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.

Your argument is highly flawed though. Just because people's feelings don't always match reality, doesn't mean they never do.

Game design is a craft and there is a science related to it. Especially mobile game designers employ psychologists to make their games more enjoyable to encourage people to spend more.

"Feel bad moments" and lack of interaction are established concepts and symptoms of objectively bad game design, not a problem of society.

 Jidmah wrote:
Your argument is highly flawed though. Just because people's feelings don't always match reality, doesn't mean they never do.

Game design is a craft and there is a science related to it. Especially mobile game designers employ psychologists to make their games more enjoyable to encourage people to spend more.

"Feel bad moments" and lack of interaction are established concepts and symptoms of objectively bad game design, not a problem of society.

Just change the wording from "enjoyable" to "addictive". There's a point where they are the same, and there is a point where design specifically leans into addictive in a negative way that become less about enjoyment and instead preys on poor behavior control looking to exploit "whales". . . Or children.

"Objectively bad game design" is highly cotextual beyond those aspects as well. Some games become more effective by breaking "good design rules", and that can be the point.

 Hellebore wrote:
I feel like if old Pinning rules reappeared in 40k now there would be an uproar about how unfun it is to not be able to do something with your unit because it failed a Ld test.

Well... yeah.
It was when pinning was a thing?
GW guys have consistently said that the biggest complaint they got about 40K rules was anything that took control away from a player's own models.

I feel this is the crux of the issue.
You have to make a game that works for both players. You shouldn't have a system where if one player has "a perfect game", the other player just... dies, with no capacity of their own to escape the doom loop they are in. That is not fun.

Now clearly I don't want a system where if you consistently make the wrong choices you don't lose. But that is not the same.

 JNAProductions wrote:

 aphyon wrote:
In my experience i have more concern about fun/unfun players than i do specific armies. in the last 25 years i have done games against just about every type of army you can think of. including tournament meta builds and stuff that was just off the wall silly (like the 5th ed barrel of monkey's list for grey knights).

A good fun game is where the game is back and forth and often to hard to call till the end. Nobody wants a one sided stomp no matter which side you are on.

Agreed, but there are times when fun players can’t salvage a bad matchup.

I had a game where the opponent’s gunline was so damn killy it felt like I never had a chance. He was a pleasant chap, but it still was a slog of a game.

Attitude 100% matters though! Be kind, be sporting, and be fun!

Was about to say, playing with an unkillable army is also not much fun. Not only do people refuse to play you, every game becomes the same drama all over again.

But it can be hard to resist the temptation towards them. The ones I ran that wore out their welcome:

- 5th ed Spawn Rush
- 8th ed Black Legion gunline
- 8th ed Deathwatch gunline
- 8th ed Bloodletter Bombs
- 8th ed dual Daemon Princes (+ TS sorcerers)

Just got a flashback why I drop game for 8 years. Because every time I meeting same builds again and again. But the worst, and it braking all fun and immersion is that armies are never painted. And very often half of army are proxies. That the army not fun to face. it's looks like guards fight against grey depression and boredom. That is reality of my local Warhammer at end of 7th.

Some armies are unfun b/c they are Tau armies.

 Hairesy wrote:
Some armies are unfun b/c they are Tau armies.

Unfun to play or unfun to play against? Why do you think so?

Having barely played my tau army yet, I'm finding it a little iffy at the moment because 10th tends to have a lot of BLOS terrain that makes it hard for me to leverage my mid-strength long-ranged guns. A skyray is great because it just needs to shoot a single salvo at a good target to do a bunch of damage, but my fire warriors don't really do big spikes of damage like that; they need multiple turns of steadily whittling the target down to have much offense. So my games so far have made my less killy units feel like they're just sort of marching onto magic circles to die while my more expensive units do the actual damage. Probably just my inexperience/skill issue showing.

Playing against tau feels fine at the moment in my experience. In editions where tau are powerful, they tend to be oppressive because they're usually just kind of a stat check army in those editions. Like, 7th edition tau basically just out-shot most armies while simultaneously having counters to most forms of counterplay. Try to advance up the table? They'll ignore cover and/or line of sight. Try to sucker punch them from reserves? Interceptor. Try to charge them? Mass overwatch and/or fallback & shoot.

Basically, tau are kind of a one-trick pony. So it's very easy to either make that one trick so good that it's oppressive, or weak enough that the army simply lacks the punch to win games. And if they're strong enough to win games, you either give them counters to the opponent's counterplay (which makes them non-interactive), or you don't (which then makes it all too easy to auto-win against them if simply reserve rushing them or blitzing their lines or whatever works.)

For me, if an army feels like it perfectly counters, negates, or avoids your own army, then those are the least fun to play against. Or armies that completely ignore some aspect of the game's rules with their own special rules.

 Jayden63 wrote:

 Hairesy wrote:
Some armies are unfun b/c they are Tau armies.

Unfun to play or unfun to play against? Why do you think so?

Both. Tau often reduced games to exercises in applying and removing marker lights while not moving any models. Even playing objective games was unfun because Tau could just sit and shoot. Good luck holding on to that midboard objective with triple rips facing you down. Not only do they ignore entire phases of the game they fit poorly into the setting, though I would grant that they fit a lot better into the new era of mindless lore (if I cared to engage with that). I think Tau is a great example of how GW can feth up a faction for eternity by writing crap rules that jaundice them early on. Ask any of the veterans here how they felt about Fish of Fury and getting shot at from under a skimmer while not being able to fire back.

Crying about Tau feels so 2006.

BanjoJohn wrote:
For me, if an army feels like it perfectly counters, negates, or avoids your own army, then those are the least fun to play against. Or armies that completely ignore some aspect of the game's rules with their own special rules.

This is the answer. If you're opponent's army simply shuts down your armies ability to function as designed, it is unfun to play against. It could be faction rules or army composition. Either way, no one wants to play a game for 2-4 hours while not getting to do their thing because the opponent's army makes it impossible.

This is one of the reason Knights are so hated. You bring a balanced list and suddenly half your army can just move around and die because the entire opposing army is tanks.

 Hairesy wrote:

 Jayden63 wrote:

 Hairesy wrote:
Some armies are unfun b/c they are Tau armies.

Unfun to play or unfun to play against? Why do you think so?

Both. Tau often reduced games to exercises in applying and removing marker lights while not moving any models. Even playing objective games was unfun because Tau could just sit and shoot. Good luck holding on to that midboard objective with triple rips facing you down. Not only do they ignore entire phases of the game they fit poorly into the setting, though I would grant that they fit a lot better into the new era of mindless lore (if I cared to engage with that). I think Tau is a great example of how GW can feth up a faction for eternity by writing crap rules that jaundice them early on. Ask any of the veterans here how they felt about Fish of Fury and getting shot at from under a skimmer while not being able to fire back.

Didn't bother me at all.
Whatever the edition, all armies have their gimmicks.
My solution to that particular trick? I blew up the Fish (it wasn't hard). Then I blew up the Tau hiding behind it.

Tyel wrote:
Crying about Tau feels so 2006.

Accurate, as that's probably close to when I stopped caring about GW.

 Hairesy wrote:

Tyel wrote:
Crying about Tau feels so 2006.

Accurate, as that's probably close to when I stopped caring about GW.

So, out of curiosity, why are you bothering to post about it here in 2025?

 Jidmah wrote:
Your argument is highly flawed though. Just because people's feelings don't always match reality, doesn't mean they never do.

Game design is a craft and there is a science related to it. Especially mobile game designers employ psychologists to make their games more enjoyable to encourage people to spend more.

"Feel bad moments" and lack of interaction are established concepts and symptoms of objectively bad game design, not a problem of society.

Just because your personal feelings happen to line up with an objective truth one time doesn't in any way make personal feelings an objective truth. That's called a correlation causation fallacy.


If you want to argue that a mechanic is bad, you have to use, rules based evidence. Personal feelings are not evidence for rules quality, they are evidence of how a rule makes you feel. You can find disagreement over whether a rule is feelsbad in this forum, you can find people hating on specific rules across the community. If you literally used personal feelings to determine rule quality, none of the rules would exist.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

Tyel wrote:

 Hellebore wrote:
I feel like if old Pinning rules reappeared in 40k now there would be an uproar about how unfun it is to not be able to do something with your unit because it failed a Ld test.

Well... yeah.
It was when pinning was a thing?
GW guys have consistently said that the biggest complaint they got about 40K rules was anything that took control away from a player's own models.

I feel this is the crux of the issue.
You have to make a game that works for both players. You shouldn't have a system where if one player has "a perfect game", the other player just... dies, with no capacity of their own to escape the doom loop they are in. That is not fun.

Now clearly I don't want a system where if you consistently make the wrong choices you don't lose. But that is not the same.

Gw refuse to remove IGOUGO, so there commitment to removing rules that prevent loss of control is already gone. The alpha strike does exactly that and has done since 40k existed.

You can't give both players a perfect experience if you want one side to win, because killing your opponent's models reduces their control of the game. Pinning is a BETTER option than killing, because it allows you use the unit later in the game, rather than losing it permanently. It's extremely short sighted to consider that bad.

Which is entirely besides the fact that a wargame represents war and in war generals lose control of their troops all the time, its a FEATURE of the kind of game you are playing. It's like complaining that you have to use a board when playing chess.

 Hellebore wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:
Your argument is highly flawed though. Just because people's feelings don't always match reality, doesn't mean they never do.

Game design is a craft and there is a science related to it. Especially mobile game designers employ psychologists to make their games more enjoyable to encourage people to spend more.

"Feel bad moments" and lack of interaction are established concepts and symptoms of objectively bad game design, not a problem of society.

Just because your personal feelings happen to line up with an objective truth one time doesn't in any way make personal feelings an objective truth. That's called a correlation causation fallacy.


If you want to argue that a mechanic is bad, you have to use, rules based evidence. Personal feelings are not evidence for rules quality, they are evidence of how a rule makes you feel. You can find disagreement over whether a rule is feelsbad in this forum, you can find people hating on specific rules across the community. If you literally used personal feelings to determine rule quality, none of the rules would exist.

I'm going to sit in the middle on this, you're largely right on a cold objective level.

However there is a point where if a rule or situation is regularly causing "feelbads" for a significant number, then it's clearly poorly designed, even without an objective explanation.

The game is designed to be accessible and importantly to drive sales and customer interaction. If GW design any scenarios that regularly push away someone from yhe game or product with negative emotions, thats not in line with their goals.

I'd argue anything in the game that stops people feeling like they want to go buy a kit and paint it to some degree, via positive interaction, is poorly designed from the viewpoint of the creator.

ccs wrote:

 Hairesy wrote:

Tyel wrote:
Crying about Tau feels so 2006.

Accurate, as that's probably close to when I stopped caring about GW.

So, out of curiosity, why are you bothering to post about it here in 2025?

Because the point of forums is to discuss things. I suppose if you absolutely need a current hot take I hate Primaris and think that whole thing is boring af, nonsensical to the setting and breaks established lore in an unfixable way.

 Hairesy wrote:

ccs wrote:

 Hairesy wrote:

Tyel wrote:
Crying about Tau feels so 2006.

Accurate, as that's probably close to when I stopped caring about GW.

So, out of curiosity, why are you bothering to post about it here in 2025?

Because the point of forums is to discuss things. I suppose if you absolutely need a current hot take I hate Primaris and think that whole thing is boring af, nonsensical to the setting and breaks established lore in an unfixable way.

9 year old take sadly at this point, not against the participation though!

Dudeface wrote:

 Hellebore wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:
Your argument is highly flawed though. Just because people's feelings don't always match reality, doesn't mean they never do.

Game design is a craft and there is a science related to it. Especially mobile game designers employ psychologists to make their games more enjoyable to encourage people to spend more.

"Feel bad moments" and lack of interaction are established concepts and symptoms of objectively bad game design, not a problem of society.

Just because your personal feelings happen to line up with an objective truth one time doesn't in any way make personal feelings an objective truth. That's called a correlation causation fallacy.


If you want to argue that a mechanic is bad, you have to use, rules based evidence. Personal feelings are not evidence for rules quality, they are evidence of how a rule makes you feel. You can find disagreement over whether a rule is feelsbad in this forum, you can find people hating on specific rules across the community. If you literally used personal feelings to determine rule quality, none of the rules would exist.

I'm going to sit in the middle on this, you're largely right on a cold objective level.

However there is a point where if a rule or situation is regularly causing "feelbads" for a significant number, then it's clearly poorly designed, even without an objective explanation.

The game is designed to be accessible and importantly to drive sales and customer interaction. If GW design any scenarios that regularly push away someone from yhe game or product with negative emotions, thats not in line with their goals.

I'd argue anything in the game that stops people feeling like they want to go buy a kit and paint it to some degree, via positive interaction, is poorly designed from the viewpoint of the creator.

It is impossible to please everyone and you will cause more harm to other players by trying to placate some who want the game to cater to their feelings. Because ultimately, you cannot make a competitive game like that without one side of the game feeling like it was rigged against them. It's a have your cake situation. It's just not possible to do when both players feelings must be taken into account.

If GW wants to purely drive sales and maximise feelsgood, then they need to change the game fundamentally and make it PVE rather than PVP. Because PVE is the only type of game that avoids sour grapes because you only have to make the experience work for one person at a time. Feelsbad requires you to balance both sides of the game, and both sides of the game will have different feelings on what feelsbad actually is.

If a large part of the player base don't like a rule, then there is certainly going to be some underlying reasons. But those reasons could be 'players expect a wargame not to work like a wargame' in which case it's a failure of expectation setting on the part of the company and a failure on the part of players for not understanding that is a feature rather than a bug.

This also comes back to a common issue in the GW community where people conflate a game CONCEPT with a game rule, decrying the whole concept if the rule is poorly executed rather than recognising that the rule needs to change to better represent the concept. so many demands for x rule to be removed entirely because it's dumb, when the concept it represents is vital to a wargame and removing the rule removes core aspects of wargaming. Leadership and pinning being a prominent one currently.

The expectation setting for the game is part of the problem. If you sell the game as living out your space marine power fantasy then players will complain that their marines aren't power fantasy enough, especially when both players are using marines. If you set the expectations that as a wargame you are playing with imperfect troops performing imperfect actions with imperfect timeframes and you as the general have imperfect control and you must make decisions that don't always work, you are less likely for people to feel bad that their marines didn't wipe the table, or retreated, or failed to kill something, or died faster than you hoped for.

I see a lot of legitimate critiques of game mechanics in GW games, but a lot of the feelsbad arguments fall back on personal power fantasy expectations clashing with wargaming simulation and the need to balance two people's power fantasies against each other.

Your take on PvP is flawed. Just because someone will win doesn't mean the other player will feel the game was rigged against them. It is just a harder lift for the designers to ensure that there are close to as many advantages for taking Option A vs Option B.

For example, you can offset the first player advantage of IGOUGO by providing advantages to the second player.

But that comes down to game design at a high level. At a lower level, you can have a mechanic that works fine in some circumstances but falls apart in others. Dice modifiers is a great example. No one complains about them on Saves. They are a little more problematic one the Wound roll and really unpopular on the Hit roll. There are multiple ways this can be dealt with. GW has gone the route of capping both Wound and Hit roll modifiers and has seriously cut back on instances of Negative Hit Roll modifiers.

Negative Hit roll modifiers are avoided because too many models have a WS or BS of 5+. The modifier is much more significant there than for a model with a 2+. Given the uneven distribution of especially BS between armies, it is difficult to balance a negative Hit modifier. This makes it a Bad Mechanic in this circumstance.

 Hellebore wrote:

It's going to be bit of both, but using how something 'feels' to determine its objective balance is a flawed methodology and I don't really like seeing it used as a conventional wisdom reason for objecting to how an army or mechanic works.

I feel like you're touchign on two semi-separate things here. Subjective feelings aren't good for determining whether something is objectively balanced, we agree on that. BUT, ultimately the point of a game is to give the players an enjoyable experience. So even if the math on a given unit or mechanic or whatever checks out as being balanced, it's possible for it to still be a bad bit of game design if players aren't enjoying themselves.

Or in other words, just because something is balanced doesn't necessarily mean that it's fun. And fun is arguably the main goal.

It's ok to have a super tough army, so long as those armies that aren't have means of beating them. It's ok to have a hard to hit army, so long as other armies can still beat them.

Counter-example: I hate facing imperial knights to the point of sometimes just preferring to turn down games against them. I can definitely beat them. I can outscore them. But the process of winning a game against them tends to not be much fun for me because it feels like half my units don't get to do the things I wanted them to do.

Knights are tough. Knights are definitely beatable. But regardless of whether they're balanced, they're still not fun to play against. So in terms of balance, knights might be a success (current chaos knight boogeyman aside). But in terms of their impact on how much fun some of us are having, they actively detract from the game.

I feel like if old Pinning rules reappeared in 40k now there would be an uproar about how unfun it is to not be able to do something with your unit because it failed a Ld test. When just killing the models does the same thing. Having more than just removing models to affect their actions is a great thing. Everytime I look at current 40k, it just looks like it was designed to be marines punching marines to get maximum enjoyment from the rules as they currently stand. Playing anything else just works against the biases in the game itself.

I remember pinning getting complained about plenty back when it was a thing. While I like the high concept of reducing actions/effectiveness rather than needing to kill a unit outright, the implementation was kind of frustrating and non-interactive. The player with pinning got to make the somewhat interesting decision of splashing pinning weapons into their list in place of other choices that might have been more lethal, but the player on the receiving end just randomly lost control of their unit for a turn after failing a single leadership check, usually without any real counterplay.

It was basically an X% chance of having your unit stun locked for a turn. Which then meant there was a good chance that unit was either going to die outright because you'd been banking on its offense to remove a threat in the immediate area (ex: having a short-ranged shooty unit wipe out a melee unit before the unit could charge), or else a chance that your slow foot slogging unit would reach the enemy too late to make a difference in the flow of the game.

In theory, a better implementation of the concept would be one that presents the pinned player with new and interesting choices rather than just stun-locking a unit and taking away actions. Or perhaps a version of the mechanic that provides more opportunities to react to the possibility of being stunned rather than it being an all or nothing outcome based on a single unmodifiable leadership test. Like, if there was a mechanic for commanders' attention/focus that could be spent rallying squads/buffing their pinning tests. Or if we had an AA system where pinning was represented by stacking stress tokens so you'd have the option of moving the unit behind some cover when you saw that they were starting to rack up the stress tokens.

But generally, I think it's possible to give armies advantages that are both fun to have and fun to face off against. Challenging, sure, but ultimately a more rewarding form of design than making both armies annoying to their opponents and hoping that players are more entertained by their own advantages than they are annoyed by their opponent's.

 alextroy wrote:
Negative Hit roll modifiers are avoided because too many models have a WS or BS of 5+. The modifier is much more significant there than for a model with a 2+. Given the uneven distribution of especially BS between armies, it is difficult to balance a negative Hit modifier. This makes it a Bad Mechanic in this circumstance.

Death Guard + Skullsquirm Blight + Morty's Hammer + VS Orks = Lots of laughs - one friend

 Wyldhunt wrote:

 Hellebore wrote:

It's going to be bit of both, but using how something 'feels' to determine its objective balance is a flawed methodology and I don't really like seeing it used as a conventional wisdom reason for objecting to how an army or mechanic works.

I feel like you're touchign on two semi-separate things here. Subjective feelings aren't good for determining whether something is objectively balanced, we agree on that. BUT, ultimately the point of a game is to give the players an enjoyable experience. So even if the math on a given unit or mechanic or whatever checks out as being balanced, it's possible for it to still be a bad bit of game design if players aren't enjoying themselves.

Or in other words, just because something is balanced doesn't necessarily mean that it's fun. And fun is arguably the main goal.

[

True. There's this example that is often quoted to illustrate such cases - designers in an online game reworked a certain mechanic so that instead of giving a penalty it withheld a reward. The result mechanically was the same but, as it didn't trigger the loss aversion bias, it was received more favourably by players.

Or how designers introduce more randomness into a game for it to be less discouraging for weaker/newer players, with the example of a multiplayer online shooter increasing the chance of a critical hit, increasing how many times a newbie could come out victorious of a sudden encounter. Player retention increased as a result.

ccs 817088 11770314 wrote:

So, out of curiosity, why are you bothering to post about it here in 2025?

There are people who hate each other because of a stolen bucket in 1325. 20y ago is like yestarday. I don't think I will ever forget the enjoyment of playing vs aloitoc flyer wing.

Dudeface wrote:

 Hairesy wrote:

ccs wrote:

 Hairesy wrote:

Tyel wrote:
Crying about Tau feels so 2006.

Accurate, as that's probably close to when I stopped caring about GW.

So, out of curiosity, why are you bothering to post about it here in 2025?

Because the point of forums is to discuss things. I suppose if you absolutely need a current hot take I hate Primaris and think that whole thing is boring af, nonsensical to the setting and breaks established lore in an unfixable way.

9 year old take sadly at this point, not against the participation though!

I refuse to find something new to dislike and would rather wallow in elegiac collectors joy.

Cyel wrote:

 Wyldhunt wrote:

 Hellebore wrote:

It's going to be bit of both, but using how something 'feels' to determine its objective balance is a flawed methodology and I don't really like seeing it used as a conventional wisdom reason for objecting to how an army or mechanic works.

I feel like you're touchign on two semi-separate things here. Subjective feelings aren't good for determining whether something is objectively balanced, we agree on that. BUT, ultimately the point of a game is to give the players an enjoyable experience. So even if the math on a given unit or mechanic or whatever checks out as being balanced, it's possible for it to still be a bad bit of game design if players aren't enjoying themselves.

Or in other words, just because something is balanced doesn't necessarily mean that it's fun. And fun is arguably the main goal.

[

True. There's this exame that is often quoted to illustrate such cases - designers in an online game reworked a certain mechanic so that instead of giving a penalty it withheld a reward. The result mechanically was the same but, as it didn't trigger the loss aversion bias, it was rceived more favourably by players.

Or how designers introduce more randomness into a game for it to be less discouraging for weaker/newer players, woth the example of a multiplayer online shooter increasing the chance of a critical hit, increasing howany times a newbie could come out victorious of a sudden encounter. Player retention increased as a result.

My argument is that many of these feelsbad comments I see are due to self inflicted denial/delusion about what a wargame should be representing and how it should be played, than a game that's actually 'unfun'. Or that GW are doing a bad job at expectation managing their customers on exactly what the game they are selling them is and does.

It would be like starting to play tennis and then complaining that it's not a team sport played on a round field. Which, if the tennis association advertised it as a large field game you can play with friends, would be their fault. Otherwise it would be player's making demands of a game outside its design.

If GW just want to build a customer base as massively as possible, they'd simplify the game even more and stop concentrating on tournaments because that's not where the majority of their customers exist. But, if they are starting from the conceit that the game is even notionally a wargame and should be treated like one, then the game itself has a finite scope of change within which it would be designed to maintain that conceit.



I absolutely think games should be enjoyable, but the definition of fun is set by the parameters of the activity. The fun of hide and seek is set as either managing to hide, or managing to find people. It's not throwing balls at people, or boxing them, or scoring goals between goal posts. The fun is clearly defined. Other games hiding is right out, so you aren't supposed to derive your enjoyment from hiding from your tennis opponent.

In some (but not all) cases of 'feelsbad', the complaint is actually that a wargame has defined an aspect of gameplay, like not being able to 100% perfectly control your troops at all times, as a feature of the game that should be where the fun is derived. Their issue is with the definition of a wargame, not that the game has a rule they don't like. That is where I find the feelsbad argument really frustrating and very egocentric.

You can enjoy literally anything with the right context setting. the Room is watched because it's bad, Citizen Kane because it's good. You can create a game scenario where one side will definitely lose all their models by the end of the game, but the context is a last stand to do something really cool, so even when you've 'lost' in one way, you can still 'win' the scenario.


Feelsbad is only valid when it's working within the framework of what a wargame is. If you are arguing with the very concepts of what a wargame represents and is simulating, then it means you are either playing the wrong game, or have very warped expectations of what the game should be.

In some (but not all) cases of 'feelsbad', the complaint is actually that a wargame has defined an aspect of gameplay, like not being able to 100% perfectly control your troops at all times, as a feature of the game that should be where the fun is derived. Their issue is with the definition of a wargame, not that the game has a rule they don't like. That is where I find the feelsbad argument really frustrating and very egocentric.
...
Feelsbad is only valid when it's working within the framework of what a wargame is. If you are arguing with the very concepts of what a wargame represents and is simulating, then it means you are either playing the wrong game, or have very warped expectations of what the game should be.

I guess I'd need a specific example to meaningfully respond to that. With the pinning example you gave earlier, I absolutely understand why getting pinned with next to no ability to interact with that mechanic would be frustrating.

It kind of sounds like you're saying people were wrong to be frustrated because the fluff of the game is that it's about battle and units getting pinned is a thing that happens in battle. (Not to put words in your mouth.)

And as I said with the pinning example, I can picture different ways of representing pinning that would make it feel less arbitrary and create interesting choices for players rather than essentially being a % chance to get severely fethed over by an unlucky leadership test.

EDIT: Like, if someone just invented tennis and was trying to sell me on it and one of the rules was that players had to punch themselves in the balls every time they scored a point, I'd be like, "Hey, that punching myself in the balls part isn't really contributing positively to my sportsball experience."

And if the inventor of the sport said, "Well, punching yourself in the balls is a big part of the sport. I was very upfront about the ball punching," I wouldn't find that a compelling reason to keep the ball punching rule.

The concept of pinning is an example of what I'm talking about. The specific feels bad about not being able to control your troops effectively all the time was given by several people this thread and across many others as a 'poor' rule that should be removed like AoS removing Ld tests.

your comment about finding different ways to represent pinning is within the framework of pinning still existing as it should in a wargame, so that's not what I'm referring to. Someone saying it shouldnt exist at all because they don't like it is what l'm referring to.

Similarly, to hit modifiers being feelsbad - no one is always effective at hitting a target in war. Removing that factor is poor implementation. If everyone always hit their targets wars would be over immediately. These things are frustrating to deal with, but dealing with them is what commanders in war have to do, which the player is acting as. Sometimes the challenge you have to solve in war is to accomplish something with no favourable conditions or advantages. It used to be that was one of the biggest kudos events in a wargame experience, that you overcame unfavourable odds to pull victory where someone else might have been defeated. The first wargames were all historical reinactments for history nerds to see if they could have won when Napoleon lost at Waterloo, or the Alamo etc. Deliberately taking the poor conditions as the fun aspect they're trying to overcome. LIterally the feelsbad aspect of no hope was the recontextualised as the feelsgood of victory against all odds.

40k now is just chuck dice until you bash people to death, or manage to stack combo attacks to wipe enemy units in a single strike.


The ball punching example is a little sideways because tennis isn't trying to simulate something that has known factors in it. A wargame is simulating warfare between imperfect soldiers, on an imperfect battlefield with imperfect CNC. There are things that are not fun that you have to deal with in that scenario, or you're not trying to play a wargame.

If "ball-punching" is too literal, you can come up with other examples.

I.E.
Armies have logistics issues. To simulate this, any time you select a unit to shoot you have to roll a dice. If you roll a 1, bad luck, you've run out of bullets. That unit can't shoot now or for the rest of the game.

We can, GW style, even embrace this rule, adding a complicated array of modifiers and rerolls, which may or may not be governed by keywords. In 20 years time people will debate whether it was fluffy or not that in 11th edition Space Marines auto-passed because Space Marines etc etc etc.

I think something like this even was a rule in Necromunda, maybe Gorkamorka.

Its something perfectly reasonable to have in a war game.

But...... I'd also argue however its adding a massive luck element to the game, which some players may or may not like. Its certainly adding a major "feels bad" moments, that will inevitably happen regularly. No one is going to enjoy being told "no, soz, left the ammo at home" when their big shooty unit is about to open up.

I don't think it would be remotely surprising if the bulk of players went "this rule sucks, please get rid of it GW". To which you might say "aha! You're not trying to play a wargame." To which they'd respond "we don't care."