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WayneTheGame wrote:

To bring it back on topic then, the biggest issue I have is that the spirit of the game is an abstract concept that needs grounding to be a reality. I'm all for picking armies that fall within the background of the faction (probably the reason why when I did play 40k I often lost) but my problem is that while you can stretch the background to accommodate virtually any army you can think of, and therefore freedom is good (for instance, the article in question mentions an Undead army with only horsemen and chariots as being bad, but IMHO that's a perfectly viable themed army) it has to be limited somewhat. People are always going to find what works "best" so the goal should be that "best" is within a few points of each other, not leaps and bounds.

That's where GW utterly fails at both execution and spirit of the game. The spirit of the game shouldn't be that you should only take 1 Riptide and you're a bad person if you take three, it should be that the Riptide is balanced enough so you aren't overwhelmingly powerful if your theme/scenario/whatever has three, because you're giving up something else to field three. It becomes a meaningful decision with plusses and minuses not "Three Riptides are insanely powerful".

Ok, well, I'll get back on topic before I go into a meeting then

GW's Spirit of the Game is more about sportsmanship. To make a Canadian analogy, it's like the difference between intramural hockey, where players are there for fun, and the NHL, where players will do whatever it takes to win, even if it means playing dirty, pretending to be injured so that the other team gets a penalty, or even seriously injuring another player to the point where it might be career-ending. It's not that people playing intramural hockey don't want to win, it's just what they're willing to do to achieve that.

GW would like us to all get along, be friends, and have fun. Kind of like turn a tabletop wargame into an RPG.

But if you're playing with strangers, there are cases where that's just not going to happen, because not all people prioritize sportsmanship ^^. And besides, us Canadians like watching the big hits and fights in NHL. We can be a bloodthirsty bunch when it comes to that sport, LOL



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 MWHistorian wrote:
And please, for the love of Talos, re-do the flyer rules. Those are the most unfun rules I've ever played in a tabletop game.)

Yes, I hate flyer rules :|

 MWHistorian wrote:
For me, 40k fluff is like fast food. It's got strong flavors that over power the senses.
Fluff from other games are more like the finer restaurants where the flavors aren't so "beat you over the head." Yet when you taste them, you'll find that the flavors are far more subtle, complex and rewarding.
After living in Italy I can't go to Olive Garden because the food there now just seems fake and artificial. That's how 40k fluff is for me now. While I was in it I was like "yeah! This is the best!!" But now it's like eating Taco Bell after having home made carne Asada in Mexico.

I think I can understand that. I view 40K fluff as completely over the top all the time, so I'm just never phased. When the Sanguinor came with the last Blood Angels codex I wasn't phased, nor when Kaldor Draigo was introduced. The comparison I bring up a lot among friends is this one: in the Star Wars universe, the death star, a massive, mobile planet-sized spaceborne fortress that could destroy celestial bodies was important because of how outrageous it was. In 40K most factions own multiple devices that are like the death star, it's just that kind of universe... Everything turned up to 11 all the time!

As for the spirit of the game, I'm torn on it. On the one hand, well-written rules that create a restricted (but not overly restricted) environment are better for the game in the long term, at least in my opinion. Everybody buys what they like and due to the restrictions in the rulebook, what you buy can always be played against what anyone else bought. On the other hand, I have something of an obsession with spam armies and concepts taken to the limit. I'm the guy who wants an army of nothing but gorkanauts, because giant orky walkers are just cool to me... And unbound allows for that sort of nonsense, so obviously I have a soft spot for it.

In my opinion, better written rules that made for better balanced units would fix most problems. In addition to that, being able to buy extra equipment for your army depending on what you needed in the upcoming battle through a deck-like system would be great too. For example, this tactical perks deck could include a card that gave every single non-vehicle unit in your army a single melta bomb to one of their members. You'd obviously only take this when facing 'zilla lists or tank companies, but the option would always be there before the battle. The introduction of something like this would help greatly, I think!

Either way, this has been an interesting thread. Threads like these are why I love Dakka. I don't think all the participants realize or remember it, but at the end of the day we're all here for the same reason: we love 40K. Some might be very critical of it, but that's just due to their passion. Keep being awesome, ladies and gents!


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 MWHistorian wrote:

(And please, for the love of Talos, re-do the flyer rules. Those are the most unfun rules I've ever played in a tabletop game.)

Oh Gork, this... I'm scared of the flyer rules...!

Talys wrote:

WayneTheGame wrote:

To bring it back on topic then, the biggest issue I have is that the spirit of the game is an abstract concept that needs grounding to be a reality. I'm all for picking armies that fall within the background of the faction (probably the reason why when I did play 40k I often lost) but my problem is that while you can stretch the background to accommodate virtually any army you can think of, and therefore freedom is good (for instance, the article in question mentions an Undead army with only horsemen and chariots as being bad, but IMHO that's a perfectly viable themed army) it has to be limited somewhat. People are always going to find what works "best" so the goal should be that "best" is within a few points of each other, not leaps and bounds.

That's where GW utterly fails at both execution and spirit of the game. The spirit of the game shouldn't be that you should only take 1 Riptide and you're a bad person if you take three, it should be that the Riptide is balanced enough so you aren't overwhelmingly powerful if your theme/scenario/whatever has three, because you're giving up something else to field three. It becomes a meaningful decision with plusses and minuses not "Three Riptides are insanely powerful".

Ok, well, I'll get back on topic before I go into a meeting then

GW's Spirit of the Game is more about sportsmanship. To make a Canadian analogy, it's like the difference between intramural hockey, where players are there for fun, and the NHL, where players will do whatever it takes to win, even if it means playing dirty, pretending to be injured so that the other team gets a penalty, or even seriously injuring another player to the point where it might be career-ending. It's not that people playing intramural hockey don't want to win, it's just what they're willing to do to achieve that.

GW would like us to all get along, be friends, and have fun. Kind of like turn a tabletop wargame into an RPG.

But if you're playing with strangers, there are cases where that's just not going to happen, because not all people prioritize sportsmanship ^^. And besides, us Canadians like watching the big hits and fights in NHL. We can be a bloodthirsty bunch when it comes to that sport, LOL



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 MWHistorian wrote:
And please, for the love of Talos, re-do the flyer rules. Those are the most unfun rules I've ever played in a tabletop game.)

Yes, I hate flyer rules :|

Its not even about sportsmanship most of the time. It's about different ideas of what is fun.
For one person, bringing three riptides is fun. He likes giant robots so he's fielding giant robots. Some like powerful armies and the idea of handicapping oneself seems ridiculous. Others, the idea of bringing an army that doesn't fit the fluff from a book they read would be pointless. Very different ideas about what makes a fun game. GW needs to bring the players together with a more focused idea of what the game is supposed to be.
Telling people "you can bring six riptides!" And then saying that bringing six riptides is against the spirit of the games seems a little split personality.

Or simply make it so the Riptide is appropriately costed/has appropriate power that it isn't such a no brainer to take.

 Azreal13 wrote:
Or simply make it so the Riptide is appropriately costed/has appropriate power that it isn't such a no brainer to take.

That's apparently asking too much.
The sad thing is, unbound could work if the internal and external codex balance was good. As it is, it's a train wreck.

Exactly, if everything was reasonably sensibly balanced, nobody would care if you spammed stuff.

I mean, people may still get stomped, but it would be more "I didn't bring enough units to fulfil x battlefield role and that got exploited" rather than "my opponent brought a load of undercosted/overpowered easy mode units and I brought a fluffy Wych coven list"

That's it, really. Balance overcomes spam. A better example than the Riptide (which is rare in-fluff) is the Wave Serpent. Imagine if Space Marine Rhinos suddenly had punisher cannons by default.

The funny thing is that price isn't the issue. Forge World are just about universally praised, beyond groaning about yet more Contemptors and the like or a misguided sense of hatred towards anything FW due to it being "alien". This is because they are much more engaged with their own craft than GW are, which makes the fanbase far, far more amicable to them even if their prices are enormously high. It would be so easy for GW to achieve this, and it would be greatly helpful to the game, community, and their sales. This is why customer relations are important.

Toofast wrote:
I'm pretty certain investors aren't flipping through rulebooks for a war game to determine how many shares of stock to buy in the company.

You dont? Well thats interesting. Because I dont think you are a professional investor if you dont think someone whose invbesting in a company doesnt keep up on it.

 Jancoran wrote:

Toofast wrote:
I'm pretty certain investors aren't flipping through rulebooks for a war game to determine how many shares of stock to buy in the company.

You dont? Well thats interesting. Because I dont think you are a professional investor if you dont think someone whose invbesting in a company doesnt keep up on it.

I think you're overestimating the importance of a company the size of GW to any professional investment fund.

GW isn't owned by hobbyists, it is mainly owned by share funds who have purchased shares because the share price growth and dividend payments make them a sensible choice. When those criteria cease to apply, the shares get sold.

Nobody from some private investment firm is phoning Kirby and saying "Dude, fix the Waveserpents or there'll be trouble."

 MWHistorian wrote:

 Azreal13 wrote:
Or simply make it so the Riptide is appropriately costed/has appropriate power that it isn't such a no brainer to take.

That's apparently asking too much.
The sad thing is, unbound could work if the internal and external codex balance was good. As it is, it's a train wreck.

Absolutely, other games have variations on a more open list building style but due to balance, people tend not to spam as much.

Or they could simply forgo the FOC and limit individual units, but they don't want to do that because that means fewer sales.

 Azreal13 wrote:
Or simply make it so the Riptide is appropriately costed/has appropriate power that it isn't such a no brainer to take.

This x100. The problem isn't that you can take six Riptides and it makes you a jerk, it's that taking six Riptides is too overpowering.

Same with the Wave Serpent. It's a transport, it doesn't need to also have awesome weaponry and be super fast and whatnot, because then it becomes too easy to spam it and win because you're spamming it, even though Wave Serpents are a common thing in the fluff. The level of difference between a Rhino and a Wave Serpent, both transports, is astounding when it should be a lot closer. The Rhino might be more resilient but not quite as fast, the Wave Serpent is very fast but fragile. Points should be roughly the same with roughly the same options because there should have been a framework for options not "Oh well we can give the Wave Serpent these because it's cool, but Rhinos have always had Storm Bolters so they just get those"

 Azreal13 wrote:
Or simply make it so the Riptide is appropriately costed/has appropriate power that it isn't such a no brainer to take.

No, this is still not a good fix, because of 4 different problems:

- There are units which literally cannot damage other units (impossible to wound), or only have 1 model in a squad of 10 that can only damage a unit by an incredible sequence of unlikely dice rolls. 14 armor is no joke; *double* the cost of a baneblade, add in some grunts to fill up the points, and play to table against either starter box force.

- There isn't really a difference between 5 riptides and 6 riptides :( or 4 wave serpents instead of 6 wave serpents. If you hate playing against it, you'll still hate playing against a couple less.

- Some of the units are too good, even in small numbers (like wave serpent), but hey, it's a transport, and transports shouldn't be super expensive.

- Some of the units are a good idea, and are point-balanced just fine when taken in moderation, but they break the game if you go crazy on them (like drop pods / infiltrate / deep strike).

To fix the army list problem, if you want to call it that, GW should add a set of rules that:

- More strictly enforces detachment/force organization, so that a player MUST take a variety of units.
- Have a separate point system for superheavies, monstrous creatures, and fortifications, so that there aren't situations where one side has them while the other doesn't, or have them in overwhelming numbers.
- Nerf a small number of units that the overwhelming plurality of players feels are just too good.
- Buff some of the units that nobody uses in competitive lists, because there are obviously superior alternatives.

You get that I was referring to the Riptide because that was the unit referred to in the post I was responding to right?

My entire plan for fixing 40K isn't "fix Riptides"

 Azreal13 wrote:

 Jancoran wrote:

Toofast wrote:
I'm pretty certain investors aren't flipping through rulebooks for a war game to determine how many shares of stock to buy in the company.

You dont? Well thats interesting. Because I dont think you are a professional investor if you dont think someone whose invbesting in a company doesnt keep up on it.

I think you're overestimating the importance of a company the size of GW to any professional investment fund.

GW isn't owned by hobbyists, it is mainly owned by share funds who have purchased shares because the share price growth and dividend payments make them a sensible choice. When those criteria cease to apply, the shares get sold.

Nobody from some private investment firm is phoning Kirby and saying "Dude, fix the Waveserpents or there'll be trouble."

Im not though. I do this for a living. You dont get in on a company unless you know it. You just dont.

And no you DONTY short sell. What you do is get on your phone and raise hell with the board, which you own, and tell them to FIX THIS. Lol Trust me. You do.

What, exactly, do you do for a living, if I might ask? Because "short selling" isn't what I was discussing, it was liquidating an investment that was no longer providing a return in favour of investing the capital somewhere else.

As someone with a reasonable amount of knowledge in the area, I have to confess I've never encountered an attitude like you're describing.

 Jancoran wrote:

Im not though. I do this for a living. You dont get in on a company unless you know it. You just dont.

And no you DONTY short sell. What you do is get on your phone and raise hell with the board, which you own, and tell them to FIX THIS. Lol Trust me. You do.

I get what Azrael is saying, though. The culture of a company, how they deal with their customers, how their products are perceived, and what the company does on an ongoing process to improve these things is important as intangible assets (these off-sheet factors will add or subtract from the value of the company). However, specifically, Riptides and Waveserpents are too cheap or need to be nerfed is a non-issue.

The intangibles help the investor to determine its true value. The company's share price is the most important factor, because a going concern, even if it is a declining business and everything else about them is horrible, has a value. The value on the market is what the world at large perceives the company is worth today, and the way a sharp investor that makes money isn't by buying good companies at market price, because that's not profitable. The fact that they're good companies is already factored into the price.

The way you turn a profit is by going against the market, buying companies at a lower price than what they're worth, whether they are good or bad companies, and correctly assessing that its value will be higher than its present undervalued price.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Azreal13 wrote:
What, exactly, do you do for a living, if I might ask? Because "short selling" isn't what I was discussing, it was liquidating an investment that was no longer providing a return in favour of investing the capital somewhere else.

As someone with a reasonable amount of knowledge in the area, I have to confess I've never encountered an attitude like you're describing.

And besides, what's wrong with short selling? It's a perfectly legitimate investment tool when used properly.

Nothing wrong with it, but it isn't what I was discussing.

 Azreal13 wrote:
Nothing wrong with it, but it isn't what I was discussing.

Sorry, it wasn't directed at you The message was for Jancoran's reply to your message, who seemed to imply that short selling was a bad thing, or something an experienced investor wouldn't do (generally speaking). Even though you never brought up short sell.

 MWHistorian wrote:
Casual vs Competitive is an artificial distinction that is created by GW's lack of focus of the game. If 40k is to halt its decline, it needs to refocus. Choose a size of game and work the rules to fit that. This "everything and the kitchen sink" idea is too open to abuse and makes the game convoluted and bloated. You can keep the size, but the rules have to match.

Agreed.

 MWHistorian wrote:

(And please, for the love of Talos, re-do the flyer rules. Those are the most unfun rules I've ever played in a tabletop game.)

Are you saying there's something wrong with having a type of unit that ignores 84% of incoming shots?

Madness!

Madness I say!

Then again, you can just take sufficient anti-air inform of your own flyer or an actual AA-unit. Flyers are hardly the only thing you need to gear up for, Imperial Knights are also quite metashifting. This goes for other games aswell. If you want to deal with Konquest, you´re bringing hardhitters or a massive tarpit or you´re gonna end up exactly like you do without AA when those Night Scythes show up.

And personally I´m fine with it. Expecting to deal with everything with the units you want to use I find ridicilous, as I would bolt pistols hitting supersonic futuristic armored aircraft. Infact I can´t understand why some players have issues with the fact that not everything can be dealt with without putting effort into it/specialization in a game.

Out of curiosity, how would you have ground units hit flyers?

 Azreal13 wrote:
What, exactly, do you do for a living, if I might ask? Because "short selling" isn't what I was discussing, it was liquidating an investment that was no longer providing a return in favour of investing the capital somewhere else.

As someone with a reasonable amount of knowledge in the area, I have to confess I've never encountered an attitude like you're describing.

No. You're short selling. Once that stock dove, there was ZERO chance they sell unless they cannot get the company to REPAIR the problem. And they DID get them to repair it. that repair was 7E and trust me, the stock price was an ENORMOUS motivator. That it also happens to be a really good new direction for the game, especially the codex's was a result of Stock holders going what the F is going on with my investment and seeing the online chatter, and asking around. Turns out, the companys customers are very angry and it tanked anyones willing ness to buy stock. And thats what happened.

Selling short is a BAD idea i there is a fix. if there is no fix, meh. These things happen. But you dont go straight to the sell button when the company has had meteoric increases in value up to then. And it had. From 2010 until 6th Edition, BIG gains. 6th Tanked it. Investors raised the roof and they responded. The stock was purchased at an escalating price in that time frame.

 RunicFIN wrote:

And personally I´m fine with it. Expecting to deal with everything with the units you want to use I find ridicilous

Indeed.

People being able to have a good game with the units they want to use. What sort of game would allow such nonsense?

 vipoid wrote:

People being able to have a good game with the units they want to use. What sort of game would allow such nonsense?

Do I understand correctly that you expect that in a game you should be able to use whatever units you want, and comfortably deal with everything that will be pitted against you?

 RunicFIN wrote:
Do I understand correctly that you expect that in a game you can use whatever units you want, and comfortably deal with everything that will be pitted against you?

I expect to be able to make a list without taking some very specific units.

If I want anti-vehicle weapons, I have a lot of options. I have meltas, lascannons, missiles, autocannons, plasmaguns, etc.. I can take these on virtually every infantry squad in my army, along with similar anti-vehicle weapons on my vehicles (inc. Multi-meltas, multilasers, Taurox Autocannons, Vanquisher Battle Cannons etc.) - some more specialised, some less so.

If I want anti-flier weapons, I have 3 options:
- Hilariously overpriced flakk missiles
- Hydra
- Vendetta

Sorry if I feel a bit constrained in terms of anti-flyer weapons.


Also, what if I want anti-flyer stuff as Dark Eldar?

I'll just take... um... nothing. The only thing I can take is my own flier. Is that reasonable? Having to take a flier to kill another flier?

If so, when why are vehicles allowed anti-infantry weapons? How about we strip all blasts, templates and weapons with more than 2 shots off every vehicle and flier? So, if you want anti-infantry, you'll have to bring your own infantry. Is that reasonable?

 RunicFIN wrote:

 vipoid wrote:

People being able to have a good game with the units they want to use. What sort of game would allow such nonsense?

Do I understand correctly that you expect that in a game you should be able to use whatever units you want, and comfortably deal with everything that will be pitted against you?

That's the point of a balanced game, yes, within reason. If you don't prepare for flyers, you will get curb stomped by them with little or nothing you can do to deal with them as they walk all over your forces. That indicates that flyers are too powerful under most circumstances since often you will not be able to build a list on the fly tailor made to deal with a particular opponent. A balanced game would either relegate flyers to once per game things that can add to a battle but not turn the tide (see: Bolt Action) or else reduce the durability of flyers against things that aren't dedicated AA weapons so that you can better deal with them.

IMO flyers should be like they are in Bolt Action, something you can buy as an extra that does a strafing run or similar during the game, and then goes back to dogfighting or whatever it is they do above the battlefield, instead of basically an overpowered unit that can hover around.

 vipoid wrote:

 RunicFIN wrote:
Do I understand correctly that you expect that in a game you can use whatever units you want, and comfortably deal with everything that will be pitted against you?

I expect to be able to make a list without taking some very specific units.

If I want anti-vehicle weapons, I have a lot of options. I have meltas, lascannons, missiles, autocannons, plasmaguns, etc.. I can take these on virtually every infantry squad in my army, along with similar anti-vehicle weapons on my vehicles (inc. Multi-meltas, multilasers, Taurox Autocannons, Vanquisher Battle Cannons etc.) - some more specialised, some less so.

If I want anti-flier weapons, I have 3 options:
- Hilariously overpriced flakk missiles
- Hydra
- Vendetta

Sorry if I feel a bit constrained in terms of anti-flyer weapons.

While the options for AA are limited, so are the options for air. So what´s the problem, why not use a Vendetta then?

And I´d still like to hear how you would rule flyers being hit, if not the current way.

My solution for flyers would be to not include them in the game.

There isn't really a good solution for shoehorning them into the game and make them work remotely like an actual flyer.

It'd just be simpler to only include vehicles that can hover and return them to their fast skimmer status.

WayneTheGame wrote:
If you don't prepare for flyers, you will get curb stomped by them with little or nothing you can do to deal with them as they walk all over your forces..

I am closing in on 70 matches of 7th edition this year, and I have not lost a single game due to fliers, so I can´t agree with this. Fliers were overpowered back when they first appeared as no one had any tools, these days they are nothing ( unless you go down the classic "I want it my way or else I quit!" -path, which I find the most comical way to approach pretty much anything in life. )

As a sidenote, just building a list that plain ignores fliers is also a valid and often times a competitive strategy, as evidenced by many big tournament winning armylists.

 Jancoran wrote:

 Azreal13 wrote:
What, exactly, do you do for a living, if I might ask? Because "short selling" isn't what I was discussing, it was liquidating an investment that was no longer providing a return in favour of investing the capital somewhere else.

As someone with a reasonable amount of knowledge in the area, I have to confess I've never encountered an attitude like you're describing.

No. You're short selling. Once that stock dove, there was ZERO chance they sell unless they cannot get the company to REPAIR the problem. And they DID get them to repair it. that repair was 7E and trust me, the stock price was an ENORMOUS motivator. That it also happens to be a really good new direction for the game, especially the codex's was a result of Stock holders going what the F is going on with my investment and seeing the online chatter, and asking around. Turns out, the companys customers are very angry and it tanked anyones willing ness to buy stock. And thats what happened.

Selling short is a BAD idea i there is a fix. if there is no fix, meh. These things happen. But you dont go straight to the sell button when the company has had meteoric increases in value up to then. And it had. From 2010 until 6th Edition, BIG gains. 6th Tanked it. Investors raised the roof and they responded. The stock was purchased at an escalating price in that time frame.

investopedia wrote:DEFINITION of 'Short Selling' The sale of a security that is not owned by the seller, or that the seller has borrowed. Short selling is motivated by the belief that a security's price will decline, enabling it to be bought back at a lower price to make a profit.

This is my understanding of short selling, and it bears no resemblance to what I was discussing. Dumping stock that isn't making you money in favour of acquiring stock that you believe will isn't short selling, by my understanding.

Perhaps there's some industry alternative meaning you're used to I'm unaware of?

 RunicFIN wrote:

While the options for AA are limited, so are the options for air. So what´s the problem, why not use a Vendetta then?

Because I don't like being forced to use a specific unit to counter a type of unit.

What if I want to have a infantry list?

What if I just don't want to include flyers because they're ugly as sin and look ridiculous on the tabletop?

 RunicFIN wrote:

And I´d still like to hear how you would rule flyers being hit, if not the current way.

Well, personally, I'd like so see them removed from the core game and put in Apocalypse or somesuch. But that's wishful thinking on my part.

Anyway, my suggestions for their rules would be twofold:

1) The snapshot mechanic is removed, but flyers have a permanent Jink save (that does not result in a loss of accuracy). You could perhaps make it a 3+ jink if they moved fast enough during their previous turn. Hovering flyers do not benefit from this, but can still jink like normal skimmers (suffering the penalties).

2) Not sure about this, but I was thinking of giving all fliers an effect like the old 'Night Shields' - where anyone firing at them counts as being 12" further away (unless the flier is hovering). This is intended to represent the flier's height off the battlefield (you talked before about it being strange that a bolt pistol could *hit* a flier, well I think it's a lot stranger that a short-ranged pistol could even *reach* a flier).

(Recost existing fliers where necessary)