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Based on this really interesting thread and analysis, I got thinking, that if 40k were more balanced should each faction have a near 50-50 win/loss ratio?

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/664850.page



Thought experiment:

40k and its rules/factions are perfectly balanced.
A worldwide campaign kicks off and players send in their scores.
One would expect 50-50 across all factions but for whatever reason the better players around the world have chosen Nids as their faction (purely on aesthetics - remember all factions are equally as good in this experiment).
Hence Nids edge ahead going up to say 55%.

So even though, the game is totally balanced, there will always be a few factions that lead ahead.
Chess is a good example, perfect ruleset, equal "armies" but iirc white always has the tiniest margin in win-losses due to going first.

Im not sure I have an overall point to be honest, more just Saturday morning ramblings

I suppose at its core, its this, no matter how tight a ruleset, there will always be imbalance 9especially when dice and randomness come into play).

Player skill is not rules imbalance. Better players should win more frequently than poor players. That's the whole point, the winning should be determined by player skill and not by your choice of army.

Player skill is not rules imbalance.

Agreed, I didnt mean rule imbalance from skill, I meant more the aiming for a 50-50 balance (if possible at all).

There will always be an imbalance, the question is how close it is. IIRC there are ways to analyze statistics, to tell you how much variability you should expect to see in a certain sample size. So while a perfect 50-50 would be nice to see, even if the game was reduced to flipping a coin to see who won, we wouldn’t actually see those results. Unless we went up to a infinite sample size.

If I understand correctly, I think your basic premise is flawed. The point isn't to make all faction win losses equal, it's to make sure that (given that both players are of equal skill) each faction/army/player has an equal chance of winning. Some armies will always be more popular than others.

White has a greater chance of being significant statistically the higher the skills of the players.

 MWHistorian wrote:
If I understand correctly, I think your basic premise is flawed. The point isn't to make all faction win losses equal, it's to make sure that (given that both players are of equal skill) each faction/army/player has an equal chance of winning. Some armies will always be more popular than others.

If each army has an equal chance of winning and you pick a large enough sample of players then you should end up with a 50/50 win ratio for each army. Being more popular won't sway the 50/50 result UNLESS some armies are more popular among poor players and others are more popular among skilled players (which can happen for various reasons).

I always thought of 40K as a fighting game.
Fite gamez entire purpose is to make a balanced cast, but as you get more and more into the deeper systems (dash-cancels, FADCs, Frame-Traps, and character-counterpicks) the game becomes horribly unbalanced.

Just like fighters certain armies have ease of entry, these are gonna be the ones everybody uses at tourney. Ex. SM, Necrons, Admech.
Others are broken boss/dlc characters that should be banned from tournaments, but the organizers don't know what they're doing. Ex. Eldar
A few have a spammable move or two. See Flyrants/Demons.
And some characters aren't worth taking no matter how good you get cause they have no frame advantage and low health and they can't combo. See IG, CSM, Blood Angles.