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Made in ca
Librarian with Freaky Familiar






 Tyran wrote:
 auticus wrote:
I don't agree that you can't balance for a casual meta. You can't achieve perfect balance, and no one is asking for that, but the level of disparity and imbalance can be often found after literally 5 minutes of flipping through an army book.

If in the thousand sons example you cannot take rubrics, the things that make the thousand sons the thousand sons to many people, because they get buried, you look at why that is.

If you find that things like tactical marines, the backbone of the army, are almost never taken because they aren't "optimal" you find out why that is and address it.

If I have an army of five imperial knights evaporating the enemy army in two turns (this was back when they were an adepticon darling a few years back), I'm going to want to look at why that is and tone them down a few notches.

To be honest, I'm failing to see how that is different from balancing for the tournament meta.
If an Imperial Knight army is evaporating an army in two turns, you will see that reflected in the tournaments.


The reason for that is because knights play a totally different game. Knights don't have a good ability to have board control, in that they can't be in a lot of places at once. Because of that it's harder to capitalize on objectives, and getting into enemy territory.

So while you see all these lists that have elaborate wombo combos, knights don't give a crap a out that, they just are gonna walk up the board and punch you in the face. Which works half the time. But needing to be in a lot of places all at once? Eh not so great.

You will see them in tournament, but they are not that hard to counter as a list, it's just I'd tour list can't specifically deal with them your gonna have a hard time.

They are just a wrench in the meta operation.

To many unpainted models to count. 
   
Made in us
Towering Hierophant Bio-Titan




Mexico

 auticus wrote:
On one hand you have armies that only consist of the 5% best things.

On the other hand you have armies that are composed of everything else.

The armies composed of the 5% best things likely won't be evaporated in 2 turns because they have broken or super optimal rules that either mitigate or prevent that from happening (which is how they are the 5% best things and taken in a tournament environment)

The whole thing I was told on that day was "you should have taken mortarion and magnus because they can't die as fast and they can kill knights by themselves". They were a requirement at that point in time. That made for a most unpleasant and unfun play experience.
Armies consisting of the best 5% is a failure of internal balance, which again to be fair GW has always struggle with.

But that is still something done at the tournament level. Just because it is tournament play does not mean the tournament balancing team can forget about the 95% of the rest of the game.

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2022/01/28 17:07:17


 
   
Made in us
Stabbin' Skarboy





I think fan balance is the best way to go honestly, but you need to gather a team somehow of quite a few people who are knowledgeable about factions, but not overly biased. 40k from GW is never going to be balanced though, cause they don’t realize that if everything is good people will just buy everything.

"Us Blood Axes hav lernt' a lot from da humies. How best ta kill 'em, fer example."
— Korporal Snagbrat of the Dreadblade Kommandos 
   
Made in ca
Librarian with Freaky Familiar






A think a lot of the issues too is that honestly, the people that write the rules don't play the game like most of the players.

I had a GW store manager tell me a story about it back in 8th and he went over to the UK and the way they played in 8th was like, totally different then the way the US played. We literally played like animals and would have super aggressive lists while over in The UK there was a lot more fluffy lists that did not abuse it as much. Like guard mixed with other imperial armies was common, but the loyal 32 was something that tournament and US players kinda made a big thing.

Like the flyrent list spam? That did not get changed until one of the rule writers got stomped by it at a tournament. I think that's a big contribution is that you have people making rules for the game, but they don't play it at the "hyper" competitive way that a lot of people do. And now they are trying to balance based upon those hyper competative results but don't really get why they take what they do, they just see win rates go lol better nerd that with a bat, rather then addressing the core issues behind them

To many unpainted models to count. 
   
Made in us
Stabbin' Skarboy





I’d personally like it if we all went to nice fluffy armies, but that’s majorly difficult when boyz run away at the sight of a fluffy woodland animal, and a grot costs as much as a guardsman.

"Us Blood Axes hav lernt' a lot from da humies. How best ta kill 'em, fer example."
— Korporal Snagbrat of the Dreadblade Kommandos 
   
Made in us
Clousseau




I will say for sure that the uk folks play a completely different game than the US folks yes. And the design team is in the UK.

If I had a dime for everytime someone I knew from the UK said something like "why on earth would you build a list so busted as that to remove all fun from the game" - I'd own GW by now.

So for sure how they approach the game over there (and in the design studio) is leagues apart from how the competitive american market runs with it.
   
Made in ca
Librarian with Freaky Familiar






Yeah i found it funny when word for word "you Americans play like bloody animals" was how the US players wre described.

To many unpainted models to count. 
   
Made in us
Fixture of Dakka




NE Ohio, USA

chaos0xomega wrote:
(I've never seen an "open play" game but in my head I imagine its two or more people showing up to the table with a random collection of minis taken from across 5 different codexes plus at least one unit from AoS or another game or otherwise kitbashed from a 1/35 Tamiya kit with homebrew "its balanced I swear rules" to make them work in 40k, and theres at least a 20% points disparity between the players if they bothered to check, etc.).


Sure, someone out there might be doing something that wild.
OR.....
Their games might be almost indistinguishable from matched (even using the current pts) differing only in, for a few examples;
1) ignoring the new flyer limit - because hey, guess what, you aren't the only guy with an air-mobile Guard force!
Unlike you we aren't content to just sit on it/bin it. So "Open". When you get tied of being sad that you've got a shelf full of stuff you can't play with, change how you choose to play. After all, was it a problem in your circle Monday that all of your Guard were mounted in Valks? If not, then why is it a problem with those same people now that it's Tuesday?
2) ignoring the extra coherency rules for large squads.
3) ignoring the new Ork buggy restriction.
4) allowing Las/plas razorbacks to be used. They aren't even listed in the the Legends section. Last they were seen was in the 8e index. Well, we know what a razorback costs. And we know what a lascannon + 2 plasma guns cost. So play on.
5) allowing non-primaris Ragnar Blackmane to be used. Why not? In the Legends section we have not one, but TWO non-primaris versions of Calgar....
6) using missions from whatever source for the size of game we're playing. We're playing a Strike Force game? OK, roll on the compiled table.... you might get something from open, Crusade, matched, WD, or one of the campaign books. Guess what? As soon as you pull some mission that's not from matched, you're technically not playing matched.... And if your not playing Crusade, we'll, I guess your playing "Open".
7) ignoring the sometimes idiotic restrictions placed on special edition models - like that Goff Rocker, or the original SM reprint.
Both state that only 1 such model may be in an army.
Really? Only 1 ork picks up a guitar? Despite some of us having the original set of guitar, singer, etc?
Or the one guy I know who has a whole army of that OG SM (and the other metal SMs of the same style/vintage) as the base trooper. What, we're supposed to say "Sorry Frank, even though you've been playing with dozens of that model for decades, you can't play them anymore because some guy at GW said so."?
8) hey, how about those looted vehicles for the Orks?
I don't see them in matched play.....
9) solving the problem of how to deploy Fortifications. As written? Almost unplayable. (And by default almost unsellable by the shops. Ooh, look, GW just admitted as much & changed their deploy riles - but only if your playing a GT Nachmund game.... guess what? Some of us solved that quite awhile ago. Just makes all our games where they show up not-matched.

So no, an Open game does not have to involve crazy imbalance.
   
Made in us
Shadowy Grot Kommittee Memba




The Great State of New Jersey

 Backspacehacker wrote:

I had a GW store manager tell me a story about it back in 8th and he went over to the UK and the way they played in 8th was like, totally different then the way the US played. We literally played like animals and would have super aggressive lists while over in The UK there was a lot more fluffy lists that did not abuse it as much. Like guard mixed with other imperial armies was common, but the loyal 32 was something that tournament and US players kinda made a big thing.


This is true. I've heard James Hewitt (the game designer who did Titanicus, etc., not the guy who was banging Princess Diana and might be Prince Harry's dad) talk about it a bit, I get the impression that the UK meta (or at least the design studio) didn't think too highly of the way Americans played the game "back in the day". I assume that since Mike Brandt works for GW now and they are catering towards the tournament crowd that this may have changed to some extent.

Like the flyrent list spam? That did not get changed until one of the rule writers got stomped by it at a tournament. I think that's a big contribution is that you have people making rules for the game, but they don't play it at the "hyper" competitive way that a lot of people do. And now they are trying to balance based upon those hyper competative results but don't really get why they take what they do, they just see win rates go lol better nerd that with a bat, rather then addressing the core issues behind them


Arguably this is why WMHDs was(is?) better balanced than 40k was, the design team actually played competitively and as a result rebuilt and maintained the game around the competitive meta to the best of their ability. The downside to that, of course, was that the community of casual gamers that had been early adopters of the system when it was still a casual/semi-casual thematic fluff-based ruleset were driven away completely and resulted in the community and consumer base for the game being hollowed out.

ccs wrote:
chaos0xomega wrote:
(I've never seen an "open play" game but in my head I imagine its two or more people showing up to the table with a random collection of minis taken from across 5 different codexes plus at least one unit from AoS or another game or otherwise kitbashed from a 1/35 Tamiya kit with homebrew "its balanced I swear rules" to make them work in 40k, and theres at least a 20% points disparity between the players if they bothered to check, etc.).

Sure, someone out there might be doing something that wild.
OR.....
*snip*
So no, an Open game does not have to involve crazy imbalance.

I apologize if I offended you? That bit was intended more tongue-in-cheek than anything else, but also not really relevant to anything else in the post.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2022/01/28 17:40:27


CoALabaer wrote:
Wargamers hate two things: the state of the game and change.
 
   
Made in ca
Librarian with Freaky Familiar






We just have to admit that as US gamers we are literally bullies of the table top

To many unpainted models to count. 
   
Made in us
Swift Swooping Hawk





 Some_Call_Me_Tim wrote:
a grot costs as much as a guardsman.


Not anymore, to be fair.
   
Made in us
Stabbin' Skarboy





 Gene St. Ealer wrote:
 Some_Call_Me_Tim wrote:
a grot costs as much as a guardsman.


Not anymore, to be fair.


Ah right, plus one half point, this discount is truly a blessing from the lord .
Fething “no less than five points” gak.

"Us Blood Axes hav lernt' a lot from da humies. How best ta kill 'em, fer example."
— Korporal Snagbrat of the Dreadblade Kommandos 
   
Made in ca
Longtime Dakkanaut





@Chaos0Xomega:

I read your suggestions for the "unigame" proposal and what you want to do with narrative. I've just been through HUGE multithreaded debates about Crusade on other sites, so I'm a bit burnt out.

But I think that you misunderstand what it is that makes Crusade as it is so amazing. I have come around to some of HBMC's thoughts- I've always agreed with him about consolidating ALL crusade content from Campaigns into a single book. I've similarly agreed with Unit and other posters that it would have been cool if they could have released a "Big Book of Crusade" along side the BRB that contained ALL bespoke Crusade content for all factions as well as various models for linking games into campaigns. While it would have been excellent, this last idea is not as feasible as HBMC's, because bespoke Crusade content in dexes references the updated general rules in that dex... and it would be really hard to provide meaningful bespoke content without doing this.

But killing the progression system and destroying the long term quests like Sainthood, Repentance, Territorial Acquisition, Machine Construction, Planetary Insurrection, System Assimilation... This would rip the soul out of Crusade and replace it with what pretty much amounts to Armies of Renown (which we already have) in stand alone games.

Crusade players care about stories- both those that occur in single battles and those which link a series of battles together to create a longer term arc. Some of us view the entire lifespan of our force as a single, ongoing story.

We still may care about things like balance, or unified rules, but those things are not the priority. The story is the priority. Any sacrifice that you make to the latter for the sake of the former is unlikely to be appreciated.

I think that 3 ways to play and game size variation is the crowning achievement of 9th. They could push it further- lots of Matched players are objecting to bloat, so maybe limit strat use a bit more in matched- ie. BRB strats + 5 individual bespoke strats chosen before the game and paid for with points. You could keep the CP rules as is, but every game, you'd only have five of your own strats to plan around, and only five enemy strats to worry about.

And here's the important part: you make that changed for matched to address people's bloat concerns, but you leave Crusade alone. You leave open alone.

This one change allows strats to still be used in matched, but shifts their focus to narrative, where players can use the full list.

Now the truth about this is it's how everyone plays anyway. Every game I go into, before the first turn, I've got a short list of strats in my head that I might use, and the others might as well not even exist. The rule just formalizes the process for Matched play.

@ccs regarding open: exalted! Excellent uses for the open format. I still use my 8th ed Ordo Malleus Terminator- it was removed in the 9th ed update.

And again, open is a great place for beginners to start. Even in its role as just the place where things that aren't possible elsewhere can still be done, it has huge value to the game.


This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2022/01/28 18:54:13


 
   
Made in ie
Battleship Captain





 Backspacehacker wrote:
We just have to admit that as US gamers we are literally bullies of the table top


Funny because when I made the point a few months ago about how the competitive US culture filters through the hobby I was told on no uncertain terms that that wasn't true at all and I was talking out my ass.


 
   
Made in us
Veteran Knight Baron in a Crusader





 kodos wrote:


GW Marketing tries to advertise that balance is only important for events, while it is actually important for casual pick up games as events don't care and make their own rules anyway



It's most important for pickup games. A competitive player is going to look at the codex and pick the best units. A casual player is going to buy models they like. The problem is when someone buys the models they like and either blows all their friends off the table by T3 without even trying to be competitive if they like Dark Eldar or gets stomped by everyone without having a chance if they like Tau/Necrons. Competitive players will always find broken combos to abuse because the game is just too big not to have some, but casual players shouldn't get their teeth kicked in just because they happened to like the look of a certain faction.
   
Made in ca
Librarian with Freaky Familiar






 Sim-Life wrote:
 Backspacehacker wrote:
We just have to admit that as US gamers we are literally bullies of the table top


Funny because when I made the point a few months ago about how the competitive US culture filters through the hobby I was told on no uncertain terms that that wasn't true at all and I was talking out my ass.


Yeah, you are absolutely right, the US players literally are animals in the game. Playing in the UK, a lot more players across the pond are more fluff focused then win win focused. it's almost like the difference between feather weight and heavy weight fights.

To many unpainted models to count. 
   
Made in us
Clousseau




 Sim-Life wrote:
 Backspacehacker wrote:
We just have to admit that as US gamers we are literally bullies of the table top


Funny because when I made the point a few months ago about how the competitive US culture filters through the hobby I was told on no uncertain terms that that wasn't true at all and I was talking out my ass.


I've been told this many times as well, particularly in conversations where we discuss how the competitive matched play scene infiltrates and destroys the narrative scenes when they try to get created. ("we are playing for fun? Min Maxing is how I have fun.")
   
Made in ca
Librarian with Freaky Familiar






What's unfortunate is, because fluffy armies are so gimpted no one has a good time loosing, so you just end up making a competitive list.

What I have found is, I always go in with 2 armies, the one I want to play, and my dikstomp list, which because I'm lazy ends up being knights because it always makes competative players rage.

If I run into another fluffy player, I run my dw rw fluff list, or guard list, if it's competative, it's stompy knight time boys.

To many unpainted models to count. 
   
Made in us
Veteran Knight Baron in a Crusader





 Backspacehacker wrote:
...you have people making rules for the game, but they don't play it at the "hyper" competitive way that a lot of people do. And now they are trying to balance based upon those hyper competative results but don't really get why they take what they do, they just see win rates go lol better nerd that with a bat, rather then addressing the core issues behind them


Balancing the game for casuals who will never try to min/max is like making laws in society based on how an 80 year old grandmother acts at church. People have been complaining about OP min/max lists for 30 years and the rules team still writes rules as if that style of play doesn't exist. Hopefully this new partnership with ITC will show them that people will do whatever possible to break an army and they need to write their rules with that in mind. Not all of us play fluffhammer in our garages or with a like-minded gaming club, those don't even exist here.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
 auticus wrote:


If I had a dime for everytime someone I knew from the UK said something like "why on earth would you build a list so busted as that to remove all fun from the game" - I'd own GW by now.

So for sure how they approach the game over there (and in the design studio) is leagues apart from how the competitive american market runs with it.


I think that attitude is why we're The United States of America instead of the West British Colonies. "Hey you guys can't wear camo and attack from the trees! You're supposed to walk shoulder to shoulder wearing bright red so we can shoot you more easily! No fair!"

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2022/01/28 20:05:38


 
   
Made in us
Clousseau




A lot of them that I know when they play they make a list and then they ask their opponent if they think it would be fun to play against.

Whereas in the US we build a list with the intent of smashing our opponent in the balls and putting them through a table because your opponent will be doing the same to you.
   
Made in us
Ancient Venerable Dreadnought




San Jose, CA

auticus wrote:I will say for sure that the uk folks play a completely different game than the US folks yes. And the design team is in the UK.

If I had a dime for everytime someone I knew from the UK said something like "why on earth would you build a list so busted as that to remove all fun from the game" - I'd own GW by now.

So for sure how they approach the game over there (and in the design studio) is leagues apart from how the competitive american market runs with it.


Backspacehacker wrote:We just have to admit that as US gamers we are literally bullies of the table top


Underlined - I say that gak all the time when I see lame spam.

Italicized - You can't pigeonhole everyone into the same category.

What all this is showing front & center is that Tourney 40k is the now only way to play(unofficially) the game at its basal level.

There needs to be a specific distinction between tourney pts/rules etc from the rest of the game(mechanically).
   
Made in nl
Longtime Dakkanaut





Is this seriously a bunch of Americans talking about how much better they are at playing competitive despite the facts not supporting that?

The US are bullies while everyone else plays fluffy lists? really?
   
Made in us
Clousseau




I didn't read anywhere where Americans were posting that they are better at playing competitively than anywhere else.

What the conversation was saying is that in most other places in the world, there is a time and place for everything, but in America the only time and place is hammer time all the time in public games, which makes fluffy casual narrative fun time very hard to come by here... and that our european counterparts often look at those complaints and ask wtf we are doing over here that that is the case because over there its not like that at all.
   
Made in ca
Librarian with Freaky Familiar






That, not saying we are better, I'm saying we are a lot more brutal on the table.

The example I give being the loyal 32. Across the pond imp guard and other armies we're a lot more common, us took it to the extreme and popularized the loayal 32

To many unpainted models to count. 
   
Made in gb
Longtime Dakkanaut




Racerguy180 wrote:


What all this is showing front & center is that Tourney 40k is the now only way to play(unofficially) the game at its basal level.



I disagree to an extent.

I've seen this sentiment since 3rd Ed that tourney mode/prep for tourneys is the only way to play and for twenty five years garage groups and homebrewers have been quietly ignoring it.. and people have grown out of it. and I say this as a former tournament player. I burned out of that scene twice. Its an oroboros. Maybe its an age thing but you get to a point where you don't want to deal with that.

Dont misread me. I know where you are coming from. Matched/tourney play as a baseline is absolutely a thing, moreso in stores and the pick-up-game scene, and especially in the us, but this doesn't represent the entirely of the community and imo not the majority either.

Racerguy180 wrote:
.
There needs to be a specific distinction between tourney pts/rules etc from the rest of the game(mechanically).


Problem with this is the 'cult of officialdom'. You say 'these are the tourney rules/legal models' and to that section of the community the rest of the game might as well not exist. From gws pov that's cutting off their own nose.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2022/01/28 22:11:21


greatest band in the universe: machine supremacy

"Punch your fist in the air and hold your Gameboy aloft like the warrior you are" 
   
Made in us
Growlin' Guntrukk Driver with Killacannon





Italy

Officialdom is a problem and not always in an insidious way. Often times it can be that one member of a group regularly plays official tournaments and so only wants to play those rules so they get their practice in. As a result the rest of the group obliges since they don't mind the tournament style rules or they enjoy the challenge.

Everyone has fun but the non-tournament rules end up unused.
   
Made in us
Clousseau




Having to have every game be a tournament tuning game even in the casual narrative games was a big problem for me.

Running campaign events with non tournament rules and getting blown up by the community for playing 40k "wrong" for not using tournament rules was also a big problem for me lol.

That absolutely needs changed.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2022/01/29 01:45:40


 
   
Made in us
Growlin' Guntrukk Driver with Killacannon





Italy

Yeah, I will say Crusade in 9th has been a lot more popular than Narrative games of 8th so that's a step in the right direction.
   
Made in us
Regular Dakkanaut




 auticus wrote:


I was on the team that wrote the azyr point system for age of sigmar before official points, and while it was not perfect, it did achieve a very sold and respectable flatter bell curve, to the point where its #1 complaint was "AHHH YOU KILLED LISTBUILDING!!!!"


I always love this example you bring up about your experiences in testing a ruleset with a flatter power curve. I believe the conclusion you reached was that players don't actually want balance -- they want to be able to execute "perfect play" in the listbuilding phase and win, or at least secure a tremendous advantage, before any dice ever get rolled.
   
Made in us
Clousseau




artific3r wrote:
 auticus wrote:


I was on the team that wrote the azyr point system for age of sigmar before official points, and while it was not perfect, it did achieve a very sold and respectable flatter bell curve, to the point where its #1 complaint was "AHHH YOU KILLED LISTBUILDING!!!!"


I always love this example you bring up about your experiences in testing a ruleset with a flatter power curve. I believe the conclusion you reached was that players don't actually want balance -- they want to be able to execute "perfect play" in the listbuilding phase and win, or at least secure a tremendous advantage, before any dice ever get rolled.


The American GW community competitive players I'd say yes, for the most part that is my experience. My experience with say the Battletech community and the UK GW community however is largely the opposite. I didn't realize that balance was not really sought after though until the azyr experience, because up to that point I was under the misconception that balance was a universal want. Somewhere along the lines from 2005 or so on up to that point in 2015 things had taken a different turn here in the states.

   
 
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