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True, warmachine does have units which are better than others.. however, GW simply creates rules for unts which make the unit so terrible that no one will buy the unit in the span of 4 editions! That's the main problem.. There are very few models in WH imo that are flat out terrible

Options 10 times out of 10.

There are already tons of games out there that offer balance. I could always play chess or checkers or go or, sheesh, thousands of them, probably.

What makes 40k stand out is the particular way that it does options. People can exercise a little brainpower to make an options game balanced enough, but nothing can force a balanced game to have options. The idea of "assymetric balance" is an unproven rumor at best, and an outright lie at worst. Balance comes through symmetry. Symmetry means no options.

Plus, you can already make 40k balanced. Just bring the same list as your opponent and set up symmetric terrain. You don't need to change the 40k at all to make it fit the needs of someone who craves balance.

 Ailaros wrote:
There are already tons of games out there that offer balance. I could always play chess or checkers or go or, sheesh, thousands of them, probably.

Oh good, this argument again. You're as consistent as the sunrise, everyone tells you how you're wrong about balance vs. symmetry, and you come right back to post the same thing again as if those previous discussions never happened.

What makes 40k stand out is the particular way that it does options.

No, what makes 40k stand out is that the game is garbage. There's nothing special about how it handles options, GW just threw a bunch of them into every unit entry without giving any thought to how they're supposed to work or what their point costs should be. Any idiot can do that, part of being a good game designer is knowing that you shouldn't.

Plus, you can already make 40k balanced. Just bring the same list as your opponent and set up symmetric terrain. You don't need to change the 40k at all to make it fit the needs of someone who craves balance.

And, as people have told you over and over again, that's not what anyone wants. We want a balanced game with an interesting variety of options, and for all the models/units GW produces to be viable choices. Saying "don't buy that squad of rough riders, you have to use a symmetrical list" is no better than saying "don't buy that squad of rough riders, they suck".

From a game design perspective there is no excuse for creating units with no function (IE rough riders for example). You can't use the balance vs options argument to hide laziness or ineptitude

Oh no, not the "balance is symmetry" thing again. It's demonstrably false. Look at all the other war games out there Aileros, they have wildly different armies and play styles, yet they're acceptably balanced. So, no, balance =/= symmetry. Case in point. My convergence army last night fought a Legion army. The two armies are drastically different with fast light monsters that hit hard vs my slow heavy guys that have a lot of synergy. Not symmetrical. Yet balanced. I came close to winning.

I understand you don't care about balance, but try to understand why some people do, and that starts with a correct understanding of what balance actually is, because you don't get it.

You don't need to change 40k to fit the needs of someone who wants balance? What?

Toofast wrote:
Another thing to consider is that data was taken from a 2 list format. Anything under 10% was taken as a one off in people's backup/skew lists and would've been a 0 in a single list TAC format like 40k tournaments. I would venture a guess that between games, based on one list formats, the numbers would be about the same. The only variables would be certain factions like ret or cyriss that don't have as many options, or stuff like tyranids and sisters where they only have a few competitive units. If you compared the original 4 WMH to the top 4 in 40k (eldar, sm, necrons, daemons), the numbers would be almost indistinguishable.

You aren't arguing what you think you're arguing. There is always going to be a "better" choice, because ultimately the game boils down to math and probability. What you're overlooking is the fact that certain things aren't taken SIMPLY because they're better, but because they work better as a whole. Consider your Cinerators. They aren't as good as Bastions, but that doesn't mean they're useless. Cinerators can still serve a purpose and work well in a list, the fact that Bastions are better doesn't completely invalidate Cinerators and make them a meaningless choice. if YOU want to run Cinerators, you can and make them work, you don't go into a game with a point in the hole already because you didn't take Bastions instead.

That's the kind of balance we're talking about

Also Ailaros are you STILL arguing the same "balance means everything is equal" argument? Hasn't it sunk in yet that NOBODY wants everything equal, and not only that but you can have balance without making some units garbage and some units great, and you can have MEANINGFUL options (i.e. not "Do I give this squad a S5 AP4 weapon or a S4 AP5 weapon") without making some choices worthless.

A ton of lead and a ton of feathers: they both weigh the same (aka balance) but are drastically different. Same thing in war games. Units can be VERY different and still be balanced.

But being different and having options isn't the same.

A queen and a pawn aren't the same as each other, but that doesn't mean you can choose your chess pieces. You have to use the same setup as your opponent. You can't come up with your own way of doing things. You don't have options.

 Ailaros wrote:
But being different and having options isn't the same.

A queen and a pawn aren't the same as each other, but that doesn't mean you can choose your chess pieces. You have to use the same setup as your opponent. You can't come up with your own way of doing things. You don't have options.

Except for the fact that isn't relevant for games like Warmahordes or Malifaux which do have quite good balance. Or Infinity. In fact, what game is this example of yours relevant to?

In the games I listed, you can choose a different setup to your opponent. He could have buckets of blokes (say, Cryx with eDenny so lots of Banes and maybe raiders), while you could have just a few jacks on the other side (I dunno, a jack heavy Cyriss list). Or he could have a crew based around scheme markers and movement shenanigans (Colette and co) while you have a killy crew of deadly killiness (Perdita and her clan is what I'll go with for his. Not that its all they can do, but get Francisco into combat then get Perdita firing into it, and tell me they aren't killy).

It's not nearly that black and white. Options vs balance, I want options over perfect balance... but GW can achieve so much more balance within their options that when I say I'd prefer options over balance, I still expect far more balance than GW manages with 40k.

I mean really, 40k balance is horrible. You can look at a unit entry and out of 3 "options" soooo often 1 of them just plain sucks. You don't even have to play a game to realise that some options are just flat out worse than others. This is not options, this is lack of options caused by poor balance.

When balance is sooo bad that you can see some options are inferior to others without even playtesting it, then talking about options vs balance sort of becomes a pointless discussion because you aren't even attempting to balance the options you already have.

motya wrote:Except for the fact that isn't relevant for games like Warmahordes or Malifaux which do have quite good balance.

Those games aren't even remotely balanced. You just like the imbalance better.

 Ailaros wrote:

motya wrote:Except for the fact that isn't relevant for games like Warmahordes or Malifaux which do have quite good balance.

Those games aren't even remotely balanced. You just like the imbalance better.

Citation needed.

Toofast wrote:

More of the same. A clear top 4, one of which was in nearly 90% of lists (auto take like dire avengers for eldar)

Just to pull you up on this single point, you're talking about a trivially cheap support unit which the warjacks of the army have been balanced and costed around, and which is described as ubiquitous in the background.

Because balance does not mean homogeneity and because perfect balance is nothing more than a strawman, there are still better choices for certain roles, and the nature of tournaments big and high-profile enough to set their data down online mean that people will take things that give them even a marginally better chance. So while X is seldom taken, that doesn't mean X is useless, just that Y performs the same role slightly better, by a margin insignificant at most levels of skill. Even in fighting games regarded as balanced, you'll still see the same few characters in big tournaments. But it's telling that unlikely stuff gets used, and won with, at the highest levels, which suggests to me that while some options lack synergy or a clear role, very little of it is "wasted points".

In addition, the steady release stream for all factions means that less-favoured options become better. Grissel-2 was regarded as weak until the Warders came out, which she had amazing synergy with, and the combo has risen in prominence among Troll players. Arkadius was one of the weakest Minion warlocks, but a recent theme force for him looks set to increase his stock dramatically.

 Ailaros wrote:

motya wrote:Except for the fact that isn't relevant for games like Warmahordes or Malifaux which do have quite good balance.

Those games aren't even remotely balanced. You just like the imbalance better.

If you want this point to be taken seriously (and not look like a drive-by trolling), you need to explain it in more detail.

 Ailaros wrote:
Options 10 times out of 10.

There are already tons of games out there that offer balance. I could always play chess or checkers or go or, sheesh, thousands of them, probably.

What makes 40k stand out is the particular way that it does options. People can exercise a little brainpower to make an options game balanced enough, but nothing can force a balanced game to have options. The idea of "assymetric balance" is an unproven rumor at best, and an outright lie at worst. Balance comes through symmetry. Symmetry means no options.

Plus, you can already make 40k balanced. Just bring the same list as your opponent and set up symmetric terrain. You don't need to change the 40k at all to make it fit the needs of someone who craves balance.

Bang on for me, Its pretty much subjective as every topic here normally is, but its nice to see what people think.

The symmetry = balance thing is cods wallop, even if you have symmetry there's not perfect balance because someone still has to go first and will be advantaged or disadvantaged for going first depending on what army it is.

Beyond that, balance with asymmetry simply means having options that are all close to equally viable options. 40k is miles from this. There are options that are close to unanimously considered bad.

 Ailaros wrote:

motya wrote:Except for the fact that isn't relevant for games like Warmahordes or Malifaux which do have quite good balance.

Those games aren't even remotely balanced. You just like the imbalance better.

Well, I'm not gonna argue with you, but I respect your right to be wrong.

 Ailaros wrote:

motya wrote:Except for the fact that isn't relevant for games like Warmahordes or Malifaux which do have quite good balance.

Those games aren't even remotely balanced. You just like the imbalance better.

They are balanced, just not to your definition. You keep using your own definition/idea of what balance is, and using it to ignore anyone's arguments. The kind of balance people are talking about here is balance where picking Unit A over Unit B doesn't cost you the game before it even begins, because Unit a is so bad. 40k has that, virtually no other game does. In Warmachine if I take a unit of Exemplar Cinerators over a unit of Exemplar Bastions (to point out Toofast's argument), my Cinerators can still perform well; they might not perform 100% as good as the Bastions, but they aren't complete garbage. And neither of them are just going to win me the game. You can't just go and take a tournament list in Warmachine and do well with it if you don't actually know what you're doing; virtually none of it is "point and click" like some of the netlists in 40k. This is also why you sometimes see high-ranking players take lists that use "bad" units and still win with them; because it's the player not the list. That's the kind of "balance" that everyone here is talking about.

For example, if I know I'm facing a Menoth army with pFeora (who can set everything on fire), I just might want to play Assault Kommandos, even if they're lackluster elsewhere, because they're Immune to Fire and that neutralizes part of my enemy's gameplan. Are they a bad unit? Ultimately yes, they aren't very good if you compare points and stats to other units that cost the same. But they have a place. There is never a time when you look at them and say they're utterly worthless and there's no reason to ever field them. They're a tool in a toolbox. Sometimes you don't use a tool for months, or ever, and then it's the best tool for a certain job.

I think you need to really define the definition of balance that you're using in this discussion, because right now it really does come off as just trolling and dismissing everyone else's arguments based on some criteria known only to you.

But if he broadens his definition then he would have to admit that the balance in 40K is garbage.

So he keeps to his own, narrowly defined, definition.

Besides, playtesting for balance in a niche industry is otiose.

Given the way the poll is leaning... I think that it is obvious that most folks replying value balance over options - and given that I play Kings of War, it is equally obvious how my own preferences lie. (KoW has fewer options, but is very well balanced.)

The Auld Grump

Elemental wrote:

 Ailaros wrote:

motya wrote:Except for the fact that isn't relevant for games like Warmahordes or Malifaux which do have quite good balance.

Those games aren't even remotely balanced. You just like the imbalance better.

If you want this point to be taken seriously (and not look like a drive-by trolling), you need to explain it in more detail.

Oh come on, this is self-evident. Tell me there aren't people on warmahordes forums right now asking "is X viable?" and "which is better Y or Z?". Tell me there aren't stronger and weaker builds. Tell me you can basically play whatever you want AND be able to have a roughly equal chance of winning. And how about a deconstruction of the game or some statistics to prove it.

The only drive-by trolling is people claiming that other games have great balance and then disappearing without giving any evidence for their position. Or at least some deductive reasoning.

 Ailaros wrote:

Elemental wrote:

 Ailaros wrote:

motya wrote:Except for the fact that isn't relevant for games like Warmahordes or Malifaux which do have quite good balance.

Those games aren't even remotely balanced. You just like the imbalance better.

If you want this point to be taken seriously (and not look like a drive-by trolling), you need to explain it in more detail.

Oh come on, this is self-evident. Tell me there aren't people on warmahordes forums right now asking "is X viable?" and "which is better Y or Z?". Tell me there aren't stronger and weaker builds. Tell me you can basically play whatever you want AND be able to have a roughly equal chance of winning. And how about a deconstruction of the game or some statistics to prove it.

The only drive-by trolling is people claiming that other games have great balance and then disappearing without giving any evidence for their position. Or at least some deductive reasoning.

You're missing the point. It's not that people aren't asking that, it's that the difference are minuscule if you don't listen. If you take Z instead of Y in 40k, you're going into a game at a loss because Z is likely worthless and Y is likely overpowered. In Warmahordes if you take Z instead of Y you aren't at much of a disadvantage, and it's still 90% of how you use unit Z. What people are saying is that Warmahordes is MORE balanced than 40k because the gap between "good" and "bad" is a lot smaller. Also yes you can play whatever you want and have a roughly equal chance of winning. You know why? Because list building is only a small part of the game. A great player with a mishmash of units can beat a newbie using a netlist he found online. That's how a game should be. There is no situation where taking Unit A instead of Unit B actively hurts you, even if Unit B is better than Unit A, Unit A still has a place in some lists and is a viable choice to pick, it's not worthless.

What part of that aren't you understanding?

Also linking to an article on your own blog as some kind of resource is the height of arrogance.

Keep it civil, please.

I've had this argument / discussion with my local gaming group about Warmahordes not really being very balanced, either... but it's true that compared to 40k it's like a shining example of it

Personally, I think it's also somewhat a difference of how people view balance- in Warmachine (as WayneTheGame points out above) even generally "bad" units usually have some corner-case, buff- and combo-dependent build that lets you run them semi-effectively. To me, that's not Really balance... but it is better than nothing.

It still didn't make Mulg not infinitely better than any other choice for many of my lists, but it did make something considered pretty weak (Mountain King) an absolute monster in one, maybe two builds. However, given that I was trying to run a Mountain King in something other than that one build, I found it underpowered and really frustrating to use... not unlike some of my experiences in 40k

In the end, it's all relative. I would agree that Warmachine is more balanced than 40k, but that's a pretty darn low standard to beat, after all.


---------------------------

Edit, regarding this:

WayneTheGame wrote:
Also yes you can play whatever you want and have a roughly equal chance of winning.

My experience is that this is not true at all. Certain weak units ONLY work well in very specific builds. You can't just take whatever you want and have a roughly equal chance of winning! That's pretty much absurd, from anyone who has seen Warmachine games. It's very combo-dependent, so if you're taking a weak unit, you have to tune your list to account for it and shore up it's weaknesses. It's very possible to do this, but you can't just throw a bad unit / a bunch of bad units into any army and have an equal chance of winning against a strong list. You would have a much lower chance of winning, just like in any game...

Exactly. It isn't that Warmachine is somehow absolutely perfectly balanced, with any build vs. any other build, at all times, in all ways.

It's that every single unit can be useful and as long as you know what your army can do (and what your opponents' armies can do), you can potentially make any single unit work.

This is what people mean when they say Warmachine is balanced; it is balanced in comparison to 40K, where taking, say, Pyrovores instead of Hive Guard is always the wrong choice and the Pyrovores will never be worth their points; IE, Hive Guard are extremely good, and Pyrovores are worthless.

In Warmachine, Unit X may be objectively better in almost all circumstances than Unit Y, but Unit Y will still be effective and can potentially earn its points back, and there may even be specific situations where Unit Y might be better than Unit X.

That's the kind of balance I like in a war game.

 Eilif wrote:
Many folks will of course say you can have both, or that "it depends" but if you had to choose, which would it be and why?

Balance of course.

Sure, I could bring my SoB in tournaments for the sake of getting my butt kicked diversity. Hey, I could even field Celestians: the least useful unit of one of the weakest codexes. Or even better, add some WDex Preachers, which were the most useless unit of the entire game. Yeah, even the most terrible Tyranid units were actually a bargain compared to Preachers.

What's the point of fielding that kind of stuff? When there's no balance, there's no meaningful options.

I enjoy playing DBA with my classical armies, because the balance is fine. Some armies have few options, but that's okay. My Polybian Roman army must be made of 12 standard-sized units, with some mandatory ones: 6x Swordmen, 2x Cavalry, 2x Spearmen, 2x Skirmishers...
As you can see, there's not much room for customization.

Agreed. In 40k I want to play footsloging Iron Warriors but my local meta is not forging at all. I have wanted a fluffy Sam hann (no idea if that's spelt right) for a while too, but then I'd be accused of powergaming.

Warmachine I wouldn't say is VERY well balanced, but it is well balanced. I want to play a jack heavy khador (the infantry faction) list there with men o war (not considered very good). I'm limited in what I can take because I have to build around those units but if I play it properly it has a perfectly fine chance of winning.

Dystopian wars was almost as bad as 40k in its first edition, I liked it none the less. Then the issues began to grate like they did with 40k and my interest wandered.
2nd edition fixed a huge swath of problems and all of a sudden I am loving it more that ever.
I really, really wish GW would learn a lesson from that. Its exactly what I want to see for 40k.

 jonolikespie wrote:
Dystopian wars was almost as bad as 40k in its first edition, I liked it none the less. Then the issues began to grate like they did with 40k and my interest wandered.
2nd edition fixed a huge swath of problems and all of a sudden I am loving it more that ever.
I really, really wish GW would learn a lesson from that. Its exactly what I want to see for 40k.

This is why I don't understand the "well it's always been bad" crowd. Why on earth after 16 years and 5 editions of what basically amounts to the same rules have they still failed to fix it when other games fix it after 1 edition?

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 jonolikespie wrote:
Dystopian wars was almost as bad as 40k in its first edition, I liked it none the less. Then the issues began to grate like they did with 40k and my interest wandered.
2nd edition fixed a huge swath of problems and all of a sudden I am loving it more that ever.
I really, really wish GW would learn a lesson from that. Its exactly what I want to see for 40k.

This is why I don't understand the "well it's always been bad" crowd. Why on earth after 16 years and 5 editions of what basically amounts to the same rules have they still failed to fix it when other games fix it after 1 edition?

That's what makes the 40k argument so funny. The "industry leader" is seemingly incapable of actually addressing problems despite having 30 years to do it, 15 (or more?) of which use the same "engine" of the game, and instead handwave problems and pass blame to the players with terms like "forge the narrative" and constant references to not being a game but a collecting hobby. It's ridiculous, and it's things like that that make me not want to play despite knowing that I'd be able to get games in, because why bother when I'd get screwed over if I wanted to play something fluffy that isn't part of the meta, even if I'm not in a competitive meta?

Like, I could start again and play in an escalation league coming up in a few weeks. But why would I bother when I'll have to spend a lot of money and am limited in what I want to play unless I want to lose all the time? How on earth is that worth it, when I have other options that provide more options for the same price and same level of enjoyment?? Even the cool factor of quasi grimdark sci-fi isn't worth the loss of actual fun.

When comparing to Warmachine, its important to note the structure of competitive WMH drastically changes the way you view 'balance'. Namely, the multi-list format. This severely tempers any attempts at skew list.

The two list format means that if one of your lists is a heavy skew, it is possible (or even likely) for one of the opponent's list to be a hard counter. The harder the meta skews, the more frequently hard counters appear. The other side of the same coin: your hard-counter list has to be able to deal with the opponent's other force, thus you can't ever counter too hard lest you lose the TAC ability.

I think this format would be even better in 40k than it is in WMH. The current competitive scene is full of extremely hard skew lists, and they skew even further as you start allowing multiple CADS, unbound, escalation, etc, etc. Allowing players to take a secondary army would I think alleviate many issues, however 40k is prohibitively expensive to do this with.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
This is why I don't understand the "well it's always been bad" crowd. Why on earth after 16 years and 5 editions of what basically amounts to the same rules have they still failed to fix it when other games fix it after 1 edition?

Two reasons:

1) GW continues to employ hopeless incompetents who believe that anyone who cares about the rules is a WAAC TFG, which means they aren't capable of doing the playtesting and development required to make a balanced game.

2) GW believes that their core market is kids who never manage to finish building their boxes of space marines before they quit the game, so all they need is the idea of how cool a wargame is to motivate them to buy a starter box. And if most customers don't care about the quality of the rules then why waste money on making better rules?

Until GW dies and someone else buys the IP we're never going to see any serious attempt to fix the rules.

Balance gives everyone more viable options. It's strictly better.

@Peregrine.
I feel I have to correct you post, as it is a bit harsh on the game devs at GW towers...

Two reasons:

1) GW continues to be run by hopeless incompetents who believe that anyone who cares about the actual game play is not part of their core demographic.Which means they instruct the game developers to focus on selling the latest releases, with 'inspiring rules', rather than fix game play issues.

2) GW believes that their core market is kids who never manage to finish building their boxes of space marines before they quit the game,or collectors who do not care that much about rules.So all they need is the idea of how cool a wargame is to motivate them to buy GW product. As if most customers don't care about the quality of the rules then why waste money on making better rules?


I know this basically makes reason 1 and 2 practically identical.But is such a huge problem it deserves to be mentioned twice!

This situation results from GW plc not actually doing any meaningful market research.Because if they did , it would prove how wrong/deluded Tom Kirby has been.