I've not met/seen anyone who will say PL is inherently more balanced than Points
There's a frequent commenter in this thread who has made that statement repeatedly without any argument other than "but points aren't perfectly balanced" as if that magically makes any other balancing system better...
And you're someone who has constantly tried conflating people saying things like "power level is easier for balancing casual games than points" with "power is better than points for everything".
But since this is so hard for you: Power is better for any kind of casual setting. It allows for variances in lists better than points do. It also is an easier metric to introduce people to the game assuming they're actually introduced into playing the game, rather than just told to go to reddit or discord.
That last part involves fostering a community that is not just throwing memelists at each other though, so I can understand why it is so difficult for the "POINTS ONLY NO POWER!" crowd to get.
Points are good for going into the more granular methods of play, i.e. tournaments not pick-up game night.
That hasn't, unfortunately, stopped points being a blight upon PUG nights though.
Kanluwen wrote: Power is better for any kind of casual setting. It allows for variances in lists better than points do.
Allowing for more variance means worse balance.
(Pssst...you're not helping the cause of "the game should be more balanced" defend itself against the "why don't you just go play chess, then?" people here.)
Kanluwen wrote: It allows for variances in lists better than points do.
Why?
I mean, it does permit you to swap upgrades around without affecting the PL total, but that only functions to begin with because PL is less precise. I can replace ten plasma guns across my army with lasguns and reduce a bunch of squads to 6-man instead of 10-man, and the fact that this doesn't affect the PL is a bug, not a feature. Plus there are issues like how six Scourges with Shardcarbines are valued at nearly double the PL of five Scourges with Dark Lances. As a balancing mechanism, PL is pretty bad; at best its utility is to quickly get roughly the same amount of stuff on the table if your opponent is following the same mindset as you.
You can still tune down or tune up a points-based list, you just have to acknowledge that you're imposing a handicap. Which is what you are doing when you voluntarily de-tune your list or encourage your opponent to take some more upgrades, regardless of whether they're tracked via points or unaccounted for by PL's imprecision. And if you want to talk about introducing new people to the game, newbies lack the game knowledge to be able to balance out their own PL-based lists. It's a great approach if you know the game inside and out and can coach them through it, it's not great if you and some friends are just starting out with 40K and don't have someone to act as game balance arbiter for you.
I get where folks are coming from in saying that PL forces you to acknowledge that the balancing mechanism isn't perfect and thus take it upon yourself to construct a fair game, but that's practically a stone soup approach to game balance. You're better off using points to construct initial lists, and then applying handicaps as necessary through the same heuristic process you'd apply to PL-based lists.
Kanluwen wrote: ... the "POINTS ONLY NO POWER!" crowd to get...
There is no such 'crowd'. It is an imaginary adversary you have concocted so you can get worked up about Power Levels (and plasma guns) and scream about tournament players in threads like this.
Points aren't a 'blight'. Points are the default. They are the method through which most players have interfaced with this game for almost its entire existence. They've been part of the game for longer than you or I have been playing it. Your dogged insistence that they are some kind of slight against casual play or that they are somehow making the game worse in nonsensical.
I get where folks are coming from in saying that PL forces you to acknowledge that the balancing mechanism isn't perfect and thus take it upon yourself to construct a fair game, but that's practically a stone soup approach to game balance. You're better off using points to construct initial lists, and then applying handicaps as necessary through the same heuristic process you'd apply to PL-based lists.
Not really, no. That is because points are sold as being an accurate tool, while they are absolutely not an accurate tool, which leads to the whole misconception of points as a balance mechanism. PLs are sold as a rough guide and as such are used as a rough guide, exactly as points should be used.
What fascinates me the most in the recent part of this thread is that people don't seem to be able to grasp the fundamental relationship between "list building for advantage" and "point balance". The whole skill of list building is based on the imbalance of the point system. You literally try to find "best bang for your buck" and squeeze as much effective point value as possible out of nominal 2000pts. For this "skill" to exist the "bang for buck" of nominal points has to differ between options you are presented with - the options have to be imbalanced. There have to be top builds as well as mediocre and gakky builds possible, which translates to effective point values of those builds be less or more than 2000pts. Mathematically there is nothing more to list building for advantage, null, zip, nada.
The whole "we want cross faction balance but we want the list building skill to be a part of the game" translates to math as "we want the best builds for any given faction be roughly equal in effective points value but at the same time effective point values of best builds be substantially higher than those of mediocre builds and drastically higher than those of uninformed or random builds". In other words, we want "just right" amount of imbalance, not balance.
You can't have a cake and eat it too.
Automatically Appended Next Post: And a word about why "synergies" are an epitome of imbalance (as the other name for the same thing suggests - "force multiplier"). Consider the following scenario: Arnie and Bob both play the same faction and are pretty good at list building. For the next 2000pts match against each other, they build lists with the same optimal choices of the same faction, same troops, same fast attack, same heavy, 1850 pts are exactly the same, but then Arnie found a great synergistic HQ option for the last 150pts of his army, that through a combined magic of special rules, auras, whatever, boosts the damage output of 1/4th of his units by 20%. Arnie is very proud of himself as he sure should be. Now Bob found an even better synergy for the last 150pts of his army and his HQ buffs 1/3rd of his units by whooping 30%. He is also proud of himself, as he should be.
As a result, armies that are 92.5% identical have nearly 4% difference in effective points value. The last piece of the puzzle, a 150pts HQ gave 74 free points advantage to Bob. Now you may say, that this means, that Bob's HQ option is undercosted by those 166,5 points (as Arnies HQ is undercosted by "just" 92.5 points). But what if you take him in an army, where he only buffs 15% of your force, because you took fewer of synergistic units? He is now undercosted by just 83 points...
See the problem with synergies and balance through point costs?
Why hasn't any tournament adopted a veto feature? Fighting games do it to veto stages. For example after seeing opponents list, you can select one unit to veto or remove from the game? Or maybe not as harsh and you force it into reserves so it isnt deployed turn 1.
Or a sideboard option where after reviewing opponents list you pick what units you want to bring to the match. This would work better under a PL system than points from a timing perspective.
Because that would be a hellish waste of time, and its problematic for a lot of armies because it often isn't a clean swap.
A card game sideboard is 1 card to 1 card (up to however many). 40k doesn't work out that nicely, even with PL. So that's a lot of pregame hemming and hawing
nou wrote: Not really, no. That is because points are sold as being an accurate tool, while they are absolutely not an accurate tool, which leads to the whole misconception of points as a balance mechanism. PLs are sold as a rough guide and as such are used as a rough guide, exactly as points should be used.
So... Do exactly that? You'll have an easier time balancing out two armies if they're both starting at 2000pts than if they're both 50PL.
This argument is so weird to me- if the PL is purely a rough guide then it's blatantly not a better balancing mechanism; you're the one doing the balancing to make up the difference, and the most charitable thing you can say about it is that it's so bad nobody can contest that it needs external input to produce a fair fight. Again, stone soup- GW supplies the illusion of a balancing mechanism, you're expected to supply the rest.
If you've got people willing to play with PL then they're clearly open-minded enough to talk about balancing out with unequal points. Someone under the impression that points produce a fair game probably won't want to play a PL game in any case.
All you have to do to see how a little change in points will radically change the outcome of a battle is take 2 units of Flayed Ones, in a spreadsheet calculate the average damage each unit of Flayed Ones will deal and take to the other per round. Now add 10% more Flayed Ones to one unit, you end up with 20% surviving on the side that got an extra 10%.
auticus wrote: You can do a simple output differential using the game statics to compare offensive and defensive output scores to see that the tuned lists often run at 200% of what a non tuned list runs.
I'm sorry but this to me just shows that you don't know 9th that well, because there is more to it than offensive and defensive output, actions, mobility and abilities. Perhaps you can show me with two units that are considered the top and bottom of the SM faction, Assault Marines with jump packs and Vanguard Veterans with jump packs, storm shields and power swords.
This particular matchup when we did the analysis it was 185% higher so not quite double but the equivalent of say 3800 vs 2000 point match (if you assumed points == balance) and watching that guy get erased in 2 turns - yeah it sure did look like a 3800 vs 2000 point game too.
Care to say what the lists were? Not expecting a Battlescribe file, but I'd really appreciate a general idea. My best guess would be old Tau railgun Hammerheads and Ork buggy spam, but you'd really have to be a sucker for punishment to play multiple old railgun Hammerheads.
I've not met/seen anyone who will say PL is inherently more balanced than Points
There's a frequent commenter in this thread who has made that statement repeatedly without any argument other than "but points aren't perfectly balanced" as if that magically makes any other balancing system better...
As chaos0xomega tries to explain above, PL system creates more balanced gaming experience exactly because it is known and accepted that it is not precise enough for "no cross-tailoring" approach known from point system.
Something that everyone outside America knows about pts as well, which is why we advocate not bringing a competitive list to a casual game without prior agreement. "It's so obviously gak at what it's trying to do that you really cannot help but agree that it's gak enough that we just ignore the rules about list building and finish our lists at the table to get a measure of balance" is not something that makes me want to use it more. The fact that I can get a 50% win rate with almost every list out of 15 lists all winning 1/3 or 2/3 games in pick-up games where neither player changed lists shows me that pts are pretty robust, the most we did to balance things was in one game where we agreed to play on less terrain than we normally would to give Deathmarks a chance to shine (which they didn't because the rules are blergh).
Kanluwen wrote: Power is ... an easier metric to introduce people to the game assuming they're actually introduced into playing the game, rather than just told to go to reddit or discord.
I don't want new players to think that thunder hammers don't cost more points than a power sword. You can find guides on how to make your first 500 pt list on Battlescribe, it's not rocket science, if you cannot bother to read the freely available core rules and cannot bother to make a list on Battlescribe then 40k is probably too much hassle for you to play with the constant release of new rules supplements and codices.
Kanluwen wrote: Power is better for any kind of casual setting. It allows for variances in lists better than points do.
Allowing for more variance means worse balance.
(Pssst...you're not helping the cause of "the game should be more balanced" defend itself against the "why don't you just go play chess, then?" people here.)
Balance with a variety of fluff-inspired stats and dice rolls cannot be found in chess since there are no fluff-inspired stats or dice rolls. All 40k needs is constricting balance more year over year and not giving up in the face of the doomers that say it's impossible.
nou wrote: What fascinates me the most in the recent part of this thread is that people don't seem to be able to grasp the fundamental relationship between "list building for advantage" and "point balance". The whole skill of list building is based on the imbalance of the point system. You literally try to find "best bang for your buck" and squeeze as much effective point value as possible out of nominal 2000pts. For this "skill" to exist the "bang for buck" of nominal points has to differ between options you are presented with - the options have to be imbalanced. There have to be top builds as well as mediocre and gakky builds possible, which translates to effective point values of those builds be less or more than 2000pts. Mathematically there is nothing more to list building for advantage, null, zip, nada.
GW could reign things in such that the difference isn't as massive as it sometimes is. The size of the difference matters. A Knight fighting a Warlord Titan is pointless, X Knights and Y Astra Militarum fighting a Warlord Titan and X Space Marines might not be pointless depending on the exact amount of X, Y and Z.
The whole "we want cross faction balance but we want the list building skill to be a part of the game" translates to math as "we want the best builds for any given faction be roughly equal in effective points value but at the same time effective point values of best builds be substantially higher than those of mediocre builds and drastically higher than those of uninformed or random builds". In other words, we want "just right" amount of imbalance, not balance.
You can't have a cake and eat it too.
It's not so much my interest in making list-building matter as that's just something that automatically happens due to imperfections in balance. One thing I don't want for example is for Assault Marines with jump packs to always be terrible and for Vanguard Veterans with jump packs and storm shields to always be amazing. If Vanguard Veterans do well with a jump pack Captain and a jump pack Lieutenant then that's fine, when I say that's the good kind of list building skill I mean I don't want to whack it with a hammer to make it go away the same way I want to make the imbalance between VanVets and Assault Marines go away. It's impossible to make a Rhino equally good for every unit that can go inside, some units need the protection and mobility more than others, this is fine. A meltagun should be more pts-efficient against a tank than boltgun, this is fine, it's just the cost of having fluff-adjecent rules and interesting counters instead of the stupid gak that Apocalypse did.
See the problem with synergies and balance through point costs?
No. Bob made a better list, this is fine assuming the options Arnie took in some other build would have been good. It's unavoidable, all I can do is shrug and say that it's fine, I don't know what you want me to say here. Unless you have an excellent game master you cannot balance combos perfectly against each other. It is to some degree a draw for the game as well, Bob and Arnie both liked looking for the more synergistic options in their codex, that Arnie eeked out an extra 3% win rate over the course of their 30 games until the rules changed based on his better options does not ruin the world (I can pull numbers out of a hat with the best of them). Making Assault Marines with jump packs attractive in a few lists and decent in a lot of others just requires a pts reduction, it doesn't require a game master or agreeing with your opponent to take or not take a flamer based on their list's weakness or strength against Assault Marines.
I'm sorry but this to me just shows that you don't know 9th that well, because there is more to it than offensive and defensive output, actions, mobility and abilities. Perhaps you can show me with two units that are considered the top and bottom of the SM faction, Assault Marines with jump packs and Vanguard Veterans with jump packs, storm shields and power swords.
At this point I think we just need to agree to disagree. Now we're going to wind the route of "well there are these other synergies here you can't account for so...." thats all a bad faith conversation that there is no coming back from.
If I can do double your output for half your cost, thats bent. Period. And thats the point of listbuilding. To find a way to take your point cost and get as high output as you possibly can with it through buffs and free points and synergies.
Pretty much 100% every tournament player I have ever known in my life knows that to be true and most have spreadsheets calculating output in some form or fashion, to include the guys that now sell their services to build you your list for you for a couple hundred bucks.
You can "yeah but" that all day long. "but synergy you can't account for (you sure can)", "but storm shields (thats a part of their defense score)"
Your argument is really "you can't balance something perfectly, a rhino can't be costed fairly because if its transporting satan its worth more than if its transporting 5 tactical marines, a thunder hammer can't be costed fairly because if satan is wielding it its worth more than if joe the assault marine is wielding it" - and thats absolutely correct.
And has nothing to do with tuning lists to perform high above their point value to the tune of over double the baseline output of their opponents.
If Satan with a storm hammer does 10 points of damage on average every turn against the game's average defense and Joe Tac marine does 2 points of damage on average every turn against it, then you have an idea using linear regression models about how much that hammer is worth to Satan and how much its worth to Joe the Tac Marine, and you can assign a value from there. It may not be perfect because you may play a mission where a parameter makes it so Satan has to move an extra 6" to get to an objective and his opponent doesn't feed him free points, so it doesn't seem like its worth as much - but you know where it should reside on the bell curve and can get a HELL OF A LOT closer than what GW currently does.
Because if you have tuned the BASELINE to be 200% or more of your opponent, then that opponent sure better have a SHED TON of intangibles in his pocket to have a good game (and synergies and buffs can be calculated - tourney players in 40k have been doing it since before the internet on ancient excel spreadsheets and aol bbs service).
For a solid year in AOS land when we did Azyr thats all that we were told. You can't balance points you can't balance points you can't balance points, too much synergy too much this too much that, you obviously don't know what you're talking about etc etc etc... And then that turned into "YOU KILLED LISTBUILDING EVERYTHING IS BORING AND WORTH THE SAME". That came about from getting a good solid leash around the baseline. Turns out when you do that, the intangibles are still a thing but the baseline is a solid foundation you can build off of. The baseline for 40k is hot garbage and has been hot garbage since I've been a player of 40k and did my first regression on it in 3rd edition when Blood Angels alpha strike and their marines having +1 S and +1 A and a shed load of power weapons but costing the same as a vanilla marine were a thing and fisting everything in their path.
I know you can make things in this game multitudes closer as I have been on a team that did it and am proud of what that team did because they achieved their goal. But you absolutely cannot have that kind of balance if you want listbuilding to have an impact. At all. Those two things cannot ever reside in the same game because they are two totally different desires on two totally different polar opposites of the ball. You can only try to find a good middle ground, and brother - GW hasn't had that middle ground pretty much ever.
Nor should they. Chasing the meta makes them a whole pile of money.
nou wrote: Not really, no. That is because points are sold as being an accurate tool, while they are absolutely not an accurate tool, which leads to the whole misconception of points as a balance mechanism. PLs are sold as a rough guide and as such are used as a rough guide, exactly as points should be used.
Everyone knows that points aren't perfect either, it's just that for a 750 person tournament you can't sit everyone down and negotiate their lists. You accept it as "good enough" and move on. In the same token, power level is "good enough" for the narrative league down at the nearest hobby shop.
I'm sorry but this to me just shows that you don't know 9th that well, because there is more to it than offensive and defensive output, actions, mobility and abilities. Perhaps you can show me with two units that are considered the top and bottom of the SM faction, Assault Marines with jump packs and Vanguard Veterans with jump packs, storm shields and power swords.
We'll just end the conversation there lol. Now we're going to wind the route of "well there are these other synergies here you can't account for so...." thats all a bad faith conversation that there is no coming back from.
If I can do double your output for half your cost, thats bent. Period. And thats the point of listbuilding. To find a way to take your point cost and get as high output as you possibly can with it through buffs and free points and synergies.
Pretty much 100% every tournament player I have ever known in my life knows that to be true and most have spreadsheets calculating output in some form or fashion, to include the guys that now sell their services to build you your list for you for a couple hundred bucks.
You think they ignore HQ buffs, actions and mobility when designing lists? There is nothing broken about a slow vulnerable melee unit doing double the damage of a vulnerable shooting unit with access to a Stratagem that lets it MSM, like say Dark Reapers vs Flayed Ones.
You can "yeah but" that all day long. "but synergy you can't account for (you sure can)", "but storm shields (thats a part of their defense score)"
Storm shields weren't part of my argument lol, they were an example of something you could analyze for me to understand your method and verify whether it makes sense. I leave myself open to be convinced to change my opinion, something I have done on several topics in the past and gain new tools to add to my game design repertoire. I don't just slink away like all the people that said that Drukhari and Iron Hands were fine, I admitted for example that Iron Hands were significantly more broken in ITC than in whatever GW called their basic missions in late 8th. I'd have to ask for forgiveness if you showed me to actually be wrong, but that's just the thing about the internet you cannot trust anything anyone says.
I don't know where you're coming from saying that I don't believe in the power of math, I have already said multiple times that math is the foundation of a balanced game and that it'll take years to approach the same level of balance by doing trial and error pts changes based on tournament data, like how I lamented the problems in CA2020 because 9th doesn't have time to become balanced before 10th. I have also said that I think CA should come once every 12 months, not every 6 months, with a balanced foundation and some good pre-release testing there should not be a need for a 6-month pts update schedule. But maybe I'm starting to understand the criticism that Azyr comp got that you were unresponsive to playtesting results, perhaps you cared too much about your theoretical efficiency and not enough about what was actually stomping or getting stomped on tables.
...And then that turned into "YOU KILLED LISTBUILDING EVERYTHING IS BORING AND WORTH THE SAME"...
You still haven't shown anyone that has said this, I don't get why someone who wasn't interested in balance would even seek out a comp system, maybe they just followed the project out of hate. The comments on the project I've found from what I remember described either a lack of balance or praised the balance, which isn't the version of events you're putting out at all. But it all happened in a Facebook group that is now closed I think you've told me before. It sounds like with some other things you have been involved with a small group of people should have been banned because they weren't interested in the project (whether that be a game store where different kinds of fun can be had or balanced pts system for AOS).
The people that say balancing the game kills listbuilding definitely isn't me, otherwise, there would be no unit or faction tiers, something I'd be happy if everyone just said everything was A or B tier, either solid or situational but good, no S tier auto-takes or F tier trash.
Stormonu wrote: * Though there is an apparent basement to how bad folks will let the rules go before they start wandering away, as evidenced by 7th edition.
Is this accurate?
Anecdotal, but there was a much much larger community playing 40k in 6th-7th than there are currently playing 9th in my area, in fact almost all local clubs (5 of them) are now exclusively running blood bowl, warcry, AoS, necromunda or kill team and if you show up looking for a game of 40k, you will rarely find an opponent willing. 7th never ever had a lack of players around here. Though this could also be due to the increased in amount of side games supported by GW now.
Also noticing more and more talks among locals (as well as my own group ~7 or so people) of abandoning 9th to go back to 7th or earlier.
EDIT: On the PL vs Points Balance debate, I am not advocating PL is any more balanced than points, its purely a time:enjoyment factor for my group
GW stock prices and sales numbers show a definite downward trend in 6th and 7th, with a huge rebound following the release of 8th. The company wasn't in the red, but it was definitely losing sales (and customers). I don't know if anecdotal, but Warmahordes, Infinity and a host of other alternates to 40K grew exponentially during the 6th-7th slump.
@auticus: As much as I value your input, and as I always had, it has to be stressed here, that linear regression model could work in AOS because it had independent linear parameters to begin with. You moved a fixed value, you hit on a fixed value, you wounded on a fixed value and then you saved on a mostly fixed value, since there was little AP proliferation, so SV was also an almost linear parameter. As soon as you manage to establish relative weights of mobility, offense and defense in such linear system, you can sort units by their absolute positions in those dimensions and your point approximations will work smoothly.
But as soon as there is enough AP around, linear regression stops working for AP vs SV pair, as this becomes a dynamic game time parameter. Same thing was with the old S vs T - here even the basic relationship was nonlinear as you had the double 6+ and then a hard cutoff. Even movement in 7th was nonlinear due to all the random rolls and then it was heavily dependant on terrain.
And modern 40K? To hit is nonlinear with all those modifiers; to wound is nonlinear with modifiers and cutoffs; damage is nonlinear with modifiers and cutoffs; save is nonlinear, including invulnerables; even movement becomes nonlinear recently. So linear regression models cannot work reliably to sort units along any dimension, because you don’t have independent dimensions anymore, you have dynamic pairs which are inherently chaotic in nature, and a wholy different math discipline is used to describe those.
But while linear regression is not enough to balance things out, it is enough to find glaring holes in the momentary state of the system and so it can be used to listbuild for advantage, as it obviously is.
GW stock prices and sales numbers show a definite downward trend in 6th and 7th, with a huge rebound following the release of 8th. The company wasn't in the red, but it was definitely losing sales (and customers). I don't know if anecdotal, but Warmahordes, Infinity and a host of other alternates to 40K grew exponentially during the 6th-7th slump.
6th edition release June 2012: Stock price 9.
7th edition release May 2014: 9.56
AoS release July 2015: 8.47
GHB release July 2016: 6.4
8th release July 2017: 15.53
9th release July 2020: 119.75
Peak June 2021: 171.9
Present 2/3/2022: 113.55
While all of 6th the stock price stayed consistent, 7th the price didnt really dip until the abysmal launch of AoS and it bottomed out with the release of the General Handbook, the price then soared nearly 160% higher than it was at the start of 7th by the release of 8th. While the playerbase was upset about 7th's bloat and power creep, this didn't seem to have much affect on their stock price.
I've not said anything disparaging about 8th edition, and the success of 8th should not be used as a metric on the success of 9th. Prior to Psychic Awakening, my LGS's/clubs had constant support from the players for 8th. The support for 9th however mirrors the GW stock for the past 18months. That is, an increase in support for the system for the first few months, then a downward trend ever since. Again, I know it's anecdotal, no one in my area wants to play 40k pick up games anymore, but I can get a pick up game for AoS, Blood Bowl, Necromunda, Warcry, or Kill Team. The only GW game less popular than 40k 9th in my area is Warhammer: Underworlds.
I see this sentiment manifesting in many corners of the 40k online community forums as well.
"boring missions, tournament edition, unbalanced, power creep, too much bloat, hate strategems, etc etc etc"
I get where folks are coming from in saying that PL forces you to acknowledge that the balancing mechanism isn't perfect and thus take it upon yourself to construct a fair game, but that's practically a stone soup approach to game balance. You're better off using points to construct initial lists, and then applying handicaps as necessary through the same heuristic process you'd apply to PL-based lists.
Not really, no. That is because points are sold as being an accurate tool, while they are absolutely not an accurate tool, which leads to the whole misconception of points as a balance mechanism. PLs are sold as a rough guide and as such are used as a rough guide, exactly as points should be used.
What fascinates me the most in the recent part of this thread is that people don't seem to be able to grasp the fundamental relationship between "list building for advantage" and "point balance". The whole skill of list building is based on the imbalance of the point system. You literally try to find "best bang for your buck" and squeeze as much effective point value as possible out of nominal 2000pts. For this "skill" to exist the "bang for buck" of nominal points has to differ between options you are presented with - the options have to be imbalanced. There have to be top builds as well as mediocre and gakky builds possible, which translates to effective point values of those builds be less or more than 2000pts. Mathematically there is nothing more to list building for advantage, null, zip, nada.
The whole "we want cross faction balance but we want the list building skill to be a part of the game" translates to math as "we want the best builds for any given faction be roughly equal in effective points value but at the same time effective point values of best builds be substantially higher than those of mediocre builds and drastically higher than those of uninformed or random builds". In other words, we want "just right" amount of imbalance, not balance.
You can't have a cake and eat it too.
Automatically Appended Next Post: And a word about why "synergies" are an epitome of imbalance (as the other name for the same thing suggests - "force multiplier"). Consider the following scenario: Arnie and Bob both play the same faction and are pretty good at list building. For the next 2000pts match against each other, they build lists with the same optimal choices of the same faction, same troops, same fast attack, same heavy, 1850 pts are exactly the same, but then Arnie found a great synergistic HQ option for the last 150pts of his army, that through a combined magic of special rules, auras, whatever, boosts the damage output of 1/4th of his units by 20%. Arnie is very proud of himself as he sure should be. Now Bob found an even better synergy for the last 150pts of his army and his HQ buffs 1/3rd of his units by whooping 30%. He is also proud of himself, as he should be.
As a result, armies that are 92.5% identical have nearly 4% difference in effective points value. The last piece of the puzzle, a 150pts HQ gave 74 free points advantage to Bob. Now you may say, that this means, that Bob's HQ option is undercosted by those 166,5 points (as Arnies HQ is undercosted by "just" 92.5 points). But what if you take him in an army, where he only buffs 15% of your force, because you took fewer of synergistic units? He is now undercosted by just 83 points...
See the problem with synergies and balance through point costs?
Well said, sadly most will probably ignore your post and the arguments contained therein and simply focus on dogpiling on Kanluwen while claiming that there are only weak arguments against matched play points/for Power Level and that catbarf is making "devastating counterarguments" to defeat them.
nou wrote: Not really, no. That is because points are sold as being an accurate tool, while they are absolutely not an accurate tool, which leads to the whole misconception of points as a balance mechanism. PLs are sold as a rough guide and as such are used as a rough guide, exactly as points should be used.
So... Do exactly that? You'll have an easier time balancing out two armies if they're both starting at 2000pts than if they're both 50PL.
This argument is so weird to me- if the PL is purely a rough guide then it's blatantly not a better balancing mechanism; you're the one doing the balancing to make up the difference, and the most charitable thing you can say about it is that it's so bad nobody can contest that it needs external input to produce a fair fight. Again, stone soup- GW supplies the illusion of a balancing mechanism, you're expected to supply the rest.
If you've got people willing to play with PL then they're clearly open-minded enough to talk about balancing out with unequal points. Someone under the impression that points produce a fair game probably won't want to play a PL game in any case.
Bruv, matched play points are the illusion of a balancing mechanism already, but a more thorough illusion that has convinced you that you don't have to "supply the rest", even though you very clearly should. Matched play points are not and will never be the balancing mechanism you believe it to be or want it to be. The whole point of PL being the system that it is is to try to force you to "supply the rest" so you can generate a fairer experience for all parties involved. That alone makes it a better system than the one which pretends to deliver you balance while doing nothing of the sort.
You (and seemingly others in this thread) have fallen for the myth of granularity - the idea that because points are more granular than PL they must produce a closer approximation to a weapon/model/units capability or power, but thats only true if the more granular system is accurately calculating/measuring capability and power - if its not then the more granular system becomes more prone to error and thus *less* helpful as a balancing mechanism. As nou and auticus (and less directly, vict0988) have just mathematically demonstrated, there is very little evidence that matched play points are actually measuring this accurately, and thus they are not actually going to give you an "easier time balancing out two armies" than PL does. Nor will they ever, because balance exists only within the context of a meta, and that meta is crafted by points values. The moment you adjust a points value, you change the meta, and with that change you rewrite the context within which "balance" exists.
GW stock prices and sales numbers show a definite downward trend in 6th and 7th, with a huge rebound following the release of 8th. The company wasn't in the red, but it was definitely losing sales (and customers). I don't know if anecdotal, but Warmahordes, Infinity and a host of other alternates to 40K grew exponentially during the 6th-7th slump.
6th edition release June 2012: Stock price 9.
7th edition release May 2014: 9.56
AoS release July 2015: 8.47
GHB release July 2016: 6.4
8th release July 2017: 15.53
9th release July 2020: 119.75
Peak June 2021: 171.9
Present 2/3/2022: 113.55
While all of 6th the stock price stayed consistent, 7th the price didnt really dip until the abysmal launch of AoS and it bottomed out with the release of the General Handbook, the price then soared nearly 160% higher than it was at the start of 7th by the release of 8th. While the playerbase was upset about 7th's bloat and power creep, this didn't seem to have much affect on their stock price.
I think its really cute when people think the stock price is actually reflective of playerbase or game popularity. Its not. Its reflective of things like earnings per share, price to earnings ratio, debt, revenue, profit, forward guidance, etc. Investors don't spend time googling "is 40k popular right now" or whatever. They don't care. They make the value judgements based solely on the guidance that GW issues twice yearly (typically around May/June/July and November/December/January timeframes) and what few headlines manage to make it into the news (things like "Warhammer Total War just set a new sales record for RTS games" and "Games Workshop inks $3 billion deal with Netflix for Warhammer 40k series"). These prices are also reflective of broader market movements. The 2015-2017 timeframe is when the market last cycled from value investment to growth investment, many smaller companies with large potential upside saw their stock prices multiple several times over like GWs did. When GW peaked at 171 USD basically the entire market was doing the same, driven up unsustainably high by investor euphoria backed by massive fiscal stimulus from various governments which otherwise abruptly ended and caused many stock values to fall off a cliff. Right now we're cycling back from growth to value and many growth companies are seeing their stock values deflate by anywhere from 30-80% as a result - over the past few years GWs fundamentals have leveled out and the stock has somewhat transitioned from a growth play to a value play in some respects which has insulated it against incurring heavier losses than it did. In GWs case, the stock price of the USD OTC stock (i.e. the one being referenced here) is also effected by the exchange rate between the USD and GBP.
Now, in fairness, you can always balance Scion Command Squads by hiking up their PL cost. But then the fluffy players have their command squads overpriced because they're costed as if they're taking quad plasma, rather than a banner and a medic, because again, it's just a coarse points system that doesn't account for wargear.
As an aside, I'm pretty sure GW has done exactly this with the points of some characters (to compensate for the fact that Warlord traits and Relics can't have their costs adjusted).
e.g. the DE succubus seems to be priced with the assumption that they'll be using the Triptych Whip and Precision Blows - otherwise you're paying 80pts for a T3 model with a glorified Power Sword.
Back in early-8th, there were also models like Shining Spears (IIRC) that seemed to be priced with the assumption that they'd be used in Ynnari armies.
To be clear, I'm not arguing against your point about points. I'm just saying that we're already seeing the same awkwardness with PL with points, because there are currently so many factors (subfaction, stratagems, warlord traits, artefacts etc.) which don't have point values but which nevertheless drastically change the effectiveness of certain units.
vict0988 wrote: Something that everyone outside America knows about pts as well, which is why we advocate not bringing a competitive list to a casual game without prior agreement. "It's so obviously gak at what it's trying to do that you really cannot help but agree that it's gak enough that we just ignore the rules about list building and finish our lists at the table to get a measure of balance" is not something that makes me want to use it more.
That's pretty much where I'm at. I can't take seriously the argument that increased granularity only provides the illusion of better balance, when it's being compared to a system where a lasgun and a plasma gun have the same value and a unit of 6 has the same value as a unit of 10. My wife's Scourges are a perfect example of a unit that PL just does not work for, as their equipment massively affects their power on the tabletop. I won't say all their weapon options are perfectly costed in points, but at least they're accounted for.
The argument seems to basically go from 'points aren't perfect' straight to 'granularity is an illusion, balance is impossible, points are no better than PL', and that's a heck of a stretch. Points are far from perfect, but being better than PL is a low bar to meet. You still need to have the same conversations if you really want to ensure a fair fight, but in my experience it's more along the lines of 'did you bring a casual list? Great' and less having to sit down, go over lists, and perform last-minute tuning.
Like I've said I've found PL useful when I'm having to put together a list on the spot, but the resulting games have never left me feeling like PL got us closer to a fair fight than points.
Now, in fairness, you can always balance Scion Command Squads by hiking up their PL cost. But then the fluffy players have their command squads overpriced because they're costed as if they're taking quad plasma, rather than a banner and a medic, because again, it's just a coarse points system that doesn't account for wargear.
As an aside, I'm pretty sure GW has done exactly this with the points of some characters (to compensate for the fact that Warlord traits and Relics can't have their costs adjusted).
e.g. the DE succubus seems to be priced with the assumption that they'll be using the Triptych Whip and Precision Blows - otherwise you're paying 80pts for a T3 model with a glorified Power Sword.
Back in early-8th, there were also models like Shining Spears (IIRC) that seemed to be priced with the assumption that they'd be used in Ynnari armies.
To be clear, I'm not arguing against your point about points. I'm just saying that we're already seeing the same awkwardness with PL with points, because there are currently so many factors (subfaction, stratagems, warlord traits, artefacts etc.) which don't have point values but which nevertheless drastically change the effectiveness of certain units.
Yup, I'd consider that a significant problem too.
Subfactions in particular are a prime example of a synergy that can significantly improve the value of a unit without touching the cost. Back in 4th Ed if you took Doctrines on Guard or Chapter Tactics on Marines you generally had to pay for them on a per-unit basis. It was crude- a squad of Veterans gets more mileage out of carapace armor than a regular Guardsman squad- but at least it wasn't free.
Meanwhile in 8th/9th, there are relics and warlord traits that never see play because they just aren't interesting or impactful compared to the alternatives, and there's no mechanism to represent that different value. I've had a few games where I choose to take an under-used relic or WLT just for the sake of doing something different, but it's not a particularly fun choice.
And we're not even getting into how stratagems affect units. Six Hive Guard are more than twice as effective as three Hive Guard because Single-Minded Annihilation exists.
So yeah, you won't find me saying that the current implementation of points is perfect or guarantees a balanced game. What I can't agree with is the notion that because these issues with the points system do exist, the best recourse is to throw it all out the window and use a system that has those issues and more, in the hopes that having a balance mechanism that's more overtly broken will encourage us to perform the necessary balancing ourselves.
Ironically in my experience, less-granular points system tie in better aid the quest for better balance than more granular points systems. Warmaxhine/hordes being the perfect example.
Let's be clear though. That game isn't better balanced than 40k, because of less-granular points, it's better* balanced because of all the other stuff, points are basically the least important thing - as auticus points out, theyre about giving 'structure', not balance.
*relatively better. Wmh 'balance' still has plenty traps, crutches and issues...
When it comes to PL vs Points, my opinion is in its current state I'd do either if I was playing because both are a flaming trash fire for their own reasons in regards to how the game feels balance-wise. Granular points are for sure more detailed, and if done right would be more balanced, but they feel as busted as PL does in the end when I do either one.
Here's a radical thought (which would require a heavy codex readjustment)....
What if PL and points were discarded entirely and instead, all units were worth one point - with perhaps the occasional high power unit worth 2.
What this would require is really tuning the capabilities of units, and creating a carefully fixed set of parameters for unit customization, such that the durability, damage output, mobility, and battlefield capabilities of any unit was roughly on par with any other (obviously some units would be faster or slower, weaker or stronger, have more or fewer models, etc.)
What might this mean in actual terms? A "1" point unit might be a fixed X-number of models depending on the army (5 marines, 20 guardsman, etc.) with clear stipulations around options (must take 1 heavy or special weapon, etc.)
You could of course have things work such that like-units could be combined into larger squads for morale purposes or split into fire teams, etc. Two 5-man tactical combat squads could be formed into a 2-point 10-man squad, or 20 models of guards split into two 10-man squads, etc. Special rules that apply to certain units would be a way to further add strengths/weaknesses to units to bring them closer into alignment.
The advantage of something like this is that, in theory, it should matter much less about what slot or unit type it is (troop vs. fast attack, etc.) and players would do something like play a "10 point match" and that would be that.
From a competitive standpoint, if each unit is more narrowly defined and balanced, it DOES let you have things like a sideboard, since it's easy to remove one unit and swap in a different one.
Really, I suppose, this is taking the idea of power level to the extreme edge and just saying everything is power level 1 and defining the units themselves more narrowly to be balanced around what PL 1 means under this paradigm. But unlike the current PL system, where a huge variance in output can be had within a unit at the same PL based on what options you take, here it would be more consistently and predictably defined.
Mezmorki wrote: Here's a radical thought (which would require a heavy codex readjustment)....
What if PL and points were discarded entirely and instead, all units were worth one point - with perhaps the occasional high power unit worth 2.
What this would require is really tuning the capabilities of units, and creating a carefully fixed set of parameters for unit customization, such that the durability, damage output, mobility, and battlefield capabilities of any unit was roughly on par with any other (obviously some units would be faster or slower, weaker or stronger, have more or fewer models, etc.)
What might this mean in actual terms? A "1" point unit might be a fixed X-number of models depending on the army (5 marines, 20 guardsman, etc.) with clear stipulations around options (must take 1 heavy or special weapon, etc.)
You could of course have things work such that like-units could be combined into larger squads for morale purposes or split into fire teams, etc. Two 5-man tactical combat squads could be formed into a 2-point 10-man squad, or 20 models of guards split into two 10-man squads, etc. Special rules that apply to certain units would be a way to further add strengths/weaknesses to units to bring them closer into alignment.
The advantage of something like this is that, in theory, it should matter much less about what slot or unit type it is (troop vs. fast attack, etc.) and players would do something like play a "10 point match" and that would be that.
From a competitive standpoint, if each unit is more narrowly defined and balanced, it DOES let you have things like a sideboard, since it's easy to remove one unit and swap in a different one.
Really, I suppose, this is taking the idea of power level to the extreme edge and just saying everything is power level 1 and defining the units themselves more narrowly to be balanced around what PL 1 means under this paradigm. But unlike the current PL system, where a huge variance in output can be had within a unit at the same PL based on what options you take, here it would be more consistently and predictably defined.
Just as auticus' comp for AOS and my proposal, if this could even be achieved anyhow, it would remove list building for advantage from the game and leave only list building for flavour, so you should now get checked for butt cancer
You would also have to reduce current 40K to something like Apocalypse to make that work.
Why is the concept of granularity seen as a boon for points vs PL but is not considered for the new S:T interaction?
The current S:T chart only has 5 tiers:
half, <, =, >, double
This makes ALOT of weapon strengths not desirable because the toughness is always 3-8. So 5 tiers of damage, and only 6 toughness values means the strength breakpoints are deterministic across most armies.
GW should expand the toughness characteristic a bit more and revert back to the old S:T chart. Odd numbered strength values would actually be worth a damn then.
Mezmorki wrote: Here's a radical thought (which would require a heavy codex readjustment)....
What if PL and points were discarded entirely and instead, all units were worth one point - with perhaps the occasional high power unit worth 2.
What this would require is really tuning the capabilities of units, and creating a carefully fixed set of parameters for unit customization, such that the durability, damage output, mobility, and battlefield capabilities of any unit was roughly on par with any other (obviously some units would be faster or slower, weaker or stronger, have more or fewer models, etc.)
What might this mean in actual terms? A "1" point unit might be a fixed X-number of models depending on the army (5 marines, 20 guardsman, etc.) with clear stipulations around options (must take 1 heavy or special weapon, etc.)
You could of course have things work such that like-units could be combined into larger squads for morale purposes or split into fire teams, etc. Two 5-man tactical combat squads could be formed into a 2-point 10-man squad, or 20 models of guards split into two 10-man squads, etc. Special rules that apply to certain units would be a way to further add strengths/weaknesses to units to bring them closer into alignment.
The advantage of something like this is that, in theory, it should matter much less about what slot or unit type it is (troop vs. fast attack, etc.) and players would do something like play a "10 point match" and that would be that.
From a competitive standpoint, if each unit is more narrowly defined and balanced, it DOES let you have things like a sideboard, since it's easy to remove one unit and swap in a different one.
Really, I suppose, this is taking the idea of power level to the extreme edge and just saying everything is power level 1 and defining the units themselves more narrowly to be balanced around what PL 1 means under this paradigm. But unlike the current PL system, where a huge variance in output can be had within a unit at the same PL based on what options you take, here it would be more consistently and predictably defined.
But since you are thinking about such radical change, then consider this: in the 40k replacement my group plays, the cost of most units ranges from 1 to 6 (but we have a fractional system), but then this total cost is also subdivided into three separate values for mobility, offence and defence. You build your army to a points total, but then use those subtotals to compare relative mobility, offence and defence of the armies and appropriate stratagems are handed out to the worse army in all three categories to equalise them.
We also use percentage cost increase for HQ buff abilities dependant on the size of the detachment this HQ buffs.
It works extremely well, but also removes list building for advantage and leaves only list building for flavour.
Privateer press' warcaster game is also extremely interesting to look at if you want to see an alternative approach. In some ways it's a game that's breaking new ground.
The hot take is There is a unit cap that you can bring onto the field, and units are basically 'summoned' from reserves.
Your list is whatever you summon, up to the unit cap. It can be a different list every time. They summon a 'question', you summon an 'answer'.
The game is in its very early stages though and doesn't have a player base worth speaking qbout.
Deadnight wrote: Privateer press' warcaster game is also extremely interesting to look at if you want to see an alternative approach. In some ways it's a game that's breaking new ground.
The hot take is There is a unit cap that you can bring onto the field, and units are basically 'summoned' from reserves.
Your list is whatever you summon, up to the unit cap. It can be a different list every time. They summon a 'question', you summon an 'answer'.
The game is in its very early stages though and doesn't have a player base worth speaking qbout.
Our ProHammer campaign we're launching is map based, and as a consequence players can have multiple armies of various different sizes running around the table.
The way to normalize the fights a little bit is to have "fielding limit" for how many points you can have on the table at once.
It's interesting to ponder - what if 40K had players assemble 3,000 point lists but only 1,500 points could be active on the field at a time. Alpha strikes would be less of an issue as you'd be able to (consistently) bring reserves onto the field as fresh troops, and also modify the units you bring on to deal with the threats of your opponent.
Mezmorki wrote: Our ProHammer campaign we're launching is map based, and as a consequence players can have multiple armies of various different sizes running around the table.
The way to normalize the fights a little bit is to have "fielding limit" for how many points you can have on the table at once.
It's interesting to ponder - what if 40K had players assemble 3,000 point lists but only 1,500 points could be active on the field at a time. Alpha strikes would be less of an issue as you'd be able to (consistently) bring reserves onto the field as fresh troops, and also modify the units you bring on to deal with the threats of your opponent.
Anything regarding army construction that happens at game time is a good way of improving balance, because at its core is just the same heuristic approach that is criticised regarding PL usage.
Mezmorki, your idea of streamlined army comp isn't too far off in concept from how AoS has simplified points. In AoS you have a points cost for taking a unit, then a points cost for each multiple of that unit size (eg X points for a unit of 10, then Y points for each additional 10 models you add to the unit). But equipment, command models, etc are all baked into that cost and where you have options, they're designed to be sidegrades. So you can pick whichever choice you want, it doesn't change the overall cost.
It makes for a system where it's very easy to build up a list or swap around choices, but still has granularity for point adjustments as needed.
Mezmorki wrote: It's interesting to ponder - what if 40K had players assemble 3,000 point lists but only 1,500 points could be active on the field at a time. Alpha strikes would be less of an issue as you'd be able to (consistently) bring reserves onto the field as fresh troops, and also modify the units you bring on to deal with the threats of your opponent.
AoS has a 'Meeting Engagement' game type where your list is fixed, but it arrives in sequence of Spearhead -> Main Body -> Rearguard. I was hoping that 40K was going somewhere in that direction when they started revealing the concept of strategic reserves in 9th. The game would play faster and the lethality would be less of an issue if instead of starting with everything on the board, you started with a subset and then brought in reinforcements.
I swear I've played a game exactly like what you describe, down to the 'pick what to bring in next to counter what your enemy has', but can't remember what it was. It was a fun way to represent the idea of two opposing forces calling in reinforcements specifically to counter the threat they're facing as a meeting engagement escalates into a battle.
Deadnight wrote: Privateer press' warcaster game is also extremely interesting to look at if you want to see an alternative approach. In some ways it's a game that's breaking new ground.
The hot take is There is a unit cap that you can bring onto the field, and units are basically 'summoned' from reserves.
Your list is whatever you summon, up to the unit cap. It can be a different list every time. They summon a 'question', you summon an 'answer'.
The game is in its very early stages though and doesn't have a player base worth speaking qbout.
catbarf wrote: I can't take seriously the argument that increased granularity only provides the illusion of better balance, when it's being compared to a system where a lasgun and a plasma gun have the same value and a unit of 6 has the same value as a unit of 10. My wife's Scourges are a perfect example of a unit that PL just does not work for, as their equipment massively affects their power on the tabletop. I won't say all their weapon options are perfectly costed in points, but at least they're accounted for.
Accounted for doesn't mean its balanced. Lets say GW updates the points costs, now each weapon is a Scourge squad is a 100 point upgrade. Its accounted for, sure, but now the PL is a much better approximation of the units value than the points cost is, because it is inarguable that a blaster is worth 100 extra points to the Scourges cost. You have granularity, but you don't have balance. Obviously, the cost of the weapons isn't that high, but you accept the idea that a Scourges weapon is "worth" somewhere between 5 and 15 points, depending on the weapon, but can you back that up statistically/mathematically to say anything at all about whether thats an accurate assessment of the weapons value? How do you know that a Dark Lance is actually worth 15 more points than a shardcarbine? How do you know that the significant increase in killing power offered by it doesn't actually make it worth 25 points instead? How do you know that the 1-in-3 probability of missing your hit roll (sans strategems, aurus, etc.) and the inconvenience of the heavy weapon profile on a unit with Mv 14" doesn't warrant it being a free upgrade instead?
As it stands, its also a non-issue. A squad of 5 scourges with a blast pistol + any melee weapon and two blasters clocks in at 90 points (updates from the latest Chapter Approved notwithstanding). In terms of Power Level the unit clocks in at 5PL - PL are set to intervals of 20 points, giving the unit a rough equivalent value of 100 points +/- some fuzz, so guess what - the unit costs roughly the same in PL as it does in points, because the PL of a unit of scourges was set in a manner to account for the fact that the unit would be upgraded with wargear, as the units role is a fast and mobile delivery system for high-impact weapons. The only way to "break" the PL value of the unit is essentially by fielding them naked/not taking upgrades at all - while you can do this with matched play points you would almost never actually want to, so... nothing of value was lost.
This is true of a number of units in the game where wargear upgrades on the unit are basically a given. While there are certainly units where the PL doesn't price in (maximum) upgrades, I'm hard-pressed to find examples of a unit where the PL rating isn't at least roughly ballparked to the matched play points in terms of expected loadout, and what few I can find are the result of the matched play points having been updated and the PL not seeing change. Sure, I can make a min-sized squad of Kabalite Warriors come out to 80 points vs the 60 pt equivalent of their PL3 cost, bdut in most cases you probably wouldn't field a unit with a Power Sword/Agonizer + Phantasm Grenade Launcher + Blast Pistol + Dark Lance + Blaster. Most people fitting minimum squads usuallytake them naked or with minimal upgardes, locally the popular build seems to be tot take a ark lance which brings the squad to 55 points, which ballparks nicely to the units 60 pt equivalence at PL3 and is probably about as fairly balanced. Alternatively maybe you're fielding an an agonizer + blast pistol + phantasm grenade launcher (also 55 points). The typical builds for 10 man and larger squads likewise dovetail nicely to power level. The only time power level doesn't approximate the wargear options is, ironically, when you aren't upgrading them at all, or if you are being greedy and trying to field *all* the upgrades. In general, PL seems to "regress to the mean" of a units matched play cost (i.e. approximate the average), and only falls apart at the tails when units are taking no upgrades or every upgrade possible - this might be an issue if you are playing against a competitive player seeking to maximize their potential, but thats not how PL is intended to be used, and if that competitive player instead takes the builds they would field in a matched play game, there is not a large delta between the costs of the two systems.
Ironically in my experience, less-granular points system tie in better aid the quest for better balance than more granular points systems. Warmaxhine/hordes being the perfect example.
Likewise Team Yankee. What I'm saying isn't really controversial except amongst people who have never actually designed games or researched game design. I didn't jut make this gak up, its something that I learned myself while studying game design and from discussing points systems with a number of well-established and well-respected professional game designers, including quite a few whos names many dakkites would be familiar with.
nou wrote:
A sideboard approach to the extreme I like it.
Indeed. Your collection is your 'army'. But you can only have 4 units on the field.
Bear in mind There are some complications and caveats beyond that and my description is a bit simplistic to convey the complete picture.
auticus wrote:
Thats actually quite intriguing to me.
Indeed. I won't lie. I've been disappointed by, and critical of privateer press for a few years now. Theyve made some really bad calls that have done a great job of alienating me- wmh is nothing like the game I fell in love with any more.
That said, credit where credit is due. I believed ten years ago that PP were a mover and shaker in the industry and in some ways they've always been ahead of the curve. Warcaster, o think, has captured some of that spark again. A lot of the modern 'game' in ttg's has been inspired by or built on pp's approach, even if wmh is now a mature property and frankly, showing its age badly. I do think with some of the features of warcaster (game/unit cap rather than traditional list building, and things like damage bonuses proportional to more accurate attacks) are quite clever and interesting in terms of where they ca take games. Issue is, again, the player base is basically non-existant.
Accounted for doesn't mean its balanced. Lets say GW updates the points costs, now each weapon is a Scourge squad is a 100 point upgrade. Its accounted for, sure, but now the PL is a much better approximation of the units value than the points cost is, because it is inarguable that a blaster is worth 100 extra points to the Scourges cost. You have granularity, but you don't have balance.
What this misses though is that GW determines PL *based on* points cost. So in this hypothetical, unless you got rid of that linkage, the PL of the scourge squad would also go up by ~5 PL.
A Billion Suns operates under the same principles as Warcaster, more or less, as do a number of other games. Its not a new concept, there are a number of games out there that have foregone points and used a similar "question vs answer" system to have players essentially self-balance the game themselves. Its tricky, because theres a definite skill-curve involved in play but to me that just makes it even more suitable towards competitive play. The other major downside is depending on your unit/game design its very easy for it to become an exercise in pay to win, as the player with the larger and more diverse collection has a potential advantage over a player with a more constrained and finite collection who is not able to continue fielding effective answers to questions posed by their opponent.
The thing that is going to spark controversy here though, is that I think Age of Sigmar deserves credit for starting the trend with its very imperfect and highly flawed attempt at essentially doing this in AoS1.0 by going sans points and telling players to agree to a warscroll cap and to alternate deploying them. The problem is that AoS1.0 didn't explicitly indicate this was how the game was balanced, and didn't actually proscribe this as the method you must use, it only suggested it amongst several options. Likewise the warscrolls were (IIRC) left open-ended in terms of size, a dragon was a dragon, but a unit of clanrats could be 5 models or 50. Still though, myself and other amateur (and some professional) designers picked up on it and played around with the idea for a bit as a game design concept. I very much doubt Mike Hutchinson or whoever it is at Privateer Press that is behind Warcaster sat down and said "I'm going to use this system that AoS inspired me to try"), but I think the conceptual seed was planted by AoS and grew/spread organically through discourse until certain designers were far enough removed from its source that they were essentially approaching it as a brand new concept with no baggage to weigh down their interpretation of how it could/should work.
Accounted for doesn't mean its balanced. Lets say GW updates the points costs, now each weapon is a Scourge squad is a 100 point upgrade. Its accounted for, sure, but now the PL is a much better approximation of the units value than the points cost is, because it is inarguable that a blaster is worth 100 extra points to the Scourges cost. You have granularity, but you don't have balance.
What this misses though is that GW determines PL *based on* points cost. So in this hypothetical, unless you got rid of that linkage, the PL of the scourge squad would also go up by ~5 PL.
AFAIKGW has yet to adjust PL levels for anything in response to matched play points changes (this was a big problem towards the tail end of 8th edition as the points adjustments became fairly dramatic from the initial codex publication), which doesn't mean it can't happen, only that it seems unlikely. On that basis, I discount the possibility of the PL of the scourge squad changing based on a hypothetical Chapter Approved update that increases the cost of a blaster by 100 points.
I think any attempt by GW to do something like this breaks down when you consider the size they want to push for the games. Warmachine's two-list structure, or Crisis Protocol's draw from your pool of ten models after seeing the mission, or Infinity's declare factions/declare mission then build lists, or Warcaster's sideboards, only work because they're quite small and it's easy to carry multiple lists in one box; bringing a sideboard for a lot of 40k/Sigmar armies is impractically bulky.
@auticus: As much as I value your input, and as I always had, it has to be stressed here, that linear regression model could work in AOS because it had independent linear parameters to begin with. You moved a fixed value, you hit on a fixed value, you wounded on a fixed value and then you saved on a mostly fixed value, since there was little AP proliferation, so SV was also an almost linear parameter. As soon as you manage to establish relative weights of mobility, offense and defense in such linear system, you can sort units by their absolute positions in those dimensions and your point approximations will work smoothly.
But as soon as there is enough AP around, linear regression stops working for AP vs SV pair, as this becomes a dynamic game time parameter. Same thing was with the old S vs T - here even the basic relationship was nonlinear as you had the double 6+ and then a hard cutoff. Even movement in 7th was nonlinear due to all the random rolls and then it was heavily dependant on terrain.
And modern 40K? To hit is nonlinear with all those modifiers; to wound is nonlinear with modifiers and cutoffs; damage is nonlinear with modifiers and cutoffs; save is nonlinear, including invulnerables; even movement becomes nonlinear recently. So linear regression models cannot work reliably to sort units along any dimension, because you don’t have independent dimensions anymore, you have dynamic pairs which are inherently chaotic in nature, and a wholy different math discipline is used to describe those.
But while linear regression is not enough to balance things out, it is enough to find glaring holes in the momentary state of the system and so it can be used to listbuild for advantage, as it obviously is.
chaos0xomega wrote: ...The thing that is going to spark controversy here though, is that I think Age of Sigmar deserves credit for starting the trend with its very imperfect and highly flawed attempt at essentially doing this in AoS1.0 by going sans points and telling players to agree to a warscroll cap and to alternate deploying them. The problem is that AoS1.0 didn't explicitly indicate this was how the game was balanced, and didn't actually proscribe this as the method you must use, it only suggested it amongst several options. Likewise the warscrolls were (IIRC) left open-ended in terms of size, a dragon was a dragon, but a unit of clanrats could be 5 models or 50. Still though, myself and other amateur (and some professional) designers picked up on it and played around with the idea for a bit as a game design concept. I very much doubt Mike Hutchinson or whoever it is at Privateer Press that is behind Warcaster sat down and said "I'm going to use this system that AoS inspired me to try"), but I think the conceptual seed was planted by AoS and grew/spread organically through discourse until certain designers were far enough removed from its source that they were essentially approaching it as a brand new concept with no baggage to weigh down their interpretation of how it could/should work...
In theory, maybe? If you had a way of calibrating "one warscroll" to be roughly equivalent to "one warscroll", and if you could differentiate statlines enough for the choice to be meaningful rather than the relatively uniform damage/durability of Sigmar, and if your faction didn't function purely based on a specific buff stack that required specific models to make work...
In practice I don't think Sigmar had any intention of even trying to start this kind of trend, I think this was an accident emerging from people trying to come up with a more complicated logic behind what GW was doing as opposed to the simpler explanation that their understanding of what a "casual gamer"/"narrative gamer" is being wildly unrealistic.
chaos0xomega wrote: ...The thing that is going to spark controversy here though, is that I think Age of Sigmar deserves credit for starting the trend with its very imperfect and highly flawed attempt at essentially doing this in AoS1.0 by going sans points and telling players to agree to a warscroll cap and to alternate deploying them. The problem is that AoS1.0 didn't explicitly indicate this was how the game was balanced, and didn't actually proscribe this as the method you must use, it only suggested it amongst several options. Likewise the warscrolls were (IIRC) left open-ended in terms of size, a dragon was a dragon, but a unit of clanrats could be 5 models or 50. Still though, myself and other amateur (and some professional) designers picked up on it and played around with the idea for a bit as a game design concept. I very much doubt Mike Hutchinson or whoever it is at Privateer Press that is behind Warcaster sat down and said "I'm going to use this system that AoS inspired me to try"), but I think the conceptual seed was planted by AoS and grew/spread organically through discourse until certain designers were far enough removed from its source that they were essentially approaching it as a brand new concept with no baggage to weigh down their interpretation of how it could/should work...
In theory, maybe? If you had a way of calibrating "one warscroll" to be roughly equivalent to "one warscroll", and if you could differentiate statlines enough for the choice to be meaningful rather than the relatively uniform damage/durability of Sigmar, and if your faction didn't function purely based on a specific buff stack that required specific models to make work...
In practice I don't think Sigmar had any intention of even trying to start this kind of trend, I think this was an accident emerging from people trying to come up with a more complicated logic behind what GW was doing as opposed to the simpler explanation that their understanding of what a "casual gamer"/"narrative gamer" is being wildly unrealistic.
Thats certainly possible (and something I meant to mention, essentially the "blind idiot god" theory of GW accidentally designing something interesting/innovative).
nou wrote:
A sideboard approach to the extreme I like it.
Indeed. Your collection is your 'army'. But you can only have 4 units on the field.
Bear in mind There are some complications and caveats beyond that and my description is a bit simplistic to convey the complete picture.
auticus wrote:
Thats actually quite intriguing to me.
Indeed. I won't lie. I've been disappointed by, and critical of privateer press for a few years now. Theyve made some really bad calls that have done a great job of alienating me- wmh is nothing like the game I fell in love with any more.
That said, credit where credit is due. I believed ten years ago that PP were a mover and shaker in the industry and in some ways they've always been ahead of the curve. Warcaster, o think, has captured some of that spark again. A lot of the modern 'game' in ttg's has been inspired by or built on pp's approach, even if wmh is now a mature property and frankly, showing its age badly. I do think with some of the features of warcaster (game/unit cap rather than traditional list building, and things like damage bonuses proportional to more accurate attacks) are quite clever and interesting in terms of where they ca take games. Issue is, again, the player base is basically non-existant.
Privateer was certainly a big deal in the early to late 2000s and I can see a lot of their design choices in 40k and AOS today, which shows just how influential their design choices were.
chaos0xomega wrote: ...Thats certainly possible (and something I meant to mention, essentially the "blind idiot god" theory of GW accidentally designing something interesting/innovative).
I tend to go with the "print the drawing board" theory where GW has interesting ideas that could in theory work, but then prints them without considering the consequences or doing any analysis and ends up completely failing to follow through on stuff that could have been cool, and then assumes that their ideas were flawed instead of their execution so they burn it all down and start over with a new thing that sounds really cool but they're still not prepared to do the work to make it actually function. They're like...first-year game design students with untreated ADHD jumping from cool idea to cool idea without any concept of how to get from cool idea to a cool thing that actually works in the game.
Gotta say I don't see much of WMHDs/PP in 40k/AoS, other than the shift in these games towards what some players refer to as "wombo combo", which is something that has always been present in 40k to some degree, but pushed dramatically to the forefront as of 8th edition to become a central element to gameplay in a manner similar to WMHDs, as opposed to being one of several potential strategies that could be used as was the case previously. There were always (at least as far back as 4th edition when I started playing) models that had aura buffs/nerfs and psychic powers that could buff/nerf units, etc. but "back in the day" these were 1-2 models in your entire army, each of which probably only had 1 source for such a combo buff, and you were maybe only using such abilities a few times per game. In modern 40k, you can have a half-dozen or more such models in your army list depending on the army you are playing, each of which can have several sources for such abilities between relics, warlord traits, general wargear, built-in abilities, etc. which are compounded further by army traits/doctrines/superdocrines, strategems, and other such buffs that you can stack on top of eachother in many different ways over the course of any given turn similar to WMHDs. 40k actually goes far above and beyond WMHDs in this respect, as there are many more sources of such abilities in 40k than there are in a typical WMHDs army list, to say nothing of the fact that 40k adds "army wide"/"global" type sources in the form of superdoctrines and strategems, which are otherwise absent from WMHDs.
You'll have an easier time balancing out two armies if they're both starting at 2000pts than if they're both 50PL.
Only in the sense that they're somewhat more likely to be closer to balanced to start.
If you actually have to make changes to achieve balance, that's WAY harder to do with points, because every change you make raises or lowers the value of the list. I mean, unless you're okay playing with point deficits- I know someone else earlier in the thread suggested just playing a handicap- not sure if that was you.
But assuming you want to keep equal point values, as soon as you swap something out of a list made with points, you have to find something else to swap in.
That isn't the case with PL. I can pull a heavy weapon out of each of 3 squadsif I think thats more fair to my opponent, and the numbers still match, so I don't have to scramble for a replacement.
Note: I'm not suggesting PL as a balance mechanism; it's an ease of play mechanism.
chaos0xomega wrote: ...Thats certainly possible (and something I meant to mention, essentially the "blind idiot god" theory of GW accidentally designing something interesting/innovative).
I tend to go with the "print the drawing board" theory where GW has interesting ideas that could in theory work, but then prints them without considering the consequences or doing any analysis and ends up completely failing to follow through on stuff that could have been cool, and then assumes that their ideas were flawed instead of their execution so they burn it all down and start over with a new thing that sounds really cool but they're still not prepared to do the work to make it actually function. They're like...first-year game design students with untreated ADHD jumping from cool idea to cool idea without any concept of how to get from cool idea to a cool thing that actually works in the game.
Yeah. I suspect the issue is that there are several strong personalities with competing philosophies in the studio, so implementation and execution is often compromised as a result of, err... compromise, and thats why so many things seem disjointed and flawed.
You'll have an easier time balancing out two armies if they're both starting at 2000pts than if they're both 50PL.
Only in the sense that they're somewhat more likely to be closer to balanced to start.
If you actually have to make changes to achieve balance, that's WAY harder to do with points, because every change you make raises or lowers the value of the list. I mean, unless you're okay playing with point deficits- I know someone else earlier in the thread suggested just playing a handicap- not sure if that was you.
But assuming you want to keep equal point values, as soon as you swap something out of a list made with points, you have to find something else to swap in.
That isn't the case with PL. I can pull a heavy weapon out of each of 3 squadsif I think thats more fair to my opponent, and the numbers still match, so I don't have to scramble for a replacement.
Note: I'm not suggesting PL as a balance mechanism; it's an ease of play mechanism.
To be honest, theres a number of prominent game designers (both tabletop and video games) who I've read various blog posts, interviews, etc. where they discuss balancing games, etc. and they argue that "points" changes (or resource cost changes, etc.) are generally a poor way to balance games (because, again, they are a shaping mechanism more than a balancing mechanism, and by raising/lowering costs you change the shape which causes nth order consequences requiring further changes elsewhere - a good example of this was Astra Militarum in 8th ed, where multiple rounds of points changes attempting to balance conscripts and guardsmen resulted in conscripts costing more than actual guardsmen while still being a better/more effective and efficient choice) and should only ever be adjusted as a means of last resort, and that the more proper way to try to balance a unit in a game would be to adjust stats/abilities to try to make the unit worth the cost ascribed to it. Another argument I often (but not always) hear is that when trying to balance something, its better to try to balance by bringing everything else up to the level of what you are considering to be overperforming than it is to try to balance the overperforming things down to the level of everything else (with only the most egregious examples as the exception), as there are usually less hurt feelings amongst players that way, AND because if you overshoot while trying to "balance up" you have more room to balance back down again and if you undershoot you still have plenty of room to continue balancing up, whereas if you "balance down" you often don't have much room to overshoot or undershoot or make additional changes, etc. as most games tend to balance very close to the "floor" of the design space which leaves you little room to work with (again, astra militarum are a good example of this, if conscripts are overperforming you don't really have much room to "balance down" as their stats are so low that you would be hard-pressed to make them worse and their abilities/intangibles so limited that there isn't much to adjust. If you hike their points cost that very much pushes them above guardsmen in cost, which just breaks them from their intended role of "cheap horde filler unit". If on the other hand you "balance up" other units in the guard list you make them more attractive options to take and thus give incentive to take something other than conscripts while preserving runway (and actually creating runway) for you to then tune down conscripts further via points hike if the improvement to regular guard units comes with a small points increase.
In both cases, GWs apparent balance philosophy runs counter and contrary to what other establshed game designers advocate for.
IIRC Sandy Petersen had a few posts to that effect in various kickstarter updates for his games.
You'll have an easier time balancing out two armies if they're both starting at 2000pts than if they're both 50PL.
Only in the sense that they're somewhat more likely to be closer to balanced to start.
If you actually have to make changes to achieve balance, that's WAY harder to do with points, because every change you make raises or lowers the value of the list. I mean, unless you're okay playing with point deficits- I know someone else earlier in the thread suggested just playing a handicap- not sure if that was you.
But assuming you want to keep equal point values, as soon as you swap something out of a list made with points, you have to find something else to swap in.
That isn't the case with PL. I can pull a heavy weapon out of each of 3 squadsif I think thats more fair to my opponent, and the numbers still match, so I don't have to scramble for a replacement.
Note: I'm not suggesting PL as a balance mechanism; it's an ease of play mechanism.
Changes you make to your PL list changes the value of the list as well, just not the PL of the list because PL is an abstraction of a mediocre model of value. The ability to change lists is simply not an argument that can be made in favour of PL, it's against the rules for both formats. If you're making yourself the expert and willing to change one or both lists before the game in an effort to balance things then you stop being beholden to GW's points. When I do an intro game I usually bring 450 pts instead of 500, I don't switch out my units for worse or less synergistic units. I don't need to play 500 pts more than someone needs to upgrade all their VanVets with jump packs and THSS or give as many Guardsmen as possible plasma guns in a PL game.
chaos0xomega wrote: ...theres a number of prominent game designers (both tabletop and video games) who I've read various blog posts, interviews, etc. where they discuss balancing games, etc. and they argue that "points" changes (or resource cost changes, etc.) are generally a poor way to balance games (because, again, they are a shaping mechanism more than a balancing mechanism, and by raising/lowering costs you change the shape which causes nth order consequences requiring further changes elsewhere - a good example of this was Astra Militarum in 8th ed, where multiple rounds of points changes attempting to balance conscripts and guardsmen resulted in conscripts costing more than actual guardsmen while still being a better/more effective and efficient choice) and should only ever be adjusted as a means of last resort, and that the more proper way to try to balance a unit in a game would be to adjust stats/abilities to try to make the unit worth the cost ascribed to it. Another argument I often (but not always) hear is that when trying to balance something, its better to try to balance by bringing everything else up to the level of what you are considering to be overperforming than it is to try to balance the overperforming things down to the level of everything else (with only the most egregious examples as the exception), as there are usually less hurt feelings amongst players that way, AND because if you overshoot while trying to "balance up" you have more room to balance back down again and if you undershoot you still have plenty of room to continue balancing up, whereas if you "balance down" you often don't have much room to overshoot or undershoot or make additional changes, etc. as most games tend to balance very close to the "floor" of the design space which leaves you little room to work with (again, astra militarum are a good example of this, if conscripts are overperforming you don't really have much room to "balance down" as their stats are so low that you would be hard-pressed to make them worse and their abilities/intangibles so limited that there isn't much to adjust. If you hike their points cost that very much pushes them above guardsmen in cost, which just breaks them from their intended role of "cheap horde filler unit". If on the other hand you "balance up" other units in the guard list you make them more attractive options to take and thus give incentive to take something other than conscripts while preserving runway (and actually creating runway) for you to then tune down conscripts further via points hike if the improvement to regular guard units comes with a small points increase.
In both cases, GWs apparent balance philosophy runs counter and contrary to what other establshed game designers advocate for.
IIRC Sandy Petersen had a few posts to that effect in various kickstarter updates for his games.
Those game designers are dumb and haven't thought it through, Errata clogs up the game a lot more than a pts change. If Sandy Peterson said that units in Age of Empires should have their stats rather than cost changed then that's a very different thing from a miniature wargame because the game engine handles the rules, you don't have to put sticky notes on your PC screen to remember that your ballista has a lower range than what it says on the unit card. In 40k a Gretchin should not be more difficult to kill than a Guardsman on account of Guardsmen being twice as tall and wearing body armour. The same is true for Age of Empires, if you accidentally assign a stupidly high cost to ballista then you cannot just increase their speed, armour, range and firepower because at some point they stop being ballista and start being a modern tank.
Conscripts never cost more than Guardsmen and they stopped being better when their rules were changed and Commissars were nerfed.
You'll have an easier time balancing out two armies if they're both starting at 2000pts than if they're both 50PL.
Only in the sense that they're somewhat more likely to be closer to balanced to start.
That's all I'm trying to say. If points are more likely to get you closer to balanced, then it's a better balancing mechanism by definition. What the players do afterwards to close the remaining gap is a separate thing entirely.
PenitentJake wrote: If you actually have to make changes to achieve balance, that's WAY harder to do with points, because every change you make raises or lowers the value of the list. I mean, unless you're okay playing with point deficits- I know someone else earlier in the thread suggested just playing a handicap- not sure if that was you.
Yes, that was me. Because PL not changing when you make substantive adjustment to your list is a sign of its imprecision, not an advantage over a points system that recognizes that the ostensible power of your army has diminished when you drop all the heavy weapons and 1/3 of each squad. If we recognize that two 50PL lists are not equal and one may need a boost, we can recognize that two 2000pt lists are unequal and apply the same tweaks.
If we both showed up with 50PL lists and it was clear that mine was underpowered relative to yours, and we both agreed that my army needs a boost, would you object to me taking an extra 1PL unit to balance it out, rather than adding in extra models or equipment that result in no PL change? How important is it that our armies are both 50PL or 2000pts on the dot, and how necessary is it that we only adjust the balance in ways that result in no change to measured value?
Mezmorki wrote: Our ProHammer campaign we're launching is map based, and as a consequence players can have multiple armies of various different sizes running around the table.
The way to normalize the fights a little bit is to have "fielding limit" for how many points you can have on the table at once.
It's interesting to ponder - what if 40K had players assemble 3,000 point lists but only 1,500 points could be active on the field at a time. Alpha strikes would be less of an issue as you'd be able to (consistently) bring reserves onto the field as fresh troops, and also modify the units you bring on to deal with the threats of your opponent.
My Crusade campaign (also map-based) does this all the time.
Each territory must be held by a legal detachment. Territories are grouped into settlements.
So your army can call in an allied detachment as reinforcements (this isn't a slam dunk- it requires a com unit equivalent to perform an action, which can be blocked in various ways). If the detachment they call is within the same settlement, units can arrive as reserves in the following turn. If it is from a territory in another settlement, units can arrive as reserve two turns later. Either of these options move the reinforcing army, leaving the allied territory undefended at the opening of the following campaign round.
Rather than calling for a full detachment of reserves, an army can call for individual units, but only if it leaves a legal detachment in the allied territory. This does not leave territory undefended.
Thats why I love alt activation and games where your forces come onto the table.
Alpha strike is not as much a thing because you can actually respond to it instead of just standing there on your thumbs watching your army get removed while you do nothing.
vict0988 wrote: Changes you make to your PL list changes the value of the list as well, just not the PL of the list because PL is an abstraction of a mediocre model of value. The ability to change lists is simply not an argument that can be made in favour of PL, it's against the rules for both formats. If you're making yourself the expert and willing to change one or both lists before the game in an effort to balance things then you stop being beholden to GW's points. When I do an intro game I usually bring 450 pts instead of 500, I don't switch out my units for worse or less synergistic units. I don't need to play 500 pts more than someone needs to upgrade all their VanVets with jump packs and THSS or give as many Guardsmen as possible plasma guns in a PL game.
I think the point hes making is that changes to a unit using the matched play construct often have to be reflected in points adjustments, whereas because a Power Level is wider you have more latitude for changes that wouldn't require you to change a PL.
Those game designers are dumb and haven't thought it through, Errata clogs up the game a lot more than a pts change. If Sandy Peterson said that units in Age of Empires should have their stats rather than cost changed then that's a very different thing from a miniature wargame because the game engine handles the rules, you don't have to put sticky notes on your PC screen to remember that your ballista has a lower range than what it says on the unit card. In 40k a Gretchin should not be more difficult to kill than a Guardsman on account of Guardsmen being twice as tall and wearing body armour. The same is true for Age of Empires, if you accidentally assign a stupidly high cost to ballista then you cannot just increase their speed, armour, range and firepower because at some point they stop being ballista and start being a modern tank.
I'll care about your opinion when you pull a few million dollars on kickstarter or launch a multimillion dollar video game franchise. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Until then your opinion about what professionals with a track record of designing and producing actual games are and do is meaningless.
(FYI Sandy Petersen does board games now, and the context he was discussing these changes in was also a board game).
Conscripts never cost more than Guardsmen and they stopped being better when their rules were changed and Commissars were nerfed.
You're right, they didn't go to 5 points, they went to 4ppm (AFTER commissars had already been nerfed) which was the same as guardsmen at the time. Even after nerfing Commissars and hiking their price they continued to be a better choice than guardsmen and competitive lists continued to field them over guardsmen.
auticus wrote: Thats why I love alt activation and games where your forces come onto the table.
Alpha strike is not as much a thing because you can actually respond to it instead of just standing there on your thumbs watching your army get removed while you do nothing.
I did have an idea once I never really ran through that could kill two birds with one stone: have it so everything but troops and hq’s have to start in reserves, and you can only bring in a certain amount per turn. Might encourage bringin more normal dudes and decrease alpha strike.
You're right, they didn't go to 5 points, they went to 4ppm (AFTER commissars had already been nerfed) which was the same as guardsmen at the time. Even after nerfing Commissars and hiking their price they continued to be a better choice than guardsmen and competitive lists continued to field them over guardsmen.
This is a very fine example of how a trivial mathematical fact, that not all functions have roots (is that a proper term? I'm not a native english speaker, I mean a zero point of a function) translates to wargames and point systems. There are a number of cases where no matter what point value you set you will always miss the mark.
The bottom line of this example is that conscripts couldn't be properly balanced through points and a solution required changing how entirely separate unit worked.
I'm a fan of that. I know in Conquest (the fantasy game) they regularly change both points and unit stat lines and special rules to tune the game and I like that.
auticus wrote: Thats why I love alt activation and games where your forces come onto the table.
Alpha strike is not as much a thing because you can actually respond to it instead of just standing there on your thumbs watching your army get removed while you do nothing.
I did have an idea once I never really ran through that could kill two birds with one stone: have it so everything but troops and hq’s have to start in reserves, and you can only bring in a certain amount per turn. Might encourage bringin more normal dudes and decrease alpha strike.
I would argue that you should start with Fast Attack on the board, followed by troops and hq, and then the rest.
Automatically Appended Next Post: I will also point out that the big problem with points changes (especially matched play points) is that you cannot accurately collect follow-on data to gauge the impact of the change because it pushes other variables out-of-control. If a unit is underperforming and you compensate for that by dropping its points cost, or if its overperforming and you compensate by hiking its points cost, in both cases you have necessitated a listbuilding change as units and models will need to be added/removed in order to make it fit. If you see a change in win rate in either scenario, you have no basis by which to determine that the units performance issues were resolved and that it is actually "balanced", instead you have shaped the army as a whole by either forcing the addition/removal of certain units (and as a result any adjustments to win rate are a result of reshaping the army list rather than balancing a unit), potentially including the unit it is you are trying to fix in the first place. If you use a non-points based methodology to address balance concerns, you can more accurately measure performance of a list against itself, as a listbuilding change isn't automatically necessitated as a result of the edit (and will only come about if players feel that the changes render the list as being no longer effective).
This is why you will sometimes hear certain game designers say that points systems don't measure what players think they do and are not meant to balance the game on a weapon-by-weapon/model-by-model/unit-by-unit basis, but rather to balance the army as a whole. When you take a weapon/model/unit and change its points cost and see a change in an armys tabletop performance measured by win-rate, you aren't actually seeing the points change balance a unit, you are seeing it balance an army, because the context in which that unit existed has changed as a result of other changes needing to be made in terms of the units relationship to the rest of an army list.
auticus wrote: Thats why I love alt activation and games where your forces come onto the table.
Alpha strike is not as much a thing because you can actually respond to it instead of just standing there on your thumbs watching your army get removed while you do nothing.
I did have an idea once I never really ran through that could kill two birds with one stone: have it so everything but troops and hq’s have to start in reserves, and you can only bring in a certain amount per turn. Might encourage bringin more normal dudes and decrease alpha strike.
That sounds like a lot of fun. You could also expand it to be per troop slot with Fast attack arriving first and heavy support arriving last.
Subfactions in particular are a prime example of a synergy that can significantly improve the value of a unit without touching the cost. Back in 4th Ed if you took Doctrines on Guard or Chapter Tactics on Marines you generally had to pay for them on a per-unit basis. It was crude- a squad of Veterans gets more mileage out of carapace armor than a regular Guardsman squad- but at least it wasn't free.
There were free ones, and they were some of the most picked. For example Close Order Drill, you could give your squads I4. Which meant against armies like marines you'd now be hitting at the same time, or against Orks which from memory had I3 you'd actually hit first. Then there was Drop Troops, which gave all Guard Infantry and Sentinels free deep strike. Whilst deep strike was nowhere near as accurate as it is now, it opened up tons of opportunties.
The others were a great system though, but it did have a lot of balance issues. Like Warrior Weapons being 2 points to swap a lasgun for a laspistol and close combat weapon. Other than that having something like a 90 point infantry squad with carapace armour and other minor buffs was great fun.
auticus wrote: Thats why I love alt activation and games where your forces come onto the table.
Alpha strike is not as much a thing because you can actually respond to it instead of just standing there on your thumbs watching your army get removed while you do nothing.
I did have an idea once I never really ran through that could kill two birds with one stone: have it so everything but troops and hq’s have to start in reserves, and you can only bring in a certain amount per turn. Might encourage bringin more normal dudes and decrease alpha strike.
I would argue that you should start with Fast Attack on the board, followed by troops and hq, and then the rest.
It would sure make sense that the fast units get there first. We did this with our Apoc(not game, using 40k rules) deployments and it felt really cool only having infiltrating/fast attack/etc start on the board.
The rule was if it had a movement of more than 10"/jump pack/etc started on the board T1.
Mechanized Infantry & tanks come in T2
Anyone running T3.
Those game designers are dumb and haven't thought it through, Errata clogs up the game a lot more than a pts change. If Sandy Peterson said that units in Age of Empires should have their stats rather than cost changed then that's a very different thing from a miniature wargame because the game engine handles the rules, you don't have to put sticky notes on your PC screen to remember that your ballista has a lower range than what it says on the unit card. In 40k a Gretchin should not be more difficult to kill than a Guardsman on account of Guardsmen being twice as tall and wearing body armour. The same is true for Age of Empires, if you accidentally assign a stupidly high cost to ballista then you cannot just increase their speed, armour, range and firepower because at some point they stop being ballista and start being a modern tank.
I'll care about your opinion when you pull a few million dollars on kickstarter or launch a multimillion dollar video game franchise. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Until then your opinion about what professionals with a track record of designing and producing actual games are and do is meaningless.
(FYI Sandy Petersen does board games now, and the context he was discussing these changes in was also a board game).
Subfactions in particular are a prime example of a synergy that can significantly improve the value of a unit without touching the cost. Back in 4th Ed if you took Doctrines on Guard or Chapter Tactics on Marines you generally had to pay for them on a per-unit basis. It was crude- a squad of Veterans gets more mileage out of carapace armor than a regular Guardsman squad- but at least it wasn't free.
There were free ones, and they were some of the most picked. For example Close Order Drill, you could give your squads I4. Which meant against armies like marines you'd now be hitting at the same time, or against Orks which from memory had I3 you'd actually hit first. Then there was Drop Troops, which gave all Guard Infantry and Sentinels free deep strike. Whilst deep strike was nowhere near as accurate as it is now, it opened up tons of opportunties.
The others were a great system though, but it did have a lot of balance issues. Like Warrior Weapons being 2 points to swap a lasgun for a laspistol and close combat weapon. Other than that having something like a 90 point infantry squad with carapace armour and other minor buffs was great fun.
Yeah, a system closer to how Tau/AdMech do it where you get a primary Trait and then a few secondary to choose from seems to work best.
To be honest, theres a number of prominent game designers (both tabletop and video games) who I've read various blog posts, interviews, etc. where they discuss balancing games, etc. and they argue that "points" changes (or resource cost changes, etc.) are generally a poor way to balance games (because, again, they are a shaping mechanism more than a balancing mechanism, and by raising/lowering costs you change the shape which causes nth order consequences requiring further changes elsewhere - a good example of this was Astra Militarum in 8th ed, where multiple rounds of points changes attempting to balance conscripts and guardsmen resulted in conscripts costing more than actual guardsmen while still being a better/more effective and efficient choice) and should only ever be adjusted as a means of last resort, and that the more proper way to try to balance a unit in a game would be to adjust stats/abilities to try to make the unit worth the cost ascribed to it. Another argument I often (but not always) hear is that when trying to balance something, its better to try to balance by bringing everything else up to the level of what you are considering to be overperforming than it is to try to balance the overperforming things down to the level of everything else (with only the most egregious examples as the exception), as there are usually less hurt feelings amongst players that way, AND because if you overshoot while trying to "balance up" you have more room to balance back down again and if you undershoot you still have plenty of room to continue balancing up, whereas if you "balance down" you often don't have much room to overshoot or undershoot or make additional changes, etc. as most games tend to balance very close to the "floor" of the design space which leaves you little room to work with (again, astra militarum are a good example of this, if conscripts are overperforming you don't really have much room to "balance down" as their stats are so low that you would be hard-pressed to make them worse and their abilities/intangibles so limited that there isn't much to adjust. If you hike their points cost that very much pushes them above guardsmen in cost, which just breaks them from their intended role of "cheap horde filler unit". If on the other hand you "balance up" other units in the guard list you make them more attractive options to take and thus give incentive to take something other than conscripts while preserving runway (and actually creating runway) for you to then tune down conscripts further via points hike if the improvement to regular guard units comes with a small points increase.
I'm wary of anyone making blanket statements like that. I think it's more accurate to say points are only one way to balance a game. I'd also argue that balancing everything up is not required and can lead to runaway lethality issues as we see in 40k right now. Sometimes it really is the case a unit is just too cheap for what it does. Sometimes the cost is actually important to maintain so you need to use other methods of balancing a unit. For example, SM need to be at least somewhat elite to match their fluff. Individually they should cost more than average and the typical SM army should contain fewer models than most of the other armies in the game. There's a limit to how low you can drop the cost of a SM and still maintain that aspect of their character, so if you find a Tactical is actually worth, say, 10 points, you probably need to adjust their stats and abilities upwards to get them somewhere closer to the 15-20 point range to provide the right feel for the army.
The problem is most systems don't have an easy, user-friendly way to update abilities and stats so points are the go-to method. It's one of the reasons I wish GW would go to a digital ruleset. Necron anti-tank not quite matching the fluff? No problem, just change the damage in the app and it cascades down to everyone using the army overnight.
I'm wary of anyone making blanket statements like that. I think it's more accurate to say points are only one way to balance a game.
Chaos omega is actually more are less on the money with this one.
Points shape structure, they're not a 'way' to balance things. While they can play a role as part of a greater whole, they're the last lever that you should pull. Other structural tools and design paradigms have a far bigger role in feeding into a games balance.
Bear in mind 'assigning a cost' is a problematic approach. You're trying to apply q single, universal, all encompassing value to something irregardless of context and Context is key. What's underpowered in one scenario is broken in another. I give the example of what single value can accurately be applied to an anti tank gun against an armoured opponent on planet bowling ball versus the same anti tank gun on a jungle board with 0 line of sight and against green tide infantry. Unless points values are mutable and self -correct based on the vast amount on quantifiable and semi-quqntofiable contextual aspects of every single unique scenario, they can only ever be considered as a bit-player in the debate.
Deadnight wrote: Points shape structure, they're not a 'way' to balance things. While they can play a role as part of a greater whole, they're the last lever that you should pull.
That totally depends on what the motivation was when assigning the points.
I'm wary of anyone making blanket statements like that. I think it's more accurate to say points are only one way to balance a game.
Chaos omega is actually more are less on the money with this one.
Points shape structure, they're not a 'way' to balance things. While they can play a role as part of a greater whole, they're the last lever that you should pull. Other structural tools and design paradigms have a far bigger role in feeding into a games balance.
I disagree. Points changes can demonstrably make the game more balanced. They are a way to balance things. Not always the best, but they are a tool designers can use.
The problem with looking at structure and design paradigms is that those are often things you need to set at the start of your game development, then stick to. Not doing that leads to the situations GW constantly finds itself in every edition where the power creep keeps coming because they keep introducing new ideas that are just more powerful than previous approaches.
From a practical POV the problem is that changing those structural issues often involves significant rewrites of the game. So it may well be a more effective way to balance things but it's not practically useful whereas points changes are something you can easily do.
I'm wary of anyone making blanket statements like that. I think it's more accurate to say points are only one way to balance a game.
Chaos omega is actually more are less on the money with this one.
Points shape structure, they're not a 'way' to balance things. While they can play a role as part of a greater whole, they're the last lever that you should pull. Other structural tools and design paradigms have a far bigger role in feeding into a games balance.
I disagree. Points changes can demonstrably make the game more balanced. They are a way to balance things. Not always the best, but they are a tool designers can use.
The problem with looking at structure and design paradigms is that those are often things you need to set at the start of your game development, then stick to. Not doing that leads to the situations GW constantly finds itself in every edition where the power creep keeps coming because they keep introducing new ideas that are just more powerful than previous approaches.
From a practical POV the problem is that changing those structural issues often involves significant rewrites of the game. So it may well be a more effective way to balance things but it's not practically useful whereas points changes are something you can easily do.
I wonder how many times this has to be iterated, by professionals and educated amateurs alike, so people finally accept the reality that point balance is not some vague, undefined excercise in throwing more or less random numbers at a system and see what sticks. They are a strict math problem that has no solution outside of linear systems. How, just how is this so hard to grasp, that game theory is a well defined discipline of math, of which wargames are just a practical implementation, not some disputable magical land of hunting unicorns? How?
Yes, "points changes are something you can easily do" but those changes do gak to balance the system, they just shift the imbalance around. We had 30 years of practical illustration that this works exactly that way, especially in a living system, and even more so with the expectation of list building as a skill.
The belief that "balance through points" is possible really borders on religious at this point.
I am a points fan. However they can only be strictly accurate when they are designed for a certain type of scenario that doesn't change.
If my scenario has no special rules, line of sight is always what it is, and primary objectives are what they are with a standard terrain set, then the points balanced for that can be very accurate provided that those parameters never change.
Take a dudesman with a rocket launcher that does a bunch of damage. Lets say that the standard is your typical 40k table with very little line of sight blocking and they can do whatever they want basically with minimal effort. You can point cost that at say... 15 points (arbitrary).
The moment you have line of sight blockers on the table and you add more terrain, that dudesman is no longer worth 15 points because he was priced assuming he could do his job with minimal effort... and now he can't because he has to move a lot to see things.
What a lot of designers will then do is find the rough average. Maybe drop dudesman to 10 points.
That can also work assuming that you have games not adhering to one standard....
(we may start seeing one of 40k's main problems here... if they cost on this average or bell curve to take into account a variety of scenarios and tables, but things are always played on a certain type of table... those costs start to be lower than they should be because the playerbase has maneuvered in such a way that the dudesman is always useful, but not paying what he should)
And of course that goes the other way, things costed too high for a set of scenarios and suddenly a scenario shows up where they shine and are worth more than their points.
Which is why I prefer games with gamemasters and narrative lists that aren't trying to optimize.
The belief that "balance through points" is possible really borders on religious at this point.
It's a good job I didn't say that, then. Maybe that was difficult to see through the blazing fires of your condescension though.
What I did say, was points are one tool to achieve better balance, but sometimes they're not the tool you need to use. Often, however, they're the only tool a designer can use because the other levers aren't available to them because it would involve changing something fundamental about the way the game or army operates and that's not practical in the real world.
EviscerationPlague wrote: That rocket Launcher argument was literally the worst thing I've read in this thread and we just had someone here say PL was better for balance.
Thats a wonderful contribution to the conversation. Marvelous. lol
EviscerationPlague wrote: That rocket Launcher argument was literally the worst thing I've read in this thread and we just had someone here say PL was better for balance.
No, this post marks a lower point than auticus' example.
And his example isn't inaccurate. Let's go back to the halycon days where the Chimera was an amphibious vehicle, which had certain advantages when moving through water. How do you apply a universal cost to such an ability, when it can have absolutely no effect on many games (as many tables wouldn't have water features), yet had the potential to be important on others?
The belief that "balance through points" is possible really borders on religious at this point.
It's a good job I didn't say that, then. Maybe that was difficult to see through the blazing fires of your condescension though.
What I did say, was points are one tool to achieve better balance, but sometimes they're not the tool you need to use. Often, however, they're the only tool a designer can use because the other levers aren't available to them because it would involve changing something fundamental about the way the game or army operates and that's not practical in the real world.
I was commenting at the entire population of people, who think that point balance matter, because as it has been repeatedly pointed out and backed by examples, points aren't a tool to achieve better balance. Points are a tool to shape an imbalance and are used because player base expects them to exist.
Even todays Drukhari update shows, that simple point adjustment wasn't worth a gak and changes to how nerfed units interacted with rules were needed and even "those idiots at GW" recognise that.
I think you guys are making the perfect the enemy of the good.
Yes - the amount of terrain on a table will impact the wider meta of units. But "Dudesman with a rocket launcher" can be compared against other "Elfman with a Lascannon", or "Fishman with a multimelta" - either in codex, or across codex. And if he's significantly off the pace, he's probably bad, and should have his points changed so he isn't.
You might get a game where *all* anti-tank is weak versus armour, and this encourages an armour meta. But in that case all anti-tank should be buffed (or all armour nerfed).
In theory the amount of terrain on different tables would favour certain armies. Yes. But that's again, not a huge problem - it just means you'd have a slightly divergent meta depending on the terrain you may encounter. Frankly if points were close enough that this was the main kicker, I think it would be hard not to think 40k was actually a fairly balanced game.
Points work because you just need to be close enough. If a unit *should* be 100 points - its not going to break the game if its 95 or 105. Sure competitive players will stuff their lists with the units at 95 - but someone taking a few 105 units isn't throwing the game. The problem is that GW usually end up with units that *should* cost 100 points being 80 or 120. And that sort of gap means someone stuffing 80 point units in their list gets 100-200 points up, and can therefore bring whole extra units - which makes a massive difference.
Tyel wrote: I think you guys are making the perfect the enemy of the good.
Yes - the amount of terrain on a table will impact the wider meta of units. But "Dudesman with a rocket launcher" can be compared against other "Elfman with a Lascannon", or "Fishman with a multimelta" - either in codex, or across codex. And if he's significantly off the pace, he's probably bad, and should have his points changed so he isn't.
All three face the same problem. What single value accurately accounts for their worth against their chosen target on planet bowling ball, and simultaneously against green tide on a jungle board that denies los. Simultaneously for everybunit in the game. One of the three might mathematically be worth 'more' and one of the renining two 'less', but whatever arbitrary numbers you apply won't solve the unsolvable. You don't apply an 'average' value but average =/= accurate.
Points work because you just need to be close enough. If a unit *should* be 100 points - its not going to break the game if its 95 or 105. Sure competitive players will stuff their lists with the units at 95 - but someone taking a few 105 units isn't throwing the game. The problem is that GW usually end up with units that *should* cost 100 points being 80 or 120. And that sort of gap means someone stuffing 80 point units in their list gets 100-200 points up, and can therefore bring whole extra units - which makes a massive difference.
No, you are ignoring context. A unit might be worth 100 in one scenario in one specific match up, twice that in another, half again in another. Times every unit and variable in the game. See above. You're trying to hammer a single universal value to account for all contexts with the underlying assumption being that the average works. The average =/= the accurate/or even the somewhat accurate value. 'Close enough' is a myth. Reducing the variables just shifts the imbalance, hence 'the meta'.
Gw's approach/problem is the assign arbitrary values to whatever they release, under multiple competing and often contradicting design paradigms, coupled to a mechanically poor foundation and complicated by ever increasing auras, multipliers and synergies. 'Point allocation by blind man throwing dart at dartboard' essentially. This is compounded by the age of the system and the lack of constraint/scale (infinity is arguebly better balanced because essentially everything is a human with an autogun and flak armour, 40k has everything from bikers with chains to aircraft to city stomping titans), the # of things in the up (based on the notion that its easier to balance a game of two factions, each with 2 units/single loadout than a game of thousands, but that leaves the issue that were you to gut/combine/homogenise, say 80 or 90% of the game to allow for this, your fanbase will quite literally burn your Nottingham operation to the ground...) amongst many other issues.
Points can work, but there are big costs and compromises involved. but they work as one lever amingst many, in a system where scale is restricted, scope is limited, the unit count is small/manageable and variables reduced to a minimum. And unfortunately with the 'wave' based nature of the business side of thr industry, this won't last long in any game.
When you play 40k and use a variety of scenarios (not just tournament scenarios) with a variety of objectives and a variety of terrain, the game does come closer together.
At least in my experience. The problem was the amounts of holy hell I took in running campaigns that deviated like that because not having optimal lists does make a lot of people very very angry.
Deadnight wrote: No, you are ignoring context. A unit might be worth 100 in one scenario in one specific match up, twice that in another, half again in another. Times every unit and variable in the game. See above. You're trying to hammer a single universal value to account for all contexts with the underlying assumption being that the average works. The average =/= the accurate/or even the somewhat accurate value. 'Close enough' is a myth. Reducing the variables just shifts the imbalance, hence 'the meta'.
No, what I'm saying is that if *IF* 40k could get close enough that we were having debates like "oh X is the best list with a lot of terrain, but actually Y is the best list with a medium amount and Z would be the best with none" - the game would be pretty balanced.
Maybe its my lack of imagination - but can you come up with a real unit in today's 40k - not some theoretical one - which becomes dramatically more or less powerful depending on the terrain?
Because I'm drawing a blank. To my mind lists don't work that way now - and I don't think we've ever had that. Historically competitive 40k (and I kind of mean ITC here) has often devolved into a pool of about 3 lists that were collectively agreed to be objectively the best - and this would usually be proven by them dominating the tournament scene until buffs/nerfs changed things up.
Whisper it I guess, but 9th is probably closer to being "balanced" because the nature of the objectives makes gameplay matter a lot more than it did in previous editions. And if you bring a list which works for that purpose it doesn't make a huge difference if you are notionally up or down around 50 points from 2000. Which is possibly why we see a much greater variety of lists placing. As opposed to periods where we've had wall to wall top 4 Iron Hands. Points changes will open that space up more and more - because again, close enough is enough.
Zarakynel is the perfect example of a model heavily affected by the terrain.
Her model is smaller than a regular KoS, but has 18 wounds, so regular Obscuring doesn't work. However, being smaller than a regular KOS means she can make use of "actual line of sight blocking terrain" (TLOS blocking) rather than Obscuring much more easily than a KoS can.
So, there are some places Zarakynel can go (e.g. tucked in against walls that block TLOS to her, say a two-level ruin) that a Keeper can't go (the keeper's greater size means it will be seen if it's inside of Obscuring terrain).
Conversely, there are places the Keeper can go that Zarakynel can't go (anywhere behind obscuring terrain, even if nearly half the Keeper towers over the terrain, it cannot be targeted, whilst the same terrain might cover Zarakynel up to her neck but she has 18 wounds so...).
On the tables I've used, employing local terrain built sometimes in 8th and sometimes in 9th, sometimes with bases and sometimes without bases, Zarakynel does hilarious things (a Lord of War her size can fit in a surprising number of places unseen) that a Keeper couldn't do, while a Keeper does hilarious things Zarakynel couldn't do
They almost feel like two completely different models despite one just being the other but with 2 more wounds and a tweaked special rule allowance.
Zarakynel is also 10 points short of literally being twice as expensive...
Tyel wrote: but can you come up with a real unit in today's 40k - not some theoretical one - which becomes dramatically more or less powerful depending on the terrain?
Maybe I'm not seeing your point here, but isn't every unit that ignores LOS more powerful (relatively speaking) on a board packed with terrain than it is on planet bowling ball?
And to build on what Unit said above, any knight is better on a table that actually has scenery that can block LOS- can't see any part of it, you can't shoot it, no matter how big it is.
Again, I may be misunderstanding your question, because this seems really obvious to me.
I know that from 3rd to 8th edition, anytime a lot of terrain was on the table in any of my store campaign events, there was always a chorus of screaming about how unfair it was because the points were balanced around tournament standard tables that barely blocked LOS and now that balance was destroyed because there were a few LOS blocking pieces of terrain on the table.
PenitentJake wrote: Maybe I'm not seeing your point here, but isn't every unit that ignores LOS more powerful (relatively speaking) on a board packed with terrain than it is on planet bowling ball?
And to build on what Unit said above, any knight is better on a table that actually has scenery that can block LOS- can't see any part of it, you can't shoot it, no matter how big it is.
Again, I may be misunderstanding your question, because this seems really obvious to me.
Total agreement. but Squigbuggies were still incredibly powerful on planet bowling ball - and that's why you had buggie meta at almost every terrain level.
The point is that you are looking for a unit which is OP in one scenario - and a trap choice in the other. I'm not convinced there is one. Or at least not one I can think of.
Because if you go "well its better on this table, but its okay in that table" then... well, its fine. Its balanced. Its not a problem. Some tables will be better than others - just as certain units will do better in certain matchups than others.
My argument is that this idea of "points can't balance the game" depends on requiring an artificial precision to have a balanced game - which doesn't apply because so much is dependent on dice. This smudges the probability of any individual game.
The point is that you are looking for a unit which is OP in one scenario - and a trap choice in the other.
I find that rarely the case to be honest.
However in D&D I also consider rolling 4d6 and taking the lowest away and assigning the values to your stats fun, and others consider that the avenue of making worthless characters because they can't be optimized.
To many people its binary. Either always take, or never take / worthless.
When I point cost in the games I design its their median value I go with, meaning I acknowledge in some cases they will be worth more and in some cases worth less, but I don't go so far as to say OP in one and TRAP in the other.
The thing is when taking the median, its not precise, but you can't get precise balance from points unless you are only tuning / pointing for a certain scenario under certain conditions.
Anything beyond those conditions and units become a bit more or less useful and to many people that also spells the difference between always and never take because there is a high degree of binary in the community (at least from what I have experienced).
auticus wrote: I know that from 3rd to 8th edition, anytime a lot of terrain was on the table in any of my store campaign events, there was always a chorus of screaming about how unfair it was because the points were balanced around tournament standard tables that barely blocked LOS and now that balance was destroyed because there were a few LOS blocking pieces of terrain on the table.
Why do i have a feeling these people that complained mostly played guard, and tau who could shoot your army dead from across the table turn one.
However in D&D I also consider rolling 4d6 and taking the lowest away and assigning the values to your stats fun, and others consider that the avenue of making worthless characters because they can't be optimized.
That sounds like the opposite of fun. I also hated random WL traits, psychic powers, etc. I hate randomness and it also doesn't make sense from a fluff perspective. When you want to learn a new skill or a new language, do you pick something that would be useful or just randomly choose it based on rolling dice?
My argument is that this idea of "points can't balance the game" depends on requiring an artificial precision to have a balanced game - which doesn't apply because so much is dependent on dice. This smudges the probability of any individual game.
During 7th ed, there was this "fun" mode of play called Unbound. Nobody ever played unbound because of how ridiculously unbalanced it was, but it is a very good ground for point balance examples, because under Unbound points were the only balancing mechanism in effect. No other restriction applied.
So, under Unbound, you could field a 2000pts army of 400 Hormagaunts against 16 CC Wraithlords with Ghostglaives. In this matchup Hormagaunts would inflict exactly zero wounds on Wraithlords under 7th ed SvsT chart, while Wraithlords would remove only a token number of Hormagaunts, but even then would win every kill point game, 100% win rate, so in this context are ridiculously OP, as even a single Wraithlord with a point cost of 2000pts slapped on it would win at least some games while Hormagaunts would never win.
Now you can instead take 13 Wraithlords with double Scatter Lasers and now 1950 pts Wraith army completely obliterates Hormagaunts swarm, removing on average nearly 300 Hormagaunts in a 5 turn game. We can also skew the game to the opposite side. So now we are back to 16 Ghostglaive Wraithlords, but now they face 250 Hormagaunts upgraded with Toxin Sacs. As soon as CC start, Wraithlords are effectively glued until they die. Those are all 2000 pts armies of units that were usually underperforming in a normal game context.
But that's not all - now see the magic happen. Lets field those 400 naked Hormagaunts against their brothers from another swarm, those very same 250 Toxin Sacs Hormagaunts. Now instead of 2000pts vs 2000pts it is a game of 2000pts vs 1250pts, because Toxin Sacs are a 750pts worth upgrade that does exactly nothing.
Those examples above show why you have to have a functional FOC as a context, because you can only try to weight melee against shooting, against movement, against durability, against vehicles etc if you have well defined boundaries of what proportions of each type of units will be fielded in a game. The more restrictive FOC is, the more balance you can achieve, but at the same time all factions are effectively more and more homogenous. As you approach exactly a single list possible in a single scenario possible, on a single terrain possible, you also approach the best balance possible in a system, but you do so first and foremost by tools completely different than points.
EviscerationPlague wrote: That rocket Launcher argument was literally the worst thing I've read in this thread and we just had someone here say PL was better for balance.
No, this post marks a lower point than auticus' example.
And his example isn't inaccurate. Let's go back to the halycon days where the Chimera was an amphibious vehicle, which had certain advantages when moving through water. How do you apply a universal cost to such an ability, when it can have absolutely no effect on many games (as many tables wouldn't have water features), yet had the potential to be important on others?
Nah, it was bad. Through that logic in an IGOUGO system we need to halve the value of everything since some armies can delete half your units before you do anything.
However in D&D I also consider rolling 4d6 and taking the lowest away and assigning the values to your stats fun, and others consider that the avenue of making worthless characters because they can't be optimized.
That sounds like the opposite of fun. I also hated random WL traits, psychic powers, etc. I hate randomness and it also doesn't make sense from a fluff perspective. When you want to learn a new skill or a new language, do you pick something that would be useful or just randomly choose it based on rolling dice?
Thats how a lot of people do stats in dnd to prevent min max munchkin building. You have to have a bit of randomness other wise you get super sweaty lists/characters that break the game.
I dont mind random psyker powers, or picking, if anything i think the best way to go about it would be the way to do it with knight free blades.
You get your psyker, you can either pick 1 of your powers, or randomly generate 2 powers.
What uh, role play does a suboptimal character demand?
Or do you mean it demands a lot of game knowledge for them to compensate for your poor stats?
I cannot figure out what stats and role play have to do with one another and the mechanics by which one would influence the other beyond the most basic "character with 18 strength would do strong things" (which is mechanically enforced).
Comparing role playing games to war games is a completely silly endeavor.
The Soviet Union tried and failed to accurately model the cost of everything in the economy by crunching data, China has currency, supply and demand and seems to be doing a lot better. Shoes stop being important when you don't have enough to eat. Strength D stops being good against 1W T3 models. Crunch numbers to get an approximate, adjust approximate based playtesting, watch what people take and adjust. Shoes don't have to cost exactly what they are worth to every customer, as long as shoes are being sold and a profit is being made the store can stay in business.
auticus wrote: I know that from 3rd to 8th edition, anytime a lot of terrain was on the table in any of my store campaign events, there was always a chorus of screaming about how unfair it was because the points were balanced around tournament standard tables that barely blocked LOS and now that balance was destroyed because there were a few LOS blocking pieces of terrain on the table.
Why do i have a feeling these people that complained mostly played guard, and tau who could shoot your army dead from across the table turn one.
It was said by the competitive players playing whatever meta was present at the time they said it. Some were guard during guard heyday, lot of marine meta builds. Really at some point it was a little of everyone. Lot of terrain in some editions also bogged down melee and the all-melee army guys would scream as loud too.
However in D&D I also consider rolling 4d6 and taking the lowest away and assigning the values to your stats fun, and others consider that the avenue of making worthless characters because they can't be optimized.
That sounds like the opposite of fun. I also hated random WL traits, psychic powers, etc. I hate randomness and it also doesn't make sense from a fluff perspective. When you want to learn a new skill or a new language, do you pick something that would be useful or just randomly choose it based on rolling dice?
You're just the type of gamer that doesn't enjoy anything I do and you and I wouldn't ever really play anything together and thats ok. Rolling random stats gives you a different character to try out that has actual flaws,as opposed to pre determining what you are going to run and optimizing for that and using a dump stat for something you feel you'll never use. I don't enjoy optimizers or that type of game play and optimizers usually don't enjoy my campaigns be it RPGs or tabletop wargames (and thats also ok).
No I don't randomly roll skill ups. But its nice not seeing every character be the same, which is what picking your stats has led to the vast majority of my D&D experience since the last 15 years or so. Generating a random stat array and assigning it where I want to (the 4d6 drop the lowest method) is nothing at all like randomly rolling skill ups.
Randomizing the numbers available to the stat array has zero to do with fluff or not fluff. It is neither more fluffy nor less fluffy to roll 4d6 and drop the lowest and choose which number goes into which stat, same as it is no more or less fluffy to get to pick exactly what numbers you want from an array. One method gives you total control and strongly appeals to deterministic players that want full control over everything, and one gives you less control and forces you to react and deal with flaws that you cannot control.
The 3d6 method gives you the least control and also gives you a lot more role playing opportunities IMO than the array because you are forced to work with what you rolled the best you can. It is also no more or less fluffy than the other ways. It is setting the parameters you have in which to run the character. You may not get to be running the full god character if you generate a bunch of 10s - 12s, but people like me enjoy that because no one really WINS D&D and the best characters I've ever run in my life were the ones that had some deep mechanical flaws.
In battletech we have something similar with randomized force charts where you roll on the charts to see what mechs are available to you in a mission and mechs can also have quirks which give them drawbacks. In warhammer we had random event charts or things like the 8th edition lustrian campaign for fantasy battles that would make the game windy, night fight, quick sand, etc, that you couldn't optimize and pre plan for and had to find a way to mitigate in-game... a series of skills that I love and are one of the reasons I got into wargaming in the first place all those years ago (and sadly for me have since been hammered out of tabletop wargaming for the most part as well today and for the past decade or so)
Thats fair, i always found more terrain generally resulted in better games. Simply because your chance of making it out of turn one with more then half your army was possible.
auticus wrote: I know that from 3rd to 8th edition, anytime a lot of terrain was on the table in any of my store campaign events, there was always a chorus of screaming about how unfair it was because the points were balanced around tournament standard tables that barely blocked LOS and now that balance was destroyed because there were a few LOS blocking pieces of terrain on the table.
Then that chorus was made of very stupid people.
"The game is balanced for empty tournament tables!"
How do you even posit that conclusion?
Terrain is the third player. Terrain is the thing that makes you play the game, rather than work out the statistical probability of your army winning based upon what you took in your list. Terrain is what makes you use your army, what makes you have to think about where it goes, how it acts, what it fights, and when. Terrain shouldn't be favourable. Terrain isn't on your side.
auticus wrote: I know that from 3rd to 8th edition, anytime a lot of terrain was on the table in any of my store campaign events, there was always a chorus of screaming about how unfair it was because the points were balanced around tournament standard tables that barely blocked LOS and now that balance was destroyed because there were a few LOS blocking pieces of terrain on the table.
Then that chorus was made of very stupid people.
"The game is balanced for empty tournament tables!"
How do you even posit that conclusion?
Terrain is the third player. Terrain is the thing that makes you play the game, rather than work out the statistical probability of your army winning based upon what you took in your list. Terrain is what makes you use your army, what makes you have to think about where it goes, how it acts, what it fights, and when.
I wouldn't call them stupid. At all.
What it is and what has been a thing for as long as I can remember now is that 40k (and AOS) are very expensive hobbies and people want to play but don't want to spend more money than they have to. So they find what the standard is. The standard being point size, scenario set, and terrain expectations. And then they build and buy a list around that and optimize for that. They are always the type of people that want full control over their environment, and tournament gaming gives them (usually) that avenue since its highly standardized.
The tables don't necessarily have to be empty. They just shouldn't have a lot of terrain that matters or impacts the game. Because terrain that impacts the game screws people over at random (to them) and should be avoided at all costs, and you should use at least no more or less than what their store tournaments use (which are often run by people emulating what LVO and Adepticon and NOVA and ITC are using). So they have bought a force to play in those parameters.
And then someone like me comes along that ran public store events and started doing jungle missions and city fight missions and other things with a lot more terrain than those standards, and they felt that that was "screwing them over" because the root of their argument was they want to optimize for every game, and that means they'd need specific forces optimized for my public store campaign and that means having to buy more models for just those campaigns - which they were very much against having to do.
(that leads down other rabbit holes such as "if you don't like it don't participate" but them being store campaigns you could win stuff from the store, they saw that as competition time and were offended that it didn't follow competition guidelines). They would also get very angry when you used scenarios not approved by the ITC for the same reason. Even when I used a warhammer world official halloween event scenario, that led to a lot of anger from a good chunk of that community because it wasn't an official ITC mission and they didn't have an army built and optimized for that.
So really its not "the game is balanced around an empty table" its "the game that i optimized for is balanced around a table that has mostly meaningless terrain like the ITC says".
What you just discribed Auticus, is actually one of the main reasons why i just cant get into 9th.
Modern 40k has become so sanitary now. Every game is like playing in a clean room "Here are your ITC rules and ITC standard terrain set up with LOS blocking here here and here"
Its so boring compared to older editions, and i have grown to hate it for the same reason i hate card games. Majority of the game is just about stacking your deck with the current meta and hoping you draw it before your opponent and you are just kinda there for the ride.
Since 40k has become so sterile, everyone just takes the meta armies, and is along for the ride. GW managed to take the part from MTG that i personally hate the most, and port it into 40k. Which honestly is amazing they managed to do that.
Backspacehacker wrote: What you just discribed Auticus, is actually one of the main reasons why i just cant get into 9th.
Modern 40k has become so sanitary now. Every game is like playing in a clean room "Here are your ITC rules and ITC standard terrain set up with LOS blocking here here and here"
Its so boring compared to older editions, and i have grown to hate it for the same reason i hate card games. Majority of the game is just about stacking your deck with the current meta and hoping you draw it before your opponent and you are just kinda there for the ride.
Since 40k has become so sterile, everyone just takes the meta armies, and is along for the ride. GW managed to take the part from MTG that i personally hate the most, and port it into 40k. Which honestly is amazing they managed to do that.
You actually think they did that on purpose or rather thru a (grimdark)comedy of errors?
auticus wrote: I agree, and it was heading down those tracks for the past decade.
Like a hobby i have invested thousands, an entire room to, is just not fun anymore, and it sucks. Thankfully a few of my friends feel the same way, and we just jumped ship to 30k, and or back to 7th.
Looking at making some hybrid rules to 7th to tone it down, or just use HH rules and port old 7th dexes to it.
What ever 40k is now, it sure as hell is not what it was pre 8th. Its just totally lifeless now.
Backspacehacker wrote: What you just discribed Auticus, is actually one of the main reasons why i just cant get into 9th.
Modern 40k has become so sanitary now. Every game is like playing in a clean room "Here are your ITC rules and ITC standard terrain set up with LOS blocking here here and here"
Its so boring compared to older editions, and i have grown to hate it for the same reason i hate card games. Majority of the game is just about stacking your deck with the current meta and hoping you draw it before your opponent and you are just kinda there for the ride.
Since 40k has become so sterile, everyone just takes the meta armies, and is along for the ride. GW managed to take the part from MTG that i personally hate the most, and port it into 40k. Which honestly is amazing they managed to do that.
You actually think they did that on purpose or rather thru a (grimdark)comedy of errors?
But I agree wholly.
Oh they totally did it on purpose, im more impressed they managed to dupe people into it.
Like the thing that MGT people always joked about with WH people was that WH was so expensive vs MGT, but MGT cost a lot more but spread out over a longer period of time because as they got new drops, new metas came into existance and old ones died.
40k you just spent it all up front and were good for basically the whole edition, now almost every drop the meta shifts and you gotta buy a crap ton of new stuff or your army is now the poop
I didn't get duped because I prefer the best 40k edition to the worst one. If I didn't want to control the movement of my units I'd watch a movie.
What im saying people got duped into has nothing to do with the edition of the game. They could have done the same thing in any edition, im impressed they finally managed to do it.
auticus wrote: What it is and what has been a thing for as long as I can remember now is that 40k (and AOS) are very expensive hobbies and people want to play but don't want to spend more money than they have to. So they find what the standard is. The standard being point size, scenario set, and terrain expectations. And then they build and buy a list around that and optimize for that. They are always the type of people that want full control over their environment, and tournament gaming gives them (usually) that avenue since its highly standardized.
You can't have a game where two people compete against one another, where one wins, and another loses, and give both players "full control". It's not feasible. The one area where people specifically don't have control is terrain. As I said, it's the part of the game that makes you play. It's the X factor. It's the thing you can only plan for to a point, but the terrain you are playing on might (and really should) disrupt your strategy, requiring a use of tactics to overcome the variables (rather than some rote by-the-numbers play that always goes the same way).
auticus wrote: They just shouldn't have a lot of terrain that matters or impacts the game.
Tables shouldn't have terrain that impacts the game. That's a real thing you just said. Should not impact the game.
I... I don't even know where to begin with that. My mind is struggling to form coherent sentences after reading that.
What you just said has to be the most bonkers, backwards, completely and utterly wrong take I have ever heard on terrain in my entire life.
auticus wrote: Because terrain that impacts the game screws people over at random (to them) and should be avoided at all costs, and you should use at least no more or less than what their store tournaments use (which are often run by people emulating what LVO and Adepticon and NOVA and ITC are using). So they have bought a force to play in those parameters.
You're not actually advocating for the empty symmetrical crap that tournaments are infesting everything else with, are you?
No, and feth that style of play forever.
I just... I just can't... for the first time in a long time, words fail me.
auticus wrote: What it is and what has been a thing for as long as I can remember now is that 40k (and AOS) are very expensive hobbies and people want to play but don't want to spend more money than they have to. So they find what the standard is. The standard being point size, scenario set, and terrain expectations. And then they build and buy a list around that and optimize for that. They are always the type of people that want full control over their environment, and tournament gaming gives them (usually) that avenue since its highly standardized.
You can't have a game where two people compete against one another, where one wins, and another loses, and give both players "full control". It's not feasible. The one area where people specifically don't have control is terrain. As I said, it's the part of the game that makes you play. It's the X factor. It's the thing you can only plan for to a point, but the terrain you are playing on might (and really should) disrupt your strategy, requiring a use of tactics to overcome the variables (rather than some rote by-the-numbers play that always goes the same way).
auticus wrote: They just shouldn't have a lot of terrain that matters or impacts the game.
Tables shouldn't have terrain that impacts the game. That's a real thing you just said. Should not impact the game.
I... I don't even know where to begin with that. My mind is struggling to form coherent sentences after reading that.
What you just said has to be the most bonkers, backwards, completely and utterly wrong take I have ever heard on terrain in my entire life.
auticus wrote: Because terrain that impacts the game screws people over at random (to them) and should be avoided at all costs, and you should use at least no more or less than what their store tournaments use (which are often run by people emulating what LVO and Adepticon and NOVA and ITC are using). So they have bought a force to play in those parameters.
You're not actually advocating for the empty symmetrical crap that tournaments are infesting everything else with, are you?
No, and feth that style of play forever.
I just... I just can't... for the first time in a long time, words fail me.
*walks away*
No no, I dont think he is saying thats what it should be, i think he is saying thats what a lot of people think right now, when it comes to random terrain setup or anything outside of ITC standard setups.
Like a hobby i have invested thousands, an entire room to, is just not fun anymore, and it sucks.
Same. I sold off or donated... or int he case of things not optimal had to throw away in the dumpster... 18 fully painted armies before moving because it took up so much space.
Oh they totally did it on purpose, im more impressed they managed to dupe people into it.
I don't think they duped them. They did their marketing. When magic was being televised on espn that was when things started changing. Gaming started moving toward a more esports league format and I think thats just what sells now and will sell over here in the states because our culture is dominated by competitive sports.
People also don't want to play the same thing over and over again so the burn and churn is embraced by many many many gamers today as part of the collector's mindset.
I think they know exactly what they are doing because the fanbase throws truckloads of money at them indicating this is exactly what they want.
The older style games like Warlord games still exist today but are much more niche.
You're not actually advocating for the empty symmetrical crap that tournaments are infesting everything else with, are you?
No. I'm not at all. I got out of 40k because everything had to be symmetrical and tournament based, and when I ran narrative campaign events at our store (both GW and indy) it was through a lot of anger, people screaming at my face, blowing up our facebook, and the one guy threatening to fight me in the parking lot over it. I had a guy pick up his entire guard army and throw it piece by piece with force into a box and bust it up because I announced a jungle beachhead mission and he showed up and was horrified that he didn't have clear line of sight to anything he wanted and went into a 20 minute profanity laced tirade which continued onto our facebook page and was backed by a dozen or so of the tournament players as being a horrific way to have public events and was teaching people to play wrong and that I was spitefully screwing over everyone.
I'm the last one that wants every game to be symmetrical. I'm voicing the other side AS I UNDERSTAND IT and trying to keep my language neutral because my way of playing is both a minority and also my way of enjoying games is certainly not better than anyone elses.,
The ones that weren't red faced but still annoyed enough to talk about why they were so pissed off over the years have helped me understand that mindset, and additionally I spent 10 years as a tournament gamer IN that mindset. As my girlfriend likes to also say - there is nothing wrong with how other people like to play the game, thats how they have fun. You just have to have fun with like minded people.
I think that burn and churn marketing is gonna bite them in the rear sooner rather then later.
MGT can get away with it because producing new cards is not nearly as difficult as making an entire new model. Their burn and churn is running off of back logs of models that have been out for years, some cases decades. But that backlog wont last them forever.
When it eventually burns out, i think they are going ot be really sorry they drove away a lot of their old guard players that would always be ready to buy stuff just because they liked the game rather then the comp scene.
Time will tell! With GW the only constant that has been said over the many years (and I say this with all respect) is that their current model will eventually fail and they will get bitten by it.
That was a thread on portent.net / transformed to warseer started in like 2003 and carried on all the way over the years and years and years about how they would be dying from their practices and they still are doing wonderful today, so at this point I am doubtful. (hell I remember the first plastic land raider coming out in 2000 and people were up in arms over that costing $45 and how GW wouldn't last long like that - or their first skeleton box of 20 plastic dudes costing $20 which was considered price gouging back then)
For people like us, its more coming up with rules for your own groups to enjoy and then watching modern threads like this to see where things are.
I'm getting closer and closer to 50 now and the way I want to play is almost entirely dictated by my own game design lol.
I mean if anything is true and consistent, what was once considered old and out of date, will eventually come back around to being in style.
Im sure all the rules people hated will eventually come back into the game, and be sold as the new hottness.
So just gotta play the waiting game i guess.
However in D&D I also consider rolling 4d6 and taking the lowest away and assigning the values to your stats fun, and others consider that the avenue of making worthless characters because they can't be optimized.
That sounds like the opposite of fun. I also hated random WL traits, psychic powers, etc. I hate randomness and it also doesn't make sense from a fluff perspective. When you want to learn a new skill or a new language, do you pick something that would be useful or just randomly choose it based on rolling dice?
Funny thing: this isn't even the most restrictive D&D stat generation systems. At one point, you rolled 3d6 and took what you got; you also rolled in order so class selection tended to be random- it was wise to choose the class that best suited the characteristics the dice gave you.
And Toofast, if you think about it, that kind of IS fluffy. People born with perfect pitch often find themselves drawn to careers in music. We don't get to choose whether we're born with body builder genetics or type 1 diabetes.
Skill selection, sure- we can somewhat make choices about that, but skills get bonuses from stats, so the dude with autodidact genetics is just going to be better at academic skills than dude with the body builder genetics, but he's going to be better at athletic skills than the autodidact.
And yeah, it doesn't give players total control- like you I often play games that DO give the player total control. But there is value in this style of play- it's neither better nor worse, merely different. But quite frankly, it is fluffy as F*&%- attributes ARE mostly genetic and beyond our control (though we can improve them slightly through hard work, and the game provides mechanics for that too). Skill selection IS a choice, but it is impacted by your genetic attributes.
Sorry I fell into the D&D tangent part of the post rather than talking about 40k, but I didn't open the door.
You actually think they did that on purpose or rather thru a (grimdark)comedy of errors?
Go look up how much money MtG, LoL or Dota 2 make every year. They did it intentionally to make money, the same reason any army could summon demons without paying points for them and formations of certain models gave ridiculous benefits in 7th. That wasn't a grimdark comedy of errors, just blatantly obvious greed. They want to go the MtG/esports route because the constant churn of the meta makes them a lot more money than people who play fluffhammer in their garage and start a new army every few years.
You actually think they did that on purpose or rather thru a (grimdark)comedy of errors?
Go look up how much money MtG, LoL or Dota 2 make every year. They did it intentionally to make money, the same reason any army could summon demons without paying points for them and formations of certain models gave ridiculous benefits in 7th. That wasn't a grimdark comedy of errors, just blatantly obvious greed. They want to go the MtG/esports route because the constant churn of the meta makes them a lot more money than people who play fluffhammer in their garage and start a new army every few years.
There's no doubt that GW IS trying to build the tournament scene, and that elements of this edition are specifically designed to do that. I think that is obvious.
But it is also true that customers who do not attend tournaments outnumber those who do by a factor of at least ten. At least. Because, and again, I can't stress this enough: tournaments do not exist in every city or town where 40k is played. And a handful of people who live in places without tournaments might cough up the money to travel to tournaments, but you're looking at a minority of a minority.
Now you can argue that there may be a higher proportion of big spenders in the tourney crowd than the garage hammer casuals. I won't even bother arguing against that. But the sheer weight of numbers from the garage hammer casual scene is still probably going to put us over the top. Furthermore, all these tourney folks are buying is meta-hotness. It's the garage hammer casuals and collectors that are buying literally everything else. You think a tourney head is selling out limited ed dexes? Who's feeding the Black Library?
And GW has released far more products geared toward Crusaders than Matched players. Literally the only resource that excludes Crusade players is GT mission packs and the open war deck. We've had six mission packs since the edition started. Nachmund is what, the third GT pack? And I think there are more casuals, crusaders and narrative players buying campaign books too- there may be a handful of tourney players that buy them, but those books offer far more to the Crusader than they do to the competitive player.
I'll end where I started: yes, you are absolutely correct that GW has designed parts of this edition to specifically target tournament players, and that they have made significant investments and partnerships to facilitate that. Only a fool would claim otherwise. But if you think that's ALL they are doing, you aren't watching very carefully. How many tourney players subscribed to Warhammer +?
You actually think they did that on purpose or rather thru a (grimdark)comedy of errors?
Go look up how much money MtG, LoL or Dota 2 make every year. They did it intentionally to make money, the same reason any army could summon demons without paying points for them and formations of certain models gave ridiculous benefits in 7th. That wasn't a grimdark comedy of errors, just blatantly obvious greed. They want to go the MtG/esports route because the constant churn of the meta makes them a lot more money than people who play fluffhammer in their garage and start a new army every few years.
The most popular MtG format has basically no rules, there are a handful of banned cards but otherwise, you can bring one of any card released in the last 30 years, you don't really need new cards from every set. The most expensive cards are not the most recently released ones, it's the collectors items that are 30 years old and they are often still extremely good in the game. LoL is mostly played by casuals and revenue is made by selling them fancy visual overhauls to champions so they can stand out. The most popular champions are sometimes the worst, even if champions generally become more popular as they get stronger and less popular when they get worse.
MtG has a tight set of rules for the cards to be designed
as long as the the capabilities of the cards are within the design space, they are fine and it does not matter how old they are, they still work
for 40k, the design space for units changes with each Codex
this is why points don't work in 40k because they need a in itself coherent set of rules and a closed design space to add balance
if every army only has access to 1 single tank, the Anti-Tank guns need to be different priced in points as if all armies consist only of tanks
but for 40k, armies start with limited amount of tanks, so AT is expensive, than a new army comes with all tanks and the army after that get cheap AT to compensate, so not only the points but also the special rules for the first armies are out of place
and adjust points don't help if the killing potential or the units that can have them are limited
nou wrote: Those examples above show why you have to have a functional FOC as a context, because you can only try to weight melee against shooting, against movement, against durability, against vehicles etc if you have well defined boundaries of what proportions of each type of units will be fielded in a game. The more restrictive FOC is, the more balance you can achieve, but at the same time all factions are effectively more and more homogenous. As you approach exactly a single list possible in a single scenario possible, on a single terrain possible, you also approach the best balance possible in a system, but you do so first and foremost by tools completely different than points.
Does it?
I'm afraid I'm sort of missing your point.
Balance to my mind isn't that I can run anything (400 Hormagaunts in this case) and then have equal games.
If I want to devolve the game down to rock-paper-scissors... its not really surprising that such is the result.
To go back to theory, if you bring nothing but tanks, and I bring nothing but anti-tank, its not imbalanced that I have a substantial statistical advantage - and if we were to play that game over and over, I'd therefore get a much higher win percentage. Because nothing is forcing you to take nothing but tanks. You've gambled and lost by running into me.
Imbalance is if, in all circumstances, regardless of my list - or any other lists out there, you should never have brought those tanks, or hormagaunts or wraithlords etc - because objectively you are making your list dramatically worse by doing so as compared with other options.
To discuss 7th, Tyranids were awful aside from flying hive tyrants - and as you identify, taking toxin sacs on hormagaunts was a joke. Rules changes can help. They may be desirable if you want a unit to be in a certain design space - rather than upping or lowering its relative damage output and toughness which is what happens with points increases or reductions.
But as you said, list building is about identifying efficiency for your points. I would argue that almost every unit (I'm sure there remain some that just don't work) has a value due to that efficiency being a real thing. If a unit's points is significantly below that value, you can fill your boots and this will improve your chances of winning. If its significant above this value then the more you take, the weaker your list is going to be and the lower the chances of winning. The nudge close enough method works - you are expanding the pool of "reasonable" choices that have a fair crack in games. We know it works because CA has meant that 8th and I think 9th are far less imbalanced than 7th was - where books were just abandoned to die.
If you want every discrete game to be balanced (i.e. for list building not to matter) then yes - you'd need to limit player's abilities to go "my list is all A," only for their opponent to say "my list is all anti-A". But I don't think that's 40k's balance problem. Just as its not a problem in League/Dota if you bring 5 heroes that completely hard counter another 5 heroes - or if in a card game one deck is skewed by design to stomp another. The issue is getting dramatically more bang for my buck in all circumstances. Which is a function of points and can be fixed to a reasonable degree by points.
Now you can argue that there may be a higher proportion of big spenders in the tourney crowd than the garage hammer casuals. I won't even bother arguing against that. But the sheer weight of numbers from the garage hammer casual scene is still probably going to put us over the top. Furthermore, all these tourney folks are buying is meta-hotness. It's the garage hammer casuals and collectors that are buying literally everything else. You think a tourney head is selling out limited ed dexes? Who's feeding the Black Library?
I wrote this already in another thread, but I'm a narrative player, who spends an equivalent of two tournament armies every year for the last six years - in GW models, FW models, GW terrain kits and a large proportion of Citadel Paint range, as I need more than three pots of paint to work with. Everybody in my group spends a similar amount - the most conservative guy spends about half of what I do, that equals a single tournament army a year.
I also wrote it already - tournament circuits are there not to make the biggest part of the money for GW, but to provide publicity, which then drives casual crowd to spend way, way more money on this hobby than tournament players do.
Tyel wrote:
Does it?
I'm afraid I'm sort of missing your point.
Balance to my mind isn't that I can run anything (400 Hormagaunts in this case) and then have equal games.
If I want to devolve the game down to rock-paper-scissors... its not really surprising that such is the result.
Yes, you indeed missed the point. Those examples show that points do not inform you anyhow of how the model will fare outside of a very rigid context, because you have to know how the opposing army looks like to be able to assign a meaningful point value to a unit or an ability. It can be either restrictive, universal FOC, or "the meta", but outside of context, point prices are meaningless, random numbers assigned to models.
A "real life" example of "meta" vs "outside of meta". At one point of 7th ed meta, Mawloc was considered the next best thing after Flyrant in Tyranid dex, because "the meta" were large blobs of Thunderwolf Cavalry superfriends sitting on a relic. Mawloc also ignored Invisibility targeting restrictions and had 50% chance of repeating it's attack in the next turn as well, so within "the meta" it usually returned a lot more than it's cost. In a casual meta though? Against low power MSU or cheap infantry blobs in TAC lists Mawloc nearly always severly underperformed, because the game played in tournament context was entirely different than the game played by casuals.
So what point cost do you assign to a Mawloc? The one dictated by the tournament meta, so at the same time condemning every casual player who likes the model or the concept of Mawloc to a severe handicap in his FLGS games? Or the one dictated by the casual meta, so making the Mawloc severly OP? Or somewhere in between, leaving it both OP in tournaments and UP in casual meta, so effectively removing it from the game entirely?
And what is the funniest in the context of our two posts - your conclusion that Toxin Sacs on Hormagaunts were a joke is in direct opposition to my own Eldar vs Tyranid games of 7th, because I was very often fielding Wraithseer and Toxic Hormagaunts were the most optimal response the Tyranid player could field in "my group's meta". So you see, context is everything.
EviscerationPlague wrote: If you were losing to Toxic Sac Hormagaunts with ANY Eldar army that just says more about you as a player than anything.
No, it only says more than anything about you not knowing how casual/narrative games look like. If I could built a winning answer to any possible Tyranid build? Of course I could. That is not the point of playing a "small group meta" though if I want Tyranid player to have any fun and stay in the group/in the hobby. Even more so - if we could construct well balanced, fun and close games of Tyranids vs Eldar during 7th using any models from both dexes we fancied, including "the most broken" FW Pale Courts rules it does speak volumes about our understanding of the game and problems of balance.
Points have to be made for tournament play, and that means that some units will underperform (or overperfom) in casual meta with known oponents, and there is no real way around that issue.
Tyran wrote: You cannot balance for list tailoring.
Points have to be made for tournament play, and that means that some units will underperform (or overperfom) in casual meta with known oponents, and there is no real way around that issue.
Of course you can and there are, they just involve tools other than points. Last dozen of pages of this thread are exactly about it.
"you cannot balance for list tailoring, just tournaments" seems self-contradictory when a lot of tournament lists are the very definition of List Tailoring, just targeting the current meta players rather than a specific local player.
If wraithlords/wraith units were the meta in 7th, toxin sac hormagaunts would have been in vogue. The reason they weren't is that they weren't useful when tailoring against the tournament meta.
Bringing a mawloc because it can thump invisible units badly (even though it is crap the rest of the time) is a PERFECT example of list tailoring...
Unit1126PLL wrote: Yeah, the random stats thing was developed specifically to push out people who over optimized characters.
No, it was not. It was the default early in DnD's history, and was a relic of a different attitude towards tabletop gaming, where roleplaying was at a minimum.
Unit1126PLL wrote: Yeah, the random stats thing was developed specifically to push out people who over optimized characters.
No, it was not. It was the default early in DnD's history, and was a relic of a different attitude towards tabletop gaming, where roleplaying was at a minimum.
did....did you just suggest that early DnD had minimum role playing?
Bringing a mawloc because it can thump invisible units badly (even though it is crap the rest of the time) is a PERFECT example of list tailoring...
It's one of the reasons why I chose this very example. It was a very meta unit that was pretty much unusable outside of a very narrow meta context of 7th and the discussion about Mawloc price point is a "my fun trumps your fun" kind of discussion without any objective solution to the problem. What is important here is that we are not talking about adjusting price point by +/-10%. Mawloc was a 140pts unit that in the context of the meta could easily remove 100pts a turn in optimal conditions and be virtually untargetable throughout the entire game. In a casual context it rarely removed more than 70pts throughout the entire game, because he emerged permanently after the first attack and then was rendered useless and finally killed by any CC unit in the game.
And another problem to chew on - in 7th units should have completely different point tags for Eternal War missions and Maelstrom of War missions, because those were effectively two entirely different games with different optimal builds.
auticus wrote: What it is and what has been a thing for as long as I can remember now is that 40k (and AOS) are very expensive hobbies and people want to play but don't want to spend more money than they have to. So they find what the standard is. The standard being point size, scenario set, and terrain expectations. And then they build and buy a list around that and optimize for that. They are always the type of people that want full control over their environment, and tournament gaming gives them (usually) that avenue since its highly standardized.
You can't have a game where two people compete against one another, where one wins, and another loses, and give both players "full control". It's not feasible. The one area where people specifically don't have control is terrain.
That's not actually true, though, is it? That might be the ideal situation but in reality, unless you're playing on some sort of pre-generated board, both players nevertheless have to agree about what terrain is used, how much there is and where it's placed on the board. There's no Terrain Fairy who'll swoop in and do it for them (at least, not in any of the stores I've played in ).
And the players have to come to this arrangement, knowing that more/less terrain can impact their armies significantly.
Obviously planet bowling-ball gives a significant advantage to Tau, IG and other primarily shooting armies. However, more terrain gives a significant advantage to Orks, Tyranids and any other army that leans much more towards melee.
It's not fair if the shooting army can blow the melee army to bits from the other side of the board, but it's equally unfair if there are no lanes of fire so all the Guard player's long-range weapons are useless until his units are mere inches away from the enemy.
I guess what I'm saying is that, whilst not wanting terrain to have any impact at all is obviously silly, it can be difficult to find a happy medium that's as fair as possible for all armies.
Unit1126PLL wrote: "you cannot balance for list tailoring, just tournaments" seems self-contradictory when a lot of tournament lists are the very definition of List Tailoring, just targeting the current meta players rather than a specific local player.
If wraithlords/wraith units were the meta in 7th, toxin sac hormagaunts would have been in vogue. The reason they weren't is that they weren't useful when tailoring against the tournament meta.
Bringing a mawloc because it can thump invisible units badly (even though it is crap the rest of the time) is a PERFECT example of list tailoring...
While true, the difference is that tournament list building is tailoring targeting a finite and relatively knowable entity, while tailoring in casual metas is pretty much an unknowable quantity as each casual meta is its own thing.
While true, the difference is that tournament list building is tailoring targeting a finite and relatively knowable entity, while tailoring in casual metas is pretty much an unknowable quantity as each casual meta is its own thing.
And thus point balance is completely meaningless in a casual meta, that is in a majority of games of 40K ever played, so we are back to "PLs acknowledge that and incentivize players to cross-tailor". Thank you.
While true, the difference is that tournament list building is tailoring targeting a finite and relatively knowable entity, while tailoring in casual metas is pretty much an unknowable quantity as each casual meta is its own thing.
And thus point balance is completely meaningless in a casual meta, that is in a majority of games of 40K ever played, so we are back to "PLs acknowledge that and incentivize players to cross-tailor". Thank you.
Except its not, PL is a crap shoot of a balance mechanic, its like filling a water balloon with paint, and then throwing it at a wall and saying "Yep i painted that wall good"
Not all units are created equal in their PL because of the equipment they can take, it works in AoS because a lot of squads are all or nothing weapon choices. Vs 40k For 7PL i can take 5 rubrics then equip a soul reaper, and all flamers on them for free, which is a LOT of points of free crap. You comapire that to what other units can do and its not even a competition of whose better.
PL in 40k is possible the WORST way to balance because it just opened up all the equipment slots to be ridiculous.
Backspacehacker wrote: did....did you just suggest that early DnD had minimum role playing?
When it was Gygax and Kuntz doing their thing in Wisconsin? Yeah. It had worldbuilding, but not as much roleplaying as modern players would define it. It was also more adversarial between the GM and players.
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Backspacehacker wrote: PL in 40k is possible the WORST way to balance because it just opened up all the equipment slots to be ridiculous.
Yup. The difference in damage potential between a Harlequin troupe with all fusion pistols or all shuriken pistols can be immense.
While true, the difference is that tournament list building is tailoring targeting a finite and relatively knowable entity, while tailoring in casual metas is pretty much an unknowable quantity as each casual meta is its own thing.
And thus point balance is completely meaningless in a casual meta, that is in a majority of games of 40K ever played, so we are back to "PLs acknowledge that and incentivize players to cross-tailor". Thank you.
I wouldn't say completely meaningless, it still provides structure and there is always that netlist that is built on point balance.
But yes, point balance simply cannot account all the "weird gak" that can happen in a casual meta.
Backspacehacker wrote: did....did you just suggest that early DnD had minimum role playing?
When it was Gygax and Kuntz doing their thing in Wisconsin? Yeah. It had worldbuilding, but not as much roleplaying as modern players would define it. It was also more adversarial between the GM and players.
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Backspacehacker wrote: PL in 40k is possible the WORST way to balance because it just opened up all the equipment slots to be ridiculous.
Yup. The difference in damage potential between a Harlequin troupe with all fusion pistols or all shuriken pistols can be immense.
I always use the example of rubrics, 10 rubrics is 14 PL, they can all take warp flamers which are 15 points a pop. thats 150 points, or roughly an additional 7.5 PL for free.
One could make the argument that such units are inherently damaging to the game and that warp flamers should be nerfed/inferno bolters buffed to the point they are equivalent with each other.
Tyran wrote: One could make the argument that such units are inherently damaging to the game and that warp flamers should be nerfed/inferno bolters buffed to the point they are equivalent with each other.
Thats the reason that warp flamers cost 15 points a model, and inferno bolters are free. The points ARE the balance you are looking for, that balance does not exist in PL and thats the whole points of why PL is dump in 40k.
Your options then become, Well do we distinguish the warpflamer from the inferno bolter and make the warp flamer cost more, OR do we just nerf the warpflamer and buff the inferno bolter so that they are not really distinguishable from each other.
PL is a microcosm of the problem of 8th and 9th and the stripping down of rules, by taking out these rules, you remove way to balance the game, because you no longer have the tools needed to balance it. It would be like plumber walking onto a job with a full bag of tools, or walking in with 2 wrenches, That big bag of tools will give you a lot more options to get the job done, that 2 wrenches your limited to what you can do with them.
The only way to balance out the game at this point, because the model range and army range has gotten so damn large, is you have to expand the rules, with a lot more <rule><x> type rules.
The example i always give is that GW really should make a Rending <x> rule, with x being the value of AP when you roll a 6 to hit. This gives GW the ability put rending x on under performing weapons in order to balance them out. LIke oh the HB is not doing great, give it a rending -2 see if that brings it up in line.
They need more rules like this to balance the game they have created, not less this whole one page of rules thing was a pipe dream.
I have to be honest - I can't be that accurate on the fine details of 7th edition Tyranid meta. To my mind Tyranids were not competitive and Mawlocs were okay but not the terror of tables - be it Superfriends or whatever - so.. I don't know what to say really. I'd probably leave them where they are and buff up other things first and then see what happens. I don't know whether toxic sac hormagaunts would have been good in "wraith meta" - but to my mind it wasn't a thing and they aren't.
As said, I think our disagreements are about how you define balance.
For me balance is basically a venn diagram. The first circle is every unit across every faction in 40k. The second is "units you'd expect to see going a reasonable distance in a competitive tournament". And the more units that are in the second, the more balanced the game is going to be.
Things not being as good in meta A as in meta B is not a balance issue. Because meta A could change to meta B if player C in meta A decides to change their build, their faction, or whatever. Or a new player joins the group which alters the games that comprise meta A.
I personally feel 40k is not especially meta driven. Top lists tend to be top lists full stop because they cram in efficiencies.
If I always stuff my list full of anti-tank, its not a balance problem if you insist on running tanks into me - and I get a really high win percentage and you feel there's nothing you can do about it as a result. You could change your list. Or at least play someone else apart from me. Or ask me to change my list because its boring. That's the problem with a list tailoring approach - it goes all the way down.
Points and points balance matters because when we talk about people running competitive builds, we mean points efficient ones - as opposed to I bring only A and you bring only anti-A and that results in a bad game.
If I turned up with pre-nerf Thicc City I don't think its good for some sort of meta skew reason. Its just because I get so much bang for my buck that its effective versus the vast majority of less efficient lists. Now GW have decided in this case rules changes are better than points ones - but I'm not sure this is some objective truth. They could have for instance put Talos points back up because there was no real reason they went down in the first place. With that said, a tweak of Artists of the Flesh is probably not unreasonable because it was clearly superior to the alternatives and I obviously agree internally balancing chapter tactic bonuses can't be done purely by points.
Backspacehacker wrote: did....did you just suggest that early DnD had minimum role playing?
When it was Gygax and Kuntz doing their thing in Wisconsin? Yeah. It had worldbuilding, but not as much roleplaying as modern players would define it. It was also more adversarial between the GM and players.
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Backspacehacker wrote: PL in 40k is possible the WORST way to balance because it just opened up all the equipment slots to be ridiculous.
Yup. The difference in damage potential between a Harlequin troupe with all fusion pistols or all shuriken pistols can be immense.
I always use the example of rubrics, 10 rubrics is 14 PL, they can all take warp flamers which are 15 points a pop. thats 150 points, or roughly an additional 7.5 PL for free.
3 Crisis Suits each equipped with 1 burst cannon is 9 PL. Each suit can swap out that single burst cannon for 3 burst cannons plus a support system for zero PL increase. Triple the killing power for the same PL cost.
For me balance is basically a venn diagram. The first circle is every unit across every faction in 40k. The second is "units you'd expect to see going a reasonable distance in a competitive tournament". And the more units that are in the second, the more balanced the game is going to be.
Things not being as good in meta A as in meta B is not a balance issue. Because meta A could change to meta B if player C in meta A decides to change their build, their faction, or whatever. Or a new player joins the group which alters the games that comprise meta A
So we do disagree.
Your definition of balance picks a meta - "the competitive tournament" (call it Meta A) - and says "things that are balanced here are balanced everywhere", whilst many players (arguably a majority of players) play casual games in Metas B-Z, each letter representing their own local scene.
The problem is that people don't always play tournament lists. A Leman Russ Tank Company may take you far in a tournament if you spend your last 500 points on 100 infantry models, but a "fluffy" Leman Russ Tank company with 20 models in 2 Chimeras may be garbage.
So you could reasonably expect to go far in a tournament with a Leman Russ Tank Company - it's "balanced" by your definition. But a casual version of the list, swapping out some of what makes the list strong in favor of some fluffy choices - can make it crap.
In meta V, though, more than 4 Leman Russes may be an absolute terror that no one can overcome (maybe the heaviest other vehicles are Vypers or something). Meaning now they are really good!
I myself have been a victim of just this, moving from a meta where Superheavy tanks were generally okay to play against (as people were comfortable with their strengths and weaknesses) and then I moved to a meta where 3 superheavies in an army actually caused arguments and player strife and I had to find an alternative army to play if I reliably wanted games.
And Superheavy tanks were not balanced for tournaments at all, so we have:
1 meta where superheavies were trash and needed a buff (tournaments)
1 meta where superheavies were fine (my starting location)
1 meta where superheavies literally caused strain on the community with their brokenness (where I moved to)
Balance can never happen in the real world with your "meta A-Z" example. Because as you said, in competitive meta, Leman russes might be balanced, but in Meta Z, where nobody brings any anti-tank weapons they might be god level.
So with that in mind, the best possible way to balance the game is by balancing the competitive meta so that everyone can base there "meta" off this version.
The problem I have with this meta is that the guys who are writing the balance updates are....terrible.
So you would balance off of the tournament players (Meta A) just because?
I would balance off the narrative players (Meta Q) at the same event, because they have tons of attendance and are more likely to have interactions in tune with casual, non-competitive play.
SemperMortis wrote:Balance can never happen in the real world with your "meta A-Z" example. Because as you said, in competitive meta, Leman russes might be balanced, but in Meta Z, where nobody brings any anti-tank weapons they might be god level.
So with that in mind, the best possible way to balance the game is by balancing the competitive meta so that everyone can base there "meta" off this version.
The problem I have with this meta is that the guys who are writing the balance updates are....terrible.
Unit1126PLL wrote:So you would balance off of the tournament players (Meta A) just because?
I would balance off the narrative players (Meta Q) at the same event, because they have tons of attendance and are more likely to have interactions in tune with casual, non-competitive play.
Just as I wrote above, "my fun trumps your fun" is not, by any means, an objective approach to balance.
Earlier in this thread there was a question raised about "why casual/narrative players want to regulate how I have my tournament oriented fun". The above is a good answer to that question.
SemperMortis wrote:Balance can never happen in the real world with your "meta A-Z" example. Because as you said, in competitive meta, Leman russes might be balanced, but in Meta Z, where nobody brings any anti-tank weapons they might be god level.
So with that in mind, the best possible way to balance the game is by balancing the competitive meta so that everyone can base there "meta" off this version.
The problem I have with this meta is that the guys who are writing the balance updates are....terrible.
Unit1126PLL wrote:So you would balance off of the tournament players (Meta A) just because?
I would balance off the narrative players (Meta Q) at the same event, because they have tons of attendance and are more likely to have interactions in tune with casual, non-competitive play.
Just as I wrote above, "my fun trumps your fun" is not, by any means, an objective approach to balance.
Earlier in this thread there was a question raised about "why casual/narrative players want to regulate how I have my tournament oriented fun". The above is a good answer to that question.
Unless I am reading you wrong, are you actually saying that you do think that your fun trumps someone else's fun?
I am trying to figure out why we should "balance" armies for casual games instead of competitive games. What does casual mean? What are the casual players worried about when there are balance adjustments made due to tourney play?
So an over-powered unit or interaction should be preserved so that casual gamers can use it in their games? Is it that casual players want powerful combos/rules/units to be preserved for them?
Player skill absolutely factors in, but if it is over-powered on a top table then its going to be overpowered in a pickup game.
It seems that a big part of the balance problem comes from an expectation or desire for varied forces to be fairly equal in any encounter, which is pretty unrealistic. To reduce the chances of 'imbalance', GW has chosen to make victory conditions and battlefield layouts very similar to each other. This may allow players to reign in variables that might adversely affect their army, but it creates a rather dull gaming environment to me. Balancing a random game by this method is virtually impossible even when cutting down scenario variables, and most of the flavor is washed away with it.
This is a gross extension of the 'take all comers' philosophy whereas one plays the same force regardless of opponent or situation. We've always tailored our forces for individual games against known opponents. Some will cry 'list tailoring is unfair' but if both sides do it it isn't.
Generally we decide on or randomly generate a battle a week in advance to determine what armies are playing what scenario, the terrain type and its density. We often have a third party set up terrain but it isn't necessary. Both sides bring what they believe are the appropriate units to achieve victory.
We have charts for asymmetric forces in attack/defend scenarios where the defender has a reduced force but maybe has defensive obstacles. In those, we state the points the defender is allotted and then have players make a secret bid on how many points they think they need to win the scenario. The lower bid gets to attack.
This kind of battle would be very difficult to create on the fly with preset army lists. It wouldn't be fair nor would it make much sense, but these kind of scenarios are great fun when done well. This does require a collection that is larger than typically expected battle sizes, so it's not for everybody.
Not everyone can arrange to play this way, but the tangent advocating power levels over points sound more like a resignation than a solution to the balance issue. If points aren't effective, by extension power levels are less so.
Admittedly, we've long since altered GW's point values to reflect what we think is a more equitable standard, but even the most precise values attributed to a units worth will fail if one thinks somehow points alone can magically balance a game. Points are just the foundation, but if that foundation is way off balance is very difficult to achieve.
But a special forces team bringing speed boats, harpoons and scuba gear to a fight in the desert will never - and should never win an encounter with an appropriately outfitted enemy.
Player skill absolutely factors in, but if it is over-powered on a top table then its going to be overpowered in a pickup game.
Just read into the Mawloc example above.
I read your Mawloc example. Admitting that I took a break in 7th and only have the context that you presented, they should balance the unit to what it does at a competitive level. Yes, the makeup of your meta might be different, but GW should balance to what they see in competitive games. If you are a "narrative" player seemingly in control over what your opponent brings (through mutual agreement/moral suasion) then you have created a hothouse meta reliant on that control. GW can't know about the controls that you have placed on yourselves.
Are you a narrative player that is also very concerned about the points? Why are narrative players worried about "nerfs" to their armies?
Tyran wrote: You cannot balance for list tailoring.
Points have to be made for tournament play, and that means that some units will underperform (or overperfom) in casual meta with known oponents, and there is no real way around that issue.
That's only the case if you take the approach that army lists must be made in a total vacuum, unrelated to any knowledge about what your opponent might bring. Doesn't that seem odd on the face of it? That the composition of an army has absolutely nothing to do with who it'll be fighting, or the terrain it'll be fighting on?
There is a real way around that issue, and it's to embrace 'list tailoring' by way of official mechanics- be it sideboard, partial deployment, or free-form summoning like what Warcaster is apparently doing. It might even be easier to balance the game without having to worry about a unit being either worthless or OP entirely depending on matchup.
There are many things that are fine at top tables that are absolutely bonkers anywhere else, but because they are fine on top tables its hand waived as fine.
At this point, the only way I'd ever play 40k again is in a group that cooperatively builds lists together with the goal of having an engaging and fun game for everyone as opposed to treating it like a sporting contest.
I acknowledge that such groups exist though here in the states those groups are rare and hard to find and work has to be done to build them (and you may go through a painful process of gamer politics if you are doing so in public) - but are much easier to find over in Europe where gaming clubs center around the experience for both players as opposed to a sporting contest where its competitive-only.
TangoTwoBravo wrote: Why are narrative players worried about "nerfs" to their armies?
Because we don't like being 'd over rules wise by GW anymore than you tourney players do?
Crusade, for ex,, is narrative. But unless some rules change indicates which of the 3 ways to play it applies to (such as the new flyer restriction), it applies to us as well.
Tyel wrote: I think you guys are making the perfect the enemy of the good.
Yes - the amount of terrain on a table will impact the wider meta of units. But "Dudesman with a rocket launcher" can be compared against other "Elfman with a Lascannon", or "Fishman with a multimelta" - either in codex, or across codex. And if he's significantly off the pace, he's probably bad, and should have his points changed so he isn't.
You might get a game where *all* anti-tank is weak versus armour, and this encourages an armour meta. But in that case all anti-tank should be buffed (or all armour nerfed).
In theory the amount of terrain on different tables would favour certain armies. Yes. But that's again, not a huge problem - it just means you'd have a slightly divergent meta depending on the terrain you may encounter. Frankly if points were close enough that this was the main kicker, I think it would be hard not to think 40k was actually a fairly balanced game.
I think the "understanding gap" is that some of us are trying to explain that if "dudesman wiht a rocket launcher", "elfman with a lascannon", and "fishman with a multimelta" are considered to be "off pace", thereby encouraging an armor meta, and we adjust their points costs to compensate (presumably by cutting their cost), you aren't successfully balancing the game, you're essentially just pushing some sliders to the point that the armor meta is no longer viable and in the process you create the horde meta where your opponent seeks to overwhelm you with lots of small guys that devalue the anti-armor weapons. In response to that, people complain that hordes of regular infantry are too powerful, so either their points costs need to be brought up or anti infantry weapons made more effective, or hey maybe we need to drop the price on tanks to try to encourage people to field them again as an effective anti-infantry deterrent. And then when you make that adjustment, the meta shifts again and you're stuck in another "what adjustment do I need to make to resolve this" scenario. Its ouroboros endlessly chasing its tail, you will never have "balance" by pushing points around, because all you are doing by changing points within an asymmetric game construct is encouraging something to be fielded at the expense of something else.
"Balance" only exists within the context of the game as it exists in the moment. Not just in terms of things like terrain layout and mission design of a specific game, but in terms of the broader meta as well. Meta itself is a function of emergent gameplay and is defined and shaped by the points system taken in conjunction with accepted gameplay norms (i.e. the commonly used mission designs and terrain layouts, etc). The rules and game mechanics are designed to provide a certain gameplay experience, but it is the points system (or other balance/shaping mechanisms) and gameplay norms which truly produce the meta which may or may not align with the experience intended. In effect, "meta" is more or less synonymous with "dominant gameplay experience", though it is best to think of a meta as being a "spectrum" of gameplay experiences rather than as a fixed and finite point - when you have an "armor meta" this does not mean that other metas do not or cannot exist alongside it, only that the points system and gameplay norms have heavily favored a specific experience and with it a dominant playstyle. The moment you change the gameplay norms or the points system, you change the meta - this could mean that armor is more or less dominant within the existing armor meta or that the meta shifts away from armor entirely towards shooting or melee or something else. When you change the meta, no matter if it is a shift within the existing meta (i.e. shifting the dominance of armor but keeping the armor meta otherwise intact) or towards a new meta, you change the context within which balance exists and thus you change what is considered balanced in the process - as such "balance" is not a fixed reference point, but a moving target. This is, I think, where some of those in the discussion are struggling, where they assume that balance is a fixed point where everything is essentially equally capable, etc. and that it will never change.. But it is not.
I think a lot of people get tripped up here. When people think of balance on a macro scale, they do so within the context of the current dominant meta, which exists within the context of a dominant meta "spectrum", i.e. armor vs infantry, or armor vs hordes, or armor vs anti-armor, or armor vs whatever. One of these spectrums will always be dominant, and that is often the crux around which discussions of balance exists. When a points change is made to try to balance this meta, what you are essentially doing is moving a slider on that spectrum, but what happens when you approach the "balance point" of that spectrum is that the existing dominant spectrum becomes no longer dominant and a different spectrum rises to take its place. In practice, this could mean a shift from armor vs infantry to armor vs anti-armor, or it could be a shift from armor vs infantry to melee vs shooting. What the shift is is largely irrelevant, what mainly matters is that your meta has changed, and as such you have a new gameplay experience with a new concept of what balance looks like, and what could have been perceived as overpowered before is now suddenly underpowered because the game itself is being played differently.
On a micro scale, things get a little more complicated because considerations about whether a specific unit is balanced exist not just within the context of the meta (i.e. "external balance") but also within the context of the army in which they exist (i.e. "internal balance"), but otherwise much of the same considerations apply. In general, our understanding of any given factions playstyle is primarily driven by points costs - we define armies in which infantry are relatively cheap and everything else relatively expensive as being infantry heavy, and armies in which vehicles are relatively cheap and everything else relatively expensive as being vehicle heavy, etc. Our discussions about balancing these armies within the context of the meta generally revolve around how we perceive these armies should play based on the playstyles defined by their points costs (though sometimes we think the playstyle is wrong and argue points adjustments based on a different set of viewpoints, for example those that want balance changes made to orks to make them an infantry horde vs the current popularity of speedwaagh), as such we perceive the balance of a given unit within an army, and indeed internal balance as a whole, to be based on the role a unit is intended to fulfill. Using Orks as an example, if we accept speedwaagh as being the faction playstyle de jure, then we will be discussing what points costs of things like buggies and boyz are within the context of an internal balance that sees buggies as the core of the army and boyz as a supporting function - this would mean buggies are relatively cheap compared to boyz being relatively expensive, with the "relative" part meaning "in relation to the meta" - presumably with a goal of a 50% faction winrate. On the other hand if green tide is the playstyle de jure then we would want to see boyz as being relatively cheap and bugggies as relatively expensive instead, with boyz forming the core and buggies serving as the supporting function. Cutting to the chase and assuming a 50% winrate in both scenarios and pulling numbers out of a hat because I'm too lazy to check actual costs, within the context of speedwaagh we might consider 50 point buggies and 10 point boyz as being balanced, but 60 point buggies and 8 point boyz as being unbalanced, whereas in the context of the green tide the reverse might be true. In other words, the points costs at which we perceive these two units as being "balanced" can differ wildly depending on the context within we are discussing them in.
Generally speaking, points changes can be made to a specific unit in isolation (meaning you are only adjusting points for one specific unit and nothing else, this is a rarity as most points adjustments come as part of a package of changes across one or more factions, which is a huge problem) without impacting the meta. Even if it did impact the meta (for example, a squad of 5 tempestus scions with 2 meltaguns goes from 65 points to 20 points), you would generally think of this in terms of a balance issue within the context of the existing meta rather than as redefining the meta (if on the other hand every army had similarly cheap access to close range anti tank weaponry, the game would shift to being played heavily by large amounts of infantry with armor being only a supporting function). On the other hand, those points changes within the context of internal balance will result in certain units being more or less commonly fielded than others. This in turn impacts our perception of the roles that various units fill within an army and what our perception of "balance" within the army looks like (as demonstrated previously) and more dramatically, can redefine an entire armies playstyle - if you had a green tide army with 60 point buggies and 8 point boyz, and you dropped buggies to 40 points instead while keeping boyz at 8, you might suddenly see the army playstyle shift to speedwaagh instead of green tide, for instance. In essence, just like how at the macro scale changing points of certain types or categories of units changes the meta/external balance situation and redefines our understanding of what the "balance point" is for how we perceive the game should be played, at the micro scale changing points of a specific unit does the same within the context of the army/internal balance situation and redefines our understanding of what the "balance point" is for how we perceive a specific faction should be played. As changes on the macro scale impact the micro (making anti-infantry weapons cheaper across the board will force factions that are infantry heavy to rely more heavily on vehicles, thereby altering playstyles and internal balance considerations), changes to the micro impact the macro (by changing points for a specific unit in a specific army to make the faction more/less competitive you change the relationship of that faction to all the others and in turn the relationships between those factions directly - by lowering the win rate from one faction from 60% to 48% you are in turn going to alter the win rates for every other faction in the game, and not always proportionally as those changing win rates will result in certain factions becoming more/less common which further impacts win rates and faction popularity, etc. until a new meta settles in).
Another factor that we haven't touched on is that the intended gameplay experience and the emergent gameplay experience are not always synonymous. What the playerbase considers to be balanced is defined by the meta, but what a designer would considers to be "balanced" is defined by what they intended players to experience when playing the game. When these two things differ, the designer either has to acquiesce and accept the experience as it exists or make adjustments to drive the experience towards the parameters of the design. If the emergent experience is well-ingrained within the collective consciousness of the community while the designer is trying to push towards a different experience, this can result in a sort of cognitive dissonance where players attempt to continue playing to the experience that they are familiar with even while they are being encouraged to play differently. In such cases, a players perception of "balance" is being colored heavily by what is essentially an "aberrant" play construct, which potentially results in perception that the game is more/less balanced than it might otherwise be. This divide can also exist within a game community wholly within the context of the emergent experience, independent of the designer. To an extent this is where the divide between the casual/competitive community comes from, as both communities have differing (and competing) perceptions of what gameplay and balance should look like (one/both/neither of which may be what the design studio intended) and the adjustments being made to the game may or may not drive the game state towards a result that differs from that perception.
Long story short, its entirely subjective and constantly changing, you're not going to get there by increasing granularity and changing points (unless you make every table and mission and terrain piece exactly identical to remove any variance/data jitter, at which point you have a board game) to try to get a better approximation, but you can get there by losing granularity and doing away with listbuilding to put more control into the hands of the player ala Warcaster. A less granular system is better able to account in variation in effectiveness based on opponent and terrain, whereas the more granular system is going to rely on a lot more assumptions on both in order to produce a number determined to be a "closer" estimate of the units "average" effectiveness within the designers playtest construct/idealized environment. By eliminating listbuilding (and freeing the game from the constriction of ITC mission packets and terrain layouts) and allowing players to field varying lists on the fly in response to changing context (preferably "as the game evolves") you'll get much closer to balance by giving players a reason to take units with niche application or situational utility instead of relying on fielding things which are considered optimal under all scenarios.
Points work because you just need to be close enough. If a unit *should* be 100 points - its not going to break the game if its 95 or 105. Sure competitive players will stuff their lists with the units at 95 - but someone taking a few 105 units isn't throwing the game. The problem is that GW usually end up with units that *should* cost 100 points being 80 or 120. And that sort of gap means someone stuffing 80 point units in their list gets 100-200 points up, and can therefore bring whole extra units - which makes a massive difference.
If a unit *should* be 100 points but is costed at 95 or 105 instead without breaking the game, then playing the same unit at PL5 isn't going to break the game either.
It's on an ouroboros if you overcorrect when you change pts costs, otherwise, both vehicles and infantry will be viable as you reach a decent cost. If a unit is worth 3,5 PL then how do you balance it in PL? You don't because PL is gak, any change for a unit with a PL of less than 10 will almost inevitably be gak. Now you're trying to get rules changed because your gak pts system cannot balance low-value units or upgrades, so now a plasma gun cannot be any better than a lasgun and Guardsmen have to become BS2+ to account for their current PL. Pts could be changed 4,5 or 4,237 per model if GW wasn't so enamoured with simple PL.
To further expand on why you should balance via Competitive meta rather than the aforementioned Meta A-Z or whatever you wish to describe it as, its because local metas will favor whatever you happen to own rather than the extent of a factions power. I made up an example of leman Ruses being balanced in Competitive play (Not a real life example calm down IG players ) and being broken in one of the meta's because nobody in that Meta brings anti-tank. So lets correct for it. if we use Meta A-Z or whichever to justify nerfing Leman russes because Players in that meta don't want to bring or don't own anti-tank, well than all you have done is correct a single problem within a single meta, while simultaneously nerfing a competitive option or even an ok option into the ground. It doesn't make any sense. especially since you aren't playing competitively which means you could have just approved said IG player and politely informed them "Sorry IG Player, I don't own/Didn't bring any Anti-tank options, would you mind toning down your list to not be armor heavy? Thanks"
Look at that, I just fixed Meta A-Z's problem with Leman Russes by simply using common sense rather than forcing a ham fisted game company to make changes which will impact everyone, usually in a negative manner.
The biggest problem with this correction method is as I said, the GW rules writers are inherently biased towards their faction, units, codex etc. And sadly a lot of factions don't get equal representation in the rules writing realm which leaves them broken. Either as OP or as utter garbage. And worse, the competitive meta players, when faced with something new, will tend to cry nerf instead of having to adjust their lists to deal with the "new" problem.
The GT where orkz tabled the DE player for the championship, the ork player brought a speedwaaagh, the DE Player had little to no Anti-tank weapons and was relying rather heavily on his S7 and below CC weapons to do multiple dmg to his targets, this worked really well, right up until he ran into a Speed Freakz ork player who had Ramshackle (-1dmg to S7 and below) on all his vehicles. DE player bum rushed Orkz, got into Dakkarange of basically everything, failed his charges and then got wiped out. Based almost exclusively on that 1 event GW pushed out an immediate nerf to flyers and Ork buggies. Keep in mind, DE had been sitting comfortably with a 60%+ W/L ratio in GTs and had been walking away with multiple top 4 finishes in each event for months with no mention of a nerf.
So yes, GW absolutely makes stuff up as they go along. They listen to those screaming loudest and longest and as a result we don't really get a balance as much as a select few players/testers getting their way.
Unit1126PLL wrote: Essentially you have put it on the players to balance the game, which I thought had already been debunked multiple times?
Or are we back to "gw can feth up as often as they want, it's the player's fault for unfun games"
GW "WILL" feth up as often as possible, and with that said in Non-competitive play it is in fact the players fault for "unfun" games. Eldar/Necrons/Tau/Marines were busted in 7th. They were OP to the most ridiculous levels possible, Eldar could legitimately blindly pick units and come out with a very strong list. Against that level of shenanigans I still had fun playing my Orkz against those people. Keep in mind in 7th Orkz were arguably the worst codex in the game. I just let my opponents know in advance to tone their lists down and if they said "no" i just chose not to play them because it would be a slaughter otherwise.
2 or more things can be right at the same time, in this case its that competitive balance is likely the best balance, that GW doesn't do a good job with this, and that non-competitive players can actively influence the level of fun they have by simply talking with their opponents before hand.
The difference of course is GW could not feth up balance. Balancing around competitive play still feths up balance for the casual players. That's the discussion.
The discussion in this thread reminded me of a piece written by The Maker, Rick Priestley, in the pages of Wargames, Soldiers and Strategy magazine issue 71 (2013). In it he talks about how most of his gaming is scenario-based these days. Points only come up when he's going to a tournament which isn't all that often. in the most relevant section he talks about how points values are tied to the scenario:
So where do points values come into all that? Well, army lists and points values are a great way of working out forces if you know how the scenario will affect the basic utility of the different elements. To put it another way, if the tabletop is six feet by four, if the deployment is 'line 'em up and go', if the terrain falls within certain narrow limits, and if you know what the victory conditions are - then it's possible to work out points values that have some broad credibilty. You will know how useful or how valuable certain kinds of troops will be within the context of the game. Points values make perfect sense if we are talking about a very limited type of confrontational scenario. However, points values make almost no sense if you take armies into radically different kinds of situations. To give a few obvious examples, if a battlefield is impassable to heavy armoured vehicles then the value of tanks is going to be reduced considerably, if the battlefield is very small or very large, then the value of long range weapons is lessened or enhanced respectively, if the objectives set for the armies require positions to be taken by infantry then this affects the effective utility - and hence the value - of infantry/non-infantry units. Simply put- in different situations the value of units will also be different.
It doesn't take a genius to see that the combination of fixed points values and scenarios designed for points balanced armies creates a kind of circular self-sustaining mind-set. For points to be 'balanced' the scenario must fall within very narrow limits. Once those narrow limits are accepted as a standard, the exact points value of a unit becomes a critical factor in picking an effective army. Thus the structured army lists encourage players to adopt the same narrow parameters for scenarios time after time, and focuses players' minds on the cost/competitiveness of units within those parameters. It is wargaming - it is perhaps one of the most popular and enduring kinds of wargaming - but it isn't the be all and end all of what a wargame can be. For one thing, it has absolutely no reference to history or actual warfare. In real war fairness and balance of outcome are things to positively avoided where possible! It is also an approach strongly focussed on the one-on-one game - a kind of toy soldier equivalent of chess - in which the wargame is seen as a kind of intellectual match between two individuals. That kind of game might suit some players - perhaps a pair of regular opponents of comparable aptitude - but it works less well for games between multiple players, teams or games between experienced players and novices.
I think he's spot on when talking about the homogenization of the competitive side of the game. We've seen this play out since 5th when terrain became a more significant part of the game because TLOS was introduced. It took a while for tournament tables to catch up from the abstracted terrain concepts of 4th to the LOS-blocking requirements of 5th. Back then there was a lot of gnashing of teeth about the relative balance between melee and shooting. When the 5th edition guard codex brought the leafblower to tables, this contrast was brought into high relief. It was around this time when GW told us we weren't using enough terrain to break up LOS as indicated in the 5th ed rulebook with its 25% rule. TOs began to adapt and standardize terrain layouts and also standardize objectives beyond the three basic mission in the BRB at that time. This process continued in 6th when GW introduced secondaries like Slay the Warlord and Linebreaker.
So now with the ascendancy of the ITC we have a uniform competitive environment in which to evaluate the utility of units so in theory balance should be better, but only in that ITC context. Which, I think, it what the casual vs competitive debate is all about.
TangoTwoBravo wrote: Why are narrative players worried about "nerfs" to their armies?
Because we don't like being 'd over rules wise by GW anymore than you tourney players do?
Crusade, for ex,, is narrative. But unless some rules change indicates which of the 3 ways to play it applies to (such as the new flyer restriction), it applies to us as well.
Fair point, but the 40K Balance Dataslate states that the Flyer restriction is a Universal Matched Play rule.
There is nothing stopping two players agreeing to ignore restrictions or apply their own, except each other. Two hard-core Narrative players can do what they want as long as they share a common vision, or at least can agree on a workable compromise. That's usually the rub. I can have great narrative games with my son on our basement table. Showing up at the FLGS on Saturday and wanting my super cool story of the plucky Inquisitor fighting his way out of an ambush on the Governor (who was actually a Demon!)? Nope - Matched Play GT2022 and get playing!
I still struggle to understand why so-called Casual players worry about nerfs to their armies? So they lose Core on their Talos. They are now less effective. So? They are Casual.
The difference of course is GW could not feth up balance. Balancing around competitive play still feths up balance for the casual players. That's the discussion.
Except it doesn't....Rules are rather strictly enforced in tournament/competitive play. There is literally nothing stopping you from talking to your opponent before a game and asking for rules exceptions. "I have 3 Burna Bommers, you ok with me taking all 3?". The only "Feth up" is points, but that is fethed up on both sides by GW not being able to write coherently and or intelligently price things. Case and point, Nobody....literally nobody is taking the Stompa in competitive play, they gave it a 200+ point drop since 8th and still nobody plays it. Is that because competitive play? is that because casual play? Nope, its because GW sucks at writing points costs/rules often
The difference of course is GW could not feth up balance. Balancing around competitive play still feths up balance for the casual players. That's the discussion.
The goal of casual players is not to win when they build lists and some don't even play to win, how do you get any data from that? If GW sees that nobody is taking X unit in competitive play they can buff that unit, the only players taking the unit is casual players, casual players benefit from GW improving competitive balance.
Depends on how you are defining casual. Casual, much like tournament player, cannot be boxed into the same attributes.
Casuals that don't care about outcome and just go to socialize and pew pew and roll dice likely don't care about rule changes.
The same can be said about tournament players that also go to tournaments for pew pew and socializing and rolling dice and not caring about the outcome though.
Except it doesn't....Rules are rather strictly enforced in tournament/competitive play. There is literally nothing stopping you from talking to your opponent before a game and asking for rules exceptions
This is also largely true. But also largely ineffective from my experience because you are asking to house rule the game, so that will depend on who you are talking to. I am not used to very many 40k players at all being open to this, and some will get downright hostile and aggressive if you suggest house ruling in any way or deviating from whatever is official rules in any way.
casual players benefit from GW improving competitive balance.
Also very true and I agree. But for me at least thats never been an argument, its more the statement "that thing is fine at the top tables so fine overall" when it absolutely runs rough shod over narrative campaign nights unless the players are also rocking top table ITC builds.
The difference of course is GW could not feth up balance. Balancing around competitive play still feths up balance for the casual players. That's the discussion.
The goal of casual players is not to win when they build lists and some don't even play to win, how do you get any data from that? If GW sees that nobody is taking X unit in competitive play they can buff that unit, the only players taking the unit is casual players, casual players benefit from GW improving competitive balance.
Kind of hinting at it. But you absolutely have those WAAC, TFG players who only play casually and show up with meta net lists against Johns fluffy Tau Fire warrior list etc
I personally knew of a few guys who would Table their opponents in casual games running meta lists, the worst offender was a Triptide player and a Scatbike player in 7th that I knew. The two of them NEVER went to tournaments though. Why? because they honestly sucked at the game and would routinely make basic mistakes. That type will ruin the fun for casual players and give a bad name to competitive players who for some reason are judged by a WAAC/TFG player bringing a net list to a casual pickup game.
Without multiquotes, as it would be too tedious this time to manage so much references.
@TangoTwoBravo (and to lesser degree @SemperMortis): I couldn't care less for "nerfs" because, as I've repeatedly wrote in this thread, I work with effective values of units within a context of any given matchup/scenario/terrain instead of "god given magical number" that even designer of the game himself tells you makes little to no sense outside of a very narrow context. What I do care about is that this perpetuating myth that "2000pts matched is the only fair way to play and everything else is a powerplay between players to dominate the community" actively drives people away from the game, while at the same time being fundamentally wrong. I've met a lot of ex 40k players, who were driven away by "busted balance" or "cutthroat churn and burn", because there were exactly zero room for any communication between players SemperMortis pointed to as an "obvious and straightforward" method of "solving the local meta problem". Not because this "local meta" was so tournament oriented in the first place, but because everybody has been made to believe and then furiously kept in this false belief by their peers that points are the be-all and end-all way of making the game fair, which then inevitably leads to chasing the white rabbit of meta and you either enjoy this very narrowed approach to 40k, you leave the game entirely, or are fortunate enough to find a group like mine, where the only reasonable approach to balance, as in the quoted above words of the designer of the game himself, is acknowledged and cherished. This in turn sterilises the local meta and leads people to believe, that "tournament attitude" is dominant approach to the game, that tournament players create the biggest share of GW income and that the game should revolve around their needs only, because their needs are the needs of majority. Which couldn't be further from the truth.
@chaos0xomega: I fear that this wall of texts was written in vain, but nevertheless have a well deserved exalt
@Arshbombe: a very good find, but that is just one of the many quotes from prominent designers that gets repeatedly ignored by sworn point balance believers since the times immemorial. As was repeatedly attempted in this thread, no exaggerated nor "IRL" example of where balance through points fails miserably is enough to open some peoples eyes, not even showing them why "good enough" point balance and list building for advantage are mutually exclusive desires.
@Auticus and @thread: this has been indeed a good thread, but I think that we're going in circles for the last couple of pages, so it's the high time for me to stop spending my limited hobby time "allowance" on it. After all, the games won't play themselves and my pile of shame won't assemble and paint itself.
Good day to you all, and till the next, inevitable balance thread in a couple of months. Cheers!
The difference of course is GW could not feth up balance. Balancing around competitive play still feths up balance for the casual players. That's the discussion.
The goal of casual players is not to win when they build lists and some don't even play to win, how do you get any data from that? If GW sees that nobody is taking X unit in competitive play they can buff that unit, the only players taking the unit is casual players, casual players benefit from GW improving competitive balance.
Kind of hinting at it. But you absolutely have those WAAC, TFG players who only play casually and show up with meta net lists against Johns fluffy Tau Fire warrior list etc
I personally knew of a few guys who would Table their opponents in casual games running meta lists, the worst offender was a Triptide player and a Scatbike player in 7th that I knew. The two of them NEVER went to tournaments though. Why? because they honestly sucked at the game and would routinely make basic mistakes. That type will ruin the fun for casual players and give a bad name to competitive players who for some reason are judged by a WAAC/TFG player bringing a net list to a casual pickup game.
It pains me to admit that I know one guy in the local scene who is like that. He takes a screwy and skewed combo and then brings it in to curb stomp people who are not wishing to compete. At best he goes to a single tourney a year, if he bothers at all.
It pains me to admit that I know one guy in the local scene who is like that. He takes a screwy and skewed combo and then brings it in to curb stomp people who are not wishing to compete. At best he goes to a single tourney a year, if he bothers at all.
Never understood that mindset.
The mindset is "I WANT TO WIN!". Which I can understand. The problem is that the person in question generally isn't good at the game or just wants a ridiculous advantage over their opponent so they don't have to worry about who is going to win. Sometimes bad matchups can happen, but when its constant and its the same meta net list you see on FLG and other places then you have to realize...yeah this guy is just in it to win it.
Which btw, There is nothing wrong with! Just make sure your opponent knows before hand. I help friends prep for tournaments, if they ask me to bring a meta ork list I do. And I know going in that my opponent is going to be going balls to the wall. Problem i've seen with TFG/WAAC players is that if you bring your own competitive list against theirs, it typically ends 1 of 3 ways. 1: Them complaining about your list and being a "tryhard". 2: They throwing a tantrum and borderline (sometimes actually) flipping the table or 3: They have a hard fought match and choose not to play against you again regardless of outcome for fear of losing.
Players that bring curb stomp lists to for fun casual games without that type of game being asked for but whom avoid tournament play are usually players that love winning and how it feels to win, but don't like challenges and like to play their games on easy mode. (nothing wrong with playing easy mode, but in the case of tabletop games, the other person may not appreciate you using them to play on easy mode).
That type of player generally doesn't flourish / exist in games where the list isn't as impactful since they are relying on the list to steer them to victory without having to do much thinking (and why they avoid tournaments because they know they will face similar lists but also piloted by players that are actually pretty good and too challenging for what they are after)
So this has been a pretty fascinating discussion to watch unfold - and it's given me a lot to think about.
In particular, the notion that "balance" can really only be understood or sought within the broader context of an individual game and/or format of play. And also that "adjusting balance" by way of changing points or PL is really just shifting around what's optimal within a given context. Something is always going to be meta regardless of how many points you shift around. And thirdly, that balance really needs to be viewed holistically with respect to the army, rather than individual units.
So what then do really wish to achieve with balance? I think are few objectives and specific things we might mean when wanting a more balanced game
(1) That there is a build and a compelling use for any given unit in the codex, such that there no "poor" choices and that what a player has purchased doesn't set them up to loose.
(2) That armies of roughly equal size / points are similarly competitive regardless of how "tuned" or not they are.
Reflecting on where 9th edition is, irrespective of theories about GW's motivations, the problem is that trying to achieve the above with the mechanics employed is working against itself. What do I mean by this?
Part of the 8th/9th design paradigm is, at a basic level, that everything can wound everything. This is because of changes to vehicles and also the wound table (and stat lines). And also with saving throw modifiers. This means that there really isn't as much differentiation between weapons as there used to be. Volume of fire can regularly be substituted for high strength/damage. Weapons lack defined roles - and as such list building hinges ever more around taking the units that maximize raw, calculated damage output.
There's always been an incentive to maximize damage, but there are two things that compound this to the extreme in 9th.
One is that the force organization system means you can basically take whatever units you want with the right type of detachment, so can spam those maximally efficient damage units.
Second is that the default matched play mission set is 95% the same set of mission parameters. Having fixed mission parameters means that lists can be optimized for exactly those parameters in conjunction with maximizing damage output.
One might say that being able to optimize and have a higher degree of control and predictability is GOOD for competitive play. And if everyone is able and willing to build such armies, then you can end up with close games where nuances of tactics can start to matter.
But if your list falls short of this threshold it can be a stomping. Hence many units NOT being competitive or viable in a lot circumstances.
In older 40K editions, both with the way that damage and vehicles worked, force organization, and more diverse missions (especially in say 4th), lists were built around making sure you had tools to deal with specific enemy unit types and certain mission objectives. It was a bit more Rock Paper Scissors-like and you needed all three instruments in a list.
For example, you couldn't mass small arms fire to deal with AV13/14 vehicles - you needed a plan and units for dealing with heavy armor. And those units often were NOT great at dealing with hordes - so you needed other units to cover that need, etc. The fixed FOC also forced everyone into situations where you couldn't easily spam optimal units easily.
The result is that some (better?) level of balance and homogeneity was achieved between armies by virtue of each army needing to fill a certain range of battlefield roles and weapon types. And when funneled through the FOC and point limits there was the potential for more units in a codex to have value in performing a specialist role and a bit more overt clarity in building a modestly competent list that wouldn't get stomped.
All of this then creates a greater opportunity for tactics in how you position units to counter threats - as opposed to everything countering everything like we have in 9th. Lists were less about damage maximization and more about well-roundedness, and you got at more balanced armies that way.
This got way longer than intended! So I'll shut up now.
chaos0xomega wrote: I think a lot of people get tripped up here. When people think of balance on a macro scale, they do so within the context of the current dominant meta, which exists within the context of a dominant meta "spectrum", i.e. armor vs infantry, or armor vs hordes, or armor vs anti-armor, or armor vs whatever. One of these spectrums will always be dominant, and that is often the crux around which discussions of balance exists. When a points change is made to try to balance this meta, what you are essentially doing is moving a slider on that spectrum, but what happens when you approach the "balance point" of that spectrum is that the existing dominant spectrum becomes no longer dominant and a different spectrum rises to take its place. In practice, this could mean a shift from armor vs infantry to armor vs anti-armor, or it could be a shift from armor vs infantry to melee vs shooting. What the shift is is largely irrelevant, what mainly matters is that your meta has changed, and as such you have a new gameplay experience with a new concept of what balance looks like, and what could have been perceived as overpowered before is now suddenly underpowered because the game itself is being played differently.
I think this is the core issue I have with your view.
If the game was balanced then yes - you'd have a meta spectrum, of armour vs infantry, or elites vs hordes, or armour vs anti-tank etc.
Generally speaking though, you don't. Because 40k isn't "balanced" - and therefore the meta is about getting as much points efficiency (i.e. imbalance) into your list as you can.
Its not entirely independent of such considerations - factoring in gatekeeper lists for instance - but by and large the power lists in any given period of 40k are powerful in the context of the game as a whole. If everyone for instance decided they should spam "inefficient tanks" at tournaments, it would change the meta. But we know those tanks are inefficient - so they tend to lose versus efficient lists. And this would continue to be the case. If you look at the top lists in current 40k I'm not sure what archetype as defined above you'd describe it as.
So when we look at buggies and boyz - Buggies aren't popular just because everyone wants to go fast. They are popular because they are (or were pre-nerfs anyway) points efficient. You get a lot of power for your points. Green tide lists by contrast are not popular because Boyz are weak for their points. What works is tested in tournament after tournament. There is perhaps a point that "how" you run Boyz matters. Its possible to imagine a scenario where they were somehow "worth it" as a few 10 man units supporting a Speedwaaagh list - but not packing 150 into your list (although this is not the case at the moment). But again, this seems to speak to things being a lot closer to par than is usually the case.
And what this points to is that there is a sort of "40k standard" around which point totals turn. And if you are getting a lot more for your points, you are going to be overpowered - and the reverse if you get a lot less. And by bringing everything closer to that standard you get a more balanced game.
If the meta is "armour" I can stack anti-tank weapons. The issue is that if you have say "Custodes meta", I usually can't stack anti-Custodes weapons to go beat them. The fact you have that meta is because they've passed through that test already. Something, be it points or rules, has to change.
The goal of casual players is not to win when they build lists and some don't even play to win, how do you get any data from that? If GW sees that nobody is taking X unit in competitive play they can buff that unit, the only players taking the unit is casual players, casual players benefit from GW improving competitive balance.
There are definitely casual players who like to win but can't win games in a competitive setting, so stick to playing with their casual group.
chaos0xomega wrote: I think a lot of people get tripped up here. When people think of balance on a macro scale, they do so within the context of the current dominant meta, which exists within the context of a dominant meta "spectrum", i.e. armor vs infantry, or armor vs hordes, or armor vs anti-armor, or armor vs whatever. One of these spectrums will always be dominant, and that is often the crux around which discussions of balance exists. When a points change is made to try to balance this meta, what you are essentially doing is moving a slider on that spectrum, but what happens when you approach the "balance point" of that spectrum is that the existing dominant spectrum becomes no longer dominant and a different spectrum rises to take its place. In practice, this could mean a shift from armor vs infantry to armor vs anti-armor, or it could be a shift from armor vs infantry to melee vs shooting. What the shift is is largely irrelevant, what mainly matters is that your meta has changed, and as such you have a new gameplay experience with a new concept of what balance looks like, and what could have been perceived as overpowered before is now suddenly underpowered because the game itself is being played differently.
I think this is the core issue I have with your view.
If the game was balanced then yes - you'd have a meta spectrum, of armour vs infantry, or elites vs hordes, or armour vs anti-tank etc.
Generally speaking though, you don't. Because 40k isn't "balanced" - and therefore the meta is about getting as much points efficiency (i.e. imbalance) into your list as you can..
I think you have a disconnect that view because 40k's balance problems are rarely unit types. They're balance problems with a codex as a whole (minus the 'bad units') the issues is rarely armor vs infantry, but 'dark eldar.' Or Harlies or Iron Hands or whatever. The mishmash of bloat rewards specific mixes that a given codex can do in a way that no one else can. And then the next 'winning' book hard counters (or at least challenges) that.
The goal of casual players is not to win when they build lists and some don't even play to win, how do you get any data from that? If GW sees that nobody is taking X unit in competitive play they can buff that unit, the only players taking the unit is casual players, casual players benefit from GW improving competitive balance.
There are definitely casual players who like to win but can't win games in a competitive setting, so stick to playing with their casual group.
Or casual players that play to win but realize that playing in a competitive setting means a lot of money spent chasing after armies every year and having to buy new forces, many that they may not even really enjoy playing.
The goal of casual players is not to win when they build lists and some don't even play to win, how do you get any data from that? If GW sees that nobody is taking X unit in competitive play they can buff that unit, the only players taking the unit is casual players, casual players benefit from GW improving competitive balance.
There are definitely casual players who like to win but can't win games in a competitive setting, so stick to playing with their casual group.
There's also definitely casual players who can win competive games - but don't play in tourneys for whatever reason. Schedules, $, family obligations, no interest in playing in that environment, etc.
ccs wrote: There's also definitely casual players who can win competive games - but don't play in tourneys for whatever reason. Schedules, $, family obligations, no interest in playing in that environment, etc.
Sure, but I'm more talking about the kind of person who avoids tournaments, still netlists, and decries any list that can beat theirs as cheese.
ccs wrote: There's also definitely casual players who can win competive games - but don't play in tourneys for whatever reason. Schedules, $, family obligations, no interest in playing in that environment, etc.
Sure, but I'm more talking about the kind of person who avoids tournaments, still netlists, and decries any list that can beat theirs as cheese.
The term you are looking for us "that guy" best way to deal with them is just not play them. Hell you can play a net list and still have fun with it and it not be broken
Great example of this is in HH if you take guard of the crimson king. You can be a that guy and run cataohractii sehkmet telepathy terminators and get a 3++ invuln, or you could run either another sect/another Terminator suit and not min max cheese it.
Now if a guy runs that kinda list and says oh it's totally not over powered there is not much you can do but avoid them
ccs wrote: There's also definitely casual players who can win competive games - but don't play in tourneys for whatever reason. Schedules, $, family obligations, no interest in playing in that environment, etc.
Sure, but I'm more talking about the kind of person who avoids tournaments, still netlists, and decries any list that can beat theirs as cheese.
The term you are looking for us "that guy" best way to deal with them is just not play them. Hell you can play a net list and still have fun with it and it not be broken
Great example of this is in HH if you take guard of the crimson king. You can be a that guy and run cataohractii sehkmet telepathy terminators and get a 3++ invuln, or you could run either another sect/another Terminator suit and not min max cheese it.
Now if a guy runs that kinda list and says oh it's totally not over powered there is not much you can do but avoid them
"That guy" could mean a lot of things. I describe those players as scrubby, they shy from a challenge.
ccs wrote: There's also definitely casual players who can win competive games - but don't play in tourneys for whatever reason. Schedules, $, family obligations, no interest in playing in that environment, etc.
Sure, but I'm more talking about the kind of person who avoids tournaments, still netlists, and decries any list that can beat theirs as cheese.
The term you are looking for us "that guy" best way to deal with them is just not play them. Hell you can play a net list and still have fun with it and it not be broken
Great example of this is in HH if you take guard of the crimson king. You can be a that guy and run cataohractii sehkmet telepathy terminators and get a 3++ invuln, or you could run either another sect/another Terminator suit and not min max cheese it.
Now if a guy runs that kinda list and says oh it's totally not over powered there is not much you can do but avoid them
"That guy" could mean a lot of things. I describe those players as scrubby, they shy from a challenge.
It's not the challenge I'm declining.
There's nothing out there list-wise that I can't beat or at least have a decent game against.
But life's too short to waste time playing with some of the assholez pushing models around. Doesn't matter if they're playing the top tier tourney list or a single grot.
The discussion in this thread reminded me of a piece written by The Maker, Rick Priestley, in the pages of Wargames, Soldiers and Strategy magazine issue 71 (2013). In it he talks about how most of his gaming is scenario-based these days. Points only come up when he's going to a tournament which isn't all that often. in the most relevant section he talks about how points values are tied to the scenario:
Spoiler:
So where do points values come into all that? Well, army lists and points values are a great way of working out forces if you know how the scenario will affect the basic utility of the different elements. To put it another way, if the tabletop is six feet by four, if the deployment is 'line 'em up and go', if the terrain falls within certain narrow limits, and if you know what the victory conditions are - then it's possible to work out points values that have some broad credibilty. You will know how useful or how valuable certain kinds of troops will be within the context of the game. Points values make perfect sense if we are talking about a very limited type of confrontational scenario. However, points values make almost no sense if you take armies into radically different kinds of situations. To give a few obvious examples, if a battlefield is impassable to heavy armoured vehicles then the value of tanks is going to be reduced considerably, if the battlefield is very small or very large, then the value of long range weapons is lessened or enhanced respectively, if the objectives set for the armies require positions to be taken by infantry then this affects the effective utility - and hence the value - of infantry/non-infantry units. Simply put- in different situations the value of units will also be different.
It doesn't take a genius to see that the combination of fixed points values and scenarios designed for points balanced armies creates a kind of circular self-sustaining mind-set. For points to be 'balanced' the scenario must fall within very narrow limits. Once those narrow limits are accepted as a standard, the exact points value of a unit becomes a critical factor in picking an effective army. Thus the structured army lists encourage players to adopt the same narrow parameters for scenarios time after time, and focuses players' minds on the cost/competitiveness of units within those parameters. It is wargaming - it is perhaps one of the most popular and enduring kinds of wargaming - but it isn't the be all and end all of what a wargame can be. For one thing, it has absolutely no reference to history or actual warfare. In real war fairness and balance of outcome are things to positively avoided where possible! It is also an approach strongly focussed on the one-on-one game - a kind of toy soldier equivalent of chess - in which the wargame is seen as a kind of intellectual match between two individuals. That kind of game might suit some players - perhaps a pair of regular opponents of comparable aptitude - but it works less well for games between multiple players, teams or games between experienced players and novices.
I think he's spot on when talking about the homogenization of the competitive side of the game.
Spoiler:
We've seen this play out since 5th when terrain became a more significant part of the game because TLOS was introduced. It took a while for tournament tables to catch up from the abstracted terrain concepts of 4th to the LOS-blocking requirements of 5th. Back then there was a lot of gnashing of teeth about the relative balance between melee and shooting. When the 5th edition guard codex brought the leafblower to tables, this contrast was brought into high relief. It was around this time when GW told us we weren't using enough terrain to break up LOS as indicated in the 5th ed rulebook with its 25% rule. TOs began to adapt and standardize terrain layouts and also standardize objectives beyond the three basic mission in the BRB at that time. This process continued in 6th when GW introduced secondaries like Slay the Warlord and Linebreaker.
So now with the ascendancy of the ITC we have a uniform competitive environment in which to evaluate the utility of units so in theory balance should be better, but only in that ITC context. Which, I think, it what the casual vs competitive debate is all about.
It is difficult for me to understand why this passage from Priestley didn't receive more attention here.
In that discussion, there is an implicit fix to all this "balance" business: let the players see the table, understand the mission objectives (together adding up to the "scenario", Priestley's focus) and THEN let them assemble their forces using standard points values according to how useful they feel that the selected units might be in achieving mission goals given tabletop terrain.
If such a process were adopted as standard, there would be no danger of homogenisation due to tourney organisers levelling tables down to standard vanilla cardboard, and no room for endless debates about fairness of points allocations.
GW would be free to assign points as they see fit, ideally with faction specialties in mind e.g. elder grav tanks are reasonably costed because the tech is common for the eldar and so on, while restartes grav tanks should cost an arm and a leg because... well, they shouldn't have them at all but that is beside the point. IFF the above process were accepted, then it would be up tot he players to evaluate usefulness prior to assembling the force and deploying the forces on the tabletop at game time. Yes, this would also reduce the netlisty bs and "deck-buildiness" that I frankly find too card-gamey to embrace as essential to the hobby. It may also move talk of the "meta" to discussions about which units are useful in different contexts, so we would expect fewer fixed points to emerge due to standardisation while rewarding actual tactical play, adapting to context, knowing how to command one's forces, and so on... indeed, put the war back in the wargame.
Maybe I have missed something, but... has this idea come up already?
So, in summary, the process would look like this:
1) Along with opponent select mission, establish board setting and terrain. Optional depending on mission would be to place objective markers and so on.
2) Afford each player say 15 minutes to assemble forces and calculate points - should encourage a WYSIWYG model collection with fixed profiles and standard GW points for units to make calculation quick and easy as forces are assembled in full view of terrain and mission objectives.
3) Deploy forces.
4) Optional depending on scenario, place objective markers and so on e.g. if the mission is to recover something but the location of that thing is not known exactly prior to force deployment because someone on the ground must locate it or something like that...
5) Game on, command and deal with the consequences of unit selection, exposing perhaps limitations in model collection (ideally, again, WYSIWYG) thereby motivating new purchases, conversions, etc., in order to build out that collection in preparation for similar scenarios in the future.
Additional comment re tourney play: seems that if people see the mission pack, and with it the table top layouts prior to the tourney, then they may assemble their forces prior to the tourney, submit army lists for inspection by organisers and so on. IFF terrain and missions are variable enough, then there should be no two scenarios that reward the same sorts of forces, e.g. one mission will have much impassable terrain so tanks are less useful, one mission will have dense cover limiting effective range of weaponry thereby rewarding h2h type forces and units with short range weapons with lots of overwatch potential, one mission will have cloud cover and smog and other factors that may inhibit effectiveness of weapons that do not require line of sight, one mission might be mostly bare table thereby rewarding a gun line type force while exposing that army to dangers of infiltrators and charges from the side margins, etc...
Malifaux has you assemble your crew after you've drawn you objectives and set up the table etc. Someone mentioned Warcaster lets you bring in units from your collection as the game progresses.
Sim-Life wrote: Malifaux has you assemble your crew after you've drawn you objectives and set up the table etc. Someone mentioned Warcaster lets you bring in units from your collection as the game progresses.
Seems to me that this sort of process would end these sorts of problems, and would improve the game for both casual and for competitive players...
Thoughts?
Sim-Life wrote: Malifaux has you assemble your crew after you've drawn you objectives and set up the table etc. Someone mentioned Warcaster lets you bring in units from your collection as the game progresses.
Seems to me that this sort of process would end these sorts of problems, and would improve the game for both casual and for competitive players...
Thoughts?
I know we often disagree on stuff but warcaster NM has some very interesting features. I've said it in the pp boards but it does feel in some ways to have taken 15 years of lessons from wmh )of what was done right and what wasnt) and applied them to a new, smaller game since due to the size/bloat/inertia of wmh they can't easily be applied there...
There was also some of it in wmh where they had 2 or 3-list formats and an integral sideboard (20% of your lists total could be swapped out). For it to work in gw's space you'd need some changes though. Far less granular points costs and a massive reduction in internal-unit options at a start.
jeff white wrote: one mission will have much impassable terrain so tanks are less useful, one mission will have dense cover limiting effective range of weaponry thereby rewarding h2h type forces and units with short range weapons with lots of overwatch potential, one mission will have cloud cover and smog and other factors that may inhibit effectiveness of weapons that do not require line of sight, one mission might be mostly bare table thereby rewarding a gun line type force while exposing that army to dangers of infiltrators and charges from the side margins, etc...
So my Monolith is useless in mission A and useful in missions B and C, now if I play against someone who doesn't lose the use of any of their units in mission A I'm in trouble, but if I play against someone who does lose use of some of their units in mission A I still have a fine chance. More games will be over as soon as you see the matchup, something that is very negative. People are just going to find units that work in every mission, small Infantry or FLY units that can ignore terrain and quickly get across the table in the case there's not much to hide behind.
Did all the 40k defenders get together and decide to nitpick examples instead of arguing the actual point recently? You understand that in the rule suggested you just bring things INSTEAD of your monolith from ANYTHING you own right? People playing Malifaux don't just take models that ignore terrain for movement and the system works fine there. How can the match up be over before it starts if you write your lists AFTER the scenario and terrain has been decided and you have access to your whole collection of models?
It seems a contraction to say "we want to reduce the impact of listbuilding on winning a game of 40k" and then write up rules so how a list performs will vary dramatically according to the scenario. If people can re-write their lists after rolling the scenario up, you are essentially back where you are now - except people will have multiple pre-written lists based on whether they roll up scenario 1, 2 or 3 etc.
Priestley is right that this is a circle - but "toy soldiers as chess" seems to be what people want. We saw what happened with AoS when this was initially stripped away.
Chain of Command has a core TO&E (your platoon), but you don't choose support for it until you see the terrain and mission type/objectives.
You buy support with (you guessed it) points, which are determined by:
1) scenario (can be anywhere from d6 to 3d6 to a fixed number of support points. Most pickup game scenarios have 1 or 2d6)
2) attacker or defender (3 of the pickup game scenarios are attack/defend, the defender starts out owning the objective but the attacker gets double the support points)
3) platoon rating (core platoon TO&Es can be wildly unbalanced, so there is a platoon rating system. If a crappy platoon rated -7 goes up against an elite airborne platoon rated +8, then the crappy platoon gets 15 points of support plus whatever the scenario dictates).
There is a neat little mini game with supports to, as you keep secret the choices you have made until you place them on the table (except things like minefields or entrenchments or barbed wire; those are placed before the first phase begins).
But the point is that you have a core set of units you MUST work with, and then you can have supports to help you achieve your mission that can be selected once the scenario and mission and terrain are seen.
I like the ideas above about picking forces after the mission is selected and you know what army your opponent is playing.
Another way to do it is that you can have a larger force, say 3,000 points worth of units, with the restriction that players can only have say 1,500 points on the board at a time. The gameplay would shift towards probably having some core / fast attacking force at the initial deploy with then this bigger pool of units can draw from to accomplish the mission or counter your opponent.
Tyel wrote: It seems a contraction to say "we want to reduce the impact of listbuilding on winning a game of 40k" and then write up rules so how a list performs will vary dramatically according to the scenario. If people can re-write their lists after rolling the scenario up, you are essentially back where you are now - except people will have multiple pre-written lists based on whether they roll up scenario 1, 2 or 3 etc.
Priestley is right that this is a circle - but "toy soldiers as chess" seems to be what people want. We saw what happened with AoS when this was initially stripped away.
The lists aren't re-written, they're just written. Also you're nitpicking the suggestion. Presumably players aren't aware of the scenario or variable mission objectives in advance so they have to write up lists on the fly.
Sim-Life wrote: Malifaux has you assemble your crew after you've drawn you objectives and set up the table etc. Someone mentioned Warcaster lets you bring in units from your collection as the game progresses.
Seems to me that this sort of process would end these sorts of problems, and would improve the game for both casual and for competitive players...
Thoughts?
I know we often disagree on stuff but warcaster NM has some very interesting features. I've said it in the pp boards but it does feel in some ways to have taken 15 years of lessons from wmh )of what was done right and what wasnt) and applied them to a new, smaller game since due to the size/bloat/inertia of wmh they can't easily be applied there...
There was also some of it in wmh where they had 2 or 3-list formats and an integral sideboard (20% of your lists total could be swapped out). For it to work in gw's space you'd need some changes though. Far less granular points costs and a massive reduction in internal-unit options at a start.
Yeah a friend and I tried workshopping the WMH multi-list competitive format into a 40k format years ago, but we found it to be unworkable for the reasons you indicated, amongst others.
Tyel wrote: It seems a contraction to say "we want to reduce the impact of listbuilding on winning a game of 40k" and then write up rules so how a list performs will vary dramatically according to the scenario. If people can re-write their lists after rolling the scenario up, you are essentially back where you are now - except people will have multiple pre-written lists based on whether they roll up scenario 1, 2 or 3 etc.
Priestley is right that this is a circle - but "toy soldiers as chess" seems to be what people want. We saw what happened with AoS when this was initially stripped away.
This logic is backwards - if "toy soldiers as chess" is what we want, then there is not a lot of meaningful skill in min-maxing an optimized army list that you will pilot through a 3+ round tournament based on pre-set expectations of what you will encounter. There is a lot of meaningful skill in showing up to a game, looking at the mission, terrain layout, and opponent, and then figuring out what your best options for solving the problems posed by those elements are. In fact, it does reduce the impact of listbuilding, because as it currently stands much of the outcome of a game of 40k currently is dictated by the lists rather than what the players actually do on the table - most competitive lists rely on a skew (something that list does better than a hypothetical opponent) as a trade-off for a weakpoint that the list does not expect to encounter. When you show up to a tournament with 170+ wracks you're expecting to win on the basis that you are skewing your listbuild around the best troops choice in the game, a unit which is highly resilient to damage/very survivable/tough to kill in the current meta which tends to favor fewer higher strength/damage/ap at the expense of volume, while also having a very strong offensive capability that enables them to meaningfully fight and win against most units in the game. When you lose, its because your opponent brings a list that breaks the meta and can put down volumes of offensive output that you were not expecting to see and your list is not able to survive against. With post-table listbuilding however your ability to skew is severely hampered if not eliminated entirely, as your opponent can easily hard-counter your skew once they know what it is you are trying to do (provided they know what they are doing).
^^^^ I was something something along similar lines a while ago.
If the goal for competitive players is "toy soldiers as chess" then one would expect either (a) that it be straightforward to field a top-meta level list such that the power curves of the armies are as close as possible at the start of the game; and/or (b) that all units are similar in terms of their potential impact on the game, thereby diminishing the emphasis on list building.
The problem, again, is that even if we achieve the above (an argument could be made that we're close on (a)), we then face the issue of current 40K just not having a lot of space for meaningful tactical choices. The strategy-tactics layer is pretty darn thin in the current edition. Couple this with the plethora of die roll mitigation (modifiers, re-rolls, etc.) that reduce the chaos/uncertainty of the dice - and it's no surprise that the emphasis of the game is on list building and first turn advantage.
Sadly, to get "toy soldiers as chess" the game needs to have the one thing that chess has in ample supply: depth of tactical decision-making. This is about core rule changes that create tactical choices and tradeoffs beyond "drive straight at the objective and focus fire down the threats" - which is a fairly easy to optimize around (especially with the narrow mission design).
Moreover, if competitive players want "toy soldiers as chess" they should be advocating for more restrictions on list building and force organization - not less. They seem to be saying, "I want to make an whole chess army of Queens because I bought 16 queens and queens are the best!" instead of being willing to entertain a more controlled approach.
The main with issue with the multi-list/sideboard is that you will have to carry around a considerable amount of models to have options. For a 2k game, you will likely need from 3k to 4k worth of models, and that is going to be hell on personal logistics.
Tyran wrote: The only issue is that you will have to carry around a considerable amount of models to have options. For a 2k game, you will likely need from 3k to 4k worth of models, and that is going to be hell on personal logistics.
So? It's up to the individual how much they want to bring.
Tyel wrote: It seems a contraction to say "we want to reduce the impact of listbuilding on winning a game of 40k" and then write up rules so how a list performs will vary dramatically according to the scenario. If people can re-write their lists after rolling the scenario up, you are essentially back where you are now - except people will have multiple pre-written lists based on whether they roll up scenario 1, 2 or 3 etc.
Priestley is right that this is a circle - but "toy soldiers as chess" seems to be what people want. We saw what happened with AoS when this was initially stripped away.
Right now you can play the game by going on the Internet, finding a powerful list, reading up on how to make it work (generally not that complicated), and then execute on the tabletop.
Any system where significant choices need to be made on the fly makes that harder. If the listbuilding/deployment system is designed around choice-and-counter, then you actually need to know the game and the units to decide what to bring, while taking the scenario, your opponent's units, and your existing units all into account. If all you have is a couple of pre-built lists, you're at a disadvantage.
I think where you're getting mixed up is the nature of the complaint about listbuilding. It's true that even with the proposed alternatives, what units you take is still vitally important, and the army selection mechanic would drive the game just as much as listbuilding currently drives it (which is a common complaint). But at least that would be decisions made at the table, not at home on a spreadsheet, with actual interaction with your opponent and the battlefield.
Plus, it'd also help with balance. Skew is less of an issue if you can adjust your forces to hard-counter it, and units with niches too specific to currently be useful in a take-all-comers list might see the light of day in a matchup or scenario that favors them. Balance becomes less about needing everything to perform to the same degree in a vacuum, and more about giving every unit a reason to be taken.
I'd really suggest looking into Chain of Command like Unit mentioned. The support mechanic there is a great way to balance out otherwise imbalanced (and fixed-composition) platoons, and it really does shift the game away from building an uber killer list.
Ok, since the thread took a more constructive turn, there is a room and reason for me to write one more post.
A lot of classic card games incorporate the mechanic of bidding. In terms of 40K this can take two forms. One is a Warcaster-esque simultaneous list building mentioned earlier, that I envision simply as building in chunks of pre-defined size after the scenario is set - first player chooses a chunk, then second player chooses two chunks, then first player chooses two chunks... and then the second player chooses his last chunk. There is equal number of question-answer pairs for each player, so that's fair.
But now a second bidding mechanics we actually use already in our spinoff - during the game, each player can choose to generate any number of side missions (via an action on an objective) out of a quite varied pool (with all achievable for any army we play with). But then, at the end of the game, any of the side missions that has not been achieved is penalised. This creates a very interesting gameplay, with a lot of very meaningful choices, as you have to generate side missions in order to win, but you have to try to predict exactly how the game will unfold. Then on top of that, when we play a campaign, VP difference dictates the bonus in the next encounter, so you must also weight a risk-reward nature of this bidding mechanic in the long term. This can be easily incorporated on the tournament level and with varied enough side mission pool works really well to reduce skew/promote varied army composition.
Tyran wrote: The only issue is that you will have to carry around a considerable amount of models to have options. For a 2k game, you will likely need from 3k to 4k worth of models, and that is going to be hell on personal logistics.
So? It's up to the individual how much they want to bring.
Sim, I am grateful that you took the time to read my suggestion and happy that you find some virtue in it. And, I follow you - in my professional life, I also find that people either do not or cannot read well and comprehend, or read and interpret in such a way as to force an argument where there isn't one (hunting straw men, 24/7/365 SOP style), or maybe just take some time to change their minds, but man, I reject a LOT of papers that simply get things wrong, when those things are clearly and explicitly given in source material, easily accessible with a bit of reflection. The world is an odd place...
Differently from some of the other suggestions, which are good I think especially the Chain of Command thing though I am not familiar with that game at all so I cannot be sure really, my suggestion above would not require any real change in the game rules besides structuring the process by way of which the game is enjoined. Same points, same missions really, all that plus open to spontaneous scenario building at table side. Yes, one would be limited by how many models one might bring and how many models one has in her or his collection, painted and again IDEALLY WYSIWYG, but other than that the game system would not have to change. The points would not have to change.
And yes, countering one poster above, in game A your Monolith might not be useful in a tourney setting, but in the next game it might, or would. "Deck" or list building would still be a thing, because everyone would see all the missions and table layouts prior to the tourney, and choose what they would feel might do best in each setting. Surprise, in such a case, one would not know beforehand which army one would be facing in a given setting, but... good!
As for the suggestion that then everyone would simply take units that fly and so on, well... maybe, sure, but different scenarios should include factors that affect flyers, such as dense cover or sandstorms at altitude or cloud cover or smoke or toxic atmosphere that wrecks turbines anywhere above 10 meters up or atmosphere that is too thin to allow flyers to function well or sky-dragons which are native to the planet and that only ever munch flying machines... anything, really. Actually, imho this whole fly thing is "for the birds" (as we may say in US English, not sure if this idiom translates well into other languages, pun intended). Hovercraft are great, but maybe in cities or heavily forested or other sorts of terrain, fast things should have to slow down or risk a wreck i.e. dangerous terrain for fast and flying vehicles, etc... besides all that, there should be force orgs and - ideally - such versatility of units should be costed in to their points in general. Where not, it would be up to house ruling to limit them or TOs to limit them or to constrain scenarios (sticking close to Priestley here) accordingly.
A generic sideboard mechanic seems interesting and easily accomplished. Compose a core army, share it with the opponent prior to match time. Compose also a side-board of reserves from which a limited number of points may be drawn, ideally VERY limited. Perhaps then roll for mission and set up terrain, then deploy and play as normal. I suppose that a reserves roll may be useful, in order to bring in sideboard units depending on different scenarios, perhaps with he option of entering from a chosen left or right flank table side or maybe deep striking or whatever seems appropriate.
Anyways, the idea with my original proposal was SPECIFICALLY to mitigate complaints about balance and points costs and skew lists and so much else. It just seems to me that by adopting a simple procedural structure, then most of these issues will melt away.
What if (bear with me) an army had to have a certain % of its points in CORE units (say at least 1/3 of the points) and a max of 25% in HQ units. In a 2,000 point game you'd be limited to 500 pts max on HQ and must have at least 667 points in CORE units.
The rest of the point allowance that you have remaining can be spent entirely on side boarded units. There's no limit to what you can put in the sideboard, but when it all adds up you just need to be under 2,000 points.
For tournaments, you'd submit a list that's just your CORE + HQ choices. Everything else gets finalized when it comes time to setup a specific mission.
Obviously, this would require applying CORE across all codexes in a logical manner. But this could also be a way to handle FOCs - namely by just avoiding having to deal with them! Special army-specific stratagems or whatever could also influence what types of units fall into the CORE - so if you want to run white scars or whatever, you'd have more biker/fast attack units in CORE (but I'm assuming other units would then be removed from the CORE list).
Playing around with what's CORE or not, would let people take some different styled lists, but would still give them flexibility in the sideboard for support units.
I think the whole HQ must be x% and troops must be y% ECT ECT can work, but , it requires GW to do one thing they are moving away from.
That is, we need more wargear and unit options.
Gw has basically stripped our all war gear from most units because I'd it's not in the box no go, they need to redo this, look at HH, it's easy to add points to units because of all the stuff you can take. Because if you don't have options like that you will totally end up in a situation where no matter how hard someone tries they can not reach that requiered breaking point for % of troops with out taking another troop choice and then putting them way over the requirement
ccs wrote: It's not the challenge I'm declining.
There's nothing out there list-wise that I can't beat or at least have a decent game against.
But life's too short to waste time playing with some of the assholez pushing models around. Doesn't matter if they're playing the top tier tourney list or a single grot.
You netlist and then complain that anything that can beat you is overpowered? If not, you're not who I'm talking about.
Backspacehacker wrote: I think the whole HQ must be x% and troops must be y% ECT ECT can work, but , it requires GW to do one thing they are moving away from.
That is, we need more wargear and unit options.
Gw has basically stripped our all war gear from most units because I'd it's not in the box no go, they need to redo this, look at HH, it's easy to add points to units because of all the stuff you can take. Because if you don't have options like that you will totally end up in a situation where no matter how hard someone tries they can not reach that requiered breaking point for % of troops with out taking another troop choice and then putting them way over the requirement
I guess that this goes without saying, but has been part of the discussion so far. Yeah, whatever would be done here with sideboards per Mezmorki's suggestion or Unit's or ... 9th is not the edition into which I would be investing my time. I suppose that others might, as all that is necessary is adopting a structured process, but the general idea is that I might be getting caught out with my WYSIWYG autarch with a jump generator on a table filled with difficult terrain such that if he were to use it then I should role a die with the chance that a 6 would wound him, else jump into areas that a likely fire lanes ... drama ensues...
Backspacehacker wrote: I think the whole HQ must be x% and troops must be y% ECT ECT can work, but , it requires GW to do one thing they are moving away from.
That is, we need more wargear and unit options.
Gw has basically stripped our all war gear from most units because I'd it's not in the box no go, they need to redo this, look at HH, it's easy to add points to units because of all the stuff you can take. Because if you don't have options like that you will totally end up in a situation where no matter how hard someone tries they can not reach that requiered breaking point for % of troops with out taking another troop choice and then putting them way over the requirement
There is also the issue that this system can give an advantage to armies with effective troops over armies where the troop options are a "tax". Now, that can itself be fixed so it isn't a system killing issue, but it does still need to be considered.
jeff white wrote: one mission will have much impassable terrain so tanks are less useful, one mission will have dense cover limiting effective range of weaponry thereby rewarding h2h type forces and units with short range weapons with lots of overwatch potential, one mission will have cloud cover and smog and other factors that may inhibit effectiveness of weapons that do not require line of sight, one mission might be mostly bare table thereby rewarding a gun line type force while exposing that army to dangers of infiltrators and charges from the side margins, etc...
So my Monolith is useless in mission A and useful in missions B and C, now if I play against someone who doesn't lose the use of any of their units in mission A I'm in trouble, but if I play against someone who does lose use of some of their units in mission A I still have a fine chance. More games will be over as soon as you see the matchup, something that is very negative. People are just going to find units that work in every mission, small Infantry or FLY units that can ignore terrain and quickly get across the table in the case there's not much to hide behind.
GW has already designed multiple missions across AoS and 40k that work like that and they're universally regarded as the worst missions in their respective packets.
Thats always been the complaint against core / troops. The its not fair because not everyone's troops are garbage / "tax" and some are really good.
And thats true, but the problem is some army's do have a better troop structure than others, so there is really no winning there other than to make TROOP choices equally non optimal in such a system (from a competitive standpoint, from a narrative standpoint, those type of scenarios are fairly common)
Backspacehacker wrote: I think the whole HQ must be x% and troops must be y% ECT ECT can work, but , it requires GW to do one thing they are moving away from.
That is, we need more wargear and unit options.
Gw has basically stripped our all war gear from most units because I'd it's not in the box no go, they need to redo this, look at HH, it's easy to add points to units because of all the stuff you can take. Because if you don't have options like that you will totally end up in a situation where no matter how hard someone tries they can not reach that requiered breaking point for % of troops with out taking another troop choice and then putting them way over the requirement
There is also the issue that this system can give an advantage to armies with effective troops over armies where the troop options are a "tax". Now, that can itself be fixed so it isn't a system killing issue, but it does still need to be considered.
This is actually scratching the surface of the most serious problem with those types of systems.
Do they actually accomplish anything?
What exactly do you gain by forcing armies to be X% HQs, Y% troops? Is it making an army look more like how it would appear in the fluff? Unless you want troops to be 60% of armies and HQs to be less than 10%, I really doubt it accomplishes anything in that regard.
Does it make the game more balanced? Let's say we did go with that 10%, 60%,30% split. Is a Drukhari army made of 60% wracks and wytches any more balanced against an army of 60% battle sisters than current drukhari are against current SoB?
It absolutely is not.
With a very restrictive percentile system, you are reducing the overall power of armies in aggregate, but that's all you're doing. You aren't fixing balance issues, you aren't making the game more fun, you aren't even really making it faster to play. You're just leaving more models on the table at the end of most games. Woo.
Again, chain of command gets around this by giving poor-quality platoons (i.e. the thing you must take mandatorily) a lower rating relative to other platoons. Conversely, higher platoons have a higher rating.
The difference between force ratings factors into how much support you get. So, to translate that into 40k:
All armies must have X% troops. The following ratings apply (for examples):
BAD TROOPS -10
Sororitas, -7
Daemons 0
Space Marines 5
Space Wolves 7
(Don't read into the numbers, I just made them up).
The relationship between those ratings affects how big of a game the player Actually gets to play. So at 2k points, you must bring 500 pts of troops, 25%. But your force rating might be gak (Bad Troops vs Space Marines will be a difference of 15). This gives the Bad Troops player some number of additional points to spend on non-troops, e.g. 150 (if we just multiply by 10) or whatever.
What if (bear with me) an army had to have a certain % of its points in CORE units (say at least 1/3 of the points) and a max of 25% in HQ units. In a 2,000 point game you'd be limited to 500 pts max on HQ and must have at least 667 points in CORE units.
The rest of the point allowance that you have remaining can be spent entirely on side boarded units. There's no limit to what you can put in the sideboard, but when it all adds up you just need to be under 2,000 points.
For tournaments, you'd submit a list that's just your CORE + HQ choices. Everything else gets finalized when it comes time to setup a specific mission.
Obviously, this would require applying CORE across all codexes in a logical manner. But this could also be a way to handle FOCs - namely by just avoiding having to deal with them! Special army-specific stratagems or whatever could also influence what types of units fall into the CORE - so if you want to run white scars or whatever, you'd have more biker/fast attack units in CORE (but I'm assuming other units would then be removed from the CORE list).
Playing around with what's CORE or not, would let people take some different styled lists, but would still give them flexibility in the sideboard for support units.
I think this would make Drukhari even more OP than they are right now.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Unit1126PLL wrote: Again, chain of command gets around this by giving poor-quality platoons (i.e. the thing you must take mandatorily) a lower rating relative to other platoons. Conversely, higher platoons have a higher rating.
The difference between force ratings factors into how much support you get. So, to translate that into 40k:
All armies must have X% troops. The following ratings apply (for examples): BAD TROOPS -10 Sororitas, -7 Daemons 0 Space Marines 5 Space Wolves 7
(Don't read into the numbers, I just made them up).
The relationship between those ratings affects how big of a game the player Actually gets to play. So at 2k points, you must bring 500 pts of troops, 25%. But your force rating might be gak (Bad Troops vs Space Marines will be a difference of 15). This gives the Bad Troops player some number of additional points to spend on non-troops, e.g. 150 (if we just multiply by 10) or whatever.
This just ends up back where we're at now with extra steps.
Not that I don't think that isn't an interesting system, it seems like it accomplishes the you guy's goal of having troops on the table without burdening the army that has to take them. It just has a very limited impact on interfactional balance.
Being forced to bring less of a bad troop than a good troop is still the troops being a tax, it's just a marginal tax rate compared to the games current fixed tax rate.
It doesn't do anything to make troops more worth taking and it has only a very small effect on the balance of the other 3/4ths of the army (i.e. an extra 150pts if your troops are bad), which is plenty of space to find more massive balance issues.
Also, elephant in the room, GW would still be the one making the numbers. We'd end up with Boyz at +5, Battle Sisters at +8, and Wracks at -25.
I was looking back 2nd edition codexes again, and remembering that the system used "Squads" which was basically all the multi-model units. Quite a bit fit within that.
So if the design were to utilize this must have X% CORE units, I'd imagine there'd be a pretty expansive increase in what falls into the CORE bucket.
Mezmorki wrote: Here's the thing .... I said CORE not "Troops."
I was looking back 2nd edition codexes again, and remembering that the system used "Squads" which was basically all the multi-model units. Quite a bit fit within that.
So if the design were to utilize this must have X% CORE units, I'd imagine there'd be a pretty expansive increase in what falls into the CORE bucket.
Aren't most armies already 90% core? Outside of Necrons they basically just gave core to anything vaguely humanoid. Not counting units that aren't actually sisters of battle (i.e. mortifiers, penitent engines, arcos) the only units that don't have CORE in that book already are the tanks and the Characters.
Pretty much the only reason CORE exists at all anymore is to nerf vehicles and stop characters from benefiting from their own reroll auras.
The point is that any of the ideas were discussing are of course going to require reworks to codexes. As I said earlier above - using this CORE idea would require applying some consistent logic to what's core and what isn't. It assumed that would mean changing what's currently designated core or not.
catbarf wrote: I'd really suggest looking into Chain of Command like Unit mentioned. The support mechanic there is a great way to balance out otherwise imbalanced (and fixed-composition) platoons, and it really does shift the game away from building an uber killer list.
From very brief reading - I guess Chain of Command works because both players are picking a Platoon, checking the two against each other and rolling up dice to work out support points - and then, armed with that knowledge, selecting support options?
Which I guess does require more knowledge of the game than purely netlisting - but presumably there would still be the issue that such and such a platoon is over/undervalued, as are X and Y as support options?
Or is it balanced on the quasi-Horus Heresy basis, that "guy with rifle" is basically the same regardless of whether they are British, German, Soviet etc? If heavy machine guns, mortars or light tanks are "efficient" that's fine, because everyone can go and grab one?
Sim-Life wrote: Malifaux has you assemble your crew after you've drawn you objectives and set up the table etc. Someone mentioned Warcaster lets you bring in units from your collection as the game progresses.
Seems to me that this sort of process would end these sorts of problems, and would improve the game for both casual and for competitive players...
Thoughts?
I feel that this is disconnected from both the tourney scene and the pickup scene. Part of the fun, for me at least, is making a decision on my list without all the information knowing that I have to live with that decision for either the one game (pickup) or a whole tourney. I can try to guess the types of lists that I will meet, the sorts of missions and the types of tables, but ultimately I live with my choice that I made before I knew the game. In my Flames of War days I could gamble on expecting to see certain table types (or not see certain types) or try to have a swiss-army-knife. Having to make the decision ahead of time was part of the fun for me, and I think for many others seeing as it is the most common format.
Admittedly, having the set missions takes some of the guess-work out, but you don't necessarily know if you will have all of them or what order they will be in. I've seen a Flames of War tourney try to have an element of support platoons that you could use in certain games after seeing the mission/table, but for most of us it didn't enhance our experience and it was not repeated. Make you list, buckle up your chin strap and live with your decision. I've done Escalation formats in 40K tourneys where you start with a 500 point list and add a set amount for each game but your lists are pre-submitted and you have to build on what you have.
There is also the practical aspect for pickup games. I plan and pack up the models that I intend to play with. Having said that, I do sometimes bring some spare models/other lists in the car in case my pickup opponent has a mirror force to mine or is perhaps looking for a different kind of game. Not everyone is in that boat. Additionally, list-tailoring is generally frowned on unless you are playing "Narrative" or a teaching game. This "see the mission/objectives" set up would lend itself to list tailoring.
So I guess I just don't see the problems that this solves for 40K? Kill Team had something like that with the roster etc. Different game/different gaming context and experience.
But, I am not a game designer, just a player. Like Oddball and his tanks, I don't know what makes them work, I just ride on them.
EviscerationPlague wrote: Yeah, a system closer to how Tau/AdMech do it where you get a primary Trait and then a few secondary to choose from seems to work best.
If you haven't seen the new GSC it's actually kind of perfect for Guard. It's a pick 4 system. You get 4 custom doctrine points, with doctrines ranging from 1 - 4 points where you can mix and match until you hit 4.
catbarf wrote: I'd really suggest looking into Chain of Command like Unit mentioned. The support mechanic there is a great way to balance out otherwise imbalanced (and fixed-composition) platoons, and it really does shift the game away from building an uber killer list.
From very brief reading - I guess Chain of Command works because both players are picking a Platoon, checking the two against each other and rolling up dice to work out support points - and then, armed with that knowledge, selecting support options?
Which I guess does require more knowledge of the game than purely netlisting - but presumably there would still be the issue that such and such a platoon is over/undervalued, as are X and Y as support options?
Or is it balanced on the quasi-Horus Heresy basis, that "guy with rifle" is basically the same regardless of whether they are British, German, Soviet etc? If heavy machine guns, mortars or light tanks are "efficient" that's fine, because everyone can go and grab one?
Chain of Command has had its share of FAQs (two in 7? years) that slightly adjust the platoon costs. But unlike GW, the company behind COC (Too Fat Lardies ) has released the "maths behind the design" and accepted community feedback when pricing platoons. In fact, you could use their maths to build "fantasy platoons" that didn't historically exist, if you really wanted, and it will tell you how to price them.
They've also released their math behind the costs for various Support assets - and again, you could even use their system to "make your own" support asset if you really wanted to.
There are balance issues, but not balance issues in the same way that other games have them, because the core rules are actually in-depth enough to give "wiggle room" to platoons. For example, Panzergrenadiers are infamous for having 3-squad "triangular" platoons (i.e. a normal size) but each squad has 2x belt-fed LMGs instead of the usual 1x LMG (rarely belt fed) team and rifle team that most other nations possess. By comparison, they're rated +3, while the conventional British rifle platoon is rated 0.
In 40kland, that amount of firepower advantage (16-20 dice to 10ish on average) would make going up against the Panzergrenadiers a nightmare, especially if the panzergrenadiers got to defend ( forcing them to maneuver reduces their firepower down to more managable levels).
But instead of just saying "welp, they kill me faster than I kill them, guess I lose", you can do all kinds of shenanigans in the core rules to muscle an advantage. Smoke grenades and smoke rounds facilitate covered movement, so you can maneuver under their guns without immediately getting vaporized. Tactical movement allows your men to advance slowly and carefully but with a higher cover rating. Covering fire can grant an enemy unit -1 to hit.
So, if you have a Soviet squad (10 men with 1x LMG and 7 rifles for 13 dice) against a PzGren squad (10 men but with 2x belt fed MGs and 4 rifles, for 20 dice), it's completely asynchronous in the firepower department. In a sit and shoot firefight, the Soviets are very likely to lose. So they have to mix it up a little. Here's how I would handle it:
1) don't deploy from the JOP right in the line of fire of the PzGrens. Take hard cover and stay out of LOS while you reorganize. They don't like to move and shoot because of their MGs, so they'll likely go on overwatch and wait for you to move. Also, you want to be 18" away or more due to range bands in the core rules for LMGs and rifles (they hit worse at longer ranges). 2) Reorganize your squad by breaking the LMG and a couple riflemen off into an LMG team. (other nations don't have to do this but Soviets had a different tactical doctrine historically) 3) Maneuver your rifle team to throw a couple of smoke grenades (2 is all the squad carries) around their cover. This will likely trigger the PzGren overwatch, but if you stayed in your hard cover you won't lose everyone right away. 4) Move the LMG team into LOS, staying in hard cover (typically this is easy, if you kept it in mind when deploying. Use buildings or walls or multiple layers of soft cover; they stack). If you're very carefully deployed, you can do a 1d6 move and then put covering fire on the enemy. 5) between covering fire and smoke grenades, the PzGrens can't actually shoot at your men effectively until they're within 18".
Now you can shoot at them with nigh impunity, at least until the smoke clears... or, you can use the opportunity you've gained to maneuver against them.
So, what appears to be a balance issue (20 dice vs 13! WTF!) is not really that bad of one, because the core rules mean that there's more to the game than just weight of fire.
EviscerationPlague wrote: Yeah, a system closer to how Tau/AdMech do it where you get a primary Trait and then a few secondary to choose from seems to work best.
If you haven't seen the new GSC it's actually kind of perfect for Guard. It's a pick 4 system. You get 4 custom doctrine points, with doctrines ranging from 1 - 4 points where you can mix and match until you hit 4.
Quite honestly that's probably how it should be for the most flexibility. After all, the lack of benefit Iron Hands get from their current trait for Infantry lists is pretty silly.
Unit1126PLL wrote: Again, chain of command gets around this by giving poor-quality platoons (i.e. the thing you must take mandatorily) a lower rating relative to other platoons. Conversely, higher platoons have a higher rating.
The difference between force ratings factors into how much support you get. So, to translate that into 40k:
All armies must have X% troops. The following ratings apply (for examples):
BAD TROOPS -10
Sororitas, -7
Daemons 0
Space Marines 5
Space Wolves 7
(Don't read into the numbers, I just made them up).
The relationship between those ratings affects how big of a game the player Actually gets to play. So at 2k points, you must bring 500 pts of troops, 25%. But your force rating might be gak (Bad Troops vs Space Marines will be a difference of 15). This gives the Bad Troops player some number of additional points to spend on non-troops, e.g. 150 (if we just multiply by 10) or whatever.
Shouldn't this sort of thing be reflected in 40K with guardsmen costing less than sisters costing less than marines costing less than ...?
I like the idea of power ratings here as a sort of add-on for maybe TOs or local communities as a balancer for their own area "meta" i guess... then again, seems that a general should be able to choose when and with what and how to engage an enemy given a certain situation. So, given a scenario, and terrain, a general should decide to send x or y units. 25% troops requirement by points is not all that much... every faction seems to have troops that are useful for something! Sure, some are better than others but again, don't these generally cost more points even using GW's points ascriptions? What goes unsaid here is that if a general doesn't like his or her chances in a given scenario against a given other force, then the general has the option of either not engaging or bringing another collection of models, errr... another force. No?
Sim-Life wrote: Malifaux has you assemble your crew after you've drawn you objectives and set up the table etc. Someone mentioned Warcaster lets you bring in units from your collection as the game progresses.
Seems to me that this sort of process would end these sorts of problems, and would improve the game for both casual and for competitive players...
Thoughts?
I feel that this is disconnected from both the tourney scene and the pickup scene. Part of the fun, for me at least, is making a decision on my list without all the information knowing that I have to live with that decision for either the one game (pickup) or a whole tourney. I can try to guess the types of lists that I will meet, the sorts of missions and the types of tables, but ultimately I live with my choice that I made before I knew the game.
Spoiler:
In my Flames of War days I could gamble on expecting to see certain table types (or not see certain types) or try to have a swiss-army-knife. Having to make the decision ahead of time was part of the fun for me, and I think for many others seeing as it is the most common format.
Admittedly, having the set missions takes some of the guess-work out, but you don't necessarily know if you will have all of them or what order they will be in.
Spoiler:
I've seen a Flames of War tourney try to have an element of support platoons that you could use in certain games after seeing the mission/table, but for most of us it didn't enhance our experience and it was not repeated. Make you list, buckle up your chin strap and live with your decision. I've done Escalation formats in 40K tourneys where you start with a 500 point list and add a set amount for each game but your lists are pre-submitted and you have to build on what you have.
There is also the practical aspect for pickup games. I plan and pack up the models that I intend to play with.
Spoiler:
Having said that, I do sometimes bring some spare models/other lists in the car in case my pickup opponent has a mirror force to mine or is perhaps looking for a different kind of game. Not everyone is in that boat.
Additionally, list-tailoring is generally frowned on unless you are playing "Narrative" or a teaching game. This "see the mission/objectives" set up would lend itself to list tailoring.
Spoiler:
So I guess I just don't see the problems that this solves for 40K? Kill Team had something like that with the roster etc. Different game/different gaming context and experience.
But, I am not a game designer, just a player. Like Oddball and his tanks, I don't know what makes them work, I just ride on them.
In order:
Well, I like the idea. I am not really into deck-building.
You could. Depends on how the event were organised...
If you don't want to bring more models, then don't. If you are limited by your collection, communicate with your partner as to how to manage this limitation as you decide on mission and terrain and so on... if your opponent is a fair-minded hobbyist out for a good time, then I cannot imagine a case where this would be a problem using the process set out, above... if your opponent is not, then my suggestion would be to not spend time with that
List-tailoring is generally frowned upon why? because that is what is now the case because people deck build against a "meta" SOP? yeah, screw that with a barbed stick. Homey don't play that way. But again, if this is your jam, jam away...
Automatically Appended Next Post:
H.B.M.C. wrote: As good idea as a balancing mechanic as this may be, it sounds like a real hassle for a pick-up game.
Yeah, I don't see why, and really, nobody needs to engage in this way if they would prefer to keep on keeping on. For me, I already have my models in custom built cardboard boxes with dividers and so on because I have had to ship them so many times and even now they are all sitting in shipping boxes waiting to be shipped (in another country, I may add, not even here with me! they are waiting to be shipped wherever we end up...). Others, well, might be inclined to do similarly if this is how they would like to structure their "pick-up games". I mean, cardboard boxes are free, at least the ones that I have used, and the dividers are hot glue and either foam-core or more cardboard. I have my harlequin bikes with all the spindly chains weapons and eldar spears and metal+plastic models more than 20 years old all packed in such a way and have had them shipped around the world without problems... I suppose that I have been generous with the clear coat, but no problems even with paint chipping off of metal when packed in this way. Now, when my brother sent a box of painted stuff all loose in a big box flopping around, sure, I lost a good bit... not recommended.
Unit1126PLL wrote: Again, chain of command gets around this by giving poor-quality platoons (i.e. the thing you must take mandatorily) a lower rating relative to other platoons. Conversely, higher platoons have a higher rating.
The difference between force ratings factors into how much support you get. So, to translate that into 40k:
All armies must have X% troops. The following ratings apply (for examples):
BAD TROOPS -10
Sororitas, -7
Daemons 0
Space Marines 5
Space Wolves 7
(Don't read into the numbers, I just made them up).
The relationship between those ratings affects how big of a game the player Actually gets to play. So at 2k points, you must bring 500 pts of troops, 25%. But your force rating might be gak (Bad Troops vs Space Marines will be a difference of 15). This gives the Bad Troops player some number of additional points to spend on non-troops, e.g. 150 (if we just multiply by 10) or whatever.
Shouldn't this sort of thing be reflected in 40K with guardsmen costing less than sisters costing less than marines costing less than ...?
I like the idea of power ratings here as a sort of add-on for maybe TOs or local communities as a balancer for their own area "meta" i guess... then again, seems that a general should be able to choose when and with what and how to engage an enemy given a certain situation. So, given a scenario, and terrain, a general should decide to send x or y units. 25% troops requirement by points is not all that much... every faction seems to have troops that are useful for something! Sure, some are better than others but again, don't these generally cost more points even using GW's points ascriptions? What goes unsaid here is that if a general doesn't like his or her chances in a given scenario against a given other force, then the general has the option of either not engaging or bringing another collection of models, errr... another force. No?
Sim-Life wrote: Malifaux has you assemble your crew after you've drawn you objectives and set up the table etc. Someone mentioned Warcaster lets you bring in units from your collection as the game progresses.
Seems to me that this sort of process would end these sorts of problems, and would improve the game for both casual and for competitive players...
Thoughts?
I feel that this is disconnected from both the tourney scene and the pickup scene. Part of the fun, for me at least, is making a decision on my list without all the information knowing that I have to live with that decision for either the one game (pickup) or a whole tourney. I can try to guess the types of lists that I will meet, the sorts of missions and the types of tables, but ultimately I live with my choice that I made before I knew the game.
Spoiler:
In my Flames of War days I could gamble on expecting to see certain table types (or not see certain types) or try to have a swiss-army-knife. Having to make the decision ahead of time was part of the fun for me, and I think for many others seeing as it is the most common format.
Admittedly, having the set missions takes some of the guess-work out, but you don't necessarily know if you will have all of them or what order they will be in.
Spoiler:
I've seen a Flames of War tourney try to have an element of support platoons that you could use in certain games after seeing the mission/table, but for most of us it didn't enhance our experience and it was not repeated. Make you list, buckle up your chin strap and live with your decision. I've done Escalation formats in 40K tourneys where you start with a 500 point list and add a set amount for each game but your lists are pre-submitted and you have to build on what you have.
There is also the practical aspect for pickup games. I plan and pack up the models that I intend to play with.
Spoiler:
Having said that, I do sometimes bring some spare models/other lists in the car in case my pickup opponent has a mirror force to mine or is perhaps looking for a different kind of game. Not everyone is in that boat.
Additionally, list-tailoring is generally frowned on unless you are playing "Narrative" or a teaching game. This "see the mission/objectives" set up would lend itself to list tailoring.
Spoiler:
So I guess I just don't see the problems that this solves for 40K? Kill Team had something like that with the roster etc. Different game/different gaming context and experience.
But, I am not a game designer, just a player. Like Oddball and his tanks, I don't know what makes them work, I just ride on them.
In order:
Well, I like the idea. I am not really into deck-building.
You could. Depends on how the event were organised...
If you don't want to bring more models, then don't. If you are limited by your collection, communicate with your partner as to how to manage this limitation as you decide on mission and terrain and so on... if your opponent is a fair-minded hobbyist out for a good time, then I cannot imagine a case where this would be a problem using the process set out, above... if your opponent is not, then my suggestion would be to not spend time with that
List-tailoring is generally frowned upon why? because that is what is now the case because people deck build against a "meta" SOP? yeah, screw that with a barbed stick. Homey don't play that way. But again, if this is your jam, jam away...
Automatically Appended Next Post:
H.B.M.C. wrote: As good idea as a balancing mechanic as this may be, it sounds like a real hassle for a pick-up game.
Yeah, I don't see why, and really, nobody needs to engage in this way if they would prefer to keep on keeping on. For me, I already have my models in custom built cardboard boxes with dividers and so on because I have had to ship them so many times and even now they are all sitting in shipping boxes waiting to be shipped (in another country, I may add, not even here with me! they are waiting to be shipped wherever we end up...). Others, well, might be inclined to do similarly if this is how they would like to structure their "pick-up games". I mean, cardboard boxes are free, at least the ones that I have used, and the dividers are hot glue and either foam-core or more cardboard. I have my harlequin bikes with all the spindly chains weapons and eldar spears and metal+plastic models more than 20 years old all packed in such a way and have had them shipped around the world without problems... I suppose that I have been generous with the clear coat, but no problems even with paint chipping off of metal when packed in this way. Now, when my brother sent a box of painted stuff all loose in a big box flopping around, sure, I lost a good bit... not recommended.
I've been building armies for 40K since 2nd Ed - it is not deck-building. Its a central aspect to the game. I guess thanks for your permission to keep on keeping on?
I am still not sure what problem you are trying to solve. List-tailoring is when you change your list based on specific information that you gain. Your proposal is list-tailoring. Making guesses about "the meta" is different because it is still a guess and you cannot go back and change your decision when you do get the specific information of your opponent, mission and terrain.
I will list-tailor if my opponent asks me to ahead of time. So if I am playing someone for their first real game of 9th Ed I will ask them for their list and I will bring a "training dummy" for them to go up against. If they are prepping for a tourney and they ask me to bring a specific type of list for them to practice against I will oblige them. In general? Nope. Make your list at home, make a decision and live with it.
I have seen folks use an idea like yours for campaigns with a "supreme commander" who allocated forces for the round. Lots and lots of keen planning that, in common with virtually all such campaigns, fizzles out in execution. It could be a rewarding gaming experience, though, for those who really want it and dedicate the time to follow through.
I think we're talking about two different aspects of the same thing. For competitive-minded people this is a big no no. You're adjusting your list for competitive advantage based on what you know about your opponent's force. For example, if your list includes a bunch of plasma because you expect to face power armor and you change it all out for flamers when you see your opponent unpacking green tide then that's tailoring in this negative sense. This is the most common definition because online discourse is mostly focused on the competitive scene.
If on the other hand you are super casual and you focus on narrative play you might engage in cooperative list building as part of making the scenario as described by Priestley. In this dynamic, list tailoring is essential to ensure both parties have fun and is not about competition at all.
I think we're talking about two different aspects of the same thing. For competitive-minded people this is a big no no. You're adjusting your list for competitive advantage based on what you know about your opponent's force. For example, if your list includes a bunch of plasma because you expect to face power armor and you change it all out for flamers when you see your opponent unpacking green tide then that's tailoring in this negative sense. This is the most common definition because online discourse is mostly focused on the competitive scene.
If on the other hand you are super casual and you focus on narrative play you might engage in cooperative list building as part of making the scenario as described by Priestley. In this dynamic, list tailoring is essential to ensure both parties have fun and is not about competition at all.
Further to this, where does "toning down your list", an argument often used by defenders of 40k to excuse bad balance, fall in your definition? Because tailoring your list to go easy on people is still list tailoring, just in the opposite direction. Presumably you'll say "well there's good list tailoring and bad list tailoring", so if both players are presented with the terrain and objectives and get to tailor their lists to the information presented but don't know the opponents list (because they're also writing it at the same time as you) is that bad or good tailoring? They're not tailoring to the opponent but the board, neither player has an advantage over the other and they both have the same information available.
Further to this, where does "toning down your list", an argument often used by defenders of 40k to excuse bad balance, fall in your definition? Because tailoring your list to go easy on people is still list tailoring, just in the opposite direction. Presumably you'll say "well there's good list tailoring and bad list tailoring", so if both players are presented with the terrain and objectives and get to tailor their lists to the information presented but don't know the opponents list (because they're also writing it at the same time as you) is that bad or good tailoring? They're not tailoring to the opponent but the board, neither player has an advantage over the other and they both have the same information available.
I'm not offering value judgements. I was just pointing out different approaches to the list building dynamic of tailoring because one side is saying "how dare you tailor your lists" and the other says "I have to tailor my list in order to ensure my opponent and I can have a fun match." Like everything else it seems you have to make it clear whether you are talking competitive or casual/narrative because the gulf between them is so wide.
As regards tuning a list down to go easy on people, that's something I've not generally done like that. My approach was to have a variety of lists available at different point levels and design concepts so that I could play a casual or competitive "tournament practice" game depending on what my opponent was looking for. If it was a new player then my focus would be on coaching/teaching game concepts/mechanics. So I might select a list that included things they might not have been exposed to yet, not for gotcha purposes, but just so they can learn.
catbarf wrote: I'd really suggest looking into Chain of Command like Unit mentioned. The support mechanic there is a great way to balance out otherwise imbalanced (and fixed-composition) platoons, and it really does shift the game away from building an uber killer list.
From very brief reading - I guess Chain of Command works because both players are picking a Platoon, checking the two against each other and rolling up dice to work out support points - and then, armed with that knowledge, selecting support options?
Which I guess does require more knowledge of the game than purely netlisting - but presumably there would still be the issue that such and such a platoon is over/undervalued, as are X and Y as support options?
Or is it balanced on the quasi-Horus Heresy basis, that "guy with rifle" is basically the same regardless of whether they are British, German, Soviet etc? If heavy machine guns, mortars or light tanks are "efficient" that's fine, because everyone can go and grab one?
Unit gave a specific worked example, but speaking more generically: Yes, your assessment of how the system works is correct. You show up with your choice of platoon and your opponent shows up with their choice of platoon, and then based on the difference between your platoon ratings, one player gets to pick some support assets (knowing what they're up against). Individual troops are not all the same and there can be some major differences between factions, especially as regarding doctrines/capabilities, so it's not a mirror match system.
To your second sentence, there are two major factors that contribute to balance. The first is that the platoon ratings are easy to tune without knock-on effects. Each platoon has a fixed composition, so if they overperform or underperform the developers can just bump the platoon's rating up or down. There's no min-maxing a platoon or unaccounted synergies; you can't take a half-platoon, load it up with undercosted MG42s, pick the hypothetical Machine Gun Fanatic trait, declare that your force is from the 339th ID (who really loves their machine guns), and now have machine guns that obliterate tanks. You just have a Fallschirmjager (or Panzergrenadier, or Waffen-SS, or...) platoon, and that specific force composition has been extensively playtested to determine how it stacks up.
The second is that for the support assets, they can be very situational and have their utility vary significantly by matchup, but that's fine since you get to pick them in response to the matchup. A Panzerschreck team is pretty useless if your enemy brings no tanks, but they don't need to be costed as if they might only be facing infantry; you only take Panzerschrecks if there's armor on the field. Then if a particular support asset never has a situation that makes it worth the cost, or is so effective that it's a no-brainer, then those costs are easily tweaked.
Under the hood, the platoon rating system is functionally a points system. Instead of -10 and +5, it could be implemented as 240pts for this platoon and 500pts for that platoon, and when they go head to head the underdog gets 260pts of support assets. What makes a points system work well for CoC is the combination of fixed composition for the base platoon, the optional/'list-tailoring' nature of specialists making it possible to balance them around assuming a reasonably optimal matchup, and a general lack of force-multipliers that are unaccounted for in the balance mechanism. The game still has a ton of force-multiplying mechanics, but they're things that arise organically from gameplay (eg you are way more likely to wipe a squad in close assault if you pin it with machine guns first) rather than from force composition synergies allowing units to punch above their weight.
The platoon+supports structure is unique to CoC, but I feel 40K could still take some lessons from how TFL balances their games.
COC seems like a sort of middle ground between fixed net meta deck build lists and the cooperative list tailoring suggested above with my scenario terrain first army selection next proposal just on the inside of that. CoC seems to involve some of both. Should cut down on extra models people might have to bring (one complaint about my proposal) and time to assemble forces on the fly.
I've been building armies for 40K since 2nd Ed - it is not deck-building. Its a central aspect to the game.
Not trying to take the piss here but deck building is a statement indicating that army list creation is a central tenant of the game, and for some people THE central tenant of the game.
Deck-building games, on the other hand, make the experience of crafting a deck the explicit focus of playing the game. It is not that players build a deck in order to play the game, it is that they play the game in order to build a deck.
Or wikipedia:
A deck-building game is a card game or board game where construction of a deck is a main element of gameplay.
Of course we replace "deck" with "list" but it means the same thing. In the game design space, the game devs I work with also refer to deck building games when they are talking about board or tabletop games as well to mean we're designing a game where players craft forces, or decks, or whatever combo of pieces that need to work together.
The "deck building" monikor just means that the game's list building element is one of the primary features, and for some people THE main feature of why they play and plays a heavy role in the game's outcome - same as a CCG or deck building card game construction of the deck influences the game so heavily.
As opposed to other wargames or tabletop games where listbuilding is not as heavy or exist at all.
I read the article, but I note that he does not make the leap to calling a tabletop miniatures game a deck building game. While I certainly make a list, it is not like a deck. I am not putting it together and then randomly drawing, nor am I building it with random draws as part of the game. The gameplay mechanics seem quite different? In any case, 40K has, since I started playing in 2nd Ed, had us make our own lists. Its not a new feature. I do agree, though, that making a list is part of the fun of the game. I also believe that there is a gulf between finding a strong list on the net and being able to play it to a win.
Jeff,
Still struggling to see the problem that your solution is trying to solve. Are you just trying to apply the Priestly article? Is it that you want to players to make a narrative game out of it? They can already do so if they want. Players don't need permission to construct a scenario together. Where it falls down in practical terms, though, is having a common vision. Perhaps some game designers are out of step with the gaming populace at large. What works in the hot-house of a design studio with a sense of group-think can fall very flat in the wilds of the real world of FLGS populated by people with agency and different visions of what they want/how they have fun. 40K Matched Play is providing a strong enough framework to allow for gaming without too much negotiation. Heck, if people aren't worried about getting their feelings hurt they can just play without any pre-game negotiation beyond "GT2022 at 2000 points?" Boom. Done.
I think we're splitting hairs over the term "deck building".
"Deck Building" is just an adjective to describe a game that pivots around building a list and that being the main event of the game or one of the main pillars of attraction of the game, then seeing if that list was stronger than your opponent when whatever mechanics play out.
Its an adjective I've come to use since in the game design space, many of us that write games use it to mean that.
It is used to describe card games, board games, and tabletop miniatures games in design specs under "genre tags".
Its not really about the mechanics of drawing random cards or things of that nature. Whether we are right or wrong... /shrug/ - I can communicate intent with the phrase to most people and other game designers and they understand exactly what I'm talking about so thats why I'm comfortable using the term. As a point of interest a strategy mobile game I worked a few years ago had "Deck Building" as the primary audience in the design specs written by the designer that paid us to code it. (it wasn't a card game it was a tower defense game where you tailored an "army" via list building mechanics and combos)
I started 40k in the beginning of 3rd edition right as that edition just dropped, and yes list building was a thing then as well, though I'd argue it wasn't as pivotal as it is today and many of the people 40k attracted back then in the fall of 1998 were also very much interested in a wargame more than the list building aspect.
That certainly started changing soon after. I was fortunate enough (for me) to at least experience that at the tail end.
I've been building armies for 40K since 2nd Ed - it is not deck-building. Its a central aspect to the game.
Not trying to take the piss here but deck building is a statement indicating that army list creation is a central tenant of the game, and for some people THE central tenant of the game.
Deck-building games, on the other hand, make the experience of crafting a deck the explicit focus of playing the game. It is not that players build a deck in order to play the game, it is that they play the game in order to build a deck.
Spoiler:
Or wikipedia:
A deck-building game is a card game or board game where construction of a deck is a main element of gameplay.
Of course we replace "deck" with "list" but it means the same thing. In the game design space, the game devs I work with also refer to deck building games when they are talking about board or tabletop games as well to mean we're designing a game where players craft forces, or decks, or whatever combo of pieces that need to work together.
The "deck building" monikor just means that the game's list building element is one of the primary features, and for some people THE main feature of why they play and plays a heavy role in the game's outcome - same as a CCG or deck building card game construction of the deck influences the game so heavily.
As opposed to other wargames or tabletop games where listbuilding is not as heavy or exist at all.
I read the article, but I note that he does not make the leap to calling a tabletop miniatures game a deck building game. While I certainly make a list, it is not like a deck. I am not putting it together and then randomly drawing, nor am I building it with random draws as part of the game. The gameplay mechanics seem quite different? In any case, 40K has, since I started playing in 2nd Ed, had us make our own lists. Its not a new feature. I do agree, though, that making a list is part of the fun of the game. I also believe that there is a gulf between finding a strong list on the net and being able to play it to a win.
Jeff,
Still struggling to see the problem that your solution is trying to solve. Are you just trying to apply the Priestly article? Is it that you want to players to make a narrative game out of it? They can already do so if they want. Players don't need permission to construct a scenario together. Where it falls down in practical terms, though, is having a common vision. Perhaps some game designers are out of step with the gaming populace at large. What works in the hot-house of a design studio with a sense of group-think can fall very flat in the wilds of the real world of FLGS populated by people with agency and different visions of what they want/how they have fun. 40K Matched Play is providing a strong enough framework to allow for gaming without too much negotiation. Heck, if people aren't worried about getting their feelings hurt they can just play without any pre-game negotiation beyond "GT2022 at 2000 points?" Boom. Done.
Thanks for the engagement, T2B, the basic idea was to try to provide a structure that would resolve disputes about points and balance by basically formalizing Rick’s scenario based playstyle, yes. The idea was to provide a structure not only for games, but for expectations as well, and so a sort of standard.
The only standard needed is don't bring a comp list to a casual game without asking first and use a moderate amount of terrain (12 pieces for the new smaller tables) with some LOS blockers in the middle. The problem with the suggestion is you made the claim that it will fix balance when it will not. Instead of getting hyper general armies you'd just get 5 hyper-skew armies that beat anyone that don't have the ability to transport 5 skew armies.
Collectible card games (CCGs) like those above have been around for more than twenty years, with Magic leading the way in 1993. Living card games (LCGs) like Netrunner are distinguished from CCGs by the manner of acquisition of new cards, but both are functionally indistinct in this context: While a major part of the metagame does involve strategically constructing a deck by choosing individual cards, players generally have their decks constructed prior to beginning a proper play session.
If you had to build your list as you played, like with summoning then you could argue 40k is a deck builder. List construction is separate from gameplay so 40k is not a list building game, as the article you're quoting from says MTG isn't. You cannot netlist in Slay the Spire because list building is part of gameplay, 40k is like MTG, not like Slay the Spire. Maybe Crusade is a list building game.
vict0988 wrote: The only standard needed is don't bring a comp list to a casual game without asking first and use a moderate amount of terrain (12 pieces for the new smaller tables) with some LOS blockers in the middle. The problem with the suggestion is you made the claim that it will fix balance when it will not. Instead of getting hyper general armies you'd just get 5 hyper-skew armies that beat anyone that don't have the ability to transport 5 skew armies.
Well the first two parts of this is the usual "blame the player" stuff. People shouldn't be expected to have to make up for GWs shortcomings.
The second part about skew lists is just rubbish because as mentioned several games already feature a freestyle sort of list building and skew is rarely a problem. Not to mention that once again the idea is being misunderstood, lists are not written ahead of time or "locked in" in any sense. You can change your list to anything at any point. If someone WERE to bring a skew list it won't make it past the first round because everyone after that can change their list against them to counter the skew. Please do not use this last example as a way to derail the argument by nitpicking it and spouting increasingly specific hypotheticals.
auticus wrote: Not trying to take the piss here but deck building is a statement indicating that army list creation is a central tenant of the game, and for some people THE central tenant of the game.
Tenet, man, tenet - a tenant is someone who occupies land or property rented from a landlord, while a tenet is a principle or belief.
don't bring a comp list to a casual game without asking first and use a moderate amount of terrain (12 pieces for the new smaller tables) with some LOS blockers in the middle. The problem with the suggestion is you made the claim that it will fix balance when it will not. Instead of getting hyper general armies you'd just get 5 hyper-skew armies that beat anyone that don't have the ability to transport 5 skew armies.
Well the first two parts of this is the usual "blame the player" stuff. People shouldn't be expected to have to make up for GWs shortcomings.
The second part about skew lists is just rubbish because as mentioned several games already feature a freestyle sort of list building and skew is rarely a problem. Not to mention that once again the idea is being misunderstood, lists are not written ahead of time or "locked in" in any sense. You can change your list to anything at any point. If someone WERE to bring a skew list it won't make it past the first round because everyone after that can change their list against them to counter the skew. Please do not use this last example as a way to derail the argument by nitpicking it and spouting increasingly specific hypotheticals.
Thanks for fielding that one, again, Sim. And again, it seems that people either do not read to understand, rather to find an argument, or perhaps I haven't written clearly enough. Happy that you seem to get the idea, tho...
1) Along with opponent select mission, establish board setting and terrain. Optional depending on mission would be to place objective markers and so on. 2) Afford each player say 15 minutes to assemble forces and calculate points - should encourage a WYSIWYG model collection with fixed profiles and standard GW points for units to make calculation quick and easy as forces are assembled in full view of terrain and mission objectives. 3) Deploy forces. 4) Optional depending on scenario, place objective markers and so on e.g. if the mission is to recover something but the location of that thing is not known exactly prior to force deployment because someone on the ground must locate it or something like that... 5) Game on, command and deal with the consequences of unit selection, exposing perhaps limitations in model collection (ideally, again, WYSIWYG) thereby motivating new purchases, conversions, etc., in order to build out that collection in preparation for similar scenarios in the future.
Additional comment re tourney play: seems that if people see the mission pack, and with it the table top layouts prior to the tourney, then they may assemble their forces prior to the tourney, submit army lists for inspection by organisers and so on. IFF terrain and missions are variable enough, then there should be no two scenarios that reward the same sorts of forces, e.g. one mission will have much impassable terrain so tanks are less useful, one mission will have dense cover limiting effective range of weaponry thereby rewarding h2h type forces and units with short range weapons with lots of overwatch potential, one mission will have cloud cover and smog and other factors that may inhibit effectiveness of weapons that do not require line of sight, one mission might be mostly bare table thereby rewarding a gun line type force while exposing that army to dangers of infiltrators and charges from the side margins, etc...
vict0988 wrote: The only standard needed is don't bring a comp list to a casual game without asking first and use a moderate amount of terrain (12 pieces for the new smaller tables) with some LOS blockers in the middle. The problem with the suggestion is you made the claim that it will fix balance when it will not. Instead of getting hyper general armies you'd just get 5 hyper-skew armies that beat anyone that don't have the ability to transport 5 skew armies.
Well the first two parts of this is the usual "blame the player" stuff. People shouldn't be expected to have to make up for GWs shortcomings.
The second part about skew lists is just rubbish because as mentioned several games already feature a freestyle sort of list building and skew is rarely a problem. Not to mention that once again the idea is being misunderstood, lists are not written ahead of time or "locked in" in any sense. You can change your list to anything at any point. If someone WERE to bring a skew list it won't make it past the first round because everyone after that can change their list against them to counter the skew. Please do not use this last example as a way to derail the argument by nitpicking it and spouting increasingly specific hypotheticals.
What game has 40k's number of units/cards/anything and no ineffective combination of options? I regularly advocate for making the difference as small as possible, but you'll always have lists that are better or worse at a mission set even if every unit is roughly balanced. Anyone who thinks the idea we're talking about could work are clearly not very tryhard because the system would be broken instantly by anyone trying to game the system vs someone who is not, that's not mentioning the fact that part of the suggestion was that units would be costed according to fluff. Half my faction could be garbage because GW thought the units were unfluffy.
How are you avoiding skew if you have a mission that says "infantry suck" why would I bring infantry in that mission? Why would I bring a Monolith in a "Monoliths suck" mission? Is Chain of Command played in tournaments? I couldn't find any videos of it, how am I supposed to know whether skew is an effective strategy? I can play casual Yugioh and pretend one turn kills isn't a problem, but you'd need to look at tournaments to see how the game is played competitively.
How do you get "then they may assemble their forces prior to the tourney" to mean anything other than having 5 lists prepared ahead of time? Are you seriously suggesting people should create 3 lists on the spot on a day in a tournament using any number of miniatures from their entire collection?
1) Along with opponent select mission, establish board setting and terrain. Optional depending on mission would be to place objective markers and so on.
2) Afford each player say 15 minutes to assemble forces and calculate points - should encourage a WYSIWYG model collection with fixed profiles and standard GW points for units to make calculation quick and easy as forces are assembled in full view of terrain and mission objectives.
3) Deploy forces.
4) Optional depending on scenario, place objective markers and so on e.g. if the mission is to recover something but the location of that thing is not known exactly prior to force deployment because someone on the ground must locate it or something like that...
5) Game on, command and deal with the consequences of unit selection, exposing perhaps limitations in model collection (ideally, again, WYSIWYG) thereby motivating new purchases, conversions, etc., in order to build out that collection in preparation for similar scenarios in the future.
Additional comment re tourney play: seems that if people see the mission pack, and with it the table top layouts prior to the tourney, then they may assemble their forces prior to the tourney, submit army lists for inspection by organisers and so on. IFF terrain and missions are variable enough, then there should be no two scenarios that reward the same sorts of forces, e.g. one mission will have much impassable terrain so tanks are less useful, one mission will have dense cover limiting effective range of weaponry thereby rewarding h2h type forces and units with short range weapons with lots of overwatch potential, one mission will have cloud cover and smog and other factors that may inhibit effectiveness of weapons that do not require line of sight, one mission might be mostly bare table thereby rewarding a gun line type force while exposing that army to dangers of infiltrators and charges from the side margins, etc...
vict0988 wrote: The only standard needed is don't bring a comp list to a casual game without asking first and use a moderate amount of terrain (12 pieces for the new smaller tables) with some LOS blockers in the middle. The problem with the suggestion is you made the claim that it will fix balance when it will not. Instead of getting hyper general armies you'd just get 5 hyper-skew armies that beat anyone that don't have the ability to transport 5 skew armies.
Well the first two parts of this is the usual "blame the player" stuff. People shouldn't be expected to have to make up for GWs shortcomings.
The second part about skew lists is just rubbish because as mentioned several games already feature a freestyle sort of list building and skew is rarely a problem. Not to mention that once again the idea is being misunderstood, lists are not written ahead of time or "locked in" in any sense. You can change your list to anything at any point. If someone WERE to bring a skew list it won't make it past the first round because everyone after that can change their list against them to counter the skew. Please do not use this last example as a way to derail the argument by nitpicking it and spouting increasingly specific hypotheticals.
What game has 40k's number of units/cards/anything and no ineffective options? I regularly advocate for making the difference as small as possible, but you'll always have lists that are better or worse at a mission set even if every unit is roughly balanced. Anyone who thinks the idea we're talking about could work are clearly not very tryhard because the system would be broken instantly by anyone trying to game the system vs someone who is not, that's not mentioning the fact that part of the suggestion was that units would be costed according to fluff. Half my faction could be garbage because GW thought the units were unfluffy.
How are you avoiding skew if you have a mission that says "infantry suck" why would I bring infantry in that mission? Why would I bring a Monolith in a "Monoliths suck" mission? Is Chain of Command played in tournaments? I couldn't find any videos of it, how am I supposed to know whether skew is an effective strategy? I can play casual Yugioh and pretend one turn kills isn't a problem, but you'd need to look at tournaments to see how the game is played competitively.
How do you get "then they may assemble their forces prior to the tourney" to mean anything other than having 5 lists prepared ahead of time? Are you seriously suggesting people should create 3 lists on the spot on a day in a tournament using any number of miniatures from their entire collection?
I'm getting sick of explaining to you that YOU WRITE YOUR LIST AT THE TABLE BEFORE THE GAME.
You turn up to the table.
You see the objectives.
You see the terrain set up.
THEN YOU WRITE YOUR LIST TO SUIT THE OBJECTIVES AND TERRAIN.
You're far too hung up on Jeff's initial post and nitpicking minutiae rather than actually UNDERSTANDING THE POINT BEING MADE.
I'm not nitpicking, I'm responding to Jeff's initial suggestion being silly. Whether you build one list before the tournament to accommodate 5 wacky missions, five lists to each accommodate 1 of the 5 wacky missions or you build each list as you get to your game during a tournament, they are all bad/silly. The first is the only thing that you can realistically make happen and it's an option that has been suggested before, which is why I originally criticized it, the other two aren't even possible because you cannot transport 5 armies or your entire collection to a tournament or game night at a GW store.
"...the basic idea was to try to provide a structure that would resolve disputes about points and balance..."
The system does not in any way form or shape do that. The points costs of bad units would never go down because they wouldn't be assigned based on performance in a mission set, but based on fluff.
I don't know what your point is or why pointing out CoC is not a competitive game is nitpicking, you used it as an example of how 40k can adopt this system and Jeff said that this would "resolve disputes about points". I'm assuming we'd avoid Auticus complaining about his Rubrics being bad and Knights being too strong if this worked like you're advertising.
Just give me an example of a game that punishes unit types in individual missions, allows you to build a skew before you play the individual mission to avoid using the punished units, does not see skew in a competitive environment.
I think we're talking about two different aspects of the same thing. For competitive-minded people this is a big no no. You're adjusting your list for competitive advantage based on what you know about your opponent's force.
I disagree.
I think the term 'list-tailoring' in this case is being used as a blanket to cover things that really are not suitable.
To me, list-tailoring is building a 'gotcha!' list or a list that is effectively a 'silver bullet' to whatever the other guy has. He brings power armour, you load up on plasma. He brings loads of armour, you break out all the anti tank guns. It's about shutting them down completely with a perfect counter.
The 'other' thing you are referring to, I find, is not well described by list tailoring. Its better described by 'list-matching'. Itworks better in collaborative list-buildimg rather than the xonpetitives 'list-buillding-for-advantage'.
S/he wants to bring loads of infantry with long arms (say, like several squads of intercessors or reivers) and a lack of anti-tank, matching that would mean bringing a force that matches that output but also lets theirs can viably 'punch back' at - basically something that mirrors in in theme.
Further to this, where does "toning down your list", an argument often used by defenders of 40k to excuse bad balance, fall in your definition?
Sim, mischaracterising peoples arguments doesn't help. 'Tone down your list' isn't about excusing bad balance and it's intellectually dishonest to claim that that is what people are saying. I've never seen anyone who suggests this also claim that gw's terrible balance is a good thing. If we didn't mind the bad balance would we be doing something to alleviate it in the first place? Come on.
'Tone down your list' is acknowledging the bad balance and trying to actuslly do something about it, or work around it, whilst also trying to allow for more than just the bleeding edge competitive builds see table time. Ita trying to be pragmatic. It's just saying 'there's things we can do at our end that can work' rather than just screaming in the wilderness for gw to do something, when we all know they can't be bothered.
Expecting them to do something about it when we all know they won't whilst being unwilling to do anything yourself is just laziness and selfishness on your part. And it won't accomplish anything.
Because tailoring your list to go easy on people is still list tailoring, just in the opposite direction. Presumably you'll say "well there's good list tailoring and bad list tailoring", so if both players are presented with the terrain and objectives and get to tailor their lists to the information presented but don't know the opponents list (because they're also writing it at the same time as you) is that bad or good tailoring? They're not tailoring to the opponent but the board, neither player has an advantage over the other and they both have the same information available.
See above. List tailoring to drop a 'gotcha!' on someone is something most people can agree is generally poor form. It's in the name. List tailoring. Tailoring against a list. Terrain-tailoring or whatever else might also be objectionable, depending on circumstances. Or not. Personally I find it far more interesting to have two not-ideal forces struggling against each other, against the terrain and the objective. With a certain element out of your control.do the best you can with what you have to hand.
I'm just sort of repeating Vict's post - but the issue surely is that you'd never "write your list at the table" unless the range of scenarios was so peculiar and specific that they couldn't be considered ahead of time.
To my mind the skill would be "okay this favours assault - this is the best assault focused list my faction can run". "This favours a castled up gunline - well this is the best gunline my faction can run" etc. But in a few moments someone online (and experience at other tournaments) would produce netlists for this as the commonality of scenarios became clear.
Its a bit like the idea that say players had to put together 75% of their list, share it with each other, and they could then tailor the last 500 points on the basis of that knowledge. It would undoubtedly add another "skill" to list building - and might reduce the impact of skew (if skew is in fact a problem as against imbalance) - but to a degree its just "knowledge" that you could learn. Again - net lists would immediately emerge. You'd end up with a small pool of 1500 points that are generally considered the best - and discussions of how to tailor to them. So in the context of say the LVO, you'd have seen discussion on how to tailor to and for Custodes, Dark Eldar, Tyranids etc.
Basically both would another dimension - but barring some very contrived and specific scenario rules, its impossible to make an assault marine more attractive than a vanguard vet with a lightning claw and a storm shield. My concern would be people bringing such models to a casual table can still feel bad because they are meaningfully worse than alternatives.
I'd argue 40k does sort of have a system to encourage this sort of thinking in secondary objectives. Selecting the right ones given what information you have is undoubtedly a skill - and a major reason imo why someone can't just copy Seigler's list and suddenly expect to win a major tournament. But there's a question whether the secondary system is "fun" or - like a list of which units are good for their points and which are bad, something you just need to "know" in order to play 40k at a high level.
Edit to add that I second Dead's list-matching is a skill point. Really, this is what it is about just I was trying to use the scenario and the process to bring people together on that.
I explain to students in this way some things in business - you can try to have competition under a cooperative umbrella, or cooperation under a competitive umbrella. In the latter case, you have teams working against each other. On the former, you have sides (might be teams, or individuals) agreeing to compete, in the case of political economies that are based in democracies, for instance, in order to optimise a common good. What one finds is that in every case, there must be an agreement prior to competition, even in war this is the case e.g. Just War Theory. Without this cooperative umbrella, the world becomes a place in which none of us would like to live. Any pretence otherwise is delusion. So absolutely yes, list-tailoring to 'balance' an engagement is a skill, and likely Dead has hit the nail on the head here, because it seems to be the skill that is most deficient in many people, at least from my experience as a teacher and so on...
Vick, not gonna chase your moving goalpost.
Originally, and for me, in a tourney setting it seems fair that everyone see the missions and table terrain set ups to be used at every stage of the tourney, made as the whole room (or multiple rooms) of games plays through a series of missions that represent a sort of narrative. Each scenario in series would move through different types of terrain. This would invariably set the stage for some forces to do better in initial settings as these might have more of certain units available. But in my mind, the idea would be that the TOs would design the scenarios and narrative thematically - so, maybe LVO would be set on a desert planet and move from arid mountains to cityscapes or something like that - and they might even design the series of scenarios to make it more difficult for most popular so-called competitive armies to advance, thereby bottlenecking the best players, or perhaps what we see is that those who are the best players will be able to do better in later stages, if the narrative is really thematic without TOs planning around "meta" bs, or maybe the games are scored independently, with opponents drawn randomly so there is some randomness this way, or maybe it is an invitational, and every player plays every other trough all scenarios, say 4, or something like that... I am not a TO, I am not a competitive minded person or player, so I am frankly not so concerned if people who have a fetish for whatever and however they think that 40k can ever be considered "competitive" in the first place, but for me, these seem like interesting and fun events, and I would be interested in participating. In this original idea, one would sign up, get the mission pack with terrain and so on, assemble one's forces according to a fixed point limit, and send this list to the TOs for inspection prior to the tourney. Alternatively, what seems like an even better idea for most people in this thread, it seems, is that people would assemble forces consisting of a fixed point limit of core that must be fielded every round, and a fixed limit of reserves or sideboard which might be deployed differently in every individual scenario. Now, there are a couple of ways that this might be done. One might wait until one sees the opponent, and his core and sideboard forces, or the TOs might expect for the sideboard units to be assigned prior to the tourney, so when submitting army lists for inspection, one would submit one for each scenario of which most of this would be core list and the rest reserve alternates... or one might imagine a case where a player is able to deploy different forces for each scenario from the same faction book, so in this case submit an army list for inspection for each scenario. Or, it might b done differently than these ways...
My main focus is on casual games, and in this case I think that the original idea is a good one. Show up, decide together on mission and terrain (if you think it is not good for what you have at hand, available, then work with your fellow hobbyist to determine a mission setting that makes more sense for you) and once set up, assemble forces to a point limit in full view of the opposing player. Allow 30 minutes, I dunno, to set things out and review together how things work, then deploy and play as normal... This way, if there is a lot of dense cover and the mission involves retrieving a token from the middle of the table, then one can look at one's collection and select that mix of units that seems to make the most sense.
Alternatively, and maybe better, is that one shows up with a core army (say 1000 points) and then can add another 500 after seeing terrain and mission and so on. This should shorten time for unit selection, and allow for people to say to each other 'hey, i am gonna bring this 1000pts friday and then once we get mission sorted and terrain laid our, i will add my 500 from the rest of my collection' or something like that.
Anyways, the idea is that sure, points will never be perfect because as has been pointed out by others, above, in some situations some units are useless and others are super strong. So, the idea would be for scenarios to play to different strengths, and help to offset net lists and meta builds and so on that lean too heavily on those units and their strengths. Smoky battlefields might limit los to 12inches in one scenario. Loose soil might make heavy units (say, infantry with AS 3+ or better) move half speed in some of the table, or all of it. Some objectives might require a vehicle to move them. Some might require units with high strength, meaning that these units might be tied down to manage an objective for a turn instead of doing something else. Anyways, Unit has a better explanation of how things work in CoC above, and generally the idea is something like this. Again, this is in the spirit of Priestley's focus on "scenarios" and I was just thinking that working scenario constraints into the prep phase, or deck-building or list-making or build part of the game, might help to 'balance' a bit around actual player skill, perhaps expertise with a given collection of models, and so on. For me, well, wayyyy back in the day when I began this hobby, so for GW products was early 90s, 92 or 3 I guess, I used to get stomped by dudes who could estimate indirect fire weapons without measuring, because we did't pre measure back then and frankly I am not a fan of pre measuring (I know, cheater pukes will find a way, anyhow, but again ultimately my solution here is to not spend time wth this people), but anyways i saw that as a skill that i should develop rather than some unfair arbitrary rule problem that rewarded experience and visual acuity. Sure, this is a minor thing, but the point is that understanding which units work better than others in a given scenario under different constraints is part of being a good general, and this is a skill, and might be encouraged with a process such as that which i had originally suggested.
Is it a cure all? sure, no. Is Unit's idea better? Probably... Are there better ideas? I hope so... I am an idiot. But, it is a suggestion and it remains interesting to me, at least in spirit, to enjoin in some process pre game with reduces the deck building emphasis that the hobby seems to currently involve for many people, forcing others to either embrace the deck building ethos or 'find another hobby' is often the retort... which is just bad mojo imho.
vict0988 wrote: I'm not nitpicking, I'm responding to Jeff's initial suggestion being silly. Whether you build one list before the tournament to accommodate 5 wacky missions, five lists to each accommodate 1 of the 5 wacky missions or you build each list as you get to your game during a tournament, they are all bad/silly. The first is the only thing that you can realistically make happen and it's an option that has been suggested before, which is why I originally criticized it, the other two aren't even possible because you cannot transport 5 armies or your entire collection to a tournament or game night at a GW store. .
no one says it is allowed to have different armies, but writing/building the list according to the scenario is a key feature for more than one game and the GW games with a fixed list for all games that must be pre-written by registration is something unique
and yes it is a selling point that makes 40k/AoS unique/outstanding among other wargames
but just because it is a feature in those games, does not mean it is impossible to do it differently
for SAGA it works pretty well to just register the faction you play, have the amount of points set by the TO and the list you play is "written" after you know the opponent and the scenario (which just takes minutes anyway and is not something that is impossible without an App like in 40k)
So, I think to answer the argument (as I understand it), an example of listbuilding that doesn't occur before the game:
In CoC there are the following factors that make it so list building in advance is quite difficult:
1) support points are random (determined by any number of d6 rolls and the precise matchup between forces). In one game, you could have 17 support, and in the next game, 2, even against the same opponent in the same scenario. Across all the scenarios and all the opponents, you pretty much can have anything from 1-20 support points, with the possibility for more if your platoon is super awful and you play a super elite one.
2) certain scenarios ban certain supports (preparatory bombardment is often unavailable for example).
3) some support choices are table dependent. Lots of support points available/bringing lots of vehicles? Awesome! If the table is tight though, your opponent could block off vehicle access points with minefields. Better buy the mine-clearing engineers!
4) paying more support points can give you more flexibility. You can buy an Engineer Section for 4 times the cost (usually) of an Engineer team. The team has to be a specific type (mine clearing, demolitions, wire cutting, etc). The Section comes with a junior leader and two teams, and what the roles of the two teams are can be chosen when they are deployed (rather than on your army list).
5) mind games with your opponent. Your opponent is attacking with 17 support. You have 9 to defend with. You could go all in with mines and entrenchments and wire and obstacles, but your opponent might have engineers supported by MGs and tanks, which hard counters such a build. You could suspect he is going tank platoons and try to pre-empt him with anti-tank guns. Or he might just bring a few infantry squads - possibly a whole platoon extra nearly.
Once you have picked your supports, you can't change them. Choose wisely!
How do people actually define "skew." Is it about spamming the most optimal units in the army? Is it just going heavy towards a certain type of unit (eg fast attack or elites). What is it really?
Are highly competitive lists typically also skewed? Would curtailing the ability to skew in certain formats reduce the competitiveness of the list?
More broadly, what makes a list highly competitive? Is it just taking units that perform "the best" relative to the mission objectives and/or from a damage and durability standpoint?
Ultimately - I think we need to discuss the above issues so there can, potentially, be some parameters around what defines an actual competitive and tuned list versus a more casual one. The clear solution to me is defining what makes "casual list" at a technical level versus what's a "no holds bars / anything goes" highly competitive list.
the GW games with a fixed list for all games that must be pre-written by registration is something unique
They're not. I've played exactly 3 games "competitively:" 40k, X-wing and Star Wars Armada. All three worked the same way. You showed up with a list that you would use for the duration of the event. For X-wing and Armada it was fine because the scenario was always the same. The only thing that changed from match to match was what your opponent brought. So for those games your lists were designed around archetypes. In X-wing, for example, there were lists consisting of a few ace pilots (arc dodging), lots of low-skill pilots (swarms) or a few very durable ships (fortresses). What you brought was determined by what you were good with and what you expected to see i.e. the "meta."
How do people actually define "skew." Is it about spamming the most optimal units in the army? Is it just going heavy towards a certain type of unit (eg fast attack or elites). What is it really?
Are highly competitive lists typically also skewed? Would curtailing the ability to skew in certain formats reduce the competitiveness of the list?
More broadly, what makes a list highly competitive? Is it just taking units that perform "the best" relative to the mission objectives and/or from a damage and durability standpoint?
Ultimately - I think we need to discuss the above issues so there can, potentially, be some parameters around what defines an actual competitive and tuned list versus a more casual one. The clear solution to me is defining what makes "casual list" at a technical level versus what's a "no holds bars / anything goes" highly competitive list.
I've seen "skew" most commonly attributed to a tank company or knight style list, so in this case the concept means a list that hedges it's defensive strategy to try and invalidate opponents who do not bring enough heavy weapons to deal with the high toughness threats.
The only other time I've seen "skew" list is when talking about a horde list that attempts to flood the board with more bodies than bullets, and much like the knight/tank style lists, it capitalizes on the opponents who do not bring enough high rate of fire weapons.
I do not think skew lists are a problem for the game, and more of a feature. Sure they can make some outright non-games, but in a tournament/competitive setting, the enjoyment of a well fought match is second rate to a winning no matter what (since there is usually an entry fee + prize on the line).
If someone has an example of a "skew" list that is skewed based solely on offensive potential, I would love to see it! Generally the term refers to exploiting an offensive deficiency in the opposing army's roster via hedging all your defensive bets into one aspect. Sure you will absolutely dominate some games with this, but then there are other games where you just get blown out completely because the opponent happened to have the correct offensive spread to cover your skew strategy.
I think you could qualify the Scatbikes list in 7th as offensive skew.
It was the opposite of the above: a weapon existed that was almost 100% effective against every target type (because of GW's terrible rule changes for vehicles). So if you just brought 1000000000 of that exact same weapon, it didn't matter who you were fighting; you were equipped to address all targets.
Now there is some nuance to it (e.g. scatter lasers were best on super fast platforms like Aeldari jetbikes, because armor facings meant they had to maneuver). But I think that counts.
auticus wrote: Not trying to take the piss here but deck building is a statement indicating that army list creation is a central tenant of the game, and for some people THE central tenant of the game.
Tenet, man, tenet - a tenant is someone who occupies land or property rented from a landlord, while a tenet is a principle or belief.
Consider me schooled thanks for the clarification.
I think the term 'list-tailoring' in this case is being used as a blanket to cover things that really are not suitable.
It apparently means different things to different people. Which is what I was trying to demonstrate.
To me, list-tailoring is building a 'gotcha!' list or a list that is effectively a 'silver bullet' to whatever the other guy has. He brings power armour, you load up on plasma. He brings loads of armour, you break out all the anti tank guns. It's about shutting them down completely with a perfect counter.
Depending on the game, the perfect counter may not exist. In my experience the tailoring was always about tilting the field in your favor, not producing the perfect hard counter. It seemed more about tweaking an existing list instead of building a new one from scratch.
It apparently means different things to different people. Which is what I was trying to demonstrate.
Oh I agree Everyone! Everyone having their own definition of a [word] is pretty standard for wargaming. I just think different terms better-explain certain concepts and ideas. I don't think there's much daylight between us on the details, just the header.
Depending on the game, the perfect counter may not exist. In my experience the tailoring was always about tilting the field in your favor, not producing the perfect hard counter. It seemed more about tweaking an existing list instead of building a new one from scratch.
Yeah, this makes sense, I can't say much to disagree with you. My only caveat is I ammore used to games like wmh where those hard counters do exist though.
Unit1126PLL wrote: I think you could qualify the Scatbikes list in 7th as offensive skew.
It was the opposite of the above: a weapon existed that was almost 100% effective against every target type (because of GW's terrible rule changes for vehicles). So if you just brought 1000000000 of that exact same weapon, it didn't matter who you were fighting; you were equipped to address all targets.
Now there is some nuance to it (e.g. scatter lasers were best on super fast platforms like Aeldari jetbikes, because armor facings meant they had to maneuver). But I think that counts.
I wouldn't say its a skew exactly - I'd say it was just efficient because as you say it worked versus everything, and jetbikes were clearly undercosted compared with most other things in the game.
I'm not sure for instance the tendency towards Mid S, AP2 or 3, 2 damage attacks in 8th was due to a desire for skew - but because GW undercosted it versus a load of alternatives. (The rise of Marines 2.0 also contributed).
Today meanwhile GW seems to want a huge number of armies in the game to make firing an autocannon=you lose noob.
Well you have essentially defined offensive skew away at that point, because the only kind that would plausibly exist is "spam as many of one weapon statline as possible".
I mean what would offensive skew even mean otherwise?
the GW games with a fixed list for all games that must be pre-written by registration is something unique
They're not. I've played exactly 3 games "competitively:"
so 3 among "many" is the definition for "none"?
I have played Warmachine/Hordes and SAGA competitive were changing the list after you know the faction of your opponent and the scenario is a thing
Overdrive, as a rather new game that aims for competitive miniature gaming, has the list building aspect as a pre-game setup as key feature
that the army list or order of battle is created after you know the scenario is the default case in most historical wargames and overall the are much more games were this is "normal" than having the list written before you know anything
this was even the goal of having Power Levels in 40k, that you can tailor your list after you know against who you play and what the scenario is, but being able to adjust the wargear without changing the point cost of a unit
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Arschbombe wrote: Depending on the game, the perfect counter may not exist. In my experience the tailoring was always about tilting the field in your favor, not producing the perfect hard counter. It seemed more about tweaking an existing list instead of building a new one from scratch.
a hard counter is only possible if one player can adjust his list while the other one can not
if both write their list after they know the faction and the scenario it is nearly impossible to get a hard counter except the game has limited choices of playable lists per faction and you know that the opponent only has 1 choice because there are no other options
kodos wrote: this was even the goal of having Power Levels in 40k, that you can tailor your list after you know against who you play and what the scenario is, but being able to adjust the wargear without changing the point cost of a unit
Citation?
"Datasheets include something called a Power Level. This is a rough approximation of a unit’s relative effectiveness on the battlefield. These can be used to very quickly throw together two roughly equal forces to fight a battle."
Source: Warhammer Community
"1. SELECT BATTLE SIZE
2. MUSTER ARMIES
3. DETERMINE MISSION"
source: CRUSADE MISSION PACK
Arschbombe wrote: Depending on the game, the perfect counter may not exist. In my experience the tailoring was always about tilting the field in your favor, not producing the perfect hard counter. It seemed more about tweaking an existing list instead of building a new one from scratch.
a hard counter is only possible if one player can adjust his list while the other one can not if both write their list after they know the faction and the scenario it is nearly impossible to get a hard counter except the game has limited choices of playable lists per faction and you know that the opponent only has 1 choice because there are no other options
Like if GW decided units A, B and C are fluffy and should be relatively cheap, units D, E and F should be relatively expensive because they are not fluffy, the mission makes unit C useless so you can counter unit A and B.
I don't follow. You pointed out that there are games where lists are written at the table after opponent faction and scenario are known. You also said GW games requiring pre-written lists at the start of an event was unique. I provided counter examples of 2 non-GW games that do the same thing. So GWs approach is not unique. That's all. I do not know which method is more common across the entirety of miniature wargaming.
kodos wrote: so yes?
those are meant to be used to quickly write an army list after you know against whom you play or the scenario
so you can adjust it easily as a 50 PL army all taking anti-tank will still be 50 PL with everyone taking anti-infantry weapons
I don't see were you quotes mean that this is not the case
No, it has nothing to do with knowing what scenario you're playing, you roll for the mission after making your list (including wargear choices) in both PL vs pts, PL is just for those too lazy to bother with the details. Removing or adding wargear to units on the fly after seeing the mission and your opponent's list is a house rule that isn't encouraged by anything anyone at GW has written as far as I can see.
My mind is stuck on the idea of "list-matching". I think that this phrase defines the ethos of scenario based casual and cooperative play.
Once matched, generalship and good old fashioned fortune make or break the gamer, not the deck or skew or meta or whatever.
Thanks for the above insights into other systems, Kodos. Again, really valuable.
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Unit1126PLL wrote: Well you have essentially defined offensive skew away at that point, because the only kind that would plausibly exist is "spam as many of one weapon statline as possible".
I mean what would offensive skew even mean otherwise?
Yeah, I pretty much figured you had got that one right straight out of the gate, too... skew to me seems to mean trying to break the game by deck building to the "meta" in every way, taking advantage of rules, what is likely to be across the table (for instance, some units are super expensive to buy, so spamming those is more unlikely than less expensive units, so maybe it is reasonable to discount the possibility that one might face a "skew" list full of mega expensive units, or maybe it means dumping huge money on a "list" to be able to spam those units to over-skew the fellow skewers, etc...)...
kodos wrote: so yes?
those are meant to be used to quickly write an army list after you know against whom you play or the scenario
so you can adjust it easily as a 50 PL army all taking anti-tank will still be 50 PL with everyone taking anti-infantry weapons
I don't see were you quotes mean that this is not the case
No, it has nothing to do with knowing what scenario you're playing, you roll for the mission after making your list (including wargear choices) in both PL vs pts, PL is just for those too lazy to bother with the details. Removing or adding wargear to units on the fly after seeing the mission and your opponent's list is a house rule that isn't encouraged by anything anyone at GW has written as far as I can see.
Not surprised that GW wouldn't see the potential in a change of process, but... that doesn't stop us from talking about it, even suggesting it as a standard mode of engagement, does it?
Unit1126PLL wrote: So, I think to answer the argument (as I understand it), an example of listbuilding that doesn't occur before the game:
In CoC there are the following factors that make it so list building in advance is quite difficult:
1) support points are random (determined by any number of d6 rolls and the precise matchup between forces). In one game, you could have 17 support, and in the next game, 2, even against the same opponent in the same scenario. Across all the scenarios and all the opponents, you pretty much can have anything from 1-20 support points, with the possibility for more if your platoon is super awful and you play a super elite one.
2) certain scenarios ban certain supports (preparatory bombardment is often unavailable for example).
3) some support choices are table dependent. Lots of support points available/bringing lots of vehicles? Awesome! If the table is tight though, your opponent could block off vehicle access points with minefields. Better buy the mine-clearing engineers!
4) paying more support points can give you more flexibility. You can buy an Engineer Section for 4 times the cost (usually) of an Engineer team. The team has to be a specific type (mine clearing, demolitions, wire cutting, etc). The Section comes with a junior leader and two teams, and what the roles of the two teams are can be chosen when they are deployed (rather than on your army list).
5) mind games with your opponent. Your opponent is attacking with 17 support. You have 9 to defend with. You could go all in with mines and entrenchments and wire and obstacles, but your opponent might have engineers supported by MGs and tanks, which hard counters such a build. You could suspect he is going tank platoons and try to pre-empt him with anti-tank guns. Or he might just bring a few infantry squads - possibly a whole platoon extra nearly.
Once you have picked your supports, you can't change them. Choose wisely!
Was this for me? Thanks for writing all that out if it was. The random amount of support is different for each player, so the game is not meant to be balanced right? If we play Scenario 6: Attack on Objective and you roll a 2 for support the attacker has Force A +2 and the defender has Force B +1, if you roll 10 then it's Force A +10 vs Force B +5, either the difference is 1 or the difference is 5. I watched an interview with the designer as well, making every option viable was not a big concern, making the historic combination of units and guns viable was a concern. There are books about which units used which guns in what periods and what wars, this is not true in 40k, because we make up this fluff ourselves. My dynasty might use Hexmarks, yours might not, that's what makes it my dynasty, it has what I like and plays how I want to play.
How do people actually define "skew."
Spamming a particular Toughness or Sv characteristic to make your army resistant to some of your opponent's weapons. Thin City is a list with mostly Wracks that are resistant to lascannons, Thick City is a list with mostly Pain Engines that are resistant to heavy bolters.
I define skew as skewing a list heavily to a certain element. Spam is often a part of skew though it doesn't have to be.
For example heavy weapons skew would just be a list loaded down with heavy weapons, whereas starcannon spam would be a list loaded down with a particular weapon (a starcannon).
Skew is often brought about to enjoy redundancy and to try to hard counter your opponent's list (whatever it is you are skewing against).
For example if for whatever reason high toughness tank lists were common, taking heavy weapon skew would hard counter the all armor and the opponent couldn't just take out a couple elements, the redundancy of the skew would make it so taking one weapon out has other replacements.
It is a form of paper/rock/scissors.
I top-10d a 40kGT in the late 90s by using starcannon skew, because 9 out of 10 opponents fielded space marines, and 99 out of 100 tournament tables had very little terrain / cover, and starcannons in 3rd edition evaporated marines.
My counter was swarm armies like nids or orks, but those were rare so I enjoyed lengthy win streaks and high tournament placings simply because I was rock in a meta that heavily featured scissors and very very rarely encountered paper. (incidentally this also made me feel that I was an awesome 40k player for a number of years and it was during 4th edition when my chaos marines got nerfed into being a normal army that I realized how heavily on army lists I relied on and my skills were... really not so hot and the list carried me through most of those wins by itself)
Unit1126PLL wrote: So, I think to answer the argument (as I understand it), an example of listbuilding that doesn't occur before the game:
In CoC there are the following factors that make it so list building in advance is quite difficult:
1) support points are random (determined by any number of d6 rolls and the precise matchup between forces). In one game, you could have 17 support, and in the next game, 2, even against the same opponent in the same scenario. Across all the scenarios and all the opponents, you pretty much can have anything from 1-20 support points, with the possibility for more if your platoon is super awful and you play a super elite one.
2) certain scenarios ban certain supports (preparatory bombardment is often unavailable for example).
3) some support choices are table dependent. Lots of support points available/bringing lots of vehicles? Awesome! If the table is tight though, your opponent could block off vehicle access points with minefields. Better buy the mine-clearing engineers!
4) paying more support points can give you more flexibility. You can buy an Engineer Section for 4 times the cost (usually) of an Engineer team. The team has to be a specific type (mine clearing, demolitions, wire cutting, etc). The Section comes with a junior leader and two teams, and what the roles of the two teams are can be chosen when they are deployed (rather than on your army list).
5) mind games with your opponent. Your opponent is attacking with 17 support. You have 9 to defend with. You could go all in with mines and entrenchments and wire and obstacles, but your opponent might have engineers supported by MGs and tanks, which hard counters such a build. You could suspect he is going tank platoons and try to pre-empt him with anti-tank guns. Or he might just bring a few infantry squads - possibly a whole platoon extra nearly.
Once you have picked your supports, you can't change them. Choose wisely!
Was this for me? Thanks for writing all that out if it was. The random amount of support is different for each player, so the game is not meant to be balanced right? If we play Scenario 6: Attack on Objective and you roll a 2 for support the attacker has Force A +2 and the defender has Force B +1, if you roll 10 then it's Force A +10 vs Force B +5, either the difference is 1 or the difference is 5. I watched an interview with the designer as well, making every option viable was not a big concern, making the historic combination of units and guns viable was a concern. There are books about which units used which guns in what periods and what wars, this is not true in 40k, because we make up this fluff ourselves. My dynasty might use Hexmarks, yours might not, that's what makes it my dynasty, it has what I like and plays how I want to play.
It was for everyone, but also for you.
And yes, the game is actually meant to be balanced. There's an emphasis on historical accuracy for sure, but the game wouldn't be any fun if you said "oh, you brought panzer grenadiers again to fight my Soviet Cavalry, why bother playing" which you DO get for some 40k armies. So it's at least better balance than that. The reason different platoons have different force ratings (as in Scenario 6) is one is the attacker and one is the defender, and the defender has the advantage over the attacker.
Your example is accurate, in that the attacker gets twice as many support points as the defender - this is because the defender gets to start his Patrol Phase 18" into the board (a rarity in Chain of Command) establishing control of critical terrain features far faster (i.e. before deployment) than the attacking player. This makes sense since the defender, obviously, defends the terrain.
So, the double support points compensate the attacker for having to attack into prepared positions in terrain. Yes, it will be more difficult with 2 support points to 1, than with 10 support points to 5. But you'll notice it's a 2d6 roll for support, not a flat d12. This means that the chances of rolling a 10 (or more) are about 17% - and an eight or more (giving you an 8-to-4 advantage, typically enough to field a heavy tank or two light tanks into some limited AT support) is 42%. Conversely, the chance of rolling a 2 is about 3%.
Having the Attacker struggle against harder odds (because you rolled the minimum number about 3% of the time) is part of the challenge for CoC players - as is defending against the equally-difficult 10-5, where you might have enough for one entrenched 37mm gun and be fighting something like a KV-1E or Churchill heavy tank (or a 45mm gun against a Tiger 1 if the situations are reversed ).
And no, making every option viable for every mission is not a concern - but making every option viable sometimes is a concern. Mine-clearing engineer teams are totally nonviable if the enemy doesn't bring mines - but the player who resolves to NEVER bring mine-clearing engineer teams to any game will certainly suffer!
It's a different mindset than 40k, where you have "your list" with "your units". In Chain of Command, "your dudes" are the core platoon - the support options that come and go are just that. Support. So if "your dudes" includes Hexmarks, then the goodness or badness of hexmarks will be accounted for in the platoon rating.
Thanks for everyone chiming in on skew. A few synthesizing remarks:
* Skew is a list-building strategy that seeks to stack units/abilities/weapons around a particular performance metric and that is anticipated to yield above average results within a competitive meta.
Does that definition sort of capture it? It could be that you're maximizing certain types of weapons due to the way certain gameplay mechanics make those weapons extremely useful in dealing with most common threats and/or a wide range of threats. It could also be picking units with a certain combination of mobility and endurance features in order to align with the mission objectives used in the competitive mission set. Does that ring true?
Is it fair to say that a "skew" list is largely synonymous with "tuned" or "min-maxed" or "optimized" or "competitive-focused" list?
* Spam is then about just taking a lot of a certain thing. That thing might or might not be skewed. It could be something over-powered or under-powered.
* Casual lists are ones that are explicitly "not skewed", either by deliberately not optimizing the list or as a product of simply using the models a player has available and which aren't skewed.
There are a few (possibly competing) objectives here...
I like the notion of having a game format that functions like "matched" play but that doesn't encourage "skew" lists. But how to achieve this?
The problem with the suggestion of "finalizing your list after seeing the mission" in either a casual or competitive setting is that it doesn't really address the skew problem. In fact, it makes it possible for people to skew their lists even more to counter their opponent and the specific mission parameters they face. From an equity standpoint, someone with 7,000 points of models is going to have a much easier time successfully skewing their list than someone that has 2,000 points and is stuck with what they have. The problem still remains - how to encourage non-skewed lists?
One option I'll come back to - because it REALLY doesn't get enough discussion - is the mission set itself. Skew, as defined above, pertains to two things (a) skewing to counter likely army types seen more frequently in the meta or local community and/or (b) skewing to gain an advantage relative to the type of mission being played.
The mission parameters are half of the equation. The more narrow the range of mission types and parameters are in a set of missions, more incentivized players are to skew towards that. It makes people ask: what units do I take because their are best suited to the mission(s) and what does my army look like? This is much different than approaching list-building from the standpoint of: what units do I take because I like them and/or because they can play a role under a bunch of conditions?
If the mission set for "casual matched play" was vastly more diverse, with some missions even being asymmetric attack/defend type scenarios, I think overtime lists would be less skewed as player's would be buildings lists that perform well over a range of scenarios rather than being optimized around just one.
Likewise, establihsing clear metrics for how much terrain should be on the board - and also building in variations on this as part of mission setup - should also be considered. What if you rolled for the "density of terrain" as part of the mission setup. Sparse means approximately 25% of the board area is covered in terrain, ample is 33%, and dense is over 50% (or something like this) - along with that percentage of terrain features need to be LoS blocking. This would, like the mission setup itself, require players to consider how their army performs "if in the open" versus "if fighting in dense terrain." It might encourage more diversity in unit selection.
That said, I do like the idea of trying to formalize a sideboard method. While, as pointed out above, being able to adjust your list based on seeing the mission IS skew-enabling. But if it's kept within certain reasonable limits it builds in the expectation that players will tailor their forces to the mission - and if the mission pool is more diverse, you'll still have to account for that in assembling your sideboard.
So for example - what if players had to have a core list of at least 1,250 points in a 2,000 point match. Then, players would have up to 1,250 points in their sideboard/reserves (all combined at 2,500 points). You'd pull units from the sideboard to get up to 2,000 points total for the match. As a variation on this, what if players have to deploy their core 1,250 points on the board, and ANY units remaining in the sideboard can be brought on as reserves, so long as you don't field more than 2,000 points in total over the course of the match.
Both of these seem like they could be a workable direction to explore. The former adds more upfront decision-making, the latter lets players be more responsive in deciding what units to bring down. Heck - you could even make this distinction part of the mission parameters (e.g. Objective Focused versus Escalating Engagement or something fluffy like that).
Last, I don't think manipulating points is the solution to any of this, outside of egregious cases where certain units just vastly outperforms the completion across a range of likely situations (or in all situations). If that's the case, sure, tweaking points can help with that. But as was pointed out, tweaking points is really just, at the end of the day, pushing around what "optimal or not" relative to a given mission and meta. Something will always be optimal. The objective instead should be to make it much harder to predict what will be optimal, so that the pressure to optimize is simply relieved.
Also, I don't think that messing around with the FOCs really accomplishes much either. Regardless of what approach you take, people will find ways to skew their lists. And if you make the FOC system too rigid, you'll just end up hamstringing certain armies that have a harder time fitting into that FOC than those that naturally align with it. Better to just tackle skew at the root by leveraging the law of averages and encouraging diverse, non-skewed armies that can perform across a range of scenarios.
* Casual lists are ones that are explicitly "not skewed", either by deliberately not optimizing the list or as a product of simply using the models a player has available and which aren't skewed.
Nope. Casual lists can easily be skewed. Wanting to do a tank company or a pure infantry regiment for theme or background reasons can easily wander into skew territory.
Hell, just wanting to play Custodes or Knights out of the book is automatically a skew list. No thought to optimization or competitiveness required.
'Availability of product' is just a downright weird metric. If someone wants to run a tank company, they're gonna buy a bunch of tanks. That's... what they have available.
Is it fair to say that a "skew" list is largely synonymous with "tuned" or "min-maxed" or "optimized" or "competitive-focused" list?
So, no.
A green tide list is inherently skewed, even if it isn't very good currently (I presume, from ork player complaints?)
Arschbombe wrote: We've seen this play out since 5th when terrain became a more significant part of the game because TLOS was introduced.
TLOS has been a thing in 40k since day 1* it was not a new concept introduced in 5th, no matter what myths people keep peddling.
3rd ed. Rulebook page 36- "Sometimes it may be hard to tell if a LOS is blocked or , so players must stoop over the table for a "model's eye view". This is the best way to see if LOS exists... Enemy models and all vehicles, friend or foe, do block a unit's LOS if they are in the way, just like buildings and other terrain. enemy models will block the LOS to other models up to twice their height."
2nd ed. rulebook page 26- "However in some cases it will be difficult to tell if a LOS is blocked or not, and players must stoop over the table for a model's eye view. This is always the best way to determine if LOS exists- some players even use small periscopes or mirrors to check the views from their models!..."
*Can't speak for RT as I never played it but I'm 99% sure it has the same LOS rules as 2nd. Also, 4th's LOS rules were also TLOS with the sole exception of area terrain, which had size categories and it's own set of rules. TLOS has been a thing since Rick Priestley himself wrote the 40k rules.
Mezmorki wrote: That said, I do like the idea of trying to formalize a sideboard method. While, as pointed out above, being able to adjust your list based on seeing the mission IS skew-enabling. But if it's kept within certain reasonable limits it builds in the expectation that players will tailor their forces to the mission - and if the mission pool is more diverse, you'll still have to account for that in assembling your sideboard.
One other way of looking at it is instead of allowing armies to adjust to match the mission, which implicitly requires that you have enough extra models to make meaningful change, you can instead look at adjusting the mission to match the armies.
Dust Warfare had a 'battle builder' mechanic where both players had a finite number of points to spend on mission type and battlefield conditions. The exact mechanic was a series of tracks, with each player alternating bidding points to advance along the tracks (linearly, so one player couldn't just cancel out the other player's bid).
This meant you were still limited to the roster you brought, but if you were facing a skew list you could push for scenario/conditions that would help you counter it. On the flip side, it was also possible for skew lists to push towards scenarios/conditions that favored them, so it's a non-trivial design task to make the mechanic function as a balancing mechanism rather than exacerbate bad matchups.
I'm not talking about product availability. I'm talking about what models a particular player actually owns. If you allow pre-game tuning, the player with a bigger collection of models to draw from will likely have an advantage over a player with fewer (or no) extra models to draw from.
Regarding skew - I get that it can be competitive or non-competitive skew. That makes sense.
But the core issue in this thread, in my understanding, is how skewed lists (from whatever source enables it) can lead to a poor experience versus someone playing a more casual list.
Arschbombe wrote: We've seen this play out since 5th when terrain became a more significant part of the game because TLOS was introduced.
TLOS has been a thing in 40k since day 1* it was not a new concept introduced in 5th, no matter what myths people keep peddling.
3rd ed. Rulebook page 36- "Sometimes it may be hard to tell if a LOS is blocked or , so players must stoop over the table for a "model's eye view". This is the best way to see if LOS exists...
Enemy models and all vehicles, friend or foe, do block a unit's LOS if they are in the way, just like buildings and other terrain. enemy models will block the LOS to other models up to twice their height."
2nd ed. rulebook page 26- "However in some cases it will be difficult to tell if a LOS is blocked or not, and players must stoop over the table for a model's eye view. This is always the best way to determine if LOS exists- some players even use small periscopes or mirrors to check the views from their models!..."
*Can't speak for RT as I never played it but I'm 99% sure it has the same LOS rules as 2nd. Also, 4th's LOS rules were also TLOS with the sole exception of area terrain, which had size categories and it's own set of rules. TLOS has been a thing since Rick Priestley himself wrote the 40k rules.
Ah but TLOS was never the default until 5th.
4th edition Area Terrain categorically blocked LoS to lower size-category models behind it. (So Size 3 area terrain blocked all LoS period, end of story).
Woods in 4th blocked LoS after 6" - so you could see 6" in or out, but more than that it blocked LoS. Another example.
None of those examples were valid for 5th. 5th ditched every line of sight abstraction and went purely with true LoS.
The area terrain rules in 4th were mostly the default as any terrain was area terrain if it had a base. The only things that weren't were things like barricades or tank traps (and even then they usually were too if baked onto a base with multiples of them). Therefore, player experience was that TLOS was the exception rather than the rule.
Arschbombe wrote: We've seen this play out since 5th when terrain became a more significant part of the game because TLOS was introduced.
TLOS has been a thing in 40k since day 1* it was not a new concept introduced in 5th, no matter what myths people keep peddling.
3rd ed. Rulebook page 36- "Sometimes it may be hard to tell if a LOS is blocked or , so players must stoop over the table for a "model's eye view". This is the best way to see if LOS exists...
Enemy models and all vehicles, friend or foe, do block a unit's LOS if they are in the way, just like buildings and other terrain. enemy models will block the LOS to other models up to twice their height."
2nd ed. rulebook page 26- "However in some cases it will be difficult to tell if a LOS is blocked or not, and players must stoop over the table for a model's eye view. This is always the best way to determine if LOS exists- some players even use small periscopes or mirrors to check the views from their models!..."
*Can't speak for RT as I never played it but I'm 99% sure it has the same LOS rules as 2nd. Also, 4th's LOS rules were also TLOS with the sole exception of area terrain, which had size categories and it's own set of rules. TLOS has been a thing since Rick Priestley himself wrote the 40k rules.
Ah but TLOS was never the default until 5th.
Did.. did... you just quite literally skip over the quotes from the rulebooks there? Both of them refer to TLOS, just under a different name.
Arschbombe wrote: We've seen this play out since 5th when terrain became a more significant part of the game because TLOS was introduced.
TLOS has been a thing in 40k since day 1* it was not a new concept introduced in 5th, no matter what myths people keep peddling.
3rd ed. Rulebook page 36- "Sometimes it may be hard to tell if a LOS is blocked or , so players must stoop over the table for a "model's eye view". This is the best way to see if LOS exists...
Enemy models and all vehicles, friend or foe, do block a unit's LOS if they are in the way, just like buildings and other terrain. enemy models will block the LOS to other models up to twice their height."
2nd ed. rulebook page 26- "However in some cases it will be difficult to tell if a LOS is blocked or not, and players must stoop over the table for a model's eye view. This is always the best way to determine if LOS exists- some players even use small periscopes or mirrors to check the views from their models!..."
*Can't speak for RT as I never played it but I'm 99% sure it has the same LOS rules as 2nd. Also, 4th's LOS rules were also TLOS with the sole exception of area terrain, which had size categories and it's own set of rules. TLOS has been a thing since Rick Priestley himself wrote the 40k rules.
Ah but TLOS was never the default until 5th.
Did.. did... you just quite literally skip over the quotes from the rulebooks there? Both of them refer to TLOS, just under a different name.
No, what I did instead was ignore your cherry picked quotes that don't include the 4th edition book at all and omit huge portions of the terrain sections of the rulebooks so that people could know what the whole truth was, rather than the tiny portion of it you shared.
Not only that, but the quotes you provide don't even espouse TLOS. Unless you think a Guardsman blocks all TLOS to a Space Marine just by being in front of him.
What those editions (and 4th) did was espouse TLOS for some situations, with heavily abstracted terrain for others.
5th removed those abstractions and it was TLOS all the time.
Arschbombe wrote: We've seen this play out since 5th when terrain became a more significant part of the game because TLOS was introduced.
TLOS has been a thing in 40k since day 1* it was not a new concept introduced in 5th, no matter what myths people keep peddling.
3rd ed. Rulebook page 36- "Sometimes it may be hard to tell if a LOS is blocked or , so players must stoop over the table for a "model's eye view". This is the best way to see if LOS exists...
Enemy models and all vehicles, friend or foe, do block a unit's LOS if they are in the way, just like buildings and other terrain. enemy models will block the LOS to other models up to twice their height."
2nd ed. rulebook page 26- "However in some cases it will be difficult to tell if a LOS is blocked or not, and players must stoop over the table for a model's eye view. This is always the best way to determine if LOS exists- some players even use small periscopes or mirrors to check the views from their models!..."
*Can't speak for RT as I never played it but I'm 99% sure it has the same LOS rules as 2nd. Also, 4th's LOS rules were also TLOS with the sole exception of area terrain, which had size categories and it's own set of rules. TLOS has been a thing since Rick Priestley himself wrote the 40k rules.
Ah but TLOS was never the default until 5th.
Did.. did... you just quite literally skip over the quotes from the rulebooks there? Both of them refer to TLOS, just under a different name.
lol your own quotations disproved your claim, buddy.
"Enemy models will block the LOS to other models up to TWICE THEIR HEIGHT."
Does that sound like a true line of sight system to you?
I'm not talking about product availability. I'm talking about what models a particular player actually owns.
So am I. I literally said someone who wants a tank company is going to _buy_ tanks.
If you allow pre-game tuning, the player with a bigger collection of models to draw from will likely have an advantage over a player with fewer (or no) extra models to draw from.
Well... yes. Horizontal power options (breath of choice) aren't as bad as vertical power issues (some units are just better), but its still an obvious advantage.
But the core issue in this thread, in my understanding, is how skewed lists (from whatever source enables it) can lead to a poor experience versus someone playing a more casual list.
Sure. But the skew list can be just as casual. 'More casual' isn't a metric. A green tide might struggle more against a tank company than against a pure infantry regiment due to a lack of anti-tank, but no one involved is being 'more casual.' They can all be thinking that they're doing themed lists properly
I interpret "casual" as being "not tuning a list to dominate another player" and collecting whatever is cool or themed.
That thing that is cool or themed can also be optimal or tuned.
Whereas building competitively is intentionally building a list to try to dominate the other player and intentionally only choosing the most tuned or optimal choices to have as much of an advantage before the game starts as is possible (and requires the other player to be doing the same thing to enjoy that game otherwise it is a seal clubbing)
Mezmorki wrote: But the core issue in this thread, in my understanding, is how skewed lists (from whatever source enables it) can lead to a poor experience versus someone playing a more casual list.
Different people are arguing different things - but "skew" largely isn't an issue in today's 40k.
If you look at top competitive lists they aren't spamming the same unit profile. They typically take a variety of unit types, including troops.
The concern is that say I take 3 units of troops, 3 stabby assault units, 3 shooty units and 2 tanks.
And you also take 3 units of troops, 3 stabby assault units, 3 shooty units and 2 tanks.
But my units are all better than yours. They statistically expect to do more damage and take less damage, while more easily moving around the table.
Therefore I have a much higher chance to win the game, regardless of what decisions you and I make.
We've then got into this wide tangent about how you can't identify what points cost something should be - but I'm not sure that's hugely helped even if its true in theory. Its very hard for instance to think of a scenario where say a Predator Destructor with 2 Heavy Bolters would be more valuable than a Skorpius Disintegrator or Plagueburst Crawler - but that's where the points are at the moment.
Maybe you could say Marine players shouldn't run tanks, so its fine the Predator sucks to discourage them. But that doesn't help casual players who may go and buy one, only to then find its just "bad" on the tabletop.
back in the day of old GW, the difference was simple, by running a theme that fit the background you had a weaker list than someone who just took the best units available
but with the random changes for the sake of change, we have now armies were this fluffy themed lists are the strongest option available, while other armies cannot compete even with taking the strongest units available
so your fluffy lists is a "skew" list while the competitive WAAC netlist from your opponent still has no chance to win
and both are casual players who just want to have fun playing 40k because they like the background
or as a youtuber said it yesterday, Space Marines are cool and we like them, but all games with Space Marines suck, so lets hope that the new Demonhunters is really just XCom2 with Marines
(funny how this applies to computer/mobile/console games as well as to tabletop)
I don't get it, what goalpost has moved? The goal is to "fix to all this "balance" business", your original suggestion failed to that, what I misconstrued your suggestion as failed that, the revised version someone else suggested fails at it. You cannot "balance" by ignoring it any more than you can fix a burnt pancake by turning off the stove. You will still have units that excel and units that fail, except you'd have more units that fail and fewer units that excel because you're not doing math to ensure a minimum level of balance, you're not following up with playtesting of spammy lists and you're not responding to how factions are used competitively and what their level of success is in the competitive scene. You have to get the pan hot, add some fat, pour in an appropriate amount of pancake batter, flip the pancake when one side is done and take it off the pan onto a plate once the other side is done. I don't teach classes, so you'll have to make do with my pancake analogy
Each scenario in series would move through different types of terrain.
It's not economical to update all your terrain every year, I've sort of done this for my Necron TTS terrain series, starting on top of a planet and then delving into the tomb world with bottomless chasms before entering into the depths of the cryptoscience facility, it's usable for GT missions, although too sparse terrain-wise and not updated for 2022. It would be awesome if tournaments cared enough to craft this sort of narrative, but for the sake of both tournaments and pick-up games the game should still be as balanced as possible. There should be as few terrible and incredible units as possible, a few niche units which are really good under the right circumstances but mostly bad are okay but the rest should be good solid units. You should not have to rip apart, crush or sell your minis just to have fun games. Ideally, you should be able to play a casual list against a competitive list you should have a back and forth game where you get to kill some things and score a few points and not just get steamrolled by an unkillable and all-eradicating tide of double-shooting Wraithguard that get victory points for being good at eradicating you.
I don't know whether you're talking about casual pick-up games or narrative games, with regards to your suggestions, because for the former speed of play is a huge factor. I've read about shops in Poland where they have timers on tables and if you take too long you have to help kill feral hogs /sarcasm. People have to get home for dinner time or get back home to sleep before work, having a 2k list that is in a box ready to play makes that a lot easier.
points will never be perfect...
The question is how good are they right now and how good can they get? I think balance can get extremely good, like "Spike brings a netlist to our casual game and we're equal in skill, I don't even notice that he's bringing a mean list" kind of balance. It's impossible to make every pancake perfect, but if you practice enough and you have a good recipe then the first pancake you make out of each batch does not have to be a scraggly mess.
Unit1126PLL wrote: ...the game is actually meant to be balanced. There's an emphasis on historical accuracy for sure, but the game wouldn't be any fun if you said "oh, you brought panzer grenadiers again to fight my Soviet Cavalry, why bother playing" which you DO get for some 40k armies. So it's at least better balance than that.
I did not notice the 2d6 math, thanks for pointing that out, the only thing I noticed was that counting 11-12 as 10 was a bit weird because it's a 1/12 chance. It's interesting to hear that you think it is balanced, is there no chance that this is a perception thing caused by the game not being played by a big enough community of competitive people? Like my group agreed to not look up netlists during Index 8th and the game felt pretty balanced, Necrons vs Daemons was theoretically super unfair with Changeling + Brims vs anything Necrons could field but we didn't feel it because we did not play enough games or do enough math to notice all the busted stuff immediately. My experience in 9th has also been very good in casual games.
catbarf wrote: One other way of looking at it is instead of allowing armies to adjust to match the mission, which implicitly requires that you have enough extra models to make meaningful change, you can instead look at adjusting the mission to match the armies.
Like the Titan Hunter secondary mission that lets you change the mission to make it easier if your opponent is playing Titanic skew. This also makes explicit what the designers are trying to do, don't bring too many vehicles/too much infantry/too many Titanic units, how do I find out whether GW thinks I should take Reanimators or Skorpekh Destroyers more often in terms of fluff? If GW was going to make Reanimators bad then they should advertise this in codexes by warning people not to get Reanimators.
vict0988 wrote: If GW was going to make Reanimators bad then they should advertise this in codexes by warning people not to get Reanimators.
You can't possibly be this naive. There's no game company in existence that's going to tell you straight up "Don't buy our kit".
Over-emphasis for effect, you can say that a unit is a dedicated anti-tank unit but overpriced for most other duties or you can portray a unit as the versatile staple of an army. You can make rules that prevent people or make it difficult to take 3 Reanimators like a Decurion-type of deal or like the limit of 1 Captain/Detachment. GW absolutely told people to stop buying 4 DDAs or 3 Doomscythes, but they don't tell me to not take a Reanimator, so Reanimators should be pts-efficient in at least one list. It's kind of hard to show that they're overcosted since someone did top 4 with a single Reanimator, but even if you accept my argument that it is 20% overcosted, 15 pts in the scheme of a 2k list is unnoticeable the rest of your list can carry that unless it is also 20% overcosted. I would argue a newb cannot put together a list that can carry the overcosted Reanimator and a casual player might just not be interested in making the adjustments needed to make it less bad.
I don't get it, what goalpost has moved? The goal is to "fix to all this "balance" business", your original suggestion failed to that, what I misconstrued your suggestion as failed that, the revised version someone else suggested fails at it. You cannot "balance" by ignoring it any more than you can fix a burnt pancake by turning off the stove. You will still have units that excel and units that fail, except you'd have more units that fail and fewer units that excel because you're not doing math to ensure a minimum level of balance, you're not following up with playtesting of spammy lists and you're not responding to how factions are used competitively and what their level of success is in the competitive scene. You have to get the pan hot, add some fat, pour in an appropriate amount of pancake batter, flip the pancake when one side is done and take it off the pan onto a plate once the other side is done. I don't teach classes, so you'll have to make do with my pancake analogy
Each scenario in series would move through different types of terrain.
It's not economical to update all your terrain every year, I've sort of done this for my Necron TTS terrain series, starting on top of a planet and then delving into the tomb world with bottomless chasms before entering into the depths of the cryptoscience facility, it's usable for GT missions, although too sparse terrain-wise and not updated for 2022. It would be awesome if tournaments cared enough to craft this sort of narrative, but for the sake of both tournaments and pick-up games the game should still be as balanced as possible. There should be as few terrible and incredible units as possible, a few niche units which are really good under the right circumstances but mostly bad are okay but the rest should be good solid units. You should not have to rip apart, crush or sell your minis just to have fun games. Ideally, you should be able to play a casual list against a competitive list you should have a back and forth game where you get to kill some things and score a few points and not just get steamrolled by an unkillable and all-eradicating tide of double-shooting Wraithguard that get victory points for being good at eradicating you.
I don't know whether you're talking about casual pick-up games or narrative games, with regards to your suggestions, because for the former speed of play is a huge factor. I've read about shops in Poland where they have timers on tables and if you take too long you have to help kill feral hogs /sarcasm. People have to get home for dinner time or get back home to sleep before work, having a 2k list that is in a box ready to play makes that a lot easier.
points will never be perfect...
The question is how good are they right now and how good can they get? I think balance can get extremely good, like "Spike brings a netlist to our casual game and we're equal in skill, I don't even notice that he's bringing a mean list" kind of balance. It's impossible to make every pancake perfect, but if you practice enough and you have a good recipe then the first pancake you make out of each batch does not have to be a scraggly mess.
Unit1126PLL wrote: ...the game is actually meant to be balanced. There's an emphasis on historical accuracy for sure, but the game wouldn't be any fun if you said "oh, you brought panzer grenadiers again to fight my Soviet Cavalry, why bother playing" which you DO get for some 40k armies. So it's at least better balance than that.
I did not notice the 2d6 math, thanks for pointing that out, the only thing I noticed was that counting 11-12 as 10 was a bit weird because it's a 1/12 chance. It's interesting to hear that you think it is balanced, is there no chance that this is a perception thing caused by the game not being played by a big enough community of competitive people? Like my group agreed to not look up netlists during Index 8th and the game felt pretty balanced, Necrons vs Daemons was theoretically super unfair with Changeling + Brims vs anything Necrons could field but we didn't feel it because we did not play enough games or do enough math to notice all the busted stuff immediately. My experience in 9th has also been very good in casual games.
catbarf wrote: One other way of looking at it is instead of allowing armies to adjust to match the mission, which implicitly requires that you have enough extra models to make meaningful change, you can instead look at adjusting the mission to match the armies.
Like the Titan Hunter secondary mission that lets you change the mission to make it easier if your opponent is playing Titanic skew. This also makes explicit what the designers are trying to do, don't bring too many vehicles/too much infantry/too many Titanic units, how do I find out whether GW thinks I should take Reanimators or Skorpekh Destroyers more often in terms of fluff? If GW was going to make Reanimators bad then they should advertise this in codexes by warning people not to get Reanimators.
It could be that Chain of Command is horribly imbalanced. But we are about to do a 3v3 "Big CoC" (their Apoc style system) in March and there's probably eight players total locally and it hasn't cropped up.
Besides, the reason you would want balance in your hobby casual game is all perception anyways. But yeah, we don't have tons of tournament data or anything to see whether or not CoC is balanced in the strictest sense.
What I can say is that in my local meta of players who want to succeed, no one has found any "secret sauce" or anything that totally broke the game. Compared to playing my Slaanesh Daemons at the beginning of 9th (which was so brutal I threw up in my mouth a little) it has felt surprisingly balanced.
Okay, so I get it- I know that looking at top performing armies don't tell the whole story, because each of them is the best (and possibly only good) build for the dex they represent.
But 5 different armies were represented in the LVO top 8. No single army received more than two of the top eight spots.
That feels like a somewhat level playing field. Again, fully acknowledge it doesn't tell the whole story. A special shout out to people still struggling with an 8th ed dex, because yeah, these dexes will struggle more than most.
Its debatable really.
A lot of lists seem able to make progress - even if they can't go the full distance. This is good. There are fewer hard walls - at least for those factions with updated books.
But equally in the LVO Custodes, DE and Tyranids were scored over 60% win rates. This seems bad - and the situation would become more closed and oppressive if say those 3 factions ceased being 24%~ of tournament participants, and instead approached 50%+. As tends to happen over time once its clear certain factions are winning.
You still have things like the Necron Reanimator that I think are medicore at 80 - but were obviously rubbish at 110.
Ruthlessly the big issue with 9th is that there's a lot of skill in it - and this serves to balance things - but you might not like that skill. Its kind of like how Kill Team seems to be "reasonably" balanced right now if everyone plays to the mission - but falls over hard if you line two armies up facing each other and just see which falls over first. Maybe CoC is the same.
Ruthlessly the big issue with 9th is that there's a lot of skill in it - and this serves to balance things - but you might not like that skill. Its kind of like how Kill Team seems to be "reasonably" balanced right now if everyone plays to the mission - but falls over hard if you line two armies up facing each other and just see which falls over first.
Might be getting my first game of the new KT in two weeks- the painting is actually going well right now.
It'll probably be a weird one, since it's only going to be one fire team per side rather than a full KT, but we'll see how it turns out.
Tyel wrote: Ruthlessly the big issue with 9th is that there's a lot of skill in it - and this serves to balance things - but you might not like that skill. Its kind of like how Kill Team seems to be "reasonably" balanced right now if everyone plays to the mission - but falls over hard if you line two armies up facing each other and just see which falls over first. Maybe CoC is the same.
Yes, this is exactly true for COC. I think I even was explicit about it earlier in the thread - if all you're doing is a firefight with no maneuver/tactics/other equipment than guns and guts, there's a very clear imbalance. Panzergrenadiers, no matter the stage of the war, have a pretty gigantic dice advantage thanks to having two belt-fed machine guns in the squad.
However, this FIREPOWER advantage tends to come with a maneuver disadvantage - they lose more when moving than other squads from other nations and drop down to about parity with other squads (e.g. a maneuvering American rifle squad might get to move 1d6 and shoot with 12 dice rerolling 1s due to semi-automatic rifles and marching fire, while a PzGren squad gets 10 dice no rerolls on a 1d6 move. On a 2d6 move, the Americans get 6 dice and the Germans get zero). Compared to stationary, where the pzgren get like 20 dice and the rifle squad still gets 12.
But infantry maneuver on a battlefield with so many machineguns is definitely a skill. Choosing the appropriate support assets and executing the plan to use them, when to use or not to use covering fire or smoke, how to give your opponent the overwatch dilemma, etc. All stuff I talked about in my earlier post.
The most "OP" thing (in that it is a great leveller) is the off-table artillery, because its bombardments can shift the course of the battle. But those are somewhat random and usually unreliable, and while they're powerful enough to shape games, they can be played around.
PenitentJake wrote: Okay, so I get it- I know that looking at top performing armies don't tell the whole story, because each of them is the best (and possibly only good) build for the dex they represent.
But 5 different armies were represented in the LVO top 8. No single army received more than two of the top eight spots.
That feels like a somewhat level playing field. Again, fully acknowledge it doesn't tell the whole story. A special shout out to people still struggling with an 8th ed dex, because yeah, these dexes will struggle more than most.
It means that in the tournament sense if you want a diverse group of armies, but where everyone is still expected to bring the one or two lists that do well, that its doing well. From a tournament sense, they are succeeding.
Its a level playing field IF you are chasing the meta and making sure that the army you are fielding is a part of the top of the meta.
That they have multiple top placing armies is also a good thing if you are playing in the tournament scene.
Pry up the floor boards of the tournament scene and you have a rotten black mould infested under deck that is everyone else underneath the tournament scene trying to get in fun games and for those of us trying not to have to invest upwards of a grand or more into an army every time the rules change or are updated to keep up with the meta.
It doesn't help Bob at the local game store showing up with an army that gets roflstomped by Joe's meta army, and then Joe says "yeah well this army doesn't win every GT and other armies can place alongside it, so its perfectly balanced, you just need to get better and buy one of those GT armies too so we can have closer games!"
vict0988 wrote:It's interesting to hear that you think it is balanced, is there no chance that this is a perception thing caused by the game not being played by a big enough community of competitive people? Like my group agreed to not look up netlists during Index 8th and the game felt pretty balanced, Necrons vs Daemons was theoretically super unfair with Changeling + Brims vs anything Necrons could field but we didn't feel it because we did not play enough games or do enough math to notice all the busted stuff immediately. My experience in 9th has also been very good in casual games.
Not to speak for Unit, but my perception has been that Chain of Command is designed to be balanced in terms of forces and, if you were to remove the randomization of support and use a deterministic system instead, you'd get pretty consistently fair fights.
The idea of the support roll is so that it's not deterministic, and you do have the occasional uphill battle, because real warfare isn't always fair. But that unfairness is actually, truly random, rather than because the balance system sucks and can be min-maxed.
You can always substitute flat values for the dice roll if randomness isn't your thing. I ran some AK-47 Republic with a small group a long time ago, and we had a couple of guys who loved how unpredictable it was, and others who felt that having part of your force just not show up to the battle due to UN intervention was simply not fun. It's not for everyone.
vict0988 wrote:Like the Titan Hunter secondary mission that lets you change the mission to make it easier if your opponent is playing Titanic skew. This also makes explicit what the designers are trying to do, don't bring too many vehicles/too much infantry/too many Titanic units, how do I find out whether GW thinks I should take Reanimators or Skorpekh Destroyers more often in terms of fluff? If GW was going to make Reanimators bad then they should advertise this in codexes by warning people not to get Reanimators.
Yeah, I'd agree with that. In theory, I like the secondaries because they allow armies to counteract skew by getting extra VPs. In practice, I dislike that there's glaringly no secondary keyed to heavy infantry spam, I hate how it renders certain units just unusable because they yield too many secondaries, and it's bs that a well-rounded Guard army yields 2-3x more VPs than a well-rounded Marine army because it's all keyed to wounds rather than points of damage done. The secondary system could be a valuable anti-skew system if it were designed a little better.
Unit1126PLL wrote:Yes, this is exactly true for COC. I think I even was explicit about it earlier in the thread - if all you're doing is a firefight with no maneuver/tactics/other equipment then guns and guts, there's a very clear imbalance. Panzergrenadiers, no matter the stage of the war, have a pretty gigantic dice advantage thanks to having two belt-fed machine guns in the squad.
However, this FIREPOWER advantage tends to come with a maneuver disadvantage
Yeah, I made specific reference to situational force-multipliers earlier because this is a really important aspect of the game design. You don't maximize your damage by listbuilding to wombo-combo your damage output before the game starts; you maximize damage through positioning to catch units in the open and suppress for assault. Those machine guns can really feel like a liability when standing still isn't an option.
PenitentJake wrote: Okay, so I get it- I know that looking at top performing armies don't tell the whole story, because each of them is the best (and possibly only good) build for the dex they represent.
But 5 different armies were represented in the LVO top 8. No single army received more than two of the top eight spots.
That feels like a somewhat level playing field. Again, fully acknowledge it doesn't tell the whole story. A special shout out to people still struggling with an 8th ed dex, because yeah, these dexes will struggle more than most.
In a tournament that size, you really need to stretch out to the top 32 because most of those armies were one bad decision or one dice roll or one sportsmanship point away from top 8 with how narrow the field is with 500+ players.
Stretching out to top 32 we have 11 represented factions, which is decent tbh. The problem is the majority of those 11 are one off players.
9 Armies are Custodes. 7 are tyranids. 6 are Drukhari. Then you have Orkz and GK with 2 appearences.
Also look at the highest level some factions finished at. PRE-NERF Sisters finished 39th the next highest was 93rd.
PRE-NERF deathguard finished their highest at 36th, next highest was 59th.
Necrons highest finish was 76th. They got buffs though,so we'll see what happens with them. Blood Angels and space wolves were in the 90s.
Now, all of this obviously doesn't make definitive statement about anything, a lot of data like % of field, WL% and more advanced statistical analysis are needed to get a clearer picture of where everyone is at at this precise moment in time.
But looking at 22 of the top 32 being the same 3 armies and several armies having 1 or 0 appearances in the top NINETY doesn't bode well.
Auticus also has a point that tournament results are also totally non-indicative of the INTERNAL balance of the books. Every GK list runs as many Dreadknights as they can fit because they're head and shoulders better than most other options. Deathwing got a top 16 placing. DEATHWING specifically, not Dark Angels.
The thing is, the game as a whole is so poorly balanced even assuming the absolute top tier of each book is the only thing being taken, that worrying about internal balance of the book is a luxury most armies don't have.
The Sisters of Battle changes (and yes, I harp on these but they're illustrative of a lot of GW's design problems) DO technically result in a more internally balanced book. The efficiency per point of Sacresancts, Dominions, and Morven are now closer to Immolators, Castigators, and Exorcists. BUT because the increases to our strong units have a frankly massive impact on the book's position on the overall power curve, and the decrease to our weak units have a negligible or non-existant effect, the army's external balance is now worse.
TLDR, We're at a point where most armies even having 1 really good build is a luxury and until external balance improves, internal balance needs to be a secondary concern. For balance adjustments, both should be considered when writing the book.
I'm surprised there isn't an entirely different set of rules for competitive play vs non-competitive.
And I mean entirely new set.
Competitive play should not have as much micro for list building. Every army should have basically copy/paste datasheets for their troopers, light tank, heavy tank, airplane etc. If the goal is external and internal balance, then the models should just be a representation of what your guys look like. But in function they are all the same. This is the only way to truly have a "perfect balance"
But even if that were the case, you would have people chiming about how going first/second is a bigger advantage yada yada yada.
Basically, a game developer can never make their competitive crowd 100% satisfied, and attempting to do so just cuts flavor from your system and slowly leads to more homogenization. Why don't we just rip the band aid off and homogenize everything right now for a COMP set of rules and then add back in all the flavorful elements into the subset of rules for more role play/historical/narrative/casual player base.
The problem there is that 40k is definitely designed and marketed toward "deck builders" or people who enjoy making lists to try to outlist their opponent.
You wouldn't have a competitive scene in 40k marketing to those people if you took out the main reason they are playing - to build and outlist their opponent.
As they are choosing to target that as their primary demographic that indicates their marketing research suggests that that is the bulk of their revenue source.
That also would remove churn and burn which I believe is also intentionally built in as a kind of nod to CCG regular new releases that the kids come in to stores to drop a grand or more on boxes of new cards regularly.
I just don't see that as reasonable from a business stance.
From a player stance I'd love that but I'm also not the core demographic of deck builder that GW has targeted.
Tittliewinks22 wrote: I'm surprised there isn't an entirely different set of rules for competitive play vs non-competitive.
And I mean entirely new set.
Competitive play should not have as much micro for list building. Every army should have basically copy/paste datasheets for their troopers, light tank, heavy tank, airplane etc. If the goal is external and internal balance, then the models should just be a representation of what your guys look like. But in function they are all the same. This is the only way to truly have a "perfect balance"
But even if that were the case, you would have people chiming about how going first/second is a bigger advantage yada yada yada.
Basically, a game developer can never make their competitive crowd 100% satisfied, and attempting to do so just cuts flavor from your system and slowly leads to more homogenization. Why don't we just rip the band aid off and homogenize everything right now for a COMP set of rules and then add back in all the flavorful elements into the subset of rules for more role play/historical/narrative/casual player base.
Because no one wants that? Not developers, not players, not even the illusion of the 'competitive crowd' as wholly different from 'normal players.'
Its a load of extra work that will just hack people off and drive down interest.
Tittliewinks22 wrote: I'm surprised there isn't an entirely different set of rules for competitive play vs non-competitive.
And I mean entirely new set.
Competitive play should not have as much micro for list building. Every army should have basically copy/paste datasheets for their troopers, light tank, heavy tank, airplane etc. If the goal is external and internal balance, then the models should just be a representation of what your guys look like. But in function they are all the same. This is the only way to truly have a "perfect balance"
But even if that were the case, you would have people chiming about how going first/second is a bigger advantage yada yada yada.
Basically, a game developer can never make their competitive crowd 100% satisfied, and attempting to do so just cuts flavor from your system and slowly leads to more homogenization. Why don't we just rip the band aid off and homogenize everything right now for a COMP set of rules and then add back in all the flavorful elements into the subset of rules for more role play/historical/narrative/casual player base.
A verbose version of "just play chess".
The narrative crowd will never be happy until they can play Blood Angels and Necrons alliance vs Orks and Tyranids alliance in a 10k vs 1k match on an upside-down table on the ceiling, why don't we just get rid of narrative play and make 40k Narrativer Edition. Each battle round both players roll a D6, if the roll is the same the armies will manoeuvre and do a little damage to each other according to the shared narrative that the "players" want to tell. If one "player" rolls higher than the other player their army will outdamage or outmanoeuvre the opponent's army, the higher the roll relative to the opponent's roll, the bigger the impact. The game is decided when the collective difference between the dice rolls of the two "players" is 10. There is no turn limit and if one army is entirely destroyed then they get a new army made up of anything from 40k, or AOS, Gorkamorka is okay too, but you have to ask before you use DnD miniatures, we're not being crazy or anything. Now you can ignore points and use blast templates while you make noises at each other like widdle kiddies. And don't you ever dare come near the competitive side of the game again, us comp devils will crush you into the floor because that is the only thing we care about muhahaha.
The concept was intended as hyperbole to illustrate a point. The more calls for "external balance" the more homogenized we are going to see each army.
There are plenty of "balanced" competitive games out there, why should GW change the rich history of this one to placate to a competitive crowd that will move on as soon as they've been milked dry?
I think imbalance is more desirable. I may be old, but I miss the days when every army excelled in some aspects but had weaknesses in others. Marines at the time were considered a jack of all, best of none.
If GW were to act on all the zealots who turn any critical discussion into a means of balance argument, then the game will deteriorate anyway. Why wait? To milk the cash cow until it's at a state of disrepair and they implement another AoS/40k 8th reboot.
The complexity of the game is too high for there to be any semblance of balance given the current rules teams bandwith. Look at another hobby that, until recently, had a very large competitive scene and pro-circut. Magic: The Gathering. Their rulebook puts everything in 40k rules writing department to shame. Unless we want a manifesto the size of the Britannica then the only other option for a "balanced" ruleset is to have more homogenization and slimmer rules (ex. Chess, Catan, Ticket to Ride).
tl;dr
Achieving balance in 40K is impossible without making every army the same or investing too many resources to the rules department to the point of a bad ROI for GW.
EDIT:
To the competitive (tournament players) what is the appeal of 40k rule set that other more balanced competitive games do not scratch for you. Purely rules, not lore/narrative/setting, what is the appeal?
Tittliewinks22 wrote: To the competitive (tournament players) what is the appeal of 40k rule set that other more balanced competitive games do not scratch for you. Purely rules, not lore/narrative/setting, what is the appeal?
availability, you want to play miniature games events, you need to play 40k, end of story
(when I started it was Warhammer Fantasy here, even most people in the club liked 40k more but if you wanted to play tournaments, you needed to play WHFB, and the time before that it was Battletech)
Tittliewinks22 wrote: The concept was intended as hyperbole to illustrate a point. The more calls for "external balance" the more homogenized we are going to see each army.
Homogenized milk is good, that's what I use for my pancakes, I don't want to have to shake my milk to get the fat distributed evenly in it.
There are plenty of "balanced" competitive games out there, why should GW change the rich history of this one to placate to a competitive crowd that will move on as soon as they've been milked dry?
If by rich history you're just referring to the various cheeses that curdled out of the unhomogenized imbalance in past editions then I think you are being silly. Invisible deathstars is no more rich history than the 2010 BP oil spill. I'm not saying that invisibility had to be removed, it should have had a larger opportunity cost. The competitive community did not get the Castellan removed from the game, what was removed was infinite CP and 3++ Knights. Is that really the hill you want to die on? There is nothing rich about Castellans costing 100 pts too little or having Stratagems that are too cheap.
I think imbalance is more desirable. I may be old, but I miss the days when every army excelled in some aspects but had weaknesses in others. Marines at the time were considered a jack of all, best of none.
You must have missed all the editions where Marines were jack of none and Eldar were masters of all or the 8th ed books that made SM masters of all. You cannot be a jack of all trades and master of none without balance, because it is ultimately points-efficiency that decides whether you are good at something.
If GW were to act on all the zealots who turn any critical discussion into a means of balance argument, then the game will deteriorate anyway. Why wait? To milk the cash cow until it's at a state of disrepair and they implement another AoS/40k 8th reboot.
What critical discussion? Are you being critical when you say that 40k should be an unbalanced mess as it is most of the time already? I'm the one doing the criticizing here. I also criticize them when they write unfluffy rules like Iyanden's chapter tactics, but the rules are imbalanced so I'm sure you love them because sure as hell nobody gave a gak about balance when they came up with chapter tactics or wrote them for Craftworld Eldar.
The complexity of the game is too high for there to be any semblance of balance given the current rules teams bandwith. Look at another hobby that, until recently, had a very large competitive scene and pro-circut. Magic: The Gathering. Their rulebook puts everything in 40k rules writing department to shame. Unless we want a manifesto the size of the Britannica then the only other option for a "balanced" ruleset is to have more homogenization and slimmer rules (ex. Chess, Catan, Ticket to Ride).
I am offended and appalled that you don't want a core rulebook the size of the Britannica, that is part of the rich history of 40k to have an oversized rulebook /sarcasm. The core rules have nothing to do with balance, although they're fine for competitive at the moment. Is the Harlequin codex more internally balanced than the Space Marines codex? Not really. Simplifying the game would not make it balanced, balancing the game would balance it.
I don't know what rules teams bandwith means. We don't even know how much staff the writing department has, you have no way of knowing whether it is a staffing issue if that's what you are referring to. I think it's 100% a methodology issue. All the information on whether to buff SK or Deathmarks is out there, but GW's methodology got none of it or let them ignore it very easily.
To the competitive (tournament players) what is the appeal of 40k rule set that other more balanced competitive games do not scratch for you. Purely rules, not lore/narrative/setting, what is the appeal?
You're still not getting it, you don't have to be competitive to want a more balanced 40k. Maybe you just want to have more games that go to turn 3+ for casual game nights, maybe you'd like to use <insert bad unit> in this environment or <insert OP unit> in that environment.
Also, the idea that balance = less "narrativeness" is a bit spurious imo.
I used to make it myself, then I realized I couldn't draw the thread of causality between "this interaction became more balanced" and "this interaction became less narrative" for anything in the game.
Really, what seems to murder the "narrativeness" the most are decisions caused by GW's own incompetence, and the understandable but regrettable decision to chase money.
auticus wrote: The problem there is that 40k is definitely designed and marketed toward "deck builders" or people who enjoy making lists to try to outlist their opponent.
You wouldn't have a competitive scene in 40k marketing to those people if you took out the main reason they are playing - to build and outlist their opponent.
As they are choosing to target that as their primary demographic that indicates their marketing research suggests that that is the bulk of their revenue source.
Agreed with your points overall but I think there's a GW quote floating around where they proudly say they don't bother doing market research. Which if true and not just a boastful quote out of context, would be quite remarkable that they managed to organically shift towards a sales model that targets deck builders without any detailed research. Just as the sea favors crabs perhaps the market for competitive nerdy games evolves towards deck building.
Tittliewinks22 wrote: The concept was intended as hyperbole to illustrate a point. The more calls for "external balance" the more homogenized we are going to see each army.
There are plenty of "balanced" competitive games out there, why should GW change the rich history of this one to placate to a competitive crowd that will move on as soon as they've been milked dry?
I think imbalance is more desirable. I may be old, but I miss the days when every army excelled in some aspects but had weaknesses in others. Marines at the time were considered a jack of all, best of none.
If GW were to act on all the zealots who turn any critical discussion into a means of balance argument, then the game will deteriorate anyway. Why wait? To milk the cash cow until it's at a state of disrepair and they implement another AoS/40k 8th reboot.
The complexity of the game is too high for there to be any semblance of balance given the current rules teams bandwith. Look at another hobby that, until recently, had a very large competitive scene and pro-circut. Magic: The Gathering. Their rulebook puts everything in 40k rules writing department to shame. Unless we want a manifesto the size of the Britannica then the only other option for a "balanced" ruleset is to have more homogenization and slimmer rules (ex. Chess, Catan, Ticket to Ride).
tl;dr
Achieving balance in 40K is impossible without making every army the same or investing too many resources to the rules department to the point of a bad ROI for GW.
EDIT:
To the competitive (tournament players) what is the appeal of 40k rule set that other more balanced competitive games do not scratch for you. Purely rules, not lore/narrative/setting, what is the appeal?
I am trying to understand your point of view. I am guessing you do not consider yourself a competitive player and you are upset about the competitive scene? You worry that adjustments made to the competitive game will affect your fun?
Are you worried about points changes? Why worry if you are not competitive? So one of your units costs more points. And? You aren't competitive. Heck, you are free to play without points or PL, just casually plonk down the models that you like and play a free-form game with your like-minded opponent. Recreate you favourite BL moment with someone who also wants to engage in that.
Is it the restrictions that are imposed on Matched Play? The sub-faction restrictions and flyer restrictions, for example, are for GT 2022 Matched Play games. I realize that if everyone at your FLGS/gaming community is playing that way it will be hard to find a like-minded opponent. That's on you, though, and not on them. They are presumably having fun playing their GT 2022 Matched Play games. You are free to join them.
You ask what is the appeal of 40K to tournament players. People will have different answers. I am not an ITC fellow, but I certainly play in local tournaments on a regular basis. A long time ago I played at the National GT. I like the background, the models (collecting and painting), the gameplay and the competitive aspect. By competitive I mean having to plan against another person who has agency. I like have relative freedom to pick my army. I understand the need for constraints and restraints, but I enjoy being able to design a list. List design is not, however, everything. You still have to play the game. Someone could try to use the latest LVO-winning list, but lacking that player's acumen they would not achieve the same results on the tabletop. Winning is nice, but playing is more important. For some tourney players, especially local tourneys, the tourney scene offers a convenient way to arrange games in a busy schedule.
Agreed with your points overall but I think there's a GW quote floating around where they proudly say they don't bother doing market research. Which if true and not just a boastful quote out of context, would be quite remarkable that they managed to organically shift towards a sales model that targets deck builders without any detailed research. Just as the sea favors crabs perhaps the market for competitive nerdy games evolves towards deck building.
That quote is from Kirby's days as the CEO, back when GW was struggling and people were theorizing Hasbro was going to buy the whole company.
GW may not have actually changed that much from those days, but I believe we can agree GW does bother with market research these days.
To the competitive (tournament players) what is the appeal of 40k rule set that other more balanced competitive games do not scratch for you. Purely rules, not lore/narrative/setting, what is the appeal?
You're still not getting it, you don't have to be competitive to want a more balanced 40k. Maybe you just want to have more games that go to turn 3+ for casual game nights, maybe you'd like to use <insert bad unit> in this environment or <insert OP unit> in that environment.
Good balance is important for casual/narrative players because it makes it easier to have fun with the models and armies you like, instead of leaving them at home because they don't work, and having to play with the models you don't like as much just because they do.
Tittliewinks22 wrote: The concept was intended as hyperbole to illustrate a point. The more calls for "external balance" the more homogenized we are going to see each army.
Ah. As hyperbole, it worked against you.
Also, 25+ years of calls for better external balance haven't homogenized the game, so that isn't really a concern.
To the competitive (tournament players) what is the appeal of 40k rule set that other more balanced competitive games do not scratch for you. Purely rules, not lore/narrative/setting, what is the appeal?
Universally (and speaking as someone that also lived and breathed and died by competitive 40k for many years) its the simple fact that its the only game that fields players in such massive numbers that you can find events literally anywhere.
Its a safe investment for your money. You know you will always have games of 40k available.
Its a safe investment for your time. You know you won't have to do any community building.
Its a safe investment for competitive comparisons. You know that there are hundreds to thousands of tournaments to compare notes with, rank up against, and dozens of large scale "grand" tournaments to compete in.
No other game on the market comes close to the numbers in terms of playerbase. Not even warhammer fantasy did in its prime.
Its never been about the ruleset for a giant majority of all competitive players I've ever known or played with, its always been about the massive community that exists.
Its much more impressive of an achievement to place top 5 or even win a tournament that has 180 people in it than it is to win a "grand tournament" that only had 20 people in it. Thats a massive draw to a lot of competitive people as well.
There are many games out there that could be better competitively but you have to drum up a community and then there's not a global tournament circuit for it either so from a competitive side you are losing out on a whole bunch.
EDIT: there's also the "pro" gamers that want to make a living from 40k. You need the massive player base for that to also even be remotely a reality. The cottage industries that stem from competitive 40k can't be denied. There are guys that make a living just doing twitch and youtubes (ad revenue) and there are guys that make a ton of money from people that pay them hundreds of dollars to simply build them a list. The standard of "make a living" may differ from person to person but its still a fair bit of money that people are chasing that they choose 40k over because of its massive player base.
).
'd over rules wise by 
) and being broken in one of the meta's because nobody in that Meta brings anti-tank. So lets correct for it. if we use Meta A-Z or whichever to justify nerfing Leman russes because Players in that meta don't want to bring or don't own anti-tank, well than all you have done is correct a single problem within a single meta, while simultaneously nerfing a competitive option or even an ok option into the ground. It doesn't make any sense. especially since you aren't playing competitively which means you could have just approved said 
