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 vipoid wrote:

Breng77 wrote:

Yes but if you don't limit powers you have things like entire ork armies assaulting turn 1, and largely not caring about the -1 to
Cast.

But that's the whole point - if casting a power multiple times is enough to break the game, then that power is badly-designed to begin with.

So your complaint is that a rule that is designed to be used once per turn is broken when used multiple times per turn? Just when I thought the Dakka Complain Train couldn't have any more ridiculous stops.
Obviously the current psychic list was designed with powers being used once per turn and if they weren't they wouldn't be as strong.

Back to reality, I think that applying this fix to all powers would be a cool yet clumsy change. There's a few powers that are too strong to used multiple times and may need to be toned down but I like the idea. As a DG player these changes don't seem to hurt me in any way and address a few nasty opportunities for abuse in the current ruleset so I'm down. I hope they see the pain this would cause to Grey Knights and Thousand Sons though and have a sensible way to compensate.

If they are about to release beta rules....WTF rules are we using now lol.

So there is a current strain of thought here that the smite nerf hurts armies with destructor smite (which I agree with). I think the correct course of action is provide that feedback in a well reasoned email to the email address they specifically set up for this. I don't really understand the vitriol here when GW specifically asked for play testing and feedback on these rules, they haven't said they're going to be permanent additions.

I think if you feel strongly about these changes and play test them and can show the negative impact they'll take this in to account.

Also regarding the idea that psychic powers that if cast multiple times per phase is proof that the game isn't balanced - that's laughable, the balance is in the limitation. Oh no - the power they specifically designed the system to prevent you from casting very strong abilities multiple times is working as intended! Broken!

Inner balance problems aside (eldar warlocks walking with sign "leave hope anyone taketh me"), these balance changes are sensible on the whole and are a second nice meta change after flyers to better armies all around.

 Farseer_V2 wrote:
So there is a current strain of thought here that the smite nerf hurts armies with destructor smite (which I agree with). I think the correct course of action is provide that feedback in a well reasoned email to the email address they specifically set up for this. I don't really understand the vitriol here when GW specifically asked for play testing and feedback on these rules, they haven't said they're going to be permanent additions.

I think if you feel strongly about these changes and play test them and can show the negative impact they'll take this in to account.

Also regarding the idea that psychic powers that if cast multiple times per phase is proof that the game isn't balanced - that's laughable, the balance is in the limitation. Oh no - the power they specifically designed the system to prevent you from casting very strong abilities multiple times is working as intended! Broken!

The vitriol seems like part of the landscape where these matters come up stemming, I suspect, in part from the fans caring more about the game than some of the people working on it and the situation where GW in particular seems to have a lasting hold on people even though they seem to have ceased enjoying the companies products long ago.
In this case the vitriol could have some validity if these proposals are taken as more evidence of GW's lack of real desire to fix things, just more "balance wash" to shut us up until 9th becomes the game we really asked for. One might hope the upside of a lacklustre, middle of the road ruleset would be the capability to balance within it. This firefighting with petrol approach leaves one wondering as to the leadership within the dev team and what their priorities really are.

Ix_Tab wrote:
The vitriol seems like part of the landscape where these matters come up stemming, I suspect, in part from the fans caring more about the game than some of the people working on it and the situation where GW in particular seems to have a lasting hold on people even though they seem to have ceased enjoying the companies products long ago.
In this case the vitriol could have some validity if these proposals are taken as more evidence of GW's lack of real desire to fix things, just more "balance wash" to shut us up until 9th becomes the game we really asked for. One might hope the upside of a lacklustre, middle of the road ruleset would be the capability to balance within it. This firefighting with petrol approach leaves one wondering as to the leadership within the dev team and what their priorities really are.

I think there is a perception there that is very likely untrue and that is that the people who work for GW, particularly the design and studio team don't care about the game. I think that there's a strong expectation that the game be perfect as opposed to being willing to participate in making it better. Also there's some strong salt there in the idea that a 9th edition is even near the horizon or that the current rule set is some form of 'tide over' until that time - I think they released a new edition to attempt to breathe life into the game ad are working to make it a better product. I can understand frustration with GW - I worked for them for about 8 years and dealt with some of the worst parts of the business however I think that right now you've got 2 paths. You can either attempt to help make the game better by contributing and providing feedback or you can continue to complain but never offer GW your legitimate feedback.

Indeed. You can no longer accuse GW of not listening. So if you want to be heard feed back politely. If you don't feed back and only vent on forums then it's but wasted air. By all means discuss here but if you think something matters then let GW know.

 Xenomancers wrote:
If they are about to release beta rules....WTF rules are we using now lol.

The alpha rules, of course.

 Xenomancers wrote:
If they are about to release beta rules....WTF rules are we using now lol.

Think of it more like the public beta of the next major patch, which is really what it is.
Video game companies often do the same thing, and if they don't then it's likely tested privately instead.

Ix_Tab wrote:

 Farseer_V2 wrote:
So there is a current strain of thought here that the smite nerf hurts armies with destructor smite (which I agree with). I think the correct course of action is provide that feedback in a well reasoned email to the email address they specifically set up for this. I don't really understand the vitriol here when GW specifically asked for play testing and feedback on these rules, they haven't said they're going to be permanent additions.

I think if you feel strongly about these changes and play test them and can show the negative impact they'll take this in to account.

Also regarding the idea that psychic powers that if cast multiple times per phase is proof that the game isn't balanced - that's laughable, the balance is in the limitation. Oh no - the power they specifically designed the system to prevent you from casting very strong abilities multiple times is working as intended! Broken!

The vitriol seems like part of the landscape where these matters come up stemming, I suspect, in part from the fans caring more about the game than some of the people working on it and the situation where GW in particular seems to have a lasting hold on people even though they seem to have ceased enjoying the companies products long ago.
In this case the vitriol could have some validity if these proposals are taken as more evidence of GW's lack of real desire to fix things, just more "balance wash" to shut us up until 9th becomes the game we really asked for. One might hope the upside of a lacklustre, middle of the road ruleset would be the capability to balance within it. This firefighting with petrol approach leaves one wondering as to the leadership within the dev team and what their priorities really are.

I think it's more a combination of:

A) After 20 years, you'd think they'd finally get balance right and understand what goes into proper game balance.

B) They continue to kind of... miss the mark. yes, it's good that they are fixing things (or taking the steps to fix things) but they continually show that they aren't capable of understanding why something is good/bad. Their changes seem like they are well-intentioned, but once you look past that you kind of have this "What the...?" moment where you realize what they changed didn't address the actual reason there was a problem and introduced other bugs.

In general, I find that the kind of people who feel motivated to create games are often very creative, but not usually that good at math, or anticipating what will happen when people min/max builds.

 adamsouza wrote:
In general, I find that the kind of people who feel motivated to create games are often very creative, but not usually that good at math, or anticipating what will happen when people min/max builds.

Okay... So hire people who ARE good at math. This isn't a one-man basement project, this is a massive company.

 JNAProductions wrote:

 adamsouza wrote:
In general, I find that the kind of people who feel motivated to create games are often very creative, but not usually that good at math, or anticipating what will happen when people min/max builds.

Okay... So hire people who ARE good at math. This isn't a one-man basement project, this is a massive company.

That's exactly why people get mad at some of the ridiculousness that GW has produced. Because despite being a massive company, somehow we nerds on our computers can come up with better rules.

 JNAProductions wrote:

 adamsouza wrote:
In general, I find that the kind of people who feel motivated to create games are often very creative, but not usually that good at math, or anticipating what will happen when people min/max builds.

Okay... So hire people who ARE good at math. This isn't a one-man basement project, this is a massive company.

Those people are too busy working their better-paying jobs in STEM fields, playing 40K on weekends, and complaining about the game mechanics on the internet

 adamsouza wrote:

Because players that don't use Psykers cry about anything that can wound their 2+/3++/5+++ models without divine intervention.

You know there's these things called GUNS that most armies field that kill toughest model in the game far more cost effectively than any gun can kill hordes?

But yeah some people are too lazy to figure out simple math to beat tough models and just want "delete everything" button.

 greyknight12 wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:

 adamsouza wrote:
In general, I find that the kind of people who feel motivated to create games are often very creative, but not usually that good at math, or anticipating what will happen when people min/max builds.

Okay... So hire people who ARE good at math. This isn't a one-man basement project, this is a massive company.

That's exactly why people get mad at some of the ridiculousness that GW has produced. Because despite being a massive company, somehow we nerds on our computers can come up with better rules.

That's a bit unfair. All these so called "Better rules" are not tested by tens of thousands of people. 99,9% of those proposed rules would prove to be a disaster if actually tested massively.

I also don't understand all the complaints on the game balance. 8th edition is IMHO balanced right now, far more than many other games that are claimed as balanced by GW haters.
Look at Warmachine/hordes, i've played the MK2 of that game for years, and it is often brought out as an example of a balanced game, when everyone who played it knows that it wasn't. 70% of lists were autoincludes in that game! The difference between a competitive list and a fluffy list was so big that there was no reason at all to play! 8th edition is in a far far better place than that!

Smite change is horrible. FIx smite spam by increasing costs of the psykers. If this goes through Tsons and GK's are even worse than they are now. Tsons at least have a incoming codex that could in theory bypass the nerf or soften it, but GK players are boned until the next codex or CA.

But what worries me most is the new psychic focus rules. Terrible. Psychic phase has already been nerfed in matched play and any more of a nerf and its going to make the phase to weak.

Table wrote:
Smite change is horrible. FIx smite spam by increasing costs of the psykers. If this goes through Tsons and GK's are even worse than they are now. Tsons at least have a incoming codex that could in theory bypass the nerf or soften it, but GK players are boned until the next codex or CA.

One fix could be the Eldar Way, IE giving GK and TS such a preposterous number of powers that they don't want to cast smite. Give Grey Knights the Space Marine list in addition to their own, and let Thousand Sons keep the CSM list while getting a new one of our own.

Of course you'd also have to change Aspiring Sorcerers to be real psykers with an additional power known rather than them solely being smite batteries as it is now.

 Arachnofiend wrote:

Table wrote:
Smite change is horrible. FIx smite spam by increasing costs of the psykers. If this goes through Tsons and GK's are even worse than they are now. Tsons at least have a incoming codex that could in theory bypass the nerf or soften it, but GK players are boned until the next codex or CA.

One fix could be the Eldar Way, IE giving GK and TS such a preposterous number of powers that they don't want to cast smite. Give Grey Knights the Space Marine list in addition to their own, and let Thousand Sons keep the CSM list while getting a new one of our own.

Of course you'd also have to change Aspiring Sorcerers to be real psykers with an additional power known rather than them solely being smite batteries as it is now.

I wish we could start getting powers akin to 7th and earlier offensive powers. Like doombolt. No reason we cant have powers that mimic gun damage.

Table wrote:
Smite change is horrible. FIx smite spam by increasing costs of the psykers. If this goes through Tsons and GK's are even worse than they are now. Tsons at least have a incoming codex that could in theory bypass the nerf or soften it, but GK players are boned until the next codex or CA.

But what worries me most is the new psychic focus rules. Terrible. Psychic phase has already been nerfed in matched play and any more of a nerf and its going to make the phase to weak.

How can you say, to fix smite spam increasing the cost of the psyker, when what you do to that is punish people that uses psykers as supports units.
Smite IS the problem. Cheap psykers are fone as long as they dont have full smite or smite is adressed.
Gk suck ass, with or without this change. And TS will have rules to help them with this, im sure. All those to cast bonuses will come in handy to spam smite.

I can't wait for them to nerf smite and then build Tzeentch daemons around casting smite.

It's the sort of move I fully expect GW to make.

I fully agree. Smite is generally the problem, not the cost of the psyker.

I also think, that the suggested idea of getting rid of the “rule of 1” rule, is a bad one for a couple of reasons.
1. There are powers in each discipline that everyone would love to spam, but would be incredibly bad for the game. Aliatoc unit + 3x conceal = -4 to hit for a 105 point cost… How about 3 Astropaths giving something +3 to their save rolls. Dark Angels spamming their de-buff that lasts the entire game. Etc etc. Doing this would require a whole lot of power rework.
2. There would then be an argument for “well, we can cast powers more than once, why can’t we use stratagems more than once as well? As, in battle, you’d often have several units following one strategy, rather than just a single unit.” This then leads to insane ideas like advance 3 max units of Shining Spears. Quicken all 3 units. Charge all 3 units. Or like having an entire Tyranid/Ork army charging first turn.

As for the TSons and GKs issue, I think Arachnofiend has a good idea. Rather than re-working their current powers, allow them to also access the powers of their “parent” armies, in a display of their “psychic prowess and knowledge”. In this instance, I would leave their versions of smite as they are.
Aspiring Sorcerers will need a slight change though, in order to allow you to play a Thousand Sons list and still cast powers.

 greyknight12 wrote:

That's exactly why people get mad at some of the ridiculousness that GW has produced. Because despite being a massive company, somehow we nerds on our computers can come up with better rules.

This is absolutely not the case. Most people are completely deluded about how hard game design actually is. GW design team might be far from perfect, yet they are certainly way better at the game design than vast majority of the players. Most rules in the proposed rules section are terrible. It is just that people's house rules are not exposed to the extensive scrutiny of thousands or even millions of players so there is less chance that the flaws will be noticed and pointed out. In our local tournaments organisers often tried to 'fix' perceived balance issues with various house rules, often ending up causing even worse balance issues.

If the game was perfectly balanced it wouldn't be fun. If you want balance everyone play the same army. Or just don't play but roll a dice, highest wins, save yourself a couple hours.

This is my suggestion, sent to GW:

"I like the beta rules changes, but for one detail to the smite rule: it adversely affects units like Thousand Sons aspiring sorcerors, grey knights, wyrdvane psyker squads and other units with reduced-power smites.

If you do use those units, which in the case of Pink Horrors, Aspiring Sorcerors and Grey Knights you have no choice if you play that army, you would never use the reduced power version of their smite.

For instance, let's say I play Thousand Sons and I have a battalion detachment with Ahriman and two Sorcerors. Since their smites deal more damage, I will always try with them first, then I get to my rubric squad. They'd need to roll an 8 - a 44% chance - to get a single mortal wound, and they have a 6% chance of getting a perils of the warp and causing the squad to take 2D3 mortal wounds instantly. Not a bet I'd take!

I think the new rule needs to simply be released alongside an errata changing "smite with different name" powers to be their own thing. For example:

For example, change the Warlock datasheet to read:

"The warlock has access to the Destructor power

Destructor: ML5. The closest enemy unit within 9" suffers a single mortal wound. If this model's unit consists of 4-6 models, the closest enemy unit instead suffers D3 mortal wounds. If this model's unit consists of 7-10 models, the closest enemy unit instead suffers D6 mortal wounds. In Matched Play, the Psychic Focus rule does not apply to attempts to cast Destructor."

and so on for Cleansing Flame, Flickering Fires, Telepathic Assault, etc.This would enable all the benefits of the new beta rule at trimming down lists with half a dozen primaris psykers, but also give a reason to take the competing units that are passed up (i.e. wyrdvane psykers) because basic smite is so much better than what they can do."

Thoughts? It's a bit wordier than I'd like, and I considered cutting out the section with the Aspiring sorceror, but I felt like framing it up in an example displaying the impact on the kind of casual play GW encourages might be helpful, because I'm sure they receive many suggestions from people who (at least they suspect) want the change to be made so they can make some kind of cheesy spam list. I wanted to show what it would do to just a basic battalion of thousand sons with a few sorcerors and a few rubric squads.

 Crimson wrote:

 greyknight12 wrote:

That's exactly why people get mad at some of the ridiculousness that GW has produced. Because despite being a massive company, somehow we nerds on our computers can come up with better rules.

This is absolutely not the case. Most people are completely deluded about how hard game design actually is. GW design team might be far from perfect, yet they are certainly way better at the game design than vast majority of the players. Most rules in the proposed rules section are terrible. It is just that people's house rules are not exposed to the extensive scrutiny of thousands or even millions of players so there is less chance that the flaws will be noticed and pointed out. In our local tournaments organisers often tried to 'fix' perceived balance issues with various house rules, often ending up causing even worse balance issues.

This.

Vast majority of vocal complaining comes from people with biased views and lack of broad vision, even though the problem they see could very well be a real one. It will be interesting to see in, say, six months time how many of us armchair designers have actually mailed GW their thoughts and managed to argue in good faith well enough that they might choose to act on that. With GW currently willing to go and try to balance things, it might even work, but I'll bet the people in charge of the feedback are going to brutally discard a lot of it since some players will inevitably try to push "my faction X is not better than factions Y and Z, please make it uber" ideas there.

Again I think the issue is GW has ideas to balance, but without them having actual game designers (which they have repeatedly stated even on Twitch that they don't use game design theory or math/formulas), it makes it hard for them to get it right. So what you end up with is them adding a fix to a problem that doesn't affect the biggest offenders (you see this one a TON with their changes; the stuff it's made to fix doesn't care about it, while everyone else suffers), and introduces more bugs.

I'm a software developer by trade and I see this kinda stuff almost every day with some people I work with. They don't really get the underlying problem, so rather than put in the effort to actually fix it right, they do a band-aid quick fix that looks on the surface like it fixes the issue, but has more problems because they didn't fix it properly.

the_scotsman wrote:
This is my suggestion, sent to GW:

"I like the beta rules changes, but for one detail to the smite rule: it adversely affects units like Thousand Sons aspiring sorcerors, grey knights, wyrdvane psyker squads and other units with reduced-power smites.

If you do use those units, which in the case of Pink Horrors, Aspiring Sorcerors and Grey Knights you have no choice if you play that army, you would never use the reduced power version of their smite.

For instance, let's say I play Thousand Sons and I have a battalion detachment with Ahriman and two Sorcerors. Since their smites deal more damage, I will always try with them first, then I get to my rubric squad. They'd need to roll an 8 - a 44% chance - to get a single mortal wound, and they have a 6% chance of getting a perils of the warp and causing the squad to take 2D3 mortal wounds instantly. Not a bet I'd take!

I think the new rule needs to simply be released alongside an errata changing "smite with different name" powers to be their own thing. For example:

For example, change the Warlock datasheet to read:

"The warlock has access to the Destructor power

Destructor: ML5. The closest enemy unit within 9" suffers a single mortal wound. If this model's unit consists of 4-6 models, the closest enemy unit instead suffers D3 mortal wounds. If this model's unit consists of 7-10 models, the closest enemy unit instead suffers D6 mortal wounds. In Matched Play, the Psychic Focus rule does not apply to attempts to cast Destructor."

and so on for Cleansing Flame, Flickering Fires, Telepathic Assault, etc.This would enable all the benefits of the new beta rule at trimming down lists with half a dozen primaris psykers, but also give a reason to take the competing units that are passed up (i.e. wyrdvane psykers) because basic smite is so much better than what they can do."

Thoughts? It's a bit wordier than I'd like, and I considered cutting out the section with the Aspiring sorceror, but I felt like framing it up in an example displaying the impact on the kind of casual play GW encourages might be helpful, because I'm sure they receive many suggestions from people who (at least they suspect) want the change to be made so they can make some kind of cheesy spam list. I wanted to show what it would do to just a basic battalion of thousand sons with a few sorcerors and a few rubric squads.

Im still not understanding why all psychic offense in 8th MUST deal mortal wounds. Id like to have some variety in offense.

I doubt seriously either of these rules will make it past beta. To many negative interactions with balance. And honestly, perhaps its due to my local meta, but ive yet to have to play a smite spam list. What is a FAR bigger problem is the massive advantage with going first and alpha strike builds. Having your Imperial Knight destroyed before you get to take a game turn in kinda rank.

Nemesis234 wrote:
If the game was perfectly balanced it wouldn't be fun. If you want balance everyone play the same army. Or just don't play but roll a dice, highest wins, save yourself a couple hours.

This is completely wrong in every way. A balanced game doesn't come down to a coin toss to determine the winner (unless the game is actually betting on a coin toss), as a balanced game will most likely have multiple viable strategies to use against any given scenario. It is an unbalanced game where you end up effectively flipping a coin to determine the winner, where the coin flip is replaced by bringing army X against army Y when army X is unnamed henchman #392 and army Y is The Hulk, on Venom, in an Iron Man suit, swinging Thor holding Mjolnir.

A Town Called Malus wrote:

 Grizzyzz wrote:

2) The exact reason for them not doing this as you hope they do.. is so that YOU can't block line of sight on your turn with your own models to snipe characters. For example... I have my farseer sitting behind some rangers. You roll up and park a rhino so that your your squad of hellblasters has full line of sight of my character but can't see the rangers anymore and take him out.

Yeah, why should tactical movement to create shooting opportunities be a thing in a tabletop wargame? /sarcasm

Right its super tactical to park artillery out of line of sight so that you can just snipe out any character you want then because no unit is visibile to them? /sarcasm

Seriously, though, there are alot of cases that just aren't being thought of when people think about how this rule plays out. Is the character rule perfect? NO. Is it better than AOS where you can just snipe characters any time you want? YES (especially given that 40k is wayyyy more punishing)