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 Ishagu wrote:
Lol I do find it funny when people argue that socialising isn't necessarily in a social game that involves two people interacting face to face for hours.

I didn't say that.

 Ishagu wrote:
Lol I do find it funny when people argue that socialising isn't necessarily in a social game that involves two people interacting face to face for hours.

I think the problem is you're definition of "socializing". Most people are fine with discussing terrain and how it's set up, game size, etc. But you shouldn't have to negotiate what units to play with those agreed upon rules do to the armies being overly imbalanced. A game like 40k will never be perfectly balanced but it could be better. That would help it be more "sociable", as you put it.

How do you even manage to negotiate your list at a pickup game? Do you bring your entire collection to the shop?

I use the KR cases and bags, and drive to my local game clubs, and yes - I bring far more than can be used in a game. In one of my bags I have about 5k points of Primaris, in another 5k points of AdMech and Knights, as an example.

I do discuss the game with my opponent, not specific units but about the general armies. It helps to arrange the terrain so it's good got both parties. If I find out an opponent is playing a weaker codex, or is new, etc I tone down my list according.

Alternatively if someone says to me that they are practicing for an upcoming ITC tournament and they have a powerful list then I field one as well.

 Gadzilla666 wrote:

 Ishagu wrote:
Lol I do find it funny when people argue that socialising isn't necessarily in a social game that involves two people interacting face to face for hours.

I think the problem is you're definition of "socializing". Most people are fine with discussing terrain and how it's set up, game size, etc. But you shouldn't have to negotiate what units to play with those agreed upon rules do to the armies being overly imbalanced. A game like 40k will never be perfectly balanced but it could be better. That would help it be more "sociable", as you put it.

How do you even manage to negotiate your list at a pickup game? Do you bring your entire collection to the shop?

I mean, there is also nothing stopping you from talking about that in advance. that's why people in my group often exchange lists beforehand, and adjust accordingly, to try and get a better sense for what would be a good game.

the_scotsman wrote:I mean, there is also nothing stopping you from talking about that in advance. that's why people in my group often exchange lists beforehand, and adjust accordingly, to try and get a better sense for what would be a good game.

That works within a group, but not really for a pickup game.

Ishagu wrote:I use the KR cases and bags, and drive to my local game clubs, and yes - I bring far more than can be used in a game. In one of my bags I have about 5k points of Primaris, in another 5k points of AdMech and Knights, as an example.

I do discuss the game with my opponent, not specific units but about the general armies. It helps to arrange the terrain so it's good got both parties. If I find out an opponent is playing a weaker codex, or is new, etc I tone down my list according.

Alternatively if someone says to me that they are practicing for an upcoming ITC tournament and they have a powerful list then I field one as well.

That works for you, but what about people with smaller collections? I could probably do it (I'd need more cases) but everyone hasn't been playing as long as us, and don't have as many options.

If GW turned around tomorrow and said ITC was going to be the officially supported format tomorrow, Ishagu would be telling us they're the finest set of missions ever devised for any game and GW are genius' for bringing them on board.

Don't feed what amounts to a very clever troll.

I dislike the ITC missions because they lack variety compared to the official missions found in CA.

If GW released a bunch of near identical missions I would not be happy, and would stick to playing the CA pack.

 Ishagu wrote:
Lol I do find it funny when people argue that socialising isn't necessarily in a social game that involves two people interacting face to face for hours.

'Socializing is part of the game' != 'the game doesn't need to be balanced because if having to work out balance on the fly is a problem you're an antisocial nerd lmao gottem'

Depends on what kind of game you're playing and in what context.

 Ishagu wrote:
Depends on what kind of game you're playing and in what context.

Don't use the "c word". It's dirty. Its assumed that all games are high level ITC games with no prior discussion, you should know that by now.

 Ishagu wrote:
Depends on what kind of game you're playing and in what context.

Context: I want to play a game against you at a local club where the outcome is a fair representation of our decisions made during said game, within reason given that it is a game of chance.

The codex I am using is immensely stronger or weaker than yours, or both depending on which particular units you or I happen to have chosen. I possess only those models needed to field my list.

Solution: ?

In a game with freedom to build any sort of list there will be situations where games are wildly imbalanced. Plan with your opponent.

If only there was some sort of tool to help with this? Some sort of Internet based communication where one person can contact another prior to meeting up? Lol

Alternatively a 2 minute conversation prior to a game to identify the most equal match-up also works. This isn't a video game.

 Ishagu wrote:
This isn't a video game.

True, any advarsarial video game that required the players to sit down for some extensive balance modding ahead of time in order to have a decent session would be fairly criticised.

That you can place a somewhat balanced game of 40k by carefully pre-selecting the factions and units of both sides, terrain, strategems, etc is no credit to it.

If you can't have a conversation with your opponent this hobby isn't for you, I'm afraid.

 Ishagu wrote:
If you can't have a conversation with your opponent this hobby isn't for you, I'm afraid.

If gw balanced armies in a way that a pregame conversation about what armies the players were taking wasn't required would it no longer be for you? What problems do you believe that would cause? Why do you think this is impossible?

As long as players have freedom to make whatever lists they want balance will be next to impossible.

If I decide to make an entire army of assault Marines with chainswords and come up against an army of dual Gatling Knights, that's on me.

Astartes are one of the strongest armies, and I can still make a list that will get smashed in the wrong match up. Freedom has pros and cons.

 Ishagu wrote:
If you can't have a conversation with your opponent this hobby isn't for you, I'm afraid.

It's not the conversation I object to, which i'm sure you are well aware of.

Apparently GW don't think it's a problem either, but my more recent attempts to get a few people playing have hit the problem that they either percieve me playing down to them or that their success is less them and more the book.

Inevitably, any discussion on balance comes back to apologists saying 'perfect balance is impossible so bad balance is acceptable, it's your job to balance the game, not the designer's'. It's extremely predictable.

Balance is possible between armies, but not between all units.

This means that players who build certain lists might find themselves at a disadvantage.

 Ishagu wrote:
As long as players have freedom to make whatever lists they want balance will be next to impossible.

If I decide to make an entire army of assault Marines with chainswords and come up against an army of dual Gatling Knights, that's on me.

Astartes are one of the strongest armies, and I can still make a list that will get smashed in the wrong match up. Freedom has pros and cons.

We're not talking skew lists here and you know it. If I bring a Word Bearers TAC list and you bring an Iron Hands TAC list they should be roughly equal. They are not. And you know that. Do you believe that is a good thing?

Definitely not. Improvements can be made. I expect they will be in time.

Good, we can agree on that.

I don't have any major social issues. But I should not HAVE to discuss with an opponent nitty-gritty list details to ensure a fair (or at least close to fair) game.

In a well-balanced game, I'd be able to say "Want to play a 2,000 point game?" and that's all the information that's needed. I shouldn't need to say "I'm bringing Daemons, so please don't cheese out your GK." I shouldn't need to say "I like to bring Ravenguard, so don't bring any armies that need characters at all." I shouldn't have to say anything more than the basic rules we can agree to.

Sounds like a contract negotiation to me. That sounds like a job to me.

I don't tell my opponent what I'm bringing to avoid list tailoring. So what then?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Ishagu wrote:
I dislike the ITC missions because they lack variety compared to the official missions found in CA.

If GW released a bunch of near identical missions I would not be happy, and would stick to playing the CA pack.

Yeah, I don't believe that.

I think people are really over-complicating the issue tbh.

Throughout 8th I've had no issues when looking for a game by just going "Casual or Competitive?"

There's never been any need to go into the nitty gritty of things to make sure nobody brings anything hyper-competitive or casually useless depending on the type of game agreed on. At the end of the day I know the game well enough that someone with all of 4 games under their belt who is looking for a nice fun evening game isn't going to enjoy playing vs 3 Hemlocks. It's that simple at the end of the day.

Can GW be better at balancing? Absolutely. Can future Codexes actually be playtested properly instead of being rushed out the door? Yes please. But one simple sentence/question to gauge the sort of game a person is looking for is not really a big issue. Plus, if we're going to keep using video games as an example about balance, basically every "competitive" game has "casual" modes or ways to play it, with the possibility to closing yourself off from one style of play altogether should you so choose. Or alternatively trying to play one way within the other which can lead to weird or disastrous results. If you're doing a PUG in Dota Captains Mode, the expectation is that you'll be playing competitively and picking the "good" and meta heroes. If you just random a bunch of gak and play like a headless chicken it wont really be a fun game for anyone because you've broken that social contract and expectation. It's also entirely possible to be matched up versus a highly co-ordinated group in random matchmaking who can easily pick synergistic heroes, have excellent communication and teamwork and so will just stomp over most disorganized pub teams with those other players not really getting much of a say in it. And Dota 2 is one of the best designed and most successful competitive games ever made.

Anecdotal, but I've found 8th the best edition for casual gaming in ages.

Marines, especially Iron Hands were a bit of a problem (too many free rules easily thrown in a big unassailable castle), but even ye traditional Castellan list wasn't that common to just appear - because most people didn't want to own random bits of three armies. In the same spirit, how many people owned 12 assault centurions because you know, they are bound to be the meta one day maybe (Raven Guard? Never heard of them).

This can be contrasted quite easily with 7th's "bring a wraith knight and a load of scatbikes (warp spiders optional)" which is basically what GW has been telling Eldar players to buy. Same with "here are all your free Razorbacks" (maybe that ones a bit niche, but plenty of Marine players have slowly accumulated transports over the many years). Or "here are my 3-5 Riptides, enjoy". Which again you might not have chosen to collect - but as a Tau player you were going to have one and so getting another couple wasn't the end of the world.

Tyel wrote:
Anecdotal, but I've found 8th the best edition for casual gaming in ages.

Marines, especially Iron Hands were a bit of a problem (too many free rules easily thrown in a big unassailable castle), but even ye traditional Castellan list wasn't that common to just appear - because most people didn't want to own random bits of three armies. In the same spirit, how many people owned 12 assault centurions because you know, they are bound to be the meta one day maybe (Raven Guard? Never heard of them).

This can be contrasted quite easily with 7th's "bring a wraith knight and a load of scatbikes (warp spiders optional)" which is basically what GW has been telling Eldar players to buy. Same with "here are all your free Razorbacks" (maybe that ones a bit niche, but plenty of Marine players have slowly accumulated transports over the many years). Or "here are my 3-5 Riptides, enjoy". Which again you might not have chosen to collect - but as a Tau player you were going to have one and so getting another couple wasn't the end of the world.

I don't think it's changed that much. The problem Warhammer has always had with casual gaming is that lists can easily determine victory, the focus has just shifted more from external balance to internal balance in 8e. It's harder to have picked the wrong Codex and therefore lose every game (though it's still possible, see GK, Tyranids, Necrons), but list-building has become much more of a maze of traps and synergies, and the game in general seems to have shifted in a more bizarre and counterintuitive direction because of how badly-designed all the melee rules are. It isn't as obviously wildly out of whack as 7e's 550pt Space Marine handicap or the distortion weapons, but it's harder to figure out how the game works and just as easy for a new player to accidentally hard-counter one of their friends.

 Gadzilla666 wrote:

 Ishagu wrote:
Lol I do find it funny when people argue that socialising isn't necessarily in a social game that involves two people interacting face to face for hours.

I think the problem is you're definition of "socializing". Most people are fine with discussing terrain and how it's set up, game size, etc. But you shouldn't have to negotiate what units to play with those agreed upon rules do to the armies being overly imbalanced. A game like 40k will never be perfectly balanced but it could be better. That would help it be more "sociable", as you put it.

How do you even manage to negotiate your list at a pickup game? Do you bring your entire collection to the shop?

Kind of.
I almost always play mono forces. ATM the armies I have have at the ready are SW, SM Dreadnoughts, Dark Angels, and Ad-Mech*. Each force has it's own case. Each case contains about 5k pts worth of stuff. Included in that case is Codex, other pages I'll need, dice, tokens, cards, tape measure, etc.
So yeah, whichever force I've brought that day? Barring something that's literally been dropped from the game (shoved into Legends doesn't count) & lives only on my shelf, you're looking at my entire collection of it.
We generally play 2k pts. With any of my cases I can easily scale it up/down (or more/less powerful) as needed. Should the day ever come when I randomly need to field more than 5k I guess I'll be screwed/playing at a disadvantage....

Other than my Guard & Tyranids (wich are still in storage) every force I own follows this pattern of everything fitting in 1 case.

Now and then I'll bring a large Knight/a Thunder Hawk/a Termite/or a Warhound Titan - thus requiring a second case. But those games are known ahead of time.

*Once the Ad-Mech archeocopter thing comes out the 'Mech will be needing a larger case....

 Ishagu wrote:
If you can't have a conversation with your opponent this hobby isn't for you, I'm afraid.

Strange...I've played hundreds of games of Epic or Blood Bowl or X-Wing or any number of other wargames without needing to do this. Could it be that your definition of "hobby" is just completely wrong? Any game is improved by removing the need to negotiate terms with your opponent prior to playing. That means games need to achieve a certain level of balance (not perfect balance) so I can be confident that a decent, non-skew list will provide a good game in most circumstances. Then I'm free to actually socialise with my opponent rather than immediately starting at cross-purposes.

No wargame is improved by the sort of "socialising" you're talking about. It's not an insurmountable obstacle but it is an obstacle that doesn't need to be there.

Then you have a nice local. My local is comp X-wing and you will need to talk to them about playing a no comp game if you want a friendly game.