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So then what's your point t besides "I don't like this, so it shouldn't exist, and everyone who likes that can stop playing"???

 Blndmage wrote:
Bolded 1) the book literally has the Open Hostility Mission Pack, which, I gak you not, has rules for miss matched PL. I just pick the one that fits the the scenario best, as well as Theaters of War. There are tons of awesome rules that enhance the play experience than Matched Play only folks won't even try.

Those missions are just normal points-based list building and generic attacker/defender scenarios like GW has published in the normal matched play game in previous editions. There's nothing in there that requires a separate Way™ To™ Play™.

Bolded 2) can you please explain who people like us are?

People who need a scaled-back game because of your very specific situation. Open Play wasn't invented for that reason, it's the direct successor to Unbound and the failed attempt to convince everyone to buy the latest release regardless of faction.

Bolded 3) an you wonder why we're feeling the need to be on the offensive?

Shrug. Every other defense of PL fails to have any merit behind it. It isn't meaningfully simpler than normal points, it doesn't make a wider range of options viable. It's just a less-accurate point system.


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Racerguy180 wrote:
So then what's your point t besides "I don't like this, so it shouldn't exist, and everyone who likes that can stop playing"???

If you can't have a discussion of the virtues of different game mechanics without building straw man arguments then there is no point in talking to you.

CadianSgtBob wrote:

ccs wrote:
Why do you want PL & Open Play to cease to exist? You're clearly not using them, so they have no impact upon how you play. So what's it to you if they exist & are used by others? So GW wastes some ink on a few pages. Just ignore it & play on. So someone playing a game you're not in is adding up PL instead of points. So what?

I want them gone because I'm tired of GW sinking development time and effort into doubling down on their mistakes to avoid admitting defeat instead of fixing the rest of the game.

*I'm sure the time sunk on each of these was pretty minimal. As for GW admitting defeat?
*Unless they manage to repeat an AoS 1e scale blunder in 10e (I.E. no points/list construction rules at all) I think you'll be waiting awhile.
*They might fix something. But they won't fix it all & they won't fix it all at once. Because it's a the business plan to keep selling you the next updated book etc. Has been for a very long time. Will be long after you've rage quit.

CadianSgtBob wrote:
I want PL gone because the latest round of points updates are clearly aimed at moving towards a PL-like system and laying the foundation for going PL-only in the future.

*You need to get used to this idea. It's exactly how Sigmar works. Sure, the #s can generally be 3 digits long vs 40ks typical 1 or 2, and they don't call it PL (just pts).
Guess what? Works just fine.
It will not surprise me if 10th mirrors Sigmar.

CadianSgtBob wrote:
And I want PL gone because the sole useful function I've ever seen from it is CAAC gatekeepers using it as a way to tell competitive players they aren't welcome in a group.

So you're salty because someone didn't want to play with you/someone else (You, I'm betting).
Guess what? No matter how you tally up forces those competitive payers were getting the same response. Getting rid of PL won't change that.

CadianSgtBob wrote:
Automatically Appended Next Post:

Racerguy180 wrote:
So then what's your point t besides "I don't like this, so it shouldn't exist, and everyone who likes that can stop playing"???

If you can't have a discussion of the virtues of different game mechanics without building straw man arguments then there is no point in talking to you.

When you're discounting virtues of a specific game mechanic out of hand, maybe one should look in the mirror about building things out of straw.
APeople like the specific game mechanics you don't, but difference is, you're advocating for removing it while everyone else is fine with its existence.

I think his point is that Open Play isn't a mechanic - it is the absence of mechanics.

It would be like Chess having two play modes, one that is normal chess and the other that just says "do what you want from this bulletized list" and then including the normal chess rules.


That said, I don't know if I agree yet. Still making up my mind. I think there are mechanics unique to open play you won't find anywhere else.... but then again, they don't HAVE to be unique to open play either.... it's a mess.

I feel like open play gets more time in dakka discussions than it does get in actual games around the globe combined.

In reality people playing 9th are either playing GT or BRB matched play, one of the two card deck modes, crusade or homebrews. The number of player who pick up a BRB, flip to "open play" and read up on how to play a game of kill everything the other person has is extremely low.

I just seenl open play as the sandbox. For the non cult of officialdom crowd if you like. Heres some basics, bolt on what you like, official or not.

Open play is the purest form of "my dudes" you can have in a system like 40k, where half the time the rules are able to be misinterpreted numerous ways.

Also, when did CAAC become a thing? Is that really a acronym or did Bob just make that up?

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
Open play is the purest form of "my dudes" you can have in a system like 40k, where half the time the rules are able to be misinterpreted numerous ways.

Also, when did CAAC become a thing? Is that really a acronym or did Bob just make that up?

CAAC was coined by Peregrine to insult me and couple of other posters. It then gained traction and settled on „people whose way to enjoy the game I utterny do not understand, because I’m a sworn competitive player”.

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
Open play is the purest form of "my dudes" you can have in a system like 40k, where half the time the rules are able to be misinterpreted numerous ways.

Also, when did CAAC become a thing? Is that really a acronym or did Bob just make that up?

'Casual-at-all-costs' has been a broad stroke and often snide bogeyman term, if not outright hostile dismissal of, and attempt to delegitimise casual play and casual players since at least the time of Peregrine here on these boards.

It was thrown about hard especially against those who might have dared to have issues with overly competitive, waac and competitive-at-all costs players fielding brutal tourney builds into casual and laid back games withput any care and not caring about how tone deaf this could be or how this would negatively affect other people. It was also used against folks like me who prefer balancing things 'relatively' and building lists collaboratively, rather than actively trying to build the most brutal lists possible (because not doing this was disrespecting your opponent). Oh and also was thrown about at folks who dared say 'sone of the responsibility and onus for the games problems and responsibility to implement solutions is on the players too'.

It was often wielded as a bogeyman term and waa often an outright othering term - to rally the self-declared good, selfless and honest/decent competitive minded players to defend against 'those people' who would want to ruin your hobby, your fun, veto your armies and choices et and the game you play.

And in all my time, I've seen maybe one player who would fit the descriptive of 'casual-at-all-costs'. And his posts are still around and are hilarious.

As to „Open play has the same cognitive burden for the new player as Matched, because you are told you can include anything”. Exactly because this reversed order it is not. When you do not now anything about the game you are explicitly informed, that it is possible to play this game with a minimal set of rules and it will work. This is clearly aimed at increasing the possible audience by spending a marginal effort at GW part - Open Play does not „eat up precious resources that GW could spend on improving Matched” - that is really entitled thing to say. That you don’t see Open played at FLGS is pretty much a given, because only a specific and well defined subset of the playerbase plays at FLGSs. People should finally accept the reality, that a huge part of GWs customers play garagehammer with their friends and kids only and every survey to date clearly shows that.

CadianSgtBob wrote:

 Blndmage wrote:
Also, it sounds like you're straight up mocking the way I play the game. Why? That's the whole point of Open, they given me basic rules I can follow without having to read everything like it's a legal contract.

I'm mocking GW, not you.

I want to address this point, because it doesn't really make sense in reality. Sure, you might genuinely believe that you're not mocking or harming the people who play Open or PL, but you *are*. The people who play PL and Open implicitly agree with what GW has done by including PL and Open. They are on the same page as GW on this, or at the very least, support it. If you're turning around and saying "I'm mocking GW for doing this", what kind of message is that sending about the people who actually liked what GW did? You can't say "oh, I'm mocking GW for X, even though I know you also do X" and not expect us to realise "well, hang on, you're still mocking us".

You can't point fingers at GW and not also point them at the people who enjoy what GW has done with PL.

It's simply a matter of less math, less worry. I don't want to have to recalculate everything every 6 months. I don't want to run longs strings of numbers for each squad. I want the minimum amount of energy spent prepping the game.

Is it really that much of a difference? Like JNAProductions said, most of the difficulty in list building is figuring out what you want to include in your list. Adding the actual numbers up is a tiny part of it, especially when there are tools like Battlescribe to do all of it for you. And TBH PL is harder to make lists with. If my list is at 26 out of 25 PL I can't get down below the limit without removing an entire unit, and that usually means reshuffling other units to accommodate it. If I'm at 501 out of 500 points I can usually modify an upgrade somewhere to make it all work with a minimum of changes.

Yes, it really *is* that much of a difference. First of all, if you're needing to rely on a third party product that may or may not be even accurate to build lists, then that's already pretty dire.
Second, just on the sheer size of the numbers, that's another issue. PL unit costs tend to be in the single digits, occasionally sub-50. Contrast to points, where most units are in the low hundreds. 10 is much smaller than 100, is all I'm saying.

As for "if you're 1PL over, its harder to remove stuff" - not really. If you're 501 points over, but you only took barebones units, or the upgrades you too were non-negotiable, then you still need to strip entire units.

Did you miss the part where the Open Play rules also say that you can use all of that other stuff if you want? It asks you to make that exact same decision, which means having the exact same level of understanding of detachments/stratagems/etc.

Exactly - but you have to actually *choose* to add them, and by choosing to add them, you likely actually know what they are in order to want to include them. It's the same decision, but built off of the notion of explicit choice and player agency. You add what you know, not remove what you're unfamiliar with.

ccs wrote:
Why do you want PL & Open Play to cease to exist? You're clearly not using them, so they have no impact upon how you play. So what's it to you if they exist & are used by others? So GW wastes some ink on a few pages. Just ignore it & play on. So someone playing a game you're not in is adding up PL instead of points. So what?

I want them gone because I'm tired of GW sinking development time and effort into doubling down on their mistakes to avoid admitting defeat instead of fixing the rest of the game.

What stops someone else saying the same for points? Now, I'd never say that, because I don't want points gone, even if I don't use them, because I respect your desire for them. Why don't you respect ours for PL/Open?

And I want PL gone because the sole useful function I've ever seen from it is CAAC gatekeepers using it as a way to tell competitive players they aren't welcome in a group.

So, you're ignoring every reason that BIndmage gave about their preference for it, unless you're calling them a gatekeeper?

Again, I find it ironic that you complain about gatekeepers when you're the one outright calling to remove things from the game because you don't like them. Neither myself nor BIndmage have advocated that you change what you enjoy or gatekept your enjoyment, but you seem bent on preventing ours.

Voss wrote:

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:
If anyone is asking "why do you enjoy this" without in the same breath saying "your enjoyment is entirely valid, and I support your right to enjoy it", then may I kindly suggest not asking?

Curiosity is invalid if it isn't accompanied by platitudes? That are honestly, obviously, going to be empty, because anyone who's asking isn't going to understand your perspective enough to give meaningful validation before you answer the question.
A 'that's cool' might be fine after they get an answer, but how can it mean anything before?

I don't need them to *understand* my perspective. I want them to respect it, regardless of their understanding of it.
I'm not trying to persuade people into enjoying the same things as me, or even to know *why* I enjoy it, because I don't owe that to anyone. All I ask is that my enjoyment, so long as it doesn't infringe on anyone else's, is respected.

Open play is what people were doing for years, decades without it. So yeah, it needs some justification for taking up space in the book. It isn't a 'you' problem. Its a GW problem.

I don't play points. Can you justify why I, as a non-points player, should have space in my books taken up by your material?

Actually, I can already answer that - because I accept that, even though it isn't made for me, I can respect its inclusion for the people who *do* value it, like yourself. I don't need to know anything more than "you enjoy it, and it doesn't affect my enjoyment of my thing, so you should be entitled to it".

Again, coming back to that idea of "it's not a You problem, it's a GW problem" - if I support GW's inclusion of Open Play and PL, how are you not criticising my stance?

CadianSgtBob wrote:

 Blndmage wrote:
can you please explain who people like us are?

People who need a scaled-back game because of your very specific situation. Open Play wasn't invented for that reason, it's the direct successor to Unbound and the failed attempt to convince everyone to buy the latest release regardless of faction.

Shrug. If the shoe fits for people who it wasn't invented for, why take the shoe away?

Bolded 3) an you wonder why we're feeling the need to be on the offensive?

Shrug. Every other defense of PL fails to have any merit behind it. It isn't meaningfully simpler than normal points, it doesn't make a wider range of options viable. It's just a less-accurate point system.

Why is "I prefer this" not worthy of merit enought to justify it's existence. Just because you don't use it, why does that that mean you should take it away from the people who do?

You say "it's a less accurate points system" - and that's fine - but not everyone *cares* about that. But you don't see me trying to stop you using points.

Dai wrote:I just seenl open play as the sandbox. For the non cult of officialdom crowd if you like. Heres some basics, bolt on what you like, official or not.

I think this is the best way to sum it up. It's the barest form of 40k, and you can plug in and play what you like. It's an *additive* system, instead of a subtractive one, I suppose? So instead of being like "so, we're going to remove XYZ" it's more of a "we're going to add XYZ". There's a higher level of implicit consent and agreement as to what all parties are getting into, and I personally enjoy making those explicit agreements of what we all want from our games. That way, no-one gets hit by a specific balance ruling, such as transports exploding if you're not in them, or no mixed detachments, or any of the other countless rules I genuinely don't remember, unless people agree to use it prior to the game.

It's not to say that you shouldn't use those balance rules if you want to, but it's just making sure that everyone's on the same page for the same game.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

nou wrote:
As to „Open play has the same cognitive burden for the new player as Matched, because you are told you can include anything”. Exactly because this reversed order it is not. When you do not now anything about the game you are explicitly informed, that it is possible to play this game with a minimal set of rules and it will work.

Exactly. It's like wanting a pepperoni pizza, and only having the choice between ordering a pizza with all the toppings, and a pizza with no toppings, but you get to choose what you add and remove from either.

Sure, you can go both ways and still get a pepperoni pizza, but it's much easier and less ambiguous to go for the pizza with no toppings and manually add the tomato sauce, the cheese and the pepperoni so that you *know* that's all you're getting, versus getting the pizza with everything on, and then having to go through every single item to see if you want to keep it, and the possible ambiguities of "does tomato mean slices of tomato, or tomato sauce", for example.

Now I want a pizza.

nou wrote:

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
Open play is the purest form of "my dudes" you can have in a system like 40k, where half the time the rules are able to be misinterpreted numerous ways.

Also, when did CAAC become a thing? Is that really a acronym or did Bob just make that up?

CAAC was coined by Peregrine to insult me and couple of other posters. It then gained traction and settled on „people whose way to enjoy the game I utterny do not understand, because I’m a sworn competitive player”.

OR it's because you blatantly ignore issues with the game

nou wrote:
As to „Open play has the same cognitive burden for the new player as Matched, because you are told you can include anything”. Exactly because this reversed order it is not. When you do not now anything about the game you are explicitly informed, that it is possible to play this game with a minimal set of rules and it will work. This is clearly aimed at increasing the possible audience by spending a marginal effort at GW part - Open Play does not „eat up precious resources that GW could spend on improving Matched” - that is really entitled thing to say. That you don’t see Open played at FLGS is pretty much a given, because only a specific and well defined subset of the playerbase plays at FLGSs. People should finally accept the reality, that a huge part of GWs customers play garagehammer with their friends and kids only and every survey to date clearly shows that.

Which way of playing a new player will only be able exercise if he plays both vs new players and those players need to want to play open. What happens more often is that the new player enters the world of matched played, and want it or not, he has to learn the way to play. And garage hammer is something for people that actualy own enough space to do that. And good luck enticing new players in their teens or early 20s, that w40k is a good game, because they can play with their kids.

What the open mind set does to some people, is that it lets them to be lazy, not learn the game rules and claim that is an acceptable thing , specialy in its wasting time of other people aspect. It is like those guys when you are 8-9 who want to do any sports in a "free for all" mode the way you played it at 7 or younger. the same people are often the ones who want to house rule and change the game rules instead of doing sports the proper way.

It then gained traction and settled on „people whose way to enjoy the game I utterny do not understand, because I’m a sworn competitive player”.

People very much understand what casual players want, they don't want to play the rules, but would rather play the game the way they want, changing the rules on a player to player basis. And a lot of people don't like it. Specialy as the so called casuals asked for changes to core rules or intreduction of outside of game elements to game. All it does it makes the game worse the general public, plus somehow makes anyone who even hints and being invested in how the game or rules are in to some evil person. Yet I have never seen or heard any non casual player want to force others to play their armies a certain way, when the reverse is more or less a given.

Karol wrote:
And garage hammer is something for people that actualy own enough space to do that.

I've been able to play 40k purely on an ordinary table in an ordinary room. You don't need an actual garage.

And good luck enticing new players in their teens or early 20s, that w40k is a good game, because they can play with their kids.

That's the group I've had the most luck getting to play, mostly out of shared social experiences. The game doesn't need to be ultra finely balanced, as long as people enjoy it.

What the open mind set does to some people, is that it lets them to be lazy, not learn the game rules and claim that is an acceptable thing , specialy in its wasting time of other people aspect.

Why isn't it acceptable?

It is like those guys when you are 8-9 who want to do any sports in a "free for all" mode the way you played it at 7 or younger. the same people are often the ones who want to house rule and change the game rules instead of doing sports the proper way.

It's 40k. There is no "proper" way beyond the way that you and your group like to play it.

Knock it off with that gatekeeping nonsense.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Karol wrote:
People very much understand what casual players want, they don't want to play the rules, but would rather play the game the way they want, changing the rules on a player to player basis.

And why is that a problem? Why *shouldn't* people play the game they want to, if everyone involved agrees?

And a lot of people don't like it.

That's a shame. Get over it. Not everyone enjoys the same game as you, and as long as they're not stopping you from enjoying what you like, why should you stop them?

Specialy as the so called casuals asked for changes to core rules or intreduction of outside of game elements to game. All it does it makes the game worse the general public

... the general public? This is 40k, there isn't a "general public".

If you mean "the wider player base", you're still wrong, because how I enjoy 40k doesn't stop you from enjoying yours. Quit trying to police other people's fun.

plus somehow makes anyone who even hints and being invested in how the game or rules are in to some evil person.

Literally no-one has said that. You can enjoy what YOU like. Don't force it on me. That's why I'm telling you to "get over it" - not because that you're invested in the rules, but that you're trying to stop me enjoying mine.

Yet I have never seen or heard any non casual player want to force others to play their armies a certain way, when the reverse is more or less a given.

Have you missed where people in this thread have called for the outright abolishment of PL? How is that NOT forcing others to play a certain way?

I suggest you maybe read back over the thread.

EviscerationPlague wrote:

nou wrote:

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
Open play is the purest form of "my dudes" you can have in a system like 40k, where half the time the rules are able to be misinterpreted numerous ways.

Also, when did CAAC become a thing? Is that really a acronym or did Bob just make that up?

CAAC was coined by Peregrine to insult me and couple of other posters. It then gained traction and settled on „people whose way to enjoy the game I utterny do not understand, because I’m a sworn competitive player”.

OR it's because you blatantly ignore issues with the game

Have I ever? Explicitly listing ways to mitigate issues in the game requires acknowledging those issues in the first place. The difference between me and you is that I accept, that GW won’t fix those issues for me, especially in cases where what is an issue for me is a feature for other players. It has never been about anything else, than trying to show people with Stockholm syndrome that they can lower the amount of frustration they experience from GW being GW by taking their own fun in their own hands. The thing I find most funny about this whole CAAC calling is that I always state clearly and openly, that I do not play at FLGSs and only play with likeminded people, therefore my way to play has never, ever affected any not consenting player.

This makes me wonder - do people are really feeling so insecure with their way of having fun, that they feel they must have to eradicate all „CAAC heresy” and Open Play enthusiasts? Do you think that CAAC players will somehow force GW to abandon Matched?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
And one more thing - if (when?) GW will eventually drop points for a PL-esque system and limited customisation, it will not be because of Open or Narrative players swaying GW. It will happen because AoS competitive crowd paved the way and showed, that you can have as competitive game as 40K Matched using PLs, fixed squad sizes and sidegrade weapon/wargear choices. 8th ed player influx and AoS success showed GW, that competitive crowd will adapt to any and all changes to the game, no matter how fundamental or drastic. That some players will rage quit? As long as net number of players doesn't drop, GW doesn't care about individual players.

Deadnight wrote:
And in all my time, I've seen maybe one player who would fit the descriptive of 'casual-at-all-costs'.

And in all my time, I've seen maybe one player who would fit the descriptive of "win at all costs".

Remember the key point here: at all costs. The WAAC player engages in cheating, rules lawyering, emotional manipulation, etc. There's no line they won't cross if it helps them win. Merely playing a list that is more optimized than the unwritten rule of what is appropriate for a "casual" game is not WAAC. So if you're going to complain about people using CAAC too broadly then you'd better treat WAAC the same way.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:
First of all, if you're needing to rely on a third party product that may or may not be even accurate to build lists, then that's already pretty dire.

You don't need to use third party tools. I use the normal point system and I build my lists with a text document and a calculator. I'm just pointing out the fact that many people do use those third party tools regardless of which point system is being used. And if you're using those third party tools the theoretical difference in adding up the point costs is irrelevant because the tool is doing all the work for you.

Second, just on the sheer size of the numbers, that's another issue. PL unit costs tend to be in the single digits, occasionally sub-50. Contrast to points, where most units are in the low hundreds. 10 is much smaller than 100, is all I'm saying.

Why does this matter? I suppose technically it takes less time to type 5+8+14+3 into your calculator than to type 95+160+290+75 but we're talking about a difference of a few seconds at most. Do we really need an entire second point system so you have to type fewer digits?

As for "if you're 1PL over, its harder to remove stuff" - not really. If you're 501 points over, but you only took barebones units, or the upgrades you too were non-negotiable, then you still need to strip entire units.

Yes, obviously you can be in a situation where you're at 501/500 and can't trim anything without removing entire units but those situations are a lot rarer than with PL. Every time you're over the point limit with PL you have to remove an entire unit (or at least cut a unit's size in half, if your faction has that option), with normal points that only happens a small percentage of the time. So on average, yes, PL is harder to make lists with.

Exactly - but you have to actually *choose* to add them, and by choosing to add them, you likely actually know what they are in order to want to include them. It's the same decision, but built off of the notion of explicit choice and player agency. You add what you know, not remove what you're unfamiliar with.

If you don't know what those optional things are then how are you making an informed choice about whether or not to include them? And if you aren't making an informed choice about whether or not to include them then how do you know that Open Play is in fact your preferred system?

And really, do we need an entire separate Way™ To™ Play™ to cover the basic tutorial for new players to learn the game? Why not just have a very simple tutorial mission in the starter box like every other game?

What stops someone else saying the same for points?

You can say it, but unlike PL the normal point system has a reason to exist.

So, you're ignoring every reason that BIndmage gave about their preference for it, unless you're calling them a gatekeeper?

No, I'm saying those reasons fail as justification. They, like you, can claim that PL is "easier" but when you look at the actual process of making a list PL is not meaningfully easier and is often harder to use. The only reason that I've ever seen that holds up to investigation is the rare time when a PL advocate is honest about wanting a gatekeeping tool. PL does in fact accomplish that goal if that's what you want.

CadianSgtBob wrote:

Deadnight wrote:
And in all my time, I've seen maybe one player who would fit the descriptive of 'casual-at-all-costs'.

And in all my time, I've seen maybe one player who would fit the descriptive of "win at all costs".

Remember the key point here: at all costs. The WAAC player engages in cheating, rules lawyering, emotional manipulation, etc. There's no line they won't cross if it helps them win. Merely playing a list that is more optimized than the unwritten rule of what is appropriate for a "casual" game is not WAAC. So if you're going to complain about people using CAAC too broadly then you'd better treat WAAC the same way.
.

Yeah...

I never said that was waac, Bob.

Win at all costs, as you say is a rather destructive approach that crosses a lot of red lines.

Deadnight wrote:
Yeah...

I never said that was waac, Bob.

Win at all costs, as you say is a rather destructive approach that crosses a lot of red lines.

You didn't say it but that's what most people are talking about when they throw around accusations of WAAC. It's not the person who is cheating and rules lawyering and genuinely willing to do anything to win, it's the person who did more list optimization than they think is appropriate. And once you reject the label WAAC for someone who is merely doing "too much" list optimization you're left with a tiny, tiny handful of actual WAAC TFGs. And, like the actual CAAC players, they're so rare that most people will never encounter one in real life.

CadianSgtBob wrote:
If you don't know what those optional things are then how are you making an informed choice about whether or not to include them? And if you aren't making an informed choice about whether or not to include them then how do you know that Open Play is in fact your preferred system?

And really, do we need an entire separate Way™ To™ Play™ to cover the basic tutorial for new players to learn the game? Why not just have a very simple tutorial mission in the starter box like every other game?

At first you don't know what those optional things are and Open Play informs you directly, that you can not care. Then, if you feel that your 40k experience is lacking something, you can gradually add new bite size chunks or "step up" to Narrative or Matched.

Again, what you either don't get or deliberately ignore, is that a huge part of playerbase do not play at FLGSs, but instead play at home with friends and family. And in such context there is no inherent need to learn to play Matched as soon as you can, only because that is the only way everybody else is playing 40k. For this segment of the playerbase Matched and the whole "you must learn every stratagem of every faction and build a strong list or die" is entirely optional to their 40k experience. Many of those people will never play against more than just a couple of factions that their friends and family own. They also won't get involved in an arms race, because by the nature of small, closed groups, you actually have to be accommodating in order for your limited play partners not to quit. Having a separate way to play is aimed at such people and is clearly perfectly sufficient for them.

And regarding PL vs point calculations - it is not and never was about adding up small numbers vs adding up a bit larger numbers, but about not having to dive into minutiae of wargear/upgrade/unit size choices in order to fit into an arbitrary point limit. I have made a lot, and I mean a lot of lists using points and every time it ends up in shuffling wargear and weapons around in order to fit just a few points closer to those mythical 2000pts. In PLs? You just fit your whole units, any other consideration about wargear/weaons/upgrades is removed from the equation. You can't obsess over parameters that simply aren't there. When on top of that you also have mechanisms to cover for PL differences between armies, the whole proces is pretty much instantaneous.

And in such context there is no inherent need to learn to play Matched as soon as you can,

Wait, serious question- isn't that what basic and advanced rules are for?
We /checks/... Yeah, we still have those.

And don't most starter boxes have simplified rule sets anyway? I've never really flipped through those pamphlets, but I thought that's what those were.

nou wrote:
At first you don't know what those optional things are and Open Play informs you directly, that you can not care. Then, if you feel that your 40k experience is lacking something, you can gradually add new bite size chunks or "step up" to Narrative or Matched.

Again, do we need an entire separate Way™ To™ Play™ to cover the basic tutorial for new players to learn the game? Why not just have a very simple tutorial mission in the starter box like every other game?

Again, what you either don't get or deliberately ignore, is that a huge part of playerbase do not play at FLGSs, but instead play at home with friends and family. And in such context there is no inherent need to learn to play Matched as soon as you can, only because that is the only way everybody else is playing 40k. For this segment of the playerbase Matched and the whole "you must learn every stratagem of every faction and build a strong list or die" is entirely optional to their 40k experience. Many of those people will never play against more than just a couple of factions that their friends and family own. They also won't get involved in an arms race, because by the nature of small, closed groups, you actually have to be accommodating in order for your limited play partners not to quit. Having a separate way to play is aimed at such people and is clearly perfectly sufficient for them.

What does that have to do with anything? 40k at home with friends and family worked just fine when there was only one game system. It didn't need a separate less-accurate point system, it didn't need an explicit Way™ To™ Play™ giving you permission to not use certain rules.

And regarding PL vs point calculations - it is not and never was about adding up small numbers vs adding up a bit larger numbers

That's funny, because one of the PL defenders here very directly made the argument that it is about adding up small numbers vs. adding up larger numbers.

In PLs? You just fit your whole units, any other consideration about wargear/weaons/upgrades is removed from the equation.

But when you end up over the point limit you have to remove an entire unit to fix your list instead of just modifying an upgrade or two. PL is harder to make lists with, not easier.

And why would you want to ignore upgrades and unit sizes in a game where those things have a significant impact on a unit's power? Why would you want to treat a 6-man terminator squad and a 10-man terminator squad as having the same point cost? Why does a basic LRBT with no upgrades have the same point cost as a LR Punisher with a lascannon, multimelta sponsons, and all of the vehicle upgrades? These units have vastly different power levels but under PL they have the same point cost.


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Voss wrote:
And don't most starter boxes have simplified rule sets anyway? I've never really flipped through those pamphlets, but I thought that's what those were.

Yep. Open Play is a solution in need of a problem, the starter sets and their basic intro rules already address the need for a basic tutorial ruleset and they do it in a much better way.

Open play has zero impact the competitive scene. To want to remove it for the better if the game is an absolute nonsense.

There is no reason to remove any form of play, the hobby and the community is big enough to accommodate all types.

If anything is going to make gw switch from pints to PL or some version of it with limited options and squad sizes it will be in an attempt balance he game and simplify it for the competitive scene not the casuals.

I have never heard anyone from the casual side of the hobby want to ban or get rid of the more competitive side of things.

Let’s flip the old argument of why you need PL or open rules, let’s ask why do you need points? Why do we need to have 1 or 2 point models or bits of equipment, does it really matter? In a game like 40k where Imbalance and random events are such a part of the design do we really need to have armies matched up to the hundredth or thousandth?

I have payed open and narrative and matched play, never competitive, and I have been playing every edition of the game. Choice is good. Options are good. Having a rule book say explicitly that it is ok to only use what ever parts of a big complex ruleset that you want to is only ever going to help those who want to do that and have no impact those who want to use all the rules.

Andykp wrote:
Open play has zero impact the competitive scene.

It does when GW keeps spending time and effort defending the farce of their "buy primaris marines for your tyranid army" mistake instead of fixing the normal game.

If anything is going to make gw switch from pints to PL or some version of it with limited options and squad sizes it will be in an attempt balance he game and simplify it for the competitive scene not the casuals.

I could see GW doing it. It would be a spectacular mistake but it's not like anyone believes GW has competent people working as game designers.

Let’s flip the old argument of why you need PL or open rules, let’s ask why do you need points? Why do we need to have 1 or 2 point models or bits of equipment, does it really matter? In a game like 40k where Imbalance and random events are such a part of the design do we really need to have armies matched up to the hundredth or thousandth?

We need the normal point system because there is a vast difference in power between various options that can not be captured by a single point cost. A 10-man squad is 66% stronger than a 6-man squad, which is way beyond any reasonable argument that we're dealing with tiny nuances that can be rounded off to the same point cost.

And we also need the normal point system because "cheaper but less powerful" is valid design space. If a laspistol and a plasma pistol cost the same number of points then there is zero reason to ever, under any circumstances, take the laspistol. If a laspistol costs 0 points while a plasma pistol costs 5 points both of them are valid options and you can have a strategy debate over which one you should take. PL renders vast amounts of design space irrelevant and reduces your list building choices to identifying the option with the biggest numbers in the stat line.

Having a rule book say explicitly that it is ok to only use what ever parts of a big complex ruleset that you want to is only ever going to help those who want to do that and have no impact those who want to use all the rules.

But, again, why? Why do you need official permission to modify the rules? Who exactly are these people that want to change the rules but are so obsessed with the concept of officialness that they can't make any changes without GW telling them it's ok to do it?

CadianSgtBob wrote:

I could see GW doing it. It would be a spectacular mistake but it's not like anyone believes GW has competent people working as game designers.

You do know, that AoS exists and prospers, right? You know how it handles listbuilding, right?

And in no world is building a list in PLs harder than building it with points. You clearly have no practical experience with PLs and especially in Open, where not fitting into an exact limit is explicitly handled, so you don't need to remove entire squads, ever.

This whole "but 10 man squad is 66% stronger than 6 man squad" has any sense only when looking at particulars. When you look at the system as a whole, PLs generate the same practical (im)balance as points, only mins and maxes are in different places, because not only you have access to those 66% more efficient units. Different choices are "valid", different choices are "invalid", other factions are top tier, other are bottom. Who cares if you max out on wargear and weapons, if your competitively minded opponent does exactly the same, so the relative power of both armies stays within the same brackets you achieve with points? That when recalculated to points both armies are worth closer to 3000 points instead of 2000pts? What does it changes exactly if both armies are equal? Two competitive players, with the same "list building skill" will abuse PLs to the exactly same extent, as they abuse the point system.

nou wrote:
You do know, that AoS exists and prospers, right? You know how it handles listbuilding, right?

I don't play AoS but as I understand it AoS doesn't have 40k-style upgrade choices. Units are fixed sizes, there's no equivalent to heavy/special weapon upgrades, etc. You can't do that without stripping 40k of a vast range of options that currently exist.

And in no world is building a list in PLs harder than building it with points. You clearly have no practical experience with PLs and especially in Open, where not fitting into an exact limit is explicitly handled, so you don't need to remove entire squads, ever.

Narrative play treats PL as a conventional point system with a strict limit, including a strict point limit on the pool of possible units your army can be built from for each game. That's an even more restrictive system than matched play. And yeah, Open Play says "ignore any limit you don't like" but if you're willing to ignore the limit then you can also do that with the normal point system and that problem never comes up.

This whole "but 10 man squad is 66% stronger than 6 man squad" has any sense only when looking at particulars. When you look at the system as a whole, PLs generate the same practical (im)balance as points, only mins and maxes are in different places, because not only you have access to those 66% more efficient units.

I'm not sure why you think "your opponent can also exploit the broken parts of PL" is a compelling defense of it. Why not, instead of allowing both players access to the broken thing, assign those units a point cost that accurately reflects their power?

Who cares if you max out on wargear and weapons

Because removing meaningful choices is a bad thing. And because pressuring against narrative choices is a bad thing. Under the normal point system if you decide your narrative is that your character only has a laspistol and chainsword because their regiment isn't very well equipped you have that as a valid choice vs. taking a plasma pistol and power sword. Your unit's stats are less powerful but you pay fewer points for it. With PL you pay the same point cost regardless of equipment so if you take anything but a plasma pistol and power sword you're punished with a less-effective unit. So if you value narrative play, as so many PL advocates do, why do you defend a system that creates pressure against narrative choices over one that encourages them?

CadianSgtBob wrote:

nou wrote:
You do know, that AoS exists and prospers, right? You know how it handles listbuilding, right?

I don't play AoS but as I understand it AoS doesn't have 40k-style upgrade choices. Units are fixed sizes, there's no equivalent to heavy/special weapon upgrades, etc. You can't do that without stripping 40k of a vast range of options that currently exist.

And in no world is building a list in PLs harder than building it with points. You clearly have no practical experience with PLs and especially in Open, where not fitting into an exact limit is explicitly handled, so you don't need to remove entire squads, ever.

Narrative play treats PL as a conventional point system with a strict limit, including a strict point limit on the pool of possible units your army can be built from for each game. That's an even more restrictive system than matched play. And yeah, Open Play says "ignore any limit you don't like" but if you're willing to ignore the limit then you can also do that with the normal point system and that problem never comes up.

This whole "but 10 man squad is 66% stronger than 6 man squad" has any sense only when looking at particulars. When you look at the system as a whole, PLs generate the same practical (im)balance as points, only mins and maxes are in different places, because not only you have access to those 66% more efficient units.

I'm not sure why you think "your opponent can also exploit the broken parts of PL" is a compelling defense of it. Why not, instead of allowing both players access to the broken thing, assign those units a point cost that accurately reflects their power?

Who cares if you max out on wargear and weapons

Because removing meaningful choices is a bad thing. And because pressuring against narrative choices is a bad thing. Under the normal point system if you decide your narrative is that your character only has a laspistol and chainsword because their regiment isn't very well equipped you have that as a valid choice vs. taking a plasma pistol and power sword. Your unit's stats are less powerful but you pay fewer points for it. With PL you pay the same point cost regardless of equipment so if you take anything but a plasma pistol and power sword you're punished with a less-effective unit. So if you value narrative play, as so many PL advocates do, why do you defend a system that creates pressure against narrative choices over one that encourages them?

A) because assigning points that „accurately reflect unit’s power” is impossible outside of a very strict and defined context 40k doesn’t have and will never have, because of freeform list building and open scenario structures. And on top of that, because players actively demand the existence of "list building as a skill", point efficiency discrepancies must exist within the point system. Bad choices must exist for optimal choices to exist.

B) in a narrative setting you already work in cooperation with your opponent to ensure a fair game at forces composition and scenario preparation stage, so minmaxing isn’t really a thing - PL system does not put any sort of pressure against the narrative. Exactly the same with points - in a narrative context you do not restrict yourself only to the most optimal choices. PLs provide enough game size framework to work with and points do not offer any benefit over this utility. Both with points and PLs I have played both high power and low power games and PLs are simply more convenient to use, because they do not create an illusion of balance points do. You have to realise one thing about narrative gaming and point systems adjusted for competitive gaming in a "list building as a skill" environment - because bad choices must exist in order for optimal choices to exist, if you want to play a fair game outside of competitive context, you have to manually adjust effective power of lists against each other based on your knowledge of nominal value vs effective value discrepancies of units, be it with points or PLs. This is because you do not have "the crutch" of trying to maximise the absolute value, which is, by the definition of the maximum, open to mistakes only on one side. If you aim at a low power, or mid power game, you have to mind both OP and UP units, not only dismiss UP. You are also frequently and deliberately building armies around suboptimal units if it so happens, that you need them for the narrative - you are actively using the entire spectrum of choices that are in this game, not only optimal ones.

And believe me, I really wish, that "assigning points that accurately reflect unit’s power” would be magically possible. It would really take a lot of burden from my hands when preparing fair narrative games.


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I see that you are relatively new here. Go and read some of the previous threads on the point balance topic. See how popular a PoV of "we do not want any 2000pts to be equal, a well designed list should always win with a randomly chosen list" is. With narrative approach, you have to actively work around this particular demand, because you want to be able to play with any and all imaginable lists if you fancy so.

Strict are words you have added to the narrative rules there. The power level limit is only as strict as you want to enforce it.

Why take a las pistol over a plasma pistol, because the model I have has a laspistol, because when I built it I thought it look3d cooler, and narratively why would all my guard sgts have plasma pistols, it doesn’t fit my armies fluff. ( real examples by the way, my guard army most sgts have las pistols and one of the officers, there’s only one plasma pistol out of 6 squads and two characters). The main reason to take las over plasma pistols is that I am building a themed army with a narrative based on models I like. Not trying to build the most optimal list. It’s not hard to understand.

nou wrote:
A) because assigning points that „accurately reflect unit’s power” is impossible outside of a very strict and defined context 40k doesn’t have and will never have, because of freeform list building and open scenario structures.

Then why do you defend the existence and use of a point system and points-based list building?

And on top of that, because players actively demand the existence of "list building as a skill", point efficiency discrepancies must exist within the point system. Bad choices must exist for optimal choices to exist.

This is absolutely false. Consider the question of "how many AA guns should I take in my army", which is clearly a question where list building skill is relevant. This involves considerations like "how many aircraft do I expect to encounter?", "do I need to kill the enemy aircraft or just accept some losses to strafing runs and focus elsewhere?", etc. And these questions exist even if tanks and AA guns and infantry all have accurate point costs when measured against the game as a whole. The superficial "list building skill" of "choose to buy the obvious unit with the best dice math" that exists in 40k is not in any way necessary.

B) in a narrative setting you already work in cooperation with your opponent to ensure a fair game at forces composition and scenario preparation stage

That's an interesting claim given the fact that GW's flagship narrative product for the current edition is one where you create a fixed list of units that you use regardless of who you are playing against. Or do you seriously expect people to plan out a whole Crusade in advance, arranging your list choices with each possible opponent before playing your first game?

Exactly the same with points - in a narrative context you do not restrict yourself only to the most optimal choices.

You say this, but in reality it still feels bad for many people when they know the unit they're taking is just a strictly worse version of the alternative. Taking a laspistol instead of a plasma pistol as a reasonable strategic choice feels much better than taking a laspistol instead of a plasma pistol with full knowledge that it's a sub-optimal choice and you're deliberately making your army less effective.

Both with points and PLs I have played both high power and low power games and PLs are simply more convenient to use, because they do not create an illusion of balance points do.

If points create an illusion of balance that you find undesirable then why do you continue to advocate the use of points-based list construction in narrative games?

And believe me, I really wish, that "assigning points that accurately reflect unit’s power” would be magically possible. It would really take a lot of burden from my hands when preparing fair narrative games.

Then you should advocate the use and improvement of the point system which is at least theoretically capable of getting to that level and support the removal of the point system that by design will never get there.

Bob, just out of curiosity, what factions do you play, and if you play, how often do you play?

Because, unless you are a hardcore competitive game enthusiast, I honestly don't understand your refusal to let people play toy soldiers they way they want to. I saw in your intro that you have been playing since 5th, so I'm sure you've seen the game go through some major changes. Did you fight this hard when the AV system changed? Or Vehicle facing? What about AoC, or Bolter Discipline?