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There should be internal codex balancing:

Tac Marines should be as good as a choice as Scout Marines (1 is "more resilient" and therefore more expensive, 1 is cheaper with better range)

The Rock/Paper/Scissors analogy should encompass all units, not armies (Infantry beat tanks, Tanks beat Assault, Assault beats Infantry) -or- (mirror match - Inf beats Inf, Assault beats Assault, etc.) It should never be Codex vs. Codex (GK vs. Demons)

there should not be 4-5 optimal Codexes, new release of Knights and guard should not make Necrons, Bike Marines irrelevant.

If I have an army of Orks or Blood angels I should not have to wait 3-4 years for my army to be viable.

Don't assume that since only a couple of posters on dakka are supporting an argument that they are in their own little world. People who don't give a crap about game balance aren't typically going to get embroiled in an argument about why there needs to be balance.

Ultimately whats fun and what you are willing or not to do to have fun is a matter of opinion. I can't speak about tournaments not having gone to any but I will say that as a casual gamer this thread to me seems to boil down to:

side A: "40k isn't fun because X, the game needs fixed"
side B: "instead of X, I do Y, and the game is fine"
side A: "I will continue doing X until the rules forbid it"

Thats my on-topic portion as I understand is required but the only reason I am really posting is to ask the more important question: why in blue blazes don't people from the UK eat pretzels!?!? (referring to OP, unable to believe no one asked yet)

JubbJubbz wrote:
Don't assume that since only a couple of posters on dakka are supporting an argument that they are in their own little world. People who don't give a crap about game balance aren't typically going to get embroiled in an argument about why there needs to be balance.

Ultimately whats fun and what you are willing or not to do to have fun is a matter of opinion. I can't speak about tournaments not having gone to any but I will say that as a casual gamer this thread to me seems to boil down to:

side A: "40k isn't fun because X, the game needs fixed"
side B: "instead of X, I do Y, and the game is fine"
side A: "I will continue doing X until the rules forbid it"

Thats my on-topic portion as I understand is required but the only reason I am really posting is to ask the more important question: why in blue blazes don't people from the UK eat pretzels!?!? (referring to OP, unable to believe no one asked yet)

The problem with that though is while you can say "Just houserule X", but that doesn't mean the game is fine. People fall into the fallacy of assuming because you can modify the rules, the rules are therefore fine, when that's not the case. With good rules you don't NEED to houserule and change things, and many of us have already stated why an answer of "Just houserule" is not acceptable for pick-up games, let alone any kind of tournament. In fact, that excuse only works in a close-knit gaming club.

WayneTheGame wrote:

The problem with that though is while you can say "Just houserule X", but that doesn't mean the game is fine. People fall into the fallacy of assuming because you can modify the rules, the rules are therefore fine, when that's not the case.

I have fun with the game the way it is, so in many respects they are fine to me. This is also true of most people I play with so I know its not just my own little world so to speak. Seems to me like you are just arguing that my opinion is wrong.

With good rules you don't NEED to houserule and change things, and many of us have already stated why an answer of "Just houserule" is not acceptable for pick-up games... In fact, that excuse only works in a close-knit gaming club

Again, maybe unacceptable for you but for me its fine. All I do is say 'hey im bringing my super fluffy list that's kinda weak' and the response is positive more often than not because they are glad they don't have to bring their power list to have a chance. I don't have to be close-knit or best buds to let them know I'm bringing a weak list. It turns out most people around here are glad to play this way. If they insist upon one way or another that's fine I'll accommodate or find someone else to play.

...let alone any kind of tournament. .

again I've never played at a tournament (I'd like to) but from an outsiders perspective it seems like this is exactly what many tournaments do. They don't play straight out of the book, they have all kinds of special missions, terrain rules, etc. As far as adjusting power levels I was listening to some podcast or another and it was talking about a 'Swedish comp system.' If I remember correctly this was basically just something that assigned certain points cost (different from the codex point cost) to very powerful units. Then players were limited in how many points worth of these very powerful units they could take, or their tournament score was affected by how many, I don't remember exactly. This just seems like a quantitative way to do what many of us do qualitatively all the time; throttling the power to create diversity.

Jubb, its fine that you have a largely positive experience, as long as you understand there are many people who don't. I've heard plenty of stories of game groups that migrated away from GW because of the very issues discussed in this thread.

azreal13 wrote: every undercosted unit that my opponent is allowed to field... divorces me further and further from my involvement in the game.

Why? Why do you need to have every unit be in balance to feel involved in the game with said units?

azreal13 wrote: I can enjoy a game I lose, I don't mind losing, but... [when I] genuinely can see no way I could have overcome my opponent... then it undermines my enjoyment of the game significantly, and I would like that to go away.

Well, here's the problem.

You don't mind losing, unless you don't think you could have won? That means you mind losing. It's still all coming back to winning in the end.

Jidmah wrote:I think a current green tide army is a terrible thing.

I guess that's an agree to disagree thing, then. I think spam armies are great, as a concept.

Also, I'd note that those RTS games you're talking about generally also support spam lists. Last I checked, the original zerg rush didn't have a mix of lots of different units, and it was very possible to overwhelm your opponent with just one kind of unit in command and conquer generals.

The reason spam can also be balanced is precisely because your opponent has to invest nearly as many points into the hard counter to your strategy (or in some other way play the game very differently than they would have originally liked if the game wasn't a competition) as you put into your strategy. I can think of no RTS where you show up with a big pile of similar units and your opponent merely casually flicks them away with a handful of hard counter units and then rolls over your face with ease.

Omicron-Fenrir wrote:
I have also had a thought of taking something from the warmachine hordes books. They have a "Field allowance" some units can only have one per army some only 2. Would that be an idea in stopping people from taking 3 Riptides etc?

As mentioned, they used to.

As we were talking about a few pages ago, one of the reasons why a points system is such a bad way of balancing things is because of synergy and being able to take things in combination with each other. For a basic example, markerlights are a lot less useful in an army full of kroot than they are in an army full of broadsides or riptides, yet GW is stuck giving markerlights a single points cost, and the players either overpay or underpay depending on what other units they take.

And you can find this everywhere in the game, from the cost of orders rolled into a CCS being very different whether you're playing foot or mech guard, to the cost of an icarus lascannon being set despite how many airplanes your opponents bring, to how the cost of things are complicated by allies (did they price azrael's 4++ with regard to what he could do with all of the units he could ally with? Highly unlikely).

Points only start to work as a balancer the more that things are controlled for. If you're talking about units within a single codex, and that have a limited number or limited combinations (you must take a certain unit to unlock others, etc.), then they start to work better. As it is, GW is going in the opposite direction, which is why points costs, even if they were accurate, are doing a progressively worse and worse job of acting as a balancer.

insaniak wrote:And from a purely list-building point of view, that would be correct. If you take a weaker unit when you could have had a stronger unit for the same points cost, all you have done is wasted points.

Sure, you might want to take that unit for fluff reasons, or because you like the models.. but as a tactical choice, taking that unit is a bad one.

So? That only matters if what matters is winning.

insaniak wrote:

People who want a challenge don't want the game to be even because they want to be able to manipulate the inequality.

I want a challenge. But I want that challenge to be me against my opponent, not my codex against his codex. So I want the game to be balanced.

Right. You want a game that pits player skill against player skill.

40k will never be this, even with a hypothetical perfect unit balance across all possible combination of units. It's still a dice game. If you want to play a proper strategy game, then play a proper strategy game, rather than 40k.

insaniak wrote:

. 40k isn't a game where you show up with your lists and by looking at the strength of them, see who wins without actually playing.

So you keep saying. And yet you keep advocating a game where certain armies are stronger than others by default...

You know how you reduce that problem?

You have armies with more or less even levels of strength... so that the result comes down entirely to luck and player skill

Yes, if you have two armies that are of equal strength, then luck and the player's ability to manipulate it are the only things that matter to who wins.

If you have two armies that are of unequal strength, then who wins is still determined by luck and the player's ability to manipulate it, it's just also shifted by a constant variable (the difference between list strengths. It's like how X^2 and X^2+2 are the same function, it's just that one is slightly displaced.

In this case, the person with the weaker list should lose more (by some amount relative to the difference in strength), but at the same time, the person with the weaker list shouldn't always lose, just because they brought the weaker list. We'd be talking about a different kind of function here. One in which player skill and luck don't have an impact.

And at anywhere in between these two endpoints, yes, list strength discrepancy has a larger or smaller role to play in who won. That's not a bad thing. Some people want to play with stronger lists, and some with weaker lists, and that's fine. People who want to play with equally powered lists are free to do so in 40k - we don't need to change the system to accommodate this. Especially not in such a way that removes choices from people who want to play with weaker lists.

insaniak wrote:No, what I think is that the system should be balanced, and adding imbalance in order to go easy on a noob is something that a player can elect to do - why is it acceptable for a vet in your imbalanced system to deliberately take a weaker army in order to give a newcomer a chance, while being totally unthinkable for a vet in a more balanced system to just take a points handicap? Or just to not play as hard?

I never said that it was the only way to build imbalance into the game, you can points handicap to your heart's content. Just because you can add imbalance in one way doesn't mean that there can be no other way ever, just as you say. Which means there's no reason to cull a particular way just because an alternative exists.

 Ailaros wrote:

azreal13 wrote: every undercosted unit that my opponent is allowed to field... divorces me further and further from my involvement in the game.

Why? Why do you need to have every unit be in balance to feel involved in the game with said units?

Seeing already powerful units like a Wraithknight turning up in 500 point beginner games because they're cheap enough to do that, affects my opinion of the game, the player who ignored the spirit of the game to exploit that just to win and the people who made it possible, so yes, it affects my enjoyment and involvement in the game.

azreal13 wrote: I can enjoy a game I lose, I don't mind losing, but... [when I] genuinely can see no way I could have overcome my opponent... then it undermines my enjoyment of the game significantly, and I would like that to go away.

Well, here's the problem.

You don't mind losing, unless you don't think you could have won? That means you mind losing. It's still all coming back to winning in the end.

No, it means I don't mind losing if it is down to me. If I lose because the game I'm playing is, in essence, rigged to stop me winning? You're damn right that bothers me.

 Ailaros wrote:
Why? Why do you need to have every unit be in balance to feel involved in the game with said units?

Because when things aren't balanced it feels like your units are useless (even when the fluff says that they're awesome), and you feel bad for bringing them.

You don't mind losing, unless you don't think you could have won? That means you mind losing. It's still all coming back to winning in the end.

Sigh. Do you really not understand the difference between a game where both players feel like they have a chance to win and the outcome is undecided until the very end, and a one-sided slaughter where one person just removes models for a couple hours until their defeat is official? It's not about the final W or L on your record, it's about whether the game was fun and interesting or not.

40k will never be this, even with a hypothetical perfect unit balance across all possible combination of units. It's still a dice game. If you want to play a proper strategy game, then play a proper strategy game, rather than 40k.

You can keep repeating this nonsense all you like, but that doesn't make it true. There are plenty of skill-testing tournament games with random elements. The presence of dice (or shuffled cards or whatever) does not mean that skill doesn't exist.

People who want to play with equally powered lists are free to do so in 40k - we don't need to change the system to accommodate this.

Sigh. No. People are NOT currently free to do so, because making even roughly balanced lists right now takes careful design and buying the correct units so that you don't make your list too powerful or too weak. I really don't see why you can't understand that this would be much easier and more enjoyable in a game with better balance, where you have a much larger pool of options to choose from when making a balanced list.

Especially not in such a way that removes choices from people who want to play with weaker lists.

Why do you keep ignoring the answer to this? We've told you many times: reduce the power of your own list by taking fewer points. You don't need broken balance to take a weaker list to go easy on a newbie.

Which means there's no reason to cull a particular way just because an alternative exists.

The point you keep ignoring is that the current approach you're talking about is bad for everything else. It gives masochists like you the ability to "play on hard mode" and congratulate yourselves about how you're the One True Competitive Player, but it makes the game a lot less enjoyable for the rest of us. Meanwhile reducing your point total gives you the same end results while allowing the rest of us to have a better game.

azreal13 wrote:Seeing already powerful units like a Wraithknight turning up in 500 point beginner games because they're cheap enough to do that, affects my opinion of the game, the player who ignored the spirit of the game to exploit that just to win and the people who made it possible, so yes, it affects my enjoyment and involvement in the game.

Well, firstly, I don't think that blowing virtually all your points on a single unit probably isn't going to be as strong as implied.

Secondly, what you're complaining about is the players, not the game. This is the same post hoc trap that people fall into with gun control. If you change the rules, people who want to break things will still break things, while a rule set could be terrible if nobody abused this fact. Freedom requires self-policing. If you want to play a game that saves you from yourself, then it's probably a bad idea to play a game that gives you great latitude with how to play it.

azreal13 wrote:No, it means I don't mind losing if it is down to me. If I lose because the game I'm playing is, in essence, rigged to stop me winning? You're damn right that bothers me.

Rigging?

Furthermore, if the only time losing is acceptable is due to mistakes you played, then once again, 40k isn't the game for you. 40k is a game where you can lose due to die rolls, much less game imbalances. Once again, what you're looking for is a strategy game, not a game like 40k.

 Ailaros wrote:
40k will never be this, even with a hypothetical perfect unit balance across all possible combination of units. It's still a dice game. If you want to play a proper strategy game, then play a proper strategy game, rather than 40k.

And so we come back once again to the fallacy that a game involving luck can not also involve skill.

Here's the thing: any test of skill also involves a certain amount of luck. The succesful player is the one who learns how to minimise the negative effects of bad luck, and capitalise on the postives.

Yes, if you have two armies that are of equal strength, then luck and the player's ability to manipulate it are the only things that matter to who wins.

This, and the player's understanding of the game, and of how to synergise his units to get the best use out of them.

If you have two armies that are of unequal strength, then who wins is still determined by luck and the player's ability to manipulate it, it's just also shifted by a constant variable (the difference between list strengths. ....

...thus increasing the chance of just being able to look at the lists and pick who is going to win.

The greater the imblance, the less that player skill and luck have to do with who wins.

And at anywhere in between these two endpoints, yes, list strength discrepancy has a larger or smaller role to play in who won. That's not a bad thing. Some people want to play with stronger lists, and some with weaker lists, and that's fine.

But they can do that in a system with balances armies, by imposing handicaps, or not, as necessary. And that system doesn't piss off all the players who just want a balanced game so that they don't have to worry about being branded a TFG for choosing to use a unit they like the look of...

. Especially not in such a way that removes choices from people who want to play with weaker lists.

So you're trotting this one out again, but still haven't explained how a balanced system stops someone from deliberately playing with a weaker list.

Just because you can add imbalance in one way doesn't mean that there can be no other way ever, just as you say. Which means there's no reason to cull a particular way just because an alternative exists.

There is if the current way creates a bad gaming environment, while the alternative would be better for everybody...

 Ailaros wrote:

azreal13 wrote:Seeing already powerful units like a Wraithknight turning up in 500 point beginner games because they're cheap enough to do that, affects my opinion of the game, the player who ignored the spirit of the game to exploit that just to win and the people who made it possible, so yes, it affects my enjoyment and involvement in the game.

Well, firstly, I don't think that blowing virtually all your points on a single unit probably isn't going to be as strong as implied.

Secondly, what you're complaining about is the players, not the game. This is the same post hoc trap that people fall into with gun control. If you change the rules, people who want to break things will still break things, while a rule set could be terrible if nobody abused this fact. Freedom requires self-policing. If you want to play a game that saves you from yourself, then it's probably a bad idea to play a game that gives you great latitude with how to play it.

I'm going to out this in big, not because I'm angry, or shouting, but because it really doesn't seem to be getting through any other way...

the game permits the behaviour, a better balanced, more clearly written game wouldn't prevent the attitude, but it would substantially limit the behaviour

azreal13 wrote:No, it means I don't mind losing if it is down to me. If I lose because the game I'm playing is, in essence, rigged to stop me winning? You're damn right that bothers me.

Rigging?

Furthermore, if the only time losing is acceptable is due to mistakes you played, then once again, 40k isn't the game for you. 40k is a game where you can lose due to die rolls, much less game imbalances. Once again, what you're looking for is a strategy game, not a game like 40k.

In essence, please read, understand and comprehend before replying, and if I really need to expand on the argument behind that comment, you're as daft as your arguments.

 Ailaros wrote:

Secondly, what you're complaining about is the players, not the game. This is the same post hoc trap that people fall into with gun control. If you change the rules, people who want to break things will still break things, while a rule set could be terrible if nobody abused this fact. Freedom requires self-policing. If you want to play a game that saves you from yourself, then it's probably a bad idea to play a game that gives you great latitude with how to play it.

No, it's the game. If the game prices something very low for what it can do, are you seriously saying that it's the fault of the player who chooses to take it? I really don't get your point of view - you are saying that it's okay to have unbalanced rules because you feel that the player should say "This unit is overpowered, I will not take it" and that justifies having the overpowered unit in the first place, versus having the designers (who are paid to write these rules) think of that before publishing the rules and say "Wow this thing is really good for 150 points, it should be closer to 300 so it doesn't get abused"?

There's a huge difference between a hard fought battle where you narrowly lose but have fun, and setting up facing an opponent abusing rules and knowing that you have little to no chance at winning. You shouldn't be punished for "picking the wrong unit" as units should be balanced around filling a role in the army, whether a specific role, a generic role or being something taken in a themed force.

For example, a hypothetical bike unit might not be that great on its own, but if you're fielding a fast-moving army it might work better tactically than if you were fielding a footslogging army, or maybe you have a way to take an all-bike army and bike units really shine in that scenario. That's infinitely better than having a bike unit that is just useless and actually hurts your chances of winning if you choose to take it over a hypothetical other unit; that's bad design because the unit is not valid - it shouldn't exist in the list because there's no viable reason beyond "I want to" to field it, and by choosing to field it you are actually reducing your chances of winning a game with everything else being equal. That's how the game currently is - taking some choices over others for fluff/background/aesthetics actually HARMS you, instead of being a non-issue.

the game permits the behaviour, a better balanced, more clearly written game wouldn't prevent the attitude, but it would substantially limit the behaviour

That makes no sense at all. A game that limits its own sales If riptides or wave serpents or what ever something thinks is good are realy good , then limiting their number would mean that people would buy fewer of them . Any game making company would be stupid to limit its own games acting like that. It ain't just table top games , game like football for example . People want to see the best players in their own team , so teams buy good players more then they will ever need just to have more and so that other won't buy them . Buying just a few would make them earn less money from T-shirts and adds .


The problem is not balance of many armies , that will never be achived . The problem is that GW makes stuff like escalation where most of the units are meh , some have a single shot D weapon , while eldar have a double pulsar titan for cheap. . If everything in every army was over the top and powerful , balancing wouldn't be needed . Right now it is impossible to balance some armies vs the other , comp doesn't work , anti spaming rules don't work , even changing core rules doesn't work .

Makumba wrote:

the game permits the behaviour, a better balanced, more clearly written game wouldn't prevent the attitude, but it would substantially limit the behaviour

That makes no sense at all. A game that limits its own sales If riptides or wave serpents or what ever something thinks is good are realy good , then limiting their number would mean that people would buy fewer of them . Any game making company would be stupid to limit its own games acting like that. It ain't just table top games , game like football for example . People want to see the best players in their own team , so teams buy good players more then they will ever need just to have more and so that other won't buy them . Buying just a few would make them earn less money from T-shirts and adds .

But they would make money elsewhere. GW's current strategy is to put out something shiny and make it have OP rules so people buy a lot of it, instead of encouraging variety. Balanced rules would mean that you might only buy a single Riptide, but you might buy more Fire Warriors or Kroot or Vespid or something else, so it would come out the same and the game would be better because you don't annihilate someone else because you field three of a unit that should be at least twice as many points as it is, or limited to 0-1.

Makumba wrote:

the game permits the behaviour, a better balanced, more clearly written game wouldn't prevent the attitude, but it would substantially limit the behaviour

That makes no sense at all. A game that limits its own sales If riptides or wave serpents or what ever something thinks is good are realy good , then limiting their number would mean that people would buy fewer of them . Any game making company would be stupid to limit its own games acting like that. It ain't just table top games , game like football for example . People want to see the best players in their own team , so teams buy good players more then they will ever need just to have more and so that other won't buy them . Buying just a few would make them earn less money from T-shirts and adds .


The problem is not balance of many armies , that will never be achived . The problem is that GW makes stuff like escalation where most of the units are meh , some have a single shot D weapon , while eldar have a double pulsar titan for cheap. . If everything in every army was over the top and powerful , balancing wouldn't be needed . Right now it is impossible to balance some armies vs the other , comp doesn't work , anti spaming rules don't work , even changing core rules doesn't work .

What the?

No

Unless you think that players who didn't want to run 3 Riptides simply wouldn't buy anything else and would just play smaller games with fewer models? Or would they spend the money on other units, or buy three Tides anyway because they liked the models and there was no advantage or disadvantage to that in the game?

Balance is possible, at least, greater balance is possible, GW just don't care to try.


Your football analogy is flawed too. Teams try and buy the best players to win things, which then garners them more money, both in terms of prize money as well as various other channels. Either way, football is criticised for being a pay to win game as well, and various governing bodies have taken/are taking steps to try and address that.

WayneTheGame wrote:
... you are saying that it's okay to have unbalanced rules because you feel that the player should say "This unit is overpowered, I will not take it" and that justifies having the overpowered unit in the first place, versus having the designers (who are paid to write these rules) think of that before publishing the rules and say "Wow this thing is really good for 150 points, it should be closer to 300 so it doesn't get abused"?

Yup. Because if you're not a noob with a netlist, and you're not deliberately selecting the weakest units from your list, you're clearly just playing to win.

And as we all know, trying to win a game that involves two people competing against each other is heinous behaviour worthy only of censure.

when I play in tournaments nowa days I forget reachinf for the big win. I dont like bringing armies such as ones with 3 rip tides.

I go to have fun and my LGS has a large "sportsmanship" award. Which is based on the comp of your army and how you play and how well you know rules with out having to pause the game and call a judge.

I dont know thats just how I play. I could careless for a trophey now since no army I play will give me one in a competitive enviorment and im unwilling to shell out for units that make me competitive. Ie: 2 more rip tides to my already one.

 insaniak wrote:

WayneTheGame wrote:
... you are saying that it's okay to have unbalanced rules because you feel that the player should say "This unit is overpowered, I will not take it" and that justifies having the overpowered unit in the first place, versus having the designers (who are paid to write these rules) think of that before publishing the rules and say "Wow this thing is really good for 150 points, it should be closer to 300 so it doesn't get abused"?

Yup. Because if you're not a noob with a netlist, and you're not deliberately selecting the weakest units from your list, you're clearly just playing to win.

And as we all know, trying to win a game that involves two people competing against each other is heinous behaviour worthy only of censure.

HOW DARE YOU TRY TO WIN! You should be ashamed of your victory and apologize to your foe for even enjoying the possibility of winning!

Interestingly enough, the tournament I played in a couple of weeks ago was the first I have ever entered that didn't have Sportsmanship as an actual thing. They just had a general 'Don't be a dick' rule. And I think it was possibly the most fun I have had in a tournament (despite 4 major losses out of 5 games ) since second edition, where Sports was more often a separate award entirely rather than counting towards your total.

Not having to worry about whether or not your opponent thinks you're playing nice apparently makes it easier to just relax and enjoy the game.

Omicron-Fenrir wrote:
when I play in tournaments nowa days I forget reachinf for the big win. I dont like bringing armies such as ones with 3 rip tides.

I go to have fun and my LGS has a large "sportsmanship" award. Which is based on the comp of your army and how you play and how well you know rules with out having to pause the game and call a judge.

I dont know thats just how I play. I could careless for a trophey now since no army I play will give me one in a competitive enviorment and im unwilling to shell out for units that make me competitive. Ie: 2 more rip tides to my already one.

This, in a nutshell, is what those of us (and I still, for the life of me, can't see why this isn't ALL of us) are railing against. If the game was better adjusted, you'd be able to turn up with a list, and the fact that you were there just to have fun, or balls-to-the-wall all out to win would be irrelevant, the ultimate winner would be the chap who consistently made the best decisions over the course of the competition and utilised the strengths of his list most effectively, regardless of how many Riptides or units of Kroot that list contained.

 insaniak wrote:
Interestingly enough, the tournament I played in a couple of weeks ago was the first I have ever entered that didn't have Sportsmanship as an actual thing. They just had a general 'Don't be a dick' rule. And I think it was possibly the most fun I have had in a tournament (despite 4 major losses out of 5 games ) since second edition, where Sports was more often a separate award entirely rather than counting towards your total.

Not having to worry about whether or not your opponent thinks you're playing nice apparently makes it easier to just relax and enjoy the game.

I really support this idea. Too many tournaments I've been in have been decided by some arbitrary "He was nice, but how nice" rating with no basis of how to rate your opponent. Then you get players that just don't really care to value it and just give 10/10 for everyone, skewing the results compared to the players that thought "He was a pretty good guy. Nothing that stood out as crazy-helpful or anything, but I liked him. I think an 8/10 is fair"

Sportsmanship should be inherent, or at the very most "Yes/No"; not something you rank people on.

Hmmm so it seems from reading this entire thread that there is no proverbial "silver bullet" to cure 40k and fix it from its current state.

@Ailaros I, for example often handicap myself while list building for the sake of challenge and testing the boundaries of the game but to claim the game should be unbalanced because of this is so absurd that it makes my head hurt. There would be far less need for artificial handicaping if the game was balanced (as you would know that you play on more or less level field and it's your skill that prevails) and finaly the list building game would be really worth it (though even now, with the crap balance in the game list building is still a skill based affair) and then if you really wanted hard you could just lower your points, use terrain that puts you at disadvantage etc (I'm playing Nids on empty table for example next week). If your game is not balanced you can't even say how far handicaped you are btw.

As for your 40k is random therefore not skill based argument is false, it has too much random atm and is not enough tactical game but still far from decided on luck.

 Zweischneid wrote:
Let me tell you, balance doesn't fix that. If you're a casual chess-player, and you enter a world-class tournament, you'll not have fun.

So, exactly how it should be with any good game? If you want pew pew for laughs or write stories around your battles, you don't really need rules at all. Some people would like to think with their tabletop wargames though.

And yes a newbie entering a serious 40k tournament should be crushed silly. Take table football, the casual pub drunken game, if you start as a newbie then someone with half a year of experience will eat you alive and you will have trouble even touching the ball let alone score. And noone will care for "social aspect of the game", "enjoyment of opponent" or other bs, it's a game for god's sake and noone gets killed. Seriously I'm nice to puke in real life but am tempted to start showing to 40k games with dead eye and laugh mercilessly at every bad roll just because of the silly pressure from part of the 40k community to be some perfect social doll. What is it tea party with my aunts or sth?

 Zweischneid wrote:

 Blacksails wrote:

It wouldn't require you to negotiate the power level of the game you're looking for with your opponent?

Which would be the single most counter-productive step backwards in the history of gaming. The very fact that we've come tantalizingly close to making the pre-game negotiation an accepted part of the game, and possible are going away from a "legalistic" approach to game rules, is possibly the single greatest thing in gaming since the invention of the D6.

Jesus, no.

 Galorian wrote:
I literally cannot fathom how pepole claiming to be experienced and skilled players cannot understand that having balanced point costs for models will not prevent the existence of weaker and stronger combinations...

Boggles the mind.

I simply cannot think of anything to say about this other than "you obviously don't understand this game as well as you claim you do"...

This.

 Ailaros wrote:
40k will never be this, even with a hypothetical perfect unit balance across all possible combination of units. It's still a dice game. If you want to play a proper strategy game, then play a proper strategy game, rather than 40k.

As someone who's studied a bit about probability and statistics I can confidently say you haven't a clue what you're talking about here.

The rules of the game utilize dice to give a random element yet slant the results heavily via the various result tables, abilities that give or deny additional rolls and the like, meaning that making good choices heavily tips the scales in your favor, and the bigger the game and greater the number of dice rolled the more heavily the results trend toward the average.

Pit a single Guardsman against a single Tactical Marine for example:

The SM has a 4/9 chance per shot to kill the Guardsman while the Guardsman only has a 1/18 chance per shot of killing the SM. I don't really have the time right now to go into the full calculation that would give me the exact probability a guardsman has of killing a space marine before getting killed himself, but his chances aren't very high even if he shoots first at doubletap range.

Now look at a larger sample- 10vs10:

Each marine has the same chance of killing a Guardsman per shot, but now there's a larger number of both so the chances would trend more heavily towards the average- the 10 guardsmen only have a 2.8e-13 chance of killing all the marines with a single shot each, meaning that statistically it'll only happen once every 3.57 trillion such shooting phases. The marines on the other hand would have a 3.0e-4 chance of wiping out the guardsmen with a single volley, a 9 orders of magnitude greater chance (still unlikely at once per 3325 tries odds, but stick around a GW gaming club long enough and there's a significant chance you may see it happen in your lifetime).

Random chance may make things more interesting and can certainly throw a spanner in the works on occasion, but it certainly does not negate player skill or excuse blatant imbalances in the game.

 insaniak wrote:
Yup. Because if you're not a noob with a netlist, and you're not deliberately selecting the weakest units from your list, you're clearly just playing to win.

And as we all know, trying to win a game that involves two people competing against each other is heinous behaviour worthy only of censure.

Or, as the Dakka Dakka Casual Gaming Mafia would put it:

"Winning is for losers!"

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 insaniak wrote:
Yup. Because if you're not a noob with a netlist, and you're not deliberately selecting the weakest units from your list, you're clearly just playing to win.

And as we all know, trying to win a game that involves two people competing against each other is heinous behaviour worthy only of censure.

Or, as the Dakka Dakka Casual Gaming Mafia would put it:

"Winning is for losers!"

I win more games than I lose...

*hides face in shame*

Problem with balance is its subjective to many different things. 40k has many rules, this allows it to open up and you get much more verity in potential play styles across armies with a lot of variance in results, this aspect is one of the things that keep 40k strong and put it a cut above other miniature games. Some are more balanced, but in my experience this is because they are far more limited in capacity. For me in terms of enjoyment, versatility and strategic thinking wins against balance in casual play.

This is especially true for casual games where balance is much less of an issue, particular units which a heavily unbalanced are so in competitive play because they are spammed, in casual play they are not. Which means it is in fact there is no 'broken balance'

Its not about putting 1 unit against one unit and comparing what it can do against each other and the points cost, that is a terrible way to try and balance a game and will remove the veriaty. Units are not equal to units in all repects and they should not be, this makes games boring. Very boring. There are miniature games which balance based on this kind of thing and if its balance you want above all else go for those, really. At the end of the day, you can stat and point check off every unit in 40k and some will still be able to demolish others, you have to start stripping rules and at some point you've reduced it to a game of chess. When you have veriaty, you have some Armies which are better than other armies. You then have Meta's which decide how many of each army is being played. You then have the Play2Win players choosing between the statisically best army against the most played, and then the statistically best units.

'This unit should at least be as good as this.....' I don't agree with. Some abilities or mechanics are rarer than others, or have particular impact on the meta as a whole, other little bits and pieces of rules are often not taken into account by players when considering balance, players only generally see the part which is detremental to them (But completley useless against another army). One of the things that was pointed out in the new Tyranid Codex was the increase in the Tyranid Prime cost. People hated this, but it was internally balancing based on other changes to the new codex and the versatility of the Prime as an I.C, drop in cost of Carnifex’s, 6 ed rules... etc...

Balance is also subject to a FLGS meta. Doesn't matter how much 1 unit is broken mathhammering wise if its useless in the local meta it is still useless. Meanwhile that 1 crappy unit which costs nothing can be spammed and just be the answer to everything you need.



Tornament wise, we can expect some armies to come in higher than others. This is 40k.
Win / loss ratio shows a pretty good balance overall.

 Galorian wrote:
I win more games than I lose...

WTF IS WRONG WITH YOU!?!?! YOU NEED TO BE MORE CASUAL STOP BEING TFG!!!!!!! STOP TAKING THE GAME SO SERIOUSLY AND HAVE FUN LIKE YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO!!!!!

/casual-at-all-costs

 Nem wrote:
Problem with balance is its subjective to many different things. 40k has many rules, this allows it to open up and you get much more verity in potential play styles across armies with a lot of variance in results, this aspect is one of the things that keep 40k strong and put it a cut above other miniature games. Some are more balanced, but in my experience this is because they are far more limited in capacity. For me in terms of enjoyment, versatility and strategic thinking wins against balance in casual play.

I really don't think you understand the concept of balance at all...
No one is saying compare one unit to one unit. Despite having lots of rules it is entirely possible to achieve much better balance than 40k has, most other games on the market prove this and have just as many options and whatnot as 40k.

 Nem wrote:
This is especially true for casual games where balance is much less of an issue, particular units which a heavily unbalanced are so in competitive play because they are spammed, in casual play they are not. Which means it is in fact there is no 'broken balance'

That's all well and good until someone shows up looking for a casual game and everyone is testing their tourney lists, so they have the option of getting steamrolled or not playing. Or when new players get into the game and one starts winning every game because the model he loved the look of is too powerful.

 Nem wrote:
Its not about putting 1 unit against one unit and comparing what it can do against each other and the points cost, that is a terrible way to try and balance a game and will remove the veriaty. Units are not equal to units in all repects and they should not be, this makes games boring. Very boring. There are miniature games which balance based on this kind of thing and if its balance you want above all else go for those, really. At the end of the day, you can stat and point check off every unit in 40k and some will still be able to demolish others, you have to start stripping rules and at some point you've reduced it to a game of chess. When you have veriaty, you have some Armies which are better than other armies. You then have Meta's which decide how many of each army is being played. You then have the Play2Win players choosing between the statisically best army against the most played, and then the statistically best units.

Again, I think you're missing a core concept of balance here, units don't have to be equal at all, but they should be appropriately priced for what they do. There is no chance of reducing 40k to chess by balancing it. Balance does not mean stripping away the unbalance, it means fixing it.

 Nem wrote:
Balance is also subject to a FLGS meta. Doesn't matter how much 1 unit is broken mathhammering wise if its useless in the local meta it is still useless. Meanwhile that 1 crappy unit which costs nothing can be spammed and just be the answer to everything you need.

Balance is subjective to the wider meta before anything else, your local meta should change minimally based on what people bring but people what people bring is determined by the wider meta. Riptides are OP so you'll see a lot of them pop up in the local meta. And then stay there. In a balanced game if someone starts spamming riptides, people will start bringing counters, then riptide guy brings a counter to the counter and it evolves naturally. What we have at the moment is people seeing the obvious OP choices and pegging the codex power level the month of release and nothing changing until the next edition of the codex or core rules.

 Nem wrote:
Tornament wise, we can expect some armies to come in higher than others. This is 40k.
Win / loss ratio shows a pretty good balance overall.

Yes, this is 40k, we should expect that. In a reasonably well balanced game you wouldn't

 Nem wrote:
Problem with balance is its subjective to many different things. 40k has many rules, this allows it to open up and you get much more verity in potential play styles across armies with a lot of variance in results, this aspect is one of the things that keep 40k strong and put it a cut above other miniature games. Some are more balanced, but in my experience this is because they are far more limited in capacity. For me in terms of enjoyment, versatility and strategic thinking wins against balance in casual play.

This is especially true for casual games where balance is much less of an issue, particular units which a heavily unbalanced are so in competitive play because they are spammed, in casual play they are not. Which means it is in fact there is no 'broken balance'

Its not about putting 1 unit against one unit and comparing what it can do against each other and the points cost, that is a terrible way to try and balance a game and will remove the veriaty. Units are not equal to units in all repects and they should not be, this makes games boring. Very boring. There are miniature games which balance based on this kind of thing and if its balance you want above all else go for those, really. At the end of the day, you can stat and point check off every unit in 40k and some will still be able to demolish others, you have to start stripping rules and at some point you've reduced it to a game of chess. When you have veriaty, you have some Armies which are better than other armies. You then have Meta's which decide how many of each army is being played. You then have the Play2Win players choosing between the statisically best army against the most played, and then the statistically best units.

'This unit should at least be as good as this.....' I don't agree with. Some abilities or mechanics are rarer than others, or have particular impact on the meta as a whole, other little bits and pieces of rules are often not taken into account by players when considering balance, players only generally see the part which is detremental to them (But completley useless against another army). One of the things that was pointed out in the new Tyranid Codex was the increase in the Tyranid Prime cost. People hated this, but it was internally balancing based on other changes to the new codex and the versatility of the Prime as an I.C, drop in cost of Carnifex’s, 6 ed rules... etc...

Balance is also subject to a FLGS meta. Doesn't matter how much 1 unit is broken mathhammering wise if its useless in the local meta it is still useless. Meanwhile that 1 crappy unit which costs nothing can be spammed and just be the answer to everything you need.



Tornament wise, we can expect some armies to come in higher than others. This is 40k.
Win / loss ratio shows a pretty good balance overall.

So much of what you say is just not true balance is not the same as equivalence. NO one is saying every army must function the same way, or be exactly as good at everything as every other army. Same with units...but they should be in the same Ball park.

Points costs should be taken into account, and GW should take player feed back or playtest to see things like the Prime is overcosted because it is not versatile, and did not improve with the 6th ed rules.

The idea that spam does not happen in casual games is patently false. Why is it that a casual player could not like the idea of say and all Biker army, or Deathwing, or 4 Riptides/Imperial Knights because he/she likes Giant Robots.

The thing about balance is it requires beta testing, it requires GW to do what FW does sometimes and releasing experimental rules, and take feed back from people to say....woah that is a bit too good, or hey this unit is terrible. Then they adjust points or abilities accordingly.

I can also not think of a single currently broken unit that is useless in any meta I can think of. Having some armies better than others is terrible for the game, because players that choose worse armies get to take a beating, often for years.

Why shouldn't GW release updates, point cost changes, unit revisions. They would sell more models. IT is true that there is no way that every composition of units will be viable, but what should be true is that every unit in some combination is viable. My basic opinion is that every unit should be good at what it is supposed to do. If say a lictor is supposed to pop up and kill stuff, it should you know be able to actually do that, or if a pyrovore is supposed to be good at clearing out chaff, the same should hold true...but they don't Whereas a heldrake should not be an answer to everything without a 2+ save.

As for win loss ration showing good balance what world do you live in...looking at about 7300 tournament games. Eldar have won 62.4% of the time, where as Dark Angels (another 6th ed book) have only won 36%. How is one army winning 2 out of every three games good balance? How is one army losing 2/3 games balance?

I'd understand if most numbers were closer to 50%, but right now you have 3 armies winning nearly 60% of the time, and 6-7 losing nearly 60% of the time. While a 60-40 Split does not seem like a big deal, consider when you compare those bottom armies to the top armies.

Dark Angels wins 35% of the time against Eldar and Daemons, and 30% of the Time against Eldar.

Also consider that these results include people not taking the best armies out of the top books. It would be interesting to see those numbers.