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Hi all.
In one of my long rambling threads about how 40k got where it is now.

There seem to be a lot of 'competative' gamers wanting a more ballanced rule set for competative play.

And alot of 'less competative' gamers saying 40k is fine as it is.

As these states are not mutualy exclusive.
There appears to be a requisit for a more ballanced rule set for the gamers who prefer more competative play than the current 40k rule set allows.

As GW are unlikley/unable to produce this rule set.
Should we have a go at developing one ourselves?
And before you say we could get current 40k rule set and codexes 'up to snuff' in quick order.
Please concider the compexity of the maths involved (for PV calculations) /huge amount of playtesting and data processing
required.

As most functions and interactions in current 40k are situational and independantly exclusive.(This makes ballance far more difficult than if the interactions are comparative and proportional.)
For a rule set to be suited to ballanced competitive play it HAS to be developed with this in mind.

So what do you folks think,should we attempt to develop a rule set thats suitable for ballanced competative play, to use our favorite 40k minatures with?

I dont want to start rules development with this tread , but gauge the level of suport this project might get.

Just state if you would be interested please.(Dont post if you dont care.)

TTFN
Lanrak.

Lanrak wrote:There appears to be a requisit for a more ballanced rule set for the gamers who prefer more competative play than the current 40k rule set allows.

Tournament gamers don't require a completely separate set of rules. A single balanced set of rules will do.

Lanrak wrote:Should we have a go at developing one ourselves?

Done that; been using it for over 5 years now.

BYE

We have a competitive set of rules now. They are clearer and less unbalancing then they ever have been before. Unfortunately, what all the tourny goers would require to stop whining incessantly is a total revision of every codex at the same time to perfectly balance one another within the current edition.

It's never going to happen, and you will never balance the game with a new core rulebook. Its essentially impossible. You would have to do the third edition all armies in the big book all over again.

Even then they would whine.

They would be unhappy because they would lose their special rules.

Hi.
HMBC.
A single ballanced set of rules, requires the rules to be developed in this way.
40k has never been developed with ballanced competative play in mind.

Can yo post you ballanced rules you have devised.Just the basic out line and PV calculation methods, force composition templates.(I dont need loads of detail.)

ShumaGorath.
5th ed 40k has the best layed out and defined rule book so far.

Tournament players want the game to be suitable for ballanced competative play. 40k IS NOT!

Thane Games developed Armies of Arcana with PV calculation and force composition in the back of th rule book . Along with 14 sample army lists.(We converted ALL Wh army lists in less than 2 weeks!)

TTG Firefly rules also has A PV allocation method in the back of the rule book .Along with 45 army lists, and over 600 units stat lines.

JohnHwangDD,
You are probably right. Years of GW brain-washing has a shocking effect on some gamers .
A well written rule set doesnt need special rules to sell the new releases .Great game play is all thats needed.

TTFN
lanrak.

The competitive players are, always have been, and always will be the problem. No matter what GW does, they will complain that their favorite army isn't good enough.

100% agree.

Competative players are evil. They are always the problem 100%. Competative should be banned at this site, much like other swear words. Or better yet, the word filter should automatically change 'Competative player' to 'TFG'.

They're like lepers crossed with Nazis - a 5% fringe society of PURE EVIL. We should ban them all.

BYE

warpcrafter wrote:The competitive players are, always have been, and always will be the problem. No matter what GW does, they will complain that their favorite army isn't good enough.

Wow. So players that actually have a backbone and are competitive are a problem? When players ask for a fair and balanced system they are "complaining"?

Let's look at gaming in a broader sense. Let's look as sports games for a second. Is Football bad because players are competitive? Maybe Baseball is corrupting the nations of the world because of competitive players. Let's just do away with professional leagues! Who needs all this competition? Players should stop complaining about all the bad calls and match ups and just go out to have fun. As a matter of fact... let's do away with athletic commissions. Who needs them? It's the player's fault for wanting to be competitive. And Boxers? Let's just get rid of weight classes and referees. I mean honesty, what is the problem with these people? Why can’t they just go out there and play nice? Why do they have to hit each other in the face? It’s obviously their problem for ruining the game.

And don’t even get me started on chess players! They are the worst of them all. What’s with this “Grand Master” nonsense? They’re going to bring down society.

[/sarcasm]

There are people in this world that are competitive. There is nothing wrong with that. And there is nothing wrong with holding a company accountable for it’s product. In this case, sloppy rules.

~Logic

Logic wrote:

warpcrafter wrote:The competitive players are, always have been, and always will be the problem. No matter what GW does, they will complain that their favorite army isn't good enough.

Wow. So players that actually have a backbone and are competitive are a problem? When players ask for a fair and balanced system they are "complaining"?

Let's look at gaming in a broader sense. Let's look as sports games for a second. Is Football bad because players are competitive? Maybe Baseball is corrupting the nations of the world because of competitive players. Let's just do away with professional leagues! Who needs all this competition? Players should stop complaining about all the bad calls and match ups and just go out to have fun. As a matter of fact... let's do away with athletic commissions. Who needs them? It's the player's fault for wanting to be competitive. And Boxers? Let's just get rid of weight classes and referees. I mean honesty, what is the problem with these people? Why can’t they just go out there and play nice? Why do they have to hit each other in the face? It’s obviously their problem for ruining the game.

And don’t even get me started on chess players! They are the worst of them all. What’s with this “Grand Master” nonsense? They’re going to bring down society.

[/sarcasm]

There are people in this world that are competitive. There is nothing wrong with that. And there is nothing wrong with holding a company accountable for it’s product. In this case, sloppy rules.

~Logic

They don't want balance or fairness, they want their army to have an advantage that only they know how to use for their own weasely pleasure.

Hi all,

This is a constantly recurring topic because it is of interest to a lot of members.

Let's keep the debate away from provocation and generalisations based on individual opinion.

warpcrafter wrote:They don't want balance or fairness, they want their army to have an advantage that only they know how to use for their own weasely pleasure.

I think that statement applies more to TFG, not to be confused with all competitive players. Competitive players just want a balanced rule set so that games are won and lost based on the players tactical and strategic merits rather than having to just pic the the obviously better units out of a codex and leave the obvious trash behind.

warpcrafter wrote:They don't want balance or fairness, they want their army to have an advantage that only they know how to use for their own weasely pleasure.

Really? All competative players just want to have an advantage? They don't want balance or fairness at all?

I would be correct in assuming then that you have something to back up this claim? Yes?

No. Didn't think so. But, yeah, keep on making faith statements and some more unqualified conclusions. They're fun to read.

BYE

You can make all your "competitively balanced rules" until you're blue in the face and guess what... You'll not accomplish a damn thing! Game balance is relative to the player and you'll never be able to make everyone happy. This would only lead to multiple sets of "competitively balanced rules", everyone playing the one they like best and no single one will ever be adopted.

I read your other post... EDITED BY THE MODQUISITION. PLEASE EXPRESS YOUR OPINIONS WITHOUT NEGATIVELY CHARACTERIZING OTHER POSTERS OR UPBRAIDING THEM USING PROFANITY. THIS IS A WARNING. - The Mgmt.

Well, historically games with unbalanced environments of play have done better in both a spectator and player capacity then games that are perfectly equal. Looking at the CCG space Magic the gathering has never been a particularly balanced environment (blue has been in 90% of tourny winning deck builds from the beginning) yet it is dominant. Looking at videogames Counterstrike was and still is the single biggest tourny format FPS on the PC, and has horrible weapon balance. Even in national sports, teams rarely draw from equal pools of talent. An easily exploitable ruleset and environment tends to do better competitively, because it gives those who take the time to exploit it significant advantages over those who do not. Big competitive tourny players are in it to win.

Ofc there can be balanced rules, why shouldnt it? Its basic maths in the end. It wont be easy with a ton of option but what is it that you are paying for?

Actually, what most competitive gamers (And I guess I am one of them, given I'm getting ready to attend my 2nd US GT this year) want is a set of rules that puts rules forums like this one out of business. I'm not worried about balance, if I was I wouldn't play IG as much as I do. What I want is a a set of rules that doesn't have so many holes in it.

Lanrak wrote:Hi.
Thane Games developed Armies of Arcana with PV calculation and force composition in the back of th rule book . Along with 14 sample army lists.(We converted ALL Wh army lists in less than 2 weeks!)

TTG Firefly rules also has A PV allocation method in the back of the rule book .Along with 45 army lists, and over 600 units stat lines.

JohnHwangDD,
You are probably right. Years of GW brain-washing has a shocking effect on some gamers .
A well written rule set doesnt need special rules to sell the new releases .Great game play is all thats needed.

TTFN
lanrak.

Just out of mathematical curiosity, I'd like to see a PV calculation scheme that could apply to 40k units to attempt to achieve more balance. Maybe you could list up a sample of units as a preview?

PV calculation typically starts with the old RT-era calculators, and tries to go from there with various success.

The thing is, a lot of stuff isn't well-costed, and that's typically special rules. For example, assuming a Captain statline is worth 50 pts, what is Rites of Battle really worth?

Rites of Battle is a good example of a special rule that has been badly written for simplicity. As it affects all the figures in the army, its value is clearly a function of the degree of effect multiplied by the number of figures. In plain speech, it is worth about twice as much in a 2,000 point game as in a 1,000 point game.

This could be dealt with by making the cost variable. Alternatively, remove Rites of Battle, make all SMs Ld10 and put up their point cost a bit.

One way of doing points costs is to establish a baseline stat and weapon value (let's say an IG with a lasgun) give it an arbitrary point value that allows room for variation (let's say 10 points) and base your modified stats and weapon values on the baseline.

The difficulty is to know how much a particular variation is really worth. For example, if your baseline gun has range 24, it doesn't mean a gun with range 48 is worth double.

Hi folks.
Perhaps I didnt make my point strong enough.
40k rules development has NEVER had provable levels of ballance as a primary development requirment.
Therfore the values atributed to any element in the 40k system are subjective.(The GW dev teams best guess.)Even if GW improve levels of ballance with more playtesting , gamers opinions could vary wildly from those of the development team.(And with the huge amount of players/playstyles this is to be expected.)

Players that want a game suitable for ballanced competative play, realy want a PROVABLE level of (im)ballance,a finite method of proving that comparative points values are just that!

The current 40k is so far from suitable for balanced competative play.It is NOT worth the time and effort to try to modify it.IMO.
Unless determining standard deviational shift using bolean functions, and logrithmic mapping is your idea of fun?

And even after all this VERY complex calculation, the results are meaningless without effective playtesting to determine synergistic relationships for force composition and exceptions due to all the special rules.

I was proposing writing a NEW rule system from scratch , with provable levels of balance as one of the PRIMARY development requirments.

Making all stats direct comparatives , without any special rules!And have the same group of stats cover ALL units in the game.
This would make calculable PV alot easier and straight forward.

EG
Mobility.
Movment speed.(The distance the unit can move up to per action )
Movment type.(Walker/Wheeled/Tracked/Hover/Jump/Flyer)

Defencive capability.
Armour/resitance to dammage.(Combine ALL saves and toughness into one value)
Dammage capacity.(How many wounds/structure points/hit points)
Size.(Smallest unit size 1, bigest unit size 5)

Offencive capability.
Weapon effects. (Amount/type of damage and area of effect.)
Weapon ranges.(Effective range of the weappons.)
Awarness range.(How good at spotting enemy units.Distance in inches x target size.)

Command and Control.
Moral Grade.(Basic Ld value of the troops.)
Command Value and Radius.(Ld modifiers of leaders ,value and range.)

For playing senarios, and freindly co-operative games the current 40k rules are fine.(Better proof reading and rules definitions would be much apreciated, concidering how much GW charge for thier publications. )

For ballanced competative games set in the 40k universe a NEW rule set is needed IMO.

Would this not solve the 'problem' ?By giving the compatitive minded players what they want, without mesing up a game that narrative -casual players enjoy as is?

Happy Gaming
TTFN
Lanrak.

I don't think there needs a completely new set of rules for competitive play, just a comprehensive errata. I've stated this in your other thread, I'll repeat it here:

To make tournament players happy, GW only has to do one thing, email Yakface with the following:

"We'd like you to expand your Adepticon FAQ with a comprehensive 'Balance Errata' suitable for tournament play. You may have X months to playtest and finalize the initial document, after which time we will sanction it for competitive play. We would like you to provide quarterly/bi-yearly updates to this document based on new releases, tournament data, further playtesting, etc. that would nescessitate changes. All of this is done on a volunteer basis on your part and you are not obligated in anyway to perform any of these requests."

And if they don't, I still think Yak should organize and develop a "Dakka Recommended Tournament Errata" document. GW sanctioned events may or may not adopt it, but I'm sure many local leagues and non-sanctioned tournaments would (I know mine would). Who knows, if it is received well enough, they very well just might adopt it, like how they've used several of his FAQ items in their latest round of FAQs.

Logic wrote:

warpcrafter wrote:Maybe Baseball is corrupting the nations of the world because of competitive players.

Nations of the world, no. Pharmacies of the world, yes.

In a complex system like 40k, balance is all relative to everything else. When you make spot adjustments, then the relative balance of everything else shifts.

So 40k needs to be balanced iteratively.

The problem is that it takes a *lot* of playtesting of a *lot* of combinations in a *lot* of iterations to get that balance "right". 40k, being time (2+ hours per game), space (4'x6' boards), and material (50+ miniatures per side) -intensive makes this much harder than CCG or classic wargaming.

And after you do this, the builds shift again. When you take away the one cheese, the next worst thing rises to the top. So it's like whack-a-mole, chasing the next thing to pop up, without any end in sight.

This is why computerised testing and testing by large numbers of players is better than the current system where some of the dev team play a dozen games and call it done.

If the objective is to test 1 new Codex, focusing on "fluffy" builds, then a dozen good games are probably enough if you really know what you're looking for.

JohnHwangDD wrote:If the objective is to test 1 new Codex, focusing on "fluffy" builds, then a dozen good games are probably enough if you really know what you're looking for.

Seriously, I don't think anybody is going to argue with that, but why even post that? It's clear that at least some people don't' like that objective, so saying it works for other people doesn't really help. I know you're more of a devil's advocate than a GW sycophant, but there are two big possibilities that I think you should keep in mind:
1) that GW could do a better job playtesting with only minimally more effort. We don't know, so to say one way or the other is irresponsible.
2) Even if GW did the best job they can for the amount of resources they have, we won't know that until somebody tests it. Blind faith isn't going to convince anybody.

It's clear that you're mind is made up, and that's great, but having made up your mind and being totally correct are still two separate concepts.

Oh, I have an open mind, but for the most part, what I see here are "some people" complaiing and wanting someone *else* to put the bell on the cat.

Nobody is really stepping up to actually do the work. Nobody is volunteering to playtest hours of games for free to get that slight improvement in balance.

I say, if you don't like something, step up and do something about it.

The idea that GW could magically do better playtesting at no cost or impact is pretty strange. And the idea that marginally better balance somehow results in much better sales is a great mystery to me.

GW balance is close enough for the types of games that I play. I know there are imbalances, and I don't care, because they aren't impacting me.

So far, nobody's saying that the small imbalances that exist are causing them to personally lose a lot of their games. If someone is going 0 for many, please stand up and tell us. Just be sure that it's because of imbalance, and not just because you're a bad player with a bad list.

I don't know I'm a tournament player, and i have no problem with the rules at the moment, or in fact the codex's.

sure some people will complain that their favorite armies are not as good as they once were (ie blood angels/chaos players being a prime example) but thats just the nature of the game.

the only thing i was worried about when this edition came out was TLOS as i was worried it would slow the game down far too much, but actually playing it in a competitive arena on a few occasions their has been no problems at all, i still can't understand why competitive tournament players are still whining about it at the end of the day as some people have in their sigs on this forum how bad do you need to win your toy soldier games?

I agree with John in the respects that when you take away the one variety of cheese (ie Siren or Crystal Targeting Matrix's) another comes up (ie Lash or Horde Orks/Lootas) its just the nature of the game and it will always happen.

Yes tourny players are a 'fringe' society within the 40k society however i have met some players at FLGS that are certainly worse than some tournament players i have played against when i attend the GT at Warhammer World i find alot of players that take in a sense 'hard' builds but they are by no means over powered, for example the only person out of our group to qualify this year took:

1 Lash Prince
1 Khorne Prince
Squad of Plaugebearers in Rhino
Squad of Thousand Sons in Rhino
8 Havocs with 4 ML
Vindicator
and about 3 - 5 Squads of Lesser Daemons of 5 (i forget the exact number of squads)

now when you consider alot of the 'power' builds you see floating around the forum or indeed at the tournys themselves on face value this list does not seem completely over powered, however the force worked well as a whole and not relying entirely on one thing as most power builds do (ie Lootas being a prime example at the moment) I have taken power builds before to tournaments (my CTM army) however when playing at my FLGS i explained to the people i was playing that i was using the army that i was for tournament practice and ask them if it would be okay to play them with said army for practice, most people that i play on a regular basis or indeed some random peeps that come by the store looking for a game normally relish the chance to take on someones perspective 'tournament' army as it provides them a challenge and some of the most fun games have come from my tournament army being battered into submission by someone who plays just for fun.

So in some respects you can call us the devil but in fact a lot of this 'fringe' society that i have found myself over the past few years put into are interested just like the rest of the community in having fun games, however we enjoy that extra competitive edge that goes with tourny gaming, however their are exceptions to these rules and i have played them and much like alot of people i have found them no fun to play against at all

Still that's my experience of tournaments over the past few years i look forward to some responses from people on the views i have put forward, and just incase i meant no offense and if the way this post is worded offends anyone i unreservedly apologize in advance

JohnHwangDD wrote:If the objective is to test 1 new Codex, focusing on "fluffy" builds, then a dozen good games are probably enough if you really know what you're looking for.

That's a bit like saying if you set your QA pass rate very low, then a few games are enough. Which is kind of what JJ said in his comment that the game isn't intended for tournament player which is why its got a lot of holes in. Either that or they are trying hard to find the holes but they are not competent.

Keep in mind that studio 40k tends to feature armies composed of a lot of one-of units. You don't see a lot of max-(whatever) units, nor non-Troops duplication.

These aren't particularly powerful builds - they're flexible builds. And my sense is that they tweak around with stuff to get it "close enough" for that sort of play on both sides of the board.

So the way that GW studio normally plays, there aren't a lot of holes to be found. That is why they look at min-max tournament armies as an abberation that they don't bother with.