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Made in ca
Grumpy Longbeard





Canada

 frozenwastes wrote:

Many people really do just want to move models around and make pew pew sounds and they expected Infinity's point system to allow them to do so. It doesn't really. It assumes the players will approach the game in a more tactical and skill intensive manner.


Ironically, Warhammer would be good for that, as long as no one starts taking it too seriously.
Where I am; Infinity is growing (though the scale in South Africa is much smaller), because there are people looking for games that they can approach "in a tactical and skill intensive" manner.

A good balancing system allows players to go at it "no holds barred" and not have to worry about bringing something too good for the level of play.

Nightstalkers Dwarfs
GASLANDS!
Holy Roman Empire  
   
Made in es
Grim Dark Angels Interrogator-Chaplain




Vigo. Spain.

 -Loki- wrote:
 frozenwastes wrote:
Here's something the inventor of Warhammer and 40k had to say in his recent book on wargame design:

Rick Priestly wrote:There are essentially three things to grasp about points values –

They don’t work
nevertheless we have to have them
even so they can’t really be reduced to a mathematical formula.


Funnily enough, Infinity points values are a mathematical formula, and the game is very well balanced. Every stat increase/decrease, every skill, weapon and piece of equipment have standard points values and are fed through a formula.

However, it's also worth noting that that balance comes at the cost of everything, from a basic human to an angry space ape to a robotic construct bearing an evolved alien AI to the artificial recereation of Achilles to a manned giant robot all being the same on the tabletop. The only thing that makes them different are stat differences, skills, equipment and weapons, and those are all shared across all of the factions. They all interact the same way with the core rules and core skills. An Alien Doctor patching up a sentient artichoke is the same stat and dice roll as a human patching up a human is the same dice roll and stat as a human repairing a giant robot. A human hacker blowing up the brain of a human hacker is the same peice of equipment and same stat roll as an alien hacker possessing a human giant robot. An elien firing its basic 'rifle' is the same gun and stat roll as a human firing a basic rifle back at them.

Every model is a toolbox made up of a variety of tools available to everyone, but only certain combinations are given to certain factions. It creates a very homogenous gaming environment. Which might or might not be your cup of tea. But a mathematical formula to balance points does work, there's a working example of it on the market that is very popular on the tournament scene.


Yeah, thats basically what I was saying here.

You can have balance, or you can have variation and "uniqueness". GW's games have never wanted to be ultra balanced and competitive games, they wanted to let you represent your battles and historys.

Now, this isn't a justification to their poor balance, because even being a more "narrative" system that don't justify a unplayable game. If a narrative game has the objetive to let you play your histories but then X units are totally garbage or others are ultra-OP, then the narrative aspect of the game suffers greatly.

In response to the OP question:
Warhammers are inherently unbalanced because thats their phylosofy of playing with a narrative in mind and a more Roleplay feel. But thats is not excuse to the cases we lived the past years (And even now) where the unbalace is so big that it even makes really really hard to play a more narrative and casual style of game.
But even in the hypothetical case that Warhammers where balanced enough to let a narrative style of game be really free and fun, the most competitive crow will encounter forms to broke it because is not a system made to be a game based on the test of skills and strategy manouvering.
I don't go to a X-wing specting a roleplay experience and then say is a bad game because it don't deliver it. It isn't suppose to be a narrative game.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/04/22 20:14:48


 Crimson Devil wrote:

Dakka does have White Knights and is also rather infamous for it's Black Knights. A new edition brings out the passionate and not all of them are good at expressing themselves in written form. There have been plenty of hysterical responses from both sides so far. So we descend into pointless bickering with neither side listening to each other. So posting here becomes more masturbation than conversation.

ERJAK wrote:
Forcing a 40k player to keep playing 7th is basically a hate crime.

 
   
Made in gb
Lieutenant Colonel




IMO back in the ear;y to mid 1990s GW were a bit more open and honest about the limited way their rules for 40k could be used to arrive at fun games.
They made it quite clear the emphasis was on player self restriction and negotiating with your opponent to arrive at the type of game play experience you wanted.
They often admitted they had made errors of judgment in the rules and players could correct these over sights.
All this was communicated in the monthly games suppliment called White Dwarf.

At this time most 40k players were more in gaming groups of mature experienced players , and 40k was a RPG /skirmish hybrid game.
Younger, newer players were usually guided to gaming groups with more experience to help them along.

When the sales focus shifted, the design ethos did not.So the disconnect caused quite a bit of disconnect between GW customers.

Now the rules that are dependent on mature gamers with enough experience and confidence to sort out the 'sand pit of ideas' sold across a bewildering range of books.
Are marketed as a simple rule set suitable for ages 11 and up.

Hopefully, now Kirby is moved aside, GW studio could communicate a bit better with its different customer groups?
Perhaps 3 play modes in 8th ed 40k might be a move in the right direction?

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2017/04/23 10:11:15


 
   
Made in fr
Pyromaniac Hellhound Pilot





France

The game will never avoid being unbalanced for three reasons:

-Firstly, the armies have such asymetrical designs that it's hard to have them perfectly match.
-Secondly, the balance's been suffering from GW's policies. However, it might be avoidable in the case they would make for the best.
-Lastly, it's always possible tomake errors. Maybe that or this unit wasn't expected to perform so well after the tests, or the prices is a bit to high, or this combination they hadn't expected shows up and ruins the game...
-Randomness is able to decide the outcome of a whole fiht, but we can't blame anyone for that!

Unless it had almost symetrical armies with no differences and absolutly no randomness would the game have a chance t be equal.

But you know what?For my part I still prefer a maybe unbalanced 40k as chess! But that's a matter of tastes I guess.

40k: Necrons/Imperial Guard/ Space marines
Bolt Action: Germany/ USA
Project Z.

"The Dakka Dive Bar is the only place you'll hear what's really going on in the underhive. Sure you might not find a good amasec but they grill a mean groxburger. Just watch for ratlings being thrown through windows and you'll be alright." Ciaphas Cain, probably.  
   
Made in us
Clousseau




To be honest the game works pretty well when you are collaborating with your opponent to create a fun time.

The game falls apart when you try to min/max it and exploit it.

I've never played a company level or higher game that had tight balance in the hands of a min/max opponent.

Infinity is pretty good, but not perfect (there are min/max issues with it just like any game of its kind). Its also at the skirmish level. I'd be interested to see how well Infinity does when you take it up to 50 models a side.

Rick Priestly's point on points not balancing anything is something I also believe with all my heart. They give structure, but they sure don't bring balance because a model costed 10 points in a vacuum is busted in a scenario where he has more utility (and should be worth more) and is garbage in a scenario where he has less utility (and should cost less). The only way around that is to design the game around a central scenario and point cost against the scenario.

The second way that almost achieves balance is something like Dragon Rampant where every army uses the same rules for all of its units and every unit is basically the same. That works for some people. Others need more variety, and thats where points fall apart.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/04/23 12:52:13


 
   
Made in au
Norn Queen






 Maréchal des Logis Walter wrote:
-Firstly, the armies have such asymetrical designs that it's hard to have them perfectly match.


No one is expecting perfect balance. In fact, the people who ask for more balance in the game always admit perfect balance is not possible. The problem is GW doesn't even seem to try. People see how nonsensical points values are as soon as the book is in their hands.

 Maréchal des Logis Walter wrote:
-Secondly, the balance's been suffering from GW's policies. However, it might be avoidable in the case they would make for the best.


Which is their own fault and they should not be given a free pass for it. For example, they decided to let the sales department dictate changes to make new releases better than old releases to bump up new release sales, not customers. Customers shouldn't have to apologise for GW's bad business practices regarding balance when the discussion comes up.

 Maréchal des Logis Walter wrote:
-Lastly, it's always possible tomake errors. Maybe that or this unit wasn't expected to perform so well after the tests, or the prices is a bit to high, or this combination they hadn't expected shows up and ruins the game...


'It's possible to make errors' is a bit rich when their books are full of them. At this point, it would be more surprising for them to get something right regarding balance.

 Maréchal des Logis Walter wrote:
-Randomness is able to decide the outcome of a whole fiht, but we can't blame anyone for that!


I don't think anyone expects randomness to be removed from a dice based game. Not sure what this comment is meant to accomplish?
   
Made in gb
Sneaky Kommando






Depends on what army you are playing If your playing eldar or tau ATM you will more then likely claim the game is balanced, and you are a superior general.
Those who play orks or guard will tell you the game is unbalanced and constantly threaten to quit untill the next codex is released.

Then you have those who do not care about winning and play reguardless.

All that said 8th is just around the corner and it's getting Aosed and everything will be nice simple and balanced again.

 
   
Made in fr
Pyromaniac Hellhound Pilot





France

 -Loki- wrote:
 Maréchal des Logis Walter wrote:
-Firstly, the armies have such asymetrical designs that it's hard to have them perfectly match.


No one is expecting perfect balance. In fact, the people who ask for more balance in the game always admit perfect balance is not possible. The problem is GW doesn't even seem to try. People see how nonsensical points values are as soon as the book is in their hands.

 Maréchal des Logis Walter wrote:
-Secondly, the balance's been suffering from GW's policies. However, it might be avoidable in the case they would make for the best.


Which is their own fault and they should not be given a free pass for it. For example, they decided to let the sales department dictate changes to make new releases better than old releases to bump up new release sales, not customers. Customers shouldn't have to apologise for GW's bad business practices regarding balance when the discussion comes up.

 Maréchal des Logis Walter wrote:
-Lastly, it's always possible tomake errors. Maybe that or this unit wasn't expected to perform so well after the tests, or the prices is a bit to high, or this combination they hadn't expected shows up and ruins the game...


'It's possible to make errors' is a bit rich when their books are full of them. At this point, it would be more surprising for them to get something right regarding balance.

 Maréchal des Logis Walter wrote:
-Randomness is able to decide the outcome of a whole fiht, but we can't blame anyone for that!



I don't think anyone expects randomness to be removed from a dice based game. Not sure what this comment is meant to accomplish?


I was somewhat trying to explain why I consider that perfect balance is impossible according to today's state and the best state one can imagine, you dude don't need to get rude ok, escpecially when you're basically getting mad saying the same as I. I need no parrot, especially very loud ones. Thanks.

To go on in a more interesting way, I would tend to agree with the point per scenario issue where a unit might be broken in that case and useless in that one. However, to me, it is also here a way to have the players think about what they mix in their list according to what kind of scenario they play (if they know it ahead of playing of course) and also to try and build lists in which cooperation between units is necessary since X is specialized and would need Y's help to work well or such.

Don't know if it's really clear but what I mean is that a unit being better in that or that situation could also be a way to make list bulding clever. At least that's how I feel about it.

40k: Necrons/Imperial Guard/ Space marines
Bolt Action: Germany/ USA
Project Z.

"The Dakka Dive Bar is the only place you'll hear what's really going on in the underhive. Sure you might not find a good amasec but they grill a mean groxburger. Just watch for ratlings being thrown through windows and you'll be alright." Ciaphas Cain, probably.  
   
Made in gb
Lieutenant Colonel




IMO, the current lack of tactical depth in the game play means there simply is not the support for the range of units 40k has .

If we look at other companies war games at a similar level of play to 40k. (Usually in 15mm to 6mm.)

The simple addition of units being able to avoid detection,simple to hit modifiers , rules for hiding/dug in, ambush, etc.Means scout and recon become important tactical functions .
The addition of L.O.S blocking munition (Smoke) along with simple suppression mechanics ,also add more tactical depth.

In 40k lots of units that may 'look and sound cool' are left without any clear in game function at best, or fighting for the limited function of 'just killing stuff in the most cost effective way' at worst...

   
Made in ca
Posts with Authority




I'm from the future. The future of space

I think my position is that points are a useful guideline that works for the most part as long as the people using them approach them a certain way. As soon as someone uses the army building system to eek out as much effectiveness as possible and to create is much synergy as possible they'll end up with a force that is much stronger than if you just took things you thought were cool and then pointed it up and then added and subtracted stuff as needed to get to the point level you agreed to play. As soon as it becomes a tool for list crafting for maximum efficiency and synergy, a points system will allow a player to multiply the efficiency of taking only the slightly under costed untis and more importantly, gaining synergy that is not at all compensated for in the creation of the points system.

The Bark Bark death star is a prime example. I highly doubt the game designers tested for the synergy of taking the chapter master of the dark angels, the chief librarian of the ultramarines and having them attached to a unit of 50 wolves from Fenris, the home world of a third chapter. They made the system of allies to allow for people to have more freedom in adding to their collection (and therefore also purchasing from a wider range of new releases) and likely didn't give much thought to what ridiculous combinations people were going to come up with.

List building for advantage is something points systems rarely survive. And they also rarely compensate for the skew in effectiveness that can happen with unit spam.

So the Warhammer are not inherently unbalanced, but the system of balancing isn't robust enough to survive contact with the kind of people who think bark bark star is a good idea. Or those who think taking an extreme gun line that removes most of the opponent's models before they get to really play the game is a good idea.

Balance in pick up games? Two people, each with their own goals for the game, design half a board game on their own without knowing the layout of the board and hope it all works out. Good luck with that. The faster you can find like minded individuals who want the same things from the game as you, the better. 
   
Made in us
Brigadier General






Chicago

No one sets out to make an imbalanced game. Warhammer's are inherently imbalanced and I think it has very little do with random effects or the like.

The core issue is that, Warhammers simply offer you too many options for customization to come close to "balancing a game". There's just too many things about each unit and between combinations of units that can be tweaked, stacked, synergized, etc, for the designers to be able to balance the points involved for units and their upgrades. How can a designer possibly be expected to assign an accurate (whatever that is) points value to anything when someone with a calculator and far more free time is going to figure out that combining it with something else gives you in-game advantage far greater than the sum of the points?

This almst RPG-like customizability is one of the things that folks seem to like best about Warhammers but it's also the reason that it is impossible to "balance" the games.

Put another way...
You can have balance (or somethign close to it) or you can have customizability. You can't have both.

This message was edited 3 times. Last update was at 2017/04/25 20:00:46


Chicago Skirmish Wargames club. Join us for some friendly, casual gaming in the Windy City.
http://chicagoskirmishwargames.com/blog/


My Project Log, mostly revolving around custom "Toybashed" terrain.
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/651712.page

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Made in us
Enigmatic Chaos Sorcerer




Tampa, FL

After I read how Jervis Johnson had said that Blood Bowl team's were basically a "difficulty level" I began to think if GW secretly wanted that with everything they did, i.e. some forces are "easy mode" and some are "hard mode" but it didn't seem like it would be something planned (marines, for example, would likely be easy mode and therefore the best army).

I don't think it's unbalanced on purpose, I think it's unbalanced because GW designers don't need to actually know math or game design or come up with a rules formula, it's just "This sounds about right" and without much care. Perhaps the recent changes will fix that, as 8th edition is supposed to be heavily playtested by tournament players and AOS has been playtested to the point where, while it's far from good balance (some things are way too good), nothing is garbage tier.

- Wayne
Formerly WayneTheGame 
   
Made in us
Bonkers Buggy Driver with Rockets






Wayniac wrote:
After I read how Jervis Johnson had said that Blood Bowl team's were basically a "difficulty level" I began to think if GW secretly wanted that with everything they did, i.e. some forces are "easy mode" and some are "hard mode" but it didn't seem like it would be something planned (marines, for example, would likely be easy mode and therefore the best army).

I don't think it's unbalanced on purpose, I think it's unbalanced because GW designers don't need to actually know math or game design or come up with a rules formula, it's just "This sounds about right" and without much care. Perhaps the recent changes will fix that, as 8th edition is supposed to be heavily playtested by tournament players and AOS has been playtested to the point where, while it's far from good balance (some things are way too good), nothing is garbage tier.

IIRC one of the old DE codexes talked about how the army could be difficult to play on the tabletop and had some recommendations on strategy to overcome the deficiencies of the codex. It did basically state that it was the "expert mode" army, and didn't pretend otherwise, instead going into the rewards if you can play well enough.

However, from about 5-6e onward something changed a bit and every book started sounding like "this army is the best in the fluff! You should totally play them!" With no information on how they performed. This is part of why many people became dissatisfied with 7e's codex imbalance, because it was never advertised.

40k drinking game: take a shot everytime a book references Skitarii using transports.
 
   
Made in ca
Grumpy Longbeard





Canada

frozenwastes wrote:I think my position is that points are a useful guideline that works for the most part as long as the people using them approach them a certain way. As soon as someone uses the army building system to eek out as much effectiveness as possible and to create is much synergy as possible they'll end up with a force that is much stronger than if you just took things you thought were cool and then pointed it up and then added and subtracted stuff as needed to get to the point level you agreed to play. As soon as it becomes a tool for list crafting for maximum efficiency and synergy, a points system will allow a player to multiply the efficiency of taking only the slightly under costed untis and more importantly, gaining synergy that is not at all compensated for in the creation of the points system.

List building for advantage is something points systems rarely survive. And they also rarely compensate for the skew in effectiveness that can happen with unit spam.


You're effectively saying that points(rather than Warhammer) are inherently unbalanced?
I disagree. I have played well balanced games that use points and players "eek out as much effectiveness as possible' without breaking the game. You can certainly make a bad list (usually because you are lacking battlefield roles or because your list is skewed) but as long as you know some basics you can go with whatever seems cool. If units are costed correctly (more accurately costed within error) then everything is good for it's points. If you have badly over- or undercosted units, your game is not balanced.

I do agree that synergy ruins balance though.

Eilif wrote:No one sets out to make an imbalanced game. Warhammer's are inherently imbalanced and I think it has very little do with random effects or the like.

The core issue is that, Warhammers simply offer you too many options for customization to come close to "balancing a game". There's just too many things about each unit and between combinations of units that can be tweaked, stacked, synergized, etc, for the designers to be able to balance the points involved for units and their upgrades. How can a designer possibly be expected to assign an accurate (whatever that is) points value to anything when someone with a calculator and far more free time is going to figure out that combining it with something else gives you in-game advantage far greater than the sum of the points?

This almst RPG-like customizability is one of the things that folks seem to like best about Warhammers but it's also the reason that it is impossible to "balance" the games.

Put another way...
You can have balance (or somethign close to it) or you can have customizability. You can't have both.


Cynical ideas about making units that a company wants sold too good aside, I also don't think a anyone sets out to make a game imbalanced. I do think that GW values things above balance and makes design decisions accordingly though.

Your point about the number of options is interesting though. My initial reaction was "but Infinity has so many things and it's fine!" thinking further though, choices are quite limited. Each unit has a limited number of profiles (this gives CB a lot of credit) and those profiles seem to be in the interest of balance. I wish I could give my asura hacker a bigger gun, but that would be stupidly good (and probably terribly expensive), which is probably why I can't do that.
We had a discussion about the Lt rules (basically your general) and it was raised that the Lt's one can take are probably restricted add flavour and balance.

Nightstalkers Dwarfs
GASLANDS!
Holy Roman Empire  
   
Made in ca
Posts with Authority




I'm from the future. The future of space

 DarkBlack wrote:

You're effectively saying that points(rather than Warhammer) are inherently unbalanced?


Maybe points for certain approach are inherently unblanced? And that would mean a combination of both the game approach (how it differs between warhammer and infinity is a good example) and player approach. With the best case scenario being a game like infinity that people are not trying to break and the worst case scenario being games like 40k where you can take characters from multiple factions and jam them together in a way that stacks their abilities in ways that produce synergy well beyond their separate costs. I've heard 40k tournament players on podcasts say "I chose this army because it doesn't remove models from the table." They found a combination that made their forces relatively invincible. How many points should invulnerability cost that they aren't paying?

It was the combination of the bad cross faction synergy approach with the player approach that made that particular awful result popular among 40k players.

My initial reaction was "but Infinity has so many things and it's fine!" thinking further though, choices are quite limited. Each unit has a limited number of profiles (this gives CB a lot of credit) and those profiles seem to be in the interest of balance. I wish I could give my asura hacker a bigger gun, but that would be stupidly good (and probably terribly expensive), which is probably why I can't do that.


It's a far more robust approach that can stand those trying to break things better than the warhammers.

The different approaches to terrain between Infinity and the Warhammers is quite interesting. Both companies want to sell terrain. GW ended up drastically reducing the typical amount of terrain in a game so they could concentrate on moving the terrain from the table to the army list and sell terrain kits as if they were unit kits. Infinity on the other hand is far more terrain dependent but they went the opposite route and didn't create a situation where terrain is such that people actually refuse to play 40k in some places if any part of LOS from one side to the table to the other is blocked. In infinity the shipping containers are just on the table and are part of the scenario/situation. In 40k, shipping containers are purchased with your army points.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/04/25 22:30:18


Balance in pick up games? Two people, each with their own goals for the game, design half a board game on their own without knowing the layout of the board and hope it all works out. Good luck with that. The faster you can find like minded individuals who want the same things from the game as you, the better. 
   
Made in us
Brigadier General






Chicago

 DarkBlack wrote:

Cynical ideas about making units that a company wants sold too good aside, I also don't think a anyone sets out to make a game imbalanced. I do think that GW values things above balance and makes design decisions accordingly though.

Your point about the number of options is interesting though. My initial reaction was "but Infinity has so many things and it's fine!" thinking further though, choices are quite limited. Each unit has a limited number of profiles (this gives CB a lot of credit) and those profiles seem to be in the interest of balance. I wish I could give my asura hacker a bigger gun, but that would be stupidly good (and probably terribly expensive), which is probably why I can't do that.
We had a discussion about the Lt rules (basically your general) and it was raised that the Lt's one can take are probably restricted add flavour and balance.


I'm not very familiar with Infinity, but my experience with most well crafted games is that the number of choices for upgrade that a given unit has is very limited and each has a rather specific in-game purpose. In 40k however the choices are numerous and seem as driven by the deisre to allow for the individualization of a person's force as they as for any particular game-design objective.

Personally, I generally like the extreme customizability philosophy (Song of Blades and Heroes is a favorite) but I was recently taken by the highly curated experience that is Runewars. Essentilaly each unit is only customizable by number of trays and by the application of an upgrade card.

Chicago Skirmish Wargames club. Join us for some friendly, casual gaming in the Windy City.
http://chicagoskirmishwargames.com/blog/


My Project Log, mostly revolving around custom "Toybashed" terrain.
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/651712.page

Visit the Chicago Valley Railroad!
https://chicagovalleyrailroad.blogspot.com 
   
 
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