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 alextroy wrote:
...Now maybe he just talks a good game, but maybe they are actually trying to improve the balance of the game in multiple ways...

Whether or not GW is trying, not trying, actively seeking broken outcomes in search of profit, or whatever seems fundamentally irrelevant to me. They've structured their business model so that they a) burn their game down and start over every three years, b) only do one significant update to any army as a big splashy release once, or maybe twice if you're lucky and Space Marines, during that time, and c) have compartmentalized design teams that don't really talk to each other. I don't think it's possible to produce quality output under those conditions, no matter how many people you have or how much you're paying them.

The business model isn't reliant on poor balance, but the business model is reliant on churn and hype in a way that makes making the game work functionally impossible.

 VladimirHerzog wrote:
winrates don't matter for the company tho, its all about profit. So even if the balance is terrible, if 40l keeps selling more than the last quarter, from the company's point of view, its working properly

There are two separate questions here: 40k as a product is succeeding well, though probably not as well as it could with better design. 40k as a game is a dismal failure.

Dudeface wrote:


They have 3 years to get it right from June just gone for the imaginary team they haven't hired yet?

Sure. That's not an impossible ask. You're acting like it is to justify the game continuing to be unbalanced.

You guys need to read the AoS meta articles.

They talk about external winrates, too, but also for their goals about internal and generic balance too:

"We want to make generic items usable, but not overpowered. Our target is 10-15% of tournament lists include them."

"We compare the use rates of warscrolls in tournament lists, with different use targets depending on the warscroll's roll in the army."

(So if a battleline unit is present in 80% of lists for a faction, that's more acceptable than an Artillery unit being present in 80% of a Faction's lists.)

The fact that this is being done for one game and not the other - and the other game isn't talking about it - makes me think it's genuine policy not to worry about such things. It's a *philosophy of game design* issue, not just a communications issue.

Hecaton wrote:


I'm sure that GW knows how to run their business better than you think you know how to run their business.
But you know what? You should email them your ideas on these subjects.

That's an appeal to authority, not an argument. Try again chief.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

 RaptorusRex wrote:
Really surprised SM are that low. Maybe it's tournament players not playing them, but OOM is really strong for taking out big centerpieces in my experience.

One thing to keep in mind here is that, unlike with other subfactions, GW separates out marine subfactions and tracks their individual win rates. "Marines" are low because if one of the variant chapters does better than the core book everyone plays the variant chapter. Right now pretty much everyone who cares about trying to win is playing their marine armies with the Deathwatch rules, and Deathwatch have a 51% win rate vs. the 43% for "marines". The only people using the basic marine rules are people who are picking their rules for fluff reasons and that's always going to bring down the overall win rate.

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 RaptorusRex wrote:
Really surprised SM are that low. Maybe it's tournament players not playing them, but OOM is really strong for taking out big centerpieces in my experience.

One thing to keep in mind here is that, unlike with other subfactions, GW separates out marine subfactions and tracks their individual win rates. "Marines" are low because if one of the variant chapters does better than the core book everyone plays the variant chapter. Right now pretty much everyone who cares about trying to win is playing their marine armies with the Deathwatch rules, and Deathwatch have a 51% win rate vs. the 43% for "marines". The only people using the basic marine rules are people who are picking their rules for fluff reasons and that's always going to bring down the overall win rate.

Oh, yeah, that's definitely a factor. I just use vanilla rules myself.

Dudeface wrote:

Hecaton wrote:

Dudeface wrote:

The salary or competence of the staff is not the only factor at play, nor will hiring more help necessarily. The Indexes were previously written very quickly without due time, releasing them as full codex rules with ~6-7 times the number of detachments, relics and Enhancements wouldn't have stood any better chance.

Yeah it would, if you hire more people and pay them better they'll do better work. It's not rocket surgery.

You hire someone to do a 25 day task in 10 days, doesn't matter how much you pay them.

You hire a janitor to do game design and it doesn't matter how many days you give them. I don't think the team needs 6 years of university to make 40k great, play some pick-up games and a few tournaments each year and get someone to lay foundational math for the game, keep a digital whiteboard of issues, goals and plans for the core game and each faction and do a thorough competitive round of playtesting after rules are finalized.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
You guys need to read the AoS meta articles.

They talk about external winrates, too, but also for their goals about internal and generic balance too:

"We want to make generic items usable, but not overpowered. Our target is 10-15% of tournament lists include them."

"We compare the use rates of warscrolls in tournament lists, with different use targets depending on the warscroll's roll in the army."

(So if a battleline unit is present in 80% of lists for a faction, that's more acceptable than an Artillery unit being present in 80% of a Faction's lists.)

The fact that this is being done for one game and not the other - and the other game isn't talking about it - makes me think it's genuine policy not to worry about such things. It's a *philosophy of game design* issue, not just a communications issue.

Rob, The Honest Wargamer alleged GW copied his AoS tournament coverage method in their AoS metawatch. Falcon fell of his perch so we don't have someone like that to spur on the 40k team. I don't think it makes sense to be afraid 10th will never be balanced, they have 12 tries to get it right, they will do it even if by accident. What needs to improve given GW's release model is release balance of editions and codexes, no matter how sophisticated Stu Black's understanding of balancing the game through stat analysis tGW still need a new approach to pre-release balancing of 40k. At least it's not like 7th edition where gak never got fixed.

 alextroy wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 VladimirHerzog wrote:
winrates don't matter for the company tho, its all about profit.

I'd actually argue that they think they're important, but that they don't understand them.

They see a flat 50% and immediately think "Job's a good 'un!" and move onto the army that's at 43% or 62% to "fix" them. It might never occur to them that the reason Army X is at a flat 50% is because it's abusing a combo of two or three units, and completely ignoring almost the rest of the entire Codex, meaning that the army is fundamentally broken but the high-level 50% win rate isn't showing the problems and is, in fact, masking them.

Strangely enough, Stu Black mentioned all those things in the latest Meta Watch podcast. He is aware that Win Rates are a crude instrument that can hide other issues that also need to be looked at and addressed.

Now maybe he just talks a good game, but maybe they are actually trying to improve the balance of the game in multiple ways.

This is one of the things that was requested, Stu Black being so nuanced deserves recognition. I don't think the team members are useless people, they just lack the systems to launch balanced games. I don't think an eternal 9th edition would have been terrible if they just updated codexes slowly to be less lethal and bloated, but 10th wasn't designed for me.

 vict0988 wrote:

You hire a janitor to do game design and it doesn't matter how many days you give them. I don't think the team needs 6 years of university to make 40k great, play some pick-up games and a few tournaments each year and get someone to lay foundational math for the game, keep a digital whiteboard of issues, goals and plans for the core game and each faction and do a thorough competitive round of playtesting after rules are finalized.

and here is the problem, how to you to this if you are not allowed to talk to other people about your work until after release?
how to you playtest the finalize version of the rules if you have never seen them?

 kodos wrote:
and here is the problem, how to you to this if you are not allowed to talk to other people about your work until after release?
how to you playtest the finalize version of the rules if you have never seen them?

Well obviously it would require the company to not have nonsensical and counterproductive policies like that. What's your point?

Point is that as long as GW does not see the need to change policy for 40k design (like no leaks is more important than good rules, or keeping rules longer than 3 years), everything else won't improve anything.

And they only way GW sees the need to change is a massive drop in players (not just sales but 100 player events every weekend not happening any more)

From the stories of elder people I know and the internet (4chan list of 40k cheese is exceptionnaly funny to me), it truly feels as if the game was never balanced in the first place anyhow, maybe less internet led to less debates about it? I dunno, I mean, I didn't play back then and was not even aware such games existed, and I only jumped aboard the internet train of wargaming articles and forums later on. Looks to me like this slugfest of a topic is coming back every edition

I have got a question though, what parameters are good indicators of how balance is a game? I mean, everyone seems to have got its own opinion on the matter, but is there any consensus about this?

 Maréchal des Logis Walter wrote:
From the stories of elder people I know and the internet (4chan list of 40k cheese is exceptionnaly funny to me), it truly feels as if the game was never balanced in the first place anyhow, maybe less internet led to less debates about it? I dunno, I mean, I didn't play back then and was not even aware such games existed, and I only jumped aboard the internet train of wargaming articles and forums later on. Looks to me like this slugfest of a topic is coming back every edition

I have got a question though, what parameters are good indicators of how balance is a game? I mean, everyone seems to have got its own opinion on the matter, but is there any consensus about this?

If the median game ends turn 3 (or if nothing ever dies), if faction and list diversity narrows over time. Ideally, games are decided by a variety of factors, having a list that is built to take advantage of a weakness in the enemy list, putting Terminators on the table instead of into DS, getting a lucky shooting phase turn 2, deciding not to charge turn 4, saving a CP for both a run move and a morale test in the last turn. But when games can be boiled down to "Andrew brought list A and Buster brought list B so the game was a foregone conclusion because list B is strictly worse than list A". In a game with perfect imbalance you might find out after a few months that list B isn't strictly worse, it needs to be played differently but then it's really strong against list C even if the matchup against list A is still rather poor but the option to take list B is opening up based on new findings about the game. The quickest narrowing you can get is when an option is strictly worse, like the Space Marine grav gun is strictly worse than the grav cannon if I recall correctly, so instantly when someone reads those two profiles and realises they're competing at 0 pts in the Tactical Squad the list options have narrowed by 2, because you can't take a boltgun and you can't take a gravgun, those aren't options you have to think about. If a grav gun was 1 pt and a grav cannon was 2 pts you'd have close to the same effect or if the grav gun was 20 pts and the grav cannon was 40 pts the close GW can get to balance the more opportunities open up.

 Skinnereal wrote:
Are we sure that GW Marketing has not fiddled with the stats, to sell more Eldar, GSC and Knights?

Eldar have been a top tier army at some point in every edition going back to 6th. Most of their kits were designed in the 1990s. I don't think they need to sell any more Eldar as every single sculpt has probably paid for itself thousands of times over by now. They need to sell Votann, which are their newest army and most likely haven't paid for themselves yet as they had to design an entire army from the ground up and write rules for them, and they aren't even a year old. Yet somehow Eldar are the top army and Votann are the worst, so it just comes down to sheer incompetence at writing rules.

 kodos wrote:

And they only way GW sees the need to change is a massive drop in players (not just sales but 100 player events every weekend not happening any more)

I'm pretty sure at GWs lowest point (6th and 7th 40k) 100 player events still happened. GW is an anomaly in the hobby in that outside of MtG (and maybe DnD these days) no other company has such a massive presence in the hobby so even if the company started to lose sales and return to 6/7th era levels big events would still happen.

 Maréchal des Logis Walter wrote:
From the stories of elder people I know and the internet (4chan list of 40k cheese is exceptionnaly funny to me), it truly feels as if the game was never balanced in the first place anyhow, maybe less internet led to less debates about it? I dunno, I mean, I didn't play back then and was not even aware such games existed, and I only jumped aboard the internet train of wargaming articles and forums later on. Looks to me like this slugfest of a topic is coming back every edition

I have got a question though, what parameters are good indicators of how balance is a game? I mean, everyone seems to have got its own opinion on the matter, but is there any consensus about this?

It was never balanced, which is crazy because they've been making the same game for 30 years. However this might be the worst state the game has ever been in. Not having 3 armies over 60% and 20 something armies under 50% win rate would be a good start to having a balanced game.

In in ideally balanced game, (a) the choices on the table are more important than the choices before the game AND (b) all units in each army are equally viable in a well constructed list.

a) It shouldn't matter if I choose Aeldari or Leagues of Votann. How effectively you play your army in the mission presented should be more important than the army choice.

b) This is not to say every unit is as useful every list as every other unit. However, there should never be a unit that is always better than another unit that have the same general role. You should never have two units that are backfield objective holders where one is always better than the other regardless of the other units in the army. There should not be one infantry anti-tank unit that is always better than the others in the army.

 alextroy wrote:
In in ideally balanced game, (a) the choices on the table are more important than the choices before the game AND (b) all units in each army are equally viable in a well constructed list.

a) It shouldn't matter if I choose Aeldari or Leagues of Votann. How effectively you play your army in the mission presented should be more important than the army choice.

b) This is not to say every unit is as useful every list as every other unit. However, there should never be a unit that is always better than another unit that have the same general role. You should never have two units that are backfield objective holders where one is always better than the other regardless of the other units in the army. There should not be one infantry anti-tank unit that is always better than the others in the army.

How niche can a unit be before it becomes not okay do you think? Like if Skorpekh Destroyers can only be included in one effective list, but Canoptek Wraiths can be included in 3, is that a problem?

Toofast wrote:

 Skinnereal wrote:
Are we sure that GW Marketing has not fiddled with the stats, to sell more Eldar, GSC and Knights?

Eldar have been a top tier army at some point in every edition going back to 6th. Most of their kits were designed in the 1990s. I don't think they need to sell any more Eldar as every single sculpt has probably paid for itself thousands of times over by now. They need to sell Votann, which are their newest army and most likely haven't paid for themselves yet as they had to design an entire army from the ground up and write rules for them, and they aren't even a year old. Yet somehow Eldar are the top army and Votann are the worst, so it just comes down to sheer incompetence at writing rules.

During one of his podcasts Peachy went a bit in to how GW designs the rules and he did mention that there are people at the studio, who have their pet factions. Now this is no proof that there is someone at the DT, who is such a person. But on the other hand every eldar codex ever release was not just good, but borderline OP. Eldar units get more special rules then core rules of some armies. And it is very unlikely, considering how other factions get good books and sometimes bad books, that GW could just by chance have one faction which 9-10 times get a book of higher desing studio attention, not just raw power. 9th GK codex was a codex NDK. It was powerful for a month. Eldar codex feel as if someone sat down, wrote an army list, and then added rules to them, and then added point costs to fit all those units in to one list.

 vict0988 wrote:

 alextroy wrote:
In in ideally balanced game, (a) the choices on the table are more important than the choices before the game AND (b) all units in each army are equally viable in a well constructed list.

a) It shouldn't matter if I choose Aeldari or Leagues of Votann. How effectively you play your army in the mission presented should be more important than the army choice.

b) This is not to say every unit is as useful every list as every other unit. However, there should never be a unit that is always better than another unit that have the same general role. You should never have two units that are backfield objective holders where one is always better than the other regardless of the other units in the army. There should not be one infantry anti-tank unit that is always better than the others in the army.

How niche can a unit be before it becomes not okay do you think? Like if Skorpekh Destroyers can only be included in one effective list, but Canoptek Wraiths can be included in 3, is that a problem?

If an army has 4 core themes of list and a unit is better in 1 while a similar unit is better in 3, that isn't really a problem.

That being said, Skorpekh Destroyers and Canoptek Wraiths seem to inhabit different Close Combat unit roles. One is a Heavy Infantry killer while the other seems geared towards light infantry and resilience. That would make me think they are not in direct competition with each other the way Space Marine Scouts, Incursors, and Inflitrators are.

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:

 VladimirHerzog wrote:
winrates don't matter for the company tho, its all about profit. So even if the balance is terrible, if 40l keeps selling more than the last quarter, from the company's point of view, its working properly

There are two separate questions here: 40k as a product is succeeding well, though probably not as well as it could with better design. 40k as a game is a dismal failure.

For us, the players, thats two separate questions. For GW, the only thing that matters is : Did 40k bring more money in this quarter compared to the last one. The game could be dead with zero matches played per month but if it still brought money in for GW ,they would consider it a sucess (yeah i know, thats an unlikely situation, just using it as a an example)

Space Marines do have a degree of bloat and redundant units that can only really be solved by slowly phasing out some of them.

 alextroy wrote:
In in ideally balanced game, (a) the choices on the table are more important than the choices before the game AND (b) all units in each army are equally viable in a well constructed list.

a) It shouldn't matter if I choose Aeldari or Leagues of Votann. How effectively you play your army in the mission presented should be more important than the army choice.

b) This is not to say every unit is as useful every list as every other unit. However, there should never be a unit that is always better than another unit that have the same general role. You should never have two units that are backfield objective holders where one is always better than the other regardless of the other units in the army. There should not be one infantry anti-tank unit that is always better than the others in the army.

Agreed.

Further along those lines though, has GW in any interview or article actually stated outright and clearly what they're thinking about when writing rules? How they envision the game?

Not heavily following their media so I don't know.

Sim-Life wrote:

 kodos wrote:

And they only way GW sees the need to change is a massive drop in players (not just sales but 100 player events every weekend not happening any more)

I'm pretty sure at GWs lowest point (6th and 7th 40k) 100 player events still happened. GW is an anomaly in the hobby in that outside of MtG (and maybe DnD these days) no other company has such a massive presence in the hobby so even if the company started to lose sales and return to 6/7th era levels big events would still happen.

back in 5th the local area so 2 large tournaments with 70+ per year in 5th, in 6th this dropped, raised with start of 7th and went down at the end of 7th again were having 15 people playing was already seen as big event but never went above the 30 people during that time, now there are 2 large (international) tournaments per year with 100+ players

Maréchal des Logis Walter wrote:I have got a question though, what parameters are good indicators of how balance is a game? I mean, everyone seems to have got its own opinion on the matter, but is there any consensus about this?

make it simple, a casual player, buying a single 2000 point army with the models they like and want to paint (or like the background story) is not called out for being a "Win at all cost" player, powergamer or "The Facking Guy" for coming with a nuke to a knife fight because he did not know that the army and units are a no-go for gaming nights because it is too strong

or that the one kid, starting with 2 other kids from school and losing every single game in the local group and just get told to "get gut" with his Votaan because the other 2 are playing Eldar and GSC and telling him that the so called "imbalance" is only a tournament problem and internet meme but the game itself is perfectly fine and that they are having fun

 Tyran wrote:
Space Marines do have a degree of bloat and redundant units that can only really be solved by slowly phasing out some of them.

But what kind of a bloat is it really? The fact that instead of something like an armour type or a weapon type being a points based option for character, it is turned in to a separate data sheet for them? Every army cut be cut down in its "bloat". Do eldar really need 5 different melee units? Do csm need multiple csm ? Why do orks need to have more then one unit of basic ork etc. And one could go even further. Why have a separate Dark and Regular Eldar army? Instead of tanks X or melee or shoting unit Y, just have an option called "eldar skimmer tank" , "eldar skimer transport small" , "eldar skimmer transport big", "eldar skimmer anti tank vehicle". Two codex in one, no problems with balancing two similar armies, designed space free, for armies that are more popular, while players get 100% freedom to build an eldar, d. eldar, harelquin or mixed Inari force.

Agreed with Tyran. Dark Eldars and Harlequins or Craftworlders are all completly different flavors of eldars and on the tabletop, at least in theories, they have little to nothing in common whatsoever.

Most space marines chapters as subfactions are mostly just more power armour with slight divergences that in and of itself wouldn't need whole codices in my opinion, let aside grey knights and deathwatch who's organisation and wargear are at odds with any other marines.

As for different units, well, yes, you might be able to reduce the number of entries, but many units are intended on achieving the same result but in a different manner, or against a different target. So thus far, I'd say, if handed carefully, why not?

You could easily do SW/DA/BT/BA with supplements, imho. Maybe adjust a few unit abilities to represent differences in tactical employment.

 RaptorusRex wrote:
You could easily do SW/DA/BT/BA with supplements, imho. Maybe adjust a few unit abilities to represent differences in tactical employment.

Honestly, you don't even need that. Mainline SM have over 100 datasheets.
That being said, I don't want to dumpster anyone's army, so I'm fine with Space Wolves and Blood Angels and all them having their own unique units. It'd just be nice if some of that love and care was given to other forces.

 RaptorusRex wrote:
You could easily do SW/DA/BT/BA with supplements, imho. Maybe adjust a few unit abilities to represent differences in tactical employment.

Yeah, exactly, a bit like the old Craftworld supplement or the salamenders as per Codex Armaggedon, or the imperial guard regiments...

Yes, but all those are and were less popular then marine factions. BA, SW, DA had a codex since 2ed. I don't think there ever was something like codex bad moon orks.