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Yea Warmachine outgrew itself, it was easy and rewarding to be competitive when there were 4 factions of 10 models each, somewhere mid 2nd edition it was probably already impossible to get in unless you made it your whole life, MTG style.

 Overread wrote:
Every competitive player was once a casual or at least of casual/lower skill.

I was talking with fellows of my club about their history and it turns out it's not as simple as you say : the youngest ones were actually competitive players from the start, taught by their seniors specifically with the current version of AoS that is also their 1st wargame (which, it must be said, is really competitive player friendly on that matter). They absolutely don't define themselves as starting as "casuals". The hardcore competition level was their goal from the beginning.

I'd say it depends on generations and the existence or not of the competitive scene in your area when you start. My generation, those who are old enough to have grown up with Games Workshop at their beginning, we didn't really know a well-organized competitive scene as it exists nowadays. The millenium generation, though, it's a complete another matter entirely. They have a lot of options and cadre to their disposal, and like I said, the crowd in my current club came from a club entirely focused on AoS tournaments. They didn't have a lot of new players, sure...but they still had some.

TBH, it sounds logical that the youngest players have a natural attraction towards competition, because it's the best (and shortest) way to be recognized as a "good player" in their own group. It's part of what it means to be young, I'd say.

With age, I'd tend to say it's the opposite happening : competitive players become casuals when they get tired of the senseless competition that burns them out and want to try other ways to have fun. I have a few of older players of that group leaning towards that tendency, and they are the ones more receptive to other games / ways to play.

Ergo that no company should focus all resources and all attention upon either one or the other. Hyper on either one is unhealthy and the healthy balance is a measure of both in the right places.

No, it's not really what I feel. It's more about having more variety in the approach of writing new games : it doesn't have to be all about "balance" and "tight rules" from the start. And games that don't follow these principles shouldn't be vilipended by players who tend to believe these are the only "solid foundations" that can exist for a game.

It's accepting that there are different "solid foundations", and that it's not a big deal if some game systems have a different approach at their core. At least, that's what I think.

Sarouan wrote:

In the end, was the Power Level system "reasonnable enough" for balance or was it more victim of a smear campaign from the competitive players obsessed with points ? Who knows. But it's all a matter of player perception, in the end...and how they are presented the system for a "fair balance".

The issue with Power Level is simply that the options it provided were still balanced around points being a balancing factor. GW hadn't designed its weapons around serving different roles; some were simply stronger variations of others expected to "cost" more. 10th edition is effectively universal power level and it kind of works because you're often choosing between things like more attacks at less strength or other factors were your options serve different roles. Power level just gave you the choice between the Sword of Smiting or the Sword of Infinite Smiting +10.

Now, that doesn't mean I'm a fan of points. I think players have way too much faith in them and I don't think they work like players often believe. They're often a good means of providing an open list building framework, but they don't really create meaningful choices for players. Assigning points to the Smiting Swords above just results in one of them being the more efficient Smiter. They don't really make them interesting to choose between. Changing points as a balance option rarely changes this issue and mostly serves to invalidate one in favor of the other. It's just a stat like any other and tends to have more say in what's good than the interesting aspects of rules.

The main thing about balancing a game is it takes time to understand the problem and come up with the right solution. The more frequent the patch, the less time is spent understanding the state of the game and what makes options too strong. Rapid changes often create more problems that need more patches, putting games in a whack a mole state that frustrates players. Long gaps between patches give developers more time to create meaningful solutions. The big catch however, is that for this to work, your game needs to be fairly robust and stable to begin with. To be able to let your players dig and find solutions you can't have something like the Eldar problem. Less patching is ideal, but the game needs to be healthy enough to run without them for that to be possible.

 Overread wrote:
Every competitive player was once a casual or at least of casual/lower skill.

You probably dont mean it this way but Casual is not the same as 'lower skill'. And if I may? Consider 'new to the game' or 'beginner' rather than low skill. Youre not wrong but using that term in that context can come across as a little bit elitist.

 Overread wrote:


One thing that strikes me is we keep saying if the parent company "focuses on the competitive game" or "the casual player" but I think where we are stumbling is we keep boiling points down to those buzzwords.

Except where we refer to specific examples of games where the parent company did as a point of fact, focus on the competitive game to the ultimate detriment of that game/community.

 Overread wrote:

Eg several of us argue that focus on competitive play for construction of the core rules and game balancing is a good thing. Whilst others are noting that hyper focusing the structure of the game and the marketing and such on the competitive game is a bad thing.

Not necesarily. Good rules and competitive play are not necessarily the same thing. Tournaments and competitive play is not the ultimate expression of a game, nor are they necessarily good indicators of its health or quality.

 LunarSol wrote:

The main thing about balancing a game is it takes time to understand the problem and come up with the right solution. The more frequent the patch, the less time is spent understanding the state of the game and what makes options too strong. Rapid changes often create more problems that need more patches, putting games in a whack a mole state that frustrates players. Long gaps between patches give developers more time to create meaningful solutions. The big catch however, is that for this to work, your game needs to be fairly robust and stable to begin with. To be able to let your players dig and find solutions you can't have something like the Eldar problem. Less patching is ideal, but the game needs to be healthy enough to run without them for that to be possible.

That's the thing, though...was the "Eldar problem" in 10th edition really that big a deal to justify such a fast reaction ? Or maybe GW didn't leave time enough to the players to adapt and find appropriate counter-measures ? For all the bad situations we heard on that matter before they put out the "patch", and I admit I may have quite a controversial opinion on that topic, I don't think it was that bad to the point of rending the game non-functionnal - even from a hardcore competitive player's point of view. Sure, it was a balance issue, particularly on some specific formats...but it was still playable and it wasn't also an "auto-win" for the eldar side no matter the game.

I feel like there was some kind of "panic reaction" from the 40k design team here more than rationnal analysis of all the feedback they usually take into account (because, let's be honest, it was still too soon for big tournaments of 10th edition to give enough "factual data" given the time they released their new FAQs / erratas / point update).

Though in that case, I'd say it's also a question of game companies reacting way faster than before, because that's what players from this generation expect. World goes faster than in my generation, and they have tools to make it faster too. So I guess it's not "just" a question of competitive scene overreacting here, IMHO.

I am also a game designer, just a published amateur with no real skill or knowledge besides getting lucky a few times.

The sad truth is that people like to talk about playing games more than they actually play them. 40K, D&D, Magic, Battletech, etc. What they all have in common is that you can theorycraft them all day long and never roll a single dice. The importance to their success is that there are good, better, best alignments of things to talk about. If they were all perfectly balanced, there would be nothing to talk about.

Balance and tightness to rules is actually BAD for a game because there is not that much to generate a connection to the game. It will quickly be solved and then what?

Instead of balance or tightness the designer should be focusing on where do I create meaningful decision and choice in the game. That is where the action and discussion is. That is where longevity lies.

I think it’s really telling that some players assume casual players are just beginner competitive players. It’s like they can’t even imagine people playing for any other reason.

Deadnight wrote:

 Overread wrote:
Every competitive player was once a casual or at least of casual/lower skill.

You probably dont mean it this way but Casual is not the same as 'lower skill'. And if I may? Consider 'new to the game' or 'beginner' rather than low skill. Youre not wrong but using that term in that context can come across as a little bit elitist.

I separated the two with a / to denote that they weren't the same, but I can see how it can be interpreted that they are alternate names for the same thing.

My point was that every competitive person has to start out with either lower skill or as a casual player. That doesn't mean casual have lower skill, just that their focus wasn't competitive gaming. Similarly you can start out with a competitive focus, but you will always start with lower skill until you learn the game (even if you come from other wargames). It's reinforcing the point that the competitive end is the part of the hobby that directly relies on casual and lower skilled players. You can't just recruit experienced players into a game; they all have to start somewhere.

But that’s not true at all that they start as casuals. Competitive players start out with the competitive mindset. It’s immediately clear when you play them, even if it’s their first game. It’s the way they approach the game and the rules.

Someone said it earlier, that they see the other player as an opponent and not a partner.

 Easy E wrote:

Instead of balance or tightness the designer should be focusing on where do I create meaningful decision and choice in the game. That is where the action and discussion is. That is where longevity lies.

In my view a tight balanced system is one that does have meaningful choices.

You can have an army with good internal balance that will still require you to actually make choices on what units to take which will impact your game style and performance. The main difference is between having just 1 viable build that works better than all the others and having multiple builds that can vary choices and performance; but which are tactically sound to take.

The former leans into the power-gamer style of competitive balance which I view as a detriment because it means that there's 1 build 1 style of play that gives unfair advantage through being super effective. That leans into the boring style of "only one way to build" that others raised earlier.

Instead if you've smaller variations in power between different builds to where player skill is a greater component and to where you can take one of multiple different compositions of an army; then you've a system that rewards the competitive player for making a good army for those minor gains in addition to their player skill; and you've a system that rewards casual players because they can take different options; different focuses and different forces and not simply be playing with an extreme handicap against other forces (since casual play does not mean no one takes a "good" army in the game).


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
But that’s not true at all. Competitive players start out with the competitive mindset. It’s immediately clear when you play them, even if it’s their first game. It’s the way they approach the game and the rules.

Someone said it earlier, that they see the other player as an opponent and not a partner.

As I said you can START competitive you will just be lower skilled (because you are new to the game even if you've prior wargaming experience).
You can also start casual and then become more competitive; stay casual or you can even start competitive and become casual.

My point is that everyone in the skilled competitive side of gaming starts from the greater pool of less skills and/or casual gaming.

Rewarding competitive players punishes everyone else. A game where every choice matters due to the dire consequences is a game that only the dedicated competitors and mechanics-minded can enjoy.


A game that is fun for lots and lots of other types of players will attract a competitive scene just from sheer presence. A game that enjoys lots and lots of benefits for competitive players, is a game that pushes away all other players.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
Rewarding competitive players punishes everyone else. A game where every choice matters due to the dire consequences is a game that only the dedicated competitors and mechanics-minded can enjoy.


A game that is fun for lots and lots of other types of players will attract a competitive scene just from sheer presence. A game that enjoys lots and lots of benefits for competitive players, is a game that pushes away all other players.

I'm not quite sure what you mean.

All I've said is that army composition is part of the gameplay experience and that an approach which allows for each unit to have viability and for each army to have multiple viable "builds" is a good thing in the game for both competitive and casual players. Furthermore I've said several times that this gain should be on the marginal side not the "you take X you win because X is super powerful". Indeed I think that's a very bad approach, a terrible approach for both competitive and casual play (its also a false choice because if the competitive scene has one powerbuild then that will become the build everyone uses so that group ends up with flat balance because everyone is rocking the power-build and thus is more evenly matched against each other).


You can of course take this even further; there are games where there are no (or very limited) indivdiual army builds. Where each force has very similar to identical stats behind the units. So army variety is much more visual and artistic than statistic based. There will still be meaningful choices and those choices you make will influence the gameplay - if you take all spearmen and nothing else its 100% going to influence your game over if you take all cavalry or all archers or a mix etc.

Sarouan wrote:
I know, wargames are about conflicts first. But why both sides should be automatically balanced for that to be a good thing ? If wargames are a picture of how wars happen in our history (or how they would happen in a fantasy world)...well, history and our own game's universes are full of battles that aren't balanced at all. In fact, some of the greatest battles come from desperate situations where the underdog manages to handle the situation to turn the tide against all odds. Obviously, it's never enjoyable to lose all the time when your goal is just competition, but if a special scenario involves the retelling of a battle where one side is twice as numerous / in power than the other, and the game objective is to fight as long as you can because of the story / in the cadre of a campaign where the next battle will start differently depending on which turn the underdog finally breaks...that's a completely different outcome, in which having balanced sides gets in the way of the game.

You need a balanced framework to be able to build such unbalanced battles. If one side is meant to be twice as strong as the other, you need a framework that can measure and tell you it is twice as strong, and thus it is also capable of telling you when they are equally strong.

You cannot do that with an inherently unbalanced game, because you don't really know how much stronger one side is over the other. Moreover with a balanced game you can rotate who is meant to be the underdog, while with an unbalanced game one side will always be the underdog.

Making the distinction between Blood Bowl and wargames to justify Blood Bowl purposely having underpowered / overpowered teams on design is, to me, a question of game ideology to defend the point of view of "balance being good for all games". Because a game of Blood Bowl is about competition, in the end : you have 2 teams competing for victory on the other at the end of a match - it's the same than a war between 2 armies, just in fantasy football. But the difference with Blood Bowl is that it aknowledges not all teams are equals in their chances of "winning", that's why some are cheating and the whole game design is about having fun with that ! Why wouldn't that be possible with wargames, in the end, if not a question of game ideology / game design ?

You can do that with historical wargames, after all historically some sides were historically stronger than others.

It is much harder to do that with fictional wargames because there is no historical justification for one side being weaker or stronger. The rule that everyone expects to at least have a chance at winning takes precedence, and for that you do need some degree of balance.

Easy E wrote:
Instead of balance or tightness the designer should be focusing on where do I create meaningful decision and choice in the game. That is where the action and discussion is. That is where longevity lies.

You do need a degree of balance to be able to make meaningful decisions, if the game is too unbalanced then every decision becomes meaningless as the result of the game was obvious from the start.

IMHO that's the crux of the issue here. Yes balance alone isn't everything, we would be playing chess if it was. Yes hyperfocusing on the competitive scene can and has harmed the game.
But they are still important, and overcorrecting to the other side will also harm the game. We need a comprehensive approach that is able to provide both balance and meaningful choices.

That first part was less a response to you and to the common wisdom of games that better game design meant a punishing experience where every choice could win or lose the game. This was around the same time every game prided itsel on being easy to learn but difficult to master. Just ad slogans meant to stroke competitive players that come off as red flags in retrospect.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
That first part was less a response to you and to the common wisdom of games that better game design meant a punishing experience where every choice could win or lose the game. This was around the same time every game prided itsel on being easy to learn but difficult to master. Just ad slogans meant to stroke competitive players that come off as red flags in retrospect.

I'd agree with you that wargames should be more about a culmination of choices not just one big one. It's something I dislike with GW's current approach where they've things like the double turn in AoS; or where many of hteir resolutions to problems (eg close combat being under powered in 40K) is to layer on more powerful options and speed up the game. Ergo high lethality where whoever gets the alpha strike on the other player can often end up winning the game through sheer damage done in one or two early turns of the game.

I do agree; games should be a culmination of many small choices that add up; heck I believe that the best games are when the win-loss remains tightly contested through at least 4-5 turns (for a 6 or so turn game). Ergo where both sides could potentially steal the win well into the mid and early late game. Because then there's active engagement on both sides of the individual game from both players.


Casual can always layer this even more with things like campaign games and such; or they can mess with that kind of balance for different experiences.

 Easy E wrote:

The sad truth is that people like to talk about playing games more than they actually play them. 40K, D&D, Magic, Battletech, etc. What they all have in common is that you can theorycraft them all day long and never roll a single dice. The importance to their success is that there are good, better, best alignments of things to talk about. If they were all perfectly balanced, there would be nothing to talk about.

An aspect you're discounting is that I can talk about games for hours every day at work, on the bus, at dinner, in bed. I can game 5 hours a week tops.

A tangent worth discussing might also be how social-media influencers have poisoned a perception of the "right" way to play games...

It sometimes feels like every random donkey-cave on Youtube has yet another "competitive" gaming channel, and is churning out lazy, low-hanging fruit "content" such as tier-lists for armies, units, etc...

Social media types are aggressively pushing to build communities to send in super-chats, etc... almost exclusively trying to pass themselves off as experts at these super-serious, and definitely very competitive (TM) games... when in actuality, these games rarely make for meaningful "sport" style endeavors, and are best enjoyed as great fun, with a deep potential for personal engagement.

 lord_blackfang wrote:


An aspect you're discounting is that I can talk about games for hours every day at work, on the bus, at dinner, in bed. I can game 5 hours a week tops.

Am I discounting it? I thought I was embracing it. If a game can be talked about that much, it will have longevity.

 Tyran wrote:


You need a balanced framework to be able to build such unbalanced battles. If one side is meant to be twice as strong as the other, you need a framework that can measure and tell you it is twice as strong, and thus it is also capable of telling you when they are equally strong.

You cannot do that with an inherently unbalanced game, because you don't really know how much stronger one side is over the other. Moreover with a balanced game you can rotate who is meant to be the underdog, while with an unbalanced game one side will always be the underdog.

Meaningful Choices = (Positive Outcomes / Negative Impacts) + Downstream Impacts to the Game

Balance is not part of the equation for a meaningful choice at all. Strength is not part of the equation at all. The player needs to decide between the positive and negative outcomes for themselves and their own units, and the opponent's state is more of a secondary concern.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
I think it’s really telling that some players assume casual players are just beginner competitive players. It’s like they can’t even imagine people playing for any other reason.

Yeah, my own journey started casual, then became competitive, and then went back to casual when I realized that I hated it, found it exhausting, and made me hate the game and community and was burning me out of interest in the hobby. A friend of mine started casual, and became competitive, and has stayed competitive because he enjoys playing that way. Another friend started as a competitive player - he had some familiarity with the game already but had never played, learned about the tournament scene (I believe he attended a convention or major tournament with another friend as a guest/spectator, etc.) and decided immediately "this is what I want to do". Even though it took him probably 3-4 months of playing pickup games at the store to play his first tournament game, he was doing it with the purposes of practicing for competitive play. And then I have a lot of other friends who have been playing for decades and have never attended a tournament and only play casually. Theres many different interests and paths players take.

 Easy E wrote:

Meaningful Choices = (Positive Outcomes / Negative Impacts) + Downstream Impacts to the Game

Balance is not part of the equation for a meaningful choice at all. Strength is not part of the equation at all. The player needs to decide between the positive and negative outcomes for themselves and their own units, and the opponent's state is more of a secondary concern.

That would be true on an RPG or single player games.

Not here though, every choice you make and their possible outcomes are defined by the strenght relationship bewteen you and your oponnent, after all you both get a say in the state of the other's units.

If one side is blatantly stronger than the other, then there is only one real outcome regardless of choices, and thus there is no meaningful choice.

 Tyran wrote:

 Easy E wrote:

Meaningful Choices = (Positive Outcomes / Negative Impacts) + Downstream Impacts to the Game

Balance is not part of the equation for a meaningful choice at all. Strength is not part of the equation at all. The player needs to decide between the positive and negative outcomes for themselves and their own units, and the opponent's state is more of a secondary concern.

That would be true on an RPG or single player games.

Not here though, every choice you make and their possible outcomes are defined by the strenght relationship bewteen you and your oponnent, after all you both get a say in the state of the other's units.

If one side is blatantly stronger than the other, then there is only one real outcome regardless of choices, and thus there is no meaningful choice.

Agreed to this.

It's not a binary, but the further unbalanced a game is, the less chance there is for meaningful decisions.

If I'm running Army A and you have Army B, and both are equal in power, it comes down to the luck of the dice and tactical decisions.
If Army A has 150% the power on raw numbers as Army B, suddenly it's much harder for any mistake I make or brilliant decision my opponent makes to matter.
If Army A has 25% the power on raw numbers as Army B, any end state other than Army B winning hardcore is very unlikely, making most decisions entirely moot.

Different people will have different tolerances for imbalance, and I can certainly understand someone who says "Balance is not my first priority."
But to totally disregard it is foolish.

Really interesting discussion.
I played in tournaments and was part of a competitive group for a while, and I enjoyed it. Back then, I would have said that unit balance was essential for a wargame, to prevent people choosing a faction based on aesthetics or background and then finding out they can't win games because they were an afterthought for the designers. This was the biggest flaw in 40K to me, and one of the reasons I liked Warmachine/Hordes Mk1 and Mk2.

But then I moved away from my groups and spent a long time not really playing, but working on hobby projects, painting, making scenery and so on. And I've come back to gaming now, but with a very different perspective.

I think whether you think balance is essential depends very heavily on your paradigm of play. If you want to have 1 force for a game and expect to play it against others forces, strangers or club members, that really puts you in a certain paradigm of play where you need the system to do the heavy lifting for you to sort of iron out the vagaries of different unit choice and so on. If you play in this paradigm, it is a no brainer that balance is good, because it leads to a net greater number of satisfying games.

However, since I've been working away on hobby projects and have managed to collect a fair few completed painted armies of various kinds, and a collection of scenery, I tend to be introducing entirely new players to wargames in my social circle, and essentially running "demo games" where I provide absolutely everything needed to play.
In this paradigm, which is pretty satisfying too, I get to choose the game system I will use, which models from my collection, and so on. And if there's an issue with the game not producing satisfactory outcomes, I can tinker with it myself, tailor the model selection, change the system, get a new system or whatever needs to happen to make sure the experience is fun.

As one of my friends gets more experienced and understands the game, he is making more contributions here, making it a more collaborative process.

In this paradigm, what matters most is the accessibility of the rules and the gameplay flavour they evoke. Balance really is a secondary concern - nice to have, but not as important as those other aspects.

It's quite a nice feeling. I guess this is what a lot of historical players do, and indeed I find myself more drawn to historical games as I get older.

I'm now a bit bored by the competitive scene and especially the "list building" aspect of it, and consider it fairly anathema to fun in some ways. I'd much rather just play with my collection, choosing models I like first, than worry about any list building consideration. Choose the models, then choose the rule set, then fix the balance if you feel the need.

In any case, the collective brain of the internet tends to "solve" any popular game really fast, and the designers are really up against it to out think the entire community in these sorts of games. I think it's likely impossible to stay ahead of it, and the fact that everything gets "solved" takes away a lot of the joy of discovery that I love so much.

Edit to add: And I think that's something companies bank on: constant rules updates and releases provide a steady stream of puzzles to solve, keeping the playerbase invested and thinking and discussing your game all the time. I'm not really interested in this any more, having seen the cycle go round and round for a very long time now. I'd rather play "finished" games, with no new puzzles, but with sufficient material that there's something to discover. The people who are into wargaming for puzzles to solve don't tend to bother with games they know are one and done, so you tend to get the fun of discovering them without someone going and reading the "solution" to the game on reddit or seeing some video on Youtube and then bringing it back to your group.

 JNAProductions wrote:

 Tyran wrote:

 Easy E wrote:

Meaningful Choices = (Positive Outcomes / Negative Impacts) + Downstream Impacts to the Game

Balance is not part of the equation for a meaningful choice at all. Strength is not part of the equation at all. The player needs to decide between the positive and negative outcomes for themselves and their own units, and the opponent's state is more of a secondary concern.

That would be true on an RPG or single player games.

Not here though, every choice you make and their possible outcomes are defined by the strenght relationship bewteen you and your oponnent, after all you both get a say in the state of the other's units.

If one side is blatantly stronger than the other, then there is only one real outcome regardless of choices, and thus there is no meaningful choice.

Agreed to this.

It's not a binary, but the further unbalanced a game is, the less chance there is for meaningful decisions.

If I'm running Army A and you have Army B, and both are equal in power, it comes down to the luck of the dice and tactical decisions.
If Army A has 150% the power on raw numbers as Army B, suddenly it's much harder for any mistake I make or brilliant decision my opponent makes to matter.
If Army A has 25% the power on raw numbers as Army B, any end state other than Army B winning hardcore is very unlikely, making most decisions entirely moot.

Different people will have different tolerances for imbalance, and I can certainly understand someone who says "Balance is not my first priority."
But to totally disregard it is foolish.

Of course balance is not foolish, but it is just another tool in a designers tool box to accomplish the games objectives which may or may need balance to achieve the end result.

Your argument is that there is no meaningful choices in a solo game? In a scenario driven game? In a historical recreation where you know a certain sides loses? In an asymmetrical game? In Co-op games?

You see, there are other game types that exist outside of the Competitive experience and they do have meaningful choices. Therefore, the "strength" of the sides involved doesn't matter at all for creating meaningful choices in games.

 Easy E wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:

 Tyran wrote:

 Easy E wrote:

Meaningful Choices = (Positive Outcomes / Negative Impacts) + Downstream Impacts to the Game

Balance is not part of the equation for a meaningful choice at all. Strength is not part of the equation at all. The player needs to decide between the positive and negative outcomes for themselves and their own units, and the opponent's state is more of a secondary concern.

That would be true on an RPG or single player games.

Not here though, every choice you make and their possible outcomes are defined by the strenght relationship bewteen you and your oponnent, after all you both get a say in the state of the other's units.

If one side is blatantly stronger than the other, then there is only one real outcome regardless of choices, and thus there is no meaningful choice.

Agreed to this.

It's not a binary, but the further unbalanced a game is, the less chance there is for meaningful decisions.

If I'm running Army A and you have Army B, and both are equal in power, it comes down to the luck of the dice and tactical decisions.
If Army A has 150% the power on raw numbers as Army B, suddenly it's much harder for any mistake I make or brilliant decision my opponent makes to matter.
If Army A has 25% the power on raw numbers as Army B, any end state other than Army B winning hardcore is very unlikely, making most decisions entirely moot.

Different people will have different tolerances for imbalance, and I can certainly understand someone who says "Balance is not my first priority."
But to totally disregard it is foolish.

Of course balance is not foolish, but it is just another tool in a designers tool box to accomplish the games objectives which may or may need balance to achieve the end result.

Your argument is that there is no meaningful choices in a solo game? In a scenario driven game? In a historical recreation where you know a certain sides loses? In an asymmetrical game? In Co-op games?

You see, there are other game types that exist outside of the Competitive experience and they do have meaningful choices. Therefore, the "strength" of the sides involved doesn't matter at all for creating meaningful choices in games.

In a solo game, improper balance can result in what's meant to be difficult being far too easy or what's meant to be possible being not possible.
In a historical game, I can agree it's more important to be accurate to the history than to make sure things are balanced.
In an asymmetrical game, you want the asymmetry to be on the right side. If it's meant to be Army A has a desperate last stand against Army B, but Army A is literally four times better than B, it's suddenly not so desperate of a last stand.
And for a co-op game, you don't want one player to do the lion's share of the work. You want the different participants to all contribute well.

Moreover, it is far, far easier to unbalance a balanced game, than to balance an unbalanced one.

I often wonder if balance is an illusion to some extent, or if its contextual. Look at Battletech - its not really a balanced game per se, even the balancing systems players utilize isn't known to be particularly balanced, and yet the playerbase is fine with it (to the extent that some of the folks on dakka who are big BT fans and who themselves acknowledge the lack of balance in BT are among the loudest critics of the lack of balance in 40k). I have yet to figure out why that is, but my theory is that BT skews towards the simulation end of the spectrum, whereas 40k skews towards game. In the context of a game, the players expectation is that balance must be present and the lack of balance is an anomaly that needs to be corrected.

In the simulationist end of the pool, as far as BT is concerned most of the imbalance is attributable or logicked away in the context of verisimilitude - it makes sense that my light scout lance of 4 25 tonners lost to a clan star of 2 50 tonners and 2 75 tonners. The role of the scout lance was to locate the enemy and harass them in hit and run raids while my main force mobilized, it was never supposed to engage them head on, I lost because of my poor leadership, not because the game isn't balanced, etc.

 JNAProductions wrote:


You see, there are other game types that exist outside of the Competitive experience and they do have meaningful choices. Therefore, the "strength" of the sides involved doesn't matter at all for creating meaningful choices in games.

In a solo game, improper balance can result in what's meant to be difficult being far too easy or what's meant to be possible being not possible.

In a historical game, I can agree it's more important to be accurate to the history than to make sure things are balanced.

In an asymmetrical game, you want the asymmetry to be on the right side. If it's meant to be Army A has a desperate last stand against Army B, but Army A is literally four times better than B, it's suddenly not so desperate of a last stand.
And for a co-op game, you don't want one player to do the lion's share of the work. You want the different participants to all contribute well.

Yes, but do you think those other game types have meaningful choice as a player? Ultimately, that is what we were talking about. You were asserting that meaningful choice can only occur in a balanced game, I posited the opposite.

I gave alternate game types and claimed that meaningful choice was available in non-competitive games. Therefore, balance is not relevant for a player to have meaningful choice.

 JNAProductions wrote:


Moreover, it is far, far easier to unbalance a balanced game, than to balance an unbalanced one.

On this we agree.

Our disagreement is if a balanced game is the only way to generate meaningful choices within the game.

Is the goal of an asymmetrical game to completely beat the other force?
Or is there a more achievable goal, like survive four turns, or kill one specific model, or hold a point for a round?

If the only goal of the game is to beat the enemy, then yeah-not much meaningful choice.
If there’s an achievable goal, then there is meaningful choice.

 JNAProductions wrote:
Is the goal of an asymmetrical game to completely beat the other force?
Or is there a more achievable goal, like survive four turns, or kill one specific model, or hold a point for a round?

If the only goal of the game is to beat the enemy, then yeah-not much meaningful choice.
If there’s an achievable goal, then there is meaningful choice.

I think we are starting to cross our wires and not communicating clearly with each other.

Perhaps we need to go back a bit. Are you saying that the only meaningful choices are choices that lead to a win?

 Easy E wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:
Is the goal of an asymmetrical game to completely beat the other force?
Or is there a more achievable goal, like survive four turns, or kill one specific model, or hold a point for a round?

If the only goal of the game is to beat the enemy, then yeah-not much meaningful choice.
If there’s an achievable goal, then there is meaningful choice.

I think we are starting to cross our wires and not communicating clearly with each other.

Perhaps we need to go back a bit. Are you saying that the only meaningful choices are choices that lead to a win?

You can only have meaningful choice if your decisions influence your success or failure.

In a pickup game, this means that if one army is 10% the price it should be, your choices don't meaningfully impact whether you win or lose-the 90% discount army is going to win, barring literally giving up or astronomically unlikely rolls.
In an asymmetrical scenario, like a desperate last stand against an overwhelming force, you can't succeed by wiping the enemy forces. (Or if you can, the game is really horribly balanced.) But if that's the goal, then the scenario isn't a good one-the weaker force should have some other goal. It could also, reasonably, be a high score kinda thing. Players take turns being the overwhelmed force, and see how many turns they can survive, for example.

Thanks a lot for the discussion, there are a lot of interesting points raised here.


I did play a few "solo games", the kind that have a game system built to generate enemies by some kind of "AI process" either by random tables or by a series of "if enemy is in X situation, then he does that Y action" conditions. One of the last ones I tried is Five Leagues from Borderlands. The idea is to create a band of adventurers having to face different threats on a map and see how far they're going. You face no other player here, it's all about rolling the dice / checking the conditions to see what the enemies do and deal with the situation.

Now from a competitive player's point of view, this may look like pointless choices. I mean, you're the only player doing them against a "dumb AI", that may sound like it's a boring challenge. The game is also completely unbalanced, because some results can give easy encounters or insanely difficult ones (if not impossible), depending on how strong your band is at the time they happen.

That's where Da Boss' own intervention comes to mind and I thought to myself "that's really it" : the main point of Five Leagues from Borderlands is not really about the "challenge" to overcome, but the hobby project that lies so that you bring all those games to life.

Five Leagues from Borderlands has a lot of tables to generate the events and enemies and use a map with different locations of interest to give a background to the encounters. It's really like a small tabletop roleplaying game campaign, but you don't create everything from the start : rather, you add them as they happen with time and while your band makes progress. The game itself is intentionnaly vague on a lot of "archetypes" for the enemies for example, so you can really fit in what you have in your collection to represent them and what you use as miniatures / terrain to play the games themselves. It works as a sandbox inspiration for your own hobby projects.

Thus, the results of the games themselves aren't really the final goal. It's the journey on the way to what you're calling "the end" (when you defeat all the threats, when your band gets defeated...or when you call it a day after a while) that matters, what you used or added as miniatures during your adventures and encounters. Or what you got inspired to add as some events happen, like meeting a random character that gives you another quest and make you think "you know, I have that miniature of a hooded stranger I never painted until now, it would be cool to paint it so that I represent that event with him".


I tend to be in the same situation than Da Boss myself ; with time, I accumulated an insane amount of miniatures and terrain at my home, and I saw I was able to have all the material needed to play entire games. My current favorite is the game Warcry from GW (which I tend to believe as one of the best skirmish games ever made, sorry if I'm totally subjective here). I collected all the boxes and bands GW released specifically for that game so far, and I found myself actually coming with all the material to do demo games at my club, including pre-made bands that give an interesting game without prior list building. Sometimes, when I play with children, I tend to play with unbalanced smaller lists, depending on the preference of the new player of what band they find cool and then play an antagonist to that band's style that's "weaker" just so they discover the mechanisms of the game while still have fun when they see they have the upper hand (children love to win, after all ). I put myself voluntarily at a disadvantage, at unbalance, just for the sake / atmosphere of the game - and I actually have a lot of positive results in return. People love to have fun with games, that's universal...but that fun doesn't necessarily come with the win itself.


I'm not sure social media is necessarily "ruining it". Sure, there are channels that are entirely dedicated to the pure, unrestrained competition and with very strong opinions on what is seen as a "good game". But there are others that are meant to discover all kinds of games, or present a Hobby project or follow a whole campaign in the likes of Five Leagues from Borderlands. It is also a very good way to present how a game works or to advertise a club's activities (some are really awesome on that matter, I must say - I'm still stuck with mere pictures of the games we play at our own).