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2018/01/17 18:22:26
Subject: The 40K Adeptus Custodes News and Rumors Thread
Galas wrote: ...Balance is good. But the mantra that "Balance to the high competitive leagues and everyone will benefit from that" isn't actually true...
Addendum: Balancing everything against high-tier competitive things only works if you actually balance EVERYTHING that way. If you only balance new stuff around high-tier competitive things without fixing things that aren't you may be expanding the tournament meta but you're also taking the chunk of things you sell that aren't competitive and shoving them further to the side where nobody will buy or play them because any random scrub showing up with a shiny golden division of giant infantrymen or a bizzare bird thing with horned nipples can blast them off the table without effort.
Further addendum: If you only attempt to balance the game by buffing things all you'll produce is power creep/new-army-wins. Things like Dark Reapers/Magnus are as much a problem for the competitive scene as they are for casual players, because they heavily restrict what you can and can't play; if you assume that the best units in the game are "normal" and use them as a pivot to balance other things you'll inevitably end up after some error with something better, which then has to be the "new normal" again because you're balancing everything against the best units in the game, and you keep squeezing the tournament tier into a new set of armies that are just a bit more powerful than the last set. What you should be doing is finding mediocre things and using them as a benchmark for nerfing units that are too powerful and for buffing bad units at the same time.
changemod wrote: I'm not quite sure where this impression GW have that flyers are super fragile came from actually: Other than the hit bonus, the flakk missiles on the jetbikes are strictly worse than just firing normal anti-vehicle shot.... And a -1 is nowhere near the penalty snap firing was last edition.
They're not just going to be used against Flyers.
They're going to be used against anything with the Fly keyword. There are things that have Fly but aren't Vehicles. Crisis Suits and Flyrants immediately spring to mind.
The Melta shots are better at damaging a Flyrant and and better vs Crisis Suits. only if the Crisis Suits has drones nearby the flakk is a bit better. so if the flakk is not way cheaper there is no point in taking it. because the melta version is much more versatile.
It's a missile, friend. You select the firing mode. You don't pay for both.
Ah yes you're right forgot about that. So sometimes it will better to use the flakk profile.
Not really. The flak profile is worse against almost everything - and definitely against the flyers that it’s intended to kill. If you want to kill gun drones then sure, the flakk missile is marginally better at that.
changemod wrote: I'm not quite sure where this impression GW have that flyers are super fragile came from actually: Other than the hit bonus, the flakk missiles on the jetbikes are strictly worse than just firing normal anti-vehicle shot.... And a -1 is nowhere near the penalty snap firing was last edition.
I agree the flakk missiles are only better when shooting targets like Gargoyles. Even shooting SM jump troops take more damage from the melta shoots.
But the hit bonus doesn't matter against anyone that doesn't have native -1 to hit. Remember they're starting from BS2+.
The jetbikes are? Was that spoiled somewhere? I've seen BS2+ on the vehicles and the Shield-Captain, but index Custodians are still BS3+ and I'm not expecting GW to put across-the-board BS2+ down given how rare it is generally.
Actually yesterday’s preview stated that standard Custodian Guards would be BS2+, so it’s reasonable to expect that the jet bikes will be as well.
The jet bike stratagem to charge in the opponent’s turn is phenomenally powerful. It lets a unit fight twice a turn, with rerolls to wound from its spears. Your opponent has to either charge the bikers himself to prevent this or dedicate really significant firepower to them, while your foot-slogging guys leg it up the field.
It’ll be interesting to see how many points these jetbikers cost. I think they’ll be right at the top of most people’s target priority list, so might not last all that long. They’ll also tend to go outside of the rumoured -1 to hit bubble from the vexillas. At a guess I’d put the price of the missile launchers around 25+ points, and if that’s the case it might be better to go for hurricane bolters on what is, after all, kind of a suicide unit.
2018/01/17 18:25:07
Subject: The 40K Adeptus Custodes News and Rumors Thread
On the question of balance, personally I think it matters at all levels of the game - though as a tournament player maybe I could be counted on to think that.
Basically if fielding any model - such as Magnus - makes you “that guy” then the rules for that model are wrong. That’s because not everyone who wants to field their legion’s primarch is a dead-eyed WAAC tournament junkie like me. Some people might just like the model, or maybe some kid will get given it for Christmas or something. If one kid gets Given Magnus and their sibling is given... I don’t know, a storm surge or something... then before long you’ll have one happy kid and one sad one.
I guess I’ve never understood what’s so bad about having rules that are fair, from a fluff player’s perspective.
I wasn't at any moment trying to say that balance isn't important. It is. But whats it a balance factor in ultra-competitive isn't in a casual enviroment. In a casual enviroment is more important to have rules that are fair, that don't make a player feel dirty, or that aren't frustrating to play agaisn't. Is something very subjetive yes, but it exist nonetheles. In ultra-competitive that isn't as important, theres always gonna be a "meta" (yes, theres always a meta, even in ultra balanced games, go to any kind of game and you'll always have 15-20% of that game at minimun "out of the meta"), so as long as a good bunch of stuff is competitive for every faction thats good enough, because it doesn't matter that the second option is 3% less powerfull than the first option. In the highest level of play everyone is gonna play the first option barring some one that wants to play "anti-meta".
Thats why in Super Smash Bros Brawl, 78% of the character used in tournament are Fox, with the second one character most used, Falco, is 18%.
I gotta disagree with your posts in this thread. I was Master league in SC2 and rank similarly in many other games. You balance at the top level and it works for the lower level. You do NOT balance them separately (and doing so is not Riot or Blizzard's actual method). Anybody who is not at the top tier can overcome a problem unit or comp by "getting good", as it were, and improving to where they can handle that.
My local meta for 40k is absolute, cutthroat competitive meta. Every match is practice for a GT and even our 'narrative' campaigns still run strong lists. They just have a story context. If Custodes aren't competitive I literally cannot justify buying them.
Your idea to make them "balanced" (not sure what that even means since it's a relative term) and to nerf the rest is nice, but in practice almost never done. You have only to look to those e-sports for reference. Nerfs happen, but buffing units is the preferred method. And let's face it, GW will not realistically have the stomach for large scale nerfs so that's a pipe dream. Stuff needs to come in competitive and the rest buffed.
This will be my last post in this tangent because this is offtopic. But I disagree with your disagreement. Using a blizzard game has an example, Heroes of the Storm (His game that I most play after stopping playing WoW), they actually have the "casual" meta and the "competitive" meta as two different things to balance heroes around. One example is the change to Stealth heroes. In competitive meta they where useless, nobody used them because everybody was capable of spotting them even in invisible mode. But in casual play they where totally unfun to play. Basically where characters to punish noobs to the game. So they where changed not because they weren't competitive in the high leagues (They still aren't). They where changed because their game mechanics where sensed as "toxic".
Other example is Medivh, a hero so complicated that is busted in competitive but totally useless in casual, because is a hero totally reliable of the rest of your team responding. And they don't change it even being useless in casual play, because they know that if they make him viable in Casual play, it will make him totally overpowered in competitive meta. Other example was a change to how a Muradin talent interact with his jump, giving him armour. It was a talent alwais picked in competitive meta, but nobody in casual took it because it was considered "bad" for the noobish. So they changed it to make it usable for "casual" play without making it "busted" for competitive leagues.
What I was trying to say with all of this related to Warhammer40k and Custodes? Balance is good. But the mantra that "Balance to the high competitive leagues and everyone will benefit from that" isn't actually true. The "casual" crow and the "competitive" crown are two separated groups with totally different mindsets to what they want from their games. That your solution to casuals having problems in a competitive enviroment is to "git gud" shows that you have a "competitive" crown mindset. Is not a bad thing of course, but this is exactly what I'm saying when I talk about the internet people putting ALL of the emphasis in the most high level tournament level of play.
But I agree with you. I don't think GW will have the guts to have big nerfs across factions like Blizzard did with the Support nerf in HOTS.
League of legends has this same issue, champions like Azir and Ryze have abysmal winrates in low level leagues but are auto pick-ban at higher skill levels, Ryze has even been completely overhauled like...7 or 8 times for this exact reason. You see this a lot in warhammer, just with a slight twist. We all know what the 'statistically most powerful' builds of each faction are(for the most part) and yet we can see pretty much constant evidence of pretty much the same imperial guard list coming in 1st and 101st at tournaments and other such similar things.
2018/01/17 18:27:31
Subject: The 40K Adeptus Custodes News and Rumors Thread
Galas wrote: ...Balance is good. But the mantra that "Balance to the high competitive leagues and everyone will benefit from that" isn't actually true...
Addendum: Balancing everything against high-tier competitive things only works if you actually balance EVERYTHING that way. If you only balance new stuff around high-tier competitive things without fixing things that aren't you may be expanding the tournament meta but you're also taking the chunk of things you sell that aren't competitive and shoving them further to the side where nobody will buy or play them because any random scrub showing up with a shiny golden division of giant infantrymen or a bizzare bird thing with horned nipples can blast them off the table without effort.
Further addendum: If you only attempt to balance the game by buffing things all you'll produce is power creep/new-army-wins. Things like Dark Reapers/Magnus are as much a problem for the competitive scene as they are for casual players, because they heavily restrict what you can and can't play; if you assume that the best units in the game are "normal" and use them as a pivot to balance other things you'll inevitably end up after some error with something better, which then has to be the "new normal" again because you're balancing everything against the best units in the game, and you keep squeezing the tournament tier into a new set of armies that are just a bit more powerful than the last set. What you should be doing is finding mediocre things and using them as a benchmark for nerfing units that are too powerful and for buffing bad units at the same time.
This was exactly my point. Thank for putting it much more clear than myself.
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.
2018/01/17 18:33:40
Subject: Re:The 40K Adeptus Custodes News and Rumors Thread
changemod wrote: I'm not quite sure where this impression GW have that flyers are super fragile came from actually: Other than the hit bonus, the flakk missiles on the jetbikes are strictly worse than just firing normal anti-vehicle shot.... And a -1 is nowhere near the penalty snap firing was last edition.
They're not just going to be used against Flyers.
They're going to be used against anything with the Fly keyword. There are things that have Fly but aren't Vehicles. Crisis Suits and Flyrants immediately spring to mind.
The Melta shots are better at damaging a Flyrant and and better vs Crisis Suits. only if the Crisis Suits has drones nearby the flakk is a bit better. so if the flakk is not way cheaper there is no point in taking it. because the melta version is much more versatile.
It's a missile, friend. You select the firing mode. You don't pay for both.
Ah yes you're right forgot about that. So sometimes it will better to use the flakk profile.
Not really. The flak profile is worse against almost everything - and definitely against the flyers that it’s intended to kill. If you want to kill gun drones then sure, the flakk missile is marginally better at that.
changemod wrote: I'm not quite sure where this impression GW have that flyers are super fragile came from actually: Other than the hit bonus, the flakk missiles on the jetbikes are strictly worse than just firing normal anti-vehicle shot.... And a -1 is nowhere near the penalty snap firing was last edition.
I agree the flakk missiles are only better when shooting targets like Gargoyles. Even shooting SM jump troops take more damage from the melta shoots.
But the hit bonus doesn't matter against anyone that doesn't have native -1 to hit. Remember they're starting from BS2+.
The jetbikes are? Was that spoiled somewhere? I've seen BS2+ on the vehicles and the Shield-Captain, but index Custodians are still BS3+ and I'm not expecting GW to put across-the-board BS2+ down given how rare it is generally.
Actually yesterday’s preview stated that standard Custodian Guards would be BS2+, so it’s reasonable to expect that the jet bikes will be as well.
The jet bike stratagem to charge in the opponent’s turn is phenomenally powerful. It lets a unit fight twice a turn, with rerolls to wound from its spears. Your opponent has to either charge the bikers himself to prevent this or dedicate really significant firepower to them, while your foot-slogging guys leg it up the field.
It’ll be interesting to see how many points these jetbikers cost. I think they’ll be right at the top of most people’s target priority list, so might not last all that long. They’ll also tend to go outside of the rumoured -1 to hit bubble from the vexillas. At a guess I’d put the price of the missile launchers around 25+ points, and if that’s the case it might be better to go for hurricane bolters on what is, after all, kind of a suicide unit.
Hurricane bolters actually have pretty similar damage output overall against anything that isn't T8 at the 12" range a 14" move unit shouldn't have any problem hitting, and are obviously significantly better against anything with 1 wound(both usually do enough damage to kill a 1 wound model but the Hurricane bolter at least has the possibility to do more.) Personally, the only time I can see taking the missle launcher over the HuB is in a pure custodes list due to their lack of mid-range high damage firepower. Also the bikes will be amazing allies for area-denialing deepstrikers.
2018/01/17 18:36:12
Subject: The 40K Adeptus Custodes News and Rumors Thread
ERJAK wrote: You see this a lot in warhammer, just with a slight twist. We all know what the 'statistically most powerful' builds of each faction are(for the most part) and yet we can see pretty much constant evidence of pretty much the same imperial guard list coming in 1st and 101st at tournaments and other such similar things.
\
Well, 101st at a given somewhat competitive tournament is probably still in the top 1% of 40K lists overall. Just like the guy or girl coming in last at the Olympics is probably still in pretty good physical shape against the entire spectrum.
2018/01/17 18:43:12
Subject: Re:The 40K Adeptus Custodes News and Rumors Thread
changemod wrote: I'm not quite sure where this impression GW have that flyers are super fragile came from actually: Other than the hit bonus, the flakk missiles on the jetbikes are strictly worse than just firing normal anti-vehicle shot.... And a -1 is nowhere near the penalty snap firing was last edition.
They're not just going to be used against Flyers.
They're going to be used against anything with the Fly keyword. There are things that have Fly but aren't Vehicles. Crisis Suits and Flyrants immediately spring to mind.
The Melta shots are better at damaging a Flyrant and and better vs Crisis Suits. only if the Crisis Suits has drones nearby the flakk is a bit better. so if the flakk is not way cheaper there is no point in taking it. because the melta version is much more versatile.
It's a missile, friend. You select the firing mode. You don't pay for both.
Ah yes you're right forgot about that. So sometimes it will better to use the flakk profile.
Not really. The flak profile is worse against almost everything - and definitely against the flyers that it’s intended to kill. If you want to kill gun drones then sure, the flakk missile is marginally better at that.
changemod wrote: I'm not quite sure where this impression GW have that flyers are super fragile came from actually: Other than the hit bonus, the flakk missiles on the jetbikes are strictly worse than just firing normal anti-vehicle shot.... And a -1 is nowhere near the penalty snap firing was last edition.
I agree the flakk missiles are only better when shooting targets like Gargoyles. Even shooting SM jump troops take more damage from the melta shoots.
But the hit bonus doesn't matter against anyone that doesn't have native -1 to hit. Remember they're starting from BS2+.
The jetbikes are? Was that spoiled somewhere? I've seen BS2+ on the vehicles and the Shield-Captain, but index Custodians are still BS3+ and I'm not expecting GW to put across-the-board BS2+ down given how rare it is generally.
Actually yesterday’s preview stated that standard Custodian Guards would be BS2+, so it’s reasonable to expect that the jet bikes will be as well.
The jet bike stratagem to charge in the opponent’s turn is phenomenally powerful. It lets a unit fight twice a turn, with rerolls to wound from its spears. Your opponent has to either charge the bikers himself to prevent this or dedicate really significant firepower to them, while your foot-slogging guys leg it up the field.
It’ll be interesting to see how many points these jetbikers cost. I think they’ll be right at the top of most people’s target priority list, so might not last all that long. They’ll also tend to go outside of the rumoured -1 to hit bubble from the vexillas. At a guess I’d put the price of the missile launchers around 25+ points, and if that’s the case it might be better to go for hurricane bolters on what is, after all, kind of a suicide unit.
Hurricane bolters actually have pretty similar damage output overall against anything that isn't T8 at the 12" range a 14" move unit shouldn't have any problem hitting, and are obviously significantly better against anything with 1 wound(both usually do enough damage to kill a 1 wound model but the Hurricane bolter at least has the possibility to do more.) Personally, the only time I can see taking the missle launcher over the HuB is in a pure custodes list due to their lack of mid-range high damage firepower. Also the bikes will be amazing allies for area-denialing deepstrikers.
Good point on the bolters probably being better against most things anyway. Hurricane bolters are great, and offer a much-needed weapon against hordes.
Sunny Side Up, loads of people enter tournaments - not only the top 1% of players. 101st would definitely not put you in the top 1% of players unless you’d had a really bad run of games.
2018/01/17 18:47:59
Subject: Re:The 40K Adeptus Custodes News and Rumors Thread
Sunny Side Up, loads of people enter tournaments - not only the top 1% of players. 101st would definitely not put you in the top 1% of players unless you’d had a really bad run of games.
But they probably still bring their "tournament list", not their all-Kroot list or their footslogging Dark Eldar Haemunculi list or whatever. So the sample of lists, not players, is still skewed and not representative of "the game" against which any given unit or army needs to be balanced by the playtesters.
And the percentage is irrelevant too. Even if tournament lists are the top 50% instead of just top 1% of lists (not players), it's still a skewed sample and thus irrelevant at best or misleading at worst for balancing things in the entire game.
2018/01/17 18:57:47
Subject: The 40K Adeptus Custodes News and Rumors Thread
Pretty likely seeing it's referred as LOW choice for Custodes in 30k. That or that was hyper super unlikely to happen but let's fool proof anyway
Primarchs print money, so yeah: When they make a siege of terra campaign book they'll absolutely build an Emperor and put him in a diorama with Horus.
Yeah. Albeit he's not going to be all that usable in game! Point cost is likely rather high so even the minimum game size is going to be preeeetty high. Unpowered Horus is 500 so 2k minimum. If Emperor is even more powerful than warhound then we are easily looking at 4k minimum game. Not often you get to play 4k
2000 points is standard size game, no?
2018/01/17 19:03:43
Subject: The 40K Adeptus Custodes News and Rumors Thread
Pretty likely seeing it's referred as LOW choice for Custodes in 30k. That or that was hyper super unlikely to happen but let's fool proof anyway
Primarchs print money, so yeah: When they make a siege of terra campaign book they'll absolutely build an Emperor and put him in a diorama with Horus.
Yeah. Albeit he's not going to be all that usable in game! Point cost is likely rather high so even the minimum game size is going to be preeeetty high. Unpowered Horus is 500 so 2k minimum. If Emperor is even more powerful than warhound then we are easily looking at 4k minimum game. Not often you get to play 4k
2000 points is standard size game, no?
Well 30k it's 2k-3k(game works best at 2.5k-3k). But yeah with Emperor likely having 3k-4k(as very cautious. Could be 5 digit game size ala warlord as well!) as minimum game size you can actually legally FIELD him he's not going to be all that usable. Much like warlord titan that's going to likely require 12k game to even legally field! (unlike 40k 30k is much stricter with big LOW's. Individual LOW can cost max 25% of game size and you can generally have only 1 LOW period except stuff like baneblade type of things you can field max 3 or knights who can be fielded as army of it's own)
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2018/01/17 19:10:46
2024 painted/bought: 109/109
2018/01/17 19:23:09
Subject: The 40K Adeptus Custodes News and Rumors Thread
TwilightSparkles wrote: It's likely Horus gets a newer version before the end including a newer profile to reflect him post Molech.
True that. Who's likely also usable in 3k-4k or even up to 12k games as minimum (12k assumes they are around warlord in terms of strenght and thus points) So much for Emperor/boosted Horus being broken tournament crushing monster.
Going to be must-buy anyway just for fun. And likely bit more affordable model for once a year apoc games than 1500€ warlord (still want that titan as well...Until FW releases Imperator at which point the "one day would like to buy that model" model is going to get a new target
2024 painted/bought: 109/109
2018/01/17 19:36:22
Subject: The 40K Adeptus Custodes News and Rumors Thread
Pretty likely seeing it's referred as LOW choice for Custodes in 30k. That or that was hyper super unlikely to happen but let's fool proof anyway
Primarchs print money, so yeah: When they make a siege of terra campaign book they'll absolutely build an Emperor and put him in a diorama with Horus.
Yeah. Albeit he's not going to be all that usable in game! Point cost is likely rather high so even the minimum game size is going to be preeeetty high. Unpowered Horus is 500 so 2k minimum. If Emperor is even more powerful than warhound then we are easily looking at 4k minimum game. Not often you get to play 4k
2000 points is standard size game, no?
We play 3k most commonly, Heresy only gets interesting at 2k and above.
We have moved to 5k games recently as well though it starts to top out at 6k.
Doesn't take that much longer to play a 2k through to 5k game once you know what you are doing
2018/01/17 19:43:26
Subject: The 40K Adeptus Custodes News and Rumors Thread
You guys are talking across each other about different games.
2k is pretty standard for 40k events, and that tends to trickle down to club games.
Anything over 2k Goes for 30k. And FW assigns points costs at random in 30k anyway, so it’s fairly meaningless.
I haven’t played 30k since 8th edition dropped, or bought any forgeworld stuff. There was a decent-sized 30k community at my club last year but I don’t know if a single game has been played there in the last 6 months. Elsewhere I hear about 30k going from strength to strength. Funny how different areas have reacted so differently to the new edition.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2018/01/17 19:43:49
2018/01/17 19:45:34
Subject: The 40K Adeptus Custodes News and Rumors Thread
Brian888 wrote: The Custodes army that's going to be on Warhammer TV this Thursday is reportedly 19 models. If that's pretty standard for a Custodes army, Magnus or Mortarion will eat them alive, especially if you bring along an allied Chaos sorcerer for Death Hex support. With those few models on the table, every lost model is going to hurt really badly.
Confirmed on Facebook...
Warhammer 40,000 wrote:It really, really is! On Thursday night, a Warhammer Live game kicks off using them; it's 2,000 points and the Custodes player has 19 models.
If this is indicative of the average Custodes army, it looks like they may suffer from the same CP issue Necrons have (though without all the other issues). Assuming at least some of those 19 models are Landraiders, we can't be looking at more than maybe 2 detachments in that army. So (optimistically) 7 Command points?
2000 Khorne Bloodbound (Skullfiend Tribe- Aqshy)
1000 Tzeentch Arcanites (Pyrofane Cult - Hysh) in progress 2000 Slaves to Darkness (Ravagers)
2018/01/17 19:48:40
Subject: The 40K Adeptus Custodes News and Rumors Thread
Mandragola wrote: You guys are talking across each other about different games.
2k is pretty standard for 40k events, and that tends to trickle down to club games.
Anything over 2k Goes for 30k. And FW assigns points costs at random in 30k anyway, so it’s fairly meaningless.
I haven’t played 30k since 8th edition dropped, or bought any forgeworld stuff. There was a decent-sized 30k community at my club last year but I don’t know if a single game has been played there in the last 6 months. Elsewhere I hear about 30k going from strength to strength. Funny how different areas have reacted so differently to the new edition.
Question was about Emperor though who isn't going to be 40k model.
As for point assigment...Lot more logical than GW studio. Unlike GWFW can actually make game that has semblance of balance. If you want balanced points get FW to do it and give reasonable time to them.
2024 painted/bought: 109/109
2018/01/17 20:06:40
Subject: Re:The 40K Adeptus Custodes News and Rumors Thread
Don't think I could justify taking a land raider, though I'm sure GW will see it differently in their battle report.
How the battle report goes depends on if the thousand sons player is enough of a jerk to take Magnus, otherwise things are probably fairly even as elite-slaying is the one area thousand sons excel.
2018/01/17 20:07:14
Subject: Re:The 40K Adeptus Custodes News and Rumors Thread
So I'm going to spoiler a little rant about why balancing from the top works in 40k where it fails in other games, as it is kinda off topic.
Spoiler:
I find the discussion about balancing at different levels a bit odd as the issue mentioned, hordes being really cost effective relative to more elite armies, is an issue at all levels of play. It was noticed very early on by even casual players, and even local tournaments often have such armies as the norm at this point.
The biggest issue dividing high level tournament play and normal play is how common soup lists are. Which is an issue, but mainly slants the game towards the larger factions with more diversity of models and units in general, to take advantage of imbalanced units or types of units. Which again, is actually useful for balancing casual play as it is easier to pick out problematic units that may not have been as obviously broken in the context of their own army (conscripts and brimstones both come to mind as previous examples).
The biggest problem with comparing warhammer to a moba is that it's way easier for a casual player to abuse something he read about a high level player doing in warhammer than it is in most mobas. Again, a fairly simple system that doesn't put a ton of pressure on for quick choices limits the gap. Their are few if any tournament lists so complicated a casual player would not be best served by using it over whatever they came up with, in marked contrast to the examples. Warhammer 40k doesn't have the sort of skill gap that requires balancing at two different levels.
They've also used balancing from the top to fix two majorly imbalanced units, conscripts and brimstones, through nerfs, thus lessening the power of hordes somewhat. So the idea they aren't willing to make extensive nerfs as needed is again fairly incorrect.
As for the news, I think the bikes look fairly solid. A flying unit is one of the few that can pull off mixed melee and ranges this edition, and the melts warheads do help fill a niche that was somewhat lacking. The new land raider stratagem is also interesting, ignoring penalties can really screw over some strategies and armies, might help push back on that being so prevalent.
2018/01/17 20:33:17
Subject: The 40K Adeptus Custodes News and Rumors Thread
On the question of balance, personally I think it matters at all levels of the game - though as a tournament player maybe I could be counted on to think that.
Basically if fielding any model - such as Magnus - makes you “that guy” then the rules for that model are wrong. That’s because not everyone who wants to field their legion’s primarch is a dead-eyed WAAC tournament junkie like me. Some people might just like the model, or maybe some kid will get given it for Christmas or something. If one kid gets Given Magnus and their sibling is given... I don’t know, a storm surge or something... then before long you’ll have one happy kid and one sad one.
I guess I’ve never understood what’s so bad about having rules that are fair, from a fluff player’s perspective.
I wasn't at any moment trying to say that balance isn't important. It is. But whats it a balance factor in ultra-competitive isn't in a casual enviroment. In a casual enviroment is more important to have rules that are fair, that don't make a player feel dirty, or that aren't frustrating to play agaisn't. Is something very subjetive yes, but it exist nonetheles. In ultra-competitive that isn't as important, theres always gonna be a "meta" (yes, theres always a meta, even in ultra balanced games, go to any kind of game and you'll always have 15-20% of that game at minimun "out of the meta"), so as long as a good bunch of stuff is competitive for every faction thats good enough, because it doesn't matter that the second option is 3% less powerfull than the first option. In the highest level of play everyone is gonna play the first option barring some one that wants to play "anti-meta".
Thats why in Super Smash Bros Brawl, 78% of the character used in tournament are Fox, with the second one character most used, Falco, is 18%.
I gotta disagree with your posts in this thread. I was Master league in SC2 and rank similarly in many other games. You balance at the top level and it works for the lower level. You do NOT balance them separately (and doing so is not Riot or Blizzard's actual method). Anybody who is not at the top tier can overcome a problem unit or comp by "getting good", as it were, and improving to where they can handle that.
My local meta for 40k is absolute, cutthroat competitive meta. Every match is practice for a GT and even our 'narrative' campaigns still run strong lists. They just have a story context. If Custodes aren't competitive I literally cannot justify buying them.
Your idea to make them "balanced" (not sure what that even means since it's a relative term) and to nerf the rest is nice, but in practice almost never done. You have only to look to those e-sports for reference. Nerfs happen, but buffing units is the preferred method. And let's face it, GW will not realistically have the stomach for large scale nerfs so that's a pipe dream. Stuff needs to come in competitive and the rest buffed.
This will be my last post in this tangent because this is offtopic. But I disagree with your disagreement. Using a blizzard game has an example, Heroes of the Storm (His game that I most play after stopping playing WoW), they actually have the "casual" meta and the "competitive" meta as two different things to balance heroes around. One example is the change to Stealth heroes. In competitive meta they where useless, nobody used them because everybody was capable of spotting them even in invisible mode. But in casual play they where totally unfun to play. Basically where characters to punish noobs to the game. So they where changed not because they weren't competitive in the high leagues (They still aren't). They where changed because their game mechanics where sensed as "toxic".
Other example is Medivh, a hero so complicated that is busted in competitive but totally useless in casual, because is a hero totally reliable of the rest of your team responding. And they don't change it even being useless in casual play, because they know that if they make him viable in Casual play, it will make him totally overpowered in competitive meta. Other example was a change to how a Muradin talent interact with his jump, giving him armour. It was a talent alwais picked in competitive meta, but nobody in casual took it because it was considered "bad" for the noobish. So they changed it to make it usable for "casual" play without making it "busted" for competitive leagues.
What I was trying to say with all of this related to Warhammer40k and Custodes? Balance is good. But the mantra that "Balance to the high competitive leagues and everyone will benefit from that" isn't actually true. The "casual" crow and the "competitive" crown are two separated groups with totally different mindsets to what they want from their games. That your solution to casuals having problems in a competitive enviroment is to "git gud" shows that you have a "competitive" crown mindset. Is not a bad thing of course, but this is exactly what I'm saying when I talk about the internet people putting ALL of the emphasis in the most high level tournament level of play.
But I agree with you. I don't think GW will have the guts to have big nerfs across factions like Blizzard did with the Support nerf in HOTS.
You're not talking about balance here, you're talking about fun. It's not a news flash that players, particularly more casual ones, do not like punish mechanics. Thus, you see the removal of those from MOBA's while they still flourish in fighters. Thus your 'toxic' champs wern't changed for balance, they are changed for being "anti-fun". Those are not the same thing.
And complicated characters/stratagems are left that way. Notice Azir is still plenty complicated in LoL. So only high level play can really make use of him? So what? Doesn't bother the player base at large and certainly doesn't bother Riot. In SC2, medivac-drop mechanics make it MUCH harder, mechanically, to play high level Terran than Protoss, yet Blizzard does not change this. You're just expected to grow, practice and get better.
Acknowledging that sometimes people lose because of skill at the game and not just mechanics is not what is normally associated with "git gud". Think of it this way, if you're balancing, everything falls into three possible slots: skill, mechanic, random chance. You can't balance chance; just determine how big a role you want it to play. You also can't balance player skill; just change how big a role it has in a game. Mechanics are all you can actually balance by adjusting them.
So when Army A stomps Army B we have to ask: why? Was it skill? Well leave that be, most people considerable desirable for skill to determine the outcome. Was it chance? Well, if it's a game of chance then that's O.K. too. Was it mechanics? THAT'S where you balance. All armies should be equal on mechanics.
2018/01/17 20:37:09
Subject: Re:The 40K Adeptus Custodes News and Rumors Thread
SilverAlien wrote: So I'm going to spoiler a little rant about why balancing from the top works in 40k where it fails in other games, as it is kinda off topic.
Spoiler:
I find the discussion about balancing at different levels a bit odd as the issue mentioned, hordes being really cost effective relative to more elite armies, is an issue at all levels of play. It was noticed very early on by even casual players, and even local tournaments often have such armies as the norm at this point.
The biggest issue dividing high level tournament play and normal play is how common soup lists are. Which is an issue, but mainly slants the game towards the larger factions with more diversity of models and units in general, to take advantage of imbalanced units or types of units. Which again, is actually useful for balancing casual play as it is easier to pick out problematic units that may not have been as obviously broken in the context of their own army (conscripts and brimstones both come to mind as previous examples).
The biggest problem with comparing warhammer to a moba is that it's way easier for a casual player to abuse something he read about a high level player doing in warhammer than it is in most mobas. Again, a fairly simple system that doesn't put a ton of pressure on for quick choices limits the gap. Their are few if any tournament lists so complicated a casual player would not be best served by using it over whatever they came up with, in marked contrast to the examples. Warhammer 40k doesn't have the sort of skill gap that requires balancing at two different levels.
They've also used balancing from the top to fix two majorly imbalanced units, conscripts and brimstones, through nerfs, thus lessening the power of hordes somewhat. So the idea they aren't willing to make extensive nerfs as needed is again fairly incorrect.
As for the news, I think the bikes look fairly solid. A flying unit is one of the few that can pull off mixed melee and ranges this edition, and the melts warheads do help fill a niche that was somewhat lacking. The new land raider stratagem is also interesting, ignoring penalties can really screw over some strategies and armies, might help push back on that being so prevalent.
Yea, points will be very interesting. Basic guys may go down a little so you can fit a few more. I see the bikes easily being 100 a pop with weapons. Land raider now is 386 I believe. Its good all around, but its firepower for cost is bad. Problem with big vehicles to murder things is just Fire Raptors. The true vehicle king of chaos and imperium. Hard to compete with that. Best hope is the AC flyer from 30k is ported over and is really badass and good pointed
2018/01/17 20:39:40
Subject: The 40K Adeptus Custodes News and Rumors Thread
warboss wrote: Or they can learn from their unbalanced cherry picking mess that was army building during 6th/7th edition and give pure single codex builds some kind of advantage to counteract the versatility of Imperial soup ones. I'm not jumping to the defense of 8th (never played it) but I see these kinds of rules as a response to the previous buffet style meta of army lists that needed an excel spreadsheet to make sense of the faction and detachments.
Yeah but that 'buffet style meta' hasn't gone anywhere, given how many 'soup' armies are out there.
SilverAlien wrote: So I'm going to spoiler a little rant about why balancing from the top works in 40k where it fails in other games, as it is kinda off topic.
Spoiler:
I find the discussion about balancing at different levels a bit odd as the issue mentioned, hordes being really cost effective relative to more elite armies, is an issue at all levels of play. It was noticed very early on by even casual players, and even local tournaments often have such armies as the norm at this point.
The biggest issue dividing high level tournament play and normal play is how common soup lists are. Which is an issue, but mainly slants the game towards the larger factions with more diversity of models and units in general, to take advantage of imbalanced units or types of units. Which again, is actually useful for balancing casual play as it is easier to pick out problematic units that may not have been as obviously broken in the context of their own army (conscripts and brimstones both come to mind as previous examples).
The biggest problem with comparing warhammer to a moba is that it's way easier for a casual player to abuse something he read about a high level player doing in warhammer than it is in most mobas. Again, a fairly simple system that doesn't put a ton of pressure on for quick choices limits the gap. Their are few if any tournament lists so complicated a casual player would not be best served by using it over whatever they came up with, in marked contrast to the examples. Warhammer 40k doesn't have the sort of skill gap that requires balancing at two different levels.
They've also used balancing from the top to fix two majorly imbalanced units, conscripts and brimstones, through nerfs, thus lessening the power of hordes somewhat. So the idea they aren't willing to make extensive nerfs as needed is again fairly incorrect.
As for the news, I think the bikes look fairly solid. A flying unit is one of the few that can pull off mixed melee and ranges this edition, and the melts warheads do help fill a niche that was somewhat lacking. The new land raider stratagem is also interesting, ignoring penalties can really screw over some strategies and armies, might help push back on that being so prevalent.
Yea, points will be very interesting. Basic guys may go down a little so you can fit a few more. I see the bikes easily being 100 a pop with weapons. Land raider now is 386 I believe. Its good all around, but its firepower for cost is bad. Problem with big vehicles to murder things is just Fire Raptors. The true vehicle king of chaos and imperium. Hard to compete with that. Best hope is the AC flyer from 30k is ported over and is really badass and good pointed
Think of it this way: GW is fielding 19 models at 2,000. That means our average cost per model is ~105.
Valoris is supposedly ~250. The generic infantry captain without wargear is ~125 based on random forum snippets. An Index sword + board is 54 and spear is 52, I think?
So I bet GW wants to take a battalion because it's 'standard'. 3 units of 3 spears is 468. 250 more for Valoris and like 137 for a generic captain with spear. That's 855 for 11 models. Means GW spent ~143 per model on the remaining 8 models, which are a mix of vehicles, dreads, bikes and terminators.
2018/01/17 20:58:41
Subject: The 40K Adeptus Custodes News and Rumors Thread
Could we get a separate topic for the actual news and rumors about custodes? I'm sure there are other people here who are also tired of sifting through 20 pages of metagame arguments every time a new dex is released.... I just want to talk about the shiny banana-men.
MattKing wrote: Could we get a separate topic for the actual news and rumors about custodes? I'm sure there are other people here who are also tired of sifting through 20 pages of metagame arguments every time a new dex is released.... I just want to talk about the shiny banana-men.
Look, there's such a thing as too much topic drift but I really don't see the point of trying to shut down an active discussion of the new thing. This is a discussion board, not a news post blog.
2018/01/17 21:18:32
Subject: The 40K Adeptus Custodes News and Rumors Thread
MattKing wrote: Could we get a separate topic for the actual news and rumors about custodes? I'm sure there are other people here who are also tired of sifting through 20 pages of metagame arguments every time a new dex is released.... I just want to talk about the shiny banana-men.
Look, there's such a thing as too much topic drift but I really don't see the point of trying to shut down an active discussion of the new thing. This is a discussion board, not a news post blog.
But this particular thread is about News and Rumors related to Adeptus Custodes, not balance in StarCraft II. Hell, it's not even about balance in 40k. If it isn't directly related to the Golden Super Marines, it doesn't belong here.
She/Her
"There are no problems that cannot be solved with cannons." - Chief Engineer Boris Krauss of Nuln
Kid_Kyoto wrote:"Don't be a dick" and "This is a family wargame" are good rules of thumb.
MattKing wrote: Could we get a separate topic for the actual news and rumors about custodes? I'm sure there are other people here who are also tired of sifting through 20 pages of metagame arguments every time a new dex is released.... I just want to talk about the shiny banana-men.
Look, there's such a thing as too much topic drift but I really don't see the point of trying to shut down an active discussion of the new thing. This is a discussion board, not a news post blog.
I'm nor trying to shut anything down. I asked for a new thread dedicated to discussing the new release "news and rumors" I've already sat through the protracted argument about why magnus is the end all be all of every game or why Mort's stupid broke and really don't want another mathmatical breakdown comparing conscript wound ratios. Custodes. Let's talk about Custodes.
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2000 Khorne Bloodbound (Skullfiend Tribe- Aqshy)
1000 Tzeentch Arcanites (Pyrofane Cult - Hysh) in progress
2000 Slaves to Darkness (Ravagers)
