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 BlaxicanX wrote:

Asenion wrote:
Is it just human nature to ignore the little guy?

Yes? A faction being underpowered does not directly effect people who do not play that faction. A faction being overpowered DOES effect people who do not play that faction because they still have to play against it, and that's a frustrating experience when the enemy army is inherently more powerful than yours.

well beyond the underpowered army is an easy win.. but no one complains about that they just delude themselves that they won due to their own skill

It depends on what kind of player one is. I prefer to play with relatively well-matched armies so both sides can have fun, but nowadays, when I play wargames, we just decide on the contents of both armies together to create something interesting.

 catbarf wrote:

 G00fySmiley wrote:
Honestly for beer and pretzles games the game is probably in the most balanced state its been in decades (possibly barring the release of 8th with index hammer 40k). There are some bad units in each codex but very few units so bad they cannot be used and still pull off a win with a balanced list and smart play.

I think the game left 'beer and pretzels' behind when GW expected us to bring 3-4 books to play on top of a half dozen erratas and FAQs, not to mention the need to memorize stratagems or make cheat-sheets just to play as intended.

This is beer and pretzels balance and beer and pretzels gameplay depth with The Campaign for North Africa complexity.

\

2 games played last night, we had wasabi dusted pretzels, hickory smoked almonds, and some craft brews from kennesaw brewing company. literally beer and pretzles where we just made up a 2 game mini campaign of dark angels trying to assault an ork base to prevent compeltion of a gargent. game 1 dark angels attack the back gate orks have to hold and prevent dark angels crossing the line. win outcome for orks if they hold the line dark angels enter from the bord edge turn 1 of second game. if they get 1/4 points past the line they start fully deployed in deployment zone, if more then half they can scout deploy 2nd mission 1/4 forces.

honestly that in my experience is more what 40k is (maybe its just local to my area but when i do wierd scenario games traveling for work and hitting gaming clubs/stores people are always happy to try weird scenarios or pull me into their narrative play (i travel quite a bit to Naperville IL, Houghton MI, and madicson WI from my home in FL). Most the people I play locally and traveling don't need 3 or 4 books because we know our armies and each others armies and if we get something wrong (bound to happen) its funner to just roll off or let it go than have to go spend 10 min looking for things and referencing rules in a bunch of books.

as to balance I think a casual player going in against oter casual players looking for a fun game is very doable and even the tedious book missions and secondaries are weighted to the power of the armies. the worse the army right now the easier the secondaries. Is it the most elegent solution, god no, does it work? i think tournament results winrates 40k is in a better place than its been in quite a while from a competative balance front. I do help some more serious players with thier tournament prep still, and even underperforming factions like my Iron hands (successor chapter blue steel, the army is zoolander themed) can and do beat armies on points that they are suppossed to be stomped by. I just play the missions to maximize points and end he game with less models.

here is a good website to track tournament wins if you want to see faction status, lots of tools and you can see who is weak into what but other than mechanicum and space marines who need a buff most factions are over 40% winrates with most being 45-55% winrates https://www.stat-check.com/the-meta

It depends.

Dakka isn’t always a great litmus test, as it has a reputation for leaning toward Organised Tournament type gaming. Which is not a problem, before anyone gets the wrong end of the stick.

But, it does mean you get a more limited set of viewpoints being discussed. Again, not a flaw of anyone, it’s just a common preference.

And wonky Codexes directly impact that type of game. Whether it’s a single Codex being standout for every opponent (ref Imperial Knights in 7th Ed, where you’d struggle unless your lost happened to include lots of effective Anti Tank weapons), or even an otherwise pretty crap Codex having a single truly horrendous build (oh hi Eldar, in most editions!). Hence we see a lot of discussion. That can range from constructive “so what can I do about it” to speculative “this is how I think it could be fixed via FAQ etc” and even Just Whining (folk just complaining for complaining’s sake, more interested in being a martyr to their cause than providing any useful or constructive suggestions/tips).

Then there’s the concept of What Makes A Good Codex. Folk already subjected to my sad whimbriling (yeah, whimbriling) will know my take.

And it’s that having a couple of killer builds does not a Good Codex Make, if those are the only builds which really stand a chance in gaming environments where you’ve no idea what you might face.

I’d personally rather take something like Codex Necrons (decent internal balance, but could do with a spit and polish to raise it up a bit) over Choose An Edition Eldar Codex, where killer combos exist, but mostly because every other choice is Bloody Awful.

The former can be good for the game, as opponents can’t necessarily meta, because No One List will dominate, so the meta becomes much wider in scope, requiring less hyper specialisation in lists. The latter is the exact opposite. Where a given army is only ever represented by one or two lists? That directly impacts every other army in a negative way, as they’re invariably forced to reckon with such a list, in turn reducing their own options.

 Daedalus81 wrote:

KurtAngle2 wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:
Buffs can be bad, because they create a race to the bottom.

GW isn't ignoring factions.

Guard got a gak load of buffs. They hit 52% last week.
GSC got none and they're at 56%.

At some point people need to accept that balancing such a massive game isn't simple at all.

Looking only at winrates is a bad metric and you sir never cease to disappoint me in applying bad logic

Great. Show me the other data that I can analyze.

I would think other important considerations would be:

- Builds/Units used. A frequent problem is that a "strong" army (in terms of winrates) has one strong build that uses about 1/10th of the codex. Any deviation from that very tight selection of worthwhile units results in a drastic drop in performance.

Similarly, if every character has near enough the exact same combination of wargear/relics/warlord traits, then it also hints at very bad internal balance within said book.

This is arguably even more important with regard to non-tournament lists, as it's not as essential to try and find every edge - so if people are still gravitating to the same handful of units and character builds, it's strong evidence that the internal balance is badly out of whack.


- Fun and feel. This is something that can't be gleaned from tournament statistics but is still a vital aspect as to whether or not a codex is good. After all, 40k is a hobby, it's something people play for fun. So if a given codex is strong but isn't fun and/or doesn't feel good to play, then that codex is a failure.

locarno24 wrote:

SemperMortis wrote:


Does it make it worse that the guys who playtested in 8th are playtesting in 9th, and the guy who playtested orkz in 8th said the Stompa was broken OP? .

Do you have a link to that? I'm not doubting you but the claim just seems.....bizarre.....and I'd love to read any reasoning that came with it.

LMAO! I can't believe it, i can no longer find the FLG article where he reviews 8th edition orkz. The gist of what he said was that Index orkz in 8th edition were borderline OP. The Stompa was worth every point and that Killakanz would be awesome. If you doubt me by all means go ask any ork player who has been around since 7th. Reece is a good guy, but he isn't an Ork player, and when you have someone review a faction it helps if they are actually interested heavily in that faction rather than a side show.

SemperMortis wrote:

locarno24 wrote:

SemperMortis wrote:


Does it make it worse that the guys who playtested in 8th are playtesting in 9th, and the guy who playtested orkz in 8th said the Stompa was broken OP? .

Do you have a link to that? I'm not doubting you but the claim just seems.....bizarre.....and I'd love to read any reasoning that came with it.

LMAO! I can't believe it, i can no longer find the FLG article where he reviews 8th edition orkz. The gist of what he said was that Index orkz in 8th edition were borderline OP. The Stompa was worth every point and that Killakanz would be awesome. If you doubt me by all means go ask any ork player who has been around since 7th. Reece is a good guy, but he isn't an Ork player, and when you have someone review a faction it helps if they are actually interested heavily in that faction rather than a side show.

Did you try the Wayback Machine?

In late 8th edition GW tried lifting up under powered factions with the Psychic Awakening books.

It did not go over well.

The series was largely viewed as DLC and added even more books and FAQ's to play. I hope we never see anything like it again.

GW has also tried to lift up under powered factions by reducing points costs via Chapter Approved / Munitorum Field Manual. This has had some success.

We now also have the Balance Dataslate which I consider to be a complete joke, but some believe in it.

So there are efforts to lift up under performing factions. I believe it's just a matter of finding the best formula to do it.

I wouldn’t say no to Digital Books (though I will always remain a sucker for a beautiful bookshelf full of…erm….books), which are automatically updated.

Hell, Chuck in an army builder to each, which will edit any stored lists, flagging up changes.

I get that second bit is more work, but it would help folk.