Just a really bad prediction, but I just wanted to be the first to actually call it.
Points will go away. This will create much nashing of teeth and pulling of beards, but it will also be an attempt by GW to completely balance all factions at once. No more minor point fixes for ultra useful generalist squads like Marines. This will also greatly reduce the need for weekly bandaid fixes or day one patches to broken codexes, in my view, because a Space marine with a bolt rifle is now the exact same as a space marine with an assault bolter. They've already started doing it with Custodes. Every Custodes model unit now basically costs the same, unless you give them a shield, or a heavy Weapon. The biggest place this will hurt:
VEHICLES. They will have to homogenize tanks and vehicles with standard load outs, they can call them "patterns" and say "THIS PATTERN LEHMAN RUSS COMES WITH BOLTERS ON THE SIDE AND FRONT, HAS NORMAL CANNON, AND IS CALLED A CONQUEROR, 10PL.
THIS ONE COMES WITH PLASMA CANNONS AND PLASMA TURRET, 15 PL.
THIS ONE etc etc.
Generalists will need to be handled the same way as Guard. A basic squad of 5 would be say, 5PL, but give it a SW trooper and a HW Trooper, that squad is now 8-9PL.
This will also have the backlash effect of forcing diversity on the competitive gaming scene, as now there is no min-max setup. You can run special rules at each event to narrow/widen the field. "YOU CAN ONLY HAVE 15PL DEVOTED TO ELITES" or something like it.
It would also completely nuke the way 40k does it's Detachment system, which is crap in my opinion.
The only way GW games could be any more of a clusterfeth balance wise is if we went to that format. Imagine 10 marines with 2 meltas costing the same as 6 marines without them. The game will still be horribly broken, just in a different way. Whatever army has access to a lot of upgrades on their squads will dominate while the armies with set loadouts or smaller unit sizes will get stomped. PL is a half-assed system designed so that 2 new players who don't own a codex can throw some models down and have a game with armies that are somewhere in the same ballpark. It falls apart much faster than points in a competitive environment where someone is actively trying to break the game and find the most powerful combos. Luckily this is such a horrible, bad, awful, no-good idea that even GW wouldn't be stupid enough to attempt it. It's only a tiny bit better for balance than "bring as many models as can fit in your deployment zone with whatever weapons you want to put on them and whoever makes the loudest laser noises wins"
Not a chance. Points is the entire balancing mechanism that facilitates matched play. Another way of saying the same thing is you can't sell a munitorum supplement for PL- there isn't enough granularity in the system.
If anything, they'd get rid of PL. It doesn't make them any money and as much as I'm a fan of it, I like it because it's simple and allows for last minute swaps, not because it's an effective way to balance the game.
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: Just a really bad prediction, but I just wanted to be the first to actually call it.
Points will go away. This will create much nashing of teeth and pulling of beards, but it will also be an attempt by GW to completely balance all factions at once. No more minor point fixes for ultra useful generalist squads like Marines. This will also greatly reduce the need for weekly bandaid fixes or day one patches to broken codexes, in my view, because a Space marine with a bolt rifle is now the exact same as a space marine with an assault bolter. They've already started doing it with Custodes. Every Custodes model unit now basically costs the same, unless you give them a shield, or a heavy Weapon. The biggest place this will hurt:
VEHICLES. They will have to homogenize tanks and vehicles with standard load outs, they can call them "patterns" and say "THIS PATTERN LEHMAN RUSS COMES WITH BOLTERS ON THE SIDE AND FRONT, HAS NORMAL CANNON, AND IS CALLED A CONQUEROR, 10PL.
THIS ONE COMES WITH PLASMA CANNONS AND PLASMA TURRET, 15 PL.
THIS ONE etc etc.
Generalists will need to be handled the same way as Guard. A basic squad of 5 would be say, 5PL, but give it a SW trooper and a HW Trooper, that squad is now 8-9PL.
This will also have the backlash effect of forcing diversity on the competitive gaming scene, as now there is no min-max setup. You can run special rules at each event to narrow/widen the field. "YOU CAN ONLY HAVE 15PL DEVOTED TO ELITES" or something like it.
It would also completely nuke the way 40k does it's Detachment system, which is crap in my opinion.
They dropped the points with AoS and it created a revolt among the gamers. What a debacle this had been! Pretty sure GW won´t do such an error again.
More likely is that models will be more directly represented by and represent the so called data slates and the conversion to a battle themed CCG with expensive plastic tokens will be complete.
Points may be used to fine tune such slates or PL May just become a new word for points, but the main change will likely be to cement the No model no rules scheme around CCG mechanics with the result being that any army list or build is essentially a deck with X many points or PL or whatever.
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: Just a really bad prediction, but I just wanted to be the first to actually call it.
Points will go away. This will create much nashing of teeth and pulling of beards, but it will also be an attempt by GW to completely balance all factions at once. No more minor point fixes for ultra useful generalist squads like Marines. This will also greatly reduce the need for weekly bandaid fixes or day one patches to broken codexes, in my view, because a Space marine with a bolt rifle is now the exact same as a space marine with an assault bolter. They've already started doing it with Custodes. Every Custodes model unit now basically costs the same, unless you give them a shield, or a heavy Weapon. The biggest place this will hurt:
VEHICLES. They will have to homogenize tanks and vehicles with standard load outs, they can call them "patterns" and say "THIS PATTERN LEHMAN RUSS COMES WITH BOLTERS ON THE SIDE AND FRONT, HAS NORMAL CANNON, AND IS CALLED A CONQUEROR, 10PL.
THIS ONE COMES WITH PLASMA CANNONS AND PLASMA TURRET, 15 PL.
THIS ONE etc etc.
Generalists will need to be handled the same way as Guard. A basic squad of 5 would be say, 5PL, but give it a SW trooper and a HW Trooper, that squad is now 8-9PL.
This will also have the backlash effect of forcing diversity on the competitive gaming scene, as now there is no min-max setup. You can run special rules at each event to narrow/widen the field. "YOU CAN ONLY HAVE 15PL DEVOTED TO ELITES" or something like it.
It would also completely nuke the way 40k does it's Detachment system, which is crap in my opinion.
I've been playing power level 40K for about four months now since the stores opened up. It's way more fun than points, assuming you don't get matched up with power gamers who want to ROFL stomp seals. Bring it on!
You could easily put Power Level in for points and make it the only way to do it.
It would be your true test on how big the pie is that the competitive players make up, because they would mostly set their collections on fire and storm out if that ever happened.
I think to me that GW knows that and that will never happen.
You could see an AOS styled point system come in though where you don't pay per model, but per x models. They have been doing that for years now and AOS taught us that just as long as there are some points, the community was largely accepting of whatever that big dump truck shoveled at them.
Reminds me a bit of 2nd edition. Where you paid for the squad, not per model. SM weren't 30pts each. A Tactical squad was 300pts and contained 10 marines.
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: Just a really bad prediction, but I just wanted to be the first to actually call it.
Points will go away. This will create much nashing of teeth and pulling of beards, but it will also be an attempt by GW to completely balance all factions at once. No more minor point fixes for ultra useful generalist squads like Marines. This will also greatly reduce the need for weekly bandaid fixes or day one patches to broken codexes, in my view, because a Space marine with a bolt rifle is now the exact same as a space marine with an assault bolter. They've already started doing it with Custodes. Every Custodes model unit now basically costs the same, unless you give them a shield, or a heavy Weapon. The biggest place this will hurt:
VEHICLES. They will have to homogenize tanks and vehicles with standard load outs, they can call them "patterns" and say "THIS PATTERN LEHMAN RUSS COMES WITH BOLTERS ON THE SIDE AND FRONT, HAS NORMAL CANNON, AND IS CALLED A CONQUEROR, 10PL.
THIS ONE COMES WITH PLASMA CANNONS AND PLASMA TURRET, 15 PL.
THIS ONE etc etc.
Generalists will need to be handled the same way as Guard. A basic squad of 5 would be say, 5PL, but give it a SW trooper and a HW Trooper, that squad is now 8-9PL.
This will also have the backlash effect of forcing diversity on the competitive gaming scene, as now there is no min-max setup. You can run special rules at each event to narrow/widen the field. "YOU CAN ONLY HAVE 15PL DEVOTED TO ELITES" or something like it.
It would also completely nuke the way 40k does it's Detachment system, which is crap in my opinion.
I've been playing power level 40K for about four months now since the stores opened up. It's way more fun than points, assuming you don't get matched up with power gamers who want to ROFL stomp seals. Bring it on!
While I think this prediction is wrong, GW has been moving in this direction with the latest iteration of points.
Think of all the weapon upgrades that have been given uniform points levels along with improved rules for the weaker items to bring them closer to the more powerful. Or all the units with some items built into their cost with interchangeable upgrades for most if not all options.
All GW has to do to make Power Level work instead of points is:
Roll more upgrades into a units base points
Allow some upgrades or number of upgrades cost increase PL
Breakdown PL for additional models to the smallest number possible rather than +5 PL for up to 5 more models
For Example, let's take the Poster Boy unit of yesterday, the Space Marine Tactical Squad.
Today, it is PL 5 for 5 models or PL 10 for 6-10 models.
But what if it was?
Base PL 5 for 5 Models, Sgt may swap either Bolter or Bolt Pistol for Chainsword
+1 Power Level for 1 more model, +2 Power Level for 3 more models, or +3 Power for 5 more models
+1 PL for 2 unit upgrades, +2 PL for 4 unit upgrades
A fully upgraded unit is still 10 PL, but you have more control over the exact PL and models in the unit than 5 or 10 PL gives you. It also encourages more use of upgrades since you don't just purchase 1 because of points efficiency.
Is GW likely to go this route? Who knows. They could at 10 Edition Launch with a PDF of Power Levels with no Points and then roll out the new method in the Codexes, but they would have to admit defeat and not put PL in the Unit entries since they would need to be able to readily change them for balance reasons.
Tygre wrote:Reminds me a bit of 2nd edition. Where you paid for the squad, not per model. SM weren't 30pts each. A Tactical squad was 300pts and contained 10 marines.
I miss more restrictions and caveats.
Then again 2nd is my favorite 40k so I'm kinda biased.
Toofast wrote: The only way GW games could be any more of a clusterfeth balance wise is if we went to that format. Imagine 10 marines with 2 meltas costing the same as 6 marines without them. The game will still be horribly broken, just in a different way.
H.B.M.C. wrote: How many units in AoS have upgrades akin to 40k's?
I don't think GW cares. Its roughly the same thing. It may not have the sheer number of them, but its roughly the same thing.
Unit may take banner and if they do they get this. Unit may also take this other banner and if they do they get this. Unit may upgrade a model to be the leader and if so it does this. Unit may give 1 model out of 5 this weapon that does this better stuff.
No points costs.
Thats pretty common.
Hero may take one of these magic items for free. Hero may take one of these army upgrades for free.
40k was similar.
Upgrade marine to sergeant for +15 points.
Give 1 marine a plasma pistol for +15 points.
Give 1 marine this rocket launcher for +15 points.
Give unit this special rule for +1 point / model.
Hero may take power fist for +25 points.
Army may take this special rule and if they do then each foo model pays +2 points more.
The only difference is in aos you don't pay the points and there are less overall but - still basically same thing. Easily in the realm of being done to 40k. Also easy to make lists and the aos crowd seems to love it but I can't tell if they really love it or just love it because GW told them thats the way it is and they just open up and say ahhh with a positive demeanor.
Toofast wrote: The only way GW games could be any more of a clusterfeth balance wise is if we went to that format. Imagine 10 marines with 2 meltas costing the same as 6 marines without them.
Daemon's advocate: it would be kind of weird to field our hypothetical 6 dudes with no special weapons. At that point, you're just spending PL really inefficiently; which you can also do with points. Not that I'm keen to defend PL. Power Level is fine for quick casual games where you want to try out some upgrades you can't normally stand to spend points on, but making it the main way to play the game would be a mistake.
to be fair, apocalypse does do okay using just PL - in that case, extra troops and heavy weapons increase PL, the latter usually by 1 regardless of the specific weapon. There's no reason PL can't work for army selection, but GW would need to pay a lot more attention TO it.
GW makes a big deal of 'tweaking' points on a regular basis to try and maintain balance. Regardless of whether they succeed or not, I don't see them doing away with that tool because the other option is tweaking rules, and a unit changing stats every six months is a lot more disruptive to someone who doesn't play that faction.
(yes, I realise the 'DLC'-esque effect of sourcebooks adding stratagems and army rules kind of does that by default).
Sigmar point system is nearly identicle to the PL system of 40k. My group has yet to play a single 9th game with points, we cant be hassled with the grainular imbalamces so we stick to broad abstracts that PL provide.
I know my grots feel better as 2pl of my 100pl force (2%) instead of 50 of my 2000 (2.5%)
H.B.M.C. wrote: How many units in AoS have upgrades akin to 40k's?
AoS uses Power Level instead of detailed points, and people accept it because upgrades are options and not better by default
while at the same time GW reduces the amount of upgrades over time (new armies in 3rd do not make a difference between weapons any more)
40k once was similar regarding upgrades and it would not hurt the game if they go back to that
Marine Squad = 120 Points
4 Marines with Bolter, 1 Seargent with Bolt Pistol and Chainsword
exchange 1 Bolter with Flamer, Plasma, Melter
+5 Marines for 100 points
exchange 1 Bolter with Laser, Rocket-Launcher, MultiMelter
exchange Chainsword with Power Weapon or Power Fist
exchange Bolt Pistol with Plasma Pistol
now it depends on the rules of those if your upgrades are options or not
eg Chainsword +1A, Power Weapon +1AP, Power Fist +2AP always strike last
the problem is not Power Levels or the amount of upgrades, but that some weapons are clearly better in all situations than other more special weapons (no point in taking a Melter or Flamer over Plasma if it is better against both targets)
No, points are there to make it easier for people to play with forces of equal strength against each other
How detailed those are does not matter for this (it does matter for internal faction balance)
Factions not being balanced defeats the purpose of points as if 2k points of faction A have no chance of 2k points of faction B it does no matter if upgrades for unis are integrated in units points or not
Solution to so many of the problems people have with PL seems pretty simple - "Unit X costs 5 PL and includes 3 upgrades from the following list", if you want more granularity "Unit X costs 5 PL and includes 2 upgrades from the following, +1 upgrade from this list, +1 upgrade from this list", etc.
As it stands, the whole "paying for upgrades" thing is a meme on many 9th edition units, there are numerous units that have a large number of upgrade options that cost precisely 0 points/are interchangeable with base wargear at no cost, and many more where the upgrades all cost the same (usually +5 or +10), etc.
alextroy wrote: While I think this prediction is wrong, GW has been moving in this direction with the latest iteration of points.
Think of all the weapon upgrades that have been given uniform points levels along with improved rules for the weaker items to bring them closer to the more powerful. Or all the units with some items built into their cost with interchangeable upgrades for most if not all options.
All GW has to do to make Power Level work instead of points is:
Roll more upgrades into a units base points
Allow some upgrades or number of upgrades cost increase PL
Breakdown PL for additional models to the smallest number possible rather than +5 PL for up to 5 more models
For Example, let's take the Poster Boy unit of yesterday, the Space Marine Tactical Squad.
Today, it is PL 5 for 5 models or PL 10 for 6-10 models.
But what if it was?
Base PL 5 for 5 Models, Sgt may swap either Bolter or Bolt Pistol for Chainsword
+1 Power Level for 1 more model, +2 Power Level for 3 more models, or +3 Power for 5 more models
+1 PL for 2 unit upgrades, +2 PL for 4 unit upgrades
A fully upgraded unit is still 10 PL, but you have more control over the exact PL and models in the unit than 5 or 10 PL gives you. It also encourages more use of upgrades since you don't just purchase 1 because of points efficiency.
Is GW likely to go this route? Who knows. They could at 10 Edition Launch with a PDF of Power Levels with no Points and then roll out the new method in the Codexes, but they would have to admit defeat and not put PL in the Unit entries since they would need to be able to readily change them for balance reasons.
This is just points and calling it PL. A rose is a rose.
alextroy wrote: While I think this prediction is wrong, GW has been moving in this direction with the latest iteration of points.
Think of all the weapon upgrades that have been given uniform points levels along with improved rules for the weaker items to bring them closer to the more powerful. Or all the units with some items built into their cost with interchangeable upgrades for most if not all options.
All GW has to do to make Power Level work instead of points is:
Roll more upgrades into a units base points
Allow some upgrades or number of upgrades cost increase PL
Breakdown PL for additional models to the smallest number possible rather than +5 PL for up to 5 more models
For Example, let's take the Poster Boy unit of yesterday, the Space Marine Tactical Squad.
Today, it is PL 5 for 5 models or PL 10 for 6-10 models.
But what if it was?
Base PL 5 for 5 Models, Sgt may swap either Bolter or Bolt Pistol for Chainsword
+1 Power Level for 1 more model, +2 Power Level for 3 more models, or +3 Power for 5 more models
+1 PL for 2 unit upgrades, +2 PL for 4 unit upgrades
A fully upgraded unit is still 10 PL, but you have more control over the exact PL and models in the unit than 5 or 10 PL gives you. It also encourages more use of upgrades since you don't just purchase 1 because of points efficiency.
Is GW likely to go this route? Who knows. They could at 10 Edition Launch with a PDF of Power Levels with no Points and then roll out the new method in the Codexes, but they would have to admit defeat and not put PL in the Unit entries since they would need to be able to readily change them for balance reasons.
This is just points and calling it PL. A rose is a rose.
Waht fundamentally is the difference between points and pl? One is just a more granular system in a game where a lot of that granularity is pretty fake.
I really like PL.
Easy math, simple
You get to learn what the actual weapons are over time!
Yes, factions with limited customization can have issues (my poor Necrons). But this does help with the previous point.
PL doesn't automatically mean Crusade or Open Play, you can use PL with Matched Play. We use the Open Play missions, but still have Detachments and such.
Blndmage wrote: I really like PL.
Easy math, simple
You get to learn what the actual weapons are over time!
Yes, factions with limited customization can have issues (my poor Necrons). But this does help with the previous point.
PL doesn't automatically mean Crusade or Open Play, you can use PL with Matched Play. We use the Open Play missions, but still have Detachments and such.
I hate PL because a squad of terminators with combibolters and chainaxes cost the same as a squad of combimelta and chainfist
oni wrote: Nope. Will never happen. GW learned this the hard way with AoS.
I read this argument a lot, but AoS switched from nothing at all to Power Levels
so the only thing GW learned is that there need to be something, and Power Level work just fine
Toofast wrote: The only way GW games could be any more of a clusterfeth balance wise is if we went to that format. Imagine 10 marines with 2 meltas costing the same as 6 marines without them.
Daemon's advocate: it would be kind of weird to field our hypothetical 6 dudes with no special weapons. At that point, you're just spending PL really inefficiently; which you can also do with points. Not that I'm keen to defend PL. Power Level is fine for quick casual games where you want to try out some upgrades you can't normally stand to spend points on, but making it the main way to play the game would be a mistake.
Here's a principle of game design, though: you don't intentionally build trap options that people can do.
Because people do make 'inefficient' or wrong choices. What you want to do is write rules so people make interesting choices, not just always take the better choice.
oni wrote: Nope. Will never happen. GW learned this the hard way with AoS.
I read this argument a lot, but AoS switched from nothing at all to Power Levels
so the only thing GW learned is that there need to be something, and Power Level work just fine
Perhaps I'm out of touch with the current edition of AoS, but I thought everything had a points value associated with it except some wargear upgrades and that units are pointed in blocks of models instead of a per model basis. Regardless of how things get broken down for AoS, it's still more granular than W40K's Power Level. The thing to keep in mind is that the AoS system is structured differently than W40K and seems to have less options overall (unit wargear, unit upgrades, unit composition, etc); so less granular pointing seems to work for the AoS system.
Toofast wrote: The only way GW games could be any more of a clusterfeth balance wise is if we went to that format. Imagine 10 marines with 2 meltas costing the same as 6 marines without them.
Daemon's advocate: it would be kind of weird to field our hypothetical 6 dudes with no special weapons. At that point, you're just spending PL really inefficiently; which you can also do with points. Not that I'm keen to defend PL. Power Level is fine for quick casual games where you want to try out some upgrades you can't normally stand to spend points on, but making it the main way to play the game would be a mistake.
Razorbacks hone the point.
If you want that six man Tactical Squad WITH a Special Weapon in a Razorback, that costs the same as 10 dudes, combat squad, and just having five guys in the Razorback instead.
oni wrote: Nope. Will never happen. GW learned this the hard way with AoS.
I read this argument a lot, but AoS switched from nothing at all to Power Levels
so the only thing GW learned is that there need to be something, and Power Level work just fine
Perhaps I'm out of touch with the current edition of AoS, but I thought everything had a points value associated with it except some wargear upgrades and that units are pointed in blocks of models instead of a per model basis. Regardless of how things get broken down for AoS, it's still more granular than W40K's Power Level. The thing to keep in mind is that the AoS system is structured differently than W40K and seems to have less options overall (unit wargear, unit upgrades, unit composition, etc); so less granular pointing seems to work for the AoS system.
The AOS system is almost identical to 40k power level except they have an added zero to the points.
100 points instead of 10 points.
250 points instead of 25 points.
The extra zero is largely a placebo but keeps things gw standard 2000 points.
The only other major difference is that there are more options in 40k. Assuming that just because there are more options in 40k means that gw feels they want to keep granularity is wholly based in opinion. GW will do whatever GW feels like doing at any given moment, as we can attest to in over 30 years of watching them do whatever they want on a whim that seems to take people off guard when they do it. That AOS already exists with 40k power level system with the extra zero should be something to keep an eye on depending on how their surveys go in what is popular and is not popular.
When AOS got its "official points" in 2016, there was some minor bitching that options were free and everyone would just take the most powerful options all the time.
And they did.
And then after a short period the fan base seemed to love that. And the tourney crowd today seems to be quite large and there is often praise of that type of system keeping things simple.
Its works in AoS because units have, at most a, choice between 2 weapons.
Can 40k move to Power level? Sure, if you get rid of a lot of the options that now exist.
And in a way GW is already doing just that, we can see it in the newer codexes where all the options weapons for a unit are all the same price.
Toofast wrote: The only way GW games could be any more of a clusterfeth balance wise is if we went to that format. Imagine 10 marines with 2 meltas costing the same as 6 marines without them.
Daemon's advocate: it would be kind of weird to field our hypothetical 6 dudes with no special weapons. At that point, you're just spending PL really inefficiently; which you can also do with points. Not that I'm keen to defend PL. Power Level is fine for quick casual games where you want to try out some upgrades you can't normally stand to spend points on, but making it the main way to play the game would be a mistake.
Look at a unit like Drukhari Scourges. A unit with just the basic carbines is a fast, cheap, DS-ing harasser unit and objective-grabber. A unit carrying heavy weapons on everyone besides the squad leader is either DS-able long-range fire support or a short-range suicide unit. Power Level in its current incarnation splits the difference, massively overcosts the naked squad, and undercosts the heavy weapon squad.
It wouldn't be wholly unreasonable to:
-Continue using the current '6 guys are the same cost as 10' system. It's basically AOS's fixed unit size increments, except you can choose to drop a guy if you need to fit the squad plus a character in a transport or something.
-Assign PL costs to weapon upgrades that are either actually optional (eg on Scourges, or Chosen, or other units that have a base weapon but every model can swap it out), or more valuable than the weapon upgrades assumed to be baked into their cost. In the case of Scourges, it could be that you can take no heavy weapons at base cost, two at PL+1, or four at PL+2. Pretty straightforward.
Yeah, it'd be functionally just a less-granular points system, but I don't think that's a bad thing. Total lack of wargear/upgrade representation is the main thing that currently makes PL a no-go for me in terms of balancing two forces.
While I don't play AoS very often (only had, like, 2 games total), it seems like GW likes to give some free standard equipment (banner/musician, leader, etc.) and weapon choices that look identical, but then at the same time give some kind of rule, buff, or ability that basically says "no, you really should take this weapon".
I think we can all agree, There is no diversity in the current makeup of the competitive scene. Everyone just plays the best min-max lists. Just like the days of IH Dreads. I think Power level systems would change that.
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: I think we can all agree, There is no diversity in the current makeup of the competitive scene. Everyone just plays the best min-max lists. Just like the days of IH Dreads. I think Power level systems would change that.
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: I think we can all agree, There is no diversity in the current makeup of the competitive scene. Everyone just plays the best min-max lists. Just like the days of IH Dreads. I think Power level systems would change that.
By what reasoning? Lists will be min-maxed just as hard with PL. You think AoS doesn't have netlists?
Netlisting has been a thing since AOL chat days of the 1990s. It doesn't matter what point system you use, competitive players will always find what is broken and gravitate toward that barring a system that can actually not be grotesquely broken. AOS players have embraced and glorified the power level system of gittin gud since the system dropped for them in 2016.
Speaking as a former competitive player that only fielded busted lists. And also pretended it was my skill winning the day and not my list.
PL wont fix balance issues. Better rules and pointing will. PL is great for some people, trash for others. I like there is a choice by players what system they will use. In the case of tournaments, I doubt the people using PL would care to much about playing a tourn thus points being a comp standard. Much like it is now. Keep em both. If you want better balance you need to push GW to fix their codex release schedule to minimize power creep. This will never happen. WH40k will ALWAYS be unbalanced simply due to release schedules.
Toofast wrote: The only way GW games could be any more of a clusterfeth balance wise is if we went to that format. Imagine 10 marines with 2 meltas costing the same as 6 marines without them.
To be fair that's how AoS is formatted already. You don't have to take that special weapon in the squad(but you'd be a fool if you don't) and you don't need to take a block of 5/10 at once(but you'd be a fool if you don't). A squad of 6 barebone Khorne Warriors costs the same as a squad of 10 that have a banner and the single big axe. AoS has its imbalances, but no worse for wear than 40k.
Now whether something like PL will happen to Matched 40k I am not that worried about it. I can imagine many armies having a setup that can use PL, but marines just break the mold horribly(and also shows that marines have it way too good already) as their amount of permutations is just mindboggingly complex.
Basically Marines are too problematic for PL to take over. They'd need a massive restructure of marines to even think about doing something like that and I can't see that happening.
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Arcanis161 wrote: While I don't play AoS very often (only had, like, 2 games total), it seems like GW likes to give some free standard equipment (banner/musician, leader, etc.) and weapon choices that look identical, but then at the same time give some kind of rule, buff, or ability that basically says "no, you really should take this weapon".
AoS 3.0 seems to be consolidating some of the weapons(much like we've seen in 40k), but even then all extras in a squad are included in the price of entry so you really don't have a reason to pick a barebone squad or understrength units.
As my trend setting (as I'm so cool) post states they have been creating the perfect situation to switch to PL.
100 PL of Harlequins is really 110~115 PL right now anyway, so does it really matter if 100 PL of Marines which might be really 90 PL is 'secretly' adding 5~10 PL due to free upgrades?
Perhaps I'm out of touch with the current edition of AoS, but I thought everything had a points value associated with it except some wargear upgrades and that units are pointed in blocks of models instead of a per model basis. Regardless of how things get broken down for AoS, it's still more granular than W40K's Power Level. The thing to keep in mind is that the AoS system is structured differently than W40K and seems to have less options overall (unit wargear, unit upgrades, unit composition, etc); so less granular pointing seems to work for the AoS system.
Only thing that costs point is the unit blocks. You have the reinforcement point system in 3.0, but overall you just pay a single cost for everything. Everything is basically just baked into the unit cost so if you skip a unit upgrade(like some heavy weapons for units) that's just on you for not using what is offered. With the amount of points offered AoS could easily offer to buy each model individually, but chose not to.
Regarding 40k unit upgrades it is mostly Marines that break any sort of AoS/PL system as they just have weaponry that is all over the place. Aeldari could almost use PL as is due to how Aspects are structured, and Necrons, and a lot of tyranids could easily be used in a PL system due to how static a lot of the units are. They could easily fit into an AoS style system where you buy a unit of 10 termagants and they all have 1 of 3 weapon setups available to them(quite a few Stormcasts have similar setups, at least the older lines). Even things like vehicle upgrades(non-weaponry) could just be abilities on the datasheet itself or stratagems which does seem where GW is going with a lot of vehicle upgrades.
The problem with such a set up begin, when GW bakes in the upgrades cost in to the PL, but the faction you play has horrible upgrade, that no one wants to take, because they actually make your units worse. And with PL you suddenly get a points hike comparing to other armies that do not want or can't have unit options.
Leo_the_Rat wrote: Ahh PL is points. It's just a different way of counting them from the more granular point system.
'Not counting' when counting is definitely a different way.
'Less granular' is likely not the proper term when 6 models = 10 models and grenade launchers are the same as plasma guns.
State what benefits a less granular system provide?
*Saves me a few moments by not having to look up pts values for this/that/something else.
*I don't have to pay any attention to CA volume whatever.
The first isn't an inherent benefit of the system, just GW crappy way of hiding points in an appendix (or another book). They could easily put points next to PL on the datasheet.
Ignoring CA is definitely an advantage at this point. The last few updates have turned points into a joke- they just aren't bothering to do this properly.
On the other hand, it makes me dubious as to how reasonable the PL values are. Even putting aside the inherent problems with PL (6=10, unequal weapons aren't equal), there isn't any reason to trust their judgement with either system, PL problems just... last longer.
Voss wrote: The first isn't an inherent benefit of the system, just GW crappy way of hiding points in an appendix (or another book). They could easily put points next to PL on the datasheet.
Voss wrote: Ignoring CA is definitely an advantage at this point. The last few updates have turned points into a joke- they just aren't bothering to do this properly.
Which, as you kind of point out, isn't a problem with the points system. It's the classic GW failing of concept vs realisation.
It's a good system, they're just bad at it.
And to take that one step further, them being bad at it isn't a good reason to stop using it, especially when the alternative is no better and actually leads to worse outcomes.
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: I think we can all agree, There is no diversity in the current makeup of the competitive scene. Everyone just plays the best min-max lists. Just like the days of IH Dreads. I think Power level systems would change that.
They would not. It's like points with less granularity.
1) You're happy only buying models in blocks of a fixed number
2) Upgrades are either so automatic you would never not take them (like a regimental banner) or if you have the option of 1 weapon upgrade, all the options are roughly equal in effectiveness.
The 6 marines = 10 marines with an assault weapon thing is...frankly a bit of a red herring to me. Marines coming in 5 or 10 is fine to me. The Razorback isn't there to carry squads of 6, it's there to carry 5 marines plus a character (where the equivalent guard vehicle, the chimera, carries 12 men when all their base squads are 10 strong).
The problem is that the various options for marines are ridiculously extensive and clearly NOT equal. A chainsword is a lot better than it used to be a few editions ago - having AP-1 and giving an extra attack where a powered blade doesn't, but it still doesn't make it a realistic choice when compared to any of the various special melee weapons if you're not paying for it.
As I've said before, apocalypse works fine just on PL - in that, you paid a chunk of points for 5 marines, a second chunk for another 5, and a single point if you wanted 1 heavy weapon of your choice. but that was okay because that was as granular as the system got; sergeants didn't register and all a captain carries is "master-crafted weapons" with the same melee statline regardless of the specific modelled weapons
Voss wrote: 'Not counting' when counting is definitely a different way.
'Less granular' is likely not the proper term when 6 models = 10 models and grenade launchers are the same as plasma guns.
Not that I disagree with your overall point (no pun intended), but aren't plasmaguns the same as grenade launchers even under the current point system?
I'd be pretty happy with PL used instead of points. it would make army building a lot easier. It works well for AoS.
Most modern books datasheets are written like AOS warscrolls. The only thing we would loose is the option to have odd numbered squads. When it's 5PL per 5 marines, you won't want to take a 7 man squad.
Voss wrote: The first isn't an inherent benefit of the system, just GW crappy way of hiding points in an appendix (or another book). They could easily put points next to PL on the datasheet.
I feel a need to point out that not only is the issue that you need to flip through the book to figure out your points costs, you also need to figure out the actual cost of a base model. That entry is pretty special in both providing the costs on the datasheet, and apparently including all the default wargear in the model's base cost.
More typically it's look at the unit entry, flip to the back to get the base cost, flip back to the unit entry, figure out what upgrades you want, flip to the back and find every one of those upgrades in a long undifferentiated list of weapons and wargear, then add them all up.
It sucks, and this is even assuming your codex costs are accurate and haven't been patched, which adds yet another layer of complexity. Frankly, I can't blame anyone who looks at that and concludes that less granularity is an acceptable price for being able to build army lists on the fly. If GW could just represent significant upgrades in the PL system (like in Apocalypse) I think it would get a lot more traction.
State what benefits a less granular system provide?
*Saves me a few moments by not having to look up pts values for this/that/something else.
*I don't have to pay any attention to CA volume whatever.
Now if only I could bank those saved moments & put em towards the time wasted with all the re-rolls.....
If you can memorize the PL for something, why can't you memorize the point cost? You don't have to pay attention to CA right now, just use battlescribe and the points automatically update. I guess PL is for people too lazy to spend literally 2 mins while taking a dump to throw a list together in Battlescribe. If that's too much effort for someone, I wonder why they play 40k. Even during the days of paper lists in the 90s, I never thought "man this is just way too complicated for my koala smooth brain, I wish they would make a system that does nothing whatsoever to account for unit size or upgrades so I don't have to sit here and do simple math for 5mins".
Voss wrote: The first isn't an inherent benefit of the system, just GW crappy way of hiding points in an appendix (or another book). They could easily put points next to PL on the datasheet.
I feel a need to point out that not only is the issue that you need to flip through the book to figure out your points costs, you also need to figure out the actual cost of a base model. That entry is pretty special in both providing the costs on the datasheet, and apparently including all the default wargear in the model's base cost.
More typically it's look at the unit entry, flip to the back to get the base cost, flip back to the unit entry, figure out what upgrades you want, flip to the back and find every one of those upgrades in a long undifferentiated list of weapons and wargear, then add them all up.
It sucks, and this is even assuming your codex costs are accurate and haven't been patched, which adds yet another layer of complexity. Frankly, I can't blame anyone who looks at that and concludes that less granularity is an acceptable price for being able to build army lists on the fly. If GW could just represent significant upgrades in the PL system (like in Apocalypse) I think it would get a lot more traction.
this is the main reason why i think if battlescribe and wahapedia somehow get shut down, i'll stop playing 40k. Its just sooo fething bad UX. I can't believe it passed QA
Toofast wrote: If you can memorize the PL for something, why can't you memorize the point cost?
Leman Russ under PL: 10
Leman Russ under points: 130 base, then 5 for a Battle Cannon or Demolisher, Eradicators, Executioners, and Vanquishers are free, Exterminators are 15, and Punishers are 20. Then you've got another 15 for the hull Heavy Bolter or Heavy Flamer (not included in the base cost because lmao), or 20 for a lascannon. If you want sponsons then HBs and HFs are the same price, but Plasma Cannons are 20 apiece, and Multi-Meltas are 25. Then for wargear you can take Augurs, Dozers, Heavy Stubber, Hunter-Killer, or Track Guards for 5, or a Storm Bolter for 3. And don't go looking in your codex for these values because most of them have been updated since then.
Hmm, you tell me, how could one of these possibly be harder to memorize than the other?
'Just use a third-party app to make up for the byzantine default system being overly difficult to use in its intended manner' is a non-answer, and it's bs to pretend it's always been this messy. I never had a problem putting lists together in 3rd-5th just going through the unit entries and adding the upgrade costs (printed right there) onto them, but the codex is barely usable nowadays for points-based list creation.
I think using Battlescribe is an excellent solution to the problem. I'm not sure why it being a 3rd party app is a problem. It hasn't always been this messy but I remember making Space Wolves lists in excel in the late 90s. If you're going to spend hundreds of hours building, painting, and playing with an army, I don't think 10 mins in excel or 2 mins in Battlescribe to throw a proper list together is a huge ask. If that step is so complicated for people, I wonder how they even play this game.
AdmiralRon wrote: Has someone else taken the reigns at Battlescribe though? I seem to recall the original creator was retiring from updating the app soon.
The app will run fine for a long time as is and users are updating the data files.
Toofast wrote: If you can memorize the PL for something, why can't you memorize the point cost?
Leman Russ under PL: 10
Leman Russ under points: 130 base, then 5 for a Battle Cannon or Demolisher, Eradicators, Executioners, and Vanquishers are free, Exterminators are 15, and Punishers are 20. Then you've got another 15 for the hull Heavy Bolter or Heavy Flamer (not included in the base cost because lmao), or 20 for a lascannon. If you want sponsons then HBs and HFs are the same price, but Plasma Cannons are 20 apiece, and Multi-Meltas are 25. Then for wargear you can take Augurs, Dozers, Heavy Stubber, Hunter-Killer, or Track Guards for 5, or a Storm Bolter for 3. And don't go looking in your codex for these values because most of them have been updated since then.
Hmm, you tell me, how could one of these possibly be harder to memorize than the other?
'Just use a third-party app to make up for the byzantine default system being overly difficult to use in its intended manner' is a non-answer, and it's bs to pretend it's always been this messy. I never had a problem putting lists together in 3rd-5th just going through the unit entries and adding the upgrade costs (printed right there) onto them, but the codex is barely usable nowadays for points-based list creation.
Honest question-how long does it take you to make a list, with points?
I'm sure PL is shorter, but for me, the main time sink in making a list is DECISIONS, not math. The math, while slightly tougher with points than PL, isn't nearly as much mental processing as figuring out "What do I include?"
Toofast wrote: I think using Battlescribe is an excellent solution to the problem. I'm not sure why it being a 3rd party app is a problem.
If you've watched GW start its own streaming service before C&Ding fan animations, and don't see a Sword of Damocles hanging over a direct competitor to GW's own (broken, poorly designed) app, you haven't been paying attention.
Let alone the fact that Battlescribe's 40K repos are not always accurate (I've reported a number of corrections myself, and there have been tournament-placing lists that weren't found to be illegal until after the fact) and doesn't always work. Sometimes it refuses to launch if it can't connect to the data repos; some versions of Battlescribe don't play nicely with certain versions of Android and iOS. A phone app shouldn't be required to play a completely physical dice-based wargame, particularly when it isn't even using the app to do something interesting, just make up for an unusable army creation system.
With PL, for all its flaws that I've criticized, it's at least trivial to construct, reduce, expand, or re-tune a list on the fly without needing external aids. Does it take me hours upon hours to build a list using points? Of course not, especially if I can use Battlescribe or Wahapedia- but for a pick-up game it's faster to just pick my units, total the PL, tweak as needed with relation to my opponent's list, and play WYSIWYG than to set up a list with full upgrades in Battlescribe.
And to be clear, all of this is beside the point, which is that GW has made using points a lot harder than it needs to be, and whether you like Battlescribe or not, it shouldn't be necessary.
You have a hard time counting to 2000 or something?
You have a hard time counting under 2000 or something?
If you can memorize the PL for something, why can't you memorize the point cost? You don't have to pay attention to CA right now, just use battlescribe and the points automatically update. I guess PL is for people too lazy to spend literally 2 mins while taking a dump to throw a list together in Battlescribe. If that's too much effort for someone, I wonder why they play 40k. Even during the days of paper lists in the 90s, I never thought "man this is just way too complicated for my koala smooth brain, I wish they would make a system that does nothing whatsoever to account for unit size or upgrades so I don't have to sit here and do simple math for 5mins".
PL is for people who don't see the reason to pretend that every option should have to be paid for or that there are really "options" to begin with. In no way, shape, or form should an Omnispex be treated the same as an Enhanced Data-Tether. Nor should the Transauranic Arquebus be treated the same as a Plasma Caliver or an Arc Rifle.
Voss wrote: The first isn't an inherent benefit of the system, just GW crappy way of hiding points in an appendix (or another book). They could easily put points next to PL on the datasheet.
I feel a need to point out that not only is the issue that you need to flip through the book to figure out your points costs, you also need to figure out the actual cost of a base model. That entry is pretty special in both providing the costs on the datasheet, and apparently including all the default wargear in the model's base cost.
More typically it's look at the unit entry, flip to the back to get the base cost, flip back to the unit entry, figure out what upgrades you want, flip to the back and find every one of those upgrades in a long undifferentiated list of weapons and wargear, then add them all up.
Don't forget that some dataslates don't include stats for all the weapons they can take, so (especially for some of the more esoteric weapons) you have the additional step of flipping to the long list of weapons to find the relevant stats and see if you actually want to take any of them or not.
I can't help but look back fondly on the 4th edition Tyranid codex. Every model had its point cost right there in its unit entry. Not only that, but all its weapons and wargear also had their associated costs listed right beside them.
I loved the fact someone said that using Battlescribe was a point against regular points because I've seen people defending PL here that can't do basic math needed for PL anyway.
auticus wrote: I prefer less granular points as well. Either that or less options to have to keep track of.
yeah, i think this is the main issue with 40k, too many options that are basically one number being shuffled around (power weapons/heavy intercessor guns).
Merge these profiles together, kinda like what they did with Harlequins (minus the keyword part) or to the rumored Chosen/Terminator weapons
Toofast wrote: I think using Battlescribe is an excellent solution to the problem. I'm not sure why it being a 3rd party app is a problem.
A phone app shouldn't be required to play a completely physical dice-based wargame
It's not required, just easier. I never had a problem making lists before it existed, I don't really understand how making a list with points requires some Herculean effort. Last week I had a game and I literally threw a list together while on the toilet at work. It's probably the easiest part of the entire hobby between building, painting, learning all the rules, packing all my stuff in the truck, and driving across town for a game. I had to repeat a math class in high school and don't have any problem with it. Anyone who can tie their own shoes should be able to come up with a 2k list...
Voss wrote: The first isn't an inherent benefit of the system, just GW crappy way of hiding points in an appendix (or another book). They could easily put points next to PL on the datasheet.
I feel a need to point out that not only is the issue that you need to flip through the book to figure out your points costs, you also need to figure out the actual cost of a base model. That entry is pretty special in both providing the costs on the datasheet, and apparently including all the default wargear in the model's base cost.
More typically it's look at the unit entry, flip to the back to get the base cost, flip back to the unit entry, figure out what upgrades you want, flip to the back and find every one of those upgrades in a long undifferentiated list of weapons and wargear, then add them all up.
It sucks, and this is even assuming your codex costs are accurate and haven't been patched, which adds yet another layer of complexity. Frankly, I can't blame anyone who looks at that and concludes that less granularity is an acceptable price for being able to build army lists on the fly. If GW could just represent significant upgrades in the PL system (like in Apocalypse) I think it would get a lot more traction.
So you would be OK with the more granular point system if all of the points were on the data sheet? Being frustrated by having to flip pages isn't a fault of the system it's a fault of the editor(s).
Toofast wrote: I think using Battlescribe is an excellent solution to the problem. I'm not sure why it being a 3rd party app is a problem.
A phone app shouldn't be required to play a completely physical dice-based wargame
It's not required, just easier. I never had a problem making lists before it existed, I don't really understand how making a list with points requires some Herculean effort. Last week I had a game and I literally threw a list together while on the toilet at work. It's probably the easiest part of the entire hobby between building, painting, learning all the rules, packing all my stuff in the truck, and driving across town for a game. I had to repeat a math class in high school and don't have any problem with it. Anyone who can tie their own shoes should be able to come up with a 2k list...
Yeah all you're doing with battlescribe is replacing your physical sheet of notebook paper/a used dinner napkin/your palm/dozens of sticky notes with an app. There's nothing saying you have to use it.
My problem with points isn't points. I've played with points since 2nd edition. My problem is the living rule book points adjustments garbage.
I'd dealy love to have the points in my codex remain useable for an entire addition and if there are new units or drastically needed changes I am fine with buying another book.
Granted the codex itself is an issue for me as having collected for this many years I'd like an option to just buy the printed data sheets and rules without all the extra stuff which no longer serves a purpose, my opinion. I like the idea of power levels aligned with either a set of fixed loadouts for units or a wysiwyg rule in the game. Honestly paying for unit upgrades is irrelevant when those upgrades do nothing buy eat points for no benefit to my army. You're free to disagree, it's ok I wont attempt to berate you. 9th edition is a trash fire at best, it could be so much better but it wont.
Given the lethality and difficult to use terrain rules why pay for anything past the starting cost on anything. I would much prefer a completely different means of buying upgrades during army construction. something like an allowance for the entire army which is a set number. If power levels will let me throw cool models in a list and jump right in I'm all for it. But as I say I see 9th as a trash fire and have zero expectations for a better game with 10'th edition.
Toofast wrote: I think using Battlescribe is an excellent solution to the problem. I'm not sure why it being a 3rd party app is a problem.
A phone app shouldn't be required to play a completely physical dice-based wargame
It's not required, just easier. I never had a problem making lists before it existed, I don't really understand how making a list with points requires some Herculean effort. Last week I had a game and I literally threw a list together while on the toilet at work. It's probably the easiest part of the entire hobby between building, painting, learning all the rules, packing all my stuff in the truck, and driving across town for a game. I had to repeat a math class in high school and don't have any problem with it. Anyone who can tie their own shoes should be able to come up with a 2k list...
Yeah all you're doing with battlescribe is replacing your physical sheet of notebook paper/a used dinner napkin/your palm/dozens of sticky notes with an app. There's nothing saying you have to use it.
Unfortunately that's not entirely true. Yes you can do that with friends but then you see a post for a tournament which then requires you to use some app for your army list because for some reason that matters to them. BCP as I understand it has helped TO's a fair bit in the tournament scene. Not all bad, not all good.
Switching to pure power level just completely trashes some factions. 10 ork boyz can get like maximum a combi weapon, power weapon, and heavy weapon for wargear. Compare that to everything you can stack on tac marines, dark eldar, and literally anything else with wargear. With the limited granularity of power level balance like that is basically impossible.
Maybe if power level was increased to around 2k expected for a full game, accounting for wargear.
Oh wait.
Voss wrote: 'Not counting' when counting is definitely a different way.
'Less granular' is likely not the proper term when 6 models = 10 models and grenade launchers are the same as plasma guns.
Not that I disagree with your overall point (no pun intended), but aren't plasmaguns the same as grenade launchers even under the current point system?
/shrug. They very well could be at this point.
While I'm (re)building my guard army (building a new one? the line is blurry), I haven't been paying much attention to the 9th edition patches to the 8th edition codex. I've found that not bothering to rationalize the points updates and 'balance slates' better for my mental health. Once the bulk of the army is done, the new book and/or 10th edition will be out, so its unlikely to matter. For points or PL, when it comes down to it.
GW has done an exceptionally poor job at points values lately. The big point list at the start of 9th was... weird. Too many things were exactly the same cost as they were in rogue trader, to the point that it didn't feel like a coincidence, but that they were trying to feel out the formula baseline all over again. The absurd adjustments and things that were just obviously wrong on release (which still continues, if devourer gaunts and warriors are any example, if for different reasons) suggests a system that's not only broken, but that they don't know how to utilize
I sympathize a lot more with PL players after the last couple rounds of 'points adjustments,' but its still seems blatantly conceptually flawed to me. Points feel broken, but fixable once they start filling in the hole they dug with 9th edition. They just need to do the work and do it before release, rather than force an overly quickly release schedule with little apparent regard to quality.
Yeah all you're doing with battlescribe is replacing your physical sheet of notebook paper/a used dinner napkin/your palm/dozens of sticky notes with an app. There's nothing saying you have to use it.
Well, you're also trusting that the BS volunteers entered all the data correctly. Which... not so much.
Well, you're also trusting that the BS volunteers entered all the data correctly. Which... not so much.
The offical PAYING also has data entered incorrectly, so yeah, i'll stick to battlescribe until it doesn't work anymore, at which point i'll probably stop playing 40k because listbuilding is gonna become an inconvenience
Voss wrote: The first isn't an inherent benefit of the system, just GW crappy way of hiding points in an appendix (or another book). They could easily put points next to PL on the datasheet.
I feel a need to point out that not only is the issue that you need to flip through the book to figure out your points costs, you also need to figure out the actual cost of a base model. That entry is pretty special in both providing the costs on the datasheet, and apparently including all the default wargear in the model's base cost.
More typically it's look at the unit entry, flip to the back to get the base cost, flip back to the unit entry, figure out what upgrades you want, flip to the back and find every one of those upgrades in a long undifferentiated list of weapons and wargear, then add them all up.
It sucks, and this is even assuming your codex costs are accurate and haven't been patched, which adds yet another layer of complexity. Frankly, I can't blame anyone who looks at that and concludes that less granularity is an acceptable price for being able to build army lists on the fly. If GW could just represent significant upgrades in the PL system (like in Apocalypse) I think it would get a lot more traction.
So you would be OK with the more granular point system if all of the points were on the data sheet? Being frustrated by having to flip pages isn't a fault of the system it's a fault of the editor(s).
If the points were on the datasheet, with printable updates so that I don't have to collate three or more sources to figure out the current cost, and universally presented as a base cost including default wargear and then points adjustments given for options, yeah I'd be pretty happy. I mean, that's how it worked in prior editions.
Did I give the impression that I'm anti-points? I'm really not; just saying the way GW has chosen to present points is obnoxious and has poor usability, and I can see how PL is more attractive to people who don't want to deal with any of that. Cleaning up the presentation would be an improvement. Making PL at least attempt to model significant wargear would also be an improvement, in that there would then be a decent alternative.
AdmiralRon wrote: Yeah all you're doing with battlescribe is replacing your physical sheet of notebook paper/a used dinner napkin/your palm/dozens of sticky notes with an app. There's nothing saying you have to use it.
Okay, so is Battlescribe:
-A total substitute for the on-paper army comp system, so the problems with doing it on paper don't matter because you can always use an app anyways, or
-A handy aid but not a substitute, so problems with the app aren't a big deal because you can always do it on paper the old way?
I mean, pick one, please. If you treat Battlescribe as an optional tool, then it obviously still matters if building an army without Battlescribe is a tedious and error-prone process.
I'd rather have a decently designed and well-presented force org system so that you can assemble an army without flipping back and forth through three books, and then can optionally choose to use a third-party app to streamline the process further. I don't particularly care if it's called points or power as long as it gets the job done.
the points system is like USRs were in previous editions : A good system but implemented in the most stupid way possible.
Codexes in general have gotten worse and worse. Like why the hell are crusade rules in between non crusade rules?
It should be : [Codex rules][Crusade rules][Datasheet]
Oh and have ALL weapon options on the datasheet instead of on the back of the book for whatever reason. I don't know how GW thought that system was any good
catbarf wrote: it obviously still matters if building an army without Battlescribe is a tedious and error-prone process.
I think whether it is or not depends on your overall intelligence level and familiarity with that aspect of playing games. Judging by some of the comments here, I'm not surprised some people find it tedious and error prone to build lists by hand...
catbarf wrote: it obviously still matters if building an army without Battlescribe is a tedious and error-prone process.
I think whether it is or not depends on your overall intelligence level and familiarity with that aspect of playing games. Judging by some of the comments here, I'm not surprised some people find it tedious and error prone to build lists by hand...
I used to use Microsoft Word to make my lists. Battlescribe is just so much greater.
catbarf wrote: it obviously still matters if building an army without Battlescribe is a tedious and error-prone process.
I think whether it is or not depends on your overall intelligence level and familiarity with that aspect of playing games. Judging by some of the comments here, I'm not surprised some people find it tedious and error prone to build lists by hand...
I used to use Microsoft Word to make my lists. Battlescribe is just so much greater.
I became a master at excel formulas long before they were required for the soul-sucking corporate world just from making army lists when I was bored. It's part of the fun of the hobby but some people want to kill it because I guess counting to 2,000 with the help of an app is too high-level math and gives them a headache.
catbarf wrote: it obviously still matters if building an army without Battlescribe is a tedious and error-prone process.
I think whether it is or not depends on your overall intelligence level and familiarity with that aspect of playing games. Judging by some of the comments here, I'm not surprised some people find it tedious and error prone to build lists by hand...
I love how you just keep slinging insults.
Maybe some people just don't like crap being so heavily digitized?
Also, why are you constantly having to "build lists" if you are playing so often? Why aren't you just saving the lists or using this magical device that uses ink to commit your digital creations to a hard copy?
catbarf wrote: it obviously still matters if building an army without Battlescribe is a tedious and error-prone process.
I think whether it is or not depends on your overall intelligence level and familiarity with that aspect of playing games. Judging by some of the comments here, I'm not surprised some people find it tedious and error prone to build lists by hand...
Oh, so instead of actually addressing my post, now we're just down to personal insults. Neat.
Also, judging by the tournaments where illegal lists have made high placement with nobody noticing until after the fact, you're full of gak.
State what benefits a less granular system provide?
*Saves me a few moments by not having to look up pts values for this/that/something else.
*I don't have to pay any attention to CA volume whatever.
Now if only I could bank those saved moments & put em towards the time wasted with all the re-rolls.....
If you can memorize the PL for something, why can't you memorize the point cost?
I don't memorize either. Wich is different than can't. And given how often GW changes pts values here in recent years? Well, there's no point & I've just got better things to do.
Toofast wrote: You don't have to pay attention to CA right now, just use battlescribe and the points automatically update.
For starters Battlescribe won't load properly on my phone. There's probably some way to fix that but it's not an important enough issue for me to bother with.
Toofast wrote: I guess PL is for people too lazy to spend literally 2 mins while taking a dump to throw a list together in Battlescribe.
Yes, I've told you I'm lazy. I always have been. And the older I get the lazier I get concerning meaningless crap like adding up GWs tiny & now frequent pts changes.
1/4+ of the stuff (depending upon wether I go 1st or 2nd) gets deleted off the table turn 1. Was it worth my time to figure out the minutia of one weapon costing x &vs another costing y? Nope. Just tell me the squad costs Z pts & be done with it.
Toofast wrote: If that's too much effort for someone, I wonder why they play 40k.
Because despite whatever its flaws current 40k is one of the games me & mine enjoy playing. Adding up PTs or PL is really neither here nor there in that equation. It's just that I find pts to be a waste of time/effort compared to the results. And since we get the same results no matter how we tally it up....
Toofast wrote: Even during the days of paper lists in the 90s, I never thought "man this is just way too complicated for my koala smooth brain, I wish they would make a system that does nothing whatsoever to account for unit size or upgrades so I don't have to sit here and do simple math for 5mins".
You know, neither have I. My koala brain just has more creases than yours. This has allowed me to identify something that's a waste of my time/effort. Not much of a waste, granted. But still a waste.
And since 99% of my 9e games have been Crusade, & the group is happy using PL, I rarely have to deal with pts minutia.
Voss wrote: 'Not counting' when counting is definitely a different way.
'Less granular' is likely not the proper term when 6 models = 10 models and grenade launchers are the same as plasma guns.
Not that I disagree with your overall point (no pun intended), but aren't plasmaguns the same as grenade launchers even under the current point system?
/shrug. They very well could be at this point.
While I'm (re)building my guard army (building a new one? the line is blurry), I haven't been paying much attention to the 9th edition patches to the 8th edition codex. I've found that not bothering to rationalize the points updates and 'balance slates' better for my mental health. Once the bulk of the army is done, the new book and/or 10th edition will be out, so its unlikely to matter. For points or PL, when it comes down to it.
GW has done an exceptionally poor job at points values lately. The big point list at the start of 9th was... weird. Too many things were exactly the same cost as they were in rogue trader, to the point that it didn't feel like a coincidence, but that they were trying to feel out the formula baseline all over again. The absurd adjustments and things that were just obviously wrong on release (which still continues, if devourer gaunts and warriors are any example, if for different reasons) suggests a system that's not only broken, but that they don't know how to utilize
Oh, I completely agree.
It was such a shame to see GW spend most of 8th tweaking point costs to try and balance each option against the alternatives, only to then throw it all away in 9th.
Voss wrote: 'Not counting' when counting is definitely a different way.
'Less granular' is likely not the proper term when 6 models = 10 models and grenade launchers are the same as plasma guns.
Not that I disagree with your overall point (no pun intended), but aren't plasmaguns the same as grenade launchers even under the current point system?
/shrug. They very well could be at this point.
While I'm (re)building my guard army (building a new one? the line is blurry), I haven't been paying much attention to the 9th edition patches to the 8th edition codex. I've found that not bothering to rationalize the points updates and 'balance slates' better for my mental health. Once the bulk of the army is done, the new book and/or 10th edition will be out, so its unlikely to matter. For points or PL, when it comes down to it.
GW has done an exceptionally poor job at points values lately. The big point list at the start of 9th was... weird. Too many things were exactly the same cost as they were in rogue trader, to the point that it didn't feel like a coincidence, but that they were trying to feel out the formula baseline all over again. The absurd adjustments and things that were just obviously wrong on release (which still continues, if devourer gaunts and warriors are any example, if for different reasons) suggests a system that's not only broken, but that they don't know how to utilize
Oh, I completely agree.
It was such a shame to see GW spend most of 8th tweaking point costs to try and balance each option against the alternatives, only to then throw it all away in 9th.
And now we have the 'balance datasheet' to revisit this topic. All guard infantry squad upgrades are reduced to 0.
10 naked guys? 60 points.
Full upgrades- bolter & powersword for sgt, lascannon, plasmagun, vox? 60 points.
Maybe they will meet AoS design in the middle and 10th will have a points/power level fusion.
Have you not been following 9th edition? A _huge_ amount of of wargear options are 0 points.
Take a look at tyranid warriors- they have 9 weapons to choose from, in an array of combinations. They only have to pay for 2. (and the 'other wargear' which matters a lot more to whoever wrote that codex)
That isn't even unusual.
And they just did it for guard squads, which is what prompted the post in the first place... Every single thing is zeroed out.
If they do that i highly suspect that you will see some hilarious meme units coming back into play.
Full rubric squads will be a thing again, able to take all flamers.
Dev squads spamming Las canons
I expect to see LazPlas razor backs again.
Backspacehacker wrote: If they do that i highly suspect that you will see some hilarious meme units coming back into play.
Full rubric squads will be a thing again, able to take all flamers.
Dev squads spamming Las canons
I expect to see LazPlas razor backs again.
"Snake Plisken voice"
)
The More things change, the more they Stay the same" (Proceeds to EMP the entire Planet)
Voidweavers, the most impactful unit in the game, just went up 45%. That's a tiny change to you? SM ignoring AP1 is a tiny change? If you want to ignore the dataslate and play PL, that's fine with me. For all I care, you guys can just setup your whole collections, push models around while making laser noises, and whoever loses their voice last wins. Just don't pretend that's the "one true way(tm)" to play Warhammer and everyone else is missing out on a great time drinking beer and eating pretzels.
Have you not been following 9th edition? A _huge_ amount of of wargear options are 0 points.
Take a look at tyranid warriors- they have 9 weapons to choose from, in an array of combinations. They only have to pay for 2. (and the 'other wargear' which matters a lot more to whoever wrote that codex)
That isn't even unusual.
And they just did it for guard squads, which is what prompted the post in the first place... Every single thing is zeroed out.
There's more than one way to get players to power levels. Zeroing out option costs is certainly one.
Deathwatch, otoh, has permutations of weapons options. All available at a cost of multiples of 5. When I build a list, I spend more time with the last 15 points than the rest combined.
Given the new guard points cost per unit, and how everything is free, I would like to humbly call it, that I was right. GW is going to the path of least possible work. All weapon options will soon be free, and a half squad or a whole squad will cost the same. YES GW, keep doing it!!! Just like that! RUIN YOUR GAME for the competitives!
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: Given the new guard points cost per unit, and how everything is free, I would like to humbly call it, that I was right. GW is going to the path of least possible work. All weapon options will soon be free, and a half squad or a whole squad will cost the same. YES GW, keep doing it!!! Just like that! RUIN YOUR GAME for the competitives!
Ah, yes, 'the competitives.' Always the first to reject points for power level.
And apparently I've sprained something trying to head tilt and eye-roll simultaneously.
Eonfuzz wrote: Uhh, do people actually find creating lists via points... hard? How many microplastics have ya'll been injesting?
No. It is however far quicker and simpler. There is a very toxic attitude among some not only toward power level but even toward people who use power level. Just wannabe hardcore gamer gatekeeping rubbish.
With regard to power levels vs. points, I think that there is an issue with compromises being made to try and have both exist at the same time.
For example, artefacts used to be purchased with points, like other wargear. But of course, that doesn't work with PL so instead they're purchased with CPs. This is a bad thing because it means all artefacts are priced the same, even though there is often a significant difference in power. Points allowed for such differences to be represented. The current system does not.
I don't begrudge people preferring PL to points. However, I do think it's important to realise that its addition brings with it consequences, including some that negatively affect points-based lists.
catbarf wrote: Did I give the impression that I'm anti-points? I'm really not; just saying the way GW has chosen to present points is obnoxious and has poor usability, and I can see how PL is more attractive to people who don't want to deal with any of that. Cleaning up the presentation would be an improvement. Making PL at least attempt to model significant wargear would also be an improvement, in that there would then be a decent alternative.
I didn't think you were anti-points. Only Kan is the guy who massively hates points for... some reason, even thought points have been how 40k has been played since even the Rogue Trader days, but whatever I'm getting off your main point.
GW's frustrating formatting and separating of the rules isn't anything new though, sadly. 4th Edition was a horrific period where you could have the rules for a single unit spread across multiple locations in the same book (I think 4 separate areas was the most for one unit, but I can't find it at the moment). I mean, just skimming the 4th Ed Marine 'Dex I can see that the Sternguard entry has their profile and some of their ammo types on one page, another type of ammo in the Wargear section, but their points and options in the army list. In the 4th Ed Guard Codex, by far the worse/best example of this, the 'Vehicle Wargear' section has 31 entries, and 22 of those are just page references, and a 23rd one refers you back to the main rulebook!
I like to believe that they put all the points into their own section so that they could just update those pages and no one else, but life would be so much simpler if they just did what they did with the revised free Autarch entry for everyone. Emperor knows that there's so much blank space in the army list section that they certainly have the room for it.
To be charitable to tneva, they could be referring to the relics that are upgrades to other wargear (eg. can't buy the Claw of the Desert Tigers, you have to buy a power sword and then upgrade it to the CotDT).
I mean, they're still wrong because you don't pay any points/pl for the relics themselves (and I'd be interested to hear which upgrade requires pl specifically), but still.
waefre_1 wrote: To be charitable to tneva, they could be referring to the relics that are upgrades to other wargear (eg. can't buy the Claw of the Desert Tigers, you have to buy a power sword and then upgrade it to the CotDT).
I mean, they're still wrong because you don't pay any points/pl for the relics themselves (and I'd be interested to hear which upgrade requires pl specifically), but still.
There's the faux relics that do that via the Tyranid Monster upgrades, Black Templar relic bearers, Kuztom Mek jobz, etc. Maybe that'd be what they're referring to?
As of the latest dataslate, guard squads are effectively using PL in matched play - 60 points (3PL) for the unit, all upgrades are free. Early indications are that the unit (and the faction) are now more playable and better balanced than at any time since 9th edition launched.
Yes in general if you make a faction get stuff for free, and it is real free aka the cost of stuff isn't added to the base cost of units, they do better.
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Dai 804474 11347797 wrote:Uhh, do people actually find creating lists via points... hard? How many microplastics have ya'll been injesting?
No. It is however far quicker and simpler. There is a very toxic attitude among some not only toward power level but even toward people who use power level. Just wannabe hardcore gamer gatekeeping rubbish.
It is not gate keeping. Why is there are a need for two separate point systems? If someone plays total narrative, then I assume points don't matter at all, from how people seem to describe how those games are suppose to look like. For everything else a normal point system should be sufficient.
Karol wrote: Yes in general if you make a faction get stuff for free, and it is real free aka the cost of stuff isn't added to the base cost of units, they do better.
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Dai 804474 11347797 wrote:Uhh, do people actually find creating lists via points... hard? How many microplastics have ya'll been injesting?
No. It is however far quicker and simpler. There is a very toxic attitude among some not only toward power level but even toward people who use power level. Just wannabe hardcore gamer gatekeeping rubbish.
It is not gate keeping. Why is there are a need for two separate point systems? If someone plays total narrative, then I assume points don't matter at all, from how people seem to describe how those games are suppose to look like. For everything else a normal point system should be sufficient.
It is gatekeeping. Why the hell do you even care? Also stop using words like "weird", "crazy" and "normal" in relation to these things. It is exceptionally rude.
It is gatekeeping. Why the hell do you even care? Also stop using words like "weird", "crazy" and "normal" in relation to these things. It is exceptionally rude.
In defence of Karol, I don't think he has any ill intent here, and it is a translation problem. In polish, 'normalny' (normal) and 'dziwny' (weird, odd, baffling) have no pejorative tone and no psychiatric connotation to them. In this context, normal means "default" and weird means "out of ordinary".
Karol wrote: Yes in general if you make a faction get stuff for free, and it is real free aka the cost of stuff isn't added to the base cost of units, they do better.
So obviously points vs PL = big debate, but I think a hybridized system could work just fine.
You get X PL for your army and X Points for all the upgrades across your army.
I've played a lot of both points and PL and both have their issues. Points tend to leave most upgrade options by the wayside in favour of the leanest, most efficient units, while PL games throw every possible upgrade on a model because there is usually no reason not to.
Just saying, it would be nice to have a middle ground where people have some extra room to play around with customizability, without sacrificing unit efficiency; and I don't think that it would make calculating lists any more complex.
Karol wrote: Yes in general if you make a faction get stuff for free, and it is real free aka the cost of stuff isn't added to the base cost of units, they do better.
Yeah, no.
I cannot rationalize this exchange as anything other than sheer contrarianism.
The fact that giving Guardsmen sergeant upgrades, heavy weapons, and voxes all for free will make them perform better is obvious. Unless the quibble is that technically their base cost went up by a few points.
Tawnis wrote:So obviously points vs PL = big debate, but I think a hybridized system could work just fine.
You get X PL for your army and X Points for all the upgrades across your army.
I've played a lot of both points and PL and both have their issues. Points tend to leave most upgrade options by the wayside in favour of the leanest, most efficient units, while PL games throw every possible upgrade on a model because there is usually no reason not to.
Just saying, it would be nice to have a middle ground where people have some extra room to play around with customizability, without sacrificing unit efficiency; and I don't think that it would make calculating lists any more complex.
That's a system used in a lot of historical wargames, and you can play around with how much equipment each force gets to represent differing levels of eliteness or supply. It's a good way to differentiate forces and streamlines balancing as well.
But I can't see GW using specifically points for that. I would expect them to make some other similarly-coarse metric like requisition points.
It is gatekeeping. Why the hell do you even care? Also stop using words like "weird", "crazy" and "normal" in relation to these things. It is exceptionally rude.
In defence of Karol, I don't think he has any ill intent here, and it is a translation problem. In polish, 'normalny' (normal) and 'dziwny' (weird, odd, baffling) have no pejorative tone and no psychiatric connotation to them. In this context, normal means "default" and weird means "out of ordinary".
Yes, I do work of a dictionary and google translate. I thought that after so many years it was obvious.
Yeah, no.
Well the only other option, then is to claim that if your army or units gets stuff for free it becomes less efficient. And that is illogical. The options would have to make the units worse when taken. And while I can imagine some crazy narrative scenario where the opposing team scores VPs based on how many heavy and special weapons they can steal, in all other games it would just not be true.
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Dai 804474 11348313 wrote:
It is gatekeeping. Why the hell do you even care? Also stop using words like "weird", "crazy" and "normal" in relation to these things. It is exceptionally rude.
A I don't think GW should invest its time to trying to design the game for two points systems, when they clearly struggle with designing one B I play points, so of course I am interested in points being removed or replaced by PL C As nou said, there is certain language barrier here. neither wierd, crazy or normal are viewed as bad or good here. I don't think in english, and I don't think I ever will. So wierd they are too me. Plus it word is much shorter and easier to remember then something long like non ordinary or something similar.
Honestly I don't see the basis for complaining about which system is being used. It's just a matter of how high you want to count. Fluff players are going to make fluffy lists regardless of optimization of whichever point system you use and the same for power gamers pushing everything to the max. I don't see the game state changing all that much (if any) regardless of which system is adopted/used.
If that is the case, and fluff players can change the way the players no matter what the actual game system or rules are, then why force rules and rules decisions on players who are not fluff players? And why invest work time in to creating rules they may and, from what we see in this thread, will change.
I could imagine GW doing this as a side project. Their regular game system is as perfect as it can be, changes to it can be done on the go,. Then why not make some scenarios to sell some books. A perfectly legit thing to do. But w40k is not, and I don't think it ever was in the state, where the design studio could say that the work is done, and now they have free time. Because it starts too look the way office workers function in here, aka find something and complicate it creating additional problems, just to you can fix them, often creating more problem, just that someone higher up doesn't start thinking what is X doing actually and why aren't we replacing him with a machine.
Karol wrote: Yes in general if you make a faction get stuff for free, and it is real free aka the cost of stuff isn't added to the base cost of units, they do better.
Yeah, no.
I cannot rationalize this exchange as anything other than sheer contrarianism.
The fact that giving Guardsmen sergeant upgrades, heavy weapons, and voxes all for free will make them perform better is obvious. Unless the quibble is that technically their base cost went up by a few points.
Or the quibble is that the stuff should have been baked into the unit cost to begin with?
You want to argue that HWTs, Sergeant upgrades, and Voxes are "must-haves" for an Infantry Squad?
Then stop pretending like they're options, and cost them accordingly.
Seriously:
Squad size becomes 7 Guardsmen, 1 Heavy Weapons Team, and a Sergeant.
Sergeant comes standard with a Laspistol and Chainsword, pays to upgrade both of those.
Heavy Weapons Team comes with a Missile Launcher as standard, with Mortars as their own squad going forward, and then pays to upgrade or alternate from there.
Karol wrote: Yes in general if you make a faction get stuff for free, and it is real free aka the cost of stuff isn't added to the base cost of units, they do better.
Yeah, no.
I cannot rationalize this exchange as anything other than sheer contrarianism.
The fact that giving Guardsmen sergeant upgrades, heavy weapons, and voxes all for free will make them perform better is obvious. Unless the quibble is that technically their base cost went up by a few points.
Or the quibble is that the stuff should have been baked into the unit cost to begin with?
You want to argue that HWTs, Sergeant upgrades, and Voxes are "must-haves" for an Infantry Squad?
Then stop pretending like they're options, and cost them accordingly.
Seriously:
Squad size becomes 7 Guardsmen, 1 Heavy Weapons Team, and a Sergeant.
Sergeant comes standard with a Laspistol and Chainsword, pays to upgrade both of those.
Heavy Weapons Team comes with a Missile Launcher as standard, with Mortars as their own squad going forward, and then pays to upgrade or alternate from there.
Kanluwen... I....
You know PL doesn't have the concept of "paying" for upgrades, right?
That said we have seen GW responding to trends in other minis wargames; the push towards increasing characters' support role in 8th came at a time where it could be argued that it was a reaction to Warmachine eating GW's market share (which sounds silly today because it worked so well Warmachine has all but disappeared), and 30k's reaction system looks a lot like 2e Bolt Action's. A suspicious person might suspect that a move to a less granular points system could be a response to Atomic Mass' shift in that direction with Crisis Protocol and X-Wing, and could come with the promise of a mandatory sideboard at 10e events to make sure you need to buy 3,000pts of stuff to play a 2,000pt game.
(Disclaimer: I have no evidence for any of this, it is merely a sort of plausible set of explanations that bear some resemblance to the facts.)
I made the cruchiest list I could for Adepta Sororitas... like explicitly trying to get as many points per power level spent. 98 PL, 2550 points, somewhere between 26-27 points per PL, which is radically higher than the traditional 20:1 ratio.
The list... uh...
I mean, there's way to build 2000 point armies and just not be competitive... and this one is probably squarely in that category, especially against any sort of tuned or coherent list.
The big winners of PL bias are:
Celestians (5 can kit up to a whopping 30 points per PL spent - every upgrade possible)
Dominions (25 points per 1PL with their most expensive loads, 5x each)
Retributors (29.2 points per PL with a full, most expensive load, 5x each)
And funny enough... as I've already pointed them out as being probably a point low in PL as a base: Battle Sisters (33.3 points per PL with most expensive 5-girl options)
So what you end up with is a TON of melta... knights beware. You also have 0 staying power, and pretty bad range (kiss turn 1 goodbye).
Paragons also were in there, but they were VERY close to 20 points per PL. I think a unit of 3 netted you 1 extra pip of PL for their points (11PL vs 240 pts)
I guess if you wanted to cheese the system for as much as you can, you certainly can get some returns... but the second you start trying to make it a fighting force that can play the game... a lot of those imbalances, at least from points per power, start evaporating.
It was a fun little exercise, and I'll admit that a lot of my 100PL armies come close to like 2050-2150 points, but there's a few quantifiers in there:
1) I can trim to 2000 without very little discomfort should the need arise.
2) My opponents can usually break 2000 points too with their options.
3) If we see nasty imbalances, like 2500 points vs 1800 points at 100PL... yeah, laugh about it and adjust.
Karol wrote: Yes in general if you make a faction get stuff for free, and it is real free aka the cost of stuff isn't added to the base cost of units, they do better.
Yeah, no.
I cannot rationalize this exchange as anything other than sheer contrarianism.
The fact that giving Guardsmen sergeant upgrades, heavy weapons, and voxes all for free will make them perform better is obvious. Unless the quibble is that technically their base cost went up by a few points.
Or the quibble is that the stuff should have been baked into the unit cost to begin with?
You want to argue that HWTs, Sergeant upgrades, and Voxes are "must-haves" for an Infantry Squad?
...No? They're options. Ones which add to the power of the squad but previously increased the cost of the squad accordingly.
I'm really not following your logic at all. Giving units free stuff doesn't make them better because you would have taken the stuff and paid points for it but now it's free? What?
Purifying Tempest wrote: I made the cruchiest list I could for Adepta Sororitas... like explicitly trying to get as many points per power level spent. 98 PL, 2550 points, somewhere between 26-27 points per PL, which is radically higher than the traditional 20:1 ratio.
The list... uh...
My go-to example for a list built to optimize the points/PL ratio rather than being good in 8th involved lots of Deathwatch Veterans, who were 2PL/model but you could take frag cannons and thunderhammers on all of them to produce a list that was technically over 30pts/PL but also trivially easy to wipe in a turn or two.
Karol wrote: Yes in general if you make a faction get stuff for free, and it is real free aka the cost of stuff isn't added to the base cost of units, they do better.
Yeah, no.
I cannot rationalize this exchange as anything other than sheer contrarianism.
The fact that giving Guardsmen sergeant upgrades, heavy weapons, and voxes all for free will make them perform better is obvious. Unless the quibble is that technically their base cost went up by a few points.
Or the quibble is that the stuff should have been baked into the unit cost to begin with?
You want to argue that HWTs, Sergeant upgrades, and Voxes are "must-haves" for an Infantry Squad?
...No? They're options. Ones which add to the power of the squad but previously increased the cost of the squad accordingly.
I'm really not following your logic at all.
Maybe if you had read one line further than what you cut off, you would have?
Then stop pretending like they're options, and cost them accordingly.
Giving units free stuff doesn't make them better because you would have taken the stuff and paid points for it but now it's free? What?
That's not even remotely the argument I made and you know it.
Kanluwen wrote: Maybe if you had read one line further than what you cut off, you would have?
Then stop pretending like they're options, and cost them accordingly.
Giving units free stuff doesn't make them better because you would have taken the stuff and paid points for it but now it's free? What?
That's not even remotely the argument I made and you know it.
I stopped there because it's a premise that isn't true, and the subsequent lines follow that untrue premise. Those upgrades are not and never have been mandatory, so we're not 'pretending' they're options, they are/were legitimately options that you had to pay for.
Karol stated a very basic fact, which is that a unit that previously had to pay for upgrades suddenly getting them for free is going to perform better. You said 'yeah, no'. Your justification for this remark is that the upgrades were effectively mandatory before (but they weren't?) so you were taking them either way. But even if that were true, then a pretty hefty points reduction compared to the previous cost with those upgrades is obviously going to be a massive improvement.
If that isn't your argument, help me out here by stating it coherently, because from my POV you're not making any sense.
chaos0xomega wrote: As of the latest dataslate, guard squads are effectively using PL in matched play - 60 points (3PL) for the unit, all upgrades are free. Early indications are that the unit (and the faction) are now more playable and better balanced than at any time since 9th edition launched.
Imagine that.
yeah, because you get to bring the big guns for free, who wouldve thought.
And now you'll never see a barebone squad anymore.
chaos0xomega wrote: As of the latest dataslate, guard squads are effectively using PL in matched play - 60 points (3PL) for the unit, all upgrades are free. Early indications are that the unit (and the faction) are now more playable and better balanced than at any time since 9th edition launched.
Imagine that.
yeah, because you get to bring the big guns for free, who wouldve thought.
And now you'll never see a barebone squad anymore.
Maybe you never should? Maybe the vision and intent is that an infantry squad in stock loadout should be a heavy, special and vox?
chaos0xomega wrote: As of the latest dataslate, guard squads are effectively using PL in matched play - 60 points (3PL) for the unit, all upgrades are free. Early indications are that the unit (and the faction) are now more playable and better balanced than at any time since 9th edition launched.
Imagine that.
yeah, because you get to bring the big guns for free, who wouldve thought.
And now you'll never see a barebone squad anymore.
Maybe you never should? Maybe the vision and intent is that an infantry squad in stock loadout should be a heavy, special and vox?
If that's the intent then that's fine, but that's beside the point, which was that a squad with such a loadout just got significantly cheaper with no downsides, as well as getting a significant rules buff for free. So of course it's going to perform better than it did.
Also I have to say, in an era of rules being rewritten to fit the kits, it is pretty annoying that the intended loadout (if that's the vision/intent) is not supported by the kit.
chaos0xomega wrote: As of the latest dataslate, guard squads are effectively using PL in matched play - 60 points (3PL) for the unit, all upgrades are free. Early indications are that the unit (and the faction) are now more playable and better balanced than at any time since 9th edition launched.
Imagine that.
yeah, because you get to bring the big guns for free, who wouldve thought.
And now you'll never see a barebone squad anymore.
Maybe you never should? Maybe the vision and intent is that an infantry squad in stock loadout should be a heavy, special and vox?
If that's the intent then that's fine, but that's beside the point, which was that a squad with such a loadout just got significantly cheaper with no downsides, as well as getting a significant rules buff for free. So of course it's going to perform better than it did.
Also I have to say, in an era of rules being rewritten to fit the kits, it is pretty annoying that the intended loadout (if that's the vision/intent) is not supported by the kit.
Don't draw attention to it. That kind of thinking leads to Kan's logic where they just lose heavy weapon teams.
Also I have to say, in an era of rules being rewritten to fit the kits, it is pretty annoying that the intended loadout (if that's the vision/intent) is not supported by the kit.
Joke's on you, because it's never supported the kit.
Also, they sell the Brood Brothers kit with the HWT. They sell the SC Guard box with the HWT.
They just don't care. There's been enough lasguns in the bloody box for long enough that the Sergeant Lasgun option should have come back ages ago.
Don't draw attention to it. That kind of thinking leads to Kan's logic where they just lose heavy weapon teams.
Oi, get it right if you're gonna snipe at me!
They lose heavy weapon teams for Infantry+Veteran Squads, but retain Missile Launchers(which get moved to Special Weapons) and get a complete rework of the Special Weapons list to be comparable to most kits these days!
Its interesting, maybe ironic, that we fight so passionately on the Power Level vs Points things, because Points are more balanced because they have more precision... indicating a strong strong desire for actual balance...
Yet the game remains in a horribly unbalanced state for time immemorial ... and still shovel cash at GW.
auticus wrote: Its interesting, maybe ironic, that we fight so passionately on the Power Level vs Points things, because Points are more balanced because they have more precision... indicating a strong strong desire for actual balance...
Yet the game remains in a horribly unbalanced state for time immemorial ... and still shovel cash at GW.
The people here posting do not represent the bulk of GW's customers.
Seriously-there's how many people on this forum? Compare that to how many people play 40k.
And some people here are modelers first-they'll buy cool models because they want to build it, and GW makes cool models. The rules, if good, are a bonus to them.
Moreover, this forum ain't a monolith. If what one person says is contradicted by what another person says, that's because they're different people.
There's a reason why some people mention how a lot of the changes recently are quite mentioned as being very positively received on other places. Dakka has a very different microcosm.
Thats all true yet the people arguing against Power Level because of balance reasons also still play.
I've seen PL vs Points rage fires on big fb groups as well, so I know its not just limited to dakka. I realize its also not representative of everyone all told that plays, but its interesting to note that on social media and forums in general that this conversation when it comes up gets the same basic results with a wider audience.
Yet the game remains in a horribly unbalanced state for time immemorial ... and still shovel cash at GW.
Which does tell us people are having fun with the game. Because the game tends to be more than just the big tourney circuits where broken skew lists are probably the de facto lists.
I played Crusade and one guy just built a force around his Grot Tanks and Battle fortress. Not a good list, but fun was had by most people and many adjusted accordingly.
...and that is the actual magic behind Warhammer. The game may be broken as a balanced game, but for a beer and pretzel game between friends it is a fun, albeit expensive, hobby. Hell, I participate regularly in RTTs and it's always fun. Sure, a few might be fielding some unbalanced list, but most others are just fielding what they like and have fun with and you get to meet other people excited about the hobby and the armies therein.
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ZebioLizard2 wrote: There's a reason why some people mention how a lot of the changes recently are quite mentioned as being very positively received on other places. Dakka has a very different microcosm.
The local scene here is just positive about the new dataslate. People just want to have fun.
Yet the game remains in a horribly unbalanced state for time immemorial ... and still shovel cash at GW.
Which does tell us people are having fun with the game. Because the game tends to be more than just the big tourney circuits where broken skew lists are probably the de facto lists.
I played Crusade and one guy just built a force around his Grot Tanks and Battle fortress. Not a good list, but fun was had by most people and many adjusted accordingly.
...and that is the actual magic behind Warhammer. The game may be broken as a balanced game, but for a beer and pretzel game between friends it is a fun, albeit expensive, hobby. Hell, I participate regularly in RTTs and it's always fun. Sure, a few might be fielding some unbalanced list, but most others are just fielding what they like and have fun with and you get to meet other people excited about the hobby and the armies therein.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
ZebioLizard2 wrote: There's a reason why some people mention how a lot of the changes recently are quite mentioned as being very positively received on other places. Dakka has a very different microcosm.
The local scene here is just positive about the new dataslate. People just want to have fun.
The magic of Warhammer is needing to do balance adjustments yourself instead of holding the designers accountable?
Yet the game remains in a horribly unbalanced state for time immemorial ... and still shovel cash at GW.
Which does tell us people are having fun with the game. Because the game tends to be more than just the big tourney circuits where broken skew lists are probably the de facto lists.
I played Crusade and one guy just built a force around his Grot Tanks and Battle fortress. Not a good list, but fun was had by most people and many adjusted accordingly.
...and that is the actual magic behind Warhammer. The game may be broken as a balanced game, but for a beer and pretzel game between friends it is a fun, albeit expensive, hobby. Hell, I participate regularly in RTTs and it's always fun. Sure, a few might be fielding some unbalanced list, but most others are just fielding what they like and have fun with and you get to meet other people excited about the hobby and the armies therein.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
ZebioLizard2 wrote: There's a reason why some people mention how a lot of the changes recently are quite mentioned as being very positively received on other places. Dakka has a very different microcosm.
The local scene here is just positive about the new dataslate. People just want to have fun.
The magic of Warhammer is needing to do balance adjustments yourself instead of holding the designers accountable?
Por que no los dos?
That's probably the best thing to do IMO. You can multi-task.
Yet the game remains in a horribly unbalanced state for time immemorial ... and still shovel cash at GW.
Which does tell us people are having fun with the game. Because the game tends to be more than just the big tourney circuits where broken skew lists are probably the de facto lists.
I played Crusade and one guy just built a force around his Grot Tanks and Battle fortress. Not a good list, but fun was had by most people and many adjusted accordingly.
...and that is the actual magic behind Warhammer. The game may be broken as a balanced game, but for a beer and pretzel game between friends it is a fun, albeit expensive, hobby. Hell, I participate regularly in RTTs and it's always fun. Sure, a few might be fielding some unbalanced list, but most others are just fielding what they like and have fun with and you get to meet other people excited about the hobby and the armies therein.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
ZebioLizard2 wrote: There's a reason why some people mention how a lot of the changes recently are quite mentioned as being very positively received on other places. Dakka has a very different microcosm.
The local scene here is just positive about the new dataslate. People just want to have fun.
The magic of Warhammer is needing to do balance adjustments yourself instead of holding the designers accountable?
Por que no los dos?
That's probably the best thing to do IMO. You can multi-task.
You shouldn't have to do game designer's work for a game where the rules cost a premium. Especially not a competitive game-and yes, by default, 40k is competitive.
Moreover, it's far, FAR easier to unbalance a balanced game than to balance an unbalanced one.
Yet the game remains in a horribly unbalanced state for time immemorial ... and still shovel cash at GW.
Which does tell us people are having fun with the game. Because the game tends to be more than just the big tourney circuits where broken skew lists are probably the de facto lists.
I played Crusade and one guy just built a force around his Grot Tanks and Battle fortress. Not a good list, but fun was had by most people and many adjusted accordingly.
...and that is the actual magic behind Warhammer. The game may be broken as a balanced game, but for a beer and pretzel game between friends it is a fun, albeit expensive, hobby. Hell, I participate regularly in RTTs and it's always fun. Sure, a few might be fielding some unbalanced list, but most others are just fielding what they like and have fun with and you get to meet other people excited about the hobby and the armies therein.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
ZebioLizard2 wrote: There's a reason why some people mention how a lot of the changes recently are quite mentioned as being very positively received on other places. Dakka has a very different microcosm.
The local scene here is just positive about the new dataslate. People just want to have fun.
The magic of Warhammer is needing to do balance adjustments yourself instead of holding the designers accountable?
Por que no los dos?
That's probably the best thing to do IMO. You can multi-task.
If I HAVE to modify a product to be functional it isn't worth an expensive price point
Because I'm paying hundreds of dollars for hardcover rulebooks, codexes, campaign books and supplements. I shouldn't have to rewrite them with the cooperation of my entire playgroup to have a decent experience. That's what I'm paying THEM to do. I want to play wargames, not larp as a game designer because the actual game designers are totally incompetent. This is especially true when a company charges, by far, the most in the industry for rules.
Yet the game remains in a horribly unbalanced state for time immemorial ... and still shovel cash at GW.
Which does tell us people are having fun with the game. Because the game tends to be more than just the big tourney circuits where broken skew lists are probably the de facto lists.
I played Crusade and one guy just built a force around his Grot Tanks and Battle fortress. Not a good list, but fun was had by most people and many adjusted accordingly.
...and that is the actual magic behind Warhammer. The game may be broken as a balanced game, but for a beer and pretzel game between friends it is a fun, albeit expensive, hobby. Hell, I participate regularly in RTTs and it's always fun. Sure, a few might be fielding some unbalanced list, but most others are just fielding what they like and have fun with and you get to meet other people excited about the hobby and the armies therein.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
ZebioLizard2 wrote: There's a reason why some people mention how a lot of the changes recently are quite mentioned as being very positively received on other places. Dakka has a very different microcosm.
The local scene here is just positive about the new dataslate. People just want to have fun.
The magic of Warhammer is needing to do balance adjustments yourself instead of holding the designers accountable?
Por que no los dos?
That's probably the best thing to do IMO. You can multi-task.
If I HAVE to modify a product to be functional it isn't worth an expensive price point
This. If 40k had free rules, and the Codecs were just for collectors, I wouldn't be as harsh on them.
Yet the game remains in a horribly unbalanced state for time immemorial ... and still shovel cash at GW.
Which does tell us people are having fun with the game. Because the game tends to be more than just the big tourney circuits where broken skew lists are probably the de facto lists.
I played Crusade and one guy just built a force around his Grot Tanks and Battle fortress. Not a good list, but fun was had by most people and many adjusted accordingly.
...and that is the actual magic behind Warhammer. The game may be broken as a balanced game, but for a beer and pretzel game between friends it is a fun, albeit expensive, hobby. Hell, I participate regularly in RTTs and it's always fun. Sure, a few might be fielding some unbalanced list, but most others are just fielding what they like and have fun with and you get to meet other people excited about the hobby and the armies therein.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
ZebioLizard2 wrote: There's a reason why some people mention how a lot of the changes recently are quite mentioned as being very positively received on other places. Dakka has a very different microcosm.
The local scene here is just positive about the new dataslate. People just want to have fun.
The magic of Warhammer is needing to do balance adjustments yourself instead of holding the designers accountable?
Por que no los dos?
That's probably the best thing to do IMO. You can multi-task.
If I HAVE to modify a product to be functional it isn't worth an expensive price point
This. If 40k had free rules, and the Codecs were just for collectors, I wouldn't be as harsh on them.
Bingo. So when someone goes all "BeEr AnD PrEtZeL" it's just so detached from reality of the situation. No other game will get this kind of defense and it's just so.......cultish
auticus wrote: Its interesting, maybe ironic, that we fight so passionately on the Power Level vs Points things, because Points are more balanced because they have more precision... indicating a strong strong desire for actual balance...
Wait, but I thought players didn't want balance? Which is it?
Yet the game remains in a horribly unbalanced state for time immemorial ... and still shovel cash at GW.
Which does tell us people are having fun with the game. Because the game tends to be more than just the big tourney circuits where broken skew lists are probably the de facto lists.
I played Crusade and one guy just built a force around his Grot Tanks and Battle fortress. Not a good list, but fun was had by most people and many adjusted accordingly.
...and that is the actual magic behind Warhammer. The game may be broken as a balanced game, but for a beer and pretzel game between friends it is a fun, albeit expensive, hobby. Hell, I participate regularly in RTTs and it's always fun. Sure, a few might be fielding some unbalanced list, but most others are just fielding what they like and have fun with and you get to meet other people excited about the hobby and the armies therein.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
ZebioLizard2 wrote: There's a reason why some people mention how a lot of the changes recently are quite mentioned as being very positively received on other places. Dakka has a very different microcosm.
The local scene here is just positive about the new dataslate. People just want to have fun.
The magic of Warhammer is needing to do balance adjustments yourself instead of holding the designers accountable?
Por que no los dos?
That's probably the best thing to do IMO. You can multi-task.
If I HAVE to modify a product to be functional it isn't worth an expensive price point
This. If 40k had free rules, and the Codecs were just for collectors, I wouldn't be as harsh on them.
Bingo. So when someone goes all "BeEr AnD PrEtZeL" it's just so detached from reality of the situation. No other game will get this kind of defense and it's just so.......cultish
I see no cult in stating the obvious - for 30 years GW has been disastrously bad at providing "hassle free, balanced, competitive environment", but they have been great at providing a beer and pretzels hobby about little plastic space men. Shouting at the interwebz about "holding them accountable" does not, in any way, improve neither the state of the game, nor your personal, week by week gaming experience. So, entirely non-cultist realists take their own fun in their own hands instead of waiting for the reality that will most likely never come. People have been shouting at GW about bad balance for decades and it is currently absolutely clear, that even when GW finally listens, they are completely unable to deliver - 9th ed is by many, many players considered the worst it has ever been. And it is in part exactly because ITC has their hand in "balancing" the game and shifting focus to tournaments.
OPR is more of a sandbox, with known flaws in unit design/balancing and you need to modify the rules to fit your needs
it is free and the advanced rules are low cost that everyone is ok with it
40k is a premium priced product, hence people want a finished game and not something to tinker around
people buying a car on a budget and need to do stuff on their own to get the sound of the radio right is ok
people buying an expensive sports car and need to find an engine on their own that will fit and than claiming that this is part of the lifestyle and the manufacturer does not earn enough money to include such things is bs
Yet the game remains in a horribly unbalanced state for time immemorial ... and still shovel cash at GW.
Which does tell us people are having fun with the game. Because the game tends to be more than just the big tourney circuits where broken skew lists are probably the de facto lists.
I played Crusade and one guy just built a force around his Grot Tanks and Battle fortress. Not a good list, but fun was had by most people and many adjusted accordingly.
...and that is the actual magic behind Warhammer. The game may be broken as a balanced game, but for a beer and pretzel game between friends it is a fun, albeit expensive, hobby. Hell, I participate regularly in RTTs and it's always fun. Sure, a few might be fielding some unbalanced list, but most others are just fielding what they like and have fun with and you get to meet other people excited about the hobby and the armies therein.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
ZebioLizard2 wrote: There's a reason why some people mention how a lot of the changes recently are quite mentioned as being very positively received on other places. Dakka has a very different microcosm.
The local scene here is just positive about the new dataslate. People just want to have fun.
The magic of Warhammer is needing to do balance adjustments yourself instead of holding the designers accountable?
Por que no los dos?
That's probably the best thing to do IMO. You can multi-task.
If I HAVE to modify a product to be functional it isn't worth an expensive price point
This. If 40k had free rules, and the Codecs were just for collectors, I wouldn't be as harsh on them.
Bingo. So when someone goes all "BeEr AnD PrEtZeL" it's just so detached from reality of the situation. No other game will get this kind of defense and it's just so.......cultish
But I'm not defending them? At least I don't think so.
I think I need to clarify what I was referring to, at least in terms of the "holding the developers to task" part, especially since you all brought up the expense part:
Don't buy from GW, or any means that would give GW money.
Battlescribe and Wahapedia still exist for rules and list building. Adjust as needed and accepted by your gaming group. EBay exists for buying models from other people. Those people bought from GW (or bought from someone who bought from GW), so that money's already spent, GW doesn't get a thing from you buying from eBay.
I guess that's my point; as the best way to hold a company to task is to not buy from them, just don't give GW your money. You can get official models and rules without having to give GW a single dime. Then, you can adjust the rules/balance as desired.
Don't buy from GW, or any means that would give GW money.
Battlescribe and Wahapedia still exist for rules and list building. Adjust as needed and accepted by your gaming group. EBay exists for buying models from other people. Those people bought from GW (or bought from someone who bought from GW), so that money's already spent, GW doesn't get a thing from you buying from eBay.
I guess that's my point; as the best way to hold a company to task is to not buy from them, just don't give GW your money. You can get official models and rules without having to give GW a single dime. Then, you can adjust the rules/balance as desired.
well, as long as you play the game in public, or any other way that brings new players in that start with a GW game, you help GW making money. Just not the direct way by giving them yours, but to help them via advertising and making the game the one that is played by everyone
and buying off ebay is still money for GW, it is just another 3rd party seller that bought first from GW and than sells it to others
people buying an expensive sports car and need to find an engine on their own that will fit and than claiming that this is part of the lifestyle and the manufacturer does not earn enough money to include such things is bs
If you knew, that this expensive sports car manufacturer has been selling his cars without an engine for 30 years to a great financial success, would you still think, that shouting your discontent at the internet will change his business model? I don't think so.
The first thing that wannabe competitve 40k player hears when he decides to enter this game is that this game lacks balance and depth and that GW is a scam that forces churn and burn for financial gain. It has been like this for decades. Why do people enter then if they know they won't like the experience? I don't think that "because it's the only game in town" is in any way a rational answer to that question.
people buying an expensive sports car and need to find an engine on their own that will fit and than claiming that this is part of the lifestyle and the manufacturer does not earn enough money to include such things is bs
If you knew, that this expensive sports car manufacturer has been selling his cars without an engine for 30 years to a great financial success, would you still think, that shouting your discontent at the internet will change his business model? I don't think so.
The first thing that wannabe competitve 40k player hears when he decides to enter this game is that this game lacks balance and depth and that GW is a scam that forces churn and burn for financial gain. It has been like this for decades. Why do people enter then if they know they won't like the experience? I don't think that "because it's the only game in town" is in any way a rational answer to that question.
Because "This could be better," isn't mutually exclusive with "This is fun." Even if the first statement is true to a massive extent.
JNAProductions wrote: If 40k had free rules, and the Codecs were just for collectors, I wouldn't be as harsh on them.
Couldn't agree more. If the rules were available as a free pdf download, I would just fix them with my group or build my list around each tournament's mission pack and houserules. When I'm paying $200 for books to get the rules for my army, and some of them might not even be valid for 6 months, I don't expect to do half the work of making them playable.
Tawnis wrote: So obviously points vs PL = big debate, but I think a hybridized system could work just fine.
You get X PL for your army and X Points for all the upgrades across your army.
I've played a lot of both points and PL and both have their issues. Points tend to leave most upgrade options by the wayside in favour of the leanest, most efficient units, while PL games throw every possible upgrade on a model because there is usually no reason not to.
Just saying, it would be nice to have a middle ground where people have some extra room to play around with customizability, without sacrificing unit efficiency; and I don't think that it would make calculating lists any more complex.
That would actually be interesting, have games go off power levels, and each unit you bring also gives you x amount of points for upgrades, with troops providing the most upgrade points for your army to use anywhere.
The local scene here is just positive about the new dataslate. People just want to have fun.
Sure I can see that. I'm not even speaking about the tournament scene.
I want to play narrative campaigns with my thousand sons without having my balls smashed by a sledgehammer every game because I like thousand sons and rubrics.
Having my balls smashed by a sledgehammer isn't much fun.
I want the game to be balanced or at least not a super negative play experience to play the armies that I love and want to play.
For a person who builds a list based on a story or the rule of cool and plays against others who do the same, there isn't a lot of tinkering necessary.
For someone who plays the game like it's a sport or career? Yeah, you're going to have some trouble.
GW is trying, but they're so used to making their games to cater to the former type of player that they aren't as good as they need to be at doing what they need to in order to keep the latter type of player happy.
They are certainly trying to cater to everyone- if they weren't, there wouldn't be three ways to play, four sizes of game, and two ways to build lists. There's evidence to suggest that this strategy is working for them- the player base has never been so big or so broad.
Obviously, it isn't perfect- in fact none of the ways to play is 100% perfect. But they are trying; the recent Matched Play Tempest of War Deck is clear evidence that GW knows GT Matched isn't working for everyone as a default standard for pick-up games. They are now creating options within options!
Based on their most recent financial results and current tournament attendance, their playerbase was bigger 1-2 years ago. Our 40kFLGS tournament went from 32 players down to 14 but a lot more people are playing Infinity and other games now.
Don't buy from GW, or any means that would give GW money.
Battlescribe and Wahapedia still exist for rules and list building. Adjust as needed and accepted by your gaming group. EBay exists for buying models from other people. Those people bought from GW (or bought from someone who bought from GW), so that money's already spent, GW doesn't get a thing from you buying from eBay.
I guess that's my point; as the best way to hold a company to task is to not buy from them, just don't give GW your money. You can get official models and rules without having to give GW a single dime. Then, you can adjust the rules/balance as desired.
well, as long as you play the game in public, or any other way that brings new players in that start with a GW game, you help GW making money. Just not the direct way by giving them yours, but to help them via advertising and making the game the one that is played by everyone
Then the only answer would be not to play in public, now wouldn't it?
buying off ebay is still money for GW, it is just another 3rd party seller that bought first from GW and than sells it to others
It's at least less money; you buying a $50 kit from eBay means buying from someone who already spent $50. Versus you buying that same kit for $50 while the other guy already spent $50, giving GW a total of $100.
...or you could 3d print stuff, but I don't want to get into a discussion on that; I agree too much with both sides of that argument to have a solid opinion on it.
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: Just a really bad prediction, but I just wanted to be the first to actually call it.
Points will go away. This will create much nashing of teeth and pulling of beards, but it will also be an attempt by GW to completely balance all factions at once. No more minor point fixes for ultra useful generalist squads like Marines. This will also greatly reduce the need for weekly bandaid fixes or day one patches to broken codexes, in my view, because a Space marine with a bolt rifle is now the exact same as a space marine with an assault bolter. They've already started doing it with Custodes. Every Custodes model unit now basically costs the same, unless you give them a shield, or a heavy Weapon. The biggest place this will hurt:
VEHICLES. They will have to homogenize tanks and vehicles with standard load outs, they can call them "patterns" and say "THIS PATTERN LEHMAN RUSS COMES WITH BOLTERS ON THE SIDE AND FRONT, HAS NORMAL CANNON, AND IS CALLED A CONQUEROR, 10PL.
THIS ONE COMES WITH PLASMA CANNONS AND PLASMA TURRET, 15 PL.
THIS ONE etc etc.
Generalists will need to be handled the same way as Guard. A basic squad of 5 would be say, 5PL, but give it a SW trooper and a HW Trooper, that squad is now 8-9PL.
This will also have the backlash effect of forcing diversity on the competitive gaming scene, as now there is no min-max setup. You can run special rules at each event to narrow/widen the field. "YOU CAN ONLY HAVE 15PL DEVOTED TO ELITES" or something like it.
It would also completely nuke the way 40k does it's Detachment system, which is crap in my opinion.
do you have some sort of reason to belive this is happening or that 10th edition is imminant or are you just wanting to run around screaming that the sky is falling because you don't have a better use of your time?
nou wrote: I see no cult in stating the obvious - for 30 years GW has been disastrously bad at providing "hassle free, balanced, competitive environment", but they have been great at providing a beer and pretzels hobby about little plastic space men.
Nah, if you sit down to have a casual beer and pretzels game of 40k one side is likely going to be blown out pretty hard because of 1st turn or army imbalance or whatever.
And rebalancing the game for GW means you've gone past beer & pretzels.
nou wrote: I see no cult in stating the obvious - for 30 years GW has been disastrously bad at providing "hassle free, balanced, competitive environment", but they have been great at providing a beer and pretzels hobby about little plastic space men.
Nah, if you sit down to have a casual beer and pretzels game of 40k one side is likely going to be blown out pretty hard because of 1st turn or army imbalance or whatever.
And rebalancing the game for GW means you've gone past beer & pretzels.
8th edition was actually pretty good at the beer & pretzels thing. If you avoided the one or two super-optimal things in your codex, you could generally toss together a casual game and have things be pretty close. That was pretty much the vibe of my gaming club's league night for a long time.
I feel like 9th could be similarly good at casual pickup games, but juggling secondary objectives, action progress, strands of fate/miracle dice/sorcery points, litanies/war hymns, etc. has made it hard for me to really relax in 9th. In 8th, I could sort of turn my brain off for part of the game if I wasn't especially invested in winning. In 9th, I find myself constantly worried that I'm forgetting about one of my major mechanics.
nou wrote: I see no cult in stating the obvious - for 30 years GW has been disastrously bad at providing "hassle free, balanced, competitive environment", but they have been great at providing a beer and pretzels hobby about little plastic space men.
Nah, if you sit down to have a casual beer and pretzels game of 40k one side is likely going to be blown out pretty hard because of 1st turn or army imbalance or whatever.
And rebalancing the game for GW means you've gone past beer & pretzels.
8th edition was actually pretty good at the beer & pretzels thing. If you avoided the one or two super-optimal things in your codex, you could generally toss together a casual game and have things be pretty close. That was pretty much the vibe of my gaming club's league night for a long time.
Disagree, hard disagree.
For starters 8th edition had multiple points and whilest at some it was pretty balanced cue castellan nerf, at other points it wasn't at all, cue chaos marines 2.0 vs SM 2.0, index era mortar conscript spam etc.
It very well mattered what codex you used and what your opponent was, even with the broader discrepancy acceptance inherent to casual matches.
nou wrote: The first thing that wannabe competitve 40k player hears when he decides to enter this game is that this game lacks balance and depth and that GW is a scam that forces churn and burn for financial gain. It has been like this for decades. Why do people enter then if they know they won't like the experience? I don't think that "because it's the only game in town" is in any way a rational answer to that question.
I think most players don't get into 40k for the competitive side, at least initially. The vast majority that I've played with started out because they thought the models were cool, or they loved Dawn of War, or they read a BL novel and loved the background. At that point the popularity of the game works in its favour and the flaws are much less obvious for the most part. The problems really arise once a lot of people are already invested, though I've seen plenty of people collect 1500-2000 points, then drift away from the game, disillusioned with the poor balance.
I see no cult in stating the obvious - for 30 years GW has been disastrously bad at providing "hassle free, balanced, competitive environment", but they have been great at providing a beer and pretzels hobby about little plastic space men. Shouting at the interwebz about "holding them accountable" does not, in any way, improve neither the state of the game, nor your personal, week by week gaming experience. So, entirely non-cultist realists take their own fun in their own hands instead of waiting for the reality that will most likely never come. People have been shouting at GW about bad balance for decades and it is currently absolutely clear, that even when GW finally listens, they are completely unable to deliver - 9th ed is by many, many players considered the worst it has ever been. And it is in part exactly because ITC has their hand in "balancing" the game and shifting focus to tournaments.
Realists, not cultists.
Beer and pretzel game don't have a initial buy in to the game at around a 1000$ for the avarge sized army. Now kill team that is a B&P game. Warcry too. But not w40k or AoS, and from stories I have been told neither was WFB. And just because a company does bad at something doesn't mean that the anwser to it is to be chill about it. Being chill about it, means that at some point the only people left playing will be those that don't care about the rules, the cost of an army etc. And truth be told, when you are in younger then 20, you don't want to hear that stuff gets better when you are 35.
Beer and pretzel game don't have a initial buy in to the game at around a 1000$ for the avarge sized army. Now kill team that is a B&P game. Warcry too. But not w40k or AoS, and from stories I have been told neither was WFB.
Beer and pretzels is about attitude, not wallet size. When it comes to 'initial buy in' I spent more on my xbox or my gaming laptop. 40k can absolutely be beer and pretzels and it doesnt need crazy investment to get started either.
And in fairness gw have always leaned towards 'pushing dudes round a table', having a couple of beers and catching up with friends as the focus, rather than treating each and every game as a life-and-death, cutthroat super-srs bizzness type thing where every millimetre is measured and called out, every word and inflrction argued over and every last nanogram of advantage eked out from the list.
You want to play that game - fine. I'll be here with my beer and pretzels. or custard creams in all likelihood.
And just because a company does bad at something doesn't mean that the anwser to it is to be chill about it. Being chill about it, means that at some point the only people left playing will be those that don't care about the rules, the cost of an army etc. And truth be told, when you are in younger then 20, you don't want to hear that stuff gets better when you are 35.
And Being super serious about it and doubling down and chasing that dragon is self destructive in the medium to long term; it really doesnt help either. Sometimes taking things easier is the better approach. A lot gets sacrificed on the alter of the competitive, in my mind that sacrifice isn't always worth it and the resultant 'elite level' game isn't always worth it either.
Honestly dialing back on the competitiveness and not chasing that meta was the best thing I ever did for my hobby. I got tired of being angry and frustrated about my hobby all the time. Now I actually enjoy it. And Just because im chilled out about it doesn't mean I don't put in work to ensure interesting and fair match ups.
And in fairness karol, when you're young, enjoy it. But the young never learn patience - as much as you or every other young person, including me once upon a time, doesnt want to hear it and claims to know better, sometimes things do take time and sometimes it does take investing time and effort in a hobby over a longer period to get the full value of it.
Beer and pretzels is about attitude, not wallet size. When it comes to 'initial buy in' I spent more on my xbox or my gaming laptop. 40k can absolutely be beer and pretzels and it doesnt need crazy investment to get started either.
And in fairness gw have always leaned towards 'pushing dudes round a table', having a couple of beers and catching up with friends as the focus, rather than treating each and every game as a life-and-death, cutthroat super-srs bizzness type thing where every millimetre is measured and called out, every word and inflrction argued over and every last nanogram of advantage eked out from the list.
You want to play that game - fine. I'll be here with my beer and pretzels. or custard creams in all likelihood.
You will not have a Beer and pretzel attituted to something that eats multiple years of you saving up. And it is awesome that you had enough money to buy an xbox and a gaming laptop and have w40k army on top of that. You know what I did? I took my confirmation money, the money I have been saving and decided/was convinced that it would be a good idea to start w40k as a hobby. Meanwhile my sister got a tablet. Guess who had more fun over the span of 3 years that was 8th, me or my sister.
And Being super serious about it and doubling down and chasing that dragon is self destructive in the medium to long term; it really doesnt help either.
Honestly dialing back on the competitiveness and not chasing that meta was the best thing I ever did for my hobby. I got tired of being angry and frustrated about my hobby all the time. Now I actually enjoy it. And Just because im chilled out about it doesn't mean I don't put in work to ensure interesting and fair match ups.
Maybe, but it is not a state created by the players. It is not the players that invalidated units, builds or entire armies, hey even entire games, if someone counts WFB. It is GW. And again, I can only envy you for the fact that to you, losing 2-3 years of hobby money leaves you chilled and means nothing to you. And there are no fair match ups in w40k, even mirror matchs gets decided by who ever goes first.
Beer and pretzels is about attitude, not wallet size. When it comes to 'initial buy in' I spent more on my xbox or my gaming laptop. 40k can absolutely be beer and pretzels and it doesnt need crazy investment to get started either.
And in fairness gw have always leaned towards 'pushing dudes round a table', having a couple of beers and catching up with friends as the focus, rather than treating each and every game as a life-and-death, cutthroat super-srs bizzness type thing where every millimetre is measured and called out, every word and inflrction argued over and every last nanogram of advantage eked out from the list.
You want to play that game - fine. I'll be here with my beer and pretzels. or custard creams in all likelihood.
You will not have a Beer and pretzel attituted to something that eats multiple years of you saving up. And it is awesome that you had enough money to buy an xbox and a gaming laptop and have w40k army on top of that. You know what I did? I took my confirmation money, the money I have been saving and decided/was convinced that it would be a good idea to start w40k as a hobby. Meanwhile my sister got a tablet. Guess who had more fun over the span of 3 years that was 8th, me or my sister.
And Being super serious about it and doubling down and chasing that dragon is self destructive in the medium to long term; it really doesnt help either.
Honestly dialing back on the competitiveness and not chasing that meta was the best thing I ever did for my hobby. I got tired of being angry and frustrated about my hobby all the time. Now I actually enjoy it. And Just because im chilled out about it doesn't mean I don't put in work to ensure interesting and fair match ups.
Maybe, but it is not a state created by the players. It is not the players that invalidated units, builds or entire armies, hey even entire games, if someone counts WFB. It is GW. And again, I can only envy you for the fact that to you, losing 2-3 years of hobby money leaves you chilled and means nothing to you. And there are no fair match ups in w40k, even mirror matchs gets decided by who ever goes first.
I love that you're the person Deadnight was explaining they used to be and not seeing that there was a long-term character progression you can follow as well to get into the zone where a hobby is for fun and is about what you make of it. Unlike your sisters tablet though I can assure you your purchases went up in value.
You will not have a Beer and pretzel attituted to something that eats multiple years of you saving up. And it is awesome that you had enough money to buy an xbox and a gaming laptop and have w40k army on top of that. You know what I did? I took my confirmation money, the money I have been saving and decided/was convinced that it would be a good idea to start w40k as a hobby. Meanwhile my sister got a tablet. Guess who had more fun over the span of 3 years that was 8th, me or my sister.
.
Don't you think I was your age once upon a time and had to scrape pennies together to do things too?
And you miss my point - being super serious about something doesn't make that something better either.
Maybe, but it is not a state created by the players. It is not the players that invalidated units, builds or entire armies, hey even entire games, if someone counts WFB. It is GW.
No. Gw are not without fault but the players are the other side of the exact same coin. We absolutely have a role to play in the state of the game. Claiming otherwise is dishonesty.
I'm pretty sure if you had the likes of nou or his group to play with you'd have a completely different experience to the toxic cesspit you have.
. And again, I can only envy you for the fact that to you, losing 2-3 years of hobby money leaves you chilled and means nothing to you.
Who says it means nothing to me? I simply prefer doing something about it rather than sitting and stewing and fuming for three years about it and feeling sorry for myself and conplaining. I've burned out of this hobby twice karol, by chasing the competitive fantasy. I was the guy for years with the z-tier army against players that bludgeoned me week in week out - look up what tau were like in 4th. After wmh wasn't working for me, It was gw's beer and pretzels- the homebrewing and the grass leagues and the sprcialist games that got me back in and loving gaming and made me appreciate it again. And one thing I've learned is not to deliberately push the game to the point it breaks - true for every game but.. necessary for gws offerings. I've simply learned from my experiences and if something wasn't working anymore I'd either look to move on or change my perspective on it and approach what I was doing differently. I'm 'chilled' because I'm done with being angry and frustrated with a hobby that i enjoy. I've 'lost' nothing and gained a lot.
And in fairness karol, people have provided suggestions and advice to you got about 3 years regarding your situation. We have continually pointed out how toxic your environmtnt is, how its not like that everywhere. Siggestions have been made. You've taken none of it on board, you just stew
If that is the case then w40k is only for two kind of people. The ones that can't stop things once they start doing them and the rich. And no fun or anything else matters.
I would like know, if someone ever went over after being in the hobby for 10 or 20 years, how many people stayed long enough to be 30+ and be chill and have fun, comparing to all those that started w40k in that span of time, got burned and never made it past one edition or even less.
Karol wrote: If that is the case then w40k is only for two kind of people. The ones that can't stop things once they start doing them and the rich. And no fun or anything else matters.
This is ridiculous.
I have fun, karol. This might shock you. But I do, with the approach I take and the people I play with.
People can take breaks from things and go back later - life does happen, and no, you don't have to be rich to enjoy the hobby.
And you know what? You can take breaks from the hobby, you can be on an ordinary wage and you can still have fun.
I would like know, if someone ever went over after being in the hobby for 10 or 20 years, how many people stayed long enough to be 30+ and be chill and have fun, comparing to all those that started w40k in that span of time, got burned and never made it past one edition or even less.
Most of the people I played with fifteen years ago in uni are still playing and most of them started in 2nd edback in the 90s. In our group two of the older gents have been playing various wargames since the 70s.
Plenty people burn out - often by chasing the dragon. Maybe dialling it back is the key?
My collection stayed shelved through most of 6th and 7th edition. I started in 5th, played armies that were not great, got stomped and fell off. Through those years of not playing I collected a little bit, but not a whole lot... we had just had our two children through that time, and work was moving me around and all.
Few years later, right as 8th had come out, life took me back near a good friend of mine who also stopped playing over that span and we both jumped back in. Have been since.
Game has been both good and bad, especially for our armies, over that time... doesn't matter. To us, I think the experience is more important than the rules, and sometimes you have to find ways to make your own fun. Is it my job to balance GW's game? Nah, not my job, but like 90% of what they do is good enough. I mean, I guess we could just slap each other over the head with stupid rules that don't work and make the game miserable for both of us... or we can laugh at the problem, make an adjustment, and carry on while having fun.
That rule 0 thing has been in like every TTRPG book I've ever seen, and I think the biggest mistake GW made was not having it up front and clear in theirs. These games are intended for fun. If a rule prevents you from having fun, talk with your other players and institute a rule that enables you to do so... so long as the rule is agreeable for everyone. It isn't rocket science, and I'm sure the writers would prefer their players to play the game however they want to instead of suffering under the weight of an oppressive system.
Same thing with supplements. No one says you have to play all those rules. No one demands you have to go through 5 books an edition. I typically review what's coming out (read as: typically I don't preorder supplements) and decide if I want it or not. Just because there's two supplements for the Sororitas out doesn't mean I want them, I play Valorous Heart... just saved $100 and made my books and tanks bag a lot lighter to lug around.
"Keeping current", "balance", "meta"... man, these are words that kind of put me off. It just shows a headspace that's probably expecting something out of the game I'm not. Not everything needs a house rule to be fun. I've actually seen not much in 9th requiring house rules outside of "don't be that guy". Though my friends to keep on me about putting together a Canoness in Paragon Warsuit dataslate to lead my Crusade. I'll break down and do it eventually, haha.
Hate to be a bear here, but if you're not having fun... why are you still doing this? The concept of spending 1000s of whatever your currency is to sit around and be bored and frustrated sounds really close to torture. If you'd have more fun with a tablet... stop buying plastic and books and get a tablet. You made the mistake, you don't have to continue to live with it. Don't think about what you lost via collecting in the past, that money and time is gone. But don't keep torturing yourself in the future... have the courage to know when enough is enough.
Just because YOU don't play 25 PL games and your toxic meta won't let you do that doesn't mean it can't be done.
So you really have to stop posting as if 25 PL games don't exist, because they do.
I would argue that despite price increases only Rogue Trader and the edition that included the combat patrol rules in the BRB had a cheaper start up cost, because every other edition of the game was designed almost exclusively for armies of 1K points or more.
I know that 25PL doesn't seem like even a remote possibility to you because the crowd you play with will not let you do it, but you must understand that's not GW's fault and stop writing as if it is.
Having said that, I do agree that even at the 25 PL level, the price is still high, and the fact that many will aspire to 2k does make the situation more dire. But the command edition of the game I think actually gives you everything you need for two people to play.
Just because YOU don't play 25 PL games and your toxic meta won't let you do that doesn't mean it can't be done.
So you really have to stop posting as if 25 PL games don't exist, because they do.
I would argue that despite price increases only Rogue Trader and the edition that included the combat patrol rules in the BRB had a cheaper start up cost, because every other edition of the game was designed almost exclusively for armies of 1K points or more.
I know that 25PL doesn't seem like even a remote possibility to you because the crowd you play with will not let you do it, but you must understand that's not GW's fault and stop writing as if it is.
Having said that, I do agree that even at the 25 PL level, the price is still high, and the fact that many will aspire to 2k does make the situation more dire. But the command edition of the game I think actually gives you everything you need for two people to play.
I'll add that 25pl requires a little more discourse and understanding between players, but racking up multiple games in one session feels good.
That is absolutely true, which unfortunately is why it's not an option for brother Karol. I wish it was though, I think he'd have a lot of fun with it.
There should be an equivalent of Go Fund Me where you can crowd source good players for other people.
Karol wrote: If that is the case then w40k is only for two kind of people. The ones that can't stop things once they start doing them and the rich. And no fun or anything else matters.
I would like know, if someone ever went over after being in the hobby for 10 or 20 years, how many people stayed long enough to be 30+ and be chill and have fun, comparing to all those that started w40k in that span of time, got burned and never made it past one edition or even less.
Oh wow, a lot have happened while I was asleep. So just quick two comments:
@Hecaton: at the b&p level of play with friends you only ever get to burn because of some bad balance/rule once. After that you simply know to avoid that situation. After a short while you have your game environment sorted out for perfectly enjoyable evenings. But that requires a skill we all know you lack - social awareness and readiness to accomodate the other player.
@Karol: you really, really have to get out of this hobby, for your own sanity. This game has never worked as you envision it should. Toxicity of polish FLGSs is a known fact since 2nd ed. And you wrote one very true thing, that I don’t think you even understand how fundamental it is - mirror matches of 40k are decided by the initiative roll. The most balanced game of 40k you can think of is down to a coin toss. There is nothing GW can do to solve this, as this is a fundamental property of lethal IGOUGO games and 40k community actively opposes any notion to change this. GW even introduced a system that solves this problem, Apocalypse, and it was rejected by the community for „not having the 40k feel”. The truth is, 40k core rules do not have the capacity to provide you with the experience you desire. No balance dataslate, no new dex or new GT pack will solve that for you. Understand that and internalise that. Sunk-cost falacy will get you nowhere. And after all those years it is perfectly clear, that you don’t have the means to carve the hobby environment you need out the environment you have.
You will have money in the future, you can always get back to the hobby if it’ll ever get better. I rage quit because of 3rd ed was nothing like 2nd ed I loved. I was 20 back then and have invested in couple of expensive hobby projects just weeks before the ed change. Your story is not at all that uncommon, Deadnight had similar, I had similar, Auticus had similar. Sooner or later it will get through to you to get out, so make it sooner rather than later. Your older self will thank your current self for all the time and energy you’ll save by taking a break from 40k.
Beer and pretzel game don't have a initial buy in to the game at around a 1000$ for the avarge sized army. Now kill team that is a B&P game. Warcry too. But not w40k or AoS, and from stories I have been told neither was WFB.
Beer and pretzels is about attitude, not wallet size. When it comes to 'initial buy in' I spent more on my xbox or my gaming laptop. 40k can absolutely be beer and pretzels and it doesnt need crazy investment to get started either.
And how much modifying did you HAVE to actually do to make your XBox and Laptop work?
40k has high buy-in AND you have to do the work of the "game designers" they hired.
Beer and pretzel game don't have a initial buy in to the game at around a 1000$ for the avarge sized army. Now kill team that is a B&P game. Warcry too. But not w40k or AoS, and from stories I have been told neither was WFB.
Beer and pretzels is about attitude, not wallet size. When it comes to 'initial buy in' I spent more on my xbox or my gaming laptop. 40k can absolutely be beer and pretzels and it doesnt need crazy investment to get started either.
And how much modifying did you HAVE to actually do to make your XBox and Laptop work?
40k has high buy-in AND you have to do the work of the "game designers" they hired.
Guess you've never increased the internal HDD size of one of those systems... jailbroke it to run unapproved apps... upgraded an internal component... replaced ANYTHING that happened to fail (even a controller)... customized said controller because the stock one sucked in your opinion. Betcha never even upgraded your screen (or even newer-gen device - a la PS4 and PS4 Slim) to leverage the new features deployed in newer iterations of games.
I mean, the world does exist where person A buys a system and uses that stock experience from cradle-to-grave. But there's still plenty more who find ways to push things beyond that experience and leverage "after market" upgrades and skills to enhance their consumption of that product. Not like Sony or Microsoft police will arrest you for changing your HDD (though they may kick you off of their sanctioned platforms if you jailbreak the system - much akin to using recasts or 3d printed models at a GW event...).
Truth is... when you buy the system, it is yours... and what you do afterwards is of no interest to the producers. They only care that you consume the product and eventually come back for another round later. Locking yourself into that rapid consumption model is their preferred pattern of behavior, but it is not the only one.
Beer and pretzel game don't have a initial buy in to the game at around a 1000$ for the avarge sized army. Now kill team that is a B&P game. Warcry too. But not w40k or AoS, and from stories I have been told neither was WFB.
Beer and pretzels is about attitude, not wallet size. When it comes to 'initial buy in' I spent more on my xbox or my gaming laptop. 40k can absolutely be beer and pretzels and it doesnt need crazy investment to get started either.
And how much modifying did you HAVE to actually do to make your XBox and Laptop work?
40k has high buy-in AND you have to do the work of the "game designers" they hired.
Guess you've never increased the internal HDD size of one of those systems... jailbroke it to run unapproved apps... upgraded an internal component... replaced ANYTHING that happened to fail (even a controller)... customized said controller because the stock one sucked in your opinion. Betcha never even upgraded your screen (or even newer-gen device - a la PS4 and PS4 Slim) to leverage the new features deployed in newer iterations of games.
You avoided the question, likely on purpose.
The XBox and laptop work as intended stock, yes or no?
Beer and pretzel game don't have a initial buy in to the game at around a 1000$ for the avarge sized army. Now kill team that is a B&P game. Warcry too. But not w40k or AoS, and from stories I have been told neither was WFB.
Beer and pretzels is about attitude, not wallet size. When it comes to 'initial buy in' I spent more on my xbox or my gaming laptop. 40k can absolutely be beer and pretzels and it doesnt need crazy investment to get started either.
And how much modifying did you HAVE to actually do to make your XBox and Laptop work?
40k has high buy-in AND you have to do the work of the "game designers" they hired.
Guess you've never increased the internal HDD size of one of those systems... jailbroke it to run unapproved apps... upgraded an internal component... replaced ANYTHING that happened to fail (even a controller)... customized said controller because the stock one sucked in your opinion. Betcha never even upgraded your screen (or even newer-gen device - a la PS4 and PS4 Slim) to leverage the new features deployed in newer iterations of games.
You avoided the question, likely on purpose.
The XBox and laptop work as intended stock, yes or no?
Red ring of death would like to have words with you supposition.
Also: I could not play FFXIV on a stock gaming laptop no matter how hard I tried. It is like I needed to install software to enhance the system to have that capability. Unless of course I requested it be installed from the manufacturer... but uh... that's not a normal experience.
Question was: does it work as intended upon acquiring the product. I would argue that NOT POWERING UP was not intended. Problem or not, it existed.
You guys can sharpshoot this all you want, but intended usage does figure into why we buy things. I buy a laptop to play FFXIV - I need to modify that laptop out of the box in order to play the game. Installing software is as much an after-market modification as buying a codex.
Sure, I could buy a laptop and play solitaire all day every day, but at the end of the day... it is a tool intended to be more as a framework of what you can do with it... not an end solution. Same with an XBox... you buy an XBox to play additional games... even in its pristine condition it gives you the ability to do stuff, like run disks and install and play games/movies. How far you go down that rabbit hole is a matter of personal preference. I want more HDD space, so I mod my systems to give me that. You want the latest and greatest... so you wait til the next big thing comes out and consume that way.
This whole thing is a matter of personal preference and intention. Just like 40k is...
Beer and pretzel game don't have a initial buy in to the game at around a 1000$ for the avarge sized army. Now kill team that is a B&P game. Warcry too. But not w40k or AoS, and from stories I have been told neither was WFB.
Beer and pretzels is about attitude, not wallet size. When it comes to 'initial buy in' I spent more on my xbox or my gaming laptop. 40k can absolutely be beer and pretzels and it doesnt need crazy investment to get started either.
And how much modifying did you HAVE to actually do to make your XBox and Laptop work?
40k has high buy-in AND you have to do the work of the "game designers" they hired.
I don't know about Deadknight, but I had to send my XBox in a couple of times due to the Red Ring of Death. Tired of Microsoft's 'fixes' I still had to do some work when the disc tray decided to start scratching my disks. As for my PC, it had to be completely custom-built and loaded with software. While it was much better than splicing patches into programs back in the 90s, my latest PC still required some de-bugging to function and occasional patches/cleaning up to continue to work well.
With 40k, I can absolutely play the game straight off the pages of the rules books. Certainly, it isn't always the best experience that way. But the game functions. It functions much better with some tinkering or taking some aspects (read: playing it Beer and Pretzels style) gently. Sticking to computer theme, I don't think 40k plays well over-clocked and optimized. It just wants to break down all the time under those conditions. Hence, why I never call 'competitive' 40k competitive without the quotation marks. It always sounds like optimized army lists to reduce any challenge when actually playing. Probably fine when both players are doing it. But it's like playing on easy-mode with some cheats on otherwise. Sounds kinda the opposite of competition to me.
So my opponent and I don't try to push it too hard. And it works okay under those conditions. Only great occasionally (and that's likely due to the quality opponents I have access to) but only okay most of the time. Nice graphics, functional game play, but 40k does occasionally drop below 60fpm if to try to do more than it's capable. If you are really hard on it, it'll probably crash. Absolutely could be optimized better and still could use a whole host of patches (we aren't likely to get), but it does functionally play without any modifications. It plays MUCH better with mods or a general acceptance (or resignation if you don't want to be part of the B&P cult).
EviscerationPlague 804474 11350830 wrote:
And how much modifying did you HAVE to actually do to make your XBox and Laptop work?
Considering how rubbish I am with technology (why do you think I like painting toy soldiers?) quite a bit. :p
And as much as I enjoy having my xbox, it can't do everything - I can only expect so much from it.
EviscerationPlague 804474 11350830 wrote:
40k has high buy-in AND you have to do the work of the "game designers" they hired.
Absolutely. I have not, and would not state otherwise. Its not ideal. I've played wargames for twenty years now and in fairness I've played plenty other 'better' games in that time that ended up being expensive and just as unbalanced so my view of any table top game is you can only realistically expect so much from them. You'll have to put in some work regardless - I guess I'm just OK with that. I invested my exp in a great gaming group, not upping my skill level in codex breaking. And in my experience I can have a great time playing a mediocre game with great people, I'll have a lousy time playing a great game with mediocre people. That's where I put my effort.
I mean the high buy-in is something that's been there since the 80s. It's an aspect of the entire hobby in general. My pp armies were hardly cheaper for example. I don't mind paying what I pay for what I buy (especially with a 20% discount as I prefer third party where possible) since i dont meta-chase, i like the models i do buy and the games i do play (kill team, lotr, necromunda, warcry) but certainly wouldn't complain if the prices dropped tomorrow. In any case I spend enough time painting per model even if I never game with them, I get my value from what I buy. I mean this is going off topic but aside from some old infinity models on my desk im repainting, gw models and games are where ive drawn most of my enjoyment these last four years. ^shrug^ That said there are ways and means of approaching gw games (and the hobby in general) where the cost can be mitigated though this isn't the thread for that.
Honestly I'm OK with doing the work of game designers because
(A) gw won't. And complaining on thr Internet for the last fifteen years hasn't brought about thr changes I want, so if I want to see them I gotta do the leg work.
(B) I find it intellectually interesting. Game-building itself and scenario design is something we enjoy.
(C) we can tweak a game in a manner to make it more suitable for our needs and desires.
I have sympathy for the designers though. Working for 'the man' in corporate has its frustrations. They're not the movers and shakers in the company and have a lot less real 'power' than folks here seem to think.. gw is not interested in making a 'good' game, though sone designers do turn it out. That said, I often find enough of a game is a 'good enough' baseline thst we can use that as a jumping off point and go from there.
Beer and pretzel game don't have a initial buy in to the game at around a 1000$ for the avarge sized army. Now kill team that is a B&P game. Warcry too. But not w40k or AoS, and from stories I have been told neither was WFB.
Beer and pretzels is about attitude, not wallet size. When it comes to 'initial buy in' I spent more on my xbox or my gaming laptop. 40k can absolutely be beer and pretzels and it doesnt need crazy investment to get started either.
And how much modifying did you HAVE to actually do to make your XBox and Laptop work?
40k has high buy-in AND you have to do the work of the "game designers" they hired.
Guess you've never increased the internal HDD size of one of those systems... jailbroke it to run unapproved apps... upgraded an internal component... replaced ANYTHING that happened to fail (even a controller)... customized said controller because the stock one sucked in your opinion. Betcha never even upgraded your screen (or even newer-gen device - a la PS4 and PS4 Slim) to leverage the new features deployed in newer iterations of games.
You avoided the question, likely on purpose.
The XBox and laptop work as intended stock, yes or no?
Red ring of death would like to have words with you supposition.
Also: I could not play FFXIV on a stock gaming laptop no matter how hard I tried. It is like I needed to install software to enhance the system to have that capability. Unless of course I requested it be installed from the manufacturer... but uh... that's not a normal experience.
And when you got the red ring of death did Microsoft tell you to forge the narrative?
Beer and pretzel game don't have a initial buy in to the game at around a 1000$ for the avarge sized army. Now kill team that is a B&P game. Warcry too. But not w40k or AoS, and from stories I have been told neither was WFB.
Beer and pretzels is about attitude, not wallet size. When it comes to 'initial buy in' I spent more on my xbox or my gaming laptop. 40k can absolutely be beer and pretzels and it doesnt need crazy investment to get started either.
And how much modifying did you HAVE to actually do to make your XBox and Laptop work?
40k has high buy-in AND you have to do the work of the "game designers" they hired.
Guess you've never increased the internal HDD size of one of those systems... jailbroke it to run unapproved apps... upgraded an internal component... replaced ANYTHING that happened to fail (even a controller)... customized said controller because the stock one sucked in your opinion. Betcha never even upgraded your screen (or even newer-gen device - a la PS4 and PS4 Slim) to leverage the new features deployed in newer iterations of games.
You avoided the question, likely on purpose.
The XBox and laptop work as intended stock, yes or no?
Red ring of death would like to have words with you supposition.
Also: I could not play FFXIV on a stock gaming laptop no matter how hard I tried. It is like I needed to install software to enhance the system to have that capability. Unless of course I requested it be installed from the manufacturer... but uh... that's not a normal experience.
And when you got the red ring of death did Microsoft tell you to forge the narrative?
At what point did your rulebook or minis become utterly inoperable and incapable of serving their intended function?
What stock PC or Xbox comes with the exact games included, what game doesn't get stability or content patches, what games these days don't come with DLC. The two are reaaalll close and I think you're pushing at something that actually hinders your argument.
And when you got the red ring of death did Microsoft tell you to forge the narrative?
I figured why buy an XBox to begin with when the Playstation was a perfectly viable alternative.
When the problem subsided or a new gen came out... I asked myself the same investment question: How do I feel about this now? Kind of how Warhammer transitions edition to edition.
I do remember plenty of household remedies offered up for fixing the red ring while avoiding Microsoft's very agonizing customer support experience. Everyone had "a solution that fixed the problem!"
Try a few, get exhausted, break down and return the console. Some people found it engaging a fun to drill down into the "hows" and "whys" these things happened, and finding remedies. Some people didn't think they needed to and were entitled to a working product out of the box. Attitudes are the same here, and neither is right or wrong. But demonizing either side for not doing what you would do... probably not the right answer. I just implore keeping an open mind and ask for other people's solutions as opposed to mischaracterizing a genuine "oops" in product release. Like wasn't ITC a patch for how horrible 8th Eternal War/Matched Play missions were? Didn't see anyone complaining then, saw a lot of people cheering it on as a way "to fix the problem left in the game by the developers". It was widely adopted and the community got on... sure there were GW purists then, too, but no one was trying to take their toys away.
Removing the consumer as a potential fix for the problem just leads to stagnation... so much product innovations stem from users using a product in an innovative way (ask AWS). Sometimes little patches being shared, like ITC, make HUGE downstream changes later on. But shutting those people out as if they're out of touch or shouldn't be doing it to begin with just empowers the developers to keep delivering the same thing over and over. It is, after all, what you wanted, right?
But what is asked from people are not small fixs. Small fixes is something like, it is 8th ed and we agree that trees will block LoS based on outline of base the whole forest section stands on instead of the outline of each separate tree aka making forests worthless for playing. Stuff like we want you to not use unit X and Y, if you play player A, you can use the X vs player B and vs player C you can use X and Y, but only if he brings this set up, because if the brings the other one then Y is out of the question and you have to ask if X can be used. Which more or less boils down to , we want you to buy not an army but a multi thousand points, and more important dollars, collection and then fix the game for us. Ah and remember to paint those few thousand points of models.
yeah you don't, your just -10VP if your opponent has a painted army. Which by the way gives a huge edge to anyone who already plays for longer then their opponent. why not play to lose right? And before someone says, spending quality time with friends is important. There are a ton of things that do not require you to buy a 1000$ army, paint it, pay for the rule books and hope that the rules+interaction with othe people, make the game worth it. Ah and that comes with another assumption, that you actually have friends that play. Because if everyone your age quit, then becoming friend as a 13-16y old with 30+ guys, maybe a tad hard to pull off.
Karol wrote: yeah you don't, your just -10VP if your opponent has a painted army. Which by the way gives a huge edge to anyone who already plays for longer then their opponent. why not play to lose right? And before someone says, spending quality time with friends is important. There are a ton of things that do not require you to buy a 1000$ army, paint it, pay for the rule books and hope that the rules+interaction with othe people, make the game worth it. Ah and that comes with another assumption, that you actually have friends that play. Because if everyone your age quit, then becoming friend as a 13-16y old with 30+ guys, maybe a tad hard to pull off.
feth anyone actually using that rule at LGSs, and feth GW for even adding it.
Sure, painted minis look nicer than unpainted ones but the hobby side should have zero impact on the game skill side of 40k.
and even then, lets say the final score of the game is 70-61 in your favor and then your opponent goes "well actually, i win because you're not fully painted", do you actually count it as a loss when it comes to determining the power of your army or your skill as a player?
Karol wrote: yeah you don't, your just -10VP if your opponent has a painted army. Which by the way gives a huge edge to anyone who already plays for longer then their opponent. why not play to lose right? And before someone says, spending quality time with friends is important. There are a ton of things that do not require you to buy a 1000$ army, paint it, pay for the rule books and hope that the rules+interaction with othe people, make the game worth it. Ah and that comes with another assumption, that you actually have friends that play. Because if everyone your age quit, then becoming friend as a 13-16y old with 30+ guys, maybe a tad hard to pull off.
I started as a 14 y.o. guy in a youth community lead by people in their thirties. But back then they nurtured a laid back wargaming community, not cutthroat competitive environment. You want to blame someone for the current state of affairs in your neighbourhood? Blame players who can't switch off for even a single game. The thing is - GW is not forcing anybody to try to break the game, but many competitive players see every rule there is as an invitation to bend it or break it. Just read the thread about abusing subfaction keyword system - that thread really is showing how some people do not understand that this is a game, played for mutual fun. Not a law school.
Seriously, you desperately need to take a break from this hobby. Now.
Karol wrote: yeah you don't, your just -10VP if your opponent has a painted army. Which by the way gives a huge edge to anyone who already plays for longer then their opponent. why not play to lose right? And before someone says, spending quality time with friends is important. There are a ton of things that do not require you to buy a 1000$ army, paint it, pay for the rule books and hope that the rules+interaction with othe people, make the game worth it. Ah and that comes with another assumption, that you actually have friends that play. Because if everyone your age quit, then becoming friend as a 13-16y old with 30+ guys, maybe a tad hard to pull off.
feth anyone actually using that rule at LGSs, and feth GW for even adding it.
Sure, painted minis look nicer than unpainted ones but the hobby side should have zero impact on the game skill side of 40k.
and even then, lets say the final score of the game is 70-61 in your favor and then your opponent goes "well actually, i win because you're not fully painted", do you actually count it as a loss when it comes to determining the power of your army or your skill as a player?
Yeah, I don't know who the hell that rule is supposed to make happy.
I've seen people on these forums say that you're That Guy if you don't follow that rule. It's absolutely the minority, but I'd be annoyed if someone pulled that on me. Luckily, it's a rule that only exists to encourage painting, and no one would really use it outside of, maybe, tournaments.
I'm glad they added it. A lot of smaller tournaments dropped painting requirements when that rule was added. Now noobs can play before spending 6 months painting, but still have an incentive to get their army painted.
Toofast wrote: I'm glad they added it. A lot of smaller tournaments dropped painting requirements when that rule was added. Now noobs can play before spending 6 months painting, but still have an incentive to get their army painted.
a better incentive :
-have a prize for best general
-have a prize for best painter
tneva82 wrote: People above already complaining about having to house rule stuff rather than play by the book. And that's part of the rules.
Sure you can house rule stuff but believe it or not there are people who want game to be good out of the box without house rules needed.
Good point!
I do consider there to be a difference between "Let's not use one rule that doesn't actually impact the game," and "Let's find a balance point between your Tau and my IG," but you've a point.
tneva82 wrote: People above already complaining about having to house rule stuff rather than play by the book. And that's part of the rules.
Sure you can house rule stuff but believe it or not there are people who want game to be good out of the box without house rules needed.
So do i, but instead of forcing myself to play a game i dislike, i make sure that my opponent and i are on the same page. Saying "lets not bring top tournament lists" is one of the easiest things to agree with.
tneva82 wrote: People above already complaining about having to house rule stuff rather than play by the book. And that's part of the rules.
Sure you can house rule stuff but believe it or not there are people who want game to be good out of the box without house rules needed.
Somehow, in 99% of cases, those "house rules" only need to address limits on amount of broken gak brought into the game in the list building stage. You might be surprised, but in a friendly environment an "utterly broken" 7th ed actually worked well out of the box, no rule from the BRB had to be altered. I've played more than 100 games with the only changes that were required were "if you play a stronger codex, bring a weaker list". That's it. Most of those 100+ games I've played were Eldar vs Tyranids, a matchup deemed completely impossible to balance. And yet we had tons of fun. If I've "chased the dragon" as an Eldar player and brought Aspect Lord-shrine Pale Courts Warp Spider+Scatbike+WK spam list, the game would be pointless and we wouldn't have had an ounce of fun.
I've said it before - nobody at GW forces you to bring the most powerful list to the table, other players do.
Edit: sorry, one rule "had to" be added - "redraw impossible Maelstrom card". So very much "have to be a game designer yourself" kind of houserule that it takes a genius to come up with.
So unless people buy an army for you, which for me happened for AoS, you more or less are always in the situation that if you want to play and this is your first army, and you don't have endless hobby funds, you will optimise the stuff you buy.
So do i, but instead of forcing myself to play a game i dislike, i make sure that my opponent and i are on the same page. Saying "lets not bring top tournament lists" is one of the easiest things to agree with.
How do you "force" your opponent to do what you want and buy the stuff which doesn't make them have tournament lists, specially if their lists became "tournament" over night? Unless it is some sort I own the store, this are my tables and we there for play my way, I don't see it happening. And it would still mean that anyone who can't fullfill the criteria of non "tournament" list would have no where to play.
Pretty sure people buy what they think is cool or something new and fancy to add to their army. Maybe double up on a unit you really liked, but most new players expand outwards instead of upwards. Once you start collecting multiples of a trendy unit, I think you've started crossing the Rubicon... making decisions based on performance over aesthetics.
And that's a fine thing to do, I just think it determines the kind of game you're really looking for. If how you approach the army is to get trendy units en mass, then you probably deserve what you get (the git gud argument) and will see your value diminished in short order through churn, creep, and edition changes. That's why my advice is always play with what you want, how you want, it's the only way you survive the carousel.
Somehow, in 99% of cases, those "house rules" only need to address limits on amount of broken gak brought into the game in the list building stage. You might be surprised, but in a friendly environment an "utterly broken" 7th ed actually worked well out of the box, no rule from the BRB had to be altered. I've played more than 100 games with the only changes that were required were "if you play a stronger codex, bring a weaker list". That's it. Most of those 100+ games I've played were Eldar vs Tyranids, a matchup deemed completely impossible to balance. And yet we had tons of fun. If I've "chased the dragon" as an Eldar player and brought Aspect Lord-shrine Pale Courts Warp Spider+Scatbike+WK spam list, the game would be pointless and we wouldn't have had an ounce of fun.
I've said it before - nobody at GW forces you to bring the most powerful list to the table, other players do.
Edit: sorry, one rule "had to" be added - "redraw impossible Maelstrom card". So very much "have to be a game designer yourself" kind of houserule that it takes a genius to come up with.
What's broken? How much it too much broken stuff? That's very subjective, and doesn't take into account player skill. Low-skill players are going to complain about everyone else's stuff being overpowered because they lose more.
Somehow, in 99% of cases, those "house rules" only need to address limits on amount of broken gak brought into the game in the list building stage. You might be surprised, but in a friendly environment an "utterly broken" 7th ed actually worked well out of the box, no rule from the BRB had to be altered. I've played more than 100 games with the only changes that were required were "if you play a stronger codex, bring a weaker list". That's it. Most of those 100+ games I've played were Eldar vs Tyranids, a matchup deemed completely impossible to balance. And yet we had tons of fun. If I've "chased the dragon" as an Eldar player and brought Aspect Lord-shrine Pale Courts Warp Spider+Scatbike+WK spam list, the game would be pointless and we wouldn't have had an ounce of fun.
I've said it before - nobody at GW forces you to bring the most powerful list to the table, other players do.
Edit: sorry, one rule "had to" be added - "redraw impossible Maelstrom card". So very much "have to be a game designer yourself" kind of houserule that it takes a genius to come up with.
What's broken? How much it too much broken stuff? That's very subjective, and doesn't take into account player skill. Low-skill players are going to complain about everyone else's stuff being overpowered because they lose more.
This is exactly why the adjustment must come from the better player instead of a typical "git gud" mantra. If I don't feel, even for a moment, that I can loose a match, then I have too strong list for the matchup. If I can reliably predict the outcome of the game and it is in my favour, then I have too strong list. If I know exactly when and where my opponent made mistakes that had cost him a match, then I'm the better player and I should play weaker list to ensure mutual fun, or play asymmetric points, because I can immediately step down, but the opponent can't immediately step up. This is how this works in any sport, any competition - the better player holds his punches.
But great many 40k "competitive players" aren't skilled enough at any part of 40k other than netlisting to actually understand how the game works and how it can be made to work in modes other than "2000pts, current GT" or how to accommodate a clearly weaker player or a clearly weaker list. Seal clubbing is a thing, because so many people in 40k simply don't want tabletop skill to matter, they want to win via list building and cannot fathom a reality, when you actually tailor your list down, so you to have to think how to solve problems on the fly instead of point-and-click your problems out of existence with the most OP gak they can find in any codex. They cannot fathom actually playing a game.
nou wrote: This is exactly why the adjustment must come from the better player instead of a typical "git gud" mantra. If I don't feel, even for a moment, that I can loose a match, then I have too strong list for the matchup. If I can reliably predict the outcome of the game and it is in my favour, then I have too strong list. If I know exactly when and where my opponent made mistakes that had cost him a match, then I'm the better player and I should play weaker list to ensure mutual fun, or play asymmetric points, because I can immediately step down, but the opponent can't immediately step up.
Uh huh. What if you show up to play on game night and both players are like "This is what I brought." And one of the players has a list that will absolutely shellack the other one. Just not play? I don't have this problem with Infinity.
And as far as player skill goes - the better player should win, in most cases. Definitely the player who played better that day. So no, I think it's wrong to toy with players like that, unless they're new and still learning - and it's wrong for players to act entitled to that sort of treatment.
There's also the issue of, what if you make it an approximately fair fight and then still win, what if your opponent is like "No I need you to nerf yourself more so I can have an advantage."
Some people are only happy when they're winning. I'm not; I'm happiest in this hobby when I feel like my wits are being tested, win or lose. Having to coddle my opponent's army is anathema to that. I'd rather teach them how to beat my army so I can play them on even footing. The problem is that in 40k, the balance is so wack that you can't teach someone to overcome it.
nou wrote: This is how this works in any sport, any competition - the better player holds his punches.
Definitely not. And I would feel patronized if my opponent toyed with me in that manner in most circumstances.
nou wrote: But great many 40k "competitive players" aren't skilled enough at any part of 40k other than netlisting to actually understand how the game works and how it can be made to work in modes other than "2000pts, current GT" or how to accommodate a clearly weaker player or a clearly weaker list. Seal clubbing is a thing, because so many people in 40k simply don't want tabletop skill to matter, they want to win via list building and cannot fathom a reality, when you actually tailor your list down, so you to have to think how to solve problems on the fly instead of point-and-click your problems out of existence with the most OP gak they can find in any codex. They cannot fathom actually playing a game.
I mean that comes from the top; GW has created that culture because they want to drive people to buy more things, not to git gud.
How do you "force" your opponent to do what you want and buy the stuff which doesn't make them have tournament lists, specially if their lists became "tournament" over night? Unless it is some sort I own the store, this are my tables and we there for play my way, I don't see it happening. And it would still mean that anyone who can't fullfill the criteria of non "tournament" list would have no where to play.
i litterally just talk to them
And nobody that plays at my local store only has exactly 2000pts so adjusting a list isnt a problem for them.
even if they did only have 2000, i'd find a way to accomodate them (proxy, lend some models, whatever)
Hecaton wrote: I'm happiest in this hobby when I feel like my wits are being tested, win or lose.
If my opponent showed up with a list that cannot beat me, or I'm playing with a person who I know is worse than me, then I already know I'm going to win if I won't up the difficulty. So exactly because I like when my wits are being tested, I'll handicap myself or my list. It's the easiest thing under the sun to simply not field a couple of units. It's not like the rest of the list will magically stop working. I value my time and I simply do not like wasting it on seal clubbing. Easy wins are not wins at all. And should the other player still complain, that my list should be nerfed more because I beat him while blindfolded, then I simply won't play that person anymore. Luckily for me, I'm long past playing random people who only enjoy the game if they won.
"The better player should win" matters only if the match is between close equals. There is an elaborate system of handicap in chess, exactly because there is simply no point in playing with large disparity of skill - contrary to common belief, you don't learn anything from helpless struggle, only from "just within grasp" loses. And in 40k there is disparity of lists on top of that. That is reality. You can moan all you like, that you don't have to adjust/compensate in Infinity - you always had to do this in 40k.
Hecaton wrote: I'm happiest in this hobby when I feel like my wits are being tested, win or lose.
Then you should be willing to adjust your lists because the tournament mentality means it's lists that drive the result. YOU aren't being tested on your wits. Tournament games are won by lists and creating best list takes intelligence level of elementary school kid.
If you want to actually test your wit you need to work with your opponent to ensure armies are about even. Otherwise your wits aren't being tested(at least on assumption your wits are at the level of average elementary school kid)
Hecaton wrote: I'm happiest in this hobby when I feel like my wits are being tested, win or lose.
If my opponent showed up with a list that cannot beat me, or I'm playing with a person who I know is worse than me, then I already know I'm going to win if I won't up the difficulty. So exactly because I like when my wits are being tested, I'll handicap myself or my list. It's the easiest thing under the sun to simply not field a couple of units. It's not like the rest of the list will magically stop working. I value my time and I simply do not like wasting it on seal clubbing. Easy wins are not wins at all. And should the other player still complain, that my list should be nerfed more because I beat him while blindfolded, then I simply won't play that person anymore. Luckily for me, I'm long past playing random people who only enjoy the game if they won.
"The better player should win" matters only if the match is between close equals. There is an elaborate system of handicap in chess, exactly because there is simply no point in playing with large disparity of skill - contrary to common belief, you don't learn anything from helpless struggle, only from "just within grasp" loses. And in 40k there is disparity of lists on top of that. That is reality. You can moan all you like, that you don't have to adjust/compensate in Infinity - you always had to do this in 40k.
My thoughts are similar on the subject. Because 40ks hasn't, isn't and likely won't ever be balanced along with me being a rather mediocre player, I don't feel slighted if my opponent takes out a 100pts or more for an actually competitive game. No more than I will take out a 100pts or more if I happen to be playing a faction with an extra strong codex (see C:SM 8.5). I just want a close game. I don't really care how it has to be manipulated to get there.
I feel the true measure of an excellent player is one that can look at both the army lists and accurately eyeball what can be done to create a game that comes down to the last few dice rolls to determine the winner. I have been able to do this in many of the miniatures war games before I started playing GW games, but since I don't take GW games (or any game in my advancing age) as serious, I have never been able to accomplish it within them.
I play a lot of new players. I also believe in, "A high tide raises all boats." So, I try to pass on the stuff I found that works. Fortunately, many new players play space marines which is in my wheelhouse in 40k. I absolutely angle games for new players to win. However, I don't give them the win. They still have to take it. I just try and make sure at the start of the game I have a handicap that as long as they don't make too many mistakes or luck fails them at critical times too many times, they should win. Being new players, they don't always capitalize on it. But I like to think they still learned something from the game. So next time, maybe they do beat me. As I'm long past the need to validate myself through winning games. I am more than happy to be the opponent that loses, so the other player has that hard-earned victory. Like to think of myself as a new player jobber to borrow a professional wrestling term.
Uh huh. What if you show up to play on game night and both players are like "This is what I brought." And one of the players has a list that will absolutely shellack the other one. Just not play? I don't have this problem with Infinity.
No one has that problem with infinity because no one plays infinity in the first place. To an extent, I jest; but being serious, infinity anecdotes are all well and good, but we're talking about working around the issues of 40k/gw games here.
Not play is perfectly fine by me. My gaming time is precious, I have standards. Like we tell our daughters, Its ok to say 'no'. And id rather not play than play a rubbish game, thanks.
So no, I think it's wrong to toy with players like that, unless they're new and still learning - and it's wrong for players to act entitled to that sort of treatment.
No.
Prople can have a way less powerful list for a lot of reasons besides 'they're new', and they're not wrong for taking what they take. If you have an s-tier codex, swapping out stuff or dropping the power level so theyre on the same level is not 'toying' with them, its showing respect. Taking your s-tier list against their d-tier, and with a straight face saying theyre both 2000pts or whatever and therefore the same - that's toying with them. Seal-clubbing is not a good thing. Claiming there's nothing you can or should do about it is worse - that's just contributing to the toxicity of the gaming community. It doesn't help anyone.
Having to coddle my opponent's army is anathema to that. I'd rather teach them how to beat my army so I can play them on even footing. The problem is that in 40k, the balance is so wack that you can't teach someone to overcome it.
And this is 40k. The problem with your approach and teaching them to play at the ahem, absolute pinnacle of what theyre codex can do doesn't necessarily make for a better game, a better player or a better experience. All it does is feed into and perpetuate the toxic, self-destructive meta chasing nonsense we all claim to hate.
And It's not 'coddling', Jesus christ. Youre being an elitist snob. If you actuslly want to play on an even footing as you supposedly claim, you will consider the relative level of a list, not just the absolute level. And I repeat, tou need to decouple thus ridiculous notion that the most powerful lists and the best games are synonymous.
nou wrote: This is how this works in any sport, any competition - the better player holds his punches.
Definitely not. And I would feel patronized if my opponent toyed with me in that manner in most circumstances.
.
Yeah, no.
Seeing sport as just 'winning and losing' is toxic. Sport is qbout community, activity and engagement as much as anything else.
I started running again recently. Used to do marathons and injuries and life, including a house move kept me away. Anyway back at it and I joined a local running group. They gave some elite runners who act as pacemakers and run at various paces, despite their own ability to leave us in the dust if they want to. It's nice. When I run/ran with my girl friends from work, they were typically not as physically powerful as me, and I dialed it back because it was.about doing something at the same level.
On the other hand one time when I was boxing/sparring with some friends from my wifes rugby club - the guy who did it boxed in the commonwealth games years ago and knew instinctively to tone it down. Anyway a guy came along and joined us who couldnt. For the sparring he genuinely hurt people. And it left a bitter feeling in the room for everyone, especially when what we were doing was very basic and beginner level.
Toning things down is not patronising people. Stop being an elitist. It's being inclusive and showing respect. Intellectually i feel it should go both ways in regard to playing up or down, but its a lot easier for 'high' to go 'low' than the other way round. Taking a more powerful list and being a better player is not the same thing.
I mean that comes from the top; GW has created that culture because they want to drive people to buy more things, not to git gud.
Is it? The culture was always there, gw are simply seeing an opportunity to make money giving people what they want.
Its gw catering to and exploiting the demand for it as much as driving it, or anything else - players want this, gw are happy to oblige and make some £££ while they do. The players/community are always the other side of the coin of these thi ga, saying 'its all gw' is only a half truth if you ask me.
tneva82 wrote: People above already complaining about having to house rule stuff rather than play by the book. And that's part of the rules.
Sure you can house rule stuff but believe it or not there are people who want game to be good out of the box without house rules needed.
So do i, but instead of forcing myself to play a game i dislike, i make sure that my opponent and i are on the same page. Saying "lets not bring top tournament lists" is one of the easiest things to agree with.
In my experience, "let's not bring top tournament lists" is not sufficient for fun games when balances is as much out of whack as it was multiple times in 9th or was in 7th.
It also requires both parties to understand what makes top tournament lists what they are, which is very often not the case for casuals. I remember this one eldar player who was totally convinced that he was one of the best players in the area, only to wake up to a harsh truth when 8th no longer supported his genius wave serpent/bikes/seer council army.
Makes sense. The editions so far haven't led to a balanced game.
With power levels, the range of assigning points to a unit or an army becomes smaller.
This could make it easier to balance the game.
Nevertheless, I think balancing 40k is an NP hard problem and so intractable.
tneva82 wrote: Tournament games are won by lists and creating best list takes intelligence level of elementary school kid.
If you want to actually test your wit you need to work with your opponent to ensure armies are about even. Otherwise your wits aren't being tested(at least on assumption your wits are at the level of average elementary school kid)
How about if everyone at the tournament is playing a list that takes the intelligence of an elementary school kid? Then what determines who wins?
tneva82 wrote: Tournament games are won by lists and creating best list takes intelligence level of elementary school kid.
If you want to actually test your wit you need to work with your opponent to ensure armies are about even. Otherwise your wits aren't being tested(at least on assumption your wits are at the level of average elementary school kid)
How about if everyone at the tournament is playing a list that takes the intelligence of an elementary school kid? Then what determines who wins?
tneva82 wrote: Tournament games are won by lists and creating best list takes intelligence level of elementary school kid.
If you want to actually test your wit you need to work with your opponent to ensure armies are about even. Otherwise your wits aren't being tested(at least on assumption your wits are at the level of average elementary school kid)
How about if everyone at the tournament is playing a list that takes the intelligence of an elementary school kid? Then what determines who wins?
This should be good.
Who goes first, specific hard counter match ups and dice rolls, some armies much better then other at generating hits, wounds and saves at the exact number they want.
One thing I can't say I have seen considered is how power levels might change games as in now players can effectively have a fee sideboard with out having to reshuffle their points in their list. There have been discussions about a taking a side board to tournaments off an on for years so why wouldn't this work in a similar way. And would that be unfair if every player had he same option to trade out and tailor a little after finding out what their opponent was playing.
Would it wreck games or create more fun.
It would be good for armies that have options that they can be used as sideboard and really bad for armies, which codex does not give such option. At worse it would be like playing tau in a psychic power focused edition, and best it will make the best armies better and the weaker armies worse.
warhead01 wrote: One thing I can't say I have seen considered is how power levels might change games as in now players can effectively have a fee sideboard with out having to reshuffle their points in their list. There have been discussions about a taking a side board to tournaments off an on for years so why wouldn't this work in a similar way. And would that be unfair if every player had he same option to trade out and tailor a little after finding out what their opponent was playing.
Would it wreck games or create more fun.
It'd require a rework of many armies.
Nurgle Daemons have, across all their unique datasheets, about 4 options.
GUO has Bilesword or Doomsday Bell
GUO has Bileblade or Plague Flail
Plaguebearers and Plague Drones have Daemonic Icons or not
Plaguebearers and Plague Drones have Instrument of Chaos or not
Pretty sure most Marine Sergeants have more options than the entirety of Nurgle Daemons.
Deadnight wrote: No one has that problem with infinity because no one plays infinity in the first place. To an extent, I jest; but being serious, infinity anecdotes are all well and good, but we're talking about working around the issues of 40k/gw games here.
It's relevant because it shows it's possible to have a wargame where the community doesn't have to do large-scale rebalancing.
Deadnight wrote: Not play is perfectly fine by me. My gaming time is precious, I have standards. Like we tell our daughters, Its ok to say 'no'. And id rather not play than play a rubbish game, thanks.
My gaming time is precious, too, and I'd rather spend it playing than doing legwork for a billion dollar corporation who should have written better rules. What you said is an argument against playing 40k entirely.
Prople can have a way less powerful list for a lot of reasons besides 'they're new', and they're not wrong for taking what they take. If you have an s-tier codex, swapping out stuff or dropping the power level so theyre on the same level is not 'toying' with them, its showing respect. Taking your s-tier list against their d-tier, and with a straight face saying theyre both 2000pts or whatever and therefore the same - that's toying with them.
If you criticized GW for claiming with a straight face that two 2000 point armies like this are the same strength, then I might take your criticism seriously. As it stands it's hypocrisy.
Deadnight wrote: Seal-clubbing is not a good thing. Claiming there's nothing you can or should do about it is worse - that's just contributing to the toxicity of the gaming community. It doesn't help anyone.
Sometimes it tells someone that their army setup is actually not very good. I've definitely tried out experimental lists before, and they get wrecked and don't work the way I want them to, so I go back to the drawing board. Which is the appropriate reaction, instead of saying "It's wrong that your army beat mine. Gib more points please."
And this is 40k. The problem with your approach and teaching them to play at the ahem, absolute pinnacle of what theyre codex can do doesn't necessarily make for a better game, a better player or a better experience. All it does is feed into and perpetuate the toxic, self-destructive meta chasing nonsense we all claim to hate.
No, toxicity is telling people it's wrong to criticize GW for doing a lazy job with the rules. Toxicity is telling people it's wrong to make a list that they think can win.
Toxicity is also bad sportsmanship and so on, but playing to win (in a game that is competitive, whether you're playing in a tournament, in a narrative league, or whatever) isn't toxic.
Deadnight wrote: And It's not 'coddling', Jesus christ. Youre being an elitist snob. If you actuslly want to play on an even footing as you supposedly claim, you will consider the relative level of a list, not just the absolute level. And I repeat, tou need to decouple thus ridiculous notion that the most powerful lists and the best games are synonymous.
No I don't. I don't actually believe that, per se, but you need to shrive yourself of the idea that the best games are one in which players pull their punches from each other and are afraid to actually compete. That's what the handshake is for - before a game to emphasize that there's respect, after the game to emphasize that I'm done trying to outwit/outfight you and you can relax.
Seeing sport as just 'winning and losing' is toxic. Sport is qbout community, activity and engagement as much as anything else.
I started running again recently. Used to do marathons and injuries and life, including a house move kept me away. Anyway back at it and I joined a local running group. They gave some elite runners who act as pacemakers and run at various paces, despite their own ability to leave us in the dust if they want to. It's nice. When I run/ran with my girl friends from work, they were typically not as physically powerful as me, and I dialed it back because it was.about doing something at the same level.
On the other hand one time when I was boxing/sparring with some friends from my wifes rugby club - the guy who did it boxed in the commonwealth games years ago and knew instinctively to tone it down. Anyway a guy came along and joined us who couldnt. For the sparring he genuinely hurt people. And it left a bitter feeling in the room for everyone, especially when what we were doing was very basic and beginner level.
Toning things down is not patronising people. Stop being an elitist. It's being inclusive and showing respect. Intellectually i feel it should go both ways in regard to playing up or down, but its a lot easier for 'high' to go 'low' than the other way round. Taking a more powerful list and being a better player is not the same thing.
I'm not being an elitist; when someone is training, you don't go full force in a contact sport, most of the time. But if someone is pulling their punches and refusing to use proper technique in training, they're not going to teach the less experienced trainee properly. I don't see sports, or games like tabletop miniatures games, as about "winning and losing." If that were true, I would be afraid to play in tournaments for the risk of losing, afraid to play against top lists, and would insist my opponents tone down their lists so I could get that sweet ego rush of winning. Instead it's about growth - and you want to push yourself past what you're comfortable with to grow. What you're advocating for is a stagnating complacency.
Is it? The culture was always there, gw are simply seeing an opportunity to make money giving people what they want.
Its gw catering to and exploiting the demand for it as much as driving it, or anything else - players want this, gw are happy to oblige and make some £££ while they do. The players/community are always the other side of the coin of these thi ga, saying 'its all gw' is only a half truth if you ask me.
Other miniature games do not have this culture, necessarily. Like I said, GW cultivates it because they don't want player skill to be the primary determiner of how well players do at the game, but rather how much money people keep shoveling at GW.
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nou wrote: If my opponent showed up with a list that cannot beat me, or I'm playing with a person who I know is worse than me, then I already know I'm going to win if I won't up the difficulty. So exactly because I like when my wits are being tested, I'll handicap myself or my list. It's the easiest thing under the sun to simply not field a couple of units. It's not like the rest of the list will magically stop working. I value my time and I simply do not like wasting it on seal clubbing. Easy wins are not wins at all. And should the other player still complain, that my list should be nerfed more because I beat him while blindfolded, then I simply won't play that person anymore. Luckily for me, I'm long past playing random people who only enjoy the game if they won.
That isn't a test of wits to me, because beating the list in question is already solved - you just didn't use the solution.
nou wrote: "The better player should win" matters only if the match is between close equals. There is an elaborate system of handicap in chess, exactly because there is simply no point in playing with large disparity of skill - contrary to common belief, you don't learn anything from helpless struggle, only from "just within grasp" loses.
Citation needed. If you get blown out on the 1st turn you've learned something very important. Probably about how not to deploy.
Hecaton wrote: I'm happiest in this hobby when I feel like my wits are being tested, win or lose.
Then you should be willing to adjust your lists because the tournament mentality means it's lists that drive the result. YOU aren't being tested on your wits. Tournament games are won by lists and creating best list takes intelligence level of elementary school kid.
That's just an argument against 40k, not an argument against competitive 40k.
tneva82 wrote: If you want to actually test your wit you need to work with your opponent to ensure armies are about even. Otherwise your wits aren't being tested(at least on assumption your wits are at the level of average elementary school kid)
No. At that point it's not a test of wits - the problem is already solved, the solution is just not employed. There aren't enough on-table decisions for it to feel like a test of wits in 40k, either, like it is for other games.
Uh huh. What if you show up to play on game night and both players are like "This is what I brought." And one of the players has a list that will absolutely shellack the other one. Just not play? I don't have this problem with Infinity.
No one has that problem with infinity because no one plays infinity in the first place. To an extent, I jest; but being serious, infinity anecdotes are all well and good, but we're talking about working around the issues of 40k/gw games here.
Not play is perfectly fine by me. My gaming time is precious, I have standards. Like we tell our daughters, Its ok to say 'no'. And id rather not play than play a rubbish game, thanks...
No. At that point it's not a test of wits - the problem is already solved, the solution is just not employed. There aren't enough on-table decisions for it to feel like a test of wits in 40k, either, like it is for other games.
Oh, I see you managed to edit the embarrassing question for citation on chess handicap before I replied
This right here shows all the problem with you and popular approach to 40k - 100% focus on list building. I wonder how would you fare in games that do not have list building and you actually have to test your wits on the fly instead of "solving" the problem pre-game by applying listbuilding crutches.
And regarding enough on-table decisions in 40k, this is directly tied to a list building problem - I suggest you play a few low damage output games and feel for yourself, how this game works without listbuilding as a winning factor.
No. At that point it's not a test of wits - the problem is already solved, the solution is just not employed. There aren't enough on-table decisions for it to feel like a test of wits in 40k, either, like it is for other games.
Oh, I see you managed to edit the embarrassing question for citation on chess handicap before I replied
This right here shows all the problem with you and popular approach to 40k - 100% focus on list building. I wonder how would you fare in games that do not have list building and you actually have to test your wits on the fly instead of "solving" the problem pre-game by applying listbuilding crutches.
And regarding enough on-table decisions in 40k, this is directly tied to a list building problem - I suggest you play a few low damage output games and feel for yourself, how this game works without listbuilding as a winning factor.
He probably fairs fine in non-list building games. Not sure why you're trying to imply otherwise as though 40k was skilled when you dumb yourself down, playing wise and list wise.
nou wrote: Oh, I see you managed to edit the embarrassing question for citation on chess handicap before I replied
Huh? Nah, I was constructing a large post. I never asked you for citation on that.
nou wrote: This right here shows all the problem with you and popular approach to 40k - 100% focus on list building.
It's an incredibly important part of the game.
nou wrote: I wonder how would you fare in games that do not have list building and you actually have to test your wits on the fly instead of "solving" the problem pre-game by applying listbuilding crutches.
I greatly enjoy board games and so on. I wish 40k had more decisions to make on the tabletop and the solution to problems wasn't "play a top tier codex, run the top tier units."
nou wrote: And regarding enough on-table decisions in 40k, this is directly tied to a list building problem - I suggest you play a few low damage output games and feel for yourself, how this game works without listbuilding as a winning factor.
The game still isn't that deep, by design. But your comment is so general - I don't really see it as a concrete argument. What is a low damage output game? How are we defining that? Are you saying 40k only works when you design two lists to face each other and robustly playtest them so they're balanced against each other? In that case, it's a gak game.
No. At that point it's not a test of wits - the problem is already solved, the solution is just not employed. There aren't enough on-table decisions for it to feel like a test of wits in 40k, either, like it is for other games.
Oh, I see you managed to edit the embarrassing question for citation on chess handicap before I replied
This right here shows all the problem with you and popular approach to 40k - 100% focus on list building. I wonder how would you fare in games that do not have list building and you actually have to test your wits on the fly instead of "solving" the problem pre-game by applying listbuilding crutches.
And regarding enough on-table decisions in 40k, this is directly tied to a list building problem - I suggest you play a few low damage output games and feel for yourself, how this game works without listbuilding as a winning factor.
He probably fairs fine in non-list building games. Not sure why you're trying to imply otherwise as though 40k was skilled when you dumb yourself down, playing wise and list wise.
Speaking from personal experience - people who see 40k and MTG entirely through the list/deck building glasses tend to become helpless when deprived of the opportunity to skew the odds in their favour pre-game.
nou wrote: Speaking from personal experience - people who see 40k and MTG entirely through the list/deck building glasses tend to become helpless when deprived of the opportunity to skew the odds in their favour pre-game.
Luckily for me, I'm far better than that. 40k is still mostly a listbuilding game though.
40k ... and the obvious ties into MtG, attract a certain type of player.
That player is not bad, weak, unskilled, etc. They just are excited about toying with a deck or list and maxing it out to the best of their abilities and then winding it up and watch it play itself out to see what happens.
It is not wargaming in the traditional sense, but it has replaced wargaming on a lot of fronts and has been warmly embraced by large swathes of our communities.
Actual wargames are rare these days and you have to dig deep to find communities or players that will even play them in the first place.
MtG or 40k players that love list building can still enjoy wargaming, and I know people that do both so don't be too sure that listbuilders in 40k would just flounder in a wargame.
A lot probably would, but those players also have no interest in wargaming in its truest sense anyway, they are after a war-themed game so their inability to perform well in a wargame is irrelevant to their interests.
auticus wrote: 40k ... and the obvious ties into MtG, attract a certain type of player.
That player is not bad, weak, unskilled, etc. They just are excited about toying with a deck or list and maxing it out to the best of their abilities and then winding it up and watch it play itself out to see what happens.
It is not wargaming in the traditional sense, but it has replaced wargaming on a lot of fronts and has been warmly embraced by large swathes of our communities.
Actual wargames are rare these days and you have to dig deep to find communities or players that will even play them in the first place.
MtG or 40k players that love list building can still enjoy wargaming, and I know people that do both so don't be too sure that listbuilders in 40k would just flounder in a wargame.
A lot probably would, but those players also have no interest in wargaming in its truest sense anyway, they are after a war-themed game so their inability to perform well in a wargame is irrelevant to their interests.
^ Exactly this. Exalted.
I am a lifelong gamer- I played my first game of D&D in grade 3. I think I wrote my first RPG in grade 7. I've lost track of all the RPG games I've played throughout the years. I discovered miniature games through Rogue Trader and Space Hulk at the tag end of high school but didn't venture as far into other miniature games- don't get me wrong, I've tried quite a few, but RPGs are cheaper and I have more history playing them.
CCGs came at the beginning of university and I went as deep down that rabbit hole as I did with RPGs.
And honestly, it's that fusion of interests that makes 9th ed Crusade the perfect game for me. It combines RPG/ CCG and Wargame elements. When I play a Crusade game, I feel like I'm doing all three things at the same time. No other game that I've ever played does that.
No one has that problem with infinity because no one plays infinity in the first place.
I just got home from a game of Infinity at the FLGS. It's definitely nowhere near as popular as 40k but I would much rather play Infinity with a group of 3-4 guys than play 40k with hundreds of local players. I still like the GW models but the more I play other games, the less I enjoy 40k. Between Necromunda, Kill Team, WMH, Infinity, Titanicus, and 40k, I definitely think 40k is the least balanced and worst ruleset.
Between Necromunda, Kill Team, WMH, Infinity, Titanicus, and 40k, I definitely think 40k is the least balanced and worst ruleset.
Those are all skirmish with 5-10 models though, except WMH maybe. A completely different experience from 40k.
Necromunda, my current favorite game, is much easier to break than 40k. That is a game that really needs a GM and/or people with a super friendly mindset to avoid min/maxing at all cost.
auticus wrote: 40k ... and the obvious ties into MtG, attract a certain type of player.
If you think 40k is like MtG, you don't understand MtG.
This. Essentially any time someone claims 40k is like MtG you can just stop reading the post because all of it is going to be uninformed sterotypes anyways.
In the past 40k gognards have made a boogeyman out of MtG because of the more competitive nature of its players and the non-narrative nature of the game and that has held up till today. Any resemblance of synergy or interlocking rules that makes an army more powerful is perceived as a combo therefore automatically considered "beardy", "cheesy" or "WAAC". GW printing rules on cards has essentially been the final straw for them because using 2 commando points to get +1 to wound on a unit that is already benefiting from a nearby aura absolutely feels the same to them as casting animate dead on a worldgorger dragon.
Both GW and WotC are greedy bastards who will never fail to stoop to new lows to get even more money and both regularly screw up royally, but if GW would have put half as much thought into their game as WotC did into MtG, we would have a much better game for both competitive and casual play right now. Despite all their progress during 8th and 9th, 40k is still lagging at least a decade behind MtG, if not two. 7th has been their combo winter, 8th was their mirrodin/raffinity, 9th is the lorwyn/alara of 40k.
auticus wrote: 40k ... and the obvious ties into MtG, attract a certain type of player.
If you think 40k is like MtG, you don't understand MtG.
Don't try to go down this road again. You know exactly what he means, and if you cannot see the similarities between it and modern 40k compared with older editions then you are more delusional than I thought...
You guys totally missed some great points about community and professionalism that permeates many other communities that simply do not exist in the neckbeard arena.
Having played sports at a multitude of levels, I can tell you from personal experience, that it is never a classy move to "run up the score" on an opponent. It is seen as a poor display of showboating meant to do nothing other than humiliate the other guys (who people assume are doing their best as well). Baseball and hockey have a few "unwritten rules" meant to safeguard against that kind of behavior... so tread lightly.
But I mean, at the end of the day, just about every other hobby/interest has a community of "better" individuals bending down to lend a hand to those striving to get to those levels. That's called mentorship and stewardship over the future of the hobby. Continually slapping players around because they cannot play up to your level is just going to isolate your community more and more until GW nukes it from orbit like they did the Fantasy Battles crowd. I'm wondering if 40k doesn't have a large surplus of those WHFB doods now gatekeeping that game like they did when their precious died. Kind of reeks of the same mentality.
Being "elite" and "gatekeeping" the hobby is ugly no matter what form it comes in, and there's a lot of that going on in this particular community. Not sure yet if it is willingly or blindly, though. I'm truly hoping it is the latter.
[REDACTED] - I was informed that sharing information about sales slides etc can land me into hot water even if I didn't sign their NDA. So editing to avoid that mess.
I understand that Mtg and 40k are both about deckbuilding and combo chaining and that 40k's design is borrowed heavily from the MtG pipeline. I also understand that 40k and AOS borrow heavily from the MtG cycling of power / cards to get you to buy new stuff regularly.
I know both of those things as fact rather than opinion or guessing because I have seen with my own eyeballs that their sales managers had to get familiar with how MtG works because design etc borrowed from that game. It was from seeing that information with my own eyes that leads me to say the things I say.
Any talk about MtG being about competitiveness, cheesy, WAAC, non narrative, etc... are not words that I used.
Just like 40k, there are also ways to do Magic with more of a narrative... But players have to be the ones who decide to actually do it.
We used to do one-on-one match-ups with escalating sideboards to upgrade characters in later games; these matchups would determine emperors and generals and then we'd end with a team match played emperor style.
Grimtuff 804474 11352085 wrote:
Don't try to go down this road again. You know exactly what he means, and if you cannot see the similarities between it and modern 40k compared with older editions then you are more delusional than I thought...
Oh feth yeah I'm willing to go down this road again, because for a supposed game designer Auticus has no idea what he's talking about. 40k does not have hidden information, there's no deck of cards to shuffle, the rules aren't written nearly as well, there are spatial elements to 40k gameplay that don't exist in Magic (unless you bust out a Chaos Orb)... they're not similar.
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auticus wrote: [REDACTED] - I was informed that sharing information about sales slides etc can land me into hot water even if I didn't sign their NDA. So editing to avoid that mess.
I understand that Mtg and 40k are both about deckbuilding and combo chaining and that 40k's design is borrowed heavily from the MtG pipeline. I also understand that 40k and AOS borrow heavily from the MtG cycling of power / cards to get you to buy new stuff regularly.
I know both of those things as fact rather than opinion or guessing because I have seen with my own eyeballs that their sales managers had to get familiar with how MtG works because design etc borrowed from that game. It was from seeing that information with my own eyes that leads me to say the things I say.
Any talk about MtG being about competitiveness, cheesy, WAAC, non narrative, etc... are not words that I used.
To be frank, without evidence I don't believe you. Whose sales slides were you sharing? GW's?
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Purifying Tempest wrote: You guys totally missed some great points about community and professionalism that permeates many other communities that simply do not exist in the neckbeard arena.
Having played sports at a multitude of levels, I can tell you from personal experience, that it is never a classy move to "run up the score" on an opponent. It is seen as a poor display of showboating meant to do nothing other than humiliate the other guys (who people assume are doing their best as well). Baseball and hockey have a few "unwritten rules" meant to safeguard against that kind of behavior... so tread lightly.
No, there's no point in treading lightly because you've completely misunderstood the situation. Since 40k uses points as tiebreakers (beyond win/loss) there's every incentive to run up the score as high as possible. It's like asking someone why they don't stop playing hard at the end of the first part of a two-legged contest.
What you're describing is, like, refusing to accept someone's forfeit, which is not something I've ever seen happen. When a game is won, it's won. What I'm talking about is that there's nothing wrong with blasting a home run top of the 1st inning if you can.
Purifying Tempest wrote: But I mean, at the end of the day, just about every other hobby/interest has a community of "better" individuals bending down to lend a hand to those striving to get to those levels. That's called mentorship and stewardship over the future of the hobby. Continually slapping players around because they cannot play up to your level is just going to isolate your community more and more until GW nukes it from orbit like they did the Fantasy Battles crowd. I'm wondering if 40k doesn't have a large surplus of those WHFB doods now gatekeeping that game like they did when their precious died. Kind of reeks of the same mentality.
GW killed WHFB. Nice of you to blame it on the playerbase lol.
kodos wrote: those games do not follow similar sales designs because the rules are of different quality and some elements from one game do not exist in the other?
ok, so also MtG and Pokemon are not having similar concept, because Pokemon does not use Mana and the rules are not as well written
First of all, the fact that MtG has randomized packs and 40k does not means that the sales designs are vastly different. Second of all, auticus was implying that the *gameplay* of 9th was somehow MtG-like.
And your attempt to "gotcha" me by saying that my comment would imply that MtG and Pokemon aren't alike is just pathetically laughable. Pokemon uses a card-based resource system like mana.
Grimtuff 804474 11352085 wrote:
Don't try to go down this road again. You know exactly what he means, and if you cannot see the similarities between it and modern 40k compared with older editions then you are more delusional than I thought...
Oh feth yeah I'm willing to go down this road again, because for a supposed game designer Auticus has no idea what he's talking about. 40k does not have hidden information, there's no deck of cards to shuffle, the rules aren't written nearly as well, there are spatial elements to 40k gameplay that don't exist in Magic (unless you bust out a Chaos Orb)... they're not similar.
Keep fumbling through that wood, you might eventually find some trees there...
Hecaton - GW indeed killed FB... as a response to how insular the community became. It became a toilet-circling bowl of poop between GWs lack of desire to improve the situation and the community doing anything other than... do exactly what the community is doing to 40k right now. Instead of continuing to carry that drama forward, GW nuked the game... neckbeards be damned.
I remember this explicitly because I was for all functionality gatekept out of the FB scene by the people GW nuked the game over. I would have been a fantasy player had the community not been so insular and toxic towards their new players and GW. If you do not think the community had anything to do with the fate of WHFB, then you are very likely one of the people that got it nuked.
At the end of the day, GW pulled the trigger, but the community loaded the stupid gun for them to begin with.
Keep fumbling through that wood, you might eventually find some trees there...
Sounds like you haven't thought too heavily on the topic, and don't actually understand MtG. Come back when you do.
Okay then, I'll spell it out for you. 40k and MTG not being literally the same, which is what you seem to think is what people are implying is NOT the same as modern 40k borrowing CCG-esq elements to a tabletop game, which they clearly are doing.
If you cannot see this then there is an Egyptian river you must need pulling out of.
Okay then, I'll spell it out for you. 40k and MTG not being literally the same, which is what you seem to think is what people are implying is NOT the same as modern 40k borrowing CCG-esq elements to a tabletop game, which they clearly are doing.
If you cannot see this then there is an Egyptian river you must need pulling out of.
No, there are no ccg-esque elements in 40k's gameplay. There's no deck of cards to shuffle, no randomized packs to buy. Again, you're in Dunning-Kruger territory with your understanding of these games.
Okay then, I'll spell it out for you. 40k and MTG not being literally the same, which is what you seem to think is what people are implying is NOT the same as modern 40k borrowing CCG-esq elements to a tabletop game, which they clearly are doing.
If you cannot see this then there is an Egyptian river you must need pulling out of.
No, there are no ccg-esque elements in 40k's gameplay. There's no deck of cards to shuffle, no randomized packs to buy. Again, you're in Dunning-Kruger territory with your understanding of these games.
Yup. You have no idea what you're talking about. Bye.
Purifying Tempest wrote: Hecaton - GW indeed killed FB... as a response to how insular the community became. It became a toilet-circling bowl of poop between GWs lack of desire to improve the situation and the community doing anything other than... do exactly what the community is doing to 40k right now. Instead of continuing to carry that drama forward, GW nuked the game... neckbeards be damned.
GW had a lack of desire to improve the game. They failed to balance it, and constructed the rules such that it was incredibly inaccessible, with a massive buy-in to play, because they wanted to extract more money from people.
Purifying Tempest wrote: I remember this explicitly because I was for all functionality gatekept out of the FB scene by the people GW nuked the game over. I would have been a fantasy player had the community not been so insular and toxic towards their new players and GW. If you do not think the community had anything to do with the fate of WHFB, then you are very likely one of the people that got it nuked.
I sincerely doubt that that is a factual retelling of events.
Purifying Tempest wrote: At the end of the day, GW pulled the trigger, but the community loaded the stupid gun for them to begin with.
Nope! GW made decisions that resulted in short-term gains at the expense of long-term profit - they made it so you needed to buy bigger units to keep playing, which then made new players not want to get into the game, and then they torpedoed the setting in a way which pissed a lot of people off. Any attempt to put this on the playerbase is authoritarian-submissive corporate bootlicking.
Yup. You have no idea what you're talking about. Bye.
The fact that you can't explain it shows me that nobody should take you seriously on any claims about game design. I gave specific examples and you refused to engage because you know you don't have an argument.
Hecaton wrote: First of all, the fact that MtG has randomized packs and 40k does not means that the sales designs are vastly different. Second of all, auticus was implying that the *gameplay* of 9th was somehow MtG-like.
both are live style games, that sell on the base of a changing meta which comes from ongoing releases of new units/cards
and that there are no randomized packs has nothing to do with it, as while in 40k you might know how the stuff looks, you don't know how useful this will be as the rules keep changing
just because you point on the things that are different while ignoring everything that is similar and call others of not understanding what it is, I now doubt you every tried to keep up with the 40k meta
Purifying Tempest wrote: At the end of the day, GW pulled the trigger, but the community loaded the stupid gun for them to begin with.
well, the situation was very different in Europe and the US for Warhammer, as we here had nearly a situation similar to Blood Bowl were the community took the rules over, it was just the tournament crowed that forged a "only official stuff counts" that put the nail in the coffin with 8th (as all that was achieved was gone and forgotten because now GW will listen and really try to make a good game)
it is also different for 40k here, the more GW mess up, the more independent the community becomes and does things on its own (we are not far off a community edition again like we had in 5th)
I shared this post this morning with some people I work with - in the same industry - who also have seen the sales slides by GW where they discuss magic the gathering and needing to get managers to know how that plays.
We had a good laugh at the "40k is nothing like CCG you have no idea what you're talking about" speak.
Today's "wargames" have so much of the CCG bloodline flowing through them that there are now game dev seminars on the topic and how to incorporate those baseline principals into new games to hook players and churn them.
It is correct to say that 40k is not a CCG because there are no cards to shuffle and decks to buy. But that is entirely not what is being discussed in how they are similar as to be entirely off topic and derailing other than to be the guy to go
"TECHNICALLY... its not a card game because it has no cards".
auticus wrote: I shared this post this morning with some people I work with - in the same industry - who also have seen the sales slides by GW where they discuss magic the gathering and needing to get managers to know how that plays.
We had a good laugh at the "40k is nothing like CCG you have no idea what you're talking about" speak.
Today's "wargames" have so much of the CCG bloodline flowing through them that there are now game dev seminars on the topic and how to incorporate those baseline principals into new games to hook players and churn them.
It is correct to say that 40k is not a CCG because there are no cards to shuffle and decks to buy. But that is entirely not what is being discussed in how they are similar as to be entirely off topic and derailing other than to be the guy to go
"TECHNICALLY... its not a card game because it has no cards".
Well done. That is correct.
i'm legitimately curious, what exactly is being taken from CCG's in modern 40k design? Is it the "combos" that you get between units?
both are live style games, that sell on the base of a changing meta which comes from ongoing releases of new units/cards
and that there are no randomized packs has nothing to do with it, as while in 40k you might know how the stuff looks, you don't know how useful this will be as the rules keep changing
No, that has everything to do with it, because accessibility is not a lottery. There's no equivalent of /r/mtgfinance for 40k, because how the game is sold is vastly different.
kodos wrote: just because you point on the things that are different while ignoring everything that is similar and call others of not understanding what it is, I now doubt you every tried to keep up with the 40k meta
Among things that are different between MtG and 40k are the things that make Magic a *ccg*. 40k is not collectible in the sense that magic is, because it is not sold in random packs (the SM heroes line nonwithstanding) and it's not a card game. You can talk about any similarities and differences between the games, but 40k is emphatically not a ccg, or ccg-like.
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auticus wrote: I shared this post this morning with some people I work with - in the same industry - who also have seen the sales slides by GW where they discuss magic the gathering and needing to get managers to know how that plays.
We had a good laugh at the "40k is nothing like CCG you have no idea what you're talking about" speak.
The braying and bleating of a bunch of idiots doesn't matter to me.
auticus wrote: Today's "wargames" have so much of the CCG bloodline flowing through them that there are now game dev seminars on the topic and how to incorporate those baseline principals into new games to hook players and churn them.
It is correct to say that 40k is not a CCG because there are no cards to shuffle and decks to buy. But that is entirely not what is being discussed in how they are similar as to be entirely off topic and derailing other than to be the guy to go
"TECHNICALLY... its not a card game because it has no cards".
Well done. That is correct.
Yes, and it's meaningful too. There are people in this thread who talk about the gameplay of 40k and how it's CCG-like, and I notice you're dancing around naming specifics because the things you're talking about are not specific to CCGs - that's marketing products in general.
Hecaton wrote: but 40k is emphatically not a ccg, or ccg-like.
it is not about that one is a card game while the other is a miniature games, yes this is a big difference
it is about that both are lifestyle games, were chasing the meta is the main point of the game
but if you want to go down that route, 40k is not a wargame either, nor a tabletop game, just because it uses minis as tokes does not make it one
if 40k and MtG are not similar because one uses cards while the other does not (and random packs are not the only way to buy cards), than 40k and chess are the same because both use different painted miniatures as tokes
kodos wrote: it is not about that one is a card game while the other is a miniature games, yes this is a big difference
it is about that both are lifestyle games, were chasing the meta is the main point of the game
Well, a lifestyle game is not the same thing as a CCG. So you're already making a nonsensical argument. Try again. If you want to say, "40k and MtG are both lifestyle games" I'd agree with you, but that's not what you're saying.
kodos wrote: but if you want to go down that route, 40k is not a wargame either, nor a tabletop game, just because it uses minis as tokes does not make it one
if 40k and MtG are not similar because one uses cards while the other does not (and random packs are not the only way to buy cards), than 40k and chess are the same because both use different painted miniatures as tokes
I'd call 40k a wargame. That can be subjective, though, so if you don't like that terminology that's fine. But 40k is *definitely* a tabletop game - it's an analog game played on a table. I'll leave your chess analogy be because it's just... silly.
both are live style games, that sell on the base of a changing meta which comes from ongoing releases of new units/cards
and that there are no randomized packs has nothing to do with it, as while in 40k you might know how the stuff looks, you don't know how useful this will be as the rules keep changing
No, that has everything to do with it, because accessibility is not a lottery. There's no equivalent of /r/mtgfinance for 40k, because how the game is sold is vastly different.
kodos wrote: just because you point on the things that are different while ignoring everything that is similar and call others of not understanding what it is, I now doubt you every tried to keep up with the 40k meta
Among things that are different between MtG and 40k are the things that make Magic a *ccg*. 40k is not collectible in the sense that magic is, because it is not sold in random packs (the SM heroes line nonwithstanding) and it's not a card game. You can talk about any similarities and differences between the games, but 40k is emphatically not a ccg, or ccg-like.
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auticus wrote: I shared this post this morning with some people I work with - in the same industry - who also have seen the sales slides by GW where they discuss magic the gathering and needing to get managers to know how that plays.
We had a good laugh at the "40k is nothing like CCG you have no idea what you're talking about" speak.
The braying and bleating of a bunch of idiots doesn't matter to me.
auticus wrote: Today's "wargames" have so much of the CCG bloodline flowing through them that there are now game dev seminars on the topic and how to incorporate those baseline principals into new games to hook players and churn them.
It is correct to say that 40k is not a CCG because there are no cards to shuffle and decks to buy. But that is entirely not what is being discussed in how they are similar as to be entirely off topic and derailing other than to be the guy to go
"TECHNICALLY... its not a card game because it has no cards".
Well done. That is correct.
Yes, and it's meaningful too. There are people in this thread who talk about the gameplay of 40k and how it's CCG-like, and I notice you're dancing around naming specifics because the things you're talking about are not specific to CCGs - that's marketing products in general.
I'm sure they don't care for the braying of idiots on forums either.
But sure, like a ccg the "stacking buffs" onto a unit to power it up to punch above its activation cost (points cost), the reactionary or out of phase cards/actions (stratagems), turn based currency to use (command points). The churn of the meta isn't via introducing more cards, but by adjusting the relative points and abilities of the units, similar to new sets coming out.
They're really reaching a point of similarity now in core underlying message/principals and I think you'd need be to be completely blinded to wider gaming culture to see it.
Funny that they moved in this direction and "esports 40k" came into being as well.
i'm legitimately curious, what exactly is being taken from CCG's in modern 40k design? Is it the "combos" that you get between units?
* Unit variety is important. In traditional wargames - unit variety is fairly stagnant. A foot soldier will largely be a foot soldier across all factions with a minor variation of its stats and abilities. In the newer paradigm every unit should at least appear to be different.
* The game should be about building up effective combinations with your list or deck. Much of the fun we have found in marketing from a lot of players is the joy of building up a deck or a list and tinkering with its math and then winding it up and watching it go. In traditional wargaming, the lists were largely not as important as no one in historical wargaming wants to play a game where one side is going to stomp the other side because their list is over bearing. In traditional wargaming, the game should be decided on the table and the lists be fairly equal to each other, or the scenario equalize the two sides. In a listbuilding / deckbuilding game, the game is largely decided by who has the best list, and if the two are equal, then gets decided on the table. In a CCG styled game, the primary design feature is building to see who has the best deck and letting it play itself out.
Typically in traditional wargaming if one side has a superior force to the other (a fairly common occurrence) the weaker side has objectives they can achieve for victory other than a military wipe them out victory. For example, against overwhelming odds you may simply have to have a unit alive on the board for four turns or something to hold the enemy off.
Other examples - you may need to assassinate the enemy general or an important hero. Things that are possible to do with a weaker force other than straight up fight.
Other examples in traditional wargaming may be a superior force that has a negative battleground experience, such as Agincourt where the knights sloughed through thick mud in the face of an arrow storm. The french "army list" was decidedly more powerful but the scenario evened that out by having the weaker list in better position.
In a CCG styled tabletop game, the list's weight is the most important element. The players want to see their creation wind up and go. In a CCG styled tabletop game, elements that even out two opposing forces is seen as a negative play experience because the primary experience is to build the most powerful deck and wind it up and go to see who made the best overall force.
* In a CCG styled game, where listbuilding is the key, the main important element is identifying combinations. Having an army of five units of tactical marines, a jump squad, a tank, and a captain where nothing makes the other things better is not exciting to the target audience.
Having the captain grant his tactical marines bonuses and then the presence of a tank giving other bonuses (hypothetical obviously) and being able to weigh points cost to bonuses granted from a myriad of choices, most of them false choices, is what draws the excitement.
Standard wargames do not do this other than at their most basic.
* CCG style games are designed to be less about maneuvering (which is a key element of wargaming) and more about getting stuck in the action. The less you have of facings, flanks, rears, etc... and the more you can just basically "tap unit, have unit attack" in some form is highly desirable because maneuvering and having to wait for the action is not seen as desirable and is seen by many of the target audience to be boring. Additionally some call maneuver "gatekeeping" because if I have a solid combo-chained unit built up but then I have to also maneuver it to get good effect out of it, that is a negative play experience and some call that "gatekeeping" for tabletop skill, when that tabletop skill is not what we are designing for.
This is where you see things like deepstrike/assault or in AOS just being able to move 30" or whatever and engage in combat in turn 1 without needing to worry about maneuvering into a good position to do it. Particularly deepstrike or teleport assault.
It is very akin to "I tap my unit of terminators and they attack your unit" because you get the same effect: the terminators appear and attack what you want them to. Now some layering comes into play, where we can layer a bubble-wrap around my important bits.
This is akin to trigger-effects where a card can be triggered to block the attack and take the damage instead if it is on the field.
They both provide the same type of experience. You have to know to bubble wrap of course, so that is the skill, but you learn that from watching a couple of games.
* the sales model of both CCG and 40k are very similar in that they are intentionally designed to make the competitive players want to buy the latest thing to stay competitive. In MtG that is new card packs and formats that they have to have to play in the latest tournaments. In 40k its shuffling points around to make some good things not so good anymore and some things not so good are pretty good now.
It is a fallacy to say all new things are the most powerful, because 40k has a long history of that not being true.
It is however accurate to state that the yearly points change on top of new books changes what is good and keeps competitive players buying new models to keep up.
It was this model particularly that was discussed and why the store managers were encouraged to look into MtG if they didn't have experience with it because that was their heralding of what was to come (this was several years ago when I was still playing when I was shown pictures of that presentation - and ultimately one of the main reasons I sold all my stuff shortly after).
* Resource management is a thing that you see a lot of games start to employ. In MtG it is land decks and things that provide "mana" that you provide for in your deck building. In 40k or AOS it is command points or other things you can harvest via list building that provide special combinations of powers or enhancements.
In traditional wargames, resource management is a thing in long term campaigns where you have food, ammo, etc... logistics... but doesn't play on the tabletop.
We see battletech start to drift more into this territory now with lance formations giving extra resources and powers (also akin to the deckbuilding / listbuilding aspect discussed above).
* Timing. Traditional wargames took an afternoon. Part of the allure of MtG gamers is the professional sporting scene that came to be in 1996 or 1997 or whatever it was when espn broadcast the first world championship. Timing is now such a thing where the games have to be done in a format that is digestable. It has to be able to be played in 60-120 minutes, has to allow for multiple tournament format games to happen in an afternoon, and has to be something that could help the "esport" flourish, as that draws more and more players. It can be argued from a marketing sense that the esport nature of MtG is much of why its grossly popular and profitable. Now... 40k fails at this but not on purpose. They amped lethality up to 11 to try to achieve this; their failure comes from the layers of rules they have stomping on each other though. AOS specifically was designed to be done in 2 hours or so for tournaments when it first dropped (and has similar problems).
Those are the main things that come to mind when we see how traditional wargames have drifted into more of a CCG territory, short of being cards themselves.
In 2019 I played a prototype card game for 40k, which was the game of 40k put into card format that was to be released as a Steam game.
It played very very closely to the actual game of 40k. It felt 95% like playing with models only with cards instead.
Those are the top things that come to my mind when I have to work on projects that have MtG injected into them from a tabletop game perspective or a video game that simulates a tabletop game perspective. From a marketing standpoint, traditional wargames simply do not sell. The excitement of playing them has not been there for about 15 years or more. The CCG phenomenon swept into tabletop gaming I'd say ... around when Warmachine became a thing in the early 00s. That was the first real popular game that I remember that started down that path, and other games - to include the behemoth GW games - took notice in their own marketing and began following suit some years after that.
If you wish to plug your head into the sand and say they are nothing alike - god bless you. However there are a number of designers that specifically use the term to describe gaming projects on scope and design documents and it is a term that I will use because I understand what it communicates as do many others.
I'm sure they don't care for the braying of idiots on forums either.
They don't, but luckily I've got a more coherent argument than them, so I think I'm in the clear.
Dudeface wrote: But sure, like a ccg the "stacking buffs" onto a unit to power it up to punch above its activation cost (points cost), the reactionary or out of phase cards/actions (stratagems), turn based currency to use (command points). The churn of the meta isn't via introducing more cards, but by adjusting the relative points and abilities of the units, similar to new sets coming out.
None of those are specific to CCGs. What you're describing is something that is generally common to lifestyle/"games as a service" than anything specific to CCGs. Cost mechanics are not specific to CCGs, reactive plays are not specific to CCGs. So you don't really have an argument here.
Dudeface wrote: They're really reaching a point of similarity now in core underlying message/principals and I think you'd need be to be completely blinded to wider gaming culture to see it.
Surely if this message was real you'd be able to say what it was. I don't think you can in a coherent way.
Dudeface wrote: Funny that they moved in this direction and "esports 40k" came into being as well.
By definition "esports" means it's more like a video game, not a CCG.
Purifying Tempest wrote: Hecaton - GW indeed killed FB... as a response to how insular the community became. It became a toilet-circling bowl of poop between GWs lack of desire to improve the situation and the community doing anything other than... do exactly what the community is doing to 40k right now. Instead of continuing to carry that drama forward, GW nuked the game... neckbeards be damned.
GW had a lack of desire to improve the game. They failed to balance it, and constructed the rules such that it was incredibly inaccessible, with a massive buy-in to play, because they wanted to extract more money from people.
Purifying Tempest wrote: I remember this explicitly because I was for all functionality gatekept out of the FB scene by the people GW nuked the game over. I would have been a fantasy player had the community not been so insular and toxic towards their new players and GW. If you do not think the community had anything to do with the fate of WHFB, then you are very likely one of the people that got it nuked.
I sincerely doubt that that is a factual retelling of events.
Purifying Tempest wrote: At the end of the day, GW pulled the trigger, but the community loaded the stupid gun for them to begin with.
Nope! GW made decisions that resulted in short-term gains at the expense of long-term profit - they made it so you needed to buy bigger units to keep playing, which then made new players not want to get into the game, and then they torpedoed the setting in a way which pissed a lot of people off. Any attempt to put this on the playerbase is authoritarian-submissive corporate bootlicking.
Yup. You have no idea what you're talking about. Bye.
The fact that you can't explain it shows me that nobody should take you seriously on any claims about game design. I gave specific examples and you refused to engage because you know you don't have an argument.
You're literally substituting your reality in place of my retelling you of what factually happened to keep me out of Fantasy Battles? Come on man, you can do better than that.
A lot of the commentary your spewed as to WHY WHFB was squatted was correct: huge wind up to get into the game, armies having to be so ponderous to play that it wasn't inviting to new players, rules that were all over the place, etc. All true, I even said GW had a hand in this with not caring, just like they've had an issue with 40K recently suffering under the same system weight. But to put off how harshly the in-person community dogged the game, GW, and everything related to WHFB literally gatekept me out of the community. Like to the tune of: even if I bought in, people wouldn't play with me unless I built an army that they thought I should play with because otherwise it was a waste of their time. Your game isn't going to survive for very long in a setting like that, your community is literally cutting its nose off to spite its face. I don't think you have any idea what I'm talking about, because you weren't there. Please refrain from reframing my life to better suit your argument.
auticus wrote: * Unit variety is important. In traditional wargames - unit variety is fairly stagnant. A foot soldier will largely be a foot soldier across all factions with a minor variation of its stats and abilities. In the newer paradigm every unit should at least appear to be different.
That's not a CCG thing. Look at Starcraft - a Marine is different from a Zergling is different from a Zealot. Compare to Warcraft II - the factions are much more similar, only spells and a few upgrade costs were different. And yet the genre of the game didn't change - they're both RTS computer games.
auticus wrote: * The game should be about building up effective combinations with your list or deck. Much of the fun we have found in marketing from a lot of players is the joy of building up a deck or a list and tinkering with its math and then winding it up and watching it go. In traditional wargaming, the lists were largely not as important as no one in historical wargaming wants to play a game where one side is going to stomp the other side because their list is over bearing.
Again, not specific to CCGs. And who is "we?" Or are we getting another patronizing argument from authority here?
auticus wrote: Typically in traditional wargaming if one side has a superior force to the other (a fairly common occurrence) the weaker side has objectives they can achieve for victory other than a military wipe them out victory. For example, against overwhelming odds you may simply have to have a unit alive on the board for four turns or something to hold the enemy off.
Ok, how is this relevant to 40k? I've seen those missions in 40k too. Doesn't sound like a CCG thing.
auticus wrote: Other examples - you may need to assassinate the enemy general or an important hero. Things that are possible to do with a weaker force other than straight up fight.
Other examples in traditional wargaming may be a superior force that has a negative battleground experience, such as Agincourt where the knights sloughed through thick mud in the face of an arrow storm. The french "army list" was decidedly more powerful but the scenario evened that out by having the weaker list in better position.
In a CCG styled tabletop game, the list's weight is the most important element. The players want to see their creation wind up and go.
Hold up, you've just said that tabletop games are "CCG styled" without saying how that's the case. Again, you're making an unjustified argument.
auticus wrote: * In a CCG styled game, where listbuilding is the key, the main important element is identifying combinations. Having an army of five units of tactical marines, a jump squad, a tank, and a captain where nothing makes the other things better is not exciting to the target audience.
That isn't "CCG styled" in any particular way. And combinations are not the end-all be-all of CCG play - do you know what Sligh was? Or any aggro deck that relies on efficiency rather than combination potential? I think you don't understand CCG gameplay very well.
auticus wrote: Having the captain grant his tactical marines bonuses and then the presence of a tank giving other bonuses (hypothetical obviously) and being able to weigh points cost to bonuses granted from a myriad of choices, most of them false choices, is what draws the excitement.
Standard wargames do not do this other than at their most basic.
All you're showing here is that 40k is different from traditional wargames, not that it's "CCG styled."
auticus wrote: * CCG style games are designed to be less about maneuvering (which is a key element of wargaming) and more about getting stuck in the action. The less you have of facings, flanks, rears, etc... and the more you can just basically "tap unit, have unit attack" in some form is highly desirable because maneuvering and having to wait for the action is not seen as desirable and is seen by many of the target audience to be boring. Additionally some call maneuver "gatekeeping" because if I have a solid combo-chained unit built up but then I have to also maneuver it to get good effect out of it, that is a negative play experience and some call that "gatekeeping" for tabletop skill, when that tabletop skill is not what we are designing for.
Again, you've failed to show how this different take is "CCG styled."
auticus wrote: This is where you see things like deepstrike/assault or in AOS just being able to move 30" or whatever and engage in combat in turn 1 without needing to worry about maneuvering into a good position to do it. Particularly deepstrike or teleport assault.
It is very akin to "I tap my unit of terminators and they attack your unit" because you get the same effect: the terminators appear and attack what you want them to. Now some layering comes into play, where we can layer a bubble-wrap around my important bits.
This is akin to trigger-effects where a card can be triggered to block the attack and take the damage instead if it is on the field.
That's a fething stretch lol. The same would apply to long-range artillery in a traditional wargame.
auticus wrote: They both provide the same type of experience.
Nah lol. They definitely don't.
auticus wrote: * the sales model of both CCG and 40k are very similar in that they are intentionally designed to make the competitive players want to buy the latest thing to stay competitive. In MtG that is new card packs and formats that they have to have to play in the latest tournaments. In 40k its shuffling points around to make some good things not so good anymore and some things not so good are pretty good now.
Yes, but that's not because 40k has become CCG-like - it's that they both have been optimized by suits for churn and whales. This is true of many electronic games too.
auticus wrote: It was this model particularly that was discussed and why the store managers were encouraged to look into MtG if they didn't have experience with it because that was their heralding of what was to come (this was several years ago when I was still playing when I was shown pictures of that presentation - and ultimately one of the main reasons I sold all my stuff shortly after).
In what way? You'd have to be more specific with that for it to be anything meaningful. As it stands I'm just imagining you have a bug-eyed atavistic fear response at the mention of MtG and noping out of the game, which is honestly hilarious.
auticus wrote: * Resource management is a thing that you see a lot of games start to employ. In MtG it is land decks and things that provide "mana" that you provide for in your deck building. In 40k or AOS it is command points or other things you can harvest via list building that provide special combinations of powers or enhancements.
The psychic phase had resource management back in the day in 2e too.
Those are the main things that come to mind when we see how traditional wargames have drifted into more of a CCG territory, short of being cards themselves.
Again, it's just how the game has changed/is different, not how it's become more CCG-like.
You're literally substituting your reality in place of my retelling you of what factually happened to keep me out of Fantasy Battles? Come on man, you can do better than that.
No, you made a claim as to the state of WHFB at the end as a whole, not *your* experience with it.
A lot of the commentary your spewed as to WHY WHFB was squatted was correct: huge wind up to get into the game, armies having to be so ponderous to play that it wasn't inviting to new players, rules that were all over the place, etc. All true, I even said GW had a hand in this with not caring, just like they've had an issue with 40K recently suffering under the same system weight. But to put off how harshly the in-person community dogged the game, GW, and everything related to WHFB literally gatekept me out of the community. Like to the tune of: even if I bought in, people wouldn't play with me unless I built an army that they thought I should play with because otherwise it was a waste of their time. Your game isn't going to survive for very long in a setting like that, your community is literally cutting its nose off to spite its face. I don't think you have any idea what I'm talking about, because you weren't there. Please refrain from reframing my life to better suit your argument.
The WHFB community, everywhere, worldwide? If you said that a specific people or collection of people treated you poorly, I'd have no reason to disagree with you, but extending out your experience to everyone's is just wrongheaded.
Purifying Tempest wrote:
I remember this explicitly because I was for all functionality gatekept out of the FB scene by the people GW nuked the game over. I would have been a fantasy player had the community not been so insular and toxic towards their new players and GW. If you do not think the community had anything to do with the fate of WHFB, then you are very likely one of the people that got it nuked.
I sincerely doubt that that is a factual retelling of events.
^
Here, let me point out what you're trying to avoid now.
Those words are implying I am either deliberately lying about the situation, or that it was simply a fabrication to begin with. Unless there's another interpretation for "factual retelling" that I am not aware of.
Everyone I asked, again me personally, in a few different states (I've held up in many places from government/military work) always said the same thing when recalling the end of WHFB: GW gave up, the community became some dark nasty thing that made the problem even worse. It was truly a dark time for miniature games and even darker time for the GW community. It is widely acknowledged as a problem, though the reactions to how GW handled it are varied.
I wanted to make sure I wasn't being unfair to GW, seeking to disprove my experience as an outlier. The more I sought to disprove it, however, the more confirmation the experience was given. You're like oddly the only person who has argued that none of the blame lied with the community and it was all laid at the feet of GW. And then call me a booklicker for implying that some of the responsibility ALSO lay in the hands of people outside of the corporate monster.
Purifying Tempest wrote: Purifying Tempest wrote:
I remember this explicitly because I was for all functionality gatekept out of the FB scene by the people GW nuked the game over. I would have been a fantasy player had the community not been so insular and toxic towards their new players and GW. If you do not think the community had anything to do with the fate of WHFB, then you are very likely one of the people that got it nuked.
I sincerely doubt that that is a factual retelling of events.
^
Here, let me point out what you're trying to avoid now.
Those words are implying I am either deliberately lying about the situation, or that it was simply a fabrication to begin with. Unless there's another interpretation for "factual retelling" that I am not aware of.
Everyone I asked, again me personally, in a few different states (I've held up in many places from government/military work) always said the same thing when recalling the end of WHFB: GW gave up, the community became some dark nasty thing that made the problem even worse. It was truly a dark time for miniature games and even darker time for the GW community. It is widely acknowledged as a problem, though the reactions to how GW handled it are varied.
I wanted to make sure I wasn't being unfair to GW, seeking to disprove my experience as an outlier. The more I sought to disprove it, however, the more confirmation the experience was given. You're like oddly the only person who has argued that none of the blame lied with the community and it was all laid at the feet of GW. And then call me a booklicker for implying that some of the responsibility ALSO lay in the hands of people outside of the corporate monster.
For some people, placing any blame or responsibility on anything but GW, or even giving any suggestion that isn't "complain about GW", is somehow defending GW, or giving GW a pass.
I'd say each according to their works, and that GW still has much to be blamed for (high prices, poor communication, and shoddy game balance, to name just a few).
Okay then, I'll spell it out for you. 40k and MTG not being literally the same, which is what you seem to think is what people are implying is NOT the same as modern 40k borrowing CCG-esq elements to a tabletop game, which they clearly are doing.
If you cannot see this then there is an Egyptian river you must need pulling out of.
Again, you're in Dunning-Kruger territory with your understanding of these games.
You invoking Dunning-Kruger in any context of game design is hilarious levels of being oblivious
You invoking Dunning-Kruger in any context of game design is hilarious levels of being oblivious
You keep saying that but you don't have any evidence. For you, it's all buzzwords without any actual understanding.
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Purifying Tempest wrote: Those words are implying I am either deliberately lying about the situation, or that it was simply a fabrication to begin with. Unless there's another interpretation for "factual retelling" that I am not aware of.
I would probably say "sensationally exaggerating" but to each their own.
Purifying Tempest wrote: Everyone I asked, again me personally, in a few different states (I've held up in many places from government/military work) always said the same thing when recalling the end of WHFB: GW gave up, the community became some dark nasty thing that made the problem even worse. It was truly a dark time for miniature games and even darker time for the GW community. It is widely acknowledged as a problem, though the reactions to how GW handled it are varied.
And my experience contradicts that. Without anything concrete I don't have a reason to think you're correct.
Purifying Tempest wrote: I wanted to make sure I wasn't being unfair to GW, seeking to disprove my experience as an outlier. The more I sought to disprove it, however, the more confirmation the experience was given. You're like oddly the only person who has argued that none of the blame lied with the community and it was all laid at the feet of GW. And then call me a booklicker for implying that some of the responsibility ALSO lay in the hands of people outside of the corporate monster.
To a certain extent I put the blame for elements of what the community does on GW - like the amount of cheating in the 40k community? That is, in part, because GW is trying ot make a game where playing well gives you the least advantage possible.
Purifying Tempest wrote: Hecaton - GW indeed killed FB... as a response to how insular the community became.
You think a global business worth $1B+ cancels a game that sells $100M+/yr because people are saying mean words on internet forums? Have you ever interacted with C-suite executives from large companies? They thought they could make more money by turning WHFB into AoS, period, full stop. That is why they killed FB and released AoS.
Purifying Tempest wrote: Hecaton - GW indeed killed FB... as a response to how insular the community became.
You think a global business worth $1B+ cancels a game that sells $100M+/yr because people are saying mean words on internet forums? Have you ever interacted with C-suite executives from large companies? They thought they could make more money by turning WHFB into AoS, period, full stop. That is why they killed FB and released AoS.
GW is our friend though. They have social media now!
@Hec- You're right to point out that these things aren't just CCG traits... But I think what Auticus is saying is that CCG's is where the idea started.
CCG's predate DLC and pay to win video games; CCG's were the inspiration for these trends too.
All of the game platforms that use these elements learned them from CCGs. The world of gaming was very, very different before CCGs came into existence- there were RPGs and table-top wargames. There was no mainstream internet either, so online gaming wasn't really a thing.
Game conventions existed, but they were far fewer and farther between than what you see now.
RPGs and Wargames were the entire gaming scene, and had come up slowly together. CCGs hit like a bomb, and while both RPGs and Wargames had taken more than a decade to grow their player bases, CCGs had explosive growth out of the gate, and they bled players from both of the existing giants.
Viewed through the lens of the present, you may be right, and the parallels maybe stronger between 40k and digital gaming than between 40K and CCGs... It's just that when you zoom out to see the historical perspective, digital gaming learned everything that GW borrowed from it by watching how CCG's disrupted the market a decade earlier.
But I think what Auticus is saying is that CCG's is where the idea started.
Correct. We call them CCG-like because they originated there. We've gone many years now with games having them baked in where that has gotten blurred and its now just "wargames are like that" but... they really weren't. The last 15 or so years yes but they originated from CCG players and their desires and tapping into that market.
Deckbuilding paradigms also seeped into video games, where I started my career back in the early 1990s.
So yes I agree 40k has strong parallels with digital gaming. But TODAYS digital gaming pulled in those CCG mechanics and design metrics well before. Its just been so long now that we just blur that transition in our heads.
CCGs hit like a bomb
Indeed. 100%. And the waves from that CCG tsunami were quickly examined, analyzed, and put into practice in other formats in the early to mid 00s to great effect and impact (to where now they are indistinguishable).
And again - they are called CCG-like because thats where they stemmed from and most designers and people in general know what one is talking about when they say a tabletop game is similar to a CCG, particularly if they have experience with games OR game design that predated MtG.
The parallels between the two things are very closely linked.
For the OP: As long as there is some kind of limit to special weapons and upgrades per unit it doesn't make much of a difference.
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Purifying Tempest wrote:It was truly a dark time for miniature games and even darker time for the GW community. It is widely acknowledged as a problem, though the reactions to how GW handled it are varied.
GW is not the same as "miniature games", the rest of us were just fine. I was happily playing 15mm Ancients while noping out every time I got curious enough to look into Warhammer again.
Okay then, I'll spell it out for you. 40k and MTG not being literally the same, which is what you seem to think is what people are implying is NOT the same as modern 40k borrowing CCG-esq elements to a tabletop game, which they clearly are doing.
If you cannot see this then there is an Egyptian river you must need pulling out of.
No, there are no ccg-esque elements in 40k's gameplay. There's no deck of cards to shuffle, no randomized packs to buy. Again, you're in Dunning-Kruger territory with your understanding of these games.
You sure about that?
There's the feeling I get any time I play a strat..... I pay x manna (sorry, CP) to modify my cards (sorry, Unit/Model) abilities. If I don't have any Manna/CP then I can't play my strat. :(
Sure puts me in mind of when I played MTG all those years ago. Spending x Green manna to cast Giant Growth + Bezerk + etc on my elf.... Only here I'm give one of my Necron Units "Talent For Anhilation" or something. At least I don't have to worry about what color my CP is.
Okay then, I'll spell it out for you. 40k and MTG not being literally the same, which is what you seem to think is what people are implying is NOT the same as modern 40k borrowing CCG-esq elements to a tabletop game, which they clearly are doing.
If you cannot see this then there is an Egyptian river you must need pulling out of.
No, there are no ccg-esque elements in 40k's gameplay. There's no deck of cards to shuffle, no randomized packs to buy. Again, you're in Dunning-Kruger territory with your understanding of these games.
You sure about that?
There's the feeling I get any time I play a strat..... I pay x manna (sorry, CP) to modify my cards (sorry, Unit/Model) abilities. If I don't have any Manna/CP then I can't play my strat. :(
Sure puts me in mind of when I played MTG all those years ago. Spending x Green manna to cast Giant Growth + Bezerk + etc on my elf.... Only here I'm give one of my Necron Units "Talent For Anhilation" or something. At least I don't have to worry about what color my CP is.
"Not cards, doesn't count"
Except if you choose to get your faction's data cards....
Yes. There's no randomization or collectibility. It's not a collectible card game. I'm not necessarily saying it's a good mechanic - I'd actually prefer a deck-based mechanic like ASOIAF or Aristeia has - but it doesn't make 40k a card game. At all.
Except if you choose to get your faction's data cards....
The difference is it's a choice to use those cards to keep track of things. You can't choose to play MtG without the cards; in 40k you can just play your stratagems out of the codex.
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PenitentJake wrote: @Hec- You're right to point out that these things aren't just CCG traits... But I think what Auticus is saying is that CCG's is where the idea started.
CCG's predate DLC and pay to win video games; CCG's were the inspiration for these trends too.
You'll need a citation for that one - the stuff I'm thinking of is where people analyzed Diablo II from the perspective of psychology, and extrapolated it out to make games that were more addictive and so on. I don't think it came from CCGs as much as you were saying.
PenitentJake wrote: All of the game platforms that use these elements learned them from CCGs. The world of gaming was very, very different before CCGs came into existence- there were RPGs and table-top wargames. There was no mainstream internet either, so online gaming wasn't really a thing.
Post hoc, ergo propter hoc.
PenitentJake wrote: Viewed through the lens of the present, you may be right, and the parallels maybe stronger between 40k and digital gaming than between 40K and CCGs... It's just that when you zoom out to see the historical perspective, digital gaming learned everything that GW borrowed from it by watching how CCG's disrupted the market a decade earlier.
I don't think that's true in the way you're saying it.
Yes. There's no randomization or collectibility. It's not a collectible card game. I'm not necessarily saying it's a good mechanic - I'd actually prefer a deck-based mechanic like ASOIAF or Aristeia has - but it doesn't make 40k a card game. At all.
Except if you choose to get your faction's data cards....
The difference is it's a choice to use those cards to keep track of things. You can't choose to play MtG without the cards; in 40k you can just play your stratagems out of the codex.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
PenitentJake wrote: @Hec- You're right to point out that these things aren't just CCG traits... But I think what Auticus is saying is that CCG's is where the idea started.
CCG's predate DLC and pay to win video games; CCG's were the inspiration for these trends too.
You'll need a citation for that one - the stuff I'm thinking of is where people analyzed Diablo II from the perspective of psychology, and extrapolated it out to make games that were more addictive and so on. I don't think it came from CCGs as much as you were saying.
PenitentJake wrote: All of the game platforms that use these elements learned them from CCGs. The world of gaming was very, very different before CCGs came into existence- there were RPGs and table-top wargames. There was no mainstream internet either, so online gaming wasn't really a thing.
Post hoc, ergo propter hoc.
PenitentJake wrote: Viewed through the lens of the present, you may be right, and the parallels maybe stronger between 40k and digital gaming than between 40K and CCGs... It's just that when you zoom out to see the historical perspective, digital gaming learned everything that GW borrowed from it by watching how CCG's disrupted the market a decade earlier.
I don't think that's true in the way you're saying it.
Mtg predates Diablo by 4 years and Diablo II by 7. I’ve played Mtg already in ’94 with the release of 3rd ed and through ’95, when it was all the rage, in parallel with 2nd ed 40k. Mid ’90 were the times when many later trends in game desing begun, which were then widely adapted in early to mid ’00, and there is exactly zero controversy amongst game designers in naming MTG as the father of deck/list building and addiction through living meta paradigm. It took a decade for first computer games to catch up, because for the living computer game format you need broadband internet, which was not a standard up until mid ’00.
If you compare the gameplay of 2nd 40k with MTG and then 9th ed with MTG then inspirations and direct transplants of core paradigms of MTG into 40k are so obvious, it takes higher forms of ignorance to try to deny it.
Maybe this will help - stop focusing on the „card” word as the defining trait of the whole „colectible games”category as used in game design? You can recreate exactly same phenomenon with collectible dice, tokens, miniatures, virtual items, whatever, because the defining trait of this category is creating dopamine based addiction to the game via living meta and purchases that increase your in game abilities/possibilities. That it takes different exact implementation depending on the exact medium you are working with is irrelevant to the underlying principle.
The problem with you is that you only skim the surface level of game design - „the specifics” that you so love, and are oblivious of the entire underlaying knowledge and don’t realise, that your „specifics” are just secondary, technical implementations of said knowledge.
Yes, I know, buzzwords and no specifics from me again
Karol wrote: For a large group of people GW games are the table top games they play, because nothing else gets played in their area
That still doesn't make "GW games" equivalent to "miniature games".
I also strongly doubt that there isn't someone in the woodwork playing DBA. They might be harder to find, but there are more wargamers than people think.
Maybe this will help - stop focusing on the „card” word as the defining trait of the whole „colectible games”category as used in game design? You can recreate exactly same phenomenon with collectible dice, tokens, miniatures, virtual items, whatever, because the defining trait of this category is creating dopamine based addiction to the game via living meta and purchases that increase your in game abilities/possibilities. That it takes different exact implementation depending on the exact medium you are working with is irrelevant to the underlying principle.
Except... 40k doesn't do any of that either. If you're really going to run 'dopamine addiction' as your flag of choice, you're going to have to explain what's different in buying a box of 40k minis today vs buying a box of 40k minis in 1989. Or a set of historical figures in the years or decades before that.
You buy and (theoretically) paint a known quantity of models and put them on the table. That hasn't changed because of MtG.
Neither has listbuilding, frankly. I'm still putting armies of units, characters and vehicles plus additional wargear together the same way today that I did in 1990.
Voss wrote: If you're really going to run 'dopamine addiction' as your flag of choice, you're going to have to explain what's different in buying a box of 40k minis today vs buying a box of 40k minis in 1989.
Living meta is your answer - this kind of player profile we are talking about is not the same player profile as historical wargamer or Rouge Trader era 40k player. He doesn't buy a box of minis because they are hobby items - to assemble, paint, display and the feeling of achievement created by that activity. The kind of player that was honed by MTG buys those minis for the perceived gain in power within the game. Do I really have to elaborate on this trivial context further?
Okay then, I'll spell it out for you. 40k and MTG not being literally the same, which is what you seem to think is what people are implying is NOT the same as modern 40k borrowing CCG-esq elements to a tabletop game, which they clearly are doing.
If you cannot see this then there is an Egyptian river you must need pulling out of.
No, there are no ccg-esque elements in 40k's gameplay. There's no deck of cards to shuffle, no randomized packs to buy. Again, you're in Dunning-Kruger territory with your understanding of these games.
You sure about that?
There's the feeling I get any time I play a strat..... I pay x manna (sorry, CP) to modify my cards (sorry, Unit/Model) abilities. If I don't have any Manna/CP then I can't play my strat. :(
Sure puts me in mind of when I played MTG all those years ago. Spending x Green manna to cast Giant Growth + Bezerk + etc on my elf.... Only here I'm give one of my Necron Units "Talent For Anhilation" or something. At least I don't have to worry about what color my CP is.
I spend one slot of my Vancian casting system to cast magic missile! I don't have any more spell slots so I can't play my spells. (D&D Release date 1974). So are CCG's just rpgs in disguise now because D&D had a casting system that had something similar?
I'm just poking a little fun at this cause it's all so weirdly specific and doesn't really define things well.
Tygre wrote: Reminds me a bit of 2nd edition. Where you paid for the squad, not per model. SM weren't 30pts each. A Tactical squad was 300pts and contained 10 marines.
I don't think 2nd was all that much different. You still paid "per model" but you were locked into 10, not minimum 5 and optional up to 5 more - also you still paid for upgrades like special/heavy weapons.
nou wrote: Mtg predates Diablo by 4 years and Diablo II by 7. I’ve played Mtg already in ’94 with the release of 3rd ed and through ’95, when it was all the rage, in parallel with 2nd ed 40k. Mid ’90 were the times when many later trends in game desing begun, which were then widely adapted in early to mid ’00, and there is exactly zero controversy amongst game designers in naming MTG as the father of deck/list building and addiction through living meta paradigm. It took a decade for first computer games to catch up, because for the living computer game format you need broadband internet, which was not a standard up until mid ’00.
I'm very aware, but Magic in the mid-90's was very different from how it was at the turn of the millennium. If there's zero controversy, I'm sure you could share some of this information with me.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
nou wrote: Maybe this will help - stop focusing on the „card” word as the defining trait of the whole „colectible games”category as used in game design? You can recreate exactly same phenomenon with collectible dice, tokens, miniatures, virtual items, whatever, because the defining trait of this category is creating dopamine based addiction to the game via living meta and purchases that increase your in game abilities/possibilities. That it takes different exact implementation depending on the exact medium you are working with is irrelevant to the underlying principle.
No, the lack of randomness in purchases means it isn't the same thing at all. They're not chasing the gambling impulse with things like "loot boxes."
nou wrote: The problem with you is that you only skim the surface level of game design - „the specifics” that you so love, and are oblivious of the entire underlaying knowledge and don’t realise, that your „specifics” are just secondary, technical implementations of said knowledge.
Yes, I know, buzzwords and no specifics from me again
You can say that, but you don't understand why a pack of Magic cards and an online lootbox are alike, while a box of 40k minis is like neither of those. So it's clear my understanding is actually deeper; you're just using buzzwords without understanding.
Living meta is your answer - this kind of player profile we are talking about is not the same player profile as historical wargamer or Rouge Trader era 40k player. He doesn't buy a box of minis because they are hobby items - to assemble, paint, display and the feeling of achievement created by that activity. The kind of player that was honed by MTG buys those minis for the perceived gain in power within the game. Do I really have to elaborate on this trivial context further?
Yes, you actually do - because it's not the kind of thing MtG is trying to engineer. Magic is just gambling. They're trying to get people to chase the cards for that brain chemical rush the same way people playing blackjack at a casino, or making runs on Diablo II are. 40k cannot create a Skinner box.
nou wrote: Mtg predates Diablo by 4 years and Diablo II by 7. I’ve played Mtg already in ’94 with the release of 3rd ed and through ’95, when it was all the rage, in parallel with 2nd ed 40k. Mid ’90 were the times when many later trends in game desing begun, which were then widely adapted in early to mid ’00, and there is exactly zero controversy amongst game designers in naming MTG as the father of deck/list building and addiction through living meta paradigm. It took a decade for first computer games to catch up, because for the living computer game format you need broadband internet, which was not a standard up until mid ’00.
I'm very aware, but Magic in the mid-90's was very different from how it was at the turn of the millennium. If there's zero controversy, I'm sure you could share some of this information with me.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
nou wrote: Maybe this will help - stop focusing on the „card” word as the defining trait of the whole „colectible games”category as used in game design? You can recreate exactly same phenomenon with collectible dice, tokens, miniatures, virtual items, whatever, because the defining trait of this category is creating dopamine based addiction to the game via living meta and purchases that increase your in game abilities/possibilities. That it takes different exact implementation depending on the exact medium you are working with is irrelevant to the underlying principle.
No, the lack of randomness in purchases means it isn't the same thing at all. They're not chasing the gambling impulse with things like "loot boxes."
nou wrote: The problem with you is that you only skim the surface level of game design - „the specifics” that you so love, and are oblivious of the entire underlaying knowledge and don’t realise, that your „specifics” are just secondary, technical implementations of said knowledge.
Yes, I know, buzzwords and no specifics from me again
You can say that, but you don't understand why a pack of Magic cards and an online lootbox are alike, while a box of 40k minis is like neither of those. So it's clear my understanding is actually deeper; you're just using buzzwords without understanding.
Living meta is your answer - this kind of player profile we are talking about is not the same player profile as historical wargamer or Rouge Trader era 40k player. He doesn't buy a box of minis because they are hobby items - to assemble, paint, display and the feeling of achievement created by that activity. The kind of player that was honed by MTG buys those minis for the perceived gain in power within the game. Do I really have to elaborate on this trivial context further?
Yes, you actually do - because it's not the kind of thing MtG is trying to engineer. Magic is just gambling. They're trying to get people to chase the cards for that brain chemical rush the same way people playing blackjack at a casino, or making runs on Diablo II are. 40k cannot create a Skinner box.
For a person who claims to understand MTG so much, you really don’t have the faintest clue about it, or about psychology. Aftermarket for MTG cards was there since the very beginning of the game. When you bought a booster, you did not gamble in hope of getting the exact cards you needed for your deck, you were exchanging currency. That is because the composition of a booster was known, you get X commons, Y uncommons, Z rares, and trade value of cards from a booster was higher than the cost of a booster. In other words, it usually was a better deal to buy a booster, unpack and trade rares than to spend money directly on the rare you needed for your build. The dopamine injection did not happen at opening of a booster, but at the moment you completed your deck as you envisioned it and went out to playtest it. This is exact same drive as listbuilding in a living 40k meta and buing 9 Voidweavers.
Now with lootboxes it is pretty much the same. You know the composition of a loot box and games have either trade markets or „forges” built in. If you happen to draw an exact thing you need you then even better, but you do not expect it to happen. Microtransactions are not about gambling, but about desire to grow in power, just drip fed at a controllable rate. This is the biggest difference with 40k though, because a dedicated meta chaser will just spend all the money necessary for a build at once, so 40k employs „balance dataslates” to keep meta chasers spend their money to feed their desire of power on a regular basis.
Okay then, I'll spell it out for you. 40k and MTG not being literally the same, which is what you seem to think is what people are implying is NOT the same as modern 40k borrowing CCG-esq elements to a tabletop game, which they clearly are doing.
If you cannot see this then there is an Egyptian river you must need pulling out of.
No, there are no ccg-esque elements in 40k's gameplay. There's no deck of cards to shuffle, no randomized packs to buy. Again, you're in Dunning-Kruger territory with your understanding of these games.
You sure about that?
There's the feeling I get any time I play a strat..... I pay x manna (sorry, CP) to modify my cards (sorry, Unit/Model) abilities. If I don't have any Manna/CP then I can't play my strat. :(
Sure puts me in mind of when I played MTG all those years ago. Spending x Green manna to cast Giant Growth + Bezerk + etc on my elf.... Only here I'm give one of my Necron Units "Talent For Anhilation" or something. At least I don't have to worry about what color my CP is.
I spend one slot of my Vancian casting system to cast magic missile! I don't have any more spell slots so I can't play my spells. (D&D Release date 1974). So are CCG's just rpgs in disguise now because D&D had a casting system that had something similar?
I'm just poking a little fun at this cause it's all so weirdly specific and doesn't really define things well.
Poke all you want, it doesn't change the fact that in the back of my mind is that old MTG feeling anytime I play a strat.
I don't get that feeling when I play non-GW minis/wargames (well except for in X-Wing - Pokemons "gotta catch 'em all" concerning the upgrade cards is in effect in 1e. No idea about 2e) Nor have I ever gotten the D&D feeling while playing a GW minis game. Sure, a wizard using up a limited spell slot might resemble using a strat. But the difference lies in the "story". Even at our most Hack & Slashiest we've always been trying to tell some sort of "story" in D&D. That is not really ever been the case in 99.9999% of all the Warhammer (FB/40k/Sigmar/etc) I've played. Not even in our recent Crusades & Path to Glories.
Karol wrote: For a large group of people GW games are the table top games they play, because nothing else gets played in their area
That still doesn't make "GW games" equivalent to "miniature games".
I also strongly doubt that there isn't someone in the woodwork playing DBA. They might be harder to find, but there are more wargamers than people think.
As well known evil person once said, quantity turns in to quality at some point. This why we call all sports shoes addidas here. Xero is a Xero.etc So yeah, there could be more table top gamers, then people may think they are. And most of them play or played w40k.
nou wrote: Mtg predates Diablo by 4 years and Diablo II by 7. I’ve played Mtg already in ’94 with the release of 3rd ed and through ’95, when it was all the rage, in parallel with 2nd ed 40k. Mid ’90 were the times when many later trends in game desing begun, which were then widely adapted in early to mid ’00, and there is exactly zero controversy amongst game designers in naming MTG as the father of deck/list building and addiction through living meta paradigm. It took a decade for first computer games to catch up, because for the living computer game format you need broadband internet, which was not a standard up until mid ’00.
I'm very aware, but Magic in the mid-90's was very different from how it was at the turn of the millennium. If there's zero controversy, I'm sure you could share some of this information with me.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
nou wrote: Maybe this will help - stop focusing on the „card” word as the defining trait of the whole „colectible games”category as used in game design? You can recreate exactly same phenomenon with collectible dice, tokens, miniatures, virtual items, whatever, because the defining trait of this category is creating dopamine based addiction to the game via living meta and purchases that increase your in game abilities/possibilities. That it takes different exact implementation depending on the exact medium you are working with is irrelevant to the underlying principle.
No, the lack of randomness in purchases means it isn't the same thing at all. They're not chasing the gambling impulse with things like "loot boxes."
nou wrote: The problem with you is that you only skim the surface level of game design - „the specifics” that you so love, and are oblivious of the entire underlaying knowledge and don’t realise, that your „specifics” are just secondary, technical implementations of said knowledge.
Yes, I know, buzzwords and no specifics from me again
You can say that, but you don't understand why a pack of Magic cards and an online lootbox are alike, while a box of 40k minis is like neither of those. So it's clear my understanding is actually deeper; you're just using buzzwords without understanding.
Living meta is your answer - this kind of player profile we are talking about is not the same player profile as historical wargamer or Rouge Trader era 40k player. He doesn't buy a box of minis because they are hobby items - to assemble, paint, display and the feeling of achievement created by that activity. The kind of player that was honed by MTG buys those minis for the perceived gain in power within the game. Do I really have to elaborate on this trivial context further?
Yes, you actually do - because it's not the kind of thing MtG is trying to engineer. Magic is just gambling. They're trying to get people to chase the cards for that brain chemical rush the same way people playing blackjack at a casino, or making runs on Diablo II are. 40k cannot create a Skinner box.
For a person who claims to understand MTG so much, you really don’t have the faintest clue about it, or about psychology. Aftermarket for MTG cards was there since the very beginning of the game. When you bought a booster, you did not gamble in hope of getting the exact cards you needed for your deck, you were exchanging currency. That is because the composition of a booster was known, you get X commons, Y uncommons, Z rares, and trade value of cards from a booster was higher than the cost of a booster. In other words, it usually was a better deal to buy a booster, unpack and trade rares than to spend money directly on the rare you needed for your build. The dopamine injection did not happen at opening of a booster, but at the moment you completed your deck as you envisioned it and went out to playtest it. This is exact same drive as listbuilding in a living 40k meta and buing 9 Voidweavers.
Now with lootboxes it is pretty much the same. You know the composition of a loot box and games have either trade markets or „forges” built in. If you happen to draw an exact thing you need you then even better, but you do not expect it to happen. Microtransactions are not about gambling, but about desire to grow in power, just drip fed at a controllable rate. This is the biggest difference with 40k though, because a dedicated meta chaser will just spend all the money necessary for a build at once, so 40k employs „balance dataslates” to keep meta chasers spend their money to feed their desire of power on a regular basis.
nou wrote: Mtg predates Diablo by 4 years and Diablo II by 7. I’ve played Mtg already in ’94 with the release of 3rd ed and through ’95, when it was all the rage, in parallel with 2nd ed 40k. Mid ’90 were the times when many later trends in game desing begun, which were then widely adapted in early to mid ’00, and there is exactly zero controversy amongst game designers in naming MTG as the father of deck/list building and addiction through living meta paradigm. It took a decade for first computer games to catch up, because for the living computer game format you need broadband internet, which was not a standard up until mid ’00.
I'm very aware, but Magic in the mid-90's was very different from how it was at the turn of the millennium. If there's zero controversy, I'm sure you could share some of this information with me.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
nou wrote: Maybe this will help - stop focusing on the „card” word as the defining trait of the whole „colectible games”category as used in game design? You can recreate exactly same phenomenon with collectible dice, tokens, miniatures, virtual items, whatever, because the defining trait of this category is creating dopamine based addiction to the game via living meta and purchases that increase your in game abilities/possibilities. That it takes different exact implementation depending on the exact medium you are working with is irrelevant to the underlying principle.
No, the lack of randomness in purchases means it isn't the same thing at all. They're not chasing the gambling impulse with things like "loot boxes."
nou wrote: The problem with you is that you only skim the surface level of game design - „the specifics” that you so love, and are oblivious of the entire underlaying knowledge and don’t realise, that your „specifics” are just secondary, technical implementations of said knowledge.
Yes, I know, buzzwords and no specifics from me again
You can say that, but you don't understand why a pack of Magic cards and an online lootbox are alike, while a box of 40k minis is like neither of those. So it's clear my understanding is actually deeper; you're just using buzzwords without understanding.
Living meta is your answer - this kind of player profile we are talking about is not the same player profile as historical wargamer or Rouge Trader era 40k player. He doesn't buy a box of minis because they are hobby items - to assemble, paint, display and the feeling of achievement created by that activity. The kind of player that was honed by MTG buys those minis for the perceived gain in power within the game. Do I really have to elaborate on this trivial context further?
Yes, you actually do - because it's not the kind of thing MtG is trying to engineer. Magic is just gambling. They're trying to get people to chase the cards for that brain chemical rush the same way people playing blackjack at a casino, or making runs on Diablo II are. 40k cannot create a Skinner box.
For a person who claims to understand MTG so much, you really don’t have the faintest clue about it, or about psychology. Aftermarket for MTG cards was there since the very beginning of the game. When you bought a booster, you did not gamble in hope of getting the exact cards you needed for your deck, you were exchanging currency. That is because the composition of a booster was known, you get X commons, Y uncommons, Z rares, and trade value of cards from a booster was higher than the cost of a booster. In other words, it usually was a better deal to buy a booster, unpack and trade rares than to spend money directly on the rare you needed for your build. The dopamine injection did not happen at opening of a booster, but at the moment you completed your deck as you envisioned it and went out to playtest it. This is exact same drive as listbuilding in a living 40k meta and buing 9 Voidweavers.
Now with lootboxes it is pretty much the same. You know the composition of a loot box and games have either trade markets or „forges” built in. If you happen to draw an exact thing you need you then even better, but you do not expect it to happen. Microtransactions are not about gambling, but about desire to grow in power, just drip fed at a controllable rate. This is the biggest difference with 40k though, because a dedicated meta chaser will just spend all the money necessary for a build at once, so 40k employs „balance dataslates” to keep meta chasers spend their money to feed their desire of power on a regular basis.
Get reading. Then we have stuff to discuss. [/url]
You are aware, that this post is by THE Richard Garfield, author of MTG, right? And I don’t see how this invalidated the claim, that MTG started such trends and they then evolved depending on the exact medium and specific targettable populations. This post only describes how the mechanism he introduced evolved/devolved.
At this point I don’t really believe anymore that you can even read with comprehension, as Garfield directly addresses the desire to „grow in power” in this post. Jesus, you are exceptionally delusional about your knowledge and level of understanding.
nou wrote: Mtg predates Diablo by 4 years and Diablo II by 7. I’ve played Mtg already in ’94 with the release of 3rd ed and through ’95, when it was all the rage, in parallel with 2nd ed 40k. Mid ’90 were the times when many later trends in game desing begun, which were then widely adapted in early to mid ’00, and there is exactly zero controversy amongst game designers in naming MTG as the father of deck/list building and addiction through living meta paradigm. It took a decade for first computer games to catch up, because for the living computer game format you need broadband internet, which was not a standard up until mid ’00.
I'm very aware, but Magic in the mid-90's was very different from how it was at the turn of the millennium. If there's zero controversy, I'm sure you could share some of this information with me.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
nou wrote: Maybe this will help - stop focusing on the „card” word as the defining trait of the whole „colectible games”category as used in game design? You can recreate exactly same phenomenon with collectible dice, tokens, miniatures, virtual items, whatever, because the defining trait of this category is creating dopamine based addiction to the game via living meta and purchases that increase your in game abilities/possibilities. That it takes different exact implementation depending on the exact medium you are working with is irrelevant to the underlying principle.
No, the lack of randomness in purchases means it isn't the same thing at all. They're not chasing the gambling impulse with things like "loot boxes."
nou wrote: The problem with you is that you only skim the surface level of game design - „the specifics” that you so love, and are oblivious of the entire underlaying knowledge and don’t realise, that your „specifics” are just secondary, technical implementations of said knowledge.
Yes, I know, buzzwords and no specifics from me again
You can say that, but you don't understand why a pack of Magic cards and an online lootbox are alike, while a box of 40k minis is like neither of those. So it's clear my understanding is actually deeper; you're just using buzzwords without understanding.
Living meta is your answer - this kind of player profile we are talking about is not the same player profile as historical wargamer or Rouge Trader era 40k player. He doesn't buy a box of minis because they are hobby items - to assemble, paint, display and the feeling of achievement created by that activity. The kind of player that was honed by MTG buys those minis for the perceived gain in power within the game. Do I really have to elaborate on this trivial context further?
Yes, you actually do - because it's not the kind of thing MtG is trying to engineer. Magic is just gambling. They're trying to get people to chase the cards for that brain chemical rush the same way people playing blackjack at a casino, or making runs on Diablo II are. 40k cannot create a Skinner box.
For a person who claims to understand MTG so much, you really don’t have the faintest clue about it, or about psychology. Aftermarket for MTG cards was there since the very beginning of the game. When you bought a booster, you did not gamble in hope of getting the exact cards you needed for your deck, you were exchanging currency. That is because the composition of a booster was known, you get X commons, Y uncommons, Z rares, and trade value of cards from a booster was higher than the cost of a booster. In other words, it usually was a better deal to buy a booster, unpack and trade rares than to spend money directly on the rare you needed for your build. The dopamine injection did not happen at opening of a booster, but at the moment you completed your deck as you envisioned it and went out to playtest it. This is exact same drive as listbuilding in a living 40k meta and buing 9 Voidweavers.
Now with lootboxes it is pretty much the same. You know the composition of a loot box and games have either trade markets or „forges” built in. If you happen to draw an exact thing you need you then even better, but you do not expect it to happen. Microtransactions are not about gambling, but about desire to grow in power, just drip fed at a controllable rate. This is the biggest difference with 40k though, because a dedicated meta chaser will just spend all the money necessary for a build at once, so 40k employs „balance dataslates” to keep meta chasers spend their money to feed their desire of power on a regular basis.
Get reading. Then we have stuff to discuss. [/url]
You are aware, that this post is by THE Richard Garfield, author of MTG, right? And I don’t see how this invalidated the claim, that MTG started such trends and they then evolved depending on the exact medium and specific targettable populations. This post only describes how the mechanism he introduced evolved/devolved.
At this point I don’t really believe anymore that you can even read with comprehension, as Garfield directly addresses the desire to „grow in power” in this post. Jesus, you are exceptionally delusional about your knowledge and level of understanding.
No. The claim is invalidated because nowhere does it describe GW's sales model in that post.
Okay then, I'll spell it out for you. 40k and MTG not being literally the same, which is what you seem to think is what people are implying is NOT the same as modern 40k borrowing CCG-esq elements to a tabletop game, which they clearly are doing.
If you cannot see this then there is an Egyptian river you must need pulling out of.
No, there are no ccg-esque elements in 40k's gameplay. There's no deck of cards to shuffle, no randomized packs to buy. Again, you're in Dunning-Kruger territory with your understanding of these games.
You sure about that?
There's the feeling I get any time I play a strat..... I pay x manna (sorry, CP) to modify my cards (sorry, Unit/Model) abilities. If I don't have any Manna/CP then I can't play my strat. :(
Sure puts me in mind of when I played MTG all those years ago. Spending x Green manna to cast Giant Growth + Bezerk + etc on my elf.... Only here I'm give one of my Necron Units "Talent For Anhilation" or something. At least I don't have to worry about what color my CP is.
I spend one slot of my Vancian casting system to cast magic missile! I don't have any more spell slots so I can't play my spells. (D&D Release date 1974). So are CCG's just rpgs in disguise now because D&D had a casting system that had something similar?
I'm just poking a little fun at this cause it's all so weirdly specific and doesn't really define things well.
Poke all you want, it doesn't change the fact that in the back of my mind is that old MTG feeling anytime I play a strat.
I don't get that feeling when I play non-GW minis/wargames (well except for in X-Wing - Pokemons "gotta catch 'em all" concerning the upgrade cards is in effect in 1e. No idea about 2e) Nor have I ever gotten the D&D feeling while playing a GW minis game. Sure, a wizard using up a limited spell slot might resemble using a strat. But the difference lies in the "story". Even at our most Hack & Slashiest we've always been trying to tell some sort of "story" in D&D. That is not really ever been the case in 99.9999% of all the Warhammer (FB/40k/Sigmar/etc) I've played. Not even in our recent Crusades & Path to Glories.
Your feelings aren't necessarily rational, however, and definitely aren't in this case. You and you alone are responsible for your irrational feelings.
nou wrote: Mtg predates Diablo by 4 years and Diablo II by 7. I’ve played Mtg already in ’94 with the release of 3rd ed and through ’95, when it was all the rage, in parallel with 2nd ed 40k. Mid ’90 were the times when many later trends in game desing begun, which were then widely adapted in early to mid ’00, and there is exactly zero controversy amongst game designers in naming MTG as the father of deck/list building and addiction through living meta paradigm. It took a decade for first computer games to catch up, because for the living computer game format you need broadband internet, which was not a standard up until mid ’00.
I'm very aware, but Magic in the mid-90's was very different from how it was at the turn of the millennium. If there's zero controversy, I'm sure you could share some of this information with me.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
nou wrote: Maybe this will help - stop focusing on the „card” word as the defining trait of the whole „colectible games”category as used in game design? You can recreate exactly same phenomenon with collectible dice, tokens, miniatures, virtual items, whatever, because the defining trait of this category is creating dopamine based addiction to the game via living meta and purchases that increase your in game abilities/possibilities. That it takes different exact implementation depending on the exact medium you are working with is irrelevant to the underlying principle.
No, the lack of randomness in purchases means it isn't the same thing at all. They're not chasing the gambling impulse with things like "loot boxes."
nou wrote: The problem with you is that you only skim the surface level of game design - „the specifics” that you so love, and are oblivious of the entire underlaying knowledge and don’t realise, that your „specifics” are just secondary, technical implementations of said knowledge.
Yes, I know, buzzwords and no specifics from me again
You can say that, but you don't understand why a pack of Magic cards and an online lootbox are alike, while a box of 40k minis is like neither of those. So it's clear my understanding is actually deeper; you're just using buzzwords without understanding.
Living meta is your answer - this kind of player profile we are talking about is not the same player profile as historical wargamer or Rouge Trader era 40k player. He doesn't buy a box of minis because they are hobby items - to assemble, paint, display and the feeling of achievement created by that activity. The kind of player that was honed by MTG buys those minis for the perceived gain in power within the game. Do I really have to elaborate on this trivial context further?
Yes, you actually do - because it's not the kind of thing MtG is trying to engineer. Magic is just gambling. They're trying to get people to chase the cards for that brain chemical rush the same way people playing blackjack at a casino, or making runs on Diablo II are. 40k cannot create a Skinner box.
For a person who claims to understand MTG so much, you really don’t have the faintest clue about it, or about psychology. Aftermarket for MTG cards was there since the very beginning of the game. When you bought a booster, you did not gamble in hope of getting the exact cards you needed for your deck, you were exchanging currency. That is because the composition of a booster was known, you get X commons, Y uncommons, Z rares, and trade value of cards from a booster was higher than the cost of a booster. In other words, it usually was a better deal to buy a booster, unpack and trade rares than to spend money directly on the rare you needed for your build. The dopamine injection did not happen at opening of a booster, but at the moment you completed your deck as you envisioned it and went out to playtest it. This is exact same drive as listbuilding in a living 40k meta and buing 9 Voidweavers.
Now with lootboxes it is pretty much the same. You know the composition of a loot box and games have either trade markets or „forges” built in. If you happen to draw an exact thing you need you then even better, but you do not expect it to happen. Microtransactions are not about gambling, but about desire to grow in power, just drip fed at a controllable rate. This is the biggest difference with 40k though, because a dedicated meta chaser will just spend all the money necessary for a build at once, so 40k employs „balance dataslates” to keep meta chasers spend their money to feed their desire of power on a regular basis.
Get reading. Then we have stuff to discuss. [/url]
You are aware, that this post is by THE Richard Garfield, author of MTG, right? And I don’t see how this invalidated the claim, that MTG started such trends and they then evolved depending on the exact medium and specific targettable populations. This post only describes how the mechanism he introduced evolved/devolved.
At this point I don’t really believe anymore that you can even read with comprehension, as Garfield directly addresses the desire to „grow in power” in this post. Jesus, you are exceptionally delusional about your knowledge and level of understanding.
No. The claim is invalidated because nowhere does it describe GW's sales model in that post.
Okay then, I'll spell it out for you. 40k and MTG not being literally the same, which is what you seem to think is what people are implying is NOT the same as modern 40k borrowing CCG-esq elements to a tabletop game, which they clearly are doing.
If you cannot see this then there is an Egyptian river you must need pulling out of.
No, there are no ccg-esque elements in 40k's gameplay. There's no deck of cards to shuffle, no randomized packs to buy. Again, you're in Dunning-Kruger territory with your understanding of these games.
You sure about that?
There's the feeling I get any time I play a strat..... I pay x manna (sorry, CP) to modify my cards (sorry, Unit/Model) abilities. If I don't have any Manna/CP then I can't play my strat. :(
Sure puts me in mind of when I played MTG all those years ago. Spending x Green manna to cast Giant Growth + Bezerk + etc on my elf.... Only here I'm give one of my Necron Units "Talent For Anhilation" or something. At least I don't have to worry about what color my CP is.
I spend one slot of my Vancian casting system to cast magic missile! I don't have any more spell slots so I can't play my spells. (D&D Release date 1974). So are CCG's just rpgs in disguise now because D&D had a casting system that had something similar?
I'm just poking a little fun at this cause it's all so weirdly specific and doesn't really define things well.
Poke all you want, it doesn't change the fact that in the back of my mind is that old MTG feeling anytime I play a strat.
I don't get that feeling when I play non-GW minis/wargames (well except for in X-Wing - Pokemons "gotta catch 'em all" concerning the upgrade cards is in effect in 1e. No idea about 2e) Nor have I ever gotten the D&D feeling while playing a GW minis game. Sure, a wizard using up a limited spell slot might resemble using a strat. But the difference lies in the "story". Even at our most Hack & Slashiest we've always been trying to tell some sort of "story" in D&D. That is not really ever been the case in 99.9999% of all the Warhammer (FB/40k/Sigmar/etc) I've played. Not even in our recent Crusades & Path to Glories.
Your feelings aren't necessarily rational, however, and definitely aren't in this case. You and you alone are responsible for your irrational feelings.
Of course it does, in „Advantage in Multiplayer Games”. This is 100% what GW does via balance dataslates, temporary add-ons like Crusher Stampede and generally shuffling validity around. The randomness of purchase that you think is absent from 40k, because you buy a specific box of miniatures is succesfully introduced by unforseeable period of validity of such purchase, which not only gives incentive to but stuff, but also exploits the fear of missing out. Just ask around on Dakka, if people who freed themselves from churn and burn felt like quitting an addiction.
Which leads me directly to quitting any further discussions with you, in this or other threads. I don’t see any point in wasting my time on your delusions of grandeur.
nou wrote: Mtg predates Diablo by 4 years and Diablo II by 7. I’ve played Mtg already in ’94 with the release of 3rd ed and through ’95, when it was all the rage, in parallel with 2nd ed 40k. Mid ’90 were the times when many later trends in game desing begun, which were then widely adapted in early to mid ’00, and there is exactly zero controversy amongst game designers in naming MTG as the father of deck/list building and addiction through living meta paradigm. It took a decade for first computer games to catch up, because for the living computer game format you need broadband internet, which was not a standard up until mid ’00.
I'm very aware, but Magic in the mid-90's was very different from how it was at the turn of the millennium. If there's zero controversy, I'm sure you could share some of this information with me.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
nou wrote: Maybe this will help - stop focusing on the „card” word as the defining trait of the whole „colectible games”category as used in game design? You can recreate exactly same phenomenon with collectible dice, tokens, miniatures, virtual items, whatever, because the defining trait of this category is creating dopamine based addiction to the game via living meta and purchases that increase your in game abilities/possibilities. That it takes different exact implementation depending on the exact medium you are working with is irrelevant to the underlying principle.
No, the lack of randomness in purchases means it isn't the same thing at all. They're not chasing the gambling impulse with things like "loot boxes."
nou wrote: The problem with you is that you only skim the surface level of game design - „the specifics” that you so love, and are oblivious of the entire underlaying knowledge and don’t realise, that your „specifics” are just secondary, technical implementations of said knowledge.
Yes, I know, buzzwords and no specifics from me again
You can say that, but you don't understand why a pack of Magic cards and an online lootbox are alike, while a box of 40k minis is like neither of those. So it's clear my understanding is actually deeper; you're just using buzzwords without understanding.
Living meta is your answer - this kind of player profile we are talking about is not the same player profile as historical wargamer or Rouge Trader era 40k player. He doesn't buy a box of minis because they are hobby items - to assemble, paint, display and the feeling of achievement created by that activity. The kind of player that was honed by MTG buys those minis for the perceived gain in power within the game. Do I really have to elaborate on this trivial context further?
Yes, you actually do - because it's not the kind of thing MtG is trying to engineer. Magic is just gambling. They're trying to get people to chase the cards for that brain chemical rush the same way people playing blackjack at a casino, or making runs on Diablo II are. 40k cannot create a Skinner box.
For a person who claims to understand MTG so much, you really don’t have the faintest clue about it, or about psychology. Aftermarket for MTG cards was there since the very beginning of the game. When you bought a booster, you did not gamble in hope of getting the exact cards you needed for your deck, you were exchanging currency. That is because the composition of a booster was known, you get X commons, Y uncommons, Z rares, and trade value of cards from a booster was higher than the cost of a booster. In other words, it usually was a better deal to buy a booster, unpack and trade rares than to spend money directly on the rare you needed for your build. The dopamine injection did not happen at opening of a booster, but at the moment you completed your deck as you envisioned it and went out to playtest it. This is exact same drive as listbuilding in a living 40k meta and buing 9 Voidweavers.
Now with lootboxes it is pretty much the same. You know the composition of a loot box and games have either trade markets or „forges” built in. If you happen to draw an exact thing you need you then even better, but you do not expect it to happen. Microtransactions are not about gambling, but about desire to grow in power, just drip fed at a controllable rate. This is the biggest difference with 40k though, because a dedicated meta chaser will just spend all the money necessary for a build at once, so 40k employs „balance dataslates” to keep meta chasers spend their money to feed their desire of power on a regular basis.
Get reading. Then we have stuff to discuss. [/url]
You are aware, that this post is by THE Richard Garfield, author of MTG, right? And I don’t see how this invalidated the claim, that MTG started such trends and they then evolved depending on the exact medium and specific targettable populations. This post only describes how the mechanism he introduced evolved/devolved.
At this point I don’t really believe anymore that you can even read with comprehension, as Garfield directly addresses the desire to „grow in power” in this post. Jesus, you are exceptionally delusional about your knowledge and level of understanding.
No. The claim is invalidated because nowhere does it describe GW's sales model in that post.
Okay then, I'll spell it out for you. 40k and MTG not being literally the same, which is what you seem to think is what people are implying is NOT the same as modern 40k borrowing CCG-esq elements to a tabletop game, which they clearly are doing.
If you cannot see this then there is an Egyptian river you must need pulling out of.
No, there are no ccg-esque elements in 40k's gameplay. There's no deck of cards to shuffle, no randomized packs to buy. Again, you're in Dunning-Kruger territory with your understanding of these games.
You sure about that?
There's the feeling I get any time I play a strat..... I pay x manna (sorry, CP) to modify my cards (sorry, Unit/Model) abilities. If I don't have any Manna/CP then I can't play my strat. :(
Sure puts me in mind of when I played MTG all those years ago. Spending x Green manna to cast Giant Growth + Bezerk + etc on my elf.... Only here I'm give one of my Necron Units "Talent For Anhilation" or something. At least I don't have to worry about what color my CP is.
I spend one slot of my Vancian casting system to cast magic missile! I don't have any more spell slots so I can't play my spells. (D&D Release date 1974). So are CCG's just rpgs in disguise now because D&D had a casting system that had something similar?
I'm just poking a little fun at this cause it's all so weirdly specific and doesn't really define things well.
Poke all you want, it doesn't change the fact that in the back of my mind is that old MTG feeling anytime I play a strat.
I don't get that feeling when I play non-GW minis/wargames (well except for in X-Wing - Pokemons "gotta catch 'em all" concerning the upgrade cards is in effect in 1e. No idea about 2e) Nor have I ever gotten the D&D feeling while playing a GW minis game. Sure, a wizard using up a limited spell slot might resemble using a strat. But the difference lies in the "story". Even at our most Hack & Slashiest we've always been trying to tell some sort of "story" in D&D. That is not really ever been the case in 99.9999% of all the Warhammer (FB/40k/Sigmar/etc) I've played. Not even in our recent Crusades & Path to Glories.
Your feelings aren't necessarily rational, however, and definitely aren't in this case. You and you alone are responsible for your irrational feelings.
Of course it does, in „Advantage in Multiplayer Games”. This is 100% what GW does via balance dataslates, temporary add-ons like Crusher Stampede and generally shuffling validity around. The randomness of purchase that you think is absent from 40k, because you buy a specific box of miniatures is succesfully introduced by unforseeable period of validity of such purchase, which not only gives incentive to but stuff, but also exploits the fear of missing out. Just ask around on Dakka, if people who freed themselves from churn and burn felt like quitting an addiction.
Which leads me directly to quitting any further discussions with you, in this or other threads. I don’t see any point in wasting my time on your delusions of grandeur.
I don't think they will go full on Power Level. There will be points in 10th edition, hopefully not as micro as they are now.
Try harder 
