Breng77 wrote: while it may be possible to make it so that all of one thing cannot dominate, having no restriction on number of models leads to one of 2 things.
1.) Models that are very bland.
of
2.) models that are very points expensive.
If you have super type units that are meant to be powerful on the table, they would need to be very cost prohibitive of taking multiples, which often makes them not all that viable. OR They don't exist and everything is pretty similar.
IT is very difficult to get all options to be equal. IF they are not equal, then taking more of the best choice is the best option.
Or you write a ruleset that gives distinct roles to different types of units, so that any single super-unit can't be good at everything. Take an army of all Tigers into bocage country in a competently-written WW2 wargame and you're going to have a bad time. Build an army of all artillery in a Napoleonic and cavalry will ruin your day. All-knights runs into trouble when the enemy has pikemen. Battleships are great until the enemy has torpedo boats. And so on and so on.
40K suffers greatly from its design space coming down to firepower/durability/mobility and little else. There's no real sense of combined arms or niches for unit types, which in other games (and real life!) forces a more balanced composition to shore up weaknesses and provide mutual support.
Or you just stop producing rules for units that are WAAY too effective. Like Obliterators were for most of their existence. Are Scatbikes, etc.
Breng77 wrote: while it may be possible to make it so that all of one thing cannot dominate, having no restriction on number of models leads to one of 2 things.
1.) Models that are very bland.
of
2.) models that are very points expensive.
If you have super type units that are meant to be powerful on the table, they would need to be very cost prohibitive of taking multiples, which often makes them not all that viable. OR They don't exist and everything is pretty similar.
IT is very difficult to get all options to be equal. IF they are not equal, then taking more of the best choice is the best option.
Or you write a ruleset that gives distinct roles to different types of units, so that any single super-unit can't be good at everything. Take an army of all Tigers into bocage country in a competently-written WW2 wargame and you're going to have a bad time. Build an army of all artillery in a Napoleonic and cavalry will ruin your day. All-knights runs into trouble when the enemy has pikemen. Battleships are great until the enemy has torpedo boats. And so on and so on.
40K suffers greatly from its design space coming down to firepower/durability/mobility and little else. There's no real sense of combined arms or niches for unit types, which in other games (and real life!) forces a more balanced composition to shore up weaknesses and provide mutual support.
This is the design space that I prefer as well. If knights are super effective, thats fine. But if you load up on knights and your opponent brings pikes that shred them, that will force composition to be more balanced.
This is also a design space that GW has never wanted to operate within. Because that would eliminate churn and burn. Tournament players wouldn't need to buy new armies every season with the newest FAQ if this were how they developed games.
Breng77 wrote: while it may be possible to make it so that all of one thing cannot dominate, having no restriction on number of models leads to one of 2 things.
1.) Models that are very bland.
of
2.) models that are very points expensive.
If you have super type units that are meant to be powerful on the table, they would need to be very cost prohibitive of taking multiples, which often makes them not all that viable. OR They don't exist and everything is pretty similar.
IT is very difficult to get all options to be equal. IF they are not equal, then taking more of the best choice is the best option.
Or you write a ruleset that gives distinct roles to different types of units, so that any single super-unit can't be good at everything. Take an army of all Tigers into bocage country in a competently-written WW2 wargame and you're going to have a bad time. Build an army of all artillery in a Napoleonic and cavalry will ruin your day. All-knights runs into trouble when the enemy has pikemen. Battleships are great until the enemy has torpedo boats. And so on and so on.
40K suffers greatly from its design space coming down to firepower/durability/mobility and little else. There's no real sense of combined arms or niches for unit types, which in other games (and real life!) forces a more balanced composition to shore up weaknesses and provide mutual support.
That works to an extent but in general you still end up with people taking the best in class units, and there are not enough roles in 40k, or things that are good at one thing are good at another. You need far more rules that are available in 40k to make something like Rock Paper Scissors work at a unit level.
Automatically Appended Next Post: For instance if you “classed 40k units” as light infantry, medium infantry, cavalry, light vehicle/monster, medium vehicle/monster, heavy vehicle/monster. You would need to design weapons in such a way that they are only good against 1 or 2 of these classes. So for instance high rate of fire weapons would need to be next to useless against heavy units, so they would need something like 2+ re-rollable saves, then you have low rate of fire weapons that ignore that save.
The problem with a game like that is it becomes about gambling in list design and having the means to take out opposing threats early.
So in the case of knights and spearmen. If you are running knight heavy you include enough to kill spearmen in cases where your opponent brings a balanced list, kill them first and win. Then you hope not to run into they guy running all spearmen. People think that style of RPS leads to balanced armies in competitive play but it doesn’t because skew lists still give you the best chance of winning, and the meta still cycles. Restrictions on units is far more likely to force balanced list building.
The only way the RPS style works is if each type of unit is only good at killing one other type and sucks at everything else.
catbarf wrote: 40K suffers greatly from its design space coming down to firepower/durability/mobility and little else. There's no real sense of combined arms or niches for unit types, which in other games (and real life!) forces a more balanced composition to shore up weaknesses and provide mutual support.
I've bolded the part where catbarf hits on the problem, as it were, with Warhammer. Even when you try to factor in stuff like mobility to take objectives, it comes down to whether the unit is durable enough to hold the objective, or your opponent has the firepower to kill that unit. Warhammer lacks options for units to do beyond 'kill the other guy first,' or 'help kill the other guy more reliably first,' like live-options that don't have an expected utility lower than killing the other guy first. There's also the snow-ball effect, whereby killing the other guy first gives you a straight-up advantage because they have less material to respond with, so even if both players bring 2000pts the guy going second will only be able to reply with less than 2000pts (and even less if they left units in reserve, tacitly accepting a handicap equal to the points of their reserved units).
It makes me understand why you get games like Warma-Hordes with a caster-kill victory condition like in Chess, because in theory the opportunity to win by check-mate before you've eliminated all an opponent's material disrupts that Checkers-like optimal resolution.
Breng77 wrote: That works to an extent but in general you still end up with people taking the best in class units, and there are not enough roles in 40k, or things that are good at one thing are good at another. You need far more rules that are available in 40k to make something like Rock Paper Scissors work at a unit level.
Automatically Appended Next Post: For instance if you “classed 40k units” as light infantry, medium infantry, cavalry, light vehicle/monster, medium vehicle/monster, heavy vehicle/monster. You would need to design weapons in such a way that they are only good against 1 or 2 of these classes. So for instance high rate of fire weapons would need to be next to useless against heavy units, so they would need something like 2+ re-rollable saves, then you have low rate of fire weapons that ignore that save.
The problem with a game like that is it becomes about gambling in list design and having the means to take out opposing threats early.
So in the case of knights and spearmen. If you are running knight heavy you include enough to kill spearmen in cases where your opponent brings a balanced list, kill them first and win. Then you hope not to run into they guy running all spearmen. People think that style of RPS leads to balanced armies in competitive play but it doesn’t because skew lists still give you the best chance of winning, and the meta still cycles. Restrictions on units is far more likely to force balanced list building.
The only way the RPS style works is if each type of unit is only good at killing one other type and sucks at everything else.
You're still thinking too much along the lines of the 40K design space, where everything is defined by its ability to kill other things largely in a vacuum.
The all-Tiger army isn't going to be countered by a combined arms force in bocage just because some specific element of it is disproportionately good against Tigers. It's going to be countered because infantry in dense terrain beat the snot out of tanks, and Tigers are not the sort of vehicle that can dig them out. The context of terrain is what makes infantry effective, and if you have no answer to infantry in built-up terrain, you're going to lose.
Cavalry in a Napoleonic game are your #1 means of destroying disordered infantry. But against well-ordered infantry in square formation, cavalry can do basically nothing. If you have no way to disorder the infantry so that the cavalry can drive the charge home, you're going to lose. You'll throw your expensive cuirassiers into combat against prepared infantry that cost a fraction of what the cuirassiers do, and suffer massive casualties.
French knights during the Renaissance cannot simply grind down a formation of Swiss pikemen in good order, and then work on the rest of the army. It might be possible if you can flank them and catch them on two sides simultaneously, which will require some strategic thinking. Even then, you're still at a disadvantage if your army contains nothing that can disrupt them before you drive the charge home.
These battlefield roles are not only defined by the units themselves and their equipment, but also emergent properties like terrain, morale, maneuver, and formations. In real warfare, you can get particular combinations of unit types, terrain, and other conditions which can hard counter one another to the point where a single unit is nigh-undefeatable.
Basically: Real warfare, and wargames that appropriately mimic it, have significant stacking modifiers. Not only might a unit be the rock-paper-scissors counter to another, but the particular circumstances of their engagement can further skew the results, to the point where our high morale, in good formation, supported, on high ground Swiss pikemen don't have a 2:1 or even 3:1 advantage over the knights, it's a 5:1 or 10:1 advantage and the knights will bleed themselves dry trying to win through attrition. Even if the pikemen are a small part of the army, they alone are capable of winning against a homogeneous army of knights if employed intelligently.
In 40K? Cover has minimal effect. Terrain doesn't matter, except for blocking LOS. Facing doesn't matter. Morale doesn't (really) matter. Weapons and units have their optimal matchups, but can still work in others in a pinch. Lacking this kind of contextual dynamic reduces everything to static, predictable measures of offensive fire and survivability, so taking out your army's ostensible 'hard counter' doesn't require tactical finesse, just attrition and unfavorable trades until it's gone. Nobody's afraid to send their tanks into urban terrain, because you already know exactly which alleys conceal short-ranged anti-tank weapons, and of course you can move up and wipe them out before they can respond. Nobody needs artillery to soften up a prepared position before sending your troops across open terrain, because all that bunker gives them is a +1 to their save and artillery doesn't cause pinning anyways, so better to have spent those points on more troops. Nobody needs a quick-reaction element alongside their heavy-hitters to flank the enemy, mitigate their cover, catch them in a crossfire, and break their morale so that you can run down the survivors, because these mechanics simply don't exist.
When the entire decision space comes down to optimizing weapons against particular target types, then it's natural that spamming a single unit type to render some portion of the enemy's weapons sub-optimal is the winning strategy. But there is room for so much more than that with a modestly more complex ruleset, focusing more on tactics and the battlefield than on unit abilities and combos.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Put another way, consider the Omaha beach landings at D-Day. A small number of German machine gunners, in prepared positions, covering open beach with no cover, facing mostly infantry whose movement was bogged down by the ocean, with secondary obstacles (wire, walls) to prevent the Americans from moving, and with the Americans deploying haphazardly.
The casualty ratio was astronomical, and the Americans needed specialized units (bangalores, flamethrowers, demolition charges, Rangers) to secure a foothold.
What happens if you try to replicate this in 40K? All the attackers deploy exactly where they want, simultaneously, with no scatter. They are unhindered in their movement. As soon as they reach their maximum range (which will be turn 1, because the board is so small), they'll fire with full effectiveness (because no range modifiers) on the defenders, whose sole benefit to their prepared position is a +1 to their save. Thanks to IGOUGO, there's even a good chance that the attackers will be shooting before the defenders do.
And if the attacker is smart, they'll bring all tanks.
D-Day straight up doesn't translate to 40K. The game lacks the mechanics that contextually made the German defense the rock to the Americans' scissors, incurred such heavy attrition, and required the use of specialist units, equipment, and flanking to succeed.
Kill Team's use of range and cover as to-hit modifiers is a step in the right direction, but 40K has a long way to go to be more of a wargame than a CCG with models.
Sadly, that will never happen. Because as the 40k and AOS forums echo - those things are "unfun" and extreme abstraction and streamlining is the order of the day and what is demanded from the customer base.
Additionally, there are perfectly good war-games that allow you to re-play Normandy or the Battle of the Bulge, or whatever. I'm not sure replaying it with Space Marines and Orks or whatever really improves the experience. The problem with war as a game is that war is never a fair fight if you can help it, and games kinda should be.
Furthermore, going the RCP route isn't that great. What made Epic Armageddon great wasn't its division of ranged weapons into Anti-Infantry, Anti-Tank, Anti-Air, and Macro weapons, but the way that the board developed, and that units gained bonuses from position (either crossfire when shooting, or supporting fire in engagements). Despite everything, having both a well-developed cycle of what could kill what, it still came down to the side that could best inflict and survive damage won.
I hold there's a core-rules issue with unit-action kind of being on a rail, rather than a set of interesting options. Being able to move and shoot and charge and fight, and only being able to do those things is kind of boring. Games like Pulp Alley and Shoot'n'Skedaddle are more interesting because you have other things you can do besides kill the other guy.
In terms of levers that we have to correct the issue, we're kind of stuck with mission design. I think there's something to be said for selecting x number of missions from the Maelstrom deck, of one type or another, but stuff like ITC and ETC are pretty invested in the whole 'kill the other guy first.'
@catbarf- sure if you are doing recreation those things work, but what happens when the terrain doesn’t favor your units in a way where you can set up for advantage? I also said if pikemen in cover are your Achilles heel you bring enough of whatever counters them to clear them out so your knights can win and hope to avoid the game where someone brings all pikemen. Sure you can add a ton of depth etc, but then we aren’t playing the same game anymore, and the balance in the game is dictated by factors beyond player control unless players are allowed to bring their own terrain to games as part of their army. I’m not saying one model dominates it never has been armies of only one model type it is that effective model spammed backed up by things that cover its weaknesses.
So sure you could write an entirely different game using the 40k lore that works around simulating battles on known terrain and allow armies to be built knowing the objective of the battle and the terrain. But that isn’t a pickup style game as we currently have, nor are units really balanced it is just that they can be used if you have a purpose for them. And that is fine, but it is not what 40k has ever been.
Well, it has to be a bit stressful for competitive players. This could be a BIG change in their meta. All those netlists could fall apart, etc. Some folks love that churn, but I bet a lot more are completely stressed out about the impact on their lists.
It's why narrative is so much more enjoyable. I can just buy the models that look awesome and work with my opponent on how competitive we're going to play.
A good, well matched game is so much more enjoyable than trust trying to melt face with some absurd group of combos! It's like football, a 70-0 game is a snooze fest. Good or bad teams, give me the game that is neck and neck to the end.
Breng77 wrote: Sure you can add a ton of depth etc, but then we aren’t playing the same game anymore, and the balance in the game is dictated by factors beyond player control unless players are allowed to bring their own terrain to games as part of their army. I’m not saying one model dominates it never has been armies of only one model type it is that effective model spammed backed up by things that cover its weaknesses.
So sure you could write an entirely different game using the 40k lore that works around simulating battles on known terrain and allow armies to be built knowing the objective of the battle and the terrain. But that isn’t a pickup style game as we currently have, nor are units really balanced it is just that they can be used if you have a purpose for them. And that is fine, but it is not what 40k has ever been.
You and catbarf have provided a very nice answer to an earlier question by Horst about ways that competitively focused ruleset hurts narrative players. But you are very wrong in the last sentence of yours. 2nd ed had a huge simulation/recreationism potential with facings on everything, stay-in-game grenade rules, "endless spells", meaningfull terrain rules, vehicle rules and other bells and whistles, and then it got replaced by absurdly bland 3rd ed, but which was far better suited for competitive play. And before anyone invokes raging imbalances of 2nd ed - imbalance rarely hurts narratives, there are just so many mission/composition variables to be set to overcome those...
In another thread BCB coined a handy phrase "bloat for the bloat god, rules for the rules throne" - but what competitive players call bloat, narrative players embrace as an exploration space. The more exploration space provided by the game itself, the less time we have to spend writing houserules to support interesting narratives, but the more competitive players cry about unwieldiness of the game. GW did introduced three ways to play for a reason - not everything benefiting competitive players is good for narratives and much of content benefiting narrative players hurts competition. Those worlds should be separated. What cannot be separated are core rules and those, again, don't suit both sides equally. Competitive players may cherish things like homogenisation of vehicles and monstrous creatures or limited detail of rules for e.g. transports, vehicles or flyers, but narrative players often find themselves in position of having to invent more detailed interactions that will enable cinematic moments. "Snowflake rules" and exceptions actually benefit narrative players with more flavor - more unique interactions means more ways for story to develop in ways different than plain mathhammer efficiency.
@catbarf: some very nice points in your long post. What is missing is the realisation, that such mechanisms can be used not only to stack advantages for simulation/recreation purposes, but also as ways to enable balance by allowing everything hurt everything BUT only in certain attainable battlefield situations. Carefully designed system could overcome limitations and emergent flaws of RPS based balance. But as you can see in replies above, anything that involves more terrain and in-game manouvers simply does not fit current CCG like, combo stacking trends in game design.
Breng77 wrote: but what happens when the terrain doesn’t favor your units in a way where you can set up for advantage?
In tournament play, typically there is an expected terrain distribution, which may differ per-board but not too far from the baseline. If I go to a WW2 event, I don't know what the terrain will look like, but I can expect that there will be some mix of open and built-up areas (but not exclusively one or the other), and construct my army accordingly. If I take exclusively long-ranged armor units on the expectation that I'm going to have open sight lines, though, I might be in for a rude shock if I get a table that skews more towards urban. In that case, I'll be facing an uphill battle on account of my decision to overspecialize.
This is related to part of why I dislike the ITC ruleset- the ability to select objectives allows players to tailor the victory conditions to suit their armies, rather than needing to bring armies that can flexibly achieve whatever the objective might be. It makes it much easier to min/max when you can decide exactly what your army needs to do in order to win.
Breng77 wrote: I also said if pikemen in cover are your Achilles heel you bring enough of whatever counters them to clear them out so your knights can win and hope to avoid the game where someone brings all pikemen.
Then you have taken a mix of units to shore up the weaknesses of your primary focus, and thus have achieved a more balanced army which provides mutual support in distinct tactical roles, rather than spamming the most effective unit as much as possible. But even then you might be taking a gamble, because if I see that you've only got one or two units that you're counting on to perform this critical task, I'm going to target them first. Specialize at your own risk.
@nou I think you've understood me perfectly. If the battlefield and maneuver have a significant impact on the effectiveness of units, then you get a lot more depth to the game than just 'line up the dudes and see whose list is more optimal'. A good player should have decision space to shape confrontations in his favor; either to mitigate an unfavorable matchup or to maximize a favorable one.
nou wrote: In another thread BCB coined a handy phrase "bloat for the bloat god, rules for the rules throne" - but what competitive players call bloat, narrative players embrace as an exploration space.
This is absolutely false. Stacking auras to re-roll 1s to hit and 1s to hit and so on is not narrative space, it's just rules bloat. The events on the table are still the same and still tell the same story, you're just rolling more dice and spending more time flipping through rulebooks to figure out how a whole pile of special rules interact. It seems like you have fallen into the GW trap of assuming that piling on more rules makes the game more casual/narrative and failed to understand how an elegant ruleset allows you to focus on the story instead of trying to figure out the best way to use all of the special rules?
Competitive players may cherish things like homogenisation of vehicles and monstrous creatures or limited detail of rules for e.g. transports, vehicles or flyers, but narrative players often find themselves in position of having to invent more detailed interactions that will enable cinematic moments.
But why? Why do you need all of these rules when they have so little impact on how the game plays, and in many cases create blatantly un-cinematic moments? For example, having armor facings in an IGOUGO game creates absurd situations where a tank is attacked from behind but has to sit there helplessly and take the shot on rear armor instead of turning to face the new threat. Abstracting away armor facings into a single stat line is arguably bad for competitive play (since it reduces strategic interactions and choices) but it allows the narrative to assume that, regardless of the limitations of moving physical models around on a table in a turn-based game, the tank crew in the story is not a bunch of hopeless idiots and maneuvers their vehicle to present its best armor to the biggest threats.
But as you can see in replies above, anything that involves more terrain and in-game manouvers simply does not fit current CCG like, combo stacking trends in game design.
And now you contradict yourself! You criticize CCG-like design, but CCG-like design is exactly what is being criticized with "bloat for the bloat god, rules for the rules throne". All these special rules create a game where the most important factor in who wins and what choices you make is how to optimize the use of your special rules/stratagems/etc, rather than basic military tactics and actions by the units. After all, why care about in-game maneuvers when you have page after page of rules bloat giving you better special rules than your opponent?
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Tarkh wrote: It's why narrative is so much more enjoyable. I can just buy the models that look awesome and work with my opponent on how competitive we're going to play.
Only if you put the entire burden of setting the power level on your opponent and expect to be able to bring your exact choice of models while your opponent is obligated to come up with a list that matches it. If you both have an equal obligation then you're going to have to keep buying models just like the competitive players. And of course if you ever want to tell a story involving any other armies have fun buying an entire new army just like a meta-chasing competitive player.
Competitive players may cherish things like homogenisation of vehicles and monstrous creatures or limited detail of rules for e.g. transports, vehicles or flyers, but narrative players often find themselves in position of having to invent more detailed interactions that will enable cinematic moments.
But why? Why do you need all of these rules when they have so little impact on how the game plays, and in many cases create blatantly un-cinematic moments? For example, having armor facings in an IGOUGO game creates absurd situations where a tank is attacked from behind but has to sit there helplessly and take the shot on rear armor instead of turning to face the new threat. Abstracting away armor facings into a single stat line is arguably bad for competitive play (since it reduces strategic interactions and choices) but it allows the narrative to assume that, regardless of the limitations of moving physical models around on a table in a turn-based game, the tank crew in the story is not a bunch of hopeless idiots and maneuvers their vehicle to present its best armor to the biggest threats.
Not cinematic? Not to defend any turn sequence, adding to the realism adds to the suspense, in my experience.
Marching specialized infiltrators up behind a tank,
because it is a tank and rear armor matters,
surprised crews matter,
and having the facing of that tank matter,
maybe with the opposing player unable to pivot the tank in time,
or struggling with the notion to risk the attack on the rear armor
for one more turn of heavy indirect support fire in support of friendly units
on the other side of the theater that is the table,
this matters.
This is why a wargame the play dynamics of which are governed by pre-fab power-ups
is not cinematic, in the least, to the point where we have people in this thread
wondering why these top-down live video feeds of so-called competitive 40k bother with models at all.
A bunch of expensive plastic tokens spray painted black
with paintball barricade style "terrain" -
just put the "list" through a math hammering computer program,
compare scores,
and declare a winner.
better for the environment.
send the prize support in the mail.
easy enough because it might as well be a card.
nou wrote: But as you can see in replies above, anything that involves more terrain and in-game manouvers simply does not fit current CCG like, combo stacking trends in game design.
And now you contradict yourself! You criticize CCG-like design, but CCG-like design is exactly what is being criticized with "bloat for the bloat god, rules for the rules throne". All these special rules create a game where the most important factor in who wins and what choices you make is how to optimize the use of your special rules/stratagems/etc, rather than basic military tactics and actions by the units. After all, why care about in-game maneuvers when you have page after page of rules bloat giving you better special rules than your opponent?
This is confused and confusing.
Levels of realism increase granularity of control over on-table events,
and this means more finely written - and ideally elegantly conceived, systematic - rules.
some may see this as 'bloat' if the realism is unwanted, unwarranted, or not so elegantly conceived.
Bloat more typically seems associated with
arbitrary associations between rules,
redundant rules (for instance, what seems to have happened since the advertised aversion to USRs is the same rule written differently for different factions with different names, but effectively the same or similar dynamic),
and iteration 8.1, 8.2, 8.3 ... codices for every faction, indexes, units here and there because of idiot IP ridic corporate greed,
leading me and the rest of us with 5 armies to either buy or borrow 14 books to play this one game, and now there will be another new marines book after the index and the codex and cards and ... yeah, this is the rules bloat that is a problem. has zip to do with tanks and facing and realism and everything to do with lack of vision and offering the lowest hanging fruit to the lowest common denominator as a rule of marketing.
Tarkh wrote: It's why narrative is so much more enjoyable. I can just buy the models that look awesome and work with my opponent on how competitive we're going to play.
Only if you put the entire burden of setting the power level on your opponent and expect to be able to bring your exact choice of models while your opponent is obligated to come up with a list that matches it. If you both have an equal obligation then you're going to have to keep buying models just like the competitive players. And of course if you ever want to tell a story involving any other armies have fun buying an entire new army just like a meta-chasing competitive player.
Peregrine, sometimes I really wonder about some of the things that you post.
This is not true, because the attitude is different.
People take up the hobby, put expectations to the test, and see how things pan out.
Reasonable people discuss how the game system fails to meet expectations.
In my case, i say up front that I refuse to play with 8th edition rules for cover and terrain.
I have not played cities of death, but need to find time this Fall somehow, as I am interested,
but this is beside the point.
Now, I should buy that, too?
Just to get terrain rules that work?
We aren't chasing plastic dragons, we are looking for a different sort of satisfaction.
Anyone I would ever play a game with twice, in such a scenario as you describe,
would likely buy whoever needs a unit to keep up
a new kit just to keep them in the game.
I have 30 stormtroopers all painted to the 9s.
You have a based grey baneblade?
Sure, let's see if we can't plant that melta bomb!
But 10 minutes later we will be talking about how you are gonna paint that thing,
and that would be the last I would play against it until it was painted.
See, the expectations that you project,
and the reality on the other side of the fence,
are much different.
What you write here is just plain wrong.
2nd edit comment - changed is to are last paragraph.
@jeff white: just to add to your post and to better define why „bloat” was the word to use in the context of my post: both index 3rd and index 8th were praised by many as flavoured enough so that all suplemental faction/subfaction rules were unnecessary „bloat”. There were numerous threads in the past wishlisting which factions to remove from the game to reduce unwieldy bloat (not only Imperial Knights). Editions prior to 8th did not have three ways to play and as such old equivalents of Cities of Death or Planetsrike and thematic rules like psychic storms or battlescapes from Gathering Storm were considered unnecessary, just rising unwieldyness of the game. Their current iterations aren’t only because many competitive players don’t even bother reading sections of the books not labeled Matched Play and some even refuse to acknowledge their existence and impact on the gameplay. 7th ed Forgeworld rules like Pale Courts were considered abusable bloat, while Zone Mortalis and Forgeworld campaigns as not worthy the paper they were printed on and viewed only as price tax on those few units stats pages. The same applies to huge parts of CAs, which some people expected to be free pdfs because „they were only points erretas”...
nou wrote: @jeff white: just to add to your post and to better define why „bloat” was the word to use in the context of my post: both index 3rd and index 8th were praised by many as flavoured enough so that all suplemental faction/subfaction rules were unnecessary „bloat”. There were numerous threads in the past wishlisting which factions to remove from the game to reduce unwieldy bloat (not only Imperial Knights). Editions prior to 8th did not have three ways to play and as such old equivalents of Cities of Death or Planetsrike and thematic rules like psychic storms or battlescapes from Gathering Storm were considered unnecessary, just rising unwieldyness of the game. Their current iterations aren’t only because many competitive players don’t even bother reading sections of the books not labeled Matched Play and some even refuse to acknowledge their existence and impact on the gameplay. 7th ed Forgeworld rules like Pale Courts were considered abusable bloat, while Zone Mortalis and Forgeworld campaigns as not worthy the paper they were printed on and viewed only as price tax on those few units stats pages. The same applies to huge parts of CAs, which some people expected to be free pdfs because „they were only points erretas”...
Thanks for that.
I missed a lot of that - I learned 2nd, bought and read RT,
remember the 3rd ed,
came back in 2003 or 4 for a couple years,
and again out until end 7th -
was looking forward to 8th.
Now looking forward to either that elegant realism from GW or a 41st Age -
I am following this thread because
and I am serious
I think that wargames like 40k could be and were more than games
(at least have been for me).
They teach more than gameplay, and more than civility, hobby, patience, economy...
I think that this hobby teaches meta-level discussion and reasoning skills
that are very important when the object is fairness or justice
and one's own interests are at stake.
Importantly, I see very few other opportunities to practice these skills.
It is a skill to be able to step outside of one's interests
and see the big picture, especially if this picture is a model reality.
I sometimes talk about this in terms of being competitive under a cooperative umbrella.
You can have many layers of umbrellas.
For instance, take sports.
Players compete for positions within team rosters,
but do so under an umbrella of cooperation,
in the interests of the team,
because to do otherwise is to reduce team performance during gameplay,
but also because it doesn't feel right.
People have fairness in our cognitive dynamics - it is just plain normal.
Gameplay at the level of teams also appears to be competitive,
but also proceeds under a cooperative umbrella,
in the form of rules that are followed, salary caps respected, and so on like that.
Without cooperation, nothing works.
This also seems to be way language communities are most often successful with a certain critical mass density of use,
nothing to do with language and everything to do with its role in holding cooperative performances together.
40k's cooperative umbrella has holes in it,
and this is supposed to be the point?
Again, there are a lot of very smart people in competitive 40k.
Why not turn that math into live points adjustments or handicaps in this and other ways, e.g. unit limits, combo bans,
and use this info to 'balance' tourneys as well as casual gameplay?
For example,
people spamming eldar jetbikes with scatter lasers, so called scat bikes (ick)?
Easy fix.
This should show up in the math, as so many points/units selections and even VPs, votes for most valuable unit, etc.,
should show that the units are being used due min-max player choice to exploit some loophole.
Human experts look at the matter,
and make a decision to handicap these units,
maybe with a running storyline something like
"...an eruption from the warp has interfered with all wraithbone construction.
Eldar jetbikes now cost +X points", and/or "only 2 units of eldar jetbikes may be used...).
This could all be voluntary.
Just fun, and in the interests of fairness,
rather waiting to pounce on GWs next gaff
to exploit some loophole
and "gotcha" that next noob.
auticus wrote: Sadly, that will never happen. Because as the 40k and AOS forums echo - those things are "unfun" and extreme abstraction and streamlining is the order of the day and what is demanded from the customer base.
This seems inconsistent with your stance against 2+ rerollable saves in AoS, which would surely create an element of RPS. Can you elaborate on your position?
Breng77 wrote: but what happens when the terrain doesn’t favor your units in a way where you can set up for advantage?
In tournament play, typically there is an expected terrain distribution, which may differ per-board but not too far from the baseline. If I go to a WW2 event, I don't know what the terrain will look like, but I can expect that there will be some mix of open and built-up areas (but not exclusively one or the other), and construct my army accordingly. If I take exclusively long-ranged armor units on the expectation that I'm going to have open sight lines, though, I might be in for a rude shock if I get a table that skews more towards urban. In that case, I'll be facing an uphill battle on account of my decision to overspecialize.
This is related to part of why I dislike the ITC ruleset- the ability to select objectives allows players to tailor the victory conditions to suit their armies, rather than needing to bring armies that can flexibly achieve whatever the objective might be. It makes it much easier to min/max when you can decide exactly what your army needs to do in order to win.
AMEN. Been saying that about the choose-your-objectives formats for years now.
auticus wrote: Sadly, that will never happen. Because as the 40k and AOS forums echo - those things are "unfun" and extreme abstraction and streamlining is the order of the day and what is demanded from the customer base.
This seems inconsistent with your stance against 2+ rerollable saves in AoS, which would surely create an element of RPS. Can you elaborate on your position?
I was responding to a role based design where the nature of the roles meant if you overloaded one role you put yourself at extreme risk for getting bounced.
The AOS problem is that its rock/paper/nothing. You take a bunch of mortal wounds (counters the 2++), you spam a bunch of free summoning (counters the mortal wounds), and then you pick the army list that can do one or both of these things the best so that you retain a mathematical odds advantage.
I used to think I was against rock paper scissors roles. Then as years went on I realized it was more I hate the GW implementation of rock paper scissors because their version is rock beats scissors, unless scissors rolls a 3+. Then scissors beats rock, and auto beats paper too. Until FAQ season, then rock gets boosted to beat scissors always and can beat paper on a 4+ so that you have to go buy rock. Then the next FAQ season comes, rinse repeat.
auticus wrote: Sadly, that will never happen. Because as the 40k and AOS forums echo - those things are "unfun" and extreme abstraction and streamlining is the order of the day and what is demanded from the customer base.
This seems inconsistent with your stance against 2+ rerollable saves in AoS, which would surely create an element of RPS. Can you elaborate on your position?
I was responding to a role based design where the nature of the roles meant if you overloaded one role you put yourself at extreme risk for getting bounced.
The AOS problem is that its rock/paper/nothing. You take a bunch of mortal wounds (counters the 2++), you spam a bunch of free summoning (counters the mortal wounds), and then you pick the army list that can do one or both of these things the best so that you retain a mathematical odds advantage.
I used to think I was against rock paper scissors roles. Then as years went on I realized it was more I hate the GW implementation of rock paper scissors because their version is rock beats scissors, unless scissors rolls a 3+. Then scissors beats rock, and auto beats paper too. Until FAQ season, then rock gets boosted to beat scissors always and can beat paper on a 4+ so that you have to go buy rock. Then the next FAQ season comes, rinse repeat.
Anytime. Some time away from GW rules and spending time with my own projects and with other games like Kings of War or Conquest have helped evolve my standpoint and help clarify the things I didn't like with a little more clarity. That and the discussion forums and getting other perspectives.
auticus wrote: Anytime. Some time away from GW rules and spending time with my own projects and with other games like Kings of War or Conquest have helped evolve my standpoint and help clarify the things I didn't like with a little more clarity. That and the discussion forums and getting other perspectives.
IMHO only working on an own project (based on knowledge about other existing systems of course) can give you (general you) enough insight into how different mechanics or design principles work and what are their limitations and where best to apply them. Discussions are great for getting to know what systems there are and to what ends people like/dislike them, but discussions often tend to get burried under peculiarities too much or become dominated by singular perspectives and as such rarely get to the true boundaries of application of available game design tools. Also, people tend to have their "pet ideas" and will advocate for them in ways that can blur true value of those ideas from game designer perspective. It is really the same as with any other craft - theory can only take you so far...
There's also lots of designer discussion out there. Podcasts like Ludology, for instance, can give you more insight into what it is about games you want.
I'm a games dev and I get to attend a few conferences a year. Have been doing that for a while now, and its always interesting to see those perspectives come to light.
I remember during my warhammer break, so probably 2008 or so, I was at a conference and the topic being discussed was how to integrate games like Magic into board games and tabletop games.
Yeah. Because marketing was showing that games like Magic (CCGs) were insanely popular and that at that time studies had shown that implementing it into tabletop board games was showing great signs of success (and here we are today where that is basically the glut of the market right now so you can see that it worked)
That discussion lol. (I have had my hand in a few tabletop games but I am mainly a video game designer / dev, but the principles often parallel each other)
Nurglitch wrote: There's also lots of designer discussion out there. Podcasts like Ludology, for instance, can give you more insight into what it is about games you want.
I agree, designer discussions are an entirely different beasts - where all participants already have an insight of craft practitioners (but the point about "pet ideas" still stands, at least from my experience). I was referring to typical dakka/fb shouting fests.
The core principles of Magic are pretty phenomenal when you get down to it. Pack opening and rarity and such are definitely its dark side, but the core mechanics of expending and recharging resources that escalate the game state is just a really solid design. It can certainly be improved upon, but its definitely a design that any designer should spend some time taking apart and understanding how it works.
The other dark side of CCG mechanics in wargames at least is that it turns the game into a listbuilding exercise where gameplay is secondary to what list you brought with you, if taken too far (and I believe GW cranked that knob to 11).
I like some of the aspects and agree that some synergies are fun. But removing most of the core tenants of wargames in exchange for a fantasy or sci fi miniatures game that is at its root a card game only with models I think needs dialed back a couple notches.
Somewhere in the middle ground I think a great game that appeals to more than just the listbuilding people can be had.
To me that always seems to be a product of people desiring less restrictive list construction as much as it is a product of combos or CCG elements. If you can bring anything you want list building will always be of great importance because it is far easier for people to min/max it is also far easier for people to make bad list building decisions. IF I really like the look of say Pyrovores and bring 20 of them because i think it is cool I'm going to lose.
Now I think poor balance makes this harsher as there are some things that likely should be reasonable list design choices that are not good when compared to better choices. But often as not I find that again to go back as much to people not want limits on anything.
I think this is made worse by things like aura powers that encourage certain types of builds that maximize those bonuses. However if list building was more restrictive you would have less issue with list building being a big deal.
Perhaps. Right now GW list building is off the chain and it creates immensely powerful negative play experiences in most corners of the game barring the people who enjoy actively breaking the game's balance and limits.
I can go back to the end of WHFB 6th and 7th and there were list restrictions there that were lol'd because even though restrictions were present, the balance was really really awful with certain books that broke the game. So I'm not sure restrictions are the fix so much as badly pointed items that have no downside are in either a restricted or unrestricted environment.
I guess it depends on what you refer to as CCG mechanics. What aspects are you referring to? I think there's a lot of big ideas that originated in or at least were popularized by Magic that I don't really consider to be a core to the CCG genre. A lot of the resource and synergy based gameplay has roots in RPGs and other team based games.
A lot of what relates to the CCG comes down more to having a constantly expanding system and the challenges created by adding new elements to a relatively stable ecosystem. I guess I'm not sure what you think of as a core tenant of a wargame, as honestly, even going back and playing old historicals; a lot of them play way more like 40k than anything else. Tables and books may have been largely replaced with cards, but that's more an interface change than a mechanical one.
Even Monopoly (a game from 1935) has resource management, so it's not something that MtG introduced to the game industry.
The main reason why deckbuilding aspect in MtG works and listbuilding in 40K doesn't is that you don't proceed to randomly drawing units from your list each turn - you use the full force of your deck from the very start of the game. You also don't need any resource to activate your "cards". That is horrible design. If you could not only choose cards for your deck but also the order of cards to draw, MtG would never fly as it did.
@LunarSol: the answer to your question lies in the most abstracted version of 40K to date, that is modern Apoc. You can replace everything in the game with literal codex entries cut out from the book and play with those without any miniature on the table and without any loss to the gameplay whatsoever. The last thing that links Apoc to TTG is true distance measuring. Abstract this to spaces based measuring and what you get is Summoner Wars. 8th ed is admittedly a little bit further from this, but compared to wargames of the '90s it is nearly there already.
A CCG game is one in which the environment plays almost no role, and the focal point is on the cards themselves.
Maneuver is not required, you tap a card in magic to deal damage. That is the equivalent to the alpha strike in both AOS and 40k. Tap your unit to show up and charge what you want (with some minor risk like the dice going bad but command abilities in both games pretty much render those very rare)
The battlefield has minimal role in AOS or 40k. Your units can go wherever they like, and terrain does little if anything to hamper them.
Line of sight is based on true line of sight, so is essentially also a non issue because you can practically draw a line and touch most models from any other models somehow and then get to attack/ tap the card and do your damage.
CCGs are often about stacking modifiers and buffs. Tap the card, give another card a bonus. Tap another card, give the card a bonus etc. 40k and AOS are built around those concepts, and are the key components of gameplay.
CCGs often have resources. Those are present in AOS and 40k as command points. Tap the resources to do an ability. Tap your easily farmable command points in 40k or AOS and get to do the ability.
AOS is a little more restricted in that regard but same concept applies.
Wargames in the traditional sense were about deployment, maneuver, and overcoming the battlefield hazards and terrain as much as overcoming your opponent (who also had to do the same things).
Most of those issues have been cleansed from GW "wargames" with some minor caveats. Deployment now is "how can I get as few models in a drop as possible so I can go first and force a double turn (AOS)" or how can I set up the alpha striike that my opponent cannot respond to at all and take in the face while I deploy bubble wrap to screen my own guys from the same.
When I say the games are similar to CCGs I don't mean because the games have moved books in favor of cards, I mean the core gameplay is very similar and in some cases the same.
You could create 40k the CCG and have it play very very closely to 40k the miniatures game right now; the same can also be said of AOS.
There's also something of an issue with how the marketing is managing expectations. Models aren't sold as beautiful models, or an interesting rules twist on existing models, but as more powerful additions to your army. We aren't being sold something fair and unique, we're being sold stuff that's more powerful than existing options.
Which isn't always the case, as some codexes are duds, and new units are often hit or miss, but the marketing really plays into that (and gets labelled 'pay-to-win' sometimes).
I'd say its not fully pay-to-win, but you do have to constantly rotate your collection on a yearly basis if you play in an environment where people min/max every thing 24/7 or don't mind getting destroyed.
So in that aspect its partially pay-to-win because you constantly have to shift armies or buy new units on a yearly basis in many cases.
It's very much a strategy aimed at whales, even if it hasn't been perfected to work perfectly. They're the ones that can make it work; they can afford the churn. Heck, even Hearthstone hasn't figured out how to do that even though they're getting better at putting new cards close to the curve.
In terms of competition though, it's kind of anti-competitive to allow players to buy an advantage. To my mind, more sportsmanlike conduct would be accepting a handicap rather than scrounging an advantage.
It's an interesting conundrum. Terrain is an area that players are still rather insistent on having total control over, and as a result, it feels like developers have reacted to dealing with bespoke gameplay issues created by terrain that doesn't interact well with their rules by largely pulling rules away from terrain. It's something I find rather interesting given how critical map design is in competitive shooters and the like, that this isn't a bigger part of wargaming as a whole, but I definitely agree its an area that's suffered.
I definitely think Infinity makes the best use of the genre in this regard, and its mechanics make an interesting case for the issues created in most other systems. You really start to notice how little a model actually moves in most games and in particularly how little they can "afford" to change their plans mid game. I'm not exactly sure how to fix this in GW land, but I think a lot of it has to do with their turn structure and how they've attempted to incentivize melee combat.
I actually find 8th's terrain mechanics kind of interesting; it just seems designed around terrain that no one (even GW) really plays on. Huge ruin templates with large solid objects in the middle of them just aren't that common. I do think companies have relied on out of date terrain conventions rather than trying to modernize them as they've improved on model rules. "Rough terrain" for example, is the death of interesting and dynamic movement on most tables. Tabletop map design just needs to evolve and appreciate what it can add to the genre.
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Nurglitch wrote: There's also something of an issue with how the marketing is managing expectations. Models aren't sold as beautiful models, or an interesting rules twist on existing models, but as more powerful additions to your army. We aren't being sold something fair and unique, we're being sold stuff that's more powerful than existing options.
Which isn't always the case, as some codexes are duds, and new units are often hit or miss, but the marketing really plays into that (and gets labelled 'pay-to-win' sometimes).
I think that's as much a result of the limitations of trying to express excitement in the limited window of communication marketing provides. GW games are very much molded in the "crush your enemies, see them driven before you" barbaric approach to war, so to sell something as "cool" in that genre, it tends to get marketed as.... well.... crushing your enemies. What you don't see is marketing selling something as actually superior to another option, because there selling the "dominate" idea not as something mechanical but thematic. GW tends to sell everything as the ultimate sword... without mentioning that everyone else has also been sold the ultimate sword.
nou wrote: @LunarSol: the answer to your question lies in the most abstracted version of 40K to date, that is modern Apoc. You can replace everything in the game with literal codex entries cut out from the book and play with those without any miniature on the table and without any loss to the gameplay whatsoever. The last thing that links Apoc to TTG is true distance measuring. Abstract this to spaces based measuring and what you get is Summoner Wars. 8th ed is admittedly a little bit further from this, but compared to wargames of the '90s it is nearly there already.
Lolwut. No, you really can't. Have you even read the Apocalypse rules? By stripping out all of the rules bloat and dice masturbation of 8th Apocalypse allows the game to focus on the models on the table. Maximizing your army is now about maneuvering units into position and making use of terrain, not just stacking a bunch of auras/stratagems/etc so that your dice are better than your opponent's dice. Perhaps you're making the mistake, as people often do, of playing Apocalypse with all terrain removed so that you can pack more models onto the table?
auticus wrote: Perhaps. Right now GW list building is off the chain and it creates immensely powerful negative play experiences in most corners of the game barring the people who enjoy actively breaking the game's balance and limits.
I can go back to the end of WHFB 6th and 7th and there were list restrictions there that were lol'd because even though restrictions were present, the balance was really really awful with certain books that broke the game. So I'm not sure restrictions are the fix so much as badly pointed items that have no downside are in either a restricted or unrestricted environment.
It is both, the less restrictions the harder it is to point things appropriately. Redundancy often increases the value of a unit. If we look at say the beginning of 8th and the malific lord. It would still be good for the points if it were a 0-1 choice, but when you could take 10 of them it was a serious issue. Throw in things like people using AM to get cheap CP, and CP regen (before FAQ), to make more use of powerful abilities in other factions makes it harder to point cost things correctly because the value is different when you look at all the possible options.
The combo/synergy piece also makes pointing things much harder, because the value of say something with an aura ability varies based on what the aura is effecting.
GW games have always had this wonky area where they say the army lists are "flexible" to allow for variety in choice, but then in the same breath go on to say that "abusing" it (e.g. spamming cheap units) should be frowned upon. They aren't alone in this (I have picked up Flames of War and you see similar min/maxing nonsense there too, and this is a historical game) but are probably the worst for the level of imbalance that their "flexible" lists enable.
Wayniac wrote: GW games have always had this wonky area where they say the army lists are "flexible" to allow for variety in choice, but then in the same breath go on to say that "abusing" it (e.g. spamming cheap units) should be frowned upon. They aren't alone in this (I have picked up Flames of War and you see similar min/maxing nonsense there too, and this is a historical game) but are probably the worst for the level of imbalance that their "flexible" lists enable.
I've always slightly scratched my head at how I often see the same people rail against unit caps in games and then condemn lists that take more than say, 3 of something.
Ultimately though, there is exactly that, particularly in GW games where there are codified modes of play. Players can do what they want as long as they both agree on it; its just that players generally go with types of play that have been vetted at a competitive level because those tend to minimize problems for them at the casual level as well.
In many ways, tournament rules are like the picture settings on your TV. There are ways to improve the experience and honestly, the vast majority of people won't really notice if they've got the wrong settings most of the time. The main difference is that because you have to be more willing to dive into the mechanics of a game to play it than you do to passively watch your TV, the table top crowd has an abnormally high percentage of its audience invested in proper contrast and brightness levels.
The players figure out the balance by figuring out what's worthy of being in their lists/decks and sort it through game play to establish the meta.
In MTG constructed play you typically have 60 cards and 15 in the side board. So you need to look in the card pool and find the most efficient cards. The ones that give you the most power for the slot. The ones that synergize or form a combo to let you do something way more powerful than the text of any one card.
In 40k matched play you typically have 2000 points. So you need to look at your army lists and find the most efficient units. The ones that give you the most power for the points. The ones that synergize or form a combo to let you do something way more powerful than the text of any one datasheet.
Then you take the army/deck to an event and allow the swiss pairings to sort everyone (inefficiently mind you) into winners and losers so by the end of the event the top tables are full of the best players who also have the best lists (of models or cards) and the bottom tables will be full of some combination of the worst players and lists.
Balance has been surrendered to this social structure. The tournament organizers contribute to the testing and they are 100% okay if only a fraction of a given codex is viable. In fact they think it's part of the fun to have players need to identify the good and bad cards/units and make decks/army lists out of the available options. Even if it means the game can utterly break down when people play with the larger card/model pool against such a crafted list.
The whole process is right out of CCGs to the point that the same text describes them both.
Wayniac wrote: GW games have always had this wonky area where they say the army lists are "flexible" to allow for variety in choice, but then in the same breath go on to say that "abusing" it (e.g. spamming cheap units) should be frowned upon. They aren't alone in this (I have picked up Flames of War and you see similar min/maxing nonsense there too, and this is a historical game) but are probably the worst for the level of imbalance that their "flexible" lists enable.
I've always slightly scratched my head at how I often see the same people rail against unit caps in games and then condemn lists that take more than say, 3 of something.
I think you have to consider context. As an IG player, I think it's garbage that I can take nine Leman Russes and GW considers that fine, but I can't use all Veterans for my infantry.
There are two competing factors in play- the ability to create themed armies based on an alternative set of units, which rigid army construction precludes you from doing, versus the tendency to spam the most efficient units, which rigid construction is meant to counter.
I thought WHFB's approach to balancing the two was one of the better ones I've seen. The Core, Special, and Rare distinction allows for a lot of variety in armies constructed from the same set of units, while still preventing the more egregious abuse since the really cool, powerful, exotic stuff is heavily restricted.
nou wrote: @LunarSol: the answer to your question lies in the most abstracted version of 40K to date, that is modern Apoc. You can replace everything in the game with literal codex entries cut out from the book and play with those without any miniature on the table and without any loss to the gameplay whatsoever. The last thing that links Apoc to TTG is true distance measuring. Abstract this to spaces based measuring and what you get is Summoner Wars. 8th ed is admittedly a little bit further from this, but compared to wargames of the '90s it is nearly there already.
Lolwut. No, you really can't. Have you even read the Apocalypse rules? By stripping out all of the rules bloat and dice masturbation of 8th Apocalypse allows the game to focus on the models on the table. Maximizing your army is now about maneuvering units into position and making use of terrain, not just stacking a bunch of auras/stratagems/etc so that your dice are better than your opponent's dice. Perhaps you're making the mistake, as people often do, of playing Apocalypse with all terrain removed so that you can pack more models onto the table?
Yeah, the terrain system in apoc is VASTLY better than the terrain system in 40k...they've just abstracted the one element you just got finished complaining about, which is the TLOS aspect.
Apoc's unit coherency rule makes most pieces of terrain impassable unless you start directly next to them, meaning terrain limits movement far more than in 40k, and the "Embark/Disembark" system of entering any piece of "occupy-able" terrain speeds up the game immensely and removes the micro-advantages that terrain in base 40k offers with crap like "Fully occupied levels prevent charging entirely" and making sure each of your invididual little duders is positioned in a window so you can still shoot.
nou wrote: @LunarSol: the answer to your question lies in the most abstracted version of 40K to date, that is modern Apoc. You can replace everything in the game with literal codex entries cut out from the book and play with those without any miniature on the table and without any loss to the gameplay whatsoever. The last thing that links Apoc to TTG is true distance measuring. Abstract this to spaces based measuring and what you get is Summoner Wars. 8th ed is admittedly a little bit further from this, but compared to wargames of the '90s it is nearly there already.
Lolwut. No, you really can't. Have you even read the Apocalypse rules? By stripping out all of the rules bloat and dice masturbation of 8th Apocalypse allows the game to focus on the models on the table. Maximizing your army is now about maneuvering units into position and making use of terrain, not just stacking a bunch of auras/stratagems/etc so that your dice are better than your opponent's dice. Perhaps you're making the mistake, as people often do, of playing Apocalypse with all terrain removed so that you can pack more models onto the table?
Yeah, the terrain system in apoc is VASTLY better than the terrain system in 40k...they've just abstracted the one element you just got finished complaining about, which is the TLOS aspect.
Apoc's unit coherency rule makes most pieces of terrain impassable unless you start directly next to them, meaning terrain limits movement far more than in 40k, and the "Embark/Disembark" system of entering any piece of "occupy-able" terrain speeds up the game immensely and removes the micro-advantages that terrain in base 40k offers with crap like "Fully occupied levels prevent charging entirely" and making sure each of your invididual little duders is positioned in a window so you can still shoot.
You have just described any hex/square grid based game with ranged attacks, like you know, Summoner Wars mentioned above. Or Neuroshima Hex. Both of which are card games with a board. And as a sidenote, Neuroshima Hex is far better wargame than both 8th ed or Apoc but my post above had nothing to do with games/rules being better/more playable, only with mechanical classification. Even Blackstone Fortress, a hex based game can handle abstracted LOS in more complete way, as it accounts for mid range partial obscuration which is nonexistent in Apoc.
Balance has been surrendered to this social structure. The tournament organizers contribute to the testing and they are 100% okay if only a fraction of a given codex is viable. In fact they think it's part of the fun to have players need to identify the good and bad cards/units and make decks/army lists out of the available options. Even if it means the game can utterly break down when people play with the larger card/model pool against such a crafted list.
I think you're mixing up a little cause and effect here. I think what a lot of people don't appreciate is that having any significant volume of competitive options is remarkably hard. This gets significantly harder if your only barometer for success is the top 8 or so of a tournament (and many people only care about #1). It's remarkably difficult to get 16 or so factions in the top 8 of events; let alone doing that with any diversity within each faction. You're just.... logistically trying to jam 64+ lists into an event that might not have half that number of players when talking locally.
Most people will praise a fraction of a codex being viable because most systems out there struggle to get to a place where every codex is viable in the first place. What's more diverse; a tournament with 8 different ways to win with Eldar or one with Eldar, Marines, Chaos, Orks, Necrons, Nids? I personally vote for the latter, as I'd much rather change units than armies if I want to follow the trends.
Picking out good/bad units its mostly just a result of having choices to make. Similar to wanting 64 lists to fit in a top 8, its hard to get to a point where 10,000 points can fit in 2000. Stuff gets cut and since most people aren't playing enough to actively test a determine the 80% they should cut, a lot of it turns to following leaders. There's generally a lot more options available than people realize, but since we define viability by the 16,000 points that make up the top 8.... well, a lot of stuff doesn't end up there by definition.
Wayniac wrote: GW games have always had this wonky area where they say the army lists are "flexible" to allow for variety in choice, but then in the same breath go on to say that "abusing" it (e.g. spamming cheap units) should be frowned upon. They aren't alone in this (I have picked up Flames of War and you see similar min/maxing nonsense there too, and this is a historical game) but are probably the worst for the level of imbalance that their "flexible" lists enable.
I've always slightly scratched my head at how I often see the same people rail against unit caps in games and then condemn lists that take more than say, 3 of something.
I think you have to consider context. As an IG player, I think it's garbage that I can take nine Leman Russes and GW considers that fine, but I can't use all Veterans for my infantry.
There are two competing factors in play- the ability to create themed armies based on an alternative set of units, which rigid army construction precludes you from doing, versus the tendency to spam the most efficient units, which rigid construction is meant to counter.
I thought WHFB's approach to balancing the two was one of the better ones I've seen. The Core, Special, and Rare distinction allows for a lot of variety in armies constructed from the same set of units, while still preventing the more egregious abuse since the really cool, powerful, exotic stuff is heavily restricted.
The issue with the WHFB method, or the old FOC method in 40k has always been balance between core units. IF you have strong core units you have an advantage over someone who basically needs to throw points away on core choices.
I think the answer to themed armies is really different army books along with capped units, removal of allies to fill gaps etc.
So for instance a Saim Hann Eldar codex might have access to more units of jet bikes, but more limited or no access to other units, and the points cost for those bikes might be different than in other books.
Then have a different format (like say APOC) where there are no restrictions but that isn't designed to be used for games where winning and losing matters.
Personally, I think the current ally rules are probably the best thing that's happened to the game in quite a while. It really helps consolidate the number of factions into something more manageable, but does so in a way that still requires a decent chunk of any given army to make the table. Personally, I think the primary issue with it currenlty is just that they put all their eggs in the Battalion. I think you can open up a lot of design space by bumping the other detachment type CP to 3 and probably cut down the slots for the Battalion to a max of 2-3 units of all the other types.
The fragmented Imperium is one of the biggest issues with how the factions are organized. There are so many codexes that consist of something like 4 SKUs its just impossible to fit them into the same template as the rest of the game. The equivalent is seeing something like Codex: Wraithknight or Codex: Boyz in the Xenos library. I'd be happier if we saw things brought together into one book proper, but seeing as we're now getting a Codex for every pot of Contrast you can put on a marine, I don't see that happening any time soon.
LunarSol wrote: I think you're mixing up a little cause and effect here.
I think it's actually a cycle where the rules design, playtesting and matched play event feedback all feed into one another.
There's generally a lot more options available than people realize, but since we define viability by the 16,000 points that make up the top 8.... well, a lot of stuff doesn't end up there by definition.
There's generally a lot more options available than people realize, but since we define viability by the 600 cards that make up the top 8... well, a lot of cards don't end up there by definition.
Your post is exactly what I'm talking about. I don't think we really disagree at all. People always say in MTG that there are so many more options in the card pool than the proven decks in a given format in the exact same way you described 40k tournaments.
I don't actually think the use of swiss pairing and list building to handle the balance side of things is necessarily bad. The problem is that it just doesn't serve everyone. From what I understand in magic, it works out with an acceptance that some decks are simply not appropriate in some games. It's just not okay to play a competitive deck at a kitchen table without checking with the opponent first. People are left to figuring out, to the best of their ability, the relative power levels of their decks.
40k is no different. Outside of tournaments people still need to come to a common understanding of how tuned they want the lists to be. The problem comes when there's a social mismatch. When someone is more towards the competitive side of things and another person built and army based on what they thought looked cool or what they wanted to paint. I think in MTG terms they often talk about this same sort of mismatch by saying things like "my opponent was just playing a pile of cards" to contrast it with lists/decks that are built with intention.
40k is no different. Outside of tournaments people still need to come to a common understanding of how tuned they want the lists to be. The problem comes when there's a social mismatch. When someone is more towards the competitive side of things and another person built and army based on what they thought looked cool or what they wanted to paint. I think in MTG terms they often talk about this same sort of mismatch by saying things like "my opponent was just playing a pile of cards" to contrast it with lists/decks that are built with intention.
You're right, I don't think we really disagree here; I'm just somewhat realistic that playing with any random pile of cards isn't going to work against something with a plan behind it. To a degree, it comes down to that argument of freedom of options vs practical options. I mean, by the rules you can play with 60 basic lands if you like. Does the game need to make that competitive as playing with a creature? Should the game mandate a basic level of competency or is there fun and value in discovering these things? The activity of tuning itself is something a lot of people enjoy after all.
What I'll say is that I'm in favor of trying to design everything with a purpose in mind. 40k is rampant with redundant units that seem to exist simply because there are too many factions differentiated by their paint job so when you make a kit you might as well give it to all of them. Relying on points to balance things out seems to be something that greatly exacerbates this, particularly as new releases continue to eat up design space.
Ultimately my answer is to be practical about it. Building to a competitive level isn't exactly difficult, and in a system where there's a place at least for every Codex, there's something that can be done, even if it doesn't cover every unit. The important thing is to not go completely crazy with your pet projects. Spending a couple hundred points on something "worth" about half that isn't going to tank my list on its own. It's sub optimal, but there's enough variance in the game that its not going to ruin your day. People get in trouble when they decide they need their whole army to be made up of their favorite unit and unless you're totally accepting of the consequences, that's not a great idea even if that unit is pretty good. It'll win, but its going to be a big loss whenever things change. That's actually another reason I quite like the ally system. Lists are a lot more resilient to change when generally only a third of them are changing at a time.
I totally agree that it actually only takes the intention to have a plan for the army to make it something more than a collection of units I thought were cool (pile of cards). Tournament lists don't happen by accident and if you just make sure you have your command point source and then take stuff that can hit and be hit and capture objectives and make sure there's synergy between both units and faction rules anyone can go to an event and feel like they're actually playing the game. I don't think it's bad that this is in common with how there are the basics of deckbuilding in MTG. I'm merely pointing out that people do this and then the swiss pairing system sorts things from there.
All it takes for an event to have enough participants and rounds to allow the sorting to happen and most people will finish out the event playing appropriately matched armies and opponents. Even if people take a pile of cards the swiss pairing system will eventually pair them up with like minded individuals.
Some people even go to events specifically to have a blast playing with like minded individuals at the bottom tables.
The ally point is actually awesome. I think you're right about that. It is cool that a new army release or codex doesn't have to invalidate an entire army. It is, again, like CCGs where a new set or rotation doesn't have to invalidate a deck. Many times a given deck archetype can survive a new release or the removal of an old release and its replacement.
Having a loyal 32 to generate command points is like having a good mana base and a selection of staples in modern in MTG. It let's you take advantage of pretty much everything released for Imperium.
You're right, I don't think we really disagree here; I'm just somewhat realistic that playing with any random pile of cards isn't going to work against something with a plan behind it. To a degree, it comes down to that argument of freedom of options vs practical options. I mean, by the rules you can play with 60 basic lands if you like. Does the game need to make that competitive as playing with a creature? Should the game mandate a basic level of competency or is there fun and value in discovering these things? The activity of tuning itself is something a lot of people enjoy after all.
Issue is though that GW can't even manage to write an Archetype propperly in order to make the "plan" even on the most baseline level work.
F.e. Daemonengine lists of the brazen beasts.
Or daemonengine lists in general.
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The ally point is actually awesome. I think you're right about that. It is cool that a new army release or codex doesn't have to invalidate an entire army. It is, again, like CCGs where a new set or rotation doesn't have to invalidate a deck. Many times a given deck archetype can survive a new release or the removal of an old release and its replacement.
Having a loyal 32 to generate command points is like having a good mana base and a selection of staples in modern in MTG. It let's you take advantage of pretty much everything released for Imperium.
And by consequence Fething up balance for all other overarching factions?
Yeah no, i think i 'll pass. the CP system is flawed to no end.
I sum up this topic as people are falling into becoming "advocates" for a specific format like ITC/ETC/NOVA and there is a typical behaviour of "pushing the idea that these formats have actual merit." None of them do, they are all basically house ruled games e.g. the format part. I am not saying it doesn't take skill or game knowledge to play in these formats but when specific people are pushing "this is pinnacle of table top sport." That's when the fanboys come out the wood works. Not to mention the biggest problem40k has from a competitive standpoint is that the terrain rules play such a massive effect in game when the terrain rules suck or don't exists. Thus leading to biased mechanics that I generally disagree with.
And by consequence Fething up balance for all other overarching factions?
Yeah no, i think i 'll pass. the CP system is flawed to no end.
It really isn't, simply because all the other factions have something similar built in rather than pointlessly spun out into their own thing. Wraith Knights have Dire Avengers in the same codex. People seem unwilling to admit that Orks compete with a single codex because that codex is full of nearly as many sub factions as an entire soup faction and can build armies under the same principles. The only difference is just how many times for the Imperium GW has historically released a new kit and claimed its an entire faction when there's not nearly enough out to support it.
ThatMG wrote: I sum up this topic as people are falling into becoming "advocates" for a specific format like ITC/ETC/NOVA and there is a typical behaviour of "pushing the idea that these formats have actual merit." None of them do, they are all basically house ruled games e.g. the format part. I am not saying it doesn't take skill or game knowledge to play in these formats but when specific people are pushing "this is pinnacle of table top sport." That's when the fanboys come out the wood works. Not to mention the biggest problem40k has from a competitive standpoint is that the terrain rules play such a massive effect in game when the terrain rules suck or don't exists. Thus leading to biased mechanics that I generally disagree with.
These kinds of posts spank of not really knowing much of anything. The NOVA format, for example, has never advocated a sport feel or anything similar (in fact, I'd say we staunchly oppose any effort to turn 40K into a sport); merely presenting as fair a format and experience for all player types as possible within a 40K tournament. As far as being house rules, well ... our on-site judges include the guy who wrote 40K 8th and is the senior rules writer for the game. I don't imagine he'd agree with your assessment, though one never knows.
This thread remains an entertaining read, however. 40K is a game, it's a fun game, and it's fun to play games. It wasn't built for tournament play in 8th edition, and it's neat that the thousands of people who enjoy playing in 40K tournaments have a robust community of organizers out there to provide them with even more fun times. Whether it is competitive isn't really as important as the fact lots of people have tons of fun playing in tournaments, and spend almost 0 time insulting or being offended by people who *Don't* like tournaments. It's too bad it doesn't work the other way around so often.
And by consequence Fething up balance for all other overarching factions?
Yeah no, i think i 'll pass. the CP system is flawed to no end.
It really isn't, simply because all the other factions have something similar built in rather than pointlessly spun out into their own thing. Wraith Knights have Dire Avengers in the same codex. People seem unwilling to admit that Orks compete with a single codex because that codex is full of nearly as many sub factions as an entire soup faction and can build armies under the same principles. The only difference is just how many times for the Imperium GW has historically released a new kit and claimed its an entire faction when there's not nearly enough out to support it.
That wasn't my point,like at all.
My point was that some factions have access to good stratagems and also a faction within the overarching one that also generates cheap masses of CP.
Whilest others simply don't.
That is my Crux with the system atm.
And by consequence Fething up balance for all other overarching factions?
Yeah no, i think i 'll pass. the CP system is flawed to no end.
It really isn't, simply because all the other factions have something similar built in rather than pointlessly spun out into their own thing. Wraith Knights have Dire Avengers in the same codex. People seem unwilling to admit that Orks compete with a single codex because that codex is full of nearly as many sub factions as an entire soup faction and can build armies under the same principles. The only difference is just how many times for the Imperium GW has historically released a new kit and claimed its an entire faction when there's not nearly enough out to support it.
That wasn't my point,like at all.
My point was that some factions have access to good stratagems and also a faction within the overarching one that also generates cheap masses of CP.
Whilest others simply don't.
That is my Crux with the system atm.
Pretty much everyone has an option to generate mass CP pretty cheap and pretty much everyone has access to good Stratagems as long as their book is newer than the fall after 8th was released when GW was still nailing the system down. I guess I'm not sure who doesn't have access to cheap CP? Necrons are the one I generally consider the big exception in need of help and even they perform fairly well.
And by consequence Fething up balance for all other overarching factions?
Yeah no, i think i 'll pass. the CP system is flawed to no end.
It really isn't, simply because all the other factions have something similar built in rather than pointlessly spun out into their own thing. Wraith Knights have Dire Avengers in the same codex. People seem unwilling to admit that Orks compete with a single codex because that codex is full of nearly as many sub factions as an entire soup faction and can build armies under the same principles. The only difference is just how many times for the Imperium GW has historically released a new kit and claimed its an entire faction when there's not nearly enough out to support it.
That wasn't my point,like at all.
My point was that some factions have access to good stratagems and also a faction within the overarching one that also generates cheap masses of CP.
Whilest others simply don't.
That is my Crux with the system atm.
Pretty much everyone has an option to generate mass CP pretty cheap and pretty much everyone has access to good Stratagems as long as their book is newer than the fall after 8th was released when GW was still nailing the system down. I guess I'm not sure who doesn't have access to cheap CP? Necrons are the one I generally consider the big exception in need of help and even they perform fairly well.
Good, show me the base cost of all the cheapest battalions.
Then we go into the quality of these battalions.
Cp /pts please.
I am certain that that is a fun excercise to exemplify what i mean by it.
Basically, my main complaint is that not even the Basis for the supposed depth of the game has equal long pikes for all factions involved.
ThatMG wrote: I sum up this topic as people are falling into becoming "advocates" for a specific format like ITC/ETC/NOVA and there is a typical behaviour of "pushing the idea that these formats have actual merit." None of them do, they are all basically house ruled games e.g. the format part. I am not saying it doesn't take skill or game knowledge to play in these formats but when specific people are pushing "this is pinnacle of table top sport." That's when the fanboys come out the wood works. Not to mention the biggest problem40k has from a competitive standpoint is that the terrain rules play such a massive effect in game when the terrain rules suck or don't exists. Thus leading to biased mechanics that I generally disagree with.
These kinds of posts spank of not really knowing much of anything. The NOVA format, for example, has never advocated a sport feel or anything similar (in fact, I'd say we staunchly oppose any effort to turn 40K into a sport); merely presenting as fair a format and experience for all player types as possible within a 40K tournament. As far as being house rules, well ... our on-site judges include the guy who wrote 40K 8th and is the senior rules writer for the game. I don't imagine he'd agree with your assessment, though one never knows.
This thread remains an entertaining read, however. 40K is a game, it's a fun game, and it's fun to play games. It wasn't built for tournament play in 8th edition, and it's neat that the thousands of people who enjoy playing in 40K tournaments have a robust community of organizers out there to provide them with even more fun times. Whether it is competitive isn't really as important as the fact lots of people have tons of fun playing in tournaments, and spend almost 0 time insulting or being offended by people who *Don't* like tournaments. It's too bad it doesn't work the other way around so often.
Completely missing the context of my post. You say I don't know what I an talking about but you post nothing to contradict my statements. I was referencing that it is human behaviour to treat formats with more legitimacy than they merit (GW change rules/points because of how some armies where preforming for example). Seriously the sports comment was my humour more directed to the ITC. It sounds I hit a nerve with the truth these events are nothing more than "House Rules." the only difference is the number of people who accept these "house rules." What I have nothing against do what you wanna do, I was talking about the threads topic. Toxicity in my view is when people take these formats / "house rules" as gospel and create tribalistic groups of "outsiders" "insiders".
The whole "meta-narrative" of 40k and is even more a joke. Simply put 40k is not a game that is very good at the "strict comp play style." This is why we have those 3 ITC/ETC/NOVA they cater to the players that go. What is perfectly fine and I have nothing against them in that regard.
Just doing a quick check on the Xenos that don't really have allies:
Orks: 200 with Big Meks and Gretchin
Tau: 189 with Fireblades and Strike Teams
Necrons: 375 with Lords and Immortals :(
I think its worth remembering though that an Imperium list with the Loyal 32 isn't paying 180 points to unlock each Battalion. For example, the Blood Angels detachment is going to be 265 minimum and much like the minimums posted above, isn't going to be that low because points will be spent to upgrade the HQs to something worthwhile. Imperium is full of factions that to add to your soup you need to pay a pretty significant premium, where other factions either have access to their own version of soup, or pay a slightly higher, but more consistent tax for their CP.
LunarSol wrote: Just doing a quick check on the Xenos that don't really have allies:
Orks: 200 with Big Meks and Gretchin
Tau: 189 with Fireblades and Strike Teams
Necrons: 375 with Lords and Immortals :(
I think its worth remembering though that an Imperium list with the Loyal 32 isn't paying 180 points to unlock each Battalion. For example, the Blood Angels detachment is going to be 265 minimum and much like the minimums posted above, isn't going to be that low because points will be spent to upgrade the HQs to something worthwhile. Imperium is full of factions that to add to your soup you need to pay a pretty significant premium, where other factions either have access to their own version of soup, or pay a slightly higher, but more consistent tax for their CP.
Nope.
Ork 40/CP Tau 36..../CP Necrons close to 80/CP Chaos Space Marines RC Warpsmiths csm 39..../CP non RC 54/cp IG 36 /CP
And on and on and on.
Now we look at general effectiveness of stratagems.
IG stratagems, gak.
Csm stratagems, very good.
So not only is cp gain not fair the stratagems behind them, which should determine the ressources required are also not fair.
So again, does this look like a reasonable position to even start balancing?
It would be a bigger problem if those rates turned into 2000 * CP/Point but it doesn't. Realistically, its hard to spend more than 700ish on CP generation because at that point you hit the 3 detatchment cap. The rest is what you make of it. If that 700 isn't very good but you have better options, then its worth spending more to generate your CP, which is very common with the HQs. In fact, one of the big things people should be doing is spending points to upgrade those cheap commanders to Tank Commanders now that the laurels aren't ridiculous. The point is, generating CP isn't really a burden on anyone (except Necrons.... poor, poor, Necrons) if they're using the tool available to them to do so. The Imperium is just in a place where that often requires Guard, because so many of their factions can't make a battalion without spending a fortune on it.
LunarSol wrote: It would be a bigger problem if those rates turned into 2000 * CP/Point but it doesn't. Realistically, its hard to spend more than 700ish on CP generation because at that point you hit the 3 detatchment cap. The rest is what you make of it. If that 700 isn't very good but you have better options, then its worth spending more to generate your CP, which is very common with the HQs. In fact, one of the big things people should be doing is spending points to upgrade those cheap commanders to Tank Commanders now that the laurels aren't ridiculous. The point is, generating CP isn't really a burden on anyone (except Necrons.... poor, poor, Necrons) if they're using the tool available to them to do so. The Imperium is just in a place where that often requires Guard, because so many of their factions can't make a battalion without spending a fortune on it.
So the quality of that 700 pts terrible is fine compared to 700 generating and actually beeing decent?
Chaos literally has R&H that generate CP even cheaper then guard, yet you don't see them.
Why? Because they suck.
So you are stuck with the RC battery. Which has the added disadvantage that as a detachment it pays close to necron price. And gives you 2 Warpsmiths and 15 csm, which as do tacticals, suck. (altough with tacticals now at 12 pts they hillariously suck even more )
So a 3rd of an 2000 pts list beeing forced into gak for one side whilest the other actually get's a benefit out of them is fine?
Most competitive chaos armies just take Daemons for CP generation and screening. Arguing the cost per cp for their regular troops is asinine, because nobody uses them. Might as well take some Daemons and get good, useful troops like Plaguebearers, horrors, and bloodletters.
So if you're gonna take those units anyway, since they are very good, then why bother arguing about how much CP it costs per point?
Exactly. CSM don't have a good CP battery in their codex, but they do in their allies, just like Custodes completely lack a good CP battery unless they take Guard.
Nurglitch wrote: What, are the Red Corsairs not a good CP battery?
Not really, the issue is that whilest the price / Cp is actually really competitve, it also is one of the more expensive and useless Battalions overall to field.
(i am sorry to say this, as i absolutely love my 60 new CSM, but CSM don't work. They don't, and also with the recent pirce shifts in their comparable mirror unit just shows that they are still overpriced for what they do.)
This is why you still see Daemon battalions. Instead of RC battalions.
tneva82 wrote: Competive 40k is self contradicting term anyway so what's the matter anyway.
Highly inclined to disagree with you. High level play is completely different to the average beet and pretzels game of 40k.
Dwight Schrute has entered the chat.
Serious: I am a competitive person. Not win at all costs, but I like to know where I stand amongst my peers when anything of skill is involved.That said I much prefer the tournament scene of Age of Sigmar which revolves more around camaraderie and good times had by all with people using optimized armies and know their rules, vs 40k where it seems to be about stepping on someone's back as a means to claw there way to the top of nerd mountain.
AoS balance is so much of a joke that you really can't take it seriously though.
tneva82 wrote: Competive 40k is self contradicting term anyway so what's the matter anyway.
Highly inclined to disagree with you. High level play is completely different to the average beet and pretzels game of 40k.
Dwight Schrute has entered the chat.
Serious: I am a competitive person. Not win at all costs, but I like to know where I stand amongst my peers when anything of skill is involved.That said I much prefer the tournament scene of Age of Sigmar which revolves more around camaraderie and good times had by all with people using optimized armies and know their rules, vs 40k where it seems to be about stepping on someone's back as a means to claw there way to the top of nerd mountain.
AoS balance is so much of a joke that you really can't take it seriously though.
As a big fan of AoS and play both casually and competitively I have to completely agree.
But I am confused as to how that differs from 40k.
AOS balance is definitely lol. Its supporters will say that its great and balanced because at the tournament level there is so much diversity (which I'd contend is also false) in the winning percentages. At the casual level its definitely blow out city in many games due 100% to the list mismatches.
40k I quit and sold my stuff off a couple years ago so I can't comment though I'd have to say I would find it hard to believe there is any balance there after having played 3rd - 7th edition and it never existing at all in those editions either.
auticus wrote: AOS balance is definitely lol. Its supporters will say that its great and balanced because at the tournament level there is so much diversity (which I'd contend is also false) in the winning percentages. At the casual level its definitely blow out city in many games due 100% to the list mismatches.
40k I quit and sold my stuff off a couple years ago so I can't comment though I'd have to say I would find it hard to believe there is any balance there after having played 3rd - 7th edition and it never existing at all in those editions either.
40k has balance if both players bring meta lists... and there are a lot of those from every race. Even Necrons. Only GK have no chance. Still, casual games are often blowouts unless the person with the stronger army intentionally tones it down to match his opponent, because there are a lot of very bad choices tou can make building an army.
And by consequence Fething up balance for all other overarching factions?
Yeah no, i think i 'll pass. the CP system is flawed to no end.
It really isn't, simply because all the other factions have something similar built in rather than pointlessly spun out into their own thing. Wraith Knights have Dire Avengers in the same codex. People seem unwilling to admit that Orks compete with a single codex because that codex is full of nearly as many sub factions as an entire soup faction and can build armies under the same principles. The only difference is just how many times for the Imperium GW has historically released a new kit and claimed its an entire faction when there's not nearly enough out to support it.
Ummmm no...Orks don't have even close to as many sub factions as even eldar soup has nevermind imperium. Nobody gets even remotely as close to sub factions as Imperium and orks are by far behind.
auticus wrote: AOS balance is definitely lol. Its supporters will say that its great and balanced because at the tournament level there is so much diversity (which I'd contend is also false) in the winning percentages. At the casual level its definitely blow out city in many games due 100% to the list mismatches.
40k I quit and sold my stuff off a couple years ago so I can't comment though I'd have to say I would find it hard to believe there is any balance there after having played 3rd - 7th edition and it never existing at all in those editions either.
40k has balance if both players bring meta lists... and there are a lot of those from every race. Even Necrons. Only GK have no chance. Still, casual games are often blowouts unless the person with the stronger army intentionally tones it down to match his opponent, because there are a lot of very bad choices tou can make building an army.
I would agree. If both players are bringing meta lists then the balance isn't that bad. There's the rub. The meta lists change regularly and you have to constantly change out your army if you want balance. You are in essence locked into a small handful of builds. Thats always been a feature of GW games though (and yes all games to an extent, though GW games are the worst offenders I have found)
NinthMusketeer wrote: If every army is tournament viable minus one or two that is a step up.
I think most people don't have enough experience with competitive gaming to recognize how incredibly rare this is.
Also, even GKs can do okay as long as they're taken with some other options. Probably not going to win LVO but there are plenty of other tournaments out there.
NinthMusketeer wrote: If every army is tournament viable minus one or two that is a step up.
I think most people don't have enough experience with competitive gaming to recognize how incredibly rare this is.
Also, even GKs can do okay as long as they're taken with some other options. Probably not going to win LVO but there are plenty of other tournaments out there.
So basically it's fine, if you can soup or just go to a tournament where the specific ruleset is better for your army then for others?
NinthMusketeer wrote: If every army is tournament viable minus one or two that is a step up.
I think most people don't have enough experience with competitive gaming to recognize how incredibly rare this is.
Also, even GKs can do okay as long as they're taken with some other options. Probably not going to win LVO but there are plenty of other tournaments out there.
So basically it's fine, if you can soup or just go to a tournament where the specific ruleset is better for your army then for others?
Doesn't have to be a specific ruleset; Winning LVO is just the hardest hill to climb so it probably shouldn't be your barometer for success.
And... yeah.... soup is the answer given to a lot of the game's balance challenges. It's a consolidation of factions that had splintered entirely out of hand. That's why the edition was sold under the banner of essentially 3 factions to begin with. It's a great opportunity to find better places for elite units that GW tried to stretch far beyound what they had interesting design space for.
Yeah, looking over the past few pages of posts,
some interesting comments, but what strikes me most is the
way that the game is spoken of, e.g. take this for CPs, who has the best CP farm, which "builds" are "competitive", and so on...
It is all about gaming the game system...
and the thing is that it is not that difficult to game this game system, I mean it is effectively made that way to con people into chasing 'meta-list' madness...
On its own, Ok, I understand, but as part of this thread it is a bit ironic, and at the same time useful, because look, this is the sort of tacit regard for the game that many people find off-putting. Once someone uses the word "build" in the conversation, worlds divide.
Metas are an odd thing. To a degree they are created by the players but they're also something developers are looking to shape so that the game looks the way they envision it. A lot of the time this is done through restrictions; FOC or what have you. Other times its the result of incentives put into the system to encourage players down certain paths.
From the beginning, 8th edition has pushed the latter and as much as players have insisted there's something "wrong" with soup; its how the edition was originally sold and most updates have further encouraged mixed builds taken from multiple, but ultimately related sources. Terms like "soup", "farm", "tax" and "battery" are player created (often intentionally derogatory) shorthand for things the developers keep rewarding.
It may just be that I'm relatively new to 40k on the tabletop, but honestly the main reason I don't really see this stuff as gaming the system is that its created the world as I've experienced it in videogames and other media. 2000 points of marines looks ridiculous to me, as my experience with the world tends to cap them around 10, with the rest of the army being Guard, maybe a knight or some inquisitors or something. Chaos Marines among hordes of daemons, mutated cultists backed up by their tyranid masters, etc. The lines drawn by the codex don't really show up anywhere but in the game, and by consolidating a lot of factions under bigger keywords, I see more of the world that I enjoy. It's all perspective, but the mixed armies of 8th look substantially less "gamey" to me than when I've looked into the game in the past and largely seen 10 or so of the same thing copied over and over. It's diverse and interesting and far less mechanical to me.
Kanluwen wrote: To be fair, the edition was also envisioned to be using the "Auxiliary Detachments" where you take single units and pay a CP penalty.
That's where players become a problem as they ignored it.
I think a lot of the detachment design space got abandoned in favor of battalions once they started designing strategems as a major game element. I actually don't like Aux Detachments as a design space, as it leads to more of a "guest starring, broken dude" style of inclusion. The battalion focus at least ensures each ally has a decent table presence. I do think a lot more could be done with the other detachment types, but given the whole system is basically bolting a resource economy onto to the game; I suspect GW is sidelining a lot of additional gimmicks to make sure the core of it works correctly. You can see the bits that fall outside of their focus when they actually react by cracking down on things like Imperium keyworded Supreme Commands or the whole Vect thing.
Disagree. You can see where the design space was intended to head towards the Auxiliary Detachments, but somewhere along the way it was shifted(and I have my hunches it's from the tourney playtester crowds) to the current soup-y system we have.
Kanluwen wrote: Disagree. You can see where the design space was intended to head towards the Auxiliary Detachments, but somewhere along the way it was shifted(and I have my hunches it's from the tourney playtester crowds) to the current soup-y system we have.
Quite possible.
Not to say though that the detachment system itself is the problem but the fact of shared cp Generation and vastly varying strength of stratagems.
It just adds in a way the cherry on top due to some factions not having access to allies.
I think this might be unpopular and probably impossible given the sheer range and amount of choices in 40k (not to mention the expectations of those who play) but I would be curious to see a more restricted system of choice in place for building lists.
I know why this likely wouldn't work these days, largely because it would involve needing to have a better balance between basic troops across factions, especially since some have more range of troop choices then others, and some are just plain better.
But having a slot and/or percentage system would be interesting. I find currently, that with issues of soup, some factions have a largely unrestricted access that essentially boils down to just taking the best units and ability combinations at all times, in a system that is as poorly balanced as 40k, just results in the painful irony of similar looking armies that give the impression of a restricted system.
I understand that many dislike 'core/troop' taxes, but I think if it could be implemented in a way that still allowed for some variety in forces and keeping those units relevant, might go some way to salving some of 40k's biggest wounds.
Still, the cat is long gone, you can't get the toothpaste back in and Pandora's brain isn't going back in the womb, so I guess it's a bit too late.
Wunzlez wrote: I think this might be unpopular and probably impossible given the sheer range and amount of choices in 40k (not to mention the expectations of those who play) but I would be curious to see a more restricted system of choice in place for building lists.
I know why this likely wouldn't work these days, largely because it would involve needing to have a better balance between basic troops across factions, especially since some have more range of troop choices then others, and some are just plain better.
But having a slot and/or percentage system would be interesting. I find currently, that with issues of soup, some factions have a largely unrestricted access that essentially boils down to just taking the best units and ability combinations at all times, in a system that is as poorly balanced as 40k, just results in the painful irony of similar looking armies that give the impression of a restricted system.
I understand that many dislike 'core/troop' taxes, but I think if it could be implemented in a way that still allowed for some variety in forces and keeping those units relevant, might go some way to salving some of 40k's biggest wounds.
Still, the cat is long gone, you can't get the toothpaste back in and Pandora's brain isn't going back in the womb, so I guess it's a bit too late.
Now that could work but considering that we have armies that field grunts with lasguns in the same game as armies that just field heavy support how would you achieve that?
Force or and specialized force org?
Might work.
Me personally I realize 40k will never do those things and will always be a game that is built on min/max whatever you want for fun, and I will follow other game systems instead. Antares is solid. As is Infinity for my sci fi games.
40k has zero for me rules wise that I find enticing or worth spending money on.
Now that Conquest has released, I'm finding I have no use for my AOS stuff anymore either.
tneva82 wrote: Competive 40k is self contradicting term anyway so what's the matter anyway.
Highly inclined to disagree with you. High level play is completely different to the average beet and pretzels game of 40k.
Dwight Schrute has entered the chat.
Serious: I am a competitive person. Not win at all costs, but I like to know where I stand amongst my peers when anything of skill is involved.That said I much prefer the tournament scene of Age of Sigmar which revolves more around camaraderie and good times had by all with people using optimized armies and know their rules, vs 40k where it seems to be about stepping on someone's back as a means to claw there way to the top of nerd mountain.
AoS balance is so much of a joke that you really can't take it seriously though.
As a big fan of AoS and play both casually and competitively I have to completely agree.
But I am confused as to how that differs from 40k.
I think the main difference is that the armies that are overperforming in 40k aren't skaven level. But if you note my postings, I don't find 40k particularly balanced. I've gotten my craving for a well balanced system satisfied by SBG, where I can't guess with something like a 90 percent accuracy who will win a game down to a dice roll after I see the lists.
As a big fan of AoS and play both casually and competitively I have to completely agree.
But I am confused as to how that differs from 40k.
Every day I monitor facebook and twitter groups and see variants of "if you want balance, go play chess!" I realize more and more just how little gw fans really want or care about balanced games. Which is why gw will never change. Side rant.
As a big fan of AoS and play both casually and competitively I have to completely agree.
But I am confused as to how that differs from 40k.
Every day I monitor facebook and twitter groups and see variants of "if you want balance, go play chess!" I realize more and more just how little gw fans really want or care about balanced games. Which is why gw will never change. Side rant.
I think the main difference is that the armies that are overperforming in 40k aren't skaven level. But if you note my postings, I don't find 40k particularly balanced. I've gotten my craving for a well balanced system satisfied by SBG, where I can't guess with something like a 90 percent accuracy who will win a game down to a dice roll after I see the lists.
It is the McDonald's model - hit 'em with feel-good chemicals when they buy the new stuff cuz the rules are win-buttons, and they can't help coming back.
Ebay and an open source rules system, this is the future - call me a traitor, but the marine in front of GW these days is not a son of my Emperor.
godardc wrote: Because "competitive" (as if this word could be used for 40k...) players think themselves smart and smarter than the others 40k players because they listen to podcast telling them how to abuse rules and play probably more often to 40k than normal players.
So they think they are the best persons and casual are just idiots who don't understand the game and deserve the hate.
The competitive scene has always been toxic and a full of cry babies. Not surprised by those people.
As a big fan of AoS and play both casually and competitively I have to completely agree.
But I am confused as to how that differs from 40k.
Every day I monitor facebook and twitter groups and see variants of "if you want balance, go play chess!" I realize more and more just how little gw fans really want or care about balanced games. Which is why gw will never change. Side rant.
I think the main difference is that the armies that are overperforming in 40k aren't skaven level. But if you note my postings, I don't find 40k particularly balanced. I've gotten my craving for a well balanced system satisfied by SBG, where I can't guess with something like a 90 percent accuracy who will win a game down to a dice roll after I see the lists.
It is the McDonald's model - hit 'em with feel-good chemicals when they buy the new stuff cuz the rules are win-buttons, and they can't help coming back.
Ebay and an open source rules system, this is the future - call me a traitor, but the marine in front of GW these days is not a son of my Emperor.
Emperor is about as caricatural greedy as it gets.
That's hardly anything new though
godardc wrote: Because "competitive" (as if this word could be used for 40k...) players think themselves smart and smarter than the others 40k players because they listen to podcast telling them how to abuse rules and play probably more often to 40k than normal players.
So they think they are the best persons and casual are just idiots who don't understand the game and deserve the hate.
The competitive scene has always been toxic and a full of cry babies. Not surprised by those people.
This.
My god so much this!!!
It's not really accurate to describe these "competitive" players as competitive because these players are not looking for "competitive" games, they're looking to win. Competing for competition's sake isn't the goal. If it were, then really the system wouldn't matter at all. You can compete just as hard with a thematic/narrative list, or even lists you don't build at all (events could just assign lists).
The reality is they aim to win, and the only true competition these players are involved in is to see who can produce the most lopsided victory. Negative play experience is the goal, and whoever produces the most NPE has "won" the real competition.
List building and rule manipulation is their game, not 40k.
Kanluwen wrote: Disagree. You can see where the design space was intended to head towards the Auxiliary Detachments, but somewhere along the way it was shifted(and I have my hunches it's from the tourney playtester crowds) to the current soup-y system we have.
I'm not really sure how you arrive at than conclusion.
Yes, auxiliary detachments exist.
But they exist in exactly the same way as battalions do, for exactly as long.
Anything that drives players away from auxiliary detachments is kind of baked in to the design of auxiliary detachment and has been since the start of the edition.
The reason that very few people take Aux detachments is that there is (and has always been) far more negatives than positives to doing so.
About the only time I ever see Auxiliary detachments used is, as the other poster said, to take one particularly powerful unit without a tax..
godardc wrote: Because "competitive" (as if this word could be used for 40k...) players think themselves smart and smarter than the others 40k players because they listen to podcast telling them how to abuse rules and play probably more often to 40k than normal players.
So they think they are the best persons and casual are just idiots who don't understand the game and deserve the hate.
The competitive scene has always been toxic and a full of cry babies. Not surprised by those people.
This.
My god so much this!!!
It's not really accurate to describe these "competitive" players as competitive because these players are not looking for "competitive" games, they're looking to win. Competing for competition's sake isn't the goal. If it were, then really the system wouldn't matter at all. You can compete just as hard with a thematic/narrative list, or even lists you don't build at all (events could just assign lists).
Do you play games not looking to win? Like, just show up at the table and make completely arbitrary decisions until the game ends?
I'd wager that you don't. Even if winning isn't the highest priority to you, when you're at the game table I'm guessing there is a mission objective, that you do things that make you more likely to achieve that objective, like maybe moving towards it rather than away from it.
In my experience, as a primarily "competitive" player, that's 99% of competitive players too. They want to win, and are doing things to increase their chance of winning, but at the end of the day the point is to play a bunch of warhammer with some friends. I only get to play 40k a handful of times a month, so I get my fix in concentrated full-day doses.
Does the system not really matter? Sure. I could (and do) play competitively with other games systems (and I will freely admit that 40k is probably one of the worse rules sets out there). But I happen to like 40k, and the social and competitive scene for 40k is by far the biggest and most positive in my community, so I play that competitively too.
Could you compete just as hard with a thematic list?
Well this is where it gets a bit touchy. What exactly is a thematic/narrative list? A Saim-Hann jetbike list is very "thematic", and in 7th edition was also one of the most powerful lists one could build. In fact, if GW is actually doing their job RIGHT, then narrative/thematic lists SHOULD be very powerful lists. In my opinion this is actually where GW gets it wrong at a balance level from both directions - either the thematic units are not powerful enough, or the baseline unit is good but the thematic version (eg space marine bikes vs white scar bikes) is so much better. This is kind of why I started playing competitively in the first place - the majority of my games at the time were pick up games at the FLGS, and half the games with "narrative/thematic" lists would have discussions about what was acceptable or not, but the competitive games were all in agreement about what was acceptable - anything.
Or maybe you mean narrative missions. In which case, sure, I would (and have) play competitively in a narrative event... but my experience is that missions with vastly asymmetrical win conditions are rarely balanced to the point where each player has equal chance of winning. The last narrative event I went to, on the first mission, the "Defenders" won 23 out of the 24 games in the first round. These kind of missions take time and trial and error to get right - hence the symmetrical missions are the "default" for competitive play.
What about assigned lists? Sure, I'd give that a go: If you're going to provide me the army. How many TO's in the world can afford to just have a spare $1000+ army, for *every single player* who comes? Its a logistical impossibility.
Plus, do you think there's a divide between casual and competitive players now? Imagine a casual player wanting to head to an event and finding out that no, he can't play Eldar, it has to be a very specific variety of Space Marines.
The reality is they aim to win, and the only true competition these players are involved in is to see who can produce the most lopsided victory. Negative play experience is the goal, and whoever produces the most NPE has "won" the real competition.
List building and rule manipulation is their game, not 40k.
I'm really sorry if this is your experience with competitive players. As someone who primarily plays competitively it doesn't match my experience at all. Quite often in the first round or two of random pairings I'll end up winning against someone who has just shown up with "a pile of models", and there's not much to be done about that other than to be a good sportsman. I don't think this is any different to any game or sport where there is a mismatch in skill. But my favourite games by far are when I'm paired up against someone with an equally good list, of equal skill, and it comes down to a handful of victory points or crucial dice rolls. Maybe the issue is that the organised play scene isn't big enough to have brackets, and we just end up with people who in other sports might be separated out in different grades all playing against each other with predictable results.
As for rule manipulation... I'm not quite sure what you mean by that. 8th edition rules are pretty much what they say on the tin. There are relatively few loopholes in the rules and GW is a lot better than yesteryear at fixing them up quickly. If you had a bad experience with a cheater and that's colouring your view of 40k events, I stress that those people are a tiny minority, and you should give it another go.
godardc wrote: Because "competitive" (as if this word could be used for 40k...) players think themselves smart and smarter than the others 40k players because they listen to podcast telling them how to abuse rules and play probably more often to 40k than normal players.
So they think they are the best persons and casual are just idiots who don't understand the game and deserve the hate.
The competitive scene has always been toxic and a full of cry babies. Not surprised by those people.
This.
My god so much this!!!
It's not really accurate to describe these "competitive" players as competitive because these players are not looking for "competitive" games, they're looking to win. Competing for competition's sake isn't the goal. If it were, then really the system wouldn't matter at all. You can compete just as hard with a thematic/narrative list, or even lists you don't build at all (events could just assign lists).
The reality is they aim to win, and the only true competition these players are involved in is to see who can produce the most lopsided victory. Negative play experience is the goal, and whoever produces the most NPE has "won" the real competition.
List building and rule manipulation is their game, not 40k.
Nonsense, if you are going to a competition your goal is to do as well as you possibly can. The idea that you can "compete" just as well with a thematic/narrative list (this assumes that thematic/narrative lists are lesser quality), is like saying you can enter a drag race with a minivan and "compete" just as well. Or run a marathon in combat boots and compete just as well. It is simply not true, if both players are taking lesser lists by some sort of agreement you can have just as competitive a game as you might (or perhaps a more competitive one) than you would using a tuned up list. But that is the same as 2 people agreeing to a drag race in minivans.
You are asking people to take a self imposed disadvantage without any rules in place to ensure others will do the same. If you don't want OP lists there are 2 scenarios that work.
1.) GW balances the game (which most casual players don't want, because it likely means limiting variety and options)
2.) Tournaments limit the game - which people tend not to like because it doesn't come from GW.
In no other arena of competition are people derided for not taking self imposed handicaps.
1.) GW balances the game (which most casual players don't want, because it likely means limiting variety and options)
It means both limiting variety and options and having to churn and burn on a regular basis to keep an army ready that isn't an auto-lose against someone else who optimizes their lists because GW can't or won't (or both) balance their games.
1.) GW balances the game (which most casual players don't want, because it likely means limiting variety and options)
It means both limiting variety and options and having to churn and burn on a regular basis to keep an army ready that isn't an auto-lose against someone else who optimizes their lists because GW can't or won't (or both) balance their games.
No if they limited the options and balanced the game you would not have that issue, the game would be balanced. Now it is possible that GW cannot balance the game, and then you end up with what you suggest which is largely what we have now, and the complaint by the poster I responded to, that competitive players aren't competing in the game just at bending the rules and list building and that somehow it is a reasonable expectation of people taking part in a competition to self handicap with no assurance others will do so.
I totally understand where you are coming from and agree. The expectation of self handicapping is a losing strategy. Because nothing forces your opponent to do the same thing and no one wants to have their faces grinded into the table because of army selection.
I disagree with the player saying competitive players just want to bend rules. Thats a type of player called a cheat, which has nothing to do with being a competitive player. Cheats are trash.
Yup, I've played many top players and none of them ever seemed to be trying to bend the rules when we played. They just had more practiced skills with better tuned lists than I did, knew how to answer my list, and made fewer mistakes.
This is largely what I experienced in winning against many players as well.
I think competitive players some times come across as "bending the rules" simply because they do things that other players don't consider.
Largely though any NPE I have had have either been the result of severly unbalanced rules (not any issue with the player just the game) or players with poor attitudes, typically not competitive players, and very rare in my whole gaming career.
Competitive players usually have nice things to say about players they beat; honestly, they usually feel bad about lopsided matchups and are usually quite happy to help people improve if they're open to it (which is often not the case after a bad loss). If you hear competitive players talking down on anyone, its definitely the cheaters and the mid tier crowd, which is where you tend to run into the most of the real WAAC stuff that gives competitive players a bad name.
As someone that has competed in a bunch of tournaments there are basically 3 layers of gamers at a tournament.
At the very top you have the good players who are there for the challenge of playing other good players (and hopefully winning). They can play on the knives edge but they are having a good time together and don't want to win through lopsides matchups or gotya's.
Below them are the 'tryhards' the people not as good as the top players but who really want to win, these are the ones that give competitive gamers a bad rap because they will happily bend rules and enjoy lopsides matchups (in their favor) because its lets them win and 'winning is all that matter'.
And then you have the 'casual' players who are just there to have a good time, move some models around and maybe drink some beer. Winning is nice but not nearly as important as having a fun time.
You are asking people to take a self imposed disadvantage without any rules in place to ensure others will do the same. If you don't want OP lists there are 2 scenarios that work.
1.) GW balances the game (which most casual players don't want, because it likely means limiting variety and options)
2.) Tournaments limit the game - which people tend not to like because it doesn't come from GW.
In no other arena of competition are people derided for not taking self imposed handicaps.
I know I'm probably agreeing with you here, but as to your point 1):
a) I think that no matter how well GW balances the game, they'll never end up at a point where "a pile of minis" is equal on the tabletop to "an army". And I sincerely hope they do not even try. If we ever get to the point where making absolutely arbitrary decisions has no effect on your win rate, you're not playing chess, you're playing snakes & ladders.
b) I don't think that balance means less variety - on the contrary I think it should end up meaning more.
At the very core of it, I think better balance makes casual games better far more rapidly than competitive games. If two casual players are just taking whatever models they like, one of them is going to luck in to a broken unit and dominate their games. If the units are more balanced, the casual players notice it first (compared to the competitive players who move on to the second most powerful unit).
@Above . As to "mid tier" players being the WAAC guys... I think the mid tier is far more made up of people who are aiming for 50% wins than people who are trying hard but just bad. Maybe 10-20% are going there with realistic aspirations to win the event - the other 80 are just there to play games. Out of our entire local gaming community of 200+ regular tournament goers, I'd count 5 at most who fit in to the "iffy" category.
You are asking people to take a self imposed disadvantage without any rules in place to ensure others will do the same. If you don't want OP lists there are 2 scenarios that work.
1.) GW balances the game (which most casual players don't want, because it likely means limiting variety and options)
2.) Tournaments limit the game - which people tend not to like because it doesn't come from GW.
In no other arena of competition are people derided for not taking self imposed handicaps.
I know I'm probably agreeing with you here, but as to your point 1):
a) I think that no matter how well GW balances the game, they'll never end up at a point where "a pile of minis" is equal on the tabletop to "an army". And I sincerely hope they do not even try. If we ever get to the point where making absolutely arbitrary decisions has no effect on your win rate, you're not playing chess, you're playing snakes & ladders.
b) I don't think that balance means less variety - on the contrary I think it should end up meaning more.
At the very core of it, I think better balance makes casual games better far more rapidly than competitive games. If two casual players are just taking whatever models they like, one of them is going to luck in to a broken unit and dominate their games. If the units are more balanced, the casual players notice it first (compared to the competitive players who move on to the second most powerful unit).
@Above . As to "mid tier" players being the WAAC guys... I think the mid tier is far more made up of people who are aiming for 50% wins than people who are trying hard but just bad. Maybe 10-20% are going there with realistic aspirations to win the event - the other 80 are just there to play games. Out of our entire local gaming community of 200+ regular tournament goers, I'd count 5 at most who fit in to the "iffy" category.
1.a.) Yes it should never be a case where any random selection of minis is equal to another. There should be losing combinations of units (taking nothing stronger than S3 for instance), but the balance should exist where units fill roles and any unit within that role should be relatively balanced in that role. So that any unit can be used as long as a list is built around supporting its use.
1.b.) When I say less variety I don't mean in lists or units we see on the table, I mean customization, the more options units have, and the more choices you have for units the more difficult it is to balance those units, or to have them fill specific roles. It also likely means not having as many outlier units that feel truly special (as that special-ness is often brokenness.) SO on the level that you will see more units if there are no bad choices on the unit level, you are correct. But if a unit of jetbikes has 6 weapon options, making sure they are all equally balanced, and balanced in game is extremely difficult. Essentially I think if you really want balance you are looking at units all being like the current Primaris marines with very few options and very defined roles, rather than say tactical marines who have a huge number of possible build combinations.
It's the question of: Would you rather have 5 options that are perfectly balanced or 100 options where only 10% are competitive choices? Obviously we want 100 competitive choices, but any good designer understands fast, cheap, good; pick 2 and minis are really no different.
It's also important to remember that "competitive" is a spectrum and if you start limited your definition to only things that win tournaments, you're on the reactive side of the meta (aka behind) and your definition is itself limited the amount of viable options to those that fit in however many armies fit on the podium.
My definition of competitive is that if I put it on the table that I will have a fighting chance to win the game against my opponent, whom I assume will be min/max optimizing.
@Above . As to "mid tier" players being the WAAC guys... I think the mid tier is far more made up of people who are aiming for 50% wins than people who are trying hard but just bad. Maybe 10-20% are going there with realistic aspirations to win the event - the other 80 are just there to play games. Out of our entire local gaming community of 200+ regular tournament goers, I'd count 5 at most who fit in to the "iffy" category.
It depends on the size of the tournament. Once you pass 50 or so players, people seem to have more realistic goals and aim more for 3-2 sort of days. It's in the 16ish player events that you tend to see the WAAC take the middle, as a lot of the gak they pull on the newbies won't get them past the experienced players who take up the top slots.
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auticus wrote: My definition of competitive is that if I put it on the table that I will have a fighting chance to win the game against my opponent, whom I assume will be min/max optimizing.
But what is "it"?
It's honestly fairly difficult for a single underpowered model to tank a game. It might underperform and disappoint, but most of the time when I see a game go really badly its when someone loves a pet unit so much they make it their entire army and even then, in a good number of those games I half the rules are forgotten to make things even worse. I find across all the games I play, opportunity cost tends to be a far greater factor in determining what's competitive than a true "if I put this on the table I will lose".
"IT" is my entire army. When I deploy my army, I want to know that I have a fighting chance to be able to win the game against my opponent and that if I lose it is either due to bad dice, or bad choices on my part (or both), not because my opponent was rolling list with extreme power coefficients that made the dice odds basically roll anything but a 1 to win.
An example would be that I like to field chaos space marines or rubrics. Neither have any real use in the game short of wasting my points.
If I field a single unit of rubrics in my thousand sons army and my opponent is going full adepticon optimal, I'm playing at a sizeable disadvantage out of the gate typically.
If I field two units of rubrics and my opponent is going full adepticon optimal, barring extreme bad luck on his part and great luck on mine, the game is a no-contest.
LunarSol wrote: It's the question of: Would you rather have 5 options that are perfectly balanced or 100 options where only 10% are competitive choices? Obviously we want 100 competitive choices, but any good designer understands fast, cheap, good; pick 2 and minis are really no different.
It's also important to remember that "competitive" is a spectrum and if you start limited your definition to only things that win tournaments, you're on the reactive side of the meta (aka behind) and your definition is itself limited the amount of viable options to those that fit in however many armies fit on the podium.
The answer is I'd rather have say 20 choices where 80% are competitive choices (or some middle ground).
As for the idea that one bad unit won't tank a game, that depends on the unit honestly. If I really want to say run an Ork Stompa, I am investing half my points (give or take) on one model that is not competitive. SO that very well might tank my game. Or if I want 2 units of a unit I like. There are also cases where it is more than one unit type. Like if I wanted to play a mixed Ravenwing Deathwing List, some of those models are ok but sub optimal, and some are bad, so you end up on the losing end against someone running a tooled out list.
I definitely prefer a middle ground, but I'm also accepting that if a game goes on indefinitely, the "20" eventually because "100" but the number of competitive choices rarely grows as the same rate. Players also seem to abandon a game if you stop adding new options and just focus on improving the balance between the existing ones; so I'm not sure if 20 is a real option for long.
I think its important to remember that nothing is binary. Take the Stompa. Suboptimal? Absolutely, but how overcosted is it? Even if its its worth half your points and half your army, you can still put it in an army and be 75% effective.
None of this is to say things couldn't or shouldn't be better; just that a lot of things do better than people give them credit for and if you love a model; put it on the table every once in a while in a list that gives it its best shot and see what it can do. Playing it out, even just to see how close you can get to a win vs the best is often more educational than bringing your best and claiming victory.
LunarSol wrote: I definitely prefer a middle ground, but I'm also accepting that if a game goes on indefinitely, the "20" eventually because "100" but the number of competitive choices rarely grows as the same rate. Players also seem to abandon a game if you stop adding new options and just focus on improving the balance between the existing ones; so I'm not sure if 20 is a real option for long.
I think its important to remember that nothing is binary. Take the Stompa. Suboptimal? Absolutely, but how overcosted is it? Even if its its worth half your points and half your army, you can still put it in an army and be 75% effective.
None of this is to say things couldn't or shouldn't be better; just that a lot of things do better than people give them credit for and if you love a model; put it on the table every once in a while in a list that gives it its best shot and see what it can do. Playing it out, even just to see how close you can get to a win vs the best is often more educational than bringing your best and claiming victory.
I feel like for big expensive models, the 75% effective hasn't really held true as they often die very early if you lose half your army turn 1 before it does anything then the game is basically over. i would still play it out but I would have no real expectation of victory, and it really isn't more instructive than bringing your best. Losing is more educational then winning. However, losing because you made bad army choices is only educational insofar as you know those army choices are wrong, not really in your play. For instance if I play well, and get a close loss after throwing away a bunch of points, all I really learn is: "if I didn't waste those points in army construction I could have won."
As to adding units, you can still do that if the other options are limited because then you just need to balance them against existing balanced units. The problem with the GW model is they tend to release models for one faction at a time, rather than release a little bit for each faction. The little bit for each allows an easier playtest, rather than "here are new rules for an entire faction, and 5 new units too."
40k in particular has very alpha strikey mechanics without any real limitations on target selection that really limit the ability for overpriced models to contribute their partial value.
The problem with incremental releases is they limit the ability to make a meaningful change to how a force works. It tends to result in factions that lag behind really struggling to get the attention they deserve. Languishing models have a tendency to get stuck forever and it limits the big ideas you can do. For example, you wouldn't see something like the combat doctrines introduced if Space marines were just getting one new primaris kit each year. Done well, a big push release gives you the opportunity to create big ideas like genestealer blips or Deepkin tides.
Mostly though, balancing units against one another just doesn't reliably result in armies that are balanced against one another. There's a lot of value in looking at an army as a whole and taking a chance to modernize the whole thing, particularly as it gives a chance to ensure the new stuff fills a niche without replacing one.
"IT" is my entire army. When I deploy my army, I want to know that I have a fighting chance to be able to win the game against my opponent and that if I lose it is either due to bad dice, or bad choices on my part (or both), not because my opponent was rolling list with extreme power coefficients that made the dice odds basically roll anything but a 1 to win.
An example would be that I like to field chaos space marines or rubrics. Neither have any real use in the game short of wasting my points.
If I field a single unit of rubrics in my thousand sons army and my opponent is going full adepticon optimal, I'm playing at a sizeable disadvantage out of the gate typically.
If I field two units of rubrics and my opponent is going full adepticon optimal, barring extreme bad luck on his part and great luck on mine, the game is a no-contest.
I don't think that anyone is arguing that currently some units such as Rubrics aren't underpowered. I think that most competitive players would be very happy for those units to be rebalanced so they were a viable choice. And I think that casual and competitive players alike would see big benefits from that. And GW for the most part is being quite decent at doing this in 8th edition.
What I am arguing against is the idea that you should be able to swap equal points of unit X for unit Y, while keeping the rest of the army the same, and expect it to perform the same. It cant happen if we want to retain some notion of different roles, units with strengths & weaknesses vs other types of units.
Plus I'm a little skeptical of the idea that the difference between "even match" and "no contest" is the amount of points a rubric unit is overcosted by... which would be an overall 1-2% handicap at current prices.
Well there is no way to really "prove that". If I take a thousand sons army with two units of rubrics against any form of tournament list, it is a foregone conclusion from turn 1 every time.
But that may be how i look at it. If my army with two units of rubrics is 2000 points, a tournament optimal list is running as if it were 3000 points or more. Thats the point of tournament optimal lists though, exponating the undercosted nature of your busted units to make 2000 points operate at a much higher value.
I think tough that you should be able to trade x points of anti-tank unit A for X points of anti-tank unit B with no loss in effectiveness.
Essentially I don’t think 2k points worth of grits should be good. But an Ork army should be able to run tankbustas or Killa Kans without a marked difference in effectiveness.
LunarSol wrote: 40k in particular has very alpha strikey mechanics without any real limitations on target selection that really limit the ability for overpriced models to contribute their partial value.
The problem with incremental releases is they limit the ability to make a meaningful change to how a force works. It tends to result in factions that lag behind really struggling to get the attention they deserve. Languishing models have a tendency to get stuck forever and it limits the big ideas you can do. For example, you wouldn't see something like the combat doctrines introduced if Space marines were just getting one new primaris kit each year. Done well, a big push release gives you the opportunity to create big ideas like genestealer blips or Deepkin tides.
Mostly though, balancing units against one another just doesn't reliably result in armies that are balanced against one another. There's a lot of value in looking at an army as a whole and taking a chance to modernize the whole thing, particularly as it gives a chance to ensure the new stuff fills a niche without replacing one.
Good points. I was playing some 3rd edition last week and it was fascinating how much the design ethos has changed since then. When playing 3rd you really get the sense that the designers were far more concerned with creating a system that let players represent "stuff happening" on the tabletop, rather than making a balanced or streamlined game of skill. There was much greater emphasis on roleplay and using the 40k ruleset as a system to play out fun battles and scenarios within the outrageous grimdark setting.
Now I'm kinda tempted to learn to play 2nd edition because I've heard it leans even more into roleplay than 3rd, making the games even less focused on simply winning.
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LunarSol wrote: It's the question of: Would you rather have 5 options that are perfectly balanced or 100 options where only 10% are competitive choices?
The second option, which in spite of all the streamlining is STILL probably closer to what 40k is today, is arguably one of biggest factors in making 40k so compelling to narrative-oriented players, especially with older editions: extreme granularity in unit customization and system interactions. Having formal mechanics that specify exactly how a model in a unit can Death or Glory an incoming tank trying to run them over is an AWESOME thing to have for fluff/narrative-centric player. It might seem clunky to a competitive player who uses 40k to demonstrate skill or mastery, but for a narrative player those systems add that extra level of structured randomness that legitimizes the story playing out on the battlefield, increases immersion, and enriches their experience.
But of course it also runs completely counter to the goal of producing a tightly balanced, streamlined game of skill.
These types of mechanics are more concerned with "simulating fantastic battles in the 41st millennium" and are far less concerned with being an "accurate measure of skill between two 41st millennium generals". It's a matter of design priorities.
auticus wrote: Well there is no way to really "prove that". If I take a thousand sons army with two units of rubrics against any form of tournament list, it is a foregone conclusion from turn 1 every time.
But that may be how i look at it. If my army with two units of rubrics is 2000 points, a tournament optimal list is running as if it were 3000 points or more. Thats the point of tournament optimal lists though, exponating the undercosted nature of your busted units to make 2000 points operate at a much higher value.
I guess I'm struggling to see how simply taking those 2 units means an auto lose. In your hypothetical where a optimised list manages to squeeze 3000pts worth and yours is 2000, the rubrics by themselves arent *that bad* that they are effectively 1000pts overcosted on their own, right? Say theyre worth 75pts per unit compared to the 95 you currently pay, the rubrics themselves only handicap you by 40pts. Youre not 33% down, youre 2% down, and as important as list building is in this game a 2% deficit can easily be overcome with skill or luck.
Largely because the rubrics are overcost by quite a bit and an optimized list is 100% composed of undercost units.
Forcing you to also match your list with undercost units or fall behind quickly.
I know that when I ran tournament optimized lists, I rarely lost, and always placed high in tournaments to include coming in at #8 out of 80 in the old GWGT days. When I don't run optimized lists, I'm about a 50/50 and against optimized lists will lose more than I win if I also don't have an optimized list.
So what do people actually want? I'd suggest that both 'competitive' (read, people who like organised play not people who just want to rack up wins) and 'casual' players want:
- Games that have an even chance of each player winning
- Games where both players have that chance right up to the last turn (which is turn 5/6/7, not turn 2).
- A selection of models where all are fieldable and playable and nothing is 'uncompetitive'.
- Advantages to building 'optimised' armies, but not so much that an optimised army auto-stomps an unoptimised one.
- The ability (and maybe encouragement) to build themed armies, but where building a themed army neither handicaps you to the point where you can't win OR becomes so powerful that you get an auto-win.
In theory, that's what everyone wants. Competitive players get COMPETITION (the armies are balanced, so if you win it might actually be because of your skill). Casual players get to build armies with models they like and still have an engaging and balanced game. The only thing these requirements DON'T cover is people who just want to win, and who want to do it by finding tricks, loopholes and combos that mean they don't have to do it by being better in-game. (In my experience, competitive players tend to cite the former of these in threads like this, but in practise an awful lot of tournament attendees seem to be the latter.)
It seems to me that there are two big things that would need to happen to the game for the above conditions to be met.
- Better balance across the board internally between units.
- Major reduction of destructive power of attacks so the game innately lasts longer.
- A massive downscaling of buffs that add abilities in-game (Chapter Tactics, Stratagems, etc). The issue with these, as people have said before, is that they make it impossible to point individual units accurately, since how good the unit it changes with what buffs it has. You can still have all those buffs, they just have to be way less powerful.
If GW won't do any of that, then we only have two solutions to playing balanced games:
- Only play tournament games with competitive, optimised lists and units, chase the meta so your army can always compete, ignore any units that are uncompetitive, shrink the playerbase to only people who can afford to keep up both in rules and in cash.
- Don't play competitively as 40k is obviously a rubbish game for that. Moderate your lists and play narrative games, accepting that there is little skill involved and who wins is pretty much meaningless.
I often find when casual players complain about rules loopholes as often as not it falls into 2 categories
1.) Broken OP unit combo they didn’t think of or know about. Things like the old CP farm powering Knights, or in 7th edition things like screamer star 2++ re-rollable saves.
2.) A tactic they are not familiar with or did not consider. Things like Tripointing to lock units in combat, charging and staying 1” away so you can pile in slightly closer and gain movement, charging vehicles to prevent shooting etc. Generally rules that feel gamey rather than intuitive.
Basically times when the rules end up not feeling like authentic battle, and feel like a game. It feels cheap and that is when people seem to get upset.
Breng77 wrote: I often find when casual players complain about rules loopholes as often as not it falls into 2 categories
1.) Broken OP unit combo they didn’t think of or know about. Things like the old CP farm powering Knights, or in 7th edition things like screamer star 2++ re-rollable saves.
2.) A tactic they are not familiar with or did not consider. Things like Tripointing to lock units in combat, charging and staying 1” away so you can pile in slightly closer and gain movement, charging vehicles to prevent shooting etc. Generally rules that feel gamey rather than intuitive.
Basically times when the rules end up not feeling like authentic battle, and feel like a game. It feels cheap and that is when people seem to get upset.
As for 1... yeah, there are some powerful combos, but luckily they're getting less than they used to be and GW is specifically going out and nerfing these where they are found.
And 2... charging in with vehicles to eat overwatch was specifically called out by GW as a positive ability in the new edition. And there are people who really consider tripointing to be a loophole? It wouldn't even occur to me that anyone could be against it, its such a fundamental part of the game that melee armies can't function without it.
I guess these are the people who also claim there is no skill involved in the game and it's all just down to list building, so they use "ah but that's just a loophole" to dismiss any time someone does display skill.
I guess this is why I always advertise, when I'm looking for a game, that I'm looking for something competitive/tournament practice. If there are people who feel that very basic rules interactions are too gamey I don't think there's anything that could let us both have an enjoyable game regardless of how tame a list I made.
I think 40k builds up the "no tricks" mentality in people a little more than most games simply because the rules are generally updated to remove model position from the game and abstract things as much as possible.
ArbitorIan wrote: - Games that have an even chance of each player winning
- Games where both players have that chance right up to the last turn (which is turn 5/6/7, not turn 2).
- A selection of models where all are fieldable and playable and nothing is 'uncompetitive'.
- The ability (and maybe encouragement) to build themed armies, but where building a themed army neither handicaps you to the point where you can't win OR becomes so powerful that you get an auto-win.
These, sure, my best games have been themed lists that bounced off each other at the exact right angle to make things tense for four or five turns. And they all happened this edition by simply playing people who built things they found cool, and/or could afford
- Advantages to building 'optimised' armies, but not so much that an optimised army auto-stomps an unoptimised one.
Not really, optimized implies a best option, and I'd really rather have nothing that absolutely stands out as the best unit in an army. I'd rather have a balance that promotes a TAC list to handle a variety of possibilities and capture board position than the lascannon delete brigade lead by a smash captain riding a knight. But that's 90% solved by mission points structure and the end of kill points in general.
Not really, optimized implies a best option, and I'd really rather have nothing that absolutely stands out as the best unit in an army. I'd rather have a balance that promotes a TAC list to handle a variety of possibilities and capture board position than the lascannon delete brigade lead by a smash captain riding a knight. But that's 90% solved by mission points structure and the end of kill points in general.
I think that's what everyone wants. The problem has always been that no one has ever managed to actually make such a game.
When I play Kings of War, its definitely not perfect, but its closer to this than any GW offering.
Gates of Antares is also a lot closer to this than 40k.
Conquest so far has been great and a lot closer than GW games.
Middle Earth is a GW game that also comes closer.
In any of those games, I don't feel that the game is lost before the first die is cast. In 40k and AOS (and WHFB before that) that is definitely not the case. That is an intentional design decision by GW.
There will always be a best list math wise. Those can be countered by having a multitude of scenarios that have different win conditions. Some based on killing. Some based on objectives. If you mix those missions up and you have multiple win conditions, it becomes harder to optimize one list to rule them all.
Additionally, pay a person well versed in statistics to develop your points system so that the glaring obvious garbage units and over optimal units go away and fit on the bell curve properly. Especially in a game that has removed all pretense of being a battle game and has thrown in entirely on making a dice game that is centered around statistical probability and maximizing said statistical probability. These games have linear regression model written all over them.
There’s no balance in 40k and there never has been. Things are arguably better now than they’ve been in the past though.
For what it’s worth, I don’t see the imbalance within and between codexes as an issue for me as a tournament player. If a codex has stuff in it that’s crap then I won’t buy it. The problem sometimes comes when a new codex or edition appears and my old stuff is suddenly useless, but for me personally that’s not the end of the world. I quite enjoy making new armies and painting them, so an excuse to do so is sometimes quite welcome.
I think it’s arguably a bigger issue for casual games. Imagine if a parent buys their two kids random squads for Christmas and one is vastly better than the other – which is a reasonably likely outcome. One kid wins all their games, things are boring and they stop playing. Everyone loses, especially GW. This happened with my younger cousins – one got marines and the other got orks. The orks never won a game and they both gave up. My aunt bit my ear off about it at one point.
Aside from balance, the biggest issue 40k for me is its turn sequence. Games are still decided by the roll for first turn, and that’s just not good enough. I went 5:0 and not 4:1 at the LGT because I went first in the last game against another knight army, and that sucks for a competitive system that wants to take itself even remotely seriously.
It doesn’t only suck for competitive play though. It also sucks to get home from work, grab something to eat and head out for an evening game that is also determined by one dice roll. It sucks to spend hundreds of pounds and hours getting an army ready just to play a game that lasts ~5 seconds to win or lose, then 2-3 hours to resolve.
There are all sorts of things that GW does themselves in terms of mission design and TOs bring in to try and remedy this issue. Things like having the option to pay CPs for a cover save on turn 1. The problem is too big to fix with these kinds of actions though – a fundamental change to fix the core issue is what’s required.
So for 9th I’d like to see the turn sequence thrown out. Bring in a sensible system of alternating activations like is used in (almost) literally every other wargame out there. Even GW’s own games, from kill team and necromunda all the way to apocalypse have switched to alternating activation. It’s high time that 40k did too.
It's pretty obvious they have been testing the bed for 40k using those specialist games.
The thing is, alternating activation is worthless along with any other core rule balance you make so long as you continue to write horrid amounts of codex creep and refuse to make patches in real time.
Best thing to happen for 40k would be to make hard copy codexes that contain fluff, pictures and painting sections only and for all data slates and points to be made available electronically so they can be patched easily and quickly. This current model is silly. I have a Necron codex that nearly every point is incorrect in it lol. Then there are the FAQ and errata. That's one army with a single book. Worse yet the army is dead in the water for who knows how long and even then I am trusting they won't frick it up again.
Burn and churn of my armies is the #1 reason why I won't play a game. If I have to constantly buy new armies and paint and assemble them to have good games, that wore me out a decade ago.
A broader bell curve of power also means seeing more diversity in the game. Even when I was a tournament player (1998 - 2010) seeing the same builds day in day out over and over again burnt me out.
It absolutely does destroy casual games you are correct. When you are a tournament player you accept that it is what it is. If you are not a tournament gamer, you are often forced to deal with the tournament meta in non tournament environments as well, which destroys fun.
The turn sequence is also a big pain I agree fully. IGOUGO needs to die in a greasy garbage fire. Standing there an entire turn (or double turn if you are an AOS fan) taking it in the face is the opposite of fun.
There's really no game out there without a degree of burn and churn if you chase after whatever won the last event. Your best bet is to devote yourself to that game and buy everything. Now, there's a lot of games where the churn doesn't require as much investment because army sizes are much smaller and 40k has a huge problem in its model specific equipment micromanagement mixed with rules that don't really encourage diversity, but the core problem is there for pretty much any game you get too deep into.
Having played these games for an obscene amount of time I'd say I somewhat disagree with you. I have never had to burn and churn in any system other than a GW system.
I may not be at the top of the power curve in say Kings of War, but I'm always competitive with the same models I've been using in that system since 2010.
I can at least have engaging games with that same army. Burn and churn is required (for me) when I have no shot at any semblance of a good game before the first die is cast.
Everyone's threshold may vary. Some people may burn and churn to stay at the tippy top of the power curve; that is not my requirement.
And the model count in that game is identical to whfb which typically had a larger scale in models as 40k did.
You guys seem to be having a really good discussion here. I'd just like to point out that if you are seriously suggesting that "mission objectives" are more important than having balanced units...You are just so far from the realm of reality you should reexamine your ideas. Mission objectives matter less and less the bigger the difference in force power between opponents.
If I can realistically table you in 4 turns (this happens quite a bit in my games - especially when overcosted units are in the picture) No amount of strategy can make up the difference.
The idea the mission objectives can fix the game is trying to treat the symptom...making balanced units is the cure.
Except for when tabling the opponent doesn't give you a win, but scoring objectives turn after turn does.
In a five turn game (GW current scenarios) if I am scoring objectives and beating you in score and you wipe me in four turns, but can't make up that score in one turn, you still lose.
I have played many of those type of scenarios.
That's not arguing against balance being more desired either. I would love if GW used a statistical model to plot their points costs instead of throwing darts at a board and intentionally undercosting units to sell more (and in AOS' case this is absolutely true as the ghb 2016 official points were based on scgt comp points which intentionally undercost monster units to encourage people to take those - and that was from the author's keyboard saying why he chose to do that).
Part of what you're describing just has to do with a game's popularity. Burn and churn is a symptom of an evolving meta, which is driven by both new releases and games played. The more games played, the more quickly top players iterate their lists. The more players playing the more different solutions are being tested in parallel. The more popular a game gets and the more tournaments it has, the faster players find problems and jump to them or to things strong against them. Less popular games still evolve their meta, but if that evolution is closer to your own rate of play it feels more natural.
auticus wrote: That is probably a good analysis. However I don't find AOS to be as popular as 40k by a longshot, but the burn and churn in that game is almost equal.
Their bell curve of viability is so narrow that that exaggerates the issue quite a bit.
I find Sigmar a little stagnant at the moment honestly. Its evolution feels trapped under the weight of Slaanesh.
A big part of the problem is just that everything in GW games comes down to raw durability/output of base units and how many of them you can take. There's a huge tendency for a small change, like the cost of a single weapon option, to require the vast majority of models to change their equipment. In many ways, Sigmar avoids this with cleaner implementations of weapon options, but doesn't have enough diversity to allow players to adapt efficiently to changes or new challenges without changing armies entirely.
The problem being that a game that is complete at point of sale is dead on arrival - it doesn't need any 'support' and the game will essentially be unchanging. If you can find another dimension to play with beyond durability/output, and make it work, that would be grand.
However, the way 40k (and maybe AoS) are architected the behaviour of the units is separate from the victory conditions of particular games (missions/whatever AoS equivalent), which are separate from the actions/moves players can take in games. In theory you could have a perfectly good game using tokens assigned very basic, bare-bones data-sheets, but I've yet to meet anyone that wants to play that way.
Both systems are kind of inherently broken by their own designers due to giving out free bonuses. These are impossible to balance. How do you assign a points cost to a stormhawk interceptor that might be either iron hands, gaining a ton of free benefits, or black templars, gaining nothing? You can’t. It’s simply not the same unit any more.
As for whether scenarios can fix it, I don’t really think they can. This is my point on igougo. It’s like trying to shore up a house that’s built on rubbish foundations. You should really just start again from the ground up.
Often what happens is you just end up with a new meta. Something like plaguebearers wins events by flooding the board. Or you put in loads of LoS-blockers to counter 1st turn advantage and everyone buys mortars. This isn’t to say that it’s wrong to try and fix things, but there’s just only so much you can do.
Mandragola wrote: Both systems are kind of inherently broken by their own designers due to giving out free bonuses. These are impossible to balance. How do you assign a points cost to a stormhawk interceptor that might be either iron hands, gaining a ton of free benefits, or black templars, gaining nothing? You can’t. It’s simply not the same unit any more.
The only real problem with the way they do this is that they assign those bonuses to a color palette and you sell each color palette as a separate faction. If you got to choose your free bonuses, then the bonuses would essentially serve to provide list niches to design additional models into. For example, rather than have "White Scar Bonuses" if they were "<Chapter> Bike Bonuses" players would be able to choose that when they want to focus on those models regardless of how they paint their dudes. Sure, the Stormhawk might only be "worth its points" with the "Armormaster Bonus" along with other models that thrive under that bonus, but it would have a place.
Mandragola wrote: Both systems are kind of inherently broken by their own designers due to giving out free bonuses. These are impossible to balance. How do you assign a points cost to a stormhawk interceptor that might be either iron hands, gaining a ton of free benefits, or black templars, gaining nothing? You can’t. It’s simply not the same unit any more.
The only real problem with the way they do this is that they assign those bonuses to a color palette and you sell each color palette as a separate faction. If you got to choose your free bonuses, then the bonuses would essentially serve to provide list niches to design additional models into. For example, rather than have "White Scar Bonuses" if they were "<Chapter> Bike Bonuses" players would be able to choose that when they want to focus on those models regardless of how they paint their dudes. Sure, the Stormhawk might only be "worth its points" with the "Armormaster Bonus" along with other models that thrive under that bonus, but it would have a place.
Better exemple is probably Chaos.
How is a WBcsm in any way equal to AL, purge etc.
LunarSol wrote: Part of what you're describing just has to do with a game's popularity. Burn and churn is a symptom of an evolving meta, which is driven by both new releases and games played. The more games played, the more quickly top players iterate their lists. The more players playing the more different solutions are being tested in parallel. The more popular a game gets and the more tournaments it has, the faster players find problems and jump to them or to things strong against them. Less popular games still evolve their meta, but if that evolution is closer to your own rate of play it feels more natural.
Great observation. I've always talked with friends about how slowly the 40k meta evolves compared to the metas in competitive video games. Never thought to frame it this way.
Part of why I love 40k is specifically because the meta is so slow to change due to a bunch of naturally occurring factors specific to tabletop. The amount of time and effort involved even just to set up and play a single round of 40k is immense compared to playing the latest patch of Starcraft or whatever. And if you factor in the time and money it takes to purchase, build, and assemble an army... well there's really no comparison.
auticus wrote: That is probably a good analysis. However I don't find AOS to be as popular as 40k by a longshot, but the burn and churn in that game is almost equal.
Their bell curve of viability is so narrow that that exaggerates the issue quite a bit.
I find Sigmar a little stagnant at the moment honestly. Its evolution feels trapped under the weight of Slaanesh.
A big part of the problem is just that everything in GW games comes down to raw durability/output of base units and how many of them you can take. There's a huge tendency for a small change, like the cost of a single weapon option, to require the vast majority of models to change their equipment. In many ways, Sigmar avoids this with cleaner implementations of weapon options, but doesn't have enough diversity to allow players to adapt efficiently to changes or new challenges without changing armies entirely.
As much as I hate defending GW *shudder* in 40k at least the issue with durability/output is largely amplified due to ITC "rules" being regarded as the one true way in the US and other areas. That removes most of the tactical and strategic elements shallow as they are and turns the game into a simple test of target priorities during the game and mathmatics during the list building stage combined with the ability to spot and abuse loopholes/shonky rules.
auticus wrote: That is probably a good analysis. However I don't find AOS to be as popular as 40k by a longshot, but the burn and churn in that game is almost equal.
Their bell curve of viability is so narrow that that exaggerates the issue quite a bit.
I find Sigmar a little stagnant at the moment honestly. Its evolution feels trapped under the weight of Slaanesh.
A big part of the problem is just that everything in GW games comes down to raw durability/output of base units and how many of them you can take. There's a huge tendency for a small change, like the cost of a single weapon option, to require the vast majority of models to change their equipment. In many ways, Sigmar avoids this with cleaner implementations of weapon options, but doesn't have enough diversity to allow players to adapt efficiently to changes or new challenges without changing armies entirely.
As much as I hate defending GW *shudder* in 40k at least the issue with durability/output is largely amplified due to ITC "rules" being regarded as the one true way in the US and other areas. That removes most of the tactical and strategic elements shallow as they are and turns the game into a simple test of target priorities during the game and mathmatics during the list building stage combined with the ability to spot and abuse loopholes/shonky rules.
As someone who plays all 3 mission sets regularly, the differences between straight rulebook, ITC and ETC are greatly exaggerated. There is no unit that is bad in one game type that is suddenly good in another - the top 2 or 3 units within a faction may change around a little but they're still legitimate choices, and there's no mission possible that would make the worst 2 or 3 units attractive.
auticus wrote: That is probably a good analysis. However I don't find AOS to be as popular as 40k by a longshot, but the burn and churn in that game is almost equal.
Their bell curve of viability is so narrow that that exaggerates the issue quite a bit.
I find Sigmar a little stagnant at the moment honestly. Its evolution feels trapped under the weight of Slaanesh.
A big part of the problem is just that everything in GW games comes down to raw durability/output of base units and how many of them you can take. There's a huge tendency for a small change, like the cost of a single weapon option, to require the vast majority of models to change their equipment. In many ways, Sigmar avoids this with cleaner implementations of weapon options, but doesn't have enough diversity to allow players to adapt efficiently to changes or new challenges without changing armies entirely.
As much as I hate defending GW *shudder* in 40k at least the issue with durability/output is largely amplified due to ITC "rules" being regarded as the one true way in the US and other areas. That removes most of the tactical and strategic elements shallow as they are and turns the game into a simple test of target priorities during the game and mathmatics during the list building stage combined with the ability to spot and abuse loopholes/shonky rules.
Wait, what? When did whatever 'ITC' is become a One True Wayism in the US?
auticus wrote: That is probably a good analysis. However I don't find AOS to be as popular as 40k by a longshot, but the burn and churn in that game is almost equal.
Their bell curve of viability is so narrow that that exaggerates the issue quite a bit.
I find Sigmar a little stagnant at the moment honestly. Its evolution feels trapped under the weight of Slaanesh.
A big part of the problem is just that everything in GW games comes down to raw durability/output of base units and how many of them you can take. There's a huge tendency for a small change, like the cost of a single weapon option, to require the vast majority of models to change their equipment. In many ways, Sigmar avoids this with cleaner implementations of weapon options, but doesn't have enough diversity to allow players to adapt efficiently to changes or new challenges without changing armies entirely.
As much as I hate defending GW *shudder* in 40k at least the issue with durability/output is largely amplified due to ITC "rules" being regarded as the one true way in the US and other areas. That removes most of the tactical and strategic elements shallow as they are and turns the game into a simple test of target priorities during the game and mathmatics during the list building stage combined with the ability to spot and abuse loopholes/shonky rules.
As someone who plays all 3 mission sets regularly, the differences between straight rulebook, ITC and ETC are greatly exaggerated. There is no unit that is bad in one game type that is suddenly good in another - the top 2 or 3 units within a faction may change around a little but they're still legitimate choices, and there's no mission possible that would make the worst 2 or 3 units attractive.
I certainly agree that it doesn't really change what units are good/bad it certainly changes things more in the wider view of what armies are good and, more importantly, counter play to certain army builds.
ITC's ability to allow you to (almost) entirely ignore board control is certainly Meta shaping.
auticus wrote: That is probably a good analysis. However I don't find AOS to be as popular as 40k by a longshot, but the burn and churn in that game is almost equal.
Their bell curve of viability is so narrow that that exaggerates the issue quite a bit.
I find Sigmar a little stagnant at the moment honestly. Its evolution feels trapped under the weight of Slaanesh.
A big part of the problem is just that everything in GW games comes down to raw durability/output of base units and how many of them you can take. There's a huge tendency for a small change, like the cost of a single weapon option, to require the vast majority of models to change their equipment. In many ways, Sigmar avoids this with cleaner implementations of weapon options, but doesn't have enough diversity to allow players to adapt efficiently to changes or new challenges without changing armies entirely.
As much as I hate defending GW *shudder* in 40k at least the issue with durability/output is largely amplified due to ITC "rules" being regarded as the one true way in the US and other areas. That removes most of the tactical and strategic elements shallow as they are and turns the game into a simple test of target priorities during the game and mathmatics during the list building stage combined with the ability to spot and abuse loopholes/shonky rules.
Wait, what? When did whatever 'ITC' is become a One True Wayism in the US?
When GW ran away from the tournament secene in 5/7th and the community had to step in the save the competitive scene. At the time ITC was needed and now that it isn't its hard to let go.
Voss wrote: Wait, what? When did whatever 'ITC' is become a One True Wayism in the US?
Do you seriously not know what ITC is?
Even if you don't actively play it, you'd almost need to be avoiding any discussion about organised 40k to not have heard of it.
But just in case you've been living under a rock...
Frontline Gaming's Independent Tournament Circuit wrote:The ITC (Independent Tournament Circuit) is a coalition of tabletop gaming tournaments that have joined together to increase their mutual resources, exposure to the community and the prestige of their events. These events run through a season which runs one year, beginning and ending in February. The player that does the best overall through the year will be the Circuit Champion. Last year, that player won $4,000 cash! We also recognize the players that do the best with each specific faction, such as the best circuit Space Wolf Player, or best circuit Tau player, etc. as well as the best teams. For a full beak-down of how this works, read this document. The 2018 season is the fifth year for the ITC! The previous seasons were huge hits and the ITC has now grown to be a global circuit. In partnership with Best Coast Pairings, we’ve also developed an app that facilitates running events.
So in essence it's just a ranking system that TO's can submit scores to. BUT... ITC also publishes a set of custom missions. While it's not necessary to use the mission set, a lot of TO's do, and they are the 'standard' for competitive 40k being discussed online.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ltQMdeDqYRXOhvdYT3dtUSji3AISvZRM8gDlhOXDaF8/edit
Which incorporate 3 methods of scoring:
- 1 VP each round if you kill at least 1 enemy unit
- 1 VP each round if you kill more units than your enemy
- 1 VP each round if you control an objective
- 1 VP each round if you control more objectives than your opponent
- 1 bonus VP each round for achieving a difficult mission specific objective (eg, controll all objectives)
- Each player selects 3 additional tertiary objectives at the start of the game which are worth up to 4pts each (total of 12 VPS). These objectives are for killing specific unit types (eg, 1 for every vehicle or character that you kill) or for controlling specific objectives (1 VP if you have a unit in each table quarter).
A lot of people like these missions for competitive play because they make multiple army styles viable, and the final game score is considered to be very reflective of the game that was played.
Trasvi wrote: As someone who plays all 3 mission sets regularly, the differences between straight rulebook, ITC and ETC are greatly exaggerated. There is no unit that is bad in one game type that is suddenly good in another - the top 2 or 3 units within a faction may change around a little but they're still legitimate choices, and there's no mission possible that would make the worst 2 or 3 units attractive.
I certainly agree that it doesn't really change what units are good/bad it certainly changes things more in the wider view of what armies are good and, more importantly, counter play to certain army builds.
ITC's ability to allow you to (almost) entirely ignore board control is certainly Meta shaping.
Weird, I don't find that ITC missions ignore board control at all.
You have 3 points per round from controlling objectives, and 5 secondaries that are about holding objectives. I usually pick (and usually score full points for) Recon and Ground Control objectives.
Perhaps compared to GW's missions eternal war which are literally only about controlling objectives... but IMO those in themselves present their own problems with horde style armies (Orks, GSC, Plaguebearers) being able to win missions without dealing any damage at all. There's mathematical min-maxing there, just on a different set of stats.
Trasvi wrote: As someone who plays all 3 mission sets regularly, the differences between straight rulebook, ITC and ETC are greatly exaggerated. There is no unit that is bad in one game type that is suddenly good in another - the top 2 or 3 units within a faction may change around a little but they're still legitimate choices, and there's no mission possible that would make the worst 2 or 3 units attractive.
I certainly agree that it doesn't really change what units are good/bad it certainly changes things more in the wider view of what armies are good and, more importantly, counter play to certain army builds.
ITC's ability to allow you to (almost) entirely ignore board control is certainly Meta shaping.
Weird, I don't find that ITC missions ignore board control at all.
You have 3 points per round from controlling objectives, and 5 secondaries that are about holding objectives. I usually pick (and usually score full points for) Recon and Ground Control objectives.
Perhaps compared to GW's missions eternal war which are literally only about controlling objectives... but IMO those in themselves present their own problems with horde style armies (Orks, GSC, Plaguebearers) being able to win missions without dealing any damage at all. There's mathematical min-maxing there, just on a different set of stats.
You chose not to focus on killing secondaries. but armies that ignore board control do. Armies like the eldar flyer list just hold 1 objective and get kill more to balance out the hold more and win on secondaries.
The boobyman of hordes in GW missions has no basis in reality when you look at tournament results. Hordes are not dominating at all.
Trasvi wrote: As someone who plays all 3 mission sets regularly, the differences between straight rulebook, ITC and ETC are greatly exaggerated. There is no unit that is bad in one game type that is suddenly good in another - the top 2 or 3 units within a faction may change around a little but they're still legitimate choices, and there's no mission possible that would make the worst 2 or 3 units attractive.
I certainly agree that it doesn't really change what units are good/bad it certainly changes things more in the wider view of what armies are good and, more importantly, counter play to certain army builds.
ITC's ability to allow you to (almost) entirely ignore board control is certainly Meta shaping.
Weird, I don't find that ITC missions ignore board control at all.
You have 3 points per round from controlling objectives, and 5 secondaries that are about holding objectives. I usually pick (and usually score full points for) Recon and Ground Control objectives.
Perhaps compared to GW's missions eternal war which are literally only about controlling objectives... but IMO those in themselves present their own problems with horde style armies (Orks, GSC, Plaguebearers) being able to win missions without dealing any damage at all. There's mathematical min-maxing there, just on a different set of stats.
You chose not to focus on killing secondaries. but armies that ignore board control do. Armies like the eldar flyer list just hold 1 objective and get kill more to balance out the hold more and win on secondaries.
The boobyman of hordes in GW missions has no basis in reality when you look at tournament results. Hordes are not dominating at all.
I guess my point is that if there are armies that can compete on board control, and eldar flyers are still winning, then eldar flyers must be ok enough at board control (shooting the enemy off objectives is a legitimate form of board control).
What I do see with eldar flyer lists in ETC/GW missions is that they feature more Wave Serpents, Fire Prisms, Night Spinners and Ravagers to go alongside 3-5 flyers. But these are all top tier units in ITC missions as well - hence why I say that the effect that ITC has on balance is exaggerated. Pure Eldar flyers are an extreme outlier in terms of boots-on-the-ground - And you can still fit 6 units of troops alongside 7 eldar planes - and the next armies on the tier list do just fine at board control
As for your experience with horde in GW missions... mine has been that hordes dominate and are limited mostly by the willingness of people to paint 200 models. Boyz and Gretchin, plaguebearer, gsc, termagants, all are very powerful armies which in the GWCA18 missions can build up big enough lead via weight of bodies that the enemy cant score enough in turns 4/5/6/7. (at least until the Chaos Knight and marine codex which have insane anti-horde capabilities). My last event had the aforementioned mech eldar in first, followed by GSC, Plaguebearers, Plaguebearers, and Termagants. And these are all top tier units in ITC missions as well.
(I'm discounting the actual GW rulebook missions because they favour and I dont know anywhere that has used them all edition. Half of the CA18 missions are at least ok)
Mandragola wrote: Both systems are kind of inherently broken by their own designers due to giving out free bonuses. These are impossible to balance. How do you assign a points cost to a stormhawk interceptor that might be either iron hands, gaining a ton of free benefits, or black templars, gaining nothing? You can’t. It’s simply not the same unit any more.
^^^^
This, right here, was one of my biggest gripes before I quit.The nonsense started back in 7th where a player could gain super special abilities on his or her units just by bringing the right combination but without paying any more points for them, bonuses that where not even even across the board (the old 'IG vs SM' debate comes to mind, and the sheer dearth of incredibly good bonuses Marine formations gave as opposed to the IG formations that, bar a couple, were utterly useless) and could lead to one army gaining a massive advantage over the other simply because the player brought "super special collection X" to the field whereas the other player brought something that didnt gain any bonuses, or did not even have access to any at all. There was never any acknowledgement that by giving out what were essentially free buffs GW was heinously unbalancing the game and they continued to do so in a similarly badly thought out fashion into Age of Primarchs.
It comes down to it that such free rules are not constructive to a fair and fun game. Whilst I agree they add flavour they should be payed for, in the same manner as other optional weapon upgrades.
Relying on points to balance everything is one of the quickest ways games get stuck with too many things to try and fix to effectively be able to balance anything. One of 40k's biggest issues is after all, the endless question of what a power sword is worth. Sigmar makes players pay for group bonuses, but its kind of nonsense. The battalion costs feel incredibly arbitrary and restrictive.
It's worth noting that sometimes the idea is to create paths that control players to make sure the competitive game looks like the universe you're trying to create. Free bonuses for players that play armies like the kind of stuff you sell in your starter boxes for example helps players make intuitive feeling competitive armies and helps ensure armies feel like they're supposed to. At the same time, its a good way to create design space for a variety of model types. Make the Wraithknight really good and it just takes the place of some other model people are currently taking. Make the Wraithknight good but only in lists that can't take Shining Spears and you've got a few more archetypes to design models into.
7th ed formations could have been so good but were implemented so poorly.
Battle company in particular gets a bad rap. (For those unfamiliar, the battle company formation essentially gave you free rhinos for each unit IF you took a "traditional" 100 marine company.) People complained aboit the "700 points of free transports". But in reality, those transports werent worth 700pts - no-one was running mass marines in rhinos. ose transpors weren't actually worth the points. Battle company turned that style of list from completely unplayable to decently competitive. But importantly, it was quite restrictive.
Contrast to the riptide wing - (take 3 riptides, get bonuses). Where battle company took bad units, and applied heavy restrictions to make them decent, the riptide wing took great units, lifted the restrictions and made them amazing.
Now we're seeing this with 8th. We're getting bonuses lumped with restrictions - doctrines for being pure marines - but the bonuses and restrictions are completely out of line. The most glaringly obvious place I think is the daemons codex, where being pure tzeentch cuts out 3/4 of the codex in exchange for a very negligible bonus: but being pure iron hands comes at the cost of... some people make a face if your marines arent black?
Trasvi wrote: 7th ed formations could have been so good but were implemented so poorly.
Battle company in particular gets a bad rap. (For those unfamiliar, the battle company formation essentially gave you free rhinos for each unit IF you took a "traditional" 100 marine company.) People complained aboit the "700 points of free transports". But in reality, those transports werent worth 700pts - no-one was running mass marines in rhinos. ose transpors weren't actually worth the points. Battle company turned that style of list from completely unplayable to decently competitive. But importantly, it was quite restrictive.
Contrast to the riptide wing - (take 3 riptides, get bonuses). Where battle company took bad units, and applied heavy restrictions to make them decent, the riptide wing took great units, lifted the restrictions and made them amazing.
Now we're seeing this with 8th. We're getting bonuses lumped with restrictions - doctrines for being pure marines - but the bonuses and restrictions are completely out of line. The most glaringly obvious place I think is the daemons codex, where being pure tzeentch cuts out 3/4 of the codex in exchange for a very negligible bonus: but being pure iron hands comes at the cost of... some people make a face if your marines arent black?
That is just being completely disingenuous.
Being pure iron hands comes at the cost of losing access to (almost) all Imperium units not in the SM codex. Which is a significant cost considering pure SM armies competitively did not really exist.
One could even argue that most of the issues with Iron Hands don't even stem from bonuses of being a pure marine detachment. Combat doctrines are good, no doubt about it, but the real power doesn't even come from them in an IH's list.
The stratagems, warlord traits and relics are something any IH detachment has access to. And they are, for the most part, what breaks the army.
Trasvi wrote: Battle company in particular gets a bad rap. (For those unfamiliar, the battle company formation essentially gave you free rhinos for each unit IF you took a "traditional" 100 marine company.) People complained aboit the "700 points of free transports". But in reality, those transports werent worth 700pts - no-one was running mass marines in rhinos. ose transpors weren't actually worth the points. Battle company turned that style of list from completely unplayable to decently competitive. But importantly, it was quite restrictive.
It was broken when you consider the mobile nature of play. I admit Marines had better formations, but the ability to load up on free transports and start the game with a massive advantage over your opponent in terms of numbers and mobility was huge. It let you advance to objectives faster, redeploy faster, go on the offensive faster, take strategic vantage points faster. it up-ended the game and utterly shat all over the other armies that lacked such things. That said, there were worse. The triple-Vindicator squadron for instance, a formation built to take any not-toptier army and ruin them.
Contrast to the riptide wing - (take 3 riptides, get bonuses). Where battle company took bad units, and applied heavy restrictions to make them decent, the riptide wing took great units, lifted the restrictions and made them amazing
Yeah, that was awful. That and the scatbike formation really sgowed how little GW cared about balance back then.
LunarSol wrote: Relying on points to balance everything is one of the quickest ways games get stuck with too many things to try and fix to effectively be able to balance anything. One of 40k's biggest issues is after all, the endless question of what a power sword is worth. Sigmar makes players pay for group bonuses, but its kind of nonsense. The battalion costs feel incredibly arbitrary and restrictive.
It's worth noting that sometimes the idea is to create paths that control players to make sure the competitive game looks like the universe you're trying to create. Free bonuses for players that play armies like the kind of stuff you sell in your starter boxes for example helps players make intuitive feeling competitive armies and helps ensure armies feel like they're supposed to. At the same time, its a good way to create design space for a variety of model types. Make the Wraithknight really good and it just takes the place of some other model people are currently taking. Make the Wraithknight good but only in lists that can't take Shining Spears and you've got a few more archetypes to design models into.
Seems like it could get complicated quickly, especially when there are inevitably plenty of competing interests coming from outside the rules department. It also just seems like a lot more work period compared to a points system since force org restrictions become more and more bespoke. If the goal is to maintain the same level of creativity and variety in army building you get with a points system, then that's going to be a lot of bespoke restrictions to hash out and test.
I only played a tiny bit of Sigmar but I did spend some time reading the rules and checking out what lists were possible with my 40k daemons collection. It really does feel a lot more restrictive than 40k due to its simplicity and due to how balance would be even more difficult to achieve without limiting army lists to extremely specific unit combos via warscroll battalions. I imagine if the core game was more complicated, going the warscroll battalions route would be even more work to balance properly. It starts to feel a lot more like pre-determined "decks" at that point and takes a lot of the fun out of building an army.
Competitive 40k at least has some options in how you build things. Most current competitive lists have a set "core" that's like 1000-1500 points, and then you can basically fill in the blanks with whatever you want. Take 3x Crusader Knights for example... very strong tournament list. I've seen variants with smash captains and guardsmen added, or tank commanders and guardsmen, or admech and smash captains, or even a 4th Knight and some AdMech. You can change it up to suit your playstyle.
Horst wrote: Competitive 40k at least has some options in how you build things. Most current competitive lists have a set "core" that's like 1000-1500 points, and then you can basically fill in the blanks with whatever you want. Take 3x Crusader Knights for example... very strong tournament list. I've seen variants with smash captains and guardsmen added, or tank commanders and guardsmen, or admech and smash captains, or even a 4th Knight and some AdMech. You can change it up to suit your playstyle.
Most lists are like that.
Well necrons have like ~300 pts to spend to "free" stuff and that's basically do I take option A or option B. Wealt of options!
Sadly enough, the most fun I had in 8E were probably the Index days. Everyone was just simply using units. No OP bonuses, WLTs, relics, etc. The opportunity cost to be fluffy was really low. It was really when Guard codex landed that the imbalance started.
Suzuteo wrote: Sadly enough, the most fun I had in 8E were probably the Index days. Everyone was just simply using units. No OP bonuses, WLTs, relics, etc. The opportunity cost to be fluffy was really low. It was really when Guard codex landed that the imbalance started.
Yup Index was pretty well balanced, not perfect, but much better balanced.
But balance does not sell churn and burn.. churn and burn makes GW money. Unbalanced therefor is in their business interests.
Suzuteo wrote: Sadly enough, the most fun I had in 8E were probably the Index days. Everyone was just simply using units. No OP bonuses, WLTs, relics, etc. The opportunity cost to be fluffy was really low. It was really when Guard codex landed that the imbalance started.
Yup Index was pretty well balanced, not perfect, but much better balanced.
.
Well, Index definitely needed a few points adjustments at the lower end. I remember Conscripts too. But generally, you just ran whatever you wanted. You had blue Space Marines? Well, they aren't Iron Hands just because they are broken. They are Ultramarines.
Aside from basic power creep the Index to Codex transition added lots of things that increase power without costing points. Traits, Stratagems, Relic.
No wonder balance gets worse when you add things that are outside the traditional balancing mechanics.
I was in this chat a while ago when it was non competitive players trying to explain what their issues were and a handful of very vocal (loud mouth) comp types, who I’m reassured don’t represent the majority of that scene, shouting that we were all wrong and or lying about how we feel about the game. Popped back in as it appeared on the front page and it seems to have turned into an echo chamber of tournament players all complaining about how the game isn’t balanced enough. And..that was one of the main problems. One of the causes of the “hate”. Tourney types trying to change the game to more suit their style of play at the expense of everyone else. I won’t rehash the old arguments but complaining that sell different rules for different coloured armies isn’t selling a palette, it is selling the back ground. And that matters to a lot of people.
My stance always has been that the game is in good shape right now. Casual players can enjoy it and all the flavour they are adding to it while the tourney scene is doing quite well. If major changes are needed to balance it then the game would need divergence from 3 ways to playm to a pure tourney set of rules and a narrative set. Again, I’d be happy with that too. But making the whole game tight and balanced and in mind dull as paint isn’t the way to please every one and stop the hate.
Andykp wrote: I was in this chat a while ago when it was non competitive players trying to explain what their issues were and a handful of very vocal (loud mouth) comp types, who I’m reassured don’t represent the majority of that scene, shouting that we were all wrong and or lying about how we feel about the game. Popped back in as it appeared on the front page and it seems to have turned into an echo chamber of tournament players all complaining about how the game isn’t balanced enough. And..that was one of the main problems. One of the causes of the “hate”. Tourney types trying to change the game to more suit their style of play at the expense of everyone else. I won’t rehash the old arguments but complaining that sell different rules for different coloured armies isn’t selling a palette, it is selling the back ground. And that matters to a lot of people.
My stance always has been that the game is in good shape right now. Casual players can enjoy it and all the flavour they are adding to it while the tourney scene is doing quite well. If major changes are needed to balance it then the game would need divergence from 3 ways to playm to a pure tourney set of rules and a narrative set. Again, I’d be happy with that too. But making the whole game tight and balanced and in mind dull as paint isn’t the way to please every one and stop the hate.
First off, I generally agree with you that the game isn't in as bad a place as the internet likes to act and that some inbalance is fine and probably actually healthy because as you say the more balanced the more 'same' things tends to be and thats boring.
But do you really think a casual Grey Knight player who regularly faces casual Space Marine players wouldn't benefit from a bit more balance?
But that’s an issue with a specific faction, one I have never played so can’t go off anything else than Internet complaining. No need to alter the entire game mechanics though. Just fix grey knights or admit they should never have been a full faction anyways.
I think with them, gw has no idea what to do. Will it primaris them or what?
Anyway. The things tourney players seem to want (on the interwebs) to balance them game will make it dull to the likes of me, and as for balance, when you aren’t playing to win, but to tell a story it’s easy to balance. But again I don’t play pick up games. Only with the same group of mates. I don’t think making match play the default setting is the way either.
"Is a single competitive player worth two casual players?"
This was raised as a question, forgive me if it's been answered already, but i have read like the first few pages of this topic.
depends. tldr: yes. one competitive player is worth more then the 2 you mentioned. they buy more, thus are relevant in they eyes of Gamesworkshop, while those two casuals,
are irrelevant.
GW doesn't care that you once upon a time bought models in the 1980's or whenever. the only relevant group are those buying consistently.
that means generally competitive tournament players matter, meanwhile those who bought models once off or once a year, don't. is this fair? sure is.
you get what you pay for and since GW games are pay to win, if you aren't paying regularly then you don't matter. period. so is it a surprise that competitive
gamers are treated more favorably by our plastic crack overlords? nope. they see profit as more important than "fun" which we all know is subjective to what
we personally are attracted to and seek out, rather than to ignore, because it's not relevant to you and your enjoyment of the game.
also many people are toxic due to tribalism- my tribe is better than your tribe because reasons. see it from the alternative perspective and not only your own
biased perspective and opinion. the moment you say the other side is wrong, bad, incompetent or whatever negative aspersion cast on them, you make
whatever point you were attempting to make- invalid.
in my experience gaming (video/TT, and others) is that those who are casual, tend to be more WAAC, than those attending tournaments, because everyone knows that
the whole point of competitive gaming- is to win games. the whole reasons tournaments exist. this means those who aren't competitive want to win games, any type of game
it doesn't matter. and with whatever they throw together and hope wins, without giving it any real thought whatsoever. every unit can do something in every faction, but not all units will
win you games. but if "fun" is your primary motivator, winning shouldn't even come into the equation, and being stomped shouldn't matter whatsoever.
winning is only important if you are competitive, and if you disagree (feel free), then maybe the problem isn't the game, but you.
Suzuteo wrote: Sadly enough, the most fun I had in 8E were probably the Index days. Everyone was just simply using units. No OP bonuses, WLTs, relics, etc. The opportunity cost to be fluffy was really low. It was really when Guard codex landed that the imbalance started.
Yup Index was pretty well balanced, not perfect, but much better balanced.
But balance does not sell churn and burn.. churn and burn makes GW money. Unbalanced therefor is in their business interests.
Anyone saying the Index lists were balanced is lying to themselves, pure and simple. 17 point Dire Avengers? 2 shot Obliterators? Conscript Commisar interaction? Roboute? The entirety of the Necron and Deathwatch armies?
solohammer wrote: "Is a single competitive player worth two casual players?"
This was raised as a question, forgive me if it's been answered already, but i have read like the first few pages of this topic.
depends. tldr: yes. one competitive player is worth more then the 2 you mentioned. they buy more, thus are relevant in they eyes of Gamesworkshop, while those two casuals, are irrelevant.
GW doesn't care that you once upon a time bought models in the 1980's or whenever. the only relevant group are those buying consistently.
that means generally competitive tournament players matter, meanwhile those who bought models once off or once a year, don't. is this fair?
You make two poor assumptions.
Firstly, You assume those competitives are buying from gw. In my experience, the ever shifting tourney meta favours a churn and burn strategy, and I've come across a lot of anecdotes online of competitive players constantly ebaying - buying and selling - in response to meta shifts in the tournament scene. Gw doesn't see any of this money. Folks buying and selling in this manner are irellevant to Gw.
solohammer wrote: [b]
sure is. you get what you pay for and since GW games are pay to win, if you aren't paying regularly then you don't matter. period. so is it a surprise that competitive gamers are treated more favorably by our plastic crack overlords? nope. they see profit as more important than "fun" which we all know is subjective to whatwe personally are attracted to and seek out, rather than to ignore, because it's not relevant to you and your enjoyment of the game.
Secondly,you assume casual players don't 'buy in' or have only bought some small stuff thirty years ago. I'm not a competitive player, for example. I don't do tournaments. But I've probably dropped a grande or two on gw stuff over the last 2-3 years, with box sets and army deals etc. 'Casual' doesn't necessarily mean 'not serious' in terms of this hobby, and i see the use of the terms 'casual/competitive' as being fundamentally inaccurate and not granular enough. 'Casual' players will often spend, and spend regularly. It just won't be chasing whatever's 'cool' on the tournament scene at that moment.
solohammer wrote: [b]
also many people are toxic due to tribalism- my tribe is better than your tribe because reasons. see it from the alternative perspective and not only your own biased perspective and opinion. the moment you say the other side is wrong, bad, incompetent or whatever negative aspersion cast on them, you make whatever point you were attempting to make- invalid.
I tend to agree with this for the most part. But people also need to realise that 'I dislike x because of y' is not saying 'x or y is wrong, bad, incompetent etc'.
solohammer wrote: [b]
in my experience gaming (video/TT, and others) is that those who are casual, tend to be more WAAC, than those attending tournaments, because everyone knows that the whole point of competitive gaming- is to win games. the whole reasons tournaments exist. this means those who aren't competitive want to win games, any type of game it doesn't matter. and with whatever they throw together and hope wins, without giving it any real thought whatsoever. every unit can do something in every faction, but not all units will win you games. but if "fun" is your primary motivator, winning shouldn't even come into the equation, and being stomped shouldn't matter whatsoever. winning is only important if you are competitive, and if you disagree (feel free), then maybe the problem isn't the game, but you.
Two points - Casual doesn't necessarily mean 'throwing together stuff and hoping that wins' and 'not giving it any real thought whatsoever'.
Second - I disagree that causal players tend to be more Waac, I see it as a gamer issue across all spectrums. I've seen super serious tournament players in 'proper' tourney focused games who lied, cheated, list-tailored, terrain-tailored, and did everything they could to undermine and psyche out the guy at the other end of the board. You spoke earlier about tribalism. Tribslism is often unconscious, and with respect, you are doing a bit of it here- your interpretation of 'casual' is a bit of a binary cartoon to me. Your own experiences might be different to mine, and that's fair, but let's not tar the other tribe. Now, here's the thing. You refer to Waac as a bad thing, and state the whole point of competitive gaming is to win games. Firstly - Waac. Disgraceful. No argument. Waac is a blight. But s question for you - if the point of competitive gaming is to 'win games', then how far is 'ok' to push the 'competitive' in order to 'win'? It it ok to accept or insist on the consequences of this play-mode without any regrets or considerations? Is it ok to push 'competitive' to the point where you have the other person in tears, for example? Is it ok to push competitive, to the point where it becomes 'competitive-at-all-costs', and verything else is sacrificed on the altar of winning? Is it ok to push 'competitive' to the point where you are rude, ignorant, aggressive and hostile for example (and hey, this might not be 'illegal' in the game, so it's a fair play to make to psyche out the other guy - bear in mind, I have seen this). Is it ok to push competitive to the point where all you see are the top 3% of the game and no other variety is ever seen on the table top and is regarded as 'irrelevant to the gsme'? Is it ok to push competitive to the point where the social aspect of the game is an irrelevance, and the other guy simply doesn't matter (he might as well be an npc). All of these things can happen. To be honest, as a player of more casual lists, these are bigger concerns to me than wanting to win with some thirty year old stuff I've randomly thrown together and because I don't want to think too hard.
And by the way, wanting to win is fine. As a 'casual' player (in the context of casual/competitive, though I loathe the use of the term...), when I play my games, I also want to play well and aim win to win my games. This desire is not restricted to just competitive players. What is more important is how you win, what the games 'look' like, having a good time with the guy/girl across the board from you etc.
Suzuteo wrote: Sadly enough, the most fun I had in 8E were probably the Index days. Everyone was just simply using units. No OP bonuses, WLTs, relics, etc. The opportunity cost to be fluffy was really low. It was really when Guard codex landed that the imbalance started.
Yup Index was pretty well balanced, not perfect, but much better balanced.
But balance does not sell churn and burn.. churn and burn makes GW money. Unbalanced therefor is in their business interests.
Anyone saying the Index lists were balanced is lying to themselves, pure and simple. 17 point Dire Avengers? 2 shot Obliterators? Conscript Commisar interaction? Roboute? The entirety of the Necron and Deathwatch armies?
No one ever said it was "perfect' or "balanced". It was MORE balanced than after all the codex releases. The indexes were written to play by, the codexes were adjusted to SELL MODELS. The differing intent between the two shows in the rules.. things have gone down hill since then as "new hotness" mode keeps occurring.
As for your complaints.. it is more that in the indexes everyone was pretty much sucking together, missing pieces and missing rules and interactions. Everyone was about as close as it comes to being on the same level. Mostly because they were written to "keep people in the game" rather than, again.. to sell models, which is the drive of all the codex releases which adjust things in order to get people to buy models GW wants them to. To create churn.
They were not perfect, nothing ever could be, but they were more functional and with less of the nurglesque bloat we are dealing with now where you need many books and supplements just to play the damned game and since rules and points cost across all these codexes, codexes 2.0, indexes (which are still technically valid), supplements, and more supplements... who is to say who is the right point value.
The game has gone off the deep end with rules spam and points and cp spendable items. CP was supposed to be rare and for limited things now it is CP all the things and rules!
Suzuteo wrote: Sadly enough, the most fun I had in 8E were probably the Index days. Everyone was just simply using units. No OP bonuses, WLTs, relics, etc. The opportunity cost to be fluffy was really low. It was really when Guard codex landed that the imbalance started.
Yup Index was pretty well balanced, not perfect, but much better balanced.
But balance does not sell churn and burn.. churn and burn makes GW money. Unbalanced therefor is in their business interests.
Anyone saying the Index lists were balanced is lying to themselves, pure and simple. 17 point Dire Avengers? 2 shot Obliterators? Conscript Commisar interaction? Roboute? The entirety of the Necron and Deathwatch armies?
No one ever said it was "perfect' or "balanced". It was MORE balanced than after all the codex releases. The indexes were written to play by, the codexes were adjusted to SELL MODELS. The differing intent between the two shows in the rules.. things have gone down hill since then as "new hotness" mode keeps occurring.
As for your complaints.. it is more that in the indexes everyone was pretty much sucking together, missing pieces and missing rules and interactions. Everyone was about as close as it comes to being on the same level. Mostly because they were written to "keep people in the game" rather than, again.. to sell models, which is the drive of all the codex releases which adjust things in order to get people to buy models GW wants them to. To create churn.
They were not perfect, nothing ever could be, but they were more functional and with less of the nurglesque bloat we are dealing with now where you need many books and supplements just to play the damned game and since rules and points cost across all these codexes, codexes 2.0, indexes (which are still technically valid), supplements, and more supplements... who is to say who is the right point value.
The game has gone off the deep end with rules spam and points and cp spendable items. CP was supposed to be rare and for limited things now it is CP all the things and rules!
You're...not serious are you? It was a half assed attempt to have people still use their models for games until codices were released. Saying armies were near the same level is honestly laughable. Did you forget Stormraven or Asscanback spam or Guard being the only things doing well? Did you forget Necrons and Deathwatch being literally non-functional as armies? Did you forget the ridiculous pricing for units like Bikers and Aspect Warriors?
I'm not going to pretend codices are as balanced as they could be, but since Chapter Approved it's a LOT closer than the Index lists ever were. Pretending otherwise is denial in its purest form.
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: Did you forget Stormraven or Asscanback spam or Guard being the only things doing well? Did you forget Necrons and Deathwatch being literally non-functional as armies? Did you forget the ridiculous pricing for units like Bikers and Aspect Warriors?
I did not forget about those things, but I have never seen them on the table.
No one here has bought several Stormravens, Razorbacks/Rhinos, or even Conscripts or Brimstones to Spam them at tournaments during the Index phase as everyone knew that this was not going to stay.
Brimestone Spam was not a thing until the Codex hit, same for Conscripts.
The with the Index, all armies were on the same level, as they were written with the same rules in mind and more or less at the same time.
Main problem were some points were off, which is a minor issue as it can be easily solved, and some armies did not worked as they should, which just showed that there was a mayor design mistake right from the start (something that cannot be solved by adjusting points or giving out free stuff)
It was expected that the releases later on just add the missing Command Points and Orders that were promised but not there, and the point adjustments, until the next big re-work hit that would bring the Units and Weapons stats in line with the new core rules (which would be kind of an important update as changing the "to wound" table also changed the threshold values for Strength, Toughness and Hitpoints which made a re-work for everything absolutely necessary to get stuff back in line)
Codex and CA did not made anything better regarding balance, they just changed what is good and bad
If i were a HC tourney player that identified as that i'd be miffed as the real issue is over the last few years GW have just ramped up the releases schedule to the point now that the 'meta' is changing bi-weekly.
They can't keep on top of it all, why buy 10 eldar flyers if iron hands will crush you next month, why buy iron hands when imperial fists will have some new broken combo.
Latro_ wrote: If i were a HC tourney player that identified as that i'd be miffed as the real issue is over the last few years GW have just ramped up the releases schedule to the point now that the 'meta' is changing bi-weekly.
They can't keep on top of it all, why buy 10 eldar flyers if iron hands will crush you next month, why buy iron hands when imperial fists will have some new broken combo.
So then the thought is instead of Index Balance (everyone on the same gak level), the current idea from GW is to modify the meta so fast that no one could possibly buy, paint, and then re-sell fast enough to be "top meta"? You get to be on top.. now you.. now you.. because instead of balance lets sell the crap out of everything! Spin that wheel like mad.
Problem is you cannot sustain that for any length of time and inevitably the power creek will just make the wheels come off... frankly.. they already have.
People have short memories. Dreads used to be Toughness Based back in 1st. So the design standpoint moving dreads back to T value made sense, esp in light of Tau suits being T value and various eldar walkers going T value.. there was a positive move towards consistency.. walk=T tank=AV.
AV never should have gone.
The Morale they just lifted from erm.. 4th? was it? Been too long.
But things have gotten out of hand. I'd like someone to argue which book with which points values and rules and stats and formations is authoritative anymore. Esp for Chaos.. who now span a bizarre number of publications with different values and rules. Marines are heading that way with these mini-codexs along with the conflict they have with the Chapter Approved and current FAQs and Suppliments. It's nutty.
I am buying models because I want to. I stopped following meta long time ago. Long before this edition. What I buy is because I want it.. mostly because I think it's cool looking or I want X Y or Z flavor.
Frankly the GW release schedule has gone off it's meds and is now in an unsustainable state. The hope to use Marvel to draw in new players won't hang. Not the way the want to to keep this madness going. We are going into Stock Market Bubble like territory here. Slow growth is healthy.. this.. isn't sparta.. it's madness.
The latest releases are definitely starting to creep back into the realm of 7E absurdity in terms of plain and open free power buffs resulting in obnoxiously obvious overpowered armies and overfawning on niche sub-subfactions, while the number of sources and books is also definitely starting to become an issue again with some lists requiring 3-5 different sources for rules.
On the competitive front, it's starting to look like GW is creeping back into the 7E disaster after having a mostly decent year. I'd been starting to retool and get more back into the game and picked up some new stuff, and painted for the first time in a couple years and going to events again, but I'm really not enthused by what I'm seeing out of the latest couple of releases.
I think they did a lot better when they just had to make everything have a place in a soup army to be competitive. Now that they're pushing purity again, we're seeing how severely the rules bloat when GW tries to make each coat of paint a self contained army.
solohammer wrote: but if "fun" is your primary motivator, winning shouldn't even come into the equation, and being stomped shouldn't matter whatsoever.
winning is only important if you are competitive, and if you disagree (feel free), then maybe the problem isn't the game, but you.
This is incredibly disingenuous. A game ending turn 1 because a matchup that was supposed to be even is actually horrendously lopsided isn't fun. Balancing mechanisms are every bit as useful for casual players as they are for competitive.
Winning or losing isn't important; having a game where both players feel like the outcome was earned by their decisions and the dice- rather than because the game designers can't write balanced rules to save their lives- is what's important.
40k has always been like this though it just takes years so our memories wane. I'v been playing since 2ed... it starts off simple like checkers or chess
to keep it fresh you have to add stuff in, it becomes more complex and messy/unbalanced by the nature of so many moving parts
you keep adding stuff in, it becomes a bloated mess and everyone loses their s***
you reboot it again like the matrix 5-8 years later and it all begins again. Each time different in its own way. My garage filled with about 300 books is testament to this.
remember when iron warriors were totally broken because you could take a whopping 4 heavy support choices! remember nob biker wound allocation? or when necrons and grey knights were 'the competitive armies'.
I quit playing 40k after 3rd addition didn't care for the rule changes then got sidetracked due to RL but kept building models until got sidetracked more by RL and have been away from all aspects of the game for about 5 years. Life is getting back to workable and from what I hear 8th addition isn't half bad so I'm back. or at least headed in that direction. LOL. Orks always win! Even when we lose we wins cause we gets ta fight. There is always someone who doesn’t like change, or can't figure out a good strategy or are just plain poor sports.
Suzuteo wrote: Sadly enough, the most fun I had in 8E were probably the Index days. Everyone was just simply using units. No OP bonuses, WLTs, relics, etc. The opportunity cost to be fluffy was really low. It was really when Guard codex landed that the imbalance started.
Yup Index was pretty well balanced, not perfect, but much better balanced.
But balance does not sell churn and burn.. churn and burn makes GW money. Unbalanced therefor is in their business interests.
Anyone saying the Index lists were balanced is lying to themselves, pure and simple. 17 point Dire Avengers? 2 shot Obliterators? Conscript Commisar interaction? Roboute? The entirety of the Necron and Deathwatch armies?
I said that the Index days were the most fun and the most fluffy. People were not incentivized to bring Iron Hands that suspiciously look like Ultramarines just to beat the tar out of people at tourneys. (To be clear, an absence of toxic imbalance does necessarily mean everything is balanced.)
That being said, it would have been a lot easier to balance the Indexes. Since there are no special rules, it's just a matter of points. Maybe a stat value here or there.
As for the rest, if GW is more interested in money than competitive balance, why don't people do something about it? Take the Index and build a house meta around it. Launch a revolution to seize the means of design. Lol.
Suzuteo wrote: As for the rest, if GW is more interested in money than competitive balance, why don't people do something about it? Take the Index and build a house meta around it. Launch a revolution to seize the means of design. Lol.
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There is a great deal of game leeway of what you want to get out of the game (much like GW rules )
The ire and "hate" starts to happen when so much time is spent to make things look good and models go from wonderful to shelf from one FAQ to another.
Each group or mixtures of below have their own reasons to be invested in models and really want them to be useful in the right conditions. When GW makes changes that seem not well play-tested it gets most players below to complain loudly.
I find it is a rare thing for those who are die-hard competitive to paint up their models to a terrific standard, not saying they are not out there just rare.
They like to play rules to the max because that is what they are for.
For good or ill these folk do not cheat (intentionally) and want a good hard game.
It takes a measure of dedication to prep the models to a good standard and may have to shift quickly to a quite different army.
To confuse things, we have those content to field bases with legs attached and little else, I hear it is "all about the game" this tends to be the confusing WAAC player who really wants to cave-face and little else.
The added rules for ensuring models meet a certain minimum requirement demands more grudging effort from these folk.
There is the vocal casual/"fluff bunny" player which seem to be afraid to say they played their very best and lost, easier to say you REALLY did not try at all.
This tends to be a mixed bag, either models piled in a heap or works of art.
Similar folk tend to spend the time on the models if they like to use the game as a 40k story simulator, I find the roleplay folk tend to find themselves here.
Some just like to build and paint models but are not part of this topic.
I find myself in that strange position where I think I am averaging about 2 hours a model on my new Ultramarine force (working on 30 Primaris Joe troopers at the moment) and will not be able to respond to the meta quite as quickly as the above mentioned groups.
But I want the gosh-darn game to look really good AND have a hard game.
Vaktathi wrote: The latest releases are definitely starting to creep back into the realm of 7E absurdity in terms of plain and open free power buffs resulting in obnoxiously obvious overpowered armies and overfawning on niche sub-subfactions, while the number of sources and books is also definitely starting to become an issue again with some lists requiring 3-5 different sources for rules.
On the competitive front, it's starting to look like GW is creeping back into the 7E disaster after having a mostly decent year. I'd been starting to retool and get more back into the game and picked up some new stuff, and painted for the first time in a couple years and going to events again, but I'm really not enthused by what I'm seeing out of the latest couple of releases.
Look at Psychic Awakening for confirmation of continuation down this crazy train..
Step One: Put out over priced boxed set with the models people have been asking for for more than a decade....almost two really.
Step Two: release new rule book that buffs the ever loving hell out of said box set making it a "new meta".
Step Three: Sell lots of overpriced Box set with mostly recycled old models
Vaktathi wrote: The latest releases are definitely starting to creep back into the realm of 7E absurdity in terms of plain and open free power buffs resulting in obnoxiously obvious overpowered armies and overfawning on niche sub-subfactions, while the number of sources and books is also definitely starting to become an issue again with some lists requiring 3-5 different sources for rules.
On the competitive front, it's starting to look like GW is creeping back into the 7E disaster after having a mostly decent year. I'd been starting to retool and get more back into the game and picked up some new stuff, and painted for the first time in a couple years and going to events again, but I'm really not enthused by what I'm seeing out of the latest couple of releases.
Look at Psychic Awakening for confirmation of continuation down this crazy train..
Step One: Put out over priced boxed set with the models people have been asking for for more than a decade....almost two really.
Step Two: release new rule book that buffs the ever loving hell out of said box set making it a "new meta".
Step Three: Sell lots of overpriced Box set with mostly recycled old models
Step Four: It Prints MONEY HAHAHHAHAHA!
Except Howling Banshees and Incubi are bad. The idea of fielding them against IH, knights or Eldar flyer lists is absurd, even with the buffs in PA. I don't like the thing of releasing new models only in a big box full of stuff you mostly don't want though - I agree that sucks.
I think that the issue right now is that a lot of the very top of the “meta” exists because of units or combos that are better than they ought to be, due to mistakes by GW. Winning tournaments requires that you use the best units available, and these will inevitably be the ones that are too powerful. Those are the units that give you most power for the points you’re spending, precisely because GW got it wrong and made them too good.
So there’s this weird situation in which any tournament-winning list is almost inevitably about to be nerfed, as it’s just highlighted things that are more powerful than they should be. Where once scrubs would buy the list that just won this or that tournament, now you should never buy a winning army, because it’s very unlikely to still be all that good in 6 months’ time.
The really extreme level of burn and churn that we’re seeing right now are actually caused by GW’s new – and mainly good – practice of constantly trying to rebalance the game. In 7E something like riptide wing would come out and then stay in the game. You got a step change in the meta where now everything had to be able to live with riptide wings. Some armies would get chucked because they couldn’t deal.
Now, rather than a step, it’s more like a wave. An army has a moment where it’s broken and then it subsides down again when the nerf bat comes along. The problem is that the game is still unbalanced because as soon as GW fix one issue they release some other dreadful rules and a new wave rises. The new wave then has nothing to really oppose it because the only things that might have done, the other broken lists, have already been nerfed back down.
At the end of the day the problem is the same as it’s always been – GW releasing bad rules. Not every release screws up the game and I’ve never bought into the “conspiracy” idea that it’s about selling new models. GW just as often produces useless rules as it makes ones that are too good. I doubt we’ll see armies heavy on Howling Banshees and Incubi getting 80% win rates at next weekend’s tournaments next weekend’s tournaments, for example. I’d be happy to be proved wrong.
Latro_ wrote: 40k has always been like this though it just takes years so our memories wane. I'v been playing since 2ed... it starts off simple like checkers or chess
to keep it fresh you have to add stuff in, it becomes more complex and messy/unbalanced by the nature of so many moving parts
you keep adding stuff in, it becomes a bloated mess and everyone loses their s***
you reboot it again like the matrix 5-8 years later and it all begins again. Each time different in its own way. My garage filled with about 300 books is testament to this.
remember when iron warriors were totally broken because you could take a whopping 4 heavy support choices! remember nob biker wound allocation? or when necrons and grey knights were 'the competitive armies'.
it'll never end.
I remember all of those things too. The flying croissant army of Necrons, ect.....
40k has been like this since I started in 1997. It is a casual game that is constantly being shoe-horned into a tournament setting.
Its like watching people throw a ball for a cat and then getting upset that he does not fetch it. Its just not what cats do.
Strombones wrote: It is a casual game that is constantly being shoe-horned into a tournament setting.
GW promote tournaments and produce paid-for rules updates and balance passes - it is not being sold as a casual non-tournament game, though a case could be made for it being mis-sold.
Indeed. Both 40k and AOS are marketed with tournament rules and at least on the AOS side almost its entire design staff tweets and posts constantly their tournament records and army lists and tournament focused material.
Strombones wrote: It is a casual game that is constantly being shoe-horned into a tournament setting.
GW promote tournaments and produce paid-for rules updates and balance passes - it is not being sold as a casual non-tournament game, though a case could be made for it being mis-sold.
Simply have tournaments or encouraging large scale organized play does not mean what you are trying to imply it does.
You could organize a knitting tournament but the word "tournament" doesn't suddenly give Grandmammy Petunia the ok to stab other participants with her needles, use dyes rather than colored yarn, or make an endless series of striped scarves because "it's maximally efficient".
Vaktathi wrote: The latest releases are definitely starting to creep back into the realm of 7E absurdity in terms of plain and open free power buffs resulting in obnoxiously obvious overpowered armies and overfawning on niche sub-subfactions, while the number of sources and books is also definitely starting to become an issue again with some lists requiring 3-5 different sources for rules.
On the competitive front, it's starting to look like GW is creeping back into the 7E disaster after having a mostly decent year. I'd been starting to retool and get more back into the game and picked up some new stuff, and painted for the first time in a couple years and going to events again, but I'm really not enthused by what I'm seeing out of the latest couple of releases.
Look at Psychic Awakening for confirmation of continuation down this crazy train..
Step One: Put out over priced boxed set with the models people have been asking for for more than a decade....almost two really.
Step Two: release new rule book that buffs the ever loving hell out of said box set making it a "new meta".
Step Three: Sell lots of overpriced Box set with mostly recycled old models
Step Four: It Prints MONEY HAHAHHAHAHA!
Except Howling Banshees and Incubi are bad. The idea of fielding them against IH, knights or Eldar flyer lists is absurd, even with the buffs in PA. I don't like the thing of releasing new models only in a big box full of stuff you mostly don't want though - I agree that sucks.
I think that the issue right now is that a lot of the very top of the “meta” exists because of units or combos that are better than they ought to be, due to mistakes by GW. Winning tournaments requires that you use the best units available, and these will inevitably be the ones that are too powerful. Those are the units that give you most power for the points you’re spending, precisely because GW got it wrong and made them too good.
So there’s this weird situation in which any tournament-winning list is almost inevitably about to be nerfed, as it’s just highlighted things that are more powerful than they should be. Where once scrubs would buy the list that just won this or that tournament, now you should never buy a winning army, because it’s very unlikely to still be all that good in 6 months’ time.
The really extreme level of burn and churn that we’re seeing right now are actually caused by GW’s new – and mainly good – practice of constantly trying to rebalance the game. In 7E something like riptide wing would come out and then stay in the game. You got a step change in the meta where now everything had to be able to live with riptide wings. Some armies would get chucked because they couldn’t deal.
Now, rather than a step, it’s more like a wave. An army has a moment where it’s broken and then it subsides down again when the nerf bat comes along. The problem is that the game is still unbalanced because as soon as GW fix one issue they release some other dreadful rules and a new wave rises. The new wave then has nothing to really oppose it because the only things that might have done, the other broken lists, have already been nerfed back down.
At the end of the day the problem is the same as it’s always been – GW releasing bad rules. Not every release screws up the game and I’ve never bought into the “conspiracy” idea that it’s about selling new models. GW just as often produces useless rules as it makes ones that are too good. I doubt we’ll see armies heavy on Howling Banshees and Incubi getting 80% win rates at next weekend’s tournaments next weekend’s tournaments, for example. I’d be happy to be proved wrong.
Hehe, indeed. Though lets be honest the real reason they jacked the price up and boxed up the new models is because they know that every DE and Eldar player has been screaming to be free of Crapcast models and out of print models and Aspect Warriors that date to the mid-late 90s. Its about moving boxes that are not selling. Tear them down put them in the "MUST HAVE" and raise the price, clear inventory.. make money.
I am sitting here and because my wife is a die hard Eldar Player and I like DE.. I know that I WILL be buying the new eldar box. It's price is high but for me it's about perspective and mine differs from a lot of people on this forum because of my income and other much more expensive hobbies. I am not happy about it.. but I am the one who wants them so.. oh fecking well. It's like the 200 dollar a pop "tax stamp" I pay to uncle no-lube every time I want to get a new Suppressor or build a new SBR. That is the "tea money" I pay out to enjoy my hobbies and pay off the graft needed to be "allowed" my hobbies. The stupid priced Eldar box.. just is some more damned "Tea Money".. this time to GW. In all cases you know you are getting screwed but you shrug and take it because you are wanting a taste of that sweet sweet whatever. Just like I am going to get the Sisters Big Box because da wife wants it so she gets what she wants.... happy wife happy life.
(Reference: Tea Money is what it is called in certain South East Asian countries when you want something that needs to be signed off on by the local constable or mid level bureaucrat so you have to "pay him" to do it. Since bribes are illegal the bribe has been renamed to giving him money to get some tea.. or just tea money. It was just like this when I was in Africa and we had to bring extra computers in for the customs agents to keep.. you know... so they let you through with the others you have.).
Jack Flask wrote: Simply have tournaments or encouraging large scale organized play does not mean what you are trying to imply it does.
You could organize a knitting tournament but the word "tournament" doesn't suddenly give Grandmammy Petunia the ok to stab other participants with her needles, use dyes rather than colored yarn, or make an endless series of striped scarves because "it's maximally efficient".
Firstly, you'll find that I wasn't trying to imply that the word "tournament" should involve stabbing people. Frankly a weird strawman, don't know why that popped into your head.
Secondly, ORGANISING TOURNAMENTS does indeed imply that you are promoting your products for a tournament setting.
Strombones wrote: It is a casual game that is constantly being shoe-horned into a tournament setting.
GW promote tournaments and produce paid-for rules updates and balance passes - it is not being sold as a casual non-tournament game, though a case could be made for it being mis-sold.
It’s sold as both. With the three ways to play and the narrative campaign books it’s is equally sold as a casual narrative game, there is as much fluff as riles in each codex. Games like shadespire are sold as competitive games designed to met just that need. Minimal narrative element. They don’t appeal to me at all as I okay narratively. 40k appeals to both and should cater to both.
remember when iron warriors were totally broken because you could take a whopping 4 heavy support choices! remember nob biker wound allocation? or when necrons and grey knights were 'the competitive armies'.
it'll never end.
I remember all of those things too. The flying croissant army of Necrons, ect.....
40k has been like this since I started in 1997. It is a casual game that is constantly being shoe-horned into a tournament setting.
And during that time I enjoyed tournaments much more than casual or pick up games
For the main reason, I knew what to expect, there was a widely accepted system of scenarios and victory conditions and I was able ti finish 90% of my games
Never had a problem that a game was decided turn 1 or ended turn 2 in favour of my opponent.
Funny thing is,that it went from acceptable to bad the moment GW officially supported tournaments.
No one wanted to use custom scenarios or victory conditions any more, same as no one wanted to use the scenarios/victory conditions marked as "narrative" and all wanted to play strictly to the official GW tournament rules no matter how bad those were.
(I mean a 20:0 point system is still used with points in game directly translate into victory points wich also makes a 20:0 victory much easier than ever before and also favours lists that can get 3/5 20:0 over lists that win 5/5 games 11/9)
I tried both, pick up games and tournaments after 6th (skipped that edition) and while pick up games become much longer (with more talking than playing), most of them ended turn 2 with a clear winner at the end of turn 1 while tournaments became a random game if you were not chasing the flavour of the month army
At the start of 8th, at least pick up games became better, but now we are again at end of 7thE state of the game and I guess I will skip 9th as I don't expect GW to learn or to change
There is a sizable group that's definitely enjoying what ITC has done for the tournament scene here in the US. ITC doesn't solve all the problems and is really it's own fan-made game, but for guys that like to play hard it's as good as competitive 40k has ever been.
A lot of people love solving the list optimization puzzle every season and ITC rules + GW's periodic updates have been delivering on that experience pretty consistently over the past few years.
kodos wrote: Bad balance and chasing the meta has never been a problem for tournaments
it is just a big problem for casual players who want to play on tournaments from time to time and for casual players without a fixed group.
Which makes 40k (and AoS) bad at the one point were they were really better than everyone else, pick up games without further arrangement needed
I think I agree with this. Bad balance doesn't affect high-level tournament players all that much. Tournament players will get hold of the best stuff.
I think the real issue with imbalance is with casual play. I think of my cousins buying random stuff as kids who never really got into the game. The one who played marines always beat the one who played orks. Since they never had a good game, they stopped. Who could blame them?
kodos wrote: Bad balance and chasing the meta has never been a problem for tournaments
it is just a big problem for casual players who want to play on tournaments from time to time and for casual players without a fixed group.
Which makes 40k (and AoS) bad at the one point were they were really better than everyone else, pick up games without further arrangement needed
I think I agree with this. Bad balance doesn't affect high-level tournament players all that much. Tournament players will get hold of the best stuff.
I think the real issue with imbalance is with casual play. I think of my cousins buying random stuff as kids who never really got into the game. The one who played marines always beat the one who played orks. Since they never had a good game, they stopped. Who could blame them?
Disagree totally, the thing with casual games, especially the way I play them in my group is that they are self balancing. For example, got a knight castellan, it messed up so much stuff that we decided if I brought it out again we would scenario it to balance it. Like extra PL for the other player. That’s the point if you aim for a game that’s fun. It works in many other situations too.
kodos wrote: Bad balance and chasing the meta has never been a problem for tournaments
it is just a big problem for casual players who want to play on tournaments from time to time and for casual players without a fixed group.
Which makes 40k (and AoS) bad at the one point were they were really better than everyone else, pick up games without further arrangement needed
I think I agree with this. Bad balance doesn't affect high-level tournament players all that much. Tournament players will get hold of the best stuff.
I think the real issue with imbalance is with casual play. I think of my cousins buying random stuff as kids who never really got into the game. The one who played marines always beat the one who played orks. Since they never had a good game, they stopped. Who could blame them?
Disagree totally, the thing with casual games, especially the way I play them in my group is that they are self balancing. For example, got a knight castellan, it messed up so much stuff that we decided if I brought it out again we would scenario it to balance it. Like extra PL for the other player. That’s the point if you aim for a game that’s fun. It works in many other situations too.
"If I brought it out again we would scenario it to balance it" means that you're saying that you don't mind doing the designers' work for them. Which is totally fine if you don't mind doing that, but it also means that you're playing a game where you've got three separate aspects to the hobby:
*Game Design
*Building models
*Playing games
That's all good fun and games, until you disagree with the group concensus on how nerfed your models should be.
I'll leave it as an observational exercise (look at the internet and the discussion forums concerning even things like the old Adepticon FAQs) for what happens when you try to do that sort of thing in larger groups of mostly strangers.
kodos wrote: Bad balance and chasing the meta has never been a problem for tournaments
it is just a big problem for casual players who want to play on tournaments from time to time and for casual players without a fixed group.
Which makes 40k (and AoS) bad at the one point were they were really better than everyone else, pick up games without further arrangement needed
Disagree totally, the thing with casual games, especially the way I play them in my group is that they are self balancing. For example, got a knight castellan, it messed up so much stuff that we decided if I brought it out again we would scenario it to balance it. Like extra PL for the other player. That’s the point if you aim for a game that’s fun. It works in many other situations too.
But what kodos is saying is that you can't have a simple pick-up game anymore. You're not playing pick-up games, you're meeting up with people you already know who want the same thing from the game and can sort it out easily because you've already established that you're on the same page as each other.
kodos wrote: Bad balance and chasing the meta has never been a problem for tournaments
it is just a big problem for casual players who want to play on tournaments from time to time and for casual players without a fixed group.
Which makes 40k (and AoS) bad at the one point were they were really better than everyone else, pick up games without further arrangement needed
I think I agree with this. Bad balance doesn't affect high-level tournament players all that much. Tournament players will get hold of the best stuff.
I think the real issue with imbalance is with casual play. I think of my cousins buying random stuff as kids who never really got into the game. The one who played marines always beat the one who played orks. Since they never had a good game, they stopped. Who could blame them?
Disagree totally, the thing with casual games, especially the way I play them in my group is that they are self balancing. For example, got a knight castellan, it messed up so much stuff that we decided if I brought it out again we would scenario it to balance it. Like extra PL for the other player. That’s the point if you aim for a game that’s fun. It works in many other situations too.
I don't think that's the type of game being discussed and I don't think that sort of situation is all that common. Games in smaller, closed groups are often able to use the balancing approach you're talking about here (sometimes even subconsciously), but trying to do that in larger, more open groups can be difficult or impossible. It often leads to people feeling like there's a clique or some sort of gatekeeping happening that is difficult to understand, or people outright ignoring the unwritten rules of balance within the group. I would say most people I've ever met play what I would describe as semi-casual games where they aren't going for a full-on tournament build but are trying to play something vaguely competitive, maybe with some self-imposed restrictions. But nobody wants to play a game where they win or lose in the first turn or balance is so bad there's no chance for one of the players to win. The current state of 40k, unfortunately, makes these situations much more likely because the game is terribly balanced and, especially at the level most players find themselves at, there's so little tactical depth that there's not much you can do to change the situation other than change your army in some way.
kodos wrote: Bad balance and chasing the meta has never been a problem for tournaments
it is just a big problem for casual players who want to play on tournaments from time to time and for casual players without a fixed group.
Which makes 40k (and AoS) bad at the one point were they were really better than everyone else, pick up games without further arrangement needed
I think I agree with this. Bad balance doesn't affect high-level tournament players all that much. Tournament players will get hold of the best stuff.
I think the real issue with imbalance is with casual play. I think of my cousins buying random stuff as kids who never really got into the game. The one who played marines always beat the one who played orks. Since they never had a good game, they stopped. Who could blame them?
Disagree totally, the thing with casual games, especially the way I play them in my group is that they are self balancing. For example, got a knight castellan, it messed up so much stuff that we decided if I brought it out again we would scenario it to balance it. Like extra PL for the other player. That’s the point if you aim for a game that’s fun. It works in many other situations too.
I don't think that's the type of game being discussed and I don't think that sort of situation is all that common. Games in smaller, closed groups are often able to use the balancing approach you're talking about here (sometimes even subconsciously), but trying to do that in larger, more open groups can be difficult or impossible. It often leads to people feeling like there's a clique or some sort of gatekeeping happening that is difficult to understand, or people outright ignoring the unwritten rules of balance within the group. I would say most people I've ever met play what I would describe as semi-casual games where they aren't going for a full-on tournament build but are trying to play something vaguely competitive, maybe with some self-imposed restrictions. But nobody wants to play a game where they win or lose in the first turn or balance is so bad there's no chance for one of the players to win. The current state of 40k, unfortunately, makes these situations much more likely because the game is terribly balanced and, especially at the level most players find themselves at, there's so little tactical depth that there's not much you can do to change the situation other than change your army in some way.
The other thing is that my cousins, like most of us when we started out, were teenagers. It was the first time they’d played any kind of wargame and it never really occurred to them to change the rules to improve it. And they didn’t have infinite cash to go out and buy new stuff – they had to work with what they had.
I think the problems for casual play are not the same as those for competitive play. For casual play, the bigger issue is that so many units in the game, and some whole armies, are complete trash. So a kid saves up all his money, or waits for his birthday or something, and gets hold of the new psychic awakening box. Then he finds that it doesn’t contain a single good unit. Sad thought, right? And not a great marketing strategy either.
At the competitive end of the spectrum you have competitive players who look at that box set and give it a hard pass, so they lose nothing. They’re playing with a far smaller selection of units than casual players because most units in most codexes don’t make the cut. But the margins for error in turning a good unit into a totally unreasonable one are pretty small. Time and again, GW gets it wrong.
There’s a post in the competitive 40k channel today with a Dark Angel (I think) player asking how to beat his friend’s Mortarion army. The crazy thing is that I don’t know the answer. The units available to both sides are way off the bottom of anything I’d use, or likely come up against, in a tournament, so I haven’t given them much thought. I did once come up against Jes Bickham’s Mortarion-led Death Guard at a GT heat, using my Crimson Fists, right at the start of 8th, and tabled them. I can’t imagine that army as a serious threat.
I don’t want to be giving someone “advice” that is essentially “your models are useless, go buy new ones”. But that’s actually the situation. This guy cannot expect to shoot Mortarion dead with 4 lascannons and the odd plasma gun in a tactical squad. His models are useless and he’s going to need a new army – or like 80% of one. And at the end of all that he’ll still have Dark Angels. It's actually sad to think of it.
The trap comes in when a new player shows up to the store, doesn't know better, figures that 2000 points means he has a fighting chance against 2000 points of his opponent, buys stuff, and then finds out his $800 investment was largely garbage and he really needs to spam those other two units over there.
Competitive tournament players will typically do research first. Casual players often go for what looks the coolest because thats what draws them in the first place.
This is where gw needs to tighten down their system.
auticus wrote: The trap comes in when a new player shows up to the store, doesn't know better, figures that 2000 points means he has a fighting chance against 2000 points of his opponent, buys stuff, and then finds out his $800 investment was largely garbage and he really needs to spam those other two units over there.
Competitive tournament players will typically do research first. Casual players often go for what looks the coolest because thats what draws them in the first place.
This is where gw needs to tighten down their system.
i totally agree, however the changing tides are also there to "motivate" veterans into spending.
auticus wrote: The trap comes in when a new player shows up to the store, doesn't know better, figures that 2000 points means he has a fighting chance against 2000 points of his opponent, buys stuff, and then finds out his $800 investment was largely garbage and he really needs to spam those other two units over there.
Competitive tournament players will typically do research first. Casual players often go for what looks the coolest because thats what draws them in the first place.
This is where gw needs to tighten down their system.
i totally agree, however the changing tides are also there to "motivate" veterans into spending.
Lets be fair, most vets, who I would classify as people in the game actively for over ten years. Tend to have many models and many armies and are usually, like me, enjoy the game enough that we like cool new hotness as well as have many armies or expand them. It isn't hard to get a vet to spend more money. We like our little plastic dudes enough to be in the game.
Now a churn and burn also always buys more because of the meta chase.
So there seems to be little GW has to do to keep the Tourney players buying except the meta wave they are doing now, the vets buy because lol look new plastic dudes. yaaa!
The crunch on the new players or the non-vets. They have the largest cost curve to absorb (the vets don't need to buy lots.. just a few here and there as they are released). They are often young, being non-working (aka parent's pay) or are young adults (which means in all except rare cases.. poor as hell.. lets be real. I was there too). As a vet player from the mid 80s I am at that point in life where my income is like you always dreamed of. You know, two kids, wife, I own a large house, I work for Uncle Sam and collect the kind of pay he likes to dole out to us from your (and my) tax money. Wife is a manager in an engineering/manufacturing corp. So yeah. Cost isn't an issue. GW doesn't have to market to us. And that's the problem. They are chasing us.. which require about zero effort to get us to buy the new cool and the tourney who spend money like water because of meta-chasing.. all the while the price hikes and sundry result in a Higher Entry Cost.. so much so that as has been stated above. You spend 800 bucks and you get trashed.. you quit.
In order to grow the hobby they need to chase the young and POOR. The rest of us.. be we Meta-Tourney Hardcore Folks or us now "old dudes" take care of ourselves for the most part and are likely to be nearly life-long customers.. as our investment sunk costs are so huge that we are in it forever since we've sunk costs for decades now.
For that reason they need to balance the game. Which is why I posted about Index. They were not "perfect" and were open to abuse (all rules can be abused by a rules lawyer or intentional misreading or other beardy nonsense) but what happened was a reneassance of play in stores. Primarily pickup games of newer players with smaller budgets and smaller models. Sure, the old dudes could field all of their 130 buck a pop flier cheese but we could do that anyways.. we already had the models from when GW was pushing the BUY THREE OF ALL THE THINGS (or for floating footballs of doom.. buy six!).. but by and large the new players and the small model count players could bring and fight with whatever they had. It worked.. pretty well. Not perfectly but at that point it was a tossup and pretty much everyone had some kind of chance unless facing off against a Cheese Puff player.
That caused a BOOM in new players. I saw it here. I saw it in the stores.. at the tables.. The bring and play and have fun brought back a ton of older players who left.. who often bought new models.. and newbies who bought new models. This caused a massive surge in GW's Customer Base. That was ENORMOUS from a corporate standpoint. A growing market or market boom is GOOD when you are a niche market.
What made it work was that new players and experienced players, as well as returning players, and even the Long Beards could all bring and play.. and it took a little while for the Cheese Curds to rise to the surface and in that time everyone was having a rocking good time, bringing what they had and winning and losing but mostly having a chance.
These days, as stated above, some models, and armies are trash.. trash to the point that if you bring them the pervasive cheese and just the standard table fare of the New OP Hotness will just crush them. They will NEVER win a game. This.. as with the Warmachine Experience, will drive away new players.. which is like saying you want your company to fail and you have selling product.
I'd be happy with less focus and reliance on us Long Beards. Our time is limited. As we age it becomes harder to paint, play time goes down. Our time is spent on family and other things. At this point GW needs to LOWER the cost of entry and ensure that you can have a CHANCE of winning (it matters, esp for the young and new players to win a few times).. This in turn over time ensures the hobby continues as the Long Beards age out and new long Beards come in.
In my case I am raising two new 40K players. But that's replacement level 2- age out 2- come in. Zero growth. They need new young people and new young adults. To do that you have to pander to their budgets.. not my budget. I am not the metric. I am not the primary and should not be the primary income/cost balance point. It is a bad idea.
Judging by the posts here, most people are young and on a limited budget but they WANT to spend money on this hobby and GW is pissing away all that good will with the Trash Models (which everyone usually buys because they are always the most prominent and cheap boxes.. Tactical Marines for example) and price hikes that make it ever harder for the majority of players to both buy in and to ENJOY the hobby.
I think the hardest thing for players to accept is that truthfully, a lot of imbalance is unavoidable. It's not (entirely) malicious, its not (total) incompetence; a lot of it honestly grows organically out of the math models that drive the game; particularly as a meta develops. The ideal of blind balance through the power of points doesn't really work, even if its what we all tend to believe in.
I guess what I'm getting at is there's really no perfect solution for players that don't want to invest as much either in play or purchases in a game that is fundamentally about determining a winner. There are always going to be wrong choices and if your method of choice is aesthetic , the chance of getting stuck with a bad one is fairly high. There's a bigger question at play as to whether its better to keep things stable and let players abandon bad choices permanently or whether its worth trying to give everything its day in the sun at the cost of the right choices never being permanently right.
That's not to say GW games don't have issues that exacerbate the problem, (lack of meaningful design space) just that accepting the nature of the problem is a big part of deciding how you want to enjoy the experience in spite of it.
Automatically Appended Next Post: On a side note, I can't stress enough how important I think soup is for solving 40k's balance problems. I know its contentious, but I really think it helps players focus on building their collections in smaller components and insulates them to change. There's a huge difference between having 2000 points burn and churned into something new vs changing 600 points at a time.
I'd like to see changes to its implementation; reducing the ubiquity of the battalion and make it more of a progressive army growth. Take a lot of the extra slots out of the Battalion and require the others for stuff like heavy support. Make it your first detachment you get 1 of, and then unlike your 2nd and third as you build to 2000 points, with things like Super Heavy/Supreme Command/etc reserved for that third slot.
Regardless, I feel like the more the game leans on mono codex armies, the easier it is for change to cripple players and the harder it is for them to incorporate new releases into their collection. I think its telling that nothing has felt as onerous to adapt to as the first book to say "take mono faction or you get squat".
auticus wrote: The trap comes in when a new player shows up to the store, doesn't know better, figures that 2000 points means he has a fighting chance against 2000 points of his opponent, buys stuff, and then finds out his $800 investment was largely garbage and he really needs to spam those other two units over there.
Competitive tournament players will typically do research first. Casual players often go for what looks the coolest because thats what draws them in the first place.
This is where gw needs to tighten down their system.
i totally agree, however the changing tides are also there to "motivate" veterans into spending.
Lets be fair, most vets, who I would classify as people in the game actively for over ten years. Tend to have many models and many armies and are usually, like me, enjoy the game enough that we like cool new hotness as well as have many armies or expand them. It isn't hard to get a vet to spend more money. We like our little plastic dudes enough to be in the game.
Now a churn and burn also always buys more because of the meta chase.
So there seems to be little GW has to do to keep the Tourney players buying except the meta wave they are doing now, the vets buy because lol look new plastic dudes. yaaa!
The crunch on the new players or the non-vets. They have the largest cost curve to absorb (the vets don't need to buy lots.. just a few here and there as they are released). They are often young, being non-working (aka parent's pay) or are young adults (which means in all except rare cases.. poor as hell.. lets be real. I was there too). As a vet player from the mid 80s I am at that point in life where my income is like you always dreamed of. You know, two kids, wife, I own a large house, I work for Uncle Sam and collect the kind of pay he likes to dole out to us from your (and my) tax money. Wife is a manager in an engineering/manufacturing corp. So yeah. Cost isn't an issue. GW doesn't have to market to us. And that's the problem. They are chasing us.. which require about zero effort to get us to buy the new cool and the tourney who spend money like water because of meta-chasing.. all the while the price hikes and sundry result in a Higher Entry Cost.. so much so that as has been stated above. You spend 800 bucks and you get trashed.. you quit.
In order to grow the hobby they need to chase the young and POOR. The rest of us.. be we Meta-Tourney Hardcore Folks or us now "old dudes" take care of ourselves for the most part and are likely to be nearly life-long customers.. as our investment sunk costs are so huge that we are in it forever since we've sunk costs for decades now.
For that reason they need to balance the game. Which is why I posted about Index. They were not "perfect" and were open to abuse (all rules can be abused by a rules lawyer or intentional misreading or other beardy nonsense) but what happened was a reneassance of play in stores. Primarily pickup games of newer players with smaller budgets and smaller models. Sure, the old dudes could field all of their 130 buck a pop flier cheese but we could do that anyways.. we already had the models from when GW was pushing the BUY THREE OF ALL THE THINGS (or for floating footballs of doom.. buy six!).. but by and large the new players and the small model count players could bring and fight with whatever they had. It worked.. pretty well. Not perfectly but at that point it was a tossup and pretty much everyone had some kind of chance unless facing off against a Cheese Puff player.
That caused a BOOM in new players. I saw it here. I saw it in the stores.. at the tables.. The bring and play and have fun brought back a ton of older players who left.. who often bought new models.. and newbies who bought new models. This caused a massive surge in GW's Customer Base. That was ENORMOUS from a corporate standpoint. A growing market or market boom is GOOD when you are a niche market.
What made it work was that new players and experienced players, as well as returning players, and even the Long Beards could all bring and play.. and it took a little while for the Cheese Curds to rise to the surface and in that time everyone was having a rocking good time, bringing what they had and winning and losing but mostly having a chance.
These days, as stated above, some models, and armies are trash.. trash to the point that if you bring them the pervasive cheese and just the standard table fare of the New OP Hotness will just crush them. They will NEVER win a game. This.. as with the Warmachine Experience, will drive away new players.. which is like saying you want your company to fail and you have selling product.
I'd be happy with less focus and reliance on us Long Beards. Our time is limited. As we age it becomes harder to paint, play time goes down. Our time is spent on family and other things. At this point GW needs to LOWER the cost of entry and ensure that you can have a CHANCE of winning (it matters, esp for the young and new players to win a few times).. This in turn over time ensures the hobby continues as the Long Beards age out and new long Beards come in.
In my case I am raising two new 40K players. But that's replacement level 2- age out 2- come in. Zero growth. They need new young people and new young adults. To do that you have to pander to their budgets.. not my budget. I am not the metric. I am not the primary and should not be the primary income/cost balance point. It is a bad idea.
Judging by the posts here, most people are young and on a limited budget but they WANT to spend money on this hobby and GW is pissing away all that good will with the Trash Models (which everyone usually buys because they are always the most prominent and cheap boxes.. Tactical Marines for example) and price hikes that make it ever harder for the majority of players to both buy in and to ENJOY the hobby.
Oh well. We will see where it goes.
I am probably young in your classification but i also started early.
But yeah the budget thing is an important sidenote, however GW^s financially perfectly fine if they go whaling for a lack off better term if you are familiar with the Videogames industry.
Suzuteo wrote: As for the rest, if GW is more interested in money than competitive balance, why don't people do something about it? Take the Index and build a house meta around it. Launch a revolution to seize the means of design. Lol.
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You can't copyright rules. (Well, unless you are Tetris.)
Most of the cool,aunts here to me are about players attitudes not the rules them selves. They are open and open to possible abuse. Just because you can doesn’t mean you should.
If you have teenagers playing pick up games with what they have then a more veteran player could basically GM the game to balance it for them. We did this with my mates cousin who had buts and bats from marine armies. He played my mate and set up the terrain limited my mates choices so it was a a challenging fun game. It would have been different experience if he had come up against Army on a flat board. As it was he didn’t, he lost but that was down to some dice rolls not game balance but best of all he had fun and enjoyed the narrative.
I would rather have an open rule set where you can do this work your self and make the game work for any situation than have a dull game with no character that’s balanced and competetive.
Andykp wrote: Most of the cool,aunts here to me are about players attitudes not the rules them selves. They are open and open to possible abuse. Just because you can doesn’t mean you should.
If you have teenagers playing pick up games with what they have then a more veteran player could basically GM the game to balance it for them. We did this with my mates cousin who had buts and bats from marine armies. He played my mate and set up the terrain limited my mates choices so it was a a challenging fun game. It would have been different experience if he had come up against Army on a flat board. As it was he didn’t, he lost but that was down to some dice rolls not game balance but best of all he had fun and enjoyed the narrative.
I would rather have an open rule set where you can do this work your self and make the game work for any situation than have a dull game with no character that’s balanced and competetive.
Right, because there is absolutely no level of balance good enough for casual pickup games that allow a game to have character...
its funny how often tournament players are talking about wanting the game a little more balanced so casual players can enjoy pickup games only for 'casuals' to come in and ferociously defend their need to house rule the game for it to be playable.
Every single balance discussion it happens eventually.
Andykp wrote: I would rather have an open rule set where you can do this work your self and make the game work for any situation than have a dull game with no character that’s balanced and competetive.
Or alternatively start with a more balanced game that you can choose to unbalance if you want.
I don't get this 'balanced equals dull'. If I play a balanced(ish) game and am winning or losing it's probably because of the choices I am making, whereas kicking someone's ass by pushing my overpowered army up the table with a croupier stick is no fun at all, for me or my opponent.
Suzuteo wrote: You can't copyright rules. (Well, unless you are Tetris.)
Tell that to GW, that was an excerpt from one of their cease and desist letters to a website hosting GW rules.
Once someone who is not interested in only collecting the most powerful units comes in and plays some games and gets their faces rubbed in dirt because they liked the models that were trash but they were under the delusion that the point system meant you had a decent chance at a good game so long as you had enough points (which is not the case in gw games), you lose those players.
Especially if they don't have a deep investment in the game. Its easier to cut your losses.
It stings the community when you constantly churn out of new players. Right now its negligible because you just get new people to replace those people that quit over their delusion being shattered, so a lot of people just shrug their shoulders and go "meh not my problem".
40k has the advantage of being able to be as putrid as it is and still maintain the ability to play a game anywhere on the globe, and I think thats more important than its game mechanics or balance issues. While that exists, this is basically not going to change anything.
AOS is riding on the coattails of the GW name and achieving the same level of indifference for the same reasons.
Balance also certainly does not equal dull. It boggles my mind that people actively seek out imbalance in games though.
auticus wrote: The trap comes in when a new player shows up to the store, doesn't know better, figures that 2000 points means he has a fighting chance against 2000 points of his opponent, buys stuff, and then finds out his $800 investment was largely garbage and he really needs to spam those other two units over there.
Competitive tournament players will typically do research first. Casual players often go for what looks the coolest because thats what draws them in the first place.
This is where gw needs to tighten down their system.
i totally agree, however the changing tides are also there to "motivate" veterans into spending.
Lets be fair, most vets, who I would classify as people in the game actively for over ten years. Tend to have many models and many armies and are usually, like me, enjoy the game enough that we like cool new hotness as well as have many armies or expand them. It isn't hard to get a vet to spend more money. We like our little plastic dudes enough to be in the game.
Now a churn and burn also always buys more because of the meta chase.
So there seems to be little GW has to do to keep the Tourney players buying except the meta wave they are doing now, the vets buy because lol look new plastic dudes. yaaa!
The crunch on the new players or the non-vets. They have the largest cost curve to absorb (the vets don't need to buy lots.. just a few here and there as they are released). They are often young, being non-working (aka parent's pay) or are young adults (which means in all except rare cases.. poor as hell.. lets be real. I was there too). As a vet player from the mid 80s I am at that point in life where my income is like you always dreamed of. You know, two kids, wife, I own a large house, I work for Uncle Sam and collect the kind of pay he likes to dole out to us from your (and my) tax money. Wife is a manager in an engineering/manufacturing corp. So yeah. Cost isn't an issue. GW doesn't have to market to us. And that's the problem. They are chasing us.. which require about zero effort to get us to buy the new cool and the tourney who spend money like water because of meta-chasing.. all the while the price hikes and sundry result in a Higher Entry Cost.. so much so that as has been stated above. You spend 800 bucks and you get trashed.. you quit.
In order to grow the hobby they need to chase the young and POOR. The rest of us.. be we Meta-Tourney Hardcore Folks or us now "old dudes" take care of ourselves for the most part and are likely to be nearly life-long customers.. as our investment sunk costs are so huge that we are in it forever since we've sunk costs for decades now.
For that reason they need to balance the game. Which is why I posted about Index. They were not "perfect" and were open to abuse (all rules can be abused by a rules lawyer or intentional misreading or other beardy nonsense) but what happened was a reneassance of play in stores. Primarily pickup games of newer players with smaller budgets and smaller models. Sure, the old dudes could field all of their 130 buck a pop flier cheese but we could do that anyways.. we already had the models from when GW was pushing the BUY THREE OF ALL THE THINGS (or for floating footballs of doom.. buy six!).. but by and large the new players and the small model count players could bring and fight with whatever they had. It worked.. pretty well. Not perfectly but at that point it was a tossup and pretty much everyone had some kind of chance unless facing off against a Cheese Puff player.
That caused a BOOM in new players. I saw it here. I saw it in the stores.. at the tables.. The bring and play and have fun brought back a ton of older players who left.. who often bought new models.. and newbies who bought new models. This caused a massive surge in GW's Customer Base. That was ENORMOUS from a corporate standpoint. A growing market or market boom is GOOD when you are a niche market.
What made it work was that new players and experienced players, as well as returning players, and even the Long Beards could all bring and play.. and it took a little while for the Cheese Curds to rise to the surface and in that time everyone was having a rocking good time, bringing what they had and winning and losing but mostly having a chance.
These days, as stated above, some models, and armies are trash.. trash to the point that if you bring them the pervasive cheese and just the standard table fare of the New OP Hotness will just crush them. They will NEVER win a game. This.. as with the Warmachine Experience, will drive away new players.. which is like saying you want your company to fail and you have selling product.
I'd be happy with less focus and reliance on us Long Beards. Our time is limited. As we age it becomes harder to paint, play time goes down. Our time is spent on family and other things. At this point GW needs to LOWER the cost of entry and ensure that you can have a CHANCE of winning (it matters, esp for the young and new players to win a few times).. This in turn over time ensures the hobby continues as the Long Beards age out and new long Beards come in.
In my case I am raising two new 40K players. But that's replacement level 2- age out 2- come in. Zero growth. They need new young people and new young adults. To do that you have to pander to their budgets.. not my budget. I am not the metric. I am not the primary and should not be the primary income/cost balance point. It is a bad idea.
Judging by the posts here, most people are young and on a limited budget but they WANT to spend money on this hobby and GW is pissing away all that good will with the Trash Models (which everyone usually buys because they are always the most prominent and cheap boxes.. Tactical Marines for example) and price hikes that make it ever harder for the majority of players to both buy in and to ENJOY the hobby.
Oh well. We will see where it goes.
I am probably young in your classification but i also started early.
But yeah the budget thing is an important sidenote, however GW^s financially perfectly fine if they go whaling for a lack off better term if you are familiar with the Videogames industry.
It does indeed seem to be a sort of Whaling. I just don't think its a good long term strategy. I am still haunted perhaps by watching the model train industry implode since that is what I was into before wargamming.
Andykp wrote: Most of the cool,aunts here to me are about players attitudes not the rules them selves. They are open and open to possible abuse. Just because you can doesn’t mean you should.
If you have teenagers playing pick up games with what they have then a more veteran player could basically GM the game to balance it for them. We did this with my mates cousin who had buts and bats from marine armies. He played my mate and set up the terrain limited my mates choices so it was a a challenging fun game. It would have been different experience if he had come up against Army on a flat board. As it was he didn’t, he lost but that was down to some dice rolls not game balance but best of all he had fun and enjoyed the narrative.
I would rather have an open rule set where you can do this work your self and make the game work for any situation than have a dull game with no character that’s balanced and competetive.
Right, because there is absolutely no level of balance good enough for casual pickup games that allow a game to have character...
its funny how often tournament players are talking about wanting the game a little more balanced so casual players can enjoy pickup games only for 'casuals' to come in and ferociously defend their need to house rule the game for it to be playable.
Every single balance discussion it happens eventually.
Sure there is.
Take an index army built up off of what the "core" models (cheaper boxes) are. No matter what race you pick it will "mostly" work out. Maybe not on a one off battle but over time the average will balance out. Be it ork boys, necron warriors, eldar guardians, or space marine tactical squads. I used to say use the start collecting boxes but those started doing some strange things as time went on. But basically that is where new players will start.
Points for points a Start Collecting won't hold up against an army made with more expensive boxes. As it turns out the game isn't balanced on points.. it's balanced on price. The more expensive boxes tend to be better performers (not always but that is usually an error on GWs part).. as someone pointed out earlier the flyer spam from the Index as an example of lack of balance but dollar for dollar that flyer army was likely twice the dollar cost of the opposition despite being the same points.
Take those starter battle boxes and they tend to be relatively fun and balanced to pick up and play. Things start going off the rails as you start throwing in the 80 bucks for 3 models type units... and those 150 buck single models (knights, eldar or otherwise, superheavies, etc) can really punch above their points level but match for punch vs DOLLAR.
Which is probably where people found root for the pay to win commentary in regard to 40k. The more costly boxed sets performed better point for point vs the cheaper "standard" units (troops usually).
Andykp wrote: I would rather have an open rule set where you can do this work your self and make the game work for any situation than have a dull game with no character that’s balanced and competetive.
Or alternatively start with a more balanced game that you can choose to unbalance if you want.
I don't get this 'balanced equals dull'. If I play a balanced(ish) game and am winning or losing it's probably because of the choices I am making, whereas kicking someone's ass by pushing my overpowered army up the table with a croupier stick is no fun at all, for me or my opponent.
Suzuteo wrote: You can't copyright rules. (Well, unless you are Tetris.)
Tell that to GW, that was an excerpt from one of their cease and desist letters to a website hosting GW rules.
Because this thread is about why the competive scene is getting so much hate. And at the minute it’s because the vocal minority of competitive players on the Internet call for measure that would balance the game but make it very dull. Restricting choices, detachments, stripping away special rules, banning mixed armies, streamlining away the character of units and armies. If people could find balance measures that didn’t do that I’d be ok with it.
You can balance pick up games very easily without changing the rules at all, one, don’t force the games to use match play and tournament rules. Like rule of 3, and points. Use power level and random missions. Two, don’t be a jerk. Talk to each other. Play for fun. Make up a story about your armies and the battle, who are they, why is it happening. Easy. Fun pick up game where ORKS can have a fun battle against iron hands or who ever.
Andykp wrote: And at the minute it’s because the vocal minority of competitive players on the Internet call for measure that would balance the game but make it very dull. Restricting choices, detachments, stripping away special rules, banning mixed armies, streamlining away the character of units and armies.
The most games and most opponents / new player i've had while playing 40k was during the earlier part of 5th edition.
Lists were heavily restricted - more than three long ranged heavy weapon units in a list were uncommon, similarly fast first strike units, allies were almost non-existent, the majority of special rules were shared from a small common pool, playing something like an Iyanden army meant taking more wraithguard rather than getting arbitrary bonuses, psychic powers were mundane, rerolls were uncommon, and there were no freebies.
It wasn't dull.
At least not at first, the edition suffered from power creep and by the end of it the game was much like it is today - increasingly unbalanced armies that could faceroll over the lesser factions, where decisions made during the game become increasingly less relevant to its outcome.
Andykp wrote: You can balance pick up games very easily without changing the rules at all, one, don’t force the games to use match play and tournament rules. Like rule of 3, and points. Use power level and random missions. Two, don’t be a jerk. Talk to each other. Play for fun. Make up a story about your armies and the battle, who are they, why is it happening. Easy. Fun pick up game where ORKS can have a fun battle against iron hands or who ever.
You could do all of these things with a better balanced game.
Andykp wrote: I would rather have an open rule set where you can do this work your self and make the game work for any situation than have a dull game with no character that’s balanced and competetive.
Or alternatively start with a more balanced game that you can choose to unbalance if you want.
I don't get this 'balanced equals dull'. If I play a balanced(ish) game and am winning or losing it's probably because of the choices I am making, whereas kicking someone's ass by pushing my overpowered army up the table with a croupier stick is no fun at all, for me or my opponent.
Suzuteo wrote: You can't copyright rules. (Well, unless you are Tetris.)
Tell that to GW, that was an excerpt from one of their cease and desist letters to a website hosting GW rules.
Because this thread is about why the competive scene is getting so much hate. And at the minute it’s because the vocal minority of competitive players on the Internet call for measure that would balance the game but make it very dull. Restricting choices, detachments, stripping away special rules, banning mixed armies, streamlining away the character of units and armies. If people could find balance measures that didn’t do that I’d be ok with it.
Restrictions are a key part of balance and creativity. The current trend towards essentially unrestricted army selection is one of the key things that makes games unbalanced because it removes the template that previously existed that at least somewhat forced the creation of balanced armies. Now we see lists of 6+ flyers and, befor ethe rule of 3, 9 Plagueburst Crawlers or 7 Flyrants simply because there are absolutely no meaningful restrictions on army selection. The idea that the game would become dull and lacking in character if we went back to the old Force Org Chart, for example, is laughable. We had that from 3rd through to midway through 7th and the game seemed characterful enough to me. Similarly, my 3rd edition Blood Angels had one army-wide special rule, one special unit and a special rule for their Rhino-chassis vehicles, along with a simple Force Org slot switch for Assault Marines and they were plenty characterful and massively different from the Dark Angels or Salamanders lists I played against back then. That's fewer special rules than a basic Iron Hands detachment gets from all its layered Doctrine, Chapter Tactic rules etc but it can still be effective. Seems to me like a very GW approach to games design to think that special rules = character. That's what's led us to this situation in the first place, where every army needs half a dozen special rules, on top of the unit special rules that are everywhere.
You can balance pick up games very easily without changing the rules at all, one, don’t force the games to use match play and tournament rules. Like rule of 3, and points. Use power level and random missions. Two, don’t be a jerk. Talk to each other. Play for fun. Make up a story about your armies and the battle, who are they, why is it happening. Easy. Fun pick up game where ORKS can have a fun battle against iron hands or who ever.
Again, the problem with that is it means different things to different people and there's no way to easily communicate "don't be a jerk" to a disparate gaming group. Among a group of 4-6 people who play each other regularly it's definitely achievable but if you have a larger group, especially one that's regularly taking in new players all your unwritten rules do is confuse and turn away players. The current state of balance means you're losing these players befor ethey get the experience to be able to self-balance (if that's even what they want to do). I'm constantly baffled by the attitude that we should do GW's job for them and balance the game ourselves. If a new player shows up with his Necron army and plays against someone using the new Space Marine Codex he shouldn't feel like he's playing a completely different game to his opponent. He shouldn't be left wondering why all his stuff seems so much worse than his opponent's and he shouldn't have to ask his opponent to significantly nerf his army just so he can get a close game. In fact, I would argue, somebody playing Iron Hands characterfully could argue their just playing to the theme of their army and it's not their fault GW is so bad at balancing the game it leads to blow-outs in 2 turns. That also means no amount of random missions will help - having nothing left on the board from turn 2 is a bad play experience regardless of mission parameters. Power Levels potentially make the problem even worse. In the case of Necrons they get no options for their units, but Space Marines can easily take much more powerful stuff for the same cost because it's not accounted for iin the PL system. this isn't even the SM player being a jerk, it's just one more example of how we shouldn't have to be negotiating every aspect of a game beforehand because GW is sometimes spectactularly incompetent when it comes to balance.
It's telling that GW games seem to be the only ones that have this problem. Other wargames I play or have experience of don't involve any pre-game negotiation and they don't really lack for character or fun.
It does indeed seem to be a sort of Whaling. I just don't think its a good long term strategy. I am still haunted perhaps by watching the model train industry implode since that is what I was into before wargamming.
It isn't, it's a bubble chasing based concept.
And me personally they have mostly priced out.
Unrestricted list building with no restrictions is a major reason why the games are horrible in terms of balance and why min/maxing is so easy.
GW games are the only games to my knowledge that have unrestricted list building. Every other wargame I have ever played has had restrictions for a good reason.
Andykp wrote: I would rather have an open rule set where you can do this work your self and make the game work for any situation than have a dull game with no character that’s balanced and competetive.
Or alternatively start with a more balanced game that you can choose to unbalance if you want.
I don't get this 'balanced equals dull'. If I play a balanced(ish) game and am winning or losing it's probably because of the choices I am making, whereas kicking someone's ass by pushing my overpowered army up the table with a croupier stick is no fun at all, for me or my opponent.
Suzuteo wrote: You can't copyright rules. (Well, unless you are Tetris.)
Tell that to GW, that was an excerpt from one of their cease and desist letters to a website hosting GW rules.
Because this thread is about why the competive scene is getting so much hate. And at the minute it’s because the vocal minority of competitive players on the Internet call for measure that would balance the game but make it very dull. Restricting choices, detachments, stripping away special rules, banning mixed armies, streamlining away the character of units and armies. If people could find balance measures that didn’t do that I’d be ok with it.
You can balance pick up games very easily without changing the rules at all, one, don’t force the games to use match play and tournament rules. Like rule of 3, and points. Use power level and random missions. Two, don’t be a jerk. Talk to each other. Play for fun. Make up a story about your armies and the battle, who are they, why is it happening. Easy. Fun pick up game where ORKS can have a fun battle against iron hands or who ever.
One thing that I totally support is having different systems for competitive play and casual play, as 40k does. If you want to play with power level instead of points, no rule of three and so on, then the game absolutely supports that. Go ahead - open play is every bit as "official" as matched play. If other people want to use all those things, then that’s also fine surely, isn’t it? It’s their game, not yours. None of us own what other people do.
And so where competitive players are talking about wanting restrictions, that should explicitly be for matched play and not casual play. In casual play, the best balancing method is a pre-game conversation between the players. No rules writer can come up with a better system than you can through talking to your fellow gamers.
But that doesn’t work for all situations. It kind of requires that you know each other and have some history of playing, to figure out how to balance things going forward. And so those of us playing pick up games or tournaments require a different system to balance our games against opponents we’ve never met before. It can’t really be as good as what you can manage over time, but it has to do as well as it can.
I’d like to understand more about how attempts to balance the game make things worse for casual players. The most recent example is probably the Iron Hands codex, which got a pretty major (and in my opinion entirely warranted) power reduction yesterday. Are you saying that a change such as reducing the effect of the Ironstone is less fun, and if so, how? Or am I getting the wrong end of the stick here?
auticus wrote: Unrestricted list building with no restrictions is a major reason why the games are horrible in terms of balance and why min/maxing is so easy.
GW games are the only games to my knowledge that have unrestricted list building. Every other wargame I have ever played has had restrictions for a good reason.
IDK, I play a lot of game systems and AOS is among the more restrictive feeling. I suppose the Ally allotment feels pretty open but there's so little incentive to use it I barely consider it part of the rules. Most of the time if something is strong enough to play as an ally, you're probably just better off playing that army instead.
40k is an odd one. It seems unrestricted but its really fairly limited. There are endless choices, but GW has spent so many years repacking the same models with a literal new coat of paint that within keyword there's a ton of redundancy. As it stands now I think about half or more of the "armies" in 40k are about as significantly different factions as the subthemes most other games collect under one banner. I find the current system rather restrictive as well, but mostly because its overloaded with false options. It lets you do a lot of things it will then happily punish you for.
auticus wrote: Unrestricted list building with no restrictions is a major reason why the games are horrible in terms of balance and why min/maxing is so easy.
GW games are the only games to my knowledge that have unrestricted list building. Every other wargame I have ever played has had restrictions for a good reason.
IDK, I play a lot of game systems and AOS is among the more restrictive feeling. I suppose the Ally allotment feels pretty open but there's so little incentive to use it I barely consider it part of the rules. Most of the time if something is strong enough to play as an ally, you're probably just better off playing that army instead.
40k is an odd one. It seems unrestricted but its really fairly limited. There are endless choices, but GW has spent so many years repacking the same models with a literal new coat of paint that within keyword there's a ton of redundancy. As it stands now I think about half or more of the "armies" in 40k are about as significantly different factions as the subthemes most other games collect under one banner. I find the current system rather restrictive as well, but mostly because its overloaded with false options. It lets you do a lot of things it will then happily punish you for.
I don't think that's the sort of restrictions people are referring to. Restrictions in this sense is to do with what you're allowed to take according to the army selection rules. In that sense 40k basically has no restrictions at all. What you're describing is more of a balance/bloat issue where GW haven't balanced properly, resulting in a lot of choices being bad. If, for example, all your Heavy Support choices are terrible, that's a separate problem to being able to take 18 of them in the first place.
Yeah, I get it. 40k's restrictions are based on incentives (and a lack thereof). It's a system trying very hard to say "well, yes.... but actually... no".
I personally think the detachment system is brilliant, but half baked. I'd love to see it reworked, because there's so many good ideas in it that have sadly mostly been dropped in favor of making battalions the only real option.
IDK, I play a lot of game systems and AOS is among the more restrictive feeling.
I really really don't see how this could be true. You can take pretty much whatever you want in AOS, and then they have their "battleline" which would be great until they start slotting elite units as battleline as well.
The 8 steam tank "army" that Ben Johnson was touting on twitter was the straw that broke my back.
We may be talking about two different things which fair enough.
Andykp wrote: I would rather have an open rule set where you can do this work your self and make the game work for any situation than have a dull game with no character that’s balanced and competetive.
Or alternatively start with a more balanced game that you can choose to unbalance if you want.
I don't get this 'balanced equals dull'. If I play a balanced(ish) game and am winning or losing it's probably because of the choices I am making, whereas kicking someone's ass by pushing my overpowered army up the table with a croupier stick is no fun at all, for me or my opponent.
Suzuteo wrote: You can't copyright rules. (Well, unless you are Tetris.)
Tell that to GW, that was an excerpt from one of their cease and desist letters to a website hosting GW rules.
Because this thread is about why the competive scene is getting so much hate. And at the minute it’s because the vocal minority of competitive players on the Internet call for measure that would balance the game but make it very dull. Restricting choices, detachments, stripping away special rules, banning mixed armies, streamlining away the character of units and armies. If people could find balance measures that didn’t do that I’d be ok with it.
You can balance pick up games very easily without changing the rules at all, one, don’t force the games to use match play and tournament rules. Like rule of 3, and points. Use power level and random missions. Two, don’t be a jerk. Talk to each other. Play for fun. Make up a story about your armies and the battle, who are they, why is it happening. Easy. Fun pick up game where ORKS can have a fun battle against iron hands or who ever.
One thing that I totally support is having different systems for competitive play and casual play, as 40k does. If you want to play with power level instead of points, no rule of three and so on, then the game absolutely supports that. Go ahead - open play is every bit as "official" as matched play. If other people want to use all those things, then that’s also fine surely, isn’t it? It’s their game, not yours. None of us own what other people do.
And so where competitive players are talking about wanting restrictions, that should explicitly be for matched play and not casual play. In casual play, the best balancing method is a pre-game conversation between the players. No rules writer can come up with a better system than you can through talking to your fellow gamers.
But that doesn’t work for all situations. It kind of requires that you know each other and have some history of playing, to figure out how to balance things going forward. And so those of us playing pick up games or tournaments require a different system to balance our games against opponents we’ve never met before. It can’t really be as good as what you can manage over time, but it has to do as well as it can.
I’d like to understand more about how attempts to balance the game make things worse for casual players. The most recent example is probably the Iron Hands codex, which got a pretty major (and in my opinion entirely warranted) power reduction yesterday. Are you saying that a change such as reducing the effect of the Ironstone is less fun, and if so, how? Or am I getting the wrong end of the stick here?
I like the system as it is now too, with open plays and match play, but the issue is when match play becomes the standard. Which it has apparently. All the comments above yours talked of good times of restriction and balance in 3rd and early 5th edition. To me they were the dullest least enjoyable times in the game. Third killed my interest and it didn’t pick up again until 6th. 2nd on the other hand with all its crazy rules and colour and fun was the golden time to me. Yes it was open to abuse but that comes back to not being a jerk. Someone mentioned how 7 flying tyrants or loads of plague crawlers were common Pre rule of 3. It doesn’t take much self awareness to know that bringing that list to a pick up game is being a jerk.
In response to you wanting to know more about how balance makes more dullness, it doesn’t by definition. I don’t know much about the iron hands update as it doesn’t interest me but it sounds like a good move across the board for match and casual play. The problem comes when you get suggestions like banning mixed faction armies, or only having one detachment. Some balance solutions have no effect on character. But tailoring the game entirely to match play and making the only way to do it or the default makes the game dull as I don’t enjoy match play. I enjoy narrative play with quirky rules and missions. That are inherently unbalanced at times but that’s the fun to me.
So balance isn’t the issue, balance at any cost is. Other than that agree with u. Talk to people.
If you want a truly balanced competitive game of 40k then I have suggested many times and can see no argument against it, GW make a tournament edition. Separate From the main game. With stripped down riles and stats. No options for units, just they do x attack shooting and y in combat. Do away with wound rolls etc. Speed it all up and make list building quick and effective. My idea would be based on epic 40000 that had a similar mechanic but I hear apocalypse has many features competitive players like, not played it yet myself. That way match play could become pick up play and chill out a bit, open and narrative (the same to me) stay as they are everyone is happy. No one buys new armies, just one new expansion, maybe a 59 box of rules and tokens for tourney play. Bingo. Happy days.
X-wing has been doing a fairly good job of trying to balance competitive play and the variety of builds have been quite fun, I dare say even characterful.
I am naive enough to believe that 40k can be balanced if the business is willing to do so, the problem is they may not admit to it but their best marketing tool is to rejig the rules to sell product "the new hotness".
I think part of the problem is simply that the playerbase doesn't have very realistic expectations of what balance looks like for the game the size of 40k. GW seems honestly invested in it and overall they're doing a solid job, but the rules themselves don't provide real variety of win conditions or strategy to create the design space necessary for the volume of units that exist. The fact is there's dozens of models all vying for the same role of "does damage/doesn't die first" and even if everyone was equally good at that job, you wouldn't see that result in the kind of "balance" people expect.
I've played a lot of games competitively and they all narrow things down quickly. They all need constant changes to keep up with the playerbase, and the playerbase always tears apart whatever fixes are put in place within hours. Far better designers have tried and failed to create the kind of sustained balance people envision and none of held up in the wild.
Honestly, in terms of faction representation and build diversity, the last 6 months has seen 40k pan out as one of the most competitively diverse meta environments I've ever seen. It's just never good enough. Understanding that and understanding what aspects of it you have control over are the only real options; not just for GW games, but competitive gaming as a genre.
Andykp wrote: I would rather have an open rule set where you can do this work your self and make the game work for any situation than have a dull game with no character that’s balanced and competetive.
Or alternatively start with a more balanced game that you can choose to unbalance if you want.
I don't get this 'balanced equals dull'. If I play a balanced(ish) game and am winning or losing it's probably because of the choices I am making, whereas kicking someone's ass by pushing my overpowered army up the table with a croupier stick is no fun at all, for me or my opponent.
Suzuteo wrote: You can't copyright rules. (Well, unless you are Tetris.)
Tell that to GW, that was an excerpt from one of their cease and desist letters to a website hosting GW rules.
Because this thread is about why the competive scene is getting so much hate. And at the minute it’s because the vocal minority of competitive players on the Internet call for measure that would balance the game but make it very dull. Restricting choices, detachments, stripping away special rules, banning mixed armies, streamlining away the character of units and armies. If people could find balance measures that didn’t do that I’d be ok with it.
You can balance pick up games very easily without changing the rules at all, one, don’t force the games to use match play and tournament rules. Like rule of 3, and points. Use power level and random missions. Two, don’t be a jerk. Talk to each other. Play for fun. Make up a story about your armies and the battle, who are they, why is it happening. Easy. Fun pick up game where ORKS can have a fun battle against iron hands or who ever.
One thing that I totally support is having different systems for competitive play and casual play, as 40k does. If you want to play with power level instead of points, no rule of three and so on, then the game absolutely supports that. Go ahead - open play is every bit as "official" as matched play. If other people want to use all those things, then that’s also fine surely, isn’t it? It’s their game, not yours. None of us own what other people do.
And so where competitive players are talking about wanting restrictions, that should explicitly be for matched play and not casual play. In casual play, the best balancing method is a pre-game conversation between the players. No rules writer can come up with a better system than you can through talking to your fellow gamers.
But that doesn’t work for all situations. It kind of requires that you know each other and have some history of playing, to figure out how to balance things going forward. And so those of us playing pick up games or tournaments require a different system to balance our games against opponents we’ve never met before. It can’t really be as good as what you can manage over time, but it has to do as well as it can.
I’d like to understand more about how attempts to balance the game make things worse for casual players. The most recent example is probably the Iron Hands codex, which got a pretty major (and in my opinion entirely warranted) power reduction yesterday. Are you saying that a change such as reducing the effect of the Ironstone is less fun, and if so, how? Or am I getting the wrong end of the stick here?
I like the system as it is now too, with open plays and match play, but the issue is when match play becomes the standard. Which it has apparently. All the comments above yours talked of good times of restriction and balance in 3rd and early 5th edition. To me they were the dullest least enjoyable times in the game. Third killed my interest and it didn’t pick up again until 6th. 2nd on the other hand with all its crazy rules and colour and fun was the golden time to me. Yes it was open to abuse but that comes back to not being a jerk. Someone mentioned how 7 flying tyrants or loads of plague crawlers were common Pre rule of 3. It doesn’t take much self awareness to know that bringing that list to a pick up game is being a jerk.
In response to you wanting to know more about how balance makes more dullness, it doesn’t by definition. I don’t know much about the iron hands update as it doesn’t interest me but it sounds like a good move across the board for match and casual play. The problem comes when you get suggestions like banning mixed faction armies, or only having one detachment. Some balance solutions have no effect on character. But tailoring the game entirely to match play and making the only way to do it or the default makes the game dull as I don’t enjoy match play. I enjoy narrative play with quirky rules and missions. That are inherently unbalanced at times but that’s the fun to me.
So balance isn’t the issue, balance at any cost is. Other than that agree with u. Talk to people.
If you want a truly balanced competitive game of 40k then I have suggested many times and can see no argument against it, GW make a tournament edition. Separate From the main game. With stripped down riles and stats. No options for units, just they do x attack shooting and y in combat. Do away with wound rolls etc. Speed it all up and make list building quick and effective. My idea would be based on epic 40000 that had a similar mechanic but I hear apocalypse has many features competitive players like, not played it yet myself. That way match play could become pick up play and chill out a bit, open and narrative (the same to me) stay as they are everyone is happy. No one buys new armies, just one new expansion, maybe a 59 box of rules and tokens for tourney play. Bingo. Happy days.
Thanks for a constructive reply. I can certainly appreciate that you'd be frustrated by matched play becoming the standard, if that's not how you want to play.
I can see a case for using matched play between players who don't know each other, at least at first. It's good to have a baseline situation to work from. Then you can talk to each other and discuss how you'd like to play in future.
Your proposal for a "tournament standard" set of rules is interesting. I don't necessarily like all your suggestions but the central point - trying to create a balanced game for people who want it - makes sense. My only concern would be that it might overtake matched play to become the unofficial standard format, restricting you even further.
LunarSol wrote: I think part of the problem is simply that the playerbase doesn't have very realistic expectations of what balance looks like for the game the size of 40k. GW seems honestly invested in it and overall they're doing a solid job, but the rules themselves don't provide real variety of win conditions or strategy to create the design space necessary for the volume of units that exist. The fact is there's dozens of models all vying for the same role of "does damage/doesn't die first" and even if everyone was equally good at that job, you wouldn't see that result in the kind of "balance" people expect.
I've played a lot of games competitively and they all narrow things down quickly. They all need constant changes to keep up with the playerbase, and the playerbase always tears apart whatever fixes are put in place within hours. Far better designers have tried and failed to create the kind of sustained balance people envision and none of held up in the wild.
Honestly, in terms of faction representation and build diversity, the last 6 months has seen 40k pan out as one of the most competitively diverse meta environments I've ever seen. It's just never good enough. Understanding that and understanding what aspects of it you have control over are the only real options; not just for GW games, but competitive gaming as a genre.
Well yes. And also, no.
There are some kinds of imbalance that are sort of ok. It's ok for an Iron Hands repulsor to be better than an Ultramarines repulsor, because Iron Hands are supposed to be about tanks and Ultramarines have their own strengths that they can play to (at least in theory).
But there are a whole load of units in 40k that simply don't work at all. Howling Banshees are a good example because GW is currently trying to sell us all boxes of them. They are a melee unit that is unable to get across the board and that can't really kill much when it gets there. These kinds of units are so bad that you question whether you'd be better off not taking them at all, rather than give up VPs every game when they inevitably die.
Part of the problem, as I understand it, is that the models drive everything - not the rules. Rules writers have to write for the models they're given. So you get given Howling Banshees, but no model for a cheap transport that would provide an efficient way of getting them into combat - plus they're obviously not equipped to take on tanks. As a writer, there's only so much you can really do in that situation.
But the writers still aren't blameless. Rules seem to keep coming out, like say the pre-nerf Ironstone or the new Salamanders self sacrifice stratagem, that indicate GW simply isn't paying attention.
It may not be possible to achieve perfect balance. But you can look like you're trying.
But there are a whole load of units in 40k that simply don't work at all. Howling Banshees are a good example because GW is currently trying to sell us all boxes of them. They are a melee unit that is unable to get across the board and that can't really kill much when it gets there. These kinds of units are so bad that you question whether you'd be better off not taking them at all, rather than give up VPs every game when they inevitably die.
The biggest problem with games that don't retire options is that the amount of models the developers can actually pay attention to is finite. As the catalog grows, the list of models that get ignored grows along with it. It's not a straight loss, since looking at old models means working with a baseline, but stuff definitely gets left behind. This is doubly true as stuff gets added that isn't really core to a faction's playstyle. As the game grows, the number of things that just didn't work out and can't really fit into the modern design ethos without a major overhaul keeps growing. As long as players want more stuff and are unwilling to let old stuff go, some things just aren't going to get the time needed to find their place in the game.
But there are a whole load of units in 40k that simply don't work at all. Howling Banshees are a good example because GW is currently trying to sell us all boxes of them. They are a melee unit that is unable to get across the board and that can't really kill much when it gets there. These kinds of units are so bad that you question whether you'd be better off not taking them at all, rather than give up VPs every game when they inevitably die.
The biggest problem with games that don't retire options is that the amount of models the developers can actually pay attention to is finite. As the catalog grows, the list of models that get ignored grows along with it. It's not a straight loss, since looking at old models means working with a baseline, but stuff definitely gets left behind. This is doubly true as stuff gets added that isn't really core to a faction's playstyle. As the game grows, the number of things that just didn't work out and can't really fit into the modern design ethos without a major overhaul keeps growing. As long as players want more stuff and are unwilling to let old stuff go, some things just aren't going to get the time needed to find their place in the game.
I have to give AoS a lot of credit for culling stuff like they have for this reason alone. The creation of Legends and the retirement of models into that book is also a step in the right direction as well.
But there are a whole load of units in 40k that simply don't work at all. Howling Banshees are a good example because GW is currently trying to sell us all boxes of them. They are a melee unit that is unable to get across the board and that can't really kill much when it gets there. These kinds of units are so bad that you question whether you'd be better off not taking them at all, rather than give up VPs every game when they inevitably die.
The biggest problem with games that don't retire options is that the amount of models the developers can actually pay attention to is finite. As the catalog grows, the list of models that get ignored grows along with it. It's not a straight loss, since looking at old models means working with a baseline, but stuff definitely gets left behind. This is doubly true as stuff gets added that isn't really core to a faction's playstyle. As the game grows, the number of things that just didn't work out and can't really fit into the modern design ethos without a major overhaul keeps growing. As long as players want more stuff and are unwilling to let old stuff go, some things just aren't going to get the time needed to find their place in the game.
I have to give AoS a lot of credit for culling stuff like they have for this reason alone. The creation of Legends and the retirement of models into that book is also a step in the right direction as well.
I don't agree.
Legends is IP madness.
All GW/Citadel models should be represented under standard rules.
That is a space marine captain.
He can take a W
He can add a wound for p, then call him a Z.
He can ... abc.
Developers assign points to that stuff, mostly the same but for stuff like this -
shuriken gun 3 (rending, make some situational rule so if the sneaky eldar outsmart the monkeys, then the monkeys get flayed) (pricey but eldar are running out of stuff, cuz eldar)
bolter 1 (this is basically a point as a standard measure is an inch)
shoota -1 (yes, the dumb ork loses an extra attack in h2h, so, cheaper ork)
This can end up with an ork being base shoota, pay for extra h2h weapon.
Eldar troops are base 8.
Guard base 5 (get some ranked riflemen advantage in certain situations, a bit more common than the eldar special rule but also less deadly)
Ork base 4 with a shoota.
Anyone can pay 1 point to drop their main gun and get an extra h2h.
Eldar get a mini-power sword with that swap.
Back when initiative was a thing... well.
Many handles to balance by.
Marines Orks Necrons Chaos - Rock
Eldar Nids Chaos GSC - Scissors
Inq/Imp/SoB Chaos Guard Squats - Paper
This can change, but...
no need for every monopose easy to assemble 28mm model made of plastic
that costs the same as lunch for a week if you are careful
to have its own special rules, now... is there?
Points just don't work out like that. A power sword's value varies greatly based on the stats of its wielder. The value of a wielder's stats varies greatly based on its equipment.
You CAN just assign points and do it that way, but some combinations are more efficient than others (almost always things that don't pay for stats they don't use, like a WS 6+ BS 2+ Heavy Weapons guy). The end result is a ton of "bad" choices and people upset that their points aren't balanced.
LunarSol wrote: Points just don't work out like that. A power sword's value varies greatly based on the stats of its wielder. The value of a wielder's stats varies greatly based on its equipment.
You CAN just assign points and do it that way, but some combinations are more efficient than others (almost always things that don't pay for stats they don't use, like a WS 6+ BS 2+ Heavy Weapons guy). The end result is a ton of "bad" choices and people upset that their points aren't balanced.
that is why the eldar get one for the point upgrade in my little sketch above, exactly to that point.
i see that there are bad choices, and some uber-optimals, and this drives the so-called meta that people chase,
which is apparently a hobby.
my point is simply that - as most all units have access to most all the same tech (looks diff, does basically same things)
then the game is less gimicky, less ponderous, and can afford greater realism, more actual hobby,
a greater emphasis on background and environmental interactions,
a finer turn structure with alternating activations,
and all of this in less time than with 3d3 unless 6s, and comboed with the buffmander 6+ bonus cuz command points 3 inches bubble that saves the world, in which case 4d7 ridick special rules on ever other thing, wait for the rerolls on the rerolls, and so on.
It does indeed seem to be a sort of Whaling. I just don't think its a good long term strategy. I am still haunted perhaps by watching the model train industry implode since that is what I was into before wargamming.
It isn't, it's a bubble chasing based concept.
And me personally they have mostly priced out.
Which is horrible. They should not be pricing people out of the market. It's insanity. The 230 buck eldar box set is an example. What a freaking bubble. Cost per unit in production has come way down. Use of 3D and digital sculpting tools has decreased development time for models to less than a quarter of what it used to both cost and in time.
So the only costs that are really rising these days are TAXES and LABOR. The newer production method is extremely labor saving. So why the price hikes? It's called a near monopoly. there is GW and then everything else. Nothing else comes close to the scale and size of GWs market share.
They should not PRICE their own market out of itself. It's stupid. But then again corps seem to be struck by a mass stupidity in this era.
As for the balance argument....
I challenge you. Next game here is your army list:
2 FULL Troops Choices.- infantry only allowed (AKA no scatpacks or bikes as troops or elites as troops, etc or other nonsense). You may add a transport for them.
1 Heavy Support (full size or otherwise)
1 Elite
1 Fast Attack (for you eldar players here is where your scatpacks go, they never belonged in troops).
2 HQ. -no named characters-
Now take ANY army from any current codex and give it a go and tell me how it plays out. What I presented is considered the "Classical" GW army. This design goes back to RT days (before we actually had the type designations). I am willing to be every single army will be balanced no matter what you put in those slots from the choices available for that slot. You need to play about 10 games to get a feel, but give it a go. Classic GW. No points needed. Fill those slots as you see fit according to the codex. I don't think GW balances at all outside of that model.
Generally the above can be modified as follows and should still be fun to play:
2 or 3 heavy support choices, but one or no (2or3 depending) elites or fast attack (This will be a punch army not a mobility one)
2 or 3 Elites (same as above)- Elite Army
2 or 3 Fast Attack (same as above)- Mobility Army
Tbf i got mostly priced out aswell as the fact my favourite faction got ooped.
Most likely due to not selling good enough.
However gw considered an upgrade sprue for 12£ ontop of 25£ cadians great value for a army based on infantry that also is generally 3-4 pts.
So i could choose between kitbashing out of GW or GI to anvil.
Anvil was cheaper and had higher quality and gave me all the options i wanted.
LunarSol wrote: Points just don't work out like that. A power sword's value varies greatly based on the stats of its wielder. The value of a wielder's stats varies greatly based on its equipment.
You can take that into account with costing. Just modify the cost of the weapon based on the relevant stats of the wielder.
It means you need a spreadsheet to determine costs, rather than mental math in the back of the book, but that isn't necessarily a dealbreaker- I've played some great games, like Squadron Strike, that provided said spreadsheet as free downloadable software. Plug in your desired stats and equipment and it spits out a points cost.
The problem is that this requires that there is some underlying logic to how points are calculated, rather than costs being arbitrarily assigned on a per-unit basis.
LunarSol wrote: Points just don't work out like that. A power sword's value varies greatly based on the stats of its wielder. The value of a wielder's stats varies greatly based on its equipment.
You can take that into account with costing. Just modify the cost of the weapon based on the relevant stats of the wielder.
It means you need a spreadsheet to determine costs, rather than mental math in the back of the book, but that isn't necessarily a dealbreaker- I've played some great games, like Squadron Strike, that provided said spreadsheet as free downloadable software. Plug in your desired stats and equipment and it spits out a points cost.
The problem is that this requires that there is some underlying logic to how points are calculated, rather than costs being arbitrarily assigned on a per-unit basis.
Which is why I pointed out that I don't think that points are anything other than arbitrary at this stage. Most points are based of older points, where were based off older points, and so on. Back a long time ago points actually seemed to make more sense.
As I said, try some battles as posted above. Full squads (no MSU). That is pretty much "how the game was intended to play". Which is why PL actually makes MORE sense when you play enough PL games you start to see it. The game was designed around and only balanced (play testing) on the "classic concept" of 40k that goes way back when most people fielded armies with 20 mostly troops and very few elite/heavy/fast attack. It's been so long that in most folks memory they don't recall that. But to think the game is balanced any differently today is wrong. It isn't .. now with the FAQs and stuff they are trying it is all "after effect" rather than "intended design".. a better term would be GWsFAQ method to move towards balance is REACTIONARY rather than PROACTIVE.
Try some "classic" battles with different options and armies and you might find they are pretty balanced.. not perfectly. But the game will "play as intended".
No special characters. No MSU. No troop-scatbikes, not swapping elites into troops. Just straight up troops with some specialized support.
Of course.. not a single tournament player plays that way. Hasn't for decades. What I am referring to goes back two decades. More than most people remember these days as you can't seem to get them to remember clearly what one politician or another did just four years ago, let alone two decades..
Not to say that things like Deathwing and Ravenwing.. or Full Black Rage.. etc were not a thing. They were "very special" and not always effective. They didn't throw special rules around like candy so all the basic units and armies could fight on a more simple playingfield without the insanity we deal with today. It wasn't boring then, it isn't now... but being able to bend the rules till the scream to get at 2+/3++/2+FNP and similar just wasn't something you ran into at every tournament... esp since most of those are "special characters" which until about.. what a decade ago?.. were outright banned from official tournament use.
They should not PRICE their own market out of itself. It's stupid. But then again corps seem to be struck by a mass stupidity in this era.
As for the balance argument....
I challenge you. Next game here is your army list:
2 FULL Troops Choices.- infantry only allowed (AKA no scatpacks or bikes as troops or elites as troops, etc or other nonsense). You may add a transport for them.
1 Heavy Support (full size or otherwise)
1 Elite
1 Fast Attack (for you eldar players here is where your scatpacks go, they never belonged in troops).
2 HQ. -no named characters-
Now take ANY army from any current codex and give it a go and tell me how it plays out. What I presented is considered the "Classical" GW army. This design goes back to RT days (before we actually had the type designations). I am willing to be every single army will be balanced no matter what you put in those slots from the choices available for that slot. You need to play about 10 games to get a feel, but give it a go. Classic GW. No points needed. Fill those slots as you see fit according to the codex. I don't think GW balances at all outside of that model.
I like everything that you are saying here.
But I also like the wysiwyg points granularity.
I mean, a close game between 1250 and 1400
means a few more lascannons next time.
I got some new cases.
Battlefoam summer sale.
I think that I will split all of my armies
into sections as you describe above,
roughly 1250pts each.
The most fun i had sofar in 8th is around 1000pts.
Big enough to field substantial units if you want. Small enough to not get ludicrous out of hand.
Fast enough to get 1-2 games in.
It does indeed seem to be a sort of Whaling. I just don't think its a good long term strategy. I am still haunted perhaps by watching the model train industry implode since that is what I was into before wargamming.
It isn't, it's a bubble chasing based concept.
And me personally they have mostly priced out.
Which is horrible. They should not be pricing people out of the market. It's insanity. The 230 buck eldar box set is an example. What a freaking bubble. Cost per unit in production has come way down. Use of 3D and digital sculpting tools has decreased development time for models to less than a quarter of what it used to both cost and in time.
So the only costs that are really rising these days are TAXES and LABOR. The newer production method is extremely labor saving. So why the price hikes? It's called a near monopoly. there is GW and then everything else. Nothing else comes close to the scale and size of GWs market share.
They should not PRICE their own market out of itself. It's stupid. But then again corps seem to be struck by a mass stupidity in this era.
As for the balance argument....
I challenge you. Next game here is your army list:
2 FULL Troops Choices.- infantry only allowed (AKA no scatpacks or bikes as troops or elites as troops, etc or other nonsense). You may add a transport for them.
1 Heavy Support (full size or otherwise)
1 Elite
1 Fast Attack (for you eldar players here is where your scatpacks go, they never belonged in troops).
2 HQ. -no named characters-
Now take ANY army from any current codex and give it a go and tell me how it plays out. What I presented is considered the "Classical" GW army. This design goes back to RT days (before we actually had the type designations). I am willing to be every single army will be balanced no matter what you put in those slots from the choices available for that slot. You need to play about 10 games to get a feel, but give it a go. Classic GW. No points needed. Fill those slots as you see fit according to the codex. I don't think GW balances at all outside of that model.
Generally the above can be modified as follows and should still be fun to play:
2 or 3 heavy support choices, but one or no (2or3 depending) elites or fast attack (This will be a punch army not a mobility one)
2 or 3 Elites (same as above)- Elite Army
2 or 3 Fast Attack (same as above)- Mobility Army
Doesn't work for my army rules wise atm.
could't work for them.
Unless you believe that militia is fairly priced. Or R&H cultists or mutants. which they are not. Especially not compared to guard units.
Not Online!!! wrote: The most fun i had sofar in 8th is around 1000pts.
Big enough to field substantial units if you want. Small enough to not get ludicrous out of hand.
Fast enough to get 1-2 games in.
It does indeed seem to be a sort of Whaling. I just don't think its a good long term strategy. I am still haunted perhaps by watching the model train industry implode since that is what I was into before wargamming.
It isn't, it's a bubble chasing based concept.
And me personally they have mostly priced out.
Which is horrible. They should not be pricing people out of the market. It's insanity. The 230 buck eldar box set is an example. What a freaking bubble. Cost per unit in production has come way down. Use of 3D and digital sculpting tools has decreased development time for models to less than a quarter of what it used to both cost and in time.
So the only costs that are really rising these days are TAXES and LABOR. The newer production method is extremely labor saving. So why the price hikes? It's called a near monopoly. there is GW and then everything else. Nothing else comes close to the scale and size of GWs market share.
They should not PRICE their own market out of itself. It's stupid. But then again corps seem to be struck by a mass stupidity in this era.
As for the balance argument....
I challenge you. Next game here is your army list:
2 FULL Troops Choices.- infantry only allowed (AKA no scatpacks or bikes as troops or elites as troops, etc or other nonsense). You may add a transport for them.
1 Heavy Support (full size or otherwise)
1 Elite
1 Fast Attack (for you eldar players here is where your scatpacks go, they never belonged in troops).
2 HQ. -no named characters-
Now take ANY army from any current codex and give it a go and tell me how it plays out. What I presented is considered the "Classical" GW army. This design goes back to RT days (before we actually had the type designations). I am willing to be every single army will be balanced no matter what you put in those slots from the choices available for that slot. You need to play about 10 games to get a feel, but give it a go. Classic GW. No points needed. Fill those slots as you see fit according to the codex. I don't think GW balances at all outside of that model.
Generally the above can be modified as follows and should still be fun to play:
2 or 3 heavy support choices, but one or no (2or3 depending) elites or fast attack (This will be a punch army not a mobility one)
2 or 3 Elites (same as above)- Elite Army
2 or 3 Fast Attack (same as above)- Mobility Army
Doesn't work for my army rules wise atm.
could't work for them.
Unless you believe that militia is fairly priced. Or R&H cultists or mutants. which they are not. Especially not compared to guard units.
Yeah, that's kind of the problem with the switch from the 6th Ed platoons for guard. Is try the above with the 6th Ed platoons structure as that would fit much better because two troop choices for guard would mean two platoons and two full platoons is quite a thing kitted out.
For folks who to juggle points if my memory serves me.. 1250 should be right.
It does indeed seem to be a sort of Whaling. I just don't think its a good long term strategy. I am still haunted perhaps by watching the model train industry implode since that is what I was into before wargamming.
It isn't, it's a bubble chasing based concept.
And me personally they have mostly priced out.
Which is horrible. They should not be pricing people out of the market. It's insanity. The 230 buck eldar box set is an example. What a freaking bubble. Cost per unit in production has come way down. Use of 3D and digital sculpting tools has decreased development time for models to less than a quarter of what it used to both cost and in time.
So the only costs that are really rising these days are TAXES and LABOR. The newer production method is extremely labor saving. So why the price hikes? It's called a near monopoly. there is GW and then everything else. Nothing else comes close to the scale and size of GWs market share.
They should not PRICE their own market out of itself. It's stupid. But then again corps seem to be struck by a mass stupidity in this era.
The contents and pricing of the box turned the whole thing into a giant fizzle. I'm not even sure if I want to buy the book either. Between battlescribe and alternate means, there's other ways to get rules and I don't feel like rewarding their behavior.
As for the balance argument....
I challenge you. Next game here is your army list:
2 FULL Troops Choices.- infantry only allowed (AKA no scatpacks or bikes as troops or elites as troops, etc or other nonsense). You may add a transport for them.
1 Heavy Support (full size or otherwise)
1 Elite
1 Fast Attack (for you eldar players here is where your scatpacks go, they never belonged in troops).
2 HQ. -no named characters-
Now take ANY army from any current codex and give it a go and tell me how it plays out. What I presented is considered the "Classical" GW army. This design goes back to RT days (before we actually had the type designations). I am willing to be every single army will be balanced no matter what you put in those slots from the choices available for that slot. You need to play about 10 games to get a feel, but give it a go. Classic GW. No points needed. Fill those slots as you see fit according to the codex. I don't think GW balances at all outside of that model.
Generally the above can be modified as follows and should still be fun to play:
2 or 3 heavy support choices, but one or no (2or3 depending) elites or fast attack (This will be a punch army not a mobility one)
2 or 3 Elites (same as above)- Elite Army
2 or 3 Fast Attack (same as above)- Mobility Army
This format just no longer works with the game though. Compared to earlier editions there's so many other entries in elites, fast attack or heavy that need to be sold. And people would be unhappy if they couldn't field their 5 different variants of Fatmarine
GW also shouldn't have filed down the troops choices to almost nothing. Orks in 3rd-4th had like Burnas, tankbustas, and stikkbombs for troops. Now they've got grots and boyz. And that's it.
I agree troops should be an integral part of an army rather than a afterthought for command points. But they've got to fix the entire design to do that.
It does indeed seem to be a sort of Whaling. I just don't think its a good long term strategy. I am still haunted perhaps by watching the model train industry implode since that is what I was into before wargamming.
It isn't, it's a bubble chasing based concept.
And me personally they have mostly priced out.
Which is horrible. They should not be pricing people out of the market. It's insanity. The 230 buck eldar box set is an example. What a freaking bubble. Cost per unit in production has come way down. Use of 3D and digital sculpting tools has decreased development time for models to less than a quarter of what it used to both cost and in time.
So the only costs that are really rising these days are TAXES and LABOR. The newer production method is extremely labor saving. So why the price hikes? It's called a near monopoly. there is GW and then everything else. Nothing else comes close to the scale and size of GWs market share.
They should not PRICE their own market out of itself. It's stupid. But then again corps seem to be struck by a mass stupidity in this era.
The contents and pricing of the box turned the whole thing into a giant fizzle. I'm not even sure if I want to buy the book either. Between battlescribe and alternate means, there's other ways to get rules and I don't feel like rewarding their behavior.
As for the balance argument....
I challenge you. Next game here is your army list:
2 FULL Troops Choices.- infantry only allowed (AKA no scatpacks or bikes as troops or elites as troops, etc or other nonsense). You may add a transport for them.
1 Heavy Support (full size or otherwise)
1 Elite
1 Fast Attack (for you eldar players here is where your scatpacks go, they never belonged in troops).
2 HQ. -no named characters-
Now take ANY army from any current codex and give it a go and tell me how it plays out. What I presented is considered the "Classical" GW army. This design goes back to RT days (before we actually had the type designations). I am willing to be every single army will be balanced no matter what you put in those slots from the choices available for that slot. You need to play about 10 games to get a feel, but give it a go. Classic GW. No points needed. Fill those slots as you see fit according to the codex. I don't think GW balances at all outside of that model.
Generally the above can be modified as follows and should still be fun to play:
2 or 3 heavy support choices, but one or no (2or3 depending) elites or fast attack (This will be a punch army not a mobility one)
2 or 3 Elites (same as above)- Elite Army
2 or 3 Fast Attack (same as above)- Mobility Army
This format just no longer works with the game though. Compared to earlier editions there's so many other entries in elites, fast attack or heavy that need to be sold. And people would be unhappy if they couldn't field their 5 different variants of Fatmarine
GW also shouldn't have filed down the troops choices to almost nothing. Orks in 3rd-4th had like Burnas, tankbustas, and stikkbombs for troops. Now they've got grots and boyz. And that's it.
I agree troops should be an integral part of an army rather than a afterthought for command points. But they've got to fix the entire design to do that.
Bah. I've never met anyone who played that way.
The RT army lists certainly weren't set up that way, and the sample armies that GW guys built in the books certainly weren't built that way.
From 'Ere We Go, 1991 wrote:
Waa-Bogrot, sample Blood Axe Warband by Robin Dews
Warboss and 5 Retinue Nobs, 1 Mekboy, 1 Painboy, 1 Runtherd, 1 Human Advisor (champion profile)
Big Mob- 10 boys, heavy plasma gun, missile laucnher
4 Boys mobz of 5 models each, 2 have a missile launcher, 2 have a heavy bolter
Nobz Mob, 4 Nobz, no extra equipment.
Human Mercenaries- Captain and 9 'adventurers' mix of bolters and autoguns
Ogryn Mob- 8 Ogryns, Rippers
Vehicles
Wartrak with Heavy plasma
Imperial Predator, autocannon, 2 lascannons
Thudd Gun
Freebooterz Mob, Kaptin, 10 boyz, 1 with lascannon
Mekboyz: 2 meks, 2 robots: Konkeror and Kastellan
Quite a lot of MSU, more than a few vehicles, no real 'fast attack' (maybe the wartrak, but he describes using it as a gunboat, after it tows the Thudd gun into place), quite a bit of 'heavy support'
from Freebooterz, also 1991 wrote:
Waa-Skumrot, Sample Evil Sunz Warband, Simon Forrest
Warboss and Retinue- Boss, 5 Nobs, 2 meks, 1 painboy, 1 runtherd, all on Nobz Bikes.
Additional Mekboy on foot with Multimelta
Big Mob- 10 boyz, lascannon, heavy bolter
Boyz Mob- 5 boyz, missile launcher
Bad Moonz Boyz mob, 5 boys with missile launcher and heavy bolter
[he notes that he's taking this specifically so he can field 2 heavy weapons on five boys, and also unlock the option to take a weirdboy]
Bad Moon Weirdboy, and 2 minderss
Bike Mob: nob and 5 boys on bikes
Oddbitz:
warbuggy- heavy plasma
wartrak- lascannon
wratrak- lascannon
Hop-Splat field gun
Mek with Shokk Attack Gun
6 snotling bases
also controls 'Katafrakt' robot
10 Madboyz to squeeze out the last 60 points.
So, intentionally piling on vehicles and even specifically pulling an MSU trick to have more heavy weapons.
Its interesting when the designers/writers provide commentary for their decisions.
Lastly, the Black Legion army list out of Realm of Chaos Slaves to Darkness, just basic unit construction and mandates
Slaves to Darkness, 1988 wrote:
Black Legion
0-1 Lieutenant Commander
0-1 Captain
0-1 Lieutenant
[one the most senior of these is the detachment commander, and notable all come with options for the champion, minor hero and major hero profile. The highest ranking isn't necessarily the best profile, it depends what you pay for. You could have a 1 wound champion captain and 3 wound major hero lieutenant, costing 20 and 96 points respectively]
0-4 Medics
0-3 Chaplains
0-6 Librarians
0-5d6 Techmarines (yes, somewhere between 5-30 techmarines as the max)
You can field _a lot_ of characters in RT lists. 20-30 easily.
Daemonic stuff:
0-d6 Possessees (these are fun. Average the profile of the marine and the daemon. Usually random tables or paying specific points. Good luck)
0-1 Summoned Greater Daemon
0-2 (d6-4) Summoned Daemon Princes, yes when making your list, you could end up not able to take DPs.
0-3 (d6-3) Summoned Lesser Daemons, different squads can have different patrons.
0-10 Tactical Squads. Also they can be mounted on chaos steeds
0-3 Assault Squads
0-3 Devastator Squads
all 10 man, but there is zero requirement to take tacticals at all. If you want 30 devastators and nothing else, you can totally do that.
Or you can have no chaos marine squads at all
Any number of beastmen slave squads (10 models), each must be controlled by a techmarine.
0-4 (d6-2) Chaos Spawn, require a techmarine, random stats.
Chaos Renegades Randomly generated warbands. Fun times. A champion and whatever followers they end up with on the charts.
Shared table of support guns, vehicles, dreadnoughts and robots (Shared with world eaters, emperor's children and grey knights). Roughly what you expect (include bikes) plus jet cycles, land speeders and grav attack vehicles (yes, this is the infamous deodorant bottle grav vehicle. It had a profile)
Each requires a techmarine.
So if you wanted a Captain, 10 techmarines and an armored column of Land Raiders and Dreads, you could do that.
If you were lucky, you could plop a bunch of demons on the table.
If you wanted to go crazy, you could take a bunch of renegade warbands and just deal with whatever the tables brought you.
But 2 tactical squads, an assault squad and a devastator squad wasn't even vaguely required.
And what was provided in the books was all we really had to go on at the time. There were no netlists, no consensus, just what you brought to the table as long as it fit broadly into the army list outline, which was a LOT looser than it is now.
This is a way that not showing all the info can make it possible to make any point you want. Yes the black legion list states that you can have 10 land raiders like you said. But look at the cost. 750 points a land raider. You are nit taking 10. In fact to take one was a sacrifice points wise. In fact you could only take D6-3 land raiders so you might not get any.
Also the sample lists in the ORK books nearly all talk about taking a good core of troops.
What I liked best about those lists with reasons for taking what they did is the range of reasons they gave. Narrative p, rule of cool and tactics. Exactly how the game should be played, no min maxing units or spamming. Andy chambers even took some evil SUNZ in his goff army to add colour to it. Love it.
Andykp wrote: This is a way that not showing all the info can make it possible to make any point you want. Yes the black legion list states that you can have 10 land raiders like you said. But look at the cost. 750 points a land raider. You are nit taking 10. In fact to take one was a sacrifice points wise. In fact you could only take D6-3 land raiders so you might not get any.
yep, That was an oversight on my part when I tacked on the vehicle bits at 1 in the morning. It doesn't invalidate my point that 1 character, 2 'full' Troops, etc. wasn't the assumed norm. There was no assumed norm. Even the developer's armies wandered all over the place according to their whims.
Also the sample lists in the ORK books nearly all talk about taking a good core of troops.
And then proceed to not actually do that. As shown they mostly MSU the heck out of the boyz, aside from the big mob which is required to be at least 10 models, or they spend leftover points on them, like the madboyz in the evil sunz list, after they've squeeze all they can out of the good stuff.
What I liked best about those lists with reasons for taking what they did is the range of reasons they gave. Narrative p, rule of cool and tactics. Exactly how the game should be played, no min maxing units or spamming. Andy chambers even took some evil SUNZ in his goff army to add colour to it. Love it.
Which is great. But they certainly aren't building armies according to an assumed 'classic' formula.
I think the assumed classic list is based on nostalgia and the white dwarf battle reports where that was kind of the format. But in the 1st edition era the armies and lists were more about building a story than just squeezing the most out of the good stuff. The ORK one especially each thing was chosen for a number of reasons and was storied into the lists too.
Suzuteo wrote: As for the rest, if GW is more interested in money than competitive balance, why don't people do something about it? Take the Index and build a house meta around it. Launch a revolution to seize the means of design. Lol.
It has recently come to our attention that much of the information hosted on your website (the "Website"), provides us with cause for concern as it conflicts with our intellectual property rights. Although we are confident that the Website is a well-intentioned resource, we are acutely aware of the need to assert our intellectual property rights.
As you may appreciate, GW has a strict policy of protecting all of its intellectual property rights. To this end, we must insist that these materials are removed from the Website.
Hasn't stopped 9th ed from doing superior FB. Change names etc and good to go. Mechanics can't be protected. And as it is model wise you can make "not space marines" with no issues.
If players wanted they could create own 40k system no problem.
40K is only as big as it is because of the Network Effect. Make your own system and you need to build your own network, and that is gonna be an uphill struggle.
My suggestion is trying to build a group of likeminded players and then forget about the wider "scene".
Nurglitch wrote: The way that 40k was grown, demo-game by demo-game, store-by-store and so on is often under-estimated by people planning on building a better game.
A big reason for that though was for a while 40k was the only game in town, and people are reluctant to try/spend money on games that "might" fail. You still see that today, doubly so when game stores won't stock the game and sometimes won't let you even play the game there to get it exposed because they don't sell it. So you end up fighting an uphill battle anyways.
Suzuteo wrote: As for the rest, if GW is more interested in money than competitive balance, why don't people do something about it? Take the Index and build a house meta around it. Launch a revolution to seize the means of design. Lol.
It has recently come to our attention that much of the information hosted on your website (the "Website"), provides us with cause for concern as it conflicts with our intellectual property rights. Although we are confident that the Website is a well-intentioned resource, we are acutely aware of the need to assert our intellectual property rights.
As you may appreciate, GW has a strict policy of protecting all of its intellectual property rights. To this end, we must insist that these materials are removed from the Website.
Hasn't stopped 9th ed from doing superior FB. Change names etc and good to go. Mechanics can't be protected. And as it is model wise you can make "not space marines" with no issues.
If players wanted they could create own 40k system no problem.
To be fair 9th had help in that Swedish comp was necessary for good even tournament play and so a fair amount of infrastructure for such an undertaking. That said Ninth is not for profit but for fun. GW is concerned about their ability to make money being compromised.
If they would have continued with 8th or used any other fan-made version of the game, 9th Age would be just one of many others
Same for 40k, if the ETC or ITC would decide to switch rules there could be something.
as long as they go with the current GW thing, nothing else will have a chance
Well the ITC (and FLG) is essentially the GW Ministry of Propaganda at this point, despite them changing the game drastically enough to be its own t hing.
Wayniac wrote: Well the ITC (and FLG) is essentially the GW Ministry of Propaganda at this point, despite them changing the game drastically enough to be its own t hing.
I previously compared Reece to Goebbels but that was a bit... extreme. Although I do feel they are essentially a propaganda arm of GW now, despite half their arguments for why 40k is so great due to them changing the rules around.
The ITC needs 40k because of the mammoth player base. The ITC is pushing for professional 40k, sponsored streams, livable income for its organizers and the top players, gold plated shark tanks, and ferraris.
You can't get that without the mammoth player base.
That they have been able to change 40k so much to make it a game based on 40k and that so many people back it anyway is a testament to the game not being as important as the massive playerbase behind it that people are seeking out to protect their investment in their models.
Vaktathi wrote: The latest releases are definitely starting to creep back into the realm of 7E absurdity in terms of plain and open free power buffs resulting in obnoxiously obvious overpowered armies and overfawning on niche sub-subfactions, while the number of sources and books is also definitely starting to become an issue again with some lists requiring 3-5 different sources for rules.
On the competitive front, it's starting to look like GW is creeping back into the 7E disaster after having a mostly decent year. I'd been starting to retool and get more back into the game and picked up some new stuff, and painted for the first time in a couple years and going to events again, but I'm really not enthused by what I'm seeing out of the latest couple of releases.
Look at Psychic Awakening for confirmation of continuation down this crazy train..
Step One: Put out over priced boxed set with the models people have been asking for for more than a decade....almost two really.
Step Two: release new rule book that buffs the ever loving hell out of said box set making it a "new meta".
Step Three: Sell lots of overpriced Box set with mostly recycled old models
Step Four: It Prints MONEY HAHAHHAHAHA!
A week on from release and I am here to report that I believe all of one Phoenix box has been sold in one of the most active shops in North America.
Now, when I say "Competitive" I don't mean "Average guy who likes to use the most effective list possible but still understands how to have fun with the game and play against anyone and have a friendly game".
I mean the WAAC players that will do anything up to and possibly including "softcore cheating". The guy that sees no difference in beating a skilled player and stomping a guy that still has the glue drying on his first Start Collecting box of Space Marines.
Let's sit here and pretend that anyone with a basic understanding of how the game works and lot of disposable income couldn't be a tournament-winner. You know, because Warhammer 40k is such a balanced and deep game that requires a shrewd tactical mind.
These are the guys that play exclusively to win. Now, there's nothing wrong with wanting to win and trying to win, or even playing aggressive and brutally effective lists with slick combinations. But if you MUST win, and that is the only thing that you can be satisfied with- then honestly, you're actually stupid. Because of all the games out there, Warhammer 40k changes way too often and is far too imbalanced to have that sort of addiction. It's like being allergic to seafood and wandering into Red Lobster and hoping they've still got one of those frozen hamburger patties or microwave spaghettis from the kids' menu, or you're gonna have a meltdown. Objectively stupid.
Take a deep breath, calm yourself, and objectively look at a lot of 40k players. Ask yourself how many of these people you would want at your kids' birthday party. How many of these people would you trust to pull money out of the ATM for you with your card? How many of these guys would you pay full up front for a commission without knowing their address?
You'll have a good handful (and if not, find a better place to game), but rest assured- there's a lot of scumbags.
On a positive note- it's not like this is exclusive to 40k. I've actually seen more toxic D&D players.
Now, when I say "Competitive" I don't mean "Average guy who likes to use the most effective list possible but still understands how to have fun with the game and play against anyone and have a friendly game".
I mean the WAAC players that will do anything up to and possibly including "softcore cheating". The guy that sees no difference in beating a skilled player and stomping a guy that still has the glue drying on his first Start Collecting box of Space Marines.
Let's sit here and pretend that anyone with a basic understanding of how the game works and lot of disposable income couldn't be a tournament-winner. You know, because Warhammer 40k is such a balanced and deep game that requires a shrewd tactical mind.
These are the guys that play exclusively to win. Now, there's nothing wrong with wanting to win and trying to win, or even playing aggressive and brutally effective lists with slick combinations. But if you MUST win, and that is the only thing that you can be satisfied with- then honestly, you're actually stupid. Because of all the games out there, Warhammer 40k changes way too often and is far too imbalanced to have that sort of addiction. It's like being allergic to seafood and wandering into Red Lobster and hoping they've still got one of those frozen hamburger patties or microwave spaghettis from the kids' menu, or you're gonna have a meltdown. Objectively stupid.
Take a deep breath, calm yourself, and objectively look at a lot of 40k players. Ask yourself how many of these people you would want at your kids' birthday party. How many of these people would you trust to pull money out of the ATM for you with your card? How many of these guys would you pay full up front for a commission without knowing their address?
You'll have a good handful (and if not, find a better place to game), but rest assured- there's a lot of scumbags.
On a positive note- it's not like this is exclusive to 40k. I've actually seen more toxic D&D players.
You talk of toxic attitudes and scumbags. Now, while I see where you're coming from with most of your post, I see no reason whatsoever to tar everyone in Special Olympics MMA with that same brush unless you think those quote: "sweaty 'tards" are also scumbags with toxic attitudes. If that's not the case, perhaps being more mindful of what comes across as, at best, grossly disrepectful might help tone down toxicity for everyone.
Warhammer 40k changes way too often and is far too imbalanced to have that sort of addiction.
You forget the addiction is however due to vast changing balance easily fed. Just not cheaply.
And i feel like that is part of GW's monetary scheme. It however imo poisons the well due to the changes , people get a taste off power. And the cyclical nature then turns this on it's head.
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if it's been answered already, but i have read like the first few pages of this topic.
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