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My area is an odd one. Particularly the game stores I frequent. Both have a strong presence of "Tournament Players" and "Casual Players" that intermingle. Now there is a talk of a divide among the two groups on the internet. I have had experience with both are these small stores where both play. Tournaments(Mostly RTT at popular stores) are where they mix, sometimes with disastrous results. I wish, in this, to analyze why this divide exists for some reason.

"Casual" players are players who do not take this game too seriously. They build theme lists, lists that are for fun or have units they like.

"Tournament" players are those that live for competitive scene. They build lists to beat others. They know the rules, the best units to take and throw the rest out. They anylyze the game and so forth.

Both frequent the stores I see. Here are some observations I made over the last couple of RTTs and game nights. Casual players are more likely to get frusterated when facing off against a death star unit or spam, such as Seer council or Triptide, While Tournament Players are more resigned in their facing it, possibly facing it or knowing about it(tournament players are more likely to know the meta). Rarely will Casual players "Spam" units, usually only troops or some of the more less deadly units(Such as speeders or things like that) While tournament players will tend Spam powerful units, Riptides, Wraith knights, Those stupid flying MCs that put out 12 shots a turn. But this could be funds. While possibly not lacking it money, casual players are more likely, from what I observed. The got the one or two model, they don't need a third or fourth.

On the flipside, when building lists, tournament players seem to be more focused on what each unit will due, its roll and purpose. This unit will kill tanks then die, this one will Capture objectives, This one will frustrate my opponent to no end and cause an anime like vein. They are also more likely to stick with a list for more then one game, tweaking what does and doesn't work. Casual players will pick what they want and play. Things will work out in the end. They are also less likely to stick with a list, changing it between every game. Why is that? Well, it is possible that tournament players would need to tweak or test a list multiple time. They need to find a list that can work in a tournament setting, while casual players do not. They do not need to test, only enjoy.

But the question remains, Why the divide? This isnt just something seen in 40k or GW games but many Systems. I have seen it in magic, Pathfinder society and warmachine. So why? One Theory I have is time. We all value our time but we also value our game. We do not want it wasted. You cannot tell who is which by looks or sometimes list. So you play a Pick Up game, set up, then halfway through you realize your opponent is one of the others. The Casual isnt having fun because they are not getting a challenging and fun game, but are defeated. The Tournament player sees no challenge, winning easily and no fun. Neither can get that time back. In a tournament, ou cant leave a game, unlike a Pick up one(You can, just not easily, with money on the line. If you invest in a game for 4 hours or even a day, you don't want it to be wasted, so you hope that the one you play is on the same level. But you cant, so you think everyone should play on your level(This is something I see more in casual players, but tournament players say it aswell) Leading to a divide among them.

Well, for me, at least, I actually divide 40k players up into four different groups, not the two that the internet usually does. I find it makes things more clear:

Winners

For this group of players, success is a binary state, and that success is determined by exactly one thing - winning. The point of the game, possibly the ONLY point of the game is to win it. It is easy for the other player groups to revile this group because it produces behavior antithetical to their way of playing, but such behavior is perfectly congruent with the way the game is supposed to be played for these players. They will rules lawyer to advantage because it can help them win, and if you aren't able to argue well enough why my interpretation of the rules is wrong, then you SHOULD lose. Likewise, if I bring the strongest list in the game, and you don't, you should lose more often, and complaining about my list is just a cover-up for the fact that you brought a weaker list.

Winners have a strange relationship with dice - they don't want the game to be based on the luck of the dice, because they don't want to lose just because someone got lucky (or they got unlucky), but at the same time want to be able to come back from behind with a little luck if it means they can pull out a win. Also, this group doesn't want there to be serious game balance. Part of the fun is to come up with stronger and stronger combinations of units to give them that edge. If every army were roughly as powerful, then you wouldn't get to use your peak brainpower to come up with secret combinations that others didn't know about that would allow you to crush your opponents. List building is a skill, after all, and not everyone is as skilled as others.

It is, in a way, the purest, most black and white way to look at the game. People's complaints about pretty much anything tend to be irrelevant. Who cares if I use a spam list if it gets me the win? Why are you letting fluff get in the way of you winning? I'll take the victory, but I'll also likely think less of you for not being as clever as me, or not "wanting" it as much.

Strategizers

Success for Strategizers is also binary, and is also determined by who wins games, but the point of the game isn't the win - that's merely a means to an end. The end is to have a game that pits player skill against player skill, and shows who is best.

This group thinks that 40k should be like a sport, where everyone is started out with a completely equal playing field, and when all other variables are controlled for, it will be the best player that wins. The one with the most skill. These are the people who are most likely to show up to tournaments, and most likely to believe that the results of tournaments are infallible data.

Strategizers believe that luck is an insignificant factor in 40k, and that it doesn't have much to do with the result of any given game. After all, if I roll poorly, I can always use my player skill to mitigate the damage that the dice has done, and a game of 40k involves hundreds of die rolls, so really luck is a controlled variable anyways. Meanwhile, this group is driven insane by the fact that 40k is a very imbalanced game, because there will constantly be people (mostly "winners") who will keep on bringing more-powerful lists which makes it so that players don't start out with an even playing field (as such, the winner might not be the most skilled, but the one with the most overpowered list), or, almost as bad, people who show up with weaker lists, which undermines the ability to test player skill (they could always claim they lost only because they had a weaker list). List building should not be a skill, and players should be able to show up with more or less any combination of units and still have an equal chance of winning (providing they're as skilled as their opponent).

Competers

For Competers, success in 40k isn't a binary state, and who wins or loses a game isn't strictly relevant to who succeeds. What's important to Competers is the competition itself. It's playing a game with a serious chance of losing, but playing to the peak of your abilities to overcome that adversity. The game, in brief, should be a challenge.

This player type is likely to also be the same kind of person who, when they beat a video game, goes back and plays it again on a harder difficulty level, or when they finish a 1,000 piece puzzle, goes out and buys a 2,000 piece one with no edge pieces. They are the kind of person who would run a marathon with 100-pound weights attached to their legs and then, when they finished in the middle of the pack feel pretty good about themselves, because look how many people they beat who weren't running with weights. They are the kind of person who would think more highly of a person who tied a game who had the most disadvantages than they would the other player who was playing the game on "easy mode" even if they got the same result.

Like Winners, Competers have a love-hate relationship with dice. On the one hand, bad die rolls ratchet up the challenge level for whoever rolls them, and gives them an incentive to play harder. On the other a Competer may well have delicately balanced things to provide a specific level of challenge that may be ruined by how the dice roll. Competers also love that the game is imbalanced, as it gives them a deep, rich field of options to work with. I can't see how to make the strongest list of a weak army style or from a weak codex if all armies are roughly equal in strength. I'd be stuck with the brute, crass, and much more boring points handicap (likely a Strategizer invention), and the game would be much more shallow if what pieces I took didn't matter.

List building is a skill, except unlike Winners, the point isn't to make the strongest list, but to make the list that most accurately achieves your objectives, whatever those are. That said, they likely grow weary quickly of those people who bring strong lists and when they win, pass it off as player skill when it was the list, moreso than the skill, that was really responsible. The same is true for players who are lucky. Real skill is determined by how hard something was to achieve, not how many times you achieved it. It's why body-builders lift increasingly heavier weights.

Players

In a way, this group is sort of a catch-all for the remainders. Like Competers, success in 40k is not a binary state, but it takes things even further by placing a low or non-emphasis on player skill. If winning and skill aren't what's important, then what is? Well, that's sort of up to the player.

Most likely, the way to determine if a game or a player has been successful is if they had fun. That can take many forms. For some, it could be zany things happening in a game, while for others it is a chance to display well-painted models in beautiful terrain and have the opportunity to actually do something with them. 40k could be purely a social call - something to do while chatting with friends, or it could be a sandbox for doing minor game design (coming up with interesting new missions, and seeing if they worked well or not). In a way, there are as many ways to determine who the best Player is as there are Players.

Unlike the above types, Players tend to outright embrace the fact that 40k is a dice game, as that random element is almost required to keep things interesting, or to come up with the best stories. Dice, in this case, are as necessary to 40k as they are to D&D or any other role-playing game. Meanwhile, they tend to be rather indifferent to list building and game balance, as neither of these things are required for the game to be fun, and problems can always be house-ruled away whenever they become inconvenient.

Players might roll their eyes at Strategizers for trying to debase such a rich and wonderful game into nothing more than chess with different miniatures, and are often outright hostile towards Winners, who tend to do things in a way that the Player would consider boring, and resent how they try and push their shallow, narrow interpretation of the game on others. "If it's not the strongest at something, it's not worth taking" is the antithesis of everything that the game should be about.

While there is a divide, its usually not as glaring an issue in well made game systems from what i've seen.

I played X-wing the other day with a tourney player, and while I didn't know the first thing about the competitive lists (having only played it once before), I just built a force from his collection and had a good game (I lost but lasted a while and killed more than half his stuff, mostly I think I lost because I wasn't as familiar with the game tactics).


If 40K had better rules and more balance between the armies, even casual players new to the game could still give vets some challenge and still have an enjoyable game for both.

All hobbies I have seen have this problem to an extent.

The casual hobbyist will generally "fall behind" the more involved or more extreme hobbyists.

For example the old janitor that comes to clean my office is really into radio controlled airplanes. Not just flying, but tuning up motors, tweaking all the angles and so on. His planes are much better than those who just like flying or dont have the time or interest in that bit tend to not fare as well in comps. (unless they pay someone to tune up their craft for them.

Same with fishing and boating (I know I mention these a lot but I make my money from anything boat related...). The casual guys come in, buy the basics go out, have some beer and come in with catch. The into it guys take hours discussing the best rods down to millimeters of detail and study currents and weather etc and go out fish hard come home and tweak all their gear.

With all hobbies I can think of this is a thing. The people saying that certain changes will eliminate this gap are wrong as it will always exist. No one is better than the other nor is it a problem until they mix during the activity.

So in my opinion it comes down to not what they want out of a game, but what they want to focus on within the game along with the amount of time invested into it. The casual gamer invests (generally) the same amount of time painting, building and playing the game but the competitive player takes it a step further and researches and tweaks lists.

Not a problem like its made out to be. All hobbies have this divide. But with so few gamers and so much social interaction its hard for our divides to truly get along at all times.

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
But the question remains, Why the divide?

Because people want different things out of their game. Some people want to just play occasionally without putting much effort into the game beyond the time they spend actually playing it, and have no interest in forums, spending tons of time writing lists, etc. Some people love building and painting the models, and just play because hey, why not, they've already got the models. Some people love the fluff and want to create an army that perfectly represents a "real" army from the background fiction. Some people love strategy and competition and spend lots of time and effort trying to be the best at their game.

The only thing different between GW games and other games is that GW's rules are so utterly broken that attempting to have a game between two players from different groups is usually not a fun experience for at least one player. This leads to the various groups seeing each other as enemies that are ruining the game, rather than fellow players who have slightly different preferences.

 Ailaros wrote:
Also, this group doesn't want there to be serious game balance. Part of the fun is to come up with stronger and stronger combinations of units to give them that edge. If every army were roughly as powerful, then you wouldn't get to use your peak brainpower to come up with secret combinations that others didn't know about that would allow you to crush your opponents. List building is a skill, after all, and not everyone is as skilled as others.

Nope. You might have had a point in 1980, but the internet exists now. A game with poor balance will be "solved" very quickly, and the best possible lists will be freely available to even low-skill players. The only players your "winner" will beat through list superiority in an unbalanced game will be newbies (who don't offer a satisfying challenge) and people who refuse to play with the best options. Your "winner" archetype wants a balanced game because it rewards careful analysis and finding your own perfect combination, instead of just looking up what the most overpowered options are and taking them. This puts the power lists out of reach for most people, rather than letting anyone with a few minutes of time find one.

List building should not be a skill, and players should be able to show up with more or less any combination of units and still have an equal chance of winning (providing they're as skilled as their opponent).

Sorry, but you can keep insisting all you want that list building isn't or shouldn't be a skill, but you're still wrong. "Strategy" players also like list-building and recognize that it's part of the game. For example, in MTG the equivalent player archetype loves tinkering with new decks and looking for the perfect strategy, not just perfecting their own play once the game begins. In any other game a "strategy" player would be happy if their superior strategy in list/deck/etc construction wins the game for them, because they're better at that aspect of the game.

All you're really doing here is pointing out that 40k has terrible balance and isn't very satisfying for "strategy" players, since list building consists of taking the obvious overpowered units that everyone figured out from the leaked scans before the codex was even officially released.

Competers also love that the game is imbalanced, as it gives them a deep, rich field of options to work with. I can't see how to make the strongest list of a weak army style or from a weak codex if all armies are roughly equal in strength.

This is only true if you're obsessed with this masochistic idea of crippling yourself to prove how awesome you are when you "overcome" those poor decisions and don't lose too badly. For everyone but you this kind of approach is incredibly frustrating. It's annoying to have to deliberately make bad decisions and treat your opponent like a small child, and it's annoying to have half the game off-limits no matter how much you love the fluff/models of those units because they're too powerful.

I'd be stuck with the brute, crass, and much more boring points handicap (likely a Strategizer invention)

Yeah, what a TFG, coming up with an elegant solution that allows you to adjust the difficulty of the game without having to make fundamental changes in what models/units you like to use or carry around multiple armies worth of stuff to fine-tune your army for each opponent. I can't imagine a hellish world in which you show up for a 1500 point game, realize that your opponent's list is too weak to be an interesting challenge, and just drop a unit from your army and start playing the game. It's obviously much more fun to be forced to paint a bunch of ratlings and rough riders because your fluffy armored company army is too powerful.

Though I guess I'm omitting the most important part here: your masochistic self-crippling allows you to congratulate yourself about how you're playing the game on "hard mode" and provides a convenient excuse when you lose. Merely playing with 100 points less than your opponent won't give you the satisfaction of telling all the Tau players they're TFG sociopaths because they don't use melee units.

Unlike the above types, Players tend to outright embrace the fact that 40k is a dice game, as that random element is almost required to keep things interesting, or to come up with the best stories.

Yeah, like the story of how the space marine captain leading a melee-focused army randomly woke up one morning with shooting-focused leadership skills. Some amount of fairly predictable randomness helps in storytelling by adding an element of surprise, but that's very far from 40k's obsession with random tables and replacing storytelling with random dice.

Meanwhile, they tend to be rather indifferent to list building and game balance, as neither of these things are required for the game to be fun

Yep. Casual players don't care about game balance. They don't mind at all when someone brings a much more powerful army and crushes them, or when they have to negotiate before every game and convince their opponents to go easy on their poor 4th edition orks. And I'm sure these people love being told that their army full of Riptides (who doesn't love giant robots?) is "cheese" and they're not allowed to use it anymore.

stop whining about balance. I have yet to hear a chess player who plays black cry that the game is out-of-balance. either play or stop complaining.

Swastakowey wrote:With all hobbies I can think of this is a thing. The people saying that certain changes will eliminate this gap are wrong as it will always exist. No one is better than the other nor is it a problem until they mix during the activity.

I'm not a hunter myself, but I know that hunting also has this. In the case of hunting, at least, it's seen as a progression. New people show up and want to try things out, and then they take things seriously, and then they graduate to enjoying things for its own sake.

The 40k community has yet to positively establish the trend of tournament players as those on the middle rung yet. Probably because 40k is such a new activity (compared to, say, hunting).

---

So, I just went through and read that link I posted, and I'm shocked by how it pairs with what I wrote above. Clearly this must have been rattling around in the back of my mind when I wrote it.

Because the similarities are very stark. First you have people who just want to try out the game, and success is just in getting minis on the table at all (a category I overlooked), and then the point is to not just to be able to shoot the gun, for a hunter, but it's to hit the target, and to do so as much as possible (in the case of 40k winning games), and then the point is to get the biggest, most prestigious achievements (18-point bucks for hunters, placing in the top three at NOVA for 40k players), and then the point is about method, including handicap (selecting only certain kinds of game to hunt, or restricting yourself to using only bows for hunters, or, well, all that challenger stuff I said about 40k players), eventually getting to the point where you've already bagged enough game, large and small, easily and difficultly that you just enjoy hunting for the sake of hunting, or just playing 40k for the sake of playing 40k.

That being said, it's interesting how much dakka exists to move people from noobs into winners (the entire army list section, YMDC, and almost all of the tactics board), and what little is left is mostly from winners to strategizers (tournament battle reports, and the rest of the tactics board).

And this comes back to balance. Like I said, balance seemed less of an issue in these. In Pathfinder, I see people who bring gunslingers or zen Archers get eye rolls because they steamroll through things, making games unfun

But it's not. These divisions exist in EVERY HOBBY.

Even in ones, like 40k, where 3/4 of the player types WANT there to be game imbalance, or at least are apathetic to it.

Only one kind of 40k player yearns for 40k to be a well-balanced game, and that kind of player is in the minority, both categorically and numerically. If you can't break out of your own box and look around you, then these divisions will never make any sense.

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
And this comes back to balance. Like I said, balance seemed less of an issue in these. In Pathfinder, I see people who bring gunslingers or zen Archers get eye rolls because they steamroll through things, making games unfun

if Peregrine is involved in a discussion two divergent concepts inevitably merge: balance and Forge World...

 Ailaros wrote:

Swastakowey wrote:With all hobbies I can think of this is a thing. The people saying that certain changes will eliminate this gap are wrong as it will always exist. No one is better than the other nor is it a problem until they mix during the activity.

I'm not a hunter myself, but I know that hunting also has this. In the case of hunting, at least, it's seen as a progression. New people show up and want to try things out, and then they take things seriously, and then they graduate to enjoying things for its own sake.

The 40k community has yet to positively establish the trend of tournament players as those on the middle rung yet. Probably because 40k is such a new activity (compared to, say, hunting).

---

So, I just went through and read that link I posted, and I'm shocked by how it pairs with what I wrote above. Clearly this must have been rattling around in the back of my mind when I wrote it.

Because the similarities are very stark. First you have people who just want to try out the game, and success is just in getting minis on the table at all (a category I overlooked), and then the point is to not just to be able to shoot the gun, for a hunter, but it's to hit the target, and to do so as much as possible (in the case of 40k winning games), and then the point is to get the biggest, most prestigious achievements (18-point bucks for hunters, placing in the top three at NOVA for 40k players), and then the point is about method, including handicap (selecting only certain kinds of game to hunt, or restricting yourself to using only bows for hunters, or, well, all that challenger stuff I said about 40k players), eventually getting to the point where you've already bagged enough game, large and small, easily and difficultly that you just enjoy hunting for the sake of hunting, or just playing 40k for the sake of playing 40k.

That being said, it's interesting how much dakka exists to move people from noobs into winners (the entire army list section, YMDC, and almost all of the tactics board), and what little is left is mostly from winners to strategizers (tournament battle reports, and the rest of the tactics board).

Yea I agree, I was reading thorugh that thinking about the stages my friends and I have been through and the stages the kids at the club are going through as they grow up etc.

Very interesting indeed. Especially that last sentence. The real problems start when people are thrust forward rather than seeking their own answers.

When someone buys a boats we dont thrust them into all the tips and tricks, we show them the bare basics and let them grow from there. As they upgrade and come in for gear and services you see them go through all sorts of stages as they work themselves out in their hobby. But then there are the guys who look online and figure out all these "tips and tricks" but they have something to be upset about and also spend a lot of money on the latest and greatest gear, only to come back and replace it again and so on.

Anyways definitely food for thought.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

viewfinder wrote:

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
And this comes back to balance. Like I said, balance seemed less of an issue in these. In Pathfinder, I see people who bring gunslingers or zen Archers get eye rolls because they steamroll through things, making games unfun

if Peregrine is involved in a discussion two divergent concepts inevitably merge: balance and Forge World...

Agreed. And the use of the words:

utterly,
convulsive,
bloated,
mess.

Pretty predictable now.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
And this comes back to balance. Like I said, balance seemed less of an issue in these. In Pathfinder, I see people who bring gunslingers or zen Archers get eye rolls because they steamroll through things, making games unfun

All games and hobbies have this.

 Ailaros wrote:
Even in ones, like 40k, where 3/4 of the player types WANT there to be game imbalance, or at least are apathetic to it.

Only because GW have convinced the other 3/4 that balance is bad (or at least irrelevant) so that they don't have to pay for the design and playtesting required to make balanced rules. It's just unfortunate that you can't seem to figure out that you're stuck on a concept that exists for the sole purpose of increasing GW's profits at the expense of the quality of their games.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Ailaros wrote:
Even in ones, like 40k, where 3/4 of the player types WANT there to be game imbalance, or at least are apathetic to it.

Only because GW have convinced the other 3/4 that balance is bad (or at least irrelevant) so that they don't have to pay for the design and playtesting required to make balanced rules. It's just unfortunate that you can't seem to figure out that you're stuck on a concept that exists for the sole purpose of increasing GW's profits.

I dont think he can hear you dude, give up.

so I guess what is being said is that Necrons need to be good in close combat, Tyranids and Orks shoot well, and Imperial Guard fearless. yes, this game sucks. so unfair.

Casual Players completely understand all the rules, all the advantages, all the disadvantages, and have access to the exact same books as everyone else. We understand Death Star vs. Death Star.

Warhammer 40k and any other tabletop game can be played with rules and coins on the floor.

(from a Casual Player)

 Swastakowey wrote:
I dont think he can hear you dude, give up.

Oh, I know he has me blocked. TBH it's much better that way, I get to point out exactly why he's wrong about everything but I don't have to deal with the same old tedious back and forth of an Ailaros thread.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

viewfinder wrote:
so I guess what is being said is that Necrons need to be good in close combat, Tyranids and Orks shoot well, and Imperial Guard fearless. yes, this game sucks. so unfair.

Well, if by "being said" you count the post you just made saying it. Because that's the only place those ridiculous ideas are being said.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Swastakowey wrote:
I dont think he can hear you dude, give up.

Oh, I know he has me blocked. TBH it's much better that way, I get to point out exactly why he's wrong about everything but I don't have to deal with the same old tedious back and forth of an Ailaros thread.

To many of us its an annoying thread where you speak to a wall. He isnt wrong about anything either. Just like your jibberish, his jibberish is opinion. I might do what he does, it will be a nice change. Enjoy being a big man talking tall to someone who cant hear you on the internet.

Ignored.

The people that don't want balance are the ones that don't understand what it is. They think it means sameness. It doesn't. I means that every unit has a viable purpose depending on what kind of army you want to run.

Balance =/= sameness...or chess.

The idea that balance is bad is absurd.

 MWHistorian wrote:
The people that don't want balance are the ones that don't understand what it is. They think it means sameness. It doesn't. I means that every unit has a viable purpose depending on what kind of army you want to run.

Balance =/= sameness...or chess.

The idea that balance is bad is absurd.

Well I have played many games over the years and the ones with the most balance (namely historical usually) have all had very similar units. With minor differences in moral or training. Nothing like 40k.

I havent played infinity (the models are dreadfully ugly to me) but with only 8-20 models on the board, it doesnt seem hard to achieve balance even with complex rules. Same with X wing, the guys at the club only have around 6-15 models a team. I dont play it because im not into starwars. But the other games I have played plenty of, where large scale and balanced but had very similar units. Weapons werent really a thing, it was all on training and moral as many historic games are.

People shout out about how they can fix the game (in their opinion fix) and write a very brief paragraph about what they would fix. But in reality the details are much more complex and I highly doubt anyone could write a balanced rule set keeping all the units and factions that 40k has. Not without standardizing most of the gear and stats.

There may be games out there that are 40k in terms of unit, faction and weapon amounts that are balanced but I have not seen them. They are small and balanced with mediocre variation - large and standardized - small and standardized. Very simply put anyways.

So how can balanced be achieved without massed standardization? In depth please, because I (like many gamers) arent convinced. Especially since the reason many play 40k is for all the units and choices we get to make when modeling and list making.


A bit late but I do agree 40k can be more balanced. But not balanced.

 Ailaros wrote:
But it's not. These divisions exist in EVERY HOBBY.

Even in ones, like 40k, where 3/4 of the player types WANT there to be game imbalance, or at least are apathetic to it.

Only one kind of 40k player yearns for 40k to be a well-balanced game, and that kind of player is in the minority, both categorically and numerically. If you can't break out of your own box and look around you, then these divisions will never make any sense.

I can't imagine that someone wishes for an unbalanced rules.

Well, at lasts that's what I thought until I read this quote from the frontline gamming fourms:

Let me put t this way, Some people like me, Need those absurdly good OP units to even HOPE to stand a chance against some of the best players out there. I feel as if I can go to a GT and not just feel like I will get bent over the table my first game. Some of us arent so good we can win with DE or Orks. Some of us need help in that department

It was the Op who said this. Unbelievable.

I'm not often a fan of actively labelling whole groups of people but if we just do it the right amount of times we'll get to an imperfect balance in which the community is sooo fractured its various parts will stop remembering the rest of the community exists and will live on in a blissfull stupor in their respective tiny bubbles.


It seems with 6th everyone draws a line at some point but those lines don't always matchup. With too much in, you eventually have nothing because everyones playing a very different game. Balance is just as much a problem of format as any other factor. I already hear your shrill nasally voice "its simple, it's about communication. is that so.." wait, stop, shut feth up, please. Communication used to be real easy "how many points?" eventually it was "you wanna play apoc Y/N?." Easy. Based on your answers you maybe could have still in the end been pegged as one "type" of player but at least the politics were easier to grasp back then and certainly not so daunting. It's a challenge not sounding cynical or condescending communicating that something might not be your cup of tea these days. I fear lengthy conversations often just outline more and more diversity of opinion on the game, and that's the crux of the problem, gw has left it to us to fix their game so that all misanthropy resulting from that lack of balance or formatting is redirected at the playerbase. Don't hate the game, hate the player is what defines 6th edition for many. It's really stupid, like yolo level 14 year old stupid thinking.

What do I know though, I'm just a whiner. And a casual tournament player.

In my books, the true divide in 40k players is thus: There are players who will complain about what you bring and there are those who don't.

 Swastakowey wrote:

 MWHistorian wrote:
The people that don't want balance are the ones that don't understand what it is. They think it means sameness. It doesn't. I means that every unit has a viable purpose depending on what kind of army you want to run.

Balance =/= sameness...or chess.

The idea that balance is bad is absurd.

Well I have played many games over the years and the ones with the most balance (namely historical usually) have all had very similar units. With minor differences in moral or training. Nothing like 40k.

I havent played infinity (the models are dreadfully ugly to me) but with only 8-20 models on the board, it doesnt seem hard to achieve balance even with complex rules. Same with X wing, the guys at the club only have around 6-15 models a team. I dont play it because im not into starwars. But the other games I have played plenty of, where large scale and balanced but had very similar units. Weapons werent really a thing, it was all on training and moral as many historic games are.

People shout out about how they can fix the game (in their opinion fix) and write a very brief paragraph about what they would fix. But in reality the details are much more complex and I highly doubt anyone could write a balanced rule set keeping all the units and factions that 40k has. Not without standardizing most of the gear and stats.

There may be games out there that are 40k in terms of unit, faction and weapon amounts that are balanced but I have not seen them. They are small and balanced with mediocre variation - large and standardized - small and standardized. Very simply put anyways.

So how can balanced be achieved without massed standardization? In depth please, because I (like many gamers) arent convinced. Especially since the reason many play 40k is for all the units and choices we get to make when modeling and list making.

We can start with the units that are so useless that they actually hurt your chance of winning if you use them. That's not good for gaming because no one's going to take them, thus limiting your actual choices from the codex. Example: Penitent Engine. The thing is an open topped walker that won't survive to reach combat. It's a complete point sink and utterly useless. To make it viable, give it some rule to help it get into combat. Give it a jink save, out flank or make it much faster. Another unit that needs help. Mutilators. They're a CC unit that is slow, no grenades or anything to help it assault, and basically sucks at the one thing it was made for. Give it some buffs to help it become viable.
So, go through the codexes and make the useless units usable. What we want is when we have several units in an FOC slot and you have a hard time picking which one you want because they're all, just good at different things.

Step Two: Go through the codexes and find the units that are way too good. For example, that Eldar falcon. It's a transport, its got a jink, shield and the shield can shoot off and kill everything....and its cheap and you can take a ton of them. Take away that stupid shield blast or nerf the crap out of it. That would make it less cheese. Make the Riptide more expensive because it's simply too good for what it does. Now go through and find any other units that are too good for what they cost and fix them up.

Step three: Find the cheap combinations, or......actually, just get rid of battle brothers. that would get rid of most cheap combinations right there.

Step four: Find other imbalances such as armies with no access to AA and fix that. Stop pricing CC units like CC hasn't been nerfed by 6th.

Step five: Play test and play test. "Oh? Death Wing armies are torn apart by most other armies? Oh, we better give them something to help them a little."

It's not friggin rocket science. Will it be perfect? No. Nothing is. Will it be a heck of a lot better? Yes.

 MWHistorian wrote:

 Swastakowey wrote:

 MWHistorian wrote:
The people that don't want balance are the ones that don't understand what it is. They think it means sameness. It doesn't. I means that every unit has a viable purpose depending on what kind of army you want to run.

Balance =/= sameness...or chess.

The idea that balance is bad is absurd.

Well I have played many games over the years and the ones with the most balance (namely historical usually) have all had very similar units. With minor differences in moral or training. Nothing like 40k.

I havent played infinity (the models are dreadfully ugly to me) but with only 8-20 models on the board, it doesnt seem hard to achieve balance even with complex rules. Same with X wing, the guys at the club only have around 6-15 models a team. I dont play it because im not into starwars. But the other games I have played plenty of, where large scale and balanced but had very similar units. Weapons werent really a thing, it was all on training and moral as many historic games are.

People shout out about how they can fix the game (in their opinion fix) and write a very brief paragraph about what they would fix. But in reality the details are much more complex and I highly doubt anyone could write a balanced rule set keeping all the units and factions that 40k has. Not without standardizing most of the gear and stats.

There may be games out there that are 40k in terms of unit, faction and weapon amounts that are balanced but I have not seen them. They are small and balanced with mediocre variation - large and standardized - small and standardized. Very simply put anyways.

So how can balanced be achieved without massed standardization? In depth please, because I (like many gamers) arent convinced. Especially since the reason many play 40k is for all the units and choices we get to make when modeling and list making.

We can start with the units that are so useless that they actually hurt your chance of winning if you use them. That's not good for gaming because no one's going to take them, thus limiting your actual choices from the codex. Example: Penitent Engine. The thing is an open topped walker that won't survive to reach combat. It's a complete point sink and utterly useless. To make it viable, give it some rule to help it get into combat. Give it a jink save, out flank or make it much faster. Another unit that needs help. Mutilators. They're a CC unit that is slow, no grenades or anything to help it assault, and basically sucks at the one thing it was made for. Give it some buffs to help it become viable.
So, go through the codexes and make the useless units usable. What we want is when we have several units in an FOC slot and you have a hard time picking which one you want because they're all, just good at different things.

Step Two: Go through the codexes and find the units that are way too good. For example, that Eldar falcon. It's a transport, its got a jink, shield and the shield can shoot off and kill everything....and its cheap and you can take a ton of them. Take away that stupid shield blast or nerf the crap out of it. That would make it less cheese. Make the Riptide more expensive because it's simply too good for what it does. Now go through and find any other units that are too good for what they cost and fix them up.

Step three: Find the cheap combinations, or......actually, just get rid of battle brothers. that would get rid of most cheap combinations right there.

Step four: Find other imbalances such as armies with no access to AA and fix that. Stop pricing CC units like CC hasn't been nerfed by 6th.

Step five: Play test and play test. "Oh? Death Wing armies are torn apart by most other armies? Oh, we better give them something to help them a little."

It's not friggin rocket science. Will it be perfect? No. Nothing is. Will it be a heck of a lot better? Yes.

Quickly look at my last post for a wee update I forgot to add.

Thats certainly a start. It may improve the game. But more likely, it will just change whats good and whats bad. Do you think 40k players that make lists based on competitiveness will not take a unit because its only slightly better than another unit instead of drastically better?

I mean people nit pick over a few wounds of improvement between units. Unless the game is rewritten completely I dont think balance is possible. But if its rewritten completely it certainly wont be anything like the game we have now. So there is gonna be no guarantee people will like it either. After all we all played 40k for a reason in the first place. For many it was seeing a large army where you can completely make it from the ground up. Do you really think the game can be balanced but retain the nature of 40k that attracts many players today?

I personally dont think it can. Thats not to say a new 40k wont be a good game. It just wont be 40k. I think if anything it would be like playing one of the other popular games but with 40k models. Which i can do now if I wanted.

It probably wasnt well written, but in short nearly balanced isnt balanced.

I am 100% certain even if GW made a balanced edition, people will complain. Simply because its popular.

Just take the units that are not as good and reduce their points by 10% (rounded to 1 if below) If they are still considered useless, lower the points again. If they are now OP increase the points back another 5%.

You don't have to change any of the rules. Just make the less good units less points to reflect their lower ability. It doesn't have to happen overnight, but the striving towards balance would make for a better game in my opinion.

It would also enable GW to sell more units. Don't see how it is a bad thing at all.

 Bottle wrote:
Just take the units that are not as good and reduce their points by 10% (rounded to 1 if below) If they are still considered useless, lower the points again. If they are now OP increase the points back another 5%.

You don't have to change any of the rules. Just make the less good units less points to reflect their lower ability. It doesn't have to happen overnight, but the striving towards balance would make for a better game in my opinion.

It would also enable GW to sell more units. Don't see how it is a bad thing at all.

Never said bad, just not possible. If its so easy to do, youd think it will be done very quickly by a group of gamers who know the game very well.

Sadly, this likely won't happen until all the codexes become digital and then "balance patches" could be released.

 Bottle wrote:
Sadly, this likely won't happen until all the codexes become digital and then "balance patches" could be released.

Thats very true, many problems can be fixed if all was digital. But as it is people will have to make do.

But anyways this talk of balance doesnt have much to do with the great divide. The great divide is present in all hobbies. Regardless of balance issues

[/spoiler]

 Swastakowey wrote:

 MWHistorian wrote:

 Swastakowey wrote:

 MWHistorian wrote:
The people that don't want balance are the ones that don't understand what it is. They think it means sameness. It doesn't. I means that every unit has a viable purpose depending on what kind of army you want to run.

Balance =/= sameness...or chess.

The idea that balance is bad is absurd.

Well I have played many games over the years and the ones with the most balance (namely historical usually) have all had very similar units. With minor differences in moral or training. Nothing like 40k.

I havent played infinity (the models are dreadfully ugly to me) but with only 8-20 models on the board, it doesnt seem hard to achieve balance even with complex rules. Same with X wing, the guys at the club only have around 6-15 models a team. I dont play it because im not into starwars. But the other games I have played plenty of, where large scale and balanced but had very similar units. Weapons werent really a thing, it was all on training and moral as many historic games are.

People shout out about how they can fix the game (in their opinion fix) and write a very brief paragraph about what they would fix. But in reality the details are much more complex and I highly doubt anyone could write a balanced rule set keeping all the units and factions that 40k has. Not without standardizing most of the gear and stats.

There may be games out there that are 40k in terms of unit, faction and weapon amounts that are balanced but I have not seen them. They are small and balanced with mediocre variation - large and standardized - small and standardized. Very simply put anyways.

So how can balanced be achieved without massed standardization? In depth please, because I (like many gamers) arent convinced. Especially since the reason many play 40k is for all the units and choices we get to make when modeling and list making.

We can start with the units that are so useless that they actually hurt your chance of winning if you use them. That's not good for gaming because no one's going to take them, thus limiting your actual choices from the codex. Example: Penitent Engine. The thing is an open topped walker that won't survive to reach combat. It's a complete point sink and utterly useless. To make it viable, give it some rule to help it get into combat. Give it a jink save, out flank or make it much faster. Another unit that needs help. Mutilators. They're a CC unit that is slow, no grenades or anything to help it assault, and basically sucks at the one thing it was made for. Give it some buffs to help it become viable.
So, go through the codexes and make the useless units usable. What we want is when we have several units in an FOC slot and you have a hard time picking which one you want because they're all, just good at different things.

Step Two: Go through the codexes and find the units that are way too good. For example, that Eldar falcon. It's a transport, its got a jink, shield and the shield can shoot off and kill everything....and its cheap and you can take a ton of them. Take away that stupid shield blast or nerf the crap out of it. That would make it less cheese. Make the Riptide more expensive because it's simply too good for what it does. Now go through and find any other units that are too good for what they cost and fix them up.

Step three: Find the cheap combinations, or......actually, just get rid of battle brothers. that would get rid of most cheap combinations right there.

Step four: Find other imbalances such as armies with no access to AA and fix that. Stop pricing CC units like CC hasn't been nerfed by 6th.

Step five: Play test and play test. "Oh? Death Wing armies are torn apart by most other armies? Oh, we better give them something to help them a little."

It's not friggin rocket science. Will it be perfect? No. Nothing is. Will it be a heck of a lot better? Yes.

Quickly look at my last post for a wee update I forgot to add.

Thats certainly a start. It may improve the game. But more likely, it will just change whats good and whats bad. Do you think 40k players that make lists based on competitiveness will not take a unit because its only slightly better than another unit instead of drastically better?

I mean people nit pick over a few wounds of improvement between units. Unless the game is rewritten completely I dont think balance is possible. But if its rewritten completely it certainly wont be anything like the game we have now. So there is gonna be no guarantee people will like it either. After all we all played 40k for a reason in the first place. For many it was seeing a large army where you can completely make it from the ground up. Do you really think the game can be balanced but retain the nature of 40k that attracts many players today?

I personally dont think it can. Thats not to say a new 40k wont be a good game. It just wont be 40k. I think if anything it would be like playing one of the other popular games but with 40k models. Which i can do now if I wanted.

It probably wasnt well written, but in short nearly balanced isnt balanced.

I am 100% certain even if GW made a balanced edition, people will complain. Simply because its popular.

[spoiler]
So, we shouldn't try for balance because it's impossible. Better isn't something to try for?
From what I understand, you say we shouldn't try for balance, even though it would make the game better, because true balance is impossible? Perfect is the enemy of good.

And as to what this has to do with the divide of player types is that if the game was balanced, the divide would be far smaller than it is now.

(I don't know why the spoiler tags didn't work.)