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When Games Workshop announced the new index/codex format and that annual point adjustments would be used to keep the game in balance I was ecstatic. For a little while we even saw it play out with a point hike on brimstones and multiple drops for things drastically over pointed. But recently we have drifted back to FAQ/errata nerf bats, changing the text and not the cost - why?

Strong rules make the game interesting, so writers and developers are going to make interesting rules that have serious play effects and try to squeeze them into the list. This often means OP units or abilities and power gamers will use them until non-power gamers are so tired of playing they quit. This forces the problem to be fixed, nerf bat or point hike...

A point hike for these "strong" units would decrease model counts. The strong ability remains in the book but slides away from auto include (auto abuse) to a, "if it fits my play style". However, if writing does not change and point levels continue to rise across the board for all forces the model count could drop, and 40k is not a skirmish game, nor does GW want to slow down model sales. Now to be a transparent writer, that is my preference as it leaves my books alone (I hate having a book with post-it notes adjusting rules text.

The nerf bat on the other hand is easier. Change the text of the abused rule so it no longer is abused. The change is immediate, having to think and find the 'right' balance point is skipped, and a unit doesn't go up in points cost. Meaning sales never get hit...

How do you think companies should handle these issues, what have I missed? One day after I finish my first career and grow up I might want to be a game designer, just want to do it right.

A combination of both is the correct move. Unfortunately it’s difficult to get right the first time on a game like 40k, with as many moving parts as it has. So incrimental change over time where you adjust the rules, and then tweak the points, and repeat if/when necessary (like when new or different moving parts are introduced).

So using GW, as you are in your OP, for the example. They can adjust rules via eratta (which also gives time for the adjustments to play out), and then modify the points costs at a later time, if for whatever reason they’re unwilling/unable to further alter the rules. Which is exactly what they’re doing with their FAQs and then with the “Chapter Approved” books down the road.

Good balance is very difficult to attain, but good enough is within reach, and not far out of grasp with 40k specifically.

All this being my opinion and all that.

Depends entirely on the problem.

The Commissar and Conscript combo was ridiculously good. You got a cheapo blob meatshield, and could mitigate its main weakness with a character.

There, something had to give.

Now, remove the Commissar, and Conscripts pretty much do the job they're intended to - get in the way, be a nuisance, present enough lasguns that your opponent can't really ignore them.

So Conscripts there aren't really the problem. Up their points, and you make the unit far less attractive.

So addressing the Commissar synergy seems the right way to do it.

Now, I'm not saying the new status quo has cracked it. But, changing the rules for him is the better way to do it. If you simply upped his points, it's not gonna change stuff enough.

As it stands now, Commissars still have a use, and with a further tweak they can probably get it right.

If distant, hazy, likely not completely accurate memory serves, once upon a time they executed the unit leader. Some variation on that could be the right balance. Make him an insurance policy, not an assurance policy.

For me, it's about not making a specific combo or anyone unit completely ubiquitous. Not two units should form a single combo that can be dropped into any other army build from the Codex. Instead, every army list should face having to make choice sacrifices to get really good synergy.

For instance. If I wanted to do an armoured column, I shouldn't be able to so easily squeeze in reliable infantry bubble wrap. Instead, such a specific concept should limit me. If I want reliable infantry bubble wrap, it should cost me a reasonable amount of points.

Every unit should absolutely have its place (GW have always struggled with Auto, Flexible and Cack), but their strengths should depend on what else is taken with them.

If a unit is on either extreme of that spectrum, some tweak is needed. For some, higher points value. For others, a rules tweak to make that unit less of a no brainer.

Depends on where the problem is. If the problem is mechanical with the rule then the rule needs to be fixed. If a loophole is found in the rules and regularly abused an errata is needed to close that loophole wherever it is and should affect every codex affected so no more shoddy Dark Angel Storm Shields etc.......If however the rules are used as intended and the effect is too powerful a points cost adjustment is required. This may mean making other options more palatable i.e. cheaper and cost effective like the free flamer tactical Marines used to get meant it was an option whereas before you rarely saw them.

There's no single solution. That's the challenge to game design. Some fixes are only needed in point cost - up or down will sufficiently fix a unit, like say a Guard Chimera. No need to change its abilities or stats, it just needs a point cost reduction. Other units, like say conscripts, are so low on the point scale that you can't really adjust points per model, so you have to change their abilities and interactions with support units.

Get rid of points based systems and change to a scenario based system like Force-on-Force or Tomorrow's War?

Of course, then you wouldn't be able to just show up and expect an even game based simply on points.... so no different from now really.

Instead, you would need to pre-plan the night's gaming with your opponent ahead of time and talk about what you want to get ut of the game. No one wants to do that! Yuck. Wastes time.

You can't balance everything with point costs only. Some unit roles cannot exceed or be below certain point costs and remain in that role. Let's say you have an over-performing basic line infantry unit and an under-performing elite infantry unit in your game. Adjusting the point costs so that the basic line infantry costs more than the elite infantry makes no sense.

When units get very special abilities, balancing on points alone also becomes more problematic. Especially with force multiplier abilities.Let's say your general gives rerolls to the entire army. That ability is definitely worth more in larger games than smaller ones, which prevents you from balancing the unit via points for every game size without being unwieldy and cumbersome.

Finally, some rules are just garbage, poorly written, or don't function in a similar way in both casual and competitive settings. The rules needs fixing regardless of whether the points need adjusting. Your remark that FAQs don't impact sales seems obviously false to me. Any change to a unit, good or bad, points or rules, will have some impact on sales.

As others have said it is a combination of both (see Brims). Unless points were made much higher (individual models costing hundreds of points), to allow for fine tuning, it will always be necessary to adjust rules as well as just adjusting points. Take something like Conscripts as an example, at 3 points per model fixing that model by a points change is very difficult, a 1 point increase or decrease is a 33% change in price. This means adjusting points can very easily make such units either amazing or terrible, especially when other units are costed in nearby points values.

The other issue with points is that they make it difficult to account for synergy. So things like re-roll auras vastly change the effectiveness of units.

I think the Commissar nerf was right. Nerf Conscripts any more, and people would just make unkillable blobs of regular Guard.

Brims are still an issue, that could be fixed with a simple eratta to the 4+ invuln. It should be clear that a Brim shouldnt be as survivable then a Harlequin.

If you have a dip in the road, you fill in the hole; if you have a bump in the road, you smash it flat.

As other have stated its not just nerf bats or price adjustments. A restructure of key abilities or special rules is sometimes the best option. Preferably you can trace back to what the actual issue is. What isnt working as intended, and fix that. Some times it means a price hike or drop. Sometimes it means changing an ability thats too good. Or changing an ability thats under performing.

Everything should be functional and desirable to some extent.

There is more to it than "stat nerf" or point hike, and issues may either be context-specific or not even be issues. Sometimes the fixes may be as simple as writing a better list of counterplays.

But if it *is* a real issue, then I tend to focus on "core rules" rather than individual buffs/nerfs. For example, in 7th, Stomps were an incredibly hated mechanic due to several reasons:
-Stomps had extreme variance due to a special table, where results could range from "do nothing" to "delete anything underneath." Combine with the fact you did D3 stomps (or D3+2 if a Greater Brass Scorpion).
-Stomps didn't actually have to target units in the same melee as the Knight. In fact, due to their wording (First blast is within 2" of the Knight, and then each subsequent blast is within 2" of the preceding blast), Stomps were less the Knight frantically trying to handle hordes, and more an ersatz Wave-Motion Gun.

So tacking on an extra 200 points to a Knight or removing Stomp really didn't so anything, or the 8e "fix" that turned "Stomps" into a "hurricane kick", I figure "why not derandomize Stomp?" You could Stomp once at AP 2 at the Stomper's base strength. You could Stomp an additional two times, but the more Stomps you did, the weaker they were. So a Knight could stomp for one S10 AP2 blast, two S8 AP3 blasts, or 3 S6 AP4 blasts. *All* blasts must be within 2" of the Knight, and cannot overlap.

Thanks to everyone for their input, it is great to get input and opinions.

I work in a very quasi-granular office, detail is sometimes needed, sometimes not. Would have loved to see the standard for all points to be a 1pt human with basic autogun/lasgun and flak armor. That leaves room to go down for weaker units, and unlimited space up.

To me you think of the weakest unit, or upgrade you can imagine, then set that at 10 points.

firstly you now have space to go lower on both units and upgrades, but more critically you have granularity when going up. e.g. a new unit, its better than your basic one, but not twice as good... so maybe 15.

if your basic unit is 1 point, you either allow fractions, under price your new one at 1 or over price it at 2.

For an example of this working look at Flames of War V3, for an example of it not working, look at Flames of War V4.

Taking a game that used roughly 1,500 - 2,000 as a baseline and reducing it to 75 - 100 points broke oh so many things.

Team Yankee also suffers from this

Points sytems are always broken.

Discuss!

 Easy E wrote:
Points sytems are always broken.

Discuss!

Every game with force construction has a point system of some sort.

With regard to setting the baseline; it seems that Space marines were used as an anchor point to ease the transition, then everything was scaled/rescaled off of that, for better or worse. I think I'd have preferred 26 point Space Marines, because then instead of having a debate about 3 point or 4 point Brimstones, or whatever else, we'd be able to have a debate about 6 or 7 or 8 point Brimstones (etc.). This would have probably resulted in 750+ point Land Raiders though, and standard games of ~4000 points which would be...weird, but perhaps ultimately better for the granularity needed to appropriately price low-value units.

Mantic does rules tweaks in preference to point changes too, and with an interesting justification: if a player who is unaware of the errata shows up at a tournament, he can be told that his units are a little bit different now, but his list is still legal.

 lord_blackfang wrote:
Mantic does rules tweaks in preference to point changes too, and with an interesting justification: if a player who is unaware of the errata shows up at a tournament, he can be told that his units are a little bit different now, but his list is still legal.

That justification makes sense. Point adjustments could be "out of season", rule tweaks in-season or so. Plus, rule fixes ideally nudge the designers to look "under the hood," assuming they don't go for lazy fixes.

To my mind, rules should be transparent.
We see a scenario on the tabletop with a sense of how it should play out given the universe and what we know that is consistent with also historical warfare, other sci-fi representations, personal experience and so on.
Then the rules should allow that scenario to play out more or less according to expectations, without getting in the way and without people playing to the rules instead of to the vision that the players share in their heads.
IMHO, points adjustments are necessary but nothing can fix bad rules and the sense that it is beating the game system itself that is the object.
Lowering and raising points only forces people who operate with this mindset to reconfigure their system-beating "lists".
GW plays this game to push sales, and too many people rabidly follow suit.
Moreover, they do this with a half-a$$ed game system all the while complaining that they are a toy company first and a games company fourth or something to that effect.
The result is that too many people read a new codex looking for ways to weather/enhance the 'alpha-strike' nonsense, looking for ways to 'bubblewrap' and to stack buffs and so on, basically to break the game and no points adjustment is ever going to fix that.

 LunarSol wrote:

 Easy E wrote:
Points sytems are always broken.

Discuss!

Every game with force construction has a point system of some sort.

As I stated earlier, Force-on-Force and Tomorrow's War do not. I do not believe Star Grunt or Dirtside do. Rogue Trader does not. Most Chit and Card games doe not. I am pretty sure there are many games that do not have a points system, but depends on the players to come up with something mutually agreed upon for a game.

Games before Warhammer 3rd edition often had no points sytem, and instead were based on a scenario. I.e. if you fight this battle side X gets thisa nd side Y gets that.

Point sytem is a modern construct to allow pick-up play, while many older games were based on scenario play with a standard group of opponents.

Well, I guess you can't fail at balance if you don't even try!

Why are you only considering those two options? There's always times when something just isn't good enough. Buffing is as important as nerfing with game balance.

An example - the last Malifaux major balance had as many units getting buffed as there were units getting nerfed. One of them was to a master that was vastly considered the worst in the game, which made him very playable.

Infinity has been slowly buffing their large TAG units, long considered sub par choices, for the last two tournament seasons. First they gave them pilots with skills that allowed them to do objectives, and this time they gave them a skill that buffed their weapon damage.

Overall I prefer they leave points alone, even if nerfing. If something is considered too good for its cost, it's often easy enough to take something away or reduce its effectiveness as it is to bump up the cost. The worst received nerf over the last two Malifaux erratas has been raising Stuffed Piglets to 3 points, which leaves them as is but puts them on the same points cost as a Gremlin, which is just better for the cost. There were many community suggested changes that would have solved the problem more elegantly and left them in a place where you'd still take them.

 -Loki- wrote:
Why are you only considering those two options? There's always times when something just isn't good enough. Buffing is as important as nerfing with game balance.

I know it feels better when your stuff gets buffed, but I think nerfs are more important for the overall health of a game. If a unit is a dud, it means that one unit doesn't get taken. An OP unit has a detrimental effect on the faction that has it (choking out other options), but also on all other factions, if they need to have a counter for X or lose. It also has an insidious effect on what's considered good, as everyone starts to demand equally OP stuff for their own faction.

Sometimes something has enough special rules that all you need is a rebalancing of points in either direction. Sometimes the entry doesn't have anything special to it so you add a rule to make it more balanced. Sometimes the entry is so redundant you need to figure out a role for the unit and gut it.

 Elemental wrote:

 -Loki- wrote:
Why are you only considering those two options? There's always times when something just isn't good enough. Buffing is as important as nerfing with game balance.

I know it feels better when your stuff gets buffed, but I think nerfs are more important for the overall health of a game. If a unit is a dud, it means that one unit doesn't get taken. An OP unit has a detrimental effect on the faction that has it (choking out other options), but also on all other factions, if they need to have a counter for X or lose. It also has an insidious effect on what's considered good, as everyone starts to demand equally OP stuff for their own faction.

They're as important as each other.

If all you to is nerf something without regard to the health of the rest of the army, you end up with Tyranids.

Additionally, buffing underused units gets them on the table. This creates sales for underused units, which is good for both the health of the game and the health of your sales.

The part to avoid is nerfing and buffing with pendulum swings.