Currently the win rate for the faction according to Auspex Tactics is a mere 30 percent in Tournaments and Competitive Games. A balanced faction goes to 50 percent, ideally, so what happened exactly? Were the calls for nerfs backed by organized boycotts and relentless campaigns really based on sane reasoning or hysteria? I know the first handful of games shown on youtube showed Votann winning relatively easily, but was that just because people were attacking rocks with scissors or honestly because people were going by broad empirical data sets and rational analysis? To me this seems like a cautionary tale about putting too much stock in the judgment of large groups and authorities. Large groups are prone to hysteria i.e. individuals reasoning in a certain way vs groups reasoning in a certain way, and how authorities are inherently presumptuous. I'm not saying the individual is always right and the group or hierarchy are always wrong, but an objective analysis of just how badly the Community and Authorities were off (by almost 50%!) should be something everyone can learn from. At least I hope so. Otherwise it just means the whole group is incapable of self-reflection or ever admitting they are wrong, which is a really bad omen. It's kind of like the Salem Witch Trials in its level of delusion at that point.
That being said, nobody's perfect, and if everyone was it would be a boring world. At the same time, it should be noted sometimes groups of people make rash decisions based more on emotion and knee-jerk reactions then long, well-thought, rational contemplation. That's just human nature. There's nothing inherently wrong with that, and I myself am hardly immune to factors such as poor judgment or emotional reaction - but I do try to learn from my mistakes, I am hoping the Community of far more experienced, superiors can do the same.
To be fair this hasn't been at many official tournaments because they players were using proxied models so the numbers could be off by a bit.
Also remember that this is a brand new army and people are still getting the hang of how to use them, and which units work best. Not to mention their limited unit pool.
There also may just not be enough players of the faction to have a high win rate yet. It is just too early to tell.
That being said, while you are right in that groups can make bad decisions and GW is certainly prone to it as well, I don't think this is the case here. While I can't really say anything about the points, I think toning down judgement tokens was the correct decision. As more info comes out GW may reverse all they have done like they did with the Ad Mech.
KingGarland wrote: To be fair this hasn't been at many official tournaments because they players were using proxied models so the numbers could be off by a bit.
Also remember that this is a brand new army and people are still getting the hang of how to use them, and which units work best. Not to mention their limited unit pool.
There also may just not be enough players of the faction to have a high win rate yet. It is just too early to tell.
That being said, while you are right in that groups can make bad decisions and GW is certainly prone to it as well, I don't think this is the case here. While I can't really say anything about the points, I think toning down judgement tokens was the correct decision. As more info comes out GW may reverse all they have done like they did with the Ad Mech.
Yet their win rates in tournaments is a mere 30 percent. That's lowest tier. Even Admech and Guard which are generally considered under-powered have higher win rates,.
Also I have a problem with nerfing JT's, as they are supposed to be a buff but become a nerf. It is like if Marker Lights for Tau made units LESS accurate. It really makes no sense.
Just about any balance issue can be resolved with a change in points. A unit costs 2 times as much, 3 times as much, 4 times as much - there is a number that will balance it. The JT change made it so a feature that was supposed to benefit the Votann actually made tjem weaker which makes no sense and even removes the fun element. Why go for JT's if all they do is nerf your own weaoon? It seened like a lazy move, It is like if "Disguistingly Resulient" made some Nurgle Units more prone to damage - it makes no sense and undermines the faction as a whole.
How could we have comprehensive tournament data for an army that only goes fully on pre-order tomorrow? Yeeeehhhh......it's everyone else that jumped the gun on this one.......
Gadzilla666 wrote:How could we have comprehensive tournament data for an army that only goes fully on pre-order tomorrow? Yeeeehhhh......it's everyone else that jumped the gun on this one.......
I saw the video. It is unofficial data from private tournaments.
Asenion wrote:
KingGarland wrote: To be fair this hasn't been at many official tournaments because they players were using proxied models so the numbers could be off by a bit.
Also remember that this is a brand new army and people are still getting the hang of how to use them, and which units work best. Not to mention their limited unit pool.
There also may just not be enough players of the faction to have a high win rate yet. It is just too early to tell.
That being said, while you are right in that groups can make bad decisions and GW is certainly prone to it as well, I don't think this is the case here. While I can't really say anything about the points, I think toning down judgement tokens was the correct decision. As more info comes out GW may reverse all they have done like they did with the Ad Mech.
Yet their win rates in tournaments is a mere 30 percent. That's lowest tier. Even Admech and Guard which are generally considered under-powered have higher win rates,.
Two armies that people have been playing with and fine tuning for years.
Gadzilla666 wrote: How could we have comprehensive tournament data for an army that only goes fully on pre-order tomorrow? Yeeeehhhh......it's everyone else that jumped the gun on this one.......
Then why make a judgment at all? If it's untested, why not wait and see instead of deciding before it is even given a real test? That suggests bias.
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KingGarland wrote: To be fair this hasn't been at many official tournaments because they players were using proxied models so the numbers could be off by a bit.
Also remember that this is a brand new army and people are still getting the hang of how to use them, and which units work best. Not to mention their limited unit pool.
There also may just not be enough players of the faction to have a high win rate yet. It is just too early to tell.
That being said, while you are right in that groups can make bad decisions and GW is certainly prone to it as well, I don't think this is the case here. While I can't really say anything about the points, I think toning down judgement tokens was the correct decision. As more info comes out GW may reverse all they have done like they did with the Ad Mech.
But that works both ways. People will get more optimized with how they counter Votann as well.
Gadzilla666 wrote:How could we have comprehensive tournament data for an army that only goes fully on pre-order tomorrow? Yeeeehhhh......it's everyone else that jumped the gun on this one.......
I saw the video. It is unofficial data from private tournaments.
Right. So, not remotely enough data for a comprehensive data sample, wouldn't you agree?
Asenion wrote:
Gadzilla666 wrote: How could we have comprehensive tournament data for an army that only goes fully on pre-order tomorrow? Yeeeehhhh......it's everyone else that jumped the gun on this one.......
Then why make a judgment at all? If it's untested, why not wait and see instead of deciding before it is even given a real test? That suggests bias.
Yes, you're correct. It's untested and we should wait for more data before making any judgment. Doing otherwise would suggest bias.
Calm down. Let the full army be released into lots of people's hands, so that they can play lots of games at lots of tournaments. Then we'll have enough data to know the actual picture. Then we can start making judgment calls.
Gadzilla666 wrote:How could we have comprehensive tournament data for an army that only goes fully on pre-order tomorrow? Yeeeehhhh......it's everyone else that jumped the gun on this one.......
I saw the video. It is unofficial data from private tournaments.
Right. So, not remotely enough data for a comprehensive data sample, wouldn't you agree?
Asenion wrote:
Gadzilla666 wrote: How could we have comprehensive tournament data for an army that only goes fully on pre-order tomorrow? Yeeeehhhh......it's everyone else that jumped the gun on this one.......
Then why make a judgment at all? If it's untested, why not wait and see instead of deciding before it is even given a real test? That suggests bias.
Yes, you're correct. It's untested and we should wait for more data before making any judgment. Doing otherwise would suggest bias.
Calm down. Let the full army be released into lots of people's hands, so that they can play lots of games at lots of tournaments. Then we'll have enough data to know the actual picture. Then we can start making judgment calls.
Sure, why not? I'm just saying the calls for nerfs before even 1 tournament seems premature given what data we have available thus far. I mean a 30 percent win rate for a new faction is extremely low. Most factions start with a higher then average win rate in tournaments.
Gadzilla666 wrote: So, not remotely enough data for a comprehensive data sample, wouldn't you agree?
Win rates aren't the only source of data. People did the math and it was clear that squats were way out of line in efficiency and were going to be a major problem. Playtesting games backed up this analysis. We don't need to waste a month on a completely broken meta just to prove that yes, water is in fact wet.
Asenion wrote: I mean a 30 percent win rate for a new faction is extremely low. Most factions start with a higher then average win rate in tournaments.
The 30% win rate is completely irrelevant because squats were playing with a very limited partial codex. None of those results have anything to do with what the real army is capable of.
I don't expect the limited roster available will.account for a 20% dip from their target end point however. It's really only the berserkers they were missing that people wanted to get heavy usage from.
Honestly I think they'll end up lower down than expected, but will have an impact on the meta by pushing knights further out and maybe preemptively hamstrings guard armour a little.
Gadzilla666 wrote: Yes, you're correct. It's untested and we should wait for more data before making any judgment. Doing otherwise would suggest bias.
Calm down. Let the full army be released into lots of people's hands, so that they can play lots of games at lots of tournaments. Then we'll have enough data to know the actual picture. Then we can start making judgment calls.
Sure, why not? I'm just saying the calls for nerfs before even 1 tournament seems premature given what data we have available thus far. I mean a 30 percent win rate for a new faction is extremely low. Most factions start with a higher then average win rate in tournaments.
Still too early to tell how the Leagues will perform.
The timing of the nerf was appropriate. Players would be outraged if GW switched the rules right after they built out their armies.
At least people have some confidence in the lists they use.
Always better to buff I think than nerf mid season.
But with the way judgment tokens work/worked there interaction with other elements of the design seemed rather foolish.
As well as how explosive they could be.
I have to wonder if the team just didn’t think they would be so easy to interact with.
But I didn’t see any competent players really struggling to apply them.
KingGarland wrote: The JT change made it so a feature that was supposed to benefit the Votann actually made tjem weaker which makes no sense and even removes the fun element. Why go for JT's if all they do is nerf your own weaoon? It seened like a lazy move, It is like if "Disguistingly Resulient" made some Nurgle Units more prone to damage.
I don't understand this. A couple of weapons and like 1 strat are affected. But the weapons still benefit from the auto-wounding from JTs. They're still a hugely powerful tool for the army
KingGarland wrote: The JT change made it so a feature that was supposed to benefit the Votann actually made tjem weaker which makes no sense and even removes the fun element. Why go for JT's if all they do is nerf your own weaoon? It seened like a lazy move, It is like if "Disguistingly Resulient" made some Nurgle Units more prone to damage.
I don't understand this. A couple of weapons and like 1 strat are affected. But the weapons still benefit from the auto-wounding from JTs. They're still a hugely powerful tool for the army
The big boogeyman rail guns lose a massive chunk of their threat value the second a JT is on a unit.
Gadzilla666 wrote: So, not remotely enough data for a comprehensive data sample, wouldn't you agree?
Win rates aren't the only source of data. People did the math and it was clear that squats were way out of line in efficiency and were going to be a major problem. Playtesting games backed up this analysis. We don't need to waste a month on a completely broken meta just to prove that yes, water is in fact wet.
My comment pertains to the highly limited tournament data mentioned by the OP from players using the nerfedLoV rules. I wasn't talking about the nerfs, or their implementation at all. What are you arguing with me about?
I think its entirely possible the army was completely bonkers - but then when you apply a 20%~ hike - around 30% on the best stuff - it suddenly appears rather less so.
Your typical 2k points list went up 350-400 points. That's a lot of stuff you have to take out of your list and leave at home. If you just want the toys, you don't have much meat to do an objective game/take a counter-punch.
Put it another way, 2 Hekatons and say 15 Beserks shouldn't have cost just 790 points as per the codex. But they also possibly shouldn't cost 1050 points which they do now. There's quite a lot of middle ground here.
Gadzilla666 wrote: So, not remotely enough data for a comprehensive data sample, wouldn't you agree?
Win rates aren't the only source of data. People did the math and it was clear that squats were way out of line in efficiency and were going to be a major problem. Playtesting games backed up this analysis. We don't need to waste a month on a completely broken meta just to prove that yes, water is in fact wet.
But that doesn't sit well with those that bought notSquats(tm) wanting to piss in everyone's tourney wheaties....
From what I understood it was overlapping rules causing exponential power creep. Therefore it wouldn’t surprise me that the rules nerf went overboard, but we need to wait for more data.
Likewise I also wouldn’t be surprised if the blanket points increase for every unit was unwarranted.
That said the reason the OP state happened was because they only tested the codex against other soon to be released codexes. AKA the OP Tyranids,
T’au and what have you, hence why it was so off.
They should just use the SM codex as the bench mark for every edition.
Sure they should test against some other ones, specifically armies of a very different nature such as Death Guard versus Drukhari, as well as average model count. AKA a horde army like Orks and the opposite end of elite like Custodes.
It isn’t practical to test against every army though, someone did some basic math on that not too long ago and it would take 1-2
years to do it, however they did the math.
It isn’t practical to test against every army though, someone did some basic math on that not too long ago and it would take 1-2
years to do it, however they did the math.
It would take one weekend at Warhammer World.
A decision has been made that such testing is not to be undertaken. That shouldn't be mistaken for "impractical".
Win rates aren't the only source of data. People did the math and it was clear that squats were way out of line in efficiency and were going to be a major problem. Playtesting games backed up this analysis. We don't need to waste a month on a completely broken meta just to prove that yes, water is in fact wet.
So were dark eldar or eldar, and people did the math too, yet somehow the books were not nerfed. In fact in case of DE, they were actualy buffed, after playtesters said the army is going to be very powerful. And both armies were left to be powerful for months, before any big changes happened. And by big changes I mean negative ones, because DE after they came out, almost instantly also got their cult of stryfe buff
It is always odd how with those armies, the players are told to wait, for the meta to adapt, to learn to play , for the armies not being popular so having low impact on the actual play field etc. Yet here we were with LoV, and they got killed off before ever getting their time to shine.
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TreeStewges 807483 11449490 wrote:
state happened was because they only tested the codex against other soon to be released codexes. AKA the OP Tyranids,
T’au and what have you, hence why it was so off.
They should just use the SM codex as the bench mark for every edition.
So why did they leave the powerful armies practicaly unchanged then. Harlis got a slap on the wrist, necron practicaly got a non change. Stuff like abadon, Creations of Bile or EC were unchanged, Tyranids got a nerf to leviathan, but people were already moving to Kraken. Tau bombers are unchanged. SoB, just like necron, are super uninteractive etc. And all of those factions were already out, by the time LoV leaks happened.
It isn’t practical to test against every army though, someone did some basic math on that not too long ago and it would take 1-2
years to do it, however they did the math.
It would take one weekend at Warhammer World.
A decision has been made that such testing is not to be undertaken. That shouldn't be mistaken for "impractical".
One weekend of the general public playing rapid fire games with proxies because the army doesn't exist yet? Yeah, sounds at best impractical.
We had the results of DE having above 60% win rates, same with harlequins in first week of their rules being out, and people were saying they will be at this win rates, before the rules were legal, because of playing with leaks. When something is powerful or bad, like GSC for example. There really is no need waiting for 3 months to check, if it is good or bad for real.
Since 8th ed, there has not been a single time, a book came out, got tested, was found weaker then the lists which are good at the time, to suddenly become good in 2-3 months,without direct intervention from GW in to the rules, and even then when it happened it was a heck lot of time when it happened vide necron and the new seson rules.
It isn’t practical to test against every army though, someone did some basic math on that not too long ago and it would take 1-2
years to do it, however they did the math.
It would take one weekend at Warhammer World.
A decision has been made that such testing is not to be undertaken. That shouldn't be mistaken for "impractical".
One weekend of the general public playing rapid fire games with proxies because the army doesn't exist yet? Yeah, sounds at best impractical.
If they so wanted, GW could run 10s of games over the course of a weekend at the substantial gaming facility that they operate. It would be trivial for them to get people willing to take part. Alternatively, as I understand it, GW have several employees that they could tap to undertake such a task.
Given printing and production lead times, they might need to use proxies, but that’s easy enough to achieve. Otherwise, if they are committed to doing day 1 patches, get some quick forces ginned up from the first arriving stock and do it as a pre-launch session.
Automatically Appended Next Post: It might not chase out every single power play or dodgy match up, but it would likely help prevent the kind of revisions applied to the Votann this time around.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Addendum - is it now at the point where they would be better off not printing points costs in new codices, and just drop a pdf at the point of the army release to let players fill in the blanks?
The 30% win rate is completely irrelevant because squats were playing with a very limited partial codex. None of those results have anything to do with what the real army is capable of.
Wait, so wouldn't that make the call to nerf them even more premature seeing as it was based on ZERO Tournament games? If a handful of tournament games are "too little" in terms of data sets (a completely subjective standard - unless you can tell me exactly how many tournaments it takes for the data to become relevant) then zero tournaments should be even more irrelevant.
Wait, so wouldn't that make the call to nerf them even more premature seeing as it was based on ZERO Tournament games? If a handful of tournament games are "too little" in terms of data sets (a completely subjective standard - unless you can tell me exactly how many tournaments it takes for the data to become relevant) then zero tournaments should be even more irrelevant.
It's almost like I addressed this already:
Aecus Decimus wrote: Win rates aren't the only source of data. People did the math and it was clear that squats were way out of line in efficiency and were going to be a major problem. Playtesting games backed up this analysis. We don't need to waste a month on a completely broken meta just to prove that yes, water is in fact wet.
Wait, so wouldn't that make the call to nerf them even more premature seeing as it was based on ZERO Tournament games? If a handful of tournament games are "too little" in terms of data sets (a completely subjective standard - unless you can tell me exactly how many tournaments it takes for the data to become relevant) then zero tournaments should be even more irrelevant.
It's almost like I addressed this already:
Aecus Decimus wrote: Win rates aren't the only source of data. People did the math and it was clear that squats were way out of line in efficiency and were going to be a major problem. Playtesting games backed up this analysis. We don't need to waste a month on a completely broken meta just to prove that yes, water is in fact wet.
So the math included every single possible variable? Not one single variable was missing at all? Give me a break. If that was true you wouldn't need any testing at all - ever.
I mean anyone can cherry pick some numbers and claim "Well based on MATH I declare X faction OP!" What math is this exactly? Does it involve calculus, trigonometry, quadratic equations?
Asenion wrote: So the math included every single possible variable? Not one single variable was missing at all? Give me a break. If that was true you wouldn't need any testing at all - ever.
I mean anyone can cherry pick some numbers and claim "Well based on MATH I declare X faction OP!" What math is this exactly? Does it involve calculus, trigonometry, quadratic equations?
Asenion wrote: So the math included every single possible variable? Not one single variable was missing at all? Give me a break. If that was true you wouldn't need any testing at all - ever.
I mean anyone can cherry pick some numbers and claim "Well based on MATH I declare X faction OP!" What math is this exactly? Does it involve calculus, trigonometry, quadratic equations?
And, again, it wasn't just math. People did the math and then ran playtest games that confirmed what everyone suspected.
Even your own source admits they took a lot of short cuts in the math because there are simply too many variables to calculate everything that goes into a game:
Nor does it tell you how much the result could vary. In order to perfectly understand the distribution of outcomes you would need to calculate every possible permutation of die rolls. This can easily be thousands or hundreds of thousands of combinations. The math sucks.
In other words your "math" is based on assumptions and cherry picking what data you want to include and exclude.
This is open to confirmation bias nine ways to Sunday. To me it seems almost comical.
The fact is even if you had an NSA Quantum Super-Computer running a host of variables I doubt the math would predict every game or balance in every possible way.
That's why play testing is critical.
Your own analogy proves it. You said we don't need a host of data to prove " water is wet". That's because we don't use math to prove that, you just go out and touch it. No math needed and any "math" claiming the opposite is worth less then a wooden nickel splintered into dust bits.
And no matter how much math you claim the data shows a 30 percent win rate in tournaments. That's based on math too.
This is based on far more data then the sets others used to call for a nerf.
You may not need a lot of data to prove water is wet, but if you're going to claim that geese can't fly I'd say a gander makes a lot more sense in terms of evidence then a single cooked bird on a stick!
I mean how low do the win rates have to be exactly? If they were 10 percent would the amount of data still be too little and made irrelevant because of "math"?
If it was 5 percent? 0 percent?
A 30 percent win rate is not some minor discrepancy, that is HALF of what should be expected from a balanced faction! Especially for a new faction.
And this is with the JTs still by and large intact ( your whole post about math was about how much JTs unbalanced the game - all that was removed was the exploding/splash 6s, that hardly accounts for a 20+% swing in the numbers).
The fact is you made a claim based on no data and now that the data is out - it doesn't count!
The Earth isn't round because the map you saw has edges!
Asenion wrote: Even your own source admits they took a lot of short cuts in the math because there are simply too many variables to calculate everything that goes into a game:
Ok? That's how math works. But when the error margin on your analysis is +/- 5% and your data is showing that something is at 200% of reasonable point efficiency the error margin in those approximations is not relevant. Squats weren't just slightly too powerful, they were blatantly out of line on a level that even assuming all of the approximations erred in the direction of making things look worse you're still left with the conclusion that they need a nerf.
And no matter how much math you claim the data shows a 30 percent loss rates in tournaments. That's based on math too.
30% win rate (which is what I assume you mean, if squats currently have a 30% loss rate they need major nerfs) is irrelevant because that data set is not using the real codex. I can cite a 10% win rate for space marines operating on the restriction that they can only take basic captains and bolter tactical squads with no upgrades or stratagems permitted and that 10% win rate may in fact be accurate for what the crippled pseudo-army is capable of but that doesn't mean the data has anything to do with the performance of the real space marine codex.
That's why play testing is critical.
Once again: people did playtest it. Their playtesting confirmed the initial impression that the codex was completely out of line.
99% of LOV players are playing in these tournaments without models for the majority of the codex. Id be shocked if it doesn't climb dramatically once people have the full range for more then a few days
I hope OP is right and all the nerfs need to get removed, that would reveal just how incompetent GW is. People were saying in some of the comparisons that Necron Warriors are some of the worst units in 9th and I'm really confused because Warriors are pretty amazing, they might not be popular in tournaments right this moment but we don't have to go back far to see them being considered mandatory in Necron lists and Necrons occasionally getting top 4s.
TreeStewges wrote: They should just use the SM codex as the bench mark for every edition.
That wouldn't be necessary if they kept a red thread with every faction being tested against the one that was released previously, but Drukhari did not seem to have been tested against any previous codices and at that point such a project would have fallen off the rails.
It isn’t practical to test against every army though, someone did some basic math on that not too long ago and it would take 1-2 years to do it, however they did the math.
Got a link? That seems like complete BS. You need 50 games to test each faction, whether that is against Tyranids or SM really doesn't matter, although I think that a decent number of the games should be against SM because they should be the balance bedrock of the game because they are so popular. For that to take 2 years it'd be 1 playtest every other week. You could playtest every codex over 2 years with just 13 playtests per week. That's 10 playtesters doing this in their spare time to ensure balance + another 5-15 playtesters that make sure it is fun and fluffy. 500 playtests with mostly the same list would just be a waste of time, 50 playtests with 13 vastly different lists is enough to map things out pretty accurately.
Flinty wrote: Addendum - is it now at the point where they would be better off not printing points costs in new codices, and just drop a pdf at the point of the army release to let players fill in the blanks?
No, just test the codexes before printing them. If they start doing that for 10th it wouldn't be noticeable for the release schedule, we'd just get 10th a couple months later. You did nail one thing though, they shouldn't be so eager to change rules, if playtesters liked the original JT mechanic then it shouldn't be changed just because the units are broken, increasing points ought to be enough. Wide-spread errata makes physical codexes worthless, points can just be printed out and added at the back of the book.
What? What do you think they were using at these Tournaments - office memos?
Aecus Decimus wrote: I can cite a 10% win rate for space marines operating on the restriction that they can only take basic captains and bolter tactical squads with no upgrades or stratagems permitted and that 10% win rate may in fact be accurate for what the crippled pseudo-army is capable of but that doesn't mean the data has anything to do with the performance of the real space marine codex.
And? Are you claiming that all these Tournaments applied these special handicaps to Votann and only Votann in this way?
Once again: people did playtest it. Their playtesting confirmed the initial impression that the codex was completely out of line.
Yes - in non-competitive games and came to conclusions often times after just 1 play test. 2 if they were feeling generous i.e. Tabletop Titans.
So like 5 play tests are sufficient to determine that the faction needs to be nerfed but 50-100 are not sufficient data sets to say a nerf is premature. That's literally what you're saying.
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Asmodios wrote: 99% of LOV players are playing in these tournaments without models for the majority of the codex. Id be shocked if it doesn't climb dramatically once people have the full range for more then a few days
I highly doubt even if Votann have an abysmal win rate after that any of these people will admit they're wrong or make the same effort to reverse their incorrect decision that they put into shoving this obvious blunder onto the rest of the Community.
Asenion wrote: And who is determining this exactly? Somehow who adds or subtracts variables based on how "lazy" he or she feels at a given time?
It's a hypothetical example with made up numbers in response to your claim of "BUT APPROXIMATIONS". Yes, approximations are a thing. No, approximations are not likely to be a factor when the math is so egregiously out of line with everything else.
Translation - Any evidence for my case counts, all the evidence against my case doesn't count.
Translation: they are literally not playing with the same codex. You can't argue that Tau are overpowered because Tyranids have a 60% win rate.
What? What do you think they were using at these Tournaments - office memos?
You do know that many, if not all, events are not allowing the unreleased units, right? Most of that 30% win rate is being generated by players using a partial codex, not the real codex that we will see in the near future once the full model range is out.
And? Are you claiming that all these Tournaments applied these special handicaps to Votann and only Votann in this way?
Yes, and this is indisputable fact. Squats are the only faction that has some of their units banned entirely in competitive play and only get to use a partial codex. Why do you think this is in any way a controversial claim?
So like 5 play tests are sufficient to determine that the faction needs to be nerfed but 50-100 are not sufficient data sets to say a nerf is premature. That's literally what you're saying.
5 playtest games can be sufficient if the faction is overpowered enough that the conclusion is obvious. If the new guard codex has 10 point Baneblades it will not take very many games to conclude the obvious: that it's really ****ing broken and needs to be fixed.
50-100 playtest games of Tau vs. space marines will not tell you anything about whether or not the Tyranid codex is overpowered.
It's a hypothetical example with made up numbers in response to your claim of "BUT APPROXIMATIONS". Yes, approximations are a thing. No, approximations are not likely to be a factor when the math is so egregiously out of line with everything else.
This actually reminds me of a joke skit about "Breaking Bad" called " Making Math":
" We're making math that is 99 percent accurate!"
" Soo...that means it's wrong."
Aecus Decimus wrote: Translation: they are literally not playing with the same codex. You can't argue that Tau are overpowered because Tyranids have a 60% win rate.
Oh so if Tyranids have a 99 percent win rate we can't say Tyranids are Over-Powered because every faction uses a different Codex.
If Orks have a 0 percent win rate we can't argue that Orks need to be buffed for the same reason. Give me a break.
Aecus Decimus wrote: You do know that many, if not all, events are not allowing the unreleased units, right? Most of that 30% win rate is being generated by players using a partial codex, not the real codex that we will see in the near future once the full model range is out.
Granted but all your argument from "math" was primarily based on JTs being so over powered that they broke the game and JTs are still in play with a minor nerf and we aren't seeing any of this.
The hypothesis was tested - the results are the opposite of what the hypothesis predicted. In science this is know as a failed hypothesis.
Aecus Decimus wrote: Yes, and this is indisputable fact. Squats are the only faction that has some of their units banned entirely in competitive play
Nope, other new factions had similar bans at their launch and most achieved win rates well above average.
So like 5 play tests are sufficient to determine that the faction needs to be nerfed but 50-100 are not sufficient data sets to say a nerf is premature. That's literally what you're saying.
5 playtest games can be sufficient if the faction is overpowered enough that the conclusion is obvious. If the new guard codex has 10 point Baneblades it will not take very many games to conclude the obvious: that it's really ****ing broken and needs to be fixed.
50-100 playtest games of Tau vs. space marines will not tell you anything about whether or not the Tyranid codex is overpowered.
Oh so according to that logic 1 play test can be sufficient to prove your point but 1000 play tests showing the contrary are baseless because " the conclusion is obvious."
Asenion wrote: Oh so if Tyranids have a 99 percent win rate we can't say Tyranids are Over-Powered because every faction uses a different Codex.
If Orks have a 0 percent win rate we can't argue that Orks need to be buffed for the same reason. Give me a break.
No, that is not the same. You are making the argument that Tyranids are overpowered because Tau have a 99% win rate, and that Orks need to be buffed because Eldar have a 0% win rate. None of your tournament win rate data is in any way relevant because very few, if any, of those games are using the real squat codex.
Granted but all your argument from "math" was primarily based on JTs being so over powered that they broke the game and JTs are still in play with a minor nerf and we aren't seeing any of this.
The major issue with judgement tokens was with a unit that is currently banned in tournament play.
Nope, other new factions had similar bans at their launch and most achieved win rates well above average.
Not at all true. Squats are a special case because they're an entirely new army. Other factions haven't had the same kind of partial release and have not had significant parts of the codex banned for the first month or two.
Oh so according to that logic 1 play test can be sufficient to prove your point but 1000 play tests showing the contrary are baseless because " the conclusion is obvious."
Please try to read more carefully.
One game with 10 point Baneblades can demonstrate the obvious: that 10 point Baneblades are overpowered.
1000 games of Eldar vs. Orks can not tell you anything about balance questions involving Baneblades because nobody is playing guard in those games.
Your supposed "1000 tests" do not tell you anything useful about the balance of the squat codex because the 1000 games are not being played with the squat codex.
Winrate itself isn’t a perfect calculator of ballance, just one peace.
Even if they were 50% a good number to aim for, no one I think would be happy if that balance was achieved entire of the way judgment tokens break other areas of the game.
Honestly it’s bad design, and I think the math highlights why it is.
And? Are you claiming that all these Tournaments applied these special handicaps to Votann and only Votann in this way?
Tournament's didn't. GW did.
In case you haven't heard....THE MODELS ONLY GOT RELEASED LIKE LAST SATURDAY! And that's for preorder...
So the votann armies in general have been missing most of the units in tournaments because YOU CANNOT BUY THEM YET!
If you disagree go to your FLGS and try to buy land fortress. Or berserkers. Try to get packet with you home. Short of store breaking their agreeements you can't do that.
Marines meanwhile have the units in codex on sale.
Granted but all your argument from "math" was primarily based on JTs being so over powered that they broke the game and JTs are still in play with a minor nerf and we aren't seeing any of this.
The hypothesis was tested - the results are the opposite of what the hypothesis predicted. In science this is know as a failed hypothesis.
Funny that. JT's being nerfed.
Gee. No wonder they aren't broken OP because they got nerfed...Funny that. Nerfs doing what they were meant to do. What? You were expecting nerfs to make them more powerful? You have funny ideas.
tneva82 wrote: In case you haven't heard....THE MODELS ONLY GOT RELEASED LIKE LAST SATURDAY! And that's for preorder...
So the votann armies in general have been missing most of the units in tournaments because YOU CANNOT BUY THEM YET!
If you disagree go to your FLGS and try to buy land fortress. Or berserkers. Try to get packet with you home. Short of store breaking their agreeements you can't do that.
I'm sure the FLGS owners would love to be able to sell you models anyway, but in the case of Votann almost none of them already has the new kits.
Stores receive the new releases mid week, usually either on Thursday or Friday depending on the couriers bringing them stuff.
The few kits already in the wild are those sent by GW directly to influencers and content creators (painters, bat reps channels, review channels). And even then, those few lucky ones received 1x of each new kit.
In order to see the real power of LoV we need to wait at least a month, since players need time to buy, assemble and paint (at least to battle ready standard) the meta list. Assuming most of LoV players already know which is the best list to go for, otherwise we need to wait for them to adjust their lists (ie to buy, paint and assemble even more kits).
The hobby lag in this case will be even more impactful compared to any other codex release, since nobody has the models ready to go.
- need empirical data to gauge what and how much to alter, so some real world data was needed. The pre-nerf prevented this and as such we cannot say objectively where they stand until they have sufficient datasets to work out what has happened
- theory and hypothetical simulations showed the faction to be uncomfortably efficient and extrapolated conclusions are enough to ensure that the new was needed. Conversely using these same methods, the partial data sets and hypothetical trends seen currently are enough to draw a conclusion from
- take the 2nd half of option 1 and the first half of option 2. Nerf based on incomplete data then need detailed data to assess outcome. This one is still valid but feels the most dishonest in my opinion.
- need empirical data to gauge what and how much to alter, so some real world data was needed. The pre-nerf prevented this and as such we cannot say objectively where they stand until they have sufficient datasets to work out what has happened
- theory and hypothetical simulations showed the faction to be uncomfortably efficient and extrapolated conclusions are enough to ensure that the new was needed. Conversely using these same methods, the partial data sets and hypothetical trends seen currently are enough to draw a conclusion from
- take the 2nd half of option 1 and the first half of option 2. Nerf based on incomplete data then need detailed data to assess outcome. This one is still valid but feels the most dishonest in my opinion.
I think you are missing the option that theory and hypothetical simulations are superior to anything short of a massive amount of data. Is the conclusion that the nerf was too great or shouldn't have happened at all based on the 30% win rate alone or a combination of subjective evalutations of the army's performance by players and mathematical proof that the army is now undertuned even relative to other weak factions?
- need empirical data to gauge what and how much to alter, so some real world data was needed. The pre-nerf prevented this and as such we cannot say objectively where they stand until they have sufficient datasets to work out what has happened
- theory and hypothetical simulations showed the faction to be uncomfortably efficient and extrapolated conclusions are enough to ensure that the new was needed. Conversely using these same methods, the partial data sets and hypothetical trends seen currently are enough to draw a conclusion from
- take the 2nd half of option 1 and the first half of option 2. Nerf based on incomplete data then need detailed data to assess outcome. This one is still valid but feels the most dishonest in my opinion.
I think you are missing the option that theory and hypothetical simulations are superior to anything short of a massive amount of data. Is the conclusion that the nerf was too great or shouldn't have happened at all based on the 30% win rate alone or a combination of subjective evalutations of the army's performance by players and mathematical proof that the army is now undertuned even relative to other weak factions?
To your first point it was a tldr summary but there is a break point on dataset, the emphasis here was hypothetical scenarios were acted upon with little to no real data. I aren't a statistician nor a mathematician by trade so I can't weigh in on how much data is relevant.
With the latter, oddly they got the nerf faq and there was much back patting and then I've not seen any revised theoretical or mathematical models, nor any feedback on them being "tested" by the community. I'd love to seesome to answer you with confidence, but it does feel the masses got their way and walked away without checking if it was right.
The original complaints were based off people having experience using proxies and TTS. I think there was a group where Votann went undefeated 85-90% of the time over 30 games in those playtests. These were not tournament data, but played by tournament people testing viability of the army.
When the armybox came out a few people were playing them in tournaments with a limited pool of models(and players) with a 50% winrate in the first week. I imagine that was also dependent on player skill so not reflective of final stats.
Ultimately the rest of the line and the actual good units haven't been released yet. I think we'll be seeing more accurate stats in the weeks following next Saturday as the entire line gets finally released.
The funny thing is if that Votann hadn't been nerfed you might probably be here(or someone else) be complaining that GW did not address the imbalance of the army. In other words, it's a situation where someone will always be unhappy.
TreeStewges wrote:It isn’t practical to test against every army though, someone did some basic math on that not too long ago and it would take 1-2
years to do it, however they did the math.
I think we can conclude they did the maths wrong. Even with the most generous dtermination of what constitutes an individual faction, 40k has 31 factions. That means LoV would need to be playtested against 30 other armies, over 30 games. Even if you had, say, 5 LoV archetypes you wanted to test that's still only 150 games total, which shouldn't be a problem for an organisation with immediate access to literally dozens of people who play the game. That's a pretty extreme example as well - you don't really need to playtest that extensively to get good results.
Karol wrote:
Aecus Decimus 807483 11449300 wrote:
Win rates aren't the only source of data. People did the math and it was clear that squats were way out of line in efficiency and were going to be a major problem. Playtesting games backed up this analysis. We don't need to waste a month on a completely broken meta just to prove that yes, water is in fact wet.
So were dark eldar or eldar, and people did the math too, yet somehow the books were not nerfed. In fact in case of DE, they were actualy buffed, after playtesters said the army is going to be very powerful. And both armies were left to be powerful for months, before any big changes happened. And by big changes I mean negative ones, because DE after they came out, almost instantly also got their cult of stryfe buff
It is always odd how with those armies, the players are told to wait, for the meta to adapt, to learn to play , for the armies not being popular so having low impact on the actual play field etc. Yet here we were with LoV, and they got killed off before ever getting their time to shine.
This has been explained to you repeatedly. It was an error to allow DE (and more recently Tyranids) to remain as powerful as they were (or are) for as long as they did. Realising that error and correcting it is the right thing to do. Continuing to make the same mistakes you've repeatedly made in the past is the height of stupidity. There's nothing we can do to change the mistakes of the past, but we don't need to continue to make them now.
As to the OP's original question, the answer is most likely no, they weren't prematurely nerfed. The vast majority of tournaments aren't allowing the unreleased models to be used yet, which restricts LoV to their basic troops, units of bikes and 2 characters. They have no psykers, no vehicles, no real close combat threat and none of their utility units are available yet. The full army is released next week so it may not be until the New Year before we see whether the army is sitting in the right place in terms of win percentage.
We do know the analysis of their efficiency prior to the nerfs indicated a real problem, and this was borne out by some playtesting using proxies. We'll likely never know how good they would have been in their unnerfed state versus the other top armies.
- need empirical data to gauge what and how much to alter, so some real world data was needed. The pre-nerf prevented this and as such we cannot say objectively where they stand until they have sufficient datasets to work out what has happened
- theory and hypothetical simulations showed the faction to be uncomfortably efficient and extrapolated conclusions are enough to ensure that the new was needed. Conversely using these same methods, the partial data sets and hypothetical trends seen currently are enough to draw a conclusion from
- take the 2nd half of option 1 and the first half of option 2. Nerf based on incomplete data then need detailed data to assess outcome. This one is still valid but feels the most dishonest in my opinion.
I think you are missing the option that theory and hypothetical simulations are superior to anything short of a massive amount of data. Is the conclusion that the nerf was too great or shouldn't have happened at all based on the 30% win rate alone or a combination of subjective evalutations of the army's performance by players and mathematical proof that the army is now undertuned even relative to other weak factions?
To your first point it was a tldr summary but there is a break point on dataset, the emphasis here was hypothetical scenarios were acted upon with little to no real data. I aren't a statistician nor a mathematician by trade so I can't weigh in on how much data is relevant.
With the latter, oddly they got the nerf faq and there was much back patting and then I've not seen any revised theoretical or mathematical models, nor any feedback on them being "tested" by the community. I'd love to seesome to answer you with confidence, but it does feel the masses got their way and walked away without checking if it was right.
That I think is where the people discussing it are waiting for the data before it comes to much more discussion.
And I sorta forget some of the details, but isn’t a lot of the math still similar. With most of the big difference to how it interacts with weapons, and points difference.
There is also two different balance discussions. I don’t remember any discussion at all over points balance, and almost entirely over the way the judgment tokens interact the game.
Which can throw balance off a lot when it’s %100+ Different based on the tokens for some units.
Much like Tyranids and Harlequins and Tau and Custodes the Votaan have combined really good army rules with datasheets which are incredibly pushed for their points compared with everything else already in 40k.
Beserks should never have been 22. But at 30 I think they are just okay, not game breaking. Their lack of speed is an issue when transports have all been nerfed.
Hearthguard at 35 were solid. At 45? I think they are overcosted and possibly moving towards even being bad.
Bikers at 35 rather than 30? Its probably a fair price rather than a pushed one.
Hekaton at 230 with the boosted Magna Rail was obscene. At 300 with the nerfed to that gun? I'm not sure it's that hot. Its probably still better than a Repulsor Executioner at the same price - but we know that sucks.
Thunderkyn seemed borderline bad before they went up 5 points, and now I'll be amazed if GW sell any.
This isn't some sort of arcane divination. Take the most overpowered army in the game. Take 2 or 3 units off the table. Play out the game. Suddenly it won't do half as well.
Which I think is also the issue of "just playtest lol". Identifying that an overpowered faction is overpowered probably doesn't take that many games. GW's excuses for throwing these out are thin - its best explained by the fact they have deadlines, the books were all printed months ago and they don't really care and prefer to clean up afterwards.
But the issue is that tuning a book down is a harder process. For example, do you change the datasheets, do you change the army rules or do you up the points so they play with less stuff? Almost every 2022 codex seems to have experienced a combo of all three. And how many games are you then going to play with each new version of these rules? Very quickly you can be into playing hundreds of games - and that faction has to get sent out the door so you can repeat the process with the next one.
Thunderkyn seemed borderline bad before they went up 5 points, and now I'll be amazed if GW sell any.
What if 10th was a vehicle nerf, and suddenly units like hellblasters, dark reapers, thunderkin etc becoming the choice of long range support? Maybe GW is preping them to be, a thing, in 2-3 years time.
Clearly when books are writen months in advance, but your edition has a 3-5 months delay, some stuff which maybe was ment to be good for a short time and other stuff which was ment to be balanced by other stuff, just doesn't happen. DA or Custodes, who were hailed as edition killers, when they got their new books, look rather came comparing to even nerfed versions of lets say tyranids. Also explains why ad mecha can be totaly unnerfed.
My problem with GW is the fact that they use the win rates as smoke screen. Yeah, WS+IH on top of IF, CF or RG do give that 39% win rate, but IF on their own are sub 30% and that would look really bad on paper, and would be hard to explain why it isn't being changed. For AoSGW talks a lot about external and internal balance, now how much the new changes actualy reflect that I am going to ignore here for now, but at least they do mention it to be a thing.
In w40k GW knows that custodes with their win rates live and breath on FW units, FW dreadnoughts etc, but they do not adress that. They also don't adress stuff like GSC being really hard and unfun to play in general. Can someone with very good skills and a super specific army do okey in some events? Yes, but that does not extend to the store kid who though GSC look cool. But to be honest, GW explanations have been the same since 8th ed, and I have a feeling that they could have been the same in prior editions too.
Thunderkyn seemed borderline bad before they went up 5 points, and now I'll be amazed if GW sell any.
What if 10th was a vehicle nerf, and suddenly units like hellblasters, dark reapers, thunderkin etc becoming the choice of long range support? Maybe GW is preping them to be, a thing, in 2-3 years time.
99% of vehicles already suck. 9th IS the infantry edition.
All the top factions use multiple vehicles or monsters. I can't remember the last time we had a infantry army "problem" unless jetbike custodes count as infantry somehow. Even sob and necron, who use a lot of infantry and are good, aren't good because of infantry, but because they more or less ignore what the opponent is doing while scoring points.
I think most people would be glad to reverse a nerf if they have a substandard win rate after all the units have been out for a bit. Will you also admit you were wrong if they have a 45-55% win after full access to their units? Time will tell if the needs were too heavy handed but even if they needed a smaller point numb most people recognize that they did need changing
Karol wrote: All the top factions use multiple vehicles or monsters. I can't remember the last time we had a infantry army "problem" unless jetbike custodes count as infantry somehow. Even sob and necron, who use a lot of infantry and are good, aren't good because of infantry, but because they more or less ignore what the opponent is doing while scoring points.
youre mixing vehicles and monsters together
make a list of the vehicles (non character ones i should add) that are making top lists, then compare that list to the rest of vehicle datasheet in the game.
Why does the distinction between monsters and vehicles matter? There are also some Bikes that are borderline vehicles and should be counted against the hypothesis that 9th is an infantry edition. I think calling it an Infantry edition makes the most sense if you were going to call it something but overall it looks like it's very varied. Here's a list of the vehicles that have gotten a top 4 in a GT in the last couple of weeks, the breadth definitely shows that it's just a points issue that any one vehicle doesn't show up.
vict0988 wrote: Why does the distinction between monsters and vehicles matter? There are also some Bikes that are borderline vehicles and should be counted against the hypothesis that 9th is an infantry edition. I think calling it an Infantry edition makes the most sense if you were going to call it something but overall it looks like it's very varied. Here's a list of the vehicles that have gotten a top 4 in a GT in the last couple of weeks, the breadth definitely shows that it's just a points issue that any one vehicle doesn't show up.
EviscerationPlague wrote: We'd have people here saying "wait and see" if GW decided Cultists were now armed with Assault Cannons standard for no point increase.
I guess the argument is that if GW did give cultists assault cannons it would be straight forward to say "stop...reverse, delete".
Its harder however if GW go "no, we are committed, our solution is to raise the cost of everything in the codex by 20%."
Some tournament games (i.e. a few hundred) with pre-nerfed Votann would have at least given us more of an indication of where the strengths are (probably Beserks+Magna Rail Hekatons but you never know) and therefore what to change.
EviscerationPlague wrote: We'd have people here saying "wait and see" if GW decided Cultists were now armed with Assault Cannons standard for no point increase.
Sooo which wait and see is it? "Wait and see how much of a nerf they need" to the published codex or "wait and see if their win rate goes up from 30%"? One of those required an immediate beat down of GW publicly the other one apparently doesn't and you seem to think both are wrong?
EviscerationPlague wrote: We'd have people here saying "wait and see" if GW decided Cultists were now armed with Assault Cannons standard for no point increase.
I guess the argument is that if GW did give cultists assault cannons it would be straight forward to say "stop...reverse, delete".
Its harder however if GW go "no, we are committed, our solution is to raise the cost of everything in the codex by 20%."
Some tournament games (i.e. a few hundred) with pre-nerfed Votann would have at least given us more of an indication of where the strengths are (probably Beserks+Magna Rail Hekatons but you never know) and therefore what to change.
This sums it up, they just took a shotgun to the points page and let rip without really any guidance or thought.
Some tournament games (i.e. a few hundred) with pre-nerfed Votann would have at least given us more of an indication of where the strengths are (probably Beserks+Magna Rail Hekatons but you never know) and therefore what to change.
I really hate how this turned out in past. I can sympathise with LoV players that want their new faction to not be gak, but they shouldn't get to ruin the game for 3 months. I know that GW had success with a previous round of nerfs pre-launch in AoS where the army dominated despite the pre-launch nerfs.
vict0988 wrote: Why does the distinction between monsters and vehicles matter? There are also some Bikes that are borderline vehicles and should be counted against the hypothesis that 9th is an infantry edition. I think calling it an Infantry edition makes the most sense if you were going to call it something but overall it looks like it's very varied. Here's a list of the vehicles that have gotten a top 4 in a GT in the last couple of weeks, the breadth definitely shows that it's just a points issue that any one vehicle doesn't show up.
Do you want me to list all the infantry units compared to the ones that actually see use as well? You're never going to see every unit make it in a top 4 list in an edition, I think I showed that vehicles are fine in 9th. You might not like the lack of fully mechanised lists outside Knights, I don't miss it too much, it being an option but at best a mediocre one is pretty much exactly what I want.
vict0988 wrote: I really hate how this turned out in past. I can sympathise with LoV players that want their new faction to not be gak, but they shouldn't get to ruin the game for 3 months. I know that GW had success with a previous round of nerfs pre-launch in AoS where the army dominated despite the pre-launch nerfs.
It would be about 6 weeks at most, and outside of some people who would sprint to buy 3 Hekatons etc, I'm not sure it will be all that.
I guess we'll live with the myth that you couldn't move in every FLGS for people with 9 Voidweavers - but it just wasn't the case, and I don't think it would be so here.
EviscerationPlague wrote: We'd have people here saying "wait and see" if GW decided Cultists were now armed with Assault Cannons standard for no point increase.
Sooo which wait and see is it? "Wait and see how much of a nerf they need" to the published codex or "wait and see if their win rate goes up from 30%"? One of those required an immediate beat down of GW publicly the other one apparently doesn't and you seem to think both are wrong?
The original nerf was definitely the correct way to do it. If GW had waited for the entire line to be sold before nerfing clearly broken stuff people would have complained that they bought the army or x unit and GW stole their money and then nerfed the faction. Now people can buy whatever units they want knowing that if anything they will have their points reduced a bit. People would have been buying 3 land fortresses and crying non stop that they were nerfed.
EviscerationPlague wrote: We'd have people here saying "wait and see" if GW decided Cultists were now armed with Assault Cannons standard for no point increase.
Sooo which wait and see is it? "Wait and see how much of a nerf they need" to the published codex or "wait and see if their win rate goes up from 30%"? One of those required an immediate beat down of GW publicly the other one apparently doesn't and you seem to think both are wrong?
The original nerf was definitely the correct way to do it. If GW had waited for the entire line to be sold before nerfing clearly broken stuff people would have complained that they bought the army or x unit and GW stole their money and then nerfed the faction. Now people can buy whatever units they want knowing that if anything they will have their points reduced a bit. People would have been buying 3 land fortresses and crying non stop that they were nerfed.
OK, but now they're getting low win rates do we buff them before the rest of the range hits the table so people don't complain they got duped into buying a crap army launch set?
Or do we "wait and see" wait happens despite that being the same as hand waving assault cannon cultists.
There's some immense double standards here. Again I agreed that the army needed a once over and a nerf in the old threads, but I expected it to be nuanced and based on results and supportive data rather than a pitchfork mob.
EviscerationPlague wrote: We'd have people here saying "wait and see" if GW decided Cultists were now armed with Assault Cannons standard for no point increase.
Sooo which wait and see is it? "Wait and see how much of a nerf they need" to the published codex or "wait and see if their win rate goes up from 30%"? One of those required an immediate beat down of GW publicly the other one apparently doesn't and you seem to think both are wrong?
The original nerf was definitely the correct way to do it. If GW had waited for the entire line to be sold before nerfing clearly broken stuff people would have complained that they bought the army or x unit and GW stole their money and then nerfed the faction. Now people can buy whatever units they want knowing that if anything they will have their points reduced a bit. People would have been buying 3 land fortresses and crying non stop that they were nerfed.
OK, but now they're getting low win rates do we buff them before the rest of the range hits the table so people don't complain they got duped into buying a crap army launch set?
Or do we "wait and see" wait happens despite that being the same as hand waving assault cannon cultists.
There's some immense double standards here. Again I agreed that the army needed a once over and a nerf in the old threads, but I expected it to be nuanced and based on results and supportive data rather than a pitchfork mob.
What's the double standard?
Option A: people buy army that's clearly broken/ units they bought get nerfed/ they are now mad because they spent money on bad units and or can't run them because now the list has gone up in points
Option B: people buy an army that is underpowered/ units they bought get buffed in the future because they are underperforming/ now people are getting even more out of the units they purchased then they expected
Option B is just the better way to do it ever single time. Or do you not remember the gnashing of teeth from people that bought max ork buggies before the change to a clearly broken unit?
EviscerationPlague wrote: We'd have people here saying "wait and see" if GW decided Cultists were now armed with Assault Cannons standard for no point increase.
Sooo which wait and see is it? "Wait and see how much of a nerf they need" to the published codex or "wait and see if their win rate goes up from 30%"? One of those required an immediate beat down of GW publicly the other one apparently doesn't and you seem to think both are wrong?
The original nerf was definitely the correct way to do it. If GW had waited for the entire line to be sold before nerfing clearly broken stuff people would have complained that they bought the army or x unit and GW stole their money and then nerfed the faction. Now people can buy whatever units they want knowing that if anything they will have their points reduced a bit. People would have been buying 3 land fortresses and crying non stop that they were nerfed.
OK, but now they're getting low win rates do we buff them before the rest of the range hits the table so people don't complain they got duped into buying a crap army launch set?
Or do we "wait and see" wait happens despite that being the same as hand waving assault cannon cultists.
There's some immense double standards here. Again I agreed that the army needed a once over and a nerf in the old threads, but I expected it to be nuanced and based on results and supportive data rather than a pitchfork mob.
What's the double standard?
Option A: people buy army that's clearly broken/ units they bought get nerfed/ they are now mad because they spent money on bad units and or can't run them because now the list has gone up in points
Option B: people buy an army that is underpowered/ units they bought get buffed in the future because they are underperforming/ now people are getting even more out of the units they purchased then they expected
Option B is just the better way to do it ever single time. Or do you not remember the gnashing of teeth from people that bought max ork buggies before the change to a clearly broken unit?
The double standard is to knee jerk demand balance changes with next to no data. Then when the results trickle in the same people like wise old sages ask people to slowly wait and see what changes are needed.
Asenion wrote:Then why make a judgment at all? If it's untested, why not wait and see instead of deciding before it is even given a real test? That suggests bias.
I blame the Elf fans - they just can't have a Dwarf faction doing well [/possibly-not-entirely-serious]
Aecus Decimus wrote:We don't need to waste a month on a completely broken meta just to prove that yes, water is in fact wet.
Except that... it isn't.
To quote an article from the Medium from last year:
According to most scientific texts, wetness is a quality that can be measured. It is the ability of a liquid to adhere to the surface of a solid. When we say that something is wet, we mean that liquid is sticking to its surface.
As water is a liquid, by definition it can't be wet. Ice, however, can be.
EviscerationPlague wrote: We'd have people here saying "wait and see" if GW decided Cultists were now armed with Assault Cannons standard for no point increase.
Sooo which wait and see is it? "Wait and see how much of a nerf they need" to the published codex or "wait and see if their win rate goes up from 30%"? One of those required an immediate beat down of GW publicly the other one apparently doesn't and you seem to think both are wrong?
The original nerf was definitely the correct way to do it. If GW had waited for the entire line to be sold before nerfing clearly broken stuff people would have complained that they bought the army or x unit and GW stole their money and then nerfed the faction. Now people can buy whatever units they want knowing that if anything they will have their points reduced a bit. People would have been buying 3 land fortresses and crying non stop that they were nerfed.
OK, but now they're getting low win rates do we buff them before the rest of the range hits the table so people don't complain they got duped into buying a crap army launch set?
Or do we "wait and see" wait happens despite that being the same as hand waving assault cannon cultists.
There's some immense double standards here. Again I agreed that the army needed a once over and a nerf in the old threads, but I expected it to be nuanced and based on results and supportive data rather than a pitchfork mob.
What's the double standard?
Option A: people buy army that's clearly broken/ units they bought get nerfed/ they are now mad because they spent money on bad units and or can't run them because now the list has gone up in points
Option B: people buy an army that is underpowered/ units they bought get buffed in the future because they are underperforming/ now people are getting even more out of the units they purchased then they expected
Option B is just the better way to do it ever single time. Or do you not remember the gnashing of teeth from people that bought max ork buggies before the change to a clearly broken unit?
The double standard is to knee jerk demand balance changes with next to no data. Then when the results trickle in the same people like wise old sages ask people to slowly wait and see what changes are needed.
You are falling for your own double standard though. There is no data with all the units out and in wide circulation so you saying the nerfs being kneejerk in and of itself is a kneejerk reaction. Everyone and GW could do some simple math and see the initial release of LOV was far out of whack. I haven't seen a single top-level player or previous playtester say they were fine. Now there has been debate about whether or not the nerf was a bit to bit. I do notice that you ignored my entire part about people buying units that then get nerfed. It's just clear that GW took the proper route so now people can safely buy these units knowing they will either A. settle into a 45-55 win rate or B. get buffed. Both of those are preferable to 2-3 months of LVO crushing gak than those units being nerfed right as the casual crowd finished painting them.
No, that is not the same. You are making the argument that Tyranids are overpowered because Tau have a 99% win rate, and that Orks need to be buffed because Eldar have a 0% win rate. None of your tournament win rate data is in any way relevant because very few, if any, of those games are using the real squat codex.
How did I make that point in any way? I said the win rate of Votann being low at launch is anomalous given that most other factions had a higher then normal win rate at launch. It's not a smoking gun by itself but it's a strong piece of evidence.
Aecus Decimus wrote: The major issue with judgement tokens was with a unit that is currently banned in tournament play.
Please don't make outdated points. The rest of the Codex has been released for over a week now. You are just spreading misinformation.
Aecus Decimus wrote: Not at all true. Squats are a special case because they're an entirely new army. Other factions haven't had the same kind of partial release and have not had significant parts of the codex banned for the first month or two.
Those parts of the codex were banned because the models were not officially released by GW yet - it had nothing to do with balance. You said this in your own words -from literally earlier today:
You do know that many, if not all, events are not allowing the unreleased units, right? Most of that 30% win rate is being generated by players using a partial codex, not the real codex that we will see in the near future once the full model range is out.[
Straight from the horses mouth.
I mean it's hard to even know what to say at this point since you seem to be contradicting yourself left and right and saying outright falsehoods like "the full codex isn't out" when it's been out for over a week.
Oh so according to that logic 1 play test can be sufficient to prove your point but 1000 play tests showing the contrary are baseless because " the conclusion is obvious."
Please try to read more carefully.
One game with 10 point Baneblades can demonstrate the obvious: that 10 point Baneblades are overpowered.
1000 games of Eldar vs. Orks can not tell you anything about balance questions involving Baneblades because nobody is playing guard in those games.
Your supposed "1000 tests" do not tell you anything useful about the balance of the squat codex because the 1000 games are not being played with the squat codex.
LOL. Well I seem to be reading your points more carefully then even yourself seeing as I'm finding direct contradictions in less then a 24 hour period.
And no I don't disagree. There are too many variables. As someone else whose judgment I place higher then yours noted there are 31 factions. Each faction has dozens of models. Each model has dozens of stats. Then there are factors like terrain, strategems, mission objectives and likely other variables we cannot take into account.
This is why play-testing is critical.
Arguing that we don't need play-testing or only a tiny amount is just an argument to encourage GW to be cheap and lazy.
Likewise, as some one noted saying only a certain amount of data counts - and then we stop counting the data until you want to count the data again is a double standard.
If a month was enough time to accumulate data, then 2-3 months is enough time also. Saying "Well 2-3 months isn't enough - we need six months! Maybe even two years because of 'math' ." Is a clear double standard.
The math works both ways, the 30 percent win rate is math too and it's better because we are not just cherry-picking data which can bias the equations but looking at the overall numbers in real, competitive, officially documented games where people are seriously competing. Unless you are proposing some kind of conspiracy theory whereby the mods or players of these tournaments are rigging these numbers to intentionally make the Votann look weak ( honestly don't see how you can dispute this, though given how misinformed you seem regarding certain aspects of the issue and your general lack of efficiency (coupled with your nearly desperate, emotional tone which includes all caps and even curse words at certain points) I find it increasingly difficult to regard your analysis as objective or rational in general.
EviscerationPlague wrote: We'd have people here saying "wait and see" if GW decided Cultists were now armed with Assault Cannons standard for no point increase.
I guess the argument is that if GW did give cultists assault cannons it would be straight forward to say "stop...reverse, delete".
Its harder however if GW go "no, we are committed, our solution is to raise the cost of everything in the codex by 20%."
Some tournament games (i.e. a few hundred) with pre-nerfed Votann would have at least given us more of an indication of where the strengths are (probably Beserks+Magna Rail Hekatons but you never know) and therefore what to change.
It was blatantly obvious reading the codex when they can make 6s the value in a bunch of instances LOL.
I don't need to play games with Votaan to determine they're stupid in the same way I don't need to play games with Cultists w/ free Assault Cannons to determine they're stupid. Y'all give GW way too much credit as "rules writers".
And? Are you claiming that all these Tournaments applied these special handicaps to Votann and only Votann in this way?
Tournament's didn't. GW did.
In case you haven't heard....THE MODELS ONLY GOT RELEASED LIKE LAST SATURDAY! And that's for preorder...
So the votann armies in general have been missing most of the units in tournaments because YOU CANNOT BUY THEM YET!
If you disagree go to your FLGS and try to buy land fortress. Or berserkers. Try to get packet with you home. Short of store breaking their agreeements you can't do that.
Marines meanwhile have the units in codex on sale.
OMG SO MANY CAPS IT'S HARD TO KNOW WHAT YOU'RE SAYING!!
In any rate Table Top Titans just played a game with the new models, as have many other youtubers since they are now at full release for much of the community, and guess what?
THEY ARE STILL LOSING PRETT BAD!!!
35 to 15!!!!!
ALL WITH THE FULL RANGE OF MODELS!!!!
So yeah I mean losing 2 to 1 with the full model range hardly supports your point - how is that for math?
Granted but all your argument from "math" was primarily based on JTs being so over powered that they broke the game and JTs are still in play with a minor nerf and we aren't seeing any of this.
The hypothesis was tested - the results are the opposite of what the hypothesis predicted. In science this is know as a failed hypothesis.
Funny that. JT's being nerfed.
Gee. No wonder they aren't broken OP because they got nerfed...Funny that. Nerfs doing what they were meant to do. What? You were expecting nerfs to make them more powerful? You have funny ideas.
The nerf to JTs was minor and by and large only effected one weapon. If you read the article which apparently showed omniscient, super-human levels of "math" that us mere mortals must never question - it said the JT system was hopelessly broken, saying it increased weapon damage by 600 percent among other absurd claims.
All the nerf did was remove 6s from being automatic with JT hits. That's all. And it only effects a handful of Votann weapons. That alone should not make the win rate so abysmal compared to what we should expect - especially for a new faction unless the initial analysis was incorrect which I suspect is the case seeing as the author himself admitted to ignoring a multitude of variables and clearly had some kind of bias seeing as he was cursing with exclamation marks during his "mathematical analysis".
EviscerationPlague wrote: We'd have people here saying "wait and see" if GW decided Cultists were now armed with Assault Cannons standard for no point increase.
Sooo which wait and see is it? "Wait and see how much of a nerf they need" to the published codex
Tyel wrote: I'll jump up and down for points balance then.
Much like Tyranids and Harlequins and Tau and Custodes the Votaan have combined really good army rules with datasheets which are incredibly pushed for their points compared with everything else already in 40k.
Beserks should never have been 22. But at 30 I think they are just okay, not game breaking. Their lack of speed is an issue when transports have all been nerfed.
Hearthguard at 35 were solid. At 45? I think they are overcosted and possibly moving towards even being bad.
Bikers at 35 rather than 30? Its probably a fair price rather than a pushed one.
Hekaton at 230 with the boosted Magna Rail was obscene. At 300 with the nerfed to that gun? I'm not sure it's that hot. Its probably still better than a Repulsor Executioner at the same price - but we know that sucks.
Thunderkyn seemed borderline bad before they went up 5 points, and now I'll be amazed if GW sell any.
I'm sorry but that looks entirely subjective, which is why play testing is critical. Even the most well intended person is subject to biases - such as confirmation bias. Even in science this is a problem which is why a myriad of checks like the need to be able to replicate results and the peer review process are critical.
Simply saying the points "feel" off is really questionable. Tp me a lot of Space Marine points feel off. A lot of Sister's of Battle points feel off, a lot of Chaos Demon points and strategems seem to be hopelessly unbalanced, but I recognize that could just be my biases and we don't really know until the factions are play tested in multiple games where players are purposely trying to optimize and counter each other in a serious manner.
To me the 30 percent win rate is a big red flag. More data is always welcome, and either it will confirm or disprove that assertion. I can't speculate on what the data will be, but I can note the same people saying "we need more data before we can make any sort of judgment" now were the same that called for a nerf before the faction was even released to the general public.
Again this shows clear double standards.
tneva82 wrote: This isn't some sort of arcane divination. Take the most overpowered army in the game. Take 2 or 3 units off the table. Play out the game. Suddenly it won't do half as well.
Well that's part of the game. There is no way to make a game like Warhammer 100 percent balanced, especially for every single unit. That is why meta-data has to be the standard.
Trying to isolate and alter powerful units 1 by 1 is never going to work - there are just too many units and too many factions.
The best we can do is look at the big picture and make an analysis accordingly. If some units seem to under-perform : improve them a little. If some overperform - increase points costs slightly.
But just making sweeping changes before a faction is even released seems extremely counter-productive even if the faction is overpowered. That's like seeing an image a little blurry in your binoculars or under a microscope and instead of sliding a little up or down you just rotate the dial like a madman. You'll never be able to truly balance a faction that way because your change is creating too many variables to accurately zoom into a clear focus.
tneva82 wrote: Which I think is also the issue of "just playtest lol". Identifying that an overpowered faction is overpowered probably doesn't take that many games. GW's excuses for throwing these out are thin - its best explained by the fact they have deadlines, the books were all printed months ago and they don't really care and prefer to clean up afterwards.
Actually it does. Starcraft, RA3, many games have been out and it is still hard to identify which factions are over-powered at times. I think Terrans are OP in SC2 and Allies in RA3 for example, but other players will argue until they are blue in the face that everything is perfectly in order,
And to this day SC2 has been getting patches, The game is roughly 12 years old now and there are only 3 factons. It isn't nearly as complex as Warhammer 40k.
tneva82 wrote: But the issue is that tuning a book down is a harder process. For example, do you change the datasheets, do you change the army rules or do you up the points so they play with less stuff? Almost every 2022 codex seems to have experienced a combo of all three. And how many games are you then going to play with each new version of these rules? Very quickly you can be into playing hundreds of games - and that faction has to get sent out the door so you can repeat the process with the next one.
That's why the steps to alter any faction should be incremental and only after a good amount of play testing. Making radical changes really doesn't help here, let alone imposing radical changes before a faction is even released or put into a single tournament.
Again, my argument isn't even centered around whether the Votann are over-powered or under-powered - I doubt any faction will be perfectly balanced anyways. Let alone the game as a whole.
My argument was that the call for GW to make radical changes was premature and the extremely low win rates seems to confirm my suspicions.
Asenion wrote: How did I make that point in any way? I said the win rate of Votann being low at launch is anomalous given that most other factions had a higher then normal win rate at launch. It's not a smoking gun by itself but it's a strong piece of evidence.
You are making this point by arguing that the crippled partial squat codex (Eldar) has a 0% win rate therefore the real squat codex (Orks) needs to be buffed.
And no, it isn't anomalous at all. Tau had a very high win rate at launch and required multiple nerfs but guess what: their entire codex was legal at launch. They didn't have to spend a month or two playing with a crippled partial codex. You can't look at a codex that has been deliberately crippled in most events and conclude that the resulting low win rate will remain constant once the banned material is unbanned and the full codex is available.
Please don't make outdated points. The rest of the Codex has been released for over a week now. You are just spreading misinformation.
Pre-order product that will be delivered from 11/5/2022.
The full model line is not out yet and the full codex is not legal in most events.
Those parts of the codex were banned because the models were not officially released by GW yet - it had nothing to do with balance.
Please stop making straw man arguments. I said very clearly that the ban was because of unreleased models.
And no I don't disagree. There are too many variables. As someone else whose judgment I place higher then yours noted there are 31 factions. Each faction has dozens of models. Each model has dozens of stats. Then there are factors like terrain, strategems, mission objectives and likely other variables we cannot take into account.
There are 31 factions. Each faction has dozens of models. Each model has dozens of stats. Then there are factors like terrain, strategems, mission objectives and likely other variables we cannot take into account. And 10 point Baneblades would still be utterly broken, with only a token amount of playtesting required to confirm that analysis because of how obviously out of line they would be.
EviscerationPlague wrote: We'd have people here saying "wait and see" if GW decided Cultists were now armed with Assault Cannons standard for no point increase.
Sooo which wait and see is it? "Wait and see how much of a nerf they need" to the published codex
EviscerationPlague wrote: We'd have people here saying "wait and see" if GW decided Cultists were now armed with Assault Cannons standard for no point increase.
Sooo which wait and see is it? "Wait and see how much of a nerf they need" to the published codex
It shouldn't have been published to begin with
I agree. They didn't seem to have conducted any play-testing at all, and to me intuitively the prices seemed wonky and the faction mechanics over powered. The key word is seemed btw, as many times this happens in strategy games until the opponents learn to counter the faction and then the mechanic seems under powered. In the new Age of Empires this has happened on and off with Knight rushes for the French and Sprigalds along with Longbow rushes, etc. It's why I prefer at least a good month or two to let people get used to the list and see what counters are possible, and then I think fine tuning should be implemented - ideally in increments. This should start with point changes - as that is the most measurable of changes. Only if point changes seem to have no effect or the points increase becomes so massive that the unit cannot be fielded at all should the developers then deal with the game/unit mechanics, as that change is more qualitative and prone to unpredictable outcomes.
I do like to reserve judgment though for actual play tests, and even then sweeping or radical changes to an entire faction are counter-productive. You're just introducing too many new variables at once and not really fine-tuning the army like a responsible game developer should.
Likewise some of the nerfs didn't even make any sense. Making it so JT's prevent 6s for Magna-rails, etc, is almost a reason not to take them in a way. It creates cross purposes - like making it so Necron regeneration has a chance to kill models in a unit or Disgustingly Resilient can now inflict mortal wounds on one's own model or reduces ap, etc. It didn't seem well thought out at all.
The fact that they did this AND increased point costs substantially AND then further nerfed various relics, etc, to me seemed less like they were acting like responsible game developers and more like they were just caving into a community's emotional reactions.
The fact that various irate members of the community completely spazzed before any real testing and immediately gave GW several pats on the back for these insanely lazy nerfs which seemed based more on appeasement then actual balance didn't help.
And so now where are we? If Votann are under-powered, what does GW do then? Do they swing the pendulum back? How long is that going to take if they do so incrementally now (which they should, though a 30 percent win rate is a ways to go). Do they make more radical changes, make Votann overpowered (again?) and then after more complaints implement more radical, last-dicth-effort super-nerfs?
The problem with this is it can take years for the faction to recover. Take how they handled Guard, AdMech, etc. Initially those were considered OP - the community flipped - GW caved into the hysterical crowd (as most authorities will do seeing as holding one's ground and exercising sober leadership in the face of a screeching mob requires resolve, courage and a strong sense of integrity) and now years later those factions still have an extremely low win rate.
You got a combination of bad leaders, and bad followers. Combine this with a vocal, extremist minority and a corrupt/spineless leadership and you have the ingredients for a disaster in general - which is more common in strategy games then one might initially think.
You are falling for your own double standard though. There is no data with all the units out and in wide circulation so you saying the nerfs being kneejerk in and of itself is a kneejerk reaction. Everyone and GW could do some simple math and see the initial release of LOV was far out of whack. I haven't seen a single top-level player or previous playtester say they were fine. Now there has been debate about whether or not the nerf was a bit to bit. I do notice that you ignored my entire part about people buying units that then get nerfed. It's just clear that GW took the proper route so now people can safely buy these units knowing they will either A. settle into a 45-55 win rate or B. get buffed. Both of those are preferable to 2-3 months of LVO crushing gak than those units being nerfed right as the casual crowd finished painting them.
First of all I aren't showing double standards, you're proving my point. The first change was pre-emptively fired because "it was obvious" with no empirical data to back it up. It was a knee jerk, it was an instant extreme reaction to an unproven product. We still have an unproven product because the whole range isn't out but all signs point to them being below average. Instead of making a corrective change with limited empirical data, those same people are now employing "wait and see if its ok".
My personal stance is they will land at an ok % but they'll be an unhealthy average due to it being about skews.
Regards people's purchases I don't really care either way. It's a dead certainty in this game that point change, profiles get rewritten etc. If someone was buying 3 land fortresses to win easy games, more fool them.
You got a combination of bad leaders, and bad followers. Combine this with a vocal, extremist minority and a corrupt/spineless leadership and you have the ingredients for a disaster in general - which is more common in strategy games then one might initially think.
Well written, wasn't sure where you were going with that but very comprehensive response.
Asenion wrote: (which they should, though a 30 percent loss rate is a ways to go).
SQUATS DO NOT HAVE A 30% WIN RATE
Stop repeating this incredibly dishonest argument. You've been told multiple times that the 30% win rate data is not valid because it isn't using the full codex, you have no excuse for continuing to make that claim.
Take how they handled Guard, AdMech, etc.
Yes, talk about how they handled guard. Early in index-era 8th they nerfed a single problematic and anti-fun list (conscripts + commissars) and when they printed the codex they didn't restore that anti-fun list. The rest of the army was untouched, there was no general nerf. The reason guard have been underperforming is not that GW over-nerfed conscripts, it's that they have the oldest codex and are on the wrong end of years of blatant power creep from the rest of the game. If GW had reversed the conscript nerf they'd still be in the exact same position right now.
(And remember, 8th's morale system was completely different and the nerf that applied in 8th is not even relevant in 9th.)
Asenion wrote: (which they should, though a 30 percent loss rate is a ways to go).
SQUATS DO NOT HAVE A 30% WIN RATE
Stop repeating this incredibly dishonest argument. You've been told multiple times that the 30% win rate data is not valid because it isn't using the full codex, you have no excuse for continuing to make that claim.
What was their win rate when they got nerfed? Pretty sure it was n/a and wasn't using any codex.
Asenion wrote: (which they should, though a 30 percent loss rate is a ways to go).
SQUATS DO NOT HAVE A 30% WIN RATE
Stop repeating this incredibly dishonest argument. You've been told multiple times that the 30% win rate data is not valid because it isn't using the full codex, you have no excuse for continuing to make that claim.
Oh come on, they do have a 30 percent win rate, you're just saying it doesn't count because the full codex isn't out for the general public yet.
And you are ignoring the point of how other factions didn't have their full models released right away and still upon initial launch had over-performing win rates.
To me this isn't by itself a problem, but to go from over-performing for a new faction to a 30 percent win rate suggests that the calls for such radical nerfs were way off. This means GW might have a long ways to go in order to make the faction viable again, and the fact is GW hasn't had the best record with regards to resolving these issues in a timely fashion, especially if the models are not selling well and there are some indicators that Votann sales have dipped heavily as a result of these crazy nerfs.
Likewise Titans did a play test of the Votann with their full Codex against a Tournament strong Ork list and they lost really, really bad. It was something like 35 points to 15 points. I mean, say Votann were TWICE as strong, that would mean 35 points to 30 - so at double their current strength they still would have lost.
To me it seems like a blunder by certain extreme members of the community and some inept tendencies by GW and the worst part is both those groups seem to be reinforcing reach other's bad tendencies.
Asenion wrote: Oh come on, they do have a 30 percent win rate, you're just saying it doesn't count because the full codex isn't out for the general public yet.
Shocking, a faction that has half its codex banned in competitive play is struggling in competitive play. You can't ban key units from an army and then use that as an argument that the full post-ban army should get buffed.
And you are ignoring the point of how other factions didn't have their full models released right away and still upon initial launch had over-performing win rates.
What models from other factions were banned on launch? Tau didn't have launch bans, clown elves didn't have launch bans, gold marines didn't have launch bans, IIRC tyranids didn't have launch bans.
To me this isn't by itself a problem, but to go from over-performing for a new faction to a 30 percent win rate suggests that the calls for such radical nerfs were way off.
It only suggests that if you are making a dishonest attempt at getting your pet faction buffed. If you look at the situation objectively you'll see that one of the biggest nerfs, to the unit that generated the most outrage, was to a unit that is currently banned in competitive play. How can competitive play data tell you anything about that nerf when the unit isn't included in the data?
I guess we'll find out in two weeks when we are no longer dealing with "private tournaments" but will see things all over the world.
I have no real difficulty with believing the faction would have been overpowered, but the JT change and hard points hikes may now mean they are quite poor.
The problem with "private tournaments" though is its hard to know the dynamics. What for instance does "Squat good stuff" look like? What's the optimal approach?
I guess I could have a stab if I got the codex and embraced pure theory.
You are falling for your own double standard though. There is no data with all the units out and in wide circulation so you saying the nerfs being kneejerk in and of itself is a kneejerk reaction. Everyone and GW could do some simple math and see the initial release of LOV was far out of whack. I haven't seen a single top-level player or previous playtester say they were fine. Now there has been debate about whether or not the nerf was a bit to bit. I do notice that you ignored my entire part about people buying units that then get nerfed. It's just clear that GW took the proper route so now people can safely buy these units knowing they will either A. settle into a 45-55 win rate or B. get buffed. Both of those are preferable to 2-3 months of LVO crushing gak than those units being nerfed right as the casual crowd finished painting them.
First of all I aren't showing double standards, you're proving my point. The first change was pre-emptively fired because "it was obvious" with no empirical data to back it up. It was a knee jerk, it was an instant extreme reaction to an unproven product. We still have an unproven product because the whole range isn't out but all signs point to them being below average. Instead of making a corrective change with limited empirical data, those same people are now employing "wait and see if its ok".
My personal stance is they will land at an ok % but they'll be an unhealthy average due to it being about skews.
I think I see where you are confused now. You are taking tournament games played as the only type of empirical data. By that logic, we should just release every army's data slate at 1 ppm for everything in the codex. Because there is no empirical data to back up that would be broken because no games have been played..... But of course, basic math hammer can be used to gather data without ever playing a game to tell you if something is super out of line. That's why LOV had such a unique reaction when released the basic math for the army didn't add up and thus they got nerfed.
Once again you completely ignored my part about the release schedule. Do you think it would have been better for GW to release units that would have clearly been nerfed after a short period? Is it better for GW to wait to sell the stock before fixing something that will obviously be nerfed after a short period?
James workshop hit the nail on the head about including a first-place trophy in the box because its clear people like you are simply salty you didn't get to enjoy an 85% win rate for 2 months
Asenion wrote: Oh come on, they do have a 30 percent win rate, you're just saying it doesn't count because the full codex isn't out for the general public yet.
Shocking, a faction that has half its codex banned in competitive play is struggling in competitive play. You can't ban key units from an army and then use that as an argument that the full post-ban army should get buffed.
And you are ignoring the point of how other factions didn't have their full models released right away and still upon initial launch had over-performing win rates.
What models from other factions were banned on launch? Tau didn't have launch bans, clown elves didn't have launch bans, gold marines didn't have launch bans, IIRC tyranids didn't have launch bans.
To me this isn't by itself a problem, but to go from over-performing for a new faction to a 30 percent win rate suggests that the calls for such radical nerfs were way off.
It only suggests that if you are making a dishonest attempt at getting your pet faction buffed. If you look at the situation objectively you'll see that one of the biggest nerfs, to the unit that generated the most outrage, was to a unit that is currently banned in competitive play. How can competitive play data tell you anything about that nerf when the unit isn't included in the data?
Again you don't seem to be understanding my point. My point isn't necessarily that Votann are OP or UP, but that the way the faction was released was bad (there was clearly no play testing) and the way a vocal minority overreacted ended up compounding the problem with things like organized boycotts before any tournaments or extensive play testing had been conducted,
GW responding by making a boat load of radical changes in every possible direction, sometimes to the point where the factions buffs become self-inflicting wounds just makes the hole deeper. And having this same angry mob then pat GW on the back for reacting in this way then sets a bad precedent.
My issue is with the process. And we've been here before.
GW makes an uber faction to sell more models. Some vocal minorities prone to irrational tendencies totally lose their minds and make irrational demands - GW goes all out appeasing these demands without any real self-reflection and we end up with problems that take years to fix.
This shows a lack of prioritization for GW, as they should focus on balancing the game as a whole (reducing the win rate of over-performers such as Sisters and 'Nids while buffing under-performers).
And furthermore it wastes a lot of time and resources. All these resources spent fixing all these factions over years can be going into other areas - such as adding new content, new lore or making the overly-insane prices cheaper. All these mistakes ultimately land on the consumer (as I doubt the share-owners or executives will nerf their own salaries or profits for their mistakes) and so we effectively are paying for these mistakes with models that cost hundreds of dollars.
Like I said, every mistake like this has an opportunity cost. Having to fix Guard, and AdMech AND Votann and Tau Drone Spam and 'Nids being OP and Sisters being OP and all the other crap takes resources away from projects that can be used to add new features to improve the game or reduce costs so as to make the game more accessible.
Likely this is why they might not even be play-testing sufficiently now or allowing games to be played in their stores - they are getting over-extended and now they are going to have to make painful cuts. Problems like that can be self-reinforcing over time. And even worse instead of focusing GW just seems invested in trying magical solutions - like new side games or factions to generate more income - which just creates more problems instead of addressing these fundamental issues,
Again the whole thing was handled bad overall - the initial launch, the community reaction, GW's response and the community's sheepish acceptance of the poorly conceived solution. What is missing is any sort of self-reflection, accountability or a willingness to learn from any parties whatsoever.
Asenion wrote: My point isn't necessarily that Votann are OP or UP
But over and over again you keep citing that 30% win rate and claiming that squats are weak and over-nerfed. Your dishonesty here is impressive.
(there was clearly no play testing)
How do you know there was no playtesting? If you're claiming the nerfs were unjustified then where is your evidence for a lack of playtesting? You seem to have a weird double standard here, where the squat codex is just fine when you want to argue against the nerf but also so obviously overpowered that GW didn't do sufficient playtesting.
GW makes an uber faction to sell more models. Some vocal minorities prone to irrational tendencies totally lose their minds and make irrational demands - GW goes all out appeasing these demands without any real self-reflection and we end up with problems that take years to fix.
{citation needed}
Tau are doing fine. Eldar are doing fine. Both factions received major (and completely justified) nerfs and the sky is not falling. There is no problem that takes "years" to fix.
You are falling for your own double standard though. There is no data with all the units out and in wide circulation so you saying the nerfs being kneejerk in and of itself is a kneejerk reaction. Everyone and GW could do some simple math and see the initial release of LOV was far out of whack. I haven't seen a single top-level player or previous playtester say they were fine. Now there has been debate about whether or not the nerf was a bit to bit. I do notice that you ignored my entire part about people buying units that then get nerfed. It's just clear that GW took the proper route so now people can safely buy these units knowing they will either A. settle into a 45-55 win rate or B. get buffed. Both of those are preferable to 2-3 months of LVO crushing gak than those units being nerfed right as the casual crowd finished painting them.
First of all I aren't showing double standards, you're proving my point. The first change was pre-emptively fired because "it was obvious" with no empirical data to back it up. It was a knee jerk, it was an instant extreme reaction to an unproven product. We still have an unproven product because the whole range isn't out but all signs point to them being below average. Instead of making a corrective change with limited empirical data, those same people are now employing "wait and see if its ok".
My personal stance is they will land at an ok % but they'll be an unhealthy average due to it being about skews.
I think I see where you are confused now. You are taking tournament games played as the only type of empirical data. By that logic, we should just release every army's data slate at 1 ppm for everything in the codex. Because there is no empirical data to back up that would be broken because no games have been played..... But of course, basic math hammer can be used to gather data without ever playing a game to tell you if something is super out of line. That's why LOV had such a unique reaction when released the basic math for the army didn't add up and thus they got nerfed.
Once again you completely ignored my part about the release schedule. Do you think it would have been better for GW to release units that would have clearly been nerfed after a short period? Is it better for GW to wait to sell the stock before fixing something that will obviously be nerfed after a short period?
James workshop hit the nail on the head about including a first-place trophy in the box because its clear people like you are simply salty you didn't get to enjoy an 85% win rate for 2 months
My word you just cut off the part that responds to your precious sales query:
Regards people's purchases I don't really care either way. It's a dead certainty in this game that point change, profiles get rewritten etc. If someone was buying 3 land fortresses to win easy games, more fool them.
And yes I am talking about tournament results, because oddly I can look at a codex and demand it gets altered too, anyone can. That's the point, there was no data to direct any changes.
And you're here leveling accusations I want free wins for a faction I don't own, don't want to own and openly stated I feel needed a nerf in this very thread and comment chain.
EviscerationPlague wrote: We'd have people here saying "wait and see" if GW decided Cultists were now armed with Assault Cannons standard for no point increase.
Sooo which wait and see is it? "Wait and see how much of a nerf they need" to the published codex
It shouldn't have been published to begin with
But you're OK with "wait and see" now?
I've never been okay with wait and see, and I constantly bash that point. Did you not even read my point about Cultists with free Assault Cannons?
EviscerationPlague wrote: We'd have people here saying "wait and see" if GW decided Cultists were now armed with Assault Cannons standard for no point increase.
Sooo which wait and see is it? "Wait and see how much of a nerf they need" to the published codex
It shouldn't have been published to begin with
But you're OK with "wait and see" now?
I've never been okay with wait and see, and I constantly bash that point. Did you not even read my point about Cultists with free Assault Cannons?
I did, but somewhere there needs to be some wait and see, it just seems like people don't really care bow they got their initial rampage out the way. Or more likely a different GW misstep has people upset.
Dudeface wrote: I did, but somewhere there needs to be some wait and see, it just seems like people don't really care bow they got their initial rampage out the way. Or more likely a different GW misstep has people upset.
How long do we need to wait and see if the new guard codex has 10 point Baneblades? A month? Two months? Or can we go straight to the obvious conclusion and tell GW "fix this you morons"?
Dudeface wrote: I did, but somewhere there needs to be some wait and see, it just seems like people don't really care bow they got their initial rampage out the way. Or more likely a different GW misstep has people upset.
How long do we need to wait and see if the new guard codex has 10 point Baneblades? A month? Two months? Or can we go straight to the obvious conclusion and tell GW "fix this you morons"?
Sure but what points should they be, do any of the weapon profiles need adjusting, are they in the right slot, are there any unexpected interactions with the mission formats?
Dudeface wrote: Sure but what points should they be, do any of the weapon profiles need adjusting, are they in the right slot, are there any unexpected interactions with the mission formats?
Make them 1000 points each if you have to. Baneblades that are priced out of competitive play are better than 10 point Baneblades that give guard a 99% non-mirror win rate and make tournaments unplayable unless you have a Baneblade squadron. This isn't the kind of thing where you wait and see to get it perfect. You don't have time for that, you either act immediately and decisively or you cancel every tournament until you do.
Dudeface wrote: Sure but what points should they be, do any of the weapon profiles need adjusting, are they in the right slot, are there any unexpected interactions with the mission formats?
Make them 1000 points each if you have to. Baneblades that are priced out of competitive play are better than 10 point Baneblades that give guard a 99% non-mirror win rate and make tournaments unplayable unless you have a Baneblade squadron. This isn't the kind of thing where you wait and see to get it perfect. You don't have time for that, you either act immediately and decisively or you cancel every tournament until you do.
Excellent, better have a faction with 10% win rate than 90% right?
Dudeface wrote: Sure but what points should they be, do any of the weapon profiles need adjusting, are they in the right slot, are there any unexpected interactions with the mission formats?
Make them 1000 points each if you have to. Baneblades that are priced out of competitive play are better than 10 point Baneblades that give guard a 99% non-mirror win rate and make tournaments unplayable unless you have a Baneblade squadron. This isn't the kind of thing where you wait and see to get it perfect. You don't have time for that, you either act immediately and decisively or you cancel every tournament until you do.
Excellent, better have a faction with 10% win rate than 90% right?
Quite frankly I hope Votaan's win rate and sales crawl lower. GW screwed up this release badly.
The book was designed to go toe-to-toe with books that have all been nerfed post release. On that basis alone, it's logical to assume it too will need to be nerfed to bring it in line with not just those books it was benchmarked against but also the older books. The rules leaking early and allowing folks to playtest the book in TTS further raised alarm about some of the problematic rules interactions.
The initial nerf might have been overdone in spots but it was hardly wild hysteria without supporting evidence that led people to the conclusion that a nerf of some sort was in order and the stats seem to indicate that they aren't far off where they should be in relation to wider field.
Dudeface wrote: Sure but what points should they be, do any of the weapon profiles need adjusting, are they in the right slot, are there any unexpected interactions with the mission formats?
Make them 1000 points each if you have to. Baneblades that are priced out of competitive play are better than 10 point Baneblades that give guard a 99% non-mirror win rate and make tournaments unplayable unless you have a Baneblade squadron. This isn't the kind of thing where you wait and see to get it perfect. You don't have time for that, you either act immediately and decisively or you cancel every tournament until you do.
Excellent, better have a faction with 10% win rate than 90% right?
Quite frankly I hope Votaan's win rate and sales crawl lower. GW screwed up this release badly.
Well I don't thinking victimising a portion of the player base just to weaponise your GW hatred would be fair at this point.
Dudeface wrote: Excellent, better have a faction with 10% win rate than 90% right?
Yes. A faction with a 10% win rate makes things miserable for a small subset of players: the people who play that specific faction and do not have any other army. A faction with a 90% win rate makes things miserable for everyone except that faction. One of these groups is much larger than the other and if I have to choose which one to sacrifice the choice is obvious.
Not that the choice is anything other than a false dilemma fallacy. Guard with a 99% win rate as a result of having 10 point Baneblades would probably not crash all the way to 10% win rate as a result of nerfing Baneblades out of competitive play.
Dudeface wrote: Sure but what points should they be, do any of the weapon profiles need adjusting, are they in the right slot, are there any unexpected interactions with the mission formats?
Make them 1000 points each if you have to. Baneblades that are priced out of competitive play are better than 10 point Baneblades that give guard a 99% non-mirror win rate and make tournaments unplayable unless you have a Baneblade squadron. This isn't the kind of thing where you wait and see to get it perfect. You don't have time for that, you either act immediately and decisively or you cancel every tournament until you do.
Excellent, better have a faction with 10% win rate than 90% right?
Quite frankly I hope Votaan's win rate and sales crawl lower. GW screwed up this release badly.
Well I don't thinking victimising a portion of the player base just to weaponise your GW hatred would be fair at this point.
What playerbase? Nobody had any Votaan models and they weren't even asked for. GW can't even get the current armies they have correctly and not only do they do this and separate World Eaters from the core CSM codex, BUT also announced DarkMech as a new army.
Dudeface wrote: Sure but what points should they be, do any of the weapon profiles need adjusting, are they in the right slot, are there any unexpected interactions with the mission formats?
Make them 1000 points each if you have to. Baneblades that are priced out of competitive play are better than 10 point Baneblades that give guard a 99% non-mirror win rate and make tournaments unplayable unless you have a Baneblade squadron. This isn't the kind of thing where you wait and see to get it perfect. You don't have time for that, you either act immediately and decisively or you cancel every tournament until you do.
Excellent, better have a faction with 10% win rate than 90% right?
Quite frankly I hope Votaan's win rate and sales crawl lower. GW screwed up this release badly.
Well I don't thinking victimising a portion of the player base just to weaponise your GW hatred would be fair at this point.
What playerbase? Nobody had any Votaan models and they weren't even asked for. GW can't even get the current armies they have correctly and not only do they do this and separate World Eaters from the core CSM codex, BUT also announced DarkMech as a new army.
They need to stop.
There was plenty of demand for the return of squats and they've shown what looks to be a dark mech character as a part of a campaign, which isn't the same thing as revealing a new army by any stretch. The point still stands you're willing to throw other peoples enjoyment under the bus in the name of some venomous punishment of a company.
Dudeface wrote: Sure but what points should they be, do any of the weapon profiles need adjusting, are they in the right slot, are there any unexpected interactions with the mission formats?
Make them 1000 points each if you have to. Baneblades that are priced out of competitive play are better than 10 point Baneblades that give guard a 99% non-mirror win rate and make tournaments unplayable unless you have a Baneblade squadron. This isn't the kind of thing where you wait and see to get it perfect. You don't have time for that, you either act immediately and decisively or you cancel every tournament until you do.
Excellent, better have a faction with 10% win rate than 90% right?
Quite frankly I hope Votaan's win rate and sales crawl lower. GW screwed up this release badly.
Well I don't thinking victimising a portion of the player base just to weaponise your GW hatred would be fair at this point.
What playerbase? Nobody had any Votaan models and they weren't even asked for. GW can't even get the current armies they have correctly and not only do they do this and separate World Eaters from the core CSM codex, BUT also announced DarkMech as a new army.
They need to stop.
There was plenty of demand for the return of squats and they've shown what looks to be a dark mech character as a part of a campaign, which isn't the same thing as revealing a new army by any stretch. The point still stands you're willing to throw other peoples enjoyment under the bus in the name of some venomous punishment of a company.
You mean the Squats that got used as Imperial Guard or Marine stand ins anyway? Yeah okay. Votaan are NOT Squats by a long shot in aesthetics or units. Votaan are an army that nobody asked for, and one that doesn't have a player base to begin with because they're a NEW ARMY
Tyel wrote: But the issue is that tuning a book down is a harder process. For example, do you change the datasheets, do you change the army rules or do you up the points so they play with less stuff? Almost every 2022 codex seems to have experienced a combo of all three. And how many games are you then going to play with each new version of these rules? Very quickly you can be into playing hundreds of games - and that faction has to get sent out the door so you can repeat the process with the next one.
99% of the time you just change points, rules should only be changed to make them more thematic. The AdMech Stratagem Enriched Rounds is stupidly overtuned, but it's really not the end of the world if you just change points appropriately, like the core unit of 5 costing 5X and each additional model costing X+Y to discourage big units that make Enriched Rounds too strong. What about Necron Command Protocols that were so bad that some people just ignored them? Let them ignore it, if Necrons are underpowered lower their pts costs.
The designers need to do some basic math on the efficiency of their mechanics and then it needs to be tested by a casual group to see if it is fun, then it's between the competitive testers and the designers to find out how to balance pts and CP costs for the mechanics that are fun. Were the original judgement tokens unfun or were the units just undercosted and the designers needed a scapegoat? Why not reduce T or S instead? Better yet, rely on pts to actually balance things since that is the final determinant of whether units are too good or not good enough anyway.
Problem with enriched rounds and points is you can't exactly point cost unit for stratagem...Because then unit is underpowered if you DON'T use stratagem. Which means having more than 1 unit makes no sense.
I think Stratagems changing every 3 months is worse than the possibility of Vanguard spam being unviable. Because it is only a possibility, when AdMech were released spamming Vanguard was popular despite a lot of their power being baked into the Stratagem, because having a back-up unit to use the Stratagem in case the first one was damage was worthwhile. The same thing was true for Necron Lokhust Destroyers in 8th.
vict0988 wrote: I think Stratagems changing every 3 months is worse than the possibility of Vanguard spam being unviable. Because it is only a possibility, when AdMech were released spamming Vanguard was popular despite a lot of their power being baked into the Stratagem, because having a back-up unit to use the Stratagem in case the first one was damage was worthwhile. The same thing was true for Necron Lokhust Destroyers in 8th.
The possibility of stratagems changing is far better than the certainty of balance issues caused by an overpowered stratagem. And why is having to deal with stratagems changing worse than having to deal with point costs changing?
Similarly with your command protocols example. Having a key mechanic that is ignored because it doesn't work well is very poor design. It seems like the problem is that, like many tournament players, you're excessively caught up in questions of codex vs. codex balance and willing to ignore any issues of internal balance or fun as long as the win rate for the codex as a whole is within the target 45-55%.
vict0988 wrote: Were the original judgement tokens unfun or were the units just undercosted and the designers needed a scapegoat? Why not reduce T or S instead? Better yet, rely on pts to actually balance things since that is the final determinant of whether units are too good or not good enough anyway.
You don't change points or S/T because the interaction between pre-nerf judgement tokens and rail weapons is fundamentally broken and not fun. It's almost impossible to have a balanced and fun version of a unit that effectively has a weapon that automatically hits, automatically wounds, ignores all saves, and gets to apply overkill damage to other models in the unit with flat 12 damage. Don't even roll dice, just pick a target and tell your opponent to remove it from the table. Nerfing the railgun problem directly was a far better plan than trying to find a point cost where auto-killing stuff isn't either an auto-take or a never-take.
Points fix themselves in Battlescribe and is only something the list builder needs to care about, everybody needs to care about and remember rules.
I don't see how I am overly caught up in external balance. Command Protocols being strong has hurt internal balance, not helped it. Especially outside Nephilim where multi-Dynasty lists have become a non-option because Command Protocols have become necessary to build a strong list, just like Combat Doctrines for SM.
It's entirely possible JT were unfun, but why were they printed like that? Do you see how you say the Necrons mechanic was too weak and Necrons were bad and the JT mechanic was broken and LoV were strong, I'm questioning whether you and GW are caring more about win rate than good game design. I think Command Protocols were pretty fun and I got some use out of them, IMO they needed simplification, not a power boost.
Not a Necron player really so I can't claim much experience, but as I understood it the problem with Command Protocols is that you needed baby-sitting characters everywhere. And most Necron Characters were (and probably still are) overcosted, so bringing more of them leads to an obviously inefficient list.
I don't know where "fun" comes into this. Having half a dozen characters on the table seems fun to me - but if it just results in losing most of the time, then not so much.
Losing when you can't do anything about it is always not fun. And a fix to the situation would either be impossible, as there are armies that will always kill what ever they focus on, or the necron characters would have to be made extremly resilient, to a point of them being killed of being impossible, but then this would create a very negative expiriance for non necron players. As the supposed necron handicap, tough army which loses if it has no characters, would only be a thing on paper. I would be like eldar being powerful on attack, but less resilient on taking damge in the lore. But in reality with alfa strikes and over laping -1 to hit, invs and super speed, they are only glass canon in the lore.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Aecus Decimus 807483 11450160 wrote:
You don't change points or S/T because the interaction between pre-nerf judgement tokens and rail weapons is fundamentally broken and not fun. It's almost impossible to have a balanced and fun version of a unit that effectively has a weapon that automatically hits, automatically wounds, ignores all saves, and gets to apply overkill damage to other models in the unit with flat 12 damage. Don't even roll dice, just pick a target and tell your opponent to remove it from the table. Nerfing the railgun problem directly was a far better plan than trying to find a point cost where auto-killing stuff isn't either an auto-take or a never-take.
How is it less fun, then armies like SoB or necron playing soliter though. Sure LoV were awesome vs small and elite armies, especialy those that had their resiliance based on invs. They were the perfect marine and custodes killers, pre nerf. But other armies could counter play them. You can't counter play an army which core mechanics say that, if you don't table them till turn 2, then by turn 3 or 4 they will have maxed secondaries and by the end of the game probably primaries too. And LoV had bad sides, they were slow, very bad on high terrain tables, with weak to bad secondaries
Comparing stuff like MW mechanics on weapons, being able to just play without care in all match ups is mind blowing, why GW thought the the big necron game changer is going to be removing core from the Cmd barrge and the Silent King.
Dudeface wrote: Sure but what points should they be, do any of the weapon profiles need adjusting, are they in the right slot, are there any unexpected interactions with the mission formats?
Make them 1000 points each if you have to. Baneblades that are priced out of competitive play are better than 10 point Baneblades that give guard a 99% non-mirror win rate and make tournaments unplayable unless you have a Baneblade squadron. This isn't the kind of thing where you wait and see to get it perfect. You don't have time for that, you either act immediately and decisively or you cancel every tournament until you do.
Excellent, better have a faction with 10% win rate than 90% right?
Literally yes.... from a game design standpoint it is better to have a 10% win faction than a 90% win rate faction. A 90% win rate faction is literally negatively impacting every other faction in the game. We have something like 25 codexes so a 90% win rate in negatively impacting 24/25 factions. A 10% win rate is negatively impacting just 1 faction so 1/25.
Dudeface wrote: Sure but what points should they be, do any of the weapon profiles need adjusting, are they in the right slot, are there any unexpected interactions with the mission formats?
Make them 1000 points each if you have to. Baneblades that are priced out of competitive play are better than 10 point Baneblades that give guard a 99% non-mirror win rate and make tournaments unplayable unless you have a Baneblade squadron. This isn't the kind of thing where you wait and see to get it perfect. You don't have time for that, you either act immediately and decisively or you cancel every tournament until you do.
Excellent, better have a faction with 10% win rate than 90% right?
Literally yes.... from a game design standpoint it is better to have a 10% win faction than a 90% win rate faction. A 90% win rate faction is literally negatively impacting every other faction in the game. We have something like 25 codexes so a 90% win rate in negatively impacting 24/25 factions. A 10% win rate is negatively impacting just 1 faction so 1/25.
That's incorrect. If you won an event by only playing against 10% wr armies, how is everyone else going to feel?
Edit: to clarify the point is some people would manipulate things to get runs against the "easy" army. People would feel annoyed that in their 5th round their opponent only got there by playing the 10% guys on easy wins after they slugged through nids/sisters/crons etc.
People would end up having to ban the 10% army from events due to creating skewed results. The exact same as if there is a 90% army.
Considering the chances of only playing against an hypothetical 10% wr army in 5 round tournament is around 1 in 9.7 million, it is an irrelevant hypothetical.
Tyran wrote: Considering the chances of only playing against an hypothetical 10% wr army in 5 round tournament is around 1 in 9.7 million, it is an irrelevant hypothetical.
Tyran wrote: Considering the chances of only playing against an hypothetical 10% wr army in 5 round tournament is around 1 in 9.7 million, it is an irrelevant hypothetical.
Tyran wrote: Considering the chances of only playing against an hypothetical 10% wr army in 5 round tournament is around 1 in 9.7 million, it is an irrelevant hypothetical.
Care to share the maths there?
25 to the power of 5.
So in an utterly perfect spread of factions with an exact 25 players, yes you are correct. Does it change that a 10% win rate faction would overall skew the win rates of other factions? No.
Dudeface wrote: Sure but what points should they be, do any of the weapon profiles need adjusting, are they in the right slot, are there any unexpected interactions with the mission formats?
Make them 1000 points each if you have to. Baneblades that are priced out of competitive play are better than 10 point Baneblades that give guard a 99% non-mirror win rate and make tournaments unplayable unless you have a Baneblade squadron. This isn't the kind of thing where you wait and see to get it perfect. You don't have time for that, you either act immediately and decisively or you cancel every tournament until you do.
Excellent, better have a faction with 10% win rate than 90% right?
Literally yes.... from a game design standpoint it is better to have a 10% win faction than a 90% win rate faction. A 90% win rate faction is literally negatively impacting every other faction in the game. We have something like 25 codexes so a 90% win rate in negatively impacting 24/25 factions. A 10% win rate is negatively impacting just 1 faction so 1/25.
That's incorrect. If you won an event by only playing against 10% wr armies, how is everyone else going to feel?
Edit: to clarify the point is some people would manipulate things to get runs against the "easy" army. People would feel annoyed that in their 5th round their opponent only got there by playing the 10% guys on easy wins after they slugged through nids/sisters/crons etc.
People would end up having to ban the 10% army from events due to creating skewed results. The exact same as if there is a 90% army.
How would you “win an event” by playing against 10% win rate armies? At most you would face that army round 1. You also once again fail to actually address the point of my post. It’s basic math which would be healthier for a game. A 90% win rate literally oppresses every other army a 10% win rate does nothing to affect other armies. Is there are 25 armies I’d take upsetting 1/24 over 24/25 all day every day.
But even your example is ridiculous because at worst LVO is sitting at a 30% and as others have pointed out it’s closer to 44% depending on metrics. Chances are a couple months after they have their full range they will be sitting comfortably between 45-55 as intended
So in an utterly perfect spread of factions with an exact 25 players, yes you are correct.
True it isn't a perfect math, but in the real world a 10% wr faction is going to have an abysmal playrate at the event level, meaning the actual probability of winning an event by playing the 10% wr faction is actually going to be even lower than 1 in 9.7 million.
Does it change that a 10% win rate faction would overall skew the win rates of other factions? No.
Sure it would skew them, but at a far lesser degree than a 90% wr faction would, because people jump out of underperfoming armies onto overperforming ones.
Dudeface wrote: Sure but what points should they be, do any of the weapon profiles need adjusting, are they in the right slot, are there any unexpected interactions with the mission formats?
Make them 1000 points each if you have to. Baneblades that are priced out of competitive play are better than 10 point Baneblades that give guard a 99% non-mirror win rate and make tournaments unplayable unless you have a Baneblade squadron. This isn't the kind of thing where you wait and see to get it perfect. You don't have time for that, you either act immediately and decisively or you cancel every tournament until you do.
Excellent, better have a faction with 10% win rate than 90% right?
Literally yes.... from a game design standpoint it is better to have a 10% win faction than a 90% win rate faction. A 90% win rate faction is literally negatively impacting every other faction in the game. We have something like 25 codexes so a 90% win rate in negatively impacting 24/25 factions. A 10% win rate is negatively impacting just 1 faction so 1/25.
That's incorrect. If you won an event by only playing against 10% wr armies, how is everyone else going to feel?
Edit: to clarify the point is some people would manipulate things to get runs against the "easy" army. People would feel annoyed that in their 5th round their opponent only got there by playing the 10% guys on easy wins after they slugged through nids/sisters/crons etc.
People would end up having to ban the 10% army from events due to creating skewed results. The exact same as if there is a 90% army.
How would you “win an event” by playing against 10% win rate armies? At most you would face that army round 1. You also once again fail to actually address the point of my post. It’s basic math which would be healthier for a game. A 90% win rate literally oppresses every other army a 10% win rate does nothing to affect other armies. Is there are 25 armies I’d take upsetting 1/24 over 24/25 all day every day.
But even your example is ridiculous because at worst LVO is sitting at a 30% and as others have pointed out it’s closer to 44% depending on metrics. Chances are a couple months after they have their full range they will be sitting comfortably between 45-55 as intended
Your basic maths is flawed. This is a multiplayer game, there would be at least 1 person every game having a bad time if one army was arbitrarily sat at a 10% win rate. If you then inject them into an event, there's lots of people in that event basically getting free wins and being moved either into higher brackets than they should be and we've had the submarine controversy already. I aren't ignoring your point, you're failing to think outside of your own perspective and treating it like a single player game of statistics.
Imagine telling someone "hey it's much better you lose 9/10 games than the opposite!" or "It's better than I beat you 9/10 times with whatever I found down the back of my sofa than you won loads"
I'll draw a line under it there for me, 10% win rate armies are about as likely as 10pt baneblades and cultists with assault cannons at 5pts. They're not going to happen, I stand by my point that it's not good enough to make someone have a bad time in the name of any greater good for a hobby like this. I agree they will likely land in the 45-55% bracket for what it's worth, but the general community did themselves a disservice on this whole situation.
It would be an unpleasant task, and individually demoralising. But the backdrop is that out of 25 possible factions, each with different levels of popularity, it is better to have to tell one of the factions this, rather than having to tell 24 factions this.
Not sure its adding much, but I agree an army with a 10% win rate is bad for players of that faction. An army with a 90% win rate is bad for everyone else.
In practice it would be impossible to have multiple factions with a 90% win rate unless, inexplicably, there were huge numbers of people signing up with the 10% win rate faction.
We know that when Tau & Custodes ruled the roost, they were posting 70% or so win rates versus the rest of the game. In some events 80%. But the inevitable rise of mirrors, and games into each other, kept the stats lower.
Flinty wrote: It would be an unpleasant task, and individually demoralising. But the backdrop is that out of 25 possible factions, each with different levels of popularity, it is better to have to tell one of the factions this, rather than having to tell 24 factions this.
Sorry, to drop that same metrics back out, in that hypothetical perfect spread 25 person 5 round event, you're telling 24 people there's a 4% chance they'll have a game that's almost a dead certain loss.
Dudeface wrote: Sure but what points should they be, do any of the weapon profiles need adjusting, are they in the right slot, are there any unexpected interactions with the mission formats?
Make them 1000 points each if you have to. Baneblades that are priced out of competitive play are better than 10 point Baneblades that give guard a 99% non-mirror win rate and make tournaments unplayable unless you have a Baneblade squadron. This isn't the kind of thing where you wait and see to get it perfect. You don't have time for that, you either act immediately and decisively or you cancel every tournament until you do.
Excellent, better have a faction with 10% win rate than 90% right?
Literally yes.... from a game design standpoint it is better to have a 10% win faction than a 90% win rate faction. A 90% win rate faction is literally negatively impacting every other faction in the game. We have something like 25 codexes so a 90% win rate in negatively impacting 24/25 factions. A 10% win rate is negatively impacting just 1 faction so 1/25.
That's incorrect. If you won an event by only playing against 10% wr armies, how is everyone else going to feel?
Edit: to clarify the point is some people would manipulate things to get runs against the "easy" army. People would feel annoyed that in their 5th round their opponent only got there by playing the 10% guys on easy wins after they slugged through nids/sisters/crons etc.
People would end up having to ban the 10% army from events due to creating skewed results. The exact same as if there is a 90% army.
How would you “win an event” by playing against 10% win rate armies? At most you would face that army round 1. You also once again fail to actually address the point of my post. It’s basic math which would be healthier for a game. A 90% win rate literally oppresses every other army a 10% win rate does nothing to affect other armies. Is there are 25 armies I’d take upsetting 1/24 over 24/25 all day every day.
But even your example is ridiculous because at worst LVO is sitting at a 30% and as others have pointed out it’s closer to 44% depending on metrics. Chances are a couple months after they have their full range they will be sitting comfortably between 45-55 as intended
Your basic maths is flawed. This is a multiplayer game, there would be at least 1 person every game having a bad time if one army was arbitrarily sat at a 10% win rate. If you then inject them into an event, there's lots of people in that event basically getting free wins and being moved either into higher brackets than they should be and we've had the submarine controversy already. I aren't ignoring your point, you're failing to think outside of your own perspective and treating it like a single player game of statistics.
Imagine telling someone "hey it's much better you lose 9/10 games than the opposite!" or "It's better than I beat you 9/10 times with whatever I found down the back of my sofa than you won loads"
I'll draw a line under it there for me, 10% win rate armies are about as likely as 10pt baneblades and cultists with assault cannons at 5pts. They're not going to happen, I stand by my point that it's not good enough to make someone have a bad time in the name of any greater good for a hobby like this. I agree they will likely land in the 45-55% bracket for what it's worth, but the general community did themselves a disservice on this whole situation.
uhhhhh the only "basic math" that is flawed is your own. If there are 25 factions (just assuming all have the same popularity to keep it simple). That means that there are 24 players for every 1 votan player. If LOV is crushing everyone else that means there are 24 factions aka 24/1 people being negatively affected by this. If LOV sucked then while its still undesirable you at least only have 1 faction being negatively affected so 1 compared to 24 others.
So you then go on to admit that they will probably land between a 45-55% win rate so what exactly is the issue? It honestly sounds like you are mad you didnt get a few weeks of auto wins.
uhhhhh the only "basic math" that is flawed is your own. If there are 25 factions (just assuming all have the same popularity to keep it simple). That means that there are 24 players for every 1 votan player. If LOV is crushing everyone else that means there are 24 factions aka 24/1 people being negatively affected by this. If LOV sucked then while its still undesirable you at least only have 1 faction being negatively affected so 1 compared to 24 others.
So you then go on to admit that they will probably land between a 45-55% win rate so what exactly is the issue? It honestly sounds like you are mad you didnt get a few weeks of auto wins.
Once again because you apparently either have short term memory issues or simply new new material:
Dudeface wrote:And you're here leveling accusations I want free wins for a faction I don't own, don't want to own and openly stated I feel needed a nerf in this very thread and comment chain.
But since I'm an idiot can you tell me how the LOV player is affecting 24 players across 5 games? It doesn't matter if they're 90% or 10% they affect 5 other peoples games/day. The only difference is at 90% the top spot is likely pre-determined, at 10% there's 5 players who have a better shot at winning than the other 19 depending on pairing techniques. Both are bad and both would need banning.
Does that make sense or are you still concerned about the people buying OP units because they're OP and feeling hurt? That seemed to be a big concern to you, maybe you're just happy your meta chasing got sorted before you wasted money.
vict0988 wrote: It wouldn't be one LoV player, it'd be 60% of the field, so it'd be every player, just like when any faction has reigned as the only tier 0 army.
That's a community issue spawned from a combination of competitive obsession and GW leaving enough imbalance to let them leverage it.
The point is and I agree that those examples are worthless beyond showing how people think. They'll never happen realistically. I don't think even nids have accounted for 60% pickrate have they though?
By the way, if I remember correctly, the amount of time needed to exhaustively test a codex was based on testing a codex against every other codex (don't remember if supplements counted separately) for every Nephlim mission. It might have also included enough games so that each secondary could be picked once in each match up (I feel like the calculation was tailored towards LoV)? The end number of days/months/years it would take may also have taken into account 8-hour work days. I don't think it was counting "man-hours" (which would double the number of required play testing hours to account for two human players), but I could be wrong. I think it was assuming only one game occurring at a time.
I wasn't the one who made the calculation, just sharing what I remember.
DeadliestIdiot wrote: By the way, if I remember correctly, the amount of time needed to exhaustively test a codex was based on testing a codex against every other codex (don't remember if supplements counted separately) for every Nephlim mission. It might have also included enough games so that each secondary could be picked once in each match up (I feel like the calculation was tailored towards LoV)? The end number of days/months/years it would take may also have taken into account 8-hour work days. I don't think it was counting "man-hours" (which would double the number of required play testing hours to account for two human players), but I could be wrong. I think it was assuming only one game occurring at a time.
I wasn't the one who made the calculation, just sharing what I remember.
2 people
3 hour game
25 factions
8 missions
3 * 8 * 2 * 25 hours = 1200 hours
+ 15% for admin/feedback/etc = 1215 hours
Average working day in the UK is 7.5 hours, 162 man hours, assuming that every second of working time fits nicely, which it won't. That you don't need to make changes and reset the cycle, which they will.
Real terms 2 games a day of the 600 needed = 300 days
Flinty wrote: It would be an unpleasant task, and individually demoralising. But the backdrop is that out of 25 possible factions, each with different levels of popularity, it is better to have to tell one of the factions this, rather than having to tell 24 factions this.
Sorry, to drop that same metrics back out, in that hypothetical perfect spread 25 person 5 round event, you're telling 24 people there's a 4% chance they'll have a game that's almost a dead certain loss.
which is better than telling 24 people theres a 96% chance they'll get rammed by an OP codex
Flinty wrote: It would be an unpleasant task, and individually demoralising. But the backdrop is that out of 25 possible factions, each with different levels of popularity, it is better to have to tell one of the factions this, rather than having to tell 24 factions this.
Sorry, to drop that same metrics back out, in that hypothetical perfect spread 25 person 5 round event, you're telling 24 people there's a 4% chance they'll have a game that's almost a dead certain loss.
which is better than telling 24 people theres a 96% chance they'll get rammed by an OP codex
Well, that's wrong, my example was actually that 5 people out of 24 will play the votann.
For a dice and probability game based in maths, people aren't great at it.
uhhhhh the only "basic math" that is flawed is your own. If there are 25 factions (just assuming all have the same popularity to keep it simple). That means that there are 24 players for every 1 votan player. If LOV is crushing everyone else that means there are 24 factions aka 24/1 people being negatively affected by this. If LOV sucked then while its still undesirable you at least only have 1 faction being negatively affected so 1 compared to 24 others.
So you then go on to admit that they will probably land between a 45-55% win rate so what exactly is the issue? It honestly sounds like you are mad you didnt get a few weeks of auto wins.
Once again because you apparently either have short term memory issues or simply new new material:
Dudeface wrote:And you're here leveling accusations I want free wins for a faction I don't own, don't want to own and openly stated I feel needed a nerf in this very thread and comment chain.
But since I'm an idiot can you tell me how the LOV player is affecting 24 players across 5 games? It doesn't matter if they're 90% or 10% they affect 5 other peoples games/day. The only difference is at 90% the top spot is likely pre-determined, at 10% there's 5 players who have a better shot at winning than the other 19 depending on pairing techniques. Both are bad and both would need banning.
Does that make sense or are you still concerned about the people buying OP units because they're OP and feeling hurt? That seemed to be a big concern to you, maybe you're just happy your meta chasing got sorted before you wasted money.
because with a 90% win rate only LOV would win events. Every other faction at the event will have to pull off a miracle to win thus all other factions are disenfranchised to go because you will have to play LOV to realistically have a chance. A 10% win faction on the other hand will never advance past the 1st or 2nd round for contention thus meaning the other 24 factions are not disenfranchised. So its in unequivocally better for the game that 1 faction be horrendously underpowered than horrendously overpowered.
I play imperial guard. My faction has been bottom of the barrel for almost all edition..... Id rather that be the case than we have a 90% win rate because once again that would ruin the game for all factions that don't play IG. Also the "meta chaser" knows what he's getting into and will continue to switch units and factions in order to win. The timing of the nerf has little effect on that person because they are ready to drop and move on to the next army. The people that would have been hurt the most by a late nerf are those taking time to plan out and build and army and either don't have the budget or time to switch once they are locked in. A late nerf would have hurt casual LOV players the most. Now they can better plan their purchases without having to worry about massive swings in power that might make certain builds a waste of time.
DeadliestIdiot wrote: By the way, if I remember correctly, the amount of time needed to exhaustively test a codex was based on testing a codex against every other codex (don't remember if supplements counted separately) for every Nephlim mission. It might have also included enough games so that each secondary could be picked once in each match up (I feel like the calculation was tailored towards LoV)? The end number of days/months/years it would take may also have taken into account 8-hour work days. I don't think it was counting "man-hours" (which would double the number of required play testing hours to account for two human players), but I could be wrong. I think it was assuming only one game occurring at a time.
I wasn't the one who made the calculation, just sharing what I remember.
2 people
3 hour game
25 factions
8 missions
3 * 8 * 2 * 25 hours = 1200 hours
+ 15% for admin/feedback/etc = 1215 hours
Average working day in the UK is 7.5 hours, 162 man hours, assuming that every second of working time fits nicely, which it won't. That you don't need to make changes and reset the cycle, which they will.
Real terms 2 games a day of the 600 needed = 300 days
LOL "25 factions" there are not 25 factions. You have:
1. Loyal Marines
2. Evil Marines split into three codices unnecessarily
3. Knights split into two codices unnecessarily
4. Custodes
5. Sisters
6. Necrons
7. Eldar
8. Evil Eldar
9. Orks
10. Tau
11. Loyal Marines but they're all Psykers
12. Daemons
13. Genestealer Cults
14. IG 15. AdMech
16. Tyranids
DeadliestIdiot wrote: By the way, if I remember correctly, the amount of time needed to exhaustively test a codex was based on testing a codex against every other codex (don't remember if supplements counted separately) for every Nephlim mission. It might have also included enough games so that each secondary could be picked once in each match up (I feel like the calculation was tailored towards LoV)? The end number of days/months/years it would take may also have taken into account 8-hour work days. I don't think it was counting "man-hours" (which would double the number of required play testing hours to account for two human players), but I could be wrong. I think it was assuming only one game occurring at a time.
I wasn't the one who made the calculation, just sharing what I remember.
2 people
3 hour game
25 factions
8 missions
3 * 8 * 2 * 25 hours = 1200 hours
+ 15% for admin/feedback/etc = 1215 hours
Average working day in the UK is 7.5 hours, 162 man hours, assuming that every second of working time fits nicely, which it won't. That you don't need to make changes and reset the cycle, which they will.
Real terms 2 games a day of the 600 needed = 300 days
LOL "25 factions" there are not 25 factions. You have:
1. Loyal Marines
2. Evil Marines split into three codices unnecessarily
3. Knights split into two codices unnecessarily
4. Custodes
5. Sisters
6. Necrons
7. Eldar
8. Evil Eldar
9. Orks
10. Tau
11. Loyal Marines but they're all Psykers
12. Daemons
13. Genestealer Cults
14. IG 15. AdMech
16. Tyranids
Good, I look forward to your footnotes on the thousand sons discipline from your deathguard games and nuanced feedback on voidweavers in your ulthwe game.
Whether its worthwhile for GW to have 10-20 people who just play 2 games of 40k every working day is an open question - but really, its probably not *that* expensive. That would give you say 200-400 games a month. Which would probably give you decent indications.
Admittedly whether these people would go mad playing this much and trying to keep the countless different rules versions in their heads is an open question.
I guess for "cheap" you could have say 5-10 archetype armies that you play into and then see how it feels. If its a bit much, it should be obvious. I feel though there are quite a few different sort of lists out there, and so going "right, one game into Marines, tick" isn't really going to give you much.
Flinty wrote: It would be an unpleasant task, and individually demoralising. But the backdrop is that out of 25 possible factions, each with different levels of popularity, it is better to have to tell one of the factions this, rather than having to tell 24 factions this.
Oh I am sure that people who were getting farmed by the top factions are delighted to hear, that after the nerfs the army is not only better then theirs, but is losing to the armies they are losing too. Also absolutly doesn't explain litteral months of other factions siting at 60%+ with no reaction from GW.
It creates another bad precedents, aspecialy when parts of the community say, I don't play them, so it is okey.
So you then go on to admit that they will probably land between a 45-55% win rate so what exactly is the issue? It honestly sounds like you are mad you didnt get a few weeks of auto wins.
Because for factions with limited number of unit choices they have to be better then 45-55% win rate on day one, if they are to be okey in 12-18 months. Only harlequins are able to pulls stuff like that, and that is because for some reason GW writes their rules the way they do. Also for outside of tournament play, a LoV army ment that if someone new were to run in to a more optimised list run by someone playing for years, they would actualy have a chance to have a fun game, instead of just losing.
Flinty wrote: It would be an unpleasant task, and individually demoralising. But the backdrop is that out of 25 possible factions, each with different levels of popularity, it is better to have to tell one of the factions this, rather than having to tell 24 factions this.
Oh I am sure that people who were getting farmed by the top factions are delighted to hear, that after the nerfs the army is not only better then theirs, but is losing to the armies they are losing too. Also absolutly doesn't explain litteral months of other factions siting at 60%+ with no reaction from GW.
It creates another bad precedents, aspecialy when parts of the community say, I don't play them, so it is okey.
So you then go on to admit that they will probably land between a 45-55% win rate so what exactly is the issue? It honestly sounds like you are mad you didnt get a few weeks of auto wins.
Because for factions with limited number of unit choices they have to be better then 45-55% win rate on day one, if they are to be okey in 12-18 months. Only harlequins are able to pulls stuff like that, and that is because for some reason GW writes their rules the way they do. Also for outside of tournament play, a LoV army ment that if someone new were to run in to a more optimised list run by someone playing for years, they would actualy have a chance to have a fun game, instead of just losing.
So you're saying the lower an army model count you should have a higher win%? I see no reason to artificially make the win rate higher because of amount of data slates
Tyel wrote: I think the argument is more "have more testers".
Whether its worthwhile for GW to have 10-20 people who just play 2 games of 40k every working day is an open question - but really, its probably not *that* expensive. That would give you say 200-400 games a month. Which would probably give you decent indications.
Admittedly whether these people would go mad playing this much and trying to keep the countless different rules versions in their heads is an open question.
I guess for "cheap" you could have say 5-10 archetype armies that you play into and then see how it feels. If its a bit much, it should be obvious. I feel though there are quite a few different sort of lists out there, and so going "right, one game into Marines, tick" isn't really going to give you much.
I've no idea what an on the books playtester earns, I'd wager at least 25k though, so £250,000 for 40k testing at the 10 player mark for 220ish games a month. Agreed though it would be a migraine inducing job.
Asmodios 807483 11450408 wrote:
So you're saying the lower an army model count you should have a higher win%? I see no reason to artificially make the win rate higher because of amount of data slates
If it is suppose to function months in advance, and in case of LoV between a potential edition reset ? Of course. Which armies take nerfs over and over again, and are largely not impacted in their standing as good army? Those which have been designed, or even over designed , in the gear, point costs, rules etc sections. So even when GW nerfs something or intreduces a new army to the pot, the armies can adapt. How are GSC doing right now or GK ? One army was balanced on release and the other was balanced as part of the reigning in of multi detachment army. While an army like Harlequins is a top tier army, the second time in the same edition. And how do they do it? They have extremly powerful rules and undercosted unit, coupled with synergies that are not build for "fun", or not just for it, but also for game play efficiency.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Dudeface 807483 11450409 wrote:
I've no idea what an on the books playtester earns, I'd wager at least 25k though, so £250,000 for 40k testing at the 10 player mark for 220ish games a month. Agreed though it would be a migraine inducing job.
If were to trust what ex studio members told about playtesting, then a ton of it is pushed on to people working at the studio, and then they are expected to either find a group of people who test it for them or they have to test it themselfs, with no extra budget to hire people.
Asmodios 807483 11450408 wrote:
So you're saying the lower an army model count you should have a higher win%? I see no reason to artificially make the win rate higher because of amount of data slates
If it is suppose to function months in advance, and in case of LoV between a potential edition reset ? Of course. Which armies take nerfs over and over again, and are largely not impacted in their standing as good army? Those which have been designed, or even over designed , in the gear, point costs, rules etc sections. So even when GW nerfs something or intreduces a new army to the pot, the armies can adapt. How are GSC doing right now or GK ? One army was balanced on release and the other was balanced as part of the reigning in of multi detachment army. While an army like Harlequins is a top tier army, the second time in the same edition. And how do they do it? They have extremly powerful rules and undercosted unit, coupled with synergies that are not build for "fun", or not just for it, but also for game play efficiency.
the meta-watch article that explained the LOV nerfs (so it's just a couple weeks old) had GK at a 46% win rate and had grey knights at a 47% win rate. So both of them were fine, meanwhile, harlequins were at a 58% win rate so outside the 45-55% win rate. So wouldn't data support not breaking low model count books on purpose? Thousand sons were also at 49% and have one of the lowest model counts as well.
Tyel wrote: I think the argument is more "have more testers".
Whether its worthwhile for GW to have 10-20 people who just play 2 games of 40k every working day is an open question - but really, its probably not *that* expensive. That would give you say 200-400 games a month. Which would probably give you decent indications.
Admittedly whether these people would go mad playing this much and trying to keep the countless different rules versions in their heads is an open question.
I guess for "cheap" you could have say 5-10 archetype armies that you play into and then see how it feels. If its a bit much, it should be obvious. I feel though there are quite a few different sort of lists out there, and so going "right, one game into Marines, tick" isn't really going to give you much.
I've no idea what an on the books playtester earns, I'd wager at least 25k though, so £250,000 for 40k testing at the 10 player mark for 220ish games a month. Agreed though it would be a migraine inducing job.
£250k for 220 games a month sounds like a bad return on investment, when a single weekend of tournaments gives you many more games to analyse.
Just release the rules, wait for results to come in and adjust accordingly in future updates. Oh, that's what they are doing already
No excuse for a company that pulls in this much profit and charges these rediculas prices.
If they need to hire more play testers wich they clearly do then they better get on it.
They want to charge premium prices there gak better be premium.
Because for factions with limited number of unit choices they have to be better then 45-55% win rate on day one, if they are to be okey in 12-18 months. Only harlequins are able to pulls stuff like that, and that is because for some reason GW writes their rules the way they do. Also for outside of tournament play, a LoV army ment that if someone new were to run in to a more optimised list run by someone playing for years, they would actualy have a chance to have a fun game, instead of just losing.
DeadliestIdiot wrote: By the way, if I remember correctly, the amount of time needed to exhaustively test a codex was based on testing a codex against every other codex (don't remember if supplements counted separately) for every Nephlim mission. It might have also included enough games so that each secondary could be picked once in each match up (I feel like the calculation was tailored towards LoV)? The end number of days/months/years it would take may also have taken into account 8-hour work days. I don't think it was counting "man-hours" (which would double the number of required play testing hours to account for two human players), but I could be wrong. I think it was assuming only one game occurring at a time.
I wasn't the one who made the calculation, just sharing what I remember.
2 people
3 hour game
25 factions
8 missions
3 * 8 * 2 * 25 hours = 1200 hours
+ 15% for admin/feedback/etc = 1215 hours
Average working day in the UK is 7.5 hours, 162 man hours, assuming that every second of working time fits nicely, which it won't. That you don't need to make changes and reset the cycle, which they will.
Real terms 2 games a day of the 600 needed = 300 days
LOL "25 factions" there are not 25 factions. You have:
1. Loyal Marines
2. Evil Marines split into three codices unnecessarily
3. Knights split into two codices unnecessarily
4. Custodes
5. Sisters
6. Necrons
7. Eldar
8. Evil Eldar
9. Orks
10. Tau
11. Loyal Marines but they're all Psykers
12. Daemons
13. Genestealer Cults
14. IG 15. AdMech
16. Tyranids
Good, I look forward to your footnotes on the thousand sons discipline from your deathguard games and nuanced feedback on voidweavers in your ulthwe game.
Subfactions require less testing. It's easy to pinpoint if one is internally or externally broken, like if Iron Hands just had a 3+++ for example. I don't need to test that or how Votaan Rail weapons work but here we are with someone defending a trash release from GW because they don't get as many wins as they hoped for.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Also are you seriously suggesting that Voidweavers are somehow performing different vs Ulthwe or Sam Hain? Man that's some non logic if I've ever seen it
Dudeface wrote: Excellent, better have a faction with 10% win rate than 90% right?
Yes. A faction with a 10% win rate makes things miserable for a small subset of players: the people who play that specific faction and do not have any other army. A faction with a 90% win rate makes things miserable for everyone except that faction. One of these groups is much larger than the other and if I have to choose which one to sacrifice the choice is obvious.
" Sometimes you must cull the weak to preserve the Strength of the Herd!" - Dr. Thraxx of the Global Liberation Army.
Seconded by Emperor Palpatine, Voldemort, Thanos, and other particularly pragmatic politicians.
On a more serious and mature note, this is ridiculous. A good, fair strategy game should be giving everyone a fair chance and a good time. Sacrificing ten percent of the player base or any percent for " The Greater Good" is ridiculous.
I mean by that reasoning up to 20 percent, or 30-40 percent can be sacrificed. This is absurd for a board game that's supposed to be fun and fairness is a large part of this. I can accept some imbalance for a little while for a new faction, especially if it's played by a minority and only possibly OP, but to say things like " Well sometimes you have to leave Grandma behind so the rest of us can make the trail" about players in a board game sounds like something from a cartoon.
Asenion wrote: Wait are people actually saying things like 10 percent of the player base should be sacrificed so 90 percent of players can have a good time? Geez.
Dudeface wrote: Excellent, better have a faction with 10% win rate than 90% right?
Yes. A faction with a 10% win rate makes things miserable for a small subset of players: the people who play that specific faction and do not have any other army. A faction with a 90% win rate makes things miserable for everyone except that faction. One of these groups is much larger than the other and if I have to choose which one to sacrifice the choice is obvious.
" Sometimes you must cull the weak to preserve the Strength of the Herd!" - Dr. Thraxx of the Global Liberation Army.
Seconded by Emperor Palpatine, Voldemort, Thanos, and other particularly pragmatic politicians.
On a more serious and mature note, this is ridiculous. A good, fair strategy game should be giving everyone a fair chance and a good time. Sacrificing ten percent of the player base or any percent for " The Greater Good" is ridiculous.
I mean by that reasoning up to 20 percent, or 30-40 percent can be sacrificed. This is absurd for a board game that's supposed to be fun and fairness is a large part of this. I can accept some imbalance for a little while for a new faction, especially if it's played by a minority and only possibly OP, but to say things like " Well sometimes you have to leave Grandma behind so the rest of us can make the trail" about players in a board game sounds like something from a cartoon.
Nobody was advocating for 10% win rates. But if faced with a 10% or 90% a 10% would be healthier for the game... obviously the goal is between 45-55 as stated multiple times by GW
Asenion wrote: Wait are people actually saying things like 10 percent of the player base should be sacrificed so 90 percent of players can have a good time? Geez.
Dudeface wrote: Excellent, better have a faction with 10% win rate than 90% right?
Yes. A faction with a 10% win rate makes things miserable for a small subset of players: the people who play that specific faction and do not have any other army. A faction with a 90% win rate makes things miserable for everyone except that faction. One of these groups is much larger than the other and if I have to choose which one to sacrifice the choice is obvious.
" Sometimes you must cull the weak to preserve the Strength of the Herd!" - Dr. Thraxx of the Global Liberation Army.
Seconded by Emperor Palpatine, Voldemort, Thanos, and other particularly pragmatic politicians.
On a more serious and mature note, this is ridiculous. A good, fair strategy game should be giving everyone a fair chance and a good time. Sacrificing ten percent of the player base or any percent for " The Greater Good" is ridiculous.
I mean by that reasoning up to 20 percent, or 30-40 percent can be sacrificed. This is absurd for a board game that's supposed to be fun and fairness is a large part of this. I can accept some imbalance for a little while for a new faction, especially if it's played by a minority and only possibly OP, but to say things like " Well sometimes you have to leave Grandma behind so the rest of us can make the trail" about players in a board game sounds like something from a cartoon.
Nobody was advocating for 10% win rates. But if faced with a 10% or 90% a 10% would be healthier for the game... obviously the goat is between 45-55 as stated multiple times by GW
Healthier is questionable here. That's like saying Cancer is Healthier then AIDS.
Technically the K-T Meteor Strike was better then the Methane Explosion of the Great Dying, but that's far from ideal. Certainly the developers and community for a board game, meant for fun with nigh endless resources can do better then that!
Asenion wrote: Wait are people actually saying things like 10 percent of the player base should be sacrificed so 90 percent of players can have a good time? Geez.
Dudeface wrote: Excellent, better have a faction with 10% win rate than 90% right?
Yes. A faction with a 10% win rate makes things miserable for a small subset of players: the people who play that specific faction and do not have any other army. A faction with a 90% win rate makes things miserable for everyone except that faction. One of these groups is much larger than the other and if I have to choose which one to sacrifice the choice is obvious.
" Sometimes you must cull the weak to preserve the Strength of the Herd!" - Dr. Thraxx of the Global Liberation Army.
Seconded by Emperor Palpatine, Voldemort, Thanos, and other particularly pragmatic politicians.
On a more serious and mature note, this is ridiculous. A good, fair strategy game should be giving everyone a fair chance and a good time. Sacrificing ten percent of the player base or any percent for " The Greater Good" is ridiculous.
I mean by that reasoning up to 20 percent, or 30-40 percent can be sacrificed. This is absurd for a board game that's supposed to be fun and fairness is a large part of this. I can accept some imbalance for a little while for a new faction, especially if it's played by a minority and only possibly OP, but to say things like " Well sometimes you have to leave Grandma behind so the rest of us can make the trail" about players in a board game sounds like something from a cartoon.
Nobody was advocating for 10% win rates. But if faced with a 10% or 90% a 10% would be healthier for the game... obviously the goat is between 45-55 as stated multiple times by GW
Healthier is questionable here. That's like saying Cancer is Healthier then AIDS.
A 90% win rate faction impacts every other faction in the game negatively. a 10% would only hurt its individual player base. Luckily according to the most recent data the lowest win rate faction had a 39% which is bad but a far cry from 10%
This is going to be a very bad take for me, but one I am feeling none the less. It FEELS like some of the Squat supporters ( or those who did not want them nerfed ) are just salty because they were /are not the curbstompers they were before the nerfs.
I know its probably a small number of squat fans, but I sense it nonetheless.
Tyel wrote: I think the argument is more "have more testers".
Whether its worthwhile for GW to have 10-20 people who just play 2 games of 40k every working day is an open question - but really, its probably not *that* expensive. That would give you say 200-400 games a month. Which would probably give you decent indications.
Admittedly whether these people would go mad playing this much and trying to keep the countless different rules versions in their heads is an open question.
I guess for "cheap" you could have say 5-10 archetype armies that you play into and then see how it feels. If its a bit much, it should be obvious. I feel though there are quite a few different sort of lists out there, and so going "right, one game into Marines, tick" isn't really going to give you much.
You are way overestimating the difficulty. If you have 10-15 lists you want tested that's 30-45 games per faction, you don't need to revise points for every faction every month. Hiring 20 people would absolutely be expensive and wouldn't do a damn thing if they were just playing for fun, what GW needs is structure to their playtesting. Volunteers can absolutely do it, maybe GW shouldn't send the darn finished codex to them and should instead include them WAY earlier in the process so they have influence and cannot leak the thing.
Honestly, 5 games against the top codexes should be enough to get a solid feel for where a codex is mechanically if the game itself is functioning well.
I feel that the judgment tokens are more a management liking it than the writers and rule staff.
As seen players could see it’s issues instantly, so competent design should pick it up as well.
Apple fox wrote: Honestly, 5 games against the top codexes should be enough to get a solid feel for where a codex is mechanically if the game itself is functioning well.
I feel that the judgment tokens are more a management liking it than the writers and rule staff. As seen players could see it’s issues instantly, so competent design should pick it up as well.
No, because there are dozens of datasheets that need testing, you're going to need at least 30 games because it doesn't take a lot of datasheets to break the game and if the internal balance is garbage at launch it will take many more pts update iterations before the internal balance is good compared to if the internal balance was good out the gate.
GW does not have competent designers, it's just the janitorial staff and Greg the garbage disposal guy who chimes in whenever he picks up garbage. In hindsight it was stupid to listen to him when he suggested they give Knights a 3++.
Asenion wrote: Healthier is questionable here. That's like saying Cancer is Healthier then AIDS.
A cold is healthier than the black plague, a broken leg is better than a missing leg, come on. Better for one person to fall and hit their knee instead of having the black plague and spreading it to everyone else.
I put in game itself is function well for a reason :p and for mechanics it should be more than enough to see if they are oppressive and potentially unworkable.
And I do think GW has competent design staff, there mistakes are a group effort going up management for sure
Also are you seriously suggesting that Voidweavers are somehow performing different vs Ulthwe or Sam Hain? Man that's some non logic if I've ever seen it
No, you didn't list harlequins as an army, because they're in the eldar book they wouldn't be considered an additional force and there's a reasonable chance they'd get missed. Hence the "eldar book" being tested with an ulthwe list.
Also in your big brain list of inaccuracies those extra books being rolled back in together adds a huge swathe of extra stuff that needs testing. Fewer books doesn't equal fewer games to test the contents. But as per usual you've made some weird hysterical "GW is dumb" comment and act surprised when it turns out its complete garbage.
Your basic maths is flawed. This is a multiplayer game, there would be at least 1 person every game having a bad time if one army was arbitrarily sat at a 10% win rate. If you then inject them into an event, there's lots of people in that event basically getting free wins and being moved either into higher brackets than they should be and we've had the submarine controversy already. I aren't ignoring your point, you're failing to think outside of your own perspective and treating it like a single player game of statistics.
Imagine telling someone "hey it's much better you lose 9/10 games than the opposite!" or "It's better than I beat you 9/10 times with whatever I found down the back of my sofa than you won loads"
I'll draw a line under it there for me, 10% win rate armies are about as likely as 10pt baneblades and cultists with assault cannons at 5pts. They're not going to happen, I stand by my point that it's not good enough to make someone have a bad time in the name of any greater good for a hobby like this. I agree they will likely land in the 45-55% bracket for what it's worth, but the general community did themselves a disservice on this whole situation.
And 90% winrates would cause others to have automatic losses skewing results. So idea that 10% is better to have than 90% because it skews stats worse is just flat out wrong. Both skew and badly.
Of course in practice 90% is WORSE because more people jump into them so other factions will get their WR's lowered by automatic losses.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Tyel wrote: Not sure its adding much, but I agree an army with a 10% win rate is bad for players of that faction. An army with a 90% win rate is bad for everyone else.
In practice it would be impossible to have multiple factions with a 90% win rate unless, inexplicably, there were huge numbers of people signing up with the 10% win rate faction.
We know that when Tau & Custodes ruled the roost, they were posting 70% or so win rates versus the rest of the game. In some events 80%. But the inevitable rise of mirrors, and games into each other, kept the stats lower.
Any statistic system worth the name should rule out mirror matches out as custoden vs custoden isn't going to give any meaningful data.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: So now that we have a new "imperial faction" does GW make an equal but opposite new "Dark Votann" faction?
GW classifies votann actually under xenos tab funnily enough
vict0988 wrote: You are way overestimating the difficulty. If you have 10-15 lists you want tested that's 30-45 games per faction, you don't need to revise points for every faction every month. Hiring 20 people would absolutely be expensive and wouldn't do a damn thing if they were just playing for fun, what GW needs is structure to their playtesting. Volunteers can absolutely do it, maybe GW shouldn't send the darn finished codex to them and should instead include them WAY earlier in the process so they have influence and cannot leak the thing.
I feel you are underestimating the issues of your method.
Because you are going "30-45 games will identify if this book as written seems overpowered".
I agree with that. I also agree 5 is too low. There are multiple ways of running every codex - and you need to test them into a variety of different armies. Is 3 Hekatons with Pre-nerfed Magna Rail the problem? Is 1 not so bad? What about the other gun options? How does someone spamming basic Hearthkyn feel? What about maxing bikes? Or 30 Hearthguard?
But GW surely don't just want to know something is overpowered, they also have to playtest the fix.
So lets say you have the original Votann codex. You play 30 games, it wins 22 of them, seems very strong and busted.
So lets change points.
But now you would want to test say Beserks at 25, Hearthguard at 40, Hekatons at 250. And Beserks at 30, Hearthguard at 45, Hekatons at 300. And possibly Beserks at 35, Hearthguard at 50, Hekatons at 350 etc. Which means another 90-135 games. The result of which would hopefully inform you where a sensible points level is.
Now I guess you could say "no, this is stupid, its obvious what the correct points are" - but it clearly isn't obvious for GW, hence why they've screwed it up for about 2/3rds of codexes.
DeadliestIdiot wrote: By the way, if I remember correctly, the amount of time needed to exhaustively test a codex was based on testing a codex against every other codex (don't remember if supplements counted separately) for every Nephlim mission. It might have also included enough games so that each secondary could be picked once in each match up (I feel like the calculation was tailored towards LoV)? The end number of days/months/years it would take may also have taken into account 8-hour work days. I don't think it was counting "man-hours" (which would double the number of required play testing hours to account for two human players), but I could be wrong. I think it was assuming only one game occurring at a time.
I wasn't the one who made the calculation, just sharing what I remember.
2 people
3 hour game
25 factions
8 missions
3 * 8 * 2 * 25 hours = 1200 hours
+ 15% for admin/feedback/etc = 1215 hours
Average working day in the UK is 7.5 hours, 162 man hours, assuming that every second of working time fits nicely, which it won't. That you don't need to make changes and reset the cycle, which they will.
Real terms 2 games a day of the 600 needed = 300 days
So I'm guessing that the original calculation must have assumed 3 games and not multiplied by two people. Thanks for working out the numbers.
As for the $225k number people have been floating around for the cost of a playtest team, you're forgetting the cost of benefits and overhead. Still probably not untenably expensive in the grand scheme of things, but figure it's worth pointing out that the cost of an employee is not just their salary.
GW should invest in an Indian on Fiverr to do the basic efficiency math before they start thinking about hiring the guy who is going to hire the 20 playtesters to make the game more balanced.
Tyel wrote: Now I guess you could say "no, this is stupid, its obvious what the correct points are" - but it clearly isn't obvious for GW, hence why they've screwed it up for about 2/3rds of codexes.
If the rules are fun then they don't need to change, only points do, fun takes precedence over balance, it's just that almost all the time noticeable imbalance is unfun, but that imbalance could be fixed with points in almost every circumstance. Imagine if C'tan didn't get to be their fun new selves because somebody got caught up in them needing to be worth no more than 250 pts?
I'd say if the basic points were reasonable, then after the first round of points changes the points would be good enough. If the basic points are ridiculous then you might need 3 iterations of points before they are reasonable. The remaining balance problems can be solved like now, with tournament stats and pro-player opinions changing things. I think my demand for balance on a new faction is probably smaller than for an existing faction like Custodes. "You thought that adding free rules to one of the top armies of 9th without adding pts to even their best units would be fair why exactly?" That's not even a reasonable first take on what their pts should be and then they planned to reduce their points further if I recall correctly.
DeadliestIdiot wrote: By the way, if I remember correctly, the amount of time needed to exhaustively test a codex was based on testing a codex against every other codex (don't remember if supplements counted separately) for every Nephlim mission. It might have also included enough games so that each secondary could be picked once in each match up (I feel like the calculation was tailored towards LoV)? The end number of days/months/years it would take may also have taken into account 8-hour work days. I don't think it was counting "man-hours" (which would double the number of required play testing hours to account for two human players), but I could be wrong. I think it was assuming only one game occurring at a time.
I wasn't the one who made the calculation, just sharing what I remember.
Fair enough. I would point out that's a pretty stupid way to calculate the time required. You really don't need to test every mission and every sub-faction and every single secondary in every combination. There's fundamentally very little difference between a Poisoned Tongue and a Black Heart Kabal, for example. Certainly not at the level the playtesting should be done at. there are also enough similarities in the GT missions that testing every single one probably isn't necessary, but you should play enough games that you end up doing that anyway.
It actually takes surprisingly few games to identify the really big problems in a Codex. You start to get diminishing returns on the usefulness of extra data after 10-12 games, so each round of playtesting probably needs to be about that number, iterated on multiple times over the course of the design process. I think the process above would have more merit if GW weren't in the habit of releasing things as clearly busted as LoV or Nids. Those problems really aren't difficult to identify through competent playtesting.
As an example, one of the first things you should be testing with any new unit is what happens when you spam it. I'm convinced GW simply doesn't do this because it's not how they tend to play the game. They were genuinely surprised by people taking 7 flyrants, or 11 PBCs, for example. I suspect they would have been equally shocked by people doing everything they could to max out Judgement Tokens and the number of magna-rails in their army. Testing this isn't difficult or time-consuming, it just requires the right processes and attitude. I'm not sure GW have either.
Fair enough. I would point out that's a pretty stupid way to calculate the time required. You really don't need to test every mission and every sub-faction and every single secondary in every combination. There's fundamentally very little difference between a Poisoned Tongue and a Black Heart Kabal, for example. Certainly not at the level the playtesting should be done at. there are also enough similarities in the GT missions that testing every single one probably isn't necessary, but you should play enough games that you end up doing that anyway.
It actually takes surprisingly few games to identify the really big problems in a Codex. You start to get diminishing returns on the usefulness of extra data after 10-12 games, so each round of playtesting probably needs to be about that number, iterated on multiple times over the course of the design process. I think the process above would have more merit if GW weren't in the habit of releasing things as clearly busted as LoV or Nids. Those problems really aren't difficult to identify through competent playtesting.
As an example, one of the first things you should be testing with any new unit is what happens when you spam it. I'm convinced GW simply doesn't do this because it's not how they tend to play the game. They were genuinely surprised by people taking 7 flyrants, or 11 PBCs, for example. I suspect they would have been equally shocked by people doing everything they could to max out Judgement Tokens and the number of magna-rails in their army. Testing this isn't difficult or time-consuming, it just requires the right processes and attitude. I'm not sure GW have either.
I 100% agree! I remember feeling like the point being made in the original source (no one seems to recall where as far as I know) was in slightly bad faith. Playing every secondary into every faction for every mission is just unnecessarily upping the number of games needed for the sake of making the number bigger in an attempt to prove their point (which I seem to recall was that extensive testing prior to release was unfeasible). It's not like this has to be all or nothing. I quite like the suggestion someone made where you have a few gold standard codices against which everything is balanced. It won't be perfect, but it should help keep down the power creep.
Automatically Appended Next Post: I'll also add that an effect of the trend towards "one of each option" for war gear means you can't spam the special weapons as much.
Also are you seriously suggesting that Voidweavers are somehow performing different vs Ulthwe or Sam Hain? Man that's some non logic if I've ever seen it
No, you didn't list harlequins as an army, because they're in the eldar book they wouldn't be considered an additional force and there's a reasonable chance they'd get missed. Hence the "eldar book" being tested with an ulthwe list.
Also in your big brain list of inaccuracies those extra books being rolled back in together adds a huge swathe of extra stuff that needs testing. Fewer books doesn't equal fewer games to test the contents. But as per usual you've made some weird hysterical "GW is dumb" comment and act surprised when it turns out its complete garbage.
Voidweavers were broken no matter who took them LOL. Pure Harlequins just made them better.
Let the playtesters pick the gear they think is most cost-effective, GW can change the points on the other wargear to put it in line later since they are going with their insane twice-a-year pts update schedule anyway.
Also are you seriously suggesting that Voidweavers are somehow performing different vs Ulthwe or Sam Hain? Man that's some non logic if I've ever seen it
No, you didn't list harlequins as an army, because they're in the eldar book they wouldn't be considered an additional force and there's a reasonable chance they'd get missed. Hence the "eldar book" being tested with an ulthwe list.
Also in your big brain list of inaccuracies those extra books being rolled back in together adds a huge swathe of extra stuff that needs testing. Fewer books doesn't equal fewer games to test the contents. But as per usual you've made some weird hysterical "GW is dumb" comment and act surprised when it turns out its complete garbage.
Voidweavers were broken no matter who took them LOL. Pure Harlequins just made them better.
Please try harder to defend Votaan
How is pointing out you can't count the number of factions in the game defending anything? I'm replying to your comments about how playtesting should be easy because there aren't 25 factions. LOL.
Also are you seriously suggesting that Voidweavers are somehow performing different vs Ulthwe or Sam Hain? Man that's some non logic if I've ever seen it
No, you didn't list harlequins as an army, because they're in the eldar book they wouldn't be considered an additional force and there's a reasonable chance they'd get missed. Hence the "eldar book" being tested with an ulthwe list.
Also in your big brain list of inaccuracies those extra books being rolled back in together adds a huge swathe of extra stuff that needs testing. Fewer books doesn't equal fewer games to test the contents. But as per usual you've made some weird hysterical "GW is dumb" comment and act surprised when it turns out its complete garbage.
Voidweavers were broken no matter who took them LOL. Pure Harlequins just made them better.
Please try harder to defend Votaan
How is pointing out you can't count the number of factions in the game defending anything? I'm replying to your comments about how playtesting should be easy because there aren't 25 factions. LOL.
I wasn't wrong though. Harlequins are part of the Eldar codex as they should've been instead of getting an 8th edition codex. That'd be like you saying to test Scions as a whole separate faction.
Also are you seriously suggesting that Voidweavers are somehow performing different vs Ulthwe or Sam Hain? Man that's some non logic if I've ever seen it
No, you didn't list harlequins as an army, because they're in the eldar book they wouldn't be considered an additional force and there's a reasonable chance they'd get missed. Hence the "eldar book" being tested with an ulthwe list.
Also in your big brain list of inaccuracies those extra books being rolled back in together adds a huge swathe of extra stuff that needs testing. Fewer books doesn't equal fewer games to test the contents. But as per usual you've made some weird hysterical "GW is dumb" comment and act surprised when it turns out its complete garbage.
Voidweavers were broken no matter who took them LOL. Pure Harlequins just made them better.
Please try harder to defend Votaan
How is pointing out you can't count the number of factions in the game defending anything? I'm replying to your comments about how playtesting should be easy because there aren't 25 factions. LOL.
I wasn't wrong though. Harlequins are part of the Eldar codex as they should've been instead of getting an 8th edition codex. That'd be like you saying to test Scions as a whole separate faction.
You put more stuff in fewer books just increases the overheads on testing those fewer items. If you suddenly compress all the marine stuff together there's increased risk in things being missed. Compress all "evil marines" together and you're increasing the volume of testing needed.
But the point stands they're not 1 book, there are (soon to be) 4 chaos marine factions with bespoke rules. They all need equal attention regardless of what your personal opinion is due to how they're published.
To that end should you not test a scion only list in your eyes?
Table wrote: This is going to be a very bad take for me, but one I am feeling none the less. It FEELS like some of the Squat supporters ( or those who did not want them nerfed ) are just salty because they were /are not the curbstompers they were before the nerfs.
I know its probably a small number of squat fans, but I sense it nonetheless.
That's 100% the case on the subreddit. Custodes players are the only other part of the fanbase that's the same way, I've found. Not every Custodes player, but more of them than the other segments of the fanbase.
Table wrote: This is going to be a very bad take for me, but one I am feeling none the less. It FEELS like some of the Squat supporters ( or those who did not want them nerfed ) are just salty because they were /are not the curbstompers they were before the nerfs.
I know its probably a small number of squat fans, but I sense it nonetheless.
That's 100% the case on the subreddit. Custodes players are the only other part of the fanbase that's the same way, I've found. Not every Custodes player, but more of them than the other segments of the fanbase.
That's every fanbase. I've seen it for SM, Necrons, Craftworlds, Drukhari and Orks.
Also are you seriously suggesting that Voidweavers are somehow performing different vs Ulthwe or Sam Hain? Man that's some non logic if I've ever seen it
No, you didn't list harlequins as an army, because they're in the eldar book they wouldn't be considered an additional force and there's a reasonable chance they'd get missed. Hence the "eldar book" being tested with an ulthwe list.
Also in your big brain list of inaccuracies those extra books being rolled back in together adds a huge swathe of extra stuff that needs testing. Fewer books doesn't equal fewer games to test the contents. But as per usual you've made some weird hysterical "GW is dumb" comment and act surprised when it turns out its complete garbage.
Voidweavers were broken no matter who took them LOL. Pure Harlequins just made them better.
Please try harder to defend Votaan
How is pointing out you can't count the number of factions in the game defending anything? I'm replying to your comments about how playtesting should be easy because there aren't 25 factions. LOL.
I wasn't wrong though. Harlequins are part of the Eldar codex as they should've been instead of getting an 8th edition codex. That'd be like you saying to test Scions as a whole separate faction.
You put more stuff in fewer books just increases the overheads on testing those fewer items. If you suddenly compress all the marine stuff together there's increased risk in things being missed. Compress all "evil marines" together and you're increasing the volume of testing needed.
But the point stands they're not 1 book, there are (soon to be) 4 chaos marine factions with bespoke rules. They all need equal attention regardless of what your personal opinion is due to how they're published.
To that end should you not test a scion only list in your eyes?
"More stuff in fewer books" it's not even 10 units.
Scion only doesn't need to be tested because Scions as troops doesn't affect their actual tabletop role. They're not a separate army and shouldn't have gotten a 6th/7th edition codex to begin with.
"More stuff in fewer books" it's not even 10 units.
Scion only doesn't need to be tested because Scions as troops doesn't affect their actual tabletop role. They're not a separate army and shouldn't have gotten a 6th/7th edition codex to begin with.
Heard it here first, the interactions between psychic disciplines, warlord traits, subfaction benefits, relics and secondaries do not need testing.
Better yet "doesn't need testing as there's not even 10 units" - see harlequins.
Scions, Custodes, Inquisitors, and Navy should all be relegated to WD factions. Barely able to be played, and barely functional. The fact that we had devs actually waste time on the Custodes Dex instead of fixing the glaring issues in the current meta is mind boggling. Scions don't need their own dex, they can get a page all to themselves int he Guard Codex. Inquisitors should be under DW and GK specifically. Custodes don't belong in the game, at all. It's like saying we need a dex for Imperitor Titans. And I MAIN Custodes. They are a crap faction that adds literally nothing to the game except exceptionally strong Spacemarines in Gold Armor.
"More stuff in fewer books" it's not even 10 units.
Scion only doesn't need to be tested because Scions as troops doesn't affect their actual tabletop role. They're not a separate army and shouldn't have gotten a 6th/7th edition codex to begin with.
Heard it here first, the interactions between psychic disciplines, warlord traits, subfaction benefits, relics and secondaries do not need testing.
Better yet "doesn't need testing as there's not even 10 units" - see harlequins.
Most of it doesn't NEED testing because those things can be eyed out. If you need to test that a 2++ army trait is broken, you shouldn't be writing rules to begin with. Same way your precious Votaan shouldn't have made it to the printers as is, but here we are because you're mad and want more army wins.
Automatically Appended Next Post: And quite frankly, Harlequins by themselves with nothing are too strong to begin with. The fact you think some Relic interaction is what leads to Voidweavers being a thing is humorous to be frank. They're too strong by themselves, duh.
Table wrote: This is going to be a very bad take for me, but one I am feeling none the less. It FEELS like some of the Squat supporters ( or those who did not want them nerfed ) are just salty because they were /are not the curbstompers they were before the nerfs.
I know its probably a small number of squat fans, but I sense it nonetheless.
All this just to make excuses for GW not having play testers.
Tyel wrote: I think the argument is more "have more testers".
Whether its worthwhile for GW to have 10-20 people who just play 2 games of 40k every working day is an open question - but really, its probably not *that* expensive. That would give you say 200-400 games a month. Which would probably give you decent indications.
Admittedly whether these people would go mad playing this much and trying to keep the countless different rules versions in their heads is an open question.
I guess for "cheap" you could have say 5-10 archetype armies that you play into and then see how it feels. If its a bit much, it should be obvious. I feel though there are quite a few different sort of lists out there, and so going "right, one game into Marines, tick" isn't really going to give you much.
You are way overestimating the difficulty. If you have 10-15 lists you want tested that's 30-45 games per faction, you don't need to revise points for every faction every month. Hiring 20 people would absolutely be expensive and wouldn't do a damn thing if they were just playing for fun, what GW needs is structure to their playtesting. Volunteers can absolutely do it, maybe GW shouldn't send the darn finished codex to them and should instead include them WAY earlier in the process so they have influence and cannot leak the thing.
Exactly. Other companies have play testers. People will do it for free. It is crazy how these people are literally arguing that GW should not conduct play testing.
Instead their suggestion is to sacrifice 10 percent of the player base so the other 90 percent can have fun. It makes no sense at all.
"More stuff in fewer books" it's not even 10 units.
Scion only doesn't need to be tested because Scions as troops doesn't affect their actual tabletop role. They're not a separate army and shouldn't have gotten a 6th/7th edition codex to begin with.
Heard it here first, the interactions between psychic disciplines, warlord traits, subfaction benefits, relics and secondaries do not need testing.
Better yet "doesn't need testing as there's not even 10 units" - see harlequins.
Most of it doesn't NEED testing because those things can be eyed out. If you need to test that a 2++ army trait is broken, you shouldn't be writing rules to begin with. Same way your precious Votaan shouldn't have made it to the printers as is, but here we are because you're mad and want more army wins.
Automatically Appended Next Post: And quite frankly, Harlequins by themselves with nothing are too strong to begin with. The fact you think some Relic interaction is what leads to Voidweavers being a thing is humorous to be frank. They're too strong by themselves, duh.
You are just spamming accusations without any evidence at all at this point.
For the record I don't own any Votann models, I don't even own the Codex and I don't play as Votann. I don't play at tournaments either.
"More stuff in fewer books" it's not even 10 units.
Scion only doesn't need to be tested because Scions as troops doesn't affect their actual tabletop role. They're not a separate army and shouldn't have gotten a 6th/7th edition codex to begin with.
Heard it here first, the interactions between psychic disciplines, warlord traits, subfaction benefits, relics and secondaries do not need testing.
Better yet "doesn't need testing as there's not even 10 units" - see harlequins.
Again another good reiteration of an obvious point.
But nope - instead the solution is to ruin the game for some players so that GW doesn't have to play test i.e. sacrifice the 10 percent for the 90 percent.
Btw I love how this person is allowed to make accusations and insult you over instead of addressing the substance of your points.
I mean has this person presented any evidence at all you are a Votann player or just want auto-wins?
Why are they allowed to just make these kinds of insulting accusations with impunity?
Also are you seriously suggesting that Voidweavers are somehow performing different vs Ulthwe or Sam Hain? Man that's some non logic if I've ever seen it
No, you didn't list harlequins as an army, because they're in the eldar book they wouldn't be considered an additional force and there's a reasonable chance they'd get missed. Hence the "eldar book" being tested with an ulthwe list.
Also in your big brain list of inaccuracies those extra books being rolled back in together adds a huge swathe of extra stuff that needs testing. Fewer books doesn't equal fewer games to test the contents. But as per usual you've made some weird hysterical "GW is dumb" comment and act surprised when it turns out its complete garbage.
Voidweavers were broken no matter who took them LOL. Pure Harlequins just made them better.
Please try harder to defend Votaan
Again do you have any evidence that this person is a Votann player? Why do you keep saying this over and over and then saying they are " just mad about not getting easy wins", etc..
It sounds like you are just insulting and accusing people at this point.
Asenion wrote: You are just spamming accusations without any evidence at all at this point.
For the record I don't own any Votann models, I don't even own the Codex and I don't play as Votann. I don't play at tournaments either.
Any other BS accusations you want to throw out?
That's a fascinating claim given the fact that this is a public forum where anyone can look at your post history and see that you've made three different threads on your squat lists:
(Oh, and I'm sure it's no coincidence at all that all three of them are "friendly/casual" lists with 3x railgun land fortress and the full judgement token buff stacking on them.)
Asenion wrote: You are just spamming accusations without any evidence at all at this point.
For the record I don't own any Votann models, I don't even own the Codex and I don't play as Votann. I don't play at tournaments either.
Any other BS accusations you want to throw out?
That's a fascinating claim given the fact that this is a public forum where anyone can look at your post history and see that you've made three different threads on your squat lists:
(Oh, and I'm sure it's no coincidence at all that all three of them are "friendly/casual" lists with 3x railgun land fortress and the full judgement token buff stacking on them.)
They were asking for evidence that I was leagues player...
And you're here leveling accusations I want free wins for a faction I don't own, don't want to own and openly stated I feel needed a nerf in this very thread and comment chain.
Exactly. This is the fifth or sixth time they've done this. As if anyone who disagrees with how GW handled the issue is a hard core Votann player with these evil motives.
Some have even started throwing f bombs with no consequences.
Asenion wrote: You are just spamming accusations without any evidence at all at this point.
For the record I don't own any Votann models, I don't even own the Codex and I don't play as Votann. I don't play at tournaments either.
Any other BS accusations you want to throw out?
That's a fascinating claim given the fact that this is a public forum where anyone can look at your post history and see that you've made three different threads on your squat lists:
(Oh, and I'm sure it's no coincidence at all that all three of them are "friendly/casual" lists with 3x railgun land fortress and the full judgement token buff stacking on them.)
Lol. I haven't played with a single one of those armies. And I can't believe you are borderline stalking me at this point.
I don't own the models or play at tournaments even. Have not even bought the Codex. I'm just designing armies for the new faction for fun.
I am not a Votann player I just designed armies like I do for other factions. Am I not allowed to do this now?
In any case, why should I even have to be defending myself?
I mean what happens if your wrong and not everyone disagreeing with you is some Votann player wanting easy wins - does your case fall apart?
If so it suggests the substance of your arguments are pretty flimsy.
Dudeface wrote: They were asking for evidence that I was leagues player...
Not in the part I quoted:
For the record I don't own any Votann models, I don't even own the Codex and I don't play as Votann. I don't play at tournaments either.
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Asenion wrote: I haven't played with a single one of those armies.
"I'm not a squat player, I just make "friendly" army lists that spam their best unit and multiple threads complaining about the fact that it got nerfed."
Everyone believes you.
And I can't believe you are borderline stalking me at this point.
"I can't believe someone looked at my public post history to see that my claims are inconsistent with my past actions."
Given your passionate interest in apologies for insulting comments I assume you'll be very quick to apologize for accusing me of "borderline stalking".
"More stuff in fewer books" it's not even 10 units.
Scion only doesn't need to be tested because Scions as troops doesn't affect their actual tabletop role. They're not a separate army and shouldn't have gotten a 6th/7th edition codex to begin with.
Heard it here first, the interactions between psychic disciplines, warlord traits, subfaction benefits, relics and secondaries do not need testing.
Better yet "doesn't need testing as there's not even 10 units" - see harlequins.
Most of it doesn't NEED testing because those things can be eyed out. If you need to test that a 2++ army trait is broken, you shouldn't be writing rules to begin with. Same way your precious Votaan shouldn't have made it to the printers as is, but here we are because you're mad and want more army wins.
Automatically Appended Next Post: And quite frankly, Harlequins by themselves with nothing are too strong to begin with. The fact you think some Relic interaction is what leads to Voidweavers being a thing is humorous to be frank. They're too strong by themselves, duh.
I'm getting annoyed that I keep having to repeat myself that I do not own LoV, do not intend to and never have. Obviously you lack reading comprehension because at no point did I state that voidweavers were broken due to a relic interaction.
You need to make your mind up. You claim there aren't 25 factions, that most combinations aren't worth testing, that stuff is obvious enough it can be gotten right without looking. You then simultaneously tell us about how crap GW are at playtesting and how poor their publications are and they miss things. Which is it? How would you playtest a new faction?
So either you're a fething savant who can do the job of a full team entirely mentally over the course of an afternoon and evidently it's everyone else who is a smooth brain. The alternative is that as per usual you write incoherent babble trying to be some teenage black Knight edge lord, antagonising pointless debate over things by misinterpreting intentionally and arguing in bad faith.
Asenion wrote: You are just spamming accusations without any evidence at all at this point.
For the record I don't own any Votann models, I don't even own the Codex and I don't play as Votann. I don't play at tournaments either.
Any other BS accusations you want to throw out?
That's a fascinating claim given the fact that this is a public forum where anyone can look at your post history and see that you've made three different threads on your squat lists:
(Oh, and I'm sure it's no coincidence at all that all three of them are "friendly/casual" lists with 3x railgun land fortress and the full judgement token buff stacking on them.)
They were asking for evidence that I was leagues player...
This too..I noticed 90 percent of these accusations were directed at you.
I hope you don't own any Votann models or bought the Codex btw, because it may considered irrefutable evidence of you being a life-long Votann fanboy wanting a 1 round 99 percent win rate.
Dudeface wrote: They were asking for evidence that I was leagues player...
Not in the part I quoted:
For the record I don't own any Votann models, I don't even own the Codex and I don't play as Votann. I don't play at tournaments either.
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Asenion wrote: I haven't played with a single one of those armies.
"I'm not a squat player, I just make "friendly" army lists that spam their best unit and multiple threads complaining about the fact that it got nerfed."
Everyone believes you.
And I can't believe you are borderline stalking me at this point.
"I can't believe someone looked at my public post history to see that my claims are inconsistent with my past actions."
Given your passionate interest in apologies for insulting comments I assume you'll be very quick to apologize for accusing me of "borderline stalking".
You are going into my posts on Army design in a totally different section of the forum and they don't even prove what you are trying to assert. That gives off stalker vibes.
Btw I haven't looked into any of your post history - because, frankly I don't care. I mean if I look in and find you field a Nid army should I be like " OMG he just wants to keep Nids overpowered!"
And really what you believe doesn't matter. If you think I own the Votann Codex and all the models and play in tournaments that's up to you. It's weird you are committed to this belief but I don't see how I'm going to change your mind.
I don't even own a single model nor have I played one game with them though. If I'm a Votann player, apparently I'm one with no models that doesn't play the faction ever.
I guess just designing armies means I play the faction now. Pretty weird.
Asenion wrote: You are going into my posts on Army design in a totally different section of the forum and they don't even prove what you are trying to assert. That gives off stalker vibes.
It gives off "stalker vibes" because it's inconvenient for your claim that you don't have a personal stake in this debate, nothing more.
If you think I own the Votann Codex and all the models and play in tournaments that's up to you.
I'm well aware that you don't own the land fortress models you wanted to spam, given that they're still up for pre-order and haven't shipped yet. This is one of those things where you're technically telling the truth but doing so in a way that misleads people into believing something you didn't directly say. It was very obvious from the way you talked about those lists that you intended to play them even if the models aren't yet available, and it strongly suggests that your motive for making multiple complaint threads about the squat nerf is that you are frustrated that you didn't get to take full advantage of the list you had planned.
Asenion wrote: You are going into my posts on Army design in a totally different section of the forum and they don't even prove what you are trying to assert. That gives off stalker vibes.
It gives off "stalker vibes" because it's inconvenient for your claim that you don't have a personal stake in this debate, nothing more.
If you think I own the Votann Codex and all the models and play in tournaments that's up to you.
I'm well aware that you don't own the land fortress models you wanted to spam, given that they're still up for pre-order and haven't shipped yet. This is one of those things where you're technically telling the truth but doing so in a way that misleads people into believing something you didn't directly say. It was very obvious from the way you talked about those lists that you intended to play them even if the models aren't yet available, and it strongly suggests that your motive for making multiple complaint threads about the squat nerf is that you are frustrated that you didn't get to take full advantage of the list you had planned.
Can you please stop making accusations and calling me a liar without evidence?
Time to simmer down, people. Please remember the rules and do better at following them. Especially #1.
Understood but as someone often involved in these situations please be heavier handed. A reminder clearly isn't curbing behaviour and as long as there is a chunk of the members whose sole content is "GW is gak and if you argue disagree you're an idiot LOL" it'll keep happening. I'll take a ban or suspension if desired because eventually it either has to stop or someone gets driven away anyway.
Time to simmer down, people. Please remember the rules and do better at following them. Especially #1.
Understood but as someone often involved in these situations please be heavier handed. A reminder clearly isn't curbing behaviour and as long as there is a chunk of the members whose sole content is "GW is gak and if you argue disagree you're an idiot LOL" it'll keep happening. I'll take a ban or suspension if desired because eventually it either has to stop or someone gets driven away anyway.
Please hit the yellow triangle of friendship on any post that breaks the rules so that a moderator can take a look at it, unfortunately we can not read every post in the forum and so rely on members alerting things.
Time to simmer down, people. Please remember the rules and do better at following them. Especially #1.
Understood but as someone often involved in these situations please be heavier handed. A reminder clearly isn't curbing behaviour and as long as there is a chunk of the members whose sole content is "GW is gak and if you argue disagree you're an idiot LOL" it'll keep happening. I'll take a ban or suspension if desired because eventually it either has to stop or someone gets driven away anyway.
Well one side has been dropping f bombs and accusations without consequences while others like me get in trouble over telling a Wendy's joke because apparently that is "spam" i.e..they said it was for " The Greater Good" that some players fun be sacrificed so that 90 percent can enjoy the game.
My response was " Sir this is a Wendy's" which I felt was a light hearted way of saying - look this is about a product/service. The idea that anyone has to be sacrificed or any sort of greater good logic involving such needs be applied at all is kind of a joke.
Apparently THAT joke was too much and I'm presuming someone reported me. But pages of insults and f bombs and accusations are just fine.
In any case I still think their argument that 90 percent of players can't have any fun unless 10 percent are sacrificed is ridiculous or that any sacrifice of a percentage of the player base is required at all. This is not a real life economic or military situation. There is no reason GW can't make it so the game is fair and everyone is having a good time. If a fast food worker can do it - GW should be able to do it.
vict0988 wrote: You are way overestimating the difficulty. If you have 10-15 lists you want tested that's 30-45 games per faction, you don't need to revise points for every faction every month. Hiring 20 people would absolutely be expensive and wouldn't do a damn thing if they were just playing for fun, what GW needs is structure to their playtesting. Volunteers can absolutely do it, maybe GW shouldn't send the darn finished codex to them and should instead include them WAY earlier in the process so they have influence and cannot leak the thing.
I feel you are underestimating the issues of your method.
Because you are going "30-45 games will identify if this book as written seems overpowered".
I agree with that. I also agree 5 is too low. There are multiple ways of running every codex - and you need to test them into a variety of different armies. Is 3 Hekatons with Pre-nerfed Magna Rail the problem? Is 1 not so bad? What about the other gun options? How does someone spamming basic Hearthkyn feel? What about maxing bikes? Or 30 Hearthguard?
But GW surely don't just want to know something is overpowered, they also have to playtest the fix.
So lets say you have the original Votann codex. You play 30 games, it wins 22 of them, seems very strong and busted.
So lets change points.
But now you would want to test say Beserks at 25, Hearthguard at 40, Hekatons at 250. And Beserks at 30, Hearthguard at 45, Hekatons at 300. And possibly Beserks at 35, Hearthguard at 50, Hekatons at 350 etc. Which means another 90-135 games. The result of which would hopefully inform you where a sensible points level is.
Now I guess you could say "no, this is stupid, its obvious what the correct points are" - but it clearly isn't obvious for GW, hence why they've screwed it up for about 2/3rds of codexes.
And the final (and most important) question is:
How high a pts value actually interferes with sales?
Someone did mention the fact that nerfing one faction in order for others to have fun was the most optimal choice. It would not be a problem if GW was the same with all books their write. But somehow in case of some they are willing to pre nerf the books at the level of writing the rule sets, while others are left in an "OP" state for months.
In any case I still think their argument that 90 percent of players can't have any fun unless 10 percent are sacrificed is ridiculous
That wasn't the argument at all tho..
I did ask it as a question at one point, and they did agree that yes, literally it's better to sacrifice the gaming experience for 10 percent of players so that 90 percent can enjoy the game. I think that's pretty unwarranted to be willing to go to that extreme.
This was in response to their similar claim that it's okay for Votann to be underpowered because if they are OP it ruins the game for everyone else playing as another faction ( I find both claims questionable - one because the game doesn't need to be ruined for anyone - GW has the resources to fix this or at least engage in some basic Alpha Testing with volunteers, and second, I really think it's a bit exaggerated to say that having the Votann or any new faction temporarily OP so that balance changes can be made after even just a couple months testing ruins the game for the majority. The majority of players are not competitive as in tournament level and tournaments can just ban the faction temporarily if there is a serious problem. )
I brought up the 10 percent vs 90 just to see how far they would be willing to go with this reasoning. I like to know where people are honestly coming from so I can get directly to the crux of the issue. So they made one argument and then a separate related argument when queried in a direct manner.
In fact I did see them using numbers like that as hypotheticals before this so part of it was also clarification and they clarified saying yes, ten percent can be sacrificed for the 90 percent. And then tried to justify it using Vulcan logic over a board game. I commented that we don't need Star Trek level logic about making cold, tough choices for what is for most people a hobby they are using to unwind at the end of a hard day. This is supposed to be chips and soda time, not a " who gets the chopping block" time. I joked around about it, and while I don't see how that was wrong ( they weren't personal attack jokes, just more things on how that sounds like Thanos logic ) - I wish that didn't upset whoever reported me that bad as it was not meant to insult anyone. I mean " Sir this is a Wendy's" is pretty light.
Asenion wrote: I did ask it as a question at one point, and they did agree that yes, literally it's better to sacrifice the gaming experience for 10 percent of players so that 90 percent can enjoy the game. I think that's pretty unwarranted to be willing to go to that extreme.
But how is it "extreme"? You can't propose a scenario where you either have 10% of the players be unhappy or 90% of the players be unhappy and then complain that people choose the least-worst option of the two instead of a nonexistent third option where nobody is unhappy because the scenario is avoided entirely. The premise of the scenario is that it isn't possible to make everyone happy by doing better design/testing, that pre-release testing has already failed and your choice is to either allow the overpowered codex to dominate or to nerf it.
"We'd be willing to sacrifice the fun of 10% of people for 90% of people."
And that is not
"90% of players can't have any fun unless 10% are sacrificed."
Notice how each one is more extreme than the last? None of them are the same. Please do not think they are the same.
I made the statement " It is hard to believe anyone would actually suggest we have to sacrifice 10 percent of players for the 90 percent" and they then chose to defend that statement.
I may have introduced it, but they defended it for pages and began making arguments on how this is logical for the greater good.
Nobody forced them to defend that statement. You can try to argue I tricked them or trapped them but they know how to read and they defended that statement exact for several pages.
Btw if I don't respond to certain arguments it's likely because the person is on ignore. I rarely do that but I think having the same person crop up in multiple unrelated threads with the same unpleasant tone warrants this. I'm not naming anyone, just letting you know if I seem to be ignoring an argument you think I should address you might wish to present it yourself.
"We'd be willing to sacrifice the fun of 10% of people for 90% of people."
And that is not
"90% of players can't have any fun unless 10% are sacrificed."
Notice how each one is more extreme than the last? None of them are the same. Please do not think they are the same.
I made the statement " It is hard to believe anyone would actually suggest we have to sacrifice 10 percent of players for the 90 percent" and they then chose to defend that statement.
I may have introduced it, but they defended it for pages and began making arguments on how this is logical for the greater good.
Nobody forced them to defend that statement. You can try to argue I tricked them or trapped them but they know how to read and they defended that statement exact for several pages.
Btw if I don't respond to certain arguments it's likely because the person is on ignore. I rarely do that but I think having the same person crop up in multiple unrelated threads with the same unpleasant tone warrants this. I'm not naming anyone, just letting you know if I seem to be ignoring an argument you think I should address you might wish to present it yourself.
Now this is absolutely hilarious to come back to and read.....
You propose the hypothetical of a 90/10 Win loss ratio. I say which of those would clearly be the lesser of two evils. Then you twist it around to make it sound as if we want 1/25 of the playable codexes to have a 10% win rate. I even posted "Nobody was advocating for 10% win rates. But if faced with a 10% or 90% a 10% would be healthier for the game... obviously, the goal is between 45-55 as stated multiple times by GW"
The amount of underhandedness you are going through to try to gain internet brownie points is ridiculous. You must be super salty about these nerfs to go to this length to discredit people with a different viewpoint in such a rediculous way.
In any case I still think their argument that 90 percent of players can't have any fun unless 10 percent are sacrificed is ridiculous
That wasn't the argument at all tho..
I did ask it as a question at one point, and they did agree that yes, literally it's better to sacrifice the gaming experience for 10 percent of players so that 90 percent can enjoy the game. I think that's pretty unwarranted to be willing to go to that extreme.
Why? Your hypothetical situation is already comedically extreme and unrealistic, so you can't really complain it if produces silly results.
I brought up the 10 percent vs 90 just to see how far they would be willing to go with this reasoning. I like to know where people are honestly coming from so I can get directly to the crux of the issue. So they made one argument and then a separate related argument when queried in a direct manner.
Can you explain what's wrong with the response to your question (actually, I think it was Dudeface that first asked it)? If our only two options are for a faction to have a 90% win rate or a 10% win rate, why is picking the 10% win rate wrong? The logic presented when the question was first asked is sound: better to have one faction's players negatively affected than all but one faction's players negatively affected.
If you want to actually engage with the argument and explain what's wrong with it, I'd be interested to hear your explanation. Bear in mind this was a purely hypothetical scenario, where 90% and 10% were the only options presented.
In any case I still think their argument that 90 percent of players can't have any fun unless 10 percent are sacrificed is ridiculous
That wasn't the argument at all tho..
I did ask it as a question at one point, and they did agree that yes, literally it's better to sacrifice the gaming experience for 10 percent of players so that 90 percent can enjoy the game. I think that's pretty unwarranted to be willing to go to that extreme.
Why? Your hypothetical situation is already comedically extreme and unrealistic, so you can't really complain it if produces silly results.
I brought up the 10 percent vs 90 just to see how far they would be willing to go with this reasoning. I like to know where people are honestly coming from so I can get directly to the crux of the issue. So they made one argument and then a separate related argument when queried in a direct manner.
Can you explain what's wrong with the response to your question (actually, I think it was Dudeface that first asked it)? If our only two options are for a faction to have a 90% win rate or a 10% win rate, why is picking the 10% win rate wrong? The logic presented when the question was first asked is sound: better to have one faction's players negatively affected than all but one faction's players negatively affected.
If you want to actually engage with the argument and explain what's wrong with it, I'd be interested to hear your explanation. Bear in mind this was a purely hypothetical scenario, where 90% and 10% were the only options presented.
I'll chip in my stance a final time just to aid as a summary: the whole thing was in the confines of a 5 round 25+ player event with equal faction spread, going for bare minimums if one player has a 90% win rate 1st place is already decided pretty much. 24/25 players have a 4.2% of playing the "auto win" army, which means that for 79% of the event, nobody is impacted by the presence of the 90% win faction and of the 21% who are, it's one game out of 5. The 10% army is the other way round, last place is a dead certainty, the same ratios and % apply to likelihood of impact. The difference is that it's preferable to play a game you're almost dead certain to win for most players, so there will be a meta-game of people trying to pair into the 10% to boost win rate, although arguably the same might happen with the 90% with people being thrown under the bus.
Both are bad, both twist the outcome of the event, both lead to bad times. Factoring the human element, it's better however for 5 people to have 1 miserable game than 1 person have 5. That is literally the only deciding factor for me. A 10% or 90% army needs to be banned for the sakes of a healthy community in either direction, but forced to pick, I choose wider happiness as people having at least 4 close games is more important than who gets first place.
Obviously this falls apart the second you get out a hypothetical because people generally don't think that way and will swarm to the easy wins.
1. 90% win rate does not equate close games whatsoever. To think that is just wrong.
2. Nobody has Votaan to begin with, so these hypothetical players don't matter.
3. We have super casual man saying he only plays casual and then posts lists that fish for 6s with the rail weapons, so the whole argument is defunct by them.
I'll chip in my stance a final time just to aid as a summary: the whole thing was in the confines of a 5 round 25+ player event with equal faction spread, going for bare minimums if one player has a 90% win rate 1st place is already decided pretty much. 24/25 players have a 4.2% of playing the "auto win" army, which means that for 79% of the event, nobody is impacted by the presence of the 90% win faction and of the 21% who are, it's one game out of 5. The 10% army is the other way round, last place is a dead certainty, the same ratios and % apply to likelihood of impact. The difference is that it's preferable to play a game you're almost dead certain to win for most players, so there will be a meta-game of people trying to pair into the 10% to boost win rate, although arguably the same might happen with the 90% with people being thrown under the bus.
Both are bad, both twist the outcome of the event, both lead to bad times. Factoring the human element, it's better however for 5 people to have 1 miserable game than 1 person have 5. That is literally the only deciding factor for me. A 10% or 90% army needs to be banned for the sakes of a healthy community in either direction, but forced to pick, I choose wider happiness as people having at least 4 close games is more important than who gets first place.
Obviously this falls apart the second you get out a hypothetical because people generally don't think that way and will swarm to the easy wins.
Ah. I was thinking everyone else had a 10% win rate (it's possible if you really REALLY ~REALLY~ force the statistics waaaaaay out of kilter by selectively pairing against the 90% army lol). Thanks for spelling it out. And that is an interesting point: I think it would indeed be better to have 1 bad game for each of 5 people rather than 5 bad games for one person if we are forcing each player to play a certain faction. (If everyone's left to their own devices, presumably the 10% army would have been brought by someone who knows what they're getting into and then the balance of what is better changes a bit...but that's not the scenario we're talking about so it needn't concern us here heh).
It is physicaly impossible for a faction to reach 90% win rates, because if it was that much better then other faction, in the end rounds, people would be running in to mirror matches and with one person losing and one person winning, it would lower the over all faction win rate.
Just like in sports, the best way to really judge how strong a faction is, first check how many members of it end up in top 8 or top 16, and then over all, what is the avarge for the team, faction or school of round they suffer their first lose. If it even crosses 2, or the avarge is really close to that number the faction is very unbalanced. On the other hand if the first turn avarge for a faction is 1, then the faction is in dire situation and in need of instant help or fix. the only worse situation is if a faction would have an avarge of 0, which would mean it is so bad, that even people that like it and owned it don't bring it to events.
Karol wrote: It is physicaly impossible for a faction to reach 90% win rates, because if it was that much better then other faction, in the end rounds, people would be running in to mirror matches and with one person losing and one person winning, it would lower the over all faction win rate.
Just like in sports, the best way to really judge how strong a faction is, first check how many members of it end up in top 8 or top 16, and then over all, what is the avarge for the team, faction or school of round they suffer their first lose. If it even crosses 2, or the avarge is really close to that number the faction is very unbalanced. On the other hand if the first turn avarge for a faction is 1, then the faction is in dire situation and in need of instant help or fix. the only worse situation is if a faction would have an avarge of 0, which would mean it is so bad, that even people that like it and owned it don't bring it to events.
If that is a thing in w40k in the west, then I am suprised, because it would really skew the data. Especialy for those times when some factions had +60% win rates. In sports, it is always counted and noticed, when suddenly a school or nation dominates at something.
Karol wrote: If that is a thing in w40k in the west, then I am suprised, because it would really skew the data. Especialy for those times when some factions had +60% win rates. In sports, it is always counted and noticed, when suddenly a school or nation dominates at something.
Mirror matches are more handy for determining internal balance compared to external balance.
I guess the problem is I'm struggling to imagine a scenario where a faction has a 10% win rate* whereas a 90% isn't much of a push from where certain factions have approached.
*I think several weak factions have been pushing 10% win rates into the top faction - but have had a 40-50% rate against other factions lower down the pecking order.
Tyel wrote: I guess the problem is I'm struggling to imagine a scenario where a faction has a 10% win rate* whereas a 90% isn't much of a push from where certain factions have approached.
*I think several weak factions have been pushing 10% win rates into the top faction - but have had a 40-50% rate against other factions lower down the pecking order.
It shouldn't happen by any stretch but the issue is the herd mentality and human nature means lower win rate armies have lower representation so cause less issues and higher win rate armies have higher than appropriate representation. Humans aren't always, but frequently are egocentric, people value winning over fun over others quite a lot in this hobby as an observation. I know it doesn't apply to all but it's certainly a trend.
It is a very interesting idea, that somehow winning is not fun. What seems more plausible is that people don't like to not have fun and lose over and over again. Especialy when they have to pay for the hobby, which makes playing a losing army, a bit as if you were paying for other people to have fun with your own money.
Karol wrote: If that is a thing in w40k in the west, then I am suprised, because it would really skew the data. Especialy for those times when some factions had +60% win rates. In sports, it is always counted and noticed, when suddenly a school or nation dominates at something.
Mirror matches are more handy for determining internal balance compared to external balance.
If you take something like 80%+ represenation of all tyranids are leviathan, pre nerfs, and mirrors leviathan lists win over non leviathan lists that it is telling. Same if lets say pre voidweaver CWE lists are taken from 16-8-4. And one finds out that the armies with more voidweaver not only got higher placments on the avarge, but also won vs armies who had fewer voidweavers. Probably yes.
Problems start when GW tries to hide stuff and tries to explain "marine" win rates with class of players. Yet in the same "marine" bag, there are WS and IH and something like IF/CF or RG. Or when an army has more then one build at the same time or it is a multi codex soup etc.
Now checking for things, does require to both lists be gathered and then someone going over them, so that is a chore for sure. But it is not like it is impossible. It is not less hard to do then track all players in a team sport. I don't think GW cares about all of those things. They don't care about balance, and their modus operandi of The Hobby enjoyer is to own multiple armies, for multiple games, and play those which ever are most fun at a give time. Good for 30+year old players with free income and 15-20 years of collecting behind them. Not so good for Jimmy the Noob, who decied that GSC is going to be his army of choice.
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Racerguy180 wrote: Winning has zero impact on my enjoyment of the game. My existence does not require me to crush my enemies and hear the lamentations of their women.
Some of my best remembered games are when I lost.
Now I could write walls of text here, but I will make it easier. First there are hormons, which are very detrimental to your health if you get flooded with them over and over again. And that is more or less what happens to a dude who had the great idea to pick an army like IF as his choice to play in w40k. And then there is thousands of articles about the psychology of losing, experiments regarding wining and losing done on people and animals etc. And if an animal or human loses enough times, then he will not just get depressed and feel bad about it, but sooner or later he will stop playing at all. And not wanting to play at all, is , and this is not my opinion but people who are very smart with PhDs in sports psychology etc, super impactful. In order to not be impactful the person or animal would have to not want to play to begin with, and I think the argument here is limited to the population that actualy wants to play the game. Because yes, if someone has models to paint them, and games exist only for them to do stuff other then actualy playing the game, then yeah a per nerf to Votan and any of its possible repercussions in the future don't matter.
Karol isn't arguing about winning or losing once, but about losing most of the time. And they have a point.
Sure we all have fun in a close game we lost, but I'm guessing most of us didn't have fun in those games we lost and it wasn't even close. And being on the bad side of a losing streak? That can even kill someone's enjoyment of the hobby.
Winning may not be all there is to having fun, but the perception of having a decent chance at winning? Most of us probably want that to have a chance at having fun.
VladimirHerzog wrote: feth off Karol, we've told you multiple times before that its possible for us to have fun regardless of the outcome.
I personally would rather lose a close game than win a runaway one.
Yeah, I don't think they're getting that OTHER people may have different expectations/desires out of the game.
I sure as gak don't play to lose, but neither is winning the only thing that matters. As much as I despise organized competitive stuff I can totally understand that some may like it. The big difference is that it appears(at least superficially) to be the ONLY thing some get out of the game/hobby. Much to the detrimental effect on others and if you're not with 'em you're obviously against 'em mentality!
Winning may not be all there is to having fun, but the perception of having a decent chance at winning? Most of us probably want that to have a chance at having fun.
If you can't seriously look at an opposing army(knowing what it has since the game has perfect information) and not see that you're gonna get curbstomped, that sucks.
But I have gone up against lists that I know will demolish mine and still had fun;
Denying targets for opponent(I didn't have a shooti g phase till t3....neither did they(so even against massive odds, still had fun)
Playing cat n mouse(self explanatory)
Saying "I'm gonna take that hill", irrespective of actual chances!(c'mon, sooooo many war stories/medals are earned that way). Even better when its plastic dudes in the Grimdarkness of the 41st Millennium & No one dies for realsy's.
Fun is objective, which is my whole point. Now if your playing for $ then sure I'd want a roughly equal chance, but the fact people want to play 40k for it boggles my mind.
Karol wrote: If you take something like 80%+ represenation of all tyranids are leviathan, pre nerfs, and mirrors leviathan lists win over non leviathan lists that it is telling.
That's not what people mean by "ignore mirror matches". You aren't ignoring the representation of a faction, you're just taking out mirror matches when looking at its win rate. Any match where both players had the same faction is removed from the data set before calculating win rates. For example, let's say the new guard codex does have those 10 point Baneblades. The result would be an absurdly overpowered codex that would easily win every game against any other faction. And the only players who would ever show up at a tournament would be the people who own guard armies with the maximum number of Baneblades, everyone else would stay home because automatically losing to people who own the good army isn't fun. So how do we handle this?
If you include mirror matches then the win rate data says that everything is fine. Guard have a perfect 50% win rate because virtually every match is guard vs. guard. In the mirror match you by definition must have one win and one loss for the faction.
If you exclude mirror matches you recognize that the meta is completely broken. Guard have a 100% non-mirror win rate. The win rate data correctly recognizes that guard are beating every non-guard opponent who bothers to show up, and the only time the Baneblade spam list ever loses is against another Baneblade spam list.
Now do you see why win rate data must always exclude mirror matches?
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Racerguy180 wrote: Now if your playing for $ then sure I'd want a roughly equal chance, but the fact people want to play 40k for it boggles my mind.
Why is it mind-boggling? Matches where the outcome is decided purely by who bought stronger rules aren't fun. If I'm going to play a game with a heroic last stand I want to play it as a narrative game where a last stand scenario fits the story, not because my opponent's rules are much stronger than mine and the only way to even attempt to achieve a meaningful goal is to pretend that a standard matched play mission is a last stand scenario that my opponent isn't even aware of.
Tyran wrote: Karol isn't arguing about winning or losing once, but about losing most of the time. And they have a point.
Sure we all have fun in a close game we lost, but I'm guessing most of us didn't have fun in those games we lost and it wasn't even close. And being on the bad side of a losing streak? That can even kill someone's enjoyment of the hobby.
Winning may not be all there is to having fun, but the perception of having a decent chance at winning? Most of us probably want that to have a chance at having fun.
For what it's worth, I'm still going strong after ~10 months back in the game. I've won exactly one match. Usually play a couple times a month. Personally, it comes down to getting my enjoyment out of a combination of making my opponent react to my decisions and firing big guns . Besides, what kind of guardsman would I be if I faltered in the face of a near certain loss? Gotta hold the line.
Yes
There was no need for the change to the points cost for models. there cost afectivness and efishancy per point has not yeat be trully established. this was pure panic overreation.
NO, sort of..
The change to grudge token's and the overkill sinergys of them with railguns and some obviuse combio's should have been revealid in internal play testing way before the book was 'finalised' and the auto wounds count as 6's removed at that time.
Tyran wrote: Karol isn't arguing about winning or losing once, but about losing most of the time. And they have a point.
Sure we all have fun in a close game we lost, but I'm guessing most of us didn't have fun in those games we lost and it wasn't even close. And being on the bad side of a losing streak? That can even kill someone's enjoyment of the hobby.
Winning may not be all there is to having fun, but the perception of having a decent chance at winning? Most of us probably want that to have a chance at having fun.
For what it's worth, I'm still going strong after ~10 months back in the game. I've won exactly one match. Usually play a couple times a month. Personally, it comes down to getting my enjoyment out of a combination of making my opponent react to my decisions and firing big guns . Besides, what kind of guardsman would I be if I faltered in the face of a near certain loss? Gotta hold the line.
Anecdotal, but I recently started playing my CSM again. Having a hard time with them, definitely losing more than winning.
I was playing Deathwatch and Grey Knights for about a year while I waited for the new CSM codex. Won more, but it wasn't the same.
Winning is not everything. I can understand not wanting to lose every game, but I don't know an army where that's the case.
TLDR I believe the pre-release nerf to LoV was largely a PR issue.
While I'm not a fan of any of this, I have to agree with GW in that it's still too soon to tell where LoV are going to slot into things. I think GW is making the right call by allowing the codex and all of the LoV units to be available and then allowing the meta (I just threw up a little in my mouth using that word) to adjust before making any additional changes.
Kind of think it depends on what people feel an "auto-loss" looks like. Which is in turn I think why certain kinds of imbalance provoke mass outcry from the professional 40k crowd - and others... don't. They provoke a "some faction has to be best, get with the programme" sort of response.
Its not fun to lose in non-interactive ways. This is often why movement abilities are very contentious. If I can move units around (see for example pre-nerf Encircle the Prey) and you can't... well, its almost like I'm playing a different game. The current situation with certain factions secondaries can feel like this, where they just run away on points... and you don't. Even if the "fighting" element of the game is going relatively evenly. ("My whole army is Obsec" kind of goes the same way.)
Which is why the Magna Rail got so much attention rather than Votann generally being aggressively pointed. You shouldn't have the ability (via special rules etc) to just point and remove a unit from the table (or inflict 8-12 wounds that roll over). By contrast 22 point Beserks are clearly undercosted compared to other units in the game - but they are at least comparable to said units. When they charge and murder a unit, its not different to say Possessed doing the same, Incubi doing the same etc.
Which is why the Magna Rail got so much attention rather than Votann generally being aggressively pointed.
And super aggressively pointed they were. An Intercessor was just under the cost of two basic Votaan dudes. The Intercessor is not twice as durable, but the Votaan have literally twice the offense.
Tyel wrote: Kind of think it depends on what people feel an "auto-loss" looks like. Which is in turn I think why certain kinds of imbalance provoke mass outcry from the professional 40k crowd - and others... don't. They provoke a "some faction has to be best, get with the programme" sort of response.
Its not fun to lose in non-interactive ways. This is often why movement abilities are very contentious. If I can move units around (see for example pre-nerf Encircle the Prey) and you can't... well, its almost like I'm playing a different game. The current situation with certain factions secondaries can feel like this, where they just run away on points... and you don't. Even if the "fighting" element of the game is going relatively evenly. ("My whole army is Obsec" kind of goes the same way.)
Which is why the Magna Rail got so much attention rather than Votann generally being aggressively pointed. You shouldn't have the ability (via special rules etc) to just point and remove a unit from the table (or inflict 8-12 wounds that roll over). By contrast 22 point Beserks are clearly undercosted compared to other units in the game - but they are at least comparable to said units. When they charge and murder a unit, its not different to say Possessed doing the same, Incubi doing the same etc.
Yea most unfun games I have is when I can't do anything. Not even kill anything...One good example would be say previous lumineth book with 4 flying foxes. If I'm up against it with say khorne, gloomspite gits, slaves to darkness, fyreslayers or basically any melee army without capability to shoot those foxes to death and fast I literally CANNOT do anything to his army. Foxes form up flying wall, I move in next to them, they then move out of charge range...I literally could not charge without cheating...And melee armies can't thus kill them. Literally all I can do is try to move to objectives ASAP and hope like hell I score enough to win without killing anything as any chance of me getting to combat depends on opponent allowing as I literally could not get there without cheating...
Which is why the Magna Rail got so much attention rather than Votann generally being aggressively pointed.
And super aggressively pointed they were. An Intercessor was just under the cost of two basic Votaan dudes. The Intercessor is not twice as durable, but the Votaan have literally twice the offense.
No the Intercessor is way more durable than the 2 Vottaan..
1st he has a 3+save the Votaan only has a 4+. This makes a masive diferance in there base servivability.
the intercessor has a 2 out of 3 chance of taking a shot and serviving where as the Votann only have a 1/2.
ok so they both have armour of contempt so -1 saves don't mater
but the marine has 'Trans Human' and so can reduce the damage by one.
just take an assault cannon spraying over these groups.
4 hits, 2 wounds apiece. no save mod, the marine has 2 chances to save and as long as he makes 1 he lives, but the Votaan only have a 50% chance to save and each time they fail they lose a dud....
so really who's worth more points?
the only way to make up for the gak servivablity is to up there Firepower to compensate. and at the moment you can NOT get enough kin in the army to do so.
Which is why the Magna Rail got so much attention rather than Votann generally being aggressively pointed.
And super aggressively pointed they were. An Intercessor was just under the cost of two basic Votaan dudes. The Intercessor is not twice as durable, but the Votaan have literally twice the offense.
No the Intercessor is way more durable than the 2 Vottaan..
1st he has a 3+save the Votaan only has a 4+. This makes a masive diferance in there base servivability.
the intercessor has a 2 out of 3 chance of taking a shot and serviving where as the Votann only have a 1/2.
ok so they both have armour of contempt so -1 saves don't mater
but the marine has 'Trans Human' and so can reduce the damage by one.
just take an assault cannon spraying over these groups.
4 hits, 2 wounds apiece. no save mod, the marine has 2 chances to save and as long as he makes 1 he lives, but the Votaan only have a 50% chance to save and each time they fail they lose a dud....
so really who's worth more points?
the only way to make up for the gak servivablity is to up there Firepower to compensate. and at the moment you can NOT get enough kin in the army to do so.
LOL this was a serious post was it?
The difference in durability is just 4+ vs 3+. Both have AoC, and the 4+ has a built in protection against rerolling any wounds.
So the Intercessor is not really twice as durable for the points, and in the meantime the Votaan are twice the offense.
Morty_Jhones wrote: 1st he has a 3+save the Votaan only has a 4+. This makes a masive diferance in there base servivability.
Not in the world of massively inflated gak, especially on xeno/chaos guns. When that save is 5/6+ to Votann 6/7+, you have 16% better chance of saving most of the time. Spoiler alert, SMaren't 16% more expensive. And that's when enemy unit can't throw a bucket of mortals at you, or has -5/6 AP, which is increasingly common, as then you're paying for absolutely nothing.
marine has 2 chances to save
Not when even the dumbest gak that has no business doing so has D2, with the stat being worth so little these times GW writers started to spam D3 in places. When even XIX century revolvers crudely banged together from scrap metal, a street sign, or a piece of junk welded to a metal pipe have D2 that W2 stat not only loses its luster, W1 becomes objectively superior as you pay extra points for absolutely nothing.
Early days obviously - but this weekend's tournament scene saw 9 Votann lists, 44 games and a 59% win rate.
So its possible whatever data was producing the 30% win rates allegedly achieved in "private tournaments" was skewed.
Fair play, likely still need some tuning. I'm more concerned that they're backed into a corner now where points are the only place they're willing to go rather than tackling the judgement mechanic.
Early days obviously - but this weekend's tournament scene saw 9 Votann lists, 44 games and a 59% win rate.
So its possible whatever data was producing the 30% win rates allegedly achieved in "private tournaments" was skewed.
Fair play, likely still need some tuning. I'm more concerned that they're backed into a corner now where points are the only place they're willing to go rather than tackling the judgement mechanic.
They aren't backed into any type of corner. At any moment they could release some new rules gak.
Early days obviously - but this weekend's tournament scene saw 9 Votann lists, 44 games and a 59% win rate.
So its possible whatever data was producing the 30% win rates allegedly achieved in "private tournaments" was skewed.
Can you share where you get those statistics, all i found is that Votanns have exactly 50% win rate within week and all time win rate 42.66%.
r/WarhammerCompetative this weeks "Meta Monday" shows a 59% win rate and a tournament 1st place finishing at PCG Hosts Lightly Salted's 40K Fall GT.
Yes, 1 weekend winning rate 59% and 6 weeks win rate 51%, so i say its pretty average win rate for faction that everyone keeps saying its OP. Top5% not even shown. because thats only one player got in top5%.
...ummm...what did YOU think nerfs were going to do? Increase the win rate?
Gee. Look at that. Votann not broken as hell after getting hefty nerfs. Imagine what their win rate would be if they hadn't been hit by one of the biggest nerf hammers GW has hit with ever? Guess by some weird logic their win rate would be lower then? Or do you think nerf bat that was so huge would have zero impact?
Gee. Maybe the nerfs actually put them from OP as hell to about right? Did that thought cross your mind?
tneva82 wrote: Uuuh...People said it was OP BEFORE nerfs...
...ummm...what did YOU think nerfs were going to do? Increase the win rate?
Gee. Look at that. Votann not broken as hell after getting hefty nerfs. Imagine what their win rate would be if they hadn't been hit by one of the biggest nerf hammers GW has hit with ever? Guess by some weird logic their win rate would be lower then? Or do you think nerf bat that was so huge would have zero impact?
Gee. Maybe the nerfs actually put them from OP as hell to about right? Did that thought cross your mind?
That was one weekend win rate% , Goonhammer site shows all time win rate 42.66% (Zephilim GT pack) and that's gakky win%, not as gakky that marines (non BA) , Adeptus Mechanicus and some other factions with under 40% win rates, but maybe, just maybe GW over nerfed Votaans ?
The bulk of the Votann range was not available before last weekend. Some tournaments may let you proxy whatever you like - but a lot won't. The situation before is therefore somewhat meaningless. I imagine Codex: "Hearthkyn+Pioneers" had problems, but its not a realistic reflection of the book. And if that was the basis for why people claimed "the codex had been over-nerfed", it was stupid.
Ultimately the 59% may be skewed by the small number of players - we shall see what happens next weekend.
Early days obviously - but this weekend's tournament scene saw 9 Votann lists, 44 games and a 59% win rate.
So its possible whatever data was producing the 30% win rates allegedly achieved in "private tournaments" was skewed.
Can you share where you get those statistics, all i found is that Votanns have exactly 50% win rate within week and all time win rate 42.66%.
r/WarhammerCompetative this weeks "Meta Monday" shows a 59% win rate and a tournament 1st place finishing at PCG Hosts Lightly Salted's 40K Fall GT.
Yes, 1 weekend winning rate 59% and 6 weeks win rate 51%, so i say its pretty average win rate for faction that everyone keeps saying its OP. Top5% not even shown. because thats only one player got in top5%.
The whole range of models has only been available for a single weekend of tournament play so far. Even then, many tournaments may have had cut-off dates for list submission that effectively ruled Votann out. A 6-week win rate is pretty meaningless for LoV at the moment, as is data from a single weekend when many players are probably still assembling and painting their armies. We'll likely need to wait until December, or the New Year to get a proper picture for LoV.
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: Didn't LoV just take the top spot at a tourny over the weekend? I saw a video on youtube that said they did in the title.
They did. It was a Kronus Hegemony melee list that made me think, "What if Bloody Rose Sisters, but with dwarves instead of nuns?" The guy had a High Kahl, a Brokhyr Forge-Master, and an Einhyr Champion, all tooled up with relics and traits, 3 units of Hearthkyn, 3 units of Beserks, a unit of Hearthguard, 2 units of bikes, and 2 sagitaurs. I applaud the guy for going all-in on the melee beat-em-up plan, as the list was fairly well-tuned, but it absolutely wasn't what I would have expected.
ZergSmasher wrote: They did. It was a Kronus Hegemony melee list that made me think, "What if Bloody Rose Sisters, but with dwarves instead of nuns?" The guy had a High Kahl, a Brokhyr Forge-Master, and an Einhyr Champion, all tooled up with relics and traits, 3 units of Hearthkyn, 3 units of Beserks, a unit of Hearthguard, 2 units of bikes, and 2 sagitaurs. I applaud the guy for going all-in on the melee beat-em-up plan, as the list was fairly well-tuned, but it absolutely wasn't what I would have expected.
I kind of feel once people realised they were going to nerf the super railgun combo, Beserks were always going to be the carry unit. Comically broken at 22 - still good at 30.
When compared to the November 3rd stats, it appears that the middle of the pack has remained consistent, but the top has been crushed down 3-6% by the emergence of the daemons and votann, whilst the inclusion of tzeentch daemons has boosted thousand sons. Sadly the bottom few factions (various marines and admech) have continued to lose ground.
For no reason that I can understand the GSC have gained 5%, I can only surmise that there's been a shift in the units other armies are fielding which has given the a boost.
My original thoughts about the votann nerf were that it didn't go quite far enough, and that seems (just) right. If all the other top end factions get an appropriate nerf, then votann will also need a small targeted nerf to prevent them sitting above the others.
Fingers crossed there's some good news for loyalist marines and admech in Janaury.
Kind of think you can "predict the meta" - but equally that the game is sufficiently balanced that most factions can have a good day. Faction X winning a tournament shouldn't really surprise. (I guess if 30%~ of players started playing Tzeentch and Daemons that might change.)
With that said, its pretty clear they need to nerf flamers.
I'm sort of surprised there hasn't been a bigger internet outcry over them. But the codex reviews seemed to go "these will be good... anyway" - buried under a collective "so much of the deamons codex is overcosted, this sucks". Which has caused this slow-roll of "daemons are bad", "daemons are balanced", "daemons are busted", "Tzeentch is the best army in the game"...
Admittedly, if they did gut flamers, the Daemons book probably needs compensatory buffs, because yes, a lot of stuff seems a bit rubbish.
Uh flamers have been known for long to be busted. It's not exactly been secret or kept hidden. It's just that it's pointless to talk about it. Are they busted? Yes. Everybody knows it. Everybody knows they are going to get nerfed. GW itself mentioned before flamers as target for future change...
How much you need to talk about sun being hot? Because that's equally obvious statement as flamers are going to get a nerf.
tneva82 wrote: Uh flamers have been known for long to be busted. It's not exactly been secret or kept hidden. It's just that it's pointless to talk about it. Are they busted? Yes. Everybody knows it. Everybody knows they are going to get nerfed. GW itself mentioned before flamers as target for future change...
How much you need to talk about sun being hot? Because that's equally obvious statement as flamers are going to get a nerf.
Well, I don't know really. Did we need to discuss Votann, or Tyranids, or Harlequins, or Custodes and Tau etc? Probably not - they were all too good, were going to get nerfed and got nerfed. But people did so. Where are the 10-page threads on Dakka about how flamers are broken/no they are fine l2play/no 40k is an easy game I can only be beaten by netlists/ etc? Where is it if you move beyond to say Reddit, or the professional scene?
tneva82 wrote: Uh flamers have been known for long to be busted. It's not exactly been secret or kept hidden. It's just that it's pointless to talk about it. Are they busted? Yes. Everybody knows it. Everybody knows they are going to get nerfed. GW itself mentioned before flamers as target for future change...
How much you need to talk about sun being hot? Because that's equally obvious statement as flamers are going to get a nerf.
Well, I don't know really. Did we need to discuss Votann, or Tyranids, or Harlequins, or Custodes and Tau etc? Probably not - they were all too good, were going to get nerfed and got nerfed. But people did so. Where are the 10-page threads on Dakka about how flamers are broken/no they are fine l2play/no 40k is an easy game I can only be beaten by netlists/ etc? Where is it if you move beyond to say Reddit, or the professional scene?
Putting a cynical hat on the people who benefit most from the flamers situation are the same people who would have been threatened by people with Votann, some groups of people out there have easy access to daemons armies or chaos soups because they've been around a long time, so they can leverage the situation. Whereas any Tom/Dick/Harry coming along and winning games with the new army by chance might make them look worse and be less easy for them to manipulate by acquiring pre-painted minis either 2nd hand or from player groups.
I'm not saying that's realistic and is a real tinfoil hat moment but it's an unlikely explanation.
everyone i know that played flamers stopped bringing more than one unit in pick up games because of how dumb they are lol. Even in a tournament, i felt terrible as my two squads mulched my opponent's everything
everyone i know that played flamers stopped bringing more than one unit in pick up games because of how dumb they are lol. Even in a tournament, i felt terrible as my two squads mulched my opponent's everything
Middling competitive players have easy access to tournament ready chaos soup models either through borrowing or 2nd hand market. They can ride the new hotness without much hassle and if flamers aren't discussed that much then they get easy wins. They might get egg on their face if anyone can cobble together a random Votann army and beat them however by chance, so they might be inclined to get them "banned" or pre-nerfed in an attempt to avoid the "best" army being one they can't access.
everyone i know that played flamers stopped bringing more than one unit in pick up games because of how dumb they are lol. Even in a tournament, i felt terrible as my two squads mulched my opponent's everything
Middling competitive players have easy access to tournament ready chaos soup models either through borrowing or 2nd hand market. They can ride the new hotness without much hassle and if flamers aren't discussed that much then they get easy wins. They might get egg on their face if anyone can cobble together a random Votann army and beat them however by chance, so they might be inclined to get them "banned" or pre-nerfed in an attempt to avoid the "best" army being one they can't access.
Oh ok, so you think people complaining about votann but not flamers is some sort of conspiracy or something?
Everyone KNOWS that flamers are gonna eat a nerf, its been obvious since before the dex got released. Theres no point in discussing it until it changes, Votann is new and not as obviously OP (since they got their day 1 nerf), of course people are gonna talk about them more.
everyone i know that played flamers stopped bringing more than one unit in pick up games because of how dumb they are lol. Even in a tournament, i felt terrible as my two squads mulched my opponent's everything
Middling competitive players have easy access to tournament ready chaos soup models either through borrowing or 2nd hand market. They can ride the new hotness without much hassle and if flamers aren't discussed that much then they get easy wins. They might get egg on their face if anyone can cobble together a random Votann army and beat them however by chance, so they might be inclined to get them "banned" or pre-nerfed in an attempt to avoid the "best" army being one they can't access.
Oh ok, so you think people complaining about votann but not flamers is some sort of conspiracy or something?
Everyone KNOWS that flamers are gonna eat a nerf, its been obvious since before the dex got released. Theres no point in discussing it until it changes, Votann is new and not as obviously OP (since they got their day 1 nerf), of course people are gonna talk about them more.
Then why did we HAVE to discuss how much Votann needed a nerf if it was obvious since before the dex got released? Might as well have not discussed it until it changes. Honestly this "community" is horrendously hypocritical based on when it benefits them. Why aren't Tzeentch lists banned since it's obvious OP?
Then why did we HAVE to discuss how much Votann needed a nerf if it was obvious since before the dex got released? Might as well have not discussed it until it changes. Honestly this "community" is horrendously hypocritical based on when it benefits them. Why aren't Tzeentch lists banned since it's obvious OP?
what? I said Flamers were obviously in need of a nerf
Votann post day-1 nerf werent obviously broken
Banning votann affected no one since the army wasnt even released yet so no one's collection would be invalidated. Nerfing Flamers invalidates some people's collections.
Then why did we HAVE to discuss how much Votann needed a nerf if it was obvious since before the dex got released? Might as well have not discussed it until it changes. Honestly this "community" is horrendously hypocritical based on when it benefits them. Why aren't Tzeentch lists banned since it's obvious OP?
what? I said Flamers were obviously in need of a nerf
Votann post day-1 nerf werent obviously broken
Banning votann affected no one since the army wasnt even released yet so no one's collection would be invalidated. Nerfing Flamers invalidates some people's collections.
To invalidate means to cancel something or make it void, as if it never happened.
So by saying Demons can't be played, you're making Demon player's armies void, as if they never happened.
By saying Votann can't be played, you're telling people to wait a bit before buying in the army since nobody had a full collection when the ban (which is standard procedure for pre-faq codex for the events that did ban votann) was announced
To invalidate means to cancel something or make it void, as if it never happened.
So by saying Demons can't be played, you're making Demon player's armies void, as if they never happened.
By saying Votann can't be played, you're telling people to wait a bit before buying in the army since nobody had a full collection when the ban (which is standard procedure for pre-faq codex for the events that did ban votann) was announced
That isn't what you said:
VladimirHerzog wrote:Nerfing Flamers invalidates some people's collections.
The point is the community were up in arms about 1 obviously broken book, people on here calling for year long bans, saying they hope the faction tanked etc. Obvious op units shouldn't exist. Then not long after we hear naught a fart nor a whisper of the same outcry for daemons.
I guess if no one is defending flamers it could explain the lack of discussion. It means we can't have "I'll accept Trajann is a bit good at 160, but if he's more than say 165 Custodes will not be a viable army..."
The point is the community were up in arms about 1 obviously broken book, people on here calling for year long bans, saying they hope the faction tanked etc. Obvious op units shouldn't exist. Then not long after we hear naught a fart nor a whisper of the same outcry for daemons.
Difference is that Votann had army-wide traits that were busted
Demons is like 1.5 datasheet, and i fully expect that the codex will drop sub 50% once flamers get their nerf
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Tyel wrote: I guess if no one is defending flamers it could explain the lack of discussion. It means we can't have "I'll accept Trajann is a bit good at 160, but if he's more than say 165 Custodes will not be a viable army..."
this, its pretty much universally agreed that flamers are dumb, the closest thing to a defense i've seen was "When flamers get nerfed, if there isnt compensation buffs in the demon dex, its gonna be rough"
everyone i know that played flamers stopped bringing more than one unit in pick up games because of how dumb they are lol. Even in a tournament, i felt terrible as my two squads mulched my opponent's everything
The "tzeench" faction win rates, seem to point at the fact that a large chunk of people do not think that way. The very fact that we have "tzeench" as an army pop up in results, means that people are giving up their armies core rules, just to get in some flamers. Saying that no one runs more then one unit, if any. Is a bit like saying abadon isn't spamed, while at the same time we can talk what a Walking the Dogs list is.
everyone i know that played flamers stopped bringing more than one unit in pick up games because of how dumb they are lol. Even in a tournament, i felt terrible as my two squads mulched my opponent's everything
The "tzeench" faction win rates, seem to point at the fact that a large chunk of people do not think that way. The very fact that we have "tzeench" as an army pop up in results, means that people are giving up their armies core rules, just to get in some flamers. Saying that no one runs more then one unit, if any. Is a bit like saying abadon isn't spamed, while at the same time we can talk what a Walking the Dogs list is.
i said "Everyone I know" stopped running a ton of them because i play with reasonable people that want both players to enjoy the game.
tneva82 wrote: Uh flamers have been known for long to be busted. It's not exactly been secret or kept hidden. It's just that it's pointless to talk about it. Are they busted? Yes. Everybody knows it. Everybody knows they are going to get nerfed. GW itself mentioned before flamers as target for future change...
How much you need to talk about sun being hot? Because that's equally obvious statement as flamers are going to get a nerf.
Well, I don't know really. Did we need to discuss Votann, or Tyranids, or Harlequins, or Custodes and Tau etc? Probably not - they were all too good, were going to get nerfed and got nerfed. But people did so. Where are the 10-page threads on Dakka about how flamers are broken/no they are fine l2play/no 40k is an easy game I can only be beaten by netlists/ etc? Where is it if you move beyond to say Reddit, or the professional scene?
Putting a cynical hat on the people who benefit most from the flamers situation are the same people who would have been threatened by people with Votann, some groups of people out there have easy access to daemons armies or chaos soups because they've been around a long time, so they can leverage the situation. Whereas any Tom/Dick/Harry coming along and winning games with the new army by chance might make them look worse and be less easy for them to manipulate by acquiring pre-painted minis either 2nd hand or from player groups.
I'm not saying that's realistic and is a real tinfoil hat moment but it's an unlikely explanation.
Your point being? Everybody knows they are broken as hell. Everybody knows they will get nerf. Even GW said already before even these stats said they will be getting nerf.
There's no trying to hide they are busted. EVERYBODY SAYS THEY ARE BUSTED.
Gees. Again it's like saying sun is hot. Congrats on making the obvious statement EVERYBODY KNOWS ALREADY.
everyone i know that played flamers stopped bringing more than one unit in pick up games because of how dumb they are lol. Even in a tournament, i felt terrible as my two squads mulched my opponent's everything
Middling competitive players have easy access to tournament ready chaos soup models either through borrowing or 2nd hand market. They can ride the new hotness without much hassle and if flamers aren't discussed that much then they get easy wins. They might get egg on their face if anyone can cobble together a random Votann army and beat them however by chance, so they might be inclined to get them "banned" or pre-nerfed in an attempt to avoid the "best" army being one they can't access.
Lol. They ride as long as they are busted while everybody knows and admits they are busted.
There's no need to go for detailed discussion because a) they are busted as hell b) everybody knows it c) there's no need to even push for GW to nerf them BECAUSE GW ALREADY SAID THEY WILL BE GETTING NERFS!
People aren't discussing them for same reason nobody is talking about how hot the sun is. Everybody knows it. It's waste of time. It takes intelligence level of 1 year old to figure out they are busted. And GW has long time ago said they will be nerfed. What the hell you are expecting to discuss?
"Hey flamers are busted"
"Yes they are very busted"
"So busted".
"Have you heard how busted they are?"
"Yes I said already they are busted"
"So busted".
There's extent of discussion about flamers that can be had. Interesting discussion?
If you think people are trying to hide how busted they are then lol have you ever spent 5 minutes reading about topic? Clearly not. They aren't being hidden. Everybody admits they are busted. It's just there's no need for repeat all the time ad infinum so there's no message about it every second(once per hour more than enough)
tneva82 wrote: Uh flamers have been known for long to be busted. It's not exactly been secret or kept hidden. It's just that it's pointless to talk about it. Are they busted? Yes. Everybody knows it. Everybody knows they are going to get nerfed. GW itself mentioned before flamers as target for future change...
How much you need to talk about sun being hot? Because that's equally obvious statement as flamers are going to get a nerf.
Well, I don't know really. Did we need to discuss Votann, or Tyranids, or Harlequins, or Custodes and Tau etc? Probably not - they were all too good, were going to get nerfed and got nerfed. But people did so. Where are the 10-page threads on Dakka about how flamers are broken/no they are fine l2play/no 40k is an easy game I can only be beaten by netlists/ etc? Where is it if you move beyond to say Reddit, or the professional scene?
Putting a cynical hat on the people who benefit most from the flamers situation are the same people who would have been threatened by people with Votann, some groups of people out there have easy access to daemons armies or chaos soups because they've been around a long time, so they can leverage the situation. Whereas any Tom/Dick/Harry coming along and winning games with the new army by chance might make them look worse and be less easy for them to manipulate by acquiring pre-painted minis either 2nd hand or from player groups.
I'm not saying that's realistic and is a real tinfoil hat moment but it's an unlikely explanation.
Your point being? Everybody knows they are broken as hell. Everybody knows they will get nerf. Even GW said already before even these stats said they will be getting nerf.
There's no trying to hide they are busted. EVERYBODY SAYS THEY ARE BUSTED.
Gees. Again it's like saying sun is hot. Congrats on making the obvious statement EVERYBODY KNOWS ALREADY.
everyone i know that played flamers stopped bringing more than one unit in pick up games because of how dumb they are lol. Even in a tournament, i felt terrible as my two squads mulched my opponent's everything
Middling competitive players have easy access to tournament ready chaos soup models either through borrowing or 2nd hand market. They can ride the new hotness without much hassle and if flamers aren't discussed that much then they get easy wins. They might get egg on their face if anyone can cobble together a random Votann army and beat them however by chance, so they might be inclined to get them "banned" or pre-nerfed in an attempt to avoid the "best" army being one they can't access.
Lol. They ride as long as they are busted while everybody knows and admits they are busted.
There's no need to go for detailed discussion because a) they are busted as hell b) everybody knows it c) there's no need to even push for GW to nerf them BECAUSE GW ALREADY SAID THEY WILL BE GETTING NERFS!
People aren't discussing them for same reason nobody is talking about how hot the sun is. Everybody knows it. It's waste of time. It takes intelligence level of 1 year old to figure out they are busted. And GW has long time ago said they will be nerfed. What the hell you are expecting to discuss?
"Hey flamers are busted"
"Yes they are very busted"
"So busted".
"Have you heard how busted they are?"
"Yes I said already they are busted"
"So busted".
There's extent of discussion about flamers that can be had. Interesting discussion?
If you think people are trying to hide how busted they are then lol have you ever spent 5 minutes reading about topic? Clearly not. They aren't being hidden. Everybody admits they are busted. It's just there's no need for repeat all the time ad infinum so there's no message about it every second(once per hour more than enough)
That's a lot of words, capitals and hyperbole to completely miss the point.
Especially as they track win rates, 6 week win rates, weekly top 5% placings and 6 week tournament wins.
Flamers are way too good. They are also really strong (almost perfectly designed) to be used in a planet bowling ball game between two casual players who want to spend a 40k game rolling dice shooting at each other.
But, you can only take a maximum of 18. Currently 18 x 25 = 450. In January it will probably be 18 x 35 = 630. So at best you are playing 180 points up currently.
Compare to on release Harlequins who depending on where you get your data from are still the 4th best (GW's article) or 1st best (reddit 6 week win rate) faction.
Voidweavers were 90 points each, nerfed to 130.
Starweavers were 80 points, nerfed to 95 each.
Death Jester 55 to 70.
So, 9 Voidweavers, 2 Starweavers and 2 Death Jesters was playing up by 420 points.
They've also nerfed Luck Dice (3+2 down to 2), Light (both parts of the chapter tactic reduced), Dark (one half of the chapter tactic nuked from high orbit), a warlord trait and a points buy upgrade.
Compare to on release Votann.
Hekaton nerfed from 230 to 300.
Beserkers nerfed from 22 to 30.
Playing on release with 3 Hekaton and 30 Beserkers you were playing up by 450 points. And nearly every other unit went up too.
They also nerfed release Judgement Tokens.
For the Daemons book they will nerf Flamers, but are probably going to want to buff most of Nurgle and I think they should buff the Warp Storm Table (from 8 to 10 or 12 dice) to make mono Daemons worth it over Daemons mixed with other Chaos.
And when they do nerf Flamers, they may still need to nerf Harlequins and Votann at the same time (and Tyranids). That is how bonkers their release versions were, the nerfed version are still too good.
Planet bowling ball? How that helps flamers? Rather opposite as they don't have long range weapons but enjoy being able to hide from ones.
The more terrain I have had the better flamers been. Their speed ensures terrain can't be used to hide because when I'm in range I have been able to move to position terrain isn't in way. Meanwhile any good anti-flamer shooting weapon won't be able to see them until they have fired up.
Planet bowling ball? Noob flamer player wants to play on planet bowling ball.
EightFoldPath wrote: For the Daemons book they will nerf Flamers, but are probably going to want to buff most of Nurgle and I think they should buff the Warp Storm Table (from 8 to 10 or 12 dice) to make mono Daemons worth it over Daemons mixed with other Chaos.
I really liked your comment. Do you think rule changes should be used more or less sparingly than pts changes and if so why? Wouldn't mono-Daemons be more of an option when you have more pts-efficient datasheets? Won't people stop souping in Flamers once they go up in price anyways?
Nurgle needs serious help that can't come from just points tweaks unfortunately.
They do no damage and aren't resilient. Their one identity seems to be ways to mess with enemy obsec/auras, but that isn't enough to carry a subfaction.
Bosskelot wrote: Nurgle needs serious help that can't come from just points tweaks unfortunately.
They do no damage and aren't resilient. Their one identity seems to be ways to mess with enemy obsec/auras, but that isn't enough to carry a subfaction.
Plague Bearers have 2W T5 and 2A AP-2, you're out of your mind.
Bosskelot wrote: Nurgle needs serious help that can't come from just points tweaks unfortunately.
They do no damage and aren't resilient. Their one identity seems to be ways to mess with enemy obsec/auras, but that isn't enough to carry a subfaction.
Plague Bearers have 2W T5 and 2A AP-2, you're out of your mind.
What meta do you play in that a slow moving unit with no guns is in anyway decent? T5 means jack all, ask orks how that worked out for them. 2W is nice except that the current meta involves a bunch of 2D weapons. You also conveniently forgot that those attacks are hitting on 4+, you know, perfect for a unit that only has melee attacks.
Nurgle as an army just does not work at the most basic levels. They have no real strengths and they are average at some things and bad at others, they do nothing better than other armies.
Bosskelot wrote: Nurgle needs serious help that can't come from just points tweaks unfortunately.
They do no damage and aren't resilient. Their one identity seems to be ways to mess with enemy obsec/auras, but that isn't enough to carry a subfaction.
Plague Bearers have 2W T5 and 2A AP-2, you're out of your mind.
What meta do you play in that a slow moving unit with no guns is in anyway decent? T5 means jack all, ask orks how that worked out for them. 2W is nice except that the current meta involves a bunch of 2D weapons. You also conveniently forgot that those attacks are hitting on 4+, you know, perfect for a unit that only has melee attacks.
Nurgle as an army just does not work at the most basic levels. They have no real strengths and they are average at some things and bad at others, they do nothing better than other armies.
Wa Masters 2022 11/26/2022 - 6 rounds, 49 players
1st W6 L0 D0 Jordan Berresford Leagues of Votann
HEARTHKYN WARRIORS M 5"
You know that Poxwalkers are a Deathguard staple right? Are you a GW game designer?
Bosskelot wrote: Nurgle needs serious help that can't come from just points tweaks unfortunately.
They do no damage and aren't resilient. Their one identity seems to be ways to mess with enemy obsec/auras, but that isn't enough to carry a subfaction.
Plague Bearers have 2W T5 and 2A AP-2, you're out of your mind.
What meta do you play in that a slow moving unit with no guns is in anyway decent? T5 means jack all, ask orks how that worked out for them. 2W is nice except that the current meta involves a bunch of 2D weapons. You also conveniently forgot that those attacks are hitting on 4+, you know, perfect for a unit that only has melee attacks.
Nurgle as an army just does not work at the most basic levels. They have no real strengths and they are average at some things and bad at others, they do nothing better than other armies.
Wa Masters 2022 11/26/2022 - 6 rounds, 49 players
1st W6 L0 D0 Jordan Berresford Leagues of Votann
HEARTHKYN WARRIORS M 5"
You know that Poxwalkers are a Deathguard staple right? Are you a GW game designer?
Poxwalkers are a third the cost for a 10-man squad, it should be noted.
And what are the Poxwalkers taken FOR? Are they there to do damage, or just to clog up the board?
If you're going to post random competitive results then by all means post some well performing Chaos Daemons lists that are using any Nurgle units whatsoever.
You are the first person I've ever seen who actually thinks the Nurgle side of things is somehow tanky (outside of Beasts) or does any kind of relevant damage.
@Bosskelot damage and durability is relative to the pts cost of the unit, something you and arbiter don't understand. You know that rules bloat is ruining the game for tonnes of people right? What is the point of units having a 2+ save or T8 when you're going to say that a unit with AP-2 and auto-wounds on 6s has an irrelevant amount of damage?
JNAProductions wrote: Poxwalkers are a third the cost for a 10-man squad, it should be noted.
So what you're saying is that Plague Bearers would be good or even OP at the right cost? Now we know you don't work for GW.
vict0988 wrote: @Bosskelot damage and durability is relative to the pts cost of the unit, something you and arbiter don't understand. You know that rules bloat is ruining the game for tonnes of people right? What is the point of units having a 2+ save or T8 when you're going to say that a unit with AP-2 and auto-wounds on 6s has an irrelevant amount of damage?
JNAProductions wrote: Poxwalkers are a third the cost for a 10-man squad, it should be noted.
So what you're saying is that Plague Bearers would be good or even OP at the right cost? Now we know you don't work for GW.
To the end of the post, yes. But points alone can only do so much. They can make just about anything OP, but actually balanced is much trickier.
To the former, a squad of 10 Plaguebearers does the following to a T8 3+ target, like a Knight:
21 attacks
21/3 or 7 hits, 21/6 wounds
7/6 wounds plus the auto, for 28/6 or 14/3 wounds
28/9 failed saves, for 3.11 damage
That's 150 points to do 3 wounds to a Knight in melee.
You CAN buff them... But most buffs are targeted, excepting RR1s to-wound and to-hit. (There is the +1 to-hit, tablewide, for 4 Warp Storm Points, and +1 AP against vehicles only tablewide for 2 Warp Storm Points, at least.)
So, if we buff-stack as much as we can, we can get three squads to have +1 Damage on wound rolls of 6 (Poxbringer targeted buff), one squad having +1 Damage in general (Virulent Blessing psychic power), everyone +1 to-hit (Warp Storm, 4 points), +1 AP against Vehicles (which a Knight is), and finally RR1s to-hit and -wound.
Maximum Buff Squad (D2 base, +1 Damage on 6s to-wound, hitting on 3+, AP-3, RR1s to-hit and -wound) does 6.81 damage from autowounds and 5.95 from regular wounds.
Moderate Buff Squads (D1 base, +1 Damage on 6s to-wound, hitting on a 3+, AP-3, RR1s to-hit and -wound) do 3.40 damage from autowounds and 3.97 from regular wounds. There are two of these.
So, for only 450 points of Plaguebearers, 140 points of Daemon Prince, 270 points of Poxbringers, and enough luck to get 6 Warp Storm Points (less than 15% of the time, by the way) you can bop ONE Knight! Oh, but you can't Deepstrike anything part of this combo except the Prince-the rest of them need to be on the battlefield in the Command Phase to do their thing.
Strictly speaking, the Prince might be overkill. They do get 23.57 damage against a Knight without RR1s to-hit. So that's only 720 points of melee units at full strength needed to kill a Knight.
I think its fair to say power is a function of points - but points alone doesn't make things interesting.
So yes, you could easily make Plaguebearers, Beasts and Drones overpowered by making them very cheap for what you get. But its harder to make them balanced as a fun interactive army. Which requires a bit more than just being a mathematically efficient blob that gets pushed on to objectives. (Imo anyway - there are clearly people who enjoy a wrack spam list - which admittedly is arguably more interactive than massed plaguebearers.)
And unfortunately you are tied up in countless ways - because you have Nurgle Daemons as strictly Nurgle Daemons, Nurgle Daemons as part of a wider Daemons force, and then a whole range of potential Chaos/Nurgle builds. Which is why soup may be fun/fluffy - but isn't great of balance/niche personality.
Bosskelot wrote: Nurgle needs serious help that can't come from just points tweaks unfortunately.
They do no damage and aren't resilient. Their one identity seems to be ways to mess with enemy obsec/auras, but that isn't enough to carry a subfaction.
Plague Bearers have 2W T5 and 2A AP-2, you're out of your mind.
What meta do you play in that a slow moving unit with no guns is in anyway decent? T5 means jack all, ask orks how that worked out for them. 2W is nice except that the current meta involves a bunch of 2D weapons. You also conveniently forgot that those attacks are hitting on 4+, you know, perfect for a unit that only has melee attacks.
Nurgle as an army just does not work at the most basic levels. They have no real strengths and they are average at some things and bad at others, they do nothing better than other armies.
Wa Masters 2022 11/26/2022 - 6 rounds, 49 players
1st W6 L0 D0 Jordan Berresford Leagues of Votann
HEARTHKYN WARRIORS M 5"
You know that Poxwalkers are a Deathguard staple right? Are you a GW game designer?
I can not have a conversation with someone who is so blatantly and intentionally missing the point. I talk about how bad Plaguebearers are and you bring up Hearthkyn as if to say I am wrong because Hearthkyn have the same movement stat? Completely disregard the part where I talk about the lack of any ranged attacks and hitting on 4+ in melee which is where your only damage output comes from.
Poxwalkers work in Deathguard because they are cheap bodies to throw at objectives. Plaguebearers would be broken beyond belief if they cost the same as Poxwalkers but they don't. The issue at hand is the fact that there is no point value where Plaguebearers could be balanced. They are either going to cost more per wound than is worth taking or they are going to cost less per wound than is balanced. They bring nothing at all to the table other than their mere existence and that is the problem. They need some sort of change at a fundamental level in order for them to be a viable unit, most Nurgle units fall into this category. Nurgle used to be about resilience and hard to move units, GW in their infinite wisdom decided that high toughness=resilience even when the fundamental nature of 9th edition means that toughness's between 5-7 pretty much do nothing. The weapons that are most commonly encountered are S4 or S8+; S10+ weapons that you would shoot at infantry are so few and far between that I don't think they have a place in this conversation.
Tyel wrote: I think its fair to say power is a function of points - but points alone doesn't make things interesting.
I think fluffy datasheets without bloated rules are interesting. When someone says that Plaguebearers with power axes lack damage I start wondering whether they need to go to the hospital.
JNAProductions wrote: ...points alone can only do so much. They can make just about anything OP, but actually balanced is much trickier.
Trickier relative to what? Did Armour of Contempt or Hammer of the Emperor make its beneficiaries balanced? If 13 pt Plaguebearers are terrible then 12 pt Plaguebearers aren't going to be overpowered. If 10 pt Plaguebearers are overpowered then 11 pt Plaguebearers aren't going to be terrible. The only time balance might sit on such a knife edge is for units costing 2-6 pts.
Bosskelot wrote: So, again, please post some competitive lists that are using Plaguebearers.
You can find them yourself, tonnes of tournaments were topped with Daemons in 8th and taking a big blob of Plaguebearers was standard for most of it, swarms were also very popular.
and youre the one calling us "non competitive casuals"?????
Did my post say that Plaguebearers were good? I am a casual player. At some point you're going to cross a line where I don't feel bad about insulting you, even if I haven't just come out of a traffic accident.
Bosskelot wrote: Nurgle needs serious help that can't come from just points tweaks unfortunately.
They do no damage and aren't resilient. Their one identity seems to be ways to mess with enemy obsec/auras, but that isn't enough to carry a subfaction.
Plague Bearers have 2W T5 and 2A AP-2, you're out of your mind.
What meta do you play in that a slow moving unit with no guns is in anyway decent? T5 means jack all, ask orks how that worked out for them. 2W is nice except that the current meta involves a bunch of 2D weapons. You also conveniently forgot that those attacks are hitting on 4+, you know, perfect for a unit that only has melee attacks.
Nurgle as an army just does not work at the most basic levels. They have no real strengths and they are average at some things and bad at others, they do nothing better than other armies.
Wa Masters 2022 11/26/2022 - 6 rounds, 49 players 1st W6 L0 D0 Jordan Berresford Leagues of Votann HEARTHKYN WARRIORS M 5"
You know that Poxwalkers are a Deathguard staple right? Are you a GW game designer?
I can not have a conversation with someone who is so blatantly and intentionally missing the point.
Spoiler:
You already are.
I talk about how bad Plaguebearers are and you bring up Hearthkyn as if to say I am wrong because Hearthkyn have the same movement stat?
If you wanted to say that Plaguebearers are bad, then why did you say slow-moving units without guns can't be in any way decent? You're still not getting it when you say Orks aren't good either.
Completely disregard the part where I talk about the lack of any ranged attacks and hitting on 4+ in melee which is where your only damage output comes from.
Poxwalkers work in Deathguard...
You're defeating your own argument.
Poxwalkers work in Deathguard because they are cheap bodies to throw at objectives.
So any model can matter if it is cheap enough? Whether it is M5" or M20", T3 or T10.
Plaguebearers would be broken beyond belief if they cost the same as Poxwalkers but they don't.
Poxwalkers don't have power axes or T5. They shouldn't cost the same. There are still a lot of point values between 5 and 15.
The issue at hand is the fact that there is no point value where Plaguebearers could be balanced.
That's right not one single point value, there is a point range of about 2 where Plaguebearers are balanced. Maybe it's 8-9 or 13-14. If I was GW I'd change them to 12 pts, but I would also playtest them 6 times at 12 pts to make sure they aren't OP at that cost.
GW in their infinite wisdom decided that high toughness=resilience even when the fundamental nature of 9th edition means that toughness's between 5-7 pretty much do nothing.
And thus Arbiter, in their infinite wisdom determined that Plaguebearers must be T8.
I'm mostly curious as to how a thread about how Leagues of Votann got nerfed prematurely has gotten derailed to the point of arguing the viability of Plaguebearers...
In a (probably) vain attempt to get the thread back on track, I'd say early tournament results have shown that in fact Votann were not nerfed prematurely. At all. We'd be dealing with a toxic meta the likes of which haven't been seen since the dark days of 8th edition Iron Hands if not for the nerfs. Votann with the nerfs are still a pretty strong army, and might actually start posting stronger results once more top players start trying them out and really finding the optimal min/max builds.
Bosskelot wrote: So, again, please post some competitive lists that are using Plaguebearers.
You can find them yourself, tonnes of tournaments were topped with Daemons in 8th and taking a big blob of Plaguebearers was standard for most of it, swarms were also very popular.
That was 8th edition. With 8th edition Plaguebearers. Who were a VASTLY different beast from their current iteration.
@ZergSmasher whether Votann were nerfed prematurely depends on how they fare in the meta, Daemons of Chaos flamers are popular in the meta, Daemons of Chaos Nurgle units are unpopular in the meta, Daemons of Chaos Nurgle units need stat changes, rule changes or pts changes.
Bosskelot wrote: So, again, please post some competitive lists that are using Plaguebearers.
You can find them yourself, tonnes of tournaments were topped with Daemons in 8th and taking a big blob of Plaguebearers was standard for most of it, swarms were also very popular.
That was 8th edition. With 8th edition Plaguebearers. Who were a VASTLY different beast from their current iteration.
I thought it'd be a funnier response than just saying "I never said Plaguebearers are competitive, I simply object to stat creep and bloat".
ZergSmasher wrote: I'm mostly curious as to how a thread about how Leagues of Votann got nerfed prematurely has gotten derailed to the point of arguing the viability of Plaguebearers...
In a (probably) vain attempt to get the thread back on track, I'd say early tournament results have shown that in fact Votann were not nerfed prematurely. At all. We'd be dealing with a toxic meta the likes of which haven't been seen since the dark days of 8th edition Iron Hands if not for the nerfs. Votann with the nerfs are still a pretty strong army, and might actually start posting stronger results once more top players start trying them out and really finding the optimal min/max builds.
They were not nerfed prematurely, agreed. The spiralling issue here is that there was numerous vocal public outcry about it hammering on until GW acted, yet currently nobody is doing the same for those 70% wr tzeentch lists, or nids when they got up past 70% briefly etc.
Apparently flamers are so obviously broken and due for a nerf that everyone is happy for them to continue as is until nerfed. Then people discussed it was a unit not a book that was a problem which is the difference and here we are at someone trying to justify plaguebearers.
Apple fox wrote: Every post on flamers I have seen has been that they where powerful, and need dealing with.
What GW does with that info is up to them.
This seems like this weird, everything should be discussed even when there isn’t much to discuss.
The Votann rule had huge implications, the flamers are a single unit. That has far less impact on the game as a whole.
How? When a faction can punch up to 70% wr off the back of 1 unit, why is that less of a problem? It's just weird people are contented to be steam rolled by armies containing a problem unit but a army with a problem rule requires full protest. But its clear that the bias in all this is that people are scared of new unknown stuff but happy enough with existing models getting a spell in the sun.
Apple fox wrote: Every post on flamers I have seen has been that they where powerful, and need dealing with.
What GW does with that info is up to them.
This seems like this weird, everything should be discussed even when there isn’t much to discuss.
The Votann rule had huge implications, the flamers are a single unit. That has far less impact on the game as a whole.
How? When a faction can punch up to 70% wr off the back of 1 unit, why is that less of a problem? It's just weird people are contented to be steam rolled by armies containing a problem unit but a army with a problem rule requires full protest. But its clear that the bias in all this is that people are scared of new unknown stuff but happy enough with existing models getting a spell in the sun.
But people have voiced it as a problem, GW seems aware it is a issue. Most players accept nerfs are coming somewhere.
A whole army with a potential troubling mechanics is worse than a single unit, since it’s much easier to deal with a single unit in that dropping it, only running a single one. Or even running the other 3 parts of the codex.
What exactly should people be saying specifically about this unit, and the faction is apart off, maybe you should start a thread about it and see what people have to think about and discuss.
If not trying to troll... Then use the reddit stats (way more games and no suspicion that a GW employee is trying to maniuplate to push an agenda).
Daemons (59 / 56), TSons (56 / 52), CSM (53 / 49) and Chaos (52 / 50) aren't running at a 70% win rate, instead their 1 week win rate was the first number in the brackets and their 6 week win rate was the second number (I used the highest placed eligible CSM sub faction to help the numbers be higher for them).
The Flamers need nerfing, the Codex came out Sept 22, if they get nerfed Jan 23 that is reasonably fast for GW.
I can see the argument for an earlier nerf than that because they are the only unit that needs a nerf (takes a single line in a FAQ to fix).
I can see the argument for waiting to nerf because they aren't the best faction in the game (3rd in the 1 week behind Votann and Harlequins / joint 2nd in the 6 week with Tyranids behind Harlequins) and because they want to get data to work out what to buff in the faction.
Bigger question is why aren't they nerfing Harlequins and Tyranids faster and when do we get round two of the Votann nerfs? Harlies came out March 2022 and have been too good ever since, Tyrands April 2022 and have also been too good ever since (and were too good pre codex with Crusher Stampede).
EightFoldPath wrote: If not trying to troll... Then use the reddit stats (way more games and no suspicion that a GW employee is trying to maniuplate to push an agenda).
Daemons (59 / 56), TSons (56 / 52), CSM (53 / 49) and Chaos (52 / 50) aren't running at a 70% win rate, instead their 1 week win rate was the first number in the brackets and their 6 week win rate was the second number (I used the highest placed eligible CSM sub faction to help the numbers be higher for them).
The Flamers need nerfing, the Codex came out Sept 22, if they get nerfed Jan 23 that is reasonably fast for GW.
I can see the argument for an earlier nerf than that because they are the only unit that needs a nerf (takes a single line in a FAQ to fix).
I can see the argument for waiting to nerf because they aren't the best faction in the game (3rd in the 1 week behind Votann and Harlequins / joint 2nd in the 6 week with Tyranids behind Harlequins) and because they want to get data to work out what to buff in the faction.
Bigger question is why aren't they nerfing Harlequins and Tyranids faster and when do we get round two of the Votann nerfs? Harlies came out March 2022 and have been too good ever since, Tyrands April 2022 and have also been too good ever since (and were too good pre codex with Crusher Stampede).
Because there aren't massive threads and rants from players demanding they're banned and encouraging people not to buy them unlike votann.
LoV are a new faction, meanwhile you are decades too late to demand people to not buy Tyranids.
And there have been massive rants and calls for nerfs, just not here because Dakka isn't a competitive focused community (I mean we don't even have thread for weekly tournament results).
Tyran wrote: LoV are a new faction, meanwhile you are decades too late to demand people to not buy Tyranids.
And there have been massive rants and calls for nerfs, just not here because Dakka isn't a competitive focused community (I mean we don't even have thread for weekly tournament results).
I can vaguely accept Dakka isn't that competitive - but its not stopped us collectively whinging about things before. I'm not sure the average player ever saw a 90 point Voidweaver shoot in anger - but the professional scene was up in arms demanding nerfs. Was GW going to fix it? Yes. Did they need to fix it *now* as it was "ruining the tournament scene" - also apparently yes. 90 point Voidweavers were with us for about 5 weekends. Compare that with say: https://www.goonhammer.com/competitive-innovations-in-9th-and-my-axe/
It just seems to be "eh, Flamers are good, but what are you gonna do?"
If we are using Reddit's figures, we get Daemons had a 58.6% win rate last weekend (102 wins from 174 games) - and made up 17% of the top 5 places. Thousand Sons had a 56.4% win rate. (61/108). Its pretty clear "flamer meta" is pushing down various factions that would normally be thought of as competitive/good.
But then Votann got a 62% win rate. So there's a suggestion that even with these seemingly dramatic points hikes, further tweaks will be needed. Almost makes me wish they hadn't done it. We'll never know if pre-nerf Squats would be running an 80%+ win rate in the wild.
The big question regarding Votann is how the numbers will be when more people start fielding them in tournaments. Currently the numbers are propped by the hardcores who slap 3 paints and some tufts and call it a day.
But overall I would agree with the assessment that Votann were "not" nerfed prematurely.
How? When a faction can punch up to 70% wr off the back of 1 unit, why is that less of a problem? It's just weird people are contented to be steam rolled by armies containing a problem unit but a army with a problem rule requires full protest. But its clear that the bias in all this is that people are scared of new unknown stuff but happy enough with existing models getting a spell in the sun.
It's less of a problem because you appear to be stats illiterate.
This data you're desperately clinging onto in the hopes to not make a fool of yourself? It's completely worthless.
First of all, what the hell does "Tzeentch" mean in this context? I can't find a single source for what that actually means. Is it Chaos Daemons going mono-Tzeentch? I kind of doubt it, given that no other faction save the Space Marines have subfactions listed separately. Which leads me to believe that it's most likely Thousand Sons souping in a detachment of Flamers. If this is the case then your assertion that a singular faction is punching up to 70% off the back of one unit is false because it is in fact two separate armies synergizing to reach that win rate.
But that isn't really why this data (and, by extension, your argument) is completely worthless.
There isn't a single sample size given for any of GW's data. This so-called Tzeentch army, how many games are being represented? 1,000? 100? Ten? Who can say when GW doesn't appear to want to tell us.
Luckily other state sites exist yet none of them seem to corroborate the idea that Tzeentch win rates are at 70%.
So why ban Chaos Daemons again? They aren't even the strongest army in the game despite your whining.
How? When a faction can punch up to 70% wr off the back of 1 unit, why is that less of a problem? It's just weird people are contented to be steam rolled by armies containing a problem unit but a army with a problem rule requires full protest. But its clear that the bias in all this is that people are scared of new unknown stuff but happy enough with existing models getting a spell in the sun.
It's less of a problem because you appear to be stats illiterate.
This data you're desperately clinging onto in the hopes to not make a fool of yourself? It's completely worthless.
First of all, what the hell does "Tzeentch" mean in this context? I can't find a single source for what that actually means. Is it Chaos Daemons going mono-Tzeentch? I kind of doubt it, given that no other faction save the Space Marines have subfactions listed separately. Which leads me to believe that it's most likely Thousand Sons souping in a detachment of Flamers. If this is the case then your assertion that a singular faction is punching up to 70% off the back of one unit is false because it is in fact two separate armies synergizing to reach that win rate.
But that isn't really why this data (and, by extension, your argument) is completely worthless.
There isn't a single sample size given for any of GW's data. This so-called Tzeentch army, how many games are being represented? 1,000? 100? Ten? Who can say when GW doesn't appear to want to tell us.
Luckily other state sites exist yet none of them seem to corroborate the idea that Tzeentch win rates are at 70%.
So why ban Chaos Daemons again? They aren't even the strongest army in the game despite your whining.
So because you don't understand their data, and to be fair nobody else does, I'm statistically illiterate? Literally the only thing you can base that off is a singular bar chart where contrary to your assertion I can read that one bar is sat at 70%.
What you're questioning and likely correct about is the inability to verify their data, we don't know how it's grouped. What it does show from a lot of recent data is that flamers, singularly are dragging a different barely 50% faction up to much higher win rates.
The fact that a single unit can punch up the winrate of multiple armies is more of a disturbance than most other releases have managed. That unit is sat in the daemons codex, ergo the daemons codex is causing a skew/imbalance in the meta.
But please get angry, throw insults and continually fail to grasp a concept that isn't a linear trend.
Edit: to help with your reading, in the last month daemons are the 2nd highest winrate assuming you ignore the outlier that is forces of the hive mind. Interestingly Votann are 45%, thousand sons are 48%.
The problem with you data from Goonhammer Dudeface is that if you account for the dates for when the kits for their codex fully released there is an insignificant amount of data on Goonhammer. The kits released on November 5th so we haven't really had the time to get a great picture of how LoV are going to succeed or fail. I definitely believe that the nerfs to LoV were not premature, it is more appalling that what ever passes for play testing at GW let the codex through as it was. Even going into tinfoil hat territory where GW's new release are purposely OP, the old rules for grudge tokens were way out of line. As someone who has started collecting LoV on top of all my other armies I still think that the way the tokens interact with the game are terrible design but the army as a whole doesn't seem too over the top due to their low number of shots in general.
Daemons on the other hand are as a codex in a terrible place, very similar to where Tyranids were in 6th/7th, where a single unit is skewing the army so badly that it is hard to say how the army is performing. How do we have a conversation about any army when you have such a disruptive unit that everyone agrees is an issue. Once Flamers take a hit we can start to really have a conversation about Daemons as a whole, but much like LoV it doesn't take a great deal of play testing to know that Nurgle is terrible. That is why there isn't much conversation about Daemons - there isn't much to say, we already know most of the outliers one way or another so we need those taken care of before we can see how the army performs as a whole.
My comment pertains to the highly limited tournament data mentioned by the 
