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Martel732 wrote:
Recost the miscosted units. Most problems go away.

I think that works up to an extent. If everyone agrees to run CAD then doing so is fine, but it's wonky when formations and detachments are considered. No one thought piranhas were anything special at first glance and now they're OP thanks to the piranha wing.

Give formations costs as well.

Martel732 wrote:
Give formations costs as well.

While i like this idea, just kinda bandaiding problems at that point.

one thing you can also do to help balance games and keep it friendly and tone down power lists, is make agreements with your opponant. Like no flyers if your oponant does not have a flyer or AA. Or if you really insist on bringing it, let your opponents missile launchers get sky fire. Things like that. Like i let eldar players that have howling banshees assault outta their transport, because other wise they are worthless and it makes no scenes fluff wise. So tailoring rules from match to match really helps.

Also, bringing booze into the mix, get a cock tail in your hand and get buzzed and you have a grand ol time when rolling dice lol

I definitely would if the FLGS's we go to had liquor licenses. >_<

 Backspacehacker wrote:
Like no flyers if your oponant does not have a flyer or AA.

But why should the player with the flyer have to agree to conditions on the model they want to use? Why shouldn't the rule be "mandatory AA units in all armies unless you agree to do a no-flyer game"?

 Peregrine wrote:

 Backspacehacker wrote:
Like no flyers if your oponant does not have a flyer or AA.

But why should the player with the flyer have to agree to conditions on the model they want to use? Why shouldn't the rule be "mandatory AA units in all armies unless you agree to do a no-flyer game"?

Exactly. If you don't want to prepare for fliers (which aren't even bad in the first place), that's your own damn fault.

 Traditio wrote:
Power gamers are going to power game regardless of the restrictions. If you just say "You can't do x," then power gamers are going to bring the next most OP thing that they can come up with. Unless the TO carefully goes through each and every single codex and writes an exhaustive list of the units, combinations, etc. that can't be taken, he's not going to come up with anything like a list which can be deemed as "sufficient" to stop people from power gaming. And even then, power gamers will still probably find a work around and succeed in [censored] people off.

Yes, balancing is hard and takes some work. Do the work if you want to run a good tournament.

Presumably, what the OP is going for is a mindset. My system encourages a mindset. "Don't power game. Period. If you power game, you stand a good chance of being disqualified."

No, what your system encourages is a mindset of "don't play here, the local clique kicks you out of the tournament if they don't like your list" where you quickly find that the only people playing in your events are the 3-4 people who started the clique.

Of course, this will make power gamers very unhappy. But then, if the OP wants to create a casual-friendly environment, then OF COURSE he's going to have to make the power gamers unhappy. That's part of the trade off.

No, it makes everyone unhappy. In fact, power games are probably the least likely to be unhappy because they know they're playing the top-tier lists and trying to win, and accepting "well, someone is going to say some stupid thing about how I didn't win after the games are over, but I still won all of my games" as the price of playing in the event. The person it hurts is the "casual" player who builds a strong list they like, finally manages to win, and has their triumph deflated by someone saying "you don't win after all, don't be so WAAC".

The problem with ranking lists is that everyone has their own arbitrary and silly ideas of what is OP, We have someone here who Swears anything tau bring is OP. Anything. He also thinks GK are OP. So he would rate everything as a 5.
Really, just go for free for all. Dont let anyone out.
Tell your players to talk to eachother.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Backspacehacker wrote:
Like no flyers if your oponant does not have a flyer or AA.

But why should the player with the flyer have to agree to conditions on the model they want to use? Why shouldn't the rule be "mandatory AA units in all armies unless you agree to do a no-flyer game"?

Now i agree you can make that argument, again may vary for store to store, but generally no one in my area plays flyers, and the only time it comes into question is when one kid brings in a hemlocks with D on it and acts like its totally fair and balanced.

I don't think I've yet to play a game without one. But then again, my flyers have transport capabilities and I love being able to drop units off where they need to go. They often ninja'd warlords and super-heavies.

Going back on topic, I might introduce some alternate missions besides "Hold X objectives". I was thinking of letting players choose from a list how they want to approach a game. It could be something as standard as "kill more than your opponent" or something as wacky as "Maim, but don't kill more units than your opponent" or "Sacrifice as many units as you can. Each unit counts as a victory point, but don't let your opponent suspect it."

 NInjatactiks wrote:
I don't think I've yet to play a game without one. But then again, my flyers have transport capabilities and I love being able to drop units off where they need to go. They often ninja'd warlords and super-heavies.

Going back on topic, I might introduce some alternate missions besides "Hold X objectives". I was thinking of letting players choose from a list how they want to approach a game. It could be something as standard as "kill more than your opponent" or something as wacky as "Maim, but don't kill more units than your opponent" or "Sacrifice as many units as you can. Each unit counts as a victory point, but don't let your opponent suspect it."

Really? huh, almost no one runs them here, but we digress.

Oh run a movie marine game! those are always fun to play

Peregrine wrote:Define clear balance rules/errata/etc so that the lists you don't think are balanced are not legal and there is no ambiguity about what is "casual" and what isn't. Expecting people to agree on what is "casual" is almost guaranteed to produce arguments.

 Peregrine wrote:

 oldzoggy wrote:
If you want some guidlines you might want to take a look at
http://www.communitycomp.org/

Do not use this system, ever. It's complete garbage and seems to be based on the premise that every army, no matter how good it is, must have at least X units that have a comp penalty. Lots of things that aren't a problem get massively penalized, and all it really does is change what the best list is. It's a horrible failure of a system and the people who created it should be embarrassed about their work.

 Peregrine wrote:

 NInjatactiks wrote:
Well, that's some pretty harsh critiques so I'm interested in what you would suggest in its place.

Change the rules, preferably through adjusting point costs where possible (which should be pretty much everything besides formations and multiple-LoW armies). If unit X is overpowered then change its point cost to match its value. Don't leave its rules in their overpowered state and say "you can take this, but you're a bad person if you do and you should feel bad about it". This is the fundamental problem with comp systems, they acknowledge that unit rules need to be changed but instead of changing the rules they impose this whole shame-driven system for telling you how bad you should feel about playing competitively.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Traditio wrote:
Power gamers are going to power game regardless of the restrictions. If you just say "You can't do x," then power gamers are going to bring the next most OP thing that they can come up with. Unless the TO carefully goes through each and every single codex and writes an exhaustive list of the units, combinations, etc. that can't be taken, he's not going to come up with anything like a list which can be deemed as "sufficient" to stop people from power gaming. And even then, power gamers will still probably find a work around and succeed in [censored] people off.

Yes, balancing is hard and takes some work. Do the work if you want to run a good tournament.

I don't understand you.
The community comp system is one of the systems, perhaps the only system, where people HAVE created a clear errata that unambiguously defines what is and isn't legal. People like myself have put in the hard work and hours creating this system.

And you take a glance at it, see a unit that you don't perceive as an issue, and dismiss it?

CommunityComp (or something very similar to it) is as close to what you're wanting that we can get while we're still playing a game that can be called 40k. I guess we could go and re-write the rules, re-do all the points costs.... but we may as well just go play another game at that point. Adding 'comp points' seems to be the most viable alternative to actually recosting everything.

You talk about creating 'cliques' that only play with a particular style and can't get anyone else to play with them: yet that same problem will only be worse when said clique creates their entire own game system! Even with amendments to the existing ruleset it's hard.


No points system is going to be perfect. You're never going to create a game where there isn't a 'most powerful' list if you want to have any kind of differentiation or synergy between units. But the idea of restrictions on army building, and comp systems in particular, is to reduce the disparity between the highs and the lows so that more army builds are viable. The most recent comp tournament I went to had its fair share of Riptides and Scatterbikes - but it also had armies featuring Gorkanauts, Dreadnoughts, Sisters of Battle and Vespids which were in the top bracket.

The moment anyone is interested in winning you no longer have a 'casual' community you have a gaming community.

A fluffy casual league should probably have an enforced narrative with who is supposed to win the day and who should lose decided at list building and their should be narrative goals in the game to make it cinematic and entertaining. To think of it as a movie, each turn is an act and scene, and the winner here should be who does his takes correctly and have nothing to do with victory points. You should have scenario's with heroes brought to cinematic skirmishes that advance the narrative... At least if you can imagine on this brand of thinking you could have something resembling casual 40k.

Anything else is mostly breaking the public meta and enforcing one that you will eventually find among yourselves with your newfound 'balanced' ruleset.

You could also do any sort of results based comp system, give people with army's losing in your league some more points every week and taking points away from winners. Kinda works out a bit on it's own, you get the winner crowd gloating about being able to win while fighting a handicap, and fluffyhammer guys get more points to be fluffy with. I could get along with it.

Trasvi wrote:
The community comp system is one of the systems, perhaps the only system, where people HAVE created a clear errata that unambiguously defines what is and isn't legal. People like myself have put in the hard work and hours creating this system.

Working hard on something doesn't mean that the product is good. If a lot of work has gone into community comp then it just means that a lot of work has been wasted on a terrible system.

And you take a glance at it, see a unit that you don't perceive as an issue, and dismiss it?

No, I dismiss it because I've seen it before and it's a terrible system. It's not just one unit, the entire concept is broken on a fundamental level.

CommunityComp (or something very similar to it) is as close to what you're wanting that we can get while we're still playing a game that can be called 40k. I guess we could go and re-write the rules, re-do all the points costs.... but we may as well just go play another game at that point. Adding 'comp points' seems to be the most viable alternative to actually recosting everything.

It's not viable, and it's nothing like what I want. And why is re-doing the points such a problem? You've already essentially done that by listing which units need point adjustments and roughly how much they need to be adjusted by (proportional to their comp penalty), and your game has much less to do with normal 40k than a variant that fixes some point costs but otherwise doesn't change the rules.

You talk about creating 'cliques' that only play with a particular style and can't get anyone else to play with them: yet that same problem will only be worse when said clique creates their entire own game system! Even with amendments to the existing ruleset it's hard.

The difference is that a fixed rule system has no more of the "you can use this overpowered thing that is so awful that it needs to be punished, but we'll call you TFG and shun you from the community if you do" problem that comp has. And that's the cliquish behavior that is a problem, not the fact that a variant rule set is in use.

You're never going to create a game where there isn't a 'most powerful' list if you want to have any kind of differentiation or synergy between units.

No, of course not, but that's a straw man argument. The goal is to improve 40k balance to the point that tournaments are fun, not to magically create a perfect game that is mathematically proven to have 100% perfect balance. Adjusting point costs and rules can get to at least the same level of balance that your comp system does, it just does it in a much better way.

Community comp is really just a shame driven attempt at balancing the game.

 Peregrine wrote:

The difference is that a fixed rule system has no more of the "you can use this overpowered thing that is so awful that it needs to be punished, but we'll call you TFG and shun you from the community if you do" problem that comp has. And that's the cliquish behavior that is a problem, not the fact that a variant rule set is in use.

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
Community comp is really just a shame driven attempt at balancing the game.

This isn't at all in the rules. Its in the community. The CComp just lets you play with maxed out credits in the same way a CAD lets you play with maxed out heavy support slots. No questioned asked.
I wonder what nightmarish experiences you guys have had with a comp system.

 oldzoggy wrote:
This isn't at all in the rules. Its in the community. The CComp just lets you play with maxed out credits in the same way a CAD lets you play with maxed out heavy support slots. No questioned asked.

From the community comp document:

With 20 credits to spend we suggest spending
between 8 and 12 credits.

Between that and the score penalty for using all 20 points it's pretty clear that you're not supposed to go that high. And let's not overlook the fact that the system seems deliberately designed to ensure that all but the weakest possible lists (deliberately designed to be as weak as possible) get at least ~10 points, so it's not like we're talking about top-tier tournament lists getting up to 8-12 credits.

 Peregrine wrote:

Between that and the score penalty for using all 20 points it's pretty clear that you're not supposed to go that high. And let's not overlook the fact that the system seems deliberately designed to ensure that all but the weakest possible lists (deliberately designed to be as weak as possible) get at least ~10 points, so it's not like we're talking about top-tier tournament lists getting up to 8-12 credits.

How much credits you are allowed to spend is just the power lv dial that you the community or the TO can fiddle with. The event could just say this is a max 16 cc event. In the same way as how many Heavy slots ( in 5th enviroments) or LOW slots (in 7th enviroments) you are allowed to max bring. I do agree with you that it is totally impossible to create a top-tier tournament list or even strong competitive lists in low credit ratings, but that was the entire purpose of a ruleset tasket with ceeping it casual in mind.
Don't get me wrong I am not suggesting that this system would be suited to balance current tournament scene. You guys all have expensive maxed out ITC style armies and enjoy playing those. Suggesting to all dump those armies and start again is madness. This is a tool to keep those lists out of an environment that doesn't enjoy them and it seems to do a better job at it than most alternatives.

 Peregrine wrote:

 oldzoggy wrote:
This isn't at all in the rules. Its in the community. The CComp just lets you play with maxed out credits in the same way a CAD lets you play with maxed out heavy support slots. No questioned asked.

From the community comp document:

With 20 credits to spend we suggest spending
between 8 and 12 credits.

Between that and the score penalty for using all 20 points it's pretty clear that you're not supposed to go that high. And let's not overlook the fact that the system seems deliberately designed to ensure that all but the weakest possible lists (deliberately designed to be as weak as possible) get at least ~10 points, so it's not like we're talking about top-tier tournament lists getting up to 8-12 credits.

The system is designed so that 8-12 credits gives you the best 'bang for your buck' in that your overall penalty is minimized while still taking a relatively strong army. The sliding penalty scale means that there is relatively little impact to your overall score by going <10 CC, and every point over that is supposed to be a decision.
The sliding scale of overall penalty actually creates interesting situations where the good players who are chasing after the Overall prize are incentivized to bring less powerful lists; They need to make the decision whether the extra 2 comp point penalty is going to eg turn an expected draw in to a win.

Trasvi wrote:
The sliding penalty scale means that there is relatively little impact to your overall score by going <10 CC, and every point over that is supposed to be a decision.

Then why not set the standard at zero comp points and take away all the ridiculous +1 point penalties for things that aren't overpowered. If there's little impact up to 10 points and you're not expected to have to make tough decisions until after that point then why are so many things penalized?

 Peregrine wrote:
Working hard on something doesn't mean that the product is good. If a lot of work has gone into community comp then it just means that a lot of work has been wasted on a terrible system.
No, I dismiss it because I've seen it before and it's a terrible system. It's not just one unit, the entire concept is broken on a fundamental level.

Maybe you could elaborate on what the broken concept is, in your opinion?

This is the community acting together in a way to create a clear, unambiguous set of rules about what is considered 'too powerful'. Exactly what you said you wanted. I get that you don't agree with the particular implementation or assigning of points costs, but what more could be better?

It's not viable, and it's nothing like what I want. And why is re-doing the points such a problem? You've already essentially done that by listing which units need point adjustments and roughly how much they need to be adjusted by (proportional to their comp penalty), and your game has much less to do with normal 40k than a variant that fixes some point costs but otherwise doesn't change the rules.

All rules are balanced at the correct points costs.

Moreover, the community comp system is the only points system I've used that takes inter-unit interactions or target saturation in to play when assigning points costs. In that way I think it is superior to any other points system I've come across. A significant amount of 40k's balance issues come from stacking multiplicative buffs together, something that cannot be accounted for with the standard fixed-cost systems.

The difference is that a fixed rule system has no more of the "you can use this overpowered thing that is so awful that it needs to be punished, but we'll call you TFG and shun you from the community if you do" problem that comp has. And that's the cliquish behavior that is a problem, not the fact that a variant rule set is in use.

I don't know where you're getting that idea from. It's certainly not how people use the system. Perhaps you should try it before trying to ascribe such behaviour to people?
The idea that people are 'punished and shunned' for taking legal high comp models is like saying that people would be punished and shunned for taking high point cost models. Yes, a particularly powerful combo might take up 8 comp points. It's no different than a powerful big unit taking up 800 points of your army. It might be powerful, but now you've got less resources to work with for the rest of your force. It's up to you to decide whether a unit is powerful enough to justify its points cost.

No, of course not, but that's a straw man argument. The goal is to improve 40k balance to the point that tournaments are fun, not to magically create a perfect game that is mathematically proven to have 100% perfect balance. Adjusting point costs and rules can get to at least the same level of balance that your comp system does, it just does it in a much better way.

We've found that it is much, much, much simpler to get people to use the community comp system to adjust points costs than it is to use even the most basic of rules changes. You see the resistance that the ITC has to changing things like Invisibility or D-Weapons - imagine the pushback if they decided to publish ITC home-dexes.
And again, I think the ability for CC to deal with multiplicative buffs, cross-codex interactions and spam creates a system that can much more accurately reflect balance than simply adding points to models.

Another advantage of tacking on the extra points system is that it allows you to move to tournaments and communities that *don't* use a modified version of the rules. I can take my 2000pt 14 comp point army to any gamestore, tournament or country, play it against anyone else, and be using the same rule set as they are even if I'm playing on a slightly different level. If you decide to go modifying points and rules, then my 2000pt army might be 2100pts in 'real' 40k, and our modified rules might be cheating against other players. Yes, it's possibly hard for them to move in, but its trivial to move out.



At my gaming club we use the community comp system to arrange pretty much every game. I'll say "Who wants to play 40k on Friday? 1850pts, 15 comp max" and people will get the idea about the level of competitiveness that I'm expecting. If I want a more casual game then I'll say 8 CC and people get the idea of the power level. That's how we keep things casual.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Peregrine wrote:

Trasvi wrote:
The sliding penalty scale means that there is relatively little impact to your overall score by going <10 CC, and every point over that is supposed to be a decision.

Then why not set the standard at zero comp points and take away all the ridiculous +1 point penalties for things that aren't overpowered. If there's little impact up to 10 points and you're not expected to have to make tough decisions until after that point then why are so many things penalized?

Because it's easier to set the baseline to 'underpowered units = 0 comp points' and have an 'on curve' army at 10 CC, than it is to assign negative comp points to underpowered units and deal with the potential system gaming that could come from that.

 Backspacehacker wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

 Backspacehacker wrote:
Like no flyers if your oponant does not have a flyer or AA.

But why should the player with the flyer have to agree to conditions on the model they want to use? Why shouldn't the rule be "mandatory AA units in all armies unless you agree to do a no-flyer game"?

Now i agree you can make that argument, again may vary for store to store, but generally no one in my area plays flyers, and the only time it comes into question is when one kid brings in a hemlocks with D on it and acts like its totally fair and balanced.

You mean an AV10 vehicle that fires template weapons? Have you ever heard of jinking?

I don't believe in shaming. I do believe in making things that are really good really expensive in game points. Really simple.

Trasvi wrote:
Maybe you could elaborate on what the broken concept is, in your opinion?

The broken concept is the idea of allowing overpowered units/lists but imposing a penalty (whether by a comp score or social pressure) for doing so. If you recognize that a unit/list is a problem and can assign it a comp penalty then you are able to adjust its point cost and/or rules so that it is no longer a problem. This is the correct way to do it because it removes the unpleasant game experience entirely instead of penalizing it after the damage is done.

This comp system specifically is also broken in how many penalties it assigns. Units/lists that are not a balance problem are penalized way too frequently. When an "average" list has 50% of the maximum comp points it's a very clear sign that you're over-penalizing a lot of stuff that isn't a problem. Even assuming that comp is a good thing (it isn't, see above) a "fair" list should have a score of zero because it doesn't have any units that are a balance problem.

Moreover, the community comp system is the only points system I've used that takes inter-unit interactions or target saturation in to play when assigning points costs. In that way I think it is superior to any other points system I've come across. A significant amount of 40k's balance issues come from stacking multiplicative buffs together, something that cannot be accounted for with the standard fixed-cost systems.

But why do things like target saturation need to be penalized in the first place? Target saturation is a valid strategy to use and isn't necessarily overpowered. A comp system should not start from the premise of "any effective strategy should be penalized", it should only remove the most serious balance issues.

And fixed-cost systems can deal with stacking buffs just fine, by setting the cost for a buff at its typical effectiveness level and putting limits on how many things you can add together. Remember that most of the stacking problems come from allies, multiple HQ ICs, etc. These aren't "normal" units that are difficult to deal with without having a lot of collateral damage to stuff that doesn't need to be nerfed.

I don't know where you're getting that idea from. It's certainly not how people use the system. Perhaps you should try it before trying to ascribe such behaviour to people?

I'm not going to try it because it's a garbage system, but I will concede that perhaps the people in your area who use the system don't have the same toxic "casual at all costs" that comp advocates often seem to have. Thankfully none of the communities I've ever been a part of offline have used a terrible system like this, so my impression of how it is used is based entirely on the online behavior of comp advocates.

We've found that it is much, much, much simpler to get people to use the community comp system to adjust points costs than it is to use even the most basic of rules changes. You see the resistance that the ITC has to changing things like Invisibility or D-Weapons - imagine the pushback if they decided to publish ITC home-dexes.

Sorry, but this makes no sense at all. The people who dislike the ITC rules (or similar systems) aren't going to like your system either. Both point/rule adjustments and comp scoring are significant rule changes, if you're willing to accept comp then you should have no problem with a superior approach to balance fixes.

Another advantage of tacking on the extra points system is that it allows you to move to tournaments and communities that *don't* use a modified version of the rules. I can take my 2000pt 14 comp point army to any gamestore, tournament or country, play it against anyone else, and be using the same rule set as they are even if I'm playing on a slightly different level. If you decide to go modifying points and rules, then my 2000pt army might be 2100pts in 'real' 40k, and our modified rules might be cheating against other players. Yes, it's possibly hard for them to move in, but its trivial to move out.

Sure, but because your army is built to a significantly lower power level under the comp system you're going to have no hope of winning under RAW 40k. Dropping 100 points from an army built under point cost adjustments is going to be much easier than replacing whole sections of your army to get it up to a level where you have any hope of competing. For example, under a point adjustment system my LRBTs might be less than the RAW of 150 points. If I want to play RAW 40k all I have to do is drop a unit or trim some upgrades. Under a comp system like yours I probably didn't buy as many LRBTs in the first place because of the comp penalty attached to them. If I want to (successfully) play RAW 40k I have to dump those squads of ratlings/rough riders/etc that I had to take because I was out of comp points and replace them with the LRBTs I wanted to take. That's a whole lot more money and painting time to spend on changing my army.

At my gaming club we use the community comp system to arrange pretty much every game. I'll say "Who wants to play 40k on Friday? 1850pts, 15 comp max" and people will get the idea about the level of competitiveness that I'm expecting. If I want a more casual game then I'll say 8 CC and people get the idea of the power level. That's how we keep things casual.

You have a very strange definition of "casual". Playing under strict list construction rules in addition to the standard game is not really casual, it's playing seriously with a lower power level. And "lower power level" and "casual" are not synonyms. A true "casual" game would be "take whatever you like" because you don't really care if you win or lose.

Because it's easier to set the baseline to 'underpowered units = 0 comp points' and have an 'on curve' army at 10 CC, than it is to assign negative comp points to underpowered units and deal with the potential system gaming that could come from that.

Why do you need to have negative comp points for underpowered units? If you're going to start from a premise of "people don't like changes" and reject point/rule adjustments because they're "too many changes" then the goal of your system should be to make the minimum possible changes to remove the biggest balance issues. If you're getting into buffing weaker units then you're making comprehensive rule changes and should be doing it the right way: through changing point costs and rules to make a better game that doesn't need comp scoring.

Martel732 wrote:
I don't believe in shaming. I do believe in making things that are really good really expensive in game points. Really simple.

That's probably the single biggest starting point.
But how do you cost things that are "ok" in isolation, but powerful when taken together?

Lets take the Grimoire of True Names in the Daemons codex. It has a 1/3 chance of debuffing the target friendly unit and halving its durability, and a 2/3 chance of increase its durability by 100%. Lets say it is balanced at 30pts.

Lets take Cursed Earth. It gives Daemons +1 invulnerable save, which is usually +33% durability. Pretty decent for a 1 WC power.

But when you combine Cursed Earth with Grimoire of True Names, you're going from a 5++ to a 2++, which represents a 300% increase.

Then look at Screamers of Tzeentch. At 25pts they're pretty balanced I think. Add in Cursed Earth and the Grimoire though and they become effectively invincible - the buffs that represent a 300% increase in durability for a unit of Flesh Hounds now represent a 2100% increase for screamers!!

Is it possible to price buffs correctly if they are only "really good" in certain combinations?
Or do we just remove what very little inter-unit synergy there is in 40k from the game entirely?

Those kinds of swings are difficult to price. The absolute best fix is to reduce all such swings by moving to D10. Otherwise, I'd probably just get rid of the Grimoire, and let cursed earth stack twice. Or keep the Grimoire, but let it count as a single casting of cursed earth. At any rate, I'd cap invuln saves at 3++ in general in the current system.

Trasvi wrote:
Is it possible to price buffs correctly if they are only "really good" in certain combinations?

Yes, by assuming the best-case scenario. Nobody is going to be taking those powers to buff weak units when you can make a 2++, so you price it on the assumption that you get a 2++ as the final result. Yeah, it means you're overpaying if you take a stupid list that doesn't get a 2++, but bad strategies being ineffective is fine.

And, as I said earlier, situations like this are the exception to the rule with buffs. There are few cases where you're getting "my unit is impossible to kill" levels of durability, so dealing with them is pretty straightforward. Even a rule as harsh as "Grimoire of True Names is banned" solves the one specific problem without hurting anything else, and there's a pretty solid argument that the upgrade is just plain bad design that should be removed from the next codex. But normally you aren't getting that kind of absurd percentage buff, and it's probably not worth obsessing over the difference between a 40% buff and a 50% buff when neither of them are causing major balance problems.

Or by not allowing 2++ saves.

As an example of a "normal" buff and how it scales consider prescience (or whatever the "twin-link a unit's weapons" power is called). Obviously casting it on a 500 point Baneblade gives you more of a return than casting it on a 30 point Sentinel, but how much of a problem is this in real games? It's very difficult to imagine a situation where the Sentinel is your best choice of unit to buff, so we can discard that case entirely. If it happens it happens, but it doesn't have any meaningful effect on balance. So, under realistic assumptions, a 1-200 point unit (LRBT, infantry blob, etc) is the smallest unit you're likely to put the buff on, and you're probably going to aim for at least the 2-300 point range (LRBT squadron, full-size blob, etc). If we price the twin-linked buff appropriately for a 250 point unit that leaves it a bit too expensive for a 100-150 point unit, but not by much, and a bit too cheap by a similarly small amount on a 350 point unit. It seems, on paper, to be too cheap by a more significant amount on the Baneblade, but LoW-class units tend to have huge blast weapons that gain much less benefit from twin-linking than weapons that roll to hit on BS.

Now, is the final point cost based on buffing a 250 point unit perfect for every situation? Of course not. But it's probably good enough to have the game be reasonably balanced and put the too-efficient cases into the "good strategy" category rather than "breaks the game and isn't fun to play against".

 Peregrine wrote:

Trasvi wrote:
Maybe you could elaborate on what the broken concept is, in your opinion?

The broken concept is the idea of allowing overpowered units/lists but imposing a penalty (whether by a comp score or social pressure) for doing so. If you recognize that a unit/list is a problem and can assign it a comp penalty then you are able to adjust its point cost and/or rules so that it is no longer a problem. This is the correct way to do it because it removes the unpleasant game experience entirely instead of penalizing it after the damage is done.

I don't see this as any different than points costs on units.

An Imperial Knight has a certain power level. It gets assigned a certain penalty points cost reflective of that power level. You make up the rest of your army by taking units that fit in to your remaining points.
An Imperial Knight has a certain power level. It gets assigned a certain penalty comp score reflective of that power level. You make up the rest of your army by taking units that fit in to your remaining points.

Comp points are just another points system - an Imperial Knight costing 375pts is just as much a penalty or social pressure as it costing 5CC.

This comp system specifically is also broken in how many penalties it assigns. Units/lists that are not a balance problem are penalized way too frequently. When an "average" list has 50% of the maximum comp points it's a very clear sign that you're over-penalizing a lot of stuff that isn't a problem. Even assuming that comp is a good thing (it isn't, see above) a "fair" list should have a score of zero because it doesn't have any units that are a balance problem.

I think you're bringing a preconceived notion of how you think the points system is supposed to work. An average army gets an average comp score. Is that so hard to accept?

But why do things like target saturation need to be penalized in the first place? Target saturation is a valid strategy to use and isn't necessarily overpowered. A comp system should not start from the premise of "any effective strategy should be penalized", it should only remove the most serious balance issues.

Sure, as long as you can come up with an objective definition of a "serious balance issue".

And fixed-cost systems can deal with stacking buffs just fine, by setting the cost for a buff at its typical effectiveness level and putting limits on how many things you can add together. Remember that most of the stacking problems come from allies, multiple HQ ICs, etc. These aren't "normal" units that are difficult to deal with without having a lot of collateral damage to stuff that doesn't need to be nerfed.

See my post about the Grimoire. Or psychic powers, or 'X and his unit' abilities. How do you determine the 'typical' use case of an ability when there are a hundred different use cases for it, many of which haven't been printed at the time the item is costed?

Sorry, but this makes no sense at all. The people who dislike the ITC rules (or similar systems) aren't going to like your system either. Both point/rule adjustments and comp scoring are significant rule changes, if you're willing to accept comp then you should have no problem with a superior approach to balance fixes.

Strangely enough, the people in our area are vehemently opposed to using ITC restrictions but happily use community comp. People interpret the additional cost system very differently to attempts to change the printed Word of God.

Sure, but because your army is built to a significantly lower power level under the comp system you're going to have no hope of winning under RAW 40k. Dropping 100 points from an army built under point cost adjustments is going to be much easier than replacing whole sections of your army to get it up to a level where you have any hope of competing. For example, under a point adjustment system my LRBTs might be less than the RAW of 150 points. If I want to play RAW 40k all I have to do is drop a unit or trim some upgrades. Under a comp system like yours I probably didn't buy as many LRBTs in the first place because of the comp penalty attached to them. If I want to (successfully) play RAW 40k I have to dump those squads of ratlings/rough riders/etc that I had to take because I was out of comp points and replace them with the LRBTs I wanted to take. That's a whole lot more money and painting time to spend on changing my army.

Or your Windrider jetbikes in PeregrineHammer might be more than the RAW cost of 35pts, so if you go try to play RAWHammer then you have less models than you're supposed to and need to go paint more. Your adjustments work both ways; a community comp army might not be super powerful (though you might be surprised) but it is at least transferable.

You have a very strange definition of "casual". Playing under strict list construction rules in addition to the standard game is not really casual, it's playing seriously with a lower power level. And "lower power level" and "casual" are not synonyms. A true "casual" game would be "take whatever you like" because you don't really care if you win or lose.

If that's how you define casual then what is the point in this discussion? My 10000pts of unbound Daemons vs your 100pts of Rough Riders is a true casual game under your definition. 40k is a perfect casual game and doesn't need any kind of pre-arrangement.

I tend to see 'casual' as 'both players have competitive fun'. We're both trying to win, but to journey of playing the game is more important than the outcome. My experience is that the closer two armies are on comp score, the more likely you are to have a long, close-fought game where both players rack up points and there's still models hanging around at the end. The further disparity you get between army power levels, the more likely it is that one player gets tabled by turn 2 or 3, and in my experience that isn't really fun.
The community comp system allows you to fairly well determine the objective power level of your army, make sure your opponent is expecting the same kind of game as you are, and both players can have an enjoyable experience.