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Don't know how many people watch the Extra Credits show over on PATV (or wherever else it plays), but happened to take a gander at this episode:

http://penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/perfect-imbalance

Which actually argues against achieving perfect balance in your game. I'm not saying GW (or PP or whoever) has it right, or is actively trying to achieve this, but I thought it was some pretty interesting food for thought. Certainly you can see aspects of this in Fantasy tournament play- once players sorted out that they were going to have to consistently deal with hydras and hell pits in tournament play, they began to bring counters to those, and the relative strength of those units went down.

Anyone else see this? Have thoughts on it?

I understand the point and I offer this: It is next to impossible to create a perfectly balanced enviornment, let alone have one at release. I'm still new to the 40k metagame scene but I have seen this endlessly in M:tG and find that it holds true to any game with imbalances.

Basically, you'll have 3-4 archtypes that are significantly stronger than others. You find that everyone tries to run X because X is super strong so to counter X, you run Y which can eat X for breakfast but is very 'meh' against most everything else.

It sorta creates a rock-paper-scissors effect when this happens. In 40k, I'm noticing a tendancy to abandon all but the strongest vehicles so most people are abandoning majority of their anti-armor. If this keeps going, someone can come in with a vehicle heavy list and (possibly) clean up.

But that's just my quick and dirty rundown on evolving metagames and how to play them to your advantage. It takes quite a bit of observational skills to pull off but so satisfying when you do.

The problem with the perfect imbalance concept in a miniatures tabletop wargame from a player perspective is that if you want to keep up with the meta every time it shifts, it requires that you invest time and money into a bunch of new miniatures. With a video game like League of Legends this isn't as much of an issue, changing how you build or your strategies when the meta shifts costs nothing, so it is easier to keep up. Of course, you can then argue that having meta shifts is a great game design idea from the miniatures company's perspective, as it encourages players to constantly invest more money to update their armies. It would be interesting to see whether tabletop gamers complain more about new additions that shift the meta than online video gamers, as the tabletop guys would have a harder time keeping up with the changing game than their online counterparts.

That's how Metas are born. People are forced to play a certain way if they want to win. Wouldn't it be better to just balance the game so that people can play the way they want and still be able to win?

I've run into the concept in game designing before, and they describe it well. Imperfect balance is kind of a misnomer though, as "balance" isn't a well defined objective. The concept of perfect imbalance is perfect balance in a continuously evolving and updated metagame, but it can create unfavorable interactions between players as there will often times be the consistent (and correct) argument that a portion of a players decision making process is outmoded because of balance concerns, thus forcing the player to react.

This is a pro/con scenario as they outlined. People don't like to feel like they're at a mechanical disadvantage that they didn't sign up for, but by that same token it makes people feel powerful when they react and counter external stimuli that they regarded as "unfair".

Games workshop doesn't participate in the effort to create a balance that encourages a vibrant metagame, they're in the "broken" portion of the equation. Grey knights, IG, and Orks all rose to prominence when they arrived predominantly because of their shocking power within the established metagame. In some instances (orks/IG) there was simply no response other than to join them until powerful countermeasures were developed in later codexes. Nob bikes could beat damn near everything that existed, IG countered nob bikes while still beating everyone else, wolves countered IG while still beating nob bikes (and everyone else), grey knights countered nearly everything everywhere with some notable exceptions that kept them from truly consistent top table performance (mostly IG countered their countermeta).

While this works via the pure system of an evolving metagame where a cyclical cycle is created the effect was much too exaggerated. The majority of armies in fifth were left in the cold in a competitive sense and some vanished from tournament play entirely. That's exceptionally bad in a game system that has a several hundred dollar threshold for entry into a single faction.

Warmachine is probably the only non prepainted miniatures game that has the capacity to create "perfect imbalance" scenarios, but the release schedule and rapid format change of miniatures games makes the effort almost pointless to begin with. You have to have a consistent form of interaction, like with magic or league of legends to do imperfect balance, and miniatures games don't work that way.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

DOOMBREAD wrote:That's how Metas are born. People are forced to play a certain way if they want to win. Wouldn't it be better to just balance the game so that people can play the way they want and still be able to win?

Technically, you'll have an evolving metagame in any scenario where you can customize your own input into the game regardless of whether there are in-built power inconsistencies designed to encourage it. Customization in multiplayer environments creates metagames by default as players will always customize themselves to counteract other players forms of customization. When a game truly breaks it greatly limits the viable customization the player has before them. 40k isn't there but it's not doing great in that regard. It has too much built around the "hobby aspects" and too high a buy in to fall prey to the kind of power curve jumping things like the fighting or rts genres see in their competitive scenes.

I don't agree entirely with that video (and I usually agree with Extra Credits, although I've only watched the episodes from when they were on The Escapist. I've even cited them for a paper...).

I'll cite an article by David Sirlin as a starting point:
http://www.sirlin.net/articles/yomi-layer-3-knowing-the-mind-of-the-opponent.html

You can develop a metagame within a game by focusing on the development of "Yomi," or mindgames, instead of forcing imbalances within a game's own design. If players are given options with different outcomes, the tactics should develop on a much smaller, more intimate and dynamic scale.
A game can be perfectly balanced, and so long as players are given a variety of options, and their opponents given a variety of counters to a variety of options, each with varying effectiveness and outcomes, you can keep a series of guessing games going on between players as they try to "read" one another.

"Perfect" balance and imbalance can be just as bad as one another if the options and counters are so one sided. It doesn't matter what side of the scale a game resides on.

The issue is giving the variety of options, as opposed to singular, textbook routes of response.

That said, I don't believe that this episode of Extra Credits applies to 40k. It's nowhere near a level of attaining perfect imbalance, and is far on the side of broken.

You can develop a metagame within a game by focusing on the development of "Yomi," or mindgames, instead of forcing imbalances within a game's own design. If players are given options with different outcomes, the tactics should develop on a much smaller, more intimate and dynamic scale.
A game can be perfectly balanced, and so long as players are given a variety of options, and their opponents given a variety of counters to a variety of options, each with varying effectiveness and outcomes, you can keep a series of guessing games going on between players as they try to "read" one another.

It sure is a lot cheaper and easier to push and pull at the meta via imbalancing than it is to create one that's perfectly balanced and still functions the way the designers want though. If a balanced system gives the appearence of strange or unintended meta (nob bikers or IG parking lots for instance) it's easier to inject an overpowered form of countermeta than it is fundamentally recreate the basis for your games balance. Privateer Press does this in a somewhat visible fashion as they continuously try to encourage players utilize warjacks instead of purely infantry armies (which for a time were truly dominant and in some ways still are).

 DOOMBREAD wrote:
Wouldn't it be better to just balance the game so that people can play the way they want and still be able to win?

So any combination of units/options should be equally powerful?

Firstly, that's essentially impossible to achieve without massively reducing the amount of options.
Secondly, it removes all list building skill from the game. Do you see that as being an improvement? (I don't)

^ Its not as black and white as that.

It doesn't remove list building skill from the game if the game is balanced, it actually makes it harder.

I play Kings of War, which has extremely well-balanced army lists, and there is often 20+ units on the table in an army, not "3 buffed infantry deathstars + monsters/ artillery" that WH 8th edition has boiled down to.

The challenge then becomes to design the list around the tactics you want to use in game (e.g. use that horde to tank, this unit to flank, and this one as a screen for that other one), rather than simply "X is broken, use X".

Warmachine is another good example.

Players don't generally go for "X is broken, use X" in that game, but design their list around their intended gameplay manoeuvres.

Warhammer was a lot like this too, up until about the middle of 6th edition, the balance was good. 40k third edition had pretty good balance on launch too, using the lists from the main rulebook (naturally, as soon as anything got its codex, it murdered).

Another thing that makes 40k annoying is the glacial rate at which they release new army lists. There's a ton of armies that they never even bothered doing a 5th edition book for, Eldar and Tau being pretty major examples.

If you play 40k competitively, vanilla space marines that you respray a different colour every time the new codex of doom comes out is the best way to remain competitive.

I totaly agree with scarletsquig.

Games that are focused on game play, eg player tactical interchanges that are wide and varied, no matter what the strategic loading .
Are far more engaging and retain player interest for longer.
(Eg the mission and army list does not dictate a specific set tactical option , like it does in so many poorly crafted games.)

In simple terms good games have lots of micro 'rock paper scissors' at the element level.Poor games have 'rock paper scissors' at the highest level of the game.(Eg the army has to be the best 'rock' or' paper' or 'scissors' to perform well .)

EG a good game gives players the ability to craft an individual army that is effective for their own personal preference and playstyle.
A poor game limits effectivness to a few 'uber' builds.

The thing is to achive 'perfect imbalance' you have to establish what results in 'perfect ballance' first!
And when you know what perfect balance is , you can tweek it to generate subtle and contolled metagame shifts.

Most sensible minature companies want players to find as many new and varied uses for thier existing minatures as possible.Maximise tactical interactions.(As this maximises the demand for each minature, and game play options.)

When a company limits the use of a particular minature to a specific role.(As GW plc does to maximise strategic loading and drive short term sales.)
It means they have to develop and produce a wider range of minatures , which adds massive expence and delays to the game development process.

I dont mean each army has limited abilities, but it is NOT limited to predetermined restrictions imposed by limiting specific use.

Metagames are different everywhere, and more often than not the common notion on the forums does not prove true on the tabletop. For example vehicles being so much worse now. A fine example I just took 2nd place overall yesterday not bad for codex space marines, and I had 8 vehicles ranging from the lowly Rhino to the Land Raider.

I only lost 2 vehicles in 3 games to hull points if I don't count vehicles that exploded from penetrating hits at the same time.

Of course if you run into Necrons, and you have 8 vehicles your boned. lol

GW doesn't strive for perfect imbalance. They want the latest release to be better than the last, by leaps and bounds. It goes with their business model of surprise releases and creating an instant buying frenzy.

Warmachine does it with the war caster mechanic. They are all relatively balanced against each other for most of the game, but on feat turn they might become 200% better. It's an interesting idea where the imbalance isn't there the whole game.

 Bat Manuel wrote:
GW doesn't strive for perfect imbalance. They want the latest release to be better than the last, by leaps and bounds. It goes with their business model of surprise releases and creating an instant buying frenzy.

This does not make sense. GW still sells box of ork boyz even after many years of the initial release. "Oh you got purifiers. Meet tank bustas"

To me GW seems to create each army to have bunch of units with different roles. Nobody wants to buy and paint 180+ orks but everyone wants a little bit of everything. So it is in gw's best interest to have a broad collection of models with decent rules. Not everyone unit is made out of cheese but they might have a counter to a specific cheese.

 ShumaGorath wrote:
When a game truly breaks it greatly limits the viable customization the player has before them. 40k isn't there but it's not doing great in that regard. It has too much built around the "hobby aspects" and too high a buy in to fall prey to the kind of power curve jumping things like the fighting or rts genres see in their competitive scenes.

I think you hit the nail on the head here. With the effort required to play a miniature wargame, and the extreme effort that a participant can put into it, players can feel jaded when the range of viable customization does not line up with what they like/what they have already invested time and effort in. You see people who play factions because that's what sparks their creative interest and then work within those confines to customize something competitive. Those limitations may be self-imposed, but they are imposed due to the nature of the hobby.

Its an interesting concept, but only really makes sense if you're actively pursuing it (otherwise its just imbalance, not perfect imbalance).

Ie: You make vehicles notably better than infantry. But you give them a weakness to anti-tank, which considerably reduces their power. You then have a few ways to 'game' the meta
1) Play it safe. Vehicles are good, so bring vehicles. Assume people will show up with vehicles, and so bring anti-tank
2) People are going to load up on anti-tank, so bring no vehicles to make them waste the points they invest
3) Spam vehicles because they're powerful.
This is good, because it makes tanks powerful, but not overpowered, if you have the tactics to deal with them properly. It encourages thoughtful list building, because you can't invest too many points into tanks or anti-tank in case you come up against your counter.

But then, if you make the anti-infantry good at anti-tank, you have an issue. Suddenly you have units good at everything, and there is no point in not taking as many as you can....

40k is especially bad at internal balance as well, before even considering the metagame. Some units in a codex are just so much better than others in every single way, that if you want to maximise your competitiveness, you just avoid them. Some codices have more of these than others (tyranids spring to mind). Some codices completely lack the ability to bring certain types of units, or there is only one way to get those units. Nids for example only have (had?) anti-tank as a Elites choice - which meant that competitive armies had hive guards, zoanthropes, but no warriors.

I guess 'perfect imbalance' is the idea that some units are imbalanced, but if you take a balanced army you should be able to counter them. Or at least, you create a rock-paper-scissors scenario where a all-vehicle list will fold to an all-anti-tank list. The problem is that so many games get this wrong and create armies which are rock AND scissors combined.

 Bat Manuel wrote:
GW doesn't strive for perfect imbalance. They want the latest release to be better than the last, by leaps and bounds. It goes with their business model of surprise releases and creating an instant buying frenzy.

Warmachine does it with the war caster mechanic. They are all relatively balanced against each other for most of the game, but on feat turn they might become 200% better. It's an interesting idea where the imbalance isn't there the whole game.

GW doesn't intentionally overpower codexes. If they did that the most powerful codexes at the end of fifth would have been consistently new ones, instead they were IG and wolves (middle of the road), Necrons and GKs (new), and orks (old). If GW overpowered new codexes the poor Tyranids and Blood Angels would have been competitive.

People tend to want to see maliciousness in GW design philosophy, but really all they're seeing is pure incompetence on the part of GWs designers. The company is god awful at making its own game and somehow manages to fumble along in the lead position due to its own size.

I feel I have to chime in here.

It is NOT the game developers at GW towers are incompetant.

It is simply that thier design brief set by coperate managment is not long term focused.(Well defined tacticaly rich game .)

But short term focused.(Make the latest releases look and sound cool so people will buy them.)

Looking at the work of Jake Thornton and Alessio Cavatore away from GW plc influence shows how great the games could be if they were left to the game developers to develop.
(Like they used to be back in the 1990s.Even the SGs supported by fans are far better developed than 40k and WHFB IMO.)

Acording to an interview with Rick Priestly, senior members of the corperate managment belive the core demoghraphic to be teenage boys.
And as this demoghraphic 'struggles' with overarching tactical considerations .They are told to focus on the strategic parts of the game play, mainly loads of specific rules for specific models.(As aparently teenagers soak up data like sponges.)

But this limits the apeal of the games IMO.As they are written for a demoghrapic which will grow out of strategic heavy focus oriented games and search for the more tacticaly rich game.(As all gamers grow more tacticaly estute with experience.)
Most WHFB and 40k players stay with the game because of the excellent asthetic created by the studio staff.
Very few gamers with experiance of multiple systems belive WHFB /40k to have well defined rule sets or intuitive game play.

All good games have 'micro imbalance'.This is the factor that allows player chioce to be wide and varied , while still allowing a sustainable level of effectivness across multiple levels of difficulty /experiance.

Poor games have 'macro imbalance ', that mean their are limited effective chioces despite thier being a wide variety of options avaiable.

I feel I have to chime in here.

It is NOT the game developers at GW towers are incompetant.

It is simply that thier design brief set by coperate managment is not long term focused.(Well defined tacticaly rich game .)

But short term focused.(Make the latest releases look and sound cool so people will buy them.)

Except they don't even do that well and half of all new models produced are attached to units that don't see play while units that are dramatically overpowered and mandatory oftenn times don't even have models.

How long did it take them to make maticores, thundercav, tervigons, stormravens, etc after they were released? They still don't sell a rifleman dread. How did corprorate management cause the dozens of rules conflicts within the sixth edition book and the hundreds of broken or poorly explained rules? How did corporate influence the creation of a game system that required over one hundred pages of FAQs at the end of it's lifespan (fifth).

Looking at the work of Jake Thornton and Alessio Cavatore away from GW plc influence shows how great the games could be if they were left to the game developers to develop.
(Like they used to be back in the 1990s.Even the SGs supported by fans are far better developed than 40k and WHFB IMO.)

I haven't heard many people sing Kings of Wars praises as a game system and Allessio made Mordheim, the most dysfunctional and broken game ever produced. The praise of him is unwarranted and seemingly undeserved. Free from the constraints of GW PLC he hasn't done anything but create a dumbed down version of the game he had been working on for decades.

Acording to an interview with Rick Priestly, senior members of the corperate managment belive the core demoghraphic to be teenage boys.
And as this demoghraphic 'struggles' with overarching tactical considerations .They are told to focus on the strategic parts of the game play, mainly loads of specific rules for specific models.(As aparently teenagers soak up data like sponges.)

That's not actually wrong. What they did with those instructions was make a series of bad games. Privateer did the same thing with the same audience and the same directives (at the same time) and made a good one. Lots of companies have catered to the teenage market and not managed to create a series of games with inherently flawed and dysfuntional rulesets.

This discusion is going a bit of track.

I do however agree with the original poster. I used to think that games workshop was a badly balanced game (but a fun one.) After watching th exstra credit episode I had a bit of an appifany. Perhaps competetive lists are a part of the game as a good thing. The thing is (a lott like league of legends) is that there is so mutch you can meat when you design an all comers list. There is even so mutch you can meet when you design a list against a spesific codex, with all the new codexes having plenty of playable options. I doubt even top competative warhammer players have a full grasp on the entier metagame. There are just to many lists and to many play styles. If somebody even do know the top tier lists, perhaps there is just one build nobody has tryed with is very good against a, b and c. (Or is on a Yomi level that counters all current yomi levels from 1 to 4.)

Also, it is not just codexes and lists. Far from it, it is also how good a player is while he actualy plays. What is very good in the hands of one player could be very bad in the hands of another. In the end I think 40k has just to many options to make a best list that can rule them all.

Hi Shumagorath.
Well concidering the wide range of games the devs used to support 1987-1998.
And there were less problems with game play and there seemed to be a flow of ideas between gamers and game developers.(When thier target demoghraphic was 'gamers' not 'children'.)

Only after Mr kirby said GW plc 'are in the buisness of selling toy soldier to children...'
Has the development team dropped the amount of games they support , yet lost control over the game play ...Possibly due to corperate managment setting the release shedule and time scale ?

As reguard to KoW , most gamers AFAIK, view it as an equal tactical chalenge to WHFB.And it has far more internal and external ballance than WHFB.
And as it has elegant and intiutive rules ...Not so much WHFB lite, as WHFB done right! (IMO.)

All game companies realise great game play is the key to generate and KEEP interest of gamers.

But GW plc is '..a minatures company first and formost...' and the games'...are just the icing on the cake...'
So game play issues from over complicated counter intuitive massivley unbalanced rule set are not realy a problem are they?


@Niiai
Please dont credit the 40k rule set , with the amount of forthought and depth of work a finely balanced and then carefuly imbalanced game has.(Thane Games took 8 years in beta testing to get this right for AoA.)

The GW game devs work hard to get as much game play in as they can in difficult circumstances.
'Make the game better but dont change anything too much.Oh and make sure the latest minatures sell well or else....and we need it finished by the end of next month!)

In the end 40k is just to tacticaly shallow and internaly diffuse to allow all options to be viable in even a mildly competative environment.

There is a massive amount of strategic conciderations to keep folk buying new minatures to try to find the 'UBER LIST OF DOOM.'

And the latest 'shiney model syndrome' and 'codex creep' is what the corperate managment belive keeps the core demoghrahpic (children) buying toy soldiers...Despite all the evidence that disproves this...

Great games allow lots of EQUALY VIABLE players choices in strategic and tactical options.

This is not to be confused with a miriad of strategic options , that may not be equaly viable , to try to cover up a lack of tactical options.

Hi Shumagorath.
Well concidering the wide range of games the devs used to support 1987-1998.
And there were less problems with game play and there seemed to be a flow of ideas between gamers and game developers.(When thier target demoghraphic was 'gamers' not 'children'.)

I started playing in third which likely skews my opinions on the matter. I never experienced the height of complication that was second ed. From my perspective the games have gotten progressively more complicated over time while certain portions of them have been streamlined or removed for various reasons.

Only after Mr kirby said GW plc 'are in the buisness of selling toy soldier to children...'
Has the development team dropped the amount of games they support , yet lost control over the game play ...Possibly due to corperate managment setting the release shedule and time scale ?

Presumably you mean specialist games which themselves weren't hot sellers. Without a time frame I don't really know what you're criticizing. The company certainly did restrict its product line to a more core market, but it's more numerous early games (mordheim, BFG, blood bowl, etc) all had horrendous balance issues and several of them couldn't function as games without the players turning a blind eye to blatant failures in design (mordheim specifically as an example). GW always made toys. The first land raiders looked like bad GI JOE tanks.

As reguard to KoW , most gamers AFAIK, view it as an equal tactical chalenge to WHFB.And it has far more internal and external ballance than WHFB.
And as it has elegant and intiutive rules ...Not so much WHFB lite, as WHFB done right! (IMO.)

Having never played the game I'm simply reciting the most common observation of the game i heard. From what I've heard it's basically a streamlined and more balanced fantasy, but it's also considerably more boring due to a few specific cuts that I can't really elaborate on.

All game companies realise great game play is the key to generate and KEEP interest of gamers.

But GW plc is '..a minatures company first and formost...' and the games'...are just the icing on the cake...'
So game play issues from over complicated counter intuitive massivley unbalanced rule set are not realy a problem are they?

That's an erroneous statement at best considering that GW is a "miniatures company first and foremost" that makes models purely for games and which also has a successfull book company, RPG line, and quite a few videogame tie ins. The "model company" line has always just been a cop out by rules writers for why they don't make a "competitive game" (because they're incompetent).

So game play issues from over complicated counter intuitive massivley unbalanced rule set are not realy a problem are they?

Well they've managed to struggle along for decades with gakky ruleset giving way to gakky ruleset so apparently they were right. If it weren't for their pricing policy they probably wouldn't even be losing customers as they are. Lets be real here, people don't play 40k for the chess-boxing, they play it because it's whats at the store and it has the best visual aesthetic and background. Once people realize that they game they're playing is shallow and unbalanced they often times quit, but that's always been the case and is true for everything GW produces.

They just don't give much gak about balance or writing tight rules. Their corporate culture in development is one of "friendly" non competitive play. There is no logical progression in power for "new model releases" or "new codexes". There is simply no observable pattern to support the idea that they overpower new releases to sell models. It's just hysterics.

Surely enjoyment and pleasure is the goal?

The issue of balance is imo overblown.

I can see how it is an issue in video game design, where everything is mathematically constrained within a mathematically constrained box, where only what the designers planned for is allowed - Warhammer Online died for me when I discovered that if I fired from the top of a cliff the bullet didn't reach the floor because it didn't have the range.

And ok I can see why certain personality types enjoy haggling over what is broken/useless, but... meh... I'd just rather play the game and have fun.

 marielle wrote:
Surely enjoyment and pleasure is the goal?

The issue of balance is imo overblown.

I can see how it is an issue in video game design, where everything is mathematically constrained within a mathematically constrained box, where only what the designers planned for is allowed - Warhammer Online died for me when I discovered that if I fired from the top of a cliff the bullet didn't reach the floor because it didn't have the range.

And ok I can see why certain personality types enjoy haggling over what is broken/useless, but... meh... I'd just rather play the game and have fun.

I quit 40k when sixth hit because the blatant and utterly unbalanced gameplay made it not fun for me.

 ShumaGorath wrote:

 marielle wrote:
Surely enjoyment and pleasure is the goal?

The issue of balance is imo overblown.

I can see how it is an issue in video game design, where everything is mathematically constrained within a mathematically constrained box, where only what the designers planned for is allowed - Warhammer Online died for me when I discovered that if I fired from the top of a cliff the bullet didn't reach the floor because it didn't have the range.

And ok I can see why certain personality types enjoy haggling over what is broken/useless, but... meh... I'd just rather play the game and have fun.

I quit 40k when sixth hit because the blatant and utterly unbalanced gameplay made it not fun for me.

For once, I'd say I'm not so cynical. It's getting pretty bad, but not quite there for me. As it is, there's one faction that I will refuse to play any games against. If the game got to the point where there are more armies to play against that are not worth playing against than those that are, I'd have to put it all away. Until then, wait and hope, I guess.

It's a shame though, I definitely see where Shuma is coming from, and with each new release, I fear I'm getting a little bit closer.

I have to agree with Shuma overall, not on abandoning 6th (I am actually starting to play on this edition, not ending lol), but on the clarity, or lack thereof, of strategy in relation to creep... despite the common terminology of 'codex creep', looking at the the last edition and even the opening volleys of this one, the top 3-4 armies, arguable Grey Knights, SW, IG and Necrons do not represent the last 4 books, or even the last 6.

I think the perception of 'Codex Creep' is partially derived from people coming to grips with how to deal with certain power builds, once that initial shock factor wears off, things tend to balance out to some degree.

This can also be seen in the rules for some brand new kits just plain suck at times... new flayed ones models, mandrakes, pyrovores and more come to mind. Then again, some are awesome, like the flyers currently.

There is probably some truth that they do think about it, but I can't say their deployment of any particular strategy is as crystal clear as a lot of people in the community make it out to be.

That being said, it would make sense for them to do exactly what we say they do... which makes the fact they don't even more baffling lol... GW, a riddle wrapped in an enigma with a side of wtf.

I do so enjoy these topics.

Gamesworkshop flat out states: We are a miniatures company first. They tell you that they don't care about rules balance. They tell you they designed the game from a "cinematic" approach. So why is it that they're somehow "bad" for doing what they perceive to be correct?

Games should have balance, I agree. But games don't NEED balance, and as silly as that idea sounds, it makes sense. There are way worse examples of games that are broken, (unfortunately I can't name them, I haven't played many systems) but those are simply accepted for what they are, imbalanced games.

If you're not having fun you're more than welcome to find an alternative game, play an earlier edition, etc. You're not forced to quit by any means, but you can if you'd like.

It's obvious why creep exists. GW makes the newest army OP and it tries to counter some of the previous mistakes it made in other books. So when people complain about the newest book being OP, which has been a trend for a while now, it really does baffle me.


Also, to those WHFB 8th haters: really? It's hardly as bad as it's made out to be. The competitive community is still vibrant and full of diversity.

 Fafnir wrote:

 ShumaGorath wrote:

 marielle wrote:
Surely enjoyment and pleasure is the goal?

The issue of balance is imo overblown.

I can see how it is an issue in video game design, where everything is mathematically constrained within a mathematically constrained box, where only what the designers planned for is allowed - Warhammer Online died for me when I discovered that if I fired from the top of a cliff the bullet didn't reach the floor because it didn't have the range.

And ok I can see why certain personality types enjoy haggling over what is broken/useless, but... meh... I'd just rather play the game and have fun.

I quit 40k when sixth hit because the blatant and utterly unbalanced gameplay made it not fun for me.

For once, I'd say I'm not so cynical. It's getting pretty bad, but not quite there for me. As it is, there's one faction that I will refuse to play any games against. If the game got to the point where there are more armies to play against that are not worth playing against than those that are, I'd have to put it all away. Until then, wait and hope, I guess.

It's a shame though, I definitely see where Shuma is coming from, and with each new release, I fear I'm getting a little bit closer.

I played a rhino rush blood angels assault army (outside of some DE builds this is perhaps the single most nerfed army build in all of sixth) and when sixth hit four people in the local meta switched to flying demon armies. What does a rhino rush all assault marine army do to a flying MC list you ask? It escapes it via ebay.

GW took my army, rolled it up into a little ball, and threw it into the trash. Fortunately towards the end of fifth I had already gravitated away from 40k given the sheer codex imbalance GKs already represented to any other marine assault force (halberds + hammerhand spam = auto loss) and WarmaHordes hit its stride in my local area. I've been enjoying a dramatically more balanced game for some time now (though I also picked what is arguably the worst faction so I'm still iron manning it).

 ShumaGorath wrote:

GW took my army, rolled it up into a little ball, and threw it into the trash. Fortunately towards the end of sixth I had already gravitated away from 40k given the sheer codex imbalance GKs already represented to any other marine assault force (halberds + hammerhand spam = auto loss) and WarmaHordes hit its stride in my local area. I've been enjoying a dramatically more balanced game for some time now (though I also picked what is arguably the worst faction so I'm still iron manning it).

Firstly, let me preface this with an agreement. GW makes, what I feel, are way too drastic changes to their rule sets. Stuff like this is really dumb, but unfortunately prevalent.

By the same vein though, should you really be surprised? Rhino Rush was prevalent in like, 2nd or 3rd edition wasn't it? 4th nerfed it a little, 5th brought it back. It's up and down.

 Cryonicleech wrote:

 ShumaGorath wrote:

GW took my army, rolled it up into a little ball, and threw it into the trash. Fortunately towards the end of sixth I had already gravitated away from 40k given the sheer codex imbalance GKs already represented to any other marine assault force (halberds + hammerhand spam = auto loss) and WarmaHordes hit its stride in my local area. I've been enjoying a dramatically more balanced game for some time now (though I also picked what is arguably the worst faction so I'm still iron manning it).

Firstly, let me preface this with an agreement. GW makes, what I feel, are way too drastic changes to their rule sets. Stuff like this is really dumb, but unfortunately prevalent.

By the same vein though, should you really be surprised? Rhino Rush was prevalent in like, 2nd or 3rd edition wasn't it? 4th nerfed it a little, 5th brought it back. It's up and down.

Assault based rhino rush was never quite as poor as it is in sixth. Even in third when the transports were coffins you could at least still use them as transports. Assault itself is also considerably weaker in an edition with lessened coversaves, overwatch, flyers and flying MCs, and IC's challenging the fist out of every squad. Sixth is a bad edition, it takes the third phase of the game and makes it almost pointless to engage in for any army. GW swung a bit too hard in the past, but generally it was an effect felt over time. This edition has fundamentally altered how armies can and will perform in a much more dramatic way than previous editions had. I didn't powegame the rhinos, if GW didn't want players to use fast rhinos with the assault troops that got them for a discount they shouldn't of created an assault unit that got a discount on a fast rhino. GWs designers and very specifically Matt Ward are visibly incompetent in a way that truly baffles me. That they can be paid for the shoddy work they do is saddening.

 ShumaGorath wrote:

Assault based rhino rush was never quite as poor as it is in sixth. Even in third when the transports were coffins you could at least still use them as transports. Assault itself is also considerably weaker in an edition with lessened coversaves, overwatch, flyers and flying MCs, and IC's challenging the fist out of every squad. Sixth is a bad edition, it takes the third phase of the game and makes it almost pointless to engage in for any army. GW swung a bit too hard in the past, but generally it was an effect felt over time. This edition has fundamentally altered how armies can and will perform in a much more dramatic way than previous editions had. I didn't powegame the rhinos, if GW didn't want players to use fast rhinos with the assault troops that got them for a discount they shouldn't of created an assault unit that got a discount on a fast rhino. GWs designers and very specifically Matt Ward are visibly incompetent in a way that truly baffles me. That they can be paid for the shoddy work they do is saddening.

Well then.

1. I really don't think it's as poor as you make it out to be. Having played games of 6th (only 4 or 5, I can't pretend to have a final verdict) I haven't found transports to be any more weaker than they were in 5th. Sure, the odd Hull Point loss is a bit of a bummer, but nothing so groundbreaking as to make transports unviable.

2. Overwatch and challenges aren't that big of a deal either. While Overwatch can, on certain rare occasions, alter a charge distance, you're always welcome to refuse a challenge. Then again, I'm not a huge fan of the inclusion of these things either, so I won't really work hard to defend these points.

However, my most important point

3. I don't believe that because assault was nerfed that GW and it's designers have reached "incompetent". Tau certainly got a huge boost, and I'm sure that Tau players aren't exactly complaining all of these changes either.

When 8th edition Fantasy came out, people complained. 40 man units became nearly mandatory for armies like Empire and even Dwarfs. Spells like Purple Sun of Xerus and The Dwellers Below threatened to ruin certain armies into the ground. Random charge distances meant that some games could go down to a bad dice roll.

Arguments ensued. Claims of "Fantasy's dead" and "8th is stupid" were popular at the release. But if you look now, there's a large, competitive Fantasy community. If you stick around and wait to see what GW does, you might find that the army you play may not be so bad, or that certain things that seemed powerful aren't so much.

For example: Wood Elves are easily the worst 8th edition army. Steadfast and the removal of movement restrictions to forests have really nerfed their playstyle hard. But there are still Wood Elf players out there. In fact, some Wood Elf players can even go out there and win tournaments. Bretonnia also got a major nerf in 8th with Steadfast, but Bretonnians are hardly awful.