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 auticus wrote:
Well... my opponents typically do about 10-15 mortal wounds to me in return. And then on top of that the rest of their army also contributes another 20 or so.

And those are lists where we are restraining ourselves and not being tfg.

In a list where you are following "the meta" and have a bunch of cheap blob units, 30-40 wounds infliicted on you is pretty minor.

If you are not running "the meta", 30-40 wounds can and does take you down below 50% in a turn.

Whether that is good or bad of course is subjective.

You know, I see posts like this, and I'm like "Yeah, 30-40 wounds is about right for an army" and then I get told that it is hard for even the most competitive armies to one-shot a superheavy and damn near impossible for everyone else.

I think the dissonance on this forum is staggering.

ANYWAYS - 30-40 wounds is about right for an entire army, in my opinion. If 10 comes from mortal wounds, and 20 or so comes from regular wounds, that's fairly sensible - about as sensible as 30 or 40 coming from shooting, or assault.

GW changing something generally only has a tangential bearing on whether or not it is currently imbalanced (see: Actually seen dominating tournaments or in other competitive lists) and a much MUCH more direct correlation with whatever marine players are currently whining about.

It's pretty rich that I'm being accused of building a "Smite Spam" army when I didn't - I built a tzeentch army with dozen different units in it, and when 8th dropped GW just decided "LOL, all your units now do only one thing, enjoy the fun new psychic phase!"

And now they're demolishing the one thing that they still do. Well, at least now little timmy's dreadnought won't die to the psychic output of a whole 2000 point army, that was clearly broken.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 auticus wrote:
Well... my opponents typically do about 10-15 mortal wounds to me in return. And then on top of that the rest of their army also contributes another 20 or so.

And those are lists where we are restraining ourselves and not being tfg.

In a list where you are following "the meta" and have a bunch of cheap blob units, 30-40 wounds infliicted on you is pretty minor.

If you are not running "the meta", 30-40 wounds can and does take you down below 50% in a turn.

Whether that is good or bad of course is subjective.

You know, I see posts like this, and I'm like "Yeah, 30-40 wounds is about right for an army" and then I get told that it is hard for even the most competitive armies to one-shot a superheavy and damn near impossible for everyone else.

I think the dissonance on this forum is staggering.

ANYWAYS - 30-40 wounds is about right for an entire army, in my opinion. If 10 comes from mortal wounds, and 20 or so comes from regular wounds, that's fairly sensible - about as sensible as 30 or 40 coming from shooting, or assault.

If 30-40 unsaved wounds (regardless of target) is the norm any elite army is perpetually doomed. 30-40 guardsman = 120-160 points, Orks =180-240 points. 15-20 Terminators = 600-800 points. Expected deaths should at some level be based around points not wounds.

Breng77 wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 auticus wrote:
Well... my opponents typically do about 10-15 mortal wounds to me in return. And then on top of that the rest of their army also contributes another 20 or so.

And those are lists where we are restraining ourselves and not being tfg.

In a list where you are following "the meta" and have a bunch of cheap blob units, 30-40 wounds infliicted on you is pretty minor.

If you are not running "the meta", 30-40 wounds can and does take you down below 50% in a turn.

Whether that is good or bad of course is subjective.

You know, I see posts like this, and I'm like "Yeah, 30-40 wounds is about right for an army" and then I get told that it is hard for even the most competitive armies to one-shot a superheavy and damn near impossible for everyone else.

I think the dissonance on this forum is staggering.

ANYWAYS - 30-40 wounds is about right for an entire army, in my opinion. If 10 comes from mortal wounds, and 20 or so comes from regular wounds, that's fairly sensible - about as sensible as 30 or 40 coming from shooting, or assault.

If 30-40 unsaved wounds (regardless of target) is the norm any elite army is perpetually doomed. 30-40 guardsman = 120-160 points, Orks =180-240 points. 15-20 Terminators = 600-800 points. Expected deaths should at some level be based around points not wounds.

I agree that it should be based on points, and to some extent it is; a horde Guard army might suffer 120 wounds in a game, and Terminators might suffer 15-25.

I was just taking 30-40 as an average based on my experience with all armies in the game. I have played against conscripts and killed ~60 in a turn, and I have played against Imperial Knights and been lucky to do 12 wounds. So it does vary. I was just saying 30-40 wouldn't surprise me.

The character rules in 8th are still a gak show honestly.

I'm just patiently waiting for the return of the allied detachment. You can have 1 allied detachment, etc, and it has to be <this> with <these restrictions>.

 Karthicus wrote:
Wow.... the salt....

the_scotsman wrote:

 Karthicus wrote:
I understand why smite spamming armies would be upset about this change, but if this becomes a permanent rule it would not stop me from starting up a TSON army.

I don't think people understand just how powerful MWs are. The wounds can’t be saved against, and spamming 10+ MW a round is just insane. We have a local Tzeentch player who steamrolls her opponents half the time, and its a one trick pony. Hell, I picked up some assassins just for the purpose of countering her spam. I won’t shed a tear over someone having their easy mode button taken away, but if you can bring up some reasonable other ideas they should be entertained.

Between that and the fact the casters who can only roll a single D6 do have the benefit of not being able to trigger perils of the warp? So what if your troops can only cast it twice instead of the 5-6 times you are hoping for. Cast it twice before your characters who roll two dice cast. You still can pull off 3-4 smites in a turn. This change will force you to rely on more than just smiting everything into the ground. I think this makes a lot of sense, and I am looking forward to seeing what the play testing results show.

You know how many mortal wounds you cause if you cast Smite with horrors 6 times as you describe?

2.

1/3 chance base of one single mortal wound. which, again, as I've said, works out to less damage, at a shorter range, less reliably, than the basic autoguns/lasguns/shootas of comparably cheap shooty infantry, even against optimal targets for MWs like Terminators. Just because you have to roll more dice and get a save does not mean a thing does less damage to you. 10+ mortal wounds per turn? That's insane! You could almost kill a RHINO with that awesome firepower! And it's an enormous 18" range and ONLY has the drawback of having to target the closest target to the firer and has a 6% chance of causing mortal wounds to you every time you fire it.

I cant help but feel like the people bitching and moaning about MWs are the type that view weapons like the Leman Russ Vanquisher as just fine/possibly overpowered. "WOW! It's like a melta gun that shoots ACROSS THE TABLE? that's SO GOOD!"

Yes, I am well aware of the fact the beta rules would limit your spam list to only 2 smite attempts from D6 casters. Good.

Oh man! It's so unfair that you only get to do 2 MW per turn instead of 10+... GW how could you?!?! /Sarcasm

The amount of hyperbole you are throwing out is astonishing. My example is enough firepower to take out any dedicated transport, dread, or stormtalon/hawk. That's pretty potent dude. On top of that you can throw it at units that are locked up in melee?

adamsouza wrote:I swear a lot of the stories I hear about smite spam are either from masters of tactical engagement or sub par players.

From my personal experience, an experienced player will shield their valuable models and concentrate their fire on the offending Psykers. You can absolutely force your opponent through the positioning of your models to use smite on your less valuable models.

If you choose to take no expendable units, then it's a risk you took while army building that didn't pay off in that matchup.

If your problem is with mortal wounds as a concept you are likely S.O.L.

Superheavies didn't go anywhere.
Flyers didn't go anywhere.
Formations/Detachments didn't go anywhere.
Mortal Wounds are likely to stay as well.

You can blame this on sub par players all you want, but the fact that GW is currently trying to have some changes play tested should speak to the fact perhaps it's a little unbalanced.

I have no problem with MW in the game, or as a concept. In fact I think its a cool mechanic to have in the game. I agree that you need to adjust your tactics, and be mindful to shield units from things like Smite, but that doesn't take away how powerful it is, and how quickly it can dominate a game.

I think this was a really good starting point. Let the testing play out and see what happens once they have collected that information. Perhaps GW will make some tweaks or include some changes for GK and TSON armies.

Chill out man.

It's clear from this thread that a lot of people are unhappy with these "fixes" and GWs overall lack of effort with current rules writing.

8th edition is fairly new and it's already collapsing under its own weight of ill conceived rules.

7th was a mess but at least it took some time to get there. People are concerend that 8th will end up in worse shape than 7th and at the current rate, their nightmare secanrio looks to be coming true.

LOL at all the GK players claiming nerf.

You have TWO powers in addition to smite that you can throw out mortal wounds with. The entire point is to encourage people to use the other powers out there. That's exactly what this does.

To all the daemons players, wait for the codex. *shrug

 Marmatag wrote:
The character rules in 8th are still a gak show honestly.

I'm just patiently waiting for the return of the allied detachment. You can have 1 allied detachment, etc, and it has to be <this> with <these restrictions>.

But... b-but... most playtested edition evar...

 sfshilo wrote:
LOL at all the GK players claiming nerf.

You have TWO powers in addition to smite that you can throw out mortal wounds with. The entire point is to encourage people to use the other powers out there. That's exactly what this does.

To all the daemons players, wait for the codex. *shrug

Except the new psychic focus rules attached to the smite nerf works against what you are telling psyker based armies to do.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Karthicus wrote:
Wow.... the salt....

the_scotsman wrote:

 Karthicus wrote:
I understand why smite spamming armies would be upset about this change, but if this becomes a permanent rule it would not stop me from starting up a TSON army.

I don't think people understand just how powerful MWs are. The wounds can’t be saved against, and spamming 10+ MW a round is just insane. We have a local Tzeentch player who steamrolls her opponents half the time, and its a one trick pony. Hell, I picked up some assassins just for the purpose of countering her spam. I won’t shed a tear over someone having their easy mode button taken away, but if you can bring up some reasonable other ideas they should be entertained.

Between that and the fact the casters who can only roll a single D6 do have the benefit of not being able to trigger perils of the warp? So what if your troops can only cast it twice instead of the 5-6 times you are hoping for. Cast it twice before your characters who roll two dice cast. You still can pull off 3-4 smites in a turn. This change will force you to rely on more than just smiting everything into the ground. I think this makes a lot of sense, and I am looking forward to seeing what the play testing results show.

You know how many mortal wounds you cause if you cast Smite with horrors 6 times as you describe?

2.

1/3 chance base of one single mortal wound. which, again, as I've said, works out to less damage, at a shorter range, less reliably, than the basic autoguns/lasguns/shootas of comparably cheap shooty infantry, even against optimal targets for MWs like Terminators. Just because you have to roll more dice and get a save does not mean a thing does less damage to you. 10+ mortal wounds per turn? That's insane! You could almost kill a RHINO with that awesome firepower! And it's an enormous 18" range and ONLY has the drawback of having to target the closest target to the firer and has a 6% chance of causing mortal wounds to you every time you fire it.

I cant help but feel like the people bitching and moaning about MWs are the type that view weapons like the Leman Russ Vanquisher as just fine/possibly overpowered. "WOW! It's like a melta gun that shoots ACROSS THE TABLE? that's SO GOOD!"

Yes, I am well aware of the fact the beta rules would limit your spam list to only 2 smite attempts from D6 casters. Good.

Oh man! It's so unfair that you only get to do 2 MW per turn instead of 10+... GW how could you?!?! /Sarcasm

The amount of hyperbole you are throwing out is astonishing. My example is enough firepower to take out any dedicated transport, dread, or stormtalon/hawk. That's pretty potent dude. On top of that you can throw it at units that are locked up in melee?

adamsouza wrote:I swear a lot of the stories I hear about smite spam are either from masters of tactical engagement or sub par players.

From my personal experience, an experienced player will shield their valuable models and concentrate their fire on the offending Psykers. You can absolutely force your opponent through the positioning of your models to use smite on your less valuable models.

If you choose to take no expendable units, then it's a risk you took while army building that didn't pay off in that matchup.

If your problem is with mortal wounds as a concept you are likely S.O.L.

Superheavies didn't go anywhere.
Flyers didn't go anywhere.
Formations/Detachments didn't go anywhere.
Mortal Wounds are likely to stay as well.

You can blame this on sub par players all you want, but the fact that GW is currently trying to have some changes play tested should speak to the fact perhaps it's a little unbalanced.

I have no problem with MW in the game, or as a concept. In fact I think its a cool mechanic to have in the game. I agree that you need to adjust your tactics, and be mindful to shield units from things like Smite, but that doesn't take away how powerful it is, and how quickly it can dominate a game.

I think this was a really good starting point. Let the testing play out and see what happens once they have collected that information. Perhaps GW will make some tweaks or include some changes for GK and TSON armies.

Honestly I am not making a dig at you or trying to throw shade. But your postings come off as a player that has little invested in the psychic phase and has been on the wrong side of a games with a psyker heavy force. I have two armies. Tsons and NIghtlords. My NL's have almost zero psykers while my Tsons are psyker heavy. I can tell you right now that my NL list is FAR stronger than my magnus smite "spam". Abusing the morale phase is the next big problem. Mark my words.

 Kaiyanwang wrote:

 Marmatag wrote:
The character rules in 8th are still a gak show honestly.

I'm just patiently waiting for the return of the allied detachment. You can have 1 allied detachment, etc, and it has to be <this> with <these restrictions>.

But... b-but... most playtested edition evar...

A few play tests vs absolutely denied by the higher ups is still the most play tested edition

The least you can do is give them props for trying. even if its not what you want.

GW forcing mono tzeentch players to... buy more stuff? Just as Planned indeed! Khorne daemons are looking pretty good right now

 Desubot wrote:

 Kaiyanwang wrote:

 Marmatag wrote:
The character rules in 8th are still a gak show honestly.

I'm just patiently waiting for the return of the allied detachment. You can have 1 allied detachment, etc, and it has to be <this> with <these restrictions>.

But... b-but... most playtested edition evar...

A few play tests vs absolutely denied by the higher ups is still the most play tested edition

The least you can do is give them props for trying. even if its not what you want.

I guess the question is, after how long do you stop give them props for trying, and expect them to actually figure it out? This is what makes it so frustrating. A company of GW's size and stature should have no problem employing actual game designers with a solid background in, you know, what it takes to be a game designer. Instead, their designers seem to have little skill but a lot of "passion", yet seemingly are not actually capable of performing their jobs in an adequate capacity. It is very good that they are "trying" but they've been "trying" for over 20 years, and still miss the mark. Where do you draw the line?

Wayniac wrote:

 Desubot wrote:

 Kaiyanwang wrote:

 Marmatag wrote:
The character rules in 8th are still a gak show honestly.

I'm just patiently waiting for the return of the allied detachment. You can have 1 allied detachment, etc, and it has to be <this> with <these restrictions>.

But... b-but... most playtested edition evar...

A few play tests vs absolutely denied by the higher ups is still the most play tested edition

The least you can do is give them props for trying. even if its not what you want.

I guess the question is, after how long do you stop give them props for trying, and expect them to actually figure it out? This is what makes it so frustrating. A company of GW's size and stature should have no problem employing actual game designers with a solid background in, you know, what it takes to be a game designer. Instead, their designers seem to have little skill but a lot of "passion", yet seemingly are not actually capable of performing their jobs in an adequate capacity. It is very good that they are "trying" but they've been "trying" for over 20 years, and still miss the mark. Where do you draw the line?

Check out the James M Hewitt AMA

It really didn't matter back then as to how good the game was. and basically all the problems we have as gamers is entirely the fault of upper management and the bean counters. and ultimately it wont matter now ether. those bean counters are still there. all we can hope for is that they dont redo 8th. by doing so it gives RND the time to actually do playtesting taking in data and try and adjust things over time till the game gets better.

Under different leadership the emphasis will be different. I would say they're making very positive steps. Committing to a patch schedule, like a software company would do, is smart. It's a game, so it should follow similar cycles anyway.

That said, they should really playtest their rules with cheese in mind. A list with 18 assassins is unfun to play against as anything i've ever had the misfortune of running into, and it's because of the way targeting works. It's a list that designed to feth you by exploiting beer and pretzels rules.

Characters should only be exempt from targeting if there is another model within 6" that is not a character. Boom. Fixed. Oh i see you have 3 assassins 1 millimeter behind a Culexus. That doesn't matter. Thanks for trying.

 Marmatag wrote:
Under different leadership the emphasis will be different. I would say they're making very positive steps. Committing to a patch schedule, like a software company would do, is smart. It's a game, so it should follow similar cycles anyway.

That said, they should really playtest their rules with cheese in mind. A list with 18 assassins is unfun to play against as anything i've ever had the misfortune of running into, and it's because of the way targeting works. It's a list that designed to feth you by exploiting beer and pretzels rules.

Characters should only be exempt from targeting if there is another model within 6" that is not a character. Boom. Fixed. Oh i see you have 3 assassins 1 millimeter behind a Culexus. That doesn't matter. Thanks for trying.

Well they kinda did

it seems they have taken in "some" of the tourny data and adjusted the rules to help fix some issues. one thing you can say about tourny players they really know how to propagate cheese. (this is not an insult people that are try harding hard with a prize at the end will damn well try pretty hard to gain every advantage as possible meaning its really easy for RND to figure out what parts are causing the problem)

also wasnt that 18 ass list pretty old? its entirely possible any changes wont be immediate.

 Desubot wrote:

 Marmatag wrote:
Under different leadership the emphasis will be different. I would say they're making very positive steps. Committing to a patch schedule, like a software company would do, is smart. It's a game, so it should follow similar cycles anyway.

That said, they should really playtest their rules with cheese in mind. A list with 18 assassins is unfun to play against as anything i've ever had the misfortune of running into, and it's because of the way targeting works. It's a list that designed to feth you by exploiting beer and pretzels rules.

Characters should only be exempt from targeting if there is another model within 6" that is not a character. Boom. Fixed. Oh i see you have 3 assassins 1 millimeter behind a Culexus. That doesn't matter. Thanks for trying.

Well they kinda did

it seems they have taken in "some" of the tourny data and adjusted the rules to help fix some issues. one thing you can say about tourny players they really know how to propagate cheese. (this is not an insult people that are try harding hard with a prize at the end will damn well try pretty hard to gain every advantage as possible meaning its really easy for RND to figure out what parts are causing the problem)

also wasnt that 18 ass list pretty old? its entirely possible any changes wont be immediate.

Yes this was a while ago.

 Kaiyanwang wrote:

 Marmatag wrote:
The character rules in 8th are still a gak show honestly.

I'm just patiently waiting for the return of the allied detachment. You can have 1 allied detachment, etc, and it has to be <this> with <these restrictions>.

But... b-but... most playtested edition evar...

Well GW has certainly played more games with these beta rules than the critics have.

 Crimson Devil wrote:

 Kaiyanwang wrote:

 Marmatag wrote:
The character rules in 8th are still a gak show honestly.

I'm just patiently waiting for the return of the allied detachment. You can have 1 allied detachment, etc, and it has to be <this> with <these restrictions>.

But... b-but... most playtested edition evar...

Well GW has certainly played more games with these beta rules than the critics have.

Probably not with Grey Knights, though.

Tyel wrote:
Can anyone who thinks "Smite" is the problem rather than "cheap Psykers" explain why?

Smite is just like shooting but with some slightly different rules. Its like saying "drop plasma is the problem, not the fact its cheap".

Plasma doesn't ignore defences other side pays points for. Smite does. Smite doesn't care is it shooting at cultist or land raider. Plasma gun does. This makes smite way too efficient at elite killing(elite being already laughing stock of 8th ed) thus basically invalidating entire armies and driving 40k even more to cheap hordes and screens which would be dominating playstyle even WITHOUT mortal wounds. With mortal wounds elite units are a joke compared to cheap hordes.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Crimson Devil wrote:

 Kaiyanwang wrote:

 Marmatag wrote:
The character rules in 8th are still a gak show honestly.

I'm just patiently waiting for the return of the allied detachment. You can have 1 allied detachment, etc, and it has to be <this> with <these restrictions>.

But... b-but... most playtested edition evar...

Well GW has certainly played more games with these beta rules than the critics have.

Critics likely have played more than the handful GW designers have playtested these rules. And unlike GW testers critiques can actually read english and think logically so they can spot blindingly obvious faults like assault weapons that do not actually do anything that GW designers are still unable to fix. And critics aren't the one who have job of making rules that sell models. That meanwhile is GW's whole principle and balance can go to hell. GW doesn't CARE about balanced rules. They don't WANT them. They want to sell models in heavy handed ways like invalidating FW resin in favour of plastic in not even subtle cash grabbing style.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:

 Matt.Kingsley wrote:

 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.

That's a pretty good point. Normally video game companies release reasoning for each change they make in a patch so you can get an idea of what they are doing.

I have no idea what videogame companies you are talking about. All the games I play just release a patch into the sea of piranhas they call a "community", and then that patch is ripped apart and simultaneously both too much and too little to fix the problem while not addressing other problems that aren't problems at all, obviously. They sometimes include Patch Notes which explain what changed, but never why.

They don't touch "reasoning" with a 10-foot pole, for obvious reasons.

League of Legends give designer notes with there patches, as well as World of Warcraft. The designer notes explain why they made the changes / what they plan to achieve with them.

Wayniac wrote:

 Desubot wrote:

 Kaiyanwang wrote:

 Marmatag wrote:
The character rules in 8th are still a gak show honestly.

I'm just patiently waiting for the return of the allied detachment. You can have 1 allied detachment, etc, and it has to be <this> with <these restrictions>.

But... b-but... most playtested edition evar...

A few play tests vs absolutely denied by the higher ups is still the most play tested edition

The least you can do is give them props for trying. even if its not what you want.

I guess the question is, after how long do you stop give them props for trying, and expect them to actually figure it out? This is what makes it so frustrating. A company of GW's size and stature should have no problem employing actual game designers with a solid background in, you know, what it takes to be a game designer. Instead, their designers seem to have little skill but a lot of "passion", yet seemingly are not actually capable of performing their jobs in an adequate capacity. It is very good that they are "trying" but they've been "trying" for over 20 years, and still miss the mark. Where do you draw the line?

You draw the line wherever YOU want to. What you shouldn't do, is just continuously bleat on and complain because things aren't the way you think they should be. Draw the line, leave, and GW can continue to go from strength to strength. (As it has been doing) GW are never going to be perfectly balanced. The company doesn't want this, the vast majority of it's customer don't want this. Get over it.

 Hollow wrote:
You draw the line wherever YOU want to. What you shouldn't do, is just continuously bleat on and complain because things aren't the way you think they should be. Draw the line, leave, and GW can continue to go from strength to strength. (As it has been doing) GW are never going to be perfectly balanced. The company doesn't want this, the vast majority of it's customer don't want this. Get over it.

Seeing perfect balance is impossibility yes that's obvious. However I would wager majority of customers would actually want REASONABLY balanced rules. Nobody gets hurt by rules being reasonably balanced(and logical. Who wants to arque ages how rule is supposed to be played when rules don't actually give definite answer one way or another?) rather than money driven deliberate unbalances coupled with poor math ability created unbalance.

Balanced game helps EVERY player. Unbalanced helps nobody.

A balanced game helps everyone, to bad the quest for balance is akin to the one for Utopia. Everyone agrees it would be better if we found it, No one agrees where to even start looking or improving, everyone agrees the work to get there is huge.

To answer the original question: yes
It gives the community time to check rule. There is (as we were promised when 8trh was announced) an email adress to contacxt them with concerns. There is no need currently for a GK /TS player to play with the new nerfed smite unless a tourney/event/opponent (and then TFG) demands it.
If you wanna test and it doesn't work a breeaks your army please tell GW. They might actually react and change the rule or change your armies rules.

I'm fine with GW proposing potentially imbalanced rules as 'Beta' ideas, to be tested and get feedback. That's all fine. In fact, that's quite good!

My problem with the set of Beta rules offered is that it shows that these 'Beta' rules didn't even get the proper Alpha testing they need before being released to the public. If they are releasing rules without considering how that would effect two entire factions (TSons and Grey Knights) on top of the partial 'Tzeentch' faction and a bunch of other more minor issues, it shows that they either don't think of those factions as worth considering, or that they just didn't think this through at all. I don't want to play my Grey Knights as a tiny ally faction with a half dozen units, I want to be able to play it as an army, but I can't.

Earth127 wrote:
A balanced game helps everyone, to bad the quest for balance is akin to the one for Utopia. Everyone agrees it would be better if we found it, No one agrees where to even start looking or improving, everyone agrees the work to get there is huge.

There is definitely lots of arguments about which units are OP and which are not, and what their point costs should be.
But if you look at the Eldar codex for instance, pretty much everyone agrees that Dark Reapers, flyers, or Shining Spears are top tier, while other aspect warriors and phoenix lords are much weaker. The main problem is to know how much these units should be adjusted to achieve a good internal balance.
With 3 updates a year (two major FAQs + CA), GW definitely has the tools to try and fine tune things. They could very well do a small point adjustment of each codex' outliers (so for Eldar the units I mentioned above), see where that brings them, then adjust again accordingly. They'll never reach a point where everyone is happy and feel the game is balanced, but when netlists will contain more than half a dozen units from a codex as large as the CWE codex, we'll be one step closer to decent balance.

GW has a history of swinging a huge nerf hammer instead of trying to nudge things a little bit at a time (like we eventually saw with conscripts, or with malefic lords), but it looks like they want to switch to more subtle changes, which imho is the only way to balance a game with as many units as 40K. It's just impossible to get it right on the first try.
But they did lower Cawl's point cost in CA, which was already wreaking AM's internal balance

fresus wrote:
GW has a history of swinging a huge nerf hammer instead of trying to nudge things a little bit at a time (like we eventually saw with conscripts, or with malefic lords), but it looks like they want to switch to more subtle changes, which imho is the only way to balance a game with as many units as 40K. It's just impossible to get it right on the first try.
But they did lower Cawl's point cost in CA, which was already wreaking AM's internal balance

Problem here being you are assuming they are trying to balance and aren't just changing things around in the same swingy "this time unit X is broken, next we nerf them to oblivion and make unit Y the next hotness" they have been doing either by incompetence or by design last 30 years.

tneva82 wrote:

fresus wrote:
GW has a history of swinging a huge nerf hammer instead of trying to nudge things a little bit at a time (like we eventually saw with conscripts, or with malefic lords), but it looks like they want to switch to more subtle changes, which imho is the only way to balance a game with as many units as 40K. It's just impossible to get it right on the first try.
But they did lower Cawl's point cost in CA, which was already wreaking AM's internal balance

Problem here being you are assuming they are trying to balance and aren't just changing things around in the same swingy "this time unit X is broken, next we nerf them to oblivion and make unit Y the next hotness" they have been doing either by incompetence or by design last 30 years.

Which is the correct assumption, as can be surmised from insider sources like James Hewitt's AMA at Reddit few days ago. The current trend in the company is that the developers are gaining a bit more say in the matters, whereas the moneychasing cha-cha-cha that reigned few years ago is receding following management shake-ups.

The thing is, the Nerf Hammer Swing method is by far the best way to "balance" a commercial game system, and dare I say it - the most fun.

Having a changing metagame over time is what stops these things becoming stale, and what makes people think "man I need to go spend my money on that new model/subscription/moba character/loot box/whatever"

We don't really want actual balance. We want dynamic balance.

The problem is that the changes are too fast at the moment, but they have already started to slow down.

I am pretty certain "incompetence" or rather lack of several factors led to the screw job that is/was warhammer balance.

I can to certain extent understand Gw screwing up the balance by not considering it top priority (we're a models company not a games' company. In the AMA hewitt mentions diminishing returns (they are a big factor) and the need to prevent big homogenization. How they had prioritzie rule of cool/ feel over balance (part of me agrees with GW here it is more important specifically for them).

Perception of imbalance is also a problem. People will believe something is massively imbalanced and even if you fix to be balanced the perception won't change and people will keep on complaining.
Also skill is an issue, if the more skilled players gravitate towards certain lists those are going to look better evne if they aren't by sheer virue of who is palying them.

 Silentz wrote:
The thing is, the Nerf Hammer Swing method is by far the best way to "balance" a commercial game system, and dare I say it - the most fun.

Having a changing metagame over time is what stops these things becoming stale, and what makes people think "man I need to go spend my money on that new model/subscription/moba character/loot box/whatever"

We don't really want actual balance. We want dynamic balance.

The problem is that the changes are too fast at the moment, but they have already started to slow down.

Yup, changing frequently is actually pretty good because if it becomes apparent that problems will get fixed most (not all) people will be more inclined to build a balanced list and get good with that list rather than trying to chase a meta, spend a bunch of money and time only to have the new hotness nerfed quickly.