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That's like saying "well, people steal and commit murder anyway; are laws *REALLY* necessary?!"

Poly Ranger wrote:
Remember when GW tried to make a hellbrute more balanced in their FaQ when they reduced its price by 5pts?
It feels like a long list memory that.

That wasn't because of balance. They were fixing a typo in english versions of the codex (as every other language had the hellbrute start at 100 pts)

 krodarklorr wrote:
In 40k, if someone spammed 4 wraithknights, how much of their army did that take up? Pretty much all of it.

1200p, which gives you plenty of space for the cheaper core formation

 Lord Corellia wrote:
That's like saying "well, people steal and commit murder anyway; are laws *REALLY* necessary?!"

The comparison only holds if you could opt out of being murdered by simply walking away and refusing the .. um .. game.

That is the problem with the whole "legal" attitude. Gaming-rules are not laws or legal scripture that need or should be enforced by a third party. They are voluntary opt-in guidelines you can always walk away from with no harm done to anybody.

Wonderwolf wrote:
The comparison only holds if you could opt out of being murdered by simply walking away and refusing the .. um .. game.

That is the problem with the whole "legal" attitude. Gaming-rules are not laws or legal scripture that need or should be enforced by a third party. They are voluntary opt-in guidelines you can always walk away from with no harm done to anybody.

Fair enough, I was just more being a smart arse.

I haven't played in a long while, but one of my friends from work plays and apparently has a small group going of good guys who want to play for fun. Points or no, this is how I prefer to play.

High fences make good neighbours.

Relying on trust and the good will of others is a recipe for headaches if you ask me.

Are points the only way to balance out two armies? Not at all. But it's a solid guideline to have. Unless you're playing purely narrative, there needs to exist a way that my opponent and I can both agree we're on a level playing field, or really whats the point?

The bad thing about how GW uses the points is that they will use the amount of points a model costs in a game to set the price for the model, they don't base the actual price on how much it costs to make the model. That's why independent characters cost so much more than a squad of space marines.

That's half true. 18pts per Mek Gun, 54$ a pop.

 MWHistorian wrote:
Business wise, removing points will also remove the remaining players that actually care about balance. Narrowing their customer base isn't a good move when their revenue is already declining.

I would imagine GW sees a point system creating an artificial barrier to sales. They ask themselves: If the game is played at 1500pts, why buy 1600pts? Hence the focus on apocalysing 40k. Gotta removes all barriers to increase sales. Points create a barrier; remove them.

 PandaHero wrote:
So... as chaos. Making squad of 10 TSons or 10 Chosen would be equivalent to making squad of 10 Regular Marine? And Why would you EVER take 10 regular marine if you can take 10 bike? or 10 Terminator?

You take AoS for example... well AoS is really in a bad shape as of now. I watch a couple youtubers and Miniwargaming for example, are having a hard time balancing the game to actually make it enjoyable. After a week or so of playtesting, they put a point price on every unit using some sort of calculation, and like magic, the game became more balance and enjoyable

Maybe this is what GW are waiting for: Players to make up the point system and then they can co-opt it and tack it on to the game.

Skriker

 Skriker wrote:

 PandaHero wrote:
So... as chaos. Making squad of 10 TSons or 10 Chosen would be equivalent to making squad of 10 Regular Marine? And Why would you EVER take 10 regular marine if you can take 10 bike? or 10 Terminator?

You take AoS for example... well AoS is really in a bad shape as of now. I watch a couple youtubers and Miniwargaming for example, are having a hard time balancing the game to actually make it enjoyable. After a week or so of playtesting, they put a point price on every unit using some sort of calculation, and like magic, the game became more balance and enjoyable

Maybe this is what GW are waiting for: Players to make up the point system and then they can co-opt it and tack it on to the game.

Skriker

Or, have people realize that the game is 100% playable out of the gate, and not supposed to be a competative style game.
Its a game to hang out and spend an afternoon playing and shooting the gak over.

In a game where a winner and loser are determine by victory conditions, it is by definition competitive.

Further, a game with point values is equally well suited (and I'd argue, more suited) for hanging out and shooting the gak over.

I feel that points are still needed for the game. It's not like the point system doesn't work, games like Warmahordes and Infinity work fine with it. GW's idea of point is unbalanced. I think a points system is needed just to have balance in the game. Yes if your playing with friends you can trust your going to be able have fun games that are well-balanced, but theres always going to be people who game the system. A well done points system prevents those abuses. Not saying that GW makes a good points system, because it doesn't, but at least it's a start to balancing the game.

 Blacksails wrote:
In a game where a winner and loser are determine by victory conditions, it is by definition competitive.

Further, a game with point values is equally well suited (and I'd argue, more suited) for hanging out and shooting the gak over.

my experience exactly.
Im a casual fluffu player, but it was the gross imbalances that kicked me out.

 Voidwraith wrote:
The funny thing about this thread is that for the most part, everyone agrees that GW does a poor job with the individual points cost of the models they sell (or has ulterior motives for the reasons some models have the points costs they do in the game), yet if I were to suggest we as a community "fix" some of the ridiculous oversights or imbalances, you'd say "we cannot alter the point values, for GW is the grand arbiter of all that is 40k balance related decisions" (or something to that effect).

So, for example, if I said a Wraithknight should be 375pts base and a possessed chaos space marine should be 22pts per model, I'd be saying something almost everyone would agree with (maybe not the exact number, but everyone agrees that the WK is too cheap and that possessed are too expensive for their impact on the table), but would be burned at the stake for suggesting the points change. Sure, I know...who am I, right? Well...it shouldn't be up to me, but if everyone agrees that GW are idiots when it comes to point costs, it shouldn't be totally taboo for SOMEONE out there to take a stab at it and have the community respect their decisions.

This. I've said this before. If someone of authority like the FLG group took the reins on house-ruling the game, I think it would be a lot more respectable of a game. I enjoy playing with zagman's fan-errata when people agree to it. Problem is getting people to try it.

As you said, it's something like:
"Man GW sucks at points/balance."
"Hey here's a fan errata that has had a lot of work put into it, wanna use it?"
"Nah, those aren't the real rules."
(I facepalm.)

niv-mizzet wrote:

 Voidwraith wrote:
The funny thing about this thread is that for the most part, everyone agrees that GW does a poor job with the individual points cost of the models they sell (or has ulterior motives for the reasons some models have the points costs they do in the game), yet if I were to suggest we as a community "fix" some of the ridiculous oversights or imbalances, you'd say "we cannot alter the point values, for GW is the grand arbiter of all that is 40k balance related decisions" (or something to that effect).

So, for example, if I said a Wraithknight should be 375pts base and a possessed chaos space marine should be 22pts per model, I'd be saying something almost everyone would agree with (maybe not the exact number, but everyone agrees that the WK is too cheap and that possessed are too expensive for their impact on the table), but would be burned at the stake for suggesting the points change. Sure, I know...who am I, right? Well...it shouldn't be up to me, but if everyone agrees that GW are idiots when it comes to point costs, it shouldn't be totally taboo for SOMEONE out there to take a stab at it and have the community respect their decisions.

This. I've said this before. If someone of authority like the FLG group took the reins on house-ruling the game, I think it would be a lot more respectable of a game. I enjoy playing with zagman's fan-errata when people agree to it. Problem is getting people to try it.

As you said, it's something like:
"Man GW sucks at points/balance."
"Hey here's a fan errata that has had a lot of work put into it, wanna use it?"
"Nah, those aren't the real rules."
(I facepalm.)

Yeah, I can see why that's a problem. Could you actually link the errata your talking about? I'd like to have a look at it. But yeah, not having the offical maker of the game bother to attempt balancing it just sucks. Normally I'd just go play more balanced stuff like Warmahordes, but I just really like the feel and setting of Warhammer 40k (more specically Steel Legion) so I can't force myself to not play it. Luckily my sibling are interested in it as well, so we can hash together houserules that we agree on that we can use.

Very interesting concept. I hear mostly good things about AoS from friends and want to try it myself here soon.

That being said, a lot of good points are being brought up on both sides, yet there are people here who are basically shutting the whole thing down without presenting an arguement one way or the other.

 saithor wrote:

niv-mizzet wrote:

 Voidwraith wrote:
The funny thing about this thread is that for the most part, everyone agrees that GW does a poor job with the individual points cost of the models they sell (or has ulterior motives for the reasons some models have the points costs they do in the game), yet if I were to suggest we as a community "fix" some of the ridiculous oversights or imbalances, you'd say "we cannot alter the point values, for GW is the grand arbiter of all that is 40k balance related decisions" (or something to that effect).

So, for example, if I said a Wraithknight should be 375pts base and a possessed chaos space marine should be 22pts per model, I'd be saying something almost everyone would agree with (maybe not the exact number, but everyone agrees that the WK is too cheap and that possessed are too expensive for their impact on the table), but would be burned at the stake for suggesting the points change. Sure, I know...who am I, right? Well...it shouldn't be up to me, but if everyone agrees that GW are idiots when it comes to point costs, it shouldn't be totally taboo for SOMEONE out there to take a stab at it and have the community respect their decisions.

This. I've said this before. If someone of authority like the FLG group took the reins on house-ruling the game, I think it would be a lot more respectable of a game. I enjoy playing with zagman's fan-errata when people agree to it. Problem is getting people to try it.

As you said, it's something like:
"Man GW sucks at points/balance."
"Hey here's a fan errata that has had a lot of work put into it, wanna use it?"
"Nah, those aren't the real rules."
(I facepalm.)

Yeah, I can see why that's a problem. Could you actually link the errata your talking about? I'd like to have a look at it. But yeah, not having the offical maker of the game bother to attempt balancing it just sucks. Normally I'd just go play more balanced stuff like Warmahordes, but I just really like the feel and setting of Warhammer 40k (more specically Steel Legion) so I can't force myself to not play it. Luckily my sibling are interested in it as well, so we can hash together houserules that we agree on that we can use.

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/648525.page

niv-mizzet wrote:
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/648525.page

Thanks. As another quick addition, yeah 40k is unbalanced as it currently is, but that is no reason to throw balance of of the window altogether. GW seems to have finally stopped caring at all in the same style that Konami has, and hopefully I'm wrong about that, because the game can be balanced, they just need to put in the effort. There's a good soloution to this that doesn't mean abolishing the points system.

 Voidwraith wrote:
The funny thing about this thread is that for the most part, everyone agrees that GW does a poor job with the individual points cost of the models they sell (or has ulterior motives for the reasons some models have the points costs they do in the game), yet if I were to suggest we as a community "fix" some of the ridiculous oversights or imbalances, you'd say "we cannot alter the point values, for GW is the grand arbiter of all that is 40k balance related decisions" (or something to that effect).

So, for example, if I said a Wraithknight should be 375pts base and a possessed chaos space marine should be 22pts per model, I'd be saying something almost everyone would agree with (maybe not the exact number, but everyone agrees that the WK is too cheap and that possessed are too expensive for their impact on the table), but would be burned at the stake for suggesting the points change. Sure, I know...who am I, right? Well...it shouldn't be up to me, but if everyone agrees that GW are idiots when it comes to point costs, it shouldn't be totally taboo for SOMEONE out there to take a stab at it and have the community respect their decisions.

You must not have seen Zagman's errata threads

die toten hosen wrote:

Or, have people realize that the game is 100% playable out of the gate, and not supposed to be a competative style game.
Its a game to hang out and spend an afternoon playing and shooting the gak over.

Or have people realize that a game doesn't have to be a competitive style to be well written. Some of us prefer games that are well written, have some semblance of balance and don't require a lot of upfront caveats to have a good experience with. I've been playing since Rogue Trader because I love the 40k Background, but I've really disliked the game itself since about 5th edition, and it just keeps getting worse, especially now that they suddenly jumped the shark with Decurion after a string of relatively lower powered books and have just continued the escalation from there. I play and have played plenty of other games that just do it better and because I like the 40k background so much I keep wishing GW would figure it out.

There is a lot of wrong with a no points system as they did AoS, in my humble opinions.

1-Impossible for new player to actually gauge if you got tabled because you are using unbalance army. Sure it's easy with their starter set, because you can actually play both side of the starter and expect them to be balance. But put a new player to fantasy, like me, and give me 50 models. Then put 50 lizarman model on the other side of the board. Well I won't be able to know if it's a fair match or not. I can get table turn 1 or 2 and won't be able to have fun.

2-No points cost is the best way to make some of your units completly worthless. No points cost mean no upgrade. So take 5 Scouts and 5 Space Marine.... no one would EVER play 5 scout (unless you know the game very well and you know your 5 scouts are balance with whatever the other guy is bringing). That way, you make some unit of your 'codex' useless.

3-Really hit the 'pick up game' portion of the hobby. With friends, ya no points really don't matter much. Everybody will kind of work together to make the game enjoyable for everyone. In a shop, you don't always have that luxury. Both player want to enjoy a FAIR fight, so the point cost is really just an indicative of your army 'power level'. that way he can match your points, and ensure a 'fair' match (yes, the game isnt that well balance, but imagine keeping the same unbalance and removing points, making you fight a very OP army not 1k to 1k, but maybe 1k to 1.5k)

4-Habits. Ya, I have to admit, I'm resistant to change. I like my points cost. I like my list building. I like to pick which 'upgrade' would fit which unit and such. I like to post on Dakka saying: Hey guys, I have 30 extra points, what would you suggest?

To everybody his opinions. There you have mine.

 techsoldaten wrote:
At the same time, several 7th edition players have simply starting organizing battles around formations and FOC limitations, where they fill up slots without regard to how much something costs. Each side just agrees on the slots that can be taken or the formations that can be used and that's your army.

So if I play Elysian drop troops I can take 80 infantry, 3 drop Sentinels (or 2 with a Valkyrie transport) and 13 Valkyries in a single troops slot. And since there's no point limit I can give them every upgrade in the book without worrying if dual powerfist sergeants might be a bad idea. I'm sure that ~2500 point army is completely balanced against a tactical squad in a Rhino, and it's perfectly reasonable to treat them as equivalent "troops slots".

 Peregrine wrote:

 techsoldaten wrote:
At the same time, several 7th edition players have simply starting organizing battles around formations and FOC limitations, where they fill up slots without regard to how much something costs. Each side just agrees on the slots that can be taken or the formations that can be used and that's your army.

So if I play Elysian drop troops I can take 80 infantry, 3 drop Sentinels (or 2 with a Valkyrie transport) and 13 Valkyries in a single troops slot. And since there's no point limit I can give them every upgrade in the book without worrying if dual powerfist sergeants might be a bad idea. I'm sure that ~2500 point army is completely balanced against a tactical squad in a Rhino, and it's perfectly reasonable to treat them as equivalent "troops slots".

Don't be daft - it'll be a tactical squad with an upgraded razorback! Much fairer!

Not using some unit of measure in "points" would be incredibly hard to avoid.

You could try to break down a squad or vehicle to a "selection" and some upgrade selection / units available as a ratio or something but is just another term for points.

It will need someone a bit smarter than I think GW has on-staff at this time to make it happen and be "balanced".

In all honesty, this idea sounds kind of appealing. Enough so I might brng it to my one friend in our circle whos willing to experiment.

I would actually reccomend though to someone considering trying this to set a point limit for upgrades. Say 500pts of wargear for a full CAD.

Most of you however seem to be of the opinion that everyone who plays this game is secretly a grandma sodomizer just waiting for somene to suggest an idea like ths so they can slap five wraithknights on the board.

All very good points.

Originally, what prompted this thread is the idea that points are no longer a good indicator of balance. Maybe they were in previous editions, but it seems like 7th has marginalized certain Codexes even for casual games (talking about Orks and Chaos here, plus probably a few other armies.)

Sounds like the consensus is that we all live with the points system and wait for GW to make things better? Keep buying expensive rulebooks only to be massively disappointed or leave others to feel the same way.

The idea of slots is appealing because it's recognizable and it's not hard to get past the more egregious powergaming tactics. For example, gamers could decide a FOC slot can only be occupied by a single unit (sorry, AM platoons valkyrie spam) and units in formations count towards FOC slots (dealing with decurion formation issues). The only logical issues then are with forces that have a non-traditional FOC - i.e. knights - but there's ways to rule around that.

I would say power creep becomes it's own balancing mechanism when points are not an issue. Most armies have a way to build OP units for a massive amount of points, it's not like this only cuts one way. The ones that don't have other strengths that can be unlocked.

- Anyone can go OP. So you want to bring a giant blob of AM featuring a sergeant with dual power fists? Great, let them face my 20 man Noise Marine squad with full sonic weapons and FNP, let's see who wins that match up. I would actually be interested in seeing it happen, it just won't put me at a severe disadvantage from the moment my troops are on the table.

- There's always the mirror strategy. You want to bring an army of Terminators and Primarchs? Great, let's see how they fare against my terminators and primarchs, I can do it too. When neither side has an advantage, the game is just about skill - in other words, it starts to actually become competitive.

- Then there's the question of actual unit choices. You want to bring a Titan as a LOW? Great, but let's do double FOCs and let me pit you against 12 squads of cultists that (on average) will take you 24 rounds to kill off in a 7 turn game. The mechanics of 40k don't go away just because the points do.

With my BA codex using every slot how can I face this evenly:

(Rough estimate not having access to the codex but you'll get the point)
HQ
Seer council with full complement of warlocks and Farseers all on Jetbikes
Seer council, as above

Elites
10 Wraithguard with D Scythes in Wave serpents
As above
As above

Troops
10 jetbikes with scatter lasers and warlock
As above
As above
As above
As above
As above

Fast attack
10 Warp spiders with full exarch upgrades (Or a full complement of Hornets)
As above
As above

Heavy Support
Vauls Wrath support battery with 3 D cannons
As above
As above

LoW
Wraithknight with all the trimmings (or Revenant Titan if going silly)

Fortification
Macro cannon

Hell as the eldar player why would they take 9/10's of the rest of the codex?

It may be unbalanced now but slot selection rather than points makes it even worse!



Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also as R&H, without being able to take platoons, the best I can do for troops is 20 'guardsmen' without armour. They won't stand up long to the equivalent troops selection from almost any dex.

I could live without points, but only if there was a stricter force organsisation, with units opening up another units, required options, etc. Then you could say "One HQ force" and know what options the other could be taking, for example.

However, that limits the alternative armies and combinations that could be fielded, which is a limit on the background you could create for your force, so I prefer points.

But no points as well as no organsiation? No. That's silly.

When i first heard about a pointsless system i was intrigued. I mean we all know the current points system is broken without even the hope of a fix in sight. And wound for wound a DA lines up pretty well with a tac marine, but seconds later i realised that 2 dreds would never do well against a single wraithknight.

If i thought this was a genuine attempt to make a better game i would have been made happy by the effort. But THIRTY years into making table top games GW knows better. What spawned this ludicrous insult of an idea we'll never know.

I believe there will be more rules to come. Not better ones (GW is moraly & intellectually incapable of that), but different ones. They'll disguise this mystifying blunder as First edition or the next set will be called Grand AoS Battle rules or some such nonsense. In the end though...I just see them trashing the old molds & IP. They won't sell them. That would offer thier competition a winner they could develop.

Wish they'd done something like SAGA. Each Warscroll would be equal in power - instead of "10 or more Orcs in the unit" say "25 Orcs". Take X Warscrolls and thats your army. 40k would could great that way too - a Tactical Marine "unit" would be 10 dudes, two weapons, and a transport, and now cost one "slot" as opposed to "123 points". A "Boyz Mob" could be 30 boyz, or 20 Boyz with a power klaw Nob leader - a couple of choices within each scroll-equivalent that are equal in value. Army building would be faster and less wanky that way IMO

Re; AoS, more than the lack of points I feel the issue is how they've implemented the game. Flat to-wound rolls with no meaningful modification are silly and add nothing at all to the game except more dice. And every unit has 2 or 3 little perks that you need to keep track of - this unit rerolls hits of 1 if they have a flag, that unit forces enemies to re-roll 6's to hit, this unit forces enemies to reroll battleshock tests of 6, that unit regains models if they make a battleshock test of 1, this unit gets an extra attack when they hit with a 6, that unit dodges all to-hit rolls of X...

Simplify that down to 10-20 Keyword effects ["Frenzy: Get extra attacks on a 6"], give each scroll a fixed troop quantity, and make to-wound rolls meaningful and you've got a cool game.

 Blacksails wrote:


*Edit* And I want to make this clear. Do not confuse a bad point system for a good reason to abandon it altogether. A bad point system means there's a need for a good one, of which several games have accomplished.

Considering when I made this argument at my pro-GW club I got kicked out for being a "raging GW hater", I'd say yes, nopoints is a great reason to abandon the game if you didn't have 10 or 20 reasons to do so already