arment. DW are close, if I cut off the halabards and sword, but the incinerators and psycannon don't have an equivalent. But anyway, If it wasn't me bringing this up would it somehow be different? Am I somehow wrong that GK need a fix and GW doesn't seem to know how to do it or even if to do it at all, if we consider the game is more then fine ?
I don't know what a suxors is, so I wouldn't have called GK that.
Now I have my doubts that an orc cost 17pts per model or 40 pts per nob. Elite stuff only works this edition when it is fast, above avarge in melee and shoting and resilient. GK don't have have speed, they can't have resiliance, because our kits don't come with stormshields, so we are stuck with normal marine saves and you can't be very deadly in melee with 1A, 2 if you dual wield. Imagine you had orcs that cost 17pts and had 2A each, how horde do you think the army would be?
Now, I agree with ya on most of your points that GK should be cheaper, but I do find it funny that the best ork models are indeed 17 pts each with 2A.... Lootas and Tankbustas. Both of them come with insanely good guns though, so they make up for it, and can use Grot Shields to be even more resiliant, but still, it's 17 points per model for T4 6+ SV orks.
I can accept a 21 pts Strike if his basic weapon is going to be an auto cannon. I think I could agree to that.
LoftyS wrote: Okay. So 8th edition is IMO the best edition since 2nd. But that's where my praise begins and ends. The Imperium gets way too much and the Xenos get way too little and Chaos are jammed in the middle. This is the reason I've not played since beginning of 6th edition until recently coming back, and it's why I'll probably lose interest again soon. It would behove them to remember they have created a game without protagonists. And indeed, everyone will pick their own protagonists of this story, since literally every faction is varying shades of black to dark gray with no white. As for what they've been doing while I've been gone... From the discussions I've had with people who still play around my parts (which is distinctly less than it was when I took a break) it seems like Custodes is universally hated. Not only is it antithetical to established lore to have Custodes running around the galaxy and fighting like an army, the models are pretty lame and they're unfun to play and underwhelming to play against too. Imperial Knights are universally disliked too. (By "universally" I mean both Imperium players and players of other factions or both) Primaris Space Marines have one little camp that loves them and a slightly bigger camp who vehemently hates many of its units.
So to me it seems that while they are writing some decent rules for a change, the product they are releasing is monotonous and uninspiring, and many armies feel like they're completely forgotten by GW, which leads to the game hemorrhaging players of said armies. Get ready to see a lot of Space Marines vs. Guard vs. other Space Marines games, they'll be the only ones left soon.
Chaos vs Imperium has always been the center of the game right? I mean I agree its not my favorite part but its the center
It would be cool to see a box of Nids vs Harliquins, or Tau vs Orks or something. How did Necrons vs Ad mech do?
This is like, the 50th topic you've derailed with your "GK suxxors" speeches. Everyone on this forum knows how you feel, so please stop. Find a cheaper, or even free hobby -- your on the internet you can find one, or repaint/rebash your minis into a different Space Marine army already.
I dont have the money to buy a new army. All my money is stuck in w40k, the next money I may spend on something hobby maybe will come in 2 years, that is if I don't get sick or don't need stuff for school. I did ask people around my store to use GK as counts as, there is no army that has anything that works or looks like GK termintors and I have 15 of those. I have 5 strikes, and again there is no army with simiular arment. DW are close, if I cut off the halabards and sword, but the incinerators and psycannon don't have an equivalent. But anyway, If it wasn't me bringing this up would it somehow be different? Am I somehow wrong that GK need a fix and GW doesn't seem to know how to do it or even if to do it at all, if we consider the game is more then fine ?
I don't know what a suxors is, so I wouldn't have called GK that.
Now I have my doubts that an orc cost 17pts per model or 40 pts per nob. Elite stuff only works this edition when it is fast, above avarge in melee and shoting and resilient. GK don't have have speed, they can't have resiliance, because our kits don't come with stormshields, so we are stuck with normal marine saves and you can't be very deadly in melee with 1A, 2 if you dual wield. Imagine you had orcs that cost 17pts and had 2A each, how horde do you think the army would be?
Now, I agree with ya on most of your points that GK should be cheaper, but I do find it funny that the best ork models are indeed 17 pts each with 2A.... Lootas and Tankbustas. Both of them come with insanely good guns though, so they make up for it, and can use Grot Shields to be even more resiliant, but still, it's 17 points per model for T4 6+ SV orks.
I can accept a 21 pts Strike if his basic weapon is going to be an auto cannon. I think I could agree to that.
Karol shut up. Or go start another threat to bitch about grey knights.
This is like, the 50th topic you've derailed with your "GK suxxors" speeches. Everyone on this forum knows how you feel, so please stop. Find a cheaper, or even free hobby -- your on the internet you can find one, or repaint/rebash your minis into a different Space Marine army already.
I dont have the money to buy a new army. All my money is stuck in w40k, the next money I may spend on something hobby maybe will come in 2 years, that is if I don't get sick or don't need stuff for school. I did ask people around my store to use GK as counts as, there is no army that has anything that works or looks like GK termintors and I have 15 of those. I have 5 strikes, and again there is no army with simiular arment. DW are close, if I cut off the halabards and sword, but the incinerators and psycannon don't have an equivalent. But anyway, If it wasn't me bringing this up would it somehow be different? Am I somehow wrong that GK need a fix and GW doesn't seem to know how to do it or even if to do it at all, if we consider the game is more then fine ?
I don't know what a suxors is, so I wouldn't have called GK that.
Literally stop buying 40k then if all of your money is tied up in I or like, pop off your weapons that you can't use and get some left over bits from a friend's bit box. If no one you play with has any extra bits then they are as annoyed with you as I am.
But GK terminators, painted black are Deathwatch terminators with stormbolter and sword. A halbred can easily be made into a power maul.
Incinerators are heavy flamers Or Flamers.
If you didn't bring it up, no one else would, because GK are the exception that proves the rule and honestly arent as bad off as most armies were last edition.
Reading and writing are free, as are a ton of online games.
Competitive diversity is overall very high. There are a couple notable outliers currently defining the very top end and one notable outlier at the very bottom, but that's a pretty impressive state competitively speaking. At this point the biggest problem seems to honestly just be that there are people that insist on seeing soup as a problem when it overall seems to be putting more variety into the game than its taking away.
Xenomancers wrote: LOL - Some people get it. The game is making tons of money so it's in a good place. Balance be damned.
To be fair, it couldn't be doing so well money-wise if it wasn't doing something good game-wise.
Are there still balance issues? You betcha, but it's far more balanced than so, so many of the prior editions.
I think the biggest issue people struggle with is that they really hoped 8E was going to be the end-all, be-all edition for balance.
And honestly, I feel that is always going to result in a let-down. There are just too many factions/models and rules to ever have an air-tight balance 40K edition.
But 8E has certainly made it closer than any prior edition and continues to tweak for said balance. Enough people recognize this that the sales have been positively impacted.
Ergo, 40K is in a pretty good place
-
Well all we really want is an honest attempt. Infantry at 4 ppm while a termagant and a conscript is 4ppm is NOT an honest attempt. DW ammo is not an honest attempt. I agree the game is probably the most balanced it has been except perhaps the prevalence of double moves and free actions (possibly the most busted stuff to ever exist in this game) saying your game is more balanced than previous editions of 40k isn't saying too much. Their tweaks IMO have done more harm than good. The game was the most fun during index 40k.
Look at an army like GK - how hard is it to drop all their units by 20% so they can compete? It takes practically no time at all.
I would tend to agree but I don;t play that often these days
IMO It is a million times better than 7th ed and better than quite a few of the proceeding edtions.
Thye are engaging with the Community, not just about rules and abalance but in general with articles which are often informative or fun or sometimes both. This gives me the warm glow of an old man looking back at glory days.....
They are releasing FAQs updates etc.
On the negative side - the focuss is still way to much on Marines (and the wrong ones - lets see stuff for someone other than the Wolves or Angels for five minutes)
Prices - especially for characters are just insane
This is like, the 50th topic you've derailed with your "GK suxxors" speeches. Everyone on this forum knows how you feel, so please stop. Find a cheaper, or even free hobby -- your on the internet you can find one, or repaint/rebash your minis into a different Space Marine army already.
I dont have the money to buy a new army. All my money is stuck in w40k, the next money I may spend on something hobby maybe will come in 2 years, that is if I don't get sick or don't need stuff for school. I did ask people around my store to use GK as counts as, there is no army that has anything that works or looks like GK termintors and I have 15 of those. I have 5 strikes, and again there is no army with simiular arment. DW are close, if I cut off the halabards and sword, but the incinerators and psycannon don't have an equivalent. But anyway, If it wasn't me bringing this up would it somehow be different? Am I somehow wrong that GK need a fix and GW doesn't seem to know how to do it or even if to do it at all, if we consider the game is more then fine ?
I don't know what a suxors is, so I wouldn't have called GK that.
Literally stop buying 40k then if all of your money is tied up in I or like, pop off your weapons that you can't use and get some left over bits from a friend's bit box. If no one you play with has any extra bits then they are as annoyed with you as I am.
But GK terminators, painted black are Deathwatch terminators with stormbolter and sword. A halbred can easily be made into a power maul.
Incinerators are heavy flamers Or Flamers.
If you didn't bring it up, no one else would, because GK are the exception that proves the rule and honestly arent as bad off as most armies were last edition.
Reading and writing are free, as are a ton of online games.
Your local scene sucks Karol, all of us understand that much.
Karol wrote: This. Lets use a non GK example. Possessed are considered to be a bad unit. What if they costs half the points, how many chaos armies would use them? What if CSM were 9-10pts? what if a dire avanger cost less then a eldar guardian?
If you make a unit too cheap it doesn't make the rest of the army good, it just makes the unit too cheap. You'll see a bunch of them, perhaps as allies or perhaps even filling out whole lists. It'd be like the old gladius lists where you threw tactical marines at the table because they were basically free.
GK need to be as expensive/more expensive and stronger, they are supposed to be elites not orks.
That doesn't work in 8th. Elites fail as a concept in 8th. There is just not enough upside in the base mechanics. Cheaper is better.
Completely false. The design space is there for the stats, but the units aren't capable for their own rules. You can only make a unit so cheap that you step on the toes of everyone else, like Skitarii Infantry vs Guard infantry already pushing that boundary REALLY hard.
8th Ed is just as bad as 7th but in the opposite direction.
The rules are overly simple to the point of being immersion breaking, and provide tons of wtf moments in the game. At the same time they are counter intuitive for no reason (I’m looking at you dice roll modifiers) and a logistical nightmare to keep track of.
Psychic phase is boring and predictable
The cover system is broken and needs more than half a page to fully flesh out this idea
The morale phase is so useless and boring it might as well not exist. Could have just kept the old system but not have every army immune to leadership like they did in the past.
Command points, good idea. Poorly implemented. Command points should be generated throughout the game by capturing objectives and destroying enemy units. Stratagems should be one use only.
Buff auras are a terrible idea that exacerbated the issues people originally had with Death Stars.
Killing off the independent character rules was unnecessary. Now we just have to deal with dumb as feth targeting restrictions.
I don’t know who decided to make dice modifiers work the way they do but it’s needlessly convoluted. It makes no sense to do it the way they did.
Doing away with USR is the worst possible way to organize a game. Now we just have pages and pages of the same rule written slightly differently for no reason at all. From a logistical stand point this makes no sense.
Then we have Primaris ruining the lore of 40k, they should have been left on the cutting room floor with AoS. Just pure garbage through and through.
I love the primaris. I really like that they are flipping people’s expectations. Sniper units as Heavy support, and Heavy weapons as Fast Attack, along with Stealthy in bright blue armor. And they just look good.
8th Ed is just as bad as 7th but in the opposite direction.
The rules are overly simple to the point of being immersion breaking, and provide tons of wtf moments in the game. At the same time they are counter intuitive for no reason (I’m looking at you dice roll modifiers) and a logistical nightmare to keep track of.
Psychic phase is boring and predictable
The cover system is broken and needs more than half a page to fully flesh out this idea
The morale phase is so useless and boring it might as well not exist. Could have just kept the old system but not have every army immune to leadership like they did in the past.
Command points, good idea. Poorly implemented. Command points should be generated throughout the game by capturing objectives and destroying enemy units. Stratagems should be one use only.
Buff auras are a terrible idea that exacerbated the issues people originally had with Death Stars.
Killing off the independent character rules was unnecessary. Now we just have to deal with dumb as feth targeting restrictions.
I don’t know who decided to make dice modifiers work the way they do but it’s needlessly convoluted. It makes no sense to do it the way they did.
Doing away with USR is the worst possible way to organize a game. Now we just have pages and pages of the same rule written slightly differently for no reason at all. From a logistical stand point this makes no sense.
Then we have Primaris ruining the lore of 40k, they should have been left on the cutting room floor with AoS. Just pure garbage through and through.
I agree with everything you said but the final line is just your opinion and I disagree with that. Primaris are what marines always should have been. Tiny marines I always disliked.
I do actually agree with the point about the Psychic Phase, because all the offensive powers are just variations of Smite or inflicting Mortal Wounds. With the new AP and wounding system, it would have been good to translate some of those old powers and psychic tables for 8th, so that your Psychic dealer isn't stuck fighting with another one for casting a power.
8th Ed is just as bad as 7th but in the opposite direction.
The rules are overly simple to the point of being immersion breaking, and provide tons of wtf moments in the game. At the same time they are counter intuitive for no reason (I’m looking at you dice roll modifiers) and a logistical nightmare to keep track of.
Psychic phase is boring and predictable
The cover system is broken and needs more than half a page to fully flesh out this idea
The morale phase is so useless and boring it might as well not exist. Could have just kept the old system but not have every army immune to leadership like they did in the past.
Command points, good idea. Poorly implemented. Command points should be generated throughout the game by capturing objectives and destroying enemy units. Stratagems should be one use only.
Buff auras are a terrible idea that exacerbated the issues people originally had with Death Stars.
Killing off the independent character rules was unnecessary. Now we just have to deal with dumb as feth targeting restrictions.
I don’t know who decided to make dice modifiers work the way they do but it’s needlessly convoluted. It makes no sense to do it the way they did.
Doing away with USR is the worst possible way to organize a game. Now we just have pages and pages of the same rule written slightly differently for no reason at all. From a logistical stand point this makes no sense.
Then we have Primaris ruining the lore of 40k, they should have been left on the cutting room floor with AoS. Just pure garbage through and through.
Yeah. I find myself wishing for 5th edition but with warlord traits, relics, and stratagems.
The loss of USRs is the silliest thing to be because that's how you WANT the rules to be. Consistent. "Fly" should mean Fly no matter what it's on, not Fly that does one thing for a model with bird wings and another for a model with rotting wings.
The problem with USRs was there were too many of them. The concept itself is how you should end up designing the game. A re-roll ability should be the same across the entire game (and you could still keep the keyword part), not potentially 6 different variations that could be identical except for the name or could be different.
Their intent seems to be by having everything isolated it means they could change the ability for one faction without it impacting every faction.
TwinPoleTheory wrote: Was anyone really expecting them to say that the game needed work? That they had a number of concerns about the state of the game?
Of course they said the game is in a good place, this is the only thing they could say, no PR or Marketing douche is going to let them come out and actually state anything meaningful.
Except companies do say things like this from time to time (Bioware literally just did so today or yesterday, for example). Quite reasonably so as well. Compared to years past, yeah, 40k is in a fairly reasonable state. Had they made the statement during 7th, I would have laughed.
Although I think there's are rules they could fix (and vastly cut down the number of dice rolls) and general directions I wish they'd move away from (spamming books with trivial amounts of rule changes, like Vigilius and chapter approved) it does generally seem healthier. It certainly is from a corporate POV.
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: I do actually agree with the point about the Psychic Phase, because all the offensive powers are just variations of Smite or inflicting Mortal Wounds. With the new AP and wounding system, it would have been good to translate some of those old powers and psychic tables for 8th, so that your Psychic dealer isn't stuck fighting with another one for casting a power.
Disagree about the Psychic Phase - going back to previous versions is much better than that travesty .
The loss of USRs is the silliest thing to be because that's how you WANT the rules to be. Consistent. "Fly" should mean Fly no matter what it's on, not Fly that does one thing for a model with bird wings and another for a model with rotting wings.
If they had released datacards for all units then this would be much better as it would always be in front of you
Yeah, I think this Chaos release might actually be the single largest faction release of 8th edition so far. GW's been pretty good at spreading the love around over the past couple years to be honest, even the factions that haven't gotten big releases have at least gotten small character model updates. Gripes about GW releasing Space Marines and only Space Marines are mostly a holdover from the decisions of a guy who is no longer making decisions for the company. :v
Over half the armies miniature lines are over a decade out of date or finecast, basically anything that's not space marines.
Every game is basically already decided before the game starts by the army being brought. Anything that's not Ynnari or imperial guard soup is laughed at for even bothering to show up.
They're doing this "codex v 2.0" thing but are not using that to fix any of the rule or balance issues in the codex. WTF is the point of releasing updated codecies if they're not going to use that to fix them. Proving GW has absolutely no clue what's wrong with their game, or even that there is so many glaring issues with it. Nor do they have the desire to fix these problems.
GW rules make it painfully obvious their rules team has no idea how to write rules and has no overall direction guidelines, or experience playing; but instead each write rules in a vacuum oblivious to how the game actually works or what other rules are, or many times even how the interactions in their own rules work. For example they released a 'daemonkin' mini-codex, but forgot that due to how they set up keywords you can't actually build a daemonkin army. Or how some codex writers think faction traits should apply to all units in the army, some think they should only apply to infantry, and there's no rhyme or reason.
Frankly GW makes hands down the most beautiful miniatures and i love painting them, but the rules for the game are atrocious and it boggles my mind that they haven't realized that a more balanced game will increase miniature sales.
Danny slag wrote: Over half the armies miniature lines are over a decade out of date or finecast, basically anything that's not space marines.
Every game is basically already decided before the game starts by the army being brought. Anything that's not Ynnari or imperial guard soup is laughed at for even bothering to show up.
They're doing this "codex v 2.0" thing but are not using that to fix any of the rule or balance issues in the codex. WTF is the point of releasing updated codecies if they're not going to use that to fix them. Proving GW has absolutely no clue what's wrong with their game, or even that there is so many glaring issues with it. Nor do they have the desire to fix these problems.
Frankly GW makes hands down the most beautiful miniatures and i love painting them, but the rules for the game are atrocious and it boggles my mind that they haven't realized that a more balanced game will increase miniature sales.
I think any chance of that happening died when 8th let them double their profits (or was it triple?) since that showed that they could do the bare minimum and become more profitable than ever before with the bare minimum.
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: I do actually agree with the point about the Psychic Phase, because all the offensive powers are just variations of Smite or inflicting Mortal Wounds. With the new AP and wounding system, it would have been good to translate some of those old powers and psychic tables for 8th, so that your Psychic dealer isn't stuck fighting with another one for casting a power.
Disagree about the Psychic Phase - going back to previous versions is much better than that travesty .
The loss of USRs is the silliest thing to be because that's how you WANT the rules to be. Consistent. "Fly" should mean Fly no matter what it's on, not Fly that does one thing for a model with bird wings and another for a model with rotting wings.
If they had released datacards for all units then this would be much better as it would always be in front of you
Danny slag wrote: Over half the armies miniature lines are over a decade out of date or finecast, basically anything that's not space marines.
Every game is basically already decided before the game starts by the army being brought. Anything that's not Ynnari or imperial guard soup is laughed at for even bothering to show up.
They're doing this "codex v 2.0" thing but are not using that to fix any of the rule or balance issues in the codex. WTF is the point of releasing updated codecies if they're not going to use that to fix them. Proving GW has absolutely no clue what's wrong with their game, or even that there is so many glaring issues with it. Nor do they have the desire to fix these problems.
Frankly GW makes hands down the most beautiful miniatures and i love painting them, but the rules for the game are atrocious and it boggles my mind that they haven't realized that a more balanced game will increase miniature sales.
I think any chance of that happening died when 8th let them double their profits (or was it triple?) since that showed that they could do the bare minimum and become more profitable than ever before with the bare minimum.
True, that's late-stage capitalism. Cut as many corners as possible to make the highest profit margin without caring about long term viability. Companies don't care about quality products because executives cycle companies every 2-5 years.
The good news is that Warhammer 40,000 is in a pretty good place at the moment, so there won’t be any seismic changes, just a handful of balancing tweaks.
I don't know what to think about it. But this looks like GW will never fix GK :(
Well I guess they can't get feedback from tournaments and playtesters, when no one plays GK.
To be entirely fair to GW, GK cannot be fixed by an FAQ.
Oh bs. If you can make an army worse with a FAQ etc you can also make it better.
Voss wrote: Except companies do say things like this from time to time (Bioware literally just did so today or yesterday, for example). Quite reasonably so as well. Compared to years past, yeah, 40k is in a fairly reasonable state. Had they made the statement during 7th, I would have laughed.
Although I think there's are rules they could fix (and vastly cut down the number of dice rolls) and general directions I wish they'd move away from (spamming books with trivial amounts of rule changes, like Vigilius and chapter approved) it does generally seem healthier. It certainly is from a corporate POV.
Yes, well, when you have a trainwreck (*cough*Anthem*cough*), ignoring it is not an option. I would call that the exception that proves the rule.
8th Ed is just as bad as 7th but in the opposite direction.
The rules are overly simple to the point of being immersion breaking, and provide tons of wtf moments in the game. At the same time they are counter intuitive for no reason (I’m looking at you dice roll modifiers)
Despite this being a relatively small sounding gripe, this is hands down the absolute best example of what's wrong with GW rules.
What's glaringly obvious is that no one at GW bothered to think about when modifiers apply, because none of them are actual game designers, they're fiction writers. So when the community of players started asking, if you'll recall this was answered in an FAQ, someone at GW just decided this is how modifiers should be handled. They didn't sit down and talk it through, they didn't have enough knowledge of the game or experience playing it to understand how asinine their ruling was. They just randomly picked a way because to them either way was just as good as another. And now we're stuck with a wonky modifier system because someone who doesn't understand rules interactions or game design made an off-handed decision.
GW needs to hire a game designer and technical writers team who oversees all rules. I've been saying this for years but the skills and experience needed to write a good rule system is totally different than the skills needed to write a fiction book about space marines shooting orks.
I wouldn't agree with that. Sounds to me like they are enjoying the stank of their own farts. While 8th started out okay, it quickly became just as bloated and messy as it was before. And the new lore, man...where to even begin. All sorts of ham fisted cringey stuff. 40k no longer feels like it once did, it just doesn't seem as cool to me anymore. Unlike other games like Bolt Action 2nd edition which stabilized after a short while. 40k is in a constant state of change and shifting balance. And then they start throwing in beta rules and points changes all the time. It's like paying hundreds of dollars to play a game that is a permanently in beta phase.
Thargrim wrote: I wouldn't agree with that. Sounds to me like they are enjoying the stank of their own farts. While 8th started out okay, it quickly became just as bloated and messy as it was before. And the new lore, man...where to even begin. All sorts of ham fisted cringey stuff. 40k no longer feels like it once did, it just doesn't seem as cool to me anymore. Unlike other games like Bolt Action 2nd edition which stabilized after a short while. 40k is in a constant state of change and shifting balance. And then they start throwing in beta rules and points changes all the time. It's like paying hundreds of dollars to play a game that is a permanently in beta phase.
You realize that if it wasn't for this "constant state of change and shifting balance" we'd probably still be dealing with conscripts and brimstone horrors flooding the board, right?
Thargrim wrote: I wouldn't agree with that. Sounds to me like they are enjoying the stank of their own farts. While 8th started out okay, it quickly became just as bloated and messy as it was before. And the new lore, man...where to even begin. All sorts of ham fisted cringey stuff. 40k no longer feels like it once did, it just doesn't seem as cool to me anymore. Unlike other games like Bolt Action 2nd edition which stabilized after a short while. 40k is in a constant state of change and shifting balance. And then they start throwing in beta rules and points changes all the time. It's like paying hundreds of dollars to play a game that is a permanently in beta phase.
Which wouldn't be so bad if the changes they made had anything at all to do with the feedback from players. it's mind boggling how they say they're listening to players, then they ignore 100% of the issues raised by players and instead release totally goofy changes that leave every player scratching their heads wondering wtf that came from.
How long now have players been saying it's messed up that some factions rules apply to every unit, some apply just to infantry, some apply to everything except certain units with no rhyme or reason.
Or how most of the community hates soup, so GW releases a fix to soup that literally anyone who's spent even 35 seconds with the rule book would know didn't do anything at all about soup. It's like GW doesn't even know their own rules.
I've honestly no idea how they can be so awful at what they do, even by sheer accident you'd think they'd occasionally not miss the mark.
Thargrim wrote: I wouldn't agree with that. Sounds to me like they are enjoying the stank of their own farts. While 8th started out okay, it quickly became just as bloated and messy as it was before. And the new lore, man...where to even begin. All sorts of ham fisted cringey stuff. 40k no longer feels like it once did, it just doesn't seem as cool to me anymore. Unlike other games like Bolt Action 2nd edition which stabilized after a short while. 40k is in a constant state of change and shifting balance. And then they start throwing in beta rules and points changes all the time. It's like paying hundreds of dollars to play a game that is a permanently in beta phase.
Which wouldn't be so bad if the changes they made had anything at all to do with the feedback from players. it's mind boggling how they say they're listening to players, then they ignore 100% of the issues raised by players and instead release totally goofy changes that leave every player scratching their heads wondering wtf that came from.
How long now have players been saying it's messed up that some factions rules apply to every unit, some apply just to infantry, some apply to everything except certain units with no rhyme or reason.
Or how most of the community hates soup, so GW releases a fix to soup that literally anyone who's spent even 35 seconds with the rule book would know didn't do anything at all about soup. It's like GW doesn't even know their own rules.
I've honestly no idea how they can be so awful at what they do, even by sheer accident you'd think they'd occasionally not miss the mark.
I mind soup but mostly because it invites abuse especially in the stratagem and cp Departement.
However their idea of selling as many minidexes and campaign books to people who want to play the game forces these (imo rather incomplete) armies to a point were allies are the only option to play the game.
What's glaringly obvious is that no one at GW bothered to think about when modifiers apply, because none of them are actual game designers, they're fiction writers. So when the community of players started asking, if you'll recall this was answered in an FAQ, someone at GW just decided this is how modifiers should be handled. They didn't sit down and talk it through, they didn't have enough knowledge of the game or experience playing it to understand how asinine their ruling was. They just randomly picked a way because to them either way was just as good as another.
"Warhammer 9th edition is in a great place right now"
despite 1/4th of the factions being too powerful and 1/4th of the factions struggling to play even casual games and the rest having a slew of balance and narrative issues throughout.
And this system will repeat itself until the end of time.
Yeah. I find myself wishing for 5th edition but with warlord traits, relics, and stratagems.
Every time I find myself wishing for this, I'm reminded of how much I hated 5E while actually playing it
5E was definitively better than many other editions, but there were also some really bad fundamental flaws with 5E as well. It's the only game I've ever come across where bringing more firepower to bear can result in fewer casualties to the enemy.
That said, it was probably the best edition for the basic MEQ unit.
Voss wrote: Except companies do say things like this from time to time (Bioware literally just did so today or yesterday, for example). Quite reasonably so as well. Compared to years past, yeah, 40k is in a fairly reasonable state. Had they made the statement during 7th, I would have laughed.
Although I think there's are rules they could fix (and vastly cut down the number of dice rolls) and general directions I wish they'd move away from (spamming books with trivial amounts of rule changes, like Vigilius and chapter approved) it does generally seem healthier. It certainly is from a corporate POV.
Yes, well, when you have a trainwreck (*cough*Anthem*cough*), ignoring it is not an option. I would call that the exception that proves the rule.
Indeed, and at this point Bioware is scoring 1 for 4 in terms of not shipping something fundamentally borked in a big way over the last 7 years, anything that comes from Mr. Hudson I assume is made up on the spot without any connection to reality given both past and recent performances
drbored wrote: I think that someday they'll release 9th edition
and a year after they released it they'll say
"Warhammer 9th edition is in a great place right now"
despite 1/4th of the factions being too powerful and 1/4th of the factions struggling to play even casual games and the rest having a slew of balance and narrative issues throughout.
And this system will repeat itself until the end of time.
Xenomancers wrote: LOL - Some people get it. The game is making tons of money so it's in a good place. Balance be damned.
To be fair, it couldn't be doing so well money-wise if it wasn't doing something good game-wise.
Are there still balance issues? You betcha, but it's far more balanced than so, so many of the prior editions.
I think the biggest issue people struggle with is that they really hoped 8E was going to be the end-all, be-all edition for balance.
And honestly, I feel that is always going to result in a let-down. There are just too many factions/models and rules to ever have an air-tight balance 40K edition.
But 8E has certainly made it closer than any prior edition and continues to tweak for said balance. Enough people recognize this that the sales have been positively impacted.
Ergo, 40K is in a pretty good place
-
Well all we really want is an honest attempt. Infantry at 4 ppm while a termagant and a conscript is 4ppm is NOT an honest attempt. DW ammo is not an honest attempt. I agree the game is probably the most balanced it has been except perhaps the prevalence of double moves and free actions (possibly the most busted stuff to ever exist in this game) saying your game is more balanced than previous editions of 40k isn't saying too much. Their tweaks IMO have done more harm than good. The game was the most fun during index 40k.
Tbh they arent wrong. Fron a middle tier (Not casual) perspective the game has never been that balanced. Not thats saying much, the bar is very low, but every codex is up to date and even codex like grey knights or space marines can compete in tournaments and have a good time.
The power disparity still exist but everything is more towards the middle than in previous edition were even in casual metas half the armies couldnt even put a chance against the top ones because many books were 3-5 years old if not more.
I feel like I'm in the same boat as Brutus_Apex. I don't think the game is in a good spot as it stands atm. However, I feel like they're saying this with the changes from the FAQ in mind, so I can only judge after it comes out. We all know they're doing a big 40k release this summer anyways, so they don't want to undercut the leadup to it.
Games workshop has proven time and time again that its costumer base will shell out a ton of money for busted rules and do it happily.
AOS, 40k... it doesn't matter. Its fan base is happy with meh balance and encourages rotating your armies if you want to play a game to have a chance at winning.
Its really the company catering to its very large and bloated consumer base and its consumer base rewarding the company for what it does.
There is no reason for them to change.
The push towards overly simplistic rules that make no sense, bust immersion, and are gamey for gamey sense was not only embraced, but openly and fiercely loved by what I perceive to be the majority of gw players.
Danny slag wrote: Or how most of the community hates soup, so GW releases a fix to soup that literally anyone who's spent even 35 seconds with the rule book would know didn't do anything at all about soup. It's like GW doesn't even know their own rules.
Which wouldn't be so bad if the changes they made had anything at all to do with the feedback from players. it's mind boggling how they say they're listening to players, then they ignore 100% of the issues raised by players and instead release totally goofy changes that leave every player scratching their heads wondering wtf that came from.
How long now have players been saying it's messed up that some factions rules apply to every unit, some apply just to infantry, some apply to everything except certain units with no rhyme or reason.
Or how most of the community hates soup, so GW releases a fix to soup that literally anyone who's spent even 35 seconds with the rule book would know didn't do anything at all about soup. It's like GW doesn't even know their own rules.
I've honestly no idea how they can be so awful at what they do, even by sheer accident you'd think they'd occasionally not miss the mark.
They've done plenty of tweaks based on community feedback. Maybe the opinions think should be at the front aren't as solid as you think.
I'd wager most of the community doesn't hate soup.
Arachnofiend wrote: Yeah, I think this Chaos release might actually be the single largest faction release of 8th edition so far. GW's been pretty good at spreading the love around over the past couple years to be honest, even the factions that haven't gotten big releases have at least gotten small character model updates. Gripes about GW releasing Space Marines and only Space Marines are mostly a holdover from the decisions of a guy who is no longer making decisions for the company. :v
Certain factions have gotten nothing at all. Drukhari for instance.
Wayniac wrote: Also, do you think that limiting soup/CP/detachments/etc. (any such myriad of changes to end the Loyal 32 powering a Castellan) counts as "balancing tweak" or "seismic change"? In other words, is it something we are likely to see?
I enjoy Warhammer 40k much more in 8th edition than I did previously. Honestly, during 5th, 6th, and 7th edition... the game felt kind of frustrating to play sometimes. It wasn't fun to me, but I enjoyed building and kitbashing and I made an attempt to play... I just played far less, maybe one game a month, sometimes less and I skipped entire years. And I honestly couldn't deal with Formations, for some reason it always felt like I had to get 1 or 2 things that I thought were cool, but had to equip them in a way that wasn't what I liked, and then I had to buy 2 or 3 other things that I simply wasn't excited about... or were only available in Finecast. I just wanna buy the dudes I think look pretty cool, do things that make them look even cooler to me, and then play toy soldier with some rules instead of making noises with my mouth to shoot (which I might still do sometimes).
As far as changes in the future of 40k, I am not sure we're gonna see a 9th edition real soon- maybe an 8.5, or a 9th that will just feel like 8.5 with all the FAQ and CA changes folded in on top of the game as it is now.
But, I do forsee one change. In fact, the way things look... I'd be shocked if we didn't see something like this...
I think we may see limitations on what you can take in your army- not in the way Detachments limit you, but in terms of how many points you're playing and how many points a unit costs. Or maybe something like preventing you from taking more than 50% individual units with 12+ wounds, requiring a game be a certain number of points to take a Super-Heavy, maybe even some kind of thing that Horus Heresy/30k has that requires certain HQ's to take certain units. Hell, I think it would be interesting to work in some kind of 'underdog bonus' using points AND power level, perhaps comparing their disparity (and this could also polish up Power Level and help them refine that more clearly).
I don't think a percentage restriction will work; it's likely that if there was, tournament players would just make the tournament points cost enough to allow those.
There seems to be this pervading mindset that you should be able to play whatever you want, regardless of its impact on the game, and people seem to like the new detachment system because it doesn't force you to take certain units.
Wayniac wrote: I don't think a percentage restriction will work; it's likely that if there was, tournament players would just make the tournament points cost enough to allow those.
Respectfully, I disagree. I think that time is a big concern in tournaments. So, I think before we see people hosting 3000-point tournaments that last from 10 AM to 2 AM the next day, we'll probably see the guy that brings Bobby Girlyman and 2 Imperial Knights have a hissy fit because now he has to bring an actual army instead of 3 models (silly example, I know, but I recall seeing something like this a long while back).
Wayniac wrote: There seems to be this pervading mindset that you should be able to play whatever you want, regardless of its impact on the game, and people seem to like the new detachment system because it doesn't force you to take certain units.
While I share that mindset for the most part, with the caveat "with friends, friendly people, in friendly games", there's also a fanatically-dedicated percentage of players that are very competitive and focus entirely on the competitive aspect of the game. I won't say these are bad people, but "different strokes for different folks"... and they tend to be the squeaky wheel that gets the grease, and GW does seem to take interest in what they want.
I mean, deep down we all want to win. I'd say that if it were a glass, and we were making a cocktail- we'd all have one shot of "want to win" by default. But we have different things splashed in with that shot are what gives us our flavors- there are varying amounts of 'have a friendly game', 'show off my cool toys', 'hang out with people and share an activity', 'make new friends', all kinds of things like that- and sometimes those things dilute that "want to win" shot down so much, you can't even really taste it when you take a sip. But there's some guys out there whose cocktail ingredients are one shot of "want to win" and a shot of "and f--k you if you try and stop me", which I'm sure is one of those drinks that is used as a prank, makes you puke, is part of an initiation, or all three of those.
And I think GW knows we all want to win, or at least to do pretty well with our war toys- I mean, it's hard to lose all the time and enjoy playing the game (though it's possible, I did it for about a year and a half- I was TERRIBLE!). And GW knows that it's easier to sell toys that have 'better balanced' or 'improved' rules to make them more effective, it increases the appeal- even to casual players.
So I think that while you and I may be the type to sit down and hash out a game, friendly-like with more focus on having fun with our toys than being geared toward a top-tier tournament style of competitive play... I think we'd also both like if our [insert unit you aren't really happy with right now] were a bit more effective to use.
Honestly? GW had me at the return of the Genestealer Cult and the New Sisters models. I also love interactions of scale, so having Necromunda, Kill Team and Blackstone ALL receiving ongoing support and regular cross platform integration...
For me personally, this is the best time EVER to be playing Warhammer 40K.
It depends on your perspective really, and what armies you play. I'm a casual marine player who likes how 8th edition plays, but wishes my army was a bit better. There are WAAC eldar players out there who are probably loving their soup army, aside from games where they face knight soup. And then there's longtime necron players who want to drown others then themselves.
I guess the best way to clarify it would be to say it's in a good place in the sense that the game can easily improve from where it is now. It might not be perfect, it might not be balanced, but it's not bad by any means and they can build off of what they have instead of revamping.
40k is about the same as it ever was. It's a sprawling mess of models, rules and interactions. The rule set is tighter than last edition, especially for pick up games but it still requires two people to have a conversation before the game about what kind of experience and level of competition they want. Otherwise one or both players are not likely to have a good time.
I can say that right now, it's been easy for me to get people into playing 40k. I mean, I can sit down with someone who's never played before and teach them how to play Kill-Team if they were hanging out at my house and wanted to kill some time and see what it's all about.
Had I tried to do this in 7th, they'd have just asked if I had an old Algebra textbook to do problems while they listen to the grass grow.
auticus wrote: Games workshop has proven time and time again that its costumer base will shell out a ton of money for busted rules and do it happily.
AOS, 40k... it doesn't matter. Its fan base is happy with meh balance and encourages rotating your armies if you want to play a game to have a chance at winning.
Its really the company catering to its very large and bloated consumer base and its consumer base rewarding the company for what it does.
There is no reason for them to change.
The push towards overly simplistic rules that make no sense, bust immersion, and are gamey for gamey sense was not only embraced, but openly and fiercely loved by what I perceive to be the majority of gw players.
I don't expect anything to change anytime soon.
I'd like to believe this, but then why have they let their best selling flagship army founder for two years? Maybe Primaris have sold anyway, but imagine what they would have sold if they were also good?
I've only been playing this game since mid 2015. At the time it was dying, everywhere. Our local store had about 12 reliable players. People were not happy, and there was a lot of bloat.
Just this past weekend, my local store was full. No available tables. Over 30 people are always there any given Saturday or Sunday playing.
There are about 6-7 more that play throughout the week due to work schedules.
I've seen all kinds of mono codex armies, in fact, not one "allied" army exists in our meta. I've seen quite diverse list and unit choices, I've seen some really creative and fun narrative games.
When I first started playing here, over half the shop had grey plastic armies. I can state that about 70% of our store has a three color minimum now, many others have at the very least a primer, and base color on their models.
From 2015 to 2017 I can estimate I played approximated 40-70 games. From 2018 to the present I can tell you from my log book that I've played over 230 games, 3 of which are AoS (just started) and 5 of which are Titanicus.
It seems like the only places I hear people crying about 8th is online, where echo chambers are much easier to maintain.
Heck, just today a friend of mine argued himself into my argument, by proving his own statement about Knight Soup wrong by pointing out that you don't have to play against it, and that it is okay for that level of competitive 40K to exist.
So, to further expand on my earlier answer, yes I feel the game is in an excellent state. I've had more fun in this edition than I ever had in 7th or in the HH set I briefly played in in 2017. I love my armies, I'm stoked that chaos are getting such awesome looking models. My tyranids have seen more games than they ever did in 7th, they can actually do things this edition! I'm finally painting!
I hope they keep up the amazing work they've done these past three years or so.
Arachnofiend wrote: Yeah, I think this Chaos release might actually be the single largest faction release of 8th edition so far. GW's been pretty good at spreading the love around over the past couple years to be honest, even the factions that haven't gotten big releases have at least gotten small character model updates. Gripes about GW releasing Space Marines and only Space Marines are mostly a holdover from the decisions of a guy who is no longer making decisions for the company. :v
Certain factions have gotten nothing at all. Drukhari for instance.
It. Takes. Time.
We've just completed the codex cycle. This chaos release is the first major release of new models since the Thousand Son, Custodes, Death Guard launch era, not counting GSC. We've seen our first SM character get the primaris treatment. For Godsakes we've even seen GW capitulate to community outcry with the changes that happened to Haarkan Worldclaimer. Also, last I check that Dark Eldar codex is pretty baller. I've been on the receiving end of that a few times and it's quite nasty.
You cannot reasonably expect them to fully update every old model in under two years. It took over a year just to get *most* of the codexes done and out, let alone the Sisters Launch which again, also came from community outcry.
It's pretty damn obvious that 40K is in a good place, and if you think otherwise the numbers are proving you wrong. I doubt every customer is just buying new stuff to sit on their shelf. They're using it, and repeatedly so. Therefore, there must be enjoyment to be had for someone to keep doing this and going back for more. "Good place" and "balance" are not analogous, if people are enjoying their time with 40K, then it's in a good place. How would GW know that people are enjoying their product? Sales.
And let's be honest, the rules are not so far off the tracks that the game is unplayable, it is hyperbole to think otherwise.
One thing I've come to appreciate is the simplicity of the rules.
Let's put it this way, there's quite a bit you can do with the 40k gameplay system, you can tear it out of being a 'wargame' and fidget around with some stuff and create some pretty fun dungeon crawlers and alternative ways to play.
bullyboy wrote: It's pretty damn obvious that 40K is in a good place, and if you think otherwise the numbers are proving you wrong. I doubt every customer is just buying new stuff to sit on their shelf. They're using it, and repeatedly so. Therefore, there must be enjoyment to be had for someone to keep doing this and going back for more. "Good place" and "balance" are not analogous, if people are enjoying their time with 40K, then it's in a good place. How would GW know that people are enjoying their product? Sales.
And let's be honest, the rules are not so far off the tracks that the game is unplayable, it is hyperbole to think otherwise.
bullyboy wrote: It's pretty damn obvious that 40K is in a good place, and if you think otherwise the numbers are proving you wrong. I doubt every customer is just buying new stuff to sit on their shelf. They're using it, and repeatedly so. Therefore, there must be enjoyment to be had for someone to keep doing this and going back for more. "Good place" and "balance" are not analogous, if people are enjoying their time with 40K, then it's in a good place. How would GW know that people are enjoying their product? Sales.
And let's be honest, the rules are not so far off the tracks that the game is unplayable, it is hyperbole to think otherwise.
Likewise, "popular" does not equal "good".
Then why is it all of a sudden "popular"? Good is subjective. I would say 8th is actually good, it's just not great, which I think many wish it were.
bullyboy wrote: It's pretty damn obvious that 40K is in a good place, and if you think otherwise the numbers are proving you wrong. I doubt every customer is just buying new stuff to sit on their shelf. They're using it, and repeatedly so. Therefore, there must be enjoyment to be had for someone to keep doing this and going back for more. "Good place" and "balance" are not analogous, if people are enjoying their time with 40K, then it's in a good place. How would GW know that people are enjoying their product? Sales.
And let's be honest, the rules are not so far off the tracks that the game is unplayable, it is hyperbole to think otherwise.
I went from $0 spent on 40k(in25yrs)to 90% fully painted 470pl of Salamanders in 8th.
So yeah, they be gotta be doin somethin right! I really hope they continue with more new models and high quality products.
Adeptus Doritos wrote: One thing I've come to appreciate is the simplicity of the rules.
Let's put it this way, there's quite a bit you can do with the 40k gameplay system, you can tear it out of being a 'wargame' and fidget around with some stuff and create some pretty fun dungeon crawlers and alternative ways to play.
It's not uncommon to see people pop into my local GW looking for stuff they can use to make a D&D mini of their character
bullyboy wrote: Then why is it all of a sudden "popular"? Good is subjective. I would say 8th is actually good, it's just not great, which I think many wish it were.
Because Shiny Marketing to a young male demographic is more important than quality.
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: None of the Primaris units are bad outside Reivers to be fair.
Reivers aren't bad if they're used in certain situations.
Very limited situations, and on the rare occasion you use them in that situation and they do what they do best... you'll enjoy that.
Granted, that situation is called "Kill Team on a 3D map with lots of terrain", but at least it's something, right?
It's a whole different game so not really.
If you can procure a bunch of them though, their heads are nice for various models. Also would make for nice bitz on some bases to show your HQ slaughtering them (which I plan to do for one of my HQ dudes once i get a box).
Literally stop buying 40k then if all of your money is tied up in I or like, pop off your weapons that you can't use and get some left over bits from a friend's bit box. If no one you play with has any extra bits then they are as annoyed with you as I am.
But GK terminators, painted black are Deathwatch terminators with stormbolter and sword. A halbred can easily be made into a power maul.
Incinerators are heavy flamers Or Flamers.
If you didn't bring it up, no one else would, because GK are the exception that proves the rule and honestly arent as bad off as most armies were last edition.
Reading and writing are free, as are a ton of online games.
I tried to cut of part of metal models, as people pointed out to me that termintors with halabards wouldn't be WYSIWYG as DW does have models armed with them. All I achived was destroying the incinerator arm and the shoulder pad on one of my models. I don't know how the bits stuff should work, Plastic and metal don't glue to each other well. Plastic glue doesn't work at all, and super glue means that every transport or falling down the whole thing just snaps at the joint point.
I don't get where you find free reading, here a book costs 12$. You could technically go to the library, and I do that for school, but it is a 2 hour bus trip there and a 2 hour trip back. Plus it does nothing about the money I have stuck in w40k. My sister got a tablet for her confirmation, I got convinced to start w40k. She has good time with her stuff every day. I felt good, up until I started playing non intreduction games
But that is just me. Just because I am not good with writing what I think about GK, doesn't mean they aren't the worse army right now and dont need a fix real bad. That is my problem, not the fact that the army is bad. It is bad already, it is the fact that GW says that no big changes are needed and that everything is great bothers me. Because at worse this means they will never fix GK, and I just wasted all the money I got.
bullyboy wrote: It's pretty damn obvious that 40K is in a good place, and if you think otherwise the numbers are proving you wrong. I doubt every customer is just buying new stuff to sit on their shelf. They're using it, and repeatedly so. Therefore, there must be enjoyment to be had for someone to keep doing this and going back for more. "Good place" and "balance" are not analogous, if people are enjoying their time with 40K, then it's in a good place. How would GW know that people are enjoying their product? Sales.
And let's be honest, the rules are not so far off the tracks that the game is unplayable, it is hyperbole to think otherwise.
Likewise, "popular" does not equal "good".
Then why is it all of a sudden "popular"? Good is subjective. I would say 8th is actually good, it's just not great, which I think many wish it were.
People may or may not be enjoying the 8th edition ruleset, we don't have any strong data on that or on the amount of unique purchasers of GW products. What we know for sure is that since Rountree took over:
GW discovered the internet is a useful marketing tool, and created Facebook pages as well as Warhammer Community where they could control a one-way flow of information.
GW began making unsubstantiated claims such as "the edition you asked for" and "the most balanced Warhammer ever" which people believed, most likely due to the change in leadership and that suddenly, we were hearing anything from them, alongside an intense loathing of 7th edition and a willingness to accept any alternative.
GW developed the habit of using copious amounts of adjectives and exclamation points to prime us to be perpetually excited about their doings.
GW began releasing new models and new rules at the fastest pace in their history.
Investments in new manufacturing technology were made.
Sales have improved dramatically.
Fun is subjective. Good, as in, being well-crafted, is not. Warhammer 40,000 8th Edition is by no means well written regardless of whether a person enjoys playing it or not. And before the inevitable "but it's fun so it must be well written" argument appears, it is possible to dislike something that is well made because it is not to your taste. I don't care for beer, but my preference does not somehow delegitimize local craft breweries that use high-quality ingredients and put lots of effort into brewing the best that they can.
With these discussions it is best to define what a "good" game is in the first place. The criteria I use, more or less, are:
Agency- Gameplay is at its best, whether the ruleset be complex or simple, when the players have many choices to make during gameplay, and those choices matter. Dice-rolling is kept to a minimum. Dice are a resolution mechanism, not a feature of gameplay. Unless you enjoy Yahtzee.
Balance- Equally skilled players have an equal chance at winning. When players are unequal in skill, the more skilled player is more likely to win. Every unit is viable in some situations, auto-takes and never-takes do not exist. Victory is based on the outcome of players' decisions.
Clarity- When reading through the rules, it is obvious how everything works. They are written in a manner that leaves no room for confusion, misinterpretation, or loopholes. ie. "the number of powers a psyker can cast depends on their mastery level" is not clear. "Destroy target nonblack creature" is clear. MTG, for all its many faults, excels in this because the designers take a literal approach when writing rules. Cards do what they say they do- no more, no less.
Literally stop buying 40k then if all of your money is tied up in I or like, pop off your weapons that you can't use and get some left over bits from a friend's bit box. If no one you play with has any extra bits then they are as annoyed with you as I am.
But GK terminators, painted black are Deathwatch terminators with stormbolter and sword. A halbred can easily be made into a power maul.
Incinerators are heavy flamers Or Flamers.
If you didn't bring it up, no one else would, because GK are the exception that proves the rule and honestly arent as bad off as most armies were last edition.
Reading and writing are free, as are a ton of online games.
I don't get where you find free reading, here a book costs 12$. You could technically go to the library, and I do that for school, but it is a 2 hour bus trip there and a 2 hour trip back. Plus it does nothing about the money I have stuck in w40k. My sister got a tablet for her confirmation, I got convinced to start w40k. She has good time with her stuff every day. I felt good, up until I started playing non intreduction games
I think you should really think about taking a break from the hobby for a while.
I'm not saying to sell your models or anything, but take your collection, box it up somewhere safe and then step away from it for 12 months or so.
Just because you already have money invested into something, doesn't mean you have to continue torturing yourself with something you very clearly don't enjoy.
bullyboy wrote: Then why is it all of a sudden "popular"? Good is subjective. I would say 8th is actually good, it's just not great, which I think many wish it were.
Because Shiny Marketing to a young male demographic is more important than quality.
Yeah but they have been doing that for a lot of time, they surely didn't start with 8th. So, why did the big sales come only now? All signs point to the game being simply better than in it was in previous editions, and my personal experience confirms it.
Literally stop buying 40k then if all of your money is tied up in I or like, pop off your weapons that you can't use and get some left over bits from a friend's bit box. If no one you play with has any extra bits then they are as annoyed with you as I am.
But GK terminators, painted black are Deathwatch terminators with stormbolter and sword. A halbred can easily be made into a power maul.
Incinerators are heavy flamers Or Flamers.
If you didn't bring it up, no one else would, because GK are the exception that proves the rule and honestly arent as bad off as most armies were last edition.
Reading and writing are free, as are a ton of online games.
I don't get where you find free reading, here a book costs 12$. You could technically go to the library, and I do that for school, but it is a 2 hour bus trip there and a 2 hour trip back. Plus it does nothing about the money I have stuck in w40k. My sister got a tablet for her confirmation, I got convinced to start w40k. She has good time with her stuff every day. I felt good, up until I started playing non intreduction games
I think you should really think about taking a break from the hobby for a while.
I'm not saying to sell your models or anything, but take your collection, box it up somewhere safe and then step away from it for 12 months or so.
Just because you already have money invested into something, doesn't mean you have to continue torturing yourself with something you very clearly don't enjoy.
@Pleasestop 773029 10386120 This isn't a bad idea. I quit 40k, but there's no way in Papa Nurgle's Garden that I'll ever get rid of my minis. (I recently acquired some more second-hand!) Breaks are healthy. And, there are a bunch of cool games out there outside of the GW-bubble; you can use your 40k stuff with them! For some inexpensive, quality rulesets, check out Maelstrom's Edge, (an impeccable game) or my new favorite skirmish game, Zone Raiders.
bullyboy wrote: Then why is it all of a sudden "popular"? Good is subjective. I would say 8th is actually good, it's just not great, which I think many wish it were.
Because Shiny Marketing to a young male demographic is more important than quality.
Yeah but they have been doing that for a lot of time, they surely didn't start with 8th. So, why did the big sales come only now?
All signs point to the game being simply better than in it was in previous editions, and my personal experience confirms it.
I think the main thing they've done different is not appeal directly (and only) to their old demographic of seasoned grognards. I would bet a very significant portion of GW's growth is coming from the small scale games with easy entry like Shadespire and Kill Team. It changes who's willing to get into their games a lot when the entry fee is about as much as a good board game rather than... well, half a dozen good board games.
The game isn't in a great place relative to other competitive games, both virtual and tabletop.
The game IS arguably the most balanced GW have ever managed and for that they should get plaudits.
I read their comment in the FAQ 'update' as more of a "don't expect big balance changes here guys. For those you'll have to pay." Than a real statement of their opinion of the game. Though I have no doubt they're deluded enough to be patting themselves on the back, along with the playtesters, for a job well done.
An Actual Englishman wrote: The game isn't in a great place relative to other competitive games, both virtual and tabletop.
The game IS arguably the most balanced GW have ever managed and for that they should get plaudits.
I read their comment in the FAQ 'update' as more of a "don't expect big balance changes here guys. For those you'll have to pay." Than a real statement of their opinion of the game. Though I have no doubt they're deluded enough to be patting themselves on the back, along with the playtesters, for a job well done.
Arachnofiend wrote: Yeah, I think this Chaos release might actually be the single largest faction release of 8th edition so far. GW's been pretty good at spreading the love around over the past couple years to be honest, even the factions that haven't gotten big releases have at least gotten small character model updates. Gripes about GW releasing Space Marines and only Space Marines are mostly a holdover from the decisions of a guy who is no longer making decisions for the company. :v
Certain factions have gotten nothing at all. Drukhari for instance.
It. Takes. Time.
We've just completed the codex cycle. This chaos release is the first major release of new models since the Thousand Son, Custodes, Death Guard launch era, not counting GSC. We've seen our first SM character get the primaris treatment. For Godsakes we've even seen GW capitulate to community outcry with the changes that happened to Haarkan Worldclaimer. Also, last I check that Dark Eldar codex is pretty baller. I've been on the receiving end of that a few times and it's quite nasty.
You cannot reasonably expect them to fully update every old model in under two years. It took over a year just to get *most* of the codexes done and out, let alone the Sisters Launch which again, also came from community outcry.
I don't disagree. I was simply pointing out that some factions haven't gotten anything and, whilst the DE codex is strong and that's nice it also lost more options (as DE have with every release for a decade). This was also expected. I don't expect we will get anything at all. We got models in '98 and 2011 and have otherwise lost units and characters as they have gone out of production/had their rules squatted. I'm not seriously expecting any support for the faction beyond a potential rules change for several years at the very least. We didn't even get any rules changes for those units in the codex which are seriously overcosted in CA 2018, probably because about three-quarters of the units are fine or better. I'm happy with where 40k is at the moment, but at the same time claiming GW are being good at spreading the love doesn't ring true when my primary faction has had bupkiss (beyond a mandatory codex release everyone got) since 2011 and Primaris are rapidly approaching having the same number of units we do. Again, not really complaining just pointing out that a claim that " even the factions that haven't gotten big releases have at least gotten small character model updates." isn't true.
Well I like Chaos with an emphasis on Khorne, so I'm very much satisfied right now (though my wallet isn't). There do need to be changes to several armies' rules, such as the Grey Knights. Also, there's the unnecessary price increases on the Start Collecting boxes.
Factions that have received a release of at least one model since 8th dropped:
Space Marines
Imperial Guard
Sisters of Battle (Not out yet, but GW reworked their release schedule to fit them in because the community wanted them so much so they count)
Custodes
AdMech
Khorne Daemons
Slaanesh Daemons
Nurgle Daemons
Chaos Space Marines
Death Guard
Thousand Sons (with an asterisk, models that aren't new but they couldn't use before)
Craftworld Eldar
Genestealer Cults
Orks
Necrons
So that's what... everything other than Tau, Drukhari, Harlequins, and Tzeentch Daemons? So yeah, they haven't put out a release for every faction in the game in the past two years but they've come pretty damn close.
I don't know what to say. At the start of the edition I had high hopes. As it went on I saw some real issues, smite, command points, etc. As time has gone on command points prove to be their big thing and I feel will lead to some utter awful balance. The armies themselves are alright if you do faction pure but soup is on the menu so it ends up being meh with that ? They are selling models so all good for them.
It's better than 6 or 7th but that isn't hard to do. I think as others have said, played either casual or middle of the road, even played with single codex armies the game is about as good and fun as it has been at its best. Top tier it's a strange and bleh experience for me at least. Though I do love some aspects of the new models and diversity of some builds. It's a real mixed bag for me, and my primary army is guard so I came out pretty well this edition all told so far. I guess I'll say the game is a win if they make plastic rough riders with varied units made from the box, then I'll forgive them all their evils. GW, just do it, make me love you.
PS, Why the hell didn't guard get cool quads and dirt bikes and gun buggies ?! Sad face...
Arachnofiend wrote: Factions that have received a release of at least one model since 8th dropped:
Space Marines
Imperial Guard
Sisters of Battle (Not out yet, but GW reworked their release schedule to fit them in because the community wanted them so much so they count)
Custodes
AdMech
Khorne Daemons
Slaanesh Daemons
Nurgle Daemons
Chaos Space Marines
Death Guard
Thousand Sons (with an asterisk, models that aren't new but they couldn't use before)
Craftworld Eldar
Genestealer Cults
Orks
Necrons
So that's what... everything other than Tau, Drukhari, Harlequins, and Tzeentch Daemons? So yeah, they haven't put out a release for every faction in the game in the past two years but they've come pretty damn close.
Context matters here.
Some releases have been much more substantial than others. Comparing the full reworking of an entire line to a singular new HQ model is totally misleading.
State how many new models each faction received so we can better compare.
The entire point of the argument was that GW has given token releases to factions that in prior years wouldn't get anything at all; you know as well as I do that in any two year span before the current era half of those factions wouldn't be on that list.
It's completely unreasonable to expect everyone to get as large of a release as CSM is getting right now, so frankly I'd rather take "here's a new unit we're releasing as part of a starter box" than getting nothing at all. Which, no matter how you might think otherwise, is the other option.
Or, crazy thought I know, they could split their resources more evenly so all factions get a decently sized release every year?! Instead of releasing 50 lieutenants with Primaris coming out the wazoo already.
I don't think it's unreasonable and I have this opinion and I don't think there are only 2 options as you claim.
An Actual Englishman wrote: Or, crazy thought I know, they could split their resources more evenly so all factions get a decently sized release every year?! Instead of releasing 50 lieutenants with Primaris coming out the wazoo already.
I don't think it's unreasonable and I have this opinion and I don't think there are only 2 options as you claim.
space marines are what sell, which explains all the space marines. thing is despite all the jokes about primaris Lts we've gotten about 9 or ten total thus far. assuming GW decided to not make them and instead spread the resources that's only ~ 10 or so sculpts. eneugh for a single new infantry kit, or yeah about a dozen new characters that proably won't sell as good.
The current release is unique as they are updating a range which is something they don't do very often. Then they have to split development time between AoS and 40k which probably takes a lot of resources. Don't know if people remember, but in 2018 they released several large new lines of AoS models which probably meant there was going to be less development time for 40k models.
There is also the question of what new stuff should they doing? What is missing in the current lines, and mind you I am not talking about updates to old models, but new units. Updating models tends to be a slow churn that rarely gets prioritized over new stuff that'll sell more, which is why we only get stuff like this CSM release and the old Drukhari release very rarely.
My guess is that the next big 40k release will be Emperor's Children and Sisters of Battle, with a third potential being an Ynnari range if they want to expand that. Of those three only the SoB represents an update, but it is also an update of an ancient army.
Also a point about the Primaris Lt. They are just using the same base model between them all and changing minor stuff. They are easy and quick one-offs compared to completely new models and ranges. It's why they can throw them out for special releases and not worry about return of investment as much because they are probably very cheap to design and make compared to most everything else.
An Actual Englishman wrote: Or, crazy thought I know, they could split their resources more evenly so all factions get a decently sized release every year?! Instead of releasing 50 lieutenants with Primaris coming out the wazoo already.
I don't think it's unreasonable and I have this opinion and I don't think there are only 2 options as you claim.
Do you understand that the design time required to make 5 different lieutenants is probably much less than it takes to make a single unit of another faction right?
Marines not only sell extremely well, but they are also made to be easy to design. They are very modular.
GW needs to fight their fear of the scary digital world!
I wholeheartedly agree with this. I feel like they've had great progress with it, but now they just need to take the final plunge and embrace it completely.
Probably not going to happen as long as you can pirate their gak in under five minutes. Unless you want a subscription app or something, which I'm kinda surprised hasn't happened.
Arachnofiend wrote: The entire point of the argument was that GW has given token releases to factions that in prior years wouldn't get anything at all; you know as well as I do that in any two year span before the current era half of those factions wouldn't be on that list.
It's completely unreasonable to expect everyone to get as large of a release as CSM is getting right now, so frankly I'd rather take "here's a new unit we're releasing as part of a starter box" than getting nothing at all. Which, no matter how you might think otherwise, is the other option.
I'd take the random new unit. Or getting back our faction leader. Not looking for a large release for DE here, not even expecting crumbs, but still going to point out that we aren't getting them and that despite that I'm happier with 40k at the moment than I have been in a long time. I mean there is a prospect of a crumb in the next 3 years! That's... amazing as a DE player.
bullyboy wrote: Then why is it all of a sudden "popular"? Good is subjective. I would say 8th is actually good, it's just not great, which I think many wish it were.
Because Shiny Marketing to a young male demographic is more important than quality.
Yeah but they have been doing that for a lot of time, they surely didn't start with 8th. So, why did the big sales come only now?
All signs point to the game being simply better than in it was in previous editions, and my personal experience confirms it.
Ummm proper marketing actually did start with the new CEO. They have invested in PR a lot and it shows. Before that it was no communication, no marketing research(they literally said they don't need market research as their customers buy anything they put out anyway).
bullyboy wrote: Then why is it all of a sudden "popular"? Good is subjective. I would say 8th is actually good, it's just not great, which I think many wish it were.
Because Shiny Marketing to a young male demographic is more important than quality.
Yeah but they have been doing that for a lot of time, they surely didn't start with 8th. So, why did the big sales come only now?
All signs point to the game being simply better than in it was in previous editions, and my personal experience confirms it.
Ummm proper marketing actually did start with the new CEO. They have invested in PR a lot and it shows. Before that it was no communication, no marketing research(they literally said they don't need market research as their customers buy anything they put out anyway).
Yeah... But GW being delusional for years doesn't mean they should get praise for pulling their heads out of their assess and doing what every other company realized years ago. I think people give "new" GW way too much credit for just doing what any serious business does in the 21st century.
Personally, to answer my own question, I think the game has the tools to be in a good place, but isn't mostly due to GW's design approaches which if you look beneath the marketing speak really hasn't changed much from the Kirby days. They claim it has, certainly, but if you read between the lines it's clear it hasn't changed as much as they claim .
There are still too many glaring flaws and even loopholes or questions that are apparent almost immediately to everyone, it seems, except the 40k design team. Too many inconsistent rules and wording because for some reason GW prefers to write rules like it was a D&D book and not an instruction manual. And a lot of talk from the team.that shows they are saying they understand while demonstrating that they have no idea why people are saying certain things are problems.
Vankraken wrote: 8th is still really unfun and it's hamstrung by it's bare bones core rules that requires stacking layers of buff mechanics to give the illusion of depth. Past editions had core rules that actually generated interesting gameplay but a core rules only game of 8th (aka using index armies) is completely bland. Everyone talks about balance bring better (checkers is balanced but it ain't much of a game) but the game in it's current state is a shell of it's former self with the same "multiple rules source" bloat issue that people raged about with 7th.
But why would you play a "core rules only" game of 40k?
The launch of 8th was that (core rules and index armies) and I'm trying to point out that the foundation of the game is void of depth and requires GW to stack on gimmick mechanics like stratagems, chapter tactics, relics, etc to give any illusion of choice. For all the flaws of 7th, at it's core was a set of rules that made the battlefield matter and has lots of mechanics that gave gameplay options outside of move, shoot, stab. 8th seriously lacks in the gameplay department and ultimately boils down to what combo of buff can I use to table the opponent before I get tabled.
Vankraken wrote: 8th is still really unfun and it's hamstrung by it's bare bones core rules that requires stacking layers of buff mechanics to give the illusion of depth. Past editions had core rules that actually generated interesting gameplay but a core rules only game of 8th (aka using index armies) is completely bland. Everyone talks about balance bring better (checkers is balanced but it ain't much of a game) but the game in it's current state is a shell of it's former self with the same "multiple rules source" bloat issue that people raged about with 7th.
But why would you play a "core rules only" game of 40k?
The launch of 8th was that (core rules and index armies) and I'm trying to point out that the foundation of the game is void of depth and requires GW to stack on gimmick mechanics like stratagems, chapter tactics, relics, etc to give any illusion of choice. For all the flaws of 7th, at it's core was a set of rules that made the battlefield matter and has lots of mechanics that gave gameplay options outside of move, shoot, stab. 8th seriously lacks in the gameplay department and ultimately boils down to what combo of buff can I use to table the opponent before I get tabled.
Except Tabling isn't an autowin since CA2018 (If you use the official missions).
Vankraken wrote: 8th is still really unfun and it's hamstrung by it's bare bones core rules that requires stacking layers of buff mechanics to give the illusion of depth. Past editions had core rules that actually generated interesting gameplay but a core rules only game of 8th (aka using index armies) is completely bland. Everyone talks about balance bring better (checkers is balanced but it ain't much of a game) but the game in it's current state is a shell of it's former self with the same "multiple rules source" bloat issue that people raged about with 7th.
But why would you play a "core rules only" game of 40k?
The launch of 8th was that (core rules and index armies) and I'm trying to point out that the foundation of the game is void of depth and requires GW to stack on gimmick mechanics like stratagems, chapter tactics, relics, etc to give any illusion of choice. For all the flaws of 7th, at it's core was a set of rules that made the battlefield matter and has lots of mechanics that gave gameplay options outside of move, shoot, stab. 8th seriously lacks in the gameplay department and ultimately boils down to what combo of buff can I use to table the opponent before I get tabled.
40k has always had the illusion of choice. All the "choices" made are things that should be very minor in any serious wargame, while in 40k it's made out to be the major decision. Which is why I find it laughable when people try to say 40k is more complex than say Warmahordes, since the choices in those games *actually* matter and there are hundreds if not thousands of combinations that need to be accounted for, while in 40k it's basically here's a unit, here's 6 options that unit can take where 1 and maybe 2 are worthwhile and the rest are pretty much hot garbage that's never worth taking, and claiming that's meaningful choices.
40k is and always has been a very shallow game, yet people pretend it's not and have done so for years (The only reason I can think of being they don't want to look foolish for playing such a shallow game so invent reasons why it's not). Even if you look at "evolved" 40k type games like Warpath, Bolt Action and Beyond the Gates of Antares (especially the last two as they are essentially 3rd edition 40k with extras, basically 40k done correctly without GW's sales/marketing meddling. I mean Bolt Action is almost literally WW2 40k minus the bullgak of 40k) you'll find more meaingful choices than you see in 40k itself.
40k is FINE. It does it job fantastically as both a physical representation of battles from the fluff, great miniatures and simple but fun gameplay.
What it is NOT and never has been is competitive. GW never wanted that, make it obvious its not their intention but players get their power armoured knickers in a twist that every unit is 'viable' which to them means isn't optimal as all hell just to win.
8th ed is awesome for the game, pick up games have never been simpler and whilst rules bloat compared to start of 8th is creeping in it is easily manageable.
Don't like a rule? House rule it. Talk to your opponent. focus on having fun over winning!
bullyboy wrote: Then why is it all of a sudden "popular"? Good is subjective. I would say 8th is actually good, it's just not great, which I think many wish it were.
Because Shiny Marketing to a young male demographic is more important than quality.
OFC I don't have mass numbers to back up my specific anecdote, but the people I see buying GW stuff locally do not fit the demographic you're describing. having those numbers would be interesting. I know a lot of former 40K players that have come back because of 8th, they certainly don't fit that demographic (me included...unfortunately)
bullyboy wrote: Then why is it all of a sudden "popular"? Good is subjective. I would say 8th is actually good, it's just not great, which I think many wish it were.
Because Shiny Marketing to a young male demographic is more important than quality.
OFC I don't have mass numbers to back up my specific anecdote, but the people I see buying GW stuff locally do not fit the demographic you're describing. having those numbers would be interesting. I know a lot of former 40K players that have come back because of 8th, they certainly don't fit that demographic (me included...unfortunately)
I have seen the same, and I honestly sometimes wonder why, since it's clear after first glance that GW really didn't change much, at least not where it counts. People just somehow bought all of their PR and marketing and jumped right back on the bandwagon. Ah well, I'm being a hypocrite I guess as I'm all excited about the new Chaos release but I just wonder sometimes why so many people stick with such a bad game.
Vankraken wrote: 8th is still really unfun and it's hamstrung by it's bare bones core rules that requires stacking layers of buff mechanics to give the illusion of depth. Past editions had core rules that actually generated interesting gameplay but a core rules only game of 8th (aka using index armies) is completely bland. Everyone talks about balance bring better (checkers is balanced but it ain't much of a game) but the game in it's current state is a shell of it's former self with the same "multiple rules source" bloat issue that people raged about with 7th.
But why would you play a "core rules only" game of 40k?
The launch of 8th was that (core rules and index armies) and I'm trying to point out that the foundation of the game is void of depth and requires GW to stack on gimmick mechanics like stratagems, chapter tactics, relics, etc to give any illusion of choice. For all the flaws of 7th, at it's core was a set of rules that made the battlefield matter and has lots of mechanics that gave gameplay options outside of move, shoot, stab. 8th seriously lacks in the gameplay department and ultimately boils down to what combo of buff can I use to table the opponent before I get tabled.
40k has always had the illusion of choice. All the "choices" made are things that should be very minor in any serious wargame, while in 40k it's made out to be the major decision. Which is why I find it laughable when people try to say 40k is more complex than say Warmahordes, since the choices in those games *actually* matter and there are hundreds if not thousands of combinations that need to be accounted for, while in 40k it's basically here's a unit, here's 6 options that unit can take where 1 and maybe 2 are worthwhile and the rest are pretty much hot garbage that's never worth taking, and claiming that's meaningful choices.
40k is and always has been a very shallow game, yet people pretend it's not and have done so for years (The only reason I can think of being they don't want to look foolish for playing such a shallow game so invent reasons why it's not). Even if you look at "evolved" 40k type games like Warpath, Bolt Action and Beyond the Gates of Antares (especially the last two as they are essentially 3rd edition 40k with extras, basically 40k done correctly without GW's sales/marketing meddling. I mean Bolt Action is almost literally WW2 40k minus the bullgak of 40k) you'll find more meaingful choices than you see in 40k itself.
Personally i find warmahordes to be less fun and while sure the units can be different (though I do not think any more different than 40k units from different armies) the overwhelming things are your casters. I might enjoy Warmachine/hordes if they toned down the casters to let units matter more. The last game i played the caster was like... ok now everything in your army can either move or shoot but not both. I personally am against anything in a wargame that invalidates another player''s turn, and thier caster ability literally made it so I could accomplish nothing... no thanks. I have made several attempts to enjoy the game, and had a fairly favorable win rate but its not nearly as fun to me. 40k is... but you don't see me going into the warmahordes forums to say 40k is superior. It is a different game, let people play with their toy soldiers in the environment they prefer without gaking on their game?
My main point is when people try to say 40k is this insanely complex game, because it's 100% false. I stopped playing Warmahordes because quite frankly the level of minutiae in that game was too much; it hurt my brain. But that doesn't magically mean 40k is a complex game. It's incredibly shallow. It's still fun, but I don't try to delude myself into thinking it has meaningful depth and choices.
The good news is that Warhammer 40,000 is in a pretty good place at the moment, so there won’t be any seismic changes, just a handful of balancing tweaks.
I don't know what to think about it. But this looks like GW will never fix GK :(
Well I guess they can't get feedback from tournaments and playtesters, when no one plays GK.
To be entirely fair to GW, GK cannot be fixed by an FAQ.
Oh bs. If you can make an army worse with a FAQ etc you can also make it better.
Indeed. Surely an FAQ can go something like.
-Following Beta changes to the Grey Knight Code rules and entries.-
1. All Grey Knight infantry have -Aegis Shrouding-. All ranged attacks targeting Grey Knight models/Units outside X distance are subject to a -1 to hit modifier.
2. The following Grey Knight characters (list here.) additionally have access to the Space marine codex psychic power list.
3. etc etc
It's not hard, especially when the changes don't involve major changes to stat entries.
Wayniac wrote: My main point is when people try to say 40k is this insanely complex game, because it's 100% false. I stopped playing Warmahordes because quite frankly the level of minutiae in that game was too much; it hurt my brain. But that doesn't magically mean 40k is a complex game. It's incredibly shallow. It's still fun, but I don't try to delude myself into thinking it has meaningful depth and choices.
I can agree there, it does not have as many complex modifiers. though I kind of like the simplicity of equipment rather than just guns being very similar but having a few inches shorter or longer range and str etc. In 40k a lot of units even across ranges sharing profiles is a plus imo as a auto cannon is an autocannon across all armies. plasma is plasma etc. Complexity does not equate to fun and I genuinely have a blast in 40k too which is why i stick with it (also like the Citadel models better and painting is a big part of the hobby to me)
Wayniac wrote: My main point is when people try to say 40k is this insanely complex game, because it's 100% false. I stopped playing Warmahordes because quite frankly the level of minutiae in that game was too much; it hurt my brain. But that doesn't magically mean 40k is a complex game. It's incredibly shallow. It's still fun, but I don't try to delude myself into thinking it has meaningful depth and choices.
You had a very different experience from mine.
I left warmahordes because it was too plain, all the games played in the same identical way
The lists wrote themselves after you selected between the one or two decent casters in your faction, 90% of the units could easily not exist and no one would notice.
A faction was fine as long as it had one broken combo...
Maybe that the game is better now compared to when i left, but from what i remember 8th is in a much better position compared to it, both in balance and in depth.
Wayniac wrote: My main point is when people try to say 40k is this insanely complex game, because it's 100% false. I stopped playing Warmahordes because quite frankly the level of minutiae in that game was too much; it hurt my brain. But that doesn't magically mean 40k is a complex game. It's incredibly shallow. It's still fun, but I don't try to delude myself into thinking it has meaningful depth and choices.
You had a very different experience from mine. I left warmahordes because it was too plain, all the games played in the same identical way The lists wrote themselves after you selected between the one or two decent casters in your faction, 90% of the units could easily not exist and no one would notice. A faction was fine as long as it had one broken combo... Maybe that the game is better now compared to when i left, but from what i remember 8th is in a much better position compared to it, both in balance and in depth.
To each their own. I found that in WMH you had to like plan everything out to the tiniest detail because if you moved a single model a fraction of an inch too far, depending on what your opponent had they could chain react off of it and win the game just because you messed up that 0.5". So you ended up constantly having to think if I do X, could my opponent do Y and win.
I will say 40k is way more straightforward. I just think it's lacking in actual tactical depth. You don't really do much beyond target priority.
"Complex" might not be the right word. 40K is quite simple to understand. Both the basic concepts and the levels of Faction specific add-ons.
Too "Diverse" is probably the better word. There are just too many factions and special snowflake rules that make the game hard to balance. Index 40K was fairly balanced, if a bit over-costed in some areas.
But once all the Codices started dropping adding Faction abilities, Stratagems, WL traits and Relics, all that "Diversity" instantly threw out any hope of having an ideal balance for competitive play.
There will ALWAYS be rules/abilities that are just plain better than others when you add on that much extra stuff.
I truly think GW is making a honest effort to slowly tweak things that are over/under powered (even if there are some glaringly obvious things that they haven't done that most of us agree should be done).
I've played since 4E and 8E is by far my favorite edition so far.
The prison yard is a pretty good place after 3 years in solitary.
8th is a massive improvement to the previous edition but that doesn't mean it is good as is.
Too "Diverse" is probably the better word. There are just too many factions and special snowflake rules that make the game hard to balance. Index 40K was fairly balanced, if a bit over-costed in some areas.
But once all the Codices started dropping adding Faction abilities, Stratagems, WL traits and Relics, all that "Diversity" instantly threw out any hope of having an ideal balance for competitive play.
There will ALWAYS be rules/abilities that are just plain better than others when you add on that much extra stuff.
I agree with this. A lot of faction traits with wildly differing benefits that do not cost anything has made it much more annoying to balance things. You can't really balance Aeldari when one rule gives everything a -1 to hit and the other gives jetbikes the chance to shoot heavy weapons. The utility of both faction traits are just so different that pointing units accordingly will just never end well.
Any time I see someone whine about "special snowflake" I immediately roll my eyes. I'm glad every faction is getting unique rules and units. Way better htan sitting around with the same damn rules and minis for two fething decades.
It's definitely also bloated. What, half the factions in the game are Imperium? There's too much for them to properly balance even if they were capable of balancing.
GW is like a restaurant that thinks having 100 items on the menu that are all sort of done mediocre is better than having 20 items on the menu that are all done amazing.
G00fySmiley wrote: I can agree there, it does not have as many complex modifiers. though I kind of like the simplicity of equipment rather than just guns being very similar but having a few inches shorter or longer range and str etc. In 40k a lot of units even across ranges sharing profiles is a plus imo as a auto cannon is an autocannon across all armies. plasma is plasma etc. Complexity does not equate to fun and I genuinely have a blast in 40k too which is why i stick with it (also like the Citadel models better and painting is a big part of the hobby to me)
Seconded, to some degree- I do believe there's a fine time and place for complex skirmish/wargames. Infinity was a game I struggled with for a while, and I still end up asking questions to veteran players and looking up rules and then getting clarification on those rules- seriously, I actually have a notebook that I call "Infinity for Dummies" where I write how things work in the simplest way possible, but there are SO MANY outliers and factors that make even the simplest fundamental mechanic is something that needs a caveat. Because of that, I just play that game for a little while and then set it aside to go back to 40k.
40k, Kill-Team, and Necromunda all have an advantage- I can teach someone how to play in one afternoon. I just do a "hold your hand" game for about 3 turns, with nothing fancy on the table- and then "let you off the leash" game where I pull my punches and see what the player does and let him ask questions rather than telling him what to do. And then I throw a few more games with them and gradually step it up a notch each time, and eventually I've got a guy who's flying solo on the next weekend.
As I've said elsewhere- the beauty of 40k's system is that once you realize how simple it is, you can modify it, tweak it, and add to it in order to represent the kind of game you want to play.
Want a small-scale skirmish with elements like hacking terminals, jumping over broken walkways, and customizing your gear? Modify Necromunda and merge it with 40k, if you want to use your 40k stuff.
Dungeon Crawler? Just beef up the players' "heroes" and you run a random selection of various enemy mobs that you can spawn at random- hell, use a scatter die to plot their location, and pick out a boss.
Want a co-op game? Go grab the sentries rules from Necromunda and modify the behavior table, tweak it to get what you want.
Want to turn it into even more of an RPG? Grab some D10's and adjust the stats in a stat block, roll for some modifiers, take some ideas from Inquisitor, and go nuts.
Gladiator-style combat melee brawl? Oh, that's TOO easy- you could even make 'critical hits' and have a table for injuries to various parts of the body.
I suppose what I'm trying to say is I like 40k, because you don't have to actually play 40k the way a book says- it's a toolkit.
bullyboy wrote: Then why is it all of a sudden "popular"? Good is subjective. I would say 8th is actually good, it's just not great, which I think many wish it were.
Because Shiny Marketing to a young male demographic is more important than quality.
Yeah but they have been doing that for a lot of time, they surely didn't start with 8th. So, why did the big sales come only now?
All signs point to the game being simply better than in it was in previous editions, and my personal experience confirms it.
Ummm proper marketing actually did start with the new CEO. They have invested in PR a lot and it shows. Before that it was no communication, no marketing research(they literally said they don't need market research as their customers buy anything they put out anyway).
Yeah... But GW being delusional for years doesn't mean they should get praise for pulling their heads out of their assess and doing what every other company realized years ago. I think people give "new" GW way too much credit for just doing what any serious business does in the 21st century.
I'm not really one to defend GW, but the praise for that alone should be done. For a company to not have done anything for YEARS on end, and to actually get it implemented in a somewhat decent manner...I dunno if you've actually helped run a business or even been on the administrative side of one, but it isn't as easy as you make it to be.
auticus wrote: That its a toolkit is its biggest positive, and also its biggest drawback at the same time due to houserule rage that a lot of people have.
"If it aint the official version of the game then its an abomination."
I understand that, but that's the thing- you gotta form your own community, within your local community.
When you're playing with your friend at the FLGS, and playing the game your way- you're gonna have that kid from Polar Express trying to 'correct' your agreed-upon rules and modifications to the game all the time. Even if you've told him "we've altered the rules for a reason, it's our way doing something different". And then when he persists, you can be a jerk.
YOU: "Well, do you want to play a game?"
HIM: "Well I will if-"
YOU: "Well good luck, I hope you find someone."
And then keep playing. For some reason, that always works and makes them get really quiet.
auticus wrote: That its a toolkit is its biggest positive, and also its biggest drawback at the same time due to houserule rage that a lot of people have.
"If it aint the official version of the game then its an abomination."
I understand that, but that's the thing- you gotta form your own community, within your local community.
When you're playing with your friend at the FLGS, and playing the game your way- you're gonna have that kid from Polar Express trying to 'correct' your agreed-upon rules and modifications to the game all the time. Even if you've told him "we've altered the rules for a reason, it's our way doing something different". And then when he persists, you can be a jerk.
YOU: "Well, do you want to play a game?"
HIM: "Well I will if-"
YOU: "Well good luck, I hope you find someone."
And then keep playing. For some reason, that always works and makes them get really quiet.
This brings up a point though.
Why SHOULD I have to have any discussion besides point level and missions?
Thats precisely my issue with AOS and 40k, and why I haven't played 40k in years and will not play 40k again until they have addressed both external faction balance and internal balance so that I don't have to collect and paint models I can't stand just to have a good game.
I play AOS but its heavily houseruled and does require an inner community within the community and is also pretty much a daily struggle because so many hate houserules regardless of if they help or hinder. People buy models based on how viable a list it makes them and they get very cranky when your houserule abomination (as they call it) makes their investment less viable.
Its amazing that one can play other games and not have this much of an issue as 40k and AOS but here we are and have been... pretty much for decades.
auticus wrote: That its a toolkit is its biggest positive, and also its biggest drawback at the same time due to houserule rage that a lot of people have.
"If it aint the official version of the game then its an abomination."
I understand that, but that's the thing- you gotta form your own community, within your local community.
When you're playing with your friend at the FLGS, and playing the game your way- you're gonna have that kid from Polar Express trying to 'correct' your agreed-upon rules and modifications to the game all the time. Even if you've told him "we've altered the rules for a reason, it's our way doing something different". And then when he persists, you can be a jerk.
YOU: "Well, do you want to play a game?"
HIM: "Well I will if-"
YOU: "Well good luck, I hope you find someone."
And then keep playing. For some reason, that always works and makes them get really quiet.
This brings up a point though.
Why SHOULD I have to have any discussion besides point level and missions?
I would ask why shouldn't you? It's a social game after all? This might be better suited to a topic all of its own. I mean, I understand the reason at face value but 40k has always seemed to make a big deal out of the "social contract" and setting expectations with your opponent, perhaps more than any other game I've ever seen in 20+ years. Especially with the rules in general, if you don't have a social agreement you can end up with lopsided games that nobody is happy with; you as the competitive player don't get a challenge, and your opponent as a non-competitive player gets steamrolled and feels like they wasted 3 hours.
auticus wrote: That its a toolkit is its biggest positive, and also its biggest drawback at the same time due to houserule rage that a lot of people have.
"If it aint the official version of the game then its an abomination."
I understand that, but that's the thing- you gotta form your own community, within your local community.
When you're playing with your friend at the FLGS, and playing the game your way- you're gonna have that kid from Polar Express trying to 'correct' your agreed-upon rules and modifications to the game all the time. Even if you've told him "we've altered the rules for a reason, it's our way doing something different". And then when he persists, you can be a jerk.
YOU: "Well, do you want to play a game?"
HIM: "Well I will if-"
YOU: "Well good luck, I hope you find someone."
And then keep playing. For some reason, that always works and makes them get really quiet.
This brings up a point though.
Why SHOULD I have to have any discussion besides point level and missions?
I would ask why shouldn't you? It's a social game after all? This might be better suited to a topic all of its own. I mean, I understand the reason at face value but 40k has always seemed to make a big deal out of the "social contract" and setting expectations with your opponent, perhaps more than any other game I've ever seen in 20+ years. Especially with the rules in general, if you don't have a social agreement you can end up with lopsided games that nobody is happy with; you as the competitive player don't get a challenge, and your opponent as a non-competitive player gets steamrolled and feels like they wasted 3 hours.
Which means the social contract only exists because of poor balance.
Talking to your opponent usually has little to do with balance but more with which kind of mission would you like, what's the story behind the battle, which scenario rules are in play, which terrain rules do you use and so on.
If you don't want to do that, just play an eternal war or ITC game.
Sgt. Cortez wrote: Talking to your opponent usually has little to do with balance but more with which kind of mission would you like, what's the story behind the battle, which scenario rules are in play, which terrain rules do you use and so on.
If you don't want to do that, just play an eternal war or ITC game.
Right, so I should only need to discuss points and mission as long as everything is balanced. Making up a story is an excuse for poorly done armies.
Sgt. Cortez wrote: Talking to your opponent usually has little to do with balance but more with which kind of mission would you like, what's the story behind the battle, which scenario rules are in play, which terrain rules do you use and so on.
If you don't want to do that, just play an eternal war or ITC game.
Some people want a relationship, some want a one night stand. Slayer-Fan wants a gloryhole.
Galef wrote: "Complex" might not be the right word. 40K is quite simple to understand. Both the basic concepts and the levels of Faction specific add-ons.
Too "Diverse" is probably the better word. There are just too many factions and special snowflake rules that make the game hard to balance. Index 40K was fairly balanced, if a bit over-costed in some areas.
But once all the Codices started dropping adding Faction abilities, Stratagems, WL traits and Relics, all that "Diversity" instantly threw out any hope of having an ideal balance for competitive play.
There will ALWAYS be rules/abilities that are just plain better than others when you add on that much extra stuff.
-
Too diverse, bloated, or cluttered is an apt way to describe 40k at present. There are few unique mechanics- in the name of "simplicity" "ease" or whatever the rationale is in the design studio- we have a plethora of variations on the same half dozen or so rules. There are too many factions, as well. DW, Inqusition, Custodes, Assassins and (sorry) GK don't quite belong on the large-scale battlefield according to their own fluff, and I think could be better executed in something like KT.
I truly think GW is making a honest effort to slowly tweak things that are over/under powered (even if there are some glaringly obvious things that they haven't done that most of us agree should be done).
I've played since 4E and 8E is by far my favorite edition so far.
That approach is problematic. 40k cannot be improved by small changes made at a snail's pace. The game needs to be examined holistically, and rewritten in its entirety to provide a fun, engaging, tactical and balanced experience. GW has existed for 30+ years and despite their many shortcomings, are a leader in their industry. Why do we, the players, continue to accept and excuse their ineptitude and poor choices instead of expecting better? If any other company behaved as GW does, if they repeatedly lied to us, disappointed us, overcharged us, would we be so forgiving as to praise them for every small step?
An Actual Englishman wrote: Or, crazy thought I know, they could split their resources more evenly so all factions get a decently sized release every year?! Instead of releasing 50 lieutenants with Primaris coming out the wazoo already.
I don't think it's unreasonable and I have this opinion and I don't think there are only 2 options as you claim.
Do you understand that the design time required to make 5 different lieutenants is probably much less than it takes to make a single unit of another faction right?
Marines not only sell extremely well, but they are also made to be easy to design. They are very modular.
Key word there is 'probably'. Surely it takes the exact same amount of time to produce a character from one faction as it does another? The Space Wolf lieutenant is significantly different compared to the generic and the BA and the DA versions.
I dare say it takes time to make a new unit, but you're cpsring apples and oranges. Any kit for any faction can be designed to be modular. Look at the Ork Boyz kit for reference.
auticus wrote: That its a toolkit is its biggest positive, and also its biggest drawback at the same time due to houserule rage that a lot of people have.
"If it aint the official version of the game then its an abomination."
I understand that, but that's the thing- you gotta form your own community, within your local community.
When you're playing with your friend at the FLGS, and playing the game your way- you're gonna have that kid from Polar Express trying to 'correct' your agreed-upon rules and modifications to the game all the time. Even if you've told him "we've altered the rules for a reason, it's our way doing something different". And then when he persists, you can be a jerk.
YOU: "Well, do you want to play a game?"
HIM: "Well I will if-"
YOU: "Well good luck, I hope you find someone."
And then keep playing. For some reason, that always works and makes them get really quiet.
This brings up a point though.
Why SHOULD I have to have any discussion besides point level and missions?
I would ask why shouldn't you? It's a social game after all? This might be better suited to a topic all of its own. I mean, I understand the reason at face value but 40k has always seemed to make a big deal out of the "social contract" and setting expectations with your opponent, perhaps more than any other game I've ever seen in 20+ years. Especially with the rules in general, if you don't have a social agreement you can end up with lopsided games that nobody is happy with; you as the competitive player don't get a challenge, and your opponent as a non-competitive player gets steamrolled and feels like they wasted 3 hours.
Which means the social contract only exists because of poor balance.
While on the right track, I think this is backwards. GW designs their game with a social contract in mind first.
Warhammer 40,000 is not, despite what many of us (including myself) have mistaken it for at times, a game designed around competitive pickup play, and never has been. It has always been a game more about providing a framework to play with toys with pals than about playing a balanced challenge of generalship as a tactical combat sim. The very first versions of the game required a 3rd player GM. The game has had many longstanding "opponent's permission" rules. Much of the content GW releases hs 0% relevance for competitive play.
Ultimately, a competitive and tightly balanced wargame is not what GW offers. They're giving us Garry's Mod and half of us have been using it to play a hamfisted version of Counterstrike. It can do that to some extent, but not really as well, and was never intended to be the perfect system for such.
It would be nice if they put more effort into that area, but from.GW's perspective, the social contract is the starting point of the game, not an afterthought balance mechanism.
New Chaos models have been trickling in through alternate game systems like Blackstone and none of them have really moved the needle. Regardless, compared to the release of the Codex it's practically a flood, SM Codex had all the Primaris stuff (opinions on the efficacy of these models notwithstanding), CSM Codex had an Exalted Champion for which I didn't even need to buy a model. I am cautiously optimistic about the new models and units, honestly it was about time, CSM has been using the same stable of units for a really long time.
The state of the game is evolving, and honestly, as much as I bitch, at least they're slowly tweaking it, which is more than they've ever done before, so that's something, even if they still have some fairly obvious problem units.
auticus wrote: That its a toolkit is its biggest positive, and also its biggest drawback at the same time due to houserule rage that a lot of people have.
"If it aint the official version of the game then its an abomination."
I understand that, but that's the thing- you gotta form your own community, within your local community.
When you're playing with your friend at the FLGS, and playing the game your way- you're gonna have that kid from Polar Express trying to 'correct' your agreed-upon rules and modifications to the game all the time. Even if you've told him "we've altered the rules for a reason, it's our way doing something different". And then when he persists, you can be a jerk.
YOU: "Well, do you want to play a game?"
HIM: "Well I will if-"
YOU: "Well good luck, I hope you find someone."
And then keep playing. For some reason, that always works and makes them get really quiet.
This brings up a point though.
Why SHOULD I have to have any discussion besides point level and missions?
I would ask why shouldn't you? It's a social game after all? This might be better suited to a topic all of its own. I mean, I understand the reason at face value but 40k has always seemed to make a big deal out of the "social contract" and setting expectations with your opponent, perhaps more than any other game I've ever seen in 20+ years. Especially with the rules in general, if you don't have a social agreement you can end up with lopsided games that nobody is happy with; you as the competitive player don't get a challenge, and your opponent as a non-competitive player gets steamrolled and feels like they wasted 3 hours.
I don't play games to entertain my opponent, I play them for my own enjoyment. Claiming gaming is a "social contract" is a way of attempting to exert control over your opponent and prevent them from using units, cards, or tactics that one personally dislikes playing against, limiting their fun. Pre-game negotiating, outside of my or a buddy's home, too easily becomes an exercise in who can limit their opponent's enjoyment of the game before it even starts. I'm happy to socialize during games, but pre-game has no business going through committee.
auticus wrote: That its a toolkit is its biggest positive, and also its biggest drawback at the same time due to houserule rage that a lot of people have.
"If it aint the official version of the game then its an abomination."
I understand that, but that's the thing- you gotta form your own community, within your local community.
When you're playing with your friend at the FLGS, and playing the game your way- you're gonna have that kid from Polar Express trying to 'correct' your agreed-upon rules and modifications to the game all the time. Even if you've told him "we've altered the rules for a reason, it's our way doing something different". And then when he persists, you can be a jerk.
YOU: "Well, do you want to play a game?"
HIM: "Well I will if-"
YOU: "Well good luck, I hope you find someone."
And then keep playing. For some reason, that always works and makes them get really quiet.
This brings up a point though.
Why SHOULD I have to have any discussion besides point level and missions?
I would ask why shouldn't you? It's a social game after all? This might be better suited to a topic all of its own. I mean, I understand the reason at face value but 40k has always seemed to make a big deal out of the "social contract" and setting expectations with your opponent, perhaps more than any other game I've ever seen in 20+ years. Especially with the rules in general, if you don't have a social agreement you can end up with lopsided games that nobody is happy with; you as the competitive player don't get a challenge, and your opponent as a non-competitive player gets steamrolled and feels like they wasted 3 hours.
I don't play games to entertain my opponent, I play them for my own enjoyment. Claiming gaming is a "social contract" is a way of attempting to exert control over your opponent and prevent them from using units, cards, or tactics that one personally dislikes playing against, limiting their fun. Pre-game negotiating, outside of my or a buddy's home, too easily becomes an exercise in who can limit their opponent's enjoyment of the game before it even starts. I'm happy to socialize during games, but pre-game has no business going through committee.
Sgt. Cortez wrote: Talking to your opponent usually has little to do with balance but more with which kind of mission would you like, what's the story behind the battle, which scenario rules are in play, which terrain rules do you use and so on.
If you don't want to do that, just play an eternal war or ITC game.
Some people want a relationship, some want a one night stand. Slayer-Fan wants a gloryhole.
Sgt. Cortez wrote: Talking to your opponent usually has little to do with balance but more with which kind of mission would you like, what's the story behind the battle, which scenario rules are in play, which terrain rules do you use and so on.
If you don't want to do that, just play an eternal war or ITC game.
Some people want a relationship, some want a one night stand. Slayer-Fan wants a gloryhole.
It has always been a game more about providing a framework to play with toys with pals than about playing a balanced challenge of generalship as a tactical combat sim.
Which always astounds me how everyone flocks to 40k and AOS for tournament play, despite there being much better competitive options for that style of play.
auticus wrote: That its a toolkit is its biggest positive, and also its biggest drawback at the same time due to houserule rage that a lot of people have.
"If it aint the official version of the game then its an abomination."
I understand that, but that's the thing- you gotta form your own community, within your local community.
When you're playing with your friend at the FLGS, and playing the game your way- you're gonna have that kid from Polar Express trying to 'correct' your agreed-upon rules and modifications to the game all the time. Even if you've told him "we've altered the rules for a reason, it's our way doing something different". And then when he persists, you can be a jerk.
YOU: "Well, do you want to play a game?"
HIM: "Well I will if-"
YOU: "Well good luck, I hope you find someone."
And then keep playing. For some reason, that always works and makes them get really quiet.
This brings up a point though.
Why SHOULD I have to have any discussion besides point level and missions?
I would ask why shouldn't you? It's a social game after all? This might be better suited to a topic all of its own. I mean, I understand the reason at face value but 40k has always seemed to make a big deal out of the "social contract" and setting expectations with your opponent, perhaps more than any other game I've ever seen in 20+ years. Especially with the rules in general, if you don't have a social agreement you can end up with lopsided games that nobody is happy with; you as the competitive player don't get a challenge, and your opponent as a non-competitive player gets steamrolled and feels like they wasted 3 hours.
I don't play games to entertain my opponent, I play them for my own enjoyment. Claiming gaming is a "social contract" is a way of attempting to exert control over your opponent and prevent them from using units, cards, or tactics that one personally dislikes playing against, limiting their fun. Pre-game negotiating, outside of my or a buddy's home, too easily becomes an exercise in who can limit their opponent's enjoyment of the game before it even starts. I'm happy to socialize during games, but pre-game has no business going through committee.
Weird, cuz I play games to have a good time with my buddies, and saying "hey man, I'd rather not play against 2000 pts of tournament prep but would rather play like, mono codex or something" shouldn't be looked down on. Your not limiting your opponents fun, your making it better for both of you. If one of you isn't having any fun, neither of you are.
Xenomancers wrote: LOL - Some people get it. The game is making tons of money so it's in a good place. Balance be damned.
To be fair, it couldn't be doing so well money-wise if it wasn't doing something good game-wise.
Are there still balance issues? You betcha, but it's far more balanced than so, so many of the prior editions.
I think the biggest issue people struggle with is that they really hoped 8E was going to be the end-all, be-all edition for balance.
And honestly, I feel that is always going to result in a let-down. There are just too many factions/models and rules to ever have an air-tight balance 40K edition.
But 8E has certainly made it closer than any prior edition and continues to tweak for said balance. Enough people recognize this that the sales have been positively impacted.
Ergo, 40K is in a pretty good place
Thanks for the good laugh! I really needed it.
-
Well all we really want is an honest attempt. Infantry at 4 ppm while a termagant and a conscript is 4ppm is NOT an honest attempt. DW ammo is not an honest attempt. I agree the game is probably the most balanced it has been except perhaps the prevalence of double moves and free actions (possibly the most busted stuff to ever exist in this game) saying your game is more balanced than previous editions of 40k isn't saying too much. Their tweaks IMO have done more harm than good. The game was the most fun during index 40k.
How common were abilities to fight twice/shoot twice/get free actions in previous editions. Not to mention first turn charging. This stuff ranged from IMPOSSIBLE - to extremely rare in previous editions. At least in 7th eddition you knew you weren't getting charged turn 1. At least in 7th eddition you had to roll to get your psychic powers. Now you can start the game automatically with Quicken/Protect/Fortune/Doom AUTOMATICALLY. I'm not singling out Eldar here just using them as an example. Many aspects on 8th eddition are better for balance like cover being +1 armor instead of a 4++ save. The elements I pointed out above are actually less balanced than before.
Pleasestop wrote: Weird, cuz I play games to have a good time with my buddies, and saying "hey man, I'd rather not play against 2000 pts of tournament prep but would rather play like, mono codex or something" shouldn't be looked down on. Your not limiting your opponents fun, your making it better for both of you. If one of you isn't having any fun, neither of you are.
Weird, that goes both ways. When I have a limited number of times to test out ideas before a tournament I tend to want to test things out, get familiar with the beats of the army, see what needs to be tweaked, that shouldn't be looked down on. You're not disrespecting your opponent's time, you're respecting your own.
There is no social contract for competitive play. The competitive scene has taken to creating its own missions and its own terrain rules and effectively a house rules packet.
Judging by the proliferation of tournaments and attendance at these events this is what people want to play. However there are WAY more people playing 40k outside of competitive. I think its fundamentally wrongto assume that there should not be a social contract in a non competitive game. If you go to a local game store for pickup games and you are playing competitive then you have by default made a social contract to do so.
As a casual game 40k is probably in a better place than its ever been. As a competitive game with house rules like the ITC then its definitely in the best place its ever been.
auticus wrote: That its a toolkit is its biggest positive, and also its biggest drawback at the same time due to houserule rage that a lot of people have.
"If it aint the official version of the game then its an abomination."
I understand that, but that's the thing- you gotta form your own community, within your local community.
When you're playing with your friend at the FLGS, and playing the game your way- you're gonna have that kid from Polar Express trying to 'correct' your agreed-upon rules and modifications to the game all the time. Even if you've told him "we've altered the rules for a reason, it's our way doing something different". And then when he persists, you can be a jerk.
YOU: "Well, do you want to play a game?"
HIM: "Well I will if-"
YOU: "Well good luck, I hope you find someone."
And then keep playing. For some reason, that always works and makes them get really quiet.
This brings up a point though.
Why SHOULD I have to have any discussion besides point level and missions?
I would ask why shouldn't you? It's a social game after all? This might be better suited to a topic all of its own. I mean, I understand the reason at face value but 40k has always seemed to make a big deal out of the "social contract" and setting expectations with your opponent, perhaps more than any other game I've ever seen in 20+ years. Especially with the rules in general, if you don't have a social agreement you can end up with lopsided games that nobody is happy with; you as the competitive player don't get a challenge, and your opponent as a non-competitive player gets steamrolled and feels like they wasted 3 hours.
I don't play games to entertain my opponent, I play them for my own enjoyment. Claiming gaming is a "social contract" is a way of attempting to exert control over your opponent and prevent them from using units, cards, or tactics that one personally dislikes playing against, limiting their fun. Pre-game negotiating, outside of my or a buddy's home, too easily becomes an exercise in who can limit their opponent's enjoyment of the game before it even starts. I'm happy to socialize during games, but pre-game has no business going through committee.
Weird, cuz I play games to have a good time with my buddies, and saying "hey man, I'd rather not play against 2000 pts of tournament prep but would rather play like, mono codex or something" shouldn't be looked down on. Your not limiting your opponents fun, your making it better for both of you. If one of you isn't having any fun, neither of you are.
That right there is what I take issue with. I play to have a good time as well. My buddies aren't into tabletop gaming, so pickup games are all I got. I can't do anything about my opponent's enjoyment outside of not being a jerk. I have no control over what anyone else likes or dislikes. If they don't like something, they don't like it. I don't ask others not to use certain units, or a specific deck because I play poorly against it- I usually treat it as an opportunity to get a game in and to improve. If someone whines about what I brought in that day because they can't figure out how to beat it, I'm not going to say "Oh, okay, I'll just not play X, I'll put my favorite Y away in my limited spare time to suit you and your own deficiencies."
It's easy to blame other players. That's the trend: if there is something one personally dislikes- more often than not because they don't know how to defeat it, therefore they frequently lose against it- it becomes personal. If I were to play say, a storm deck or imperial CP soup- that becomes a character flaw I possess, rather than an issue of game design. Players prefer to blame other players, because acknowledging that many of these issues stem from decisions made by the company that produces said game leads to admitting one's own responsibility in financially supporting practices one does not like. Which leads to changing one's own behavior. Hence the "unfunning" of gaming.
It has always been a game more about providing a framework to play with toys with pals than about playing a balanced challenge of generalship as a tactical combat sim.
Which always astounds me how everyone flocks to 40k and AOS for tournament play, despite there being much better competitive options for that style of play.
There are a lot of reasons for this, but for most 40k is the only option for something like that. The other games often don't have a local scene, or have an extremely small one. Trying to get people into something other than 40k is hard, and it has nothing to do with game quality unfortunately.
Nithaniel wrote: There is no social contract for competitive play. The competitive scene has taken to creating its own missions and its own terrain rules and effectively a house rules packet.
^^^^competitive 40k has basically spun off its own versions of the game at this point that is something different than what GW sells.
Nithaniel wrote: There is no social contract for competitive play. The competitive scene has taken to creating its own missions and its own terrain rules and effectively a house rules packet.
Judging by the proliferation of tournaments and attendance at these events this is what people want to play. However there are WAY more people playing 40k outside of competitive. I think its fundamentally wrongto assume that there should not be a social contract in a non competitive game. If you go to a local game store for pickup games and you are playing competitive then you have by default made a social contract to do so.
As a casual game 40k is probably in a better place than its ever been. As a competitive game with house rules like the ITC then its definitely in the best place its ever been.
There is no need for the discussion to go down this path but if the games options are reasonably balanced like the quote "the game is in a good place" should suggest - you wouldn't need a social contract to play a certain kind of army. If the game was actually in a good place - you could play a fluff list vs Ynnari and have a chance. Currently you would have 0 chance.
It has always been a game more about providing a framework to play with toys with pals than about playing a balanced challenge of generalship as a tactical combat sim.
Which always astounds me how everyone flocks to 40k and AOS for tournament play, despite there being much better competitive options for that style of play.
There are a lot of reasons for this, but for most 40k is the only option for something like that. The other games often don't have a local scene, or have an extremely small one. Trying to get people into something other than 40k is hard, and it has nothing to do with game quality unfortunately.
Nithaniel wrote: There is no social contract for competitive play. The competitive scene has taken to creating its own missions and its own terrain rules and effectively a house rules packet.
^^^^competitive 40k has basically spun off its own versions of the game at this point that is something different than what GW sells.
Pretty much. Competitive 40k has done everything possible to *remove* the social contract and anything which isn't "who brought the better list"
It has yes. Competitive 40k is a sibling to most every other game's standard mode. You go in, you have points and standard missions, and you just simply play.
People don't want to socialize, they want to play a game.
There is no positive or negative lean when I say that. It just is.
Competitive 40k (and competitive aos, and competitive every other game) is for many folks the default of their community.
It has always been a game more about providing a framework to play with toys with pals than about playing a balanced challenge of generalship as a tactical combat sim.
Which always astounds me how everyone flocks to 40k and AOS for tournament play, despite there being much better competitive options for that style of play.
There are a lot of reasons for this, but for most 40k is the only option for something like that. The other games often don't have a local scene, or have an extremely small one. Trying to get people into something other than 40k is hard, and it has nothing to do with game quality unfortunately.
Nithaniel wrote: There is no social contract for competitive play. The competitive scene has taken to creating its own missions and its own terrain rules and effectively a house rules packet.
^^^^competitive 40k has basically spun off its own versions of the game at this point that is something different than what GW sells.
Pretty much. Competitive 40k has done everything possible to *remove* the social contract and anything which isn't "who brought the better list"
There really is nothing wrong with that though is there? Someone decides to run a tournament. They decide the rules and charge you to play. If you don't like it create your own tournament.
At least thats what TO's say.
Or if you don't like it go play somewhere else and talk to your opponent about the way you want to play...social contract!
If I didn't want to socialize, I wouldn't be playing 40k. I certainly wouldn't be traveling to tournaments.
If you want the modeling and setups, but not the social, you can just set up dioramas in your basement.
If you want a tactical challenge, video games do that *much* better than tabletop wargames.
If you want to prove your superiority, just about any other pursuit (sports, PvP video games, board games, professional skills, anything really) does that better.
So why play 40k, a meatspace game with other people, if you don't want to interact with other people?
Nithaniel wrote: There is no social contract for competitive play. The competitive scene has taken to creating its own missions and its own terrain rules and effectively a house rules packet.
Judging by the proliferation of tournaments and attendance at these events this is what people want to play. However there are WAY more people playing 40k outside of competitive. I think its fundamentally wrongto assume that there should not be a social contract in a non competitive game. If you go to a local game store for pickup games and you are playing competitive then you have by default made a social contract to do so.
As a casual game 40k is probably in a better place than its ever been. As a competitive game with house rules like the ITC then its definitely in the best place its ever been.
There is no need for the discussion to go down this path but if the games options are reasonably balanced like the quote "the game is in a good place" should suggest - you wouldn't need a social contract to play a certain kind of army. If the game was actually in a good place - you could play a fluff list vs Ynnari and have a chance. Currently you would have 0 chance.
Here's the thing, people are looking at this social contract thing as if GW were using it as a backstop against poor balance. They're not. They're making a game with a wide variety of disparate forces covering an entire galaxy with different scales, purposes, and mechanisms. They're saying "here is this universe, go play in it" in a very wide open manner so they can make minis of anything they want from that universe, and leave it up to the customers to decide how to use them.
The factions available in 40k often dont make a lot of sense as a wargame, the scale and purposes of these factions and units don't mesh terribly well. We have conventional armies fighting pitched battles with stealthy pirates fighting gibbering invasions of worldplagues being faced by the equivalent of law enforcement agencies. It's like doing a WW2 game and having distinct and separate faction lists for the US Army, The Tuskeegee Airmen, US Marines, US Navy, 1st Armored, OSI, 101st Airborne, the FBI, the Wehrmacht, the SS, the 6th Army in 1940, the Red Army, the NKVD, the 1st Ukrainian Front, the Kwangtung Army, Soviet Partisans, Italian Bersaglieri, the Vercor Resistance, and the BEF, all fighting on the same battlespace and objectives largely completely divorced from their actual context. These factions make a lot more sense in an RPG lite sandbox sim however where people make up their own stories and scenarios or where a 3rd player GM is handling stuff.
The social contract element is there because GW is basically using the game as a mechanism for interacting with the universe in a manner the players find interesting and crafted to their taste, as opposed to the game being the point in and of itself and having to rely on a social contract to fix their bad balance. Unfortunately a lot of gameplay for people is only available via pickup play which defaults to basically tournament standards, and that's just not the core of what GW sells with 40k.
Bharring wrote: If I didn't want to socialize, I wouldn't be playing 40k. I certainly wouldn't be traveling to tournaments.
If you want the modeling and setups, but not the social, you can just set up dioramas in your basement.
If you want a tactical challenge, video games do that *much* better than tabletop wargames.
If you want to prove your superiority, just about any other pursuit (sports, PvP video games, board games, professional skills, anything really) does that better.
So why play 40k, a meatspace game with other people, if you don't want to interact with other people?
Believe it or not but this happens in video games too. SC2 had a huge uproar on release about whether the community should shun the influx of new people who did not say "GLHF" at the start of a match or "GG" at the end. It was a serious controversy because Western Brood War had been so small and insular a community that they had created a list of social norms and expectations. When SC2 had breakout popularity (that since faltered but existed initially) the new people had no knowledge of any of that and just wanted to play a game without really socializing.
40k is the same way. 8th is MASSIVELY popular and bringing more and more people to events. This is leading to new arrivals that break the social contracts of a previously insular community (both our global community and each local FLGS community). Lots of these new people just want to play and aren't necessarily in the bag for weaving through a new social system. It's not for you or anyone else to tell them to go play something else because you, subjectively, think it's a better venue for their desires. The best we can do is just recognize lots of different types of players now play this game and try to find ways to easily identify each other so that we do not have matches where player expectations are mismatched (and thus cause the friction we regularly see).
40K is good in dakka dakka breaks down to:
- The vast majority of people.. 8th is fun and enjoyable. Love it.
- GW sales are much higher with it.
- Huge increase in tournaments and competitive play.
- Large diversity in factions and play.
10 people on Dakkadakka…
- It sucks and is terriblebad. RUIN is Nigh! Why won’t you believe us? Yer so dumb!
Wayniac wrote:Pretty much. Competitive 40k has done everything possible to *remove* the social contract and anything which isn't "who brought the better list"
Aye, and for that type of gameplay, that's fine and even a good thing, but does rely on the acknowledgement that it's different from the base game, and I wish some of the tournament stuff was a bit more cognizant of that sometimes (both for how they impact nontournament play and how they can go farther in some changes that they shouldnt be beholden to).
auticus wrote:It has yes. Competitive 40k is a sibling to most every other game's standard mode. You go in, you have points and standard missions, and you just simply play.
People don't want to socialize, they want to play a game.
There is no positive or negative lean when I say that. It just is.
Competitive 40k (and competitive aos, and competitive every other game) is for many folks the default of their community.
This is how I got into 40k and played it for most of my gaming career. I still dont think its bad, its still mostly what I play, but I do have to acknowledge that its not really what GW caters to. It took me a long while to realize how GW actually envisions their game being played.
- It sucks and is terriblebad. RUIN is Nigh! Why won’t you believe us? Yer so dumb!
We're too deficient to be able to see past the marketing flash. GW have us enthralled with magic and stuff. Our feeble minds just can't comprehend what they're doing to us.
Bharring wrote: If I didn't want to socialize, I wouldn't be playing 40k. I certainly wouldn't be traveling to tournaments.
If you want the modeling and setups, but not the social, you can just set up dioramas in your basement.
That depends on how you define "socialize." Does chatting with your opponent during the game count?
If you want a tactical challenge, video games do that *much* better than tabletop wargames.
Aren't they both equally bad at providing a strategic experience these days? Video games have devolved into a vehicle for impulse purchases at the cost of strategy, immersion and depth. LOL, Overwatch and the like are more digital drugs than games.
If you want to prove your superiority, just about any other pursuit (sports, PvP video games, board games, professional skills, anything really) does that better.
PVP games are the leading cause of an increasing number of crappy video games. Fast-paced, a strong desire to win that can be monetized, etc.
So why play 40k, a meatspace game with other people, if you don't want to interact with other people?
Because I like to unplug from time to time, and enjoy strategy games that allow me to play with minis I built and painted myself? Because I can "interact" with people in various ways, including but not limited to debating on what the rules say and how to apply them?
This isn't directed at you, but why is a dislike of pre-game negotiation equated with not wanting to be social? What about the part where you actually, you know, play?
Pleasestop wrote: Weird, cuz I play games to have a good time with my buddies, and saying "hey man, I'd rather not play against 2000 pts of tournament prep but would rather play like, mono codex or something" shouldn't be looked down on. Your not limiting your opponents fun, your making it better for both of you. If one of you isn't having any fun, neither of you are.
Weird, that goes both ways. When I have a limited number of times to test out ideas before a tournament I tend to want to test things out, get familiar with the beats of the army, see what needs to be tweaked, that shouldn't be looked down on. You're not disrespecting your opponent's time, you're respecting your own.
Right, which was my point ? We should have aconversation before we play so we don't waste each other's time? If I bring a fun list and you bring a vagkicker all that's going to happen is your going to kick my in my bag for three hours, and neither of us have had fun, and you don't know if your list is tournament ready.
So, social contract -- a simple, hey let's play a [blank style] pickup game, with these conditions [tournament, casual, narrative] stops unfun games and wasted games. Like, maybe I want to play Scions because I've been painting them for a while and they haven't seen any play lately, and you want to play a vagkicking Prep List with a Castellan, a smash captain and a Guard battalion to get ready for a tournament. One of us either needs to change our list or we need to find another game. But not discussing it beforehand and assuming everyone is playing for the same reason is a Competitive at all Costs mind set or a Casual at all costs mindset, and it hurts the Community.
To borrow from a different type of game which is still a social experience, tabletop RPGs.
What is the more fun aspect of playing an RPG with people, playing the game or trying to unravel unclear rules? Which of those gives better social interactions between players?
This idea that bad rules writing and game design can be handwaved away because it encourages social interaction is terrible.
Clear rules allows people to get down to the business of playing the game and socially interacting in a way that is much more fulfilling than "This rule doesn't work as it is written, this is how I think it should be played".
- It sucks and is terriblebad. RUIN is Nigh! Why won’t you believe us? Yer so dumb!
We're too deficient to be able to see past the marketing flash. GW have us enthralled with magic and stuff. Our feeble minds just can't comprehend what they're doing to us.
Really, I think it mostly comes down to priorities. GW games are so ubiquitous you can find opponents just about anywhere. Trying to play anything else often means building the community for that game yourself, which can be difficult and time-consuming. Just getting friends to try something new is akin to Sisyphus. At the end of the day, I think GW's presence, and people's love of buying new minis are what keep GW around. If a tighter, more balanced, more tactical game was the #1 priority of the player base, we would have one. People, and miniature or CCG players especially, prioritize acquiring new stuff over longterm goals such as better gameplay.
auticus wrote:It has yes. Competitive 40k is a sibling to most every other game's standard mode. You go in, you have points and standard missions, and you just simply play.
People don't want to socialize, they want to play a game.
There is no positive or negative lean when I say that. It just is.
Competitive 40k (and competitive aos, and competitive every other game) is for many folks the default of their community.
This brings up the divide amongst gamers. For some strange reason we have grouped ourselves into tribes named Casual or Competitive and treat the other tribe with hostility, because those people play the game the wrong way. The false dichotomy has been tremendously unhelpful. A game can be played both at home with friends or at a tournament, and provide a quality experience if it is well-written. Not caring so much about winning as having a laugh is not a sin. A person taking their minis to a tournament most likely does so because they actually enjoy that level of competition. Making any game tighter, clearer and more balanced does not necessarily hurt the enjoyment of the "beer and pretzels" crowd. Our interests are not at odds.
I think people is using "social contract" here to define different things. Some people use it to refer to talking with your opponent about the competitive game you are gonna have. Other people is using it to refer to actually chosing if you are gonna play competitive, or a narrative game, what narrative are you gonna do, etc...
As Vaktati says, the fact that many people doesnt even thinks outside the competitive side of play is a proof that they dont quite understand how GW sees his own game, no matter how much double marketing speech about matched play they do.
(And this is not an excuse of bad balance,)
Pleasestop wrote: Weird, cuz I play games to have a good time with my buddies, and saying "hey man, I'd rather not play against 2000 pts of tournament prep but would rather play like, mono codex or something" shouldn't be looked down on. Your not limiting your opponents fun, your making it better for both of you. If one of you isn't having any fun, neither of you are.
Weird, that goes both ways. When I have a limited number of times to test out ideas before a tournament I tend to want to test things out, get familiar with the beats of the army, see what needs to be tweaked, that shouldn't be looked down on. You're not disrespecting your opponent's time, you're respecting your own.
Right, which was my point ? We should have aconversation before we play so we don't waste each other's time? If I bring a fun list and you bring a vagkicker all that's going to happen is your going to kick my in my bag for three hours, and neither of us have had fun, and you don't know if your list is tournament ready.
So, social contract -- a simple, hey let's play a [blank style] pickup game, with these conditions [tournament, casual, narrative] stops unfun games and wasted games. Like, maybe I want to play Scions because I've been painting them for a while and they haven't seen any play lately, and you want to play a vagkicking Prep List with a Castellan, a smash captain and a Guard battalion to get ready for a tournament. One of us either needs to change our list or we need to find another game. But not discussing it beforehand and assuming everyone is playing for the same reason is a Competitive at all Costs mind set or a Casual at all costs mindset, and it hurts the Community.
Why do you place the responsibility for a fun game solely on players? It rests with the company that produces that game, and trades it with you in return for an amount of money- which represents the time and effort of your labor- more than anyone else. It is unacceptable that there is a need to have these discussions before playing. Games Workshop has existed since the 1970's. The have been making Warhammer 40,000 for 25-30 years. They have never produced a high-quality ruleset. Their prices are astronomical. The onus is on Games Workshop, Plc. to provide a balanced, functional ruleset. It is absolutely not the responsibility of the players to repair a damaged product.
Why is there a double standard for GW? If it was Mantic, Privateer Press, Corvus Belli, or Fantasy Flight, would we be so forgiving? After having decades to get it right?
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Galas wrote: I think people is using "social contract" here to define different things. Some people use it to refer to talking with your opponent about the competitive game you are gonna have. Other people is using it to refer to actually chosing if you are gonna play competitive, or a narrative game, what narrative are you gonna do, etc...
As Vaktati says, the fact that many people doesnt even thinks outside the competitive side of play is a proof that they dont quite understand how GW sees his own game, no matter how much double marketing speech about matched play they do.
(And this is not an excuse of bad balance,)
You're right, GW is clueless about how people play their games, and what they want in their games. They are so locked into their narrow mindset of how they believe the game is played that it doesn't even occur to them to ask their own players how they experience it. They don't even realize that 40k, KT, AOS, etc. are terrible narrative games! But we like the background and acquiring new minis, so we keep them in business anyway, and continue to complain and have these discussions. Thus the cycle continues.
Galas wrote: I think people is using "social contract" here to define different things. Some people use it to refer to talking with your opponent about the competitive game you are gonna have. Other people is using it to refer to actually chosing if you are gonna play competitive, or a narrative game, what narrative are you gonna do, etc...
As Vaktati says, the fact that many people doesnt even thinks outside the competitive side of play is a proof that they dont quite understand how GW sees his own game, no matter how much double marketing speech about matched play they do.
(And this is not an excuse of bad balance,)
The flip side to that is that playing narrative is just this massive land of the unknown, players often take the 'let's play narrative' as an opportunity to put all kinds of weird crap on the table. That doesn't even get into the library's worth of alternate stratagems, setups, table styles, objectives. A lot of times I just want to play Matched because I know what's going to be on the table, I know what the rules are going to be, I don't have to spend 20 minutes reading the scenario and all the associated strats before starting the game.
If you play... Guard / Ynnari / Tau, the game is a great, great place.
If you play... Orks, Knights, Genestealer Cults, Eldars; the game is in a pretty darn good spot.
If you play... Deathwatch, Tyranids, Thousand Sons, Deathwatch; the game is in a good spot.
If you play... Necrons, Ultramarines, Chaos Space Marines; the game could use some improvement.
If you play... Grey Knights, Space Wolves, Dark Angels, or Codex Marines that aren't blue; the game is pointless to even try.
The problem right now is the delta between the haves and the have not's is extreme. And in some cases the matchups are just brutally punishing and un-fun. For example, run a competitive triple riptide Tau list against your buddies competitive Necrons list. It's a joke of a game. Or, run that same Tau list against anything marines that isn't Deathwatch. This is a problem.
Xenomancers wrote: LOL - Some people get it. The game is making tons of money so it's in a good place. Balance be damned.
To be fair, it couldn't be doing so well money-wise if it wasn't doing something good game-wise.
Are there still balance issues? You betcha, but it's far more balanced than so, so many of the prior editions.
I think the biggest issue people struggle with is that they really hoped 8E was going to be the end-all, be-all edition for balance.
And honestly, I feel that is always going to result in a let-down. There are just too many factions/models and rules to ever have an air-tight balance 40K edition.
But 8E has certainly made it closer than any prior edition and continues to tweak for said balance. Enough people recognize this that the sales have been positively impacted.
Ergo, 40K is in a pretty good place
-
Well all we really want is an honest attempt. Infantry at 4 ppm while a termagant and a conscript is 4ppm is NOT an honest attempt. DW ammo is not an honest attempt. I agree the game is probably the most balanced it has been except perhaps the prevalence of double moves and free actions (possibly the most busted stuff to ever exist in this game) saying your game is more balanced than previous editions of 40k isn't saying too much. Their tweaks IMO have done more harm than good. The game was the most fun during index 40k.
Look at an army like GK - how hard is it to drop all their units by 20% so they can compete? It takes practically no time at all.
Xenomancers wrote: LOL - Some people get it. The game is making tons of money so it's in a good place. Balance be damned.
To a fish, a flood is a real estate boom.
To a company, a record-breakingly profitable game is an incredibly healthy one.
It is record-breakingly profitable, because GW is supporting it - or in spite of that?
Can anyone actually answer this question? I don't even think it's possible at this point. GW's clientele is a marvel of humanity.
The us economy has been quite strong for the past 4 ish years after we recovered from the 08 crash. Considering how much of a luxury the hobby is, gels products are very vulnerable to market shifts, and some of the good years we have been experiencing is due to strong economics. I just hop gw is remembering to insolate itself from the bad years. A lot of companies don’t to squeeze out more short term profit. I’d warrent some of the dumber and shitier descions of the end of the Kirby era were driven in part from a loss of profit because of the 08 crash
Reemule wrote: 40K is good in dakka dakka breaks down to:
- The vast majority of people.. 8th is fun and enjoyable. Love it.
- GW sales are much higher with it.
- Huge increase in tournaments and competitive play.
- Large diversity in factions and play.
10 people on Dakkadakka…
- It sucks and is terriblebad. RUIN is Nigh! Why won’t you believe us? Yer so dumb!
"The vast majority of people"- prove it. What source exists that can provide this data? We have little good information on 8th's popularity past sales and tournament attendance. Yes, they have increased, but is that because 8th is amazing, or because it's merely better than scatterbikes?
Diversity in factions is one thing, list diversity is another. To my knowledge, there is little variation in viable, game-winning armies.
Being in a minority of opinion does not make someone wrong. See: The Bandwagon Fallacy.
Your straw man and unsubstantiated claims do nothing but make you look uninformed and foster more division.
Reemule wrote: 40K is good in dakka dakka breaks down to:
- The vast majority of people.. 8th is fun and enjoyable. Love it.
- GW sales are much higher with it.
- Huge increase in tournaments and competitive play.
- Large diversity in factions and play.
10 people on Dakkadakka…
- It sucks and is terriblebad. RUIN is Nigh! Why won’t you believe us? Yer so dumb!
"The vast majority of people"- prove it. What source exists that can provide this data? We have little good information on 8th's popularity past sales and tournament attendance. Yes, they have increased, but is that because 8th is amazing, or because it's merely better than scatterbikes?
Diversity in factions is one thing, list diversity is another. To my knowledge, there is little variation in viable, game-winning armies.
Being in a minority of opinion does not make someone wrong. See: The Bandwagon Fallacy.
Your straw man and unsubstantiated claims do nothing but make you look uninformed and foster more division.
People that leave a game tend not to come back (and stick) when it goes from garbage to barely acceptable. They tend to just stay away or quickly leave again.
Ultimately these are your casual players, quitting the game and raging. Competitive players that travel to tournaments (like myself) have about 10,000 points ready to go for about 3 competitive armies at once. I can run a competitive Tyranids list, i can run a competitive Eldar list, and i'm going to be buying about 2500 points of competitive Tau in the next week or so. This is on top of my 2k Ultramarines, and 4,000 points of space wolves.
This gives me some perspective.
It's easy to think back on games i've played, and see how different lists i run would measure up. I went 5-1 with my Eldar at LVO. How would i realistically have done with any of my other armies? It's not that hard to see. Tyranids get mopped up game 1 pretty quick because they can't threaten Guard + Knights, whereas my DE won it handsomely. My Space Wolves get trounced mercilessly. Ultramarines could win if they go first. Game 2, is a slugfest. Tyranids have an easier time than Eldar because of the melee focus of the mission and the map. Hive Guard really come up big here, as well. An easier win for Nids than Eldar. Space Wolves lose horribly providing little resistance. Game 3, this is game that only is winnable by my DE. Classic Guard Brigade + Knights. It crushes every other army of mine without breaking a sweat. Double firing wyverns with rerolls? Catachan guardsmen throwing out buckets of dice? on top of imperial knights? Nah. Space wolves lose before the models hit the table. Tyranids run into a meatgrinder. Game 4, winnable by Tyranids, but difficult. Lacking overall cover, but the ability to wrap around and tie things up in the list, as well as leverage hidden hive guard in a relatively central spot would get me the win on points pretty easy. A horrible loss for the space wolves though, because they don't have mortal wounds and it was needed here, as well as the ability to deal with volume shooting. Game 5, my only loss, none of my armies win this fight. My DE may have a chance but i'd need more terrain to beat such a brutal copy-pasta meta list. It was planet bowling ball and i got fethed up. Game 6, I won so badly with my DE, it would have been a bit tougher for my Nids, but in the end i think they pull it out. Space Wolves lose badly.
I mean it's not really that hard. I'm also building my Tau list thinking about how it would handle these matchups. I also do the same with my matchups from SoCal, where I did very well, or some of my more difficult RTT wins.
So when I say "marines other than deathwatch suck," i'm basing that on personal experience as well as the data which supports it. And, I also don't really care if there's a resolution, being 100% honest, because I can still crush it in tournaments with any one of my armies, and still play my marines in casual clownshoes games / narrative games. I am not at all emotionally invested in the outcome of marine balance and will still enjoy the game the way i enjoy it.
A friend of mine said to me at the start of 8th, "overall the changes in balance will affect you less and less as you will eventually have every single army." And, it's the truth. Except i won't have chaos. Because it's either Loyalist Marines or Xenos. Guard and Chaos can feth right off, 0 interest in ever touching those factions.
The good news is that Warhammer 40,000 is in a pretty good place at the moment, so there won’t be any seismic changes, just a handful of balancing tweaks.
Would you agree with that sentiment? Why or why not?
Also, do you think that limiting soup/CP/detachments/etc. (any such myriad of changes to end the Loyal 32 powering a Castellan) counts as "balancing tweak" or "seismic change"? In other words, is it something we are likely to see?
Its in a good place I'd say but still needs a lot of work done to getting it where it should. I see this edition as the last, I think GW are just going to continue to tincker with it, which is what I hope they do. Changing the game has proven a failure in the past, every change requires new changes in the future and its always been that way. They need to stick with a basic game concept and just tinker with it until they get it right. With every edition that has changed the rules to large degree has produced super cheesy units, unbalanced armies etc. and then they change it 'to fix it' and the same thing happens again.
The divide, issue, conflict, whatever we want to call it comes from players that are not interested in collectiing a bunch of factions that are over optimal to compete in tournaments.
For one, armies are expensive. For two, painting an entire army is a long project.
So bearing those two things in mind, a lot of people go "wow I really like that faction" and then buy the models they like and then put months into painting them only to discover that they are trash in the game.
So that causes rage, irritation, a feeliing of wasting ones time, and a sense of loss due to the game designers not only having a hard time with external balance, but certainly with internal balance (as I often hear, well you like that faction? then you run this mono build of course, its not that hard!)
If one just tosses dice for lolz they won't care.
If one is looking to play a somewhat fun even game with the models that they like, this is the keystone of most of the conflict I have found.
Back in the beginning for me I just rotated through power armies as well. I didn't really start appreciating the other side of the fence until all of the factions and models that I have an attachment to all became garbage and I had to start playing with factions that I had no interest in just to not get rolled.
For one, armies are expensive. For two, painting an entire army is a long project.
These are both relative statements.
I would say armies aren't really expensive, because you can negotiate usually around 20% off even if you're buying it all brand new from a shop if you are spending over $500, since it'll be mostly ordered anyway, so it's pure margin for the seller and he doesn't need to risk stocking his shelves with that stuff. If you get some of the models that are monopose on ebay or second hand, it can be annoying to paint them sometimes (paint then assemble, it's the secret to success), but you'll save money hand over fist. This is also not bad if you have a bunch of bits leftover, because you can easily do some quick surgery to make them what you want.
And, if you own a couple good airbrushes and a compressor you can do a fantastic job in a couple months. If you buy something you're going to love painting or really want to paint it's actually a quite enjoyable process. Painting and basing is now one of my favorite parts of the hobby. Prior to airbrushing i hated painting.
This requires you plan out your purchases way, WAY in advance. Because you buy once and then you don't for 6+ months. But you will save a lot.
Buying an army piecemeal from a shop, slowly collecting over a year or so? That is the literal most expensive way to do this hobby.
Pleasestop wrote: Weird, cuz I play games to have a good time with my buddies, and saying "hey man, I'd rather not play against 2000 pts of tournament prep but would rather play like, mono codex or something" shouldn't be looked down on. Your not limiting your opponents fun, your making it better for both of you. If one of you isn't having any fun, neither of you are.
Weird, that goes both ways. When I have a limited number of times to test out ideas before a tournament I tend to want to test things out, get familiar with the beats of the army, see what needs to be tweaked, that shouldn't be looked down on. You're not disrespecting your opponent's time, you're respecting your own.
Right, which was my point ? We should have aconversation before we play so we don't waste each other's time? If I bring a fun list and you bring a vagkicker all that's going to happen is your going to kick my in my bag for three hours, and neither of us have had fun, and you don't know if your list is tournament ready.
So, social contract -- a simple, hey let's play a [blank style] pickup game, with these conditions [tournament, casual, narrative] stops unfun games and wasted games. Like, maybe I want to play Scions because I've been painting them for a while and they haven't seen any play lately, and you want to play a vagkicking Prep List with a Castellan, a smash captain and a Guard battalion to get ready for a tournament. One of us either needs to change our list or we need to find another game. But not discussing it beforehand and assuming everyone is playing for the same reason is a Competitive at all Costs mind set or a Casual at all costs mindset, and it hurts the Community.
Why do you place the responsibility for a fun game solely on players? It rests with the company that produces that game, and trades it with you in return for an amount of money- which represents the time and effort of your labor- more than anyone else. It is unacceptable that there is a need to have these discussions before playing. Games Workshop has existed since the 1970's. The have been making Warhammer 40,000 for 25-30 years. They have never produced a high-quality ruleset. Their prices are astronomical. The onus is on Games Workshop, Plc. to provide a balanced, functional ruleset. It is absolutely not the responsibility of the players to repair a damaged product.
Why is there a double standard for GW? If it was Mantic, Privateer Press, Corvus Belli, or Fantasy Flight, would we be so forgiving? After having decades to get it right?
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Galas wrote: I think people is using "social contract" here to define different things. Some people use it to refer to talking with your opponent about the competitive game you are gonna have. Other people is using it to refer to actually chosing if you are gonna play competitive, or a narrative game, what narrative are you gonna do, etc...
As Vaktati says, the fact that many people doesnt even thinks outside the competitive side of play is a proof that they dont quite understand how GW sees his own game, no matter how much double marketing speech about matched play they do.
(And this is not an excuse of bad balance,)
You're right, GW is clueless about how people play their games, and what they want in their games. They are so locked into their narrow mindset of how they believe the game is played that it doesn't even occur to them to ask their own players how they experience it. They don't even realize that 40k, KT, AOS, etc. are terrible narrative games! But we like the background and acquiring new minis, so we keep them in business anyway, and continue to complain and have these discussions. Thus the cycle continues.
Regardless of the game, you should be having a discussion beforehand!
My win-all-the-prizes list for Xwing is a lot different then my "let's play the movies!" List, and what I bring is obviously dependent on what we are trying to get tout of it. Is it just a fun evening out or am I preparing to go up against the top players in the world? Cuz thats going to determine how hard we both go.
The same goes for Warmahordes, though I don't play enough infinity, so I can't seitch between casual, play what we have and have fun to competitive let's try and steamroll each other and habe fun, since I don't have the amount of experience or models necessary, which means that conversation is even more important! Because a pickup game without establishing that I'm a newbie would just result in my getting my butt handed to mr and neither of us having fun at all.
This exists regardless of setting, and is why videogames have both casual and ladder online, so if your looking for a hardcore good time, you head into ladder and progress to your max skill level, but if you just want to good off and have fun, you head to the nonladder games.
This exists regardless of setting, and is why videogames have both casual and ladder online, so if your looking for a hardcore good time, you head into ladder and progress to your max skill level, but if you just want to good off and have fun, you head to the nonladder games.
This is exactly correct.
Just in 40k, you should have separate armies for both goals.
I have my casual armies, and i have my competitive armies. Bringing my Eldar to a casual game is bad form, and I don't do it.
This exists regardless of setting, and is why videogames have both casual and ladder online, so if your looking for a hardcore good time, you head into ladder and progress to your max skill level, but if you just want to good off and have fun, you head to the nonladder games.
This is exactly correct.
Just in 40k, you should have separate armies for both goals.
I have my casual armies, and i have my competitive armies. Bringing my Eldar to a casual game is bad form, and I don't do it.
Nonsense, I'll play competitive with my under-balanced armies, Especially with orks because if you have fun WAAAGH!ing you never lose.
Delvarus Centurion wrote: Nonsense, I'll play competitive with my under-balanced armies, Especially with orks because if you have fun WAAAGH!ing you never lose.
This is precisely why I bust out my 2 Lord of Skulls with my Thousand Sons Battalion every once in awhile. It's not a world beater, but it's almost impossible for my opponent to prevent me from enjoying a few moments of glorious carnage, and it's a lot of fun.
Delvarus Centurion wrote: Nonsense, I'll play competitive with my under-balanced armies, Especially with orks because if you have fun WAAAGH!ing you never lose.
This is precisely why I bust out my 2 Lord of Skulls with my Thousand Sons Battalion every once in awhile. It's not a world beater, but it's almost impossible for my opponent to prevent me from enjoying a few moments of glorious carnage, and it's a lot of fun.
Exactly, If I can get Kharn near enough to my opponents HQ and defeat him in CC, I don't really care if I win,
Xenomancers wrote: LOL - Some people get it. The game is making tons of money so it's in a good place. Balance be damned.
To be fair, it couldn't be doing so well money-wise if it wasn't doing something good game-wise. Are there still balance issues? You betcha, but it's far more balanced than so, so many of the prior editions.
I think the biggest issue people struggle with is that they really hoped 8E was going to be the end-all, be-all edition for balance. And honestly, I feel that is always going to result in a let-down. There are just too many factions/models and rules to ever have an air-tight balance 40K edition.
But 8E has certainly made it closer than any prior edition and continues to tweak for said balance. Enough people recognize this that the sales have been positively impacted. Ergo, 40K is in a pretty good place
Thanks for the good laugh! I really needed it. -
Well all we really want is an honest attempt. Infantry at 4 ppm while a termagant and a conscript is 4ppm is NOT an honest attempt. DW ammo is not an honest attempt. I agree the game is probably the most balanced it has been except perhaps the prevalence of double moves and free actions (possibly the most busted stuff to ever exist in this game) saying your game is more balanced than previous editions of 40k isn't saying too much. Their tweaks IMO have done more harm than good. The game was the most fun during index 40k.
How common were abilities to fight twice/shoot twice/get free actions in previous editions. Not to mention first turn charging. This stuff ranged from IMPOSSIBLE - to extremely rare in previous editions. At least in 7th eddition you knew you weren't getting charged turn 1. At least in 7th eddition you had to roll to get your psychic powers. Now you can start the game automatically with Quicken/Protect/Fortune/Doom AUTOMATICALLY. I'm not singling out Eldar here just using them as an example. Many aspects on 8th eddition are better for balance like cover being +1 armor instead of a 4++ save. The elements I pointed out above are actually less balanced than before.
Man are you seriously implying that a puny shoot/fight twice is among the most broken things this game ever had?
You are talking about 40K! This game has known invisible 2++ rerollable units! At some point we had infantry weapons which could destroy an entire army in a single shot!
Xenomancers wrote: LOL - Some people get it. The game is making tons of money so it's in a good place. Balance be damned.
To be fair, it couldn't be doing so well money-wise if it wasn't doing something good game-wise.
Are there still balance issues? You betcha, but it's far more balanced than so, so many of the prior editions.
I think the biggest issue people struggle with is that they really hoped 8E was going to be the end-all, be-all edition for balance.
And honestly, I feel that is always going to result in a let-down. There are just too many factions/models and rules to ever have an air-tight balance 40K edition.
But 8E has certainly made it closer than any prior edition and continues to tweak for said balance. Enough people recognize this that the sales have been positively impacted.
Ergo, 40K is in a pretty good place
Thanks for the good laugh! I really needed it.
-
Well all we really want is an honest attempt. Infantry at 4 ppm while a termagant and a conscript is 4ppm is NOT an honest attempt. DW ammo is not an honest attempt. I agree the game is probably the most balanced it has been except perhaps the prevalence of double moves and free actions (possibly the most busted stuff to ever exist in this game) saying your game is more balanced than previous editions of 40k isn't saying too much. Their tweaks IMO have done more harm than good. The game was the most fun during index 40k.
How common were abilities to fight twice/shoot twice/get free actions in previous editions. Not to mention first turn charging. This stuff ranged from IMPOSSIBLE - to extremely rare in previous editions. At least in 7th eddition you knew you weren't getting charged turn 1. At least in 7th eddition you had to roll to get your psychic powers. Now you can start the game automatically with Quicken/Protect/Fortune/Doom AUTOMATICALLY. I'm not singling out Eldar here just using them as an example. Many aspects on 8th eddition are better for balance like cover being +1 armor instead of a 4++ save. The elements I pointed out above are actually less balanced than before.
Man are you seriously implying that a puny shoot/fight twice is among the most broken things this game ever had?
You are talking about 40K!
This game has known invisible 2++ rerollable units! At some point we had infantry weapons which could destroy an entire army in a single shot!
Yeah I am saying that. Whats more stupid? being practically indestructible with 1 unit or doubling /tripling your damage with a huge units due to stratagems and spells letting you shoot twice / wound better - or heck just getting these abilities for free lol. You can be the judge.
How is that any different from a 3++ 28 wound knight or 2+/3++ 2 wound shinning spears with -2/-3 to hit? Both are basically impossible to kill.
Automatically Appended Next Post: The point is this game isn't really balanced. It has way too powerful combos that are only available to certain armies. The ones that don't have these abilities are seriously underpowered compared to the ones that do.
It doesn't really matter if 8th is more or less balanced than 7th. It's still a very poorly balanced game.
auticus wrote: The divide, issue, conflict, whatever we want to call it comes from players that are not interested in collectiing a bunch of factions that are over optimal to compete in tournaments.
For one, armies are expensive. For two, painting an entire army is a long project.
So bearing those two things in mind, a lot of people go "wow I really like that faction" and then buy the models they like and then put months into painting them only to discover that they are trash in the game.
The issue is that they are rather different mindsets - so its weird to mix them together.
"I pick any old faction cos I like the looks - then I end up in a super competitive meta where its all Ynnari possibly with Eldar flying circuses, and Guardsmen+Knights as far as the eye can see."
I know Marmatag tends to go "that's how it is round me" - but for most people it isn't. You are either playing very competitive games, attending tournaments semi-regularly and chasing the meta accordingly - or you are playing other people typically with sub-optimised lists and if you are endlessly losing thats probably more on you than your faction.
Things are miles closer than they have ever been for random stuff versus random stuff. Does that mean better optimised lists tend to win over suboptimised lists? Sure - but how on earth could it ever be otherwise?
Doesn't mean I don't think Ynnari, the Castelan and Guardsmen could do with a nerf and some units could still do with a buff - but its still the best edition.
" 2+/3++ 2 wound shinning spears with -2/-3 to hit?"
-9 Shining Spears
-Warlock for Protect
-Warlock for Conceal
-Get both powers off
-CP for LQR
-Being Alaitoc
-Being outside 12" from all threats, while being within 6" to shoot and close enough to charge
VS:
-Seer Council
-Farseer
-Archon w/Shadowfield
-Get Fortune off
-Can split off into 3
The first is much more likely to fail one of the conditions, and is somehow both within 6" and outside 12" at the same time.
The game isn't balanced. Chess isn't balanced. But Chess is more balanced than 40k 8th Ed. However, 8th ed being unbalanced *doesn't* mean its even less balanced than 7th.
"Whats more stupid? being practically indestructible with 1 unit or doubling /tripling your damage with a huge units due to stratagems and spells letting you shoot twice / wound better "
Depends on the details.
A 13-man Seer Council and friends (or large CentStar) representing half your list being practically unkillable is certainly more impactful than a 20-man Guardian squad shooting twice. But are you seriously arguing 7th Ed didn't have shoot twice/move twice/fight twice?
The issue is that they are rather different mindsets - so its weird to mix them together.
"I pick any old faction cos I like the looks - then I end up in a super competitive meta where its all Ynnari possibly with Eldar flying circuses, and Guardsmen+Knights as far as the eye can see."
I know Marmatag tends to go "that's how it is round me" - but for most people it isn't. You are either playing very competitive games, attending tournaments semi-regularly and chasing the meta accordingly - or you are playing other people typically with sub-optimised lists and if you are endlessly losing thats probably more on you than your faction.
I always take issue with this though because where's the proof that's not how most people are? My meta is like Marmatag's, for example. It's cutthroat tournament practice and tournaments 24/7.
I find as me and my friends get older and we went from Rogue Trader all the way through to now we look for all our units to pretty much do what they always have done with a tweak here or there.
We are looking for a "simple" 40k simulator for our units to beat the heck out of each other.
Our armies have got to rather "Apocalypse" levels of volume and quality.
Some simplification and less fussing over silly details like killing the closest model rather than kill a model in a unit is helpful (thinking of the dreaded 6th/7th there).
We save our more competitive gaming for games that are frankly more worthy of those efforts.
40k is all about the spectacle of the thing and with all the massive D6 rolling, the only real tactics are to try to buff or auto-hit/wound/AP/1st turn charge as much as possible.
The Orks vs Imperial Guard has been insane carnage as of late.
I would say the rules are "serviceable" and meet the need, I REALLY want random/alternating unit activation however... badly.
I pretty much stopped playing between 2012-2017 and sold 2 decades of white dwarf magazines.
I would say that the company GW is handling communication MUCH better since the Kirby years and have pumped out many units/armies people have wanted to see.
Sick and tired of people moaning about 1st turn charges and fighting twice. Shooting has been dominant for so long and (still is). Its not easy to 1st turn charge now, you had your golden age so please stop moaning because it falls on death ears, with people that have been playing CC armies since the end of the genestealer glory days. Shooting was horrifically overpowered and is still overpowered.
Blastaar wrote: I don't play games to entertain my opponent, I play them for my own enjoyment. Claiming gaming is a "social contract" is a way of attempting to exert control over your opponent and prevent them from using units, cards, or tactics that one personally dislikes playing against, limiting their fun. Pre-game negotiating, outside of my or a buddy's home, too easily becomes an exercise in who can limit their opponent's enjoyment of the game before it even starts. I'm happy to socialize during games, but pre-game has no business going through committee.
There's a line between "negotiation of your opponent's models" and "trying to make some tool with a Knight Crusader understand that it's not very fun to play a 500-point game against him when all you've got is a couple of squads of Marines". And I mean, that's a line big enough that it might as well pass for a 4-lane highway, and you can't really miss it.
You play to have fun, okay- fine. Well, so does the other person, and if they're not having fun and you don't care about trying to have a somewhat-balanced challenge, well... I don't think you'd be that kind of guy, but I can tell you- that kind of guy is the one that usually sits in the corner, alone, ignored, on his big case of models that never get on the table because he comes off as a putz.
Why SHOULD I have to have any discussion besides point level and missions?
Because you're enjoying a social activity involving other people. And if they're not enjoying it, they're going to stop playing with you. And then word will travel fast. And then, again, see above- sitting alone in a corner with your models.
You know, if you're only out for your own personal enjoyment- I can recommend another activity that isn't anywhere as expensive as 40k, you just need some tissues and an internet connection, and it helps to have a lock on your door. It's really fun, I do it all the time.
You know, when I see these "it's all about my experience", I start to realize why a lot of FLGS's smell like the inside of Chewbacca's foreskin on a hot day of butt-stuff.
Adeptus Doritos wrote: "trying to make some tool with a Knight Crusader understand that it's not very fun to play a 500-point game against him when all you've got is a couple of squads of Marines".
Ah yes, because taking a list that is "too powerful" is TFG behavior. Do you also feel that the guy with only a couple of squads of marines is a tool because he is bringing a weak list instead of something that can take on a knight? Or is only one player expected to take on the burden of adjusting their list to match the opponent?
Because you're enjoying a social activity involving other people.
Plenty of social gaming activities don't require nearly as much pre-game negotiation over how competitive you're "allowed" to be. The fault here is GW's alone.
auticus wrote: Which always astounds me how everyone flocks to 40k and AOS for tournament play, despite there being much better competitive options for that style of play.
Because some people take more pride in 'being the winner' than 'earning a victory', and there's a huge difference. Sort of like 'getting money' and 'earning a paycheck'.
These are the same people that would start a fist-fight with someone who has rickets arms and brag about it like they took out Floyd Mayweather, but the moment an able-bodied man their own size shows up and cracks his knuckles they scurry away like rats.
I doubt the two I've previously mentioned come near that, but you'd be shocked at how common it is. And I am, fortunately, in a position to chase those types out of our local community like the disease-ridden rats they are.
Blastaar wrote: I don't play games to entertain my opponent, I play them for my own enjoyment. Claiming gaming is a "social contract" is a way of attempting to exert control over your opponent and prevent them from using units, cards, or tactics that one personally dislikes playing against, limiting their fun. Pre-game negotiating, outside of my or a buddy's home, too easily becomes an exercise in who can limit their opponent's enjoyment of the game before it even starts. I'm happy to socialize during games, but pre-game has no business going through committee.
There's a line between "negotiation of your opponent's models" and "trying to make some tool with a Knight Crusader understand that it's not very fun to play a 500-point game against him when all you've got is a couple of squads of Marines". And I mean, that's a line big enough that it might as well pass for a 4-lane highway, and you can't really miss it.
You play to have fun, okay- fine. Well, so does the other person, and if they're not having fun and you don't care about trying to have a somewhat-balanced challenge, well... I don't think you'd be that kind of guy, but I can tell you- that kind of guy is the one that usually sits in the corner, alone, ignored, on his big case of models that never get on the table because he comes off as a putz.
Why SHOULD I have to have any discussion besides point level and missions?
Because you're enjoying a social activity involving other people. And if they're not enjoying it, they're going to stop playing with you. And then word will travel fast. And then, again, see above- sitting alone in a corner with your models.
You know, if you're only out for your own personal enjoyment- I can recommend another activity that isn't anywhere as expensive as 40k, you just need some tissues and an internet connection, and it helps to have a lock on your door. It's really fun, I do it all the time.
You know, when I see these "it's all about my experience", I start to realize why a lot of FLGS's smell like the inside of Chewbacca's foreskin on a hot day of butt-stuff.
I can socially interact with them DURING the game. I shouldn't have to do it beforehand like with literally any other game. I haven't had to have ONE pregame discussion when I played MtG, Yugioh, or during the year I played Warmahordes.
auticus wrote: Which always astounds me how everyone flocks to 40k and AOS for tournament play, despite there being much better competitive options for that style of play.
Because some people take more pride in 'being the winner' than 'earning a victory', and there's a huge difference. Sort of like 'getting money' and 'earning a paycheck'.
These are the same people that would start a fist-fight with someone who has rickets arms and brag about it like they took out Floyd Mayweather, but the moment an able-bodied man their own size shows up and cracks his knuckles they scurry away like rats.
I doubt the two I've previously mentioned come near that, but you'd be shocked at how common it is. And I am, fortunately, in a position to chase those types out of our local community like the disease-ridden rats they are.
Ah yes, play the game YOUR way or you don't get to play at all!
Adeptus Doritos wrote: "trying to make some tool with a Knight Crusader understand that it's not very fun to play a 500-point game against him when all you've got is a couple of squads of Marines".
Ah yes, because taking a list that is "too powerful" is TFG behavior. Do you also feel that the guy with only a couple of squads of marines is a tool because he is bringing a weak list instead of something that can take on a knight? Or is only one player expected to take on the burden of adjusting their list to match the opponent?
Because you're enjoying a social activity involving other people.
Plenty of social gaming activities don't require nearly as much pre-game negotiation over how competitive you're "allowed" to be. The fault here is GW's alone.
Are you seriously arguing that it's reasonable to take a knight in a 500 point game? Or that people a 500 point list that can't beat a knight is automatically weak as a result?
And yeah, actually, plenty of social games often include an element of pre-game discussion of expectations (or an unspoken agreement of the same) - have you never played a board game with house rules, or played a shooting game with a group that discouraged spawncamping with a sniper, or agreed not to use a broken character in a fighting game etc? These are pretty common things for a lot of people across a lot of games.
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: I can socially interact with them DURING the game. I shouldn't have to do it beforehand like with literally any other game. I haven't had to have ONE pregame discussion when I played MtG, Yugioh, or during the year I played Warmahordes.
Yeah, I'm calling BS on this. I don't know warmahordes, but I know both MTG and Yugioh have several different formats with different banlists. If you don't agree the format ahead of time, the game's almost certain to be heavily unbalanced - if one person brought a Standard deck and the other brought a Legacy deck for MTG, the game would be far less balanced than even the most extreme 40K matchup.
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: I can socially interact with them DURING the game. I shouldn't have to do it beforehand like with literally any other game. I haven't had to have ONE pregame discussion when I played MtG, Yugioh, or during the year I played Warmahordes.
So why is 40k exempt?
40k is not 'exempt'. If you're playing in a tournament, or you're making it clear that you're playing in the same competitive manner as a tournament would be- then this is how you SHOULD be playing. You don't want people tailoring their list to your tournament build, it's going to throw off your testing.
For a friendly pick-up game, even with a stranger- where the goal is for both of you to have a pretty solid match-up and have fun, it's a bit wise to talk to them beforehand if you plan on bringing anything other than the 'take all comers' sort of combo for a casual game.
You can feel free to do things how you like. If your mentality is "I bring what I want, I don't care if it's balanced so that me and my opponent both have fun, it's about what I want", then I only hope that others share that same mindset where you play so that you can enjoy lots of games your way. Otherwise, well- look on the bright side, with the very few times you'll take your models out of the case- it'll feel like they're new every time!
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: Ah yes, play the game YOUR way or you don't get to play at all!
Oh, never once did I say you had to do this. At all.
But, play the way that is reasonable to my standards, or you don't get to play with me. And every person I know feels the same way.
Yes, you are playing to have fun. I want you to have fun. But I also want to have fun. So we need to help each other out with that, and if you can't do it- it's very easy for me to find a better match-up.
At best, you'd get that game where the whole purpose of the other player is to troll you and waste your time- usually by building a massive model count list of nothing but units that would be absolutely useless, and even then using them in the stupidest and most useless ways possible and marching them straight at you with the HQ's out front leading a conga-line. Then we'd all clap patronizingly and cheer for your 'win' and have a good laugh. Oh, well- you're not laughing? It's okay, I played that joke because -I- wanted to laugh, I shouldn't have had to concern myself with whether or not you'd think it was funny.
There's no 'social contact'. That's a stupid phrase. You're not 'bound' to do anything by any sort of 'agreement'.
But if you've not learned by now that when two people are doing a recreational activity together, it's not entirely about you and what you want it to be. Otherwise, I'll let you in on a secret: She'll eventually just stop faking the orgasms.
Aelyn wrote: Are you seriously arguing that it's reasonable to take a knight in a 500 point game? Or that people a 500 point list that can't beat a knight is automatically weak as a result?
He's got a weird fixation on me, it's like some kind of fetish where despite me not responding to him for months or even acknowledging him as a person- he just keeps on, and yes- he's arguing... well, let's put it this way, if I said "water is wet" he'd come in here screaming about how it's bone dry and then trying to get the thread closed with his bickering with everyone.
I have been behaving and not trying to get myself into more trouble, therefore 'not responding to him'- but I see what he says, and quite honestly I'm shocked that he's still allowed on this forum, because every single contribution he makes is to start an argument. At a certain point it's just absurd and disruptive and 'warnings' haven't worked, assuming he's had them.
Blastaar wrote: I don't play games to entertain my opponent, I play them for my own enjoyment. Claiming gaming is a "social contract" is a way of attempting to exert control over your opponent and prevent them from using units, cards, or tactics that one personally dislikes playing against, limiting their fun. Pre-game negotiating, outside of my or a buddy's home, too easily becomes an exercise in who can limit their opponent's enjoyment of the game before it even starts. I'm happy to socialize during games, but pre-game has no business going through committee.
There's a line between "negotiation of your opponent's models" and "trying to make some tool with a Knight Crusader understand that it's not very fun to play a 500-point game against him when all you've got is a couple of squads of Marines". And I mean, that's a line big enough that it might as well pass for a 4-lane highway, and you can't really miss it.
You play to have fun, okay- fine. Well, so does the other person, and if they're not having fun and you don't care about trying to have a somewhat-balanced challenge, well... I don't think you'd be that kind of guy, but I can tell you- that kind of guy is the one that usually sits in the corner, alone, ignored, on his big case of models that never get on the table because he comes off as a putz.
The thing is, the game should be balanced enough that these pre-game "hey, can you not take XYZ overpowered thing?" discussions aren't necessary. You want to blame the player for taking a strong list and. yes, some people are jerks and bring cheese to stomp people. But the crummy rules allow that to be an issue in the first place. Blaming players merely personalizes the issue and attempts to absolve one's responsibility in encouraging poor rules by financially supporting the company making them. If someone wants this to change they should not buy products from the company making the poor rules. Framing this as an issue of interpersonal player behavior distracts and solves nothing.
Adeptus Doritos it isn't worth it. I can admit, yeah, GW should balance their game better but theres no tabletop or wargame game where you can have a fun game with random people if you don't engage on it with the same mentality, be it fun relaxed play or competitive hardcore style.
Not Warmahordes, not Infinity, not X-Wing, not Malifaux. It is worse in GW, and it becomes worse the more unbalanced the game is. But this is the internet and Slayer-Fan won't settle for a balanced and reasonable middle ground.
Some people here work in absolutes just like Sith.
I stopped there. On that word, for a specific reason.
It "should be" and "what it is" are two different things, and explaining how it "should" be does not change the state of the game as it is now, with the current system. We could go all day long about what "should" be and probably agree on a lot of things- but again, that's not changing what "is" and right now- we have the game as it "is". Therefore, I intend to work with it as it "is" and adjust to that in order to enjoy the game until the recommendations for what the game "should" be become the way the game "is".
Galas wrote: Adeptus Doritos it isn't worth it. I can admit, yeah, GW should balance their game better but theres no tabletop or wargame game where you can have a fun game with random people if you don't engage on it with the same mentality, be it fun relaxed play or competitive hardcore style.
Not Warmahordes, not Infinity, not X-Wing, not Malifaux. It is worse in GW, and it becomes worse the more unbalanced the game is. But this is the internet and Slayer-Fan won't settle for a balanced and reasonable middle ground.
Some people here work in absolutes just like Sith.
So here's a question:
Is it okay for bad balance just because you should talk to your opponent first?
Adeptus Doritos wrote: "trying to make some tool with a Knight Crusader understand that it's not very fun to play a 500-point game against him when all you've got is a couple of squads of Marines".
Ah yes, because taking a list that is "too powerful" is TFG behavior. Do you also feel that the guy with only a couple of squads of marines is a tool because he is bringing a weak list instead of something that can take on a knight? Or is only one player expected to take on the burden of adjusting their list to match the opponent?
Because you're enjoying a social activity involving other people.
Plenty of social gaming activities don't require nearly as much pre-game negotiation over how competitive you're "allowed" to be. The fault here is GW's alone.
Are you seriously arguing that it's reasonable to take a knight in a 500 point game? Or that people a 500 point list that can't beat a knight is automatically weak as a result?
And yeah, actually, plenty of social games often include an element of pre-game discussion of expectations (or an unspoken agreement of the same) - have you never played a board game with house rules, or played a shooting game with a group that discouraged spawncamping with a sniper, or agreed not to use a broken character in a fighting game etc? These are pretty common things for a lot of people across a lot of games.
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: I can socially interact with them DURING the game. I shouldn't have to do it beforehand like with literally any other game. I haven't had to have ONE pregame discussion when I played MtG, Yugioh, or during the year I played Warmahordes.
Yeah, I'm calling BS on this. I don't know warmahordes, but I know both MTG and Yugioh have several different formats with different banlists. If you don't agree the format ahead of time, the game's almost certain to be heavily unbalanced - if one person brought a Standard deck and the other brought a Legacy deck for MTG, the game would be far less balanced than even the most extreme 40K matchup.
Formats only exist for particular tournaments and otherwise you follow the most current ban list for any pickup game. That's how it's always been. When was the last time you played?
Galas wrote: Some people here work in absolutes just like Sith.
I work in absolutes as well.
I absolutely don't have to play with someone whose focus is "I'm playing so I can have fun, I shouldn't have to work with you to have fun". I'm not so self-absorbed to believe removing myself from their pool of potential opponents is going to be detrimental. But I am pretty certain that if I was to be the first to step away from the table and refuse to play them, I'd probably not find myself alone for long. Just the way things work.
But I won't tell people how to play the game. I tell them how I play, and if they don't seem to care about my recreational enjoyment? Well, then I don't play with them at best, at worst I make them feel like they're wasting their time just like I am.
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Slayer-Fan123 wrote: Formats only exist for particular tournaments and otherwise you follow the most current ban list for any pickup game. That's how it's always been. When was the last time you played?
Saturday.
When was the last time you had someone just delighted to join you for a second game?
Don't answer that, we can both lie here and we'll never know otherwise. But I'll just hazard a guess to myself and I won't doubt it at all.
Aelyn wrote: Are you seriously arguing that it's reasonable to take a knight in a 500 point game?
Is it a legal list? Yes. Therefore it's reasonable.
Or that people a 500 point list that can't beat a knight is automatically weak as a result?
Yep. Or at least it's a list with a very back rock/paper/scissors matchup problem, assuming it's very strong against other 500 point lists.
And yeah, actually, plenty of social games often include an element of pre-game discussion of expectations (or an unspoken agreement of the same) - have you never played a board game with house rules, or played a shooting game with a group that discouraged spawncamping with a sniper, or agreed not to use a broken character in a fighting game etc? These are pretty common things for a lot of people across a lot of games.
Yes, there are badly designed games that require that discussion. Your FPS example is a great one. Spawn camping with sniper rifles is only a problem when poor design allows it to be a problem. Better map design breaks LOS around spawn points, has you spawn in unpredictable locations, etc. In a good game there's no discouragement necessary because the only people complaining about camping with sniper rifles are people who suck at the game and would rather whine and cry about losing than use the available counters to snipers.
Yeah, I'm calling BS on this. I don't know warmahordes, but I know both MTG and Yugioh have several different formats with different banlists. If you don't agree the format ahead of time, the game's almost certain to be heavily unbalanced - if one person brought a Standard deck and the other brought a Legacy deck for MTG, the game would be far less balanced than even the most extreme 40K matchup.
"Let's play standard" is hardly an extensive pre-game conversation.
Bharring wrote: " 2+/3++ 2 wound shinning spears with -2/-3 to hit?" -9 Shining Spears -Warlock for Protect -Warlock for Conceal -Get both powers off -CP for LQR -Being Alaitoc -Being outside 12" from all threats, while being within 6" to shoot and close enough to charge
VS: -Seer Council -Farseer -Archon w/Shadowfield -Get Fortune off -Can split off into 3
The first is much more likely to fail one of the conditions, and is somehow both within 6" and outside 12" at the same time.
The game isn't balanced. Chess isn't balanced. But Chess is more balanced than 40k 8th Ed. However, 8th ed being unbalanced *doesn't* mean its even less balanced than 7th.
"Whats more stupid? being practically indestructible with 1 unit or doubling /tripling your damage with a huge units due to stratagems and spells letting you shoot twice / wound better " Depends on the details. A 13-man Seer Council and friends (or large CentStar) representing half your list being practically unkillable is certainly more impactful than a 20-man Guardian squad shooting twice. But are you seriously arguing 7th Ed didn't have shoot twice/move twice/fight twice?
Well not as bad as Beaststart in 6th lol
20 4++ wounds, cant be shot at with outside of X range, Hit and run, multiply 2++ and 3++, +1 to going first, additional +1 to saves when in cover, Re-roll hit and run and dangerous, terrain test, gains PFP, and Re-roll all saves, yes all saves, finally +5 to run so turn 2 into combat no matter what. The key to it is, turn 1 you cant shoot it, and its almost unlimited movement once its into combat, the ability to charge, take almost 0 damage, deal lots of damage, and then run away in the direction you want is very strong.
For sure the strong deathstar in 40k history after 3rd (b.c i dont know anything about 2nd).
Shadowseer, Farseer, The Baron, 3 Beastmaster with 10 Khymerae and 2 Flocks (can have 5 BM's FYI), Archon, this was possible b.c 5th DE codex and new CWE 6th codex.
Galas wrote: Some people here work in absolutes just like Sith.
I work in absolutes as well.
I absolutely don't have to play with someone whose focus is "I'm playing so I can have fun, I shouldn't have to work with you to have fun". I'm not so self-absorbed to believe removing myself from their pool of potential opponents is going to be detrimental. But I am pretty certain that if I was to be the first to step away from the table and refuse to play them, I'd probably not find myself alone for long. Just the way things work.
But I won't tell people how to play the game. I tell them how I play, and if they don't seem to care about my recreational enjoyment? Well, then I don't play with them at best, at worst I make them feel like they're wasting their time just like I am.
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Slayer-Fan123 wrote: Formats only exist for particular tournaments and otherwise you follow the most current ban list for any pickup game. That's how it's always been. When was the last time you played?
Saturday.
When was the last time you had someone just delighted to join you for a second game?
Don't answer that, we can both lie here and we'll never know otherwise. But I'll just hazard a guess to myself and I won't doubt it at all.
I don't recognize most of my opponents outside a couple of friends. So I could've played the same person five times and not have realized. I also could've played a different opponent each time and never ran into the same person. With that said I'm sure I've had like a couple of "I remember you!" statements here and there.
I stopped there. On that word, for a specific reason.
It "should be" and "what it is" are two different things, and explaining how it "should" be does not change the state of the game as it is now, with the current system. We could go all day long about what "should" be and probably agree on a lot of things- but again, that's not changing what "is" and right now- we have the game as it "is". Therefore, I intend to work with it as it "is" and adjust to that in order to enjoy the game until the recommendations for what the game "should" be become the way the game "is".
Way to have a discussion, pal. You're rather angry about this, aren't you? Take a breath.
Right, I said should. Because the game as it is sucks, plain and simple. Shallow gameplay and shoddy balance are unacceptable. Being the person with the weaker army and needing to ask the other person to tone it down is one of many reasons I don't play anymore. That is how I deal with "what is." It isn't fun to be that guy, especially when most of the players at my former LGS had far more powerful armies than I did.
How do you enjoy a game that requires so many adjustments and haggling? Why bother with it at all, when there are many more enjoyable games out there? To dismiss where the game could be is to be complacent. 8th 40k is not some inevitable, immutable thing that will persist whether we like it or not- it isn't a natural law. it exists in this state because we allow it to. The game will never shift from "should" to 'is" if we don't discuss it, and change our own behavior. Change doesn't simply appear to people sitting on the couch. It happens because people make it happen.
Aelyn wrote: Are you seriously arguing that it's reasonable to take a knight in a 500 point game?
Is it a legal list? Yes. Therefore it's reasonable.
Or that people a 500 point list that can't beat a knight is automatically weak as a result?
Yep. Or at least it's a list with a very back rock/paper/scissors matchup problem, assuming it's very strong against other 500 point lists.
So legal and reasonable are equivalent? Does that mean any list which is illegal is automatically unreasonable?
And yeah, actually, plenty of social games often include an element of pre-game discussion of expectations (or an unspoken agreement of the same) - have you never played a board game with house rules, or played a shooting game with a group that discouraged spawncamping with a sniper, or agreed not to use a broken character in a fighting game etc? These are pretty common things for a lot of people across a lot of games.
Yes, there are badly designed games that require that discussion. Your FPS example is a great one. Spawn camping with sniper rifles is only a problem when poor design allows it to be a problem. Better map design breaks LOS around spawn points, has you spawn in unpredictable locations, etc. In a good game there's no discouragement necessary because the only people complaining about camping with sniper rifles are people who suck at the game and would rather whine and cry about losing than use the available counters to snipers.
There are plenty of other examples I could name for some very well loved games which are generally considered balanced and fair and yet which frequently involve pre-game conversations (playing rugby / american football at a local field and agreeing to play touch-contact instead of full-contact, handicaps in go, bidding conventions in bridge...) My point is that "benefits from pre-game discussion" and "badly-designed" are not even close to the same thing, and that reaching an understanding before a game of what people are trying to get out of it is hardly unique to 40K.
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: Formats only exist for particular tournaments and otherwise you follow the most current ban list for any pickup game. That's how it's always been. When was the last time you played?
Since I actually played? Two weeks ago, roughly. Maybe a month. But your comment shows a fundamental lack of understanding of how MTG works. There is no banlist for "pickup games" by default - formats are what define which sets are legal and which specific cards are banned, and it's (almost) unheard of for formats to exist for a single tournament. That's how it works now, and that's how it worked when I started playing 20 years ago.
I like your attempt to throw shade at me by implying I was out of touch, though.
Blastaar wrote: Way to have a discussion, pal. You're rather angry about this, aren't you? Take a breath.
The fact that people confuse 'being direct' with 'angry' makes me wonder if straightforward and honest people are just going extinct. If I were angry, you wouldn't be getting a response.
But then again, if something on an internet forum about plastic space war toys upsets me- I'm going to check to ensure I've not swapped around the asprin and adderall again.
I'll let you know when that happens again, because I assure you- things will get interesting for all of us because I usually pop 3 Asprin for a headache and wash it down with coffee... and you can imagine what mixing them up will do.
Blastaar wrote: Right, I said should. Because the game as it is sucks, plain and simple. Shallow gameplay and shoddy balance are unacceptable. Being the person with the weaker army and needing to ask the other person to tone it down is one of many reasons I don't play anymore. That is how I deal with "what is." It isn't fun to be that guy, especially when most of the players at my former LGS had far more powerful armies than I did.
Yep. But that's just what we've got to deal with until they finally get around to fixing the glaring problems with the game, and there's plenty that needs to be addressed. I'm not a fan of someone being able to stuff a Knight or a Baneblade into a 500-point game. I'm not okay that for just a bit more, you can take an entire army of nothing but tanks. I'm not a fan of the fact that for every glaring problem the game has, that there's someone making an excuse for being a WAAC-a-doodle and using the excuse that "It's legal and valid". Removed - BrookM
Now, there's something to be said about the dude that brings in the two squads of tactical marines that he built like they were on the box, and not stepping up his game. There's a reasonable expectation that he's got to improve and learn how the game works without having his hand held. He's got to learn to get a few more things so he can deal with more enemies- otherwise he'll just expect everyone to take it easy on him, until he meets the guy that plays a normal game and stomps him with little effort. So, let's admit it- there's a time to put on big boy undies and learn to stand own your own two feet.
Blastaar wrote: How do you enjoy a game that requires so many adjustments and haggling? Why bother with it at all, when there are many more enjoyable games out there? To dismiss where the game could be is to be complacent. 8th 40k is not some inevitable, immutable thing that will persist whether we like it or not- it isn't a natural law. it exists in this state because we allow it to. The game will never shift from "should" to 'is" if we don't discuss it, and change our own behavior. Change doesn't simply appear to people sitting on the couch. It happens because people make it happen.
Easy. It's a 3-step program.
1- I stop treating it like something it isn't- 40k is only "competitive" because the people who are competitive pretend it is. There's not a whole lot of tactical depth or strategic nuance to 40k, no one is pulling off some cunning ploy. When you get down to it, it's more about putting things in the right spot at the right time and rolling the right dice, and knowing what other peoples' toys can do. I mean, 'netlisting' is popular because it works and it wins a lot of times. It's a game, it has rules, but let's not sit here and make the card game "Bullsh*t" out to be "Baccarat". When it comes down to it, I've watched "Skilled tournament-winners" from 40k end up sucking their thumb in a corner after getting slapped around in a game of Infinity.
2- Get with people you know and try to find other people that want to enjoy the game as you do- which is, as I see it "a war toy game with some rules". It's not that hard, give it time and you'll get people sick and tired of the "competitive" meta. Oh, yeah- and the "competitive" meta will usually lie and pretend they aren't WAAC players after a while to hide themselves, but rest assured when it comes time for a friendly game- they're throwing their tournament list down. Essentially, it's like being a Pool Shark... but for 40k. Which I guess makes one 'a nippy little goldfish', because it's not even that serious.
3- Make a private club, group, etc. or simply build our own community and start gatekeeping. And I don't care what anyone says about gatekeeping being 'bad', there's a lot of valid reasons to refuse association with someone. Start pushing out people who want to exploit a flawed system for the sake of winning, cultivate people who want to enjoy the game- and those people can be competitive, there's a lot of good competitive people out there.
Now, I get to ask you a question.
If you think the game is so awful right now- what the hell are you doing on a site that's pretty much entirely dedicated to it? I mean, is it like one of those things where you fart and sniff at it- and it smells awful, so you gotta take a few more sniffs? I'm not being facetious, I've done this before.
Blastaar wrote: I don't play games to entertain my opponent, I play them for my own enjoyment. Claiming gaming is a "social contract" is a way of attempting to exert control over your opponent and prevent them from using units, cards, or tactics that one personally dislikes playing against, limiting their fun. Pre-game negotiating, outside of my or a buddy's home, too easily becomes an exercise in who can limit their opponent's enjoyment of the game before it even starts. I'm happy to socialize during games, but pre-game has no business going through committee.
There's a line between "negotiation of your opponent's models" and "trying to make some tool with a Knight Crusader understand that it's not very fun to play a 500-point game against him when all you've got is a couple of squads of Marines". And I mean, that's a line big enough that it might as well pass for a 4-lane highway, and you can't really miss it.
You play to have fun, okay- fine. Well, so does the other person, and if they're not having fun and you don't care about trying to have a somewhat-balanced challenge, well... I don't think you'd be that kind of guy, but I can tell you- that kind of guy is the one that usually sits in the corner, alone, ignored, on his big case of models that never get on the table because he comes off as a putz.
The thing is, the game should be balanced enough that these pre-game "hey, can you not take XYZ overpowered thing?" discussions aren't necessary. You want to blame the player for taking a strong list and. yes, some people are jerks and bring cheese to stomp people. But the crummy rules allow that to be an issue in the first place. Blaming players merely personalizes the issue and attempts to absolve one's responsibility in encouraging poor rules by financially supporting the company making them. If someone wants this to change they should not buy products from the company making the poor rules. Framing this as an issue of interpersonal player behavior distracts and solves nothing.
Did you know that in the Japanese Street Fighter community, there was a gentleman's agreement that nobody would play Akuma? There weren't any official rules forbidding it, but even top players just made the decision not to pick him in casual or competitive play because he ruined a game they otherwise enjoyed.
Basically every game who's tournament ruleset isn't dictated by the developers has some houserules to make it more fun for the players involved, and it's even more common for insular, casual communities to come up with their own ideas of what makes the game less fun if it's allowed (across any even remotely competitive game strategies that aren't effective against the best players can be miserably oppressive if no one involved is very good). This isn't a 40k problem, this is a pvp-games-more-complicated-than-chess problem.
Blastaar wrote: I don't play games to entertain my opponent, I play them for my own enjoyment. Claiming gaming is a "social contract" is a way of attempting to exert control over your opponent and prevent them from using units, cards, or tactics that one personally dislikes playing against, limiting their fun. Pre-game negotiating, outside of my or a buddy's home, too easily becomes an exercise in who can limit their opponent's enjoyment of the game before it even starts. I'm happy to socialize during games, but pre-game has no business going through committee.
There's a line between "negotiation of your opponent's models" and "trying to make some tool with a Knight Crusader understand that it's not very fun to play a 500-point game against him when all you've got is a couple of squads of Marines". And I mean, that's a line big enough that it might as well pass for a 4-lane highway, and you can't really miss it.
You play to have fun, okay- fine. Well, so does the other person, and if they're not having fun and you don't care about trying to have a somewhat-balanced challenge, well... I don't think you'd be that kind of guy, but I can tell you- that kind of guy is the one that usually sits in the corner, alone, ignored, on his big case of models that never get on the table because he comes off as a putz.
The thing is, the game should be balanced enough that these pre-game "hey, can you not take XYZ overpowered thing?" discussions aren't necessary. You want to blame the player for taking a strong list and. yes, some people are jerks and bring cheese to stomp people. But the crummy rules allow that to be an issue in the first place. Blaming players merely personalizes the issue and attempts to absolve one's responsibility in encouraging poor rules by financially supporting the company making them. If someone wants this to change they should not buy products from the company making the poor rules. Framing this as an issue of interpersonal player behavior distracts and solves nothing.
Did you know that in the Japanese Street Fighter community, there was a gentleman's agreement that nobody would play Akuma? There weren't any official rules forbidding it, but even top players just made the decision not to pick him in casual or competitive play because he ruined a game they otherwise enjoyed.
Basically every game who's tournament ruleset isn't dictated by the developers has some houserules to make it more fun for the players involved, and it's even more common for insular, casual communities to come up with their own ideas of what makes the game less fun if it's allowed (across any even remotely competitive game strategies that aren't effective against the best players can be miserably oppressive if no one involved is very good). This isn't a 40k problem, this is a pvp-games-more-complicated-than-chess problem.
Gentleman's agreements can be toxic in their own right sometimes. Sure, fixing developer errors with house rules is a good idea in theory but remember this is a game with way more emotional investment than a simple 2D video game.
My group back in 3rd edition let me ally Tau and Eldar because we frequently played large enough battles where both were insufficient, and I had no interest in expanding either one. This carried on through 5th edition. It was fun, felt fluffy and proper, nobody ever complained. Then all of a sudden it became part of the official rules and now new players would make snide little remarks about "Taudar cheese" even though one glance at my army lists would prove I was no power gamer. I quit for 3 years because I was a hair's breadth away from starting to punch faces.
1- I stop treating it like something it isn't- 40k is only "competitive" because the people who are competitive pretend it is. There's not a whole lot of tactical depth or strategic nuance to 40k, no one is pulling off some cunning ploy. When you get down to it, it's more about putting things in the right spot at the right time and rolling the right dice, and knowing what other peoples' toys can do. I mean, 'netlisting' is popular because it works and it wins a lot of times. It's a game, it has rules, but let's not sit here and make the card game "Bullsh*t" out to be "Baccarat". When it comes down to it, I've watched "Skilled tournament-winners" from 40k end up sucking their thumb in a corner after getting slapped around in a game of Infinity.
Why is that not a skill? Of course it's about putting things in the right spot at the right time and rolling the right dice and knowing what other people's toys can do. That's not exactly easy though, now is it? There are dozens, probably hundreds of units in this game. Each has (usually) at least 1 or 2 possible configurations. Even uncommon units sometimes see play in tournament games. The guy who won the Warhammer GT used disembarking shield drones from a destroyed tau Piranha to block a smash captain from killing his broadsides... did you know you could do that? I didn't. Did his opponent? Maybe, maybe not. There are hundreds of possible permutations of a game based on the terrain, who deploys first, who goes first, and in ITC what objectives you choose for secondaries (if you're playing ITC). Knowing all this, picking the right things, is not trivial.
I played in an ITC tournament last weekend. I'm not overly experienced, but I was winning. I was in the lead going into round 2. My opponent was Space Wolves and Adeptus Mechanicus. I was playing Guard + Knights (not a Castellan list, I actually have 2 Questoris Knights). I figured I had this in the bag. I made some key deployment errors, my opponent exploited those ruthlessly, and won. I managed to smash my final opponent hard enough I came in second, but the point was I didn't know what my opponent could do and lost because of it. I'm not using a netlist I copy/pasted either, I'm using a variation I built from the ground up with trial and error over the past several months. I'm still making changes to my list, how I play, and evolving it based on tournament games and results. It's been a lot of fun.
When you come down to it, literally anything, no matter how simple, can be done for competition. There's plenty of nuance in 40k to use it as a competitive game. Is it as deep as other games? Probably not. But it combines my love of building models, painting models, reading books, and playing a tabletop game into something that's fairly unique, that other systems just don't offer in the same way.
Well, you've certainly established yourself as the voice of reason in this conversation.
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Arachnofiend wrote: Did you know that in the Japanese Street Fighter community, there was a gentleman's agreement that nobody would play Akuma? There weren't any official rules forbidding it, but even top players just made the decision not to pick him in casual or competitive play because he ruined a game they otherwise enjoyed.
It's important to note that this was from the era of games being hard-coded into a cartridge, so you couldn't patch a balance issue. It's not really comparable to modern games where egregious balance mistakes can be corrected after the game is released.
Anyway, I'd have to say I disagree with the sentiment that, "Warhammer 40,000 is in a pretty good place at the moment," because I believe it's overly euphemistic. I would assert that Warhammer 40,000 is in a great place at the moment, possibly the greatest place since it's inception. I'm really into the approach of taking a simplified core ruleset and expanding it through army books and campaign supplements. I'm entirely on board with updating the scale of Space Marines even if I have issues with some of the actual sculpts (Inceptors/Suppressors ). Most of all, I'm loving the communicative approach that the company has taken. Is it perfect? No. Was it ever? No. Will it ever be? No, but I've never been in a position to be into this hobby as much as I am now with as many people as there to enjoy it now. Prices are still rubbish though.
Counting soup, command point and detachment limitations as either a "balancing tweak" or a "seismic change" depends entirely on the execution.
Aelyn wrote: So legal and reasonable are equivalent? Does that mean any list which is illegal is automatically unreasonable?
Yes, following the rules of the game is reasonable and an illegal list is not reasonable. I'm not sure what is confusing about this.
There are plenty of other examples I could name for some very well loved games which are generally considered balanced and fair and yet which frequently involve pre-game conversations (playing rugby / american football at a local field and agreeing to play touch-contact instead of full-contact, handicaps in go, bidding conventions in bridge...) My point is that "benefits from pre-game discussion" and "badly-designed" are not even close to the same thing, and that reaching an understanding before a game of what people are trying to get out of it is hardly unique to 40K.
None of that is equivalent to 40k. Playing touch football vs. tackle football is not a negotiation about what is "too powerful" or "not fun", it's just declaring which game you're playing. The 40k equivalent would be arguing that your opponent's best receiver is too good at catching footballs so they're only allowed to throw to that player once per possession or they're being WAACTFGs and you're not going to play against them. Instead of just playing the game by the standard rules, once you have decided which game you are playing, you try to compensate for a perceived flaw in the rules by adding special exceptions for one player/team/whatever.
Did you know that in the Japanese Street Fighter community, there was a gentleman's agreement that nobody would play Akuma? There weren't any official rules forbidding it, but even top players just made the decision not to pick him in casual or competitive play because he ruined a game they otherwise enjoyed.
Basically every game who's tournament ruleset isn't dictated by the developers has some houserules to make it more fun for the players involved, and it's even more common for insular, casual communities to come up with their own ideas of what makes the game less fun if it's allowed (across any even remotely competitive game strategies that aren't effective against the best players can be miserably oppressive if no one involved is very good). This isn't a 40k problem, this is a pvp-games-more-complicated-than-chess problem.
Yeah, I think David Sirlin mentioned it, or something similar in his articles. I definitely agree on the pvp aspect- that makes it much trickier. If Akuma was that problematic, that sounds like a good solution, especially since that was before patching games was possible.
I don't know what's the problem for people to negotiate the game terms before the game, you do that in most card games. If you play Mau-Mau every family in germany has its own "house rules", just like with rommé, skat or poker.
And yes, sometimes that needs talking if you come together with others, but then you negotiate how to play. And it would be pretty idiotic to say: "Oh no, I have to draw two cards on a 9, not on a 7?! Madness, I won't play that crap!"
Sgt. Cortez wrote: I don't know what's the problem for people to negotiate the game terms before the game, you do that in most card games. If you play Mau-Mau every family in germany has its own "house rules", just like with rommé, skat or poker.
And yes, sometimes that needs talking if you come together with others, but then you negotiate how to play. And it would be pretty idiotic to say: "Oh no, I have to draw two cards on a 9, not on a 7?! Madness, I won't play that crap!"
Scenarios like that aren't an issue. It's that 40k is in a state where you must negotiate on how to play to have an enjoyable game due to the poor rules.
Did some cleaning, I would like to ask people to stay on topic, to remain polite and to leave everything else out of it, be it politics or riling people up for gaks and giggles and so on.
I'd say it's a "skill" ... if you can say finding a recipe online, making a grocery list, then following the steps to that recipe to make dinner is "skill". So, sure- it's a skill, I guess. Just not much compared to other things. You're right, there are games out there that require a lot more skill and a lot more thought and tactics. Hell, I think even Necromunda is better in that respect- and that's a game you can easily break and exploit the rules as written- to a point where hosting a campaign flat-out requires everyone to get together and agree on the house-rules.
No, really- ask about the "just for fun" Necromunda tournament I hosted. Had I not immediately sat down and gone through the rules for 3 days, looking for ways to break the game and updating my tournament rules, I'd have had people showing up with a list of 30 Chaos Cultists with Autopistols- and if you know anything about Necromunda, you know that in a straight-up skirmish fight, the horde of cultists is going to win. And chances are, the guy that wanted to do this would have thought he was 'good' at Necromunda.
And like I said before, there's quite a few "Competitive" 40k players that will try other games and quickly find out that 'netlisting' is far less effective in other games, and end up sobbing in the corner because the game took actual thought, improvisation, resourcefulness, and tactics rather than crutching on a meme list.
Also you're not wrong about how anything can be competitive. But considering the way 40k's rules are, it's not really a game that's balanced enough for the 'competitive' nature to be taken seriously.
I mean, imagine a video game championship- let's just say it's an arcade fighting game and one player's buttons stuck and his joystick was bent. It'd be hard for his opponent to say he won 'fair and square' all due to his skill.
Blastaar wrote: Scenarios like that aren't an issue. It's that 40k is in a state where you must negotiate on how to play to have an enjoyable game due to the poor rules.
That's true. And it shouldn't be, if we're going to try and pretend it's a competitive game. But, that's why I don't think it's really competitive.
I mean, it'd be hard to say that Boxing is 'competitive' if it matched Floyed Mayweather against some kid in the Special Olympics and said that it was 'balanced' because the kid's wheelchair puts him in the same weight class as Mayweather.
topaxygouroun i wrote: I wouldn't even dream of ever attending a tournament with anything below an 80% representation of Castellans and mixed Aeldari, obviously.
I enjoy the competitive scene of this version of 40k about as much as I enjoyed the WHFB 7th edition post the Daemons release.
Well, they did say balance is one of the things that ISN'T in a good place.
Sgt. Cortez wrote: I don't know what's the problem for people to negotiate the game terms before the game, you do that in most card games. If you play Mau-Mau every family in germany has its own "house rules", just like with rommé, skat or poker.
And yes, sometimes that needs talking if you come together with others, but then you negotiate how to play. And it would be pretty idiotic to say: "Oh no, I have to draw two cards on a 9, not on a 7?! Madness, I won't play that crap!"
Scenarios like that aren't an issue. It's that 40k is in a state where you must negotiate on how to play to have an enjoyable game due to the poor rules.
I disagree. I had that experience in 7th, yes, because of formations and a huge power gap. In 8th it's not that bad aside from some outliers like Superheavies/knights in lower point games. But I'm also of the opinion it would be good to have some rules for higher point games, were you simplify what every model in a unit does and restrict superheavies to that epic mode/apocalypse or how you want to call it. In lotr they did that kind of with the war of the ring system.
Even without that 8th edition is still not breaking down because of superheavies since everything can hurt anything and you can concentrate on objectives if nothing else. If some units like a castellan are undercosted that's the easiest thing to solve.
Sgt. Cortez wrote: Even without that 8th edition is still not breaking down because of superheavies since everything can hurt anything and you can concentrate on objectives if nothing else. If some units like a castellan are undercosted that's the easiest thing to solve.
I'm not really good at math-hammering percentiles out, but let's be real...
In a 500 point game, on a 4x4 table... if you're stomping around the table with a knight- sure, I "can" hurt you with bolters. On a 6. And you'll get your armor saves. So I don't know the exact percentage of those odds but let's just say "low enough that it's not going to be much fun".
And your knight is going to put out more firepower than my two squads of Marines by a long shot- so you can say 'concentrate on objectives' but that's not gonna be an option after turn 3 at most. I mean, once you're gorilla-stomping squad A after you've blasted squad B... my Lieutenant is standing there by himself in a building.
Yeah, superheavies or Primarchs etc... can cost 400-600 points but they aren't really manegable by armies lower than at minimun 1500-1750 points. The moment you go down to 1k points or even lower, is just not designed for that.
Sgt. Cortez wrote: Even without that 8th edition is still not breaking down because of superheavies since everything can hurt anything and you can concentrate on objectives if nothing else. If some units like a castellan are undercosted that's the easiest thing to solve.
I'm not really good at math-hammering percentiles out, but let's be real...
In a 500 point game, on a 4x4 table... if you're stomping around the table with a knight- sure, I "can" hurt you with bolters. On a 6. And you'll get your armor saves. So I don't know the exact percentage of those odds but let's just say "low enough that it's not going to be much fun".
And your knight is going to put out more firepower than my two squads of Marines by a long shot- so you can say 'concentrate on objectives' but that's not gonna be an option after turn 3 at most. I mean, once you're gorilla-stomping squad A after you've blasted squad B... my Lieutenant is standing there by himself in a building.
I'm just putting this here so I remember to come back to it. I'm going to play this out with a firend of mine later. I'll take the Marines list (1 patrol, Lieutenant, 2 squads of Marines built as on the box (Missile Launcher and Plasma Gun) and an assault squad to get to 500) he'll take the knights (Crusader with Sainted Ion and Ion Bulwark). I'm not a marine player, but I am a tournament player, whilst may mate does play Knights, but only casual so it should be interesting. We'll be playing a random CA 2018 mission so I'll report back later.
Drager wrote: I'm just putting this here so I remember to come back to it. I'm going to play this out with a firend of mine later. I'll take the Marines list (1 patrol, Lieutenant, 2 squads of Marines built as on the box (Missile Launcher and Plasma Gun) and an assault squad to get to 500) he'll take the knights (Crusader with Sainted Ion and Ion Bulwark). I'm not a marine player, but I am a tournament player, whilst may mate does play Knights, but only casual so it should be interesting. We'll be playing a random CA 2018 mission so I'll report back later.
I'm curious about the results.
I'll wager a sock without a match that it's over in turn 3.
I think a better analogy to Warhammer 40k if we're going to use Sirlin's discussion on SF2 is "Old Sagat" rather than Akuma. I'll post the quote below for source but basically, Old Sagat isn't "broken" like Akuma is, but there's also a gentleman's agreement to not use him because he invalidates a few other characters; the field of available characters has more diversity if you remove him. This is a better comparison to 40k because something like the Knight Castellan isn't "broken" in the sense it breaks the game, but it existing certainly means a lot of other things are nonviable to play (most any vehicle for example).
Actual Quote:
David Sirlin, Playing to Win, What Should be Banned? wrote: The character in question is the mysteriously named "Old Sagat." Old Sagat is not a secret character like Akuma (or at least he's not as secret!). Old Sagat does not have any moves like Akuma's air fireball that the game was not designed to handle. Old Sagat is arguably the best character in the game (Akuma, of course, doesn't count), but even that is debated by top players! I think almost any expert player would rank him in the top three of all characters, but there isn't even universal agreement that he is the best! Why, then, would any reasonable person even consider banning him? Surely, it must be a group of scrubs who simply don't know how to beat him, and reflexively cry out for a ban.
But this is not the case. There seems to be a tacit agreement amongst top players in Japan--a soft ban--on playing Old Sagat. The reason is that many believe the game to have much more variety without Old Sagat. Even if he is only second best in the game by some measure, he flat out beats half the characters in the game with little effort. Half the cast can barely even fight him, let alone beat him. Other top characters in the game, good as they are, win by much more interaction and more "gameplay." Almost every character has a chance against the other best characters in the game. The result of allowing Old Sagat in tournaments is that several other characters, such as Chun Li and Ken, become basically unviable.
That seems way more appropriate to compare to 40k as there are a lot of units that by virtue of being allowed to use make several other things unviable to use
Also, in regards to the idea that it's okay to bring a Knight to a 500 point game because "it's legal", technically yes that's true. Peregrine, in particular, has been very vehement about their ideas that as long as something is legal, it doesn't matter. And has also been equally vehement that it's on the other person to "git gud" and bring a good list, rather than dare to ask the more competitive person to tone theirs down. I remember reading something once about someone who legit got angry at their opponent for NOT doing this, saying how they "wasted their time" and basically throwing a hissy fit because they brought a tryhard netlist and their opponent did not, and naturally they crushed the person. They actually insulted their opponent for not bringing a netlist. This is what Peregrine's attitude reminds me of; it might have even been something they said but I don't think so as they tend to not be as blunt in insulting people.
The other alternative is that if a Knight is not balanced at all in games at a 500 point limit, why does the game allow it to be taken in such a game?
GW could just put in a system whereby units are excluded from different levels of play through the Keyword system. So, give stuff like Knights and Superheavy vehicles a specific keyword and then put in a rule where units with those keywords are limited at different points levels.
For example let's say the keyword is SUPERHEAVY. Then just have rules in the matched play army creation rules whereby the number of units with the SUPERHEAVY keyword is limited to: 0 in games =< 500pts 1 in 500pts < games <= 1000pts etc.
A Town Called Malus wrote: The other alternative is that if a Knight is not balanced at all in games at a 500 point limit, why does the game allow it to be taken in such a game?
GW could just put in a system whereby units are excluded from different levels of play through the Keyword system. So, give stuff like Knights and Superheavy vehicles a specific keyword and then put in a rule where units with those keywords are limited at different points levels.
For example let's say the keyword is SUPERHEAVY.
Then just have rules in the matched play army creation rules whereby the number of units with the SUPERHEAVY keyword is limited to:
0 in games =< 500pts
1 in 500 < games <= 1000pts
etc.
That would be sensible but it goes against GW's philosophy of allowing essentially completely unrestricted list building. That's the main reason the game is as unbalanced as it is, IMO. With no real restrictions on what you can take in an army you lose one of the best tools a designer has for balancing the game. The other consequence of this is that armies stop looking like armies. Between free rein to soup whatever you want and all the different detachment options, armies now look like a random assortment of stuff rather than coherent forces.
Not if we are to actually believe GWs nonsense about Narrative and Open play (whilst at the same time not actually offering any guidance or suggestions for narrative campaigns beyond "play these missions we wrote back to back")
Everyone who wants to play with Knights against basic infantry is still free to do so, as they have been in every single edition.
A Town Called Malus wrote: The other alternative is that if a Knight is not balanced at all in games at a 500 point limit, why does the game allow it to be taken in such a game?
GW could just put in a system whereby units are excluded from different levels of play through the Keyword system. So, give stuff like Knights and Superheavy vehicles a specific keyword and then put in a rule where units with those keywords are limited at different points levels.
For example let's say the keyword is SUPERHEAVY.
Then just have rules in the matched play army creation rules whereby the number of units with the SUPERHEAVY keyword is limited to:
0 in games =< 500pts
1 in 500 < games <= 1000pts
etc.
That would be sensible but it goes against GW's philosophy of allowing essentially completely unrestricted list building. That's the main reason the game is as unbalanced as it is, IMO. With no real restrictions on what you can take in an army you lose one of the best tools a designer has for balancing the game. The other consequence of this is that armies stop looking like armies. Between free rein to soup whatever you want and all the different detachment options, armies now look like a random assortment of stuff rather than coherent forces.
This. GW approach has always been to allow flexibility in list design. The drawback is they refuse to properly limit things, and put the onus on the players to police themselves which as we see rarely works. Yet GW seems to think everyone discussed the sort of game they want with their opponent beforehand as that is usually their go-to answer when this inevitably comes up.
The best way to do this would be the 25% points limit on superheavies, but then people would bitch that they can't field them.
when house rules and forced unit limitations is the only way to get a somewhat "fair" game in a club/store drop-in game, then the game is as far away from good as it can be.
they should look at AoS, that game is in a way better place then 40k, even tough that too is far from good.
40K works much better than other games in absence of a social agreement.
MTG is simply unplayable. I'm gonna say "Standard" you are gonna say "Ok, standard!", then i put a premade standard deck on the table and you put a competitive one. Guess who's not going to enjoy the game?
Warmahordes is even worse. The difference between bad lists and good lists is so huge that it is like playing fluffy chaos marines against Eldar scatspam in 7th. You have no chances of winning.
The same is true for popular pc games. Wanna try going against a Goat with a fun and random composition in overwatch?
Apart from some truly nightmare games like imperial soup against mono GK, any other game is at least enjoyable. Yes my fluffy mono SM will not win many games against an optimized IG, but out of 10 games i will win 2 or 3.
Spoletta wrote: 40K works much better than other games in absence of a social agreement.
MTG is simply unplayable. I'm gonna say "Standard" you are gonna say "Ok, standard!", then i put a premade standard deck on the table and you put a competitive one. Guess who's not going to enjoy the game?
Warmahordes is even worse. The difference between bad lists and good lists is so huge that it is like playing fluffy chaos marines against Eldar scatspam in 7th. You have no chances of winning.
The same is true for popular pc games. Wanna try going against a Goat with a fun and random composition in overwatch?
Apart from some truly nightmare games like imperial soup against mono GK, any other game is at least enjoyable. Yes my fluffy mono SM will not win many games against an optimized IG, but out of 10 games i will win 2 or 3.
This is an excellent post and anyone with experience in competitive gaming beyond tabletops, I'd imagine most people but I don't know, should be able to recognise the truth in this statement.
Spoletta wrote: 40K works much better than other games in absence of a social agreement.
MTG is simply unplayable. I'm gonna say "Standard" you are gonna say "Ok, standard!", then i put a premade standard deck on the table and you put a competitive one. Guess who's not going to enjoy the game?
Warmahordes is even worse. The difference between bad lists and good lists is so huge that it is like playing fluffy chaos marines against Eldar scatspam in 7th. You have no chances of winning.
The same is true for popular pc games. Wanna try going against a Goat with a fun and random composition in overwatch?
Apart from some truly nightmare games like imperial soup against mono GK, any other game is at least enjoyable. Yes my fluffy mono SM will not win many games against an optimized IG, but out of 10 games i will win 2 or 3.
This is an excellent post and anyone with experience in competitive gaming beyond tabletops, I'd imagine most people but I don't know, should be able to recognise the truth in this statement.
In terms of video games I think people tend to not see it because it's so much faster and easier to switch over to the meta picks/strategies yourself, so you never really experience a "casual vs competitive" scenario. Also there generally tends to be an automatic system in place matching you against players with a similar attitude towards the game as your own - if you play competitively in a video game, matchmaker systems will pit you against similarly competitive players.
The "40k vs other tabletop games" divide though, that is something that has always boggled my mind. The fact people complain about book bloat in 40k when you have something like DnD/Pathfinder/Flames of War out there where you simply will not own every publication that exists for the game, it is impossible to do so, and they complain about miniature pricing and monoposed-ness in 40k when you have something out there like Malifaux where A) all the models are completely monopse and B ) you are very often paying more per piece of mass-produced plastic than you would be from GW...it's kind of nuts to me. The grass is always greener, I guess.
Not if we are to actually believe GWs nonsense about Narrative and Open play (whilst at the same time not actually offering any guidance or suggestions for narrative campaigns beyond "play these missions we wrote back to back")
Everyone who wants to play with Knights against basic infantry is still free to do so, as they have been in every single edition.
Yeah but most of us know that 99% of the population are matched-play only. Very very very few people are going to shell money for a knight if they can't always use it. They learned that with trying to push super heavies on the game but those weren't for "real 40k" games, they were only for apoc. Lo after not being able to sell the superheavies, 6th comes out and says super heavies can be fielded, even in 500 point games.
Not if we are to actually believe GWs nonsense about Narrative and Open play (whilst at the same time not actually offering any guidance or suggestions for narrative campaigns beyond "play these missions we wrote back to back")
Everyone who wants to play with Knights against basic infantry is still free to do so, as they have been in every single edition.
Yeah but most of us know that 99% of the population are matched-play only. Very very very few people are going to shell money for a knight if they can't always use it. They learned that with trying to push super heavies on the game but those weren't for "real 40k" games, they were only for apoc. Lo after not being able to sell the superheavies, 6th comes out and says super heavies can be fielded, even in 500 point games.
Superheavies began selling.
Yep. Absolutely this. GW puts limits, and people buy 1 (or none) of something rather than 3. Why else do you think "rare" things like the Riptide and Stormsurge aren't restricted like they used to do? Back in my day you had things that were 0-1 restricted, or 1 per X (they still do this to some minor degree which makes it stranger they don't apply it more), or required 2000 points or more, or a percentage, or opponent's permission. Over time almost all of those went away because they realized if you had to ask permission to field Abaddon, your opponent might say NO and then you can't use that model you bought, so they removed it. Despite IMHO all of those things being good to help balance the game and keep things like special characters actually special (so you don't see Guilliman showing up in every skirmish in the universe).
auticus wrote: Yeah but most of us know that 99% of the population are matched-play only.
Citation needed.
There is no citation needed. The vast majority of games played are matched play games with points. I'd wager there is a much smaller amount of Narrative (way more than open, but much less than matched) and an extremely tiny minority of Open play games out there. Yet GW tries to cater to three styles when one (arguably the one they pay the least attention to) is vastly more popular and desired.
