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Lythrandire Biehrellian wrote:
Read what others are posting perigrin, sometimes I answer them too.
But just barely.

Salym, the baneblade cannon reaches from one end of the table to another. To insinuate that is is a medium range weapon would mean that things like lascannons and railguns arent long range. That is absurd. And IF you consider the baneblade medium range then you were suggesting it pay MORE for the giant long range cannon on top. Making it MORE expensive than it's current price point.
There's an "e" in my name, y'know. And no, I'm not insinuating that the BC is a medium range weapon - I listed the mid-range weapons. Heavy Bolters and Demo Cannons. The HB due to having a 36" range, and the Demo for having 24" +blast radius +forward scatter potential.

The weapon upgrades are never going to be able to equal out between weapons, they just give you a way to fudge weapons to fit a theme you may want. I am looking at ways to balance them more correctly, such as the long barrel upgrade being a 20% increase but giving an extra foot of distance. That equals out to every purchase of that bonus you have one more turn where your opponent will be in range to cause damage to them based on table size. Other things such as blast are going to be directly related to the size of the minimum area damage between the different sizes. (Normal base size for single shot weapons, then three inch, then 5 etc) so the points spent equal out to the extra area covered.
Extra range =/= longer time of enemies in range. Extra range =/= longer time until enemies reach you.

Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also, the basilisk is about 40 points too expensive to put on a normal sized table. It pays too much for excessive range, just like other similarly ranged weapons in the game. It has nothing to do with the +/- 5 points for the heavy bolter.
So make it cheaper? This isn't a GW table, despite the similarities.

I am listing a point drop for any weapon with a range greater than 72" to show where the point totals stand for average gameplay.

Sorry about the misspell, my bad buddy. Longer range does allow you to fire at long range enemies sooner. The points would look better that way and makes sense on the tabletop.

And if you look at what was said, if the baneblade tank is a medium range tank, you actually asked me to make the long range gun on the medium range tank more expensive.

Lythrandire Biehrellian wrote:
I am listing a point drop for any weapon with a range greater than 72" to show where the point totals stand for average gameplay.

Sorry about the misspell, my bad buddy. Longer range does allow you to fire at long range enemies sooner. The points would look better that way and makes sense on the tabletop.
While a correlation occurs, it has limits. After a point, additional range does not give you those things - especially with deepstrike and outflanking.

And if you look at what was said, if the baneblade tank is a medium range tank, you actually asked me to make the long range gun on the medium range tank more expensive.
Yes. But the base price of the main gun should have been around the 80-100 point mark, not 130-160.

I thought this was a fun thread when it first popped up, and gave me some neat ideas.

Now its just Dakka being Dakka again.

The massive area covered (over twice the area on the table), the increased chance for a penetrating hit and higher chance to wound (the higher strength), chance to cause an "explodes" result and ignore every armor value in the game (ap2) when compared to the battle cannon it is in every way but range it is superior.

I still can't understand why you would think it is barely worth more than the knight errant's melta cannon.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I feel you slaanesh-devotee, I feel you.

I don't, it's your prices.

Lythrandire Biehrellian wrote:
Salym, the baneblade cannon reaches from one end of the table to another. To insinuate that is is a medium range weapon would mean that things like lascannons and railguns arent long range. That is absurd. And IF you consider the baneblade medium range then you were suggesting it pay MORE for the giant long range cannon on top. Making it MORE expensive than it's current price point.

But the tank itself is a medium-range tank. It has 72" range on its main gun (the same as the battle cannon on a LRBT), but to be effectively it really wants to be in range to use its multiple secondary weapons (with 24-48" range). A dedicated long-range unit is something like the Basilisk, where it sits in the far back corner for the entire game.

That equals out to every purchase of that bonus you have one more turn where your opponent will be in range to cause damage to them based on table size.

No it doesn't, because table size is finite and even on larger-than-normal tables you still have terrain that blocks LOS, units with faster than 12" movement distance, etc.

Also, the basilisk is about 40 points too expensive to put on a normal sized table. It pays too much for excessive range, just like other similarly ranged weapons in the game. It has nothing to do with the +/- 5 points for the heavy bolter.

...

No, it really isn't. Lowering its cost by 40 points would make it only 85 points, and the 75-point FW earthshaker guns are considered one of the most blatantly overpowered units in the game. In fact, the Basilisk isn't even a bad unit compared to sensible stuff like the LRBT. The main reason it's so unpopular is the sheer idiocy of the Wyvern.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Lythrandire Biehrellian wrote:
The massive area covered (over twice the area on the table)

But remember, table area that doesn't contain models is irrelevant. A 10" blast is great if you're playing a 500,000 point Apocalypse game where every square inch of the table is covered in models, but in normal games a lot of that blast area is wasted on empty table. A 5" blast can already hit all of a 5-man tactical squad or the Rhino they're transported in, so points spent on increasing the size of the blast to 10" will often gain you very little in return.

the increased chance for a penetrating hit and higher chance to wound (the higher strength), chance to cause an "explodes" result

None of which are very relevant. STR 8 wounds virtually everything on a 2+ already, and shooting either weapon at a vehicle is an act of desperation unless there's no better target on the table.

and ignore every armor value in the game (ap2)

This is useful, but only against very specific targets. Most of the time you aren't facing 2+ armor saves. The improvement from AP 4 to AP 3 is much more significant than going from AP 3 to AP 2.

A 10 inch blast can also cover both combat squads and their drop pod. Strength 9 wounds toughness 8 easier than strength 8 does and catching fire warriors, broadsides, and a riptide in a 10" circle where they were hoping to benefit from supporting fire can dramatically change the layout of the game. Also, I could have sworn 2+ save carrying centurions and bikers were REALLY popular nowadays competitively...

While the 75 point earthshaker is indeed potent, the primary reason it is so strong is the fact that each crewman counts as a toughness seven wound in addition to the wounds on the cannon itself with a 3+ save. The basilisk doesn't have NEARLY the same survivability as that and would still cost more due to the ability to move.

As it stands, I am implementing the change in points for hullpoints on superheavies, I'm adding the percentages you asked for things like invul saves and making the holofields scale more effectively. I am going through and calibrating weapon point totals more thoroughly to ensure closer balance between systems.

I am not going to alter price based on percentages and I am not going to attempt to create a role for vehicles to follow in order to facilitate a curve that I don't believe is needed.

It is my project, I can and will make decisions about what you guys bring to me as suggestions, and I see why games workshop doesn't come to people for advice on what units should be statistically.

Lythrandire Biehrellian wrote:
A 10 inch blast can also cover both combat squads and their drop pod. Strength 9 wounds toughness 8 easier than strength 8 does and catching fire warriors, broadsides, and a riptide in a 10" circle where they were hoping to benefit from supporting fire can dramatically change the layout of the game. Also, I could have sworn 2+ save carrying centurions and bikers were REALLY popular nowadays competitively...
And this occurs outside of cover and LoS block... when?

While the 75 point earthshaker is indeed potent, the primary reason it is so strong is the fact that each crewman counts as a toughness seven wound in addition to the wounds on the cannon itself with a 3+ save. The basilisk doesn't have NEARLY the same survivability as that and would still cost more due to the ability to move.
This is true. I'd have rounded the Basilisk tank down to 120 pts personally, the extra 5 feels like a waste, but get six on the field, and someone's gonna have a bad T1.

As it stands, I am implementing the change in points for hullpoints on superheavies, I'm adding the percentages you asked for things like invul saves and making the holofields scale more effectively. I am going through and calibrating weapon point totals more thoroughly to ensure closer balance between systems.
K.

I am not going to alter price based on percentages and I am not going to attempt to create a role for vehicles to follow in order to facilitate a curve that I don't believe is needed.
K.

It is my project, I can and will make decisions about what you guys bring to me as suggestions, and I see why games workshop doesn't come to people for advice on what units should be statistically.
'Cause the dev team would break down in tears as we spend weeks teaching them mathematics.

 Slaanesh-Devotee wrote:
I thought this was a fun thread when it first popped up, and gave me some neat ideas.

Now its just Dakka being Dakka again.

It wouldn't have been a problem if Lyth didn't pop into the General Discussions and used his VDR as the entire crux of his argument that the Revenant wasn't overpowered. If it was just a fun little chart just to stat out your cool conversions there would've been no heated argument here. But Lyth treated his VDR as if they were a representation of the official rules which put them under greater scrutiny by experienced, competitive players.

 TheCustomLime wrote:

 Slaanesh-Devotee wrote:
I thought this was a fun thread when it first popped up, and gave me some neat ideas.

Now its just Dakka being Dakka again.

It wouldn't have been a problem if Lyth didn't pop into the General Discussions and used his VDR as the entire crux of his argument that the Revenant wasn't overpowered. If it was just a fun little chart just to stat out your cool conversions there would've been no heated argument here. But Lyth treated his VDR as if they were a representation of the official rules which put them under greater scrutiny by experienced, competitive players.

Exactly. If you have to use FW / GW-created items as the base, and are only allowed to swap weapons within the same class, then a VDR isn't a completely terrible way to price things. The resulting units will still be roughly on par with their base, which one can adjust as well.

However, if you allow people to actually *design* things from scratch, and then play them as such, every VDR will always fail. In the case of lyth vdr, more spectacularly than usual, due to lyth's ridiculously false pronouncements of accuracy and correctness.

Thought I was on to something, might still believe what I said even. You disagree. It happens.

Lythrandire Biehrellian wrote:
A 10 inch blast can also cover both combat squads and their drop pod.

It can, but why are we assuming that there's a drop pod? And who really cares about a drop pod that has already delivered its cargo? Obviously you can list situations where the huge blasts are relevant, but I'm telling you as someone who has actually used IG superheavies that there are a lot of times when that awesome gun is barely doing more than a LRBT.

Strength 9 wounds toughness 8 easier than strength 8 does

So? T8 is rare, and it's usually a terrible idea to waste a 10" blast on a single-model target. If you want to kill T8 MCs/GCs you use lascannon spam, not a Baneblade.

and catching fire warriors, broadsides, and a riptide in a 10" circle where they were hoping to benefit from supporting fire can dramatically change the layout of the game.

...

We're talking about an IG superheavy. Why are we assuming that the Tau player is stupid enough to blob up into perfect template formation so that they can use supporting fire against an army that is never going to charge them? You're making the same mistake that a lot of people mistake when they try to analyze blast and template weapons: you focus on the best-case scenario where you have tons of targets in perfect template formation and annihilate them with a single shot, and ignore the fact that most people aren't that bad at the game.

Also, I could have sworn 2+ save carrying centurions and bikers were REALLY popular nowadays competitively...

They're still not the entire list of potential targets, especially outside of competitive tournaments. And if your VDR system is balanced around the metagame of the most hardcore competitive tournaments you're going to make units that are ridiculously overpowered for more casual games. You know, the kind of games where anyone is even going to consider allowing house-ruled vehicles in the first place.

While the 75 point earthshaker is indeed potent, the primary reason it is so strong is the fact that each crewman counts as a toughness seven wound in addition to the wounds on the cannon itself with a 3+ save. The basilisk doesn't have NEARLY the same survivability as that and would still cost more due to the ability to move.

No, obviously the earthshakers are better, but that's not the point. The Basilisk shouldn't even be close to that good, because the earthshaker battery is a blatantly overpowered unit that was borderline broken by the 6th edition change to the artillery rules. If a 40 point discount even puts the Basilisk in the same general power range as the earthshaker battery then 40 points is way too much.

It is my project, I can and will make decisions about what you guys bring to me as suggestions

And when you ignore our suggestions we will continue to point out how your system does not work.

and I see why games workshop doesn't come to people for advice on what units should be statistically.

Why, because their ego would be damaged by having to admit that their point costs are wrong?

 Selym wrote:

Lythrandire Biehrellian wrote:
A 10 inch blast can also cover both combat squads and their drop pod. Strength 9 wounds toughness 8 easier than strength 8 does and catching fire warriors, broadsides, and a riptide in a 10" circle where they were hoping to benefit from supporting fire can dramatically change the layout of the game. Also, I could have sworn 2+ save carrying centurions and bikers were REALLY popular nowadays competitively...
And this occurs outside of cover and LoS block... when?

While the 75 point earthshaker is indeed potent, the primary reason it is so strong is the fact that each crewman counts as a toughness seven wound in addition to the wounds on the cannon itself with a 3+ save. The basilisk doesn't have NEARLY the same survivability as that and would still cost more due to the ability to move.
This is true. I'd have rounded the Basilisk tank down to 120 pts personally, the extra 5 feels like a waste, but get six on the field, and someone's gonna have a bad T1.

As it stands, I am implementing the change in points for hullpoints on superheavies, I'm adding the percentages you asked for things like invul saves and making the holofields scale more effectively. I am going through and calibrating weapon point totals more thoroughly to ensure closer balance between systems.
K.

I am not going to alter price based on percentages and I am not going to attempt to create a role for vehicles to follow in order to facilitate a curve that I don't believe is needed.
K.

It is my project, I can and will make decisions about what you guys bring to me as suggestions, and I see why games workshop doesn't come to people for advice on what units should be statistically.
'Cause the dev team would break down in tears as we spend weeks teaching them mathematics.

Thank you, that was a very thoughtful and appropriate (not to mention humorous) response. Their math is wrong on a lot of things, but it seems to be getting worse as time goes on whereas older units tend to stay consistent. (At least until they get a new model) I felt there may have been a time when they were building the game where they may have HAD a system in place to try and ensure their math wouldn't get too crazy. I thought perhaps the old vdr may have been a remnant from that time where they tweeked it to ensure people couldn't actually math out their units accurately. I started tweaking the rules from there in the hopes of finding what they may have "broken" to ensure that happened. It turned out to be the points spent on speed and armor values primarily and then the gradual "codex creep" of weapon power. Did I fail to find every flaw, OBVIOUSLY! Does the system work a good percentage of the time? Yes. I am happy with how it is going. Thank you for your help!

Edit. Stupid fat fingers.

Lythrandire Biehrellian wrote:
I thought perhaps the old vdr may have been a remnant from that time where they tweeked it to ensure people couldn't actually math out their units accurately.

Why would they want to keep people from getting the point costs right for their own units? Remember that the VDR comes from the good old days when GW encouraged people to make and use custom models/terrain/rules/etc. The much more likely explanation is that GW was telling the truth when they said "we don't do our points this way", and the VDR is just a genuine attempt to give a little inspiration to people who don't have the resources to do a proper iterative playtesting process.

That's fair. I still believe there may have been a time when they actually did something like this to form the baseline for where their point totals would be. Even if they don't do it anymore (see ta'unar, wraithknight, and the old transcendent c'tan) the basis of that math is still in there (IMO)

I am looking for it.

Lythrandire Biehrellian wrote:
That's fair. I still believe there may have been a time when they actually did something like this to form the baseline for where their point totals would be. Even if they don't do it anymore (see ta'unar, wraithknight, and the old transcendent c'tan) the basis of that math is still in there (IMO)

I seriously doubt they ever did. The VDR was way back in 3rd edition, and by that point they weren't using a system like that. So maybe they used something similar way back in 2nd edition or earlier, but the game was so different back then that any points or rules from that era are not at all relevant anymore.

Plus, even ignoring the historical argument, why would GW waste time on a VDR-style system for their own rules? The only purpose of it is to allow players to have a common system that gives a sense of "officialness" to custom designs and lets everyone say "let's allow VDR stuff" instead of having to analyze and approve each individual vehicle. But if you're writing the rules you don't have to bother with any of that. You just guess at a point cost based on similar units and your understanding of the game, playtest to see how it works, adjust the point cost based on playtesting feedback, playtest more, etc, until everyone agrees that the unit is balanced. And then you say "this is how it is", and it's official rules. You don't need to show your work because you have the ultimate authority to declare that something is part of the game.

 Selym wrote:

Lythrandire Biehrellian wrote:
It is my project, I can and will make decisions about what you guys bring to me as suggestions, and I see why games workshop doesn't come to people for advice on what units should be statistically.
'Cause the dev team would break down in tears as we spend weeks teaching them mathematics.

That is really unfair, because GW does math far better than lyth does. GW has yet to publish a negative points unit, for example.

 TheCustomLime wrote:

.... which put them under greater scrutiny by experienced, competitive players.

Cool.

Bet you guys have had fun.

 Slaanesh-Devotee wrote:

 TheCustomLime wrote:

.... which put them under greater scrutiny by experienced, competitive players.

Cool.

Bet you guys have had fun.

Yep, and that's what the H-H-Hobby is all about!

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

 Selym wrote:

Lythrandire Biehrellian wrote:
It is my project, I can and will make decisions about what you guys bring to me as suggestions, and I see why games workshop doesn't come to people for advice on what units should be statistically.
'Cause the dev team would break down in tears as we spend weeks teaching them mathematics.

That is really unfair, because GW does math far better than lyth does. GW has yet to publish a negative points unit, for example.

Inadvertently gave the option to. Also, their own vdr allowed for even LOWER numbers. But thanks for assuming my failure to identify that issue is simply me being unable to calculate effectively.

 Slaanesh-Devotee wrote:

 TheCustomLime wrote:

.... which put them under greater scrutiny by experienced, competitive players.

Cool.

Bet you guys have had fun.

I used to have fun. Then I started playing 40k competitively. Now my days are filled with misery and self loathing as I sit hunched over a work bench doing the mold-line work on 6 Imperial Knights. Wondering where did it all go wrong.

 Slaanesh-Devotee wrote:
I thought this was a fun thread when it first popped up, and gave me some neat ideas.

Now its just Dakka being Dakka again.

His rules sort of work if you just want some random fluffy stuff for you and your mates. Some of his stuff is improperly balanced, and it seems to be built around the assumption that you are playing apocalypse, but these are things that you would have to discuss and agree upon with your opponent anyways if you bring a custom unit. The problem is that he spent pages arguing that the Eldar titan is balanced on the general discussion, bringing everyone into a fierce debate, before introducing this VDR as proof that it is balanced. That discussion then got shunted here after that thread got locked for going off topic.

Lythrandire Biehrellian wrote:

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

 Selym wrote:

Lythrandire Biehrellian wrote:
It is my project, I can and will make decisions about what you guys bring to me as suggestions, and I see why games workshop doesn't come to people for advice on what units should be statistically.
'Cause the dev team would break down in tears as we spend weeks teaching them mathematics.

That is really unfair, because GW does math far better than lyth does. GW has yet to publish a negative points unit, for example.

Inadvertently gave the option to. Also, their own vdr allowed for even LOWER numbers. But thanks for assuming my failure to identify that issue is simply me being unable to calculate effectively.

Yea. . . no. The version of the VDR that I found could generate a unit that costs 0 points (small, open topped, immobile vehicle AV: F:10 S:9 R:9) but there is nothing that could result in negative points.

 the Signless wrote:

Lythrandire Biehrellian wrote:

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

 Selym wrote:

Lythrandire Biehrellian wrote:
It is my project, I can and will make decisions about what you guys bring to me as suggestions, and I see why games workshop doesn't come to people for advice on what units should be statistically.
'Cause the dev team would break down in tears as we spend weeks teaching them mathematics.

That is really unfair, because GW does math far better than lyth does. GW has yet to publish a negative points unit, for example.

Inadvertently gave the option to. Also, their own vdr allowed for even LOWER numbers. But thanks for assuming my failure to identify that issue is simply me being unable to calculate effectively.

Yea. . . no. The version of the VDR that I found could generate a unit that costs 0 points (small, open topped, immobile vehicle AV: F:10 S:9 R:9) but there is nothing that could result in negative points.

That's because he has made some changes.


The original problem:

Peregrine wrote:
Let's spend a few minutes breaking it, just to have fun. A small heavy vehicle with AV 10/10/10 and 2 HP armed with a bolter costs -1 point. Yes, NEGATIVE one point. Every one of these vehicles you add to your list increases your available points by one, in addition to the side effect of spamming an obscene number of AV 10 bolters all over the table. You could literally fill the entire surface of one of the OP's giant floor games with these vehicles, if you felt like making enough models to do it. Or play a 500 point game where you bring 3000 of these and dump a pile of them into the general area of your deployment zone around the Warlord titan you brought. To a 500 point game. They'd actually be good meatshield screens for your titan, if you weren't almost guaranteed to win the game in your first shooting phase. You know, because the OP's VDR rules let you bring a Warlord titan to a 500 point game.

Conclusion: 9 months of development and playtesting don't mean anything if nobody bothered to test your rules properly.

I know Lythrandire Biehrellian's rules give negative points. I was refering to GW's official VDR to counter the claim that they were worse and would result in lower numbers.

I apologise if I was unclear with my wording.

 Slaanesh-Devotee wrote:

 TheCustomLime wrote:

.... which put them under greater scrutiny by experienced, competitive players.

Cool.

Bet you guys have had fun.

I remember playing with the original GW VDR, and it was fun for the first week, when people brought in cool models that they had, and used the GW VDR to stat the models as-is.

Then people started scratch-building things to match optimized VDR designs, and it all fell apart.

I allowed negative points because some vehicles are barely worth the weapons on them. The lowest you could do in the old system was a 5 point vehicle with av9 all the way around. But their vehicles were also way overpriced for what they brought.

Couple other changes, removing the immobilized trait from the rules section and adding it in as a caveat for deep strike (gives deep strike for free if it becomes immobile after the drop) originally put it in to allow people to make drop pods. Decided to only allow it in certain circumstances instead. Also going to be dropping the stealth and shrouded options from the vdr. I added them in because the forgeworld flyers for eldar had them. Not sure I really want to see how broken a unit with those things can get.


I am hoping to not have the issues the old vdr had. I want people to be able to build whatever they want (even super optimized units) and it still won't be as bad as some of the things games workshop puts out.

A guy can dream

Let me get this straight - for the Tau, a monstrous creature cannot have a heavy burst cannon... yet the riptide is a monstrous creature and is currently the only model that can take it in official game material. What?

Of course, it's still possible to create broken tau stuff regardless, but that really doesn't make sense. Disallowing heavy railguns from MCs and GCs also does not make sense since the new tau suit from FW came out and is a GC... I like what you tried to do, but you need to write in an exception for Tau because battlesuits are creatures, not vehicles.

Furthermore, you forgot to add rail rifles to the tau list.

Lythrandire Biehrellian wrote:
But thanks for assuming my failure to identify that issue is simply me being unable to calculate effectively.

I'm sure it wasn't, but that's not something to be proud of. Anyone can make math mistakes and put 5 instead of 50 or whatever. But allowing a negative-point vehicle is a sign of a much greater problem. You claim to have been testing your rules for months, and somehow you failed to notice the problem. And it's the first thing I tried to exploit when you challenged me to find a broken unit! So either you're exaggerating how much playtesting work you did, or the primary goal of your playtesting was boosting your ego by "proving" that you were right about the costs of GW units instead of deliberately trying to break your own system.

I agree with Peregrine. Lyth, you need your playtesters to try and break your system or you'll never know about the fundamental problems with it.
Your playtesters never found these problems because they weren't looking for them.