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.
SHUPPET wrote: Arguing that's whats best for GW's pockets runs parallel to what's best for game design, is counter productive and unrealistic. At best you can argue that at the expense of game design, selling more miniatures through soup can improve the profitability of the game and the size of the scene.
That's a really interesting point.
40k is the most popular and widely played tabletop miniature game on Earth.
If, as you say, the profitability of the game / size of the scene is a function of quality of game design, doesn't that mean Games Workshop has finally designed the best possible game for people to play?
SHUPPET wrote: Arguing that's whats best for GW's pockets runs parallel to what's best for game design, is counter productive and unrealistic. At best you can argue that at the expense of game design, selling more miniatures through soup can improve the profitability of the game and the size of the scene.
That's a really interesting point.
40k is the most popular and widely played tabletop miniature game on Earth.
If, as you say, the profitability of the game / size of the scene is a function of quality of game design, doesn't that mean Games Workshop has finally designed the best possible game for people to play?
Sounds like a big endorsement for soup.
Some of the most profitable games in the world are the worst designed. Especially when it comes to game balance. Pay-to-win mobile bs is a trillion dollar industry for example, you can work your way down from there. People will happily pay for an in-game advantage. Guarantee you Tau sold a gakload more in 6th or 7th than they have in 8th, does that mean that 6th ed Tau and Riptide Wings were the pinnacle of 40k game design for the race?
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2018/11/02 04:40:31
P.S.A. I won't read your posts if you break it into a million separate quotes and make an eyesore of it.
Your army does not autowin every game and others are a little more competitive. So that means the game is broken.
Yeah, right. My other army is Grey Knights, I play them monocodex when I want a challenge. The game works just fine.
This is not what you implied above, I am sorry. You said "If people bought models for these factions..."
Au contraire, if GW updated the models for these factions and wrote better rules, we would escape such vicious circle.
You are correct, that is not what I wrote above.
What I wrote above was in response to a separate point, in a separate context. It makes no sense for me to repeat the same point in a different one.
There is nothing inconsistent in these two statements:
- Yes, Xenos armies would have better rules and more options if people bought more of their models. There are market forces at work and they do matter.
- Yes, most Xenos armies are weak (for now) in comparison to Imperium armies. That does not mean there's anything wrong with the game. It certainly does not imply anything about soup.
Chaos Space Marines were weak throughout 6th and 7th editions. Tau were off the charts most of 6th and still very powerful during 7th. In a game that goes through changes with each edition, things will change. That's why most people have multiple armies.
FWIW, Tau are not garbage tier in 8th edition. They are certainly a lot better than my Grey Knights. The fact I could take soup does not change the fact Grey Knights have it very rough in this edition. That doesn't mean the game is broken, it means the meta doesn't favor my army.
SHUPPET wrote: Arguing that's whats best for GW's pockets runs parallel to what's best for game design, is counter productive and unrealistic. At best you can argue that at the expense of game design, selling more miniatures through soup can improve the profitability of the game and the size of the scene.
That's a really interesting point.
40k is the most popular and widely played tabletop miniature game on Earth.
If, as you say, the profitability of the game / size of the scene is a function of quality of game design, doesn't that mean Games Workshop has finally designed the best possible game for people to play?
Sounds like a big endorsement for soup.
Some of the most profitable games in the world are the worst designed. Especially when it comes to game balance. Pay-to-win mobile bs is a trillion dollar industry for example, you can work your way down from there. People will happily pay for an in-game advantage. Guarantee you Tau sold a gakload more in 6th or 7th than they have in 8th, does that mean that 6th ed Tau and Riptide Wings were the pinnacle of 40k game design for the race?
So you are arguing bad game design sells better than good game design?
If that's true, why would anyone want to put work into making a good set of rules? I'm not sure I follow any of your points but would love to understand what you mean when you say 'good.'
If I am a company selling a miniature game, where I have to spend a lot of money on design, raw materials, manufacturing, sales, etc, good would mean 'something that sells enough so I make a profit.'
If I am a player of said game, I would define good as 'something worth spending money on.'
If the rules are not good, players would not spend money on the game. If the game was not good, that would mean it would have been discontinued a long time ago.
The game has not been discontinued and continues to sell a lot of miniatures. I believe that means the design is 'good' for players and Games Workshop alike.
But maybe you have some other way of using the word. Please share.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2018/11/02 04:53:01
I’d also like add to the actual discussion. Some have stated that list diversity is worse with soup, the evidence says otherwise. The Solcal had staggering diversity, with IG being the only list to make 2 spot in the top 16. That was even wihin the realm of possibility during 5th: People bring up that soup allows you to ignore army weaknesses is a purely bad thing, but weaknesses can also hurt list diversity. This is because having a weakness in area which was powerful for the edition was basically a death sentence. For example tyranids in 5th had the weakeness of having no access to vehicles. This essentially meant tyranids where pretty much useless competitively the whole edition because 5th was all about metal boxes. On reverse having access to good transports meant your army was automatically strong. Not always the case (Deamons where good at the end of 5th) but the pattern usually held true. In the end this meant that some armies (tyranids, tau, orks past Nob biker phase,) were bad the whole edition.
I also don’t get this orks,necrons, and tau are bad because they have no allies” talk. Necrons are bad sure, but even with allies you would still only ever see destroyers and vaults. Orks just got a new codex, so we don’t know how good they are yet(but I’m leaning towards very good). Tau have been consistently good enough to reach higher tables at big events, so I don’t think you can say they’re in a bad spot. So if 1 allyless army is bad (for clear reasons other than just lacking allies), one is unknown, and one is good, then how is there a problem?
Yes, Xenos armies would have better rules and more options if people bought more of their models. There are market forces at work and they do matter.
Based off what? SM and BA are two of the highest seller, yet they are both some of the worst armies in the game. Why state something like this?
techsoldaten wrote: FWIW, Tau are not garbage tier in 8th edition. They are certainly a lot better than my Grey Knights. The fact I could take soup does not change the fact Grey Knights have it very rough in this edition. That doesn't mean the game is broken, it means the meta doesn't favor my army.
SHUPPET wrote: Some of the most profitable games in the world are the worst designed. Especially when it comes to game balance. Pay-to-win mobile bs is a trillion dollar industry for example, you can work your way down from there. People will happily pay for an in-game advantage. Guarantee you Tau sold a gakload more in 6th or 7th than they have in 8th, does that mean that 6th ed Tau and Riptide Wings were the pinnacle of 40k game design for the race?
So you are arguing bad game design sells better than good game design?
If that's true, why would anyone want to put work into making a good set of rules? I'm not sure I follow any of your points but would love to understand what you mean when you say 'good.'
If I am a company selling a miniature game, where I have to spend a lot of money on design, raw materials, manufacturing, sales, etc, good would mean 'something that sells enough so I make a profit.'
If I am a player of said game, I would define good as 'something worth spending money on.'
If the rules are not good, players would not spend money on the game. If the game was not good, that would mean it would have been discontinued a long time ago.
The game has not been discontinued and continues to sell a lot of miniatures. I believe that means the design is 'good' for players and Games Workshop alike.
But maybe you have some other way of using the word. Please share.
Holy crap. This is beyond fanboyism at this point. If we aren't allowed to criticise game balance because "pay to win sells more!", then why are you even weighing in on whether or not allies are better for game design or not? The topic has nothing to do with what lines GW's pockets most.
I didn't say anything about bad game design selling more, I just pointed out that good sales aren't necessarily a reflection of good game design.
Regardless your entire point works against you. Even with soup, 40k is selling better than ever in the most balanced edition ever.
This message was edited 4 times. Last update was at 2018/11/02 05:25:42
P.S.A. I won't read your posts if you break it into a million separate quotes and make an eyesore of it.
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: Allies have basically always existed in some form. People just pretend it didn't to fit their own narrative.
Allies are fine, and quite frankly if anything prove how bad internal balance is with differing codices. That's a good thing.
When they were limited to house rules no they didn't.
And question is are thev good to have? If you don't care about balancing or are willing to make special scenario to ensure balance sure. As standard though allies kill any pretension of balance. Simple as that.
Now if you don't carb about balance fine but don't complain about unbalance then
RogueApiary wrote: Soup makes having to get 20+ factions roughly equal in power to one another down to seven.
Only by no longer having 20+ factions. This is not an improvement.
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.
Yes, Xenos armies would have better rules and more options if people bought more of their models. There are market forces at work and they do matter.
Based off what? SM and BA are two of the highest seller, yet they are both some of the worst armies in the game. Why state something like this?
I disagree with the idea SM and BA are the worst armies in the game. They're more mid-tier, and both are a lot better allied with a Guard detachment.
The point is soup has nothing to do with the weakness of Xenos armies. Go ahead and complain about the rules, the cost, whatever. But soup and command points are not the reason they are losing.
techsoldaten wrote: FWIW, Tau are not garbage tier in 8th edition. They are certainly a lot better than my Grey Knights. The fact I could take soup does not change the fact Grey Knights have it very rough in this edition. That doesn't mean the game is broken, it means the meta doesn't favor my army.
who said Tau were garbage?
Perhaps I was confused, I thought you were arguing Xenos armies were disadvantaged because they can't take allies. I assumed this included Tau.
Regardless, that was a reminder some Xenos armies do pretty well without allies.
SHUPPET wrote: Some of the most profitable games in the world are the worst designed. Especially when it comes to game balance. Pay-to-win mobile bs is a trillion dollar industry for example, you can work your way down from there. People will happily pay for an in-game advantage. Guarantee you Tau sold a gakload more in 6th or 7th than they have in 8th, does that mean that 6th ed Tau and Riptide Wings were the pinnacle of 40k game design for the race?
Spoiler:
So you are arguing bad game design sells better than good game design?
If that's true, why would anyone want to put work into making a good set of rules? I'm not sure I follow any of your points but would love to understand what you mean when you say 'good.'
If I am a company selling a miniature game, where I have to spend a lot of money on design, raw materials, manufacturing, sales, etc, good would mean 'something that sells enough so I make a profit.'
If I am a player of said game, I would define good as 'something worth spending money on.'
If the rules are not good, players would not spend money on the game. If the game was not good, that would mean it would have been discontinued a long time ago.
The game has not been discontinued and continues to sell a lot of miniatures. I believe that means the design is 'good' for players and Games Workshop alike.
But maybe you have some other way of using the word. Please share.
Holy crap. This is beyond fanboyism at this point. If we aren't allowed to criticise game balance because "pay to win sells more!", then why are you even weighing in on whether or not allies are better for game design or not? The topic has nothing to do with what lines GW's pockets most.
I didn't say anything about bad game design selling more, I just pointed out that good sales aren't necessarily a reflection of good game design.
Regardless your entire point works against you. Even with soup, 40k is selling better than ever in the most balanced edition ever.
Perhaps it was not obvious that I'm disagreeing with the point where you said 'Arguing that's whats best for GW's pockets runs parallel to what's best for game design, is counter productive and unrealistic.'
Sales are a reflection of 'good' game design. If you don't think that's true for 40k, I'm asking you to provide a better definition of what good means, if you have one. I'm genuinely trying to understand what you mean by 'counter productive and unrealistic' here.
Good game design means different things to different people. Previous editions tried to model reality more accurately with the cover system, scatter dice, damage templates, etc. Some players would like to see better balance and for every unit to have a hard counter in every other army. Others talk about good game design in a way that translates to "it's only good if my army is winning."
A lot of companies who put a lot of work into their rulesets went out of business in the last 18 months. They may have executed beautifully on game design, but that didn't translate into commercial success. Accurately modelling reality, better balance, personal satisfaction with outcomes - none of that actually means much when the game can't continue, right? This isn't video games, this is tabletop miniatures games, which have a different economic model for consumers and producers. No one spends money on a tabletop miniature game that has no future.
So help me understand what you mean when you say "what's best for game design." If it's anything other than "rules that encourage sales," I'd like to understand why.
The best way to handle ally problem is to make it works like an AOS. Simply restrict it to % points of the army, or, even better, to one detachment. Increase amount CP from the start, like 6 instead of 3, ally detach to not gain you more CP, but you still can spend CP on them. Ally can't be your warlord or take any relic. Sounds like a workable plan.
If I was to choose, the ally would be removed to narrative only, but this will never happens.
Silver144 wrote: The best way to handle ally problem is to make it works like an AOS. Simply restrict it to % points of the army, or, even better, to one detachment. Increase amount CP from the start, like 6 instead of 3, ally detach to not gain you more CP, but you still can spend CP on them. Ally can't be your warlord or take any relic. Sounds like a workable plan.
If I was to choose, the ally would be removed to narrative only, but this will never happens.
All it does is limit the damage. Much like the rule of 3 GW introduced. Just bandaid but doesnt' fix the problem.
Silver144 wrote: The best way to handle ally problem is to make it works like an AOS. Simply restrict it to % points of the army, or, even better, to one detachment. Increase amount CP from the start, like 6 instead of 3, ally detach to not gain you more CP, but you still can spend CP on them. Ally can't be your warlord or take any relic. Sounds like a workable plan.
If I was to choose, the ally would be removed to narrative only, but this will never happens.
All it does is limit the damage. Much like the rule of 3 GW introduced. Just bandaid but doesnt' fix the problem.
You are totally right. But at least it will reduce the offence from trainwreck to simply annoyance. No more CP farm, no more 3 factions in one. Loyal 32 is just a screen, BAsmashdude is just s beatstick.
But again, I will be happy to see soups in narrative only. This is the place for fun and narrative stuff.
techsoldaten wrote: Blaming soup for Necron / Tau / Ork woes is silly. The only disadvantage comes with command points, and strategy is not what those factions are known for. Changing the situation would require more people buying more models, a lot more.
Wow! Maybe try to learn a damn thing about armies other than your own before you make claims like this. Literally Imotekh's (you know, the leader of the most important Necron faction) entire thing is being a brilliant strategist.
RogueApiary wrote: Soup makes having to get 20+ factions roughly equal in power to one another down to seven.
Only by no longer having 20+ factions. This is not an improvement.
Given that one is far more attainable than the other, I beg to disagree. I'd rather have seven eventually balanced than hope they somehow get 20 right. Keeping in mind the number of matchups that needs to be balanced goes up considerably with each added army.
20 armies is 190 matchups. 7 factions is 42. Guess which of those you're more likely to see balanced?
20+ factions just makes the game like League of Legends, where you have the illusion of choice but really only a fraction of the heroes are viable. If you killed soup today, I can all but guarantee you'd see nothing outside of 4-5 books in the top 16 of a major.
Meanwhile, I only count six books not at all represented in Socal open. That means every GW army in the game except GK, DG, Necrons, Orks, Admech, and Deathwatch had at least one unit in the top 16. If you expand to top 32 four of those show up and that pretty much just leaves Necrons out in the cold at 33rd place and Admech in the 70's (can't recall and there's probably one higher up but BCP access to Socal is out of the 3 day free pass).
What that means is that currently, most of the books in the game have a reasonable shot at taking a major.
Faction Imperium makes reduntant 75%-90% range, that's not good. And Imperium players are forced to buy minis from too many codexes, and with ever shifting meta the pull of choices is too big, and every time you are forced to buy new subfaction. Today it's IG, tomorrow the admech the new hotness. It's EA level of pay to win. No, thanks, can I just play space wolves in matched play pls and don't feel like I handicap myself?
For what it's worth, i play mono dex and i'm all good with souping, it's a good addition to the game.
Sure it is creating some problem, but nothing more than what have been created by stratagems in 8th, or relics and traits in previous editions. When you introduce a new mechanic that allows an higher degree of freedom in customization, you have to calibrate it, which is happening right now.
Even with souping, as has been said many times the game is at it's most balanced state since... i don't know i didn't play before 5th. Souping was introduced in 6th and caused disasters, then was changed in 7th and created even bigger disasters, then 8th introduced keywords, and now souping is a good tool to optimiza lists, but at least mono dex and soup lists are playing at the same game, just with a small advantage. In 7th a soup list could easily take on a list 2 times bigger.
RogueApiary wrote: What that means is that currently, most of the books in the game have a reasonable shot at taking a major.
Only if you define "reasonable shot at taking a major" as "reasonable shot at having at least one unit in the winning soup list".
And no, going down to seven factions is not an improvement because it means having 90% of the game's content be useless. Those codices still exist, the models still exist and people still buy them. You've just declared them to be no longer tournament-viable and told the people who own them to STFU and buy soup. And you've made balancing harder in the process, not easier. By faction count you have fewer armies, but now instead of relatively self-contained and consistently-designed single codices you have massive soup factions that can take anything from any codex in the faction. All of that content is still there, just divided up in a way that is much more prone to balance issues.
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.
RogueApiary wrote: What that means is that currently, most of the books in the game have a reasonable shot at taking a major.
Only if you define "reasonable shot at taking a major" as "reasonable shot at having at least one unit in the winning soup list".
And no, going down to seven factions is not an improvement because it means having 90% of the game's content be useless. Those codices still exist, the models still exist and people still buy them. You've just declared them to be no longer tournament-viable and told the people who own them to STFU and buy soup. And you've made balancing harder in the process, not easier. By faction count you have fewer armies, but now instead of relatively self-contained and consistently-designed single codices you have massive soup factions that can take anything from any codex in the faction. All of that content is still there, just divided up in a way that is much more prone to balance issues.
I assume you want all 6 sub factions in each of those books to be balanced as well? I mean, since we're shooting for the impossible and unreasonable here we might as well go big
Tournament results beg to differ as far as balancing soup factions against each other. All but two of the seven major factions made top 16 and one of the two that didn't didnt have it's codex yet. That's pretty close to balanced.
There is literally no game on this planet, computer, board or otherwise that can balance 20 factions with unique mechanics and 100's of unique datasheets. Twilight Imperium does a decent job, but they keep a tight leash on the variables, and even then a good chunk of the faction roster is dumpster worthy.
Regardless, it's pretty obvious 'soup' is here to stay. GW's intent is clear given the direction of FAQ's and their declaration that soup was dead, implying they do not consider using the keyword system to be soup.
I understand your logic: GW makes army transaction between editions pretty bad and it is very common to see an army simply don't "fit" to the new edition. So the solution is to give it an option to take some power from better codex. But such things should be a tool, an option, but not the the only way to play game. Imperium shouldn't be default codex for all imperium players. Otherwise GW should remove all those dexes and just release Imperium codex. IG platoon guys and skitarii are the troops, space marine squad are elite, dune crawler heavy support, inqusitor HQ, etc. Until then there is no Imperium codex and I assume that if I can't play my space wolves codex like tau play their codex - it's a disbalance mistake and was not assumed by game designers. We pay the same price after all, why did they get full codex, and I only the "fraction" of it?
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2018/11/02 09:14:44
HoundsofDemos wrote: The simplest fix is to remove CP from list building and tie it to points. Allies should be taken cause you like those units, not to grab a bunch of cheap CP cause you took a dirt cheap battery option.
100% agree here. I think a good start would be 1CP for every 125pts. That would give 2000pts army 16CPs, which should be OK. Then you would need to nerf certain CP-regen abilities or completely remove those.
RogueApiary wrote: Tournament results beg to differ as far as balancing soup factions against each other. All but two of the seven major factions made top 16 and one of the two that didn't didnt have it's codex yet. That's pretty close to balanced.
Depends on your standard of faction balance.
Some of those books are essentially represented by one or two units - custodes biker captains, BA captains with packs and hammers, knight raven castellan(singular) with cawls wrath. It's a very low % of overall material.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2018/11/02 09:19:28
RogueApiary wrote: I assume you want all 6 sub factions in each of those books to be balanced as well? I mean, since we're shooting for the impossible and unreasonable here we might as well go big
It would be nice, but it's less essential. I can still play Cadian models as Catachans if the Cadian rules are weak, it's not like reducing the IG codex to its two-unit CP batter contribution to the soup. And up until 8th those sub-factions didn't have rules at all and everything was fine.
Tournament results beg to differ as far as balancing soup factions against each other. All but two of the seven major factions made top 16 and one of the two that didn't didnt have it's codex yet. That's pretty close to balanced.
Again, only by removing most of the content in the game and reducing it to those seven flavors of soup. And one tournament's results is not proof of successful balancing. Nor is momentary success proof that the task is not more difficult.
There is literally no game on this planet, computer, board or otherwise that can balance 20 factions with unique mechanics and 100's of unique datasheets.
Then 40k is doomed. Making the game into soup vs. soup does not change the number of unique datasheets or faction mechanics, it just makes it easier to combine them in overpowered ways. Remember, soup doesn't actually take anything out of balance consideration. It just means that, after the overpowered things have been identified and exploited, more of your collection is sitting on the shelf gathering dust and you're buying 2-3 more factions to get your soup of the day.
Regardless, it's pretty obvious 'soup' is here to stay. GW's intent is clear given the direction of FAQ's and their declaration that soup was dead, implying they do not consider using the keyword system to be soup.
It is unfortunately true that it is here to stay in the rules as published by GW. The best solution is for third-party events (and who plays in GW"s official events anyway?) and people in random pickup games to impose a "single codex" rule. The fact that soup will still exist will then become a technicality and hardly anyone in the competitive game will use it.
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.
RogueApiary wrote: I assume you want all 6 sub factions in each of those books to be balanced as well? I mean, since we're shooting for the impossible and unreasonable here we might as well go big
It would be nice, but it's less essential. I can still play Cadian models as Catachans if the Cadian rules are weak, it's not like reducing the IG codex to its two-unit CP batter contribution to the soup. And up until 8th those sub-factions didn't have rules at all and everything was fine.
Tournament results beg to differ as far as balancing soup factions against each other. All but two of the seven major factions made top 16 and one of the two that didn't didnt have it's codex yet. That's pretty close to balanced.
Again, only by removing most of the content in the game and reducing it to those seven flavors of soup. And one tournament's results is not proof of successful balancing. Nor is momentary success proof that the task is not more difficult.
There is literally no game on this planet, computer, board or otherwise that can balance 20 factions with unique mechanics and 100's of unique datasheets.
Then 40k is doomed. Making the game into soup vs. soup does not change the number of unique datasheets or faction mechanics, it just makes it easier to combine them in overpowered ways. Remember, soup doesn't actually take anything out of balance consideration. It just means that, after the overpowered things have been identified and exploited, more of your collection is sitting on the shelf gathering dust and you're buying 2-3 more factions to get your soup of the day.
Regardless, it's pretty obvious 'soup' is here to stay. GW's intent is clear given the direction of FAQ's and their declaration that soup was dead, implying they do not consider using the keyword system to be soup.
It is unfortunately true that it is here to stay in the rules as published by GW. The best solution is for third-party events (and who plays in GW"s official events anyway?) and people in random pickup games to impose a "single codex" rule. The fact that soup will still exist will then become a technicality and hardly anyone in the competitive game will use it.
Makes it easier to manage changes though as right now the focus could be on buffing the three mono factions or chipping away a little more at the mechanics that make the soups good. IE Warlord trait ie keyed to stratagems, so if you choose an IK WL, you lose BA and AM stratagems.
I'm a firm believer that points are not the only balance tool. Rof3 was necessary and an excellent design decision. Take mortars for example. They're cost efficient, but there's also not much upward room to nerf their points that wouldn't also make them useless. You price them at 35-40 and you can still take loads of them. You price them at 45 and you just effectively deleted the unit. But, you cut the number you can take and it becomes a much different situation. Now, what were once 15-18 mortars are capped at 9. It's no longer possible to leverage their low price to break past defenses by weight of dice. Run the numbers on 9 mortars vs. just about any infantry unit in cover and you'll see they should survive 2 or more turns on average, add a -1 to hit on top of it and it takes even longer for the mortars to chew through. Hive tyrants are the other example. Raising points on wings just means a few more gants get dropped, in the end, the Tyranid player is still going to run 5+ of them until the cost becomes so high taking one isn't worth it. Rule of three + a modest price hike still let the HT's put in work, but keep them from being oppressive by limiting how many you can bring.
There's the No Retreat tournament in Gibraltar that does single army, no duplicate detachments but unfortunately its not really a great measure for competitive balance since they screen the armies a bit. The armies all look fantastic though judging by the photos.
Soup isnt the problem i feel if they addressed grevious offenders more quickly, but mono-codex armies do need help.
Oddly enough orks looks really good, and i hope this sees some reworks of past moni codices that are reallg underperforming like necrons
Automatically Appended Next Post: Something that may be nice is providing a unique bonus for your army if all detachments come from the same codex...
Like marines could be all models in your army gain chapter tactics for their detachment. Soup woukdnt benefit, but it would fix a large hole in the army
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2018/11/02 10:42:40
I disagree with the idea SM and BA are the worst armies in the game. They're more mid-tier, and both are a lot better allied with a Guard detachment.
You just said, that the reason non-soup armies have weaker rules is because they don't sell enough. But I point out soup armies that are fan favorites with subpar rules, even worse than Xeno factions, and you claim it's fine because they can soup? Do you even read what you're saying? You realise you just completely contradicted yourself?
Sales are a reflection of 'good' game design. If you don't think that's true for 40k, I'm asking you to provide a better definition of what good means, if you have one. I'm genuinely trying to understand what you mean by 'counter productive and unrealistic' here.
Good design, almost exclusively when discussing competitive gaming, means fair and rewarding play, good balance, and viability for as many choices, and playstyles, as possible, each with their own advantages and disadvantages. Bundling 10 factions into one and giving them all fluctuating power levels achieves the opposite of this.
Never when people talk about "game design" are they referring to profitability. That's called "profitability". Good game design does not equal profitability, nor vice versa. There is no correlation. Again, some of the most profitable games in the world are gakky, P2W games aimed at capturing "whales", the customers who will spend thousands, or more, for an in-game advantage over others. That is not good game design, it's just good sales. At the same time, some of the best reviewed games in the world sold a crapton, God of War, Witcher 3, Spiderman, etc being great examples. There is no correlation, trying to force one is counter-productive.
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2018/11/02 11:25:47
P.S.A. I won't read your posts if you break it into a million separate quotes and make an eyesore of it.
I agree that "soup" can be fluffy - in an apocalypse scale 10000 point game with multiple players on each side. I don't think there is anything fluffy about the loyal 32, some custodies/Blood Angels/whatever and a knight turning up. I don't think there is anything fluffy about the resurrection of SM Superfriends psychic stacking - or 3 (4?) factions of Eldar just showing up together in tiny numbers, or all the chaos factions. These are not armies from the fluff, they are just 200-600~ point splinters put together to optimise cross-faction benefits.
I don't get the claim that "look at SoCal, isn't it varied".
Not really. Almost half the top 16 are Eldar Soup. Now I guess you can say "isn't it great how Eldar/Dark Eldar/Harlequins and Ynnari (kinda) can be mixed together in different ways to create different armies". I guess - but that's not really the case. Its grab the top units from each roster and combine them as you see fit. There isn't much difference there at all. The same applies to "loyal 32/a full brigade, a Knight and... something else". I don't think this is variety.
Moreover the meta is still in the post-FAQ flux. I suspect even this faux-variety will wither as armies become optimised and it becomes clear "this" is the best Eldar/Imperial/Chaos soup.
8th is a lot better than 7th for casual players. The models released are also better than ever. All this explains why GW has been far more successful than they were a few years ago. This doesn't change the fact that soup is bad.
JimOnMars wrote: Does soup really sell more models than mono? You need 2000 points either way.
But is way easier to start a new faction with soup. If you mainly play Guard, but fancy some Ad Mech models, you don't need to buy full 2000 points wort to be able to use them. You can start by small allied detachment to your main army. And even though full 2000 point Ad Mech army would obviously be way more sales tahn 500 point ally detachment, the truth is way less people are willing to commit to that at one go. On the other hand many of those who start with a small ally force will eventually expand ti to a full army.
This is really the biggest selling point of soup for me. I am definitely a modeller first, but I still want to play the game too. Allies allow me to collect varied models and still form a somewhat functional army out of them.
JimOnMars wrote: Does soup really sell more models than mono? You need 2000 points either way.
But is way easier to start a new faction with soup. If you mainly play Guard, but fancy some Ad Mech models, you don't need to buy full 2000 points wort to be able to use them. You can start by small allied detachment to your main army. And even though full 2000 point Ad Mech army would obviously be way more sales tahn 500 point ally detachment, the truth is way less people are willing to commit to that at one go. On the other hand many of those who start with a small ally force will eventually expand ti to a full army.
This is really the biggest selling point of soup for me. I am definitely a modeller first, but I still want to play the game too. Allies allow me to collect varied models and still form a somewhat functional army out of them.
Narrative play, here you go No need to make matched play jack of all trades. If something fun and narrative, but hurts balance ---> narrative play.
BA and sm are both low tier, if not the bottom. To be mid tier, there must be approx 1/3 of the codices below them. Go ahead and tell me these codices, I'll wait.
BA have one viable cc model, and everything else is a dumpster fire.
