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4th is okay though!

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Void__Dragon wrote:
Yes it is unbalanced, but the fallacy is in people implying it is any less balanced than prior editions.

Is it a fallacy? I don't know of many editions where one side can be wiped from the board turn one on multiple occasions.

If both armies at the table have the capacity to wipe the other off the board, the problem isn't balance- it's lethality.

I'm not saying it's good that both armies can turn one delete their enemy, it certainly isn't. But as long as both have the capacity, they are technically balanced.

the_scotsman wrote:

 ArbitorIan wrote:
I've been playing 9ed with a friend and we're only playing Open Play, usually around 1000pts. So, no Stratagems, no Command Points, no Secondaries, and with armies we already own full of whatever models we like the look of that week.

It's swingier than previous editions, but it's fine. Nobody is tabling anyone in Turn 1, nobody is trying to optimise the army, nobody is searching for the best combo. We're just playing Warhammer like it's meant to be played - have a beer, move your models around, make cool stuff happen.

In my opinion, playing a game like this 'competitively' is fething stupid. All you end up doing is breaking the game. If you play casually (and I mean casually), then it's fine.

Sure. The only question I'd have is just like... if you're not using Stratagems, Command Points, or Secondaries, then what does the 9th edition of the game actually add for you? Stratagems, secondaries, relics, traits...all that is almost all of what sets 9th apart from any other edition.

The only thing in that list that sets 9ed apart is Secondaries. Stratagems, Relics, Command Points were all in 8ed. So for me. There's not as much difference between 8ed and 9ed than for some. But obviously there's a huge difference between 8ed/9ed and previous editions of the game, where the core rules were WAY clunkier.

The usual complaint about 9ed is that it's bloated because of all the add-on rules. Open Play is just as valid as Matched Play, and solves that issue.

shogun wrote:

 ArbitorIan wrote:
I've been playing 9ed with a friend and we're only playing Open Play, usually around 1000pts. So, no Stratagems, no Command Points, no Secondaries, and with armies we already own full of whatever models we like the look of that week.

It's swingier than previous editions, but it's fine. Nobody is tabling anyone in Turn 1, nobody is trying to optimise the army, nobody is searching for the best combo. We're just playing Warhammer like it's meant to be played - have a beer, move your models around, make cool stuff happen.

In my opinion, playing a game like this 'competitively' is fething stupid. All you end up doing is breaking the game. If you play casually (and I mean casually), then it's fine.

Play warhammer how you want to play it because there is no "meant to be played". GW actually makes new stuff better so it will sell more so I think that GW is actually more focussed on the competitive players.

I like playing competitive because it is not challenging to simply roll some dice around. There is a reason that people are more into chess then into monopoly. Saying that competitive play is stupid is really weird because then you don't get..well... "people" I guess. We are competitive by nature and for good reason.

This kind of discussion always pops-up on forums and it get's tiresome at some point.

There absolutely is a way the game is 'meant to be played' and that doesn't stop you doing what you want with it. Look at the battle reports published by GW, even on WH+. Even when they play Matched Play, they're not optimising their lists to the level you see in 'competitive play'.

And if you try and play this game competitively, you break it. Most of the posts here are about how broken X is. How, if you optimise the army, the game ends in a turn and there's nothing the opponent could do. How, if you stack up all the combos then things are unkillable. Competitive 40k isn't a careful balance of thinking ahead and outwitting your opponent like chess, it's an exercise in revising til you can find the best way to exploit loopholes and break the game better than your opponent, then waiting for it to be nerfed when GW realise, because they didn't think of that combo.

And why didn't they spot it? Cos they don't playtest the games for that.

You can absolutely play the game however you want. You can play 'optimised lists' and play 'competitively'. If you do, you break the game. If you don't, the game works much better. Because that's how the people designing 40k are playing it.

EDIT: Just to address your other point, if one of the things you define yourself by is 'being good at a board game', even to the point of breaking and making unfun the actual game in the name of CHALLENGE, that's fine. As you say, humans can be overcompetitive and have got overcompetitive about stupider things than toy soldiers. But if it's challenge you want, optimising your army with every possible exploit so you can wipe your opponent off the board asap is the opposite of that. Competitive 40k is about finding the strongest combo so that the game is less challenging.

For me, this is hobby, and how much fun I get out of a game isn't really tied to challenge or skill or any of that. I have a job I need to be good at, I want a hobby where it doesn't matter how good I am.

But that's not really the point of my post. I'm saying that if you DO want challenge and skill and competition and balance in your board games, there are absolutely games out there suited for that, and 40k isn't one of them.

 ArbitorIan wrote:


You can absolutely play the game however you want. You can play 'optimised lists' and play 'competitively'. If you do, you break the game. If you don't, the game works much better. Because that's how the people designing 40k are playing it.

EDIT: Just to address your other point, if one of the things you define yourself by is 'being good at a board game', even to the point of breaking and making unfun the actual game in the name of CHALLENGE, that's fine. As you say, humans can be overcompetitive and have got overcompetitive about stupider things than toy soldiers. But if it's challenge you want, optimising your army with every possible exploit so you can wipe your opponent off the board asap is the opposite of that. Competitive 40k is about finding the strongest combo so that the game is less challenging.

100% agree, I've played 40k for over 20 years with the same attitude of yours towards the game. But I also accepted that a lot of people consider it heresy, they try every possible way to break the game (or any other game) and complain if that's possible.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 ArbitorIan wrote:


For me, this is hobby, and how much fun I get out of a game isn't really tied to challenge or skill or any of that. I have a job I need to be good at, I want a hobby where it doesn't matter how good I am.

This summarizes it perfectly.

 Blackie wrote:

 ArbitorIan wrote:


For me, this is hobby, and how much fun I get out of a game isn't really tied to challenge or skill or any of that. I have a job I need to be good at, I want a hobby where it doesn't matter how good I am.

This summarizes it perfectly.

You aren't the only people playing and different people want different things from the game. But let me ask, how does the people who DO want better balance and games based on skill hurt the way you play? If anything it makes the game better for you as well because it makes more fluffy lists more viable so they can compete with the competitive lists.

Also I hate how often quotes break on this site.

 Sim-Life wrote:

You aren't the only people playing and different people want different things from the game.

I know, that's why I said that I've accepted that other people may want different thing. I just wish they could understand and accept that as well though.

 Sim-Life wrote:

But let me ask, how does the people who DO want better balance and games based on skill hurt the way you play? If anything it makes the game better for you as well because it makes more fluffy lists more viable so they can compete with the competitive lists.

I think there's always room for improvement. Always. So a better balance and a game based on skill could be welcome, as long as the overall experience is still good 40k, and that's entirely subjective.

If you want more fluffy lists being more viable just talk to your opponent, tone down or up something (if necessary) and here you go. And there are several competitive lists that are already quite fluffy, or viceversa. The less pre-game talk is required on average, the better the edition is. At the moment me and my regular opponents, who aren't meta chasers even if they have huge collections of models, spend close to no time to pre-arrange lists, while even in 8th we had to fix a lot of things before playing, and that's massive for us.

 Sim-Life wrote:

You aren't the only people playing and different people want different things from the game. But let me ask, how does the people who DO want better balance and games based on skill hurt the way you play? If anything it makes the game better for you as well because it makes more fluffy lists more viable so they can compete with the competitive lists.

Also I hate how often quotes break on this site.

So. Pushing for better balance is absolutely fine, but I don't think a competitive balanced game that actually relies on skill is possible with 40k. It's too big and sprawling, and every time more armies, units or options are added it gets harder to balance. The only way to realistically balance it would be to reduce all the extra options and combos and make is as simple as, say, Apocalypse, or a general Historical game where all troops have one of three different 'qualities'.

I would argue that a lot of competitive players wouldn't want that, though, because it would remove the ability to combo up your armies, find the rules exploit and break the game.

In terms of how it affects us, it's currently pretty difficult to find a game in a lot of places unless you're playing Matched Play. If you're new to 40k, and search for info, you're presented with people talking about it like some sort of sport. There's an overwhelming impression that Matched Play is the 'default' way to play, which affects everyone. Competitive local metas only playing at 'broken level' turns 40k into an arms race - which makes the game more expensive, places a huge barrier to entry on new players, removes tons of models, armies and variety from tables as 'garbage', and overwhelmingly fills conversation spaces with negative complaining about balance in a game that was never designed to be balanced in that environment.

You must have played family board games where one person is taking it WAY too seriously and ruining it for everyone else? That.

Sim-Life 801727 11250308 wrote:
But let me ask, how does the people who DO want better balance and games based on skill hurt the way you play?

It depends though, doesn't it.

I mean, wanting better balance is one thing. Things can always be better. But lets also be realistic. Ttgs are limited systems, they can only hold so much weight, there will always be imbalance, especially with the 'new wave sells' nature of the industry. A lot of people who want better balance seem to deliberately ignore this.

I mean, how much imbalance are you happy to accept and accommodate because that is the best case scenario here. will things ever be good enough that the people who want 'better balance' will ever be satisfied? I suspect the answer is moving goalposts.

And if they're not, and all the resultant chatter is negative, that also hurts my hobby experience.

Sim-Life 801727 11250308 wrote:
If anything it makes the game better for you as well because it makes more fluffy lists more viable so they can compete with the competitive lists.

Does it? It depends what shape it takes and What balance looks like, surely.

Pp did a decent enough job with steamroller, but every balance fix had its issues and I can imagine if thry were ported to 40k, the community would riot.

What happens when 'balance' looks like making 90% of unit choices illegal (smaller rosters, easier to balance)? What happens when player choice is removed entitely and armies are preset/predetermined. What happens when 'balance' looks like homogenization and everything not a titan or more gets a generic 'chaff' unit profile? 3 extreme, and unrealistic scenarios for sure, but put forward solely to demonstrate that balance often demands its pound of flesh - there is a price to pay, and frankly its not always worth it for folks. and even then, it'll never really be good enough to satisfy, so people will still be complaining about exploits and issues etc.
.

 ArbitorIan wrote:


In terms of how it affects us, it's currently pretty difficult to find a game in a lot of places unless you're playing Matched Play. If you're new to 40k, and search for info, you're presented with people talking about it like some sort of sport. There's an overwhelming impression that Matched Play is the 'default' way to play, which affects everyone.

So much this. I've said it several times before- certain nomenclature from online MMOs have started to bleed into 40k, and it is skewing people's perceptions. Referring to games as "the match" or "matches" and calling the board itself "the map". All such things were not in the tabletop gamer lexicon as recently as a decade ago, yet you see people online using that terminology pretty much everywhere. Even WMH, with it's OTT competitive crowd never, ever used those terms in the times the PP forums were a thing. This is like an exclusively 40k problem for some reason and it stems from the people trying to make it some kind of an IRL MMO IMO.

 ArbitorIan wrote:

 Sim-Life wrote:

You aren't the only people playing and different people want different things from the game. But let me ask, how does the people who DO want better balance and games based on skill hurt the way you play? If anything it makes the game better for you as well because it makes more fluffy lists more viable so they can compete with the competitive lists.

Also I hate how often quotes break on this site.

So. Pushing for better balance is absolutely fine, but I don't think that's possible in 40k. It's too big and sprawling. The only way to realistically balance it would be to reduce all the extra options and combos and make is as simple as, say, Apocalypse, or a general Historical game where all troops have one of three different 'qualities'.

Infinity and Warmachine generally managed a good balance with most factions having 80 or so options in main faction, maybe more. I started counting the models available to Khador and gave up at around 50 and that was mostly just warjacks and warcasters. I say generally because I admit, some options in an army were basically never used in the overall meta when I played, but I played in a tournament focused meta so had to go along with that. Even then I preferred to play what would be considered underdog lists against people with far more experience and practice and still did pretty okay (I came 6th in a Masters tournament once, I think I would have done better had I not drawn one of the best players in the world at the time in my second round.)

I would argue that a lot of competitive players wouldn't want that, because it would remove the ability to combo up your armies, find the rules exploit and break the game. But it would be more balanced.

The idea that competitive players want to have exploits built into the game is ludicrous and you would lose that argument. You're talking about That Guy/WAAC players. They exist regardless of the balance of the game, however a more balanced game makes it harder for them to be That Guy.

In terms of how it affects us, it's currently pretty difficult to find a game in a lot of places unless you're playing Matched Play. If you're new to 40k, and search for info, you're presented with people talking about it like some sort of sport. There's an overwhelming impression that Matched Play is the 'default' way to play, which affects everyone. Competitive local metas only playing at 'broken level' turns 40k into an arms race - which makes the game more expensive, places a huge barrier to entry on new players, removes tons of models, armies and variety from tables as 'garbage', and overwhelmingly fills conversation spaces with negative complaining about balance in a game that was never designed to be balanced in that environment.

You must have played family board games where one person is taking it WAY too seriously and ruining it for everyone else? That.

Okay so again you've confused That Guy/WAAC players with competitive players. You're also confusing "good enough balance" with "bad balance". A LACK of balance removes models, results in arms races. Matched Play being the default is the symptom of 40k players sticking very rigidly to the "official" rules and trying to make things standardised for faster set ups. The fault is also in the mechanics of the games because there are no ssytems in place to reward skillful play or clever timinig (despite what some defenders on here will claim).

And here is what I keep saying, the way GW has individual rules with unique names is actually a GREAT system for achieving balance over a game the size of 40k, because tweaking one rule on a unit does not effect similar rules on other units. If GW wanted to, they could easily patch up issues on a rule-by-rule basis until everything was more or less useable, however they make too much money from selling CA and Codexes to actually want to go to the effort of doing that. They just shave off or add a fairly arbitrary number of points every year with CA and call it a day. If the rules don't work you're just gak out of luck, wait till the next $50 book gets released in a few years and hope for the best.

Hot damn Arbitorlan, I broke my exalt button on ya today!

 ArbitorIan wrote:

 Sim-Life wrote:

You aren't the only people playing and different people want different things from the game. But let me ask, how does the people who DO want better balance and games based on skill hurt the way you play? If anything it makes the game better for you as well because it makes more fluffy lists more viable so they can compete with the competitive lists.

Also I hate how often quotes break on this site.

So. Pushing for better balance is absolutely fine, but I don't think a competitive balanced game that actually relies on skill is possible with 40k. It's too big and sprawling, and every time more armies, units or options are added it gets harder to balance. The only way to realistically balance it would be to reduce all the extra options and combos and make is as simple as, say, Apocalypse, or a general Historical game where all troops have one of three different 'qualities'.

I would argue that a lot of competitive players wouldn't want that, though, because it would remove the ability to combo up your armies, find the rules exploit and break the game.

In terms of how it affects us, it's currently pretty difficult to find a game in a lot of places unless you're playing Matched Play. If you're new to 40k, and search for info, you're presented with people talking about it like some sort of sport. There's an overwhelming impression that Matched Play is the 'default' way to play, which affects everyone. Competitive local metas only playing at 'broken level' turns 40k into an arms race - which makes the game more expensive, places a huge barrier to entry on new players, removes tons of models, armies and variety from tables as 'garbage', and overwhelmingly fills conversation spaces with negative complaining about balance in a game that was never designed to be balanced in that environment.

You must have played family board games where one person is taking it WAY too seriously and ruining it for everyone else? That.

This might be the best i have read on dakka in a long time. It is exactly how i feel about the way 40k is transforming.

I would never be able to type it this well.

 Sim-Life wrote:
Okay so again you've confused That Guy/WAAC players with competitive players. You're also confusing "good enough balance" with "bad balance". A LACK of balance removes models, results in arms races. Matched Play being the default is the symptom of 40k players sticking very rigidly to the "official" rules and trying to make things standardised for faster set ups. The fault is also in the mechanics of the games because there are no ssytems in place to reward skillful play or clever timinig (despite what some defenders on here will claim).

Part of the problem is when local players get dedicated to the tournament meta, where every single game, even a random pick up, is considered training for the next tournament. It is where That Guy shines the brightest, so people play in to that, even inadvertently. When I was first trying to get in to 40K, I played very few games because most of the people were only playing games of tournament size (and I could barely pull off a Classic Kill Team or two) or had specifically arranged such games before hand for tournament training.

So it goes a bit beyond just being the "That Guy" scenario.

 Sim-Life wrote:
And here is what I keep saying, the way GW has individual rules with unique names is actually a GREAT system for achieving balance over a game the size of 40k, because tweaking one rule on a unit does not effect similar rules on other units. If GW wanted to, they could easily patch up issues on a rule-by-rule basis until everything was more or less useable, however they make too much money from selling CA and Codexes to actually want to go to the effort of doing that. They just shave off or add a fairly arbitrary number of points every year with CA and call it a day. If the rules don't work you're just gak out of luck, wait till the next $50 book gets released in a few years and hope for the best.

As opposed to just updating one document and being done?

The idea of USRs isn't a problem on its own. It is when they are either poorly written (aka Independent Character) or somewhat recursive by just being two or more other USRs in the mix (aka Zealot). Where unique rules become a problem is where those small differences make one more powerful in that rule. That makes it harder to balance over all, especially when those unique rules are multiples in every unit across hundreds of units.

 Charistoph wrote:

 Sim-Life wrote:
Okay so again you've confused That Guy/WAAC players with competitive players. You're also confusing "good enough balance" with "bad balance". A LACK of balance removes models, results in arms races. Matched Play being the default is the symptom of 40k players sticking very rigidly to the "official" rules and trying to make things standardised for faster set ups. The fault is also in the mechanics of the games because there are no ssytems in place to reward skillful play or clever timinig (despite what some defenders on here will claim).

Part of the problem is when local players get dedicated to the tournament meta, where every single game, even a random pick up, is considered training for the next tournament. It is where That Guy shines the brightest, so people play in to that, even inadvertently. When I was first trying to get in to 40K, I played very few games because most of the people were only playing games of tournament size (and I could barely pull off a Classic Kill Team or two) or had specifically arranged such games before hand for tournament training.

So it goes a bit beyond just being the "That Guy" scenario.

 Sim-Life wrote:
And here is what I keep saying, the way GW has individual rules with unique names is actually a GREAT system for achieving balance over a game the size of 40k, because tweaking one rule on a unit does not effect similar rules on other units. If GW wanted to, they could easily patch up issues on a rule-by-rule basis until everything was more or less useable, however they make too much money from selling CA and Codexes to actually want to go to the effort of doing that. They just shave off or add a fairly arbitrary number of points every year with CA and call it a day. If the rules don't work you're just gak out of luck, wait till the next $50 book gets released in a few years and hope for the best.

As opposed to just updating one document and being done?

The idea of USRs isn't a problem on its own. It is when they are either poorly written (aka Independent Character) or somewhat recursive by just being two or more other USRs in the mix (aka Zealot). Where unique rules become a problem is where those small differences make one more powerful in that rule. That makes it harder to balance over all, especially when those unique rules are multiples in every unit across hundreds of units.

To your first point, its possibly for a tournament focused meta to have casual players still able to compete, thats what balance is. I said in a thread, maybe this one that when we played Warmachine my local meta tended to play what would be considered underdog lists in the overall tournament meta but we all still managed to do well because the game had good balance and rewarded skillful play, good timing and creativity.

To your second I'm not sure you understood my point? The reason unique rules are potentially great for balance is BECAUSE they are unique. Sure currently GW uses different names for the same rule but thats because they haven't taken advantage of the system they created. Look at the current deep strike rules. Lets pretend Sanguinary Guard are OP because they can too consistently charge after deep striking (lets call the rule Pretty Boys In The Sky) in combination with other army rules (strats, auras whatever) and lictors are garbage at charging after deep striking (Gribbly In The Trees) because they have no way to buff their charge range so they consistently fail.

Both rules read something like:
This unit can set up in blah blah blah 9" away from enemies.

All GW needs to do is put out an errata saying:
Pretty Boys In The Sky
Change this rule to blah blah blah 11"away from enemies.

Gribbly In The Trees
Change this rule to blah blah blah 6" away from enemies.

You fix both rules with no knock on effects to other units to worry about because everyones deep strike rule is named differently, so no other units become OP/UP

As to USRs, GW aren't going back to USRs unless we get another reboot edition, so lets not pretend thats going to happen, its not worth discussing how the whole situation could be resolved by making the rule Deep Strike (X")

This is why rules should be scalable.

Deep Strike (X) - At the end of the player's Movement Phase during the 2nd, 3rd or 4th Battle Round, units with this rule may be placed anywhere on the table as long as they are not placed on impassible terrain, terrain that the unit would not normally be able to traverse, and not any closer than X" from enemy models.

Then you can have your fancy-named special rules without the need to restate things:

Pretty Boys In The Sky - Sanguinary Guard are good at falling, but often land further away because reasons. This unit has Deep Strike (11).

Gribbly In The Trees - Lictors are wicked stealthy, yo! This unit has Deep Strike (6).

Sim-Life wrote:To your first point, its possibly for a tournament focused meta to have casual players still able to compete, thats what balance is. I said in a thread, maybe this one that when we played Warmachine my local meta tended to play what would be considered underdog lists in the overall tournament meta but we all still managed to do well because the game had good balance and rewarded skillful play, good timing and creativity.

Oh, I know a tournament meta can have causal players. I was just saying that when it takes over, it tends to ruin the casual experience. It is one of the things that helped kill the local WMH scene (along with PP pulling off some GW shenanigans). When I hear someone literally say, "We only play Steamroller here.", I know that the local group is the problem.

Sim-Life wrote:As to USRs, GW aren't going back to USRs unless we get another reboot edition, so lets not pretend thats going to happen, its not worth discussing how the whole situation could be resolved by making the rule Deep Strike (X")

H.B.M.C. kind of pointed out the easiest fix to that. However, it wouldn't take another reboot edition to install USRs again. There weren't that many in 3rd Edition, but it was in 6th and 7th Edition where it really got out of control. And it was the unique special rules, particularly tied to Formations, which caused a LOT of the problems.

The problem isn't the concept of Unique versus Universal, it is the team that puts them together and how much they care about establishing their rules. I have often said, and I still maintain this somewhat (if only because I'm nowhere as deep in to GW products atm), that a lot of GW's decisions are not game-based, but product-based when not being decided by a room full of drunk monkeys and a dart board.