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Why not try playing with alternate formats like Kill Team and Combat Patrol? Alternate terrain setups? Alternate mission rules?

Even chess isn't balanced... IIRC, white holds a small advantage by moving first. Good luck balancing a glorious mess like 40k!

40k players can afford $200 superheavies that break the game. I'm pretty sure they can afford 10 minutes to read rules you can download online for free.

How about this. I show up on Thursdays, and play other people who also like to play skirmish and smaller games so I don't have to deal with someone's shiny and poorly balanced 1850pt army.

How hard is that? It takes a minimum of organization.

 ImAGeek wrote:
f you rely on pickup games you're far more likely to come across people who refuse to change the way they play or try new ways of playing than if you are part of a group who plays lots of different ways.

Well, that's why people play on groups -- more cooperation, more flexibility, more fun. Even most of the tourney guys know each other. It's a group of sorts. Kind of a lesson there.

Social pressure to be a good partner also discourages people who are actively trying to break the game in order to win.

That's kind of the point of alt formats, get off the hamster wheel of spending and power creep issues. Aside from skirmish you have formats like highlander. I don't get the hostility towards them -- it's the same ruleset.

It should be noted some people LIKE reaping the advantages of spending and power creep. That is another good reason to get away from it all.

Naw wrote:
So let's not even try, huh! That's great.

Ha! You certainly CAN try!

However, rather than take some responsibility on ourselves to play with more cover, bigger tables, houserules, different FOCs or missions, or anything else, some people would rather just complain on the internet. No surprises there really lol!

You guys are going down a rabbit hole because game balance is not uniquely about units. As Martel said, "many game systems break down when optimizing players start doing their thing". Most online competitive games need to track performance closely and implement both flash and scheduled balance tweaks. GW won't have the same digital statistics available to track performance, 40k doesn't produce the same volume of games to create a sample size, the game is not oriented towards the competitive scene, codexes are released as one-shot deals entirely out of sequence rather than being updated holistically, there's no standardized boards to use as a baseline, etc.

Yes, GW could do better. But you're not ever going to reach an e-sports level of competition as a tabletop game and I'd question why even bother. There is already a functioning competitive scene that's (dare I say) well-managed. You can already put up or shut up if you want to play competitively. Top players are throwing curveballs with outsider units like Lictors and Scouts. Those models still regarded as "extraneous" even when they make up 700-ish points of an 1850 list. RunicFN is right when he said most players don't get it. 99% of us are casuals, and our issues are within the casual scene. Go lurk in the tournament subforum if you want to debate this, nobody there is too worried about Decurion. To make the point even more academic where every unit becomes "competitively" viable, GW needs to change the way they publish. They would also have to change their focus, from putting out new models like Skitarii and popular new rulesets like Detachments. Do you see this happening? Hell no. Do you see players buying these? Hell yes.

Anyway, winners adapt and overcome, losers complain and accomplish nothing. You want to play in the current 40k meta? Suck it up. TO's already are changing what they want to. Example? Two-source armies aren't a GW rule. Limited rerolls, invisibility nerfs, etc. It's been customized already. You don't want to play in the current 40k meta? Well, adapt and overcome by making some friends, changing what you want to, and ensure you get the best out of your experience as possible. Dota started off as a fun custom game for Warcraft 3 that "competitive players" dissed, and ended up outliving it's parent. There's absolutely nothing wrong with innovation or doing your own thing. Maybe your "classic" 40k format ends up more popular than the vanilla ruleset. If your ego is keeping you shackled to one negative game experience after another... well, maybe stop? I personally am not going to cry all over my keyboard like some spoiled toddler because GW didn't write the rules I wanted. I will either tailor games with a buddy like my brother since we both know it's only for fun, or I simply walk away if I'm not having fun and not metaphorically throw good money after bad. Life is short and time is valuable. I am certainly not going to bash my head against a brick wall like a dumbass and then blame GW for it.

Your game experience is ultimately going to be decided by the kind of people you play with. This basic fact is not getting enough attention in this thread. /rant

Good example

Look at the point about Warmachine above. 40k isn't designed the same way.

As you say, "40K still works, essentially, in a casual environment amongst a regular social group who are free to select which items from the "menu" they do or don't want in their games."

What makes it so hard to read the writing on the wall when you yourself understand this?

 Xenomancers wrote:
I do suck it up. I bring Cent star every game. Usually at least 1 knight too. Or 3 DK.

Doesn't mean the game couldn't easily be more balanced. Just by looking at what units never see play and ether making them have more appealing stats or reducing their costs or in some cases just changing their FOC.

It's easy to balance it among friends/family with house rules and alt formats. Example of restricting FOC choices when you're limited to the Dark Vengeance box. The hard part is getting player buy-in from the uncooperative as Azreal described above. Any single one of us could write a classic unit restriction/costing list to play old-school skirmish games in 40k. The hard part is dealing with troublesome dudes who play the "it's not official GW rules policy" card.

Look at the YMDC forum, it's not hard to find people who will leverage every bullsh*t technicality out there to win. Even without that you have optimizers as Martel said. 40k's strengths are it's size and scale and that doesn't lend itself to tight design. So I think if you are not willing to suck it up and play within the messy rule set, you need to apply your own restrictions to manage the experience.

There was an interview a while back where GW was stated to be currently focused on collectors, not gamers.

http://www.belloflostsouls.net/2015/03/rick-priestley-talks-games-workshop.html

Which confirms a lot of suspicions, but at the same time, it means you shouldn't expect any kind of balance solutions coming anytime soon from GW.

Another thing to keep in mind guys, those dusty Tac Marines and Terminators can be sold second-hand to new players. GW makes no margin on that transaction except for updated rules and codexes.

It's somewhat in their favor to keep the best units relatively new so they can keep producing and moving new stock.

http://www.fightingtigersofveda.com/roarseconomics.html

Anyways it all gets very complicated, but the easiest solution to avoid the bullsh*t is still to play with friends and a ruleset/format that you can enjoy.

Aside from the more questionable writing decisions of GW, you had certain casual players arguing rules "issues" like how their immobilized skimmer, sitting like a large fat rock in a farm field, somehow should receive a 4+ cover save from Jink.

That's not sloppy rules writing from GW. If you can scrape together two brain cells the solution should be obvious. It borders on embarrassing they had to FAQ it for the wider playerbase! That's why a lot of people like to play with old friends, or family, and stay away the hell away from the greater 40k community. Most rules and balance "issues" simply vanish or get taken care of promptly once you're around the right people.

The community is both the single biggest incentive and disincentive to participating in 40k. Not the ruleset or codex balance. Anyway, here's a far better epic rant than I can come up with alone. Fun for a little different take on things.

http://www.unrememberedlegion.com/2014/10/07/youre-not-a-40k-player-youre-a-wargaming-enthusiast/

Who knows? If you're the kind of guy to counter a very basic and obvious conclusion by trying to cloud the issue with a completely unrelated counter-argument, I'd probably just avoid playing with you.

We shrug off issues and resolve conflicts in everything from rec sports to drinking games to Monopoly.

Rules lawyering and lack of etiquette are huge breaches of the social contract in these games.

Apparently 40k is an exception.

Martel732 wrote:
In my experience, gamers rules lawyer EVERY game.

It's not like they can shut off their personality. But some places are going to find poor behaviour more difficult to address than others. A store kicking out a paying customer is difficult. Kicking out an over-competitive guy, who's been aggressively slide-tackling girls in pick-up soccer at the park, is hard not to do.

Martel732 wrote:
Rules lawyering is very different from physical assault of women in a park. And GW frequently writes rules that REQUIRE lawyering because they are ambiguous. They probably think they are being clever or something.

A slide tackle is not physical assault. It can piss people off though as despite being legal, it's an aggressive play and isn't really appropriate outside a somewhat competitive setting.

 RunicFIN wrote:
The day they only make models and -nothing- else is the day their focus on gaming is lost.

Competitive tournaments with organizers and cool casual players can both make 40k work. There is a lot of enthusiasm out there and it's not hard to find.

What produces grief is being in a tryhard environment, inside local metas too small to have an organizing body, dealing with rules that open the door to lawyering, playing against opponents that relentlessly powerlist and fight tooth and nail for shady advantages, while simultaneously dealing with the fact that GW's publishing habits leave certain armies in the dust for years.

Considering the former two groups mentioned seem to deal passably well with GW's rather loosey-goosey rules and game balance, you have to ask what makes the latter group so special they can't cope. I figure it has to come down to a lack of cooperation in the social environment between players. That's why they expect a flawless ruleset and tight game balance to compensate in return. With somebody like my brother, immobilized Jink ruling? So easy. With somebody like the guy above? Well, be prepared for a very long argument.

Despite the tight balance of Warmachine, I've read about people quitting simply because they didn't like the other players involved. Too competitive and playing gotcha with newer players by referring to subtle quirks in the well-crafted rules. Certain people can apparently find a way to ruin anything. So it's not a sureshot fix to deliver a good experience either -- in the end, it all comes down to the people you're with.


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Bonus joke: http://penny-arcade.respondcreate.com/images/comics/1163731463_kt4V2-L.jpeg

 Talys wrote:
Another believes that 40k is like an RPG, and that making things work the way you want it to is more important than what's in a book anyways.

This is a lot closer to the true origins of 40k, where Warhammer was designed as a game because more miniatures could be sold in a tabletop wargame than as a unique RPG character. This hardcore e-sports style obsession with balance is something that's a lot more modern than 1980's goofiness with guitar-toting noise marines.

But yes, reasonable people can usually be flexible, and make just about everything work. And unreasonable people can break even the finest of game systems. Nothing new under the sun.


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Here is an article about the early days of the company.

http://www.unpluggedgames.co.uk/2015/02/13/games-workshop-the-inside-story-part-one/

Maybe I will design a perfectly balanced competitive game, where two male players race to see who can be the first to pound their nuts flat with a hammer. You can choose from one of three factions. The ruleset will be very clear and every faction has been painstakingly balanced in terms of mass, striking area and leverage so that your nut-pounding tool leaves no player at a disadvantage. May the best man win! I'm sure a few of you in this thread would probably love it.

 Accolade wrote:

Yoyoyo wrote:
Maybe I will design a perfectly balanced competitive game, where two male players race to see who can be the first to pound their nuts flat with a hammer. You can choose from one of three factions. The ruleset will be very clear and every faction has been painstakingly balanced in terms of mass, striking area and leverage so that your nut-pounding tool leaves no player at a disadvantage. May the best man win! I'm sure a few of you in this thread would probably love it.

So this is what we've gotten to, just being derogatory to other commenters in the thread. I'm thinking this topic needs to die.

The point is that there's a lot more to a fun experience than competitive balance

Some people eat competitively. I'll take a pass though.

 Blacksails wrote:
Right, but that was never a point people were contending. The general idea was that 40k could stand to be improved for all player types by even a small amount of balance in point cost shifting and tweaking of some abilities.

That's exactly why players from me and my bro, to national GT organizers, apply house rules to improve their gaming experience. That's pretty much proof EVERYONE agrees with that.

You can certainly state that GW could do better. No problem,. I'm just surprised by all the people who seem to be offended by the idea of taking any responsibility for their gaming experience by applying an ounce of cooperation to smooth out balance and rules issues.

 Azreal13 wrote:
Any activity where parties compete to determine a winner ceases to be fun when one of those parties has an unfair and unwarranted advantage.

It depends on how outcome-oriented you are. I've played ping-pong near the beach in a gusting wind, it's hardly fair. But it was still fun.

40k doesn't have the pedigree, reach, base, resources, or impartial oversight of a sport like tennis or racing. The only thing that comes close in a board game is chess, and that has 1400+ years over 40k. WMH might have a better ruleset but again, that isn't the main draw of 40k for every player.

I think you need to have some perspective both on what GW will actually take on responsibility for, and how many of your expectations of will actually be fulfilled in a casual setting. GW is not an oversight body and shows no desire to become one. Meanwhile, Frontline Gaming has 20-ish pages of rules erratas but they're too small an organization to set up bush leagues for teenagers and referee at your local.

So in this environment, what can players do? Well, take on more responsibility for themselves. Participating in car racing or tennis at high levels costs a LOT more than 40k does. I don't see this happening so you have to look towards solutions that are pragmatic.

 TheKbob wrote:
So, you're happy with investing $130+ in rules that require you to fix them further, when even the most expensive competitor offers the entirety of their games rules for $60 for the lifetime of the edition for every faction?

Nah Kbob. I'm happy if I'm having fun. I am not that complicated. I try and squeeze the most value out of everything I do, rather than try and find reasons to make myself unhappy. I've heard it said in the context of dating, but today's expectations are usually tomorrow's resentments. I put having fun first -- balance, winning, rules, they are really all subservient in the goal of me enjoying my free time. So I don't stress the details.

Thanks for the good idea on naming my new game though

The only source I found claimed 500,000 active players worldwide and three times as many collectors. God knows where they got the stats though,

http://driftlessareareview.com/2013/03/13/are-the-costs-involved-with-warhammer-40k-an-integral-part-of-participating-within-the-game/

Yeah, well, reading the article helps too. It's from 2013 and she was perhaps referencing a 2012 figure.

http://investor.games-workshop.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/Preliminary-announcement-2012-final.pdf

40% is surprising but the chairman does reference a 47% improvement on return on capital. Either way, jump in and help dig for information buddy, no need to stand on the sidelines!

Nevermind, got it myself

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard-business/article-24025567-games-workshop-profits-surge-40-percent.do

The IP will outlive GW. Guaranteed.

Anyway, calm down kids. I think it's all getting a little sidetracked at this point.

With no backing it's pretty hard to say how credible it is. It also doesn't take into account changes in the last 2 years.

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AllSeeingSkink wrote:
It might just be a broken and beaten cancerous mess that no one cares about

lol! Probably true for a while, then again XCOM took a 20 year break and it was glorious on the return. So I never get too negative

 Accolade wrote:
I came back to say this: I loved the new XCOM game that came out for 360.

well at least in this epic thread, at least two of us ended up getting along

I need to find some minis with baseball caps to do a proper conversion!