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So it’s like three weeks since AdeptiCon and no faq.... at least we know the two week faq after each codex come out will be rushed hurried incomplete and totally insufficient

Dionysodorus wrote:

 Ordana wrote:

Instead of responding to Mutalisks being dominated by Thor's with "So build some Roaches" 40k has to find a point where Mutalisks and Thor's are priced to be more or less balanced against eachother. While also having Thor's be balanced against Mass Roach, and Zergling, and Ultralists and..ect..
Its a much more complex situation because "its ok, X is supposed to counter, use something else' is not good enough.

This is a complete misunderstanding of what people mean by "balance" in the context of a game like this. They don't mean that you should be able to take an army of Mutalisks and put up a good fight against an army of Thors. The whole point of Thors is still that they counter Mutalisks. It's still a balanced game even if some lists have a big advantage over other lists. What people want is a meta populated with diverse and interesting lists, where most units in the game show up at least occasionally. Thor-Mutalisk interactions are a perfectly acceptable and even desirable part of this -- if you bring some units that are weak to Mutalisks, you can keep your list competitive against lists with lots of Mutalisks by also bringing some Thors. It's your need to do well in the meta that keeps you honest -- you could take an army of Thors, and this would crush the occasional army of Mutalisks, but you would lose most of your games against more common TAC armies.

But shouldn't the end goal of balance be that anything taken within the allowed rules should have a roughly equal chance against anything else taken within the allowed rules? (asumming all other factors like skill and luck are equal aswell)

Warhammer is not a computer game. I cannot reset my game and get back my money. I cannot cash in the lictors and buy termagants for the same money. I spent time and effort and money to actually, physically purchase and paint 8 lictors. That was when GW allowed me to go 3 or even 6 deep in units. I bought that many because they are my favorite model in the game.

Now I am playing through an edition that has made lictor absolute trash, but that's OK. I also play into an edition where I cannot make units of lictors, I can only have single models. So If I want to play my 8 lictors I need a minimum of 3 detachments and 8 elite slots to do it. And that's also OK. but if the company that got my money for 8 lictors now comes and states "Ok you can never use more than 3 lictors in an army EVER, because we need to limit OP lists" then they are 100% in the fault, I will consider myself as being cheated out of 5 lictors worth of money and I will skip my scheduled following X purchases in order to make up for the money loss they put me through. And all of this in the name of some "punish the OP lists" which the lictors are obviously not.

I will not calculate the fun factor elimination of not being able to play my favorite models any more because I'm large and generous like that.

I mean these Warhammer 40k - Starcraft comparisons are madness.

Yeah. In one we have competive developers working who want balance, at other we have incompetent ones who don't even want balance.

Pretty stupid to compare.

For me, the biggest issue is there seems to be no endgame here. GW fixes balance issues that come up in tournaments, but the competitive crowd just move onto the next thing GW didn't fix, so GW fixes that, so they move onto the next thing they missed.

This isn't an endgame. There's no goal here in the end, just GW chasing ITC's tail to fix things being abused in tournaments, only for the goalposts to move further downfield.

 Ordana wrote:
But shouldn't the end goal of balance be that anything taken within the allowed rules should have a roughly equal chance against anything else taken within the allowed rules? (asumming all other factors like skill and luck are equal aswell)

No, of course not. The idea isn't to render list-building strategically irrelevant. People like strategic list-building. In tabletop wargames and TCGs and a bunch of other kinds of games, part of the appeal is that you're designing an army or a deck of cards or whatever that will give you an advantage in games. Magic (the card game) would be a lot less popular if you could do really well by just selecting 60 random cards for your deck. Players enjoy being able to look for powerful synergies, and part of playing competitively is predicting the meta and tailoring what you bring appropriately. "Balance", for a game like this, is about maximizing the number of competitively-viable units and ensuring that each faction has several different competitive options. Ideally it should also be the case that this is true regardless of the local meta -- if I only ever play Space Marines and my friend only ever plays Orks, and we only ever play with each other, you still want it to be the case that neither of us has a persistent advantage in our games even though an anti-Ork SM list and an anti-SM Ork list will look different from the sorts of lists that show up in tournaments.

One problem GW has with 8th is that it's not actually clear what a "faction" is. Short of significant changes to the way the game works, it would be very hard to make sure that you can have a competitive pure Custodes list without just making Imperial Soup better still. Magic addresses this via its mana system, where the more colors you have the harder it is to actually play your cards, but also it's just pretty up-front about not necessarily trying to balance mono-color decks and "soup" decks.

Unless you made imperial soup not a thing.

Dionysodorus wrote:

 Ordana wrote:
But shouldn't the end goal of balance be that anything taken within the allowed rules should have a roughly equal chance against anything else taken within the allowed rules? (asumming all other factors like skill and luck are equal aswell)

No, of course not. The idea isn't to render list-building strategically irrelevant. People like strategic list-building. In tabletop wargames and TCGs and a bunch of other kinds of games, part of the appeal is that you're designing an army or a deck of cards or whatever that will give you an advantage in games. Magic (the card game) would be a lot less popular if you could do really well by just selecting 60 random cards for your deck. Players enjoy being able to look for powerful synergies, and part of playing competitively is predicting the meta and tailoring what you bring appropriately. "Balance", for a game like this, is about maximizing the number of competitively-viable units and ensuring that each faction has several different competitive options. Ideally it should also be the case that this is true regardless of the local meta -- if I only ever play Space Marines and my friend only ever plays Orks, and we only ever play with each other, you still want it to be the case that neither of us has a persistent advantage in our games even though an anti-Ork SM list and an anti-SM Ork list will look different from the sorts of lists that show up in tournaments.

One problem GW has with 8th is that it's not actually clear what a "faction" is. Short of significant changes to the way the game works, it would be very hard to make sure that you can have a competitive pure Custodes list without just making Imperial Soup better still.

To what degree is it desirable that list-building be irrelevant? We're already getting quite a variety on the top tables depending heavily on the tournament rules:
LVO = Eldar x 100000
GW 40k GT: Orks were surprisingly near the top
Adepticon: Flyrants

Meanwhile, chaos of various flavours have been quite strong, and we've seen Custodes, IG, and yes, even SM/BA/other imperial dexes in the top 100 of these tournaments. I bet Necrons and Tau will start popping up there as well - perhaps not tournament wins (those are very difficult to achieve) but certainly competitive lists.

I feel like whatever rules the tournament is using affects which lists will be good at the tournament, which is actually indicative of a game that is balanced at its core: if something is minor enough that "now you choose your objectives before the game" completely swings the way the game is played, then that's actually not too bad.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

To what degree is it desirable that list-building be irrelevant? We're already getting quite a variety on the top tables depending heavily on the tournament rules:
LVO = Eldar x 100000
GW 40k GT: Orks were surprisingly near the top
Adepticon: Flyrants

Meanwhile, chaos of various flavours have been quite strong, and we've seen Custodes, IG, and yes, even SM/BA/other imperial dexes in the top 100 of these tournaments. I bet Necrons and Tau will start popping up there as well - perhaps not tournament wins (those are very difficult to achieve) but certainly competitive lists.

I feel like whatever rules the tournament is using affects which lists will be good at the tournament, which is actually indicative of a game that is balanced at its core: if something is minor enough that "now you choose your objectives before the game" completely swings the way the game is played, then that's actually not too bad.

I mean, you probably want to look at a lot more than the top tables at a couple of tournaments before you say something like this. But, regardless, that almost all of the super-factions can put up competitive lists doesn't really show that the game is well-balanced. Just look at the lists. It's clear that mostly what's going on is that there are a small number of very powerful units in each that are getting spammed. Like, the problem is not that "Tyranids are too strong". The problem is that Hive Tyrants specifically are way too good, especially given that they can be spammed and virtually null-deployed. List-building is boring because the choices are way too obvious, and then the games are boring because they're often very one-sided and decided by large-scale rock-paper-scissors interactions or luck since every list is a skew list and it depends how your skew matches up to their skew.

Also, the different tournament rules are not small changes. It's a huge deal for Eldar (again, not all Eldar but one or two specific units -- most of the codex is never going to see competitive play as-is) if they can totally protect units from deep strikers by putting them inside LoS-blocking ruins. It's a huge problem for monsters if you're giving up a ton of VPs when people kill a few of them. Choosing your objectives is hardly minor -- your objectives are what determine whether you win!

 AaronWilson wrote:
I mean these Warhammer 40k - Starcraft comparisons are madness.

Not really. It's an exercise in identifying how restrictions come in all forms.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Wayniac wrote:
For me, the biggest issue is there seems to be no endgame here. GW fixes balance issues that come up in tournaments, but the competitive crowd just move onto the next thing GW didn't fix, so GW fixes that, so they move onto the next thing they missed.

This isn't an endgame. There's no goal here in the end, just GW chasing ITC's tail to fix things being abused in tournaments, only for the goalposts to move further downfield.

We're up to SIXTEEN books now (with three more in the pipe likely out before June). Of COURSE there is a lot of stuff that needs to be tackled. More than half of them were written before November of last year. But I guess we should just give up, because things are hard and people are ridiculously impatient.

Dionysodorus wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

To what degree is it desirable that list-building be irrelevant? We're already getting quite a variety on the top tables depending heavily on the tournament rules:
LVO = Eldar x 100000
GW 40k GT: Orks were surprisingly near the top
Adepticon: Flyrants

Meanwhile, chaos of various flavours have been quite strong, and we've seen Custodes, IG, and yes, even SM/BA/other imperial dexes in the top 100 of these tournaments. I bet Necrons and Tau will start popping up there as well - perhaps not tournament wins (those are very difficult to achieve) but certainly competitive lists.

I feel like whatever rules the tournament is using affects which lists will be good at the tournament, which is actually indicative of a game that is balanced at its core: if something is minor enough that "now you choose your objectives before the game" completely swings the way the game is played, then that's actually not too bad.

I mean, you probably want to look at a lot more than the top tables at a couple of tournaments before you say something like this. But, regardless, that almost all of the super-factions can put up competitive lists doesn't really show that the game is well-balanced. Just look at the lists. It's clear that mostly what's going on is that there are a small number of very powerful units in each that are getting spammed. Like, the problem is not that "Tyranids are too strong". The problem is that Hive Tyrants specifically are way too good, especially given that they can be spammed and virtually null-deployed. List-building is boring because the choices are way too obvious, and then the games are boring because they're often very one-sided and decided by large-scale rock-paper-scissors interactions or luck since every list is a skew list and it depends how your skew matches up to their skew.

Also, the different tournament rules are not small changes. It's a huge deal for Eldar (again, not all Eldar but one or two specific units -- most of the codex is never going to see competitive play as-is) if they can totally protect units from deep strikers by putting them inside LoS-blocking ruins. It's a huge problem for monsters if you're giving up a ton of VPs when people kill a few of them. Choosing your objectives is hardly minor -- your objectives are what determine whether you win!

Right, so back to the question I asked, which you didn't manage to answer: to what degree do we want list-building to be relevant?
If you look in my post history, you see that I agree that using tournament data is a bad thing to determine balance, but the point is (rightly) raised that we don't have any other data. So the data we do have suggests that a variety of armies are on the top tables, and that necessitates a variety of units - Chaos has not Flying Hive Tyrants, Orks have no BA thunder hammer captains, and Tyranids have no dark reapers. I think if you only look at the top 10 or 8 or whatever, you see a lot of repeats of the same units, but if you look in the top 100, the number of different armies that made it at least that far is pretty staggering, especially considering how awkward the game is right now.

And "choosing your objectives" was minor in 7th. Eldar crushed people in Eternal War. Eldar crushed people in Maelstrom. Eldar crushed people in ITC. Eldar crushed people all the time. The game is clearly more well balanced than that, and I would say by a good margin.

Right, so back to the question I asked, which you didn't manage to answer: to what degree do we want list-building to be relevant?

Great question, one I've participated in many many times over the years.

The answer from the internet community seems to usually be list building should be just as important as actually playing, if not a bit more so. This is why narrative games with set lists or historicals are not as popular. Those games typically focus on gameplay over listbuilding. Breaking the game via listbuilding is very much a wanted feature by the general gaming public IMO and I find that a lot of that is rooted in Magic the Gathering style game design which became hugely popular and is now a cornerstone in game design beyond card games and in board and miniiatures games today. A lot of people will pay lip service to wanting balance, but you can't have both balance, and the ability to take 2000 points of something and auto-win vs something else via listbuilding design.

tneva82 wrote:
Yeah. In one we have competive developers working who want balance, at other we have incompetent ones who don't even want balance.

Pretty stupid to compare.

Here - have exalt.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

topaxygouroun i wrote:
Warhammer is not a computer game. I cannot reset my game and get back my money. I cannot cash in the lictors and buy termagants for the same money. I spent time and effort and money to actually, physically purchase and paint 8 lictors. That was when GW allowed me to go 3 or even 6 deep in units. I bought that many because they are my favorite model in the game.

Now I am playing through an edition that has made lictor absolute trash, but that's OK. I also play into an edition where I cannot make units of lictors, I can only have single models. So If I want to play my 8 lictors I need a minimum of 3 detachments and 8 elite slots to do it. And that's also OK. but if the company that got my money for 8 lictors now comes and states "Ok you can never use more than 3 lictors in an army EVER, because we need to limit OP lists" then they are 100% in the fault, I will consider myself as being cheated out of 5 lictors worth of money and I will skip my scheduled following X purchases in order to make up for the money loss they put me through. And all of this in the name of some "punish the OP lists" which the lictors are obviously not.

I will not calculate the fun factor elimination of not being able to play my favorite models any more because I'm large and generous like that.

I agree with you - unit limits are not the answer - it doesn't make sense from a balance or a monetary point of view ether as you pointed out. You are an unhappy customer and you are going to spend less money now.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

Right, so back to the question I asked, which you didn't manage to answer: to what degree do we want list-building to be relevant?
If you look in my post history, you see that I agree that using tournament data is a bad thing to determine balance, but the point is (rightly) raised that we don't have any other data. So the data we do have suggests that a variety of armies are on the top tables, and that necessitates a variety of units - Chaos has not Flying Hive Tyrants, Orks have no BA thunder hammer captains, and Tyranids have no dark reapers. I think if you only look at the top 10 or 8 or whatever, you see a lot of repeats of the same units, but if you look in the top 100, the number of different armies that made it at least that far is pretty staggering, especially considering how awkward the game is right now.

And "choosing your objectives" was minor in 7th. Eldar crushed people in Eternal War. Eldar crushed people in Maelstrom. Eldar crushed people in ITC. Eldar crushed people all the time. The game is clearly more well balanced than that, and I would say by a good margin.

It's an ill-posed question if you're wanting more than a very vague and hand-wavey answer. What's the metric you want to be using? What do you even mean by "relevant"? I'm also not sure why you want me to answer it. What point am I making that you disagree with and are trying to circuitously get around to arguing against by having me commit to a position on this seemingly-unrelated thing? Maybe just say what you mean.

But, like, it is obviously perfectly acceptable that list-building will determine some games. I think it's clear that I think that from my earlier posts. If you bring a ton of infantry all kitted out to kill other infantry and your opponent brings a bunch of tanks all kitted out to kill infantry, your opponent should win handily. But -- again I think obviously -- you don't actually want this to be what typical games look like. You don't want the meta to be such that lots of people are bringing absurd skew lists tailored to kill particular other skew lists. Ideally you would like to mostly see a mix of defensive profiles with TAC weapons, and you would like it to be the case that you can't do a great job predicting the outcomes of most real individual games just by looking at the lists.

https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/0/754734.page#9923970

Topic on how important listbuilding should be in games and how balance plays into that.

Dionysodorus wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

Right, so back to the question I asked, which you didn't manage to answer: to what degree do we want list-building to be relevant?
If you look in my post history, you see that I agree that using tournament data is a bad thing to determine balance, but the point is (rightly) raised that we don't have any other data. So the data we do have suggests that a variety of armies are on the top tables, and that necessitates a variety of units - Chaos has not Flying Hive Tyrants, Orks have no BA thunder hammer captains, and Tyranids have no dark reapers. I think if you only look at the top 10 or 8 or whatever, you see a lot of repeats of the same units, but if you look in the top 100, the number of different armies that made it at least that far is pretty staggering, especially considering how awkward the game is right now.

And "choosing your objectives" was minor in 7th. Eldar crushed people in Eternal War. Eldar crushed people in Maelstrom. Eldar crushed people in ITC. Eldar crushed people all the time. The game is clearly more well balanced than that, and I would say by a good margin.

It's an ill-posed question if you're wanting more than a very vague and hand-wavey answer. What's the metric you want to be using? What do you even mean by "relevant"? I'm also not sure why you want me to answer it. What point am I making that you disagree with and are trying to circuitously get around to arguing against by having me commit to a position on this seemingly-unrelated thing? Maybe just say what you mean.

But, like, it is obviously perfectly acceptable that list-building will determine some games. I think it's clear that I think that from my earlier posts. If you bring a ton of infantry all kitted out to kill other infantry and your opponent brings a bunch of tanks all kitted out to kill infantry, your opponent should win handily. But -- again I think obviously -- you don't actually want this to be what typical games look like. You don't want the meta to be such that lots of people are bringing absurd skew lists tailored to kill particular other skew lists. Ideally you would like to mostly see a mix of defensive profiles with TAC weapons, and you would like it to be the case that you can't do a great job predicting the outcomes of most real individual games just by looking at the lists.

Gonna reply in the other thread, but just to answer here:
"What is the metric we use?" is a question for those who say list building shouldn't matter, too. It's crucial do have a discussion. You can't just say "list building matters too much." and then when asked 'by what metric' say "WHAT METRIC ARE YOU USING?!"
"What do I mean by relevant?" is a question for everyone. When someone says "list building is too relevant in 40k" - what do they mean? Do they mean it matters to much? What does "mattering too much" mean?

That's what I'm asking. I'm seeing a lot of people saying "List building matters too much!" but when I say "alright, how much is enough?" then they sort of mumble and wring their hands. We can't work towards a solution if we don't have a goal. And I would argue that the game, while not in a great state, is in an adequate enough state that we can let it sit a little while we talk this out.

Well, you could always have GW sit down, build some Official Tourney Lists, and require everyone to play using those. At that point, list-building is removed, armies "look right", and the better generals can strut their stuff without the crutch of broken unit X.

You get to build your own lists for your own games, but for tourney play, you pick from the GW list.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

Gonna reply in the other thread, but just to answer here:
"What is the metric we use?" is a question for those who say list building shouldn't matter, too. It's crucial do have a discussion. You can't just say "list building matters too much." and then when asked 'by what metric' say "WHAT METRIC ARE YOU USING?!"
"What do I mean by relevant?" is a question for everyone. When someone says "list building is too relevant in 40k" - what do they mean? Do they mean it matters to much? What does "mattering too much" mean?

That's what I'm asking. I'm seeing a lot of people saying "List building matters too much!" but when I say "alright, how much is enough?" then they sort of mumble and wring their hands. We can't work towards a solution if we don't have a goal. And I would argue that the game, while not in a great state, is in an adequate enough state that we can let it sit a little while we talk this out.

I mean, I don't think that this makes sense as a criticism of anything I've said, since I'm not saying we need some hard-and-fast standard. In general, you don't need to do ideal theory in order to make incremental improvements to something (actually it can sometimes lead you in the wrong direction).

My position is that there's a clear problem which is apparent to basically everyone -- the most competitive lists are boring and often produce boring games. This is largely driven by the existence of extreme imbalances between and within codexes, and problems with the core design of the game that make skew lists much better than lists with a variety of units. I don't need to make this more concrete because I'm not trying to jump to a perfect world in one step. I'm content to identify specific problems -- like Hive Tyrants or Dark Reapers or cheap GEQs or the massive power of alpha strikes -- which are making the game less fun and which could be addressed to make the game more fun. We can stop when we get to a place where we don't see anything else that it'd be fruitful to do -- there's no reason to try to figure out exactly where we're going in advance. And of course the same can be said for things that should be addressed so that they see more play.

Dionysodorus wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

Gonna reply in the other thread, but just to answer here:
"What is the metric we use?" is a question for those who say list building shouldn't matter, too. It's crucial do have a discussion. You can't just say "list building matters too much." and then when asked 'by what metric' say "WHAT METRIC ARE YOU USING?!"
"What do I mean by relevant?" is a question for everyone. When someone says "list building is too relevant in 40k" - what do they mean? Do they mean it matters to much? What does "mattering too much" mean?

That's what I'm asking. I'm seeing a lot of people saying "List building matters too much!" but when I say "alright, how much is enough?" then they sort of mumble and wring their hands. We can't work towards a solution if we don't have a goal. And I would argue that the game, while not in a great state, is in an adequate enough state that we can let it sit a little while we talk this out.

I mean, I don't think that this makes sense as a criticism of anything I've said, since I'm not saying we need some hard-and-fast standard. In general, you don't need to do ideal theory in order to make incremental improvements to something (actually it can sometimes lead you in the wrong direction).

My position is that there's a clear problem which is apparent to basically everyone -- the most competitive lists are boring and often produce boring games. This is largely driven by the existence of extreme imbalances between and within codexes, and problems with the core design of the game that make skew lists much better than lists with a variety of units. I don't need to make this more concrete because I'm not trying to jump to a perfect world in one step. I'm content to identify specific problems -- like Hive Tyrants or Dark Reapers or cheap GEQs or the massive power of alpha strikes -- which are making the game less fun and which could be addressed to make the game more fun. We can stop when we get to a place where we don't see anything else that it'd be fruitful to do -- there's no reason to try to figure out exactly where we're going in advance. And of course the same can be said for things that should be addressed so that they see more play.

Right but my point is, when does a nerf end?

7 Hive Tyrants is "boring and produces boring games." At what point does the game get less boring? Is 5 Hive Tyrants + a Shadowsword boring, like that other list? It certainly provides more unit variety. What about 3 Hive Tyrants and 2 Shadowswords?

Do you get where I am going with this? If you just say "it's subjective" then you've trapped yourself, because that means some people will hate it and some people will like it, and when you change it, you just change the sets of "people who hate it" and "people who like it" and you're just shuffling the people around. Fundamentally, you need to decide when you're 'done', because shuffling people around by subjectively adjusting things based on what you, or someone else, or you and twelve someone-elses, or whatever, believe to be good enough.

You should have objectively verifiable reasons to change something people enjoy - otherwise, you're just putting yourself in the category of "people who enjoy it" and excluding the people whom the changes affected from that category. It's just pointless shuffling.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

Right but my point is, when does a nerf end?

7 Hive Tyrants is "boring and produces boring games." At what point does the game get less boring? Is 5 Hive Tyrants + a Shadowsword boring, like that other list? It certainly provides more unit variety. What about 3 Hive Tyrants and 2 Shadowswords?

Do you get where I am going with this? If you just say "it's subjective" then you've trapped yourself, because that means some people will hate it and some people will like it, and when you change it, you just change the sets of "people who hate it" and "people who like it" and you're just shuffling the people around. Fundamentally, you need to decide when you're 'done', because shuffling people around by subjectively adjusting things based on what you, or someone else, or you and twelve someone-elses, or whatever, believe to be good enough.

You should have objectively verifiable reasons to change something people enjoy - otherwise, you're just putting yourself in the category of "people who enjoy it" and excluding the people whom the changes affected from that category. It's just pointless shuffling.

I don't think this is right at all. It's a game. The whole point of the thing is for it to be subjectively fun for people. If there were some changes that GW could make that would make the "people who like it" group huge and the "people who hate it" group tiny, then obviously that'd be a great reason for them to make those changes. I point out things that I think could be changed so that I would like the game better. That I think some change would make the game more fun for me is obviously reason enough for me to want it made. I support these positions with arguments that are intended to convince people that they and others would also like the game better, so that then it is reasonable for them too to want the change to be made. I mean, I'm not just saying "nerf Tyrants because I'll like the game better that way" -- I explain what I think the effect of these changes will be on the way the game plays. But I don't think I need to have some rigorous theory of what it means for list-building to matter or how much it ought to matter. I can just appeal to people's actual experience with the game and with whether they feel like it's fun.

 Xenomancers wrote:

tneva82 wrote:
Yeah. In one we have competive developers working who want balance, at other we have incompetent ones who don't even want balance.

Pretty stupid to compare.

Here - have exalt.

I didn't know a strawman supported by an unsubstantiated claim was the bar we set for exalts.

For some of us it is. You can set your own bar where ever you wish.

 Daedalus81 wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:

tneva82 wrote:
Yeah. In one we have competive developers working who want balance, at other we have incompetent ones who don't even want balance.

Pretty stupid to compare.

Here - have exalt.

I didn't know a strawman supported by an unsubstantiated claim was the bar we set for exalts.

The worst part is... if you were to ask on the blizzard forums, the straw men would be flipped.

Dionysodorus wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

Right but my point is, when does a nerf end?

7 Hive Tyrants is "boring and produces boring games." At what point does the game get less boring? Is 5 Hive Tyrants + a Shadowsword boring, like that other list? It certainly provides more unit variety. What about 3 Hive Tyrants and 2 Shadowswords?

Do you get where I am going with this? If you just say "it's subjective" then you've trapped yourself, because that means some people will hate it and some people will like it, and when you change it, you just change the sets of "people who hate it" and "people who like it" and you're just shuffling the people around. Fundamentally, you need to decide when you're 'done', because shuffling people around by subjectively adjusting things based on what you, or someone else, or you and twelve someone-elses, or whatever, believe to be good enough.

You should have objectively verifiable reasons to change something people enjoy - otherwise, you're just putting yourself in the category of "people who enjoy it" and excluding the people whom the changes affected from that category. It's just pointless shuffling.

I don't think this is right at all. It's a game. The whole point of the thing is for it to be subjectively fun for people. If there were some changes that GW could make that would make the "people who like it" group huge and the "people who hate it" group tiny, then obviously that'd be a great reason for them to make those changes. I point out things that I think could be changed so that I would like the game better. That I think some change would make the game more fun for me is obviously reason enough for me to want it made. I support these positions with arguments that are intended to convince people that they and others would also like the game better, so that then it is reasonable for them too to want the change to be made. I mean, I'm not just saying "nerf Tyrants because I'll like the game better that way" -- I explain what I think the effect of these changes will be on the way the game plays. But I don't think I need to have some rigorous theory of what it means for list-building to matter or how much it ought to matter. I can just appeal to people's actual experience with the game and with whether they feel like it's fun.

I agree with you premise, but we're back in a circle:
In order to convince me that "the game would be better if we did it your way" then you'll have to convince me and "my feels" aren't convincing. They may be for other people, and that's fine, but in order to be convinced by a position, I'd like to actually know what that position is supporting. Everyone wants the game to be "more fun" but what that means varies so widely that if I just said "sure, let's do it your way" to everyone, I'd find myself supporting directly contradictory views of how the game should be played.

"I feel it isn't fun, so let's make it fun" isn't ... really convincing to me. Give me what you intend to do to make it fun, and why that is good, and where it stops; in other words, tell me what you mean by "fun" according to your perspective.

ERJAK wrote:

Banville wrote:
25% of your army can be allied detachments. There, job done.

That's about 200pts more than I need to get infinite CP.

What? How?

So new information gathered from 4chan about the FAQ.

1. The FAQ will come out some time before the GT Grand Final but will not be in effect because "we appreciate it doesn't give people enough time to make the changes needed to their lists."

2. Grey Knight Purifiers getting changed, Smite only has a 6" range, but does 2 Mortal Wounds instead of D3 (or D6 as I'm guessing it was before).

Day 19 since AdeptiCon ended. I’ve become lost in the salt mines after a salt hill collapsed. Very little hope for escape now. If you find this, tell my knight I love her

 davou wrote:

ERJAK wrote:

Banville wrote:
25% of your army can be allied detachments. There, job done.

That's about 200pts more than I need to get infinite CP.

What? How?

Dark eldar i'm assuming

Would be nice to at least get a timetable here from GW.

I don't even care if it's going to be like, a Summer FAQ at this point, as long as I know a vague guesstimate.

That's always extremely frustrating because I've been sitting here for multiple weeks now going: "Should I play this week, or just wait?"