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2017/06/15 01:52:45
Subject: Do You Want Greater Complexity Back? 8th edition
Traditio wrote: Rolling 1d6 to determine the number of hits is qualitatively no more random than placing a blast template and then rolling a scatter die.
It's very different because the template varies in effectiveness based on player skill and tradeoffs like "do I bunch up my unit to give everyone cover behind this small terrain piece, or do I spread out to mitigate templates". The D6/D3 shot weapons, in addition to being much less effective, are purely random now.
Furthermore, the fact that blast weapons now have a random number of hits actually means less homogenization, not more. Now space marines can fire blast weapons much more accurately than orks.
That isn't the opposite of homogenization because it has no effect on strategy. It changes the math and how point-efficient a unit may be, but how you use the blast weapon remains exactly the same. And now it's homogenized by being the same as other weapons, and model spacing/positioning no longer being a factor.
4. How does homogenization increase randomness?
It doesn't, they're two separate factors. But what homogenization does is increase the relative importance of the dice. When everything is homogenized player skill and decisions matter less, so the random factor becomes proportionally more of what decides the outcome of the game. For example, getting to move and shoot with heavy weapons means that the player who did a better job of positioning their devastator squad has less of an advantage (since their opponent can freely move their heavy weapons into a better spot), and the game becomes more about which devastator squad rolls better even if the random element is not changed.
The way it works is that there's a roll off, and then the person who loses the roll off (or wins the roll off, depending upon your perspective) then decides the kind of deployment zones to be used.
No, read the rule. It says they determine which deployment zone to use, not that they decide. And the rules for determining which deployment zone to use tell you to roll on a random table. This is GW feeling compelled to specify which player rolls the die, not GW handing a massive and borderline game-breaking advantage to one player.
Not that it's a very deep strategic element even if you rules lawyer it to work that way. You obviously choose the deployment that puts the most objectives in/near your deployment zone, with very little thought involved beyond making the obvious correct choice.
Furthermore, there's even less randomness because of the addition of the stratagem that allows you to reroll dice. Now instead of having a 1/6 chance of rolling to seize, any player with a reasonably constructed army now has a 1/3 chance to seize which, by definition, is less random.
You don't understand what "random" means. Changing the roll from 1/6 to 1/3 makes the outcomes over a long period of time more consistent, but it's still making a huge and potentially game-deciding effect depend on a single D6 roll.
There is no such thing as a hobby without politics. "Leave politics at the door" is itself a political statement, an endorsement of the status quo and an attempt to silence dissenting voices.
2017/06/15 02:07:59
Subject: Do You Want Greater Complexity Back? 8th edition
Traditio wrote: Rolling 1d6 to determine the number of hits is qualitatively no more random than placing a blast template and then rolling a scatter die.
It's very different because the template varies in effectiveness based on player skill and tradeoffs like "do I bunch up my unit to give everyone cover behind this small terrain piece, or do I spread out to mitigate templates". The D6/D3 shot weapons, in addition to being much less effective, are purely random now.
This is fixed with the Cities of Death advanced rules, where flamers and grenades do the max number of hits to unit camping in cover for that +2 cover save.
A set of "advanced rules" that in my opinion should be default rules because they blend so well with the basic rules and add much tactical dept to the game. And they aren't as "thematic" as the planetary strike rules, etc... so they feel much more natural to any game-type you are playing.
This message was edited 3 times. Last update was at 2017/06/15 02:09:24
Dakka does have White Knights and is also rather infamous for it's Black Knights. A new edition brings out the passionate and not all of them are good at expressing themselves in written form. There have been plenty of hysterical responses from both sides so far. So we descend into pointless bickering with neither side listening to each other. So posting here becomes more masturbation than conversation.
ERJAK wrote: Forcing a 40k player to keep playing 7th is basically a hate crime.
2017/06/15 02:18:55
Subject: Do You Want Greater Complexity Back? 8th edition
Galas wrote: This is fixed with the Cities of Death advanced rules, where flamers and grenades do the max number of hits to unit camping in cover for that +2 cover save.
That doesn't fix it because it's only one type of terrain, one situation (a unit camping entirely inside, rather than using it to block LOS without being inside it), and a binary choice of "use it or don't" instead of the former tradeoff.
There is no such thing as a hobby without politics. "Leave politics at the door" is itself a political statement, an endorsement of the status quo and an attempt to silence dissenting voices.
2017/06/15 02:21:23
Subject: Do You Want Greater Complexity Back? 8th edition
Galas wrote: This is fixed with the Cities of Death advanced rules, where flamers and grenades do the max number of hits to unit camping in cover for that +2 cover save.
That doesn't fix it because it's only one type of terrain, one situation (a unit camping entirely inside, rather than using it to block LOS without being inside it), and a binary choice of "use it or don't" instead of the former tradeoff.
To be honest here, the previous tradeoff was so much time consuming (And playing all the time agains't tyranids thats a BIG problem) for so little... "tactic" that at least to me it wasn't worth it as a gameplay feature.
YMMV, obviously.
(I don't even know if I used this acronym correctly )
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2017/06/15 02:22:22
Dakka does have White Knights and is also rather infamous for it's Black Knights. A new edition brings out the passionate and not all of them are good at expressing themselves in written form. There have been plenty of hysterical responses from both sides so far. So we descend into pointless bickering with neither side listening to each other. So posting here becomes more masturbation than conversation.
ERJAK wrote: Forcing a 40k player to keep playing 7th is basically a hate crime.
2017/06/15 02:29:12
Subject: Do You Want Greater Complexity Back? 8th edition
Overly competitive gamers are a negative thing in this hobby IMO. The game is too abstract to be properly balanced and the range of options too vast. This isn't chess. I'm looking for the factions to be roughly balanced with each other, with each one being able to counter the other. For it not to be overly complex and most importantly... cinematic, fluffy and fun. 8th looks like it has ticked all of these boxes for me. I'm very happy with the way things are heading.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/06/15 02:30:07
The first rule of unarmed combat is: don’t be unarmed.
2017/06/15 02:41:24
Subject: Do You Want Greater Complexity Back? 8th edition
Hollow wrote: The game is too abstract to be properly balanced and the range of options too vast.
Wrong. Much more complex games have been balanced to a much higher level than 40k, because the creators cared about balance. The problem with 40k is that GW's rule authors are lazy and incompetent, not that the task is impossible.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/06/15 02:43:04
There is no such thing as a hobby without politics. "Leave politics at the door" is itself a political statement, an endorsement of the status quo and an attempt to silence dissenting voices.
2017/06/15 02:43:40
Subject: Do You Want Greater Complexity Back? 8th edition
Casual-At-All-Costs gamers are a negative thing in this hobby IMO. GW is too incompetent to properly balance the game and the range of options too difficult to balance in just one afternoon. This isn't chess. I'm looking for the factions to be competitively balanced with each other, with each one being able to counter the other in some way. For it not to be overly complex and most importantly... cinematic, fluffy and fun. 8th has not ticked any of these boxes for me, due to homogenization, randomness, and "gameiness" ruining all of these requirements. I'm not very happy with the way things are heading.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/06/15 02:44:21
Peregrine - If you like the army buy it, and don't worry about what one random person on the internet thinks.
2017/06/15 02:46:19
Subject: Do You Want Greater Complexity Back? 8th edition
You see, I find it interesting people think chapter/legion tactics won't come back. We've already seen them start to come back, in the form of unique units. DG (and tsons) basically have an entire mini army with unique rules for half of them. I expect most named chapters/legions will get similar treatment eventually.
I think it is also worth mentioning many armies already have greater complexity than SM/CSM. Currently, SoB, IG, or Mechanicus are more interesting to play, as they have orders, acts of faith or canticles. Ynarri have soulburst and demons have sheer diversity of psychic powers and unique rules. Compared to those options, I feel the SM do feel a bit dull. Not bad, just a bit uninteresting.
2017/06/15 02:47:08
Subject: Do You Want Greater Complexity Back? 8th edition
Lets be honest here. GW is a multinational that is run by Casual-At-All-Costs gamers, so is obvious what his is target audience.
That mentality appear to change since Roundtree. We can say, with reasonable criticism, that they are at best mediocre at balance... but at least this time, they are trying!
In the past, they just shruged all the criticism about the balance of the game! Is just madness if you think about a multinational doing that...
But in the other hand... Warhammer is made to last, not like videogames or pokemon
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/06/15 02:47:25
Dakka does have White Knights and is also rather infamous for it's Black Knights. A new edition brings out the passionate and not all of them are good at expressing themselves in written form. There have been plenty of hysterical responses from both sides so far. So we descend into pointless bickering with neither side listening to each other. So posting here becomes more masturbation than conversation.
ERJAK wrote: Forcing a 40k player to keep playing 7th is basically a hate crime.
2017/06/15 02:53:52
Subject: Do You Want Greater Complexity Back? 8th edition
jeff white wrote: Yes. Sufficient to better simulate battle at the scale of the game.
Shouldn't take much...
What I really want is a truly scalable rules system...
I don't even know what the bolded means.
What do you mean by that?
Gw almost had/has it.
What I am talking about is a system designed to work from RPG through planetary/economic conflict and resolution.
So basically an RPG into a squad/team level RPG into a 40 skirmish into a 40k game with more points and more points until the table gets too small into epic scale and titans into battle fleet Gothic and from there into a multi system trade/economic and resource management sort of game.
The idea is to be able to follow a hobbyist from developing his first few models through the RPG into collecting larger forces and so on.
And to be able to simulate different levels of a narrative campaign for example.
One need not play all games at all levels of organization of course.
40k with 2000 points a side will be played with a certain complexity to reflect the details that the players want to see on the field
And ultimately it is up to the players to decide which rules they will use.
What I am looking for is something like the advanced rules of the current book but with depth, to use the word that people here use when they don't like the word complexity because complexity can be there for no good reason...
For example in the current edition I think that the way that cover is ruled is terrible.
It loses the detail that I want to see on the table, which is that individual models would be judged by their own positions relative terrain. As it is the cover rules apply to whole units. That is fine for larger scale games and should be offered for fast play at the loss of detail.
But I would prefer to use more exacting cover and terrain rules in standard games. Cover rules that reflect more detail.
I want a rules system designed to reflect different levels of complexity or depth on the table and that can to some degree be used sort of plug and play. If someone wanted to use the levelling up RPG type system designed for small campaign style long running games for their entire fifteen thousand point chaos collection the. He or she could do so... It would take a lot of time to play a game let alone keep records of all the models between. But it would be possible. Likewise if some people wanted into play fast games with little cmplxity reflecting less battlefield detail the they could opt for the rules applying to a lower level of detail.
This message was edited 3 times. Last update was at 2017/06/15 02:57:49
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2017/06/15 06:25:44
Subject: Do You Want Greater Complexity Back? 8th edition
Peregrine wrote:It's very different because the template varies in effectiveness based on player skill and tradeoffs like "do I bunch up my unit to give everyone cover behind this small terrain piece, or do I spread out to mitigate templates". The D6/D3 shot weapons, in addition to being much less effective, are purely random now.
I disagree with you. In 4th edition, what you are saying would have been true. The way that it worked in 4th edition is that you select a target, place the blast marker over a model, and then roll to hit. That's much less random, and that does make model positioning much more important.
In 5th to 7th edition, it's still true that model positioning is important, but it's simply not true to say that what happens is more or less random. No matter how closely I bunch up my models, you could have a BS 5 model fire a blast and have it scatter off of the table. Or worse, it could just as easily scatter onto one of your models.
The reason that I say that 8th edition is less random is because what happens is based on the model's ballistic skill, not a scatter die, and the range of results are much more predicable.
That isn't the opposite of homogenization because it has no effect on strategy. It changes the math and how point-efficient a unit may be, but how you use the blast weapon remains exactly the same. And now it's homogenized by being the same as other weapons, and model spacing/positioning no longer being a factor.
I understand your point. That's true enough, although I'm not sure it's bad thing. Personally, I like the homogenization. It makes for a more streamlined game that has less potential for the endless frustrations that was 6th and 7th edition.
It doesn't, they're two separate factors. But what homogenization does is increase the relative importance of the dice. When everything is homogenized player skill and decisions matter less, so the random factor becomes proportionally more of what decides the outcome of the game. For example, getting to move and shoot with heavy weapons means that the player who did a better job of positioning their devastator squad has less of an advantage (since their opponent can freely move their heavy weapons into a better spot), and the game becomes more about which devastator squad rolls better even if the random element is not changed.
I'm not sure how what you are saying is true.
Would you explain this at greater length?
And I think that you are overstating even the heavy weapons thing. Devastators have a move characteristic of 6 inches. It's not like devastators are flying across the map, shooting at full BS, and then charging.
Literally all that this means is that devastator marines got their effective threat range increased by an additional 6 inches.
And no, that doesn't reduce it to a dice game with no strategy involved. Again, alternating deployments are a thing now. Vehicles are mostly faster now.
And as mild as a -1 penalty to hit sounds, it still provides a massive disincentive to moving and shooting...or shooting at flying vehicles, for that matter.
Besides, how important was any of this in 6th or 7th edition? You played Leman Russ tanks. Many Eldar players used scatbikes. Many SM players likewise spammed bikes.
It's not like 8th edition somehow has less strategic depth because of things like this. 7th edition was no better.
No, read the rule. It says they determine which deployment zone to use, not that they decide. And the rules for determining which deployment zone to use tell you to roll on a random table. This is GW feeling compelled to specify which player rolls the die, not GW handing a massive and borderline game-breaking advantage to one player.
Not that it's a very deep strategic element even if you rules lawyer it to work that way. You obviously choose the deployment that puts the most objectives in/near your deployment zone, with very little thought involved beyond making the obvious correct choice.
You appear to be correct about this.
That makes no sense to me.
The non-random selection of deployment zones in Only War is fine. And I think that you are incorrect about this, Peregrine. It's not a "massive and borderline game-breaking advantage." The way that Only War balances this is by allowing one player to choose the deployment zones, but then allowing the other player to choose which deployment zones he wants.
So if we are playing with a single objective, and it would be in a dawn of war deployment zone...sure, you can choose dawn of war deployment...but chances are, I'm taking the deployment zone with the objective.
This message was edited 3 times. Last update was at 2017/06/15 06:33:55
2017/06/15 06:40:51
Subject: Do You Want Greater Complexity Back? 8th edition
Traditio wrote: In 5th to 7th edition, it's still true that model positioning is important, but it's simply not true to say that what happens is more or less random. No matter how closely I bunch up my models, you could have a BS 5 model fire a blast and have it scatter off of the table. Or worse, it could just as easily scatter onto one of your models.
Do you understand what a bell curve of probability is? That BS 5 model's shot could scatter off the table, but the average scatter was only ~2". And what it translated to in real games was that blast weapons would almost always hit something, but rarely hit tons of models unless you packed everything into ideal template formation. Contrast this with 8th, where it's all random and you have equal chances of hitting 1 model or 6 models.
I understand your point. That's true enough, although I'm not sure it's bad thing. Personally, I like the homogenization. It makes for a more streamlined game that has less potential for the endlessly frustrations that was 6th and 7th edition.
No, it makes a bloated mess of a game. The homogenization means that you still have all of the rules for things like flyers, heavy weapons, etc, but they have greatly reduced importance from a strategic point of view. IOW, the game is now much shallower but only lost a small amount of complexity, if any. Maybe that's fine if you want to play a "game" where skill and strategy are irrelevant and all you do is mindlessly roll dice, but for most of us that is not a good thing.
Would you explain this at greater length?
It's simple. Imagine one of those "roll a die and move that many spaces" games for small children. There's no strategy or skill involved, all that matters is your luck with the dice. That's an extreme case, but it's the direction that 40k is moving in with 8th. If all unit types are homogenized and there's little strategic depth it means that proportionally more of the outcome of the game is decided by dice.
And I think that you are overstating even the heavy weapons thing. Devastators have a move characteristic of 6 inches. It's not like devastators are flying across the map, shooting at full BS, and then charging.
It's still a significant difference because now the difference between, say, a bolter and a lascannon completely favors the lascannon. There's no more reason to avoid taking heavy weapons now that they're just like other guns, except better.
It's not a "massive and borderline game-breaking advantage."
There is no such thing as a hobby without politics. "Leave politics at the door" is itself a political statement, an endorsement of the status quo and an attempt to silence dissenting voices.
2017/06/15 06:44:43
Subject: Do You Want Greater Complexity Back? 8th edition
Peregrine wrote:No, it makes a bloated mess of a game. The homogenization means that you still have all of the rules for things like flyers, heavy weapons, etc, but they have greatly reduced importance from a strategic point of view. IOW, the game is now much shallower but only lost a small amount of complexity, if any. Maybe that's fine if you want to play a "game" where skill and strategy are irrelevant and all you do is mindlessly roll dice, but for most of us that is not a good thing.
Yes, it's true that taking a landraider no longer completely shuts down S7 or inferior shooting altogether, and it does mean that fliers are no longer practically immune to most weapons in the game, but I don't think that equates to a lessening of strategic depth.
If anything, it increases the strategic depth, because now you actually have to weigh your options. If my devastators can fire krak at your flier and hit on 4s, or if I can fire at a landraider and hit on 3s, that's a real in-game player choice.
Likewise, if my sternguard can fire special issue boltguns either at your landraider or your MEQs, again, that's a real in-game player choice.
You also see this with lasguns and rhinos. Yes, you technically can kill a rhino with lasguns now. But if you are shooting a rhino with lasguns, you probably won't deal much damage, and those are shots that COULD have been directed at something else instead.
It's simple. Imagine one of those "roll a die and move that many spaces" games for small children. There's no strategy or skill involved, all that matters is your luck with the dice. That's an extreme case, but it's the direction that 40k is moving in with 8th. If all unit types are homogenized and there's little strategic depth it means that proportionally more of the outcome of the game is decided by dice.
How was 7th edition any better?
It's still a significant difference because now the difference between, say, a bolter and a lascannon completely favors the lascannon. There's no more reason to avoid taking heavy weapons now that they're just like other guns, except better.
It is a reason to pick a meltagun or a plasma gun over a lascannon, however.
Besides, was lascannon vs. boltgun a real choice even in 7th?
Weren't you the one saying in another thread that running naked tactical squads shouldn't be a real choice?
Verviedi wrote:Also, the over-randomness. Timmy can't win games because he's bad with strategy, so GW added a million dice rolls to the game so he can always feel like a winner by moving the outcome to almost solely random results instead of actual skill.
7th had the same issue, but 8th is worse.
Can you provide specific examples?
I'm finding that 8th edition has much less randomness. You technically can roll for warlord traits and psychic powers, but the rules also give you the choice to pick the ones you want rather than rolling for them. Likewise, instead of random deployment zones, you can pick what kind of deployment zones you want. There's even less randomness in terms of actual deployment. Alternating deployment means greater tactical depth and meaningful strategic player interaction.
One thing that I really like about 8th edition is that much more depends on player skill rather than sheer luck or having the most OP rules.
BrianDavion wrote: Yes Tradio, everyone wants Chapter/Legion tactics back
Everyone?
I certainly don't. I prefer the HQ AoE buffs over the passive chapter tactics and legion rules.
There's a lot of random shot weapons, random damage rolls, and random effects on weapons. The alternate deployment and warlord trait tables being fixed are good, yes, but in general the amount of dice being rolled went up, not down.
The reason random damage and hits exist is to negate the in-game mathhammering. If you have a Rhino with 9 wounds and you enemy has two devastators with lasscanons that do 4 damage each, you are 100% sure that they can't kill you. If each lasscanon does d6 of damage then it becomes a game of playing with the chances of being sucesfull. You can push the limits for a great risk-great reward situation if you wish. Just like the Plasma Guns having two firing modes, one powerfull with overcharge and other normal without the ristk of blowing yourself.
You can call that randomess and a bad mechanic. I can agree that people is totally entitled to not like it. But is a legitimate way to create a gameplay experience and it has is reasons to exist. I like it, so good for me. You don't, bad for you, and I say this in a honest way. For every decision a person making a ruleset takes, theres a group that is gonna like or love it, and other that is gona dislike or hate it.
I certainly agree there, that different people like different things. After all, we're not all infallible robots (note: please fix this).
I'm a fan of that scenario. Being able to arrange things so the constants align and they can't kill you. It allows for tactical play to get the math JUST right so that you can get your Rhino up to where it needs to be.
except randomness is part of what MAKES 40K. I shoot at your unit with my tatical marines, I roll the dice, and maybe my tac Marines hit. or maybe they wipe out your key squad and I win, a key element of the game comes down to who got lucky with the dice. it happens and it can be what makes 40k exciting. the people who keep insisting they remove all random from 40k, we have a table top war game without any randomness. It's called Chess.
Opinions are not facts please don't confuse the two
2017/06/15 07:02:23
Subject: Do You Want Greater Complexity Back? 8th edition
No, the problem was indisputably the rules. If the rules were well-written and balanced then no amount of player optimization can break the game. Abusive lists can only happen when the rules are garbage.
Remember Peregrine, it's always easier to blame your equals than your Masters.
Also, count me in on the "we need Depth, no complexity" and the "random shots and random damage per shot is garbage" fields, please.
"Let them that are happy talk of piety; we that would work our adversary must take no account of laws."http://back2basing.blogspot.pt/
2017/06/15 07:03:54
Subject: Do You Want Greater Complexity Back? 8th edition
I don't know why you think not getting Chapter Tactics back is even an option. Do you see the "choose your own" keywords? There's no reason to make those except to leave the door open for future subfactions. So not only will you see Chapter Tactics and Legion Tactics again. Before long you're going to see Sept Tactics, Klan Taktiks, Dynasty Tactics, Forgeworld Tactics, etc. etc.
The old meta is dead and the new meta struggles to be born. Now is the time of munchkins.
2017/06/15 07:05:35
Subject: Do You Want Greater Complexity Back? 8th edition
Traditio wrote: Yes, it's true that taking a landraider no longer completely shuts down S7 or inferior shooting altogether, and it does mean that fliers are no longer practically immune to most weapons in the game, but I don't think that equates to a lessening of strategic depth.
It absolutely means that strategic depth is reduced, because there are harsher consequences for failure. Did you neglect to take AA or high-strength weapons? Did you deploy your anti-LR/flyer threats poorly? You aren't killing those targets. But in 8th those consequences are removed. Sure, your AA specialist might be a bit better at killing flyers, but even if you botch your use of the AA specialist (or don't bother to bring it at all) your other weapons are almost as good. The difference between a good strategy and a bad one is reduced to a 25% damage penalty, and that's a significant reduction in depth.
If my devastators can fire krak at your flier and hit on 4s, or if I can fire at a landraider and hit on 3s, that's a real in-game player choice.
Except now there is no longer any downside to taking the krak missile devastators. You don't need to take AA specialists and figure out a way to use them effectively, you just take a bunch of missile launchers and know that you can roll dice at all possible targets no matter what you do. The fact that you can throw krak missiles freely at pretty much any possible target is a really bad thing! In fact, it's the same reason people hated scatter laser spam for being too mindlessly effective.
How was 7th edition any better?
Have you even read anything I've been posting here? I've been giving you examples. And, as I said, 7th edition had its issues with strategic depth, but relative to 8th those issues had more to do with specific overpowered units/formations than the core rules. 8th edition strips depth from the core rules, and it remains to be seen whether balance can hold up in the long run or if we'll end up back at 7th edition levels of power creep and poor design on top of the shallower core rules.
Besides, was lascannon vs. boltgun a real choice even in 7th?
Yes, assuming the squad wanted to move. I regularly leave off the heavy weapons on my veteran squads because they'll never get to shoot (or at least shoot effectively, but snap shots were a bad idea).
Weren't you the one saying in another thread that running naked tactical squads shouldn't be a real choice?
There's a difference between "naked" and "taking every possible upgrade". And there's a difference between taking a bolter tactical squad for a specific purpose and taking an army of nothing but naked tactical squads, and I only rejected the second option.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/06/15 07:06:21
There is no such thing as a hobby without politics. "Leave politics at the door" is itself a political statement, an endorsement of the status quo and an attempt to silence dissenting voices.
2017/06/15 07:06:19
Subject: Do You Want Greater Complexity Back? 8th edition
Verviedi wrote:Also, the over-randomness. Timmy can't win games because he's bad with strategy, so GW added a million dice rolls to the game so he can always feel like a winner by moving the outcome to almost solely random results instead of actual skill.
7th had the same issue, but 8th is worse.
Can you provide specific examples?
I'm finding that 8th edition has much less randomness. You technically can roll for warlord traits and psychic powers, but the rules also give you the choice to pick the ones you want rather than rolling for them. Likewise, instead of random deployment zones, you can pick what kind of deployment zones you want. There's even less randomness in terms of actual deployment. Alternating deployment means greater tactical depth and meaningful strategic player interaction.
One thing that I really like about 8th edition is that much more depends on player skill rather than sheer luck or having the most OP rules.
BrianDavion wrote: Yes Tradio, everyone wants Chapter/Legion tactics back
Everyone?
I certainly don't. I prefer the HQ AoE buffs over the passive chapter tactics and legion rules.
There's a lot of random shot weapons, random damage rolls, and random effects on weapons. The alternate deployment and warlord trait tables being fixed are good, yes, but in general the amount of dice being rolled went up, not down.
The reason random damage and hits exist is to negate the in-game mathhammering. If you have a Rhino with 9 wounds and you enemy has two devastators with lasscanons that do 4 damage each, you are 100% sure that they can't kill you. If each lasscanon does d6 of damage then it becomes a game of playing with the chances of being sucesfull. You can push the limits for a great risk-great reward situation if you wish. Just like the Plasma Guns having two firing modes, one powerfull with overcharge and other normal without the ristk of blowing yourself.
You can call that randomess and a bad mechanic. I can agree that people is totally entitled to not like it. But is a legitimate way to create a gameplay experience and it has is reasons to exist. I like it, so good for me. You don't, bad for you, and I say this in a honest way. For every decision a person making a ruleset takes, theres a group that is gonna like or love it, and other that is gona dislike or hate it.
I certainly agree there, that different people like different things. After all, we're not all infallible robots (note: please fix this).
I'm a fan of that scenario. Being able to arrange things so the constants align and they can't kill you. It allows for tactical play to get the math JUST right so that you can get your Rhino up to where it needs to be.
except randomness is part of what MAKES 40K. I shoot at your unit with my tatical marines, I roll the dice, and maybe my tac Marines hit. or maybe they wipe out your key squad and I win, a key element of the game comes down to who got lucky with the dice. it happens and it can be what makes 40k exciting. the people who keep insisting they remove all random from 40k, we have a table top war game without any randomness. It's called Chess.
The problem is when we are getting to the point of:
- rolling dice to see how many shots you take;
- rolling dice to see if they hit;
- rolling to see if they wound;
- rolling to see if the armour saves or not;
- rolling to see how many wounds they cause per shot.
And this is for one weapon. And then you have rules (like the Ven dread's "shrug off wounds" one) that add in yet one more roll to this bunch.
That's too much randomness even for 40k.
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Hollow wrote: Overly competitive gamers are a negative thing in this hobby IMO. The game is too abstract to be properly balanced and the range of options too vast. This isn't chess. I'm looking for the factions to be roughly balanced with each other, with each one being able to counter the other. For it not to be overly complex and most importantly... cinematic, fluffy and fun. 8th looks like it has ticked all of these boxes for me. I'm very happy with the way things are heading.
Stop blaming the player base. Seriously. Overly competitive gamers exist everywhere, in every game. They were not the bane of 7th ed. Sloppy, bloated rule making was.
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2017/06/15 07:11:57
"Let them that are happy talk of piety; we that would work our adversary must take no account of laws."http://back2basing.blogspot.pt/
2017/06/15 09:02:06
Subject: Do You Want Greater Complexity Back? 8th edition
Peregrine wrote:It absolutely means that strategic depth is reduced, because there are harsher consequences for failure.
In what sense?
In 7th edition, lasguns couldn't hurt a rhino, so you wouldn't even bother wasting the lasgun shots. You'd target something else.
Now lasguns can potentially (though mostly will not) damage a rhino.
That means that the IG player might actually waste a round of shooting on a rhino when he could have shot something else to much greater effect.
The result of this is not that less player skill and fewer in-game decisions are required. The result of this is that greater player skill and more in-game decisions are required. That's a good thing, not a bad thing.
The result of this is that list composition alone normally won't win you games.. in most circumstances, you actually have to be good at the game once dice actually start rolling.
I'm aware, based on previous comments by you, that you may not like this. But I'm loving this.
Did you neglect to take AA or high-strength weapons? Did you deploy your anti-LR/flyer threats poorly? You aren't killing those targets. But in 8th those consequences are removed. Sure, your AA specialist might be a bit better at killing flyers, but even if you botch your use of the AA specialist (or don't bother to bring it at all) your other weapons are almost as good. The difference between a good strategy and a bad one is reduced to a 25% damage penalty, and that's a significant reduction in depth.
The consequences aren't removed, and other weapons aren't "almost as good." Boltguns are not reliably going to take down flying vehicles in 8th edition.
Again, yes, it means that you normally aren't forced into auto-lose situations simply because of list composition, but it certainly doesn't mean that anything is more or less as good as anything against more or less anything.
If you have a list composed entirely of tactical marines with boltguns, you are likely to struggle to take down Imperial Knights.
And again, in practice, in game, you are simply overstating the effects of "homogenization." That -1 to hit for a flier, in practice, means that it is much less likely to get shot at.
Except now there is no longer any downside to taking the krak missile devastators. You don't need to take AA specialists and figure out a way to use them effectively, you just take a bunch of missile launchers and know that you can roll dice at all possible targets no matter what you do. The fact that you can throw krak missiles freely at pretty much any possible target is a really bad thing! In fact, it's the same reason people hated scatter laser spam for being too mindlessly effective.
I am surprised that you actually would compare krak missiles to scatter lasers.
People didn't hate scatter laser spam because it was effective against most targets. People hated scatter lasers on windrider jetbikes because it was far too effective compared to the points investment required to take them.
If scatbikes were to have cost 100 ppm, nobody would have complained about them being OP.
Yes, MLs are effective against any target. That said, they are optimal against almost NO target, and an ML costs as much as a lascannon.
Yes, spamming missile launchers now seems to be a viable strategy.
But it's not an automatic win button, and it's not an optimal strategy.
Yes, a krak missile can kill a terminator. But grav cannons will kill them better. Yes, a krak missile can wound a landraider. But a lascannon can do it better. Yes, frag missiles can take down boyz. But heavy bolters are better for the job.
It's funny that you even mention missile launchers.
At the end of the day, I agree that MLs are the best weapon in the SM armory, but only because of their versatility. MLs in 8th edition function exactly as they should: they are more an automatic "not lose" button than an automatic win button.
I have to ask, Peregrine, have you played a game of 8th edition yet?
I do think that LRBT spam is probably one of the worst lists that you can take now.
But if you take a combined arms army, I think you'll find that 8th isn't as bad as you think it is, and that the homogenization hasn't reduced everything to essentially a giant game of Yahtzee.
This message was edited 3 times. Last update was at 2017/06/15 09:06:12
2017/06/15 09:24:17
Subject: Do You Want Greater Complexity Back? 8th edition
Traditio wrote: Straw men, not reading what I said, general demonstrations of poor understanding of game design.
I could go through point by point and explain why you're wrong, but I'd just be repeating myself and honestly I'm getting tired of it.
There is no such thing as a hobby without politics. "Leave politics at the door" is itself a political statement, an endorsement of the status quo and an attempt to silence dissenting voices.
2017/06/15 09:30:41
Subject: Do You Want Greater Complexity Back? 8th edition
I swear, 'homogenization' is the new buzzword everyone likes to just throw around these days.
In all seriousness, chapter tactics and legion rules haven't gone anywhere. They're coming in their codices. The only reason every single army was released from the start was because literally every single army was incompatible with 8th edition, so they had to bunch up a lot of band aid compendiums, otherwise 8th edition would have no armies that were playable and only 1 army at a time who got the codex would be able to play, which would be a business practice that not even GW would be dumb enough to pull off.
So even though we actually have the rules for each army in 8th, you actually have to consider the game completely reset and with no codices released. That's why we don't have relics, army specific stratagems, chapter tactics, warlord traits and more. So don't make threads about 'chapter tactics are gone from 8th', no they are temporally gone on release date, nothing else.
2017/06/15 09:44:08
Subject: Do You Want Greater Complexity Back? 8th edition
Lithlandis Stormcrow wrote:Careful there - you're making claims that this edition can't produce the same kind of issues that 7th did without the edition even being out yet.
The very existence of the Conscripts situation alone should tell you otherwise.
Of course the possibility of overpowered and underpowered units/options still exist.
In fact, however, I think that they are now much less common.
If you ask most people who have familiarized themselves with 8th edition, 8th is currently much more balanced than 7th was. Yes, this does come at the price of greater "homogenization," but what does that mean in practice? It means that you usually won't win based simply on list construction.
Peregrine mentioned missile launchers, but no, missile launchers won't win you games. They'll keep you from losing games, but they won't, in and of themselves, win you games.
The exceptions, so far as I can see, are tyrranids and IG. Otherwise, 8th edition is far more "fair," by a mile, than 7th edition ever was.
The danger, imho, is GW re-introducing more complexity back into 8th. If they re-introduce chapter tactics, legion rules, etc., that would be a bad thing.
2017/06/15 09:45:13
Subject: Do You Want Greater Complexity Back? 8th edition
You very well may like the fact that, prior to 8th edition, games could be won or lost depending solely upon list composition.
Now they mostly can't.
I'm sorry if that's too "homogenizing" for you. But I like it, and most people seem to like it.
I'm also sorry if you were depending upon the ability to shut down some lists entirely based simply on the models you brought to the table.
Now you mostly can't.
Sad day for you if you were.
And I'm also sorry that LRBTs seem to be terrible right now.
And I mean that in all sincerity.
I wish that LRBTs were better (I don't think that a 2+ armor save for LRBTs would be unreasonable) and commissars and conscripts were worse.
But, as of now, they aren't.
Careful there - you're making claims that this edition can't produce the same kind of issues that 7th did without the edition even being out yet.
The very existence of the Conscripts situation alone should tell you otherwise.
Kek! Say what? Conscripts are not even close to being broken. People haven't played with scions plasma spam then, holy moly you're in for a horrible surprise then.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/06/15 09:45:50
2017/06/15 09:46:47
Subject: Do You Want Greater Complexity Back? 8th edition
You very well may like the fact that, prior to 8th edition, games could be won or lost depending solely upon list composition.
Now they mostly can't.
I'm sorry if that's too "homogenizing" for you. But I like it, and most people seem to like it.
I'm also sorry if you were depending upon the ability to shut down some lists entirely based simply on the models you brought to the table.
Now you mostly can't.
Sad day for you if you were.
And I'm also sorry that LRBTs seem to be terrible right now.
And I mean that in all sincerity.
I wish that LRBTs were better (I don't think that a 2+ armor save for LRBTs would be unreasonable) and commissars and conscripts were worse.
But, as of now, they aren't.
Careful there - you're making claims that this edition can't produce the same kind of issues that 7th did without the edition even being out yet.
The very existence of the Conscripts situation alone should tell you otherwise.
Kek! Say what? Conscripts are not even close to being broken. People haven't played with scions plasma spam then, holy moly you're in for a horrible surprise then.
Haven't had the opportunity to see that in action yet, no. Will need to see if I can convince the IG player to bring that up this weekend.
"Let them that are happy talk of piety; we that would work our adversary must take no account of laws."http://back2basing.blogspot.pt/
2017/06/15 09:48:22
Subject: Do You Want Greater Complexity Back? 8th edition
Traditio wrote: I'm also sorry if you were depending upon the ability to shut down some lists entirely based simply on the models you brought to the table.
That has nothing to do with it, so please stop with the ridiculous straw man arguments.
There is no such thing as a hobby without politics. "Leave politics at the door" is itself a political statement, an endorsement of the status quo and an attempt to silence dissenting voices.
2017/06/15 09:53:40
Subject: Do You Want Greater Complexity Back? 8th edition
Lithlandis Stormcrow wrote:Careful there - you're making claims that this edition can't produce the same kind of issues that 7th did without the edition even being out yet.
The very existence of the Conscripts situation alone should tell you otherwise.
Of course the possibility of overpowered and underpowered units/options still exist.
In fact, however, I think that they are now much less common.
If you ask most people who have familiarized themselves with 8th edition, 8th is currently much more balanced than 7th was. Yes, this does come at the price of greater "homogenization," but what does that mean in practice? It means that you usually won't win based simply on list construction.
Peregrine mentioned missile launchers, but no, missile launchers won't win you games. They'll keep you from losing games, but they won't, in and of themselves, win you games.
The exceptions, so far as I can see, are tyrranids and IG. Otherwise, 8th edition is far more "fair," by a mile, than 7th edition ever was.
The danger, imho, is GW re-introducing more complexity back into 8th. If they re-introduce chapter tactics, legion rules, etc., that would be a bad thing.
I won't dispute the fact that 8th so far seems more balanced than 7th - the games I've played so far point to that, and I understand what achieving this balance cost us. However we do not have an exact grasp of what we will see on a hyper competitive environment yet - the exact tiers, builds, matchups and all that jazz. The autowin/lose extremes will soon manifest there.
We will have to wait and see. I don't expect we will wait long, though.
"Let them that are happy talk of piety; we that would work our adversary must take no account of laws."http://back2basing.blogspot.pt/