-

That is not exactly true . Balance is important for tournaments too. If one type of list is too dominant , there will be a drop in number of people showing up to a tournament and the smaller a tournament gets , the bigger the chance that next time even fewer people will come play in it . I agree with you that some armies are better , then others . Perfect balance is impossible to achive . But when there are 3-4 top tier armies , not builds those are always shaped by how the local meta game looks like , the play field is going to be more balanced then when it has 1 army to rule them all and 1-2 runners up .

In 7th ed WFB died out as a tournament game here , because armies could be divided in to demons , armies that can try to counter demons when they are lucky and armies that can't deal with demons at all.


But balance being more important to what ever is casual gaming , I fully agree on . If the only counter to build or army X is runing specific ally , fortification or units , a normal player may do it , but someone who wants to play an army of 6 units of tactical marines may not have such an option . And losing all the time is not fun at all , as you said it yourself.

There is no test of skill in alpha strike hammer, it's just dice. The game is too alpha strikey to support a competitive enviroment.

EDIT; If the table size was tripled...

Then again alpha strike could still happen possibly thanks to super mobile units, extremely long ranged weapons, and drop pods on drop pods. Along with that, it would take longer to reach the enemy (heck I'm not even sure when you would be able to get close enough to CC!) and objectives would be worthless unless put in the middle of the battlefield.

To OP I say this. Imbalance does still affect tournament play. Yes, tournament gamers will always tend to bring optimized lists. That being said, optimization can stagnate environments and convince people to stop playing. As above people mentioned, daemons did this for warhammer fantasy. I do agree that the terrible balance more heavily damages "casual" gaming simply because neither side is bringing the best weapons possible. Heck, you might even find somebody playing a all CSM tzteentch army or a IG force that uses almost all the rough riders possible.

I think the best example of lack of balance hurting , so called, casual game play are BA. They are a very hard army to play with and require a pre build army . Their stuff is either a must have and use in this one way only or never take at all . I can imagine that someone with a bit of luck could win a local tournament with BA ,but someone with an BA army out of stuff he likes will not like 6th ed at all. And BAs are not the only army in w40k , that is balanced like that . GK , SoB , IG play more or less the same .

I think GW would say that the rules are only guidelines and if you feel that they are unbalanced you are free to make your own.
But I really hope GW will get off its lazy ass and make the 7th edition absolutely awesome and more balanced.
Even if the rules are just guidelines, it would be nice if they would be actually good guidelines...

Agree with Makumba. When I was still actively playing MtG tournaments, there was a deck so dominant, that it was played by almost everyone. In a tournament with 128 competitors 108 had brought the exact same 75 cards, three thirds of the remaining decks were tailored to counter the dominant deck. This was very unhealthy for the tournament scene because games got dull and people stopped showing up. Every since WotC has been carefully watching their new releases to make sure that at least three or four different decks would be at the same level of power (with more or less success).

GW has to do the same. Their different armies do not have to be exactly equal in power, but the choice of codex should be less relevant to winning than list building, skill and luck. There are already many reports of people getting bored/annoyed when they come to a tournament and see riptides, serpents and screamers everywhere. This is a big sign of an unhealthy tournament environment which will sooner or latter die out. Sadly, this is a declared goal of GW, so nothing we can do about it.
Despite what you implicitly declared, competitive players are also playing for fun. The fun of playing against other powerful armies to see if you can come out on top. If you're playing against the same army all the time, tactics become automatisms, and you're pretty much push models around while being bored.
By definition, two equally good players should win half the games against each other, no matter what armies they play.

Also, don't fall for the "balance is probably near impossible" lie. Balance is possible, if you out work into it and keep fine-tuning your game. Balance doesn'T happen, you have to put work into it.

The reason the "I want to bring the sisters" guy/gal wants to do that is because they are the army he/she has, and dosn't want to be forced into getting s new army for tournament play.

Broken balance affects everything. Who wants to play a game, even a friendly game, where you get stomped through no fault of your own but because you chose an army/units that are rubbish?

There should be no "weak" units or armies. There can be some units that are better at some things (e.g. a CC squad should be better than a shooty squad at combat) but not to the level currently wherein most armies have units that fall into three categories:

1) Must take at least 1+ (e.g. Heldrake, Riptide)
2) Average unit
3) Bad unit, never take these

#1 and #3 should never exist.

 Iron_Captain wrote:

But I really hope GW will get off its lazy ass and make the 7th edition absolutely awesome and more balanced....

I remember saying that about 6th.

Players also need to accept some responsibility for their actions & choices, especially in non-competitive/tournament play.

For example, last edition:
Daemons were not a horrible book by any means. Yes they were not quite on the same power level as the likes of BA's/IG or anyone running a lot of mechanised units, but they still functioned perfectly well in friendly pick-up games.
Grey Knights were written to simply shat all over a Daemon army, if you chose to abuse the really nasty anti-daemon stuff.

Games were tough on a Daemon player, but still doable even without resorting to a tailored list, provided the GK player showed a little respect and self control and agreed to not pull stupid gak like Warp Quake the entire table, or min/max a mechanised Purifyer army full of psycannons, or take Dark Ex out the wazoo, or put Truesilver Armour on every vehicle (especially those Psyflemen!), or throw a Banisher into every single Henchman unit in a Coteaz army, etc...
Similar to now with Daemons getting the new codex treatment, in a purely friendly game, there is no need what-so-ever to be giant @$$monkey and pull out the 2++/re-roll 1's shenanigans.
Take the 'Good Book' for sure, but in a friendly, non-competitive game, show some god-damn restraint and don't abuse the mechanic to build the nearly unkillable unit from hell.

The same goes for any army really... Yes the balance could be better, but just because you can do something/take a certain combination, doesn't mean you always should do so!
It's fine in a friendly game for a Tau player to take a Riptide, especially if they really like the model. Now unless they first forewarn their opponent and/or give them a chance to re-tool their list, that Tau player should not be plunking 3-4 of the b******* on the table!
Same goes for a Chaos player seeing his opponent brought Space Marines - don't pull out 2-4 Helldrakes because there's no challenge at that point, especially if the Space Marine player doesn't have much AA ability...
Or a Necron player plunking a Flying French Bakery list on the table vs. a DE or BA player...
Or a Space Marine player min/maxing their Grav Guns vs. a Tyranid Monster Mash list, or Ravenwing/Deathwing player, etc...

It's called sportsmanship. In friendly/non-competitive/narrative games with nothing on the line but some lols, people apparently need to start showing some.

 Fenrir Kitsune wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:

But I really hope GW will get off its lazy ass and make the 7th edition absolutely awesome and more balanced....

I remember saying that about 6th.

and 5th and 4th ............

Experiment 626 wrote:
Players also need to accept some responsibility for their actions & choices, especially in non-competitive/tournament play.

Yes, that's what you should do, given the circumstances. I don't disagree with you on that.

However, a better game balance wouldn't force you to jump through hoops in order to make the game enjoyable for your opponent though.

In a well balanced game, the tau player could plonk down however many riptides he wishes without ruining the game for anyone and/or getting insulted as TFG.
In a well balanced game, no single unit should be able to make half the armies in the game obsolete, even if taken in quintets.
In a well balanced game, a combination of as little as three army choices should not generate nigh-invincible units.
In a well balanced game, using a mono-build list like croissants of doom should easily be counter-able by every army in the game.

It's not the player's job to make the rules they paid up to $100 for work for their opponent. It's GW goddamn job, we pay them for that.

While I don't agree with this totally (I think balance affects both styles of play), it's a good way of thinking about it, and brings a useful perspective.

Unbalanced units and armies discourage creative and comprehensive armies (why buy these units if they are so bad, and you never use them?). They discourage the player who loves an army's look and feel, but loses with it constantly, and they discourage the player whose army (whether through neglect or poor rules design) is ill-suited to compete in the current game environment.

What's more infuriating to me is that GW uses points costs, which should make it ridiculously easy to balance things better.

If Riptides (or whatever) are really, really, good, and show up all the time--make them cost more points! Don't change the rules and screw up the fluff. Just make better units more expensive in points.

There are very few units in the game right now whose rules are too good. That's a bold statement, but I'm going to explain it. There are very few units in the game which work BETTER on the tabletop than they seem to work in the background and fluff. In my own opinion, that's all the rules should concern themselves with. There are a few. For instance, I don't think it's part of the fluff that Stormtrooper Hellguns blow through Space Marine armor like nothing's there. That doesn't mean that Stormtroopers are overpowered. That means that their rules are poorly written to reflect their background. When Chaos Marines invade, you don't call in the stormtroopers!

On the other hand, there are a LOT of units whose rules are bad. These are units which are supposed to be capable of a particular role, or distinguished for a particular excellence, and don't actually work that way. For example, Space Marine Dreadnoughts are supposed to be incarnate heroes to their Chapter, virtually indestructible demigods of war that stride the battlefield and smite the mightiest foes. Nope. They get plonked apart really quickly. That doesn't mean they need to be cheaper to field. They need better rules to reflect the fact that they are supposed to be awesome warriors, not inexpensive list fillers or a cheap way to get an extra lascannon.

Now, on the other hand, there are a LOT of units whose rules are fine, but who cost too much or too little (mostly too little, I think). If more of these really popular, very powerful units cost more points, then they wouldn't show up as much, and you'd have the option of taking a lot more 'normally powered' units to oppose them.


This would be better for casual gamers as well as tournament players.

For the casual gamer, you could take the units you liked to model, paint, or play with. Your lists might be unusual points totals, but within that points limit, you would have a reasonable chance of doing well vs. most opposition. You might find an opponent whose army was well-situated to take you apart, but, in general, you wouldn't run into cases where a third of their army killed 9/10ths of yours. Picking the units you liked wouldn't sometimes make you into the local loser (if you liked, say, kans, dread, and slugga boys) or TFG (if you happened to think that Riptides were awesome looking mega-robots!). Your unit choices wouldn't be invalidated by army creep, or codex creep, or the new hotness, as the new hotness would also be the new 'really expensive option' if it really was hot.

For the tournament player, you would know that the most popular, most powerful units, would be appropriately expensive. You could make reasonable, educated choices about taking a smaller army composed of the most effective units, or a larger, more varied army of less powerful units, which might give you more flexibility or the ability to absorb some bad dice rolls (or good dice rolls from the opposition). Taking the 'best units' would consistently, regardless of army, mean that you were also taking a much smaller force, and that there was a real trade off between picking the best units and picking more units. Because the effectiveness of units would be better balanced against their points cost, there shouldn't be a preponderance of 'top builds' that showed up at each tournament, which would make games more challenging, since you might need to know how to fight against many different armies with many different, effective army lists, rather than planning for facing a few armies with a few similar builds.

 Bottle wrote:

The goal of tournament games is: to win, to be a test of skill.

The goal of friendly games is: to have fun.

Therefore when list building, there is a difference between the two styles of play:

1. Tournament players will choose the best units available for their army.
2. Friendly players will choose the units they like the most.

I think we can all agree so far? (If not, please say so )

So, using that first assumption, that within an army some combinations of units are better than others, we can then make a second assumption.

2. Some combinations of units from one army are better than combinations of units from other armies.

And then we can deduce the following:

3. Some armies are better than others.

Perfect balance between all the armies would be nice, (although it is probably near impossible.) But it is not actually needed for tournament play. Why? Because we are free to choose to bring any army to a tournament. If you think Taudar is the best, then... Bring Taudar to the tournament!

But here is when people chime in saying "but I want to bring my Sisters of Battle to the tournament!" (Or any other army you deem is underpowered.) the question is why? Why do you want to bring them? I think it will always boil down to them being the models you like, the faction you have the most FUN playing with. But if you have agreed with my assumptions at the start, you'd know that fun is not an intrinsic part. There goal is to test the skill of the player (and while that can be enjoyable, I'm going to arbitrarily say it is distinct from "fun", (e.g I don't think tennis players at Wimbledon have "fun" during their games, but no doubt enjoy taking part.)

A tournament player is out to win. To win you should choose the best combinations of units. Some armies have better combinations of units than others. Therefore you bring the best army to the tournament.

I've chosen this section to quote as it contains the bits that I feel are most problematic.

- Not everyone owns a Taudar army. Not everyone can afford to buy and paint a new army every year. By saying 'bring the best army to a tournament' you disqualify anyone who does not have the current 'best' army from being able to compete. In previous editions there were still strong and weak armies, but because the balance was better over all, more people had a chance to compete with the models they have in their collection. If less people have any chance of winning, less people will turn up.

- As you say, tournaments are, by definition, competitions of skill. Buying the most powerful army is not a skill. So, if we were to have a more balanced game, we could say that 40k tournaments would be MORE dependent on skill.

- Even given that the primary point of a tournament is to win, the real reason most people attend them is to have some fun games with new opponents. I'd suggest that 80% of the people you find at tournaments are what we'd call casual or semi-competitive players. They don't expect to win the whole tournament, but they'd like to think they're in with a chance of doing ok, and they don't want to just auto-lose based on list. It's completely valid to say 'tournaments are just for the people with the most competitive armies' but this will drive the majority of tournament attendees away.

I think you have made a major mistake in your core premise. The first principle for your logic should be that this is a game and every individual who plays it is trying to have fun as they define fun. This is why all the rest of your arguement falls apart with even the least analysis as the tournament player, casual players, and narrative players are all trying to have fun but have different ideas of fun.

The tournament player doesn't just want to win they want a challenge in doing so and to feel rewarded for a difficult fight. They want to do this with an army they love in a game they love or they would be doing this in MtG where they could get big prizes or video game tournaments where the prizes are also big. Poor balance affects them just as badly as anyone with the caveat that the TO can curve some of the worse abuses.

The narrative player wants to create a story and use the armies and fluff they love to do so. Poor balance can make this impossible as some fluff armies are not even possible to create within the rules (TDA Deathwing in kill squads, good luck with Belial required to unlock them as troops) and none of the fluff says that some armies are absolutely crushed in a single turn by most other armies. In many ways they are the most insulated from unbalanced rules as they are already writing their own rules and already had to communicate heavily with their opponent and agree upon a number of limitations an special rules. If you already have to agree on special mission X from badab war but with units X, Y, and Z traded out then agreeing to invulnerable saves are 2+/4+ if a reroll is allowed is not that hard.

The casual pickup gamer is the person who really suffers under bad rules. They often play new people and must either play rules as written against anything and everything you can imagine or spend 30-60 min trying to convince a near stranger that the seer council they love so much and is not fun to play against. Funny enough this is either a one of the other groups "slumming" or a only moderately interested (or too busy) person. Usually most pick up games only people (in my experience) either have very limited casual time or don't have the interest to have 40K friends/groups.

The final category is TFG whom doesn't agree with premise 1 which is both payers should have fun with a game. They don't want a challenge, a story, and they either don't care or don't want you to have fun. This is the person who drives away new players and is the sour apple in the bundle. This is the only category that benefits from poor and unbalanced rules as anything that allows him to just win with little effort is a boon to him.

Bottle wrote:Naysayers are wrong when they say bad army balance is the reason 40k is a bad tournament game.

Agreed. 40k is a terrible tournament game, but not because of imbalance.

Bottle wrote:...
...
...
A tournament player is out to win. To win you should choose the best combinations of units. Some armies have better combinations of units than others. Therefore you bring the best army to the tournament.

I therefore think army balance has no sway over 40k being a good tournament game or not.

A correctly-executed syllogism. How refreshing.

Bottle wrote:The goal of tournament games is: to win, to be a test of skill.

Here is your critical problem, though. Tournaments should be a test of skill. 40k isn't a skill game - it's a dice game where skill plays the ancillary role of learning how to play the odds better. It's like blackjack - better blackjack players will win more games over a long period of time than worse blackjack players because they play the odds better, but there's no way that you can have blackjack tournaments without defiling what a tournament is.

Until you entirely remove the random element from 40k, it's not a game that you can take seriously. Not as a game of skill, nor as something you can have real tournaments around.

Bottle wrote:And this is where army imbalance really comes to shine and is problematic. Because losing every game isn't fun and winning every game isn't fun either when it is with your mates.

Jidmah wrote:In a well balanced game, the tau player could plonk down however many riptides he wishes without ruining the game for anyone and/or getting insulted as TFG.
In a well balanced game, no single unit should be able to make half the armies in the game obsolete, even if taken in quintets.
In a well balanced game, a combination of as little as three army choices should not generate nigh-invincible units.
In a well balanced game, using a mono-build list like croissants of doom should easily be counter-able by every army in the game.

Okay, but think about it for a moment. How are we really defining balance?

Because what it looks like here is that a well-balanced game is one wherein a player can take any combination of units and do more or less just as well as another player taking any other combination of units.

Do you really want a game like this? Because if there are no strong units and weak units, strong armies and weak armies, or strong combinations and weak combinations, then what does it matter what you take? In a way, your choices become irrelevant. You're just taking different-shaped models.

In this world of balance, you take away the meaningfulness of a player's decision. List building becomes pointless.

It would just make the game worse.

I'd argue the other side, that in order for a player's decisions about what to bring to be meaningful, he has to be able to "fail" at list building. He has to be able to make bad choices. Furthermore, he has to be able to make choices that he KNOWS will be weaker than other choices, but still wants to take them anyways.

Because when you sit down to play chess, whether you play black or white is scarcely relevant (to anything but the opener). In order for a player to have serious choice, they need to be able to bring a different kind of army, and for that to have a real impact. They need to choose not to play taudar, for example, which means they need to have a choice that's actually different than taudar, and if taudar is the best, then that requires you to have things which are worse.

Now, yes, this can obviously lead to extremes, and you don't need to tell me that tau lists can be pretty boring to play against, but still, 40k needs imbalance to be 40k. The only question is striking the correct level of imbalance.

And what is that correct level? As best I can tell, it's to provide a relatively smooth power curve in such a way where a person can play with exactly as powerful of an army as they want, and be able to have some expectation of what the result of the game will be by comparing it to the power level that their opponent brought. And 40k already does this pretty well.

But the thing is, though, that it has to be a player choice. Yes, people can complain that we shouldn't be forced to balance the game ourselves, but we MUST be required to balance the game ourselves in order for our choices to have meaning. It's just part of the cost to get the advantages.

If you don't want to have to sit down with your opponent and hash things out, then play a game where both armies start out equal to each other, like chess or stratego or go. That way you'll get what you want, but you also won't get 40k.

It takes "some assembly required" to have the freedom to assemble the game the way you want.

ansacs wrote:The tournament player doesn't just want to win they want a challenge in doing so and to feel rewarded for a difficult fight.

I don't know if I agree with this definition.

A person who wants a challenge will play weaker and weaker lists the better they get at the game. They will constantly be handicapping themselves to make sure they always have that serious chance of losing. They will be looking to ratchet up the difficulty level, so to speak. Playing the game on hard mode means taking out those powerful units and putting in weak ones, and showing up with weaker armies rather than stronger ones.

Now look at the tournament scene. It's filled with players struggling to find the strongest lists that they can so that they can put the least amount of effort in and achieve the best win record possible.

That sounds like the exact opposite of what you're talking about. I can't think of someone who wants a challenge any less than someone who is playing for the purpose of winning (which is the point of tournaments in the first place).

 Ailaros wrote:

Bottle wrote:Naysayers are wrong when they say bad army balance is the reason 40k is a bad tournament game.

Agreed. 40k is a terrible tournament game, but not because of imbalance.

Bottle wrote:...
...
...
A tournament player is out to win. To win you should choose the best combinations of units. Some armies have better combinations of units than others. Therefore you bring the best army to the tournament.

I therefore think army balance has no sway over 40k being a good tournament game or not.

A correctly-executed syllogism. How refreshing.

Bottle wrote:The goal of tournament games is: to win, to be a test of skill.

Here is your critical problem, though. Tournaments should be a test of skill. 40k isn't a skill game - it's a dice game where skill plays the ancillary role of learning how to play the odds better. It's like blackjack - better blackjack players will win more games over a long period of time than worse blackjack players because they play the odds better, but there's no way that you can have blackjack tournaments without defiling what a tournament is.

Until you entirely remove the random element from 40k, it's not a game that you can take seriously. Not as a game of skill, nor as something you can have real tournaments around.

Bottle wrote:And this is where army imbalance really comes to shine and is problematic. Because losing every game isn't fun and winning every game isn't fun either when it is with your mates.

Jidmah wrote:In a well balanced game, the tau player could plonk down however many riptides he wishes without ruining the game for anyone and/or getting insulted as TFG.
In a well balanced game, no single unit should be able to make half the armies in the game obsolete, even if taken in quintets.
In a well balanced game, a combination of as little as three army choices should not generate nigh-invincible units.
In a well balanced game, using a mono-build list like croissants of doom should easily be counter-able by every army in the game.

Okay, but think about it for a moment. How are we really defining balance?

Because what it looks like here is that a well-balanced game is one wherein a player can take any combination of units and do more or less just as well as another player taking any other combination of units.

Do you really want a game like this? Because if there are no strong units and weak units, strong armies and weak armies, or strong combinations and weak combinations, then what does it matter what you take? In a way, your choices become irrelevant. You're just taking different-shaped models.

In this world of balance, you take away the meaningfulness of a player's decision. List building becomes pointless.

It would just make the game worse.

I'd argue the other side, that in order for a player's decisions about what to bring to be meaningful, he has to be able to "fail" at list building. He has to be able to make bad choices. Furthermore, he has to be able to make choices that he KNOWS will be weaker than other choices, but still wants to take them anyways.

Because when you sit down to play chess, whether you play black or white is scarcely relevant (to anything but the opener). In order for a player to have serious choice, they need to be able to bring a different kind of army, and for that to have a real impact. They need to choose not to play taudar, for example, which means they need to have a choice that's actually different than taudar, and if taudar is the best, then that requires you to have things which are worse.

Now, yes, this can obviously lead to extremes, and you don't need to tell me that tau lists can be pretty boring to play against, but still, 40k needs imbalance to be 40k. The only question is striking the correct level of imbalance.

And what is that correct level? As best I can tell, it's to provide a relatively smooth power curve in such a way where a person can play with exactly as powerful of an army as they want, and be able to have some expectation of what the result of the game will be by comparing it to the power level that their opponent brought. And 40k already does this pretty well.

But the thing is, though, that it has to be a player choice. Yes, people can complain that we shouldn't be forced to balance the game ourselves, but we MUST be required to balance the game ourselves in order for our choices to have meaning. It's just part of the cost to get the advantages.

If you don't want to have to sit down with your opponent and hash things out, then play a game where both armies start out equal to each other, like chess or stratego or go. That way you'll get what you want, but you also won't get 40k.

It takes "some assembly required" to have the freedom to assemble the game the way you want.

ansacs wrote:The tournament player doesn't just want to win they want a challenge in doing so and to feel rewarded for a difficult fight.

I don't know if I agree with this definition.

A person who wants a challenge will play weaker and weaker lists the better they get at the game. They will constantly be handicapping themselves to make sure they always have that serious chance of losing. They will be looking to ratchet up the difficulty level, so to speak. Playing the game on hard mode means taking out those powerful units and putting in weak ones, and showing up with weaker armies rather than stronger ones.

Now look at the tournament scene. It's filled with players struggling to find the strongest lists that they can so that they can put the least amount of effort in and achieve the best win record possible.

That sounds like the exact opposite of what you're talking about. I can't think of someone who wants a challenge any less than someone who is playing for the purpose of winning (which is the point of tournaments in the first place).

I am opposed to the idea that every possibke combination of units should be "equal", but I also disagree with your assertion that thre should be "stronger" or "weaker" units. The relative strength of a model should be reflected in its point costs (with adjustments made for the specialities of specific armies- IG should have some what cheaper tanks and more expensive assault options for instance). The challange of listbilding should not be to find the most point effective units in the codex and spam them, it should be to decide on the style of gameplay you wish the list to pursue and find the right combination of units to make it work (or to realize that it cannot work with the tools available).

A failure of listbuilding should be a failure to realize that the units you chose for your army list wpuld not work well together, or would not work well against the opponent's chosen combination of units/tactics, or that they do not really fit the tactics you had in mind for them, or that they do not fit your playstyle.

Yes, there should be "bad choices" and "good choices" in listbuilding, but not to the extremes that exist today and not for he reasons that dictated WAAC listbuilding in the current meta.

 Ailaros wrote:
Until you entirely remove the random element from 40k, it's not a game that you can take seriously. Not as a game of skill, nor as something you can have real tournaments around.

You can repeat this as often as you like, but it doesn't make it any less wrong. There are plenty of tournaments with games with random factors: MTG, poker, etc. The difference here is that those games have good randomness (and good balance), while 40k just has random tables for the sake of having random tables.

Because what it looks like here is that a well-balanced game is one wherein a player can take any combination of units and do more or less just as well as another player taking any other combination of units.

Wrong again. A balanced game still has room for list building, and failure in list building. Unit A and unit B might be equally powerful in some abstract sense, but aren't necessarily interchangeable in a list. For example, a dedicated melee army might have to make difficult choices about whether to go all-in on melee units or to hold back some shooting units to camp on their "home" objectives. So unit A might be a good combination with the first option, while unit B might be best in the second. And then you have factors like player preferences: melee and shooting might be theoretically equal in their chances of winning, but I as a player might strongly prefer a shooting army because I'm better at that strategy. And so even among a pool of equally powerful units I'm still going to have preferences, and my decisions will still make a difference.

Though your argument does amusingly prove the OP's point that balance matters most for casual/fluff games, since the average casual/fluff player wants exactly what you described: a game where they can take whatever units they want (because they look cool, because it fits their fluff, etc) and still have an equal chance of winning.

Well, but if every unit were exactly correctly priced, pointswise, then this would mean that every army, regardless of what units were in it, would be exactly as strong as each other. This means that there aren't real differences between armies, but it would merely be a difference between the number of minis that a player wanted to put down, and what those minis looked like. After all, if one person shows up with 10 uber-models, and another shows up with 1,000 suck models, and the end result is the same chance of either person winning the game with 1 model left on the table, then the only difference, really is aesthetic - one player likes big minis, and the other player is a masochist.

The idea that 40k would be a proper rock-paper-scissors game is an interesting one, but I don't know if you can pull it off in an environment like this. Also, I don't know how much I'd want the game to be that way. Do you want a game where you show up with your list, and your opponent shows up with theirs, and they're equally powerful in general, but your stuff just won't win against his stuff because your combination is bad against his combination?

That sounds like it's taking a problem with 40k and making it worse, rather than better.

 Ailaros wrote:
Well, but if every unit were exactly correctly priced, pointswise, then this would mean that every army, regardless of what units were in it, would be exactly as strong as each other. This means that there aren't real differences between armies, but it would merely be a difference between the number of minis that a player wanted to put down, and what those minis looked like. After all, if one person shows up with 10 uber-models, and another shows up with 1,000 suck models, and the end result is the same chance of either person winning the game with 1 model left on the table, then the only difference, really is aesthetic - one player likes big minis, and the other player is a masochist.

The idea that 40k would be a proper rock-paper-scissors game is an interesting one, but I don't know if you can pull it off in an environment like this. Also, I don't know how much I'd want the game to be that way. Do you want a game where you show up with your list, and your opponent shows up with theirs, and they're equally powerful in general, but your stuff just won't win against his stuff because your combination is bad against his combination?

That sounds like it's taking a problem with 40k and making it worse, rather than better.

So an ork army and a tau army would play exactly the same but with different model counts in a well balanced system?
Yeah.. riiiiiight.

 Ailaros wrote:
This means that there aren't real differences between armies, but it would merely be a difference between the number of minis that a player wanted to put down, and what those minis looked like.

Sorry, but that's just nonsense. A single A model might be worth 100 B models in some abstract sense, but that doesn't mean that a 10 A list and a 1000 B list are equal. Or maybe both of them are bad, and the real ideal ratio is 3 A 700 B, at least for certain missions. Or maybe I, as an individual player, am really good at positioning my units effectively for late-game objective grabs but I'm not very good at guessing where my opponent's melee units are going to charge. Do I want a list with 4 A 600 B, or should I go with 5 A 500 B? Or, to give a 40k example instead of these abstract numbers: should I take meatshield Kroot in my Tau army, or should I trust my JSJ skills (and the dice) to keep me out of trouble? Even if kroot are perfectly balanced with crisis suits that decision is still a complex and interesting one.

Really, the only problem here is that you don't have any imagination.

That sounds like it's taking a problem with 40k and making it worse, rather than better.

Lol? How exactly is a rock/paper/scissors game where list building dominates better than the current game, where you play rock/paper/scissors, except rock automatically wins unless both players play rock (in which case it's a draw).

Bottle wrote:A tournament player is out to win. To win you should choose the best combinations of units. Some armies have better combinations of units than others. Therefore you bring the best army to the tournament.

The chasm-wide gap in your logic there is that very few people have both the time and money to just buy and paint a whole new army every couple of months to stay on top of the "meta".

Ailaros wrote:
Okay, but think about it for a moment. How are we really defining balance?

Because what it looks like here is that a well-balanced game is one wherein a player can take any combination of units and do more or less just as well as another player taking any other combination of units.

Do you really want a game like this? Because if there are no strong units and weak units, strong armies and weak armies, or strong combinations and weak combinations, then what does it matter what you take? In a way, your choices become irrelevant. You're just taking different-shaped models.

In this world of balance, you take away the meaningfulness of a player's decision. List building becomes pointless.

It would just make the game worse.

I'd argue the other side, that in order for a player's decisions about what to bring to be meaningful, he has to be able to "fail" at list building. He has to be able to make bad choices. Furthermore, he has to be able to make choices that he KNOWS will be weaker than other choices, but still wants to take them anyways.

Because when you sit down to play chess, whether you play black or white is scarcely relevant (to anything but the opener). In order for a player to have serious choice, they need to be able to bring a different kind of army, and for that to have a real impact. They need to choose not to play taudar, for example, which means they need to have a choice that's actually different than taudar, and if taudar is the best, then that requires you to have things which are worse.

Now, yes, this can obviously lead to extremes, and you don't need to tell me that tau lists can be pretty boring to play against, but still, 40k needs imbalance to be 40k. The only question is striking the correct level of imbalance.

And what is that correct level? As best I can tell, it's to provide a relatively smooth power curve in such a way where a person can play with exactly as powerful of an army as they want, and be able to have some expectation of what the result of the game will be by comparing it to the power level that their opponent brought. And 40k already does this pretty well.

But the thing is, though, that it has to be a player choice. Yes, people can complain that we shouldn't be forced to balance the game ourselves, but we MUST be required to balance the game ourselves in order for our choices to have meaning. It's just part of the cost to get the advantages.

If you don't want to have to sit down with your opponent and hash things out, then play a game where both armies start out equal to each other, like chess or stratego or go. That way you'll get what you want, but you also won't get 40k.

It takes "some assembly required" to have the freedom to assemble the game the way you want.

I don't think I could disagree with you more. List-building shouldn't be some sort of mini-game; we have become accustomed to it but the fact that we need to put so much time and effort into designing a list is a serious design flaw, not some sort of gift from GW.

Yes, it does reward those that have the time and skill to put together good lists - and I do understand the appeal of that - but looking at it objectively, it makes no sense at all that the fact that the winner of a match can be sometimes determined before you even deploy your armies, just by looking at the lists.

Now, granted it would be impossible to actually ever have a situation where one could just throw together any models and have as good a chance as anybody else, but I absolutely believe that given enough work, it would be possible to have 1) armies that are all more or less of equal strength and 2) have every unit in every book be useful if properly integrated in coherently-designed list. Needless to say, we are FAR from such a state of affairs in 40k. Indeed, we seem to move further and further away from it as each new release hits.

 jonolikespie wrote:
So an ork army and a tau army would play exactly the same but with different model counts in a well balanced system?

You just have to understand Ailaros' bizarre views of 40k. For example, Tau players who use JSJ instead of moving up to get slaughtered in melee are WAAC sociopaths, and people like Ailaros who voluntarily cripple their own armies to claim some weird moral high ground about playing on "hard mode" are the ultimate competitive players (unlike those Tau sociopaths). So for this "hard mode" to exist the game has to be unbalanced. A balanced game wouldn't give Ailaros his self-congratulatory "hard mode" rants, so balance must be evil.

That is objectively NOT balance. Go play Starcraft II. Then come back to 40K. It's vomit-inducing.

 Bottle wrote:
The goal of tournament games is: to win, to be a test of skill.

While this might be true in theory, it's a long way from absolute truth where 40K is concerned.

I know quite a few tournament players who enter tournament not because they play hardcore and just want to win, but simply because it's an easy way to get in a solid weekend of gaming against varied opponents.

Particularly in areas where Comp scoring is still in use, what a lack of balance does then is discourage variety, and by extension discourage those more casual players from entering tournaments.

1. Tournament players will choose the best units available for their army.

Only true in a non-Comp environment, and assuming the tournament player is buying his army specifically for the tournament, rather than just using what he has.

2. Friendly players will choose the units they like the most.

Not always, no. My casual lists are made up of a mix of stuff I want to particularly like, stuff that I have because it was collected cheap somewhere along the way, and stuff that I just want to try out for something different. And how powerful a list I make up out of it will depend on who I am playing against. '

Playing friendly games doesn't mean not playing to win. It's a game where someone is supposed to win.

Perfect balance between all the armies would be nice, (although it is probably near impossible.) But it is not actually needed for tournament play. Why? Because we are free to choose to bring any army to a tournament. If you think Taudar is the best, then... Bring Taudar to the tournament!

With the end result being that the top players all bring Taudar, everyone gets extremely bored with always playing against Taudar armies, and tournament attendance plummets.


We saw this in practice at the end of last edition when Grey Knights were released.

But if you have agreed with my assumptions at the start, you'd know that fun is not an intrinsic part. There goal is to test the skill of the player (and while that can be enjoyable, I'm going to arbitrarily say it is distinct from "fun", (e.g I don't think tennis players at Wimbledon have "fun" during their games, but no doubt enjoy taking part.)

Tennis players at Wimbledon are making (or aiming to, anyway) serious money from their occupation. 'Competitive' 40K players are doing it for fun. There's not really any other reason to do it, since 40K tournies rarely pay any sort of significant cash prize, and sponsorship isn't really much of the thing. The divide between professional sport and 40K tournies is so wide that they can't even see each other on the opposite sides of it.


Army balance has everything to do with tournament 40K.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Ailaros wrote:
Well, but if every unit were exactly correctly priced, pointswise, then this would mean that every army, regardless of what units were in it, would be exactly as strong as each other.

That would be ideal, yes. In much the same way that a battleship in monopoly is exactly as 'strong' as the shoe.

A game should be an even contest, unless the players specifically agree to impose a handicap on one side or the other.

This means that there aren't real differences between armies, but it would merely be a difference between the number of minis that a player wanted to put down, and what those minis looked like.

It would mean nothing of the sort. An assault army would still play differently to a shooty army. They would achieve their objectives using different strategies... they would just have a reasonably even chance of actually achieving those objectives.

Do you want a game where you show up with your list, and your opponent shows up with theirs, and they're equally powerful in general, but your stuff just won't win against his stuff because your combination is bad against his combination?

That would pretty much be the exact opposite of the above situation. But is, in fact, exactly the situation 40K is in now. Moreso with the addition of Superheavies to the standard game.

 Bottle wrote:


The goal of tournament games is: to win, to be a test of skill.

The goal of friendly games is: to have fun.

Therefore when list building, there is a difference between the two styles of play:

1. Tournament players will choose the best units available for their army.
2. Friendly players will choose the units they like the most.

That doesn't make sense.

If tournament games were about being "a test of skill", tournament players would always choose the worst units available for their army.

That way, the impact of skill to the final result is maximized.

If a tournament player chooses the best units in a Codex, he can never know if a given victory was due to his skills, or due to his selection of units, turning the idea of tournaments into a "test of skill" ad absurdum.

 Zweischneid wrote:
If a tournament player chooses the best units in a Codex, he can never know if a given victory was due to his skills, or due to his selection of units, turning the idea of tournaments into a "test of skill" ad absurdum.

List building is a skill.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Zweischneid wrote:
If a tournament player chooses the best units in a Codex, he can never know if a given victory was due to his skills, or due to his selection of units, turning the idea of tournaments into a "test of skill" ad absurdum.

List building is a skill.

If you say so.

List building is also fun. So imbalances between units and Codexes might simply be a contribution to the casual enjoyment of the game.

 Zweischneid wrote:
So imbalances between units and Codexes might simply be a contribution to the casual enjoyment of the game.

In theory maybe, if the imbalances are subtle. But in a game like 40k, where the imbalances are obvious to anyone who spends a few minutes looking at a codex, it doesn't really add much enjoyment. But it's much better if the game is balanced, since decisions in a balanced game are much more interesting and more difficult to make.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Zweischneid wrote:
So imbalances between units and Codexes might simply be a contribution to the casual enjoyment of the game.

In theory maybe, if the imbalances are subtle. But in a game like 40k, where the imbalances are obvious to anyone who spends a few minutes looking at a codex, it doesn't really add much enjoyment. But it's much better if the game is balanced, since decisions in a balanced game are much more interesting and more difficult to make.

I am not quite following you.

So the imbalances are so obvious, that it is not fun to figure them out, yet they are subtle enough, that figuring them out is still considered a tournament-relevant skill?

On instinct, I would have sequenced it as follows.

1. Everything perfectly balanced.
2. Very subtle imbalances (finding the "good stuff" takes serious, tournament-worthy skill).
3. Mostly obvious imbalances (finding the "good stuff" is great fun for 12-year olds, but not much skill or dedicated effort is required.)
4. Blatant imbalances (no fun or skill for everyone).

 Zweischneid wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

 Zweischneid wrote:
So imbalances between units and Codexes might simply be a contribution to the casual enjoyment of the game.

In theory maybe, if the imbalances are subtle. But in a game like 40k, where the imbalances are obvious to anyone who spends a few minutes looking at a codex, it doesn't really add much enjoyment. But it's much better if the game is balanced, since decisions in a balanced game are much more interesting and more difficult to make.

I am not quite following you.

So the imbalances are so obvious, that it is not fun to figure them out, yet they are subtle enough, that figuring them out is still considered a tournament-relevant skill?

You're confusing difficulty and relevance. List building is a skill necessary for tourney play, that doesn't mean it's subtle in any way or all that hard to do.

I think the way that some units are spammed clearly shows that list building often focuses around picking the most powerful units and taking many of, while leaving a large selection of units untouched. There's nothing particularly clever about list building in this manner. Ideally every unit available should make you think and have a practical use, but that spamming is so commonly effective is a result of a poor design and inappropriate costing related to power.

 jonolikespie wrote:


You're confusing difficulty and relevance. List building is a skill necessary for tourney play, that doesn't mean it's subtle in any way or all that hard to do.

Well, if there is no difficulty involved, it's not a "skill" in any sense of the word.

Or, if it is, tournaments defined as a "test of skill", where the skill on test is "not in any way or all that hard to do" seem to me a rather pointless affair. It'd be like holding a tournament in closing shoes with Velcro fasteners.

 Howard A Treesong wrote:
I think the way that some units are spammed clearly shows that list building often focuses around picking the most powerful units and taking many of, while leaving a large selection of units untouched. There's nothing particularly clever about list building in this manner. Ideally every unit available should make you think and have a practical use, but that spamming is so commonly effective is a result of a poor design and inappropriate costing related to power.

Which just proves that point that tournaments aren't about "testing your skill".

If they were, tournament players would naturally build the weakest lists possible, as to insulate their results and rankings from any association with obvious and childishly-easy list-building advantages, that are not in any way hard to replicate (and thus confer no prestige as a means to win a "test of skill".)

 Zweischneid wrote:

 jonolikespie wrote:


You're confusing difficulty and relevance. List building is a skill necessary for tourney play, that doesn't mean it's subtle in any way or all that hard to do.

Well, if there is no difficulty involved, it's not a "skill" in any sense of the word.

Or, if it is, tournaments defined as a "test of skill", where the skill on test is "not in any way or all that hard to do" seem to me a rather pointless affair. It'd be like holding a tournament in closing shoes with Velcro fasteners.

 Howard A Treesong wrote:
I think the way that some units are spammed clearly shows that list building often focuses around picking the most powerful units and taking many of, while leaving a large selection of units untouched. There's nothing particularly clever about list building in this manner. Ideally every unit available should make you think and have a practical use, but that spamming is so commonly effective is a result of a poor design and inappropriate costing related to power.

Which just proves that point that tournaments aren't about "testing your skill".

If they were, tournament players would naturally build the weakest lists possible, as to insulate their results and rankings from any association with obvious and childishly-easy list-building advantages, that are not in any way hard to replicate (and thus confer no prestige as a means to win a "test of skill".)

Ok so your argument is that tourney's aren't about testing skill, then what are they about?

If they were, tournament players would naturally build the weakest lists possible, as to insulate their results and rankings from any association with obvious and childishly-easy list-building advantages, that are not in any way hard to replicate (and thus confer no prestige as a means to win a "test of skill".)

Odd all those sport tournaments and profesional leagues are not full of sports man that cripple themselfs to check their real skills.

 jonolikespie wrote:

Ok so your argument is that tourney's aren't about testing skill, then what are they about?

I don't know.

As has been pointed out, probably an organized form of casual "for fun" game play with the added guarantee of "getting a game": That is why the differentiation between "tournament play" and "casual play" as done by the OP is a fallacy.

Of course, that doesn't negate the option that many WAAC-style people enter in tournaments for the baser gratification of "winning", something they can actually get in 40K (as opposed to other, truly skill-based games like chess), precisely because winning in 40K takes no skill, but simply a willingness to violate the implicit "let's have fun" social contract of the community and the explicit "it's about the narrative" guideline by Games Workshop.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Makumba wrote:

If they were, tournament players would naturally build the weakest lists possible, as to insulate their results and rankings from any association with obvious and childishly-easy list-building advantages, that are not in any way hard to replicate (and thus confer no prestige as a means to win a "test of skill".)

Odd all those sport tournaments and profesional leagues are not full of sports man that cripple themselfs to check their real skills.

Sure. Look at Formula 1. They literally spend millions, if not billions, to make sure no unfair advantages are intrinsic to the cars. In competitive swimming, sharks-skin swim-suits were quickly banned, because they dilute the swimming-skill as a contribution to outcomes, etc..

As said, a "skill-based" 40K tournament would be easy to organize. Something like

- Only one Codex with a pre-determined list is allowed.

or

- Everyone brings an army, but armies are than distributed randomly for each game.

Etc...

It's not difficult to take the list-building element out of 40K to make it a skill-based tournament, if that is what people wanted to do. But nobody wants to do that.

 Zweischneid wrote:

 jonolikespie wrote:

Ok so your argument is that tourney's aren't about testing skill, then what are they about?

I don't know.

As has been pointed out, probably an organized form of casual "for fun" game play with the added guarantee of "getting a game": Hence the differentiation between "tournament play" and "casual play" as done by the OP is a fallacy.

Of course, that doesn't negate the option that many WAAC-style people enter in tournaments for the baser gratification of "winning", something they can actually get in 40K (as opposed to other, truly skill-based games like chess), precisely because winning in 40K takes no skill, but simply a willingness to violate the implicit "let's have fun" social contract of the community and the explicit "it's about the narrative" guideline by Games Workshop.

Right, so tourney's are full of WAAC players who suck the fun out of the game because there is little skill involved. Hence why balance is important.

 jonolikespie wrote:

Right, so tourney's are full of WAAC players who suck the fun out of the game because there is little skill involved. Hence why balance is important.

To make 40K a tournament-game, if the intention were to create a tournament-capable game, yes.

Balance would be key for genuine competitive gaming (unlike the argument made by the OP).

And no, 40K-tournaments are not "full" of WAAC players. But 40K tournaments are vulnerable to one or two WAAC-Players getting in and spoiling most people's fun.

 jonolikespie wrote:
Ok so your argument is that tourney's aren't about testing skill, then what are they about?

From my experience, for most they're about exactly the same thing as casual gaming: having some fun and playing some Warhammer 40K.

 Zweischneid wrote:

 jonolikespie wrote:

Right, so tourney's are full of WAAC players who suck the fun out of the game because there is little skill involved. Hence why balance is important.

To make 40K a tournament-game, if the intention were to create a tournament-capable game, yes.

Balance would be key for genuine competitive gaming (unlike the argument made by the OP).

What's to stop a WAAC player showing up to a random pick up game and ruining it for someone else there then? Sure you can refuse to play them but at the same time they aren't breaking any rules.
If the game were reasonably well balanced players wouldn't be put in that situation to begin with, and considering how many other games there are out there which aren't perfectly balanced but are good enough to get buy without issues it really doesn't seem like it would be that hard.

 jonolikespie wrote:

 Zweischneid wrote:

 jonolikespie wrote:

Right, so tourney's are full of WAAC players who suck the fun out of the game because there is little skill involved. Hence why balance is important.

To make 40K a tournament-game, if the intention were to create a tournament-capable game, yes.

Balance would be key for genuine competitive gaming (unlike the argument made by the OP).

What's to stop a WAAC player showing up to a random pick up game and ruining it for someone else there then? Sure you can refuse to play them but at the same time they aren't breaking any rules.
If the game were reasonably well balanced players wouldn't be put in that situation to begin with, and considering how many other games there are out there which aren't perfectly balanced but are good enough to get buy without issues it really doesn't seem like it would be that hard.

Of course. WAAC-Players are an abomination whenever and whereever they appear.

But to strip the game of all of it's diversity just to prevent a few spoilers from ruining it on occassion seems to be throwing the baby out with the bathwater. WAAC players and "overtly competitive" players are a blight, but they - luckily - are not as common as the internet makes them out to be.

 jonolikespie wrote:
What's to stop a WAAC player showing up to a random pick up game and ruining it for someone else there then?

What makes it worse is that a casual player showing up to that pick up game with a list that he picked because he liked some particular models gets branded a WAAC player for running broken units.

The player's reasons for taking a particular list have no impact on how unbalanced that list is. The fact that it is possible to make that list in the first place is the problem. Whether it's a tournament game or a casual pickup game makes no difference to that.

 Zweischneid wrote:
Of course. WAAC-Players are an abomination whenever and whereever they appear.

But to strip the game of all of it's diversity just to prevent a few spoilers from ruining it on occassion seems to be throwing the baby out with the bathwater. WAAC players and "overtly competitive" players are a blight, but they - luckily - are not as common as the internet makes them out to be.

Bah, back to this argument then.
Care to explain why balance somehow strips the game of it's diversity? Or restricts players?
No one asking for balance is saying we have to remove allies, or certain units, or even superheavies and D weapons. Those are fixes for tourney's trying to make the best of what their given but if GW themselves reworked the rules none of that would be necessary.

 Zweischneid wrote:
But to strip the game of all of it's diversity just to prevent a few spoilers from ruining it on occassion seems to be throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

Sure. It's much better to have players quitting the game because they spent a whole bunch of money on models that hey liked that turned out to be completely incapable of winning a game. Or to have them show up to a game with their shiny new models and be branded a power-gamer for taking units that are more powerful than they should be.

Again, WAAC players aren't the problem. The structure of the game that allows both WAAC players and casual players alike to build over-powered lists is the problem.

Just a quick bit of input, but why do people assume that casual games involve bringing piss poor units to make them fun?

I rather have a competative game with a friend and a few drinks, and both of us enjoy it more.
Does not mean im goin to fun flayed ones as my elites just to make it "fun"

You need to keep in mind that a fun game of 40k has a different meaning to alot of people.






Also, 40k may be a game of dice, but its by no means just random.
Yes, it has randomness, but the odds can be stacked in your favour by making certain moves or playing certain units.

So, something with a 50% chance to succeed can be increased to 75% chance.
This removes alot of the dice work and shows a level of skill, rather than just randomness.

Yes, weird and wonderful things do happen in 40k. (grots killing termies as an example)
However, if you can push up that chance to favor you more, it then becomes more based on skill than it does relying on random dice.

 jonolikespie wrote:

 Zweischneid wrote:
Of course. WAAC-Players are an abomination whenever and whereever they appear.

But to strip the game of all of it's diversity just to prevent a few spoilers from ruining it on occassion seems to be throwing the baby out with the bathwater. WAAC players and "overtly competitive" players are a blight, but they - luckily - are not as common as the internet makes them out to be.

Bah, back to this argument then.
Care to explain why balance somehow strips the game of it's diversity? Or restricts players?
No one asking for balance is saying we have to remove allies, or certain units, or even superheavies and D weapons. Those are fixes for tourney's trying to make the best of what their given but if GW themselves reworked the rules none of that would be necessary.

The argument was the OP's claim that (a) tournaments are a "test of skill", and as a consequence of that (b) balance was of no relevance to "competitive gaming"

Both (a) and (b) cannot be true at the same time.

If 40K tournaments (in the mistaken believe that they are a competitive sport of some kind) attempt to bring in fixes, that is only another proof that balance is generally a concern for "competitive players".

Whether or not "more balance" is desirable for "casual only" gamers, may or may not be a worthy discussion, but it should be held separately from the odd round-about argument of tournament/competitive kinds that "we actually don't care about balance, but it would help the "casual" crowd, so we fight for more balance "in their name".

The first step is to purge this oddly hypocritical pretense, where tournament players couch their interests in some fake and misleading good-Samaritan smokescreen.

Than, if narrative people find balance-problems to be inhibiting their enjoyment of a scenario they play, a re-creation of a famous 40K-battle, etc.., let them argue and lobby for the changes they want to see in the game on their own terms.

 Zweischneid wrote:

 jonolikespie wrote:


You're confusing difficulty and relevance. List building is a skill necessary for tourney play, that doesn't mean it's subtle in any way or all that hard to do.

Well, if there is no difficulty involved, it's not a "skill" in any sense of the word.

Or, if it is, tournaments defined as a "test of skill", where the skill on test is "not in any way or all that hard to do" seem to me a rather pointless affair. It'd be like holding a tournament in closing shoes with Velcro fasteners.

 Howard A Treesong wrote:
I think the way that some units are spammed clearly shows that list building often focuses around picking the most powerful units and taking many of, while leaving a large selection of units untouched. There's nothing particularly clever about list building in this manner. Ideally every unit available should make you think and have a practical use, but that spamming is so commonly effective is a result of a poor design and inappropriate costing related to power.

Which just proves that point that tournaments aren't about "testing your skill".

If they were, tournament players would naturally build the weakest lists possible, as to insulate their results and rankings from any association with obvious and childishly-easy list-building advantages, that are not in any way hard to replicate (and thus confer no prestige as a means to win a "test of skill".)

Not exactly, list building is part of the skill as is playing the game. That's why some people netdeck for mtg and still lose. The skill is in picking the cards and knowing how to use them. The issue with spamming in 40k is that it isn't skilled or thoughtful, there's no craftsmanship to taking a pile of the most overpowered unit.

 Howard A Treesong wrote:


Not exactly, list building is part of the skill as is playing the game. That's why some people netdeck for mtg and still lose. The skill is in picking the cards and knowing how to use them. The issue with spamming in 40k is that it isn't skilled or thoughtful, there's no craftsmanship to taking a pile of the most overpowered unit.

It still doesn't add up for me.

If - lets call it - "picking the right units AND using them" in 40K is a skill of tournament-worthy sophistication, in other words a prize-worthy achievement only few truly master, why would removing it benefit casual players?

If, on the other hand, it is far too simple and obvious and "un-craftsmanship-like" to provide even the basic enjoyable "kicks" for people only tinkering with it on a superficial and casual level, how can it be a subject worthy of "serious competition"?

If the "list-building-only" aspect of playing 40k is the offending element, while the rest is sound (and a sufficiently sophisticated skill to master), why don't tournaments concerned with the competitive aspect remove that "list-building-part" (for example, but not limited to, with perfect-mirror-match-tournaments) to sidestep this interfering factor?

------------

Ultimately, if winning 40K tournaments/competitive games does indeed take considerable skill, even though the game is allegedly ill-suited for casual gaming, 40K would be the perfect tournament-game already, no?

 Zweischneid wrote:
Whether or not "more balance" is desirable for "casual only" gamers, may or may not be a worthy discussion, but it should be held separately from the odd round-about argument of tournament/competitive kinds that "we actually don't care about balance, but it would help the "casual" crowd, so we fight for more balance "in their name".

The first step is to purge this oddly hypocritical pretense, where tournament players couch their interests in some fake and misleading good-Samaritan smokescreen.

Than, if narrative people find balance-problems to be inhibiting their enjoyment of a scenario they play, a re-creation of a famous 40K-battle, etc.., let them argue and lobby for the changes they want to see in the game on their own terms.

I've never seen anyone argue that they want balance to help casual games but don't care about it themselves. I've seen plenty of people argue for balance to help the competitive scene, and then have people, such as yourself, argue that it would restrict the non competitive scene and then that discussion just dissolves from there as they try to argue that it would help BOTH styles of play.

I really don't think any of this hypocrisy exists, but I have seen people who like narrative play wanting more balance. I'm either missing some fundamental part of your argument here or you seem to have a very wrong idea about who is arguing for what and why.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Zweischneid wrote:
Ultimately, if winning 40K tournaments/competitive games does indeed take considerable skill, even though the game is allegedly ill-suited for casual gaming, 40K would be the perfect tournament-game already, no?

Your argument is that IF it takes considerable skill, the entire problem with competitive 40k at the moment is that it DOESN'T. It's easy to find the best units and once you have those best units you have a serious leg up on anyone who doesn't, leading to a situation where it only takes a significant amount of skill if both players are playing one of a VERY narrow window of lists.

 jonolikespie wrote:

I've never seen anyone argue that they want balance to help casual games but don't care about it themselves.

I was under the impression that this was the OP's argument (and thus the thing discussed in this thread).

 Bottle wrote:



A tournament player is out to win. To win you should choose the best combinations of units. Some armies have better combinations of units than others. Therefore you bring the best army to the tournament. I therefore think army balance has no sway over 40k being a good tournament game or not.

...

but when the armies have big imbalances it's hard to play the game for fun.

Emphases mine.

But in a nutshell, it's "balance = not important for tournaments" but "balance = key for casual gaming".

 Zweischneid wrote:

 jonolikespie wrote:

I've never seen anyone argue that they want balance to help casual games but don't care about it themselves.

I was under the impression that this was the OP's argument (and thus the thing discussed in this thread).

Sorry I perhaps should have said "don't care about it for our own tournament play". Your argument was that tourney players were fighting for balance in the casual player's name. I don't see that.

 jonolikespie wrote:

Your argument is that IF it takes considerable skill, the entire problem with competitive 40k at the moment is that it DOESN'T. It's easy to find the best units and once you have those best units you have a serious leg up on anyone who doesn't, leading to a situation where it only takes a significant amount of skill if both players are playing one of a VERY narrow window of lists.

So how would the winner of a competitive tournament game know whether he (a) beat his opponent "by skill", or (b) if he beat a (perhaps better-skilled) opponent by "his list", where the selection of the list is a no-brainer not worthy of any accolades?

The only rational response for anybody seriously interested in "testing their skill" would be to make sure (b) is not the case, by holding back in the list-building part, creating a natural "race-to-the-bottom" for the worst list in any genuinely competitive environment.

 Zweischneid wrote:

 jonolikespie wrote:

Your argument is that IF it takes considerable skill, the entire problem with competitive 40k at the moment is that it DOESN'T. It's easy to find the best units and once you have those best units you have a serious leg up on anyone who doesn't, leading to a situation where it only takes a significant amount of skill if both players are playing one of a VERY narrow window of lists.

So how would the winner of a competitive tournament game know whether he (a) beat his opponent "by skill", or (b) if he beat a (perhaps better-skilled) opponent by "his list", where the selection of the list is a no-brainer not worthy of any accolades?

The only rational response for anybody seriously interested in "testing their skill" would be to make sure (b) is not the case, by holding back in the list-building part, creating a natural "race-to-the-bottom" for the worst list in any genuinely competitive environment.

Except that it probably is a test of true skill, among those placing at a tourney. It's the rest of the field that suffers because those top placers brought cheesy lists.

 jonolikespie wrote:


Except that it probably is a test of true skill, among those placing at a tourney. It's the rest of the field that suffers because those top placers brought cheesy lists.

Why is list-building (and using that list) "at the top" suddenly a true test of skill, but not below that? Where is the line? Why is there a line? How is that line defined? How can you be sure it's not "no skill" all the way to the top, if there is so blatantly "no skill" below the top. It would seem only human that top-ranking players who made serious investments would be rather averse to the notion that there was no skill involved in their achievement, possibly to the point of self-delusion.

And in the end, what you are saying then, is that 40K's lack of balance is impairing the fun of casual gamers while playing at competitive tournaments? That is the beef?

Let me tell you, balance doesn't fix that. If you're a casual chess-player, and you enter a world-class tournament, you'll not have fun. Probably far less so than with 40K. That is the main problem with balanced and skill-based games. They have huge entry-barriers to the new and casual players, which the "easy-to-see-list-building"-advantages fix, precisely because they take skill out of it (for the most part).

On the subject of balance, 40k needs serious rework. It doesn't even truly allow narrative play because some things just can't be done, or can't be done without some weird special character (who should be rare) allowing it. For example if you wanted to do the 1st Company of a chapter, oh well you can't because those guys are Elites, not Troops but maybe there's an SC who can let you take Veterans and Terminators as Troops.

I really think the answer, for all the things it might do, is to get rid of the FOC. Make it like it was in 2nd edition again. In 2nd edition all your main troops were available so you could better theme armies. Wanted a 1st Company army? You could take all Terminators without any issues at all. Wanted to have a special ops group made up of your Assault Marines backed up by the 8th Company's reserves? You could have that too.

The 2nd edition "FOC" had three parts and it differed per army, but covered all the reasonable bases for the various themes of that army. For example a standard Space Marine Chapter using Codex: Ultramarines (I'm pretty sure the others had the same, maybe not Space Wolves) had the following:

HQ (50%)
Squads (25%+): Anything not a vehicle/walker
Support (50%): Tanks, dreadnoughts

Imperial Guard had the following:

HQ (50%)
Battle Line (25%+): Squads and tanks
Support (25%+): Allies, basically (You could pick an force from Space Marines, Eldar, etc.)

For example for Space Marines Tactical, Assault, Devastators, Terminators, Scouts and Bikes were all Squads and you had no limit on what you could take. So you could do a 1st Company/Deathwing army with all terminators (and have a much smaller army, of course) just as easily as you could do a Battle Company, or a Reserve Company (as much as those were fielded in full force) or even a Scout Company if you desired; it was all based on what YOUR army wanted to be. So if you wanted let's say a Raven Guard assault force, you might take mostly Assault Marines. If you wanted an Imperial Fists garrison, maybe more Tactical or Devastator squads designed to stay in place. Now THAT'S "forging the narrative"!

Maybe it was just because that was the early days of the internet but I don't recall a single time that the actual units chosen were abused when I played 2nd edition (most of the abuse was uber characters with Vortex Grenades and the like) other than perhaps Wolf Guard Terminators who just had broken rules.

IMO 40k should go back to something like that and put a cap on things that are meant to be uber rare like Riptides, Heldrakes, Wraithknights, etc. Make them 0-1 or even 0-2 to be nice, and make them cost more of course. In fact, I'm all for upping the points cost of everything again so armies become smaller, not larger; that doesn't really impact the people who want huge games because you just play like a 4,000 point battle instead of a 2,000 point battle and you could still use your nasty FW toys, but the standard games have less per side so there's less spamming of units, so you would be encouraged to take a balanced force. I liked when a 2,000 point Space Marine army in 2nd edition was like 30 guys and a vehicle or two.

Listbuilding is a skill, but it shouldn't be, at least not to the extent it where listbuiding is just as much if not more than actually playing the game. You shouldn't be penalized for picking units that fit the fluff of the army's background or your idea for the force, and you shouldn't be penalized because let's say you really like Dreadnoughts and want to field one, but their rules are crap.

 Zweischneid wrote:

 jonolikespie wrote:


Except that it probably is a test of true skill, among those placing at a tourney. It's the rest of the field that suffers because those top placers brought cheesy lists.

Why is list-building (and using that list) "at the top" suddenly a true test of skill, but not below that? Where is the line? Why is there a line? How is that line defined? How can you be sure it's not "no skill" all the way to the top, if there is so blatantly "no skill" below the top. It would seem only human that top-ranking players who made serious investments would be rather averse to the notion that there was no skill involved in their achievement, possibly to the point of self-delusion.

And in the end, what you are saying then, is that 40K's lack of balance is impairing the fun of casual gamers while playing at competitive tournaments? That is the beef?

Let me tell you, balance doesn't fix that. If you're a casual chess-player, and you enter a world-class tournament, you'll not have fun. Probably far less so than with 40K. That is the main problem with balanced and skill-based games. They have huge entry-barriers to the new and casual players, which the "easy-to-see-list-building"-advantages fix, precisely because they take skill out of it (for the most part).

Competitive players would love the game to be more balanced- that way there would be actual skill required for list building in tournaments. As it stands list building a tournament winning list means picking one of a very small number of extremely cheesy and well known lists, which requires no skill whatsoever (save possibly some basic googling skills), and later at the tournament leads to easy wins against any list that isn't equally cheesy. The only point at which actual player skill may come into play in such a scenario is if two players playing such lists face off against one another, though in this case the lists are usually so cheesy and unbalanced that there's little room for player skill in using them and it all comes down to random chance as they butt heads against one another.

Competitive players do not enjoy that, but all too often their desire to have a decent chance at winning the tournament would lead them to use such lists themselves despite the fact that it sucks the enjoyment out of the game (and it's not as if getting your ass kicked by a cheesy list is particularly fun either). Competitive players play to win, and would love nothing more than for the game to allow actual skill and intelligent listbuilding to be the deciding factor in a tournament rather than it being a contest decided according to which player could afford the most cheese and stomach fielding it in an actual game.

A better balanced game would allow competitive players to put actual thought into their listbuilding- things like coming up with tactics that would fit the rules of the tournament and figuring out the best combination of units with which to employ them, trying to ascertain the local meta and figuring out what your opponents would likely field and adjusting your list and the tactics its built around to take that into account, trying to come up with something unexpected that would shake things up and blindside people who were expecting you to field something completely different. Afterwards it will allow actual skill to matter in the game since without blatantly overpowered or underpowered units using your models for effect better than your opponent does his would require having a better gameplan, instincts and, of course, luck.

And there is absolutely nothing in this that would make a more balanced game less fun for casual players. On the contrary, it would make casual games better.

-

 Galorian wrote:


And there is absolutely nothing in this that would make a more balanced game less fun for casual players. On the contrary, it would make casual games better.

I disagree.

Put a Chess-newb who only started playing 2 months ago against a semi-experienced player with 2 years of experience into a game, casual or not, and see how it goes. Than put the 2 year veteran against a 20-year veteran.

As said, balanced and skill-based games are fiendishly punitive to newbies, precisely because they need to learn and train and build up game-experience and skill, often over years.

40K works, because it mitigates the skill-advantage in often brutal ways. What you knew about 40K 2 years ago (or 20 years ago) doesn't matter. You can pick up the latest army, study the game for 2 months and you can (potentially) be king of the hill in most match-ups.

In that sense, 40K is a lot more casual than .. to stick with the example .... chess. And that is the reason I enjoy 40K more than games like chess. That is why I like 40K exactly the way it is now. If I want to scratch the "competitive itch", there are millions of games out there that do that for me. There are very few "feth balance, lets have fun" games in the vein of 40K. Hence why it's worth protecting.

 Zweischneid wrote:

 Galorian wrote:


And there is absolutely nothing in this that would make a more balanced game less fun for casual players. On the contrary, it would make casual games better.

I disagree.

Put a Chess-newb who only started playing 2 months ago against a semi-experienced player with 2 years of experience into a game, casual or not, and see how it goes. Than put the 2 year veteran against a 20-year veteran.

As said, balanced and skill-based games are fiendishly punitive to newbies, precisely because they need to learn and train and build up game-experience and skill, often over years.

40K works, because it mitigates the skill-advantage in often brutal ways. What you knew about 40K 2 years ago (or 20 years ago) doesn't matter. You can pick up the latest army, study the game for 2 months and you can (potentially) be king of the hill in most match-ups.

In that sense, 40K is a lot more casual than .. to stick with the example .... chess. And that is the reason I enjoy 40K more than games like chess. That is why I like 40K exactly the way it is now. If I want to scratch the "competitive itch", there are millions of games out there that do that for me. There are very few "feth balance, lets have fun" games in the vein of 40K. Hence why it's worth protecting.

Its only fun if both players self-restrict the power level of their list. The fact that a newb can learn everything about the game in 2 months will not help at all if he runs into taudar and he didn't bring an equally powerful list. Hence, balance is important, even for casual play.

Deschenus Maximus wrote:


Its only fun if both players self-restrict the power level of their list..

Which they should.

Self-restricting your list isn't hard (especially (!) if you take to the game more seriously, and want to stage events with a more competitive edge).

Self-restricting your "skill" in a more balanced game like Chess is arguably impossible.

Exactly. In this particular game of toy soldiers, no one expects you to not play to the best of your skill, but in friendly games to bring an army that it'll be fun for your opponent to play. Hence the term, "friendly."

Tournament-quality lists vs. tournament quality lists is fun. Tournament quality lists vs. the models a new player liked and collected is not fun, for either player.

I am planning on eventually getting an Imperial Knight. I think the fluff is way cool, and the model is way cool. I also expect I'll get to actually run it on the table like, twice? None of my friends play very competitively because we've kind of built a culture more about the modeling and painting aspect than the tabletop game itself (which is really awesome to be part of, btw). I actually don't play very competitively, and I'll be honest it's because I am a very compeititve person so losing when I'm actually trying stings. At least I'm adult enough to realize I can occasionally be a poor sport after losing a game even as ultimately meaningless as Competitive Yahtzee Warhammer 40,000.

It seems to me a lot of people can't quite seperate playing for enjoyment and playing with the express purpose to win.

WayneTheGame wrote:
Maybe it was just because that was the early days of the internet but I don't recall a single time that the actual units chosen were abused when I played 2nd edition (most of the abuse was uber characters with Vortex Grenades and the like) other than perhaps Wolf Guard Terminators who just had broken rules.

Codex Space Wolves was guilty of both of the big ones: The Wolf Guard Terminator with Cyclone and Assault Cannon army, and the Blood Claw with Jump Pack, chainsword and powerfist army.

Eldar jetbike/skimmer armies were also a little broken due to the rules allowing them to hide behind terrain and make pop-up attacks, and being able to choose to be invulnerable to close combat attacks.





Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Bottle wrote:
You are arguing balance is detrimental to the tournament scene because the tournament scene is actually played in a casual/friendly way.

No, I'm not. I'm saying lack of balance is detrimental to the tournament scene, because the tournament scene is for many players played in a casual/friendly way.

Lack of balance hurts both 'competitive' and 'casual' players, because (for most players) it makes it less enjoyable to play lower-tier armies. There are exceptions (there's a fairly highly ranked local player who rather enjoys using bottom-tier armies just to see if he can do well with them) but for the most part, extreme imbalance results in smaller tournaments, and more complaining about cookie-cutter armies.

A balanced system results in a wider spread of armies being used. Which is good for everyone.

 Zweischneid wrote:

 Galorian wrote:


And there is absolutely nothing in this that would make a more balanced game less fun for casual players. On the contrary, it would make casual games better.

I disagree.

Put a Chess-newb who only started playing 2 months ago against a semi-experienced player with 2 years of experience into a game, casual or not, and see how it goes. Than put the 2 year veteran against a 20-year veteran.

As said, balanced and skill-based games are fiendishly punitive to newbies, precisely because they need to learn and train and build up game-experience and skill, often over years.

40K works, because it mitigates the skill-advantage in often brutal ways. What you knew about 40K 2 years ago (or 20 years ago) doesn't matter. You can pick up the latest army, study the game for 2 months and you can (potentially) be king of the hill in most match-ups.

In that sense, 40K is a lot more casual than .. to stick with the example .... chess. And that is the reason I enjoy 40K more than games like chess. That is why I like 40K exactly the way it is now. If I want to scratch the "competitive itch", there are millions of games out there that do that for me. There are very few "feth balance, lets have fun" games in the vein of 40K. Hence why it's worth protecting.

The chess analogy is downright dumb- chess is a simple game with few variables and no random chance, the two sides are identical in all but color and who gets the starting move and at higher levels winning is determined almost entirely by memorization of perfect plays.

No one is arguing for "perfect balance", no one here wants all the armies to be identical or even particularly similar to one another and we aren't calling for the removal of variety and "cool rules" from the game, all we want is that point values will properly reflect the in-game worth of a model in such a way that every codex will be able to stand a chance at holding its own in tournament play if played properly by a skilled player and that some thought be given to prevent blatant abuses that break the game system such as re-rollable 2++ saves or Serpent Shield spam.

I am not a competitive player, I restrict my list building to keep thing fun and I have never fielded my Transcendent C'tan (a kit I bought before escalation was revealed because it looks fething awesome) in any game without being explicitly asked to and I play with a largely friendly gaming community where I usually already know the people I'm playing against, and this does not stop me from being annoyed by the fact that the game is blatantly unbalanced, mortified by the fact that my 3rd rate sub-optimal lists often crush the best that some of my friends can field with pathetic ease and aggravated by the fact that I feel the need to skew my model "wish list" to avoid buying too many "cheesy" models rather than just buy the models that I like and think are awesome but would end up leaving on the shelf collecting dust because I'm too nice a guy to play a proper flying circus or wraithwing list against my friends.

I hate the fact that for an upcoming tournament where each player brings two army lists to choose from each game I felt the need to make one of them a T C'tan list just in case one of the Tau or Eldar players that could show up might field the Riptides and Serpents I know they have (leaving me with one "conventional" TAC list to play against "non-cheesy" opponents, which both forced me to make it a stronger list than I usually field and actually put me at a serious disadvantage against some armies).

 Zweischneid wrote:

Deschenus Maximus wrote:


Its only fun if both players self-restrict the power level of their list..

Which they should.

Self-restricting your list isn't hard (especially (!) if you take to the game more seriously, and want to stage events with a more competitive edge).

Self-restricting your "skill" in a more balanced game like Chess is arguably impossible.

You expect too much out of the community; if what you were asking for was possible, "tfg" would be a term no one would have ever heard from.

No, much better to have balance at the source than having fruitless expectations that the players will police themselves.

 Zweischneid wrote:

Deschenus Maximus wrote:


Its only fun if both players self-restrict the power level of their list..

Which they should.

Self-restricting your list isn't hard (especially (!) if you take to the game more seriously, and want to stage events with a more competitive edge).

Yeah, and self-restriction also has the ability to potentially kill my fun just because I like units that are considered "too strong". I have just as much right to play with my triptide list as you have to play with your footslogger Thousand Sons. If you tell me to "self-restrict" then you are ruining my fun.

 Bottle wrote:
Broken balance between armies affects "forging a narrative" play, & does not affect Tournament play

Categorically and demonstrably false.

Broken balance affects everyone.

 AtoMaki wrote:


Yeah, and self-restriction also has the ability to potentially kill my fun just because I like units that are considered "too strong". I have just as much right to play with my triptide list as you have to play with your footslogger Thousand Sons. If you tell me to "self-restrict" then you are ruining my fun.

If people would focus on making sure their opponent is having fun, and worry less about whether or not they themselves have fun, the whole thing would sort itself naturally.

And there is no "right" to anything. It's a voluntary hobby between 2 (or more) consenting people. Neither you nor I have the "right" to anything.

But if you can make a convincing case that playing your three Riptides is fun for me, and I can make a convincing case that playing my footslogging Thousand Sons is fun for you, everyone wins (either by having a mutually enjoyable game, or by parting ways before wasting precious hobby-time on an un-fun game).



Automatically Appended Next Post:

Deschenus Maximus wrote:


You expect too much out of the community; if what you were asking for was possible, "tfg" would be a term no one would have ever heard from.

No, much better to have balance at the source than having fruitless expectations that the players will police themselves.

I disagree. Balance severely diminishes the game (see all those inferiour, far-less fun "balanced" games like Warmachine, Infinity, etc..) for everyone, those that abuse the imbalances and those that handle them with proper maturity.

Sure, 40K can be abused, but those "tfg" as you call them aren't numerous enough to warrant gelding the game simply to stop a minority of spoilers.

 Zweischneid wrote:
Which they should.

Why? Why should anyone need to 'self restrict' their lists?

And if there was greater balance in the game, you wouldn't need to self restrict.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Zweischneid wrote:
Which they should.

Why? Why should anyone need to 'self restrict' their lists?

And if there was greater balance in the game, you wouldn't need to self restrict.

Of course you would. See the chess-example from the very post you took that quote from, and you'll see your answer.

 Zweischneid wrote:
I disagree. Balance severely diminishes the game (see all those inferiour, far-less fun "balanced" games like Warmachine, Infinity, etc..) for everyone, those that abuse the imbalances and those that handle them with proper maturity.

A triple strike in absurdity there Zwei. Are you trying to go for some sort of record? Ok, so, from the top:

1. Balance severely diminishes the game. Ok, you’re going to have to offer some proof for that outrageous statement. Oh wait, you have offered proof, such as it is.
2. “[S]ee all those inferior, far-less fun ‘balanced’ games like Warmachine, Infniity, etc.”. See, here’s the problem Big Z. You’re attempting to use your personal opinion of other games as ‘proof’ of how balance is bad. Everything you say here is the very definition of subjective. Inferior? Based on what? Far-less fun? Due to what exactly? As such your first statement, that balance diminishes the game, hinges on your proof of "inferior, far-less fun” games that are only so because you deem them to be. Great job buddy!
3. And now we’re making judgement calls of character. People are either mature and don’t abuse the game, or are immature and do. Or… the game is balanced (insofar as the goal being ‘imperfect balance’, as complete balance is impossible) and maturity doesn’t factor into it at all. But that’s a nice swipe at this bringing good units though. They’re ‘immature’.

We get it Zwei, you hate tournaments, and you think everyone who plays in them is some WAAC nut-case. You’ve made that case time and time again. But this – this stuff of yours above – is next-to-insane. Balance diminishes a game? For real?

And all this from the guy who says he only argues for logic… yikes!

 Zweischneid wrote:
See the chess-example from the very post you took that quote from, and you'll see your answer.

As has been pointed out to you already, your chess example is inadequate and does not represent the situation at hand. Chess is always the same game. It always has the same forces. Every unit operates the same way every time. There's no random element or element of chance. It is a balanced game (or imperfectly balanced, as one side has to go first).

 Zweischneid wrote:

If people would focus on making sure their opponent is having fun, and worry less about whether or not they themselves have fun, the whole thing would sort itself naturally.

But my enemy is also supposed to think about me having fun, so the big conflict ball of "How should we have fun?" will keep bouncing all over the place.

 Zweischneid wrote:

And there is no "right" to anything. It's a voluntary hobby between 2 (or more) consenting people. Neither you nor I have the "right" to anything.

Of course you have rights. Like the right of having fun while playing this game. Otherwise, we wouldn't debate here.

 Zweischneid wrote:

But if you can make a convincing case that playing your three Riptides is fun for me, and I can make a convincing case that playing my footslogging Thousand Sons is fun for you, everyone wins (either by having a mutually enjoyable game, or by parting ways before wasting precious hobby-time on an un-fun game).

I dunno, but this negotiation element sounds pretty surplus. I mean, if I liked to convince people then I would be a lawyer or a salesman. But I just want to play a friggin' game with my toy soldiers and not waste my precious time with arguing whether my army is fun or not .

What is the point of grabbing the worst units? In the end, it's likely still unbalanced even there for all we know.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:


We get it Zwei, you hate tournaments, and you think everyone who plays in them is some WAAC nut-case.

Not really. I love tournaments. I'm the South-East England DreadBall Champion and fancy myself a fair chance of winning the Nationals next weekend.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

2. “[S]ee all those inferior, far-less fun ‘balanced’ games like Warmachine, Infniity, etc.”. See, here’s the problem Big Z. You’re attempting to use your personal opinion of other games as ‘proof’ of how balance is bad. Everything you say here is the very definition of subjective.

I'd be happy to skip that point if people would stop bringing in the equally subjective point that Warhammer 40K is allegedly some kind of bad game and in "need of a fix", when it isn't (outside of objective opinions, of course).

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

3. And now we’re making judgement calls of character. People are either mature and don’t abuse the game, or are immature and do. Or… the game is balanced (insofar as the goal being ‘imperfect balance’, as complete balance is impossible) and maturity doesn’t factor into it at all. But that’s a nice swipe at this bringing good units though. They’re ‘immature’.

Bringing in units of any kind is not related to maturity.

Lack of consideration of your opponent's enjoyment of a mutually shared hobby-time is what's immature.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:


1. Balance severely diminishes the game. Ok, you’re going to have to offer some proof for that outrageous statement. Oh wait, you have offered proof, such as it is.

Everybody keeps banding about the claim that balance "is good for everyone" without proof either.

Big Z lost me at "(see all those inferiour, far-less fun "balanced" games like Warmachine, Infinity, etc..)".

So much for logic, proof, fact based anything, etc.

 Alpharius wrote:
Big Z lost me at "(see all those inferiour, far-less fun "balanced" games like Warmachine, Infinity, etc..)".

So much for logic, proof, fact based anything, etc.

Fair enough. Once Infinity/Warmachine surpass 40K as a consequence of their superiour rules swaying gamers all around the world to their side, I'll happily eat my words.

If you have a better "non-subjective" measure than aggregate popularity, let me know. Other than that, your opinion of Warmachine > 40K seems no less biased than my opinion of 40K > Warmachine.

 Zweischneid wrote:

Everybody keeps banding about the claim that balance "is good for everyone" without proof either.

It would promote greater diversity through more viable unit selection? It would allow for more thematic lists that aren't focused around abusing a few strong options or a broken combination? It wouldn't require you to negotiate the power level of the game you're looking for with your opponent? It would be tactically deeper and placing more burden on player skill than list building/size of wallet/model availability?

I don't know how you can honestly say with a straight face that balance is bad. If you're arguing that, you probably also must think that further imbalance would improve the game. Which is patently absurd.

 Zweischneid wrote:

 Alpharius wrote:
Big Z lost me at "(see all those inferiour, far-less fun "balanced" games like Warmachine, Infinity, etc..)".

So much for logic, proof, fact based anything, etc.

Fair enough. Once Infinity/Warmachine surpass 40K as a consequence of their superiour rules swaying gamers all around the world to their side, I'll happily eat my words.

If you have a better "non-subjective" measure than aggregate popularity[u], let me know. Other than that, your opinion of Warmachine > 40K seems no less biased than my opinion of 40K > Warmachine.

So popularity defines superiority?

So by your definition, one direction are the greatest band ever, because they're popular....

Yeah, your argument fails bud.

 Zweischneid wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:


1. Balance severely diminishes the game. Ok, you’re going to have to offer some proof for that outrageous statement. Oh wait, you have offered proof, such as it is.

Everybody keeps banding about the claim that balance "is good for everyone" without proof either.

Well, for one, if the game was balanced, then I could just pour whatever units I want to the battlefield and my opponent could do the same and have fun. It would be, like, absolute army building freedom. No matter what I squeeze out of my codex, it will have exactly the same power level of the other combinations of the other codices so I don't have to give even a single ounce of thought about building my army. Just take whatever I like and have fun!

Unrestricted fun, that is .

 Blacksails wrote:

It would promote greater diversity through more viable unit selection?

Perhaps. But if so, I've yet to see an example of how more unit diversity creates more balance. Most concrete suggestions (I have seen) appear to revolve around restrictions (remove allies, make Riptides 0-1, etc..).

 Blacksails wrote:

It would allow for more thematic lists that aren't focused around abusing a few strong options or a broken combination?

How does the presence of strong/broken combinations force you to abandon your thematic list?

 Blacksails wrote:

It wouldn't require you to negotiate the power level of the game you're looking for with your opponent?

Which would be the single most counter-productive step backwards in the history of gaming. The very fact that we've come tantalizingly close to making the pre-game negotiation an accepted part of the game, and possible are going away from a "legalistic" approach to game rules, is possibly the single greatest thing in gaming since the invention of the D6.

 Blacksails wrote:

It would be tactically deeper and placing more burden on player skill than list building/size of wallet/model availability?

Of course, I acknowledged that more balanced would place more burden on player skill (e.g. like Chess as one, of course imperfect, comparison), which is the reason I like 40K (better than Warmachine, Infinity, Chess, etc..).. Because it is imbalanced, it does not place the burden on skill, making it a more casual game. That's the point.

Zweischneid's just doing his usual routine here.

It is...tiresome.

Deadnight wrote:


So popularity defines superiority?

I think you are confusing "defining" and "measuring" (through an imperfect proxy/indicator, of which others and better ones could exist)

As I said, I am open to other measurable indicators for rules-quality.

It's the whole shifting goalposts thing again, isn't it?

 Zweischneid wrote:

Perhaps. But if so, I've yet to see an example of how more unit diversity creates more balance. Most concrete suggestions (I have seen) appear to revolve around restrictions (remove allies, make Riptides 0-1, etc..).

You have it backwards. Better balance promotes greater diversity. That is a good thing, and I think you'd be hard pressed to debate otherwise.

How does the presence of strong/broken combinations force you to abandon your thematic list?

Again, backwards. Better balance would promote thematic lists at all levels of play. Currently, those of a competitive mind use strong/broken combinations that are not entirely fluffy or thematic. Better balance would alleviate this for everyone.

Which would be the single most counter-productive step backwards in the history of gaming. The very fact that we've come tantalizingly close to making the pre-game negotiation an accepted part of the game, and possible are going away from a "legalistic" approach to game rules, is possibly the single greatest thing in gaming since the invention of the D6.

Pre game discussion are great for terrain, scenarios and other often accepted introductions before a game.

Telling me one of us is going to have to re-do their list to better fit the other side is not a good thing.

Of course, I acknowledged that more balanced would place more burden on player skill (e.g. like Chess as one, of course imperfect, comparison), which is the reason I like 40K (better than Warmachine, Infinity, Chess, etc..).. Because it is imbalanced, it does not place the burden on skill, making it a more casual game. That's the point.

Well, I guess that's part of the disconnect here, but I can't see a downside to improving the current tactical depth of 'line up your big guns and shoot the best units first in descending order'.

 Alpharius wrote:
It's the whole shifting goalposts thing again, isn't it?

Is it? Did I say "defining" and move away from it now?

I don't know - did you?

 Blacksails wrote:


You have it backwards. Better balance promotes greater diversity. That is a good thing, and I think you'd be hard pressed to debate otherwise.

Greater diversity is always a plus. I agree. I know no game more diverse than 40K.

As said, if you find a way to balance the game by increasing diversity, I am all for it. All "balanced" games appear to work with far less (and more "mirror-style" armies) to achieve it.

I might look at it from the "wrong side", but at least I am not looking at it from some "hypothetical game" that only exists as a vague dream in some people's head. Surely there must be an example of a game both more diverse and more balanced than 40K in the sense you promote, so we have something with a bit of meat to discuss.

 Blacksails wrote:

Again, backwards. Better balance would promote thematic lists at all levels of play. Currently, those of a competitive mind use strong/broken combinations that are not entirely fluffy or thematic. Better balance would alleviate this for everyone.

I don't see the automatism you claim. Even if everything is 100% balanced, there would still be "unfluffy" combinations, unless you put in extra restrictions (to the detriment of diversity).

 Blacksails wrote:


Pre game discussion are great for terrain, scenarios and other often accepted introductions before a game.

Telling me one of us is going to have to re-do their list to better fit the other side is not a good thing.

Nobody is "telling you" to re-do your list. But if people perceive that they have the "right" to bring anything they goddamn please, just because it is in some rulebook, they are putting "the book" over the "social aspect" and that can never ever be a good thing.

 Blacksails wrote:


Well, I guess that's part of the disconnect here, but I can't see a downside to improving the current tactical depth of 'line up your big guns and shoot the best units first in descending order'.

I guess you haven't tried getting into some competitive Chess, etc.. yet. Give it a go and see if you like to spend your weekends like that instead.


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Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Alpharius wrote:
I don't know - did you?

No, I didn't. Though Deadnight claimed I did, so I put things right. How is that "moving goal-posts"?

Either way, how about you suggest an objective measurement for "rules-quality" that we can use to compare Infinity vs. 40K, etc.., since you were the one asking for proof, and you are also apparently not satisfied with the (admittedly very blunt) measure of relative popularity/sales.

 Zweischneid wrote:

 Blacksails wrote:


Pre game discussion are great for terrain, scenarios and other often accepted introductions before a game.

Telling me one of us is going to have to re-do their list to better fit the other side is not a good thing.

Nobody is "telling you" to re-do your list. But if people perceive that they have the "right" to bring anything they goddamn please, just because it is in some rulebook, they are putting "the book" over the "social aspect" and that can never ever be a good thing.

If I want "social aspect" in my fun then I go out with my friends and not play 40k .

I think we’re at the point where we all need to walk away. Big Z is at the level where virtually every second post is his, so his strategy (beyond red-herrings, no-proof arguments, and the legions of straw men that are helping him move those goalposts back and forth) is to ware us down so that one of us cracks and goes for the jugular, and he claims a moral victory.

It’s a pretty boring and obnoxious posting style, so I think it’s best to revert to my wall strategy. Big Z is a wall. Walls are difficult to get through. But walls can’t follow you. Walk away from the wall and it loses its significance (assuming it even had any to begin with).

I’m walking away.

Good call.

I've had enough Vitamin Z for today.

 Zweischneid wrote:


Greater diversity is always a plus. I agree. I know game more diverse than 40K.

As said, if you find a way to balance the game by increasing diversity, I am all for it. All "balanced" games appear to work with far less (and more "mirror-style" armies) to achieve it.

I might look at it from the "wrong side", but at least I am not looking at it from some "hypothetical game" that only exists as a vague dream in some people's head. Surely there must be an example of a game both more diverse and more balanced than 40K in the sense you promote, so we have something with a bit of meat to discuss.

Again, no, its not about balancing by increasing diversity, its about balance that encourages diversity. You still have it backwards. We have all the units we'll ever want, we just need an incentive to use them now in a pick up game.

I don't see the automatism you claim. Even if everything is 100% balanced, there would still be "unfluffy" combinations, unless you put in extra restrictions (to the detriment of diversity).

Of course there would be unfluffy combos, but a lot of armies are currently punished for bringing a thematic or fluffy list. Better balance encourages more use of thematic lists, which would proportionally drive down the unfluffy aspects. This isn't guaranteed, but it can't hurt either.

Nobody is "telling you" to re-do your list. But if people perceive that they have the "right" to bring anything they goddamn please, just because it is in some rulebook, they are putting "the book" over the "social aspect" and that can never ever be a good thing.

No, but the implication of your pre-game negotiation is determining what power level of a game you wish to play. The three options when two severely mismatched lists would be to not play that person, to play that person in a lopsided match, or some sort of compromise/list alteration. Two of those options are not ideal, as not playing a person or playing a one sided match are hardly acceptable solutions. The last option is for both or either party to agree to a change.

If the rules were better balanced, that particular aspect of the pre game discussion wouldn't be necessary. Instead it would be about terrain, scenarios, exchanging army lists, clarifying models and any vague rules, and general chit chatting. Removing the part about list negotiation is an entirely positive experience. Don't assume that having two balanced armies will all of a sudden turn both sides into mutes before the game.

I guess you haven't tried getting into some competitive Chess, etc.. yet. Give it a go and see if you like to spend your weekends like that instead.

You keep bringing up chess as though its relevant. It isn't. There's a middle ground here, and its not black and white like the chess board in your example.

*Edit* Yeah, as above, I think I'm done now.

Well, good night everyone!

I'm more than happy to stop. I am sorry if I misunderstood anybody's questions for actual interest in the topic at hand. I didn't want to appear impolite by not answering

Zweischneid wrote:
Fair enough. Once Infinity/Warmachine surpass 40K as a consequence of their superiour rules swaying gamers all around the world to their side, I'll happily eat my words.

If you have a better "non-subjective" measure than aggregate popularity, let me know. Other than that, your opinion of Warmachine > 40K seems no less biased than my opinion of 40K > Warmachine.

Zweischneid wrote:

I think you are confusing "defining" and "measuring" (through an imperfect proxy/indicator, of which others and better ones could exist)

As I said, I am open to other measurable indicators for rules-quality.

So popularity 'measures' superiority? Point still stands - if popularity 'measures' superiority, one direction are the greatest band ever.

Zweischneid wrote:.
No, I didn't. Though Deadnight claimed I did, so I put things right. How is that "moving goal-posts"?

You did. You equate 'aggregate popularity' with why 40k was the better game. Sorry, you 'measure' it. All 'popular' tells you is lots of people play it. Nothing more.

quote=Zweischneid].
Either way, how about you suggest an objective measurement for "rules-quality" that we can use to compare Infinity vs. 40K, etc.., since you were the one asking for proof, and you are also apparently not satisfied with the (admittedly very blunt) measure of relative popularity/sales.

Fundamentally, when you're talking about game balance, you're talking about increasing the amount of latitude in choices people can make and you're reducing the number of "I'm losing constantly, what's wrong with my list/give me a netlist" threads. You're increasing the amount of people that can get involved in the hobby, reducing the cost of entry, reducing the general level of frustration, and increasing the variety of acceptable playstyles and army types on the tabletop.

On the other hand, if you like playing against netlists and super competitive FOTM armies, then by all means, continue what you're doing.

Ah, so Zwei must have been busy yesterday, so we're getting Zweiday on Sunday this week.

I'm going to pick up on your F1 analogy from back along, as that alone betrayed your ignorance of both this topic and f1.

They do not spend millions or billions ensuring a level playing field.

The FIA put out a set of rules which very strictly define what is and isn't permissible on a car.

The teams (the competitors) then spend millions, if not billions, of pounds and hundreds if not thousands of man hours looking for every single potential loophole or degree of latitude they can wring out of that ruleset to give themselves even the slightest, barely measurable advantage over the rest of the competition.

They push things to the absolute limit, to the point of sometimes inviting sanction and generating controversy. They do not "self limit" to be sporting, the responsibility of maintaining a competitive environment and not allowing anyone to get too far ahead to preserve it is very firmly on the FIA (GW in his analogy.) Even to the point of stepping in mid season(edition) to revise things that are legal, if they are deemed to be throwing things too far out of whack.

The thing is, at least in F1, everyone is turning up to race day with the same objective. To transport your argument, you're effectively arguing that someone who turns up with their garage built, 4 cylinder stock car somehow has the right to ask everyone else to detune their engines, add extra weight or whatever, to make it "fair."

In real life, one must qualify within a certain time of the pole sitter to even be allowed to race, if you're not quick enough then you don't get to compete.

Now, we don't have the luxury of something as easy to objectively measure as A to B speed in wargaming, but plenty of other companies seem to manage to at least ensure that the majority of their game allows for rough parity across the whole spectrum of their range, and while some choices might be less or more optimal than others, few, if any, will eviscerate your chances of winning in quite the same way as GW rules. Rendering the need for a "minimum qualifying time" largely moot.

 Zweischneid wrote:
But if you can make a convincing case that playing your three Riptides is fun for me, and I can make a convincing case that playing my footslogging Thousand Sons is fun for you, everyone wins (either by having a mutually enjoyable game, or by parting ways before wasting precious hobby-time on an un-fun game).

Yup, everyone wins... aside from the part where they waste a whole bunch of time negotiating about whether or not they are allowed to use their armies, rather than just throwing down miniatures and getting on with the game.


Or the part where you decide that my Riptide army is broken and refuse to play against it.


In a more balanced system, neither of those things woudl need to happen.

Deadnight wrote:

Zweischneid wrote:
Fair enough. Once Infinity/Warmachine surpass 40K as a consequence of their superiour rules swaying gamers all around the world to their side, I'll happily eat my words.

If you have a better "non-subjective" measure than aggregate popularity, let me know. Other than that, your opinion of Warmachine > 40K seems no less biased than my opinion of 40K > Warmachine.

Zweischneid wrote:

I think you are confusing "defining" and "measuring" (through an imperfect proxy/indicator, of which others and better ones could exist)

As I said, I am open to other measurable indicators for rules-quality.

So popularity 'measures' superiority? Point still stands - if popularity 'measures' superiority, one direction are the greatest band ever.

Zweischneid wrote:.
No, I didn't. Though Deadnight claimed I did, so I put things right. How is that "moving goal-posts"?

You did. You equate 'aggregate popularity' with why 40k was the better game. Sorry, you 'measure' it. All 'popular' tells you is lots of people play it. Nothing more.

Zweischneid wrote:.
Either way, how about you suggest an objective measurement for "rules-quality" that we can use to compare Infinity vs. 40K, etc.., since you were the one asking for proof, and you are also apparently not satisfied with the (admittedly very blunt) measure of relative popularity/sales.

YMdc forums give a measure of issues encountered by the community. Then there are other factors like general measuring of company support, faqs, 'cleanness' of the rules etc.

But whatever. You never listen. I'm out

You have to remember which goal posts get moved with Z.

Originally, it was about what was "Fun" or not:

 Zweischneid wrote:


I disagree. Balance severely diminishes the game (see all those inferiour, far-less fun "balanced" games like Warmachine, Infinity, etc..) for everyone, those that abuse the imbalances and those that handle them with proper maturity.

Sure, 40K can be abused, but those "tfg" as you call them aren't numerous enough to warrant gelding the game simply to stop a minority of spoilers.

Then I guess it became "Most Popular= Most Fun" or something like that?

-

 Bottle wrote:

insaniak wrote:

 Bottle wrote:
You are arguing balance is detrimental to the tournament scene because the tournament scene is actually played in a casual/friendly way.

No, I'm not. I'm saying lack of balance is detrimental to the tournament scene, because the tournament scene is for many players played in a casual/friendly way.

When I said "balance", I meant lack of too

@Zwei,

I enjoyed reading all your points (although I don't agree. I still think lack of balance is less fun for casual players).

He has a blog, if you'd like to know more.

Probably has a newsletter you could subscribe to as well.

*click click click click*

-

insaniak wrote:Playing friendly games doesn't mean not playing to win. It's a game where someone is supposed to win.

What an interesting way of putting it.

Anyways, lots of stuff.

@ tournaments:

I think people are agreeing here, they're just being incommensurable. Most people would agree that...

1.) If the definition of a tournament is an organization in which players play to win, then it is also something that does not accurately test player skill. A more skilled player will test his skills a lot better with a handicap than without, and nobody is going to show up to a tournament with a handicap if the point is to win.

2.) If the definition of a tournament is an organization which tests player skill, then 40k has never really had tournaments. I've never, ever seen a 40k tournament that ranked players by how low-power their list was, rather than by how many games they won.

The thing to remember is that when you look at professional tournament-style things, it's that the players are severely restricted, and there's virtually no input for player creativity, and everyone is brought down to a level playing field.

For an obvious example, if a marathon was nothing more than a 26 mile race, and the winner was nothing more than who crossed the line first, then the winner would be the person who showed up with the fastest rocket car.

To continue the analogy, the player who shows up with an ork list is deciding to run the marathon on foot, while the person with the taudar is deciding to run the marathon on horseback, while the person with the foot DE list is running the marathon with 100-pound weights strapped to his legs.

As such, because all things aren't starting equal, tournaments can't test player skill. And that's before we consider how absurd it is to even talk about measuring player skill in a dice game, much less comparing skill with such a miniscule sample size as most tournaments.

@ List building: List building is a skill, but not in the way it's being presented.

It takes VERY little skill to copy a netlist from the internet. It takes a lot more skill to design a decently-powerful foot guard list. It takes a LOT more skill to design a fluffy 1ksons list and still get it to win a decent number of games.

Furthermore, it's not some crass mini-game. Some people (myself included) actually like making lists, and really take advantage of the creativity it offers. If you don't like making lists, or if you want to just copy a netlist, fine, but that doesn't mean that some people aren't enjoying it.

And it actually has a place in the greater scheme of things as well. If I feel like I'm winning too much compared to the people around me, then I SHOULD be able to have creativity in what units I bring to the table so that I can self-regulate and bring a more challenging list to counter having less challenging opponents.

Being able to craft exactly the list you want with exactly the units you want to play the exact way you want to at exactly the power level you want is absolutely most definitely a skill.

It's nearly an art form.

Zweischneid wrote:Put a Chess-newb who only started playing 2 months ago against a semi-experienced player with 2 years of experience into a game, casual or not, and see how it goes. Than put the 2 year veteran against a 20-year veteran.

As said, balanced and skill-based games are fiendishly punitive to newbies, precisely because they need to learn and train and build up game-experience and skill, often over years.

40K works, because it mitigates the skill-advantage in often brutal ways.

And this is really important.

For years I've been trying to get my wife to play games of various sorts, but it's been slow because she's not from a gamer family. One of the things that we found is that we can't play proper strategy games against each other. She's a complete and total noob at strategy games, and because I'm not, I tend to horribly slaughter her at them for no other reason than I'm used to thinking that way. We can't play chess, and we can't play go, and we can't even play stratego or, strangely enough, battleship. When we play, she loses, and badly, and there's no real good way to handicap myself in these games, which means that both of us get bored really quickly.

But we do play games together. Games like Carcasonne, and Dominion (and Settlers when we have enough people). Games that are primarily luck-based. Games where better player skill means managing odds in a different way, which means that both players can do a decent share of winning, even if one person is playing much better than the other.

These games are not ones that pit player skill directly against each other, and they're both good games, and, I'd argue, necessary games for some people. I don't WANT 40k to pit player skill against player skill. There are already plenty of games that do that. What I want is for 40k to be a glorified dice game. A game where a newbie isn't comprehensively slaughtered game after game for the first few years when playing against someone better than them. A game where things are interesting because they're unpredictable, rather than a dry exercise in memorization.

Moreover, I also want it to be a game where you can't just look at the two army lists and know exactly who should win. You should be able to compare the two lists power levels, but it shouldn't be a game like rock paper scissors where both players reveal their choices, but that's it - a winner is determined and you don't even need to bother playing it out.

And that randomness provides a huge amount of the cure for this problem. The power level between the ork player and the taudar player's lists aren't the same (and that's a good thing), but the outcome of the game isn't a foregone conclusion either, because we're playing a dice game.

And the player skill thing, too. Remember that part about there being a pool of players who are competitive - who actually WANT a challenge. If the game was so perfectly balanced that every list had an equal chance of winning, then how would those people be able to handicap themselves without doing something incredibly crass like giving themselves fewer points.

These people want the game to be imbalanced, not because they want to spam the most powerful thing, but so that they have the option of taking less powerful stuff.

insaniak wrote:That would be ideal, yes. In much the same way that a battleship in monopoly is exactly as 'strong' as the shoe.

This is a great example of what I was talking about. In monopoly, what pieces you choose to play with is irrelevant. You might as well not even have the ability to choose your piece at the beginning of the game. 40k is a much richer game for being able to decide what things are going to look like at the beginning of the game, rather than having set, equal pieces on a set, symmetric board.

But that richness and depth require a player's decisions to have a meaningful impact on the game. Without making the armies different, choosing orks vs. choosing tau has about as much difference as choosing the shoe or choosing the dog in monopoly. You're creating the illusion of choice, and nothing more.

insaniak wrote:

This means that there aren't real differences between armies, but it would merely be a difference between the number of minis that a player wanted to put down, and what those minis looked like.

It would mean nothing of the sort. An assault army would still play differently to a shooty army. They would achieve their objectives using different strategies... they would just have a reasonably even chance of actually achieving those objectives.

So, for just a moment, consider a chess analogy. Chess is a game wherein both players have an equal chance at winning at the beginning of the game. The only thing that's really different is the way that the players move their pieces. What you're saying, in effect, is that 40k should be like chess in that regard. It shouldn't matter what pieces you put on the table, and both players should start out the same, and the only thing that should matter is how people move their pieces. Of course, 40k is a little more complex than this, but it the whole game would more or less boil down to this.

Now, if the point of a tournament was to pit player skill against each other, then you'd have to start all players out as equal, so that everything but skill (moving the pieces) was controlled for. If the purpose of the game was to measure player skill, then yes, having any possible combination of units in 40k should yield you the exact same chance of winning (minus player skill) as any other army list you brought.

But is this what we really want from 40k? People play chess because the only real point is to win the game. Nobody plays chess because they like how they've painted their pieces, or which pieces they've chosen to place on the board, and nobody plays chess because the act of moving pieces, in and of itself, is an interesting activity in its own right. The game has made so many things equal, that it has made the game so shallow, that there is only one real reason to play chess - to win, and at all costs allowed by the game mechanics.

But this is a failure of chess, not a strength. Chess takes away so many possible points of player choice - so many opportunities for a player to make meaningful decisions (which is, in its very essence, what a game is), that you're stuck with only moving pieces as the only input. Expanding player choice doesn't necessarily make the game better (because people still like to play chess), but it does make the game much, much deeper. And it's that depth that makes 40k 40k. If people just wanted a dry, shallow strategy game that was nothing more than moving pieces, then they could just go play chess. Or Go. These games have already been invented and more or less perfected.

But if you want to play 40k, you want to play something different.

Think about those other games like 40k I mentioned. Imagine, for a moment, that Dominion was set up in such a way where whichever cards you chose to buy didn't matter. You could do equally well by making your first 10 moves buying moats as anything else. What cards you chose to buy didn't matter at all, only in which order you chose to play them. Would that make dominion better? No, it would make the game much worse, because the cards you choose to buy, and in which order sort of is the entire point of a deck building game.

Likewise, consider MTG. Would that game be improved by all combination of cards being equal? I could bring a deck of 75 any randomly-selected cards and it would be the same as 75 cards chosen carefully by a player, and the only difference was how you played the deck? This would make MTG a lot worse as well, because it's those player choices that are critical to the game itself.

For a third example, consider MTG or 40k if it had the rule where both players were required to build a deck of identical cards, or an army of identical models. That way, your choice of deck or lists would give you an exactly equal chance of winning (player skill excluded). Would you want to play every game as a mirror match? Of course you wouldn't. People were already talking about how everyone showing up with the same deck or the same armies makes everything worse.

What you want is INequality, not equality. Equality makes the game more shallow, and defeats the kind of purpose of having these kinds of games in the first place, rather than just playing chess. Yes, there are lots of 40k players who choose to bring the same lists to big tournaments, but that's a choice that the players are making. The game shouldn't force everyone else to make what is largely regarded as the wrong, more boring decision.

The only way to get around this, as mentioned, is with diversity, but not with fake diversity where you just have different colored pieces, or you have different pieces that move in different ways. Even chess has this. In order to have real diversity, you need to have there be real consequences for making certain decisions rather than others (remembering that meaningful player choice is what a game is). In order for choices to have real consequences, then the end result of those choices has to be actually different.

This means, for example, that you choose to take a combination of units that is so bad that you lose practically every game. Because unless you can do this, then choosing strong units and combinations is meaningless. In order for player choice in combining units to have meaning, therefore, you have to have a game that supports both "bad" decisions along with the "good" ones. You need to have a game that DOESN'T control for everything else so that only player skill in moving pieces around is what matters.

In order to have meaningful choice in a game like 40k, you need to have not all decisions be the same. You need to not have balance. You need imbalance for a game like 40k to be a game like 40k, rather than a game like chess. It is that inequality that makes the game interesting, and the choices worth making.

Just because a few people happen to always pick the strongest combination doesn't mean that you should take away everybody else's right to choose their own combinations. You shouldn't make 40k a weaker, shallower game just because some people are allowed to play the game in a way that others find boring. That's the players, not the game, and it's the player's responsibility to have fun, and make it fun for their opponent. But this is always true of every game. Making this self-balancing act easier but in a way that makes the game worse isn't worth it. Not if it destroys the game as the game is and makes it something that it isn't.

As such, 40k need imbalance to be 40k. If it suddenly gets perfectly balanced, and the only thing that matters is the results of die rolls, then it ceases to be 40k, but becomes a version of yahtzee with minis, which is a fate we're trying to avoid, rather than encourage with perfectly balanced armies.

People who want balance, and all the things that it gets you, really should just go and play one of those other games, if that's the kind of game that they want to play.

 Ailaros wrote:
Stuff.

It will greatly help your argument if you try to understand the difference between balance, randomness and symmetry, and realize that very few people enjoy your masochistic "hard mode" approach. For example, you mention Settlers as an example of a good game for non-gamers, but that's a game with perfect balance and symmetry (since all sides are exactly the same). This blatantly contradicts your claim that a balanced version of 40k would make it impossible for non-gamers to enjoy it because it would be all about chess-like obsessive memorization.

-

 Zweischneid wrote:
Perhaps. But if so, I've yet to see an example of how more unit diversity creates more balance. Most concrete suggestions (I have seen) appear to revolve around restrictions (remove allies, make Riptides 0-1, etc..).

Simple: because maybe making Riptides 0-1 makes stealth suits a 0-3 option instead of a 0-0 option that nobody ever takes. By restricting a small number of overpowered units you make room for a lot of other options to become viable choices, and diversity is improved. Now, obviously it would be best to re-balance Riptides so that they don't need a 0-1 restriction to be fair, but that's something only GW can do. Things like 0-1 restrictions are just the community's best tool for getting the desired results when the people with the ability to make proper changes are unwilling to invest the effort.

How does the presence of strong/broken combinations force you to abandon your thematic list?

Because nobody enjoys losing one-sided massacres every time they play a game. If a thematic list can't even attempt to compete with an optimized list that exploits the broken combinations then the thematic list's player has two choices: lose constantly and not have any fun, or don't play at all.

Which would be the single most counter-productive step backwards in the history of gaming. The very fact that we've come tantalizingly close to making the pre-game negotiation an accepted part of the game, and possible are going away from a "legalistic" approach to game rules, is possibly the single greatest thing in gaming since the invention of the D6.

Sorry, but this is just masochistic nonsense. The fact that pre-game negotiation is necessary is a bad thing. A good game doesn't require it because there's nothing to negotiate, you just say "hey, let's play a game" and then play it, and everyone is happy. You only need pre-game negotiation when you're trying to salvage some enjoyment out of a broken game.

Because it is imbalanced, it does not place the burden on skill, making it a more casual game. That's the point.

So, let me get this straight: an ideal casual game is one in which both players have to care a lot about the game and make a major effort to negotiate what is allowed (and build a collection with appropriate units to vary the power of their list) if they want to have an enjoyable experience where both players have a fair chance of winning? And balancing the game so that two players who don't care very much about the game can just say "hey, want to play a game?" and then go have fun would make it less casual?

I think it's pretty clear that your definition of "casual" is not the same as the one found in the dictionary.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Zweischneid wrote:
I don't see the automatism you claim. Even if everything is 100% balanced, there would still be "unfluffy" combinations, unless you put in extra restrictions (to the detriment of diversity).

Except that "unfluffy" armies would be much rarer. If making an "unfluffy" army doesn't give you any advantage over a "fluffy" army then why wouldn't you just make an army with whatever you think is cool? The only time you'd have an "unfluffy" army is when someone else has a different idea about what the fluff should be, and I can't see how anyone could deny that this would be a better situation than the current Tau/Eldar/Inquisition/titan abominations where the player just takes a collection of the most overpowered balance mistakes without even an attempt at caring about the theme or background fiction.

Nobody is "telling you" to re-do your list. But if people perceive that they have the "right" to bring anything they goddamn please, just because it is in some rulebook, they are putting "the book" over the "social aspect" and that can never ever be a good thing.

And the point that everyone but you understands is that a good game doesn't have any difference between "the book" and "the social aspect" because the two aren't in conflict. In a good game (which includes good balance) there's no question of whether you have a "right" to do something, because doing it is still fun for everyone involved. This conflict only exists in bad games where the rules are broken and you need to resort to shunning "bad" people to allow everyone in your group to have fun.

Bottle wrote:I think it's only you and Zwei that think it is a better test of skill to take a handicapped list to a tournament.

It's not that unintuitive. Consider an example:

Two chefs are brought forward to make two different meals, and they are to be judged by a panel of perfect, impartial judges in a score from 1 to 100. The first chef produces a meal that scores an 83, and he had complete pick of any ingredients he wants, and they're all guaranteed to be fresh. The second chef also scores an 83, but he only had access to ingredients that came from a hot dog rack at a gas station. Which is the better chef?

Of course the second one is. The first can make good food from good ingredients, while the second can make good food from total garbage. It takes more skill to do the latter than the former. The first is competent, while the second is the true master.

The same is true for 40k itself. Do you need to have more or less skill to win a game with a list that's weaker than your opponent? More, of course. Bringing taudar to the table is like juicing up on steroids - anyone can bulk up quickly with the finest chemistry has to offer, but it takes a person with skill and determination to achieve the same results without the same advantages.

Plus, a person who is competitive isn't a person who is trying to win - they're a person who is trying to compete. A proper competition requires a serious chance of losing. In fact, the victories get progressively sweeter the longer the odd are of you pulling it off. A person who just wants to win will take the easiest path afforded. A person who wants to compete will ratchet up the difficulty level as high as he can get away with to keep honing his skills.

To bring it back to 40k, playing a tau gunline is like swordfighting against a target dummy while playing a khorne berzerker army is like practicing your swordfighting 3 against 1.

Once again, I'd note that you'd have to have a system whereby a player could choose to fight a practice dummy or play on hard mode of 3 against 1. Making everything equal removes that choice.

 Ailaros wrote:
To continue the analogy, the player who shows up with an ork list is deciding to run the marathon on foot, while the person with the taudar is deciding to run the marathon on horseback, while the person with the foot DE list is running the marathon with 100-pound weights strapped to his legs.

And you seriously think this makes for a better playing experience for all those involved?

She's a complete and total noob at strategy games, and because I'm not, I tend to horribly slaughter her at them for no other reason than I'm used to thinking that way.

The interesting thing here is that you choose to believe that she sucks at strategy games because she lacks experience, rather than that she sucks at strategy games just because she sucks at strategic thinking.

A lot of people do, and experience won't necessarily fix that. I've played Chess against people who have been playing the game just as long as I have, and who suck at it. That's not a lack of experience, that's just not being good at thinking in the way that is required to make you good at Chess.

What I want is for 40k to be a glorified dice game. A game where a newbie isn't comprehensively slaughtered game after game for the first few years when playing against someone better than them.

The thing is, in the current imbalanced system, this is exactly what happens, because the newbie buys an army based on which models they like the look of, and this has a reasonable chance of winding up with a collection of miniatures that perform absolutely rubbish as an army.

Moreover, I also want it to be a game where you can't just look at the two army lists and know exactly who should win.

Which, again, would be more likely under a system where any two armies are more or less equal, rather than now, where you can hold upa Taudar list, and an Ork Footslogger list, and not really need to roll any dice...

. Remember that part about there being a pool of players who are competitive - who actually WANT a challenge. If the game was so perfectly balanced that every list had an equal chance of winning, then how would those people be able to handicap themselves without doing something incredibly crass like giving themselves fewer points.

What's the difference practically between giving yourself fewer point, and deliberately choosing less effective units?

. Without making the armies different, choosing orks vs. choosing tau has about as much difference as choosing the shoe or choosing the dog in monopoly. You're creating the illusion of choice, and nothing more.

Absolutely. Except for the fact that it's completely false.

The Ork army is still going to play differently to the Tau army... they're just going to have an even chance of winning. Because, you know, game.

Likewise, consider MTG. Would that game be improved by all combination of cards being equal? I could bring a deck of 75 any randomly-selected cards and it would be the same as 75 cards chosen carefully by a player, and the only difference was how you played the deck? This would make MTG a lot worse as well, because it's those player choices that are critical to the game itself.

Weren't you saying a few pages back that downloading a netlist isn't particularly skillful?

If a part of playing the game well involves players making a good deck, or writing a good army list, but that part of the game can be circumvented by just downlaoding a list from the net, does it really have any meaning as a part of the game?

For a third example, consider MTG or 40k if it had the rule where both players were required to build a deck of identical cards, or an army of identical models. That way, your choice of deck or lists would give you an exactly equal chance of winning (player skill excluded). Would you want to play every game as a mirror match? Of course you wouldn't. People were already talking about how everyone showing up with the same deck or the same armies makes everything worse.

And it certainly does. Which is why one army being substantially better than every other is bad. It makes taking any other army a poor choice. Sure, it doesn't 'require' players to all use that army... but it certainly encourages them to do so.

Put all armies on an even playing field, and that goes away.

The game shouldn't force everyone else to make what is largely regarded as the wrong, more boring decision.

Yes, that's exactly the point.

The weird part is that you think it's a point that supports your argument for an imbalanced game, rather than doing the exact opposite.

 Peregrine wrote:
Simple: because maybe making Riptides 0-1 makes stealth suits a 0-3 option instead of a 0-0 option that nobody ever takes. By restricting a small number of overpowered units you make room for a lot of other options to become viable choices, and diversity is improved. Now, obviously it would be best to re-balance Riptides so that they don't need a 0-1 restriction to be fair, but that's something only GW can do. Things like 0-1 restrictions are just the community's best tool for getting the desired results when the people with the ability to make proper changes are unwilling to invest the effort.

True as all that might be, we both know why 0-1's were removed from Codices.

-

Personally, I want to win a battle because I used superior strategy/tactics (or was extremely lucky) and not because I can pick 3 overpowered units while my opponent is using a codex that's 2 editions out of date. That's why we need balance. There shouldn't be any "bad" units, there should be units that are good in some situations and not in others, but all are viable and can find a use in an army based on theme. Some might require more strategy than others, but you should be able to take whatever units you want that fit your theme and do well if you know what you're doing.

That's what I like about a game like Warmachine/Hordes: All units are viable. You might use some units more than others because of the list you are running, but there are no real units that are just bad and will make you lose simply because you made the wrong choice and decided to take them at all instead of taking the unit that's way OP that everyone else takes because it's the clear "winner" in unit choices.

A game is broken the moment there's a unit that you always want to take, and a unit that you never want to take, because then why have that inferior unit exist in the game at all? To trick people into buying them only to find out they're garbage?

That's how 40k should be. I want balance so I have the choice of taking let's say a Riptide, or Crisis Suits, or Stealth Suits and depending on my playstyle all three are viable; maybe I'm playing an advanced scout force and Stealth squads make thematic sense; I shouldn't be punished because I want to field them. Or balance to where I can include a squad of Howling Banshees because they fit my army theme and not be penalized because I took the wrong unit. The game is too much about listbuilding, and not enough about strategy and tactics. A superior player with an inferior army will lose to an inferior player with a superior army almost every time, and that's IMO a bunch of crap.

WayneTheGame wrote:Personally, I want to win a battle because I used superior strategy/tactics (or was extremely lucky) and not because I can pick 3 overpowered units while my opponent is using a codex that's 2 editions out of date.

Then don't pick 3 overpowered units. You have control over that. You don't have to pick an army list that makes winning easy.

You're asking the rules to save you from yourself...

insaniak wrote:

Ailaros wrote:To continue the analogy, the player who shows up with an ork list is deciding to run the marathon on foot, while the person with the taudar is deciding to run the marathon on horseback, while the person with the foot DE list is running the marathon with 100-pound weights strapped to his legs.

And you seriously think this makes for a better playing experience for all those involved?

If someone was happier running the marathon with weights, then it would be a better experience for the person wearing the weights, yes.

insaniak wrote:

What I want is for 40k to be a glorified dice game. A game where a newbie isn't comprehensively slaughtered game after game for the first few years when playing against someone better than them.

The thing is, in the current imbalanced system, this is exactly what happens, because the newbie buys an army based on which models they like the look of, and this has a reasonable chance of winding up with a collection of miniatures that perform absolutely rubbish as an army.

But in an imbalanced game, the newbie can pick a stronger army to make the game easier for them. It takes 30 seconds and an internet connection to figure out what the most powerful armies are.

Meanwhile, if you took away the ability for a noob to play a strong list and a veteran to play a weak list against him, you're taking a situation that's bad for new players and making it worse. Forcing a newb and a vet to compete at the same level is going to lead to a lot more frustration for the newb.

insaniak wrote:

. Without making the armies different, choosing orks vs. choosing tau has about as much difference as choosing the shoe or choosing the dog in monopoly. You're creating the illusion of choice, and nothing more.

Absolutely. Except for the fact that it's completely false.

The Ork army is still going to play differently to the Tau army...

So? You've still managed to bring the game down to one of nothing but moving pieces.

I mean, a chess player playing black is going to play differently than a chess player playing white (white rarely uses a sicilian defense, for example), but that doesn't mean the game isn't more shallow.

insaniak wrote:

Likewise, consider MTG. Would that game be improved by all combination of cards being equal? I could bring a deck of 75 any randomly-selected cards and it would be the same as 75 cards chosen carefully by a player, and the only difference was how you played the deck? This would make MTG a lot worse as well, because it's those player choices that are critical to the game itself.

Weren't you saying a few pages back that downloading a netlist isn't particularly skillful?

If a part of playing the game well involves players making a good deck, or writing a good army list, but that part of the game can be circumvented by just downlaoding a list from the net, does it really have any meaning as a part of the game?

insaniak wrote: Which is why one army being substantially better than every other is bad. It makes taking any other army a poor choice. Sure, it doesn't 'require' players to all use that army... but it certainly encourages them to do so.

Put all armies on an even playing field, and that goes away.

Once again, though, you're forgetting about the player.

If two players choose to have a game where their lists are of equal strength because they both brought the same list, the fault lies with the players choosing to bring the same list. By making everything equal what you're doing is forcing everyone to do the same as if they were bringing the same list. You're sinking everyone to the lowest common denominator.

Downloading netlists doesn't take much skill, but that doesn't mean we should take all skill out of list building. Don't punish the good for the sins of the bad.

 Ailaros wrote:

Bottle wrote:I think it's only you and Zwei that think it is a better test of skill to take a handicapped list to a tournament.

It's not that unintuitive. Consider an example:

Two chefs are brought forward to make two different meals, and they are to be judged by a panel of perfect, impartial judges in a score from 1 to 100. The first chef produces a meal that scores an 83, and he had complete pick of any ingredients he wants, and they're all guaranteed to be fresh. The second chef also scores an 83, but he only had access to ingredients that came from a hot dog rack at a gas station. Which is the better chef?

While I like this analogy, I also have a small discrepancy I'd like to point out.

It's certainly a solid analogy regarding List Build Vs. Skill, because, like you say, A person with an Overpowered list and less skill very well can keep up with someone with a weak list and a great deal of skill.

The only thing is that, unlike in your analogy, list choice is player controlled, while you seem to make it forced on Chef 2 to cook from Gas-station ingredients.

In "Competitive" 40k, you can absolutely be hampered by your list-choice and army-choice, which will cause your skill to produce less results even against weaker opponents, but it is still your choice to bring said list/army. Every player has the right, as well as the access to Lists of equal strength to their opponent; whether they choose to buy/model/paint/play said army is up to them.

It's easy to blame the army for being weaker than another, but if that weakness is that big of a deal, then you need a different army that compete at the higher levels where the former army cannot. So yes, using premium ingredients Chef 1 scored a 83, and if Chef 2 used premium ingredients, he may have scored a 96, which begs the question: Which matters more to Chef 2, leveling the playing field and showcasing his skill through triumph, or handicapping his resources and choosing to test himself in seeing if he can still keep up/triumph.

Just my input.
-TheCaptain

 Ailaros wrote:
Then don't pick 3 overpowered units. You have control over that. You don't have to pick an army list that makes winning easy.

Yeah, it's just great that the guy who takes three Riptides because giant robots are cool has to buy a different army so they don't win too easily. This is so much better than a game in which you can take any three units you want and not worry about ruining your opponent's fun.

If someone was happier running the marathon with weights, then it would be a better experience for the person wearing the weights, yes.

Except the thing you keep refusing to understand is that most people don't enjoy your kind of masochism. They want to play a game/run a race/whatever and try their best to win, they don't want to have to go through some elaborate handicapping ritual to prove how superior their skills are.

But in an imbalanced game, the newbie can pick a stronger army to make the game easier for them.

Yeah, why give newbies free choice of which armies to take when you can lock them into a single power build?

Meanwhile, if you took away the ability for a noob to play a strong list and a veteran to play a weak list against him, you're taking a situation that's bad for new players and making it worse.

Here's a hint: you can always play with fewer points. Play 1000 points vs. 1500 points in a balanced game and you've given the newbie an advantage, but since you haven't destroyed game balance to do it you can then play balanced 1500 vs. 1500 games without masochistic "hard mode" rituals.

I mean, a chess player playing black is going to play differently than a chess player playing white (white rarely uses a sicilian defense, for example), but that doesn't mean the game isn't more shallow.

Seriously, please try to learn the difference between symmetry and balance. Chess is "shallow" because it's a symmetrical game where both sides are equal, not because both sides have a roughly equal chance of winning. A balanced game with diverse strategies does not suffer from that problem.

By making everything equal what you're doing is forcing everyone to do the same as if they were bringing the same list.

Sigh. Do you understand the difference between "all options are viable" and "all lists, no matter how poorly constructed, are equally good"? For example, let's say rough riders and Vendettas are equally balanced in some abstract sense. Both are appealing options in the appropriate list, but that doesn't mean they're interchangeable. The rough riders might be better in a list with other infantry units, while the Vendettas might work best with mechanized troops. No, this doesn't let you make every single choice and still have the same chance of winning, but it lets you pick at least some of your favorite units and still have a viable list as long as you're reasonably smart about picking the rest of your units.

Downloading netlists doesn't take much skill, but that doesn't mean we should take all skill out of list building. Don't punish the good for the sins of the bad.

Do you know why netlists exist? Because of poor balance. The main reason netlisting is so common is that it's easy to identify the best option, which is usually the one that abuses the most of the overpowered balance mistakes. In a balanced game netlisting is much less relevant since there's no clear best list to copy.

 Ailaros wrote:
Then don't pick 3 overpowered units. You have control over that. You don't have to pick an army list that makes winning easy.

Which brings us back to the point where players feel like they can't use the models they want to use because of those models having over-powered rules...

But in an imbalanced game, the newbie can pick a stronger army to make the game easier for them...

Provided they don't wind up playing against a better player with a similar list... which they will, in a tournament environment, and are likely to in any more competitive casual environment.

And provided, being a newbie to the hobby, they actually know to look online for list ideas, and know where to look even if they do.

Meanwhile, if you took away the ability for a noob to play a strong list and a veteran to play a weak list against him,...

...then you wind up with a situation that you get with pretty much every strategy game ever made, where a new player won't be as good as a more experienced player. You keep presenting this like it's a problem. It's not. It's the whole nature of competition.

Yes, the new player might lose a few games until they become a better player. That's a system working exactly as it should.

Forcing a newb and a vet to compete at the same level is going to lead to a lot more frustration for the newb.

Only if the newb is going into it expecting to be as good as the vet. Which would be silly, and naive.

Personally, when I'm just learning a new game, and I'm playing against someone more experienced than myself, I take that as a learning experience. I don't expect to be as good at something the first time I do it as someone who has been doing it for 20 years.

By making everything equal what you're doing is forcing everyone to do the same as if they were bringing the same list.

Sure. Except for the fact that they have different lists.

So if by 'the same' you mean 'completely different' then yes, I totally agree.

 Ailaros wrote:

Jidmah wrote:In a well balanced game, the tau player could plonk down however many riptides he wishes without ruining the game for anyone and/or getting insulted as TFG.
In a well balanced game, no single unit should be able to make half the armies in the game obsolete, even if taken in quintets.
In a well balanced game, a combination of as little as three army choices should not generate nigh-invincible units.
In a well balanced game, using a mono-build list like croissants of doom should easily be counter-able by every army in the game.

Okay, but think about it for a moment. How are we really defining balance?

Because what it looks like here is that a well-balanced game is one wherein a player can take any combination of units and do more or less just as well as another player taking any other combination of units.

Do you really want a game like this? Because if there are no strong units and weak units, strong armies and weak armies, or strong combinations and weak combinations, then what does it matter what you take? In a way, your choices become irrelevant. You're just taking different-shaped models.

In this world of balance, you take away the meaningfulness of a player's decision. List building becomes pointless.

It would just make the game worse.

Oh no, you misunderstood me there. You interpreted this as every list being able to beat riptide spam, pentadrakes et cetera. That's not what I meant to say. I'll explain the lines in detail to make my point more clear:
- You just should not be able to just pick the most efficient unit from your codex and be able to kill everything with it.
- There should be a hard-counters to every type of unit, not just some. If the helldrake is the hard-counter to space marines, then space marines should also have access to a hard-counter to helldrakes - one of their anit-air options should be able to blow a helldrake straight out of the sky, barring unlucky dice. This choice must be equally difficult to fit in your list as the unit it is countering. Right now we have a hard-counter in a slot mostly useless to CSM which can only be countered by either spending much more points (storm ravens) and/or wasting multiple valuable heavy support slots with dedicated anti-air. Hard-counters also should not be great at killing wide bandwidth of unit, but rather just the ones it's supposed to be countering (good example of this are grav guns - awesome at killing armored targets, terrible at killing horde units). Age of Empire2 had this implemented almost to perfection in their latest patches. Against any type of unit you had unit that would take close to no damage from it and tear it to shreads in a blink of an eye. However, that exact unit fell flat on its face when not fighting the target it was supposed to. This way you had all-round units like knights and archers and counter-units like pikemen and spear throwers. While a knight would do well against anything but a pikeman, a pikeman would do awesome against knights (and other cavalry), but not against anything else.
- If there are combos, they should be hard to pull off and easy to break, for every codex. In case of the grimoire, it should be really easy to kill the grimoire bearer to break it (take away all his saves?), or limit such levels of durability to once per game. Paladins with FNP and named monstrous creatures really should be pinnacle of survivability, not somewhere in midfield. If there is a rule that forces you to arrange five units of pink horrors to a pentagram in order to summon Tzeench himself, that's ok - the opponent can easily stop it and if you manage to pull it off, you can tell everyone about it for weeks. And the best part - gasp - you're forging a narative!
- If my opponent has all planes, and I brought one or two of dedicated anti-air units, he should be the one losing the game, not me. If my imperial army wasted a slot of artillery or heavy tanks in order to bring a unit that's mostly useless if there are no targets, it better should tear right through anything in the sky that's not extremely heavily armored. Of course, the necrons should be able to just take out the trio of hydras, but that would require points spent in something other than night scythes.

I'd argue the other side, that in order for a player's decisions about what to bring to be meaningful, he has to be able to "fail" at list building. He has to be able to make bad choices. Furthermore, he has to be able to make choices that he KNOWS will be weaker than other choices, but still wants to take them anyways.

Because when you sit down to play chess, whether you play black or white is scarcely relevant (to anything but the opener). In order for a player to have serious choice, they need to be able to bring a different kind of army, and for that to have a real impact. They need to choose not to play taudar, for example, which means they need to have a choice that's actually different than taudar, and if taudar is the best, then that requires you to have things which are worse.

Now, yes, this can obviously lead to extremes, and you don't need to tell me that tau lists can be pretty boring to play against, but still, 40k needs imbalance to be 40k. The only question is striking the correct level of imbalance.

And what is that correct level? As best I can tell, it's to provide a relatively smooth power curve in such a way where a person can play with exactly as powerful of an army as they want, and be able to have some expectation of what the result of the game will be by comparing it to the power level that their opponent brought. And 40k already does this pretty well.

But the thing is, though, that it has to be a player choice. Yes, people can complain that we shouldn't be forced to balance the game ourselves, but we MUST be required to balance the game ourselves in order for our choices to have meaning. It's just part of the cost to get the advantages.

If you don't want to have to sit down with your opponent and hash things out, then play a game where both armies start out equal to each other, like chess or stratego or go. That way you'll get what you want, but you also won't get 40k.

It takes "some assembly required" to have the freedom to assemble the game the way you want.

I fully agree with everything you said. Think of it this way: You should not lose because your opponent brought Riptides/Drakes/Serpents/Unkillable Deathstar of Doom. You should lose because you brought a random selection of non-synergistic units from your codex, you forgot to bring something to kill tanks, you played worse than your opponent or because your warphead teleported Thrakka and his bodyguard of 10 MANz into a rock.

That sounds like the exact opposite of what you're talking about. I can't think of someone who wants a challenge any less than someone who is playing for the purpose of winning (which is the point of tournaments in the first place).

Maybe we should call them competitive players rather than tournament players. You always try to win a tournament, since you paid an entry fee and you want to win one of the prizes.
In a regular competitive game, you are looking for the challenge and you would tune down your army to get that challenge. When I face the necron kid from one of my stores who always tailors his army against mine in pick-up games, I don't obliterate him for foolishly taking a sub-optimal HQ, just because he happens to love the model (the guy who randomly turns into a C'Tan). I even dis-attached my warboss from his unit, just to fight his HQ one on one, to see how awesome he really is when "the stars align".
In tournaments? Sorry, out of luck. I'll bunch up his immortals around the HQ between battlewagons, stack templates on them and have them evaporated by 100+ wounds, while my warboss tears up his ghost arks. No cinematic show-downs when you are able to win $80 worth of models.

I literally cannot fathom how pepole claiming to be experienced and skilled players cannot understand that having balanced point costs for models will not prevent the existence of weaker and stronger combinations...

Boggles the mind.

I simply cannot think of anything to say about this other than "you obviously don't understand this game as well as you claim you do"...

 Jidmah wrote:
- There should be a hard-counters to every type of unit, not just some.

Absolutely not. Hard counters are bad because games that involve them aren't fun. The player whose strategy got hard-countered isn't going to have any fun pulling useless models off the table until the game ends, and the player who brought the counter isn't going to have any fun mindlessly rolling dice as their choice of counter wins the game for them. Having lots of hard counters in the game reduces it to rock/paper/scissors, where all that matters is who brought the right hard counter. Even if you're theoretically winning a perfect 50% of your games an equally perfect 100% of them will be fun-destroying massacres. You might as well just play "flip a coin to see who wins" and then spend a couple hours pushing models around the table and making gun noises.

 Zweischneid wrote:

 Alpharius wrote:
Big Z lost me at "(see all those inferiour, far-less fun "balanced" games like Warmachine, Infinity, etc..)".

So much for logic, proof, fact based anything, etc.

Fair enough. Once Infinity/Warmachine surpass 40K as a consequence of their superiour rules swaying gamers all around the world to their side, I'll happily eat my words.

If you have a better "non-subjective" measure than aggregate popularity, let me know. Other than that, your opinion of Warmachine & 40K seems no less biased than my opinion of 40K & Warmachine.

Yes, because 40k is totally as popular as it is because of its gloriously fun imbalance. That's sarcasm, by the way. I don't love 40k for the gameplay, I love it for the setting, the mythos, whatever. I love it because I got into a committed relationship with it and I'm trapped, even though there are consistently things I hate. That said, 40k is popular because it is effectively the original. It's the Windows of tabletop wargaming. Is Call of Duty better than Dark Souls because it has more fans? Hardly.

To the idea that 40k has nothing to do with anything other than probability: no, unless you think that one Guardsman could be reasonably expected to kill a full Tactical Squad in melee. It could happen, but the player who starts with one Guardsman on the table compared to the other player's ten Space Marines is going to lose. It's only when, in a complete vacuum, we put ten Marines vs ten Marines that it becomes pure chance - in a vacuum. Of course, games don't take place in vacuums, and pure randomness is generally filtered out through the number of rolls one has to make. For a Space Marine to kill another Space Marine with a bolter, he has to roll To Hit, he has to roll To Wound, and the other Marine has to take his armour save, which rounds it out and makes things overall rather statistical. Are you honestly suggesting that Terminators are no tougher than Scouts because of the possibility (in face of a relative statistical unlikelihood) for a Terminator to fail an armour save?

To the idea that imbalance makes it fun: no. That is actual nonsense. You are suggesting that, should we both be using the same Codex to play against each other (which would be entirely balanced, as we would have access to everything the other does - this doesn't account for internal balance, of course, but that's a different issue), one player should get +25%, +50%, +100% more points than the other, otherwise it won't be fun.

Balance benefits strategy and skill. In Halo, for example, a standard Deathmatch sees a Red and Blue team, each consisting of 6 players, fight each other to the death. It is fun, and played for fun - there is no actual benefit to winning a game other than the satisfaction, but loss is still enjoyable as long as the game itself was. Would it be fun if, say, the Blue Team all spawned with double shields, infinite grenades, sniper rifles, and rocket launchers? Because that's what it's like when one army is objectively better than another. Bring Orks vs Tau or Eldar or Taudar or a Revenant Titan and watch as all skill becomes completely irrelevant. Skill in list-building, in playing, in strategy means nothing when your opponent can field something that you can't, and that something is either impossible for your Codex (never mind your build, since few games begin with advance knowledge of an opponent's build) to beat, or something so crushingly points-efficient that your opponent may as well be playing with a higher points limit than you, or something capable of deleting mass amounts of your points every turn, or something that is all of these things, and say it is fun. Is it fun to play Sisters of Battle and know, no matter how hard you try, no matter how skilled you are at list-building, that you will be easily defeated by any unskilled idiot who learns about 2++ rerollable invulnerable saves or some other insurmountably powerful build? Perhaps we'll do Space Marines vs Space Marines, but all of mine get Str 9 AP1 Bolters with no chance to their points cost because "imbalance makes the game fun".

People keep comparing this to real sports (pretending, for a moment, that 40k is a "sport" in any sense, which is laughable). I'm not going to hunt the thread for the quote, but someone suggested that sport players don't handicap themselves to get a challenge. This is because they are all equally human - the challenge is pushing their bodies and minds to achieve performance. None have the option of showing up to the match on a motorcycle with a device that can pull the ball from forty metres away and launch it even further. None have the option of showing up with a minigun to murder the opposing team with and score freely. Instead we have balance; two groups who are all given the same opportunities as the others, competing with all of their prowess, training, and tactics to ultimately put balls in nets. How about we play tennis, and I'll bring a gun (along with the necessarily rules adjustments to allow me to shoot you mid-game and continue playing and scoring while you are incapacitated)?

Also, balance does not equal symmetry. There is a really great multiplayer in Dead Space 2. One team is the Necromorph (space zombies), the other is human. The human team tries to complete an objective while the Necromorph team try to slow them down and eventually stop them. The Necromorph respawn rapidly and have the aid of computer-controlled mobs, while the human team is small but individually very powerful. This is an asymmetrical game, but it is balanced well. If it were not balanced well, then the purpose of the game is moot - why play, if one team is going to automatically win by virtue of being that team? If two of X are worth one of Y, then the ratio of X to Y should be 2:1, not 1:2.

The short version is: let's play a game. We each get a d6, and whoever gets the highest number wins. Oh, and I get 2d6 - didn't you know that imbalance is what makes a game really great and popular?

EDIT: I have written a new codex. It is as follows:

Force Org: Take what you want.

HQ
A small tortoise: 10pts
WS1 BS1 S1 T1 W1 I1 Sv -

Special Rules: Small Tortoise - A small tortoise cannot be wounded or removed from play in any way. It can score objectives, and automatically gains 2 VP for every turn it is on the board.
Cute Face - Every phase, any model that can draw line of sight to a small tortoise must immediately Go To Ground and take 5d6 Wounds or Hull Points with no saves of any kind allowed. Wounds caused in this way inflict Instant Death, and if the model cannot Go To Ground after taking these Wounds then it is immediately removed from play and awards its point value in Victory Points to the small tortoise's player. Hull Points removed in this way automatically cause an Explodes! result on the vehicle damage chart.
A small tortoise is both a Monstrous Creature and a Gargantuan Creature because, if robots can be Monstrous Creatures, then what's even the point in distinguishing them from Walkers except that MCs are just better?

My amazingly well-made list that I spent hours on:

HQ
A small tortoise
A small tortoise
A small tortoise
A small tortoise
A small tortoise
A small tortoise
A small tortoise
A small tortoise
A small tortoise
A small tortoise
A small tortoise
A small tortoise
A small tortoise
A small tortoise
A small tortoise
A small tortoise
A small tortoise
A small tortoise
A small tortoise
A small tortoise

So fun!

 Peregrine wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:
- There should be a hard-counters to every type of unit, not just some.

Absolutely not. Hard counters are bad because games that involve them aren't fun. The player whose strategy got hard-countered isn't going to have any fun pulling useless models off the table until the game ends, and the player who brought the counter isn't going to have any fun mindlessly rolling dice as their choice of counter wins the game for them. Having lots of hard counters in the game reduces it to rock/paper/scissors, where all that matters is who brought the right hard counter. Even if you're theoretically winning a perfect 50% of your games an equally perfect 100% of them will be fun-destroying massacres. You might as well just play "flip a coin to see who wins" and then spend a couple hours pushing models around the table and making gun noises.

Did you actually read my post, or just jump to conclusions after reading that sentence? Considering how your post isn't remotely about what I wrote, I'm guessing second. You don't create hard-counters to strategies. You create hard-counters to units.

A helldrake right now is a hard-counter to a strategy, basically everything from a marine codex not involving TDA or metal bawkses. Due to 5++, IWND, four hull points and AV12 it is way too durable for a hard-counter, since even dedicated anti-air units can't reliable take it down. A helldrake done as I described in my post would be down to AV10 and three hull points - because a hard counter is not supposed to be good against anything besides its target. Most infantry still struggles to hurt it due to being a flyer and 5++, however, storm ravens/talons (all-round units) have a good chance of killing it and anti-air tanks (hard counter) can easily take it out.

So, in order to reliably baleflame marines, you need anti-air capability of your own and something to take out light vehicles in the backfield, suddenly turning your mono-build into an army made out of at least three elements supporting each other, on top of the obligatory troops and HQ. Or you could rely on all-round units to be able to handle everything well and rely on your generalship to keep them away from their respective hard-counters.

Also note that WH40k already contains such a hard-counters, most of them are just done very badly. Melta hard-counter vehicles, plasma hard-counters terminators, purifiers hard-counter assault hordes, helldrakes hard-counter MEQ, SitW hard-counters psychers, etc. It wouldn't be exactly something new

Games Workshop needs to hire IceFrog.

 Ailaros wrote:

WayneTheGame wrote:Personally, I want to win a battle because I used superior strategy/tactics (or was extremely lucky) and not because I can pick 3 overpowered units while my opponent is using a codex that's 2 editions out of date.

Then don't pick 3 overpowered units. You have control over that. You don't have to pick an army list that makes winning easy.

You're asking the rules to save you from yourself...

Damn right I am. I shouldn't have to "not pick" a unit I like because it's overpowered or underpowered; the rules should make it so that distinction does not exist, and Unit A might be better in some cases, by which I generally mean some types of lists, and Unit B is a better choice in another list. The answer should never be "If a unit is overpowered just don't take it" because what's the reverse? If a unit is underpowered, don't take it? People already do that, and that's the root of the issue.

As I said before what I like about games like Warmahordes is that it does exactly the above. Some lists rely on Unit A, some rely on Unit B but there's never (or extremely rarely) a case where Unit B is just better at everything than Unit A so you have no reason at all to take Unit A. You can take two lists and they are approximately balanced to where a good commander can win regardless of the list in most circumstances.

That's how 40k needs to be. There should be no "bad" or "excellent" choices, all choices need to be viable under certain circumstances instead of what we have now where certain units you always want to include if you can (ironically unless somebody does as you suggest and choose to purposely gimp themselves by not taking it) and some units that you never want to include because they're just bad. There is no way that's good design. That punishes people for playing what they like, either because what they like is overpowered and ruins the game for others (e.g. 3x Riptides because big anime robots with bigger guns are awesome) or because it will make them lose (e.g. taking a loot of foot Orks because you like the idea of a huge Ork horde).

In a balanced game, both of those choices would be equally viable playstyles and a superior general would be able to win.

Wow....just wow. There is a good deal of GW kool aid in this thread, where it is the fault of the players if they build a army using the models they like and it is too OP.

The idea that imbalance somehow makes games better between newbies and vets is laughable.

First it presumes those vets either own every model in their faction, or specifically buy bad units for games against newbies.

Second, it presumes that a Newbie can easily create a strong list (IME they cannot), and know the rules well enough to pilot said list (again they don't)

Third, what happens in a game between newbies, when 2 buddies get into the game and one picks up Tau because they love riptides and the other picks up nids because they love the Tyranid warrior models...The buy and paint up their armies...then on gets repeatedly stomped and is forced to quit, or buy a new army.

Also apparently some people don't know how to play things like teaching games in chess, where you coach the newbie you play against, not just play straight up as hard as you can to stomp the opponent.

I also love the idea of taking a weaker list somehow proving your are the uber better player...well what happens when an equal or better player stomps you with a better list....oh well now you have a built in excuse as to why you lost. "You're not better than me you just take a cheap, cheesey list."

Take the Chef example sure if 2 chefs compete and the one with the disadvantage wins it might mean he is a better chef (or if could mean the other guy screwed up, which does happen), but what happens when instead of gettting that 83 he gets a 54, and loses horribly, what does that prove then. That we have no idea who the better chef is because now the loser can say "well I was at a disadvantage, so its not fair."

Also the idea, that there is no player skill involved in 40k is laughable, the fact that the same guys always seem to do well...with different armies, at different events, must just mean those guys are really lucky. Also consider that these are the same guys who develop the "net lists", that become popular, not the guys who pick them up and use them...

A balanced game where people can choose to take the models they want, and in the right army build, be successful (saying all combinations will be equal is impossible really), or at least competitive is better for everyone.

Da Butcha wrote:
While I don't agree with this totally (I think balance affects both styles of play), it's a good way of thinking about it, and brings a useful perspective.

Unbalanced units and armies discourage creative and comprehensive armies (why buy these units if they are so bad, and you never use them?). They discourage the player who loves an army's look and feel, but loses with it constantly, and they discourage the player whose army (whether through neglect or poor rules design) is ill-suited to compete in the current game environment.

What's more infuriating to me is that GW uses points costs, which should make it ridiculously easy to balance things better.

If Riptides (or whatever) are really, really, good, and show up all the time--make them cost more points! Don't change the rules and screw up the fluff. Just make better units more expensive in points.

There are very few units in the game right now whose rules are too good. That's a bold statement, but I'm going to explain it. There are very few units in the game which work BETTER on the tabletop than they seem to work in the background and fluff. In my own opinion, that's all the rules should concern themselves with. There are a few. For instance, I don't think it's part of the fluff that Stormtrooper Hellguns blow through Space Marine armor like nothing's there. That doesn't mean that Stormtroopers are overpowered. That means that their rules are poorly written to reflect their background. When Chaos Marines invade, you don't call in the stormtroopers!

On the other hand, there are a LOT of units whose rules are bad. These are units which are supposed to be capable of a particular role, or distinguished for a particular excellence, and don't actually work that way. For example, Space Marine Dreadnoughts are supposed to be incarnate heroes to their Chapter, virtually indestructible demigods of war that stride the battlefield and smite the mightiest foes. Nope. They get plonked apart really quickly. That doesn't mean they need to be cheaper to field. They need better rules to reflect the fact that they are supposed to be awesome warriors, not inexpensive list fillers or a cheap way to get an extra lascannon.

Now, on the other hand, there are a LOT of units whose rules are fine, but who cost too much or too little (mostly too little, I think). If more of these really popular, very powerful units cost more points, then they wouldn't show up as much, and you'd have the option of taking a lot more 'normally powered' units to oppose them.


This would be better for casual gamers as well as tournament players.

For the casual gamer, you could take the units you liked to model, paint, or play with. Your lists might be unusual points totals, but within that points limit, you would have a reasonable chance of doing well vs. most opposition. You might find an opponent whose army was well-situated to take you apart, but, in general, you wouldn't run into cases where a third of their army killed 9/10ths of yours. Picking the units you liked wouldn't sometimes make you into the local loser (if you liked, say, kans, dread, and slugga boys) or TFG (if you happened to think that Riptides were awesome looking mega-robots!). Your unit choices wouldn't be invalidated by army creep, or codex creep, or the new hotness, as the new hotness would also be the new 'really expensive option' if it really was hot.

For the tournament player, you would know that the most popular, most powerful units, would be appropriately expensive. You could make reasonable, educated choices about taking a smaller army composed of the most effective units, or a larger, more varied army of less powerful units, which might give you more flexibility or the ability to absorb some bad dice rolls (or good dice rolls from the opposition). Taking the 'best units' would consistently, regardless of army, mean that you were also taking a much smaller force, and that there was a real trade off between picking the best units and picking more units. Because the effectiveness of units would be better balanced against their points cost, there shouldn't be a preponderance of 'top builds' that showed up at each tournament, which would make games more challenging, since you might need to know how to fight against many different armies with many different, effective army lists, rather than planning for facing a few armies with a few similar builds.

Please apply for a job at GW!

insaniak wrote:

Ailaros wrote:Then don't pick 3 overpowered units. You have control over that. You don't have to pick an army list that makes winning easy.

Which brings us back to the point where players feel like they can't use the models they want to use because of those models having over-powered rules...

But in an imbalanced game, the newbie can pick a stronger army to make the game easier for them...

Provided they don't wind up playing against a better player with a similar list... which they will

Exactly. We agree that a noob playing against a veteran where both players have lists of equal power is bad for the noob.

Which is why the game should allow a diversity of power levels, as forcing all lists to be equally powerful takes a situation that's bad for noobs that sometimes arises, and makes it so that it will always happen.

WayneTheGame wrote: I shouldn't have to "not pick" a unit I like because it's overpowered or underpowered; ... That punishes people for playing what they like, either because what they like is overpowered and ruins the game for others (e.g. 3x Riptides because big anime robots with bigger guns are awesome) or because it will make them lose (e.g. taking a loot of foot Orks because you like the idea of a huge Ork horde).

So, consider how you're already choosing units. You might take something because you like the model. You might take it because it has anti-tank weapons, and you want more anti-tank in your list. You might take a unit because it has synergy with other stuff you're already bringing. The number of different reasons for picking or not picking something are as limitless as the human imagination. As such, saying "well, this is just another thing I need to consider" is sort of silly, as you're already considering potentially infinite variables to begin with. On the other hand, saying "I shouldn't have to choose my units based on their power level" is like saying "I shouldn't have to choose an anti-tank unit if my list doesn't contain anti-tank".

If certain combinations are better or worse, then you're going to need to take the initiative to make a list that is better or worse. It's not exactly a terrible burden, and it's part of what makes 40k so interesting in the first place.

What you're wanting is a world where what you put into your list doesn't matter. Where you could take anything and stand the same chance of winning. A triptide list or a flying circus should, by default, have a 50-50 chance of beating an army that contains nothing but grots or cultists or conscripts. I don't know why this would make the game better, rather than much, much shallower, and as a result, a fair bit worse than it is right now.

Jidmah wrote:- You just should not be able to just pick the most efficient unit from your codex and be able to kill everything with it.
...
While a knight would do well against anything but a pikeman, a pikeman would do awesome against knights (and other cavalry), but not against anything else.

Jidmah wrote:- If my opponent has all planes, and I brought one or two of dedicated anti-air units, he should be the one losing the game, not me. If my imperial army wasted a slot of artillery or heavy tanks in order to bring a unit that's mostly useless if there are no targets, it better should tear right through anything in the sky that's not extremely heavily armored. Of course, the necrons should be able to just take out the trio of hydras, but that would require points spent in something other than night scythes.

Ah, okay. So, sort of like super rock-paper-scissors?

Certainly it would be bad for spam armies. After all, if I want to play a necron air force and I will be comprehensively destroyed if my opponent brings a single hydra, then I'm going to not play a necron air force. In fact, it would sort of enforce that every player play a one-of-each kind of army, as doubling up on anything is only putting more eggs in the hard-counter basket (while reducing your ability to hard counter).

Yes, this would throw out triptide lists, but what about everyone else? Should an ork green tide player be comprehensively destroyed just because their opponent brought a single baal predator? Should it be impossible for a marine player to run a drop pod assault just because his opponent brought a single unit that's good against drop pod assaults? Should I not be able to play a stormtrooper/grenadiers guard army just because my opponent brought a heavy flamer or two?

The problem here is that spam armies aren't bad armies - only bad spam armies are bad armies. You're only looking at the worst few examples and then throwing hundreds of babies out with the bath water. The problem with spamming riptides or helldrakes is the riptides and helldrakes, not the spam.

Plus, I don't know if this rock-paper-scissors thing achieves what you want. After all, you said that a single unit (like a riptide) shouldn't be able to just beat up your whole army, and then turn around and say that a single unit (like a hydra) should be able to beat up an entire army. It sounds like what you're doing isn't solving the problem of uber-units by degrading the impact of uber-units, but instead you're elevating every unit to the status of uber-unit, and trying to drown out the problem with a massive blast of more of the problem.

Jidmah wrote:- If there are combos, they should be hard to pull off and easy to break

Why?

 Ailaros wrote:

What you're wanting is a world where what you put into your list doesn't matter. Where you could take anything and stand the same chance of winning. A triptide list or a flying circus should, by default, have a 50-50 chance of beating an army that contains nothing but grots or cultists or conscripts. I don't know why this would make the game better, rather than much, much shallower, and as a result, a fair bit worse than it is right now.

No, what I'm wanting is a world where there's nothing like "Grots are terrible, you never want to take them" or "You want 3x Heldrakes to be competitive". I want a world where if you make a Grot army the rule support that with certain specific options that balance out the fact you have an army of grots, so you aren't immediately steamrolled by a better list. I want a world where taking a Riptide (or two) has some specific choices with the rest of your list that enables you to be competitive, but not trounce another army at deployment solely because you have a Riptide.

That's what balance is. It's not "An army of Grots can beat an army of Space Marines" but more that choosing to have a Grot army opens up certain options and tactics that you wouldn't have if you played something else (an Evil Sunz biker army, for example), and means that you won't automatically lose. Right now the problem is there are "fool's gold" choices that are just bad units overall, and a player who falls into the trap of taking them will be at a disadvantage for no other reason than they picked the wrong unit. You are basically forced to pick units that you might not like simply to avoid losing every game because the units you do like are weak and/or underpowered.

In short I want a metagame like Warmahordes where while listbuilding is important there isn't any "best" or "worst" list, each list has their own advantages and disadvantages that come down to player preference and skill, and a skilled player can win with list that's unorthodox instead of just being outclassed before a game is actually played. If I want to play a specific list, I should have a chance if I'm a good commander to win against a list with stronger overall units and not lose before I ever deploy my models because I can't deal with what my opponent has. For instance if I want to take a 100% Thousand Sons army because I like them, with strategy and tactics I should be able to beat anyone else in a balanced game, because I use superior tactics and strategy in a way that plays to my list's strengths, while my opponent tries to play to their list's strengths.

The idea of balance in 40k is that every model is worth its points value and nothing more. Seeing as this is the actual reason why we have a points system in the first place, how can you argue that balance is bad for the game?

And yes, specific so-called "hard counters" should exist. 40k is supposed to have a level of tactical depth - do you take AA, do you take some heavy tanks or lots of light tanks, or do you take infantry and support them with fliers or something else? Things like "anti-air", "anti-infantry" and "anti-tank" exist in the game. They should be able to do their jobs effectively based on their points value - not that one AA unit will completely destroy a flier army, but that one AA unit will be good at taking down fliers and generally be worth its points. Instead, what we have now is "anti-everything" (Riptide) or "unbelievably tough" (flying circus). The idea is supposed to be "Do I take a Hive Guard to take out light armour, or a Zoanthrope in a drop pod to hunt AV14? Do I specialise in taking only Hive Guard or Zoanthropes, and risk limiting my effectiveness against one or the other?". Why is 15pts for you worth 30pts, while for me, it's worth 5?

As a Tyranid player, I cannot run a viable assault-based build, even though my army is supposed to be assault-based. No matter my strategies or list-building skills, it just won't work unless my opponent is incompetent or playing a bad army. So what, then? Am I expected to out-shoot every other army in the game with infamously bad Tyranid shooting?

What we have now is armies and units which are just objectively better than everything else. This does not make the game exciting any more than playing Chess where the one team is entirely composed of Queens is exciting and "tactical".

Also yeah, no. Players should not be expected to police themselves any more than they should be expected to start deliberately playing badly when their opponent starts to lose.

EDIT: We already have "hard counters". What you suppose, Ailaros, is that balance will mean we expect people to bring any list and be able to win. This is not the case. Balance is giving everyone equal options in their list-building and strategy. Maybe their army is bad at shooting but really good at assault, so using assault is playing to the army's strengths. No matter how many points of Cultists you bring to the table, a single Land Raider is utterly invincible to them. Balance is not changing that, but making it so that the Chaos player has the tools in his Codex to try to deal with AV14. One of the popular suggestions to take down the new Knights is combi-melta Sternguard in a Drop Pod. That doesn't mean that this combination will always work, but it does mean it is a strategy that can be expected to be reasonably effective.

Essentially what I feel like most "balance" advocates really want is for every unit to be points costed/powered relatively the same in its chosen role in the game. Such that you can take a unit to fill a role and not have it be a horrible choice. Such as taking say a Pyrovore, which should in theory be an anti-infantry choice, but in taking this choice you are playing at a huge disadvantage.

What this encompasses is buffing terrible units, and nerfing current OP units (either through rules or points costs).

No one is advocating "I should be able to take nothing but Pyrovores in my list and have a 50-50 chance of winning."

What at least I am advocating is that for the points in the role of anti-infantry, pyrovores should be about as good at anything else. This includes offense and defense, so maybe they are moderately killy but tough so you can expect several rounds of out put etc.

Now if you take an army of all anti-infantry units, and play against mech...you are going to get beat. But that is balanced, by if you face nothing but infantry you will do really well.

Some all around units might just be Ok at everything, but essentially would be costed appropriately to that role.

This whole argument about noob games is silly because if fails in the case of 2 noobs playing one another, and in a balanced game, if you help the noob improve they will feel like they can make progress with their chosen army, in our current set up if they invest in the wrong things (guy who loves pryovores buys a bunch), they end up in a scenario where they lose all the time, and nothing short of buying a new army will fix it. They cannot practice their way out of it.

Essentially it would be better if they maybe had the wrong mix of units, but could with minimal model change, and a good amount of practice, "make it work".

Right now they couldn't and if they wanted to play their Pyrovores, their opponent would need to nerf their own army.

You want Noob vs vet, you could just say, you take 500 extra points or whatever, and make the game balanced that way.

In fact it might be possible to determine a "handicap" in a balanced game, where you could play pick up games +/- points equal to that handicap because things are balanced, and so you are just accounting for skill.

 Ailaros wrote:
Exactly. We agree that a noob playing against a veteran where both players have lists of equal power is bad for the noob.

No, we don't. Please read the rest of my post.

What you're wanting is a world where what you put into your list doesn't matter. Where you could take anything and stand the same chance of winning. A triptide list or a flying circus should, by default, have a 50-50 chance of beating an army that contains nothing but grots or cultists or conscripts.

If you seriously still think that's what people are asking for in this thread, you're not actually reading the opposing argument.

Nobody is saying that an entire army of grots should be as viable as a 'proper' list. What they are saying is that within an ork army grots should have a viable purpose that is commensurate with their cost.

If unit A costs X number of points, and unit B does the same thing unit A does but for fewer points, or does what unit A does and more for around the same points, there is never any point in taking unit A. And that's a bad thing.

What people want is for each unit to have a cost and a function that gives players reason to take them other than 'I want to take an underpowered list so Eddie the Noob here can win a game occasionally'...

 insaniak wrote:

 Ailaros wrote:
Exactly. We agree that a noob playing against a veteran where both players have lists of equal power is bad for the noob.

No, we don't. Please read the rest of my post.

What you're wanting is a world where what you put into your list doesn't matter. Where you could take anything and stand the same chance of winning. A triptide list or a flying circus should, by default, have a 50-50 chance of beating an army that contains nothing but grots or cultists or conscripts.

If you seriously still think that's what people are asking for in this thread, you're not actually reading the opposing argument.

Nobody is saying that an entire army of grots should be as viable as a 'proper' list. What they are saying is that within an ork army grots should have a viable purpose that is commensurate with their cost.

If unit A costs X number of points, and unit B does the same thing unit A does but for fewer points, or does what unit A does and more for around the same points, there is never any point in taking unit A. And that's a bad thing.

What people want is for each unit to have a cost and a function that gives players reason to take them other than 'I want to take an underpowered list so Eddie the Noob here can win a game occasionally'...

I would go as far as saying there should be some circumstances where you can include mostly grots and not be guaranteed to lose, depending on your list composition and what your overall strategy is. I personally like the idea of themed lists based around various combinations from the fluff e.g. all Terminator army, a specific ork clan that's all shooting or CC, etc.

Frozen Ocean wrote:The idea of balance in 40k is that every model is worth its points value and nothing more. Seeing as this is the actual reason why we have a points system in the first place, how can you argue that balance is bad for the game?

Is the purpose of the points system to balance the game?

If GW really intended for this to be true, then we wouldn't have unit size or number restrictions, and we wouldn't have a force organization chart, and we wouldn't have the codex system.
Furthermore, the rulebook itself doesn't even promise that equal point armies are equal in quality - the only explicit purpose to the points limit that they mention is that it will determine how long it takes to play the game.

Even if the point of points was to be one small part in making armies of equal power, then it's still made a mockery of by the rest of it. If I show up to a 1,000 point game with nothing but grots, am I likely to win? No. Does that mean that grots are too expensive, points-wise? No.

And that's just one complication. Pricing something based not on its own qualities, but also based on every possible combination of units is insane, and that insanity only increases by an order of magnitude once we start talking about allies.

In reality, they make a good guess about how much something would cost, and then it's the players who find combinations that GW didn't think about that make a unit worth more or less than its points cost.

insaniak wrote:

Ailaros wrote:Exactly. We agree that a noob playing against a veteran where both players have lists of equal power is bad for the noob.

No, we don't. Please read the rest of my post.

Well, either you think that noobs should play against vets with equal-strength lists, in which case noobs getting repeatedly slaughtered in mirror matches are a good thing, or you think that noobs and vets should play with unequal lists, and imbalance is a good thing.

insaniak wrote: What they are saying is that within an ork army grots should have a viable purpose that is commensurate with their cost.

But we already have this. The existence of boyz doesn't invalidate grots any more than the existence of nobz invalidates boyz.

insaniak wrote:What people want is for each unit to have a cost and a function that gives players reason to take them other than 'I want to take an underpowered list so Eddie the Noob here can win a game occasionally'...

Breng77 wrote:Such as taking say a Pyrovore, which should in theory be an anti-infantry choice, but in taking this choice you are playing at a huge disadvantage... in our current set up if they invest in the wrong things (guy who loves pryovores buys a bunch), they end up in a scenario where they lose all the time, and nothing short of buying a new army will fix it.

WayneTheGame wrote:The answer should never be "If a unit is overpowered just don't take it" because what's the reverse? If a unit is underpowered, don't take it? People already do that, and that's the root of the issue.

WayneTheGame wrote:Right now the problem is there are "fool's gold" choices that are just bad units overall, and a player who falls into the trap of taking them will be at a disadvantage for no other reason than they picked the wrong unit. You are basically forced to pick units that you might not like simply to avoid losing every game because the units you do like are weak and/or underpowered.

WayneTheGame wrote:No, what I'm wanting is a world where there's nothing like "Grots are terrible, you never want to take them" or "You want 3x Heldrakes to be competitive"... It's not "An army of Grots can beat an army of Space Marines" but more that choosing to have a Grot army opens up certain options and tactics that you wouldn't have if you played something else (an Evil Sunz biker army, for example), and means that you won't automatically lose.

Right, so we're definitely missing something here.

Grots DO have a place in an ork list. So do pyrovores in a tyranid list. There are no units in the entire game where there is no reason whatsoever to take them.

Reasons to take something are limited only by a person's creativity. I could take a low-power unit because I like the models. I could take one because I like the fluff. I could take one because I like how it jives with my play style. There's no end of reasons. People who say that there is no reason to take something are either lying, or are in desperate need of a little creativity, but in either case, it's the PEOPLE not the game that's at fault here.

What all of the above quotes are saying is that a person should be able to take what they want AND WIN. That's a big difference, and it's also a much more narrow definition of what we're talking about, here. Plus, it seems more than a little strange. If a noob takes a bunch of heavy bolters and doesn't have enough anti-tank, and is sick of losing games, we tell him "well tough, get some anti-tank", but when a noob takes a bunch of pyrovores and doesn't have enough of other things, and is sick of losing games, we're supposed to say "Yeah, it's not your fault, 40k is a broken game".

A person building a low-power list should lose games more frequently against stronger lists. That's how 40k should work. The only way to get around this is to make it so that there ARE no low-power lists, which is how we get to the "all armies are the same" thing I've been talking about.

Also, people seem to be falling into the all-or-nothing camp. If a unit isn't quite as strong as another unit that does the same thing, then it's worthless. If you include even one low-power unit in your army, then you're just going to lose, because your list is worthless. It's almost like people are forgetting that we play a dice game, and that it's a game that has no player skill whatsoever. 40k isn't a game where you show up with your lists and by looking at the strength of them, see who wins without actually playing. Weaker lists beat stronger lists all the time thanks to good luck and better player skill.

And that's a good thing.

I think what's going on here is a fundamental split between the "winning" and "challenging" crowds. People who want a challenge don't want the game to be even because they want to be able to manipulate the inequality. People who just want to win don't want to be encumbered by disadvantages to winning - they want to be able to just take whatever models they want and still have the same chance of winning.

If you take off the WAAC-goggles, though, then what does it matter that pyrovores aren't as good as other units in their codex?

Frozen Ocean wrote:As a Tyranid player, I cannot run a viable assault-based build, even though my army is supposed to be assault-based. No matter my strategies or list-building skills, it just won't work unless my opponent is incompetent or playing a bad army. So what, then? Am I expected to out-shoot every other army in the game with infamously bad Tyranid shooting?

And this is it in a nutshell. Because some units are stronger than others, player skill no longer matters? What? Because some units are stronger than others, 40k is no longer a game whose outcome is determined by die rolls?

If all you want to do is win, then taking a stronger tyranid list is better than taking a weaker one. Of course it is. Furthermore, as the OP said, if all you wanted to do was to win games, you would do best by not playing tyranid in the first place. The only reason that there is a conflict here in the first place is because you want to win, and win against someone from an equal starting place.

Without either of these being conditions, then 40k does fine. Furthermore, if those are your preconditions, then 40k is a terrible game for you. The fact that 40k is a dice game laughs in the face of anyone who wants to pit player skill against player skill.

What you want is a game like chess, not a game like 40k. 40k should be 40k, not chess. If you want to play a real strategy game, then go and play a real strategy game - you have several great options. 40k will never be that, though, nor should it.

 Ailaros wrote:

Frozen Ocean wrote:The idea of balance in 40k is that every model is worth its points value and nothing more. Seeing as this is the actual reason why we have a points system in the first place, how can you argue that balance is bad for the game?

Is the purpose of the points system to balance the game?

If GW really intended for this to be true, then we wouldn't have unit size or number restrictions, and we wouldn't have a force organization chart, and we wouldn't have the codex system.
Furthermore, the rulebook itself doesn't even promise that equal point armies are equal in quality - the only explicit purpose to the points limit that they mention is that it will determine how long it takes to play the game.

Even if the point of points was to be one small part in making armies of equal power, then it's still made a mockery of by the rest of it. If I show up to a 1,000 point game with nothing but grots, am I likely to win? No. Does that mean that grots are too expensive, points-wise? No.

And that's just one complication. Pricing something based not on its own qualities, but also based on every possible combination of units is insane, and that insanity only increases by an order of magnitude once we start talking about allies.

In reality, they make a good guess about how much something would cost, and then it's the players who find combinations that GW didn't think about that make a unit worth more or less than its points cost.

Points can level the playing field at a stroke, nothing is overpowered, simply undercosted, nobody would be quite so bothered by Riptides if they cost 300 points each. It still allows for the ludicrous rules, but mitigates the impact on the game by limiting the volume which it can be deployed.

insaniak wrote:

Ailaros wrote:Exactly. We agree that a noob playing against a veteran where both players have lists of equal power is bad for the noob.

No, we don't. Please read the rest of my post.

Well, either you think that noobs should play against vets with equal-strength lists, in which case noobs getting repeatedly slaughtered in mirror matches are a good thing, or you think that noobs and vets should play with unequal lists, and imbalance is a good thing.

Wow, do you, like, give up at everything that you're not immediately fabulous at, or when you start something new, do you accept that you'll get your arse handed to you repeatedly until you've gained enough skill and experience to make an account of yourself? Noobs should lose. A lot. Then, if they have the dedication to stick with it, they should start to win more, and perhaps, if they're good enough, start to win more than they lose. At least, in any activity where skill is actually relevant to outcome.

insaniak wrote: What they are saying is that within an ork army grots should have a viable purpose that is commensurate with their cost.

But we already have this. The existence of boyz doesn't invalidate grots any more than the existence of nobz invalidates boyz.

But we do have a situation where units are de facto invalidated because they occupy a slot where they are hopelessly out competed by something else.

insaniak wrote:What people want is for each unit to have a cost and a function that gives players reason to take them other than 'I want to take an underpowered list so Eddie the Noob here can win a game occasionally'...

Breng77 wrote:Such as taking say a Pyrovore, which should in theory be an anti-infantry choice, but in taking this choice you are playing at a huge disadvantage... in our current set up if they invest in the wrong things (guy who loves pryovores buys a bunch), they end up in a scenario where they lose all the time, and nothing short of buying a new army will fix it.

WayneTheGame wrote:The answer should never be "If a unit is overpowered just don't take it" because what's the reverse? If a unit is underpowered, don't take it? People already do that, and that's the root of the issue.

WayneTheGame wrote:Right now the problem is there are "fool's gold" choices that are just bad units overall, and a player who falls into the trap of taking them will be at a disadvantage for no other reason than they picked the wrong unit. You are basically forced to pick units that you might not like simply to avoid losing every game because the units you do like are weak and/or underpowered.

WayneTheGame wrote:No, what I'm wanting is a world where there's nothing like "Grots are terrible, you never want to take them" or "You want 3x Heldrakes to be competitive"... It's not "An army of Grots can beat an army of Space Marines" but more that choosing to have a Grot army opens up certain options and tactics that you wouldn't have if you played something else (an Evil Sunz biker army, for example), and means that you won't automatically lose.

Right, so we're definitely missing something here.

Grots DO have a place in an ork list. So do pyrovores in a tyranid list. There are no units in the entire game where there is no reason whatsoever to take them.

Reasons to take something are limited only by a person's creativity. I could take a low-power unit because I like the models. I could take one because I like the fluff. I could take one because I like how it jives with my play style. There's no end of reasons. People who say that there is no reason to take something are either lying, or are in desperate need of a little creativity, but in either case, it's the PEOPLE not the game that's at fault here.

What all of the above quotes are saying is that a person should be able to take what they want AND WIN. That's a big difference, and it's also a much more narrow definition of what we're talking about, here. Plus, it seems more than a little strange. If a noob takes a bunch of heavy bolters and doesn't have enough anti-tank, and is sick of losing games, we tell him "well tough, get some anti-tank", but when a noob takes a bunch of pyrovores and doesn't have enough of other things, and is sick of losing games, we're supposed to say "Yeah, it's not your fault, 40k is a broken game".

A person building a low-power list should lose games more frequently against stronger lists. That's how 40k should work. The only way to get around this is to make it so that there ARE no low-power lists, which is how we get to the "all armies are the same" thing I've been talking about.

Also, people seem to be falling into the all-or-nothing camp. If a unit isn't quite as strong as another unit that does the same thing, then it's worthless. If you include even one low-power unit in your army, then you're just going to lose, because your list is worthless. It's almost like people are forgetting that we play a dice game, and that it's a game that has no player skill whatsoever. 40k isn't a game where you show up with your lists and by looking at the strength of them, see who wins without actually playing. Weaker lists beat stronger lists all the time thanks to good luck and better player skill.

And that's a good thing.

I think what's going on here is a fundamental split between the "winning" and "challenging" crowds. People who want a challenge don't want the game to be even because they want to be able to manipulate the inequality. People who just want to win don't want to be encumbered by disadvantages to winning - they want to be able to just take whatever models they want and still have the same chance of winning.

If you take off the WAAC-goggles, though, then what does it matter that pyrovores aren't as good as other units in their codex?

Frozen Ocean wrote:As a Tyranid player, I cannot run a viable assault-based build, even though my army is supposed to be assault-based. No matter my strategies or list-building skills, it just won't work unless my opponent is incompetent or playing a bad army. So what, then? Am I expected to out-shoot every other army in the game with infamously bad Tyranid shooting?

And this is it in a nutshell. Because some units are stronger than others, player skill no longer matters? What? Because some units are stronger than others, 40k is no longer a game whose outcome is determined by die rolls?

If all you want to do is win, then taking a stronger tyranid list is better than taking a weaker one. Of course it is. Furthermore, as the OP said, if all you wanted to do was to win games, you would do best by not playing tyranid in the first place. The only reason that there is a conflict here in the first place is because you want to win, and win against someone from an equal starting place.

Without either of these being conditions, then 40k does fine. Furthermore, if those are your preconditions, then 40k is a terrible game for you. The fact that 40k is a dice game laughs in the face of anyone who wants to pit player skill against player skill.

What you want is a game like chess, not a game like 40k. 40k should be 40k, not chess. If you want to play a real strategy game, then go and play a real strategy game - you have several great options. 40k will never be that, though, nor should it.

Pretty much all of this monolith of text is rendered irrelevant because we have players who approach the game with a different philosophy. While the rules permit the WAAC and fluffy approaches to be more than an attitude, there is a major flaw in the design in the game.

azreal13 wrote:Points can level the playing field at a stroke, nothing is overpowered, simply undercosted

Are overpowered and undercosted different things?

azreal13 wrote:Wow, do you, like, give up at everything that you're not immediately fabulous at, or when you start something new, do you accept that you'll get your arse handed to you repeatedly until you've gained enough skill and experience to make an account of yourself? Noobs should lose. A lot.

No. I'll link you to this reply, where this position was explained.

Hammering noobs until they get better is only the right thing to do when all a person wants to do is to increase their player skill as quickly as possible. There are LOTS of reasons to play a game other than that, and many of those reasons are seriously compromised by getting hammered early on.

azreal13 wrote: While the rules permit the WAAC and fluffy approaches to be more than an attitude, there is a major flaw in the design in the game.

GW does permit people with a WAAC attitude to play the game, but I don't think anyone would claim that people with a WAAC attitude properly thrive in the world of 40k.

If they did, we wouldn't have threads like this popping up all the time.

Plus, WAAC players will always want to have player skill pitted against player skill. 40k is a game where there is a huge pile of random die rolls shoved in the middle. Any game where you can lose because of a few bad die rolls isn't going to be conducive to this attitude in the first place.

Well, speaking as a confirmed non-WAAC, I still like to feel my decisions make an impact on the outcome of the game.

Every random table, every random effect, every undercosted unit that my opponent is allowed to field (no, they are not different, if something is overpowered, it merely means it costs fewer points than it should. Nobody would be calling 500 point Wraithknights OP) divorces me further and further from my involvement in the game.

I can enjoy a game I lose, I don't mind losing, but I will, by my nature, analyse what I did, try and pick up where I could have done differently, and be better next time. When I've been tabled, despite fielding a fairly balanced list, and genuinely can see no way I could have overcome my opponent, who allegedly fielded a force that should be roughly analogous in terms of power (assuming they didn't slip an extra 300 points in somewhere) in the final analysis, then it undermines my enjoyment of the game significantly, and I would like that to go away.

When I just started playing I got my ass handed to me repeatedly by a veteran Nid player and I enjoyed every minute of it. I learned from my mistakes, improved my skills and came right back in for another beatdown.

It was great fun.

You know why? Because I was getting better at the game, because I kept tweaking my lists to improve their effectiveness, because I felt that I had room to improve and because it's fun playing a game where you feel that your skill matters and the outcome isn't already decided before the game begins.

Unfortunately the game has been rapidly moving away from that over the course of the 6th edition, which is downright sad.

 Ailaros wrote:

azreal13 wrote:Points can level the playing field at a stroke, nothing is overpowered, simply undercosted

Are overpowered and undercosted different things?

I would say so, yes.

It seems like it's a "thin-line" deal, but I'd say Overpowered refers more to things simply with broken rules, like The Hellturkey with its 360 degree baleflamer. Is it gamebreaking or auto-win? No, but a flyer with a 360 degree AP3 Str6 Flamer is overpowered. It is a point-click-kill unit. Now, Vendettas. Do they have a ridiculous armament, or ruleset? No. In fact they honestly perform on-par with quite a few flyers around. The issue is that they are so cheap for what they can accomplish.

So Overpowered refers to messed up rules

while Undercosted implies the rules would be fine if the unit costed more in points.

-TheCaptain

There are no messed up rules if enough is charged for the model. Overpowered and undercosted are the same thing. Unless there is no price at all at which the model is fair.

 TheCaptain wrote:
So Overpowered refers to messed up rules

while Undercosted implies the rules would be fine if the unit costed more in points.

IMO that's not quite right. Undercosted is a subset of overpowered. All undercosted units are overpowered, but units can also be overpowered for other reasons.

How can something be overpowered for "other reasons"? If something is overpowered, and you increase the price to an appropriate level, it becomes fine. Hence, it was undercosted.

Martel732 wrote:
How can something be overpowered for "other reasons"? If something is overpowered, and you increase the price to an appropriate level, it becomes fine. Hence, it was undercosted.

Re-rollable 2++ saves are overpowered. No amount of points would make it reasonable for play in a balanced game.

 Ailaros wrote:
The only way to get around this is to make it so that there ARE no low-power lists, which is how we get to the "all armies are the same" thing I've been talking about.

Only in your special Ailaros world, which is not the one the rest of us inhabit. We've explained many times how "balance" does not mean "all armies are identical".

If you take off the WAAC-goggles, though, then what does it matter that pyrovores aren't as good as other units in their codex?

Yeah, because only WAAC players care about this. I guess the "casual" or "fluff" players who take pyrovores because they're cool should just put up with having less of a chance of winning, because only TFGs care who wins the game?

Plus, it seems more than a little strange. If a noob takes a bunch of heavy bolters and doesn't have enough anti-tank, and is sick of losing games, we tell him "well tough, get some anti-tank", but when a noob takes a bunch of pyrovores and doesn't have enough of other things, and is sick of losing games, we're supposed to say "Yeah, it's not your fault, 40k is a broken game".

Why do you have so much trouble understanding the difference between certain combinations of units being ineffective (a bad list, like one without any anti-tank) and certain units being ineffective. Having to make intelligent list-building decisions (like "take some anti-tank) is part of the game, and should be. Having units be so weak that taking them at all is a mistake shouldn't be.

 Blacksails wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
How can something be overpowered for "other reasons"? If something is overpowered, and you increase the price to an appropriate level, it becomes fine. Hence, it was undercosted.

Re-rollable 2++ saves are overpowered. No amount of points would make it reasonable for play in a balanced game.

No, there is likely a calcuable point value. It's just huge.

Martel732 wrote:
There are no messed up rules if enough is charged for the model. Overpowered and undercosted are the same thing. Unless there is no price at all at which the model is fair.

Martel732 wrote:
How can something be overpowered for "other reasons"? If something is overpowered, and you increase the price to an appropriate level, it becomes fine. Hence, it was undercosted.

I'd incline to disagree.

If a unit has sufficiently broken rules, no price would make it fair. Broken rules would either lead to it being undercosted, or if the cost was raised, it would end up so expensive it is untakeable.

For a Hyperbole example: Theoretical new unit:

Imperial Guard Rangers [Troops] (10 Man Squad) 130 Points
Special Rules:
Rerollable 2+ Invulnerable save
Rerollable 2+ FNP that isn't ignored by Instant Death

Each is armed with a Volcano Cannon

Now, are these rules ridiculous? Absolutely, is the price too low? Absolutely. But would raising the price "fix it" no. Any price where this squad would still be takeable in a game would have it still being overpowered, whereas any price where it isn't takeable (Say price was raised to 3000 points) and the price raise doesnt make it "fair" as you suggested; it makes it useless.

I maintain there is a definite distinction between OP and Undercosted, as some rules are fine and simply not in sync with their price, while other rules, even ones that arent made up and are actually in the game, need an Errata, not a price raise.
-TheCaptain

 Blacksails wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
How can something be overpowered for "other reasons"? If something is overpowered, and you increase the price to an appropriate level, it becomes fine. Hence, it was undercosted.

Re-rollable 2++ saves are overpowered. No amount of points would make it reasonable for play in a balanced game.

This. Sometimes an idea is just beyond the scope of what should be possible in the game, and making it expensive doesn't fix the problem. D-weapon titans are another example, making them extremely expensive to reflect their power just reduces the game to titan vs. anti-titan (even more than it already is) because the titan player can no longer afford anything else for their army. The titan is the entire focus of the game, and there's no strategy beyond "kill the titan before it kills you".

Martel732 wrote:

No, there is likely a calcuable point value. It's just huge.

Which is the point of something being overpowered and not just undercosted. The point value for something like this would pretty much rule it out of most normal levels of play, thus making it overpowered and not simply undercosted.

*Edit* Peregrine beat me to it.

*Further Edit* And The Captain too!

 Blacksails wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
How can something be overpowered for "other reasons"? If something is overpowered, and you increase the price to an appropriate level, it becomes fine. Hence, it was undercosted.

Re-rollable 2++ saves are overpowered. No amount of points would make it reasonable for play in a balanced game.

Incorrect. For all their durability, any unit is going to have limited damage output over the course of 6 turns. If the necessary elements to construct a unit with 2++ rerollable were sufficiently expensive that the damage it could do was mitigated by the extra units/bodies your opponent could field, it's durability becomes redundant.

If there where an emperor model who allowed you to roll a dice after deployment and on a 2+ won you the game he would be OP even if he cost 40,000 points.

 azreal13 wrote:

Incorrect. For all their durability, any unit is going to have limited damage output over the course of 6 turns. If the necessary elements to construct a unit with 2++ rerollable were sufficiently expensive that the damage it could do was mitigated by the extra units/bodies your opponent could field, it's durability becomes redundant.

Which Blacksails, Peregrine, and I addressed.

Pointing up a unit doesn't fix broken rules. Your suggestion of upping a unit's price tag until it can't do enough damage merely takes a broken unit and makes it unplayable.

 azreal13 wrote:


Incorrect. For all their durability, any unit is going to have limited damage output over the course of 6 turns. If the necessary elements to construct a unit with 2++ rerollable were sufficiently expensive that the damage it could do was mitigated by the extra units/bodies your opponent could field, it's durability becomes redundant.

Both Peregrine and TheCaptain have beat me to a better explanation. I do maintain that certain combinations of abilities are beyond the scope of point balancing for a standard game. A re-rollable 2++ save unit with good damage output is beyond redemption by point values, but that ties into game design overall than simple points calculations.

*Edit* Are you all wizards or something? I thought I was a quick poster, but damn people...

 Jidmah wrote:
Did you actually read my post, or just jump to conclusions after reading that sentence? Considering how your post isn't remotely about what I wrote, I'm guessing second. You don't create hard-counters to strategies. You create hard-counters to units.

I read your post, and what I said applies the same to unit vs. unit hard counters. If a Hydra is a hard counter to 3x Helldrakes then that aspect of the game is never going to be fun. Either the rest of the Helldrake player's army kills the Hydra before the Helldrakes arrive and the Helldrakes slaughter everything, or the Helldrake player fails to kill the Hydra fast enough and the Helldrakes explode uselessly. Neither of these situations is very fun or interesting, even if it's perfectly balanced so that each player has exactly a 50% chance of winning. What you want is soft counters, where, say, Hydras are effective against Helldrakes and will eventually kill them if ignored, but a Helldrake spam list can still flame stuff before all of the Helldrakes are killed. Now it's a race to see which side can kill the other faster and win the counter war, not just an automatic "oh, you brought the hard counter" where you just remove the countered unit from the table.

Also note that WH40k already contains such a hard-counters, most of them are just done very badly. Melta hard-counter vehicles, plasma hard-counters terminators, purifiers hard-counter assault hordes, helldrakes hard-counter MEQ, SitW hard-counters psychers, etc. It wouldn't be exactly something new

I don't think you really understand what a hard counter is. It's a situation where if I bring X then your Y is completely ineffective and there's nothing you can do about it. Melta isn't a hard counter to tanks because melta still has to get in range, and that's far from guaranteed. Simply putting melta guns in your lists doesn't automatically win against tanks. A hard counter is something like GK warp quake vs. old demons, where if the GK player goes first the entire table is an automatic mishap for the demon player and they lose the game without ever getting a single model onto the table.

 Blacksails wrote:

 azreal13 wrote:


Incorrect. For all their durability, any unit is going to have limited damage output over the course of 6 turns. If the necessary elements to construct a unit with 2++ rerollable were sufficiently expensive that the damage it could do was mitigated by the extra units/bodies your opponent could field, it's durability becomes redundant.

Both Peregrine and TheCaptain have beat me to a better explanation. I do maintain that certain combinations of abilities are beyond the scope of point balancing for a standard game. A re-rollable 2++ save unit with good damage output is beyond redemption by point values, but that ties into game design overall than simple points calculations.

*Edit* Are you all wizards or something? I thought I was a quick poster, but damn people...

I'm literally a wizard. Please don't tell the Inquisition.

 Blacksails wrote:

 azreal13 wrote:


Incorrect. For all their durability, any unit is going to have limited damage output over the course of 6 turns. If the necessary elements to construct a unit with 2++ rerollable were sufficiently expensive that the damage it could do was mitigated by the extra units/bodies your opponent could field, it's durability becomes redundant.

Both Peregrine and TheCaptain have beat me to a better explanation. I do maintain that certain combinations of abilities are beyond the scope of point balancing for a standard game. A re-rollable 2++ save unit with good damage output is beyond redemption by point values, but that ties into game design overall than simple points calculations.

No, it is beyond redemption within the bounds that they've introduced of what is "reasonable" which is an arbitrary and personal concept which has no relevance to the point.

The only rule that couldn't be balanced would be the "deploy model, win on 2+" type, everything else can be fixed with points, starting to impose further restrictions on how many points it would take, and how some units would be "too many" doesn't invalidate the core idea.

People have made some great arguments in this thread. Still, I think when people state "Riptides at 300 points wouldn't be overpowered" or "Noone would complain about 400 point Wraithknights" they forget that GW wants to sell as many of these models as possible. If people generally play 2000 point games or under, it doesn't make much business sense to make molds for small or medium sized kits that people will only buy one of. There's definately a points per dollar value to think about. A Warhound Titan can cost a lot of points because the kit is very expensive for consumers. Therefore it's unrealistic to expect GW to balance some strong units by drastically increasing points costs. If a change would come it would be a nerf to the actual stats and abilities instead of a points increase.

I'm not sure what the ongoing debate is about though. Both sides quote paragraphs out of context just to argue a minor detail. I don't think there's a good argument to be made that a game isn't better if it's more balanced. Yet, a game that isn't at all balanced can still be awfully fun and succesful. Both Warhammer 40K and Warhammer have proven this to be true.

Hard counters belong in balanced games. They're the very things that make the player decisions exciting. If everything was good against everything the game would be very bland. In Starcraft, an important part of the game is scouting and finding out what units the opponent is making, so that you can build the counters to them. Your opponent is responding in turn. Same can be said of card games.

I'm not a believer in the argument that two players should be able to pick any types of armies they like and the end results should be balanced against eachother, just like I don't believe that a Starcraft player should be able to build random buildings and units and expect them to be able to hold against an optimised timing attack. I doubt that's the type of balance I'd even want, but a lot of people seem to be advocating the "I want to take any models I like the look of and win" approach.

I'd say the balance the game should strive forwards is the one where an elite level player can build an army out of any army book and have it be reasonably competitive against the best armies he could make out of other army books. It's not that much to ask, but GW hasn't succeeded in it during any edition of any of their games ever, so in that sense I'm curious why people talk about it that much now.

 azreal13 wrote:
Incorrect. For all their durability, any unit is going to have limited damage output over the course of 6 turns. If the necessary elements to construct a unit with 2++ rerollable were sufficiently expensive that the damage it could do was mitigated by the extra units/bodies your opponent could field, it's durability becomes redundant.

But even if it's theoretically balanced by low damage output a re-rollable 2++ is so effective at stopping damage that you have two frustrating choices: either ignore the 2++ unit and let it kill whatever it wants, or throw your entire army at it in a desperate hope that maybe you get lucky with the dice and get a wound through. None of the interactions around the 2++ unit are fun, so its presence in the game is bad no matter what point cost it has.

 Blacksails wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
How can something be overpowered for "other reasons"? If something is overpowered, and you increase the price to an appropriate level, it becomes fine. Hence, it was undercosted.

Re-rollable 2++ saves are overpowered. No amount of points would make it reasonable for play in a balanced game.

Precisely. Points are a useful tool for balancing, but are not balance in and of themselves. Points are not the great leveller. Sometimes things need to have their rules changed.

 azreal13 wrote:


No, it is beyond redemption within the bounds that they've introduced of what is "reasonable" which is an arbitrary and personal concept which has no relevance to the point.

The only rule that couldn't be balanced would be the "deploy model, win on 2+" type, everything else can be fixed with points, starting to impose further restrictions on how many points it would take, and how some units would be "too many" doesn't invalidate the core idea.

Uh... you can't discount someone's point based on the subjective meaning of "reasonable" then make a point based on the (Also incredibly subjective) judgement of "balanced" or "fixed". That's self-invalidating.

 azreal13 wrote:


No, it is beyond redemption within the bounds that they've introduced of what is "reasonable" which is an arbitrary and personal concept which has no relevance to the point.

The only rule that couldn't be balanced would be the "deploy model, win on 2+" type, everything else can be fixed with points, starting to impose further restrictions on how many points it would take, and how some units would be "too many" doesn't invalidate the core idea.

Not quite, and I get that it may seem like an arbitrary and personal concept, but a unit that has no weakness (durable, moves fast, hits hard) has no place in a game in the first place, regardless of the cost. Seer councils and similar units are too cheap for what they offer, and even if they were costed appropriately, it still seems unreasonable to have a game where a single 1000pts unit should be able to square off against an army that had to bring a variety of units to cover their bases.

Really, at the end of the day, Overpowered vs. undercosted is more a semantics argument, but from a straight mechanics perspective, there really shouldn't be units who require an obscene of points to even be considered balanced. Making a super powerful, all-in-one unit is poor game design, and no amount of points will fix that.

To quote myself,

 TheCaptain wrote:


Imperial Guard Rangers [Troops] (10 Man Squad) 130 Points
Special Rules:
Rerollable 2+ Invulnerable save
Rerollable 2+ FNP that isn't ignored by Instant Death

Each is armed with a Volcano Cannon

There is literally no point cost that would make this unit acceptable in normal play. It is simply too powerful as a single unit. You can have it at a useable point cost, whence it will be overpowered, or you can point it up to the point where it is too pricy to be used in a list, which makes it useless.

-TheCaptain

 Peregrine wrote:

 azreal13 wrote:
Incorrect. For all their durability, any unit is going to have limited damage output over the course of 6 turns. If the necessary elements to construct a unit with 2++ rerollable were sufficiently expensive that the damage it could do was mitigated by the extra units/bodies your opponent could field, it's durability becomes redundant.

But even if it's theoretically balanced by low damage output a re-rollable 2++ is so effective at stopping damage that you have two frustrating choices: either ignore the 2++ unit and let it kill whatever it wants, or throw your entire army at it in a desperate hope that maybe you get lucky with the dice and get a wound through. None of the interactions around the 2++ unit are fun, so its presence in the game is bad no matter what point cost it has.

Agreed, I run daemons and will never field a Screamerstar out of respect for the poor sod who'd have to deal with it.

But, again, that is beside the point, fun or not, frustrating or not, if the unit costs sufficient that it compromises what else my opponent can bring, or allows me to bring sufficient extra units to just tie it up or ignore it, then it is balanced.

Whether it then becomes fun is a separate argument.

 Therion wrote:
I don't think there's a good argument to be made that a game isn't better if it's more balanced.

But that's exactly what some people in this thread are arguing: not just that 40k is balanced enough to be fun, but that better balance would make the game worse. That's why the "debate" keeps going.

Hard counters belong in balanced games. They're the very things that make the player decisions exciting. If everything was good against everything the game would be very bland. In Starcraft, an important part of the game is scouting and finding out what units the opponent is making, so that you can build the counters to them. Your opponent is responding in turn. Same can be said of card games.

See previous post about this. Soft counters are good, and staying one step ahead of your opponent's reactions to your strategy is interesting gameplay. Having hard counters, on the other hand, isn't, because even if you win exactly 50% of the games you're winning or losing 100% of them by huge margins that aren't really fun or interesting.

I'm not a believer in the argument that two players should be able to pick any types of armies they like and the end results should be balanced against eachother, just like I don't believe that a Starcraft player should be able to build random buildings and units and expect them to be able to hold against an optimised timing attack. I doubt that's the type of balance I'd even want, but a lot of people seem to be advocating the "I want to take any models I like the look of and win" approach.

But nobody is arguing that. All-lasgun IG is bad and should be bad. What people want when they expect balance is that:

1) Every unit has a reasonable purpose. I might not be able to take a certain exact combination of units A, B and C, but I should be able to make good use of each of them individually. If my favorite model is unit B I shouldn't be crippling my chances of winning if I use it at all instead of just spamming A. Contrast this with the current game, where there are tons of units that just have no place in a well-designed list.

2) There is a wide range of viable lists and strategies. Throwing a bunch of random stuff together shouldn't win because it isn't a strategy. But if, say, I like to play a flyer-heavy list I shouldn't auto-lose because flyers are hard countered by overpowered AA units and taking them at all is suicide. Contrast this with the current game where there are a small number of top-tier lists, and huge parts of the game might as well not exist.

 Therion wrote:
People have made some great arguments in this thread. Still, I think when people state "Riptides at 300 points wouldn't be overpowered" or "Noone would complain about 400 point Wraithknights" they forget that GW wants to sell as many of these models as possible. If people generally play 2000 point games or under, it doesn't make much business sense to make molds for small or medium sized kits that people will only buy one of. There's definately a points per dollar value to think about. A Warhound Titan can cost a lot of points because the kit is very expensive for consumers.

I'm not sure what the ongoing debate is about though. Both sides quote paragraphs out of context just to argue a minor detail. I don't think there's a good argument to be made that a game isn't better if it's more balanced. Yet, a game that isn't at all balanced can still be awfully fun and succesful. Both Warhammer 40K and Warhammer have proven this to be true.

Hard counters belong in balanced games. They're the very things that make the player decisions exciting. If everything was good against everything the game would be very bland. In Starcraft, an important part of the game is scouting and finding out what units the opponent is making, so that you can build the counters to them. Your opponent is responding in turn. Same can be said of card games.

I'm not a believer in the argument that two players should be able to pick any types of armies they like and the end results should be balanced against eachother, just like I don't believe that a Starcraft player should be able to build random buildings and units and expect them to be able to hold against an optimised timing attack. I doubt that's the type of balance I'd even want, but a lot of people seem to be advocating the "I want to take any models I like the look of and win" approach.

I'd say the balance the game should strive forwards is the one where an elite level player can build an army out of any army book and have it be reasonably competitive against the best armies he could make out of other army books. It's not that much to ask, but GW hasn't succeeded in it during any edition of any of their games ever, so in that sense I'm curious why people talk about it that much now.

Then why does GW make so many units that are unfieldable? I don't think they even put as much thought into the game as think. The DA flyers were new and unusable as soon as they hit.

 TheCaptain wrote:
To quote myself,

 TheCaptain wrote:


Imperial Guard Rangers [Troops] (10 Man Squad) 130 Points
Special Rules:
Rerollable 2+ Invulnerable save
Rerollable 2+ FNP that isn't ignored by Instant Death

Each is armed with a Volcano Cannon

There is literally no point cost that would make this unit acceptable in normal play. It is simply too powerful as a single unit. You can have it at a useable point cost, whence it will be overpowered, or you can point it up to the point where it is too pricy to be used in a list, which makes it useless.

-TheCaptain

Except that it in a 6 turn game, it could, at most, target 6 units. If the points it costs means I have the points to field 15, I have 9 units that will not be targeted all game, who will be free to compete for objectives, or remove my opponents scoring units (which will be few and limited, because this unit will cost so much)

 azreal13 wrote:
Whether it then becomes fun is a separate argument.

Not at all. Part of balance is that "what is fun" establishes boundaries on what is acceptable for a unit/army/etc to do. For example, having a single unit be the entire focus of the game isn't much fun, so that puts an upper limit on the power (and point cost) of a single unit. And any unit that is so powerful that its point cost makes an army consist of "unit X + 300 points of minimum troops + HQ" is overpowered no matter what its point cost is, simply because it exceeds the limit on what single units should be capable of.

No balance is about what is fair.

Bring your own fun.

 azreal13 wrote:

 TheCaptain wrote:
To quote myself,

 TheCaptain wrote:


Imperial Guard Rangers [Troops] (10 Man Squad) 130 Points
Special Rules:
Rerollable 2+ Invulnerable save
Rerollable 2+ FNP that isn't ignored by Instant Death

Each is armed with a Volcano Cannon

There is literally no point cost that would make this unit acceptable in normal play. It is simply too powerful as a single unit. You can have it at a useable point cost, whence it will be overpowered, or you can point it up to the point where it is too pricy to be used in a list, which makes it useless.

-TheCaptain

Except that it in a 6 turn game, it could, at most, target 6 units. If the points it costs means I have the points to field 15, I have 9 units that will not be targeted all game, who will be free to compete for objectives, or remove my opponents scoring units (which will be few and limited, because this unit will cost so much)

Which my point addressed.

If that unit above was so expensive that fielding it would put me at a point level where you could field 15 units in return, then the above unit is expensive to the point of being useless.

Like the very real rules for the Emperor titan. Is it crazy good? I mean...yeah. Is it fieldable? Absolutely not; your opponent could field 20 armies against it.

You could just give those Imperial Guard Rangers split fire, or independent fire or something.

Boom. Now truly well and broken.

 Blacksails wrote:
You could just give those Imperial Guard Rangers split fire, or independent fire or something.

Boom. Now truly well and broken.

Please excuse me while I field-test this unit against some unwitting opponent.

"What did you say their weapons were?!"

Muwahahaha

 TheCaptain wrote:

 Blacksails wrote:
You could just give those Imperial Guard Rangers split fire, or independent fire or something.

Boom. Now truly well and broken.

Please excuse me while I field-test this unit against some unwitting opponent.

"What did you say their weapons were?!"

Muwahahaha

Well now we're in the realm of absurdity, but I guess that's partly the point. Granted, a year ago I would laughed out anyone in the proposed rules section if they mentioned even a re-rollable 4++.

And now we have these...star things running around.

 TheCaptain wrote:

 azreal13 wrote:

 TheCaptain wrote:
To quote myself,

 TheCaptain wrote:


Imperial Guard Rangers [Troops] (10 Man Squad) 130 Points
Special Rules:
Rerollable 2+ Invulnerable save
Rerollable 2+ FNP that isn't ignored by Instant Death

Each is armed with a Volcano Cannon

There is literally no point cost that would make this unit acceptable in normal play. It is simply too powerful as a single unit. You can have it at a useable point cost, whence it will be overpowered, or you can point it up to the point where it is too pricy to be used in a list, which makes it useless.

-TheCaptain

Except that it in a 6 turn game, it could, at most, target 6 units. If the points it costs means I have the points to field 15, I have 9 units that will not be targeted all game, who will be free to compete for objectives, or remove my opponents scoring units (which will be few and limited, because this unit will cost so much)

Which my point addressed.

If that unit above was so expensive that fielding it would put me at a point level where you could field 15 units in return, then the above unit is expensive to the point of being useless.

Like the very real rules for the Emperor titan. Is it crazy good? I mean...yeah. Is it fieldable? Absolutely not; your opponent could field 20 armies against it.

But it still doesn't disprove the point.

You can just keep throwing extra criteria into the mix to try and support your argument, but there is a points value for almost any rule you can conceive outside of the truly and obviously absurd (like the aforementioned win on 2+) which will make it balanced, if not precisely, then approximately. Essentially that number is at the point where the player has an element of indecision as to whether it is "worth it" or not, too much outside of that sweet spot and it is under or over costed.

You've provided an example of a unit with absurdly powerful rules, why wouldn't you expect it to have an equally absurd points cost to field?

Peregrine wrote:See previous post about this. Soft counters are good, and staying one step ahead of your opponent's reactions to your strategy is interesting gameplay. Having hard counters, on the other hand, isn't, because even if you win exactly 50% of the games you're winning or losing 100% of them by huge margins that aren't really fun or interesting.

Depends on the definition. A soft counter can be a Howling Banshee to Tactical Marines. They're superior in many assault scenarios, but not always. A hard counter can be an Imperial Knight against a unit of Tactical Marines with bolters. I'm not saying armies should hard counter other armies, but that some units can and should be impervious to others, while others simply should have a smaller advantage against others. The game has to be filled with varying degrees of soft and hard counters for it to be interesting. The balance should come from the fact that you shouldn't be able to take only units that hard counter one type of enemy because it would lead to your own army getting hard countered by much more stuff. That leads to the player self-regulating himself and building a balanced army that as a whole isn't vulnerable to being countered at all. Units that are great against everything are the worst offenders, because there's no weakness in just maximising points usage on them. Units like those have always existed in GW games unfortunately, but atleast back in the day you were somewhat limited by the FOC. These types of units always get spammed.

1) Every unit has a reasonable purpose. I might not be able to take a certain exact combination of units A, B and C, but I should be able to make good use of each of them individually. If my favorite model is unit B I shouldn't be crippling my chances of winning if I use it at all instead of just spamming A. Contrast this with the current game, where there are tons of units that just have no place in a well-designed list.

2) There is a wide range of viable lists and strategies. Throwing a bunch of random stuff together shouldn't win because it isn't a strategy. But if, say, I like to play a flyer-heavy list I shouldn't auto-lose because flyers are hard countered by overpowered AA units and taking them at all is suicide. Contrast this with the current game where there are a small number of top-tier lists, and huge parts of the game might as well not exist.

You won't find anyone who disagrees on either point. However, you will find people who could argue that every unit does have a reasonable purpose, and that a wide range of viable lists and strategies does exist. You didn't say that every unit needs to be highly competitive, and if you had said that I would have disagreed. I just don't find it very realistic. I also don't agree with your statement that huge parts of the game might as well not exist. It's hyperbole. You're looking at the cutting edge tournament results where truthfully a small margin of the 40K players worldwide participate and passing judgment on the results. As if a Taudar army winning a tournament in Las Vegas would have any effect on a 10-man gaming club's battles in Paris, France.

 azreal13 wrote:
No balance is about what is fair.

And, again, "fair" is defined in part by what is fun. Balance is more than just whether or not both players have a 50% chance of winning, it includes things like "what is the maximum power for a reasonable single model/unit in this game" which depend on what produces fun and interesting games.

 azreal13 wrote:

You've provided an example of a unit with absurdly powerful rules, why wouldn't you expect it to have an equally absurd points cost to field?

I feel like you're not recognizing that even though there are point costs for any set of rules that are mathematically acceptable, those point costs CAN make said unit unfieldable.

That's what I'm suggesting. My thesis is literally "Units CAN have rules so overpowered that the only acceptable point costs for them would make them unfieldable, so for said unit: it's either playable and broken, or expensive and useless"

There's nothing wrong with hard counters. Protoss Phoenix annihilate Zerg Mutalisks, but that's just one possible unit matchup in Starcraft. If Protoss Phoenix were awesome against everything, you'd have wave serpents.

Martel732 wrote:
There's nothing wrong with hard counters. Protoss Phoenix annihilate Zerg Mutalisks, but that's just one possible unit matchup in Starcraft. If Protoss Phoenix were awesome against everything, you'd have wave serpents.

Well, probably not the best example, being that currently Protoss are crazy overpowered...

Protoss can't hold the Eldar's jock strap.

 Therion wrote:
A hard counter can be an Imperial Knight against a unit of Tactical Marines with bolters.

But that's not what a hard counter is. A knight against a bolter squad isn't a hard counter, it's just a unit encountering another unit that it isn't meant to fight (an anti-infantry squad against a tank). A hard counter is where you take unit X specifically to counter unit Y, and having X makes Y useless. That isn't the case here because even if you take the knight for its tactical-killing battle cannon the tactical squad is still relevant as it kills your infantry and claims objectives, and the marine player's anti-tank units attack the knight like they're supposed to.

You didn't say that every unit needs to be highly competitive, and if you had said that I would have disagreed.

I didn't say it, but it should have been implied. When I say "viable" I'm talking about high-level competition. There should not be units which are only ever useful if you're deliberately playing with non-competitive lists.

You're looking at the cutting edge tournament results where truthfully a small margin of the 40K players worldwide participate and passing judgment on the results.

But the point is that if a game can't hold up to that kind of competition then it's a bad game. Balance problems don't go away just because a lot of games are played between newbies or "fluff" players who don't exploit them.

As if a Taudar army winning a tournament in Las Vegas would have any effect in a 10-man gaming club's gaming in Paris, France.

Until someone in the 10-man club netlists the Taudar army and starts dominating.

Peregrine wrote:

 azreal13 wrote:
No balance is about what is fair.

And, again, "fair" is defined in part by what is fun. Balance is more than just whether or not both players have a 50% chance of winning, it includes things like "what is the maximum power for a reasonable single model/unit in this game" which depend on what produces fun and interesting games.

TheCaptain wrote:

 azreal13 wrote:

You've provided an example of a unit with absurdly powerful rules, why wouldn't you expect it to have an equally absurd points cost to field?

I feel like you're not recognizing that even though there are point costs for any set of rules that are mathematically acceptable, those point costs CAN make said unit unfieldable.

That's what I'm suggesting. My thesis is literally "Units CAN have rules so overpowered that the only acceptable point costs for them would make them unfieldable, so for said unit: it's either playable and broken, or expensive and useless"

The pair of you are trying to make a theoretical point practical.

It is theoretically possible to use points to balance the whole system. At no point have I said it is a good idea, but it is possible. You start throwing concepts of what is "fair" "fun" and "reasonable" into the discussion, but that isn't the point, those are subjective and arbitrary ideas.

At no point have you actually argued anything other than semantics. Undercosted is exactly the same thing as overpowered, it is just there is clearly a tipping point where some things are so far undercosted that in order for them to become fairly priced, it is a more practical solution to alter their rules than to try and find a points cost that accurately reflects their abilities in game.

 azreal13 wrote:
Undercosted is exactly the same thing as overpowered, it is just there is clearly a tipping point where some things are so far undercosted that in order for them to become fairly priced, it is a more practical solution to alter their rules than to try and find a points cost that accurately reflects their abilities in game.

But that's why they're not the same thing. You can have abilities that come about due to a combination of rules, that when looked at apart are perfectly costed for what they do but when brought together are far greater than the sum of their parts (psychic powers show this tendency all the time). Points aren't always the solution, and "overpowered/undercosted vs "underpowered/overcosted" isn't the same thing.

There are some things that can be incredibly underpowered, yet making them free wouldn't change the fact that other things better fulfil their role. This is what balance should strive to achieve, far more than just getting the points costs right. Making something useful isn't the same as getting something's cost right. Getting the cost right is only part of it.

Peregrine wrote:
But that's not what a hard counter is. A knight against a bolter squad isn't a hard counter, it's just a unit encountering another unit that it isn't meant to fight

Well, you're not meant to fight against units that hard counter you. By my definition, a unit that always beats you both at shooting and in assault is your hard counter. Whether it was chosen to the army to counter that unit specifically is irrelevant. It was chosen to counter all units of that type. 40K has too many armies and too many units for you to go to micro level decisions, like: "I'm going to take unit XYZ in my army just in case one of my 6 opponents in the upcoming tournament uses Kharn the Betrayer". Rather you take some units that hard- or soft counter footslogging Marines of all types.

But the point is that if a game can't hold up to that kind of competition then it's a bad game. Balance problems don't go away just because a lot of games are played between newbies or "fluff" players who don't exploit them.

I'm not going to argue against that. I could say though that even a bad game can be a lot of fun. It would be more fun if it was better, but fun is fun.

Wow, by that definition, tactical marines have an awful lot of "hard counters".

Martel732 wrote:
Wow, by that definition, tactical marines have an awful lot of "hard counters".

Of course they do, and they counter almost noone in turn. Just in case you were wondering, they also suck, and have sucked almost forever (they weren't that garbage in 2nd). That's why people refered to Marines with deck chairs, where one guy is holding the lascannon and the rest are waiting to die.

 Therion wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Wow, by that definition, tactical marines have an awful lot of "hard counters".

Of course they do, and they counter almost noone in turn. Just in case you were wondering, they also suck, and have sucked forever. That's why people refered to Marines with deck chairs, where one guy is holding the lascannon and the rest are waiting to die.

LOL. That's worth price of admission right there.

 azreal13 wrote:


At no point have you actually argued anything other than semantics. Undercosted is exactly the same thing as overpowered, it is just there is clearly a tipping point where some things are so far undercosted that in order for them to become fairly priced, it is a more practical solution to alter their rules than to try and find a points cost that accurately reflects their abilities in game.

This is literally what I've been saying since page 5

 TheCaptain wrote:


I maintain there is a definite distinction between OP and Undercosted, as some rules are fine and simply not in sync with their price, while other rules, even ones that arent made up and are actually in the game, need an Errata, not a price raise.
-TheCaptain

Im new to the boards but I think I agree with real power house units need to have more points applied to them. Where I came from my LGS forum was flooded with a bunch of players that are what is it? TFG? The forums deteriated into childish name calling instead of working something out. So far I agree with a points increase to Power House Units. also where I came from Units with Str D were a huge debate, a can of worms im sure have been debated here as I get to know this forum.

Undercosted and overpowered aren't the same thing, but are often related. For example, the hypothetical "God Mode" IG squad on a previous page is both, to the point where it wouldn't ever be usable because the rules are just insane.

However, let's take something like the Wave Serpent. Is it overpowered? Likely. Is it undercosted? Most definitely. If it cost more, would it balance out? Probably. The Riptide, or Wraithknight or Heldrake is another example, as is the Necron Night Scythes. These things are overpowered but not because they are inherently broken but because they are too cheap for how effective they are, which has the added caveat of allowing/enabling them to be spammed. Would there be as many complaints about the Riptide if they cost enough so that you couldn't field more than one Riptide in a normal sized game? I don't think there would be, because then you have a powerful unit but one that can be countered.

On the subject of actual balance I'll reiterate that I'm not asking for everything to be entirely equal, merely that every choice be viable in some way and combinations be able to work. I want a game where I can pick units that I like the look of or like the background of, and know that I'm building a themed list that isn't going to just get wiped off the table because the units I like happen to be way underpowered and "useless" in a game compared to other options that I might not like or don't fit. For example, if I really want a Khorne army with lots of Berserkers and close combat, should I be penalized and end up losing most games because I happened to choose a weak unit? NO! The game should be balanced so that a reasonable all Berserker force has a chance of winning with a good general who uses their units to their advantage; that's not to say that you should be able to win if you take nothing but close combat and have no support whatsoever; that's foolish. However, you shouldn't be penalized SIMPLY for picking units that you enjoy, and the rules should be flexible enough to allow for themed armies without penalizing them. For example, if I want an all Terminator army I should be allowed to field it, and assuming that I'm a competent commander and that I'm making reasonable choices (that would naturally be in support of a Terminator company) then I should have a reasonable chance to win with everything else being equal.

I have also had a thought of taking something from the warmachine hordes books. They have a "Field allowance" some units can only have one per army some only 2. Would that be an idea in stopping people from taking 3 Riptides etc?

That wouldn't be necessary if they were pointed appropriately. Or they were crappy walkers like the marines have.

Omicron-Fenrir wrote:
I have also had a thought of taking something from the warmachine hordes books. They have a "Field allowance" some units can only have one per army some only 2. Would that be an idea in stopping people from taking 3 Riptides etc?

Can'ts be selling all dem shinies with rules like that.

PP does. at least in my LGS. The shelves are usualy picked clean of any one model that is real good for its particular faction. As soon as they get a shipment in poof is sold within the week.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 azreal13 wrote:
Undercosted is exactly the same thing as overpowered, it is just there is clearly a tipping point where some things are so far undercosted that in order for them to become fairly priced, it is a more practical solution to alter their rules than to try and find a points cost that accurately reflects their abilities in game.

But that's why they're not the same thing. You can have abilities that come about due to a combination of rules, that when looked at apart are perfectly costed for what they do but when brought together are far greater than the sum of their parts (psychic powers show this tendency all the time). Points aren't always the solution, and "overpowered/undercosted vs "underpowered/overcosted" isn't the same thing.

There are some things that can be incredibly underpowered, yet making them free wouldn't change the fact that other things better fulfil their role. This is what balance should strive to achieve, far more than just getting the points costs right. Making something useful isn't the same as getting something's cost right. Getting the cost right is only part of it.

Of course, things like psychic powers don't technically cost points (anymore) which means they can't be balanced as such, and in fact random powers are a brilliant example of how little GW care for balance in the current edition, as there are so frequently examples where certain choices are head and shoulders above others. Therefore it is impossible to point a psyker fairly, as there efficacy will vary hugely from game to game.

All that said, I still draw no distinction between undercosted/overpowered. Heck, one could even give points back for particularly poor units, it is all still the same principle. Balance solely through points values isn't a good idea, and I haven't claimed as such, but it remains possible, simply not practical.