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Why do people only care about winning in Warhammer 40k?

They don't. Some folks care about a game that tells a story, some care about presenting a table and two gorgeous armies, and some care about ruining other people's good times.

What do you care about?

I think it would be wrong to say people only care about winning. but to most, being able to win sometimes is a sign of a balanced game, and thus is desireable.

no one wants to get destroyed 500 times every 501 games they play. that's what most of the complaints are based on. People dont "win or gtfo" but if they lose no matter what they do, its the game developer's fault for creating imbalance.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
much like why no one uses jigglypuff in online smash bros. it just isn't fun to suck because of something that was never your fault. especially if that something cost you 2 or 3 grand and hours of work painting.

ATXMILEY wrote:
Why do people only care about winning in Warhammer 40k?

Most don't obsess over it.

There are many that like story driven gameplay and the like. The problem is that the game, despite it's many claims, doesn't actually offer much in the way of that. The way the game presents deployment, missions, setup, etc, is still all done in a competitive "chess" style manner that functionally drives a competitive style game, even if it's all so poorly executed that it doesn't function very well.

On top of that, there's "caring about winning" and then there's "well I don't want to play a pre-determined one-sided curbstomping" where the outcome is known before the game starts and/or one side has mechanics that simply make most of your actions meaningless (e.g. wound-allocation gimmicking high save/high invul deathstars with tons of support psychic powers, Decurion RP, Destroyer Weapons, etc). A lot of people are ok with getting outplayed or just having bad dice luck, but people generally don't like playing from an obvious handicap.

Also, more fundamentally, everyone likes winning, to deny that is to deny a fundamental aspect of human nature, and, like it or not, 40k *is* a game with victory conditions that does result in a "winner" and a "loser".

People don't care ONLY about winning. There might be people who care MORE about winning than YOU.

In the context of 40k, there's more people who care about having a fair fight which other people often misinterpret as "only caring about winning", maybe this is where your confusion comes from.

But this thread strikes me as very trollish.

 Vaktathi wrote:

ATXMILEY wrote:
Why do people only care about winning in Warhammer 40k?

Most don't obsess over it.

There are many that like story driven gameplay and the like. The problem is that the game, despite it's many claims, doesn't actually offer much in the way of that. The way the game presents deployment, missions, setup, etc, is still all done in a competitive "chess" style manner that functionally drives a competitive style game, even if it's all so poorly executed that it doesn't function very well.

On top of that, there's "caring about winning" and then there's "well I don't want to play a pre-determined one-sided curbstomping" where the outcome is known before the game starts and/or one side has mechanics that simply make most of your actions meaningless (e.g. wound-allocation gimmicking high save/high invul deathstars with tons of support psychic powers, Decurion RP, Destroyer Weapons, etc). A lot of people are ok with getting outplayed or just having bad dice luck, but people generally don't like playing from an obvious handicap.

Also, more fundamentally, everyone likes winning, to deny that is to deny a fundamental aspect of human nature, and, like it or not, 40k *is* a game with victory conditions that does result in a "winner" and a "loser".

wanting to win is the most important thing in any game, there always needs to be a winner because competition is always fun, it adds to the game. The game being fun or fluff drivin is something that is already in place. Fun people have fun games regardless of the out come

Why do people use broad inaccurate sweeping generalizations?

I only care about winning when winning is what was called for: IE tournaments. (And even then I often get lost in the fun of the game and forget about the fact that it's a tourney.)

In casual games I just want the opponent to have fun. I've got enough documented 40k "skill-cred" already. So for those I put together varied interesting lists with good mixes of weapon types/unit types, usually sprinkling in suboptimal units like Sanguinor and tactical termies, or ask the other player what he wants to run against, and have a laugh pushin' plastic and rollin' dice. (I still try to put up a fight in casual play with mediocre lists just because it won't be fun for the opponent if I just throw the game.)

It depends on who you play. I, for example, am super laid back about it, as long as I have fun with the battle, win or lose, I'm happy. I enjoy getting defeated if it's done well (I.E. through superior planning and tactics, not through codex imbalance), and even if I have no chance (like the first time I fought a IG armoured list) it's still a lot of fun, a desperate hold out until help, or possible escape arrives. Holding the imperium back, fighting our hardest for the greater good. That sort of thing.

I think there needs to be more clarification in the OP.
Competition is a major driving force in games. It gets you to know your codex, know the enemy, and how to handle the first against the second.

Really good games to me are when the game is either very close at the end, or was drastically changed in the middle due to a lucky roll or good move. Something that makes both players push and try hard to pull out a win.
But the win isn't what is important. Both players go for it, but it's not the goal. The goal is to have a hard fought game.

I'll put it this way. I have bad memories of games that were crushing victories or loses. I don't remember how good games ended that well, but remember a lot of what happened mid game.

 Savageconvoy wrote:
Really good games to me are when the game is either very close at the end, or was drastically changed in the middle due to a lucky roll or good move. Something that makes both players push and try hard to pull out a win.
But the win isn't what is important. Both players go for it, but it's not the goal. The goal is to have a hard fought game.

I'll put it this way. I have bad memories of games that were crushing victories or loses. I don't remember how good games ended that well, but remember a lot of what happened mid game.

My sentiment exactly. A good fight (win or lose) is what I want to experience and one sided stomps just leave me feeling unsatisfied. Sure the goal is to win but its the fight for that win that makes the game fun.

They don't. Probably 8 out of 10 players have more fun in an incredibly close loss, with casualties on both sides and epic fights all around than a one sided victory.

The remaining 2? Just don't play.

Unless its total bullgak (Every game I have ever played besides one against orks and one at MWG) I dont care about winning or losing. Now when my friends bring warriors and cryptek spam, I rage and bring 4 vindicators to show who is better at cheese

Most the people i've met who seem meta gamey, cheesy and hate losing are the same people who complain about models not being painted "correctly"

I also know somebody who kit's out low number/high cost troop armies.
He loses most the time but he enjoys thinking of all his games as last stand and seeing how many units he can take down with him.

 Jimsolo wrote:
They don't. Some folks care about a game that tells a story, some care about presenting a table and two gorgeous armies, and some care about ruining other people's good times.

And some people enjoy having a competitive game. And some people hate the people who enjoy the competitive gaming, but I've found it's usually because they're pretty poor sports.

 DarkLink wrote:

 Jimsolo wrote:
They don't. Some folks care about a game that tells a story, some care about presenting a table and two gorgeous armies, and some care about ruining other people's good times.

And some people enjoy having a competitive game. And some people hate the people who enjoy the competitive gaming, but I've found it's usually because they're pretty poor sports.

I agree that competitive players are often very poor sports.

Dman137 wrote:
wanting to win is the most important thing in any game

Hey! Didn't you watch the movie "Surf's Up?"

The most important thing is always lookin' good, of course

 Arkaine wrote:

 DarkLink wrote:

 Jimsolo wrote:
They don't. Some folks care about a game that tells a story, some care about presenting a table and two gorgeous armies, and some care about ruining other people's good times.

And some people enjoy having a competitive game. And some people hate the people who enjoy the competitive gaming, but I've found it's usually because they're pretty poor sports.

I agree that competitive players are often very poor sports.

You haven't met many competitive players then. Nor, apparently, is your grasp of grammar particularly sharp .

In all seriousness, I've ran into far, far, far fewer sportsmanship issues going to tournaments than in pickup games. Pickup games are a total crapshoot. But people who play in tournaments are either naturally good sports, or learn quickly that poor sportsmanship isn't tolerated and rapidly become good sports. The reason I go to tournaments is because I know I'm pretty much guaranteed to get 3-6 good games in against cool opponents. After years of playing in dozens of tournaments from local events to all the LVO's, I think I've met about three or four people total out of several hundred that would qualify as a TFG, and they usually only go to small local events because they've garnered a reputation and are banned from larger events.

If you don't play to win, you're playing to lose, you choose.

Why are competitive players looked at with such animosity? The only reason I play this game is because its competitive! I enjoy pitting my forces against another person in a battle of wits, winning is always my goal and I hope it is for my opponent aswell. Yes the model building, customization, painting, sci-fi fluff, are all great fun... but in all honesty, I wouldn't be buying and painting all these models if it weren't for the competitive nature of the hobby

This is a competitive hobby, and if you enjoy all its different facets, the happier you'll be.

If you're not playing to win what are you playing for? What is it you'll be able to get out of your games, that a competitive person can't get out of his/her own games?

Ætherowl wrote:

Why are competitive players looked at with such animosity?

There has been a large rift in the community around this. A lot of times "competitive" is meant to refer to TFG and WAAC players, but only rarely do they specify.

The game has been unbalanced for a while, where a fluffy army can be a waste of time to put on the board (Tzeentch based Chaos Marines) or can be a steam roller (formations).
Some place the blame on the people that make the rules. Other place the blame on players that look to make a list of what's good for them rather than what's good for the "narrative".
Some people say the game is meant to be 1 vs 1 while others insist it's meant to be an RPG style game where you're supposed to play out battles in a fixed setting with premade lists and rules.

Personally I blame the rule makers for making units that you can't take, either too good or too bad. At the buy in cost to the game, I can't afford to buy multiple bad units to satisfy the idea of fairness to someone else. And our goals are not mutually exclusive. Asking for good rules for mutilators benefits both competitive and casual players. Asking for balanced rules for D weapons and their distribution HURTS TFG and WAAC while helping casual players.

I think there is a big rift in the game that puts player against player and everyone really needs to recognize that there is a problem and who can fix it, universally, and should do so if they want to market a product as a "premium"

ATXMILEY wrote:
Why do people only care about winning in Warhammer 40k?

Because loosing is poorly incentivized.

Only a Sith believes in absolutes!...Lol

Honestly it might be observer bias compounded by the games current construction. The forums expose you to alot of the hyper competitive types who also tend to be the more vocal forum goers which didn't help. And in my personal experience here in dakka they are quite the highly opinionated bunch with usually only their belief that they are right to support them, or a bunch of math depending which at least is something. Your experience may differ.

Doesn't help that GW says in the beginning of the rules book that it is meant to be a casual game, and then everybody forgets that. Not surprising with how many other rules there are to remember LOL. But then go look at their game AoS and you see a completely different player type. Mind you you have to over look the ones desperately trying to put some numeric factor to it and make the game competitive anyway, since they really aren't playing it in its intended form where you and your opponent just have to agree to the games parameters and get rolling. And heaven forbid your balance is off you reset the board and change things around to compensate and agree to a different set of armies or whatever.

All that said. Click bait instigating is crude dude. Lol

i wish wh40k was more popular to the mainstream.

KnuckleWolf wrote:

Doesn't help that GW says in the beginning of the rules book that it is meant to be a casual game, and then everybody forgets that. Not surprising with how many other rules there are to remember LOL

So in one breath you carry on about "It's just a casual game guys, jeez!" and in the next breath you practically admit that the amount of rules is nowhere near comparable to any other casual tabletop game in the market? 40k is neither a casual game nor a casual hobby. You might play it with a casual attitude, which IMHO is what everyone should do, but to act like it doesn't take a substantial amount of effort (and financial investment) to learn and participate in is hilariously naive.

KnuckleWolf wrote:

....since they really aren't playing it in its intended form where you and your opponent just have to agree to the games parameters and get rolling. And heaven forbid your balance is off you reset the board and change things around to compensate and agree to a different set of armies or whatever.

It must be nice to live in a place where a lopsided game can so easily be fixed by just saying "Do-over" and making the winning player tone down their list. Most of the times I've had lopsided games (regardless of winning/losing), there was a great deal of debate as to whether it was the lists themselves or the people playing them.

I mean, if I win and you tell me "Your list wasn't fair, play again and take worse stuff," and I respond that I thought your list was fine, are you really gonna call me TFG and make a fuss? Not to mention the logistics of having to constantly take extra time "re-doing" games because someone misinterpreted the balance of the two lists, or one player doesn't know how to use theirs, or any number of other factors that can contribute to bad games... factors that are strongly mitigated against by having clean, concise, well-intentioned rules.

 Filch wrote:
i wish wh40k was more popular to the mainstream.

Honestly, I'm on the fence on this. More players obviously means I get to play more people. On the other hand, if "the mainstream" is the demographic that fits the CoD player stereotype, I'd prefer they stay the feth away from the hobby.

DaPino wrote:

 Filch wrote:
i wish wh40k was more popular to the mainstream.

Honestly, I'm on the fence on this. More players obviously means I get to play more people. On the other hand, if "the mainstream" is the demographic that fits the CoD player stereotype, I'd prefer they stay the feth away from the hobby.

Allow me to echo this feeling.
Mainstreaming a game requires careful management of the game's rules... which is something we all know GW is soooo good at.
And hell, if people complain a lot about competitive players alread I can't even fathom the shitstorm that will be if 40k went mainstream. If that happens, insult hurling and punch throwing will become far too common for my tastes.

Why do people only care about winning in Warhammer 40k?

I like to win. I play to win. I also never played with any allies for my DA and have never joined a bandwagon. There's a difference between playing to win a game and being the WAAC type of player.

DaPino wrote:

 Filch wrote:
i wish wh40k was more popular to the mainstream.

Honestly, I'm on the fence on this. More players obviously means I get to play more people. On the other hand, if "the mainstream" is the demographic that fits the CoD player stereotype, I'd prefer they stay the feth away from the hobby.

I highly disagreed with this, as CoD is not exactly mainstream, but mainstream in a specific setting with anonymity thrown in.

It's better to compare it to things like MtG where the more mainstream it has become, the more it has produced content for a wider audience, a lot of which originated in community creations, as opposed to Wizards themselves. Things like EDH (Commander) and Cube are wildly popular casual formats that are completely created by different members of the community simply playing the game as they enjoy it. One thing that is very important for games like this, is to have a casual tournament scene, not one that's super competitive, but rather one that doesn't feel like a tournament while still being a tournament. Going back to MtG, you can report almost any type of game to their online website, it might not count for much there, but it lets you unlock minor rewards like achievements, account levels (purely aesthetic), and most importantly track your stats... Imagine if you could go to an FLGS and fill out a quick form that said "Player Number, Army, Mission Type, Points, opponent, Format (ITC, Nova, etc)" and then it was submitted to a data base for you. It wouldn't hold a lot of real meaning, but it would be a good data mine for GW, while also giving you the chance to check in on your progress, and say "Well, I have a bad win/loss percent against army X at points Y." and even if you aren't someone who is aiming to be competitive you can use it to try new and interesting things out in your army as it provides some direction into what you might want to consider. Heck, it can even be as simple as "Oh, I play a lot of narrative games, and I gained enough experience on the GW website player level thing to go from Fire Warrior to Crisis Suit Pilot (Army specific) last week!".

From there it progress to an FNM style of play, which is very low stakes and very relaxed tournament play that is targeted towards more casual players with both small rewards given out in person and some minor money stakes (as in five dollars to enter, with all money going into the prize pool). The in person promos can be something really simple, like alternate versions of the Maelstrom mission cards that are identical to ones out there now but with some extra art on them, or whatever, and they can be given out as door prizes to a random X players, along with one going to the first place finish. Clearly nothing extravagant, but just something nice for players to gain that they can both collect and use.

Honestly, that could continue for a while, and I'm just going off on a rant now, but it just seems like there's so much untapped potential in this game and I simply don't believe the community could ever devolve too far as there will always be different modes of play, along with no real anonymity to encourage excessive negative behavior as we see in things like CoD.

This question is kind of misleading and makes people who prefer to play competitive type games look like or all sound like egotistical jerks which isn't the case at all. Guess what, its a game where one side is trying to beat the other and just because some people like to play to win it doesn't mean that they are "jerks". Personally I tend to ask and figure out what kind of list my opponent fields and base mine off that, however I will admit there is something fun about two people bringing their "A Game" and throwing down. I've met just as many players who "play fluffy" and are just toxic individuals who demand their opponent cater to their wants as those who are competitive jerks, its all about attitude regardless of the type of player.

Last time I checked, having a game that tells a good story and having a game that is evenly balanced so that both sides have even chances of winning aren't mutually exclusive. I don't think I need to win all the time to have fun, I am not four. But if the game is set up in a way that I am going to almost assuredly lose to certain armies no matter how my army is set up, that's a problem. I want balance so I can have games that tell a story, but one that doesn't have the ending written before the models even touch the table.

I sure don't care about winning. In fact, I have lost 90+% of my games. Still had fun, I always field stuff that's considered "weird" and I prefer games that tell a story.

cheers
Kahnawake

 gmaleron wrote:
This question is kind of misleading and makes people who prefer to play competitive type games look like or all sound like egotistical jerks which isn't the case at all. Guess what, its a game where one side is trying to beat the other and just because some people like to play to win it doesn't mean that they are "jerks". Personally I tend to ask and figure out what kind of list my opponent fields and base mine off that, however I will admit there is something fun about two people bringing their "A Game" and throwing down. I've met just as many players who "play fluffy" and are just toxic individuals who demand their opponent cater to their wants as those who are competitive jerks, its all about attitude regardless of the type of player.

The real issue is that in an unknown environment it's best to bring a high power list because it's the default, or at least one you believe can beat a high powered list. The reason for this is that outside of the restrictions GW places on the game there currently aren't any to really form a list around, and some people just find certain things fun that others wouldn't, and as such the rules are what dictate fun between two different parties. I'm not really a power gamer and don't like the whole "Deathstar" concept in 40k, but I absolutely love the Riptide model to the extent that I'd bring one to a 500 point game simply because I just want to play with it, but I also understand how some might not like that.

What's important is the rules within a format, not what's perceived as fun or not, and I think many people miss this. In fact I remember watching a Battle Report where someone had Grey Knights that could summon demons because they thought it was goofy, and not exactly because it was incredibly powerful. Their opponent was a little salty, but the whole time the player doing it was apologetic and kept stating that it wasn't because he wanted to power game, but rather that he thought it was so absurd a fluff concept that it would make sense to bring to a fun game. In the end both of them had some fun in the game and both had valid points, but neither left angry.

That's really it though, we all have different ways of playing, and it's the job of the company or TO to create a rule set that balances things, and for us to find our own fun within the rule set that doesn't take into account our opponents as we can never assume we know what they find fun. I've always been on the line of competitive and casual, I love being fluffy but I love being competitive, so I will generally dig as hard as I can to find a reason to justify my fluffy list, deck, or whatever, and a good game will always offer me a way to do that.

 Kahnawake wrote:
I sure don't care about winning. In fact, I have lost 90+% of my games. Still had fun, I always field stuff that's considered "weird" and I prefer games that tell a story.

cheers
Kahnawake

But when you win with that "weird" list, do you find it an accomplishment? Not exactly more fun, but just rewarding.