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The people have spoken!

We sent out a poll to our paid attendees for the LVO as to what the wanted in their event. The article linked to below gives the results.

Again, please bear in mind that this is just where we are at at this point in time. We are open to change and I have some ideas I think will be fun but as of now, this is what our attendees wanted for the LVO.

http://www.frontlinegaming.org/2013/12/11/las-vegas-open-poll-results-and-where-were-going-in-the-midst-of-the-current-40k-changes/#comment-217506

Great article and I really think that I would have voted exactly like your attendees did.

But what I couldn't gather from that article is what you will actually be doing at the LVO?

Will you follow the vote blindly, or is it still up in the air?

We are doing exactly what the attendees voted for and adding that to our existing system.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
We'll also be allowing Nids, too, assuming the rumored release date is accurate.

How comes you had three options for a lot of the questions surely a yes no would have been better. In regards to the 2+ save, as it IS a yes no question, seems the yes would have won still but hardly by a majority. Cant see the point in filling out a questionaire if you are going to give your opinion on something, yes the neturals may have voted the other way but it would have given a clearer indication of what the masses wanted. I do see the neutral as being no to modifying the rules though.

Other then that I agree with what I have quickly read.

Well i definitely have a different understanding of clear majority then you sir. None the less this is solid data for making decisions at a tournament, provided by its players.

Interesting results, most interesting indeed.

OK guys, haha, as it seems to be unclear what majority means:

ma·jor·i·ty
məˈjôrətē,-ˈjär-/Submit
noun
1.
the greater number.
"in the majority of cases all will go smoothly"
synonyms: larger part/number, greater part/number, best/better part, most, more than half; More



@Mark

Why a vote for Neutral? Because a lot of people don't care one way or the other and they don't want to be forced into a yes or no vote. We always give that option. You get skewed results if you do not be forcing people to vote on something they may not care about or may be uninformed about.

The 2+ reroll issue is not yes or no, either, it is yes, no, or I don't care. I don't care is a totally viable option. And no, hahaha, a neutral is not a no, it is a neutral. That is observer bias in action =) You see the results the way you want to see them (which applies to myself as well, of course).

The results indicate that the largest number of people that spoke up wanted the change, and it was over 50% of the vote. That is a majority vote by definition. 63 of 125 votes were yes, 39 no, 22 Neutral.

The only really close one was the 2 armies vote, that was slightly less than a true majority 59 of 125 for only 2) but that was clearly the most popular option.

So of course the data set isn't perfect, I am not a professional poll taker or anything, but I feel confident we are giving our attendees what they want which really, is the only thing that matters.

Awesome poll, thanks for sharing the results Reecius! Looks like you have a pretty good consensus on what to move forward with for your event. It makes sense that no matter what folks ultimately decide about these things, with their releasing so close to the event it's not something they want to see there.

Glad to see nids will be allowed, though, can't wait to see the new 'dex in action

Technically in voting a Majority refers to more than 50% of the voters. Not just more votes. Just having more votes counts as a Plurality. I do wish when you posted the results you would do it as numbers instead of pretty graphs, because graphs are more easily misleading.

The two armies thing being less than 50% means that more than 50%, and this is one where I would have left Neutral off the ballot. If Neutral means I don't care in this case to me that means unlimited. I don't care what my opponent brings means that unlimited is ok with me. Which would make unlimited only 10ish votes below 2. Now you can make an argument that the players voting 1 would prefer 2 to unlimited...and that solves your issue. Perhaps ranked voting would work better for this one (rank preferences from 1-3 or something.) and tabulate. If done 2 probably wins out.

I also think people take issue with Clear majority 63/125 is a majority 50.4%, but Not super clear.

All in all though love the effort.

Really reecius, dicitonaries ?

I mean haven't i granted you enough respect , do i really deserve this treatment. :(

I just wanted to point out that 2++ save question had a close majority, 52% for yes if i can make it out right.

 Reecius wrote:

So of course the data set isn't perfect, I am not a professional poll taker or anything, but I feel confident we are giving our attendees what they want which really, is the only thing that matters.

I really just want to point out that this is a very slippery slope, its confined this time due to the limit of the questions, but if you had asked other things like should riptides and helldrakes be 0-2 I'm fairly certain you would get the same results of 50/30/20% from the 2+ question or even worse, based solely on what armies and comps people are planning on bringing.

When people who are attending vote to change rules its based on what lists they plan on brining and what benefits them the most (logically this is the way everyone should vote), not what is best for the game/tournament/your bottom line, which is how the rule changes should be made by T.O.s.

"The game has gone bananas with rules and it is on us to choose what game we want to play. This is what our attendees (and me personally) decided was the game we wanted to pay and I am very happy for it!"

This is the most intelligent thing I've seen concerning 40k in a long time.

I'm glad someone has finally taken a step in this direction. Balancing out a tournament ruleset can't be a bad thing!!!!!

@Beng77

Yes, in reference to voting you are right, less than 50% but the largest number of votes is a plurality. Fair point but most people don't know that.

The graphs have numbers along the Y axis, most people prefer pretty graphs. And thanks, I am glad you find them pretty!

And why would neutral in that case mean unlimited when they could vote unlimited?

At any rate, arguing the semantics of this thing is pointless at this stage. I do appreciate the feedback though, as I am always trying to get better at this stuff.

Glad you guys find the data useful, that is why I share it (even with the relentless critiques it inevitably brings) as I hope it helps others make better decisions for their groups.


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@pizzaguardian

It wasn't meant as an insult, it seemed that there was some confusion and I was trying to clarify.

Hahaha, sometimes I feel like you just can't win trying to communicate online. It is seriously like Sisyphus and his rock!


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@Bat Manuel and Tiber55

You guys are both right. Changing rules is a last resort. We don't want to do it, but we felt it became necessary and our attendees agreed.

That is good enough for us, and we decided to pull the trigger on a difficult decision that we think is better for the game as a whole.

@RiTides

I know! I love Nids, can;t wait to see how they do!

To me at least neutral means unlimited because if I have no opinion on what my opponent is bringing by default I am not choosing to limit him.

I can mean I am fine either way (which is to say that the decision will not impact my decision). I.e. I don't care vs it must be unlimited or I will be pissed.

Perhaps adding questions about degree of the answer would be helpful.

As for the graphs I am aware of the numbers on them they just are not very precise.

This stuff all seems reasonable. It is easy to keep the status quo by:

-not allowing Escalation
-not allowing Stronghold Assault
-doing something about multiple allies/datasheets


I'd personally be in favor of allowing datasheets, but making it count as an ally (with an overall limit of two represented armies per player). If a player wants to take 2x3 Broadsides and a Riptide instead of an HQ, 1-2 Troops, an Elite, Heavy, and FA, I'm fine with that. I'd actually argue that a Buffmander, Riptide, 3 Broadsides, and a unit or two of Kroot is a superior choice to the dataslate anyway.

As for the 2+ re-rollable saves, I do hate them, but think that maybe waiting for Nids is the right move.

Le sigh.

I appreciate you posting the results and even asking the questions in the first place. The 2+ rerollable question should have just been a yes/no with regard to altering the rules rather than adding a 'neutral' option. If I read the chart correctly, you've got almost 40 people who voted for things not to change this rule who are now out of luck. With roughly half of your player base voting and approximately 52% voting to change the rules those of us signed up to go have had the game rules impacted by a quarter of those people attending.

That doesn't seem right.

(And yes, I understand that if I don't like it I don't have to go)

 pizzaguardian wrote:
Well i definitely have a different understanding of clear majority then you sir. None the less this is solid data for making decisions at a tournament, provided by its players.

Interesting results, most interesting indeed.

As has been posted above majority in a voting form is different to standard defination .

What was the difference, 63 to 39?.


I do look forward to the results of the tourny though, I do have predications on how it will go but nids could easily skew that

Reecius, dont take it the wrong way buddy, I do believe that 2+ re roll isnt broken, there is so many things that have to be done to get there and it isnt 100% by far. But neither here nor there I do appericate the fact that you have gone out and done this and that you have the masses to cater for, I am also interested in the results and how they could be applied to the UK tournies.

@Breng77

You could just as easily say the neutral votes don't mind the change, either =)

@JGrand

Waiting for Nids would be smart, I agree. But that puts us 3 weeks before the event and we can't do that.

@The Everliving

This isn't about telling people to not come, we want you to come and have fun.

Honestly though, ask yourself if the game will be less fun with invincible units downgrading to "still most durable thing in the game, but not invincible?"

It is not a ban, or comp (well, any change is arguably comp, but you get my drift) it is a reduction.

When 52% of the people vote for something and it passes of course those in opposition think it isn't fair, but that is the way voting works =) Do you think it would be more fair to go with the minority?

Only 31% were against the change, 18% didn't care either way.

So again, how you react to this is your choice. But really, this isn't that big of a change. We're just toning things down a bit with the intent that everyone has more fun.

Reecius wrote:
You guys are both right. Changing rules is a last resort. We don't want to do it, but we felt it became necessary and our attendees agreed.

That is good enough for us, and we decided to pull the trigger on a difficult decision that we think is better for the game as a whole.

Just out of curiosity, if the plurality or majority voted against FW, would you drop it from your events?

@Mark

Thanks! And sorry if I seem short, it's just the past week I have been getting 100+ emails a day, saying the same things over and over and over. Haha, it gets a bit trying and due to the fact that the LVO was first in line to deal with this stuff, it kind of fell on us a bit.

It would have been nice to sit back and play the waiting game a bit longer but we couldn't.


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@Greg

Yes.

But we have such an overwhelming majority for it now that it is not an issue. I have players saying they WOULDN'T come if we dropped FW.

And the reason we didn't put that on the ballot is because we have already asked that earlier when I was gathering data for the LVO and again, it was overwhelmingly yes.

The FW thing for us isn't even an issue anymore, it is only an issue for Blackmoor =P

Are the 2+ re roll results aimed at screamers or seer council though, we dont see many seer councils in the UK (mainly beast pack at the moment) but I think they are much more popular in the US?.

Reecius wrote:But we have such an overwhelming majority for it now that it is not an issue. I have players saying they WOULDN'T come if we dropped FW.

And the reason we didn't put that on the ballot is because we have already asked that earlier when I was gathering data for the LVO and again, it was overwhelmingly yes.

I find the results interesting because for AdeptiCon, the survey done shows a majority against for the attendees polled. Not a strong majority, but a majority none the less.

http://dev.adepticon.org/2013/11/warhammer-40k-championships-survey.html

Obviously, we have a different event and with a west coast leaning, your influence on the LVO could be a factor.

I think this is going to be a very interesting tournament, mostly because its being built up as both one of the most terrain laden, and as one that has now nerfed the 2+ rerollable.

+'s for the star are that it can hide behind very large terrain and pop over it and assault.

-'s being that a nerf from 1-36 to 1-12 means your going to start losing models to shooting.

For a screamer star you can afford to take wounds, losing 1-2 screamers while going in is not really a big deal and that means that they have to put 48 wounds on you.

For the seer council play is going to get to be super tactical as you cannot survive a fusillade from any of the other top armies, Serpent Spam, Tau/Dar, Pure Tau, Necrons, because losing 4 models to 48 wounds from shooting will wipe out half of your effectiveness. Also Dice will matter a lot more with 1 wound models than with 2 wound.

Add in the fact that tyrandis will probably have at least 1-2 effective builds with some form of shadows of the warp and it gets real.

I just hope we don't hit a wall with something out of the tyranid codex being terribly wirtten which is entirely possible now that GW just slaps it together and hopes to sell models.

It's all how I voted. I am happy.

@Mark

Yes and no. My personal bias: form day about, 3 of 6th ed we found the 2+ reroll thing and I viscerally hate the rule. However, up until now it has been pretty manageable.

I think the catalyst to actually do something like this is the Seercouncil and Screamerstar. The Seercouncil is much, much worse than the Screamerstar. We have a teammate that plays it, so we have tons of experience against it and while it is beatable it is so absolutely not fun to play against.

I definitely expressed my opinion on the subject with the open intent to sway people, but in the end it was strictly up to the players.

@Greg

I understand why you would say that and I did see those results. We align largely with those results with the one big difference being FW.

We pushed and campaigned for it for well over a year before our polls showed a majority in favor of allowing it and now we have over a year of using it here and people have acclimated to it. Now, it is a non-issue. I have poll data that supports it overwhelmingly and anecdotal evidence, too (players talking to us at events, etc.).

There are some units folks don't like (Thudd Guns, Sabers, etc.) and we get those, but has just not been an issue and folks like using it now. People at this stage have gotten used to bringing their Contemptor dreads and Vulchers or whatever, and don't want to give it up.

@Tiber55

Yeah, you said it. We are rolling the dice, so to speak, and it will be interesting to see what happens. I would have preferred to wait for Nids, but it simply wasn't an option.

If the 2+reroll thing blows up in our face, we will adjust. I honestly think the majority of players on the exit poll will be happy for the change. But, I could be wrong.

@OverwatchCNC

Gld it worked out for you!

Two things:

I think that if you are going to target ban certain things in the game (which I happen to agree is a good idea for balance), then maybe you should revisit the idea of limiting or eliminating certain problematic FW units that you resisted on in the past.

I think the better what to handle the whole 2++ rerollable issue would be to limit how may masterly levels (or perhaps individual psychers) an army can have. This would likely solve the problem by making getting the combo far less certain and it would speed up the play of a lot of the more notorious slow play turn 3 ftw "strategies" out there. It might not be very popular, but it would tone down a lot of the more abusive things in the game, which seem to revolve around psychic power mostly. Amazing how the game has come full circle, that way.....

I'm not able to attend the LVO but I must say, hat's off to you sir. I'm glad that sanity has won out and I'm especially glad that you guys are doing all you can on the los blocker front, I think that goes a long way to help balance things out and make a more enjoyable game all round in addition to the choices you guys have made. Again, well done good sir, I can breath a little sigh of relief for organized gaming.

I doubt you will hear any real complaints about the 2+/4+ change especially from an exit poll as most people who were super competative with the stars will switch to something else. The people who stick to them will have already resigned themselves to the nerf.

You also wont hear any complaints from people who didn't have to deal with 2+ re-rollable.

The real question just comes down to how many still come and how hard the changes have affected them.

The nerf is enough to make it so that most of the people with more than 1 tournament army will take the other one, and that a person who doesn't pratice against tournament lists with it wont facesmash win against the other tournament lists therefore giving the better generals using the 2nd army a win against it.

I am going to be very curious about how grant does, getting this nerf, he is going to just have to adapt his tactics more in line to if he didn't roll foturne even if he does, but with his depth of practice with the army its going to be fun to see how he does.

I largely agree with both the results and how survey was conducted. People talking about screwed up results due to this or that are talking out of their ass, as most polling agencies don't even take the time to run a proper poll. They just post up whatever results benefits them or who pays them. This poll was not conducted in such a way. The questions and answers were clear, and the options were not so limited that it forced someone to answer in a way they normally would not with exception to extreme outliers.

The state media aside, don't let naysayers get ya down Reecius. You and your team have conducted yourselves in a professional way, and in this sense was not only mature (which maturity is lacking in our hobby) but also very thorough. Other TO's could learn a thing or two from the ways in which you guys conduct tournament/organization business. The guys complaining just want to wipe the table with screamerstar or revenants because they paid for them.

Polls will never be perfect, as they involve these imperfect things called "humans". As far I see it, this poll was well enough conducted to the point of getting clear results.

With the LVO just two months away I think this is a good starting place. GW made quite a few changes in a short amount of time; maintaining the status quo for this event is probably a good thing.

@Phazael

Yeah, there are multiple paths to toning things down a hair. We considered a lot of options and talked about it for ever, but in the end we decided on a simple change.

The thing is there are lots of different ways to get the 2+ reroll save, not just psykers, and it is the actual rule mechanic, not the units that use them, that we were targeting.

@Tiber55

GTA said he is still using his army, so we'll see. I agree that that will be a big tell as to the impact. The funny thing would be if Screamerstar or Seercouncil still won! haha, all this fuss for nothing.

As for the exit polls not being accurate, then what do you suggest as an alternative for gathering attendee opinions? I know of no better way and this allows the players to feel like they have a stake in what happens which is important.

@Ultimentra

Thanks very much for the kind words, it is appreciated. It's easy to forget that we're doing all this for everyone else's benefit among some of the complaints =) I just remind myself everyone is speaking up because they care about what's happening.

@Nick

You said it. People want to stick to what they know now, and we can see about changes down the road.