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 Kilkrazy wrote:
When did you start playing 40K? It has changed a lot since 6th edition came out.

Many of us who are unhappy with the current state of affairs are long term players. I'm not claiming a superiority from that, just a different perspective.

I know you didn't address me, but I played since some point in the late 90s, on-and-off admittedly.

Many of us who are happy with the current state of affairs are also long term players, who were unhappy (and thus often "out" of the hobby) with the state of the game of 40K 3rd to (early) 5th. Likewise, just a variant perspective.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
When did you start playing 40K? It has changed a lot since 6th edition came out.

Many of us who are unhappy with the current state of affairs are long term players. I'm not claiming a superiority from that, just a different perspective.

I started in the middle of fourth, right before the Armored Company white-dwarf list was removed from tournament rotation (2006).

I guess I am a person who was unhappy with the game between 1st and 3rd editions, and rejoined as such at the start of 4th.

 Zweischneid wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:
Nothing is too complex to balance. Most Warhammer 40k players are just so used to terrible balance over decades that they believe this nonsense.

It takes some effort to archive, of course. The issue is GW not willing to spend any effort on it at all.

Wrong.

A, nothing can ever be perfectly balanced. Even Chess isn't 100%, as has been pointed out. The more complexity, the more "imbalances" must appear.

Nobody needs perfect balance. Evenly matched chess masters manage to get half a dozen remis against each other before either scores the first win. Even though white has a natural advantage, chess as a game is balanced well enough for it to not matter.
It's ridiculous to argue that balance isn't worth attempting, just because perfect balance can never be archived. It just needs to be good enough for everyone to have an enjoyable game, be it hobbyist or competitive gamer.

Furthermore, static point-systems are inherently not balanced, because they cannot account for multiples, situationalism and context.

First and foremost, the static point system is not the only screw to turn for balancing. Just because part of the system is not balance-able does not mean that the system as a whole is also unbalance-able.

Situational-ism and context apply to all models and armies equally and thus can be eliminated from the equation. If you drop the same weight on both sides of the scales, it's still balanced.

Multiples are only an issue if a unit is super synergistic with itself. An example would be a unit with plasma weapons that increasing the strength of all plasma gunners, causing three units of that kind each being vastly superior to single one. This can be easily avoided. For some reason many CSM armies also don't run three or four helldrakes, so point costs must at least have some effect.

The 10th Razorback you add to your army in a 2000 pts. game has a different "value" than the first. Facing an Ork Horde, every additional Flamer included in your army "rises" in value, and should cost more than the one before it. Facing a Deathwing Army, additional flamers bring less added value and point-costs should probably decrease the more you take.

This has nothing to do with balance. A Flamer being of more value against an ork horde than against a deathwing army is perfectly balanced, even as it is now. That's the very point of meltas, flamers and their kin. Don't fall for the same fallacy as Aliaros. Balance can be archived in systems where the two factions you want to balance have absolutely nothing in common. Have a look at the original StarCraft if in doubt, the three factions have only very basic mechanisms of the game in common and still none of the three is vastly superior to the others.

The balance here is that a flamer can't kill a terminator or marine reliably, but is better than a plasma gun against orks. This is the very reason why baleflamers are badly balanced - even if there are units which couldn't care less about them (see the daemon player's post above).

Add to that variation in table-size, terrain, etc..

Table size is constant, so it's not an issue to balance. Changing the rules through house rules or game additions is for your own personal enjoyment. GW can nothing to prevent your gaming group from making all rhinos 14/14/14.
Terrain is variable because of bad rules. The terrain rule itself is a cause for bad balance. If GW were to start balancing WH40k, they of course would have to eliminate the causes for imbalance. Most larger tournament have terrain rules in place which manage to balance the game pretty well (huge LoS blocker in the middle, three pieces of terrain per quarter, one of them a ruin or area terrain). Nothing in the WH40k rules can't be changed, so no rule can ever prevent balance, since it can be changed alongside everything else. In the unlikely event of the FoC/Points combination being unsalvageably imbalanced, that would have to go as well.

Or consider synergies. The old 4th CSM "Lash-and-Blast" was often cited to be too powerful. But how would you "point" it correctly? How much is the Lash "worth" on a puny sorcerer with limited mobility in a CSM army without blast-weapons on a table with little terrain and how much is the Lash "worthy" on a tough, highly mobile, winged Deamon Prince in an army full of blast weapons to capitalze on it on a table with plenty terrain to hide your DP and exploit the Lash & Blast tactics (and slow down "spoiler"-units from your opponent)?

if something is too powerful for the game, it has to be eliminated. But for the sake of not dropping a strawman, I'll go into the synergy part:

Let's take something a little less complex than the lash, let's say a generic relic that makes blasts cause twice as many hits if shot at a target within 12" of the wearer.
If the game developer looks at this, he has to consider a couple of things:
1) What is the most efficient way to use this? If it is possible to give it flying daemon prince and cram your entire army with blasts, what does this do to the game? Does it kill half the enemies army on turn one? If yes, require the bearer to no be in the air for it to work, allowing the enemy to respond. Is it just very strong, but not game-breaking? Give it a hefty price tag, so there aren't that many points to cram blasts into. It's completely weak and your daemon prince gets killed while you blow up a few marines? Increase area of effect to 24", or add a second effect to it.
2) After doing 1), how else could a player use it? Is the hefty price tag completely out of dimension for the sorcerer hiding in his rhino? Give him (and only him) a discount. Is the increased are effect turning the sorcerer into a must-have for every CSM army because of 24" bubble of explosions? Maybe that wasn't such a good idea after all, decrease area of effect again and instead increase strength otherwise. Does the relic completely blow for chaos lords because the keep blasting themselves to ashes with scattering blasts? Maybe have it exclude the bearer or make blasts not scatter.
3) How good is this relic compared to all other relics. Are the others still viable choices? Or is our Not-A-Lash-relic the strictly better choice for all possible wearers?
4) After having addressed all possible wearers of the relic, go back to 1). What's the most efficient way to use our relic we finished developing? Does this thing break the game, is it too good, too weak?

This is iterated until the relic is a somewhat viable choice for everyone able to carry it, does not outshine all other relics in all cases and does not completely annihilate the opponent if used in an army built around it. You can't just drop abstract effects like our fictive relic or the lash into a formula and expect to receive a point cost which will magically balances it, like the guy in your article does. Even experience in designing for your game only helps so much. You need to actually play the game to see what the thing does against all types of armies, when played competitively and not while forging a narrative. Doing this before a release is time and thus money consuming, probably the reason why GW refuses to do it.

In a recent article written by one of the MtG developers, he explained why they had designers and developers at WotC, and why a person could never be both.
Designers are the guys who come up with awesome ideas, make fluffy and fun rules. The kind of people who think outside the box and never fail to come up with more stuff.
The developers are the guys who simplify rules, watch internal and external balance and make sure the rules actually do what they are supposed to do. The kind of people who know how to break a game, find combos and synergies and find ways to play stuff it wasn't meant to be played.
The big issue is that GW only has designers. They come up with great ideas, put them in a codex, stick fluff to them and off they go to the stores. No one actually develops the game itself. WotC was in the same place about 15 years ago, when they had only designers. It came crashing down on them in the form of combo winter, when the fudged up the game so hard that it was close to being unplayable. They realized their problem and started hiring competitive players as developers.

If you care about the article, I can dig out the link for you.

Of course, randomizing psychic powers available is a good method to improve balance, as it reduces the ability of players to cherry pick ahead of the game and forces them to think on their feet during the game, but by the popular opinion of Dakka, most 40K players actually preferred the less balanced, less random 5th Edition approach to the more random, more balanced 6th Edition one.

Randomizing unbalanced powers means randomizing balance. Depending on your dice luck, you randomly either have a balanced game or not. Considering how everyone praises the emperor when the rumors mention having a divination psyker available for their codex, I highly doubt the system being more balanced. I can see either system being balanced with some work put into it. If anything randomized tables are harder to balance because there are bound to be some magical combinations across the tables.

Every unit that has a "fixed" point value is by default imbalanced. The exact same point-value will "undercost" it in some cases and "overcost" it in others.

Irrelevant, see above. The army as a whole has to balanced, not every single piece of wargear. If you only brought flamers, your entire army is going to drop in some situation and rise in others. If you brought a well-rounded army having plasma, flamers, melta, autocannons and lascannons, your army value should stay the same, because as some things drop, others rise. Sadly, GW declared well-rounded armies to be against the spirit of the game.

Which is why "the Pentinent Engine is useless" or the "Riptide is too powerful" whining misses the point. In a different setting, the assessment of these two units at the same point costs can easily be inverted. Their "power" or "usefulness" at a given point value depends on the game and context.

Which translates into "this unit sucks, unless playing at so few points that the enemy can't afford to bring anything to handle it" and "this unit is very powerful unless playing at so few points that I can't afford to bring it". Wouldn't you agree that the pentinent engine being playable at all point levels would be more fun for the owner of such models? This is also balance.

A game using point values will never be balanced without player taking the effort to adapt it to a specific game and context (if balance is what they are looking for).

Even the article you linked says something different. You seem to have a skewed view of what balance is. The balance demanded by most people includes two things:
1) Internal codex balance. At least at release, I want to be able to include ogryns or rough riders or rattlings or hellhounds or deathstrike missiles in my army without automatically making a bad army. Why are banewolves always inferior to vendettas? Two reasons: They aren't costed aggressively enough and their rules set is weaker than the vendetta's rule set. This is bad internal balance. There should be at least one way to build an army which could utilize banewolves just as well as vendettas. In a perfect world, those working armies would be armies represented in the fluff, but you can't expect GW to archive that kind of expertise out of nowhere.
2) External army balance. Even if internal codex balance is archived, there is no point of being able to chose between four or five roughly equivalent ork armies if there are three or four armies from other codices which you have no hope of defeating outside of dice luck or low player skill.

Neither means that all units are created equal.
It is perfectly fine for the the HQ choices of a marines codex to vastly outmatch the HQ choices of the AM codex, while the AM heavy support choice have a laugh at the ork's choices. As long as the Black Templar army lead by Grimaldus, an White Scar army lead by a generic Chaptermaster, an all-leman russ army and an ork army with nothing but battlewagon transports full of angry fungi have a roughly equal chance at killing each other, balance would be good enough. Right now picking Black Templars and Grimaldus pretty much makes you lose against the White Scars before rolling a single dice.
It is also perfectly fine for a certain type of unit being a weaker choice in certain types of army. For example, an ironclad dreadnought might be a waste of points in an army relying on bikes or long-range firepower, however it should be a valuable addition to your army when sending a couple of other drop-pods along. Or, when running foot-slogging boyz, foot-slogging nobz should a viable addition, while biker nobz should be the choice of nob for kult of speed armies.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 Zweischneid wrote:
Well, if LOTR is competing with all other GW games, and LOTR is the most balanced among them (going by the BGG-rating... not perfect, I know), it should be the the one winning that competition, at the very least among tournament players, no?

People play games for various reason, balance being just one of those reasons..

Which is fine.

If people play games for various reasons, with balance being one of the reasons for some people, but not everybody, then why can't we just leave it at having various games that cater to this diversity of demand among players, including games such as 40K which don't care about "balance", because they don't try to appeal to people who care about balance?

It's not like, as frequently pointed out, more balanced alternatives (in the eyes of people disliking 40K) don't exist:

What do you lose from getting a more balanced game?
The answer: About as much as competitive player with all gray models getting more beautifully sculpted models - nothing, but sometimes you'll stop to appreciate the change you never asked for.

 Jidmah wrote:
What do you lose from getting a more balanced game?
The answer: About as much as competitive player with all gray models getting more beautifully sculpted models - nothing, but sometimes you'll stop to appreciate the change you never asked for.

This part of your post I will pick out specifically (as I am not a game designer, I feel unqualified to address your other points).

I disagree. We lose options in most iterations - many people want things to be eliminated or reduced, for example the removal of Riptides or the limitation 0-1. Unless there is a fluff reason (such as unique characters), this should be avoided. Balance is not a good reason to eliminate/restrict options.

Furthermore, however, and perhaps more damning, is the change in the attitude of players. Warmachine has the famous "play like you got a pair" statement on page 5, and I consider it to be a balanced game. However, this means that one can never play narrative games - it's technically possible within the context of the rules (as many of you have pointed out) but people do not wish to play it, because they wish to practice for tournaments / play competitively.

A game that is as unbalanced as 40k seems to attract players who have less of a problem arranging games around a narrative framework.

I wish to reemphasize that I am not saying that Warmachine cannot be house-ruled for narrative gaming - it certainly can be. However, the type of players I've almost universally encountered have been singularly unwilling to do so (for fear of violating balance, among other things). The same, I can say, is true of the more balanced editions of 40k; I had to labor long and hard to convince people to play against my Armored Company after it was removed from the tournament scene even though it was still published on their website and it was official for normal 40k.

However, this means that one can never play narrative games -

Scenarios played every seson and theme lists disagree with that statment.

 Jidmah wrote:

What do you lose from getting a more balanced game?
The answer: About as much as competitive player with all gray models getting more beautifully sculpted models - nothing, but sometimes you'll stop to appreciate the change you never asked for.

Hate to repeat myself, but there are many advantages to imbalances.

A lot of the discussion in this thread over the past pages has been on the example (among many others) of "perfect imbalance" (which I picked specifically because it is a non-40K-example), which is one design philosophy (among many) that illustrates some of the advantages from imbalance over balance.

The notion that "more balance" is an unmitigated boon in every way is false. There are advantages to balance, but also disadvantages. Trade-offs in game design.

Among the millions of games, it so happens that I tend to be attracted mostly to games that forgo balance for the advantages of imbalance.

Other gamers will make different choices. As long as games exist that cater to all tastes and preferences, everybody wins.

If you remove the unbalanced games, the gaming-world becomes a lesser, poorer, more monotonous place with less choice for everyone. I can't see how anybody would want that.

So why isn't Starcraft monotonous?

Martel732 wrote:
So why isn't Starcraft monotonous?

It will be monotonous to some people, and not monotonous to others.

Should Starcraft stay the way it is now for the people who like it currently, or should it change to please those that don't like it at the expense of its current fans?

 Zweischneid wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:

What do you lose from getting a more balanced game?
The answer: About as much as competitive player with all gray models getting more beautifully sculpted models - nothing, but sometimes you'll stop to appreciate the change you never asked for.

Hate to repeat myself, but there are many advantages to imbalances.

A lot of the discussion in this thread over the past pages has been on the example (among many others) of "perfect imbalance" (which I picked specifically because it is a non-40K-example), which is one design philosophy (among many) that illustrates some of the advantages from imbalance over balance.

The notion that "more balance" is an unmitigated boon in every way is false. There are advantages to balance, but also disadvantages. Trade-offs in game design.

Among the millions of games, it so happens that I tend to be attracted mostly to games that forgo balance for the advantages of imbalance.

Other gamers will make different choices. As long as games exist that cater to all tastes and preferences, everybody wins.

If you remove the unbalanced games, the gaming-world becomes a lesser, poorer, more monotonous place with less choice for everyone. I can't see how anybody would want that.

Except 40K is nowhere near Perfect Imbalance. Perfect Imbalance works because there is always a counter to a strong unit. Unit A beats Unit B but then Unit C beats Unit A whilst being weak against Unit B and so on and so forth. 40K does not have this.

If 40k is Perfectly Imbalanced as you seem to believe then you will be able to tell us what unit can reliably beat a Screamer Star with Grimoire or whatever that re-rollable 2++ unit is.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

Except 40K is nowhere near Perfect Imbalance. Perfect Imbalance works because there is always a counter to a strong unit. Unit A beats Unit B but Unit C beats Unit A whilst being weak against Unit B and so on and so forth. 40K does not have this.

If 40k is Perfectly Imbalanced as you seem to believe then you will be able to tell us what unit can reliably beat a Screamer Star with Grimoire or whatever that re-rollable 2++ unit is.

Do you even read my posts before you start constructing straw arguments?

 Zweischneid wrote:


A lot of the discussion in this thread over the past pages has been on the example (among many others) of "perfect imbalance" (which I picked specifically because it is a non-40K-example), which is one design philosophy (among many) that illustrates some of the advantages from imbalance over balance..

Also, one of the countless times I've repeated this yesterday.

 Zweischneid wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Okay let's work with "perfect imbalance" then. As much as I disagree with the concept, I would take that over what 40K offers now.

Again. I never said 40K strives for the concept introduced as "perfect imbalance".

I only quoted "perfect imbalance" to give you and others one example of game design that purposefully moves away from "perfect balance" for game-design reasons.

All we need is consensus that "balance" isn't everything and that alterantive approaches exist. "Perfect Balance" being one of them, not necessarily the one 40K pursues.

SO what I read in all of this is GW should pick one design philosophy and generally stick to it. But they don't. Way back in Rouge Trader and second edition the game was far more RPGish in nature and more narative. Then they spent 3 editions "balancing/simplifying rules" (albeit poorly at times), running their own tournaments etc. Now seemingly they have done a 180 back to their previous narrative idea.

The issue with this is that people that picked the game up during the "more balanced" days, are not happy with the change because it is a different game than they signed on for. Whereas some older players (generally non-competitive) are happy because 40k is returning to its roots as it were.

This creates a problem with the "don't be unhappy with the game because it is not what you want it to be" line of thinking. Because the game "was" what many wanted it to be for quite some time. Then it changed.

 Zweischneid wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
So why isn't Starcraft monotonous?

It will be monotonous to some people, and not monotonous to others.

Should Starcraft stay the way it is now for the people who like it currently, or should it change to please those that don't like it at the expense of its current fans?

But you made a blanket statement about balance. I still don't understand why you think its good to have units like Riptides and then BA devs in the same game.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

 Zweischneid wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:

What do you lose from getting a more balanced game?
The answer: About as much as competitive player with all gray models getting more beautifully sculpted models - nothing, but sometimes you'll stop to appreciate the change you never asked for.

Hate to repeat myself, but there are many advantages to imbalances.

A lot of the discussion in this thread over the past pages has been on the example (among many others) of "perfect imbalance" (which I picked specifically because it is a non-40K-example), which is one design philosophy (among many) that illustrates some of the advantages from imbalance over balance.

The notion that "more balance" is an unmitigated boon in every way is false. There are advantages to balance, but also disadvantages. Trade-offs in game design.

Among the millions of games, it so happens that I tend to be attracted mostly to games that forgo balance for the advantages of imbalance.

Other gamers will make different choices. As long as games exist that cater to all tastes and preferences, everybody wins.

If you remove the unbalanced games, the gaming-world becomes a lesser, poorer, more monotonous place with less choice for everyone. I can't see how anybody would want that.

Except 40K is nowhere near Perfect Imbalance. Perfect Imbalance works because there is always a counter to a strong unit. Unit A beats Unit B but then Unit C beats Unit A whilst being weak against Unit B and so on and so forth. 40K does not have this.

If 40k is Perfectly Imbalanced as you seem to believe then you will be able to tell us what unit can reliably beat a Screamer Star with Grimoire or whatever that re-rollable 2++ unit is.

Titan Killer weapons, obviously

Martel732 wrote:

 Zweischneid wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
So why isn't Starcraft monotonous?

It will be monotonous to some people, and not monotonous to others.

Should Starcraft stay the way it is now for the people who like it currently, or should it change to please those that don't like it at the expense of its current fans?

But you made a blanket statement about balance. I still don't understand why you think its good to have units like Riptides and then BA devs in the same game.

It is good because they create imbalance that way.

What blanket statement did I make?

 Zweischneid wrote:

Martel732 wrote:

 Zweischneid wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
So why isn't Starcraft monotonous?

It will be monotonous to some people, and not monotonous to others.

Should Starcraft stay the way it is now for the people who like it currently, or should it change to please those that don't like it at the expense of its current fans?

But you made a blanket statement about balance. I still don't understand why you think its good to have units like Riptides and then BA devs in the same game.

It is good because they create imbalance that way.

But all that means is that no one will use the BA devs if they are smart. Why is it good for one player to walk to the table with a huge advantage? I'm still not understanding that.

Makumba wrote:

However, this means that one can never play narrative games -

Scenarios played every seson and theme lists disagree with that statment.

Are those organized by the company? I'm 100% sure those aren't house-ruled narratives, and in fact are company-mandated narratives, like GW used to do.

Martel732 wrote:


But all that means is that no one will use the BA devs if they are smart. Why is it good for one player to walk to the table with a huge advantage? I'm still not understanding that.

It's the price for having an overall imbalanced game, with a meta-game people can explore, a general de-emphasis on competitive vs. cooperative gaming, an incentive to build scenarios and narratives and a host of other things.

I never said imbalance doesn't come without drawbacks (just like balance doesn't). Again, some people (like you?) will feel the downsides of imbalance aren't worth the advantages. Or not even care about the opportunities and advantages of imbalance in the first place. These people probably should play different games. Different tastes for different folks.

What blanket statement did I make about balance?

 Zweischneid wrote:

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

Except 40K is nowhere near Perfect Imbalance. Perfect Imbalance works because there is always a counter to a strong unit. Unit A beats Unit B but Unit C beats Unit A whilst being weak against Unit B and so on and so forth. 40K does not have this.

If 40k is Perfectly Imbalanced as you seem to believe then you will be able to tell us what unit can reliably beat a Screamer Star with Grimoire or whatever that re-rollable 2++ unit is.

Do you even read my posts before you start constructing straw arguments?

 Zweischneid wrote:


A lot of the discussion in this thread over the past pages has been on the example (among many others) of "perfect imbalance" (which I picked specifically because it is a non-40K-example), which is one design philosophy (among many) that illustrates some of the advantages from imbalance over balance..

Also, one of the countless times I've repeated this yesterday.

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/210/591366.page#6756484

Perfect Imbalance is still a form of balance over the whole game and therefore cannot be held up as an example of imbalance over a whole being good.

That whole video on perfect imbalance was never about making your whole game unbalanced so that some things are never worth using or taking. It is about ensuring that some aspects of the game are stronger against others but weaker to others to counteract it. So if you played a whole team of Unit A against a whole team of Unit C then you would lose. If, however, you had a mix of Unit A, B and C you could be fairly sure that you could, with skilful play, overcome any opponent.

Having Unit B being flat out weaker than both Unit A and Unit C and even a variant of Unit B itself (as some units in 40K are) is not good. Ever.

"If you remove the unbalanced games, the gaming-world becomes a lesser, poorer, more monotonous place with less choice for everyone. I can't see how anybody would want that."

I don't think this is true. But basically, your "solution" for my concerns about things like WS and Ritptide is to GTFO.

I'm still not seeing the upsides to imbalance, myself. Except as a derp-screen for people who can't do math. Why would I, as a model company, invalidate 2/3 of my models? How do balanced units deincentivize scenarios and narratives (which I have very rarely participated in in 20 years of playing this game)

 A Town Called Malus wrote:


Perfect Imbalance is still a form of balance over the whole game and therefore cannot be held up as an example of imbalance as a whole being good.

Perfect Imbalance is not a form of balance. If it were, how could the makers of the video differentiate between a game designed for perfect imbalance (e.g. MtG) and one that is not (e.g Chess)?

And again, I never held up balance as being "good". Like "balance"; it is but one neutral variant. One like the other has advantages and disadvantages. Neither is inherently "good" or "bad".

"Different tastes for different folks. "

What do you find satisfying about Eldar being super over powered? I don't understand this.

Breng77 wrote:
SO what I read in all of this is GW should pick one design philosophy and generally stick to it. But they don't. Way back in Rouge Trader and second edition the game was far more RPGish in nature and more narative. Then they spent 3 editions "balancing/simplifying rules" (albeit poorly at times), running their own tournaments etc. Now seemingly they have done a 180 back to their previous narrative idea.

The issue with this is that people that picked the game up during the "more balanced" days, are not happy with the change because it is a different game than they signed on for. Whereas some older players (generally non-competitive) are happy because 40k is returning to its roots as it were.

This creates a problem with the "don't be unhappy with the game because it is not what you want it to be" line of thinking. Because the game "was" what many wanted it to be for quite some time. Then it changed.

This is understandable, but I sincerely hope that people do not complain as much when anything changes. Things change over time, that's a life lesson, and people both do and don't want it to change depending on their perspective.

I am sincerely shocked by the amount of vehemence demonstrated by the people that disagree with this change to their wargaming hobby specifically, however. I understand dissatisfaction, but vitriol and caustic attitudes are never called for. For example, calling the opposite side during a subjective discussion "trolls" simply for having a different view on a subjective subject really demonstrates some sort of quivering fury, almost, that people DARE have fun with 40k as it stands.

Martel732 wrote:
"Different tastes for different folks. "

What do you find satisfying about Eldar being super over powered? I don't understand this.

For the game as a whole, yes I am. Why I play 40K. If I weren't satisfied, I'd obviously stop playing 40K, no (as I did for most of 3rd to mid-5th Edition)?

Martel732 wrote:
"Different tastes for different folks. "

What do you find satisfying about Eldar being super over powered? I don't understand this.

I don't find that particular part satisfying, but I also do not find it terribly distasteful. I appreciate it the way it is, and many of the ham-fisted attempts to change it in the Proposed Rules sections read like people who have never developed a game before trying to redevelop some aspect of 40k. Which is exactly what it is. They are often even more poorly balanced than the current state of 40k.

 Zweischneid wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
"Different tastes for different folks. "

What do you find satisfying about Eldar being super over powered? I don't understand this.

For the game as a whole, yes I am. Why I play 40K. If I weren't satisfied, I'd obviously stop playing 40K, no (as I did for most of 3rd to mid-5th Edition)?

No, no. WHY are you satisfied by this? Not ARE you. WHY are you. Pitch me on why the Eldar should be heads and shoulders above most other lists.

Martel732 wrote:

 Zweischneid wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
"Different tastes for different folks. "

What do you find satisfying about Eldar being super over powered? I don't understand this.

For the game as a whole, yes I am. Why I play 40K. If I weren't satisfied, I'd obviously stop playing 40K, no (as I did for most of 3rd to mid-5th Edition)?

No, no. WHY are you satisfied by this? Not ARE you. WHY are you. Pitch me on why the Eldar should be heads and shoulders above most other lists.

That's like asking why I like the flavor orange better than the flavor banana or why I find the color blue more pleasant than the color red.

My answer is *shrug*, just do.

Why would you take that away from me?

Martel732 wrote:

 Zweischneid wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
"Different tastes for different folks. "

What do you find satisfying about Eldar being super over powered? I don't understand this.

For the game as a whole, yes I am. Why I play 40K. If I weren't satisfied, I'd obviously stop playing 40K, no (as I did for most of 3rd to mid-5th Edition)?

No, no. WHY are you satisfied by this? Not ARE you. WHY are you. Pitch me on why the Eldar should be heads and shoulders above most other lists.

Because it benefits the game as a whole if some things are better than others (e.g. if it is imbalanced). I don't care if Eldar are hot and Space Marines are not, or vice versa. The important thing is to have that kind of texture and meta-game. It makes the 40K of today a different game than the one we'll play in 6th months. It keeps things interesting, diverse and changing.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

Martel732 wrote:

 Zweischneid wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
"Different tastes for different folks. "

What do you find satisfying about Eldar being super over powered? I don't understand this.

For the game as a whole, yes I am. Why I play 40K. If I weren't satisfied, I'd obviously stop playing 40K, no (as I did for most of 3rd to mid-5th Edition)?

No, no. WHY are you satisfied by this? Not ARE you. WHY are you. Pitch me on why the Eldar should be heads and shoulders above most other lists.

That's like asking why I like the flavor orange better than the flavor banana or why I find the color blue more pleasant than the color red.

My answer is *shrug*, just do.

Why would you take that away from me?

Because I don't think you'd miss the overpowered Eldar at all. In fact, if you play narratively or scenarios, wouldn't it be just as good to make all the units balanced and then give one side or the other more points? That way, all customers are happy.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Zweischneid wrote:

Martel732 wrote:

 Zweischneid wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
"Different tastes for different folks. "

What do you find satisfying about Eldar being super over powered? I don't understand this.

For the game as a whole, yes I am. Why I play 40K. If I weren't satisfied, I'd obviously stop playing 40K, no (as I did for most of 3rd to mid-5th Edition)?

No, no. WHY are you satisfied by this? Not ARE you. WHY are you. Pitch me on why the Eldar should be heads and shoulders above most other lists.

Because it benefits the game as a whole if some things are better than others (e.g. if it is imbalanced). I don't care if Eldar are hot and Space Marines are not, or vice versa. The important thing is to have that kind of texture and meta-game.

How does it benefit the game for me to automatically lose to Eldar? It makes me not want to play. I do not find it interesting to automatically lose because someone pulls Eldar out of their boxes.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

Breng77 wrote:
SO what I read in all of this is GW should pick one design philosophy and generally stick to it. But they don't. Way back in Rouge Trader and second edition the game was far more RPGish in nature and more narative. Then they spent 3 editions "balancing/simplifying rules" (albeit poorly at times), running their own tournaments etc. Now seemingly they have done a 180 back to their previous narrative idea.

The issue with this is that people that picked the game up during the "more balanced" days, are not happy with the change because it is a different game than they signed on for. Whereas some older players (generally non-competitive) are happy because 40k is returning to its roots as it were.

This creates a problem with the "don't be unhappy with the game because it is not what you want it to be" line of thinking. Because the game "was" what many wanted it to be for quite some time. Then it changed.

This is understandable, but I sincerely hope that people do not complain as much when anything changes. Things change over time, that's a life lesson, and people both do and don't want it to change depending on their perspective.

I am sincerely shocked by the amount of vehemence demonstrated by the people that disagree with this change to their wargaming hobby specifically, however. I understand dissatisfaction, but vitriol and caustic attitudes are never called for. For example, calling the opposite side during a subjective discussion "trolls" simply for having a different view on a subjective subject really demonstrates some sort of quivering fury, almost, that people DARE have fun with 40k as it stands.

That may be true, but people are very emotional about their hobbies. When that other side has (on other occasions) essentially said, if you don't like things just play something else. It does not go over well for people that have spent thousands of dollars expecting one thing and then having it swapped for something else.

I don't agree with Your or Zwie, about the game being tons of fun (I have fun playing in certain circumstances and not in others, and even then sometimes things are not so fun), I have seen a lot of people locally leave the game (my LGS is stopping carrying GW merch). I also don't agree that a "more balanced" approach to game design for 40k would not have a larger appeal than it currently seems to. I think a game in which all factions have a reasonably similar chance to compete, and all units are good at what they are supposed to be good at...is a better game than the one we have.

That is not removing options (it is creating them), it is not perfect balance, but it is better than what we have now.