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I think Casual balance is more "If I plop down an Aspect host, and my opponent does a demicompany style list, and we're both beer & pretzel-ing the game, is the outcome mostly already decided?"

In a more casual environment, you are likely to see very different unit options (ASM and SS might as well not exist competitively right now, but can be found on casual tables all the time).

Casual can eat a lot more imbalance, because they can self-balance quite a bit, but when it's too far out of whack, it's hard to play. I could take most options in the 6e CWE book, and still have a fun, balanced casual game against most books of that era, but when the 7e CWE book came out, that ceased to be the case. Building a "balanced" list for a casual game became very hard. So even casual needs some balance.

I *wanted* to mechanise my DAs in 6th, but had to move to Aspect Hosts so my opponent could play the game. I *wanted* to do aspect spam in 7th, because that's what I had moved to, was having tons of fun with, and my opponents were enjoying the game. But suddenly, the same list was much much more powerful - to the point where it wasn't a fun game anymore.

However, in the above example, even though Aspect Hosts (with diverse aspects in a CAD, not talking spamming one or formations) was OP for causal games, it wasn't good enough in competitive games. So there was no place for that style of list.

It'd be good if it were balanced around competitive environments. It'd be good if it were balanced around casual environments. But balancing around one doesn't mean it's balanced around the other.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
A good example of the difference:

In casual play, the CC ability of a Tac squad adds quite a bit. In competitive play, it typically doesn't get you anywhere.

Bharring wrote:
If you think Inquisition has it bad, try solo Corsairs. 3 units max, regardless of points, in matched play. And none of them heavier than a Falcon.

And at max, you get 0 CP.

Corsairs are not figuratively, literally unplayable in a Battleforged army.

You can't make Aeldari detachments
You can't take Ynnari detachments
You can't take more than three detachments (in case you were considering taking every unit in an Aux Support detachment and having -132532 command points just to play your army)

The_scotsman,
I'm being so technical because I thought you'd appreciate that being technically correct is the *best* kind of correct. (As long as it doesn't derail the thread).

I thought Corsairs had a 3rd keyword, specific to Corsairs (don't have my rules handy).

As such, pack a Corsair squad in a Falcon and bring along a Bike squad as freinds! That's 3 detatchments. You're at 0 CP, so you didn't go negative. That'd be legal.

Now, you're fielding ~600pts (didn't kit it out) at a 2k tourny, with no strats to help you at all (not even the BRB ones). But techincally, you can!

So I would argue they're figuratively, not literally, unplayable.

I'm not as strung up on that, but with all the people who moan about how their army was hurt worse than any other army by the FAQ (I think I've heard that about over half the armies in the game), I think it's useful to bring them up.

In my very humble and maybe debatable opinion, the problem with 40k and its low tier factions is that the key to win a game is'nt really tactics on the very field, but rather list building. The definition of skill in 40k would sound like read the rules carefully, identify which build is the most efficient and unleash it on the battlefield. If you are actually low tier and not just maoning, this means in fact your codex either doens't pack enough of these effecient combos or the available combos are to lax. But because 40k relies to be mainly on list buildings, it's very hard and in the worst cases maybe even nigh impossible to catch up with tactics.

That's why although 40k is highly renown as a competitive game, I'll personally never regard it as such.

If you're army is low tier, you'd better quit any kind of competitive match up and settle for freindly games. The casual world is completly different and although I've been discretly but surely wandering around on dakka back in 6th, I never felt the problems that set the site on fire. Tiers matter only a little in casual, where you can in addition tweak the rules and points and create new according to your needs. At the roots, 40k is a game and the main gaol of it is to have fun, which most of the time mostly excludes getting stomped as flat as a carpet on a regular basis.

w1zard wrote:

 SHUPPET wrote:

Thanks for the elementary level breakdown of the game I've played for 8 years...

Stop being rude. I didn't want to assume you knew I was talking about.

 SHUPPET wrote:

Absolutely none of what you said applies to tabletop...

Yes it does.

As others have stated, and as you have so eloquently pointed out, the analogy isn't perfect. However your assertion that "if it's balanced for high level play it's balanced for all levels of play" is incorrect for pretty much any gaming system, WH40k included. Now you can argue that its a GOOD thing that lower level balance is ignored in favor of higher level balance, but that is a whole other can of worms.

Well, you've said absolutely nothing to convince me of this other than an analogy you've now admitted was no good. I wasn't being rude, I said I appreciate your input, but my point in the opening sentence was that your analogy feels really forced, and more like you just wanted to say you play Starcraft rather than actually being even remotely relevant here.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Peregrine wrote:

 SHUPPET wrote:
Peregrine, probably the most widely disliked poster on this site.

I love you too.

For what it's worth, I don't dislike you. I don't always agree and I think you're brash but often raise points others won't.

However that does not exactly lead to being the most popular person in the world, and you post a lot so it's probably inevitable. I think we can both agree your statements arent a reflection of Dakka as a whole, hell I imagine you'd be insulted if I said they were

 SHUPPET wrote:

w1zard wrote:

 SHUPPET wrote:

Thanks for the elementary level breakdown of the game I've played for 8 years...

Stop being rude. I didn't want to assume you knew I was talking about.

 SHUPPET wrote:

Absolutely none of what you said applies to tabletop...

Yes it does.

As others have stated, and as you have so eloquently pointed out, the analogy isn't perfect. However your assertion that "if it's balanced for high level play it's balanced for all levels of play" is incorrect for pretty much any gaming system, WH40k included. Now you can argue that its a GOOD thing that lower level balance is ignored in favor of higher level balance, but that is a whole other can of worms.

Well, you've said absolutely nothing to convince me of this other than an analogy you've now admitted was no good. I wasn't being rude, I said I appreciate your input, but my point in the opening sentence was that your analogy feels really forced, and more like you just wanted to say you play Starcraft rather than actually being even remotely relevant here.

My point was the balancing around high level play assumes the players are doing things that low level players may not actually do. For example, tournaments usually have guidelines about how much cover should be on the field and in what configuration it is allowed to be in. But, when I play a PUG with Joe Schmoe we may have more/less terrain on the field which affects balance, even if we were using bleeding edge net lists. No LOS blocking cover in the field means my 9 basilisk artillery spam list is a lot less scary because it has lost one of its chief advantages. What if I want to take non-optimal units such as AM chimeras? They are so horribly overpriced that even if my opponent were to take "non-optimal" choices from his codex that I still may be at a significant disadvantage.

Balancing around high level play assumes the optimal fighting the optimal, which as I think I have illustrated is sometimes not the case for lower level play. This was all I was trying to point out, try not to take it as a personal attack.

EDIT: I'd also like to point out that "just do the things that high level players do" isn't a valid counterargument because then it wouldn't be low level play anymore.

tneva82 wrote:

 Strg Alt wrote:

 Backspacehacker wrote:
So what do you do when you army is low tier and just not playavle/cometative at all?
I have run into a problem where the armies I have and actually care about are such hot garbage that they have gotten to the point where it's just not even worth Fielding or playing the game. Do you all just wait it out? Do you give in and just buy one of those competative armies/gimick that actually winds games even if you don't care about the armies?

I'm struggling to have any interest in the game anymore since it seems the only way I'll win is if I invest in armies don't care at all about.

I don´t buy this top/low tier nonsense. It´s just whining on a grand scale. You have a very obvious low/high tier system in Blood Bowl with stunty and non-stunty teams. In 40K there are no such extremes like in this sports game.

Lol. 40k has never been, isn't and will never be balanced game. Tiers exist. Pretend they don't exist if you wish. By any chance you play Imperium or Eldar?-) Easy then to claim there's no tiers if you are playing the top dogs.

My point still stands. BB has a very distinct low/top tier system and 40K does not. Power levels in 40K may change after an edition and that´s that. NO faction in 40K is ever advertised as being hot garbage that won´t stand any chance against any other faction whereas in BB Goblins & Halflings were designed to suck and the authors even admit it to give the stunty player a real challenge.
In addition, I found your post quite distasteful. Consider yourself ignored.

w1zard wrote:
What if I want to take non-optimal units such as AM chimeras? They are so horribly overpriced that even if my opponent were to take "non-optimal" choices from his codex that I still may be at a significant disadvantage.

Huh? This is supporting my argument, not countering it. If they were priced fairly and balanced, this would hold true all the one down to these casual games, as you've just admitted.

w1zard wrote:
For example, tournaments usually have guidelines about how much cover should be on the field and in what configuration it is allowed to be in. But, when I play a PUG with Joe Schmoe we may have more/less terrain on the field which affects balance, even if we were using bleeding edge net lists. No LOS blocking cover in the field means my 9 basilisk artillery spam list is a lot less scary because it has lost one of its chief advantages.

This problem is solved by balancing your terrain rules, which is what tournament players have done instead of the rules, and then once again, the balanced option is now still balanced at casual level for people playing by the rules. This is just more support that the game needs to be balanced at a high level.

I'm sorry, but all your examples have done is support my point.

 SHUPPET wrote:

w1zard wrote:
What if I want to take non-optimal units such as AM chimeras? They are so horribly overpriced that even if my opponent were to take "non-optimal" choices from his codex that I still may be at a significant disadvantage.

Huh? This is supporting my argument, not countering it. If they were priced fairly and balanced, this would hold true all the one down to these casual games, as you've just admitted.

w1zard wrote:
For example, tournaments usually have guidelines about how much cover should be on the field and in what configuration it is allowed to be in. But, when I play a PUG with Joe Schmoe we may have more/less terrain on the field which affects balance, even if we were using bleeding edge net lists. No LOS blocking cover in the field means my 9 basilisk artillery spam list is a lot less scary because it has lost one of its chief advantages.

This problem is solved by balancing your terrain rules, which is what tournament players have done instead of the rules, and then once again, the balanced option is now still balanced at casual level for people playing by the rules. This is just more support that the game needs to be balanced at a high level.

I'm sorry, but all your examples have done is support my point.

I think you are misunderstanding me. I consider it "high level play" when three factors are met:

1. Both lists contain only "optimal" units. (Naturally this results in only a handful of "viable" lists per codex).
2. Terrain setups are standardized in some way.
3. Both opponents make no tactical mistakes during gameplay.

Balancing the rules of the game around these three factors always being true naturally makes the game unbalanced when any one of these three things aren't true. For when #3 isn't true we consider it acceptable because the game imbalance resulting from this is the result of "skill".

However, when #1 or #2 aren't true it results in an imbalanced game through no fault of the player. Your solution of forcing people to conform to #1 and #2 isn't "balancing" the game at all levels, it is just forcing players to play at "high level play" and balancing around that.

I fully concede that it may be impossible to balance the game at "low level play" and "high level play" simultaneously. I also concede that it may be for the better that the game is balanced around "high level play", however your assertion that "if it's balanced at high level play it is balanced at all levels of play" is wrong.

My argument would probably be to narrow the gap between "non-optimal" units and "optimal" units to the point of statistical insignificance. This would bridge the balance gap (but not eliminate it) between "low level play" and "high level play".

w1zard wrote:


I think you are misunderstanding me. I consider it "high level play" when three factors are met:

1. Both lists contain only "optimal" units. (Naturally this results in only a handful of "viable" lists per codex).
2. Terrain setups are standardized in some way.
3. Both opponents make no tactical mistakes during gameplay.

Balancing the rules of the game around these three factors always being true naturally makes the game unbalanced when any one of these three things aren't true. For when #3 isn't true we consider it acceptable because the game imbalance resulting from this is the result of "skill".

However, when #1 or #2 aren't true it results in an imbalanced game through no fault of the player. Your solution of forcing people to conform to #1 and #2 isn't "balancing" the game at all levels, it is just forcing players to play at "high level play" and balancing around that.

I fully concede that it may be impossible to balance the game at "low level play" and "high level play" simultaneously. I also concede that it may be for the better that the game is balanced around "high level play", however your assertion that "if it's balanced at high level play it is balanced at all levels of play" is wrong.

My argument would probably be to narrow the gap between "non-optimal" units and "optimal" units to the point of statistical insignificance. This would bridge the balance gap (but not eliminate it) between "low level play" and "high level play".

lol what the


My "solution" doesn't force anybody to conform to optimal lists at all to have a balanced game. In fact it does the opposite. With all models sitting at a balanced point cost for high level, it means that two casual or fluffy built lists have a much better chance of being balanced then if wildly overpowered or under powered models exist that could just as easily have been selected. A game that ISN'T balanced for high level play is what forces casual matches into either both bringing optimal lists to be balanced, or both avoiding "cheese" units. This statement from you once again supports my arguments, not counters it.


And if "conforming to balanced terrain rules means casuals are forced high level play" is honestly your argument here, by this logic, low level play is impossible to see any sort of balance anyway. Because without following a balanced set of terrain rules, it simply NEVER will be - some games will have a jungle of set pieces to block out the sky, and some will be planet bowling ball. You only need to think about this for like 10 seconds to realise that following the higher level standard of play for terrain rules, results in a much more balanced game even at lower levels, and it does not suddenly transform the game into something less casual - its terrain, man.

w1zard wrote:
however your assertion that "if it's balanced at high level play it is balanced at all levels of play" is wrong.

Well, you keep saying that, but you've given nothing to convince me of that perspective. You've had three or more different shots now at trying to explain why this is, and every single time you've completely missed the mark and had to come back with a different approach, even going as far as supporting my statements. Your perspective seems to be "it's this way because it is" and now you are looking for reasons to justify this statement after making it. Just saying somebody is wrong doesn't make it so, if you were right you would be able to substantiate your reasoning much better, if you need to rely on empty statements like that instead, then really you know your argument is as weak as I said it is.

 SHUPPET wrote:

w1zard wrote:
For example, tournaments usually have guidelines about how much cover should be on the field and in what configuration it is allowed to be in. But, when I play a PUG with Joe Schmoe we may have more/less terrain on the field which affects balance, even if we were using bleeding edge net lists. No LOS blocking cover in the field means my 9 basilisk artillery spam list is a lot less scary because it has lost one of its chief advantages.

This problem is solved by balancing your terrain rules, which is what tournament players have done instead of the rules, and then once again, the balanced option is now still balanced at casual level for people playing by the rules. This is just more support that the game needs to be balanced at a high level.

Do I read that correctly as "play only on standard fair terrain setups because that's how tournament players deal with terrain influence on ballance"? Because if that is what you meant, then your definition of casual ballance resulting from tournament ballance starts to read awfully as "as long as you confine yourself to playing in a way tournament players do, but do so on casual, non-ranked basis, then tournament ballance improves your games also" which is obviously true, but does not cover the whole spectrum of possible 40K experiences, neither those falling under "casual" nor "narrative" labels... Pretty much it covers only standardised tournament practice or "common expectatons" pickup style games. I think that there is some deep, axiomatic missunderstanding about what "casual" means for different posters in this thread...

EDIT: you ninja'd my question giving exactly the answer I was expecting... You are confusing two things: "casual players can have acces to ballanced set of restricted rules developed by tournament players" (which is obviously true) with "tournament ballance achieved by messing with point costs under very restricted conditions is influencing all concievable modes of play for the better" (which is completely false).

You can only ever have the tournament style balance. It is literally impossible to balance a game with no restriction on how it is getting played. What standardized terrain and game set up does for casual players is give them an idea of what the game is balanced around and then they can adjust their games starting from their. That way people that want balance can have it and people doing their own thing can do that.

nou wrote:

 SHUPPET wrote:

w1zard wrote:
For example, tournaments usually have guidelines about how much cover should be on the field and in what configuration it is allowed to be in. But, when I play a PUG with Joe Schmoe we may have more/less terrain on the field which affects balance, even if we were using bleeding edge net lists. No LOS blocking cover in the field means my 9 basilisk artillery spam list is a lot less scary because it has lost one of its chief advantages.

This problem is solved by balancing your terrain rules, which is what tournament players have done instead of the rules, and then once again, the balanced option is now still balanced at casual level for people playing by the rules. This is just more support that the game needs to be balanced at a high level.

Do I read that correctly as "play only on standard fair terrain setups because that's how tournament players deal with terrain influence on ballance"? Because if that is what you meant, then your definition of casual ballance resulting from tournament ballance starts to read awfully as "as long as you confine yourself to playing in a way tournament players do, but do so on casual, non-ranked basis, then tournament ballance improves your games also" which is obviously true, but does not cover the whole spectrum of possible 40K experiences, neither those falling under "casual" nor "narrative" labels... Pretty much it covers only standardised tournament practice or "common expectatons" pickup style games. I think that there is some deep, axiomatic missunderstanding about what "casual" means for different posters in this thread...

EDIT: you ninja'd my question giving exactly the answer I was expecting... You are confusing two things: "casual players can have acces to ballanced set of restricted rules developed by tournament players" (which is obviously true) with "tournament ballance achieved by messing with point costs under very restricted conditions is influencing all concievable modes of play for the better" (which is completely false).

"very strict conditions" you mean literally just a standard for terrain?

If you want to play with a bunch of non-consistent rules then yes, you are free to do that, but you have to realise you will NEVER see balance for this it's impossible, and if you do choose not to have static terrain rules then your games will STILL benefit overall from balanced points on models as opposed to wildy over/under costed units thrown in randomly.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Breng77 wrote:
You can only ever have the tournament style balance. It is literally impossible to balance a game with no restriction on how it is getting played. What standardized terrain and game set up does for casual players is give them an idea of what the game is balanced around and then they can adjust their games starting from their. That way people that want balance can have it and people doing their own thing can do that.

this post sums it up pretty well.


On another note, I've never seen a community more averse to balanced play than this one, as though it would somehow make the game worse for casual games. It's crazy how deep the "anti power gaming" mentality runs.

Oh, you can have perfectly ballanced games (ballanced as in both players of equal or even unequal skill can have engaging experience putting their own skill to the test) on any concievable terrain setup, utilising any faction and any unit you desire just fine. But the most important prerequisite for that is being perfectly aware of limitations of linear point cost systems and ballancing every single game from scratch, treating point costs and point limits only as rough basis, modified then by any and all decisions regarding terrain setup, winning conditions, factions traits and perks, units used etc... It requires knowing the system inside out and is completely unsuitable for random pickup games, but is possible (you could even make a tournament format in this style, no problem, but it would be "prearranged lists on prearranged tables" kind of thing - this emerged couple of times in various threads already but sadly only GW sized TO could pull this off). I have played ton of games utilising such approach (more than 150 to date) and having a blast with it even when playing 7th ed Eldar vs Tyranids.

So let me rephrase the last paragraph from my initial post in this thread a bit: "one of the saddest things that happened to 40k between 2nd and 8th editions was this huge shift towards "only competetive approach is valid" with everything else possible with this game being so marginalised that it takes two full pages of this thread to even explain the kind of 40k experience I'm talking about".

But you are both right in one regard (and I said it couple of times already): only standardised subset of choices can be made ballanced enough to work with random pickup or "bring your own list" tournaments and it has to include strict terrain and mission setups (I have literally posted this like three posts ago). But nevertheless such defined ballance does not spill over to every casual or narrative use of 40k and does not automatically make those kinds of experiences better.

nou wrote:
You are confusing two things: "casual players can have acces to ballanced set of restricted rules developed by tournament players" (which is obviously true) with "tournament ballance achieved by messing with point costs under very restricted conditions is influencing all concievable modes of play for the better" (which is completely false).

THANK YOU! That is literally exactly the point I was trying to make, but he doesn't seem to get it.

 SHUPPET wrote:

"very strict conditions" you mean literally just a standard for terrain?

If you want to play with a bunch of non-consistent rules then yes, you are free to do that, but you have to realise you will NEVER see balance for this it's impossible, and if you do choose not to have static terrain rules then your games will STILL benefit overall from balanced points on models as opposed to wildy over/under costed units thrown in randomly.

I'm not arguing that balance for what you describe as "non-consistent" rules is desirable or even achievable. All I'm trying to point out is that your mentality of "if its balanced for tournament players its balanced for everyone" is incorrect. There are many ways to play 40k, many different terrain setups, many different missions/scenarios, many different scoring schemes, and wildly varying skill levels of players. A model "appropriately costed" under one set of conditions might be totally "inappropriately costed" under another. Narrowing the rules so that balance can be achieved under a certain set of variables "balances the game" surely, but balances it around a very narrow and specific set of criteria that some people may not enjoy or be capable of meeting adequately.

w1zard wrote:

There are many ways to play 40k, many different terrain setups, many different missions/scenarios, many different scoring schemes, and wildly varying skill levels of players. A model "appropriately costed" under one set of conditions might be totally "inappropriately costed" under another.

Cool, so how do you achieve perfect balance for all these at once?

There's one answer: You don't.

All you can do is for the best overall balance possible. This game will never be perfectly balanced in any mode, that isn't an excuse to just throw it out. By costing models effectively fairly for competitive play this is obviously going tohave the best OVERALL result going downwards for casual game modes, where people might throw any number of wacky terrain set ups or different armies out there.

There's no way to achieve perfect unit balance between a bunch of non-static game modes, I have said outright that this is impossible to balance and enough people have mirrored that statement for you to be able to stop nitpicking and pretending that this was what was being said. If you aren't playing with a balanced or even a static set of rules - then its RIDICULOUS to argue for balance to focus on a game mode that cannot be balanced, at the expense of competitive play that can be. You balance in favor of one casual game mode you tip out a different one.

The direct CONTEXT of this argument you started was a guy saying that the rules are fine because they worked for his one match, where both he and his opponent had non-optimised lists, and this is what the game should be balanced around. Which is obviously incorrect, and would not be hurt at all by balance at high level play.

You guys are talking about some crazy narrative based play and using that to try poke holes in a statement I never made. Pointing at some Battle of Macragge-esque scenario or whatever and saying "but nope! not this one!" yeah fine, but even if you find some other casual scenario to balance around that ALSO throws out balance for this. Scenarios can't even be perfectly balanced among themselves - balanced high level units will NOT change this, if anything they are far more likely to have a positive impact, but that was never the point of my statement. If you start playing by wacky rules and scenarios you are no longer playing the same game mode as us, you are playing narrative play not casual pick-up games, and anything can happen. I would never dare say that balancing for anything will achieve balance in a game mode where people can just set up the board however the hell they like, because that would just be an idiotic statement to make, considering that game mode can't even be balanced among ITSELF, and some situations are made to be deliberately UNBALANCED.

Not sure how you two warped this into something completely different, but its whatever. This has probably gone on long enough.

 SHUPPET wrote:

Cool, so how do you achieve perfect balance for all these at once?

There's one answer: You don't.

Yep, I completely agree with you. That isn't what I am arguing. My umbrage was with your statement here, and I'm quoting:

 SHUPPET wrote:
...If it's balanced at a competitive level it's balanced all the way down to a casual level....

Casual level doesn't mean tournament scenarios + tournament lists + tournament terrain guidelines played by amateurs (who are in most cases usually experienced players who just don't go to tournaments). Casual level means pretty much all scenarios described in the rulebook and official supplements INCLUDING things like narrative play, and including players who may really just suck at the game or are inexperienced. Like it or not, these are detailed in the rules and are valid gametypes in the game of WH40K, despite being unpopular for exactly the reasons you are describing.

I simply pointed out that your statement was not true, YOU are the one who morphed my argument into something it was not.

I'm going to use a starcraft example again if that is ok? I'm not just doing it to show off my l33t gamer knowledge I promise!

-You can balance the game around bronze level players.
-You can balance the game around masters/grandmasters players.
-You can balance the game around whacky maps.
-You can balance the game around 2v2 and 3v3.
-You can not achieve all of these at once.

-Just because the game is balanced for masters/grandmasters players doesn't mean the balance for bronze level players, whacky map players, 2v2/3v3 modes all magically improves at the same time. In fact, usually the opposite is true.

My post is quite clearly talking about matched play from high level to a casual level, as you can deem by reading the entire context of my statements instead of deliberately a fraction of my sentence in a vacuum. At no point was it that balance for high level competitive play is going to balance low level narrative play. Why would I suddenly be talking about that, a game mode that can't be balanced by definition? That wasn't even YOUR point to begin with with that Starcraft analogy. You eventually morphed it into that, not me, and the second you started making it about that I immediately made it clear that I never thought narrative based play with random terrain could be balanced, so let's not pretend this was something you actually believed I was saying.



You've gone to great lengths now to take that statement completely out of context to claim it was wrong. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you didn't go to the effort of going into his profile, checking the thread he was referencing and seeing what he was talking about as I did, to get the context of my statement - but thats your fault for responding to an isolated sentence in a quote that made it very clear what I was talking about if you actually read everything that was said.



Anyway, it seems we are now in agreement on basically everything I've said so, lets just drop this eyeroll of a debate.

 SHUPPET wrote:


*Now that I actually understand what you were saying and realize that you were right, I'm going to pretend that you took my quote out of context to avoid admitting I was wrong, whilst impugning your intelligence.

*I am also going to end the discussion here in a way that makes me look mature, because I realize I said something untrue and can't argue my way out of it

Alright, water under the bridge old boy.

Sorry, the paraphrasing was juvenile, but satisfying.

w1zard wrote:

 SHUPPET wrote:


*Now that I actually understand what you were saying and realize that you were right, I'm going to pretend that you took my quote out of context to avoid admitting I was wrong, whilst impugning your intelligence.

*I am also going to end the discussion here in a way that makes me look mature, because I realize I said something untrue and can't argue my way out of it

Alright, water under the bridge old boy.

Sorry, the paraphrasing was juvenile, but satisfying.

Ho.

Lee.

gak.



I probably should have realized I was dealing with a child but this level of maturity is always unexpected.




This should have ended pages ago. Hell it shouldn't have even started to begin with. Have a nice day. Also. Grow up.

What in the gak did I just read.

 Xenomancers wrote:
What in the gak did I just read.

Just dakka being dakka.

I realize that the parting shot was out of line, but he was being annoyingly condescending to me the entire time so I couldn't resist.

Back on topic...

@OP Welcome to how guard felt in 6th and 7th. There's really nothing to do but grin and bear it and hope your army gets better next edition. Until your army becomes mid/top tier and everyone starts screeching and wanting to drag you to the bottom of the pile again.
They stomped you for two whole editions and that is what they are used to so when you are as strong as you should be it feels out of line to them.

Sarcasm aside, try finding games against other factions of similar strength, or play scenarios that give you an advantage in some way. If you refuse to accept a handicap (understandable) then you may have to shelve your army and focus on the painting/hobbying aspect of things until the game changes again. That, or play a different army.

 Xenomancers wrote:
What in the gak did I just read.

Looks like the last part of this debate on balance has gone totally out of hand... But to the OP, once again, what is to understand from this fist fight is simply that it is possible to balance the game house ruling it and that a flawed faction in competitive won't struggle particuliarly in narrative ans casual plays, which many have stated by now.

Just one point I'd suggest for 40k's balance problem, once again in comparison with bilt action. In bolt action, you have only simple humans, so you need no such thin as unit profils with strength, toughness blablabla. There are only a few special rules such as stubborn, shirkers... whereas in 40k, there arr style loads of them. Many units are the same: a soviet, japanese or american mmg is the same... and the game only has like 7 or 8 armies.

Now look at 40k. There is such diversity in special rules, profiles, weapons that try to represent so many armies (like 20 with the space marines chapters at least?) that I think it is virtually impossible to balance this "mess". Of course there are some things that are predictably overpowered, mostly underpriced units, but at the same time the balance is also affected by non overpowered units that are overpriced, all of that being even acuter since the special rules know for each unit from eacj codex and the army-wide special rules drom each codex and the generic rules all interact together. Thay's a heck of an utterly gigantic mess and even uf they were good willed, it would be hard for 40k to balance the game at all, because if they remive that unit, nerf it, or biff that one, the interaction changes and another thing or combo emerges as overpowered.

To cut it short: 40k is too diverse for its own food when it comes to balance in my opinion.

No the issue is gw is too cheap to hire a statistician who could with their understanding of maths greatly improve balance.

Instead we have the fekkewits in the current dev team that don't have a clue.I

hobojebus wrote:
No the issue is gw is too cheap to hire a statistician who could with their understanding of maths greatly improve balance.

Instead we have the fekkewits in the current dev team that don't have a clue.I

As has been illustrated above without GE restricting the variables this hiring would be a waste of ther money because the task is literally impossible.

To those arguing that balancing for high level tournies doesn’t help wild narrative games, GW already doesn’t attach the two, the rules are separate and they encourage you not to even bother with points in those scenarios. So when referring to matched play you are really looking at games involving equal points costs playing some standard set of missions (right now GW would say eternal war/maelstrom missions). All I would like to see GW do in this respect is go. Here is they type of terrain we recommend, and missions we used to balance the game for 2k armies in playtesting. If you are looking for the most balanced match possible you will want to replicate these conditions, any large deviation from this will cause the game to be less balanced.

w1zard wrote:

nou wrote:
You are confusing two things: "casual players can have acces to ballanced set of restricted rules developed by tournament players" (which is obviously true) with "tournament ballance achieved by messing with point costs under very restricted conditions is influencing all concievable modes of play for the better" (which is completely false).

THANK YOU! That is literally exactly the point I was trying to make, but he doesn't seem to get it.

You're welcome. It took me quite a while spent on dakka to realise that discussions on "principial ballance" are so heated because many players did not ever encountered anything else outside of matched play on FLGS/tournament scarce terrain. That seems to be especially true for US based players an pick-up culture.

Back at original topic - as I wrote above, me and my group managed to repeatedly have enjoyable and ballanced close games (as in 'decided near the end by few crucial rolls') of Eldar vs Tyranids during 7th - a matchup that many tournament focused players cried as unsalvagably broken. Just to give some practical advice on how one can work on improving the experience when trying to get games involving underdog faction to work:

- DESIGN your games. You already know that official matched play ballance and point costs don't work for you out of the box;
- random preparation (statistically speaking) favours the stronger not the weaker side; find people to play with who understand, that with certain matchups you can't simply 'git gud' and have to work together in order to have enjoyable game; pick-up style is most likely out of the question...
- arrange the terrain so that it emphasises underdog army strenghts;
- choose mission goals/win conditions wisely: don't play simple kill points and go asymmetrical. What works nicely is choosing sets of Maelstrom cards for both players, totaling same number of VPs when achieved, but equalising the difficulty of the game for both players;
- don't be affraid of attacker/defender scenarios;
- if you can pinpoint the problem of skewed matchup to certain OP, all-rounder units, limit their availability;
- cross tailor list to limit rock-paper-scissors incompatible/single sided matchups;
- if something in your codex is glaringly overcosted, houserule it a bit (or play count as using a similiar unit profile that is considered well costed if you don't feel confident with your mathhammer);
- accept that some units simply won't ever work efficiently as written, as their design concept is against the very core system of the game. Rewrite them if you can or abandon them completely.
- be patient, ballancing games this way is a skill in it's own and takes both time and repetition to develop but can be very rewarding and eyes opening.

Breng77 wrote:

hobojebus wrote:
No the issue is gw is too cheap to hire a statistician who could with their understanding of maths greatly improve balance.

Instead we have the fekkewits in the current dev team that don't have a clue.I

As has been illustrated above without GE restricting the variables this hiring would be a waste of ther money because the task is literally impossible.

To those arguing that balancing for high level tournies doesn’t help wild narrative games, GW already doesn’t attach the two, the rules are separate and they encourage you not to even bother with points in those scenarios. So when referring to matched play you are really looking at games involving equal points costs playing some standard set of missions (right now GW would say eternal war/maelstrom missions). All I would like to see GW do in this respect is go. Here is they type of terrain we recommend, and missions we used to balance the game for 2k armies in playtesting. If you are looking for the most balanced match possible you will want to replicate these conditions, any large deviation from this will cause the game to be less balanced.

Yeah, it's hard to envision my statement being taken as talking about narrative play considering it doesn't even operate within points values, even less so after reading the context of my post which makes it pretty unmistakable I was talking about matched play, but I guess some people just read what they want to read.

I think your suggestion could do no harm and would be beneficial for matched play for all skill levels, especially if it went hand in hand with points balancing (which on the positive side GW seems to be putting work into than ever before, even if its still in need of work)

hobojebus wrote:
No the issue is gw is too cheap to hire a statistician who could with their understanding of maths greatly improve balance.

Instead we have the fekkewits in the current dev team that don't have a clue.I

That's quite what im doubtful and why i emphasise the huge variety: even with top notch statisticians, I'm not sure they would be 100% efficient. That would help, no doubt, don't take me wrong, and the developmers method is most probably helplessly flawed as it is, but I don't believe it would fix it once and for all. Maybe several years of play testing would do the job but even then...

Besides, though, when discussing balance I wonder whether we shouldn't stop bringing up narrative play as far as issues. We state it once more: it obviously would be positivly affected by a better match play balance/tournament balance, bit sinve you can tweak rules and don't necesseraly play in an optimal way shortcomings are easily overcome, hence why we recommend to our OP digging into it. Only tournament "official" balance can be worked with altogether, can't it?

@Shuppet It would need to go hand in hand with points balancing. What it does is give GW a place to points balance around. Balancing the game equally for every scenario, every points level, every terrain set up, is impossible regardless of math. The best you could possibly do is create units that are only good in some of those scenarios and not in others. For instance a marine with a lascannon could be quite good on an open table, or one with good firing lines, but on a table with no more than say 12" of LOS on any portion of the table would be horribly over costed.

For example, Malifaux though a wildly different game handles this to an extent by having the company produce a tournament pack and stating that the game is balanced at 50 Points. You can play other levels just fine and rules for them exist, but you understand that doing so might lead to lopsided games. Now they also handle balance to some extent by allowing you to build your list to the mission and match-up but that doesn't really seem feasible for competitive 40k.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

nou wrote:

w1zard wrote:

nou wrote:
You are confusing two things: "casual players can have acces to ballanced set of restricted rules developed by tournament players" (which is obviously true) with "tournament ballance achieved by messing with point costs under very restricted conditions is influencing all concievable modes of play for the better" (which is completely false).

THANK YOU! That is literally exactly the point I was trying to make, but he doesn't seem to get it.

You're welcome. It took me quite a while spent on dakka to realise that discussions on "principial ballance" are so heated because many players did not ever encountered anything else outside of matched play on FLGS/tournament scarce terrain. That seems to be especially true for US based players an pick-up culture.

Back at original topic - as I wrote above, me and my group managed to repeatedly have enjoyable and ballanced close games (as in 'decided near the end by few crucial rolls') of Eldar vs Tyranids during 7th - a matchup that many tournament focused players cried as unsalvagably broken. Just to give some practical advice on how one can work on improving the experience when trying to get games involving underdog faction to work:

- DESIGN your games. You already know that official matched play ballance and point costs don't work for you out of the box;
- random preparation (statistically speaking) favours the stronger not the weaker side; find people to play with who understand, that with certain matchups you can't simply 'git gud' and have to work together in order to have enjoyable game; pick-up style is most likely out of the question...
- arrange the terrain so that it emphasises underdog army strenghts;
- choose mission goals/win conditions wisely: don't play simple kill points and go asymmetrical. What works nicely is choosing sets of Maelstrom cards for both players, totaling same number of VPs when achieved, but equalising the difficulty of the game for both players;
- don't be affraid of attacker/defender scenarios;
- if you can pinpoint the problem of skewed matchup to certain OP, all-rounder units, limit their availability;
- cross tailor list to limit rock-paper-scissors incompatible/single sided matchups;
- if something in your codex is glaringly overcosted, houserule it a bit (or play count as using a similiar unit profile that is considered well costed if you don't feel confident with your mathhammer);
- accept that some units simply won't ever work efficiently as written, as their design concept is against the very core system of the game. Rewrite them if you can or abandon them completely.
- be patient, ballancing games this way is a skill in it's own and takes both time and repetition to develop but can be very rewarding and eyes opening.

That is all fine, but why do your first 2 points need to exist at all? No one is claiming you cannot house rule a game into a fun time. They are arguing that if you did not need to do so it would be better for many people. Not everyone has time to put in all the set up, or a fixed group that they play with. Some people like tournament gaming.

So let me phrase the original statement in perhaps a different way. Balancing to high level tournament play hurts no one and helps many players. I mean your whole post reads as "players should do all the balance work and GW should do nothing." What we are arguing is that if matched play is intended to be the "balanced" competitive style of play then that is what it should be. I mean AOS with no points at all also works in your system, if you have time and ability to fix all the issues you certainly can for your group. That just leads to all groups playing their own version of the game and the community being wholly divided up, I can no longer travel to play with another group unless they give me their rules ahead of time. SO it makes the game less accessible, and harder on new players.

Breng77 wrote:
@Shuppet It would need to go hand in hand with points balancing. What it does is give GW a place to points balance around. Balancing the game equally for every scenario, every points level, every terrain set up, is impossible regardless of math. The best you could possibly do is create units that are only good in some of those scenarios and not in others. For instance a marine with a lascannon could be quite good on an open table, or one with good firing lines, but on a table with no more than say 12" of LOS on any portion of the table would be horribly over costed.

For example, Malifaux though a wildly different game handles this to an extent by having the company produce a tournament pack and stating that the game is balanced at 50 Points. You can play other levels just fine and rules for them exist, but you understand that doing so might lead to lopsided games. Now they also handle balance to some extent by allowing you to build your list to the mission and match-up but that doesn't really seem feasible for competitive 40k.

I fully agree with you. This debate actually began when I said the points costs for units need to be balanced for high level, to begin with, and this will cause matched play to be balanced all the way down to casual pick up games as a result. And this went hand in hand with the static terrain dispute.