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Hi all.
Killkkrazy is right about using a computer program to determine accurate PV for units in ISOLATION.(Playtesting on a computor program is much faster than conventional playtesting with people.)

Then we can establish a base line of balance across all unit types in the game.(And arrive at formulae for PV calculation.)

Playtesting by humans is required to determine the most enjoyable theme and composition in the forces.
(Having 100 20pt units vs 2x 1000pt units may be balanced in theory, but not much fun to play .)
HUMAN playtesting IS important for army composition and theme and synergy .(Computers can tell if a game is fun or not.)

The most obviuos point that has been missed is terrain is a variable , therfore we can simply say the variation will average out over time, and therfore we could simply ignore it*.
Its like allowing for differing levels in player skill....an unecissary complication.
(IF we use sensible restrictions on terrain saturation in competition games that is*.)

The main concideration is a computer game like DoW has focused on end game play throughtout its developement.

Unfourtunatley 40k has focused on short term minature sales .Thefore has far to many counterintuitive abstractiosna and exceptions to achive provable levels of balance.

If 40k was re-written focusing on game play, then far better levels of ballance would be easier to achive.

@Lanark I certainly didn't forget terrain!!! Its the topic of the third blog on game balance. I think Killkrazy has a point up to a certain erm... point. Computers would be able to play games out and follow the optimal decision path almost certainly but I'm not too sure this would give you balanced points. Us humans are far more capable of freaky gak on board that maybe computers would exactly do. Its ok in chess because there's a defined grid. You'd need some seriously good AI in the program to be able to simulate and recreate human behaviour and throw in the odd curve ball. I don't think it'll ever be a substitute for human play testing but it might certainly be a step in the right direction.

Hi Sir Angry.
You can use computers to do comparative annalasis ,(number crunching,) and this gives you a solid foundation of what element interact in what ways.
This gives you the well defined building blocks , to build up ballanced armies.

IT DOES NOT give you a ballanced game .

It is just the first step.Accurate allocation of PV to elements(units or models) in game.

Then the humans have to extensivley play test to find out what is fun, and interesting.

Computers have no idea what makes anything fun or interesting to humans. (Computers derive efficient functionality, Humans develop the interface,asthetic-ergonomics.)

Games HAVE to be developed specificaly for ballance if they are supposed to be used competativley.
(Narrative games do not need to be developed with balance in mind as ballance can be achived with careful writing of the senarios.)

Eg Firefly has 40 pages of rules.
That cover.
Orders,Command and communication.
Visibility ,target sizes and ranges cover and weather conditions.
Direct fire.Target aquisition, (rolling to see), resolving direct fire, ammunition types, (AP,APCR, APC, APCBC, APDS, APSV, HVAP, HEAT,angles of fire,infantry weapons,large calibre non AT fire.
Indirect fire Fire missions , counterbattery fire, fire zones and resolving indirect fire,(including smoke effects, night fighting ).
Morale .Supression, Dispersion, neutralisation perminent dispersion disablement- and destruction.
Air opertaions.mission types flight paths Air to ground attacks and Air to air combat.
Combat Enginerringbuilding defences ,mine fields, booby traps , bridge building etc.

And includes 45 army lists and over 600 unit entries in the 100 page rule book.And not one bloody specail rule!
(And after playing for over 20 years we never had any real balance issues.)

One man's balance is another man's broken...

It all comes down to personality and perception...

With the rumor of 6th Edition next summer.... Necrons and Tau will be OBSOLETE (They basically are now)

Why GW take so long in bringing armies up to current is beyond me. Thats imbalance!

I've been playing since RT and someone could ALWAYS make a list that was cheese.

I can make a BA list that would smoke most players... Whos fault is it?

Am I abusing my 3 FA slots by fielding 30 Assault marines? Or is it smart play? I think play testing cheese armies should be how GW dicate the points costs... I also feel maybe each army shoudl have its slots readjusted...

SM only get 2 Fa slots but 8 Troops etc.... Tau get 5 Elite slots but only 3 Troops... Will add more flavour to each army and could help to balance them out in the long run,

Having played mostly Warhammer Fantasy, with a bit of Warmachine on the side, I'd state that the way to create a truly balanced game is, obviously, playesting, but more importantly, revision.

When MKII came out, PP allowed people to playtest the rules and report back with what worked and what didn't. While it'd be a lot harder with GW games, it's certainly possible and would help identify if any problems arose. After a certain period, say 3 months or so, the developers could revise the current beta rules and then ship them out again, until everything seemed to work. It would indeed take more time, and would go against the secrecy initiative, but overall it would build up GW's customer appreciation, which is critical right now.

IMHO, 40k's main problem is the older books. When GW gives more attention to the Space Marines or favors a book that was already fine, you leave the people who were playing the crappy books out. In addition, these books have the obvious builds, which can be taken apart by the power builds in the new books. However, if the books were updated in a more timely manner, you'd see less army related imbalance. If a Space Wolf player brings a crack list and a Dark Eldar player brings a crack list, then theoretically the only 2 things stopping them are experience and the dice.

Computer balance = everyone is a marine. The shooting phase and assault phase are removed.

If humans decribe the system and the elements within and thier interactions.
Computers can be use to annalise the system and derive comparative values.

And then extensive play testing determines synergistic and prefered limitations.

@Cryonicleeech,
I agree concurrent development of all factions IS preferable for game balance.

40k main 'problem' is its developed to sell toy soldiers to children.
It has not been developed as a wargame suitble for ballanced compatative play.Compared to the other rule sets this becomes obvious...

I agree, no game is truly balanced.

True ballance is unatainable.

However, suitable level of ballance is.

I belive a suitable level of ballance to give...

ALL possible force composition chioces to be equaly valid.

ALL elements to have proven levels of comparative value.

Player skill determines the outcome of the game , rather than army list.

To achive this sort of balance , it has to be taken into concideration during the original game development.

I described earlier a game which is completely balanced.

Clearly the challenge is to develop a game with a wide variety of units which retains balance.

It's probably impossible for all possible force compositions to be equally valid. Part of player skill is to choose units which complement each other.

Killkrazy.
The reason EXTENSIVE play testing is used it to find out that the options in force composition is equally valid.
Player preference should NOT adversly effect thier chance of winning.

Players play style influences thier chioces, and how they work out what is effetive for them.

Limiting play testing to a few like minded individuals does not do the job at all...(Hence the prolems with balance at GW towers.)

So having a wide range of experianced players freely pick from what is available and what they prefer , is the only way to work out how to restrict synergistic imballance.

This is why having a game that rewards real world tactics is better for game ballance, rather than those that depend on exploiting the abstractions in the rules.

Eilif wrote:My experience is that Alternating Unit Activiation leads to a much more involved game and adds alot of depth to a game system.

When I lived in Savannah, we used to play a 28mm WWII game system that used random alternating unit activation.

Each unit was assigned to a playing card. The respective cards were all shuffled. A turn would begin with the first card being turned over and that unit's activation being completed. Then you'd repeat with the next card. A game turn was finished when every unit activation had occurred. For the next turn, you repeated the process, removing cards from the deck as units were eliminated.

I really enjoyed it because it added a little element of the uncertainty of a battle. I thought it had an interesting sort of balance to how the activations occurred. Early in the turn, you had to be careful how you activated because you didn't know which unit would activate next. Having later activations would give a player a little bit more freedom to act, but there was always the chance that a unit could be destroyed before its activation. When one player would have a string of activations in the beginning of a turn, it might seem like an advantage (and it could be), but then you knew that the other player was going to have a similar string of activations later in the turn.

Has anyone else played with this kind of system?

Actually, CAV v1 used the exact same system. You would assign each CAV (Combat Assault Vehicle, basically a giant battle robot) or a group of CAVs a card which would be put in a deck and shuffled. Then you flip the first card over and the CAV or CAVs that card represents complete their actions, then the next card is flipped, and once all cards have been flipped, they're shuffled again and the process repeats.

Exact same system. Goddamn I loved CAV 1. CAV 2.... not so much. I'm not the only one as the game seemed to completely die when CAV 2 came out.

Flashman wrote:So why was overwatch taken out of 40K fro 3rd edition? Was it too complicated for us to understand?

Each edition GW assumes that players as a collective group are dumber as a whole...

Flashman wrote:So why was overwatch taken out of 40K fro 3rd edition? Was it too complicated for us to understand?

Overwatch was taken out because it led to boring games of both people sitting on Overwatch waiting for the other one to move and get shot. Almost as bad as having to track 20 blind and 20 blight templates at a time before a game was over.

Lanrak wrote: The reason EXTENSIVE play testing is used it to find out that the options in force composition is equally valid.

Why should all combinations be equally valid?

Army composition is a choice made by the player just like the choices they make when moving or shooting.

Making an army composed of a random selection of elements just as good as any other removes a player skill requirement.

Scott-S6 wrote:

Lanrak wrote: The reason EXTENSIVE play testing is used it to find out that the options in force composition is equally valid.

Why should all combinations be equally valid?

Army composition is a choice made by the player just like the choices they make when moving or shooting.

Making an army composed of a random selection of elements just as good as any other removes a player skill requirement.

I think that what he is saying is that, individually, each unit by itself is valid though it may become less so when used in conjunction with another unit. For instance, using Tactical Marines. While play testing may show them to be a top notch unit by themselves, we all know they need support, and they MAY become less effective if, for example Devastators are used. as an example, I think this is more close to what Lanrak was talking about.

Hi again.
Ensis Ferrae is right.
My point was that if a player composes a force to suit his play style, and takes 5 long ranged support unit X , and it is totaly over powered vs all other army types/compositions.
This is found by extensive play testing , and so the maximum number of long ranged support unit X can be limited to a 0 -3 per army, for example.
The ONLY way to find synergistic annomalies is by extensive play testing.

Extensive play testing by EXPERIANCED gamers of varing play styles finds the maximum effectivness in the composition lists.
And working on maximum effectivness is the ONLY way to develop games suitable for competative play.

Even it individual units are priced accuratley on a unit to unit comparison.Having multiple units of the same type can often make the gamepaly unballanced, or just not much fun to play.

So extensive playtesting is the only way to arrive at chioces avalable to players alow them to follow thier prefered play style , but without any auto win/overpowered /no brainer choices.(That seem to appear on the internet , days after GW release a codex-army book... )

So making each unit a perfectly valid chioce, (by assigning provable levels of comparative worth.)
And providing a composition list with all anolmalies identified and removed by extensive play testing.
Is the tried and trusted way to arrive a game suitable for ballanced compatative play ,and has been in use for nearly 30 years now...

Making a random selection of units just as good as any other, IF THEY ARE USED TO THIER MAXIMUM POTENTIAL.
Is the goal of game ballance.

As it is mainly player skill that determines who wins, rather than what units you take to the table top.

I agree completely with Lanrak. Game balance is not a scenario in which any random combination of units is as effective as any other, but when every unit has a purpose within its own faction. I should be able to flip through any codex, pick a unit at random, and not be able to say, "Unit x is terrible. Who would ever pick that over unit y?" Every unit should be competitive, when used properly.

AvatarForm wrote:One man's balance is another man's broken...

It all comes down to personality and perception...

This.

There will always be someone who does not like a specific set of rules, reguardless of whether or not it is a tabletop wargame or RPG, there will always be someone who cries "unfair" or "unbalanced." The whole objective of playing a game, in my opinion is to have fun, and if I am not having fun because of whining about unfairness I end up bieng TFG and quitting.

Hi btemple0.
Personal preferance of type of game has nothing to do with game ballance.

Prefering more detailed skirmish , over strategy battle games, or prefering games that deal with physical damage at the exclusion of phsychologocal effects,over game that treat them as equaly important. HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH GAME BALLANCE.

Gamers have preferences , and this makes them more suited to some game type than others.

Most wargames tend to explain the focus of the game, in the developers notes at the front of the rules.

If a game has a provable level of (im)ballance, gamers claiming the game is unfair/unballanced can be shown they are wrong.

EG. 'Little Dave' said T34 are completely usless.(what he actual said was less polite,) when facing 'Jagdpanthers'.

'Chiefy' then said ok , you take control of the german force, including the 'Cheesy' Jadpanthers.And ill use your Russian army in the same senario...
And guess what, thats right 'Chiefy' soundly beat 'Little Dave' using the 'usless army' against the 'cheesy one'....

Proving Chiefy is a more experianced gamer that gets far more out of his units than Little Dave did.(Untill he learned how to use his preferd units to maximum effect.)

The whole point of playing a game is to have fun.
Most people like to be able to gauge improvement in thier hobby.(This is what keeps some hobbiest engaged.)
Eg, Often collectors compare old minatures to ones that have just painted to see how much better thay have got at painting.

Therfore gamers would like to know if any change in thier gaming results is down to them learning how to use thier units better.
And having a provable level of ballance in the game makes this possible.

Hahaha advance wars is defintly not a flawless game system. There are a decent amount of cheesy ways to win and thats only with a few variables thrown in(CO's, identical units, terrain).
I honestly believe that if 40k is ever to become balanced, its gonna be because the gamers took it into their own hands to make a unified codex system. The points system is out of also out of wack (probly the stat line too) Years of deflation has not helped this game one bit, only making it harder and harder to make a balanced game.

Re-adjusting points costs would go a long way to making 40k a "fair" game. (I.E. multiplying every points costs in every part of the game by 2 and adjusting stats from there)

Hi king nemic.
I am sure re-assinging pv could improve the ballance of a game like 40k a BIT.

But the underlying trend of 40k is non proportional results.(This is why provable levels of ballance are practicaly impossible to achive in the current game of 40k.)

EG How do you assign 'accurate PV' when the AP value of a weapon changes effectivness quite dramativcaly depending on what army it is facing?

A weapon with AP 4 is far more efective vs armies with no saves lower than 4+.
Than when it is facing a army with the lowest save of 3+

Conversly a MECH army with minimum of 3+ save, is far more effective vs an army with only 1 or 2 AP 2 weapons, than an army with lots of AP 2 /1 weapons.

Games HAVE to be written with competative play in mind, before that game ballance can be effectivley achiveable.
(The game mechnaics and resolution methods give proportional results, making the game easier to ballance.)