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Made in gb
Longtime Dakkanaut






This came up on a 40k thread (as so often these things do) and it got me thinking.

In wargames, the standard practice is for units to have a points cost and that's fixed. I realised that this can't accurately portray the value of everything, as some things synergise with others in specific ways. Here's an example:

Unit A offers a buff to nearby vehicles. Unit A has a fixed price, but if they are taken in a low-vehicle list, they become overcosted and less effective than they could have been. a 40k example would be a KFF big mek - he can repair vehicles, but if there are no vehicles, that ability is wasted cost.

To combat this, I have a couple of thoughts - either you could frontload the unit with costs and offer reduced points costs (or equivalent) to vehicles in the list, or you can increase the cost of the support unit based on the number of vehicles in the list. Another option is for the units to have the ability to pick & choose their abilities.

It makes list building more complicated, but it would more accurately value a unit as part of the whole of the army.

How does everyone approach unit costs? I'm expecting the majority are points-per-model/unit, and no changes depending on other units?

I am even considering a "Leader & Troops" unit building system, where you first pick a leader, and they have modified unit costs for units affected by their abilities. Leaders are effectively free, and have X units under them (say, 3) and those will either cost their normal amount (because the leader doesn't affect them) or cost more or less, depending on the leader's abilities. EG if a leader makes tanks move faster, the tanks will cost more if they are bought under this leader.

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MN (Currently in WY)

Or you could not worry about it too much.

https://bloodandspectacles.blogspot.com/2019/08/wargame-design-trying-to-create-balance.html

As I think more and more about games, they actually need to include these "discrepancies" to create strategic choice. That is what keeps a game going the distance.

No one talks about the tactical complexity of Battletech, Warhammer 40K, DBA/M, or Starfleet Battles. These are some of the oldest titles in wargaming, and they are still going strong.

Instead, what players are always talking about is "Strategic Choices" and what is the best, most optimized thing if X,Y, and Z are true.

The dirty secret of game design I am starting to learn is that players do not care about balance, only in so much as they can talk about how to break it. Therefore, a game NEEDS subtle, sub-optimal units and choices to be exploited in unexpected ways to last the test of time.


P.S. I expect this answer to be controversial at best.....

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2021/04/02 15:37:37


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It's not wrong. I mean, after all, the big, successful games are doing something right. In Warhammer's case I'm reasonably sure that finding an intersection of several hobbies (collecting, painting, wargaming, etc) and putting a fanatical production team behind it is what works, but the game really is good enough. I mean yes there's plenty of alternate rules out there before we even get into off-brand products and other stuff, but another thing GW has shown us is that even the worst product benefits from the polish of 'officialness' over a product that requires more active consent to be used.

That said, I think GW has shown us that implementing passive buffs and nerfs like in MTG in a game that was once kinda about positioning is a bad idea.
   
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MN (Currently in WY)

Right, and I would argue players want to talk about Buffs and Nerfs way more than they want to talk about positioning.

Positioning requires a board and visualizing the table. Buffs and Nerfs do not, they can be dealt with in a vacuum and therefore lead to more "discussion" about what is "better" to take.

Without this ability to talk about a game in the vacuum, the game will have more difficulty getting traction.

I will use Men of Bronze as an example. There is no discussion about the game online other than initial reviews and the occasional battle report*. Why? Simple, what is there to talk about? It is pretty clear that an Elite Hoplite unit is better than a Militia Hoplite unit. All the choices come from when to charge, when to use the Arete Points, and who supports who. There are a lot of tactical choices to make, but there is almost no strategic choice. Hoplites are hoplites, and non-hoplites are non-hoplites.

Therefore, there is very little buzz around the game as there is no Strategic choice to talk about outside of the game. All the choices are built into the game play itself. What can you really say beyond, I own it and I like/do not like it?



*= Smart Ass me says there is no discussion about Men of Bronze because there is no one playing it!

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 Easy E wrote:
Right, and I would argue players want to talk about Buffs and Nerfs way more than they want to talk about positioning.

Positioning requires a board and visualizing the table. Buffs and Nerfs do not, they can be dealt with in a vacuum and therefore lead to more "discussion" about what is "better" to take.

Without this ability to talk about a game in the vacuum, the game will have more difficulty getting traction.

I will use Men of Bronze as an example. There is no discussion about the game online other than initial reviews and the occasional battle report*. Why? Simple, what is there to talk about? It is pretty clear that an Elite Hoplite unit is better than a Militia Hoplite unit. All the choices come from when to charge, when to use the Arete Points, and who supports who. There are a lot of tactical choices to make, but there is almost no strategic choice. Hoplites are hoplites, and non-hoplites are non-hoplites.

Therefore, there is very little buzz around the game as there is no Strategic choice to talk about outside of the game. All the choices are built into the game play itself. What can you really say beyond, I own it and I like/do not like it?



*= Smart Ass me says there is no discussion about Men of Bronze because there is no one playing it!


I think you're putting the cart before the horse here/smart ass you might be closer to the truth. Online discussion is always going to be a factor of the size of a community, the segment of the game community that takes the time to engage with the online community is always in the minority of the larger population. I know many people that play tabletop wargames, only a small handful of them ever take the time to engage in discussions about the game online (exclusively on facebook), I'm the only one that actively peruses and engages on reddit, dakka, and other "deeper" parts of the web for content. If only 1% of a community is passionate enough to get online to discuss it, and your game only has a thousand players, you're talking about a total of 10 people who care enough to have that discussion - now those 10 people have the challenge of finding eachother online to actually be able to meaningfully engage in that conversation. Its a big internet and theres no guarantee any of them will ever encounter eachother. One might be a dakkite, the other only uses TMP, and another uses facebook exclusively, and yet another is an OnTableTop/Beasts of War afficionado, and yet another only ever goes on reddit, etc. etc. etc.

If you haven't already, you should get in the habit of creating "official" facebook groups for your games so you can draw in your own community and centralize them in a common space to engender these sorts of discussions. Community is essentially the growth engine for tabletop gaming and a far more effective marketing tool than buying advertisements or hawking your wares at conventions. There are lots of challenges to selling minis games to people, getting initial buy-in for a new game is the hard part as you're convincing people to invest time and money into a product that they don't have a local opponent or community for, but once you have that first wave of "agents" out there, they start becoming independent recruiters suckering more people into the game - but for that to work takes two things:

1. Continued interest on the part of the agent - The early adopters who bought into the game need to remain hooked and invested in your game, you can't let someone else distract them away from playing your game. This means you need to keep them engaged with content - discussion, conversion photos, videos, new scenarios, experimental rules, etc. etc. etc. All these things that will keep their interest, generate excitement, engender discussion and debate, etc.

2. Continued interest on the part of potential new customers - Theres lots of marketing metrics/lingo that describes this, but basically at its heart is the idea that the average sale only comes after a number of "touches" or engagements occur between a potentially interested party and a specific product. A first touch might be seeing an ad somewhere, a second touch might be visiting the games website, a third reading a review on belloflostsouls, a fourth seeing someone playing the game at local club, the fifth seeing the rulebook at a local store, the sixth watching a youtube review, etc. etc. etc. I've seen the average number of touches per sale for most products pegged as being between 6 and 13 touches. You're not going to easily get all 6 to 13 touches on your own online. Having an active and engaged community playing the game in their local stores will probably get your 3 or 4 touches on its own, and the existence of the community in and of itself can serve as a touchpoint as well - lots of interested gamers these days will join a facebook group for a game to see whats going on in the community, see what people are building and working on (photos of conversions or painted armies, etc. are worth their weight in gold) and ask questions, etc. which will further push them into making that purchase.

All that to say that if you're not finding the discussion about your game, it isn't because you designed a game where that discussion doesn't exist - no game is perfectly balanced and theres definitely something in Men of Bronze around which players could form an axis of strategic debate that is identified by the community as being a decisive factor in play outcomes, etc. Rather its because you haven't fostered a community that is large enough or active enough for those discussions to occur.

CoALabaer wrote:
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MN (Currently in WY)

A good post ChaosxOmega. Perhaps a topic for a different Wargame Design Discussion though?

So, to move away from Men of Bronze. Players are talking about a handful of games and a handful of topics in those game (Online, in the Store, and in their basements/garages). If you strip away lore and hobby content, they are mostly talking about strategic choice. What to bring to the game, how units work together, probability calculations, theoretical match-ups, and mathhammer.

That is why I say, do not worry about the balance too much as there will ALWAYS be someone who will worry about it more than you. A decent amount of strategic choice is great for a game/product. It gives an easy access to discuss your game in a vacuum.

However, I am the first to admit that I do not know what people want to play. I only know what I want to play.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/04/05 18:40:23


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Oh yeah, the actual topic at hand - I'm with Easy E. Don't worry about it. Honestly I think points systems are a relic of outdated british wargaming design philosophies. They don't actually measure what most people think they measure and the reality is that points systems don't result in balance, rather they define balance. If you want to encourage or discourage certain playstyles then you simply weigh the points scale to incentivize or disincentize the use of the corresponding units to drive the end-user (i.e. players) towards adoption of that style and methodology of play. This is, essentially, the process through which all points systems are created, regardless of whether that points system relies on the objectivity of an algorithm or formula, or the subjectivity of playtesting and heuristic processing. Every points system spits out a number that is the result of weighing different factors and variables to different degrees to generate a fixed value. Even objectively generated values resulting from a formula/algorithm are subject to subjectivity, because when those formulas/algorithms are developed its the result of a game designer saying "okay, so I think this is a major contributing factor to game balance and this should account for 20% of a units points cost on its own as a result", etc.

CoALabaer wrote:
Wargamers hate two things: the state of the game and change.
 
   
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I don't think you can strip away the lore and the hobby content: people are arguing specifically because the lore has sold them on a ratio that doesn't exist in the game, and they're either deciding what to buy next, or regretting the decision they made to buy something oversold in the lore and not as good as the lore on the table.

I think chaos0xomega has a really good point about how these discussions occur as product lines and their customers grow, as you need that critical mass of people invested in a commercial product to get it.
   
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If we can leave 40k out of this for a moment.

Lots of games do not use points values, the ones that are scenario driven,(including historical re fights of famous battles.)
Some are more narrative and have a games master that determines what units are available .etc.(Most RPGs .)

Games that use point values and composition restrictions mainly do this to achieve enough game balance for enjoyable random pick up games.

If wargames have enough tactical depth, then slight imbalances can be overcome with better use of the units available to achieve a tactical
advantage.
Example if units have to maneuver into effective weapons range, or need line of sight , and use line of sight blocking mechanisms like smoke rounds. Also a deeper morale system to show the effect on units as they loose morale and effectiveness, eg suppressed, stunned /neutralized, routing etc.

EG a Light recon force runs into a heavy armoured force.
Without the ability to blind the heavy armour with smoke, and tactically suppress heavy armour so the light recon units can engage on more favorable terms in close assault with heavy armoured units.

The game becomes very tactically shallow, boring and not much fun to play. (Even if costing is as accurate as it can be. )

Rules that are written to drive the game play tend to focus on tactical advantages and tactical disadvantages in each specific force.(In my experience of wargaming.)

Most tend to assign points at the level of interaction.
Eg if in a skirmish game , if each model represents a single combatant, and they resolve combat at the individual model level.
Then the costing is at the individual model level. Comparing individual models PV to other individual models PV ( Necromundia ,Mordhiem etc.)

If in a larger scale game , where each unit of model(s ) , represent a single combatant UNIT. Then the level of interaction is at the unit level.
So costing should be at the unit level.EG compare unit PV to unit PV.As this removes the synergistic variations of components in the unit.
(EG Flames Of War ,Epic 40k.etc.)

So if a game is all about units fighting units.
Fine tuning costs by comparing unit to unit, to find comparative effectiveness, generally gives a good base value PV.

Then any synergistic bonuses in force composition found by playtesting , can be addressed by scaling point values by multiples.
Eg 1 heavy tank is 250 points, 2 heavy tanks is 600 points and 3 heavy tanks is 900 points.

Or by limiting the number of that unit available, 0-1 , or 0-2.etc.

Or by making multiples of a unit with a large synergy bonus only available in a specialized list. With a large tactical disadvantage to off set it.

Eg a heavy tank company is rarely deployed en mass on one battle field. Platoons are often assigned to mixed companies for heavy assault operations. Often heavy tank platoons are split up among the units in the mixed company.

The only time more than one platoon of heavy tanks is deployed is during a very important massed assault on a very hard target.
This 'Breaching Group' can only be supported by armoured infantry, in armoured transport.

It is assumed to have enough fire power not to require air or artillery support. And is assumed to be resilient enough not to need any recon support on the way to its primary target...(But the enemy could have recon telling them what force is coming, and have plenty of time to call in air and or artillery support....)

I probably need to explain that better?










   
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MN (Currently in WY)

I think the general points are clear enough Lanrak.

- Points are only a balancing metric for an enjoyable game

- Points calculations should match the level of the game.

I am in agreement. Assigning points is a mix of Art and Science. No matter what anyone tells you, there is no perfect algorithm to do it, as there are always factors that can not be foreseen by the designer.

As Chaos said, even trying to build such a formula is still tinged by your own game bias on how the game "should" be played.

Therefore, you need you point system to be "good enough" and let your fans nibble around the edges at it.

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Theres one slight problem with that analysis, and thats that points are properly tabulated at the "force" level. I.E. in a skirmish game where each player brings a 6-12 individual models, the points are balanced around what capabilities those 6-12 models can bring to the table in combination, not around what an individual model does. Likewise, in a battle scale game where each player brings a half dozen UNITS of models that activate together, points are properly balanced around what those half dozen units can bring to the table in combination, not as individual units.

This is part of why I said earlier that "don't actually measure what most people think they measure" - that includes most game designers (who tend to approach point systems with the wrong understanding even though they eventually end up with the correct implementation regardless of whether they realize it or not). Most people assume that points are a resource redeemable for some standard measure of capability (call it points efficiency, marine equivalents killed per turn, or whatever) and thus expect that two units in two different armies with the same stat lines to cost the exact same amount. This is erroneous and fails to take into account the synergies that un-priceable synergies and unique faction-specific capabilities that are common in most wargames today, as well as the need to define specific playstyles (which are "sculpted" using points to encourage the use of some units and capabilities over others). Instead of being a resource spent on measures of capability, points are a handicapping tool meant to impose limitations on what it is that a player can bring to the table by restricting the ability to purchase excess capability beyond what the games designer thinks is appropriate for a given level of play. This is why most points systems do not scale well (the play experience and competitive meta of a game at two different point levels can vary wildly), because they are built around the idea of limiting the capability of an army as a whole rather than purchasing the capability of an individual model or unit - in essence they function in the exact opposite way from a spendable resource.

The only time this is really an exception is when the game doesn't have factions or build limitations and every player has access to the same pool of options - THEN the points can be measured at the level of the lowest individual block and used as a resource to purchase capability.

CoALabaer wrote:
Wargamers hate two things: the state of the game and change.
 
   
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Annandale, VA

 some bloke wrote:
Unit A offers a buff to nearby vehicles. Unit A has a fixed price, but if they are taken in a low-vehicle list, they become overcosted and less effective than they could have been. a 40k example would be a KFF big mek - he can repair vehicles, but if there are no vehicles, that ability is wasted cost.

To combat this, I have a couple of thoughts - either you could frontload the unit with costs and offer reduced points costs (or equivalent) to vehicles in the list, or you can increase the cost of the support unit based on the number of vehicles in the list. Another option is for the units to have the ability to pick & choose their abilities.


Remember that points aren't just a balancing mechanism, they're a shaping mechanism.

As a designer, what do you want a 'proper' army to look like? If it's three tanks and a mechanic, then you can set the points such that three tanks with no mechanic are too expensive for what they do, but a mechanic doesn't provide enough benefit to be worth taking alongside a single tank, and at four or more tanks a single mechanic can't keep up. You set both costs and capabilities around the assumption of three tanks and a mechanic, and then deviation from that optimal state loses efficiency.

Games that are reasonably fair in casual play but break down competitively tend to be ones where the designers have appropriately set points for their concept of a 'proper'/fluffy/historical army, but have failed to explore the edge cases to see whether the gameplay actually promotes that 'proper' army as the optimal composition. Oops, turns out ten tanks and no mechanic works a lot better.

Points don't need to perfectly reflect relative capabilities in a vacuum; they just need to incentivize the gameplay outcomes you want. Points become a problem when either they incentivize unintended gameplay (eg a Lord of the Rings army that's all war machines) and/or result in unbalanced gameplay in ostensibly-balanced scenarios.

   
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Catbarf gets it.

CoALabaer wrote:
Wargamers hate two things: the state of the game and change.
 
   
 
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