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 CKO wrote:

This is 100% correct and I am glad Capt was able to sum it up so well. This is my last post on this thread if you dont get what I am trying to say in the original post and you dont understand CaptKaruthors summary you will never get it, and I am tired of defending myself. :snore.

You don't seem to understand that people understand very well what you're trying to say.

They just disagree with it.

Professional sports have put in rules to help "balance" the game from draft rules, salary cap rules, union rules, etc. etc.

Otherwise, you get the NY Yankees playing by themselves because one team can "unfairly" buy the best players.

Where's the fun in that? Even with the tax, the Yankees still overspend and get the best players - but that doesn't mean they win the world series every year because you still have to play the game - and they still have the potential to lose.

I think there is something to what CKO is saying. Is MtG balanced... How about WarmaHordes ? Games like chess and backgammon are inherently balanced since both players have identical armies. I never remember 40k ever being balanced.

 Dozer Blades wrote:
I think there is something to what CKO is saying. Is MtG balanced... How about WarmaHordes ? Games like chess and backgammon are inherently balanced since both players have identical armies. I never remember 40k ever being balanced.

Chess isn't balanced. Given a perfect game, white always wins.

Anyway, balance isn't a single solitary state: It's a spectrum. No game will be perfectly balanced, but there's certainly games that are better balanced than others. MtG and WarmaHordes aren't perfect, but they're a damn sight better than the job GW does (or rather, doesn't do, given their own statements regarding playtesting).

 Laughing Man wrote:

Chess isn't balanced. Given a perfect game, white always wins.

That's actually currently disputed. In fact, since 1889 the general consensus has been that a perfect game would end in a draw.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-move_advantage_in_chess#White_wins_with_1.e4

Wikipedia so may not be entirely accurate but the gist and general arguments should be ok.

 Laughing Man wrote:

 Dozer Blades wrote:
I think there is something to what CKO is saying. Is MtG balanced... How about WarmaHordes ? Games like chess and backgammon are inherently balanced since both players have identical armies. I never remember 40k ever being balanced.

Chess isn't balanced. Given a perfect game, white always wins.

Anyway, balance isn't a single solitary state: It's a spectrum. No game will be perfectly balanced, but there's certainly games that are better balanced than others. MtG and WarmaHordes aren't perfect, but they're a damn sight better than the job GW does (or rather, doesn't do, given their own statements regarding playtesting).

Someone must always go first and the assertion bares no relevance to this discussion.

As the op has said he is done with this thread and is no longer interested in debate perhaps its time to put this thread down?

 Dozer Blades wrote:
I think there is something to what CKO is saying. Is MtG balanced... How about WarmaHordes ? Games like chess and backgammon are inherently balanced since both players have identical armies. I never remember 40k ever being balanced.

MTG certainly aint balanced, typically you get from 1-4 different deck types that are actually viable by tournament standards.

 ironicsilence wrote:
im not sure this thread is going to go anywhere useful, hopefully i'm wrong and there are some decent nuggets that come out of it,

 ironicsilence wrote:
As the op has said he is done with this thread and is no longer interested in debate perhaps its time to put this thread down?

I am finished debating, that doesnt mean I am done paying attention to the thread I like to see others opinion on the matter, especially when the readers are starting to understand my point of view. Do not close the thread as its not all about me others want to voice their opinion.

 Dozer Blades wrote:
I think there is something to what CKO is saying. Is MtG balanced... How about WarmaHordes ? Games like chess and backgammon are inherently balanced since both players have identical armies. I never remember 40k ever being balanced.

Balance doesn't mean homogeneity, and it doesn't have to be perfect to be worthwhile. WM/H isn't perfectly balanced, there are under- or over-costed units, and occasional "may as well have not shown up" games. But they're both far less common than 40K, and the majority of games I've ever played were decided by skill, and not who had the latest netlist.

Perfect balance may well be impossible while having a dynamic and varied game, but that's no excuse to not try and improve balance, and GW have never tried.

While you can never achieve balance in 40k, there is a huge disaprity amongst the codexes. Generally speaking, the older the codex, the worse it gets.

While I don't think anyone has an expectation from GW for perfect game "balance", we are (at a minimum) looking for:

- well written rules that clearly define what units can and cannot do
- game tested units that are appropriately costed

To date, GW has yet to demonstrate a desire to do either of these two simple things. Now, with 6th edition and the allies system, gameplay has gotten out of hand. I am not against the allies system (I actually like the fluffy combinations), but again, GW completely failed to properly play test the allies charts before releasing it. Consequently, you are seeing droves of players leave the game out of pure frustration.

And, what infuriates most of the people I see here on Dakka, is that GW has no shortage of information (i.e. forums here, BoLS, warseer, etc.) on what their customer base wants. However, in their arrogance, they actively REFUSE to have any online presence and are probably scratching their heads as to why sales are down.

 Elemental wrote:
Perfect balance may well be impossible while having a dynamic and varied game, but that's no excuse to not try and improve balance, and GW have never tried.

Not only have they not tried, they're actively going out of their way to break it even more.

You know once the rules are released there is not a damn thing GW cares about less.

It is up to the community to try and forge - from GW rules - a game system that is inclusive enough to allow a hard fought competitive battle to take place between two or more opponents. (Notice the total lack of the word balance).

some may want to, others will not.

Of course, this leads to different interpretations but IMO now is the time to just say thanks GW for the outline you have provided we'll just do our own thing to have a fun game/start a tournament etc.

 Uriels_Flame wrote:
Professional sports have put in rules to help "balance" the game from draft rules, salary cap rules, union rules, etc. etc.

Otherwise, you get the NY Yankees playing by themselves because one team can "unfairly" buy the best players.

Where's the fun in that? Even with the tax, the Yankees still overspend and get the best players - but that doesn't mean they win the world series every year because you still have to play the game - and they still have the potential to lose.

That doesn't mean the game is unbalanced. It means that some players are better than others. The Yankees don't get in-game advantages, like extra points or extra players.

It's like trying to say smart people with tactical minds should be nerfed when playing tabletop wargames.

 heartserenade wrote:

 Uriels_Flame wrote:
Professional sports have put in rules to help "balance" the game from draft rules, salary cap rules, union rules, etc. etc.

Otherwise, you get the NY Yankees playing by themselves because one team can "unfairly" buy the best players.

Where's the fun in that? Even with the tax, the Yankees still overspend and get the best players - but that doesn't mean they win the world series every year because you still have to play the game - and they still have the potential to lose.

That doesn't mean the game is unbalanced. It means that some players are better than others. The Yankees don't get in-game advantages, like extra points or extra players.

It's like trying to say smart people with tactical minds should be nerfed when playing tabletop wargames.

Right. Some players (units) are better than others. No problem there.
The resources available to different teams (players) differ - making a good player (unit) cost less, relatively, for team (player) A than an average player (unit) does for team (player) B.
When everyone plays by the same external rules (codex) for acquiring players (units) it's a much more even playing field.

When you have two codexes, and one has obviously superior choices for the same or fewer points than the other, that's imbalanced.

 heartserenade wrote:

It's like trying to say smart people with tactical minds should be nerfed when playing tabletop wargames.

They are nerfed when they play GW games.

PhantomViper wrote:

 heartserenade wrote:

It's like trying to say smart people with tactical minds should be nerfed when playing tabletop wargames.

They are nerfed when they play GW games.

Should I say players with better luck in terms of dice-rolling should be nerfed when playing GW games?

 heartserenade wrote:

PhantomViper wrote:

 heartserenade wrote:

It's like trying to say smart people with tactical minds should be nerfed when playing tabletop wargames.

They are nerfed when they play GW games.

Should I say players with better luck in terms of dice-rolling should be nerfed when playing GW games?

That would be a better analogy, yes.

So I come back to the thread and OP seems to have changed his OP a lot

Only two things that struck me in this "new" message, which were that GW know there are powerful options, hence why they are there..

No. They don't.

What usually happens is that a GW Game dev will think of something and think that it sounds cool so will slap it in the new book, and because they don't playtest anymore this means that they don't think how these pieces of Wargear are units will be used by the large proportion of players that play that army.

Second thing that stuck me was the whole "restrictions are put in place for casual players, and competitive players play with everything"

This I also disagree with, mainly because competitive players want to win knowing that they have played with skill and used their minds to achieve that goal.

If competitive players know they can take revrents and death stars, this frustrates competitive players as well as "casual" players mainly because it will feel like the competitive players may have won/lost not because they had better skill and so, were outplayed but because their army had better rules, which frustrates all players from all parts of the spectrum.

 heartserenade wrote:

 Uriels_Flame wrote:
Professional sports have put in rules to help "balance" the game from draft rules, salary cap rules, union rules, etc. etc.

Otherwise, you get the NY Yankees playing by themselves because one team can "unfairly" buy the best players.

Where's the fun in that? Even with the tax, the Yankees still overspend and get the best players - but that doesn't mean they win the world series every year because you still have to play the game - and they still have the potential to lose.

That doesn't mean the game is unbalanced. It means that some players are better than others. The Yankees don't get in-game advantages, like extra points or extra players.

It's like trying to say smart people with tactical minds should be nerfed when playing tabletop wargames.

The players would be individual units while the Team is the tourney player.

I was trying to say without limits, the Yankees as a Team do the exact same thing - cherry pick the best and whoop ass. Just like TFG/Elite/WAAC players do. I don't blame them though, but if they wanted to end up playing against the same army they brought - make a different format.

We could Youtube Taudar vs Taudar and watch it on there vs. spending money to go to a tourney and seeing the same thing.

 happygolucky wrote:
So I come back to the thread and OP seems to have changed his OP a lot

Only two things that struck me in this "new" message

Me too(came back), this thread is a mess...

 Uriels_Flame wrote:

I was trying to say without limits, the Yankees as a Team do the exact same thing - cherry pick the best and whoop ass. Just like TFG/Elite/WAAC players do. I don't blame them though, but if they wanted to end up playing against the same army they brought - make a different format.

And what's stopping other teams to do the same?

 heartserenade wrote:

 Uriels_Flame wrote:

I was trying to say without limits, the Yankees as a Team do the exact same thing - cherry pick the best and whoop ass. Just like TFG/Elite/WAAC players do. I don't blame them though, but if they wanted to end up playing against the same army they brought - make a different format.

And what's stopping other teams to do the same?

Nothing in particular, in addition it is a false premise the Yankees Whooping ass anyway. They have had periods when they were great (4 Championships in 5 years in the late 90s), but they have won once in the Last 15 years, Prior to the run in the 90s they had not won for 18 years.

Furthermore over the course of history the Yakees win percentage is 56.8%, and the lowest team, the Tampa Bay Rays is 46.1%.

Also of note no team is prevented from spending the money, they choose not to.

I'm not really familiar with most professional sports except for boxing and archery, so there's that.

 Byte wrote:

 happygolucky wrote:
So I come back to the thread and OP seems to have changed his OP a lot

Only two things that struck me in this "new" message

Me too(came back), this thread is a mess...

I see only what I read

We've gotten a bit far afield with this, and I personally think professional sports sometimes muddy the waters a bit when trying to apply the analogy to 40k... I'd personally prefer to talk about other more similar things (like Warmahordes, MtG, or even Poker) rather than sports, if we need comparisons.

Yes, let's do Poker.

You get caught cheating, you are taken out back and shot.

While you can never achieve balance in 40k, there is a huge disaprity amongst the codexes. Generally speaking, the older the codex, the worse it gets.

While I don't think anyone has an expectation from GW for perfect game "balance", we are (at a minimum) looking for:

- well written rules that clearly define what units can and cannot do
- game tested units that are appropriately costed

To date, GW has yet to demonstrate a desire to do either of these two simple things. Now, with 6th edition and the allies system, gameplay has gotten out of hand. I am not against the allies system (I actually like the fluffy combinations), but again, GW completely failed to properly play test the allies charts before releasing it. Consequently, you are seeing droves of players leave the game out of pure frustration.

And, what infuriates most of the people I see here on Dakka, is that GW has no shortage of information (i.e. forums here, BoLS, warseer, etc.) on what their customer base wants. However, in their arrogance, they actively REFUSE to have any online presence and are probably scratching their heads as to why sales are down.

Well said, I'd echo something similar especially your bullet points. IMO 40k will never be "balanced" - whatever that may mean but maintaining a decent baseline is all I'd ask for.

 Dozer Blades wrote:

 Laughing Man wrote:

 Dozer Blades wrote:
I think there is something to what CKO is saying. Is MtG balanced... How about WarmaHordes ? Games like chess and backgammon are inherently balanced since both players have identical armies. I never remember 40k ever being balanced.

Chess isn't balanced. Given a perfect game, white always wins.

Anyway, balance isn't a single solitary state: It's a spectrum. No game will be perfectly balanced, but there's certainly games that are better balanced than others. MtG and WarmaHordes aren't perfect, but they're a damn sight better than the job GW does (or rather, doesn't do, given their own statements regarding playtesting).

Someone must always go first and the assertion bares no relevance to this discussion.

Someone must always go first is false. In the game of diplomacy, all 7 players go at the same time.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Uriels_Flame wrote:
Yes, let's do Poker.

You get caught cheating, you are taken out back and shot.

Not the mob boss or the guy with his "bodyguard"s with more firepower.

Feeling a bit snippy are you ?