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Wayniac wrote:
Again, the problem here is those lists are just terrible in any context that doesn't involve you negotiating with your opponent to tone down their list or bring a similarly bad list or agree to some lopsided scenario that would give you a chance to win.

Don't get me wrong here, I *want* those sort of lists to be viable. Both of them look flavorful and pretty cool. But in the game, as it is now (and how it's been) they are terrible lists and essentially throwing money away.

There is a issue I think with this, not every list should or would be viable under the rules for a normal game. Thought does need to be put into lists fielding units that can do the task at hand.

In a special and narrative mission this opens up. But in the standard game, letting bad and thoughtless lists be good often just leads to some units being way to powerful and furthering the gap between good and bad.
GW are the ones sacrificeing players and honestly they do not care that they are selling a bad list. Just reality. People buy it, so no reason to change it.

Apple fox wrote:
...There is a issue I think with this, not every list should or would be viable under the rules for a normal game...

Maybe not. That said every army book and every model should be somehow viable under normal conditions; the thing that actually pisses people off is when the answer to "what do I do with (army X)/(unit Y)?" is "throw it out and buy something else." Grey Knights, Tactical Marines, Blackstars...

They do, if you go to warhammer world you can see them do so. Many in the development teams (especially AOS) play competitively. Your premise is wrong.

 AnomanderRake wrote:

Apple fox wrote:
...There is a issue I think with this, not every list should or would be viable under the rules for a normal game...

Maybe not. That said every army book and every model should be somehow viable under normal conditions; the thing that actually pisses people off is when the answer to "what do I do with (army X)/(unit Y)?" is "throw it out and buy something else." Grey Knights, Tactical Marines, Blackstars...

This is what I tend to think would be best. There are ways to do it, but until GW has to they won’t bother much with it. To GW they want you to forge that narative, even if it’s kinda dumb they want players to think it’s cool and run with it as a standard.

nou wrote:
This is a wet dream of every competetive 40K player since 2nd ed premiered and it kinda sorta happened briefly only twice in history of this game - during index 3rd and index 8th, both times the game was so bland than many old players that were in for the narrative and immersion quit the game... 40K will always be in this space of being playable by everyone and exceptional for no one, it simply has to cater to too wide spectrum of hobbyists.

Nope. The needs of competitive players and the needs of casual/narrative players do not conflict here, at all. Making the game more balanaced and cleaning up rule ambiguity does not hurt the game for non-competitive players. In fact, those non-competitive players arguably benefit more from balance improvements. Competitive players are much more willing to just exploit the overpowered thing and win with it, as demonstrated by all the soup lists winning tournaments. It's the casual/narrative/etc players who are most vulnerable to building a list like the one in the OP because GW says it's viable, taking it to their local store's 40k night, getting wiped off the table in 2-3 turns, and discovering that they need to spend another $500 to buy a better army if they want any other result.

Does anyone actually think, that if "good enough" balance not conflicting with perpetual release model would be possible GW (or any other developer for that matter) would refuse to introduce it simply out of sadistic tendencies of infuriating parts of it's playerbase? Or out of 30 years of nurturing mind boggling incompetence as some birds out there like to believe?

I don't think it's a sadism thing, I think it's a contempt thing. GW's rule authors do not enjoy competitive play and smugly declare that their particular way of playing is the One True Way To Play, with any other approach to the game getting minimal attention. They'd rather yell BEER AND PRETZELS and tell the competitive players about the virtues of being an alcoholic than do the work required to make a good competitive game.

 Peregrine wrote:

nou wrote:
This is a wet dream of every competetive 40K player since 2nd ed premiered and it kinda sorta happened briefly only twice in history of this game - during index 3rd and index 8th, both times the game was so bland than many old players that were in for the narrative and immersion quit the game... 40K will always be in this space of being playable by everyone and exceptional for no one, it simply has to cater to too wide spectrum of hobbyists.

Nope. The needs of competitive players and the needs of casual/narrative players do not conflict here, at all. Making the game more balanaced and cleaning up rule ambiguity does not hurt the game for non-competitive players. In fact, those non-competitive players arguably benefit more from balance improvements. Competitive players are much more willing to just exploit the overpowered thing and win with it, as demonstrated by all the soup lists winning tournaments. It's the casual/narrative/etc players who are most vulnerable to building a list like the one in the OP because GW says it's viable, taking it to their local store's 40k night, getting wiped off the table in 2-3 turns, and discovering that they need to spend another $500 to buy a better army if they want any other result.

Does anyone actually think, that if "good enough" balance not conflicting with perpetual release model would be possible GW (or any other developer for that matter) would refuse to introduce it simply out of sadistic tendencies of infuriating parts of it's playerbase? Or out of 30 years of nurturing mind boggling incompetence as some birds out there like to believe?

I don't think it's a sadism thing, I think it's a contempt thing. GW's rule authors do not enjoy competitive play and smugly declare that their particular way of playing is the One True Way To Play, with any other approach to the game getting minimal attention. They'd rather yell BEER AND PRETZELS and tell the competitive players about the virtues of being an alcoholic than do the work required to make a good competitive game.

Jeeze. Pere, I agree with you a lot but you're going off the deep end a bit. Do you really think GW is actively attempting to ignore the competitive community? The fact that they're doing things like CA and Beta rules tells me otherwise, weather they're good at balance is another matter but it's not the end of the world. You're sounding like a conspiracy nut.

 Peregrine wrote:

I don't think it's a sadism thing, I think it's a contempt thing. GW's rule authors do not enjoy competitive play and smugly declare that their particular way of playing is the One True Way To Play, with any other approach to the game getting minimal attention. They'd rather yell BEER AND PRETZELS and tell the competitive players about the virtues of being an alcoholic than do the work required to make a good competitive game.

Again, this is simply not true. Many of the design team play and win in tournaments, independent and GW. Criticise their product all you want but what you are saying has no basis in reality.

 Sir Heckington wrote:
Jeeze. Pere, I agree with you a lot but you're going off the deep end a bit. Do you really think GW is actively attempting to ignore the competitive community? The fact that they're doing things like CA and Beta rules tells me otherwise, weather they're good at balance is another matter but it's not the end of the world. You're sounding like a conspiracy nut.

It's hardly a conspiracy. GW's rule authors have, in the past, openly stated that they think that ALCOHOLISM AND PRETZELS is the correct way to play the game and that people who do things like spam overpowered units are doing it wrong. It's getting better, likely because management told them to STFU and do their jobs because their attitude was costing GW money, but it IMO still prevents GW from making the best version of 40k they can when their primary rule authors aren't buying in to the idea. And really, is it that hard to believe that GW's rule authors would feel that way when so many people in this thread have stated that competitive play is bad and shouldn't be supported? That 40k is not a competitive game, and competitive players should leave and play something else?

Not Online!!! wrote:

nou wrote:

 Thousand-Son-Sorcerer wrote:


I have only ever said game balance is an issue and the difference between top tier armies and bottom tier armies should be more narrow.

This is a wet dream of every competetive 40K player since 2nd ed premiered and it kinda sorta happened briefly only twice in history of this game - during index 3rd and index 8th, both times the game was so bland than many old players that were in for the narrative and immersion quit the game... 40K will always be in this space of being playable by everyone and exceptional for no one, it simply has to cater to too wide spectrum of hobbyists.

Does anyone actually think, that if "good enough" balance not conflicting with perpetual release model would be possible GW (or any other developer for that matter) would refuse to introduce it simply out of sadistic tendencies of infuriating parts of it's playerbase? Or out of 30 years of nurturing mind boggling incompetence as some birds out there like to believe?

Index 8th is what? Nearly balanced?
Between no restrictions on soup, unnerfed conscripts and malefics, brimstones etc.?

You missed "kinda sorta" remark in my post? Imbalance was ever present in 40K, just to varying degree. Broken units/combos existed in every iteration of this game, I judge the overall balance not only by power of the most broken thing but also by the number of evidently broken things, which in both cases of 3rd and 8th indexes were lowest by the very virtue of nearly evertyhing being "samey" in feel.

The most common comments one could saw in early months of 8th were something along the line of enthusiastic "everything is now so closer to balanced and valid or nearly there and GW just needs to tweak some evident outliers here and there" and people actually expected from GW to not add any new content ever again, just iron out some wrinkles. Complaints about overall balance and factions disparity and power creep returning begun when codices dropped and there was an evident power gap between index/codex armies and then between particular codices and reached a steady maximum after Guard codex when people realized that this is stratagem edition and CP farming is the most powerfull thing in the game. Soup became vastly more problematic with codex stratagems and the most broken things like razorwings got nerfed immediately with first faqs.

Tl;dr, best balanced moment of 8th ed is somewhere between raw index release day and Guard codex and it is now in a quite stable state of giving no illusions about level of balance GW intents for this game, which is clearly way below some people's wishes.

 Peregrine wrote:
Nope. The needs of competitive players and the needs of casual/narrative players do not conflict here, at all. Making the game more balanaced and cleaning up rule ambiguity does not hurt the game for non-competitive players. In fact, those non-competitive players arguably benefit more from balance improvements. Competitive players are much more willing to just exploit the overpowered thing and win with it, as demonstrated by all the soup lists winning tournaments. It's the casual/narrative/etc players who are most vulnerable to building a list like the one in the OP because GW says it's viable, taking it to their local store's 40k night, getting wiped off the table in 2-3 turns, and discovering that they need to spend another $500 to buy a better army if they want any other result.

I'm glad you do mention "arguably", but I do agree with you.

Having better balance is good for everyone (well, everyone who isn't TFG looking for an advantage), but it's a question of how much of a priority is it for some. For hardcore non-comp players, it doesn't really bother them if the game is balanced or not, so to them (and myself included), having balance in all aspects of play isn't a massive priority.

However, I don't think it's ever any single person's fault in particular, if a non-comp player goes in and gets curbstomped, be that GW, the comp player, or the person who got beat. Play who you think will give you a game you'll enjoy. Yes, a lot of it is about finding the right kind of person and group, but that's the same with so many hobbies. You can like the same video game as another person, but you two might be wholly incompatible in what you want from that experience. It's not the game dev's fault, nor is it either one of the players'.

GW's rule authors do not enjoy competitive play and smugly declare that their particular way of playing is the One True Way To Play,

Yeah, hard disagree. Just because GW's team overall (not all of them, of course), play the game a certain way, they've never once said that there is "One True Way To Play". They've always advocated for "ignore what we say if you and your opponent thing you know better". They literally call it their most important rule.

It's not that they hate competitive play. It's just that they don't have the necessary personal drive to do that. As a company, they have no obligation to HAVE to deliver that to you, only to do what their shareholders want. If the shareholders are fine as they are (and honestly, right now, why wouldn't they be!), then they have no "obligation" to do anything. As a consumer, if you don't like the attitude of the company, you have every right to take your business elsewhere. GW don't have to accomodate for competitive players, if they didn't want to.

However, GW DO have an interest in competitive players. Their support of competitive events, hosting some themselves, making more balance changes and beta rules than ever before, all speak to me like they do want to make things better for the competitive crowd.

They'd rather yell BEER AND PRETZELS and tell the competitive players about the virtues of being an alcoholic than do the work required to make a good competitive game.

Hey, there's nothing wrong with being an alcoholic!

But on a serious level, if GW ever did tell people to "beer and pretzels" it up (and they've never made that an official message), how is that any different to people here telling non-comp players to have to change their lists or "git gud" if they want to play the game "properly". Far more people on this site specifically have made more claims about there being "One True Way To Play" (that being competitive Matched Play with points) than GW ever have.

NinthMusketeer wrote:It is advertised as a viable matched play list. There is no indication that it will show up and get -hosed- in almost any match.

right?

insaniak wrote:

 Tibs Ironblood wrote:
. When I hear matched play I am thinking of a least medium strength lists and up and that if you are playing matched play (what with it's superior rule set being focused on creating a more balanced and enjoyable experience) you are doing so because you are trying to have a more competitive and balanced gaming experience. Putting this out there as an army that could be that could potentially screw over a new player by giving them a false impression. If they said hey this is a narrative army we made using these models then boom no problem because it's not being advertised as something a large part of the community deem as having to meet a certain quality level to actually be. I think the absolute inverse is true so for example when WD showcased the more competitive lists they made it very clear what they were. Imagine if they said "hey here are these narrative lists we made for open play" that completely changes the perception of people inside and outside of the hobby.

Or maybe you could just stop equating 'Matched Play' and 'Competitive Play'...?

GW is under no obligation to adhere to your preconceptions of what Matched Play should be.

this further illustrates that there needs to be a specific tourney ruleset. but I'd be fine if they never do it and all complainers just keep on keeping on.

Would I be opposed to gw "fixing" the game, No. would I want them to focus on only the game how they play no. do I want them to continue to make the best models, Yes.

If they "fixed" the game for everybody, I would dare to say that there might be consensus amongst Dakka(but prob not certain people). but most likely not.

whiners gonna whine
haters gonna hate

 Peregrine wrote:


I don't think it's a sadism thing, I think it's a contempt thing. GW's rule authors do not enjoy competitive play and smugly declare that their particular way of playing is the One True Way To Play, with any other approach to the game getting minimal attention. They'd rather yell BEER AND PRETZELS and tell the competitive players about the virtues of being an alcoholic than do the work required to make a good competitive game.

Or, here me out, balancing a game so vast to a level that some people think is trivial is actually literally impossible and no one, GW or not, ever succeeded at it. You supposedly are an engineer but you have so little knowledge about complex systems it is literally painfull to read your comments sometimes.

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:
However, I don't think it's ever any single person's fault in particular, if a non-comp player goes in and gets curbstomped, be that GW, the comp player, or the person who got beat. Play who you think will give you a game you'll enjoy. Yes, a lot of it is about finding the right kind of person and group, but that's the same with so many hobbies. You can like the same video game as another person, but you two might be wholly incompatible in what you want from that experience. It's not the game dev's fault, nor is it either one of the players'.

No, it isn't one person's fault in every situation. But we're talking about a specific situation here, where GW has explicitly said "this is a viable matched play list" and talked about how good its units are at winning games despite the list being utter trash. It absolutely is GW's fault if someone buys the models for this list and has a miserable experience because of it, because they've betrayed that player's trust. If they had been honest and presented this list as a narrative one for a stealth-focused mission between armies built to a similar power level with the "sneaky infantry" theme in mind then nobody would have had any problem with it.

Yeah, hard disagree. Just because GW's team overall (not all of them, of course), play the game a certain way, they've never once said that there is "One True Way To Play". They've always advocated for "ignore what we say if you and your opponent thing you know better". They literally call it their most important rule.

Public statements by GW's rule authors in the past would disagree with you. They might not explicitly say that there's a single way to play, but they've said plenty of times that ALCOHOLISM AND PRETZELS is great and you shouldn't exploit any of the balance issues because story is more important than winning.

It's not that they hate competitive play. It's just that they don't have the necessary personal drive to do that. As a company, they have no obligation to HAVE to deliver that to you, only to do what their shareholders want. If the shareholders are fine as they are (and honestly, right now, why wouldn't they be!), then they have no "obligation" to do anything. As a consumer, if you don't like the attitude of the company, you have every right to take your business elsewhere. GW don't have to accomodate for competitive players, if they didn't want to.

Shareholders shouldn't be fine with it because there's more profit to be made, even if the company is currently profitable. It just happens to be the case that GW is a tiny company owned by large investment funds and probably gets minimal attention beyond a quarterly check of the financial report to confirm that GW still made a profit and the stock price hasn't crashed. If they got more attention there would likely be shareholder pressure to do more to exploit the competitive market.

Also, if you're really arguing that it's a matter of personal drive then it's a concession that GW's rule authors should be fired and replaced with people that are more willing to do their job. Personal enjoyment should not drive business decisions.

But on a serious level, if GW ever did tell people to "beer and pretzels" it up (and they've never made that an official message), how is that any different to people here telling non-comp players to have to change their lists or "git gud" if they want to play the game "properly". Far more people on this site specifically have made more claims about there being "One True Way To Play" (that being competitive Matched Play with points) than GW ever have.

It's not different, but you highly overstate the number of people saying "git gud or git out". Much more common is competitive players pointing out that competitive play is legitimate and arguing against the CAAC attitude that competitive players are all WAAC TFGs who ruin the hobby, or acknowledging the fact that if you walk into a store's 40k night the default expectation is probably going to be matched play with points and TAC lists and lists built to at least a minimum standard of competitive viability.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

nou wrote:
Or, here me out, balancing a game so vast to a level that some people think is trivial is actually literally impossible and no one, GW or not, ever succeeded at it. You supposedly are an engineer but you have so little knowledge about complex systems it is literally painfull to read your comments sometimes.

Again with the straw man of perfect balance. There is nothing impossible about balancing 40k to a much higher level, only a question of whether or not GW is willing to do it. You can repeat ITS IMPOSSIBLE DRINK MORE BEER all you like, but that doesn't make it true.

nou wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:


I don't think it's a sadism thing, I think it's a contempt thing. GW's rule authors do not enjoy competitive play and smugly declare that their particular way of playing is the One True Way To Play, with any other approach to the game getting minimal attention. They'd rather yell BEER AND PRETZELS and tell the competitive players about the virtues of being an alcoholic than do the work required to make a good competitive game.

Or, here me out, balancing a game so vast to a level that some people think is trivial is actually literally impossible and no one, GW or not, ever succeeded at it. You supposedly are an engineer but you have so little knowledge about complex systems it is literally painfull to read your comments sometimes.

Thank you!

I've been waiting all thread for this, agree so much.

It is so complicated to make a game as broad as 40k truly balanced, I agree that for practical purposes it is impossible.

It's not that GW doesn't care about competitive play. It's that they've made a value judgement, of the kind that Peregrine would advocate, and come to the conclusion that there are significant and serious diminishing returns in throwing money after making it a tight balanced game, and that the most profitable model is to make it fairly casual, with nods to competitive play.

That's it.

Stux wrote:

nou wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:


I don't think it's a sadism thing, I think it's a contempt thing. GW's rule authors do not enjoy competitive play and smugly declare that their particular way of playing is the One True Way To Play, with any other approach to the game getting minimal attention. They'd rather yell BEER AND PRETZELS and tell the competitive players about the virtues of being an alcoholic than do the work required to make a good competitive game.

Or, here me out, balancing a game so vast to a level that some people think is trivial is actually literally impossible and no one, GW or not, ever succeeded at it. You supposedly are an engineer but you have so little knowledge about complex systems it is literally painfull to read your comments sometimes.

Thank you!

I've been waiting all thread for this, agree so much.

It is so complicated to make a game as broad as 40k truly balanced, I agree that for practical purposes it is impossible.

It's not that GW doesn't care about competitive play. It's that they've made a value judgement, of the kind that Peregrine would advocate, and come to the conclusion that there are significant and serious diminishing returns in throwing money after making it a tight balanced game, and that the most profitable model is to make it fairly casual, with nods to competitive play.

That's it.

Kinda sums it all up, it's not worth it for GW to throw £ at a problem that isnt really a problem.

Rules dont sell models(they do help tho) but if the models sucked and had great rules, a significant proportion of players wouldn't build/paint/collect/play.

Peregrine wrote:

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:
However, I don't think it's ever any single person's fault in particular, if a non-comp player goes in and gets curbstomped, be that GW, the comp player, or the person who got beat. Play who you think will give you a game you'll enjoy. Yes, a lot of it is about finding the right kind of person and group, but that's the same with so many hobbies. You can like the same video game as another person, but you two might be wholly incompatible in what you want from that experience. It's not the game dev's fault, nor is it either one of the players'.

No, it isn't one person's fault in every situation. But we're talking about a specific situation here, where GW has explicitly said "this is a viable matched play list" and talked about how good its units are at winning games despite the list being utter trash.

Trash in comparison to lists you might deal with. It might not be a trash list in GW's meta.

Fundamentally, the list *is* viable. You cannot argue that it's not a viable list in the basic definition of it. What you can argue is it's viability in your meta, which GW never claimed it was.

It absolutely is GW's fault if someone buys the models for this list and has a miserable experience because of it, because they've betrayed that player's trust. If they had been honest and presented this list as a narrative one for a stealth-focused mission between armies built to a similar power level with the "sneaky infantry" theme in mind then nobody would have had any problem with it.

So if I buy a perfume and I don't become instantly swarmed by potential partners, I was lied to? It's a Matched Play list, it physically CAN win games, and just because it wouldn't do well in your meta doesn't mean it wouldn't in others.

Yes, this comes down to the point of "if the game was balanced better, there wouldn't be a difference in metas, all would be equal", but as I've expressed, this can be more easily avoided by just playing people with similar goals to you.

Yeah, hard disagree. Just because GW's team overall (not all of them, of course), play the game a certain way, they've never once said that there is "One True Way To Play". They've always advocated for "ignore what we say if you and your opponent thing you know better". They literally call it their most important rule.

Public statements by GW's rule authors in the past would disagree with you.

I can take comments from anyone in the past. Doesn't mean it's relevant now.

They might not explicitly say that there's a single way to play, but they've said plenty of times that ALCOHOLISM AND PRETZELS is great and you shouldn't exploit any of the balance issues because story is more important than winning.

They've also said that their most important rule is do what you and your opponent agree fits you best. If you don't like what GW have done, you have every right to modify the game to suit your play better.

The "exploiting balance issues" comes down to personal etiquette. If you're willing to abuse broken elements of the game to curbstomp someone, then I don't want to play you. But that's my right as a person who can choose what to invest my time into.

It's not that they hate competitive play. It's just that they don't have the necessary personal drive to do that. As a company, they have no obligation to HAVE to deliver that to you, only to do what their shareholders want. If the shareholders are fine as they are (and honestly, right now, why wouldn't they be!), then they have no "obligation" to do anything. As a consumer, if you don't like the attitude of the company, you have every right to take your business elsewhere. GW don't have to accomodate for competitive players, if they didn't want to.

Shareholders shouldn't be fine with it because there's more profit to be made, even if the company is currently profitable.

Well, if you want to talk to them and convince them about it instead of a bunch of random folks on Dakka, be my guest. I'm sure they're happy as they are, even if they don't obey the One True Word of the Bird.

It just happens to be the case that GW is a tiny company owned by large investment funds and probably gets minimal attention beyond a quarterly check of the financial report to confirm that GW still made a profit and the stock price hasn't crashed. If they got more attention there would likely be shareholder pressure to do more to exploit the competitive market.

You *do* know that, out of nearly all high street stores in the UK, Games Workshop is one of the only ones to actually beat off the encroaching closing of stores and financial problems of last year, and actually improved their standing?

For a "tiny company", they're doing exceptionally well.

Also, if you're really arguing that it's a matter of personal drive then it's a concession that GW's rule authors should be fired and replaced with people that are more willing to do their job. Personal enjoyment should not drive business decisions.

You don't run GW, nor do you have any more stake in it than me. If you don't like their business decisions, find a way to convince them, or deal with it how you choose. I don't like a lot of business decisions by lots of companies, but guess what? I deal with it, or communicate that to them.

But on a serious level, if GW ever did tell people to "beer and pretzels" it up (and they've never made that an official message), how is that any different to people here telling non-comp players to have to change their lists or "git gud" if they want to play the game "properly". Far more people on this site specifically have made more claims about there being "One True Way To Play" (that being competitive Matched Play with points) than GW ever have.

It's not different, but you highly overstate the number of people saying "git gud or git out".

I'm really not, unfortunately.

Much more common is competitive players pointing out that competitive play is legitimate and arguing against the CAAC attitude that competitive players are all WAAC TFGs who ruin the hobby, or acknowledging the fact that if you walk into a store's 40k night the default expectation is probably going to be matched play with points and TAC lists and lists built to at least a minimum standard of competitive viability.

No-one saying comp isn't legitimate, nor do all CAAC players think comp players are TFG. However, expecting comp to be the norm is exactly the kind of thing I'm talking about - it's assumed you play competitively, and if not, you're an aberration, and that kind of attitude is toxic in my opinion. More open mindedness and communication about what people want from a game would be preferable.

I think this discussion has more than run its course, by this point. There's nothing to be gained by everyone continuing to yell past each other over it.

Moving on.