Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you:
No adverts like this in the forums anymore.
Times and dates in your local timezone.
Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance.
Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely.
Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net.
If you are already a member then feel free to login now.
2014/02/05 06:54:43
Subject: The Warhammer 40K Point Balancing Project
So, I'm looking to try and balance 40K through appropriate point-costing of the models and upgrades of the various codices. To achieve that, I'm looking to use the players of 40K as a whole, since the community tends to be far better at identifying and exploiting broken combinations or game "cheese" than any single game designer.
In a nutshell, the system works on the assumption that each unit choice in a Force Org slot should be, over the scope of hundreds if not thousands of games, be about as commonly used as any other choice in that slot if the points values are appropriate for the unit. If one model shows up 3 times as often as any other choice, this indicates that this unit is likely approximately a third the cost it should be, or the units competing for that same slot are three times as expensive as they should be.
All you would have to do to participate is fill out one of the forms for your respective army after finishing a game, indicating how many of each unit and how many of each upgrade were used in the army overall:
Then, once the data has been collected, we'll release a Point Update document with a list of multipliers for the point value of every model and upgrade in a codex (As, iirc, Dakka prohibits posting costs of upgrades and such. If this is incorrect, we can release a simple updated point values instead). Participation at that point is just playing your games as you normally would, except using the adjusted point values indicated for your codex and units/upgrades by the Points Update document, and filling out the above forms after you play.
So, who here would be interested in helping with this? This is a project that relies on having lots of participants, especially as we go through each iteration and refine the point values. I'd also appreciate if you encouraged other people who you think might be interested in this to give it a shot as well, as the more people we have helping, the more accurate of a result we'll have and the faster we'll get it.
Also, I can answer any questions you might have about how all this works, so please feel free to fire away!
A link to the google document with a summary and a breakdown of how the math works is here.
Overview: This project is a collaborative effort that is making the attempt to better balance Warhammer 40K through adjustment to points values in the various army codices. Over time, use of these points values will help tweak them to better and eventually near-perfect accuracy, resulting in the respective codices being near-perfectly balanced against each other.
In addition, this system can account for drastic shifts in the meta, as well as new releases of main rulebooks, how other codices react to the release of a different codex, and so on and so forth. Overall, the system relies on the idiom “The [strike]customer[/strike] player knows best,” and reacts to what players perceive and use as optimal strategies and army lists to tailor the points so monobuild codices are a thing of the past.
How to Help: If you’d like to help participate in this project, simply fill out the appropriate army sheet above after you’ve played a game, preferably from a high-competition environment like a tournament. You can also enter past army lists, provided they were using the same edition of the codex and the main rules, and that you know if the army won, lost, or drew their game. If you used an Allied detachment, fill out a separate form for that army and the Allied detachment units as well as your main army.
After we have received sufficient submissions, we’ll be releasing a Points Update document, where you can find the new values to multiply codex upgrades by. Just play with those point values (No new rules, errata, or anything else to clutter up your codex with!), and continue to fill in the appropriate form after completing competitive game, and we’ll be able to use your results to further fine-tune the point values.
Finally, this method only works if there is a large sample set to work from. Be sure to tell your friends, link them to this nexus document, and together we can help balance 40K!
The Specifics: Multiplying Points: Simply multiply the point value in the codex by the Point Update multiplier value given, and ignore any decimal points.
For example, if an upgrade is “Tactical Marine swaps bolter for heavy bolter: +10pts” in the codex, and the Points Update document lists the multiplier as 0.76, the new point value is +7 points (10*0.76=7.6). If the upgrade was “Tactical Marine swaps bolter for combat shotgun: +2 pts,” and the Points Update lists the multiplier as 0.25, the new point value is +0 points, or “Free” (2*0.25=0.5) If the Point value was 0 (Listed as “Free” in the codex”), and the multiplier is greater than 1, treat the point value as 1 for the purposes of multiplying.
For example, if an upgrade is “Tactical Marines swap bolters for pistol/close combat weapon: Free,” and the Point Update document lists the multiplier as 1.5, the new point value is +1 pt (0 becomes 1*1.5=1.5). If the multiplier was 0.5, the new point value would still be 0 (0.5 is less than 1, so it is 0*0.5=0).
The Point Update documents: Please only use the most-recent Point Update documents, and once we have released a Point Update document for a codex, please do not fill out a post-battle form if you did not use the most recent Points Update document for your army.
The Competitiveness: The reason we ask that you only record competitive games is because this balancing project relies on the idea that players are picking out what they perceive to be the best and most efficient options. Picking a fluffy or purposefully-underpowered army, or playing in an off-the-wall scenario or campaign with oodles of special rules can still be fun (And usually is!), but in this case it would only serve to dilute the data and make it harder to identify which models are over or undercosted in a codex.
The Math: At the root of this system lies the idea that all options are equally attractive. For a Force Organization Fast Attack section, there should be (In theory) no reason short of game imbalance why one unit choice from that Fast Attack section is rarely, if ever, selected. Of course, some armies will have far more of one unit than another for flavor, uniformity, or synergy’s sake, but overall these will balance out to approximately equal if the options are all equally balanced.
If one unit choice, however, is taken far more often overall than what would be expected, this is likely due to an imbalance in the codex, either in the unit’s cost-for-power, or underpowered/overcosted alternatives. If, in an example codex, there were 2 Troop options, one would expect there would be about a 50-50 chance of either appearing in an army list. If, over the course of army list aggregation, it is seen that one choice appears twice as often as the other, then we can infer it is approximately twice as powerful and/or half as expensive as would be needed to bring it in line with the 50-50 chance of occurence.
This is where the math comes in. At this point, the first unit (Let’s call it X) appears twice as often as the second unit (Y), with 200 units of X picked over a number of games to 100 of unit Y, even though the expected number of each given 300 units picked total would be 150 each of X and Y. This means that unit X will have a multiplier of (200 Observed / 150 Expected) = 1.33, with the cost of the unit and their upgrades increasing by 33%.
Meanwhile, Unit Y’s cost will decrease, as it’s multiplier is (100 Observed / 150 Expected) = 0.66, with the cost of the unit and the upgrades decreasing by 33%. Then, after players have played using these new values and entered in their new data for how often units have been taken, if there is still a discrepancy in observed vs expected ratios of units, the process will be applied again.
For example, if Unit Y now has 60 units chosen vs Unit X’s 40 (Total of 100, so an expected 50 each), the ratios would change by (60/50) = 1.2 for Unit Y and 0.8 for Unit X. This is combined behind-the-scenes with the past values of 0.66 for Unit Y and 1.33 for Unit X to give the newest multiplier of 0.792 for Unit Y and 1.064 for Unit X.
This same principle is applied to model upgrades as well, as again, an overwhelming player preference overall for one or two limited options from a set indicates that the choices are likely not equally effective or balanced. Multipliers of an upgrade to a unit combine with the unit’s multiplier, if any.
For example, if a Tactical marine squad has the 3 available options of upgrading a bolter to a Meltagun, a Plasmagun, and a Flamer, it would be expected that each option would show up around ⅓ of the time. If the observed numbers are, say, 70 Meltaguns, 100 plasmaguns, and 40 flamers (So 210 options taken total, for 70 each), the multipliers would be: (70/70) = 1 for meltaguns, so no change; (100/70) = 1.428 for plasmaguns, and (30/70) = 0.428 for flamers. If each option cost +10pts, meltaguns would still be +10pts, plasmaguns would now be +14pts, and flamers would be +4 pts. If the Tactical Marine squad as a whole had a multiplier of perhaps 1.5, this would combine with the weapon multipliers, getting (1*1.5=1.5) +15 pts for a meltagun, (1.428*1.5=2.142) +21 pts for a plasmagun, and (0.428*1.5=0.642) +6 pts for a flamer
In addition, overall codex strength is evaluated using a simple win/loss multiplier, with draws counting as +1 win and +1 loss. This multiplier is also combined behind the scenes with unit and upgrade specific.This helps to take into account oddities like Psychic powers that are locked out from certain factions, the ease or difficulty of Allying with other factions, and the effect of official GWFAQ or errata that impact the army’s power.
Multipliers are always applied to the base cost of the unit or upgrade, as the Points Update document takes into account past shifts up or down in the point multipliers. All you have to do is apply the listed multiplier, and the listed multiplier only, when purchasing the unit or upgrade.
Overall, this will have the effect of swinging the point value of each unit over and under it’s “perfect” value, until eventually that value is reached or incredibly close.
The image above is a representation of the points value of given unit. Above the line, the model is undercosted, resulting in far more of the unit taken than if it was appropriately costed, while underneath the central line is the overcosted units, which are not taken as often as they would be if they were costed appropriately.
Miscellaneous: If a Force Organization set of unit choices ever has no units chosen for one or more of the unit choices available at the time of the newest Point Update document, all unit choices are increased by 1 (This helps to avoid divide-by-zero errors in the spreadsheet calculations). This same principle also applies to the upgrade options inside of each unit.
For Force Organization categories that have only 1 unit choice, that unit cost does not change unless it had 0 selections of the unit at the time of the newest Point Update document. If there were 0 selections of the unit, the cost of the unit is halved (Note that if this results in spamming of the unit, this would affect the win/loss ratio of the army as a whole, increasing the price through that means). This same principle applies for units with only a single available upgrade.
Also note that special characters are currently in the Force Organization section they are selected from in terms of options. This is currently for parity, but is open for discussion should players wish for them to have their own category instead.
Whew! Thanks for reading through this block of text, and be sure to ask us questions if you have any!
The Conclusion: Overall, this system relies heavily on you, the players. The more games are played with this points modification system, the more accurate the point values become, and the more balanced and enjoyable the game becomes as a whole!
Be sure to share this with as many of your 40K-playing friends as are willing and able to play, and we can all work towards helping to make 40K better!
This message was edited 3 times. Last update was at 2014/02/05 09:17:14
Imagine the feeling when you position your tanks, engines idling, landing gear deployed for a low profile, with firing solutions along a key bottleneck. Then some fether lands a dreadnought behind them in a giant heat shielded coke can.
To be honest, i don't think it's gona work.
People take meltas and plazmas over flamers for tacticals not cause they're better but cause they're desperately needed in current meta. If you reduce a flamer cost and increase a cost of plazmas and meltas people will still pay extra points to get this plazmas and meltas but will get their tactical squads nerfed. Pure math won't do any good here. U need game observation and surgical approach.
Example:
It's more preferable to take a flamer over plazmapistol for assault marines in a drop pod. Not cause of plazma pistols are bad but cause it's the solely purpose of taking an assault marine squad in a droppod right now. To light infantry on fire. If you increase the pointcost of flamers for assault marines and decrease the pointcost of plazmapistols - people will still take flamers. Or just stop using assault marines in drop pods cause they'd be too costly for what they do.
There are many options of units being totally useless cause of their rules. And they'll increase the pointcost of useful ones. Sometimes u'll need a ~50% point decrease to make a unit usable at best. For example, possessed. But this means they'll bump the cost of other elites that are mediocre at best right now. So u'll get 1 mediocre unit and all other overcosted mediocre units making elites totally useless.
Or warp talons. To make them any good you should decrease their pointcost at least to 20-22 and that's 30% point decrease. But they still have no nades. And they'll bump the cost of spawns and bikes.
Now look at ork's troop choices. U got 6 pts boyz and 3 pts grots. Everyone will tell that boyz are vastly superior to grots and that grots are basically used in a single min squad to man a quad-gun, sit on a point or just run forward as a distraction or cover. Now you lower grot's points...how much should a model cost to make a ws2, t2, s2, i2, ld5, no armor model with a 12' s3 ap- gun to become useful? I don't know, 1 or 2. 2 is still not enough to make them acomplish anything. 1 pt is a 66% point decrease. And even when there are 3 times more grots they won't kill anything in a fight. They're not meant for fighting! U can't even compare them to boyz. And what will you get for a 66% boy'z point increase? They now cost 10 pt with 6+ armor and can do nothing useful too. Thus you totally disable the entire codex.
See, pointcosts mustn't be linked. Cause poor written rules will make it night impossible to ballance out using averages.
What you can do is just gain data and play with pointcosts on units independently taking into consideration playtests and general community opinion.
This message was edited 6 times. Last update was at 2014/02/05 07:53:19
2014/02/05 07:45:23
Subject: The Warhammer 40K Point Balancing Project
The thing with the current meta is that it's derived from a number of factors, most of them relating to point imbalances in the first place.
Take melta proliferation (These are all my own assumptions and notings, btw): It's as a result of the mass of parking lots, which is in turn as a result of dirt-cheap transports for many factions. This isn't as bad or insurmountable as in 5e, but it's still bad enough that obscene amounts of anti-tank weapons to pop AV is needed in an army.
Plasma spam is as a result of the desperate need for AP 2 to counter 2+ save units like Terminators (Which is heavily as a result of the loss of AP 2 from power weapons), as well as the Riptide meta making it almost essential to be able to either kill or shrug off the brunt of the damage from a Riptide-heavy force.
Plus, overwhelming choice for a single unit or upgrade means that the other options have become superfluous, which is counter-intuitive if they were included in the first place. Take a squad of Assault Marines from your example, presumably in a pod: currently, flamers are overwhelmingly preferable to plasma pistols. The idea is to raise the points for the flamer and drop them for the plasma until taking one or the other is a difficult decision for the player, and not an automatic one. Flamers may still be better mechanically and for that role, but if they increase to the price point where using them instead of plasma pistols is a significant point sink, this makes plasma pistols an attractive option from the price standpoint, even if they're not as mechanically attractive.
The point adjustments also take into account the viability of a unit as a whole as well: If the cost increases to flamers makes fewer players pick Assault Marines in the first place, this would drop the price of the Assault Marine squad as a whole. Flamers within the unit would still be more expensive than plasma pistols, but both would get cheaper because the unit overall got cheaper. Should this result in the flamers being spammed, this will further shift flamers towards being expensive and plasma pistols towards being cheap.
Finally, all of this isn't operating in a vacuum. A lot of heavy trends in the current meta would be addressed in this system, and while plasma and melta might be essential in the current meta, the shifting points values would likely break down a lot of the netlisting and unit spamming you tend to see. Armies would still have their unique playstyles, but it would shift it so playing a Riptide-heavy force is balanced points-wise with playing a Crisis-suit-heavy force, or a stealthsuit-heavy force, or whatever. Army lists would be able to be based on what the player likes or thinks would fit best without worrying about one unit being a must-include because it is undercosted or a never-include due to overcosting.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2014/02/05 07:46:30
Imagine the feeling when you position your tanks, engines idling, landing gear deployed for a low profile, with firing solutions along a key bottleneck. Then some fether lands a dreadnought behind them in a giant heat shielded coke can.
koooaei wrote: Oki, tell me what's gona happen with orkses with what you propose.
Boyz - 6pts, 6 uses
Grots - 3 pts, 1 uses
Big choppa - 5 pts, 0 uses
Power klaw - 25 pts, 5 uses
So for the overall units, since Boyz and Grots are the only 2 troop choices, you would combine all of the total # of units taken (6+1) and divide by the # of options (7/2) to get the final expected number of each type of unit, 3.5.
Then, this is divided by the # of each type of unit actually taken, which will in turn multiply the point costs as follows:
Boyz: 6 / 3.5 = 1.71 * 6 (points per model) = 10.26, cutting off the decimal for 10 pts per model.
Meanwhile, Grots would be 1 / 3.5 = 0.28 * 3 = 0.855, cutting off the decimal and becoming 0 pts per model (Free, before taking into account runtherds and such).
For the choppa/klaw upgrades, these are also weighed against all other possible upgrades (stikkbombs, choppas and shootas, big shoota, rokkit launcha, 'ard boy, nob, the big choppa, the power klaw, 'eavy armor, and the bosspole). In total, 10 options. If no other options were picked but the power klaw (This is going to be a very hyperbolic answer at the end of all the math, btw), then each option would count as if they were picked an additional time (To avoid divide by 0 errors), and you get 1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+6+1+1 = 15. This 15 is divided by the 10 options to get 1.5.
From there, every option but the power klaws would be reduced in cost after getting a multiplier of 0.66 (1/1.5). Power klaws would increase in price by a factor of 4. These would also stack with the Boyz modification value of 1.71, and result in a final change to the non-klaw options by 1.12 (1.71*0.66) and to the klaw by 6.48 (4*1.71), increasing their points value to 162 (25*6.48) points each.
Now, before you grab your torches and pitchforks, remember that this game will go through multiple rounds of balancing, ending up getting a curve like the following:
Imagine the Boyz to be the red line, and grots to be the blue, with the midpoint being their respective "perfect" point values. Under the line is overcosted, and over the line is undercosted
This result will make Boyz and klaws prohibitively expensive, but if they are used less frequently than the expected average, they will decrease in cost. In addition, if the win/loss ratio of the codex as a whole slips below 1.00, this will also reduce costs as well (This multiplier is used against every model and upgrade in the codex). So if in the following round of games using these new point values the Ork codex wins a total of 30 games and loses 50, their ratio becomes 0.6, and this is multiplied against the cost of the grots, boyz, big choppa, power klaw, etc in the next round of point alterations (Klaws, for instance, would drop down to a multiplier of 6.48*0.6=3.88, so klaws are now 97 pts each even before accounting for point reductions they might get for being used less often then the shootas, choppas, rokkit launchas, etc).
This will not be one-round-of-changes-and-we're-done! kind of a fix. This will take multiple iterations, likely between 3 to 5 if I had to hazard a guess, before the point values start falling within 10% or less of their "perfect" values. Before then there will be over- and under-costing of units and upgrades, but this works with this plan since those newly over/underrepresented models and upgrades will have their points corrected back .
Does this help clear things up a bit?
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2014/02/05 08:31:47
Imagine the feeling when you position your tanks, engines idling, landing gear deployed for a low profile, with firing solutions along a key bottleneck. Then some fether lands a dreadnought behind them in a giant heat shielded coke can.
This is definitely not going to be a fast process. The first two, possibly even three point adjustments are going to wildly swing the point nerfbat back and forth. I would need players willing to stick through perhaps 2-4 months of the more extreme shifting back and forth, but after that point it should stabilize into a more minor set of shifts.
But, this method has the advantage of reacting to the meta far better than a limited set of restrictions from tourney organizers could, and it can shift to react to new codices, FAQ releases, even BRB updates. If it turns out that the new FAQ for Nids allows them to hardcounter Taudar for whatever reason, the points shift would be able to accommodate both the corresponding shift up in value of the Nid units responsible, and shift down the now-weaker Tau/Eldar units.
Something I'd like to start with for a "baseline" of the current meta is tourney army lists, preferably with how well they did in the tournament as well. Does anyone know if there's a resource out there somewhere where I could find lots of data like this?
Imagine the feeling when you position your tanks, engines idling, landing gear deployed for a low profile, with firing solutions along a key bottleneck. Then some fether lands a dreadnought behind them in a giant heat shielded coke can.
This result will make Boyz and klaws prohibitively expensive, but if they are used less frequently than the expected average, they will decrease in cost. In addition, if the win/loss ratio of the codex as a whole slips below 1.00, this will also reduce costs as well (This multiplier is used against every model and upgrade in the codex). So if in the following round of games using these new point values the Ork codex wins a total of 30 games and loses 50, their ratio becomes 0.6, and this is multiplied against the cost of the grots, boyz, big choppa, power klaw, etc in the next round of point alterations (Klaws, for instance, would drop down to a multiplier of 6.48*0.6=3.88, so klaws are now 97 pts each even before accounting for point reductions they might get for being used less often then the shootas, choppas, rokkit launchas, etc).
This will not be one-round-of-changes-and-we're-done! kind of a fix. This will take multiple iterations, likely between 3 to 5 if I had to hazard a guess, before the point values start falling within 10% or less of their "perfect" values. Before then there will be over- and under-costing of units and upgrades, but this works with this plan since those newly over/underrepresented models and upgrades will have their points corrected back .
Does this help clear things up a bit?
It won't ballance out cause it will be night impossible to play with just grots - even if they cost 1 pts per model. They're designed to be useless gun folder no matter how many of them you have. While 10 pts boyz will be too expensive for what they do now. They're allready rumored to get a discount in next dex.
It might be interesting to gain such statistics. But wh is not a free market where new things apear and develop by themselves - they appear with new codexes, faqs and stuff. Without changing rules and adding new options - you won't ballance things out using an average method.
The problem is that the same slot occupants are not designed to be equally used. Like boyz and grots that i've brought as an example. It's supposed to be a hundred of boyz with a small bunch of grots acting as moving cover/backfield pointholders. U're not supposed to take them 50/50 like you assume.
However, pointcost adjustment can be helpful and required from time to time. But i'm trying to point out that it's a bad idea to link different unit's and wargear pointcosts. I think it's better to do it surgically.
1. Start a thread with a poll: "Are grots overcosted/fine/too cheap/changing points won't help them"
2. On a result adjust the grot's cost or don't touch them
3. See what happens and start the thread with poll: "Are new grots overcosted/fine/too cheap"
...
repeat till they're fine
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2014/02/05 09:13:57
2014/02/05 09:28:39
Subject: Re:The Warhammer 40K Point Balancing Project
This result will make Boyz and klaws prohibitively expensive, but if they are used less frequently than the expected average, they will decrease in cost. In addition, if the win/loss ratio of the codex as a whole slips below 1.00, this will also reduce costs as well (This multiplier is used against every model and upgrade in the codex). So if in the following round of games using these new point values the Ork codex wins a total of 30 games and loses 50, their ratio becomes 0.6, and this is multiplied against the cost of the grots, boyz, big choppa, power klaw, etc in the next round of point alterations (Klaws, for instance, would drop down to a multiplier of 6.48*0.6=3.88, so klaws are now 97 pts each even before accounting for point reductions they might get for being used less often then the shootas, choppas, rokkit launchas, etc).
This will not be one-round-of-changes-and-we're-done! kind of a fix. This will take multiple iterations, likely between 3 to 5 if I had to hazard a guess, before the point values start falling within 10% or less of their "perfect" values. Before then there will be over- and under-costing of units and upgrades, but this works with this plan since those newly over/underrepresented models and upgrades will have their points corrected back .
Does this help clear things up a bit?
It won't ballance out cause it will be night impossible to play with just grots - even if they cost 1 pts per model. They're designed to be useless gun folder no matter how many of them you have. While 10 pts boyz will be too expensive for what they do now. They're allready rumored to get a discount in next dex.
It might be interesting to gain such statistics. But wh is not a free market where new things apear and develop by themselves - they appear with new codexes, faqs and stuff. Without changing rules and adding new options - you won't ballance things out using an average method.
The problem is that the same slot occupants are not designed to be equally used. Like boyz and grots that i've brought as an example. It's supposed to be a hundred of boyz with a small bunch of grots acting as moving cover/backfield pointholders. U're not supposed to take them 50/50 like you assume.
However, pointcost adjustment can be helpful and required from time to time. But i'm trying to point out that it's a bad idea to link different unit's and wargear pointcosts. I think it's better to do it surgically.
1. Start a thread with a poll: "Are grots overcosted/fine/too cheap/changing points won't help them"
2. On a result adjust the grot's cost or don't touch them
3. See what happens and start the thread with poll: "Are new grots overcosted/fine/too cheap"
...
repeat till they're fine
Um, excuse me. I think I need to step away from the trees and appreciate the forest for a second
That would be incredibly faster to set up, wouldn't require players to play a game or input from an army list directly, would still rely on player knowledge and meta expertise (Which, honestly, tends to be accurate) while not being slowed by the turnaround time for playtesting...
I think I will shift the polls to reflect this. For the short-term, I'm thinking of just doing unit-specific polls, and not have anything related to wargear for simplicity's sake. Do you think that would work, or should wargear polls be included from the get-go as well instead of just being used in problem areas?
Imagine the feeling when you position your tanks, engines idling, landing gear deployed for a low profile, with firing solutions along a key bottleneck. Then some fether lands a dreadnought behind them in a giant heat shielded coke can.
Your plan has four major problems, even if you can get enough people to use your system to get meaningful results:
1) It doesn't account for "useless at any price" or "mandatory no matter how expensive" upgrades. For example, voxes on IG veterans are pretty much useless even if the only cost one point because veterans almost always operate out of orders range from your command squads and therefore can't get any benefit from the vox, and veteran-heavy armies tend to have 4x special weapon command squads that aren't going to give up a special weapon slot for a vox to complete the pair. Therefore the "under-use" of the vox upgrade will endlessly drive up the price of the other upgrades the units can take. Similarly, if a codex only has 1-2 viable AA options in a flyer-heavy metagame then those options are going to be auto-includes even as the price keeps going up, and the only change will be that codex's chance of winning with its overpriced AA.
2) It doesn't account for opportunity costs. In many cases the price of a unit or upgrade isn't just its point cost, it's the other stuff that requires the same upgrade or FOC slot. For example, the IG veterans and sniper rifles: even if they were free you wouldn't take them because the unit only works when it has 3x melta or plasma, and sniper rifles prevent you from taking those guns and allowing the unit to do its job. Similarly, IG Griffons are great from a point efficiency perspective, their biggest drawback is that they take up a heavy support slot that you really need to spend on something with more impact on the game. And since point cost changes can't have any impact on this you're going to keep making more changes based on the "under-use" of units/options that aren't viable for entirely different reasons.
3) It assumes that there are no out-of-game barriers to changing your list. People who can't buy and build new models immediately to keep up with the cycle will give you bad results by over-reporting bad units and under-reporting overpowered ones, and people who play lists based on fluff/models will skew your results by continuing to report copies of a unit/upgrade no matter how bad they get (they'll just start getting crushed and have no fun). In the real world you're never going to have the free choice of units/upgrades that your system requires, so you're just giving advantages to the few players with the time and money to react faster than everyone else.
4) It assumes that you don't have multiple similar units that are functionally the same. For example, I could put my inquisition allies in a Chimera or a Razorback and the end result is pretty much the same, but under your system it would be reported as two different unit selections instead of an overall vote that mech inquisition squads are good. Or, my IG have several different superheavy options that are somewhat interchangeable. They're all going to drive up the value of deep strike melta, but as, say, drop pod sternguard get more expensive the C:SM players lose their effective counter to my superheavies while I just swap between Baneblades and Shadowswords to keep their price from going up too much.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2014/02/05 09:35:54
There is no such thing as a hobby without politics. "Leave politics at the door" is itself a political statement, an endorsement of the status quo and an attempt to silence dissenting voices.
2014/02/05 09:59:53
Subject: Re:The Warhammer 40K Point Balancing Project
Like Peregrine said. Seems u've allready decided that linking pointcosts is not a good way to go.
Point adjustments are truly needed in some cases. But first we need to find this cases. It can be done in many ways either by providing tests and votes or just pure game experience.
I'd start with the most easy things to figure out:
Currently undercosted: Wave serpents
Currently overpriced: Possessed, Warp talons
This are the most obvious things right now and the majority of players will acknowledge this. Now you can start changing cost bit by bit and see where it brings you. Personally, i've tried out possessed with different point values. And stopped at 18 pts down from 26. When they riched 18 pt cost they started to be mediocre. And that's a great increase from 'totally useless'.
The changes must not be too huge for a current meta. Serpents mustn't cost 200 per model but they surely should be more expensive than they are now for what they are capable of.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2014/02/05 10:02:07
2014/02/06 01:02:15
Subject: The Warhammer 40K Point Balancing Project
It also doesn't take into account that some units should show up more han others. Tac Marines should be more common than Scouts or Bikers-as-troops. DAs and Guardians should be massively more common than Wraithnouns. Not that this is perfectly handled in the current setup.
Also, if you do it by slot, the Serpent will always have a factor of 1 (only DT in the Codex). If you don't do it by slot, troops are going to skyrocket in cost.
In any event, there are some things that I don't think points alone would put in the right spot (again, the Serpent needs a change, not just a points increase)
I like the basic idea, but implementation would be very tricky.
