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So it's basically Smite, but you can choose the target and roll D6: on a 1 it takes 1 MW, on a 2-5 it takes d3 MWs and on a 6 it take d6 MWs.
Why in the name of the Emprah does it work like this? Wouldn't it basically work that same if it was just d6 or d3 MWs?

I get that this makes it much harder to do 6 MWs, since you'd have to roll 6 twice to get that.
But why not just make it d3MWs and skip the first d6 roll? It just seem like pointless rolling

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Because Ynnari was such a half assed attempt at folding in/justifying warband from fluff? I dunno. A lot of Ynnari stuff is weird, redundant or overpowered.

Welcome to 8th. I hate all the d3 and d6 multishot weapons as well, they slow the game down so much. If I had my way, all d3 shot weapons would have 2 shots, d6 would have 4. The hit and wound roll is random enough without having to constantly roll to see how many dice you get to roll.

 Galef wrote:
So it's basically Smite, but you can choose the target and roll D6: on a 1 it takes 1 MW, on a 2-5 it takes d3 MWs and on a 6 it take d6 MWs.
Why in the name of the Emprah does it work like this? Wouldn't it basically work that same if it was just d6 or d3 MWs?

I get that this makes it much harder to do 6 MWs, since you'd have to roll 6 twice to get that.
But why not just make it d3MWs and skip the first d6 roll? It just seem like pointless rolling

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No b.c you dont have that sweet sweet chance at 6MW's /s

But really its just rules bloat for bloat sake. Its more dice rolling.

Because GW are rubbish at game mechanics.

I think they're just wanting to make the different smite-equivalents have unique rules and there are only so many ways you can randomise a roughly 2MW output psychic powers.

People probably would have complained more if it was just the same as smite.

I think it's just a way to try and make the different pseudo-Smite powers appear more different than they actually are.

That said, the rolls here are at least functional. Not elegant by any stretch of the imagination but still.

Twilight Pathways wrote:
Welcome to 8th. I hate all the d3 and d6 multishot weapons as well, they slow the game down so much. If I had my way, all d3 shot weapons would have 2 shots, d6 would have 4. The hit and wound roll is random enough without having to constantly roll to see how many dice you get to roll.

Completely agree.

IMO all this d3 and d6 nonsense is a poor attempt to disguise just how similar most weapons and powers actually are.

Because the devs are terrible at their job.

Wound anyone object to just playing it as D3 MWs? You still have roughly equal chance to only roll 1 MW and lose out on the chance (albeit slim) to roll 4-6 MWs

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 Galef wrote:
Wound anyone object to just playing it as D3 MWs? You still have roughly equal chance to only roll 1 MW and lose out on the chance (albeit slim) to roll 4-6 MWs

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Well, it currently averages to (1/6)+((4/6)*2)+((1/6)*3.5), or 2.083 Mortal Wounds.

D3 averages to 2.

So I'd be fine.

It has lots of redundant dice because a core part of GW's market is kids, and kids are terrible at anything involving long-term planning or strategy. Having lots of dice rolling makes skill less of a factor and gives a lot more opportunities to "win" and have a moment of triumph because you rolled that 6.

 Galef wrote:
Wound anyone object to just playing it as D3 MWs? You still have roughly equal chance to only roll 1 MW and lose out on the chance (albeit slim) to roll 4-6 MWs

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But why play it that way? Is it really so hard to make two dice rolls for resolving the Power rather than one? It's not like we don't routinely roll 3+ dice to resolve a single attack.

That being said, I'm sure the reason for the weird resolution is to give a chance for d6 MW without being a literal duplication of Smite requiring a 11+ on your casting roll. With Gaze of Ynnead it is possible to get 6 MWs on a Psychic Test that is exactly the Warp Charge of the power.

 alextroy wrote:
But why play it that way?

Because it's mathematically equivalent for most purposes and removes a redundant roll that should not exist.

That being said, I'm sure the reason for the weird resolution is to give a chance for d6 MW

But why does this chance need to exist when the average damage is still the same? It's a change that seems to exist for the sole purpose of making people who are bad at math think they're doing something cool.

Doesn't it exist so that games take more time. the more stuff you do, while doing something, the more important it gets, the importance of the things you don't do does not matter.

Most games work that way nowadays, they put in roadblocks and long time grinds, to give you an artificial feeling of investing in to a game. If damage in w40k was mostly flat numbers, the game would be too fast to enjoy it.

1) The probability distribution is completely different from a D3 (so no, i would totally refuse if my opponent asked to roll a D3 instead).

2) We had this exact roll for at least 3 years already (dragon's breadth), so GW had time to test it and they decided to apply it to another power. Having used it for quite some time, i can tell you that it is by no means redundant, especially with CC rerolls.

 Peregrine wrote:

 alextroy wrote:
But why play it that way?

Because it's mathematically equivalent for most purposes and removes a redundant roll that should not exist.

That being said, I'm sure the reason for the weird resolution is to give a chance for d6 MW

But why does this chance need to exist when the average damage is still the same? It's a change that seems to exist for the sole purpose of making people who are bad at math think they're doing something cool.

Because the whole world exists only in average. Right.

Peregrine wrote:

 alextroy wrote:
But why play it that way?

Because it's mathematically equivalent for most purposes and removes a redundant roll that should not exist.

That being said, I'm sure the reason for the weird resolution is to give a chance for d6 MW

But why does this chance need to exist when the average damage is still the same? It's a change that seems to exist for the sole purpose of making people who are bad at math think they're doing something cool.

Except for the average damage, you are wrong. D3 Damage is far from mathematically equivalent to the results from Gaze of Ynnead.

You do get an average result of 2.08 from GOY compared to a simple d3, however the chance of any specific result is significantly different. The d3 give a even chance of each result from 1 to 3. GOY yields:

1 Damage: 41.7% Chance (1/6 + 1/3*4/6 + 1/6*1/6)

2 Damage: 25% Chance (1/3*4/6 + 1/6*1/6)

3 Damage: 25% Chance (1/3*4/6 + 1/6*1/6)

4 Damage: 2.8% Chance (1/6*1/6)

5 Damage: 2.8% Chance (1/6*1/6)

6 Damage: 2.8% Chance (1/6*1/6)

As you can see, damage is actually slanted towards 1 MW, but has a chance for 4+ MW. This is significantly different than a d3 result.

Do I think GW did the math and said, "this is the result we want?" No. They wrote a GW style rule where there is a chance for a chance to do more damage. But it is far from "mathematically equivalent for most purposes".

As for me, I'll definitely take that 8.3% chance to do 4+ MW and no you cannot increase your chance of rolling more than 1 MW by 8.3%.

The one thing I'll add is that the CP reroll can make the chance of d6 damage quite significant.

Karol wrote:
Doesn't it exist so that games take more time. the more stuff you do, while doing something, the more important it gets, the importance of the things you don't do does not matter.

Most games work that way nowadays, they put in roadblocks and long time grinds, to give you an artificial feeling of investing in to a game. If damage in w40k was mostly flat numbers, the game would be too fast to enjoy it.

Ah yes. This one dice roll is a scheme to make games take more time, because...reasons?

Some of these posts are just...mentally aggravating.

 alextroy wrote:
Except for the average damage, you are wrong. D3 Damage is far from mathematically equivalent to the results from Gaze of Ynnead.

Yes, I am well aware of the math behind it. My point is that for most purposes that difference doesn't matter. The most important statistic in evaluating a unit is average damage per attack over a large number of uses. In the long run the more complicated unit and the straightforward D3 unit will have very similar performance and there isn't a lot of reason to care which one you have in your army.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Daedalus81 wrote:
Ah yes. This one dice roll is a scheme to make games take more time, because...reasons?

This one dice roll is just one example of GW's badly flawed approach to randomness in game design. It is hardly the only instance of needlessly complicated dice rolling for the sake of rolling more dice.

 Peregrine wrote:

 alextroy wrote:
Except for the average damage, you are wrong. D3 Damage is far from mathematically equivalent to the results from Gaze of Ynnead.

Yes, I am well aware of the math behind it. My point is that for most purposes that difference doesn't matter. The most important statistic in evaluating a unit is average damage per attack over a large number of uses. In the long run the more complicated unit and the straightforward D3 unit will have very similar performance and there isn't a lot of reason to care which one you have in your army.

And the most important thing when playing the game is how much damage did you actually do. The fact that two Lascannons do an average of 7 Damage is irrelevant once you've rolled the dice and gotten any result other than 7 damage. So for the only purpose that really matters it is very different.

 alextroy wrote:
And the most important thing when playing the game is how much damage did you actually do. The fact that two Lascannons do an average of 7 Damage is irrelevant once you've rolled the dice and gotten any result other than 7 damage. So for the only purpose that really matters it is very different.

No, that's not how it works at all. Ever hear the phrase "wrong process, right outcome"? It's when you make a poor choice based on predictable averages and luck into a good outcome. When you're making decisions, whether during the game or in list construction, you make them based on the average outcome because that's the decision that will win the most games in the long run. If you make your decisions based on two lascannons doing anything other than 7 damage you are making mistakes that will, in the long run, win fewer games than assuming the correct average.

 Daedalus81 wrote:

Karol wrote:
Doesn't it exist so that games take more time. the more stuff you do, while doing something, the more important it gets, the importance of the things you don't do does not matter.

Most games work that way nowadays, they put in roadblocks and long time grinds, to give you an artificial feeling of investing in to a game. If damage in w40k was mostly flat numbers, the game would be too fast to enjoy it.

Ah yes. This one dice roll is a scheme to make games take more time, because...reasons?

Some of these posts are just...mentally aggravating.

One roll, maybe not, but if you pile them on that is the result. It also has a gatcha mechanic build in, because each time you do something bad, or have a bad army, and win because you rolled a string of 6 you fell better. If such option did not exist bad armies would get even worse.

I mean your not going to tell me that rolling hit, re-rolling hit or ones, then rolling to wounds, and then re-rolling them, and then your opponent rolling saves, maybe re-rolling them and then rolling DG or some other similar rule is there for depth of tactical play. It only makes the game longer, specially when the game being played is made up of two armies with 10 models on each side.


In fact the time factor is there not just in rolls durning the game. All the lore and painting etc is there to create a feed back loop, that makes the person that spend time reading stuff and painting stuff, add value to the game, which does not require any of those things to be played. It is also probably why people are ready to deal with bad rule writing better, it is like football fans. If your grandfather, your father and you were hooligans for a team, that is ~80 years of time investment in to the team, there is no way your suddenly going to decide that just because the team droped out of first division it is time to find another team to fight for.

 Peregrine wrote:

 alextroy wrote:
And the most important thing when playing the game is how much damage did you actually do. The fact that two Lascannons do an average of 7 Damage is irrelevant once you've rolled the dice and gotten any result other than 7 damage. So for the only purpose that really matters it is very different.

No, that's not how it works at all. Ever hear the phrase "wrong process, right outcome"? It's when you make a poor choice based on predictable averages and luck into a good outcome. When you're making decisions, whether during the game or in list construction, you make them based on the average outcome because that's the decision that will win the most games in the long run. If you make your decisions based on two lascannons doing anything other than 7 damage you are making mistakes that will, in the long run, win fewer games than assuming the correct average.

You win more if you take distribution into account than just the average though. With d3 à shortcut of relying on it for 2 damage is OK, with GoY is not a good idea, rely on it for 1, but commit more if you need the 2.

One roll, maybe not, but if you pile them on that is the result. It also has a gatcha mechanic build in

Gacha.. And that is not how that word means.

In fact the time factor is there not just in rolls durning the game. All the lore and painting etc is there to create a feed back loop, that makes the person that spend time reading stuff and painting stuff, add value to the game, which does not require any of those things to be played. It is also probably why people are ready to deal with bad rule writing better, it is like football fans. If your grandfather, your father and you were hooligans for a team, that is ~80 years of time investment in to the team, there is no way your suddenly going to decide that just because the team droped out of first division it is time to find another team to fight for.

What.

 Peregrine wrote:

 alextroy wrote:
And the most important thing when playing the game is how much damage did you actually do. The fact that two Lascannons do an average of 7 Damage is irrelevant once you've rolled the dice and gotten any result other than 7 damage. So for the only purpose that really matters it is very different.

No, that's not how it works at all. Ever hear the phrase "wrong process, right outcome"? It's when you make a poor choice based on predictable averages and luck into a good outcome. When you're making decisions, whether during the game or in list construction, you make them based on the average outcome because that's the decision that will win the most games in the long run. If you make your decisions based on two lascannons doing anything other than 7 damage you are making mistakes that will, in the long run, win fewer games than assuming the correct average.

This is incorrect logic.

The mean doesn't tell you everything, you also often need to look at the distribution. If you're only looking at the mean then you are hampering your understanding of what is likely to happen and over a large number of games it will cost you.

 JNAProductions wrote:

 Galef wrote:
Wound anyone object to just playing it as D3 MWs? You still have roughly equal chance to only roll 1 MW and lose out on the chance (albeit slim) to roll 4-6 MWs

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Well, it currently averages to (1/6)+((4/6)*2)+((1/6)*3.5), or 2.083 Mortal Wounds.

D3 averages to 2.

So I'd be fine.

Averages mean much less than you think. At least compare the minimum, maximum, average and standard deviation if you don't want to look at a proper distribution.

 Peregrine wrote:

 alextroy wrote:
And the most important thing when playing the game is how much damage did you actually do. The fact that two Lascannons do an average of 7 Damage is irrelevant once you've rolled the dice and gotten any result other than 7 damage. So for the only purpose that really matters it is very different.

No, that's not how it works at all. Ever hear the phrase "wrong process, right outcome"? It's when you make a poor choice based on predictable averages and luck into a good outcome. When you're making decisions, whether during the game or in list construction, you make them based on the average outcome because that's the decision that will win the most games in the long run. If you make your decisions based on two lascannons doing anything other than 7 damage you are making mistakes that will, in the long run, win fewer games than assuming the correct average.

Planning on average damage will consign you to mid-table mediocrity at best. If your thought processes are that things will do average damage you will be that person who complains about bad dice all the time - i.e. who did not really understand the spread of probability and so failed to take account of it resulting in losing the game.

The Gaze of Ynnead has pretty much the same average damage as a D3 smite but a broader spread of probability and a higher maximum potential output. If as an opponent you assume it to be the same as a D3 damage you are going to be caught out badly if your opponent gets a lucky roll and takes your key buffing W4 character off the table with a single power. If you do that and lose the game as a result then that is because treating it as the same as a D3 was incorrect and you lost through bad play.

The designers are trying to create a variety of different ranges of outcomes to give us - the players - different things to have to think about in the game. Highly swingy outcomes are different to more predictable ones even if they have the same average.

You still have a 50% chance of rolling 4 or more MW after the roll of a 6, no?

 Elfric wrote:
You still have a 50% chance of rolling 4 or more MW after the roll of a 6, no?

You do. You have an ~8% (assuming no re-rolls) chance of getting more than 3 damage over the two die rolls. Is that worth the extra roll? For every ~13 times you use this power, one of those times you will exceed 3 damage.