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You can't go 2 seconds on Dakka without seeing this word. It's thrown around like feces in the monkey enclosure at the zoo. This is balanced, that is balanced, this isn't balanced, that isn't balanced... Is this balanced? Is that balanced? GW wouldn't know balance if it slapped them across the face and threw them off balance! Balance here, balance there, balance everywhere! But what does 'balance' actually mean? How is it defined? and is it (as I suspect) entirely subjective terminology, which means very different things, to very different people.

To me, when someone asks the question; "Is 40k a balanced game?" My answer is generally "Yes" because what does a balanced 40k mean to me? It means that each FACTION can generally compete with each other FACTION and has a range of options to do so. It does not mean, that every LIST/UNIT/MODEL can compete with every other LIST/UNIT/MODEL... that is an impossibility. It is also something that I find undesirable because it would require losing so much of the character that separates and defines the various factions within the game.

One of my favourite computer games is the amazing and timeless Age Of Empires. I have been playing this game online for years and years and one of the main reasons for it's longevity is because it's 'generally balanced'. All the civilisations have a decent chance against the other civilisations, there is no doubt that there are better civs than others at specific things and against specific opponents, There are certain units that counter others, but when it comes down to 1v1, a good player will always be able to overcome any civ advantage the other might have.

When it comes to tournaments, having looked at the results from the GT, Adepticon etc I would say that there is a fairly mixed bag regarding results.. I would also argue that tournament bandwagons and copy-cats tend to skew the results as certain FACTIONS are over-represented. It sure would be interesting to see tournaments run with allocated spaces for each of the factions.Like a total of 180 spaces with only 10 spaces per faction. That would show (I would bet) that 40k is in fact a balanced game in regards to faction v faction.

Thoughts? What does balance mean to you? Is everything in 40k either OP or "hot trash" as so many of the cry-babies on Dakka like to describe it? Or is it something else?

A thread on a subjective topic post in a place full of hyperbolic statements, righteous opinions and keyboard warriors?

This thread is going to be a good one.

I am not really up with the current state of Age of Empires but I was under the impression it had massive faction imbalance. I played a lot of Age of Empires 3 over ten years ago and there you basically had Spain+the top faction of the patch. It was very obvious.

Anyway to me balance is about having the average outcome sufficiently close that luck and tactics (i.e. unit placement and targeting) matter more than which units you select.

I am a pretty boring, possibly simplistic mathhammerer.

My method with a unit is:
(Attacks)*(Chance to hit)*(Chance to wound)*(Chance to Armour Save)*(Target's Points)/(Unit's Points).

Do this on 2-3 types of unit to see the effectiveness (typically I'd use a marine and a razorback).

This gives you damage ratios - say 20%, 30%, 40%. You can throw in things like stratagems and aura buffs as well.

Now to my mind every unit should be around 20-25%. Some units should b more specialised - say 10-15% on certain targets, but 30-35% on others.

This would result in a slower game where in game choices would hopefully be more decisive.

You do need to take into account fragility - but being incredibly fragile doesn't matter if you always get to shoot first (say via deep strike or something like that).

In 40k as it stands however there are certain units which are scoring 40% on almost everything (and this goes up rapidly with stratagems if they are shooting/assaulting a blinged out target). These units are typically good/OP and are seen in tournaments.

There are also units which only do about 15% on almost everything. These are pretty much universally hot trash and are never seen.

Now if those units which only do 15% provide a major buff they might be justified - but odds are they are just a waste. A good example is an Ork Trakk/buggy/skorcha. Right now (not sure if Chapter Approved will change this) these are terrible units. They are statistically likely to do no damage to anything.

Now maybe there is some edge case usefulness - they can for instance get into combat with a non-flying shooting squad and force them to fall back. But leaving aside the issues of the Ork Index - why not spend your points on something which could do the same job, but also chop up that shooty squad if it makes combat?

Getting back on point - we are seeing Codex creep. When the indexes were launched there were obvious imbalances, and perhaps its because people had not learned all the lists, but ratios of 20-30% were normal. The 30% units were recognisably good, but not insanely good compared to other options. (Things like RG, which dramatically went beyond this fairly obviously stood out.)

We are now seeing combos which can push well above 50% if not 100%. This is why so many games are decided by the end of turn 2. As a result those units which were previously okay with their 25% ratios now look (and are) a bit rubbish.

Right now 40k is not balanced across the factions. Necrons for instance have no viable tournament list. With good luck they can win games - but if you mathed it out they do so against the odds (often quite dramatically so). Theoretically they could get sufficiently lucky to win a tournament, but it hasn't happened yet because its so unlikely.

@hollow- Even by your definition the answer would be no, not all factions can compete with others and some of those that can really don't have multiple ways to do so.

That said balance to me is that all factions are equally viable, and ideally every unit is viable (some might be slightly better, but it should be close) in its role. That means if a unit is supposed to be anti-infantry it should be good for its points at doing that job. This does not mean all lists will be balanced, instead that it is possible to make a list using any specific unit and have that list be competitive.

I think there's multiple types of balance, it's not one overarching term.

There's intra-faction balance, which means that there's never a situation where X is simply better than Y such that there's zero logical reason to ever take Y because X outperforms it. IMHO GW fails at this, as there is often "Must take" and "never take" options within a codex, and sometimes even units that share the same role but one is just simply better in every regard than the other.

There's inter-faction balance, which is where all the factions are relatively able to compete with each other and while there will always be "tiers", the gap between them should be relatively small such that X can always have a chance in a good player's hands to beat Y. IMHO GW fails at this, as there is often a large gap between factions for no discernible reason and reasons that tend to switch around seemingly at a whim.

Then there is in-game balance, which people often use to mean "equal points" but really seems to mean "symmetry", both in army construction (e.g. we both build as close to 2000 points as possible without going over) and in the game (e.g. we both have the same mission objectives to achieve), which is the most subjective because there's nothing inherently wrong with imbalanced forces (e.g. 1500 points versus 2000 points) and/or scenarios where each player has their own objective (e.g. traditional Attacker/Defender scenarios). This, I feel, is the hardest to quantify as this is on the player, not hte company. It's perfectly possible to have a group that only plays asymmetrical forces, and one that never uses it, and there isn't really a way to say one is better than the other.

Except, heres the problem: if you actually had a tournament as you described with 180 people and 10 slots for each faction, there would be multiple factions that would never win a game. Dark Eldar and Gray Knights cannot "generally compete" with Guard and Chaos, they'd get pretty much slaughtered.

As above, 40k by OP's definition would not be balanced.

Balance to me has always been that every unit has a role they fill, and priced accordingly based on ability. This means that every unit is theoretically viable, it then boils down to the player to pick the role and how they want that role to be accomplished.

For all the issues Spartan Games had, the Firestorm V2 factions were pretty reasonably balanced. My faction was the close range, shotgun style faction, but nevertheless had two long range options. One was cheap, not overly powerful, but brought utility to the whole fleet in the form of a deployment bonus. The other option was more expensive, hit like a brick, was more durable (and consequently less maneuverable/slower), and also brought no other bonus to the fleet. Both were balanced in that if I wanted a long range punch, either one would fit the role, and it simply boiled down to how much of an investment I wanted to make, and how they would fit in my fleet.

Battlefleet Gothic was similar (fixed by the FAQ and even more so by fan fixes, like the XR project) in that you picked a role, and then decided how you wanted to play with that role.

Every faction should be internally balanced, and the factions balanced externally to eachother.

As always in this discussion, it must be pointed out that no one expects or reasonably believes any game to be perfectly balanced. The idea is that you strive to make the game balanced enough that your individual unit choices aren't the primary reasons for your win or loss.

Balance in the context of 40k, hmmmmmm. OK, I will go out on a limb.

"All armies within the 40k game comprised of multiple unit types, factoring in use of command points, traits, etc., having a statistically equal chance of beating or being beaten by any other army, irrespective of compisition"?

I.e. the outcome of any game is purely determined by player ability.

IMHO a balanced game means that the result of the game is open until the end of turn 4 at least. Unless one player made some horrible mistakes or rolled extremely lucky/unlucky.

40k TAC games have never been balanced and never will. A game played by friends tailoring the lists may be, and it's actually a lot of fun.

A balanced game doesn't mean that both players have exactly 50/50 chance to win, a 60/40 or even 70/30 is still quite balanced IMHO. I don't mind playing against lists that are certainly superior, but I must have some possibility of winning the game. That's the goal of a balanced game.

 Blacksails wrote:
Balance to me has always been that every unit has a role they fill, and priced accordingly based on ability. This means that every unit is theoretically viable, it then boils down to the player to pick the role and how they want that role to be accomplished.

This.

Based on this definition, I think some armies / units in 40k have good internal balance right now, like CSM long-range "Heavy Support". Obliterators, Predators, Helbrutes, Havocs and Forgefiends all have their pros and cons, some being very strong offense-wise but quite fragile, while others are sturdier but deal less damage. Unfortunately, some other armies have terrible balance (*cough* Orks).

Units that fill a similar role should be balanced around damage dealt / toughness / utility, and priced accordingly across ALL armies.

Balance to me does not mean every unit match up against equal points of other unit. 100pts machine guns should never win against 100pts tanks for example.
That said I think balance is when every unit in the factions can fill a potential role and not be totally outmatched in that field by other factions. for example tau, orks and space marine anti tank units should all be comparatively useful.

Some battlefield roles:
light infantry
heavy infantry/light vehicles
tanks/(monsters)

combined with any of these traits:
anti light infantry
anti heavy infantry
anti tank
mobility
durability
reliability
range
quantity (or points cost if you prefer)

These roles together with the traits should be able to form any unit I can think of in the game. For example a rhino would be a tank that in itself has decent durability and high mobility (in open terrain), but barely has any offensive capacity. It does however increase the durability and mobility of any transported infantry squad and there lies it's main value. That would mean the transport should really be mostly costed based on what units it can transport.

Factions could be of different quality in all of these traits. For example orks might lack long range on their weapons but they have access to high mobility on many units. Their units are less reliable but come in great quantity.

I would say balance becomes broken when one unit from one faction has no counter from all unit choices of an other faction. For example the orks again, if their short range units had no mobility options and only low durability when facing a long range durable and mobile faction then it would not be fair game. The game would also be imbalanced if one faction simply get more of everything as they build their lists, like Robot Girlyman who possesses almost all of these traits, buffs all surrounding units in their offensive reliability and comes at a comparably low cost.

Balance means that no unit in any codex is an auto-take and none are an auto-skip. You can still build bad lists and good lists. But there are no units that 5 jobs well and none that do zero jobs well.

Outside of the obvious that others have mentioned. (Points, abilities, etc)

The biggest issue with 40k at the moment is the missions. Hopefully that changes with Chapter Approved, but we sorely need deployment mechanisms that allow armies that are not alpha strike heavy to compete.

I shouldn't need luck to cross no mans land because someone has a frak load of plasma in cover with scions backed up by 8 taurox primes. Every mission atm is "set up all my models perfectly and look how awesome my guns are".

My opinion of balance? Make every army like the orks. Literally the battle can go any which way at any point in time during the game because LOL orks.

 sfshilo wrote:
Outside of the obvious that others have mentioned. (Points, abilities, etc)

The biggest issue with 40k at the moment is the missions. Hopefully that changes with Chapter Approved, but we sorely need deployment mechanisms that allow armies that are not alpha strike heavy to compete.

I shouldn't need luck to cross no mans land because someone has a frak load of plasma in cover with scions backed up by 8 taurox primes. Every mission atm is "set up all my models perfectly and look how awesome my guns are".

Rather than rely on that, shooty units just need to cost more.

 sfshilo wrote:
Outside of the obvious that others have mentioned. (Points, abilities, etc)

The biggest issue with 40k at the moment is the missions. Hopefully that changes with Chapter Approved, but we sorely need deployment mechanisms that allow armies that are not alpha strike heavy to compete.

I shouldn't need luck to cross no mans land because someone has a frak load of plasma in cover with scions backed up by 8 taurox primes. Every mission atm is "set up all my models perfectly and look how awesome my guns are".

This is a wider issue with 40k's constant scale creep. I started in 5th where people remarked on the sheer number of vehicle Guard could park in a 1500-2000pts list. That number has only grown as prices continue to drop across the board. A 4x6 is cluttered enough for a 28mm company level game (also an issue, 28mm should really be a platoon sized game on a 4x6), but the company+ sizes we're looking at with flyers and superheavies just makes all maneuvering irrelevant. Basic infantry weapons already reach fully halfway across the board with no penalty, and given some deployments, can already start far enough up the board to cover most of it.

People are quick to point out that everyone needs more terrain (they're not wrong), but putting more terrain only slows the inevitable if you and your opponent can comfortably fill most of eachother's deployment zones. The game needs to scale back down dramatically if maneuvering and ranges are going to matter (or play on a bigger table) otherwise we're left with gakky missions where your tactics are 'shoot the choppy ones, and also outshoot the other shooty ones' or 'pray you can pull off an assault via deepstrike by rolling high enough for your charge'.

 Blacksails wrote:


Balance to me has always been that every unit has a role they fill, and priced accordingly based on ability. This means that every unit is theoretically viable, it then boils down to the player to pick the role and how they want that role to be accomplished.

For all the issues Spartan Games had, the Firestorm V2 factions were pretty reasonably balanced. My faction was the close range, shotgun style faction, but nevertheless had two long range options. One was cheap, not overly powerful, but brought utility to the whole fleet in the form of a deployment bonus. The other option was more expensive, hit like a brick, was more durable (and consequently less maneuverable/slower), and also brought no other bonus to the fleet. Both were balanced in that if I wanted a long range punch, either one would fit the role, and it simply boiled down to how much of an investment I wanted to make, and how they would fit in my fleet.

Battlefleet Gothic was similar (fixed by the FAQ and even more so by fan fixes, like the XR project) in that you picked a role, and then decided how you wanted to play with that role.

Every faction should be internally balanced, and the factions balanced externally to eachother.

As always in this discussion, it must be pointed out that no one expects or reasonably believes any game to be perfectly balanced. The idea is that you strive to make the game balanced enough that your individual unit choices aren't the primary reasons for your win or loss.

Yeah, basically this.

M.

Balance is my stuff is generally as good as your stuff.

Balance is NOT I took whatever I wanted to a game and expect a totally even match when either I:
1) Did not correctly utilize my units
2) I took too many units of a type and my opponent had a hard counter.

Balance would be in regards to competitive gameplay. Casual gameplay is already fairly balanced, by the "don't be a dick" rule.

If a faction comprises X% of the players then in a perfectly balanced game I would expect that faction to win X% of the tournaments. Obviously nothing shakes out in a truly intellectual exercise, and perfection isn't a binary thing. I don't expect that level of balance, but we have some factions sitting at 0%, while guard is sitting much, much higher. Problem.

 Marmatag wrote:
Casual gameplay is already fairly balanced, by the "don't be a dick" rule.

This nonsense always gets brought up too.

Casual gameplay is affected the same as tournament gameplay, if not more so, by poor balance.

Having a nicely balanced game encourages more diverse lists that can be as fluffy or themed as anyone likes, while letting tournament players strive to eek that last small advantage from a perfectly optimized list.

Its all well and good to hope the people you play with have the exact same idea of what is fluffy, competitive, and 'dickisheness' as you, but when it doesn't, its better to have a good balanced ruleset to fall back on.

I've played in pick up stores, tournaments, and tight groups. I've been fortunate to have had a great tight group that we all understood eachother, but the pick up games and tournaments had wildly different interpretations of 'don't be a dick' in regards to list construction.

A balanced game benefits everyone. Poor balance hurts everyone.

Simple stuff.

*Edit* I should also add that stating casual gameplay is balanced by virtue of 'not being a dick', which of course translates to 'don't play what I don't like', is itself an admission that the game is not balanced for casual play, and therefore, not balanced at all.

Balance, to me, means that you should be able to build a list you like (not necessarily just throwing down models willy-nilly, mind you. I mean with a theme you enjoy, but still with an eye towards power) and, assuming equal player skill, have about a 50/50 chance of winning.

Someone who likes pure Nurgle Daemons should be able to build that and have the same chance of winning as someone who loves Primarchs.

Dammit, Blacksails beat me to it and said everything I wanted to say. +1 to that.

Balance to me means there is no obvious superior choice. Whether it is picking your army, a unit within your army, gear (powers, etc..) for said unit, etc.. If one or two choices are clearly superior and others less effective/fefficient and the choice is "an easy one", there's no balance.

I use the ideas of intra-codex and inter-codex balances.

Intra-codex is the internal balance of a codex. Armies with good internal balance give more options for their players, as they can use different units and get at least average results. When a option for the same battlefield role or list role (AA, AT, anti-horde, etc) is way better than the others in the book, there is a problem - the reverse as well.

Inter-codex is much harder, as it implies the ability of a codex to get at least average results against the other codexes. If Starcraft (a game with only 3 factions) is already hard to balance, imagine 40k. But this is, in my view, even more important than the intra-codex balance - for not adressing it can make people give up playing the game or funneling them to the 'always-winning' armies (worsening the flavor-of-the-month effect).

There's also the point of base rules. 6th and 7th base rules severely benfitted ranged combat, while 8th does this to MSU. A balanced core rules set would leave equal opportunity to melee and ranged, msu and big units, psykers and 'nulls', etc to shine.

In conclusion, 'balance', for me, is making the game fun to both sides, where tactics and strategy count more than just luck or list building

 Vector Strike wrote:
A balanced core rules set would leave equal opportunity to melee and ranged, msu and big units, psykers and 'nulls', etc to shine.

Not necessarily. In a game like 40k shooting should dominate, because this is not WHFB in space and guns tend to beat swords. The whole concept of a "melee army" shouldn't exist at all. But you can still have balance between the various shooting-focused armies, even if melee is only present as something you do to finish off the last survivors of your shooting and melee specialists are a tiny part of the game.

Warhammer40k is farialy bad balanced. From the perspective of that... many, many units are pretty bad, and others are very, very good.

In others game where skill is much more important, that mathematical disbalance is much less important.
A Moba, or a FPS like Counter Strike, for example. If your opponent is playing a character or weapons that are mathematically better than the one you are using, is on an advantage, but if he doesn't hit you with any shot or skillshot, because you have better skill, you can win.

That possibility doesn't exist in Warhammer. From the grand scheme of things, yeah, skill is important talking about how you move your units in the table, what you attack and when. But when the player agency stops very early. When the dices began to roll, and everything starts to death, theres nothing you can do. When one unit charges another, literally you have no more control about what they do. The mathematics and dice will decide who wins.

Thats why the mathematical disbalance in warhammer40k is much more important for having a fun game where in other games where player skill has more weight in deciding the outcome of a match.

Now, I'll said that theres many min/maxers out there, that think that if one unit is mathematically 5% less effective than other, that means the one that is 5% less effective is ***ing useless and nobody should use it, and everybody should spam the other one. Of course I can respect that, just like I respect people that go to Smash Bros Meele tournaments where 70% of the players play Fox. But I think that small amount of disbalance is respectable. The problem is that warhammer doesn't have a 5-10% disbalance in most of his units.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Vector Strike wrote:
A balanced core rules set would leave equal opportunity to melee and ranged, msu and big units, psykers and 'nulls', etc to shine.

Not necessarily. In a game like 40k shooting should dominate, because this is not WHFB in space and guns tend to beat swords. The whole concept of a "melee army" shouldn't exist at all. But you can still have balance between the various shooting-focused armies, even if melee is only present as something you do to finish off the last survivors of your shooting and melee specialists are a tiny part of the game.

This is a totall subjetive opinion based in your personal tastes. And it isn't wrong, but is obviously that no, in Warhammer40k meele should be a viable tactic for a whole army to use. Warhammer is Fantasy in Space for a reason. Theres other universes where things are as you said, like Halo or Starcraft, with meele as a specialist thing. This "Oh, Meele doesn't mankes any sense in Warhammer, it should suck, and of course I play a gunline army! Its how this universe should work!" isn't any healthy for the game.

I like to view balance in the light of can i craft a list or two. That can reasonable give me a game that is no worse than a 40/60. Leaving the remainder to skill and terrain to make up for the mess my dice will visit upon me.

Things like auto include or auto spam need to be kept on a short leash. The horrible strickly better or unplayable trash need to be curbed, tone the one down or add utility that is unique to the army for the later.

If the rule of perfect imbalance is being applied ensure every army gets a set of over the top tools, but again make sure they are limited. Jank is fun, but breaking the game is annoying.

 Blacksails wrote:

 Marmatag wrote:
Casual gameplay is already fairly balanced, by the "don't be a dick" rule.

This nonsense always gets brought up too.

Casual gameplay is affected the same as tournament gameplay, if not more so, by poor balance.

Having a nicely balanced game encourages more diverse lists that can be as fluffy or themed as anyone likes, while letting tournament players strive to eek that last small advantage from a perfectly optimized list.

Its all well and good to hope the people you play with have the exact same idea of what is fluffy, competitive, and 'dickisheness' as you, but when it doesn't, its better to have a good balanced ruleset to fall back on.

I've played in pick up stores, tournaments, and tight groups. I've been fortunate to have had a great tight group that we all understood eachother, but the pick up games and tournaments had wildly different interpretations of 'don't be a dick' in regards to list construction.

A balanced game benefits everyone. Poor balance hurts everyone.

Simple stuff.

*Edit* I should also add that stating casual gameplay is balanced by virtue of 'not being a dick', which of course translates to 'don't play what I don't like', is itself an admission that the game is not balanced for casual play, and therefore, not balanced at all.

You're just being pedantic.

I'm saying the game should be balanced around tournament level play.

It obviously will filter down.

The point is you should not balance with the struggles of the casual Joe in mind. Just because casual Pete struggles with Necrons in his local meta doesn't mean the complaint is well founded, or that nerfing Necrons would be good for the game.

With ITC and other tournament circuits collecting and formalizing data, you can look at aggregate competitive data, which is useful for balancing purposes.

Casual play can be balanced by saying "i can't deal with that unit, so please don't play it." In casual games, units that are NOT overpowered or even considered good in the meta can wreak havoc if people aren't prepared to deal with them. I saw a guy complaining about a Tyranid list that had a Swarmlord in it. That model is not a meta choice, and there is no reason to consider that complaint thread for the purposes of a balance discussion.

Simple stuff.

Casual games benefit from "Don't be a dick", but are still hurt badly by imbalance.

I remade my CWE army in 6th from what I originally wanted to "not be a dick". Then that became OP in 7th. Fortunately, the Index fixed that, and I could just play whatever I wanted. Unfortunately, the Codex brought CWE back up (although not to 6E or 7E levels).

If I want a fun casual game, I have to be very careful about what I take. My opponent can usually take whatever he wants. The average list I throw together will typically smash the average list most other books throw together. So now, when building lists even for casual play, a lot of thought has to be put into listbuilding to make that happen.

And any time anything CWE does well, it brings up the spectre of my book being OP. Even in casual games, it's a notable negative.

So Casual can work around imbalance, but is certainly harmed by it.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
In the 6E meta, there was no need to consider the state of Harlequins. They never showed up. But I would still consider that unbalaned.

On the other hand, Dire Avengers were in most top-tier 6E lists for nearly half the edition - but it had nothing to do with *them* being OP (DAVU was stupid).

You can't just look at the top meta. You should be concerned with everything in the game.

This is why we have discussions about SM being the worst faction in the game. They compare Tacs to Infiltrating Berzerkers or Conscripts, and Tacs come up wanting. But it's also imbalance when Kroot or Wyches or other troops get destroyed by Tacs.

It'd be healtheir for the game if everything were balanced. But if you only care about top tables and "the meta", you only care about ~5% of the options in the game.

Casual games are hurt by imbalance. This is true.

But there is no data collected en mass for casual games.

What do you propose, other than balancing the tournament meta, and letting casual sort itself out?