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.
My great hope with 8th edition is we will see an end to the competitive versus casual debates. Some armies will be optimized for competitive play, while others will be configured for narrative and open.
This has really bugged me, especially since 6th edition came out. While I know there were net lists floating around before then, it felt like too many people were into the power creep and just optimizing around whatever advantages the latest Codex offered.
I have always played Chaos and done well against all comers. While I don't track wins and losses, am definitely in the win column lifetime. Have always been on the side of better generals win more games, hoping that's a thing of the past.
One of the points that excites me the most about open and narrative play is that the opposing forces don't necessarily need to be balanced. The thought I am not necessarily tied to a point system, and the structure of the game gives some advantage to the person I am facing, feels right.
techsoldaten wrote: One of the points that excites me the most about open and narrative play is that the opposing forces don't necessarily need to be balanced.
Er.... what? You seem to be describing 7th here, i'm not sure what is changing?
techsoldaten wrote: My great hope with 8th edition is we will see an end to the competitive versus casual debates.
This will never end especially with the introduction of open and narrative play. While most people will have no problem with all three styles existing side by side enough people will look to the fact that there is an option to play in a way that isn't 100% balanced and competitive as being inferior to matched.
techsoldaten wrote: While I know there were net lists floating around before then, it felt like too many people were into the power creep and just optimizing around whatever advantages the latest Codex offered.
This attitude demonstrates why the argument will not be ended by 8th. People will continue to play optimized lists in 8th, and people like you will continue to look down on them for doing so.
There is no such thing as a hobby without politics. "Leave politics at the door" is itself a political statement, an endorsement of the status quo and an attempt to silence dissenting voices.
I have always played Chaos and done well against all comers. While I don't track wins and losses, am definitely in the win column lifetime. Have always been on the side of better generals win more games, hoping that's a thing of the past.
You should get some Icy-Hot and take some Advil for your arm and shoulder. You likely strained it when you patted your own back so hard.
techsoldaten wrote: This has really bugged me, especially since 6th edition came out. While I know there were net lists floating around before then, it felt like too many people were into the power creep and just optimizing around whatever advantages the latest Codex offered.
This is practically human nature; why go the hard way around something when you can easily optimise your playstyle to be much more effective?
There's nothing wrong with optimising a list in a wargame to be more effective - the problem is that 7th is so unbalanced that optimising goes way out of hand to spoil the experience. Optimisation should involve building a list that has good chemistry, using effective and well known combos, not just spamming the best units a Codex offers.
I have always played Chaos and done well against all comers. While I don't track wins and losses, am definitely in the win column lifetime. Have always been on the side of better generals win more games, hoping that's a thing of the past.
Not true with all the random dice rolls 40k has; other than cover and keeping in/out of range, there is actually very little strategy to be found in 40k. Your success is likely due to meta, or that crushing luck in your favour.
There will never be an end to Competitive v Casual as long as "casual" players lie to themselves about not caring about winning, or frowning down on people who play to win. You should always be playing to win in anything, just not at the expense of the fun.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/05/28 12:39:18
We will see it even more, because the competitive crowd will deride anything other than Matched Play as the only way to play because it's "not fair" that you can get a heavy bolter and a lascannon without paying more for the "better" weapon and/or arguing why wouldn't you just always take the "best" weapon since there's no upgrade cost.
Wayniac wrote: We will see it even more, because the competitive crowd will deride anything other than Matched Play as the only way to play because it's "not fair" that you can get a heavy bolter and a lascannon without paying more for the "better" weapon and/or arguing why wouldn't you just always take the "best" weapon since there's no upgrade cost.
In Sigmar it's easy to dismiss 90% of what you say as sour grapes.
Here, I think you may have a point. Just judging by the amount of people smack talking 3 ways to play is getting, despite being completely unobjectionable (seriously, all they're doing is giving names and legitimacy to the stuff people do anyway) it seems like 40k might not of been ready for this stuff yet.
I think the biggest issue is that people aren't seeing that Matched play is different at a fundamental level than the other 2that has nothing to do with 'balance'. Matched play is about WINNING where the other 2 are much more about fun. Both ways are legitimate but Matched play will never be as balanced as Narrative and Open because the whole point of playing matched is to make it as unbalanced as possible in your favor.
Wayniac wrote: We will see it even more, because the competitive crowd will deride anything other than Matched Play as the only way to play because it's "not fair" that you can get a heavy bolter and a lascannon without paying more for the "better" weapon and/or arguing why wouldn't you just always take the "best" weapon since there's no upgrade cost.
In Sigmar it's easy to dismiss 90% of what you say as sour grapes.
Here, I think you may have a point. Just judging by the amount of people smack talking 3 ways to play is getting, despite being completely unobjectionable (seriously, all they're doing is giving names and legitimacy to the stuff people do anyway) it seems like 40k might not of been ready for this stuff yet.
I think the biggest issue is that people aren't seeing that Matched play is different at a fundamental level than the other 2that has nothing to do with 'balance'. Matched play is about WINNING where the other 2 are much more about fun. Both ways are legitimate but Matched play will never be as balanced as Narrative and Open because the whole point of playing matched is to make it as unbalanced as possible in your favor.
It is just as unfair to assume matched is purely about WAAC attitudes and winning over fun as it is to assume narrative is about babies who only want to play in the kiddie pool.
Playing the game is about fun. Regardless of what "version" of the list building system you are using or the mission you play everyone is setting up their miniatures primarily to have some fun.
These are my opinions. This is how I feel. Others may feel differently. This needs to be stated for some reason.
techsoldaten wrote: My great hope with 8th edition is we will see an end to the competitive versus casual debates. Some armies will be optimized for competitive play, while others will be configured for narrative and open.
Taking a look at some other threads on the the matter- with the combined inability to comprehend the very idea of narrative and the resulting condescension on display- I think that's very optimistic.
Narrative versus competitive play is a fight that really should never have taken place to begin with. What narrative is can be very subjective, be it trying to recreate Kryptmann's Gambit to place a Genestealer on a Space Hulk bound for the Octarius sector, or a "gaks-and-giggles" fight with no intent of ever being competitive: (for example, in 5th I once partook in a "battle of the Walkers" game, where I ran a Dreadmob list with 5 Shokk Attack Guns and lots of Kans, and my opponent ran Karamazov, 9 Pentitent Engines and 9 Sentinels.
The problem with trying to bridge "narrative" and "competitive" is that sometimes, what happens in narrative can be outright *stupid* ("And the Empire was defeated by Ewoks"), or there's a grievous mismatch between "fluff" and "how the unit actually plays" (Example: Riptides are a rare prototype, that always get fielded and always in teams of 3. Tactical Marines combine the best of experience from Assault Marines and Devestator Marines, but forgot their Signums, Bikes, or any other practical bonus and so they only exist to hide in Transports).
Then there's the fact that when you come to it, there aren't too many unique actions you can pull off with a lot of 40k units; compare to Epic ("Move & shoot", "sustained fire", "march", "overwatch") or Warmachine, and you have a wider array of moves per unit, built into the core game mechanics as a whole, and when GW *does* introduce such mechanics, you end up with messes like the Ynnari.
Then of course, there's the fact that GW doesn't even play by their own rules, nor do they attempt to play for keeps. Remember when Warhammer-community had a livestream to showcase Magnus? You had players charging from moving Rhinos, the Magnus player not using Gaze (you know, the main reason you take Magnus), and then the Thousand Sons being *completely tabled* by turn 3 since Magnus failed a Strength check and died to Helfrost!
Let's be honest. The ruleset needs to be tighter and more comprehensive, favor a wider array of options besides the memetic "I move and shoot" (and to be fair, GW has added quite a few "techpieces" however uneven to the game), and fluff that isn't gradually transforming into Grimdark Superfriends.
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2017/05/29 00:00:43
If only there were people in the world who wanted a well written game that serves both competitive and narrative gaming, and who enjoy both competitive style matches and narrative campaigns.
If only.
Mordian Iron Guard - Major Overhaul in Progress
+Spaceship Gaming Enthusiast+
Live near Halifax, NS? Ask me about our group, the Ordo Haligonias!
Blacksails wrote: If only there were people in the world who wanted a well written game that serves both competitive and narrative gaming, and who enjoy both competitive style matches and narrative campaigns.
If only.
This.
When I read things like "these rules are meant to be played in a narrative, casual way" I usually brace myself because what's coming is usually a steaming pile of garbage rules.
A well written, well tested and tight ruleset benefits both competitive, narrative and casual gaming alike. Nobody ever profits from garbage ruleset, and "forge the narrative" and "beer&pretzels game" are just terrible excuses when you know a game sucks.
Progress is like a herd of pigs: everybody is interested in the produced benefits, but nobody wants to deal with all the resulting gak.
GW customers deserve every bit of outrageous princing they get.
Blacksails wrote: If only there were people in the world who wanted a well written game that serves both competitive and narrative gaming, and who enjoy both competitive style matches and narrative campaigns.
If only.
Games Workshop has devalued the term "narrative game".
A narrative game and a competitive game are both complete oposite extremes in how you should make a game. And no, being imbalaced is not a quality that differentiate them. A good narrative game should be balanced between all of his options as best as it can.
A good narrative ruleset is the one that offers the players the biggest amount of variety with the biggest adderence to the lore and fluff of the universe it try to represent. A good sistem where personalization and freedom of choice and action is the king to let the players make their own storys. A example of good "Narrative" rules are the old Steamtank rules of Warhammer Fantasy Battles.
A competitive game is one where abstraction is the king in behalf of a tactic gameplay based around the fight between players to reach the same goal. It need to be engaging, fast, to put at every moment one player against the other full of choices that can change the curse of the game. As rulesets are maked by humans, as much variety and freedom your add to a competitive game, more imbalance it generates, so you need much more hard restrictions in a good competitive game. You can't take the ball with your hands. You can't have a army of only heroes. You can only move the Horse in L shape movements.
What GW calls narrative games are just very bad balanced competitive games with normally 0 rules to make a good narrative experience. AoS "Narrative" mode of play add some "narrative" type rules. But don't trick yourselve, thats not a narrative ruleset. Thats a competitive ruleset with some flavour added to it.
In the pure "narrative" games, Roleplay games, theres a term for people that approach them as a Competitive Player: Munchkin.
And is a term for a reason: A competitive game can't be a good narrative experience. A narrative experience can't be a good competitive game.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/05/29 01:41:13
Dakka does have White Knights and is also rather infamous for it's Black Knights. A new edition brings out the passionate and not all of them are good at expressing themselves in written form. There have been plenty of hysterical responses from both sides so far. So we descend into pointless bickering with neither side listening to each other. So posting here becomes more masturbation than conversation.
ERJAK wrote: Forcing a 40k player to keep playing 7th is basically a hate crime.
Galas wrote: A competitive game can't be a good narrative experience. A narrative experience can't be a good competitive game.
Not true. Just because a game is competative, doesn't mean that a series of statistically unlikely rolls won't make for an epic story when some firewarriors beat down a bloodthirster to grab the relic on the last turn for the win, or that a narrative game can't get competative when it's been really close all game and it all comes down to some quality positioning and smart asset use to see who won at the end. This is the mistake so many people make - Competative vs narrative and WAAC vs casual aren't absolutes, but rather both are sliding scales. Yes, there will be some people who are at one extreme of the spectrum almost 100% of the time, but by and large, the wider community generally consists of people somewhere in the middle (and, given the nature of forums, probably towards the competative end of the spectrum).
Peregrine wrote: What, you don't like rolling dice to see how many dice you roll? Why are you such an anti-dice bigot?
Galas wrote: A competitive game can't be a good narrative experience. A narrative experience can't be a good competitive game.
Not true. Just because a game is competative, doesn't mean that a series of statistically unlikely rolls won't make for an epic story when some firewarriors beat down a bloodthirster to grab the relic on the last turn for the win, or that a narrative game can't get competative when it's been really close all game and it all comes down to some quality positioning and smart asset use to see who won at the end. This is the mistake so many people make - Competative vs narrative and WAAC vs casual aren't absolutes, but rather both are sliding scales. Yes, there will be some people who are at one extreme of the spectrum almost 100% of the time, but by and large, the wider community generally consists of people somewhere in the middle (and, given the nature of forums, probably towards the competative end of the spectrum).
I don't think you are incorrect in what you said, but because we are talking about complete different things. If your criteria to call a style of gaming "narrative" is about the stories that can happen in it (Like your example of fire warriors beating down a bloodthirster), I only can say that I have much higger standarts of whats makes a gaming system "narrative driven"
Let me explain clear here: Warhammer hasn't been never a Narrative gaming system in any of its incarnations. It has had some kind of narrative-like rules, like the Steam tank, or the old Fantasy Giant. Sparkles in a pure competitive game.
Thats why I said that GW has totally devalued the meaning of "narrative", because they have always hide behind the "narrative" wall to excuse a poor writteng competitive ruleset.
This message was edited 3 times. Last update was at 2017/05/29 01:59:13
Dakka does have White Knights and is also rather infamous for it's Black Knights. A new edition brings out the passionate and not all of them are good at expressing themselves in written form. There have been plenty of hysterical responses from both sides so far. So we descend into pointless bickering with neither side listening to each other. So posting here becomes more masturbation than conversation.
ERJAK wrote: Forcing a 40k player to keep playing 7th is basically a hate crime.
I have always played Chaos and done well against all comers. While I don't track wins and losses, am definitely in the win column lifetime. Have always been on the side of better generals win more games, hoping that's a thing of the past.
Careful with that ego...
I should think of a new signature... In the meantime, have a
I said it in another post and i'll say it here too - i don't think these 'new' ways to play are going to make much if any difference to the gw gaming scene in general. Officially spelling out the obvious (you can make your own rules; the points systems we use will probably be a bit dodgy) won't really have an impact - people will keep playing the way they want to, or have to depending on their local meta. All that's different is gw has officially legitimized (is that a step forwards? i can't tell) their wonky points system, and is offering an alternative paid system that if we follow historical trends, will probably be just as wonky.
So, it's really simple. The debate will end when casuals realize their wrong... For real though, if a game is properly balanced you Min-Max all you want and it won't matter, blame GW not players for broken models.
