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Oh for gods sake. Why do people bother arguing with xruslanx?

Almost every comment of his that I've read in the last month or so since I joined Dakka involved an insult, a straw man argument or ad hominem, calculated to wind people up and derail discussions. Whenever theres a thread on a contentious issue regarding GW, there seems to be a high probability that at least half the thread will be people arguing with xruslanx.

Clearly he isn't interested in a rational and civil discussion with anyone on anything.

I wouldn't say xruslanx isn't necessarily uninterested in a rational and civil discussion, I'd just say he's not very good at it.

As for GW's play testing, I'd have to agree that it is slipshod at best and sadly deficient in making any positive impact on the game's mechanics in general. GW is much more interested in making changes than making improvements. No amount of play testing will change that.

Man I remember back in the day my friend was a Dark Elf player. He had the original DE models and the new versions were coming out and Gav Thorpe wrote an article explaining how he'd written the new codex. It so enraged my friend he wrote a 3 page letter to Thorpe (which never got a response) and it was hilarious. Thorpe brought it on himself though, with such awesomeness as 'spikes are so evil!' and 'I took away a pip of move and an attack because the cold ones *look* slower than the old models.'

I might dig it up for laughs.

I think there is an easy way to settle this...

Simple yes or no answer to the two questions below.

1. Do you think GW puts more emphasis on selling models than having balance between the Codices?

2. Do you think the ability to make a terribly unbalanced but totally legal list has grown or decreased since the 3rd Edition?

The answers should be instructive....

 NeedleOfInquiry wrote:
I think there is an easy way to settle this...

Simple yes or no answer to the two questions below.

1. Do you think GW puts more emphasis on selling models than having balance between the Codices?

2. Do you think the ability to make a terribly unbalanced but totally legal list has grown or decreased since the 3rd Edition?

The answers should be instructive....

1. yes.

2. No. third edition was broken as hell. I remember, for example the likes of craftworld eldar - ulthwe with their no-limit-to-its-size seer council, alaitoc with its broken-as-hell disruption table, eldar in general with the old crystal targetting matrix (shoot in the movement phase, move in the shooting phase). then there was the old starcannon. deadly, massive ROF. and it was on everything. and thats only eldar. the old blood angels were utterly deadly with the "on a 1 i go faster" rule, their faster moving vehicles, and the third edition incarnation of the death company.

in the end, third ed boiled down to either "rhino rush" armies, or "shoot the rhino rush armies before they get there" armies, and so on. Some armies were severely ott at playing that game, being able to hit assault easily on turn 2 and roll up a flank with the old assault rules. Whilst a direct comparison of the "power levels" of a sixth edition codex, and a third edition might lead to the conclusion that sixth has more broken stuff ,its not really true. third edition was a far "simpler" game in terms of what got what in a codex (i remember the third ed SM codex where one SC's thing was he got an invulnerable save)and there was far less written about things. TImes were different back then, and the game codices reflected that, but make no mistake - it had its combos that were just as OTT as anything you could talk about today. .
No, 40k has always been a broken mess.

The rules are...lacking in some regards. The balance is horrible in many areas. Thousand Sons troops. Flat out suck and are almost unplayable. Penitent Engines and Repentia: SUCK. There are so many units that no one's going to take because they flat out suck. A little play testing by the designers could have made them stop and say, "hey, this unit here is completely useless. Maybe we can lower the points of give 'em a cool power, eh? That way they won't be completely ignored and go unplayed."

The overall balance of the game needs some fine tuning. I still enjoy the heck out of it, but games like Warmachine have better rules that actually have balance and playability.

 NeedleOfInquiry wrote:
I think there is an easy way to settle this...

Simple yes or no answer to the two questions below.

1. Do you think GW puts more emphasis on selling models than having balance between the Codices?

2. Do you think the ability to make a terribly unbalanced but totally legal list has grown or decreased since the 3rd Edition?

The answers should be instructive....

1. No. But mostly because "balance" isn't a goal of collectible games to begin with: An interesting (and evolving) meta-game is far more important to make sure the game stays interesting (e.g. the game of 40K you played a year ago isn't the same as it is today, which in turn isn't the game you'll play in a year from now).

2. Decreased a lot. 3rd Edition was a horrid mess.

Is 40K a collectible game? I have always regarded collectible games as things like MTG or Clix, which have the mechanism of buying more units than you need, in order to find the good ones.

In 40K you just go in the shop and pick up seven Riptides and you're done.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Is 40K a collectible game? I have always regarded collectible games as things like MTG or Clix, which have the mechanism of buying more units than you need, in order to find the good ones.

In 40K you just go in the shop and pick up seven Riptides and you're done.

Yes. Exactly like MtG (league of legends, etc..) it's a collectible game, because it has a cyclical meta-game. AV14 is good, so everyone buys Melta, which makes AV14 bad and people start AV11-spam, which makes people drop the melta and buy missile-spam, etc.. , etc... . Riptides are hot now. They won't be in a year from now.

MtG works the same way. WoTC have stated that they have a mathematical formula for "balanced" MtG cards and they purposefully let cards deviate up to 15% each way from that balanced ideal, precisely because it creates this kind of metagame. If GW uses a similar rule of thumb, 15% each way, a 2000 pts. vs. 2000 pts. match using the written Codexes could "really" be a 1700 pts. vs. 2300 pts. match in "balanced" point-values (i.e. before the up to 15% deviation was applied). That is GOOD, PURPOSEFUL game design as practiced by companies such as WoTC (and likely GW). Game designer and/or playtesting screw-ups are added on top of it.

That, after all, is what drives the hobby. You look at the list and figure out that Riptides are good. If you could just throw darts at the army list, or let a random numbers generator pick units and equipment from the Codex, and any and all combinations would all be equally good ("balanced") the entire list-building/army-building/hobby aspect would fall through.

The quest to find that "good list"/"tactics" (e.g. 7 Riptides) or that "better list"/"tactics" (e.g. beating those 7 Riptides) in no small parts drives the hobby. But "list-building" would be meaningless if everything's balanced.

I can assure you that GW does not put anywhere near that much thought into this.

Rules editions make different weapons good, not codices. Melta won't be any more popular next year than this year. Melta was popular in 5th because of the magic vehicle damage table of invincibleness.

Martel732 wrote:
I can assure you that GW does not put anywhere near that much thought into this. .

Perhaps.

Doesn't change the fact that even for companies that do (!) put in this amount of effort into their games, balance is not the primary or overriding concern. Quite the opposite. Perfect balance is something good game designers try to avoid.

Tell that to the Starcraft designers. Balance is good for both sales and the game despite their beliefs to the contrary. There's a reason Korea plays Starcraft and not 40K.

Martel732 wrote:
Tell that to the Starcraft designers. Balance is good for both sales and the game despite their beliefs to the contrary. There's a reason Korea plays Starcraft and not 40K.

No. Blizzard actively tried to unbalance Starcraft I for similar reasons.

Yes, a highly balanced game is great for some really high-end competition. Look at the current chess world championships. But it also makes it rather un-fun for Joe Average to play the game. Starcraft 1 suffered precisely from "too much balance" in that most optimal strategies were easily calculated (except for the top-tier 10 guys perhaps) and the entire game boiled down to who could click faster to execute them. It sucked the tactical challenge from the game.

I am not saying there is no place for a balanced game. Chess is popular for a reason. But for a commercial product, it's not what companies aim for. You don't want your customers to go through learning 20-years of chess-strategy to even stand a snowball's chance in hell of winning their next game against a guy who has been playing for a few years. By adding the constantly evolving meta-game (which periodically de-valuates past "best strategies", you keep the game both "newcomer friendly" and you keep vets following the news (and buying new models and armies).

Well, that's not the philosophy they've used with SC II, and it's even bigger. Well balanced uints lead to an ever-evolving meta, because all units are equally viable. That's without having to make cheesy OP units like GW.

Martel732 wrote:
Well, that's not the philosophy they've used with SC II, and it's even bigger. Well balanced uints lead to an ever-evolving meta, because all units are equally viable. That's without having to make cheesy OP units like GW.

If all units are equally viable, there's no meta. How could there? Choosing X or Y would make no difference whatsoever.

Whether or not GW hits the "right amount" of imbalance or goes to far is another discussion. They may well be off. But that has nothing to do with the fact that perfect balance isn't the aim any company sets itself. They aim is "the right amount of imbalance" (which of course, companies can still fail to achieve with their games).

Equally viable does not mean choices aren't extremely important.

For example, marines in SCII counter mutas but are countered by roaches and banelings. All of these units are viable, but it's all about counter units.

Aiming for imbalance is insane to me.

 Zweischneid wrote:
If all units are equally viable, there's no meta. How could there? Choosing X or Y would make no difference whatsoever.

You're making the extremely common mistake in assuming that balanced means the same.
It's absolutely incorrect. It means that for every strength there's an equally important weakness. All units are equally viable, but a meta evolves to exploit the weaknesses of the units being used. In fact a system like this shifts the meta far more often - in computer games the meta will shift over the course of a game.

rigeld2 wrote:

 Zweischneid wrote:
If all units are equally viable, there's no meta. How could there? Choosing X or Y would make no difference whatsoever.

You're making the extremely common mistake in assuming that balanced means the same.
It's absolutely incorrect. It means that for every strength there's an equally important weakness. All units are equally viable, but a meta evolves to exploit the weaknesses of the units being used. In fact a system like this shifts the meta far more often - in computer games the meta will shift over the course of a game.

Not really. If all strengths, advantages, etc.. are perfectly off-set by weaknesses, disadvantages, etc.. of the same measure, there's no metagame. In the sum, overall, the spread would still be even as no particular unit, army, etc.. would stand out.

The meta starts rolling when one particular unit - Unit A - is slightly above-average (despite having a weakness). People flock to this unit/army/etc.. because it is better than average. At that point, people discover unit B, which has a particular strength that exploits the particular weakness of Unit A and/or counters the particular unit B. Thus, while Unit A is slightly better than average, it becomes relatively weaker as people start to flock to Unit B. Then there is Unit C that offers particular advantages vs. Unit B. etc.., etc...

You still need that initial imbalance to kick the meta off. If all are equal (after subtracting (or adding?) weaknesses from strengths) you're still sitting at nothing. And if the meta ever slows down, you need to give it a kick with a new imbalance in the system.

The initial imbalance in many cases is "I like this faction."
Enough people like Faction A and others will play Faction B to exploit a weakness in A. Some As switch to C... Etc.

rigeld2 wrote:
The initial imbalance in many cases is "I like this faction."
Enough people like Faction A and others will play Faction B to exploit a weakness in A. Some As switch to C... Etc.

I wouldn't bet a business on that, but hey YMMV.

 Zweischneid wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Is 40K a collectible game? I have always regarded collectible games as things like MTG or Clix, which have the mechanism of buying more units than you need, in order to find the good ones.

In 40K you just go in the shop and pick up seven Riptides and you're done.

Yes. Exactly like MtG (league of legends, etc..) it's a collectible game, because it has a cyclical meta-game. AV14 is good, so everyone buys Melta, which makes AV14 bad and people start AV11-spam, which makes people drop the melta and buy missile-spam, etc.. , etc... . Riptides are hot now. They won't be in a year from now.

MtG works the same way. WoTC have stated that they have a mathematical formula for "balanced" MtG cards and they purposefully let cards deviate up to 15% each way from that balanced ideal, precisely because it creates this kind of metagame. If GW uses a similar rule of thumb, 15% each way, a 2000 pts. vs. 2000 pts. match using the written Codexes could "really" be a 1700 pts. vs. 2300 pts. match in "balanced" point-values (i.e. before the up to 15% deviation was applied). That is GOOD, PURPOSEFUL game design as practiced by companies such as WoTC (and likely GW). Game designer and/or playtesting screw-ups are added on top of it.

That, after all, is what drives the hobby. You look at the list and figure out that Riptides are good. If you could just throw darts at the army list, or let a random numbers generator pick units and equipment from the Codex, and any and all combinations would all be equally good ("balanced") the entire list-building/army-building/hobby aspect would fall through.

The quest to find that "good list"/"tactics" (e.g. 7 Riptides) or that "better list"/"tactics" (e.g. beating those 7 Riptides) in no small parts drives the hobby. But "list-building" would be meaningless if everything's balanced.

Well, I see your point, however "everything's balanced" does not mean the same as "everything's equal".

Or to put it differently, the obviously good choices that exist because others in the codex are obviously crappy, do not make list building a challenging, interesting activity.

I have heard this concept of the "perfect unbalance" before and I am still completely unable to understand it. I think anyone trying to create a fun game aims for perfect balance.

Firstly, all really famous games are balanced. Soccer, Tennis, Chess, Risk, Go, Poker, Checkers... say a game that has been successful in any way for a respectable amount of time (say, 50 years) and you would be saying the name of a balanced game.

Nobody in his mind would like to play an unbalanced game for long. What would be the point? I chose red so I won? Where´s the challenge? Where´s the fun? Unbalanced games and boring and senseless to most players. You just need to look at w40k to see it: people whine endlessly about how unfunny is to play the game, because of the game being unbalanced. It is not fun for anyone to be utterly destroyed without any chance because your preferred faction is now "low tier". Most people who invested in a now useless unit or faction has stopped buying and playing the army for a while, that´s all. This does not apply to competitive people who would gladly spend hundreds of bucks on anything as long as it gives them an edge, but they are few, and GW has said many times that they do not care about them.

I know the LoL example, but it does not apply. It takes no time and no money to swap factions in a videogame. Applying it to w40k causes quit-rages and an endless stream of complains and whines.

Also, all games have a "meta" of its own. The Italian soccer teams have a completely different meta than the British. It doesn´t matter if the game is balanced. There are always local variables.

 da001 wrote:
I have heard this concept of the "perfect unbalance" before and I am still completely unable to understand it. I think anyone trying to create a fun game aims for perfect balance.

Firstly, all really famous games are balanced. Soccer, Tennis, Chess, Risk, Go, Poker, Checkers... say a game that has been successful in any way for a respectable amount of time (say, 50 years) and you would be saying the name of a balanced game.

Than why aren't you playing Chess instead of 40K? If balance is the key to fun, Chess should be infinitely more fun than 40K? Infact, game design itself would be a pointless pursuit. It'd be largely impossible to ever create a game that is more "fun" than Chess or Go, since they come rather close to perfect balance.

 Zweischneid wrote:

rigeld2 wrote:
The initial imbalance in many cases is "I like this faction."
Enough people like Faction A and others will play Faction B to exploit a weakness in A. Some As switch to C... Etc.

I wouldn't bet a business on that, but hey YMMV.

Blizzard is much larger than GW, and Starcraft is built on balance, not imbalance.

Martel732 wrote:


Blizzard is much larger than GW, and Starcraft is built on balance, not imbalance.

Starcraft was build on balance, largely because it was made before Blizzard got (really) big. Starcraft II is build on imbalance like all professionally designed video games.

No, it's not. Not at all.

Martel732 wrote:
No, it's not. Not at all.

Well, I guess you'll just have keep spending the rest of your life banging your head against a wall asking yourself why so many games out there "mysteriously" aren't balanced

SC II is balanced. There are is not a single unit in the game that gives one of the races an unfair advantage. It's all arithmetic. I KNOW why games are unbalanced. The designers use bad arithmetic by design or incompetence. My money is on incompetence for GW.

Martel732 wrote:
SC II is balanced. There are is not a single unit in the game that gives one of the races an unfair advantage. It's all arithmetic. I KNOW why games are unbalanced. The designers use bad arithmetic by design or incompetence. My money is on incompetence for GW.

Even a quick google search for the last 24 hours gives you gazillion of Starcraft II players that disagree with you.

http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/forum/topic/10490239270


But ok. Incompetence it is. You're conviction obviously is the foundation of this world.

They might, but there are a gazillion more who appreciate the balance. It's a much closer approximation of balance than GW's incompetent crap.