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Made in de
Morally-Flexible Malleus Hearing Whispers




So, cards on the table. Would anyone actually have a marked decrease in play if 40k went full Power Levels and abandoned points entirely? Because I'll be honest, I don't think it would stop the competitive scene, and frankly, that's the only leg propping up this horse these days. It won't affect the painters, or the modelers, or the fluffers, only the hard-core enthusiasts that still cling to points as the saving balance grace of 40k.

I'm not making a judgment for or against PL, only that GW is showing that it's no longer really relavent to success of a faction, and if that's true, it's not inherently tied to balance. I know I am glossing over a LOT of minutia here, but do you honestly see GW just saying everything is Free, like they appear to be doing with Guard, for EVERY faction? No. It would only work for a very few factions. Factions where there aren't a great deal of options or point flux therein. Custodes could go FULL power level tomorrow and not notice. Guard can as well, if they bake it into the cost of the squads. Space Marines, being the Hyper generalist. ultra customizable bois, would be more difficult. And herein lays what I see as the future:

GW will Legends all non-primaris units that aren't infantry. Infantry will be made to be basically stock standard copies of Primaris, IE Terminators would become Gravis Clones. Scouts would become Infiltrators. Standard squads would become their closest primaris option. And just delete half the weapon options. You get Plasma, HBs, and the varying Bolt rifles. That's basically it. They would have to legends all the old vehicles as well.
   
Made in us
The Marine Standing Behind Marneus Calgar





Upstate, New York

The only 9th I’ve played has been PL crusade games.

Sometimes I miss the granularity of points, but overall I’m not fussed either way.

And if they switch to all PL all the time, they are going to have to revist a lot of units for ballance. It’s one thing to use the PL as the average of unit cost options, but if you no for example, that every nid gaunt is going to have adrenal glands and toxin sacks, that should just be baked/priced into the profile.

   
Made in ca
Poisonous Kroot Headhunter





Honestly, I think that a hybrid system would work best. PL for the baseline units and you have a certain amount of points to spend on upgrades across the army.

The problem I have with points, is that in order to min/max, everyone just runs basic units with maybe a single very strong upgrade here or there. The problem I have with PL is that every unit is decked out to the 9's with every conceivable upgrade and option, because why not, they're free.

I'd love to have some kind of middle ground to this.

17210 4965 3235 5350 2936 2273 1176 2675
1614 1342 1010 2000 960 1330 1040  
   
Made in us
Longtime Dakkanaut




 Tawnis wrote:
Honestly, I think that a hybrid system would work best. PL for the baseline units and you have a certain amount of points to spend on upgrades across the army.

The problem I have with points, is that in order to min/max, everyone just runs basic units with maybe a single very strong upgrade here or there. The problem I have with PL is that every unit is decked out to the 9's with every conceivable upgrade and option, because why not, they're free.

I'd love to have some kind of middle ground to this.

The middle ground is that you have to realize any upgrade is worth SOMETHING and it's up to GW to figure out the point cost.

Wait that's not a middle ground.
   
Made in us
Ancient Venerable Dreadnought




San Jose, CA

Short answer nope, long answer....maybe but not enuff to negatively impact play.
   
Made in nl
Longtime Dakkanaut





PL itself is not a problem, balance issues as a result of how PL is used is the problem.

If the unit is roughly the same regardless of what upgrade you pick its fine.
If you get Tyranid warriors its not fine.

The issue people have with GW switching to PL is that we have no reason to assume GW can bring better balance to 40k by getting rid of points.

   
Made in us
Fixture of Dakka





I really like PL. I think the only thing they really need to do is give each datasheet an upgrade budget to limit what they can take. So like, having a Lascannon in the unit means you probably can't take a Thunder Hammer on the Sgt or something like that. Basically separate out equipment costs into a per unit side currency and greatly simplify them so that there's a reason to take some of the currently cheaper options. Basically, boys and toys shouldn't come out of the same pool.
   
Made in us
Nasty Nob




Crescent City Fl..

Yes and no. Yes only in that I would have a fair bit less stress when putting together my list and I'd use more cool models with all the gubbinz but also no because I'm not really looking for any games this year so far. I just don't enjoy 9th at all. But being able to just plop in all the cool stuff no worries would be a feels good because they will quickly be back in the box, so who cares.

Sigh, Yet another doomed attempt by man to bridge the gap between the material and spiritual worlds 
   
Made in us
Fixture of Dakka




NE Ohio, USA

Nope.
97%+ of all the games of 9th I've played have been Crusade. In the other 3% or so? I honestly don't care if I'm adding up PL or pts. Neither changes how I play, what I build, or how often I play. I don't expect those things to change for the remainder of 9th.

As to any balance issues? Eh. There's balance issues with pts anyways. Using PL doesn't change anything.

   
Made in us
Terrifying Doombull




At this point, no. They seemed to be purposely sabotaging the points system now (and doing so inconsistently).

I don't like the way people abuse PL, but their 'two systems' approach isn't working, because they aren't doing the work.

GW will Legends all non-primaris units that aren't infantry. Infantry will be made to be basically stock standard copies of Primaris, IE Terminators would become Gravis Clones. Scouts would become Infiltrators. Standard squads would become their closest primaris option. And just delete half the weapon options. You get Plasma, HBs, and the varying Bolt rifles. That's basically it. They would have to legends all the old vehicles as well.

As usual, though, your conclusion makes no sense at all, and doesn't even seem related to anything else.

They just got slapped with giant wads of cash that say non-primaris stuff is relevant, popular and MAJOR money makers.
They sold out of Rhinos! Rhinos with a sprue of a broad selection of weapons for pintle mounts.

This message was edited 4 times. Last update was at 2022/06/08 20:59:24


Efficiency is the highest virtue. 
   
Made in gb
Gore-Drenched Khorne Chaos Lord




You keep making these weird conspiracy theory power level based posts and they ultimately focus around binning off guard or marines.

No, they won't go purely power level and no midget marines aren't going anywhere.

I honestly think we might see less granular units ala sigmar reinforcements.
   
Made in us
Ollanius Pius - Savior of the Emperor






Gathering the Informations.

I'd play it more...but I already play PL exclusively.

The only thing, bluntly, that needs to be done is as suggested:
Add a PL cost for upgrades. It doesn't even need to be a wild idea, simply price out the unit then give a Power cost to upgrade basic troopers into Special/Heavy weapon operators as appropriate.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Voss wrote:
At this point, no. They seemed to be purposely sabotaging the points system now (and doing so inconsistently).

I don't like the way people abuse PL, but their 'two systems' approach isn't working, because they aren't doing the work.

Out of curiosity, where/what abuses are you seeing? Is it mainly Crusade based stuff?

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2022/06/08 20:45:54


 
   
Made in us
Terrifying Doombull




Nope. Just whenever I see people play PL, they max out the good stuff, every time.

Often, people here defending PL claim it doesn't happen, but on real tables its amazingly consistent.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2022/06/08 21:00:57


Efficiency is the highest virtue. 
   
Made in us
Ollanius Pius - Savior of the Emperor






Gathering the Informations.

I'd be interested to see what the correlation is between those people playing PL and playing points, as that's where I tend to see the specific issue you're mentioning come up.

I can kinda understand why too. If you're playing the two, you might have the min-max "best" items for points.
   
Made in us
Ancient Venerable Dreadnought




San Jose, CA

Then you play with people that don't get PL in the first place.

   
Made in us
Pious Palatine




It's not different, just dumber. Sigmar is even less granular and it works more or less the same way 40k does, you just end up with more useless loadouts.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2022/06/08 21:56:15



 
   
Made in dk
Loyal Necron Lychguard






No, PL is just a terrible pts format and points are currently terribly balanced. I would play a lot more with less bloat, less fluff-breaking rules and a good pts system.
   
Made in us
Longtime Dakkanaut




ccs wrote:

As to any balance issues? Eh. There's balance issues with pts anyways. Using PL doesn't change anything.

Why is thus ever a defense for PL? Points are bad, so switch to a WORSE system because bad is bad?
   
Made in de
Morally-Flexible Malleus Hearing Whispers




I personally want to try and understand PL for various factions. My friend just tells me when they play PL, they get to put more models in their list, whereas with Points, it usually drops by 5-10%. Is that an accurate assessment, you get more models on average on the table?

For instance, I play Custodes and want to make BA my next faction. I know just by simple math my Custodes would get far more models.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2022/06/08 22:34:16


 
   
Made in us
Irked Necron Immortal




Sentient Void

No because the point system is not the problem. Getting rid of points but keeping Command Points and Stratagems is a ridiculous exercise in futility. The Codex release method offers printed materials that are dated before you receive them. BUY MORE or we discontinue your list!

I have a great idea, let's hide the broken under some PL and try to make people think everything is awesome by using words such as bespoke while unveiling over the top models that cost twice as much as anywhere else. But it is cool, just chill, we will make sure everything is mono-pose so no need to think; just buy and PL dudes!

Paradigm for a happy relationship with Games Workshop: Burn the books and take the models to a different game. 
   
Made in us
Terrifying Doombull




Racerguy180 wrote:
Then you play with people that don't get PL in the first place.

 Kanluwen wrote:
I'd be interested to see what the correlation is between those people playing PL and playing points, as that's where I tend to see the specific issue you're mentioning come up.

I can kinda understand why too. If you're playing the two, you might have the min-max "best" items for points.


Nope and nope. You guys make frankly weird assumptions.

The majority of folks I see using PL are younger and used to systems where they get everything for a flat cost, several started Warhammer with AoS, for example. A couple, WM mk2. They've never used more complex points systems, they assume everything (including the best stuff) comes by default.

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2022/06/08 23:49:39


Efficiency is the highest virtue. 
   
Made in us
Ollanius Pius - Savior of the Emperor






Gathering the Informations.

I didn't "assume" anything there, Voss. I simply made a statement. One of the things I personally have noticed in observing games while at stores is that there's some folks who play Power and Points...but their lists are clearly intended to have been built using points.

In your instance though, they might assume everything comes by default because that's how Power works.

Back when Stu Black was talking about Power when they first debuted it, he made a comment about a formula the studio uses internally to figure out Power v Points. Some items were mentioned as being considered "free upgrades" or "discounted" for it(ex: a mandatory unit leader or unit attachment ala the Ghostkeel's stealth drones), while others might see a Power cost same as they would a points cost.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2022/06/09 00:13:39


 
   
Made in us
Enigmatic Chaos Sorcerer




The dark hollows of Kentucky

 Kanluwen wrote:
I'd play it more...but I already play PL exclusively.

The only thing, bluntly, that needs to be done is as suggested:
Add a PL cost for upgrades. It doesn't even need to be a wild idea, simply price out the unit then give a Power cost to upgrade basic troopers into Special/Heavy weapon operators as appropriate.

So, the unit costs (X) PL, and the upgrades cost (Y) PL? How exactly is that different from the unit costing (X) points and the upgrades costing (Y) points? I'm, not really seeing the difference.
   
Made in us
Confessor Of Sins





Tacoma, WA, USA

EviscerationPlague wrote:
 Tawnis wrote:
Honestly, I think that a hybrid system would work best. PL for the baseline units and you have a certain amount of points to spend on upgrades across the army.

The problem I have with points, is that in order to min/max, everyone just runs basic units with maybe a single very strong upgrade here or there. The problem I have with PL is that every unit is decked out to the 9's with every conceivable upgrade and option, because why not, they're free.

I'd love to have some kind of middle ground to this.

The middle ground is that you have to realize any upgrade is worth SOMETHING and it's up to GW to figure out the point cost.

Wait that's not a middle ground.
Actually the Middle Ground is to bake the points values of some upgrades into the unit and then provide a cost for less upgrades. This can be done with either Power Level or Points.

Let's take the classic Tactical Squad as an example (yes, I know nobody uses Tactical Squads, this is a thought exercise). They are currently 18 points a model (180 points for 10 bare bones models) with every possible upgrade costing points. If we assume you will always take a Special or Heavy Weapon when possible, we can change them to 20 points a model and eliminate the cost for all Special Weapons and for Heavy Bolter, Heavy Flamer, and Grav-Cannon. Reduce the cost of the other special weapons by 10 points each.

The result is a Simpler cost sheet for the Tactical Squad and people will actually put Special and/or Heavy Weapon in the unit.

I'm 110% in a Points that encourages the game on the board to look more like the game in the background.

You can do the same exercise in reverse for Power Level. Reduce the basic PL on the unit and then put some threshold on a unit's upgrades that increases the PL.

Once again, the Tactical Marines are currently base 5 PL and PL 10 if more than 6 Models. That's about right unless you load up on maximum upgrades, so change the rule to say:

Base PL 5. If this unit has 6 or more models add +5 PL. If this unit uses more than 2 Wargear options, add 1 PL.
   
Made in us
Fixture of Dakka




NE Ohio, USA

EviscerationPlague wrote:
ccs wrote:

As to any balance issues? Eh. There's balance issues with pts anyways. Using PL doesn't change anything.

Why is thus ever a defense for PL? Points are bad, so switch to a WORSE system because bad is bad?


Since our Crusades have been running smoothly (well as smoothly as 40k 9e does in general), using PL everytime, for almost two years now?
There's nothing you can say that will convince me that PL is any worse than pts
   
Made in us
Ollanius Pius - Savior of the Emperor






Gathering the Informations.

 Gadzilla666 wrote:
 Kanluwen wrote:
I'd play it more...but I already play PL exclusively.

The only thing, bluntly, that needs to be done is as suggested:
Add a PL cost for upgrades. It doesn't even need to be a wild idea, simply price out the unit then give a Power cost to upgrade basic troopers into Special/Heavy weapon operators as appropriate.

So, the unit costs (X) PL, and the upgrades cost (Y) PL? How exactly is that different from the unit costing (X) points and the upgrades costing (Y) points? I'm, not really seeing the difference.

Not every single item costs PL. It tends to be based upon things that increase the size of the unit.

Using Broadsides as an example:
A single Broadside is 5 Power and it costs you an additional Power to upgrade each Broadside to have 2 Drones.
As of the initial launch of the Tau Empire codex, a Broadside was 75pts base. Drones ranged from 8 to 15 points per. Seeker Missiles were 5 pts, SMS were 15, HYMP were 10, and twin Plasma Rifles were 10.

Broadsides are 6 Power each with Drones being the only paid for upgrade vs something like 4-5 paid upgrades via points.
   
Made in us
Enigmatic Chaos Sorcerer




The dark hollows of Kentucky

 Kanluwen wrote:
 Gadzilla666 wrote:
 Kanluwen wrote:
I'd play it more...but I already play PL exclusively.

The only thing, bluntly, that needs to be done is as suggested:
Add a PL cost for upgrades. It doesn't even need to be a wild idea, simply price out the unit then give a Power cost to upgrade basic troopers into Special/Heavy weapon operators as appropriate.

So, the unit costs (X) PL, and the upgrades cost (Y) PL? How exactly is that different from the unit costing (X) points and the upgrades costing (Y) points? I'm, not really seeing the difference.

Not every single item costs PL. It tends to be based upon things that increase the size of the unit.

Using Broadsides as an example:
A single Broadside is 5 Power and it costs you an additional Power to upgrade each Broadside to have 2 Drones.
As of the initial launch of the Tau Empire codex, a Broadside was 75pts base. Drones ranged from 8 to 15 points per. Seeker Missiles were 5 pts, SMS were 15, HYMP were 10, and twin Plasma Rifles were 10.

Broadsides are 6 Power each with Drones being the only paid for upgrade vs something like 4-5 paid upgrades via points.

Yes, that's how it currently works. But I thought that you were suggesting adding a PL cost to all of those various weapons upgrades. My apologies if I misunderstood you.
   
Made in au
Owns Whole Set of Skullz Techpriests






Versteckt in den Schatten deines Geistes.

Seems like a lot of extra steps to achieve a less accurate result.

Industrial Insanity - My Terrain Blog
"GW really needs to understand 'Less is more' when it comes to AoS." - Wha-Mu-077

 
   
Made in us
Ollanius Pius - Savior of the Emperor






Gathering the Informations.

 Gadzilla666 wrote:

Yes, that's how it currently works. But I thought that you were suggesting adding a PL cost to all of those various weapons upgrades. My apologies if I misunderstood you.

I was not suggesting that each of the weapons should have an individual PL cost.

I was suggesting, however, that maybe there should be a PL upgrade to the unit for possessing any special/heavy weapon in general. I see no issue with that.

IE:
A Guard Infantry Squad that just consists of a Sergeant and 9 Riflemen?
Flat cost of Power.
Taking a Special Weapon? +1PL.
Taking a Heavy Weapon? +1 PL.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2022/06/09 01:46:05


 
   
Made in us
Longtime Dakkanaut




Maybe. It would change what army I play. Make an army of Orks vs. an army of Harlequins via PL and see what comes out to even points. Different armies aren't treated fairly when it comes to points=>PL conversions.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
ccs wrote:
EviscerationPlague wrote:
ccs wrote:

As to any balance issues? Eh. There's balance issues with pts anyways. Using PL doesn't change anything.

Why is thus ever a defense for PL? Points are bad, so switch to a WORSE system because bad is bad?


Since our Crusades have been running smoothly (well as smoothly as 40k 9e does in general), using PL everytime, for almost two years now?
There's nothing you can say that will convince me that PL is any worse than pts


How do Ork players handle the fact that they get taxed 1 PL for increasing a characteristic by 1 on their warboss? You say "smoothly" and that's just because everyone is super civil with each other - not that the rules are good.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2022/06/09 04:58:22


 
   
 
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