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Sunny Side Up wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:

Knee jerk reactions to the loudest voices only ruin the game. Letting it shake out a bit and see what's causing problems is the best place to start.

And they did nerf the Castellan. Multiple times. The fact they're fine tuning the nerfs is a good thing, not a bad one.

.

Defaming sensible re-balancing as "nerf" or "knee jerk" does not make a coherent argument.

We have the data. Even without the data, we have basic math. There's no doubt that this needs adjustment.

And even if it were "knee jerk reactions". Actually, "knee jerk reactions" haven't thus far ruined the game. What ruined 7th was rampant OP stuff draining the diversity from the game, thus historically speaking, 1000s overreacting "knee jerk reactions" would still be preferable to another overtly slow re-balancing as with the Castellan. If this were a knee jerk reaction, which it is not.

Hell, if you actually look at other games, say Magic the Gathering or so, that do have a healthy and growing competitive community of the type 40K only dreams off, they are far, far more offensively with this and certainly "don't let the meta shake out". If they have a card that is causing issues and being taken by too many people, because it's obviously good, they just ban it for competitions in five seconds flat. Mistakes do happen after all. Rather kill off that one "sorry, messed up there" thing (even at the risk at perhaps banning a few too many things that might not have needed a nerf/ban) than hurt the game overall.

We have data from before a considerable number of nerfs. It is quite prudent to let those sink in and determine if more fine tuning is required.

I know we all feel like the other buffs are still a lot, but this is marines we're talking about. And non-soup marines at that. We still have yet to see the extent of Eldar changes. It's time to chill a bit and get more data -- this isn't the same thing with Magic where you can ban a unit and call it good.

Remember when the Kellermorph was going to ruin the game because it would effortlessly kill all the characters in the game?

Needs. More. Data. Stop knee-jerking. That one was "obvious to anyone with a brain" too.

Lament that the glory days of 8th have come to an end. I'd argue 8th was the best period of balance this game has seen since at least 6th. But the new SM codex strongly suggests they've changed direction at GW.

I think that only people that could army hope or had good initial rules can think og 8th ed as good. I don't play necrons, but I can't imagine a necron players saying in a few months, yes 8th was a good and fun edition to play in.

Karol wrote:

Lament that the glory days of 8th have come to an end. I'd argue 8th was the best period of balance this game has seen since at least 6th. But the new SM codex strongly suggests they've changed direction at GW.

I think that only people that could army hope or had good initial rules can think og 8th ed as good. I don't play necrons, but I can't imagine a necron players saying in a few months, yes 8th was a good and fun edition to play in.

But those Necron players were far better off than IG or DE or numerous other factions in previous editions. I'm not saying the best period of 8th was a shining example of balance - I'm saying was better than what came before and likely what comes afterwards.

Necrons were never top tier so far in 8th. They did have some top 10 placings after their point drops, but thats it. Right now with SM growing strong they will be mid to low tier, again.

Okey, maybe this is me being a player who played only one edition. But, what does a necron player care about 7th or 6th ed, if he played only in 8th?

that is why I don't understand the whole punish army X for being too good 7 editions ago. Or the whole every army has its time to be good, only for some armies good means every editions and others have a 10 or longer wait time between being good. telling someone who is 15, that maybe in 10 years his army is going to be good, and meanwhile he should learn to like to paint or write fanfiction is just stupid.

Better then in the past only matters to people that had bad armies in the past, and their armies got better in 8th. Kudos to them.

Also what about people that played in 7th or 6th edition, the armies they had back then were bad, and they stayed bad?
The argument that stuff got better for others won't hold much worth for them either. It is like telling a kid in a warzone that wars 300 years ago were worse, and that they should feel happy, because a continent away the avarge life expectancy of other kids rose by 20%.

That's what playing Black Templars has been like, with a side-order of "shut up because Marines are good" when what made them good (Gladius) would've required buying a whole new Marine army.

People had to buy a real roman sword to get rules in prior editions? Madness.

Karol wrote:
Okey, maybe this is me being a player who played only one edition. But, what does a necron player care about 7th or 6th ed, if he played only in 8th?

If you've only ever played one rulesset, that rulesset is by definition the worst rulesset you've ever seen.

Remember that balance is relative. Perfect balance is impossible. So how "good" or "bad" the balance is can only reasonable be measured against other rulessets. So, if you only know one, it's virtually impossible to judge it fairly.

that is why I don't understand the whole punish army X for being too good 7 editions ago.

Very few people support that concept.

Or the whole every army has its time to be good,

It's less about "It's fair because every army gets to be OP from time to time", and more about "It's not unfair specifically to $faction, it's just unfair over all, and they happen to be the one hosed right now".

only for some armies good means every editions and others have a 10 or longer wait time between being good.

No army that I can think of has been not-good for all of the past 10 years. No army has been "good" for all of the past 10 years.

telling someone who is 15, that maybe in 10 years his army is going to be good, and meanwhile he should learn to like to paint or write fanfiction is just stupid.

I think you're missing a major point here. Nobody is saying you should learn to like the non-balance aspects of this hobby because the army you picked was bad. What gets said is don't fixate on your army being bad, because balance is so unreliable. And thus, if great balance is required for you to enjoy 40k, you're not going to enjoy it. What gets said is that the modelling and fluff can make this hobby worthwhile to a lot of people, whereas the balance and rules generally can't. What gets said is that, if you don't enjoy the balance/crunch as is, and don't enjoy anything else about the hobby, why engage in the hobby? You might have fun in 10 years or so when the crunch might be in your favor, but that's a huge risk. And that's a boatload of your time and energy, invested in things you don't care about.

What gets said is do things you enjoy. Don't just continue doing something you hate with hopes it magically morphs into something you think you might like.

Better then in the past only matters to people that had bad armies in the past, and their armies got better in 8th. Kudos to them.

You miss the point. You're fixating on one faction disadvantaged during what I'm calling the best modern era of the game. My point was that, while it may be suboptimal for those players, it was *more* suboptimal for *more* players previously.

Also what about people that played in 7th or 6th edition, the armies they had back then were bad, and they stayed bad?

Again, this comes down to what the standard is. If the standard is "Perfect balance", nothing will ever live up. Even Chess is skewed. My standard for considering recent-8th the "best modern era of the game" isn't perfection, or any other abstract unknowable state. The standard I'm using is "other modern eras of the game". Against that standard, it measures up. So the point that it has it's flaws is refuted by showing the same flaws were more pronounced in the other modern eras of the game. That's not to say it couldn't be better, only that it never was better.

The argument that stuff got better for others won't hold much worth for them either.

Are you familiar with the quote "Democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time"? The argument isn't that things are perfect. The argument isn't that things couldn't be better. The argument is that it is better than what came before. And better than if we applied random-ish halfbaked fixes (no matter how loudly proponents will scream about their fix being the silver bullet). The argument isn't intended to tell Necron players "Screw you, accept that this is perfect". It's intended to tell them "Well, it could be worse. And always has been". It's an attempt to say "Better Necron players be 50% screwed than DE, IG, Nid, Tau, etc players be 95% screwed".

It is like telling a kid in a warzone that wars 300 years ago were worse, and that they should feel happy, because a continent away the avarge life expectancy of other kids rose by 20%.

That rejection is like saying we should abandon all civilization because we haven't managed to prevent all violence. It's rejecting improvements because there are still flaws. It's refusing to acknowledge any good in the absence of perfection. It doesn't help that kid in the warzone. It just puts more kids in worse warzones.

If you've only ever played one rulesset, that rulesset is by definition the worst rulesset you've ever seen.

Remember that balance is relative. Perfect balance is impossible. So how "good" or "bad" the balance is can only reasonable be measured against other rulessets. So, if you only know one, it's virtually impossible to judge it fairly.

I haven't played anything other then 8th ed, but from what people told me, GK in 7th and 6th were horrible too. So if did play back then, the game would not get any better for me. All I would have would be more years of unfun. And it ain't a question of perfect balance. I don't even know what that is. All I know that there was less then 6 months between eldar coming out and GK, and both books were writen, by what feels like either two different studios or for two different games.

But it doesn't have to be just my army. 8.5 csm standing next to 8.5 sm are hard to compare too. It is like one thing has one rule, when the other has 5-6, or more and synergies.

No army that I can think of has been not-good for all of the past 10 years. No army has been "good" for all of the past 10 years.

Well I don't know how long 6th or 7th were. But am assuming they were at least 2 years long. this means minimum of 6 bad years for GK. And it doesn't look as if they were to get better. They are even gone from the lore right now. In fact they are gone from the lore since their codex came out, and they were the 3ed codex to come out in 8th ed.

What gets said is that, if you don't enjoy the balance/crunch as is, and don't enjoy anything else about the hobby, why engage in the hobby? You might have fun in 10 years or so when the crunch might be in your favor, but that's a huge risk. And that's a boatload of your time and energy, invested in things you don't care about.

Because nothing in the rules says that you need to paint or write lore to play the game. Plus, what If I wait for years, with my money stuck in GK, paint and do all the other stuff that makes me spend more money on them, and then GW just pulls a WFB bretonians on them, and puts all of them in to legacy or just removes them from the game? this would means, I wasted a ton of time and money, and extra money and time doing things I don't really like, waiting for something that wouldn't happen.

You miss the point. You're fixating on one faction disadvantaged during what I'm calling the best modern era of the game. My point was that, while it may be suboptimal for those players, it was *more* suboptimal for *more* players previously.

So wait playing w40k doesn't mean you pick one faction and play that, you should pick multiple factions, just in case one of them is or ends up bad? That is kind of a fethed up to be honest, because the armies cost a lot of money. Plus it sounds a bit like a salesman trick to buy more stuff.

Again, this comes down to what the standard is. If the standard is "Perfect balance", nothing will ever live up. Even Chess is skewed. My standard for considering recent-8th the "best modern era of the game" isn't perfection, or any other abstract unknowable state. The standard I'm using is "other modern eras of the game". Against that standard, it measures up. So the point that it has it's flaws is refuted by showing the same flaws were more pronounced in the other modern eras of the game. That's not to say it couldn't be better, only that it never was better.

I don't know what perfect balance is. What I do know now, is that the guy who sold me my army, couldn't sell it to anyone in 6th or 7th ed. This means GK were bad for at least 3 editions, out of which one I have played in. Plus from what people are saying about the prior editions, a lot of the best armies are the same armies that were best in prior editions. Eldar were never a bad army, tau were often strong, marines were often a strong list too etc. What kind of an improved is it, when bad factions stay bad, some factions get worse, and the good factions stay good? How is the good part checked then and based on what?

Are you familiar with the quote "Democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time"?

Not really people here consider democracy as just bad. And that it was better in the past.

The argument is that it is better than what came before.

But it isn't better. If I bougth GK in 6th or 7th ed, then they would have been bad back then, and bad now. While if someone play eldar in 6th or 7th, his army would be good then and it is good now. So it is like the saying we have that goes somehow like this "each year the world gets better for rich people".

. It's rejecting improvements because there are still flaws. It's refusing to acknowledge any good in the absence of perfection. It doesn't help that kid in the warzone. It just puts more kids in worse warzones

What improvments? my faction was bad in the past, and only got worse with time. I mean, I don't even have to go through different editions to check this. When GK could do turn 1 deep strikes with most of their army, they were better then they are now. Before GK transports got a price hike, because of a model that wasn't part of their codex, they got worse. Specially when their whole codex was build around the transported being priced the original way, and the army doing first turn stuff. Each new rules set for other armies, each new options and way to play, is downgrade to GK. Specially when other armies suddenly get turn 1 deep strike, turn 1 assault etc.

Karol wrote:

If you've only ever played one rulesset, that rulesset is by definition the worst rulesset you've ever seen.

Remember that balance is relative. Perfect balance is impossible. So how "good" or "bad" the balance is can only reasonable be measured against other rulessets. So, if you only know one, it's virtually impossible to judge it fairly.

I haven't played anything other then 8th ed, but from what people told me, GK in 7th and 6th were horrible too. So if did play back then, the game would not get any better for me. All I would have would be more years of unfun. And it ain't a question of perfect balance. I don't even know what that is. All I know that there was less then 6 months between eldar coming out and GK, and both books were writen, by what feels like either two different studios or for two different games.

But it doesn't have to be just my army. 8.5 csm standing next to 8.5 sm are hard to compare too. It is like one thing has one rule, when the other has 5-6, or more and synergies.

That's nothing new. 40k has never been known for great balance. The Ork 'dex in 7th came out not too long before the Eldar one. Ask Ork players how that went for them.

No army that I can think of has been not-good for all of the past 10 years. No army has been "good" for all of the past 10 years.

Well I don't know how long 6th or 7th were. But am assuming they were at least 2 years long. this means minimum of 6 bad years for GK. And it doesn't look as if they were to get better. They are even gone from the lore right now. In fact they are gone from the lore since their codex came out, and they were the 3ed codex to come out in 8th ed.

Ironically, about 6 years ago, I don't remember if it was late 5th or early 6th, GK *were* the top dog. They have certainly not gone 10 years being garbage.

What gets said is that, if you don't enjoy the balance/crunch as is, and don't enjoy anything else about the hobby, why engage in the hobby? You might have fun in 10 years or so when the crunch might be in your favor, but that's a huge risk. And that's a boatload of your time and energy, invested in things you don't care about.

Because nothing in the rules says that you need to paint or write lore to play the game. Plus, what If I wait for years, with my money stuck in GK, paint and do all the other stuff that makes me spend more money on them, and then GW just pulls a WFB bretonians on them, and puts all of them in to legacy or just removes them from the game? this would means, I wasted a ton of time and money, and extra money and time doing things I don't really like, waiting for something that wouldn't happen.

Nothing in the rules say you must play this game. Football (either kind) requires a lot of hobbyist attention that i don't enjoy (watching games, training, practicing, being outside, etc). So I don't play Football. It'd be silly for people to redesign Football to fit what I like.

If I spent lots of time and money on gear and training for Football, that was just me making bad choices.

Don't waste time and money on a hobby you don't like, waiting for it to become something it's not.

You miss the point. You're fixating on one faction disadvantaged during what I'm calling the best modern era of the game. My point was that, while it may be suboptimal for those players, it was *more* suboptimal for *more* players previously.

So wait playing w40k doesn't mean you pick one faction and play that, you should pick multiple factions, just in case one of them is or ends up bad? That is kind of a fethed up to be honest, because the armies cost a lot of money. Plus it sounds a bit like a salesman trick to buy more stuff.

No. Completely backwards. Being into 40k doesn't mean pick multiple factions so one will be good. It means being into what 40k is, not what it's not. It means being into 40k regardless of whether your army is OP or trash. It means your enjoyment not being predicated on your army's "Performance" competitively. More armies might increase the odds of being competitive, but picking a competitive hobby is a much better way to enjoy a competitive hobby. 40k, historically, has never had great balance. There's no reason to think ever it will. That doesn't make it a bad hobby. It just makes it a bad choice for people looking for a competitive hobby.

Again, this comes down to what the standard is. If the standard is "Perfect balance", nothing will ever live up. Even Chess is skewed. My standard for considering recent-8th the "best modern era of the game" isn't perfection, or any other abstract unknowable state. The standard I'm using is "other modern eras of the game". Against that standard, it measures up. So the point that it has it's flaws is refuted by showing the same flaws were more pronounced in the other modern eras of the game. That's not to say it couldn't be better, only that it never was better.

I don't know what perfect balance is. What I do know now, is that the guy who sold me my army, couldn't sell it to anyone in 6th or 7th ed. This means GK were bad for at least 3 editions, out of which one I have played in.

You should hear Ork or DE balance history. Sure, they're better right now, but they've gone through much worse than you are.

Plus from what people are saying about the prior editions, a lot of the best armies are the same armies that were best in prior editions.

CWE and SM, sure. IG were top tier in 8th - not so in 7th. DE were top tier in 8th - not so in 7th. CSM. Chaos. Not a lot of the top armies in 7th were top in 8th. That's just selection bias

Eldar were never a bad army

Most of 6th, CWE were bad. They had some low points before that too. They *have* been bad. Being the most consistently top tier army, they haven't been bad often. But don't assume they've never been bad.

tau were often strong,

Not really. They had a brilliant month in 6th, and were still better than many, but after a month the 6e CWE book came out and overshadowed them a ton. And before the T'au 6E book they were in a bad place.

marines were often a strong list too etc.

Often, sure. But they have also been trash

What kind of an improved is it, when bad factions stay bad,

IG didn't stay bad. They got better.
DE didn't stay bad THey got better.

some factions get worse,

Probably the two biggest "got worse" factions were CWE and SM. The two top armies. So isn't that a good thing?

and the good factions stay good?

Because most good factions didn't stay good. And those that did got a *lot* worse. The gap between the baseline and the top CWE or SM lists dropped tremendously between 7E and 8E.

How is the good part checked then and based on what?

By noting how much less OP the top-tier stuff was, and how much less trash the bottom-tier stuff was. Also by how much closer to baseline the majority of the options were.

Are you familiar with the quote "Democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time"?

Not really people here consider democracy as just bad. And that it was better in the past.

People everywhere consider a lot of stupid things. That doesn't make them right.

The argument is that it is better than what came before.

But it isn't better. If I bougth GK in 6th or 7th ed, then they would have been bad back then, and bad now. While if someone play eldar in 6th or 7th, his army would be good then and it is good now.

Well, for starters, if they're still playing Serpent Spam from 6th, that army is probably going to lose to even an optimized GK list. Same with the 6E Seer Star list. Or WK Support list. Or Beast Star. Or 7E WK/ScatterBIke lists. CWE might still be good, but not the same units/army.

And even the army - it's not nearly as OP as it was in 6th or 7th. Armies that had no chance against CWE then are on even playing fields in 8th now. That's what makes it better. You're not auto-lose if you take IG, DE, CSM, Chaos, T'au, Nids, or more against CWE today. That's a massive improvement.

So it is like the saying we have that goes somehow like this "each year the world gets better for rich people".

Except that, in this case, each year the "rich people" are someone else. And the world has been getting for everyone else at a faster rate than the rich people. The reason I say it's the most balanced is because, to abuse your analogy - The "rich" might be getting "richer", but the "poor" are getting "richer" at a much faster rate, closing the gap. And there are randomish swaps between who's "rich" and who's "poor". The fact that there exist a subset of "poor" people who are still poor doesn't mean things aren't better off, as a whole.

It's rejecting improvements because there are still flaws. It's refusing to acknowledge any good in the absence of perfection. It doesn't help that kid in the warzone. It just puts more kids in worse warzones

What improvments?

See above. Or just look at the relative varaition in the top-10s for most tournaments now vs most tournaments in 6th/7th.

my faction was bad in the past, and only got worse with time.

Do you really think this is the worst GK has ever been? That's laughably wrong - even the CA where everyone got points cuts, GK weren't made good, but were the most improved.

I mean, I don't even have to go through different editions to check this. When GK could do turn 1 deep strikes with most of their army, they were better then they are now. Before GK transports got a price hike, because of a model that wasn't part of their codex, they got worse. Specially when their whole codex was build around the transported being priced the original way, and the army doing first turn stuff. Each new rules set for other armies, each new options and way to play, is downgrade to GK. Specially when other armies suddenly get turn 1 deep strike, turn 1 assault etc.

Yes, balance creep is a problem. Every army suffers for it. I wish it weren't here. But if these are your biggest concerns, you don't realize how bad other factions have had it. LotD were a faction that auto-lost every single game at the end of their first battle round. Orks have had a hilariously bad track record on their rules. Balance Creep has impacted almost every era of the game, and almost every book released.

I'm not saying there are no problems. I'm saying the problems are less than in previous eras. Pointing out that there is a problem doesn't refute that.

 Daedalus81 wrote:

Sunny Side Up wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:

Knee jerk reactions to the loudest voices only ruin the game. Letting it shake out a bit and see what's causing problems is the best place to start.

And they did nerf the Castellan. Multiple times. The fact they're fine tuning the nerfs is a good thing, not a bad one.

.

Defaming sensible re-balancing as "nerf" or "knee jerk" does not make a coherent argument.

We have the data. Even without the data, we have basic math. There's no doubt that this needs adjustment.

And even if it were "knee jerk reactions". Actually, "knee jerk reactions" haven't thus far ruined the game. What ruined 7th was rampant OP stuff draining the diversity from the game, thus historically speaking, 1000s overreacting "knee jerk reactions" would still be preferable to another overtly slow re-balancing as with the Castellan. If this were a knee jerk reaction, which it is not.

Hell, if you actually look at other games, say Magic the Gathering or so, that do have a healthy and growing competitive community of the type 40K only dreams off, they are far, far more offensively with this and certainly "don't let the meta shake out". If they have a card that is causing issues and being taken by too many people, because it's obviously good, they just ban it for competitions in five seconds flat. Mistakes do happen after all. Rather kill off that one "sorry, messed up there" thing (even at the risk at perhaps banning a few too many things that might not have needed a nerf/ban) than hurt the game overall.

We have data from before a considerable number of nerfs. It is quite prudent to let those sink in and determine if more fine tuning is required.

I know we all feel like the other buffs are still a lot, but this is marines we're talking about. And non-soup marines at that. We still have yet to see the extent of Eldar changes. It's time to chill a bit and get more data -- this isn't the same thing with Magic where you can ban a unit and call it good.

Exactly. It's quite possible, probable even, that the voices that shout the loudest aren't shouting the smartest.

I'm not claiming people are dumb (despite working in retail), but often the initial kneejerk reactions don't really identify the real issues with an army and what's breaking it. I mean how many people were freaking out about a Dreadnought for at least a week before IH Flyer spam was shown to be even more broken? Data collection is a process and should involve more than just the initial data point you find first.

Came here expecting IF discussion, found two pages of unrelated balance whining.
I guess we can blame the lack of rumours. There was a huge leak of Salamanders goodies, but almost nothing about IF. Is their supplement so lame?

DanielFM wrote:
Came here expecting IF discussion, found two pages of unrelated balance whining.
I guess we can blame the lack of rumours. There was a huge leak of Salamanders goodies, but almost nothing about IF. Is their supplement so lame?

It's more that GW only showed us the stuff Valrak spoiled. GMG should have their video on the army out tomorrow for us to drool over.