Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

 Squigsquasher wrote:

Seconded not privateer press noooooooooo.

It seems to me that some GW fans are almost reflexively adverse to the idea of GW adopting any sort of PP use technique. PP have shown they can make good, balanced, solid rules with plenty of diversity. There's no argument that the GW rules could be cleaned and cleared up and PP is known for it's clarity of rules. Why such strong opposition? The PP rules are sufficiently sturdy you can port 40K straight into it with nothing more than the making up of stats, preserve the flavour and feel of the units and know right off the bat you'll have less rules issues than the real 40k.

 BryllCream wrote:

Yes. Balance would make the game boring, with the effects, stats and points of each unit being assigned mathematically rather than because they're cool. I want the first and foremost thought of a game designer's mind to be "how can I make this awesome", not "how can I balance this". Obviously a degree of balance is nessesary to play the game, but 40k has that anyway. I'd like to see some blatently under/over-costed units being bought into line but I don't see why the whole game should be completely overhauled.

No. Imbalance creates more homogeneity, because players must often choose between a rules-effective army and one that uses stuff they like for aesthetic or fluff reasons. When there's balance and the point values actually represent how good something is, you can just design the army you want within their guidelines and not worry about accidentally creating a sucky army, or one that's "too good" and gets you labelled a WAAC.

 BryllCream wrote:

Yes. Balance would make the game boring

....what the hell did I just read. A balanced game is boring? You mean, like pretty much every sport out there? Unless we're talking about the whiny kids who cannot stand losing (we all know those) or GW whiteknights, a balanced ruleset is the most fun experience one can have because any mistake can clearly be related to your very own instead of poor rules writing. The fun lies in constantly improving your very own skill and nothing is as fun as winning because you are BETTER not because simply had more luck.

Plus: so an imbalanced game is fun? How much fun do all those WE and BM players have, getting steamrolled in every matchup? How much "fun" is a game where most people play 3-4 out of 10+ different armies because they are clearly superior?

 Sigvatr wrote:

 BryllCream wrote:

Yes. Balance would make the game boring

....what the hell did I just read. A balanced game is boring? You mean, like pretty much every sport out there? Unless we're talking about the whiny kids who cannot stand losing (we all know those) or GW whiteknights, a balanced ruleset is the most fun experience one can have because any mistake can clearly be related to your very own instead of poor rules writing. The fun lies in constantly improving your very own skill and nothing is as fun as winning because you are BETTER not because simply had more luck.

Plus: so an imbalanced game is fun? How much fun do all those WE and BM players have, getting steamrolled in every matchup? How much "fun" is a game where most people play 3-4 out of 10+ different armies because they are clearly superior?

Some people are content just making up a bunch of stuff as they go along, throwing fist fulls of dice onto the table and justifying terrible rules writing because "the fluff says so and it's so cool". Personally i would feel like an idiot acting like this but to each his own.

I will say that a game like this would be tough to balance and it would take alot of testing but GW doesnt even try... At all. A prime example, they totally overhauled flier rules but leave the vendetta's point cost unadjusted? seriously?

If GW atleast made some attempt I think we could forgive them, no one is asking them to get it perfect. But you can tell they just rush the codexs out the door with little to no thought, full of typos and errors, they probably dont even proof read them. Ward goes around breaking everything horribly without anyone at GW noticing or giving a damn. Honestly it shows you how little they think of their customers. but I guess we all already knew that. I like the game designer to atleast try to make a intelligent, balanced intuitive rule set or why bother playing their game? Gw has zero respect for you as the player.

 Kojiro wrote:

 Squigsquasher wrote:

Seconded not privateer press noooooooooo.

It seems to me that some GW fans are almost reflexively adverse to the idea of GW adopting any sort of PP use technique. PP have shown they can make good, balanced, solid rules with plenty of diversity. There's no argument that the GW rules could be cleaned and cleared up and PP is known for it's clarity of rules. Why such strong opposition?

I've found as a general rule that the people most critical of GW are people who have played GW games for a fairly long time, and know what the faults are, while people most critical of PP are usually those who haven't played it (or only tried it a little or in MK1), and go by gut feelings and hearsay. That's a generalisation, of course, and i'm not saying there aren't legitimate critisisms of PP, but I've found it true all too often. I think it would blow their minds to hear about beer and pretzels Warmahordes players like the ones I play with, or that the most competitive players I know have been warhammer/40k players.

But no, you couldn't just port 40k over to Warmahordes rules, they just feel and play so differently that the game feel would be lost. However, it would be possible to write rules that are solid and balanced, at least between factions, and rules that encourage a wide range of unit types over spamming a few of the strongest. The idea that inter-faction balance makes a game "boring" rather than more fun and exciting because of a close fought battle is, quite frankly, ludicrous to the extreme.

 Maddermax wrote:

I've found as a general rule that the people most critical of GW are people who have played GW games for a fairly long time, and know what the faults are, while people most critical of PP are usually those who haven't played it (or only tried it a little or in MK1), and go by gut feelings and hearsay. That's a generalisation, of course, and i'm not saying there aren't legitimate critisisms of PP, but I've found it true all too often.

That's what I've generally found too, that they've spent a while around the painting table and go into it with a heavy sense of prejudice. But it just doesn't make sense given what we know. (Also I assume you're the same Maddermax from WAU?) I just don't get it though.

 Maddermax wrote:
But no, you couldn't just port 40k over to Warmahordes rules, they just feel and play so differently that the game feel would be lost.

Respectfully I disagree. I've managed such a thing, albeit limited, without creating a single new rule (a self imposed restriction). Given the freedom to actually create rules to capture the feel I am certain it could be done. Granted when I say 'feels like 40K' I'm talking about how I recall 40k, which is several editions removed from the current '40K trying to be Epic' we have now. Whether you like one game or the other is of course highly subjective.

 Maddermax wrote:
The idea that inter-faction balance makes a game "boring" rather than more fun and exciting because of a close fought battle is, quite frankly, ludicrous to the extreme.

100% agree with you. Balance and clear rules should be the goal of every game writer.

I couldn't believe when Napolean complained to Wellington that hiding behind hills and terrain were expressly forbidden in the Book of Gentleman's Warfare!

Then Wellington replied that Battle for Decision was also expressly forbidden and instead we were suppose to use a War of Maneuver.

Napolean just guffawed and told hims that the rules of Warfare had been FAQed and that War of Manuever was no longer the meta.

They then jawed on and on about the appropriate points cost for an Imperial Guardsman vs. a Portugese Grenadier. Then Blucher showed up and things got real!

I.e. This whole discussion is pointless and a kin to arguing politics/religion with someone. I don't particularly care for games with army lists and point costs now. When I was younger, I demanded it. Now that I am older, I don't care.

Play what you want to play. Find others who also want to play that way. Enjoy.

 BryllCream wrote:
Balance would make the game boring

Mind = Blown

I will state the (not) radical opinion that balance is not in GW's best interest. Once you acheive balance, you can not sell various core rules, codex, and will have less army swapping.

If they acheive balance, they wil actually lose $$$.

 Gentleman_Jellyfish wrote:

 BryllCream wrote:
Balance would make the game boring

Mind = Blown

And I'm sorry, really. I am. Ruining everyone's fun.

 Balance wrote:

 Gentleman_Jellyfish wrote:

 BryllCream wrote:
Balance would make the game boring

Mind = Blown

And I'm sorry, really. I am. Ruining everyone's fun.

LOL... you've been waiting for a comment like that!

One thing could clear up all these problems.

A split between friendly gaming and competative.

All rulebooks split into two halves.

A tournement legal list would be in each codex/rulebook so that when you went to a tournement it would be balanced.

If you play play space marines, you play an army with 4 across the board and a 3+ save.

No special rules, no characters no nothing. Just one usable list for every army for tournament play.

Every space marine player would have the exact same list. Ever Tau the same list. Every Necron player, Dark Eldar player ect.

Then if a host of a tourney wanted to he could simpley say "Tournement this weekend. Friendly lists welcome."

Or he could just tell everyone to keep the silly stuff at home.

Kind of like MtG. You can play in block or with whatever you own.

I really like that idea.

The build the rulebook with the core rules, Tourney rules, and Narrative rules.

 BryllCream wrote:
Yes. Balance would make the game boring, with the effects, stats and points of each unit being assigned mathematically rather than because they're cool

You're getting a lot of gak over this post but I agree with you. I'm not a veteran player like many players here but my gut feeling is that GWS never really intended for this to to be the super-competitive game it has become and they have actively tried to squash those elements of it.

Balance is overrated, anyway - I suspect if you copy and pasted Space Marines into 2 other factions, renamed them and gave them new models, you'd still have someone complaining Faction_Guard_Charlie are totally OP and Faction_Guard_Alpha needs to be buffed.

I also like the OP's idea of divorcing the mechanic side of the house from the design part, for what it's worth. I do think GWS does a pretty poor job with some of it's rulewriting currently so far as being vague, unclear, and poorly edited.

 DeffDred wrote:
One thing could clear up all these problems.

A split between friendly gaming and competative.

All rulebooks split into two halves.

A tournement legal list would be in each codex/rulebook so that when you went to a tournement it would be balanced.

If you play play space marines, you play an army with 4 across the board and a 3+ save.

No special rules, no characters no nothing. Just one usable list for every army for tournament play.

Every space marine player would have the exact same list. Ever Tau the same list. Every Necron player, Dark Eldar player ect.

Then if a host of a tourney wanted to he could simpley say "Tournement this weekend. Friendly lists welcome."

Or he could just tell everyone to keep the silly stuff at home.

Kind of like MtG. You can play in block or with whatever you own.

You obviously have no idea about good or competent game design, or about competitive balance.

Privateer Press, Corvus Belli, and I'm sure countless others manage to make games that are decently balanced and well written without having to gut themselves to such a ludicrous extent. What's more, both games present much more varied and tactical gameplay than GW's current offerings.

There is absolutely no excuse for GW not being able to write a competent and at least decently thought out ruleset that can apply to all levels of play.

 Fafnir wrote:
You obviously have no idea about good or competent game design, or about competitive balance.

When you assume you make an ass out of you and me.

You also generalize too much. You made comparasons to other games.

I'm talking about 40k. I hate Priveteer Press. I have no intrest in their method of game design.

I'm saying IF GW wanted to, they could easily make a standardised set of rules for competative play. Even a single list per faction.

Here let me give you an example.

Football. (Real football not that soccer crap)

You have two teams with the same number of players who have the same gear and goals.

Warhammer would be football with one team being able to throw the ball twice as far. Or have a team that runs twice as fast.

But if you pick one quarterback over another you have different options. Like Tom Brady casting lighting bolts. Or letting someone infiltrate into the end zone.

A true competetion in a 40k game would be a rock, paper, scissors kind of thing.

DeffDred, That is a brilliant idea---the one about making all SM armies; all DE armies; all Tau armies; etc. identical for competitive play.

GW could change up the list every year, say, so they could keep selling models. No bikes? This season you must field 5 Space Marines on bikes. Better buy some bikes.

If they kept the points values reasonable, people might be tempted into building multiple armies for a season.

They could also do tourneys with historical refights.

privateer4hire wrote:
DeffDred, That is a brilliant idea---the one about making all SM armies; all DE armies; all Tau armies; etc. identical for competitive play.

GW could change up the list every year, say, so they could keep selling models. No bikes? This season you must field 5 Space Marines on bikes. Better buy some bikes.

If they kept the points values reasonable, people might be tempted into building multiple armies for a season.

They could also do tourneys with historical refights.

I'm glad someone understands.

You're over-complicating it.

You don't need two sets of rules. A single tightly written set of rules will service everyone just fine.

privateer4hire wrote:
DeffDred, That is a brilliant idea---the one about making all SM armies; all DE armies; all Tau armies; etc. identical for competitive play.

GW could change up the list every year, say, so they could keep selling models. No bikes? This season you must field 5 Space Marines on bikes. Better buy some bikes.

If they kept the points values reasonable, people might be tempted into building multiple armies for a season.

They could also do tourneys with historical refights.

You'd need to double the amount of play/testing time of course. Still it might give the Fantasy guys something to do

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
You're over-complicating it.

You don't need two sets of rules. A single tightly written set of rules will service everyone just fine.

I'm honestly not sure you could balance all the weird and wacky stuff in GW's Core games. How do you balance fliers, tanks, and bizarre alien critters in a "battalion" level game? It would require a level of abstraction that GW players don't want.

If they did, more people would have played Epic: Armageddon.

 Easy E wrote:
I'm honestly not sure you could balance all the weird and wacky stuff in GW's Core games. How do you balance fliers, tanks, and bizarre alien critters in a "battalion" level game? It would require a level of abstraction that GW players don't want.

Honestly this is a hole GW have dug themselves into. Fliers and super heavies in particular do not belong in 40K, they belong in Epic. But they've made the kits and people have bought them- there's no removing them from the game now. EVERY edition of 40K will now have to balance in those things.

I personally liked the scale/detail/abstraction they used to have. On one end you have Epic, where a squad would fire as one unit (which 40K now has) and individual weapons didn't really come into it. Devastators for example just had 'heavy weapons'. And that's cool for 6mm dudes. Move to 40K and you get some more detail. Individual models now count (or did when I last played regularly) as did their armament. Hell each hand counted. But you didn't go into detail about how many grenades they had or which body part they were wounded in. For that you increase the scale again to Inquisitor. Basically the further out you got, the more abstract it became. I think this was a really great approach.

On the topic of rules though, and possiblly farming them out, is there a compelling reason to have the BS stat as it is? Once upon a time it served as a starting point to which modifiers were applied. Now it just seems to be a number that indicates another number. Sure it's not a complex mental feat but it just amuses me. Would it not be easier to say Marines have a BS of 3+?

 Easy E wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
You're over-complicating it.

You don't need two sets of rules. A single tightly written set of rules will service everyone just fine.

I'm honestly not sure you could balance all the weird and wacky stuff in GW's Core games. How do you balance fliers, tanks, and bizarre alien critters in a "battalion" level game? It would require a level of abstraction that GW players don't want.

Here's a good place to start:

http://www.sirlin.net/articles/fail-safes-in-competitive-game-design-a-detailed-example.html

Essentially, make sure that every force has some basic fundamentals that allow it to competently react to everything that could come its way.

Of course, that would involve discarding the current codex-writing-mantra of "just make up a bunch of new rules that override other rules, just because."

As it is now, it's like some armies are playing completely different games from others. And it's not like 40k is a very deep game (the ruleset itself may be arbitrarily convoluted and complex, but with the limited amount of actual viable choices afforded to players, it ends up becoming quite shallow), so this shouldn't be an issue.

 Fafnir wrote:
Here's a good place to start:

Which is a pretty good example of self-balancing mechanics, but let's look at a MTG example that might be more relevant to 40k: balance through the metagame. Using the graveyard as a resource instead of just a discard pile (raising zombies, etc) is part of the game, but there have been overpowered decks that have gone too far in that direction and been able to re-use too much of their resources. So, to reduce the potential for graveyard mechanics WOTC will include cards like "remove all cards in your opponent's graveyard from the game". Normally this is a terrible card and won't see any play (since an average game doesn't see enough graveyard abuse to justify spending a card slot on such a narrow-role card), but if graveyard-based decks become too powerful then it has a better target, and decks start taking more options to punish the graveyard decks. This reduces the graveyard deck's chances of winning to a safe level, or even pushes it out of the metagame entirely until people get complacent and start taking their anti-graveyard tools out in favor of cards that are more effective against the new low-graveyard metagame. And since similar counter-strategy cards are waiting for all the other strategy archetypes things tend to go in cycles, with no single deck able to get complete dominance.

So, a good 40k example is how GW should have handled flyers. If every army had access to AA units (playable ones, not necessarily top-tier powerful ones) on day one of 6th edition flyers probably would have been much less of a problem. Flyerspam would have been countered by increased AA before it started dominating too much, which would have reduced the number of AA units, which would have brought back flyerspam, in cycles until it reached an equilibrium with both flyers and anti-flyer units existing in balanced proportions.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Fafnir wrote:
Here's a good place to start:

Which is a pretty good example of self-balancing mechanics, but let's look at a MTG example that might be more relevant to 40k: balance through the metagame. Using the graveyard as a resource instead of just a discard pile (raising zombies, etc) is part of the game, but there have been overpowered decks that have gone too far in that direction and been able to re-use too much of their resources. So, to reduce the potential for graveyard mechanics WOTC will include cards like "remove all cards in your opponent's graveyard from the game". Normally this is a terrible card and won't see any play (since an average game doesn't see enough graveyard abuse to justify spending a card slot on such a narrow-role card), but if graveyard-based decks become too powerful then it has a better target, and decks start taking more options to punish the graveyard decks. This reduces the graveyard deck's chances of winning to a safe level, or even pushes it out of the metagame entirely until people get complacent and start taking their anti-graveyard tools out in favor of cards that are more effective against the new low-graveyard metagame. And since similar counter-strategy cards are waiting for all the other strategy archetypes things tend to go in cycles, with no single deck able to get complete dominance.

So, a good 40k example is how GW should have handled flyers. If every army had access to AA units (playable ones, not necessarily top-tier powerful ones) on day one of 6th edition flyers probably would have been much less of a problem. Flyerspam would have been countered by increased AA before it started dominating too much, which would have reduced the number of AA units, which would have brought back flyerspam, in cycles until it reached an equilibrium with both flyers and anti-flyer units existing in balanced proportions.

I know we've butted heads a few times but I have to say that statement is exactly how I've been trying to explain myself to my friends.

When I say I'd like to see two different types of lists I should be more clear.

Imagine a codex that didn't have a force org. You pull out all the stops. You throw in FW and everything.

The force org. is whatever you want to play. The points you determine will set the limits of the play area. Maybe 1-1500pts 4x4, 2000-3000 4x6 and 3001+ is whatever you want.

At the back of the codex would be the "classic" force org chart with a designers note saying that "most" flgs will use this as a standard play method but they could have house rules.

For tournaments and such GW could have specific list that can be played. This is where rock, paper, scissors (the fundamental pillar of all games) comes into play.

They playtest forever (we are fantazing) and make lists of all kinds that have the MTG feel of use.

Basically the codex would be a playbook for imaginary games of war with friends while GW events (and flgs hosted events) would outline who gets to play with what.

It wouldn't be cut down to one list per army either. You could have 3 lists for each army. Rock paper scissors. If you get a "rock vs rock" ect. it would be mostly determined by objectives.

It could work out for GW buy having armies available in waves that have an overall theme. Each time a refit comes around they can add new units instead of updating things that have already been done.

I could carry one but it's late and I really have to finish these Daemonettes.

 Easy E wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
You're over-complicating it.

You don't need two sets of rules. A single tightly written set of rules will service everyone just fine.

I'm honestly not sure you could balance all the weird and wacky stuff in GW's Core games. How do you balance fliers, tanks, and bizarre alien critters in a "battalion" level game? It would require a level of abstraction that GW players don't want.

If they did, more people would have played Epic: Armageddon.

They could balance it fine, but it'd give the tanks, fliers and monstrous creatures huge points values so they'd rarely be fielded, and as such it'd hurt sales.

I'm sure GW could make a perfectly balanced game, but that doesn't give them the opportunity to push sales of whatever they are trying to promote. They want to sell large flyer kits, so flyers have become essentially must-have items.

I don't think it's as difficult to obtain balance (or, rather, "perfect imbalance", as actual balance is next to impossible) as you guys are making it out to be.

Well, perfect balance is largely impossible when there are two or more different factions that differ in some way, but so long as you can eliminate the "god tier" and the "garbage tier," give every side the tools needed to compete, and attempt to close the gap between all factions as much as possible, you can at least make something competent.

Completely agree. I just don't see a need for two separate sets of rules or even methods of playing the game as necessary measures in the quest to achieve that goal.

One set of rules, tightly balanced (within reason) and with a good amount of thought and testing put into it, will suffice.

On the subject of privateer press making the rules: why on earth would you want your competition to make your rules? How wwould that make sense at all? Just have fantasy flight games do it, they do well enough with their rpg books that they stay true to the crazy lore 40k has already.