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... and what can be done to improve it.

First a little preface: it is not possible to "perfect balance" 40K, it is not even possible to "good enough" balance it, not with point system anyway. Just plain abstract math is enough to prove that. I have tried to explain that in couple specific threads already, but I think it deserves a separate thread. The core problem is that it is not possible to reasonably ("good enough") approximate multidimensional phase space of statlines and rules interactions with a linear point cost and any good game developer knows this. To remedy this various tools have been historically used to change this linear approximation to n-dimensional solution or otherwise increase balance. Here is a quick list of mechanics/changes that can be applied to a system:

- include non-static win conditions (ITC and Kill Team: Arena or Open War instant death options), the more degrees of freedom here the higher your n is and as you can see GW have already adapted this solution in some form.

- include sideboards - the bigger percentage of overall point limit the sideboard is and the more unrestricted content of the sideboard is, the more dynamic your solution to the problem is. Cooperative listbuilding done by some narrative players is a variant of this with 100% of point cap being an unrestricted sideboard that is iteratively refined over a finite number of steps. GW ponders with the idea via pre-paid summoning of demons and recently assasins.

- decrease number of dimensions of this hyperspace to approximate at game time - this is what mission packs do (rigid win conditions and terrain layout known prior to building a list define a subspace of entire hyperspace that will contain valid solutions). The problem with this solution is that it does not decrease total volume of said hyperspace and is static, so bad choices are possible for each win condition/terrain combination. This is what naturally occurs and is called "competetive meta" and "competetively valid choices". This is also what narrative players use in reverse when designing a scenario that equalizes relative strenght of forces. GW could codify that in a list of all unit choices that are considered valid but to stop complaining they would have to stop introducing new units or only ever introduce valid units (GW kinda does the opposite in some rare cases, by only publishing power level for units they deem unsuitable). This will always be a subset of entire range existing nowadays unless you also adapt the next method or strip model range, which GW won't ever do as it is direct contradiction to their business model.

- increase unpredictability of win conditions - GW mission packs are based on this principle. It works by forcing players to "stick to the middle" of as large subspace of choices as possible, but comes as a cost of being only statistically fair. Bad matchups and impossible odds are a part of this approach.

- decrease number of dimensions of this hyperspace permanently - this is what faction sameness does (40K indexes, Infinity, pretty much all non-campaign based skirmishes and closed game system), as well as removing wargear/customisation options or remove game interactions (also known as streamlining: removing armour facings and fire arcs, removing blasts, removing targeting freedom, removing rock-paper-scissors type of interactions, decrease number of unique abilities etc). This is the only static solution that (mildly) increases usefullness of linear point approximation and at the same time one that cripples landscape of the game and thus narrative possibilities the most.

Point cost changes improve aproximation only coupled with well defined and rigid win conditions and terrain setups and the more narrow the scope of those missions the better the approximation but the more sudden failure of this approximation when you deviate from said win conditions and terrain (this is currently best illustrated by ITC vs CA18 schism). Core rule changes that are not streamlining do not change the volume of this hyperspace, only shift the topology of it, so broken combos and OP/UP choices remain, they are only in different places.

Here, there is nothing trivial in balancing 40K and nothing subjective in impossibility of balancing 40K while retaining it's 40k-ness. It is objectivelly not possible to balance this game in it's entirety, never was, never will be. But the list above is not a comprehensive list of all possible solutions to the problem, so for the sake of future rants and discussions I welcome everyone to post other methods of improving overall balance, preferably without sacrificing unique flavour of 40K.

So, what else can be done?

Sidenote: some other solutions to improve tournament skill measuring exist, but they are unsuitable for "everyday use". One of those is the use of premade lists, other would be draft method similar to MTG format. I intentionally left those out as they undermine current nature of clashing personal collections against one another

EDIT: due to popular demand and to stop this discussion running in circles, I copy a metric by AlexTroy here as a workable definition of "good enough":

The game will have "good enough" balance when the following are true:
The winner of a game cannot be reliably determined by the Faction(s) of the two armies
The units taken in any army cannot be consistently determined by the Faction(s) and subfaction(s) (Chapter Tactics and the like) of that army.

It has also been proposed that a) it is enough for a faction to have only two practical builds using two different sets of units to satisfy the second condition; b) that any "good enough" metrics should satisfy at least 50% of playerbase.

In my personal opinion the above metrics is weak, that is it is way below perfect balance and leaves enough room for modern levels of discontent, bad purchase choices and endless balance discussions and that the closest the 40K has been to be "good enough" by such metric was early 5th. This metrics, byt he virtue of using Faction(s) as a basis has also huge problems with meaningfull results for soup lists.

My position is that to go above this metrics you need to introduce dynamic balancing mechanism that are not points related and happen at mission choice or game time, which was the intended focus of this thread.

To further improve the metrics above and make it impervious to "two trick pony" solution third condition can be added: that "every codex entry can have a place in a working list without lowering reliability of the first condition when said unit is present in the list." This turns this metrics from weak to hard and limits balance complaints and discussions greatly, but it is way, way harder to satisfy using even dynamic mechanisms.

Using a system similar to golfing Handicap works in a semi-closed group.

Player A wins, Player B loses. Next game, Player A is only allowed 98% of the agreed point value. Player B is allowed 102% of the agreed point limit.

This can be a publicly posted handicap. 2% +/- per win/loss net. I’ve won 2 more games than I’ve lost, I get -4% points. My opponent has lost 10 more games, they get +20% points.

This system is fluid. As a person’s skill increases, they will naturally move towards no modifier, or even a negative modifier. It takes a few games, maybe going with a 5% modifier for the first 5 games could sort position more quickly.

While it may not be suitable for tournaments, as an ongoing league it would work.

Overall:

1) Reduce RNG to the absolute minimum.

A weapon doing 2D6 damage is much harder to balance than one with 4D3 damage which is more unbalanced than one doing 6 damage
the average damage is similar, 7, 8 and 6 but 2D6 doing 2-12 damage which means is unbalanced 90% of the the time or will cost too much points to be an option

And yes some people will say that this kills the fun. I disagree as not knowing what your units can do makes tactical play much harder (and just saying the it is absolute random who wins because of the high amount of RNG is most fun, there are better boardgames out there for such kind of gameplay)


2) Increase diversity and use Rock/Paper/Scissor/Lizard/Spock

As soon as it is possible that every model in game can kill every other model in game, the game gets impossible to balance if units are different.
40k has units with high amount of Health Points and some with high defensive stats with low amount of Health but as everything can wound everything those units with high rate of fire are good against both and no dedicated weapons against the high defensive ones.
It is not something impossible to fix but makes it much harder because as soon as a weapon/unit reaches a specific threshold, it gets better than anything else.

similar in defence, offensive stats don't matter als long as the units can suck up the same amount of damage if the only use is to be a meat shield. Point cost cannot fix it as the unit will either be better or worse than other options and never be equal.

So how does increasing diversity helps?

If there are 2 models fulfilling the same role one will always be better, so instead of having all units being as similar as possible, making them as different as possible decrease this problem.
This means also changing the profile and using the full range available. If there is a Marine unit dedicated for Close Combat, one for Ranged Combat and one Universal, adjusting the profile would be mandatory (WS7, BS3 A5 for CC, WS3, BS7 A1 for ranged and WS5, BS5, A3 for universal)

and of course adjusting the to hit and to wound table to make use of the full range of the profile instead of having an effective range from 2-5

increase unpredictability of win conditions

No, you don't add balance just because you make the outcome of the game random and remove the influence from the player.

You negate imbalance of the basic/codex rules by adding another layer of rules but this does not bring balance back. It just makes it unbalanced on a level were the player ha no influence which is the worst of all

Ummmm...

What is "good enough" balance?

You never actually say what good enough balance is.

 Thousand-Son-Sorcerer wrote:
Ummmm...

What is "good enough" balance?

You never actually say what good enough balance is.

I did not define it, because it is not my term - it is commonly used in dakka balance discussions to construct "no one is talking about perfect balance" strawman and dismiss any valid criticism of point system based balance. It can range from "IG+Castellan vs Ynnari soup is good enough because all top table players have equal knowledge about what is good at the moment" to "any not randomly generated list should have at least 40-60 chance of winning assuming equal player skill". You can assume any own definition as long as you explicitly state it, after all this thread can be alternatively utilized as a platform to establishing "what exact level of balance can be reasonably expected from GW" kind of discussion.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 greatbigtree wrote:
Using a system similar to golfing Handicap works in a semi-closed group.

Player A wins, Player B loses. Next game, Player A is only allowed 98% of the agreed point value. Player B is allowed 102% of the agreed point limit.

This can be a publicly posted handicap. 2% +/- per win/loss net. I’ve won 2 more games than I’ve lost, I get -4% points. My opponent has lost 10 more games, they get +20% points.

This system is fluid. As a person’s skill increases, they will naturally move towards no modifier, or even a negative modifier. It takes a few games, maybe going with a 5% modifier for the first 5 games could sort position more quickly.

While it may not be suitable for tournaments, as an ongoing league it would work.

I like it, as (in principle) it is codified iterative version of how cross tailoring works, so it most definitely ends with working ranking, but as you said, it is incompatible with tournaments and pick-up culture. But it has a benefit of not only accomodating large spectrum of players and builds, but also creates a clear "ranking ladder" to climb on. But that said, I could name at least a couple of dakka members who would see it as an unacceptable rigging the game or insult. Also, it assumes some common confines of terrain layout and mission set used and improves upon that foundation.

nou wrote:
...removing armour facings and fire arcs, removing blasts, removing targeting freedom, removing rock-paper-scissors type of interactions, decrease number of unique abilities etc

Is ultimately counterproductive IMO, particularly things like armour facings, fire arcs, and blasts.

When you have something as varied and random as 40ks armies and dice rolling your best bet for balancing is to maximize the impact of the players decisions on the game. The position of the unit, its formation, and its facing for instance.

 kodos wrote:
Overall:

1) Reduce RNG to the absolute minimum.

A weapon doing 2D6 damage is much harder to balance than one with 4D3 damage which is more unbalanced than one doing 6 damage
the average damage is similar, 7, 8 and 6 but 2D6 doing 2-12 damage which means is unbalanced 90% of the the time or will cost too much points to be an option

And yes some people will say that this kills the fun. I disagree as not knowing what your units can do makes tactical play much harder (and just saying the it is absolute random who wins because of the high amount of RNG is most fun, there are better boardgames out there for such kind of gameplay)


2) Increase diversity and use Rock/Paper/Scissor/Lizard/Spock

As soon as it is possible that every model in game can kill every other model in game, the game gets impossible to balance if units are different.
40k has units with high amount of Health Points and some with high defensive stats with low amount of Health but as everything can wound everything those units with high rate of fire are good against both and no dedicated weapons against the high defensive ones.
It is not something impossible to fix but makes it much harder because as soon as a weapon/unit reaches a specific threshold, it gets better than anything else.

similar in defence, offensive stats don't matter als long as the units can suck up the same amount of damage if the only use is to be a meat shield. Point cost cannot fix it as the unit will either be better or worse than other options and never be equal.

So how does increasing diversity helps?

If there are 2 models fulfilling the same role one will always be better, so instead of having all units being as similar as possible, making them as different as possible decrease this problem.
This means also changing the profile and using the full range available. If there is a Marine unit dedicated for Close Combat, one for Ranged Combat and one Universal, adjusting the profile would be mandatory (WS7, BS3 A5 for CC, WS3, BS7 A1 for ranged and WS5, BS5, A3 for universal)

and of course adjusting the to hit and to wound table to make use of the full range of the profile instead of having an effective range from 2-5

increase unpredictability of win conditions

No, you don't add balance just because you make the outcome of the game random and remove the influence from the player.

You negate imbalance of the basic/codex rules by adding another layer of rules but this does not bring balance back. It just makes it unbalanced on a level were the player ha no influence which is the worst of all

@1: this is an approach based on chessifying 40K and does not work as effective efficiency of your listbuilding choices directly relies on your opponent listbuilding choices which are not known to you at any moment. What this achieves is easier solvable meta but requires rigid mission and terrain conditions and is already covered in initial post.

@2: this is excatly how you got impossible matchups in 7th ed - it is impossible to point cost haywire or poison special rules in a game where all vehicle IK and all meat Tyranid lists exist. Also, this solution only changes topology of hyperspace, not really solving overall balance, only shifting it to new places.

@3: as explained (maybe not clear enough, I agree) this solution works only in perspective of many games and it most certainly works, that's how most card games are balanced. But it has evident drawbacks of impossible matchups in heavily skewed meta and works best in "everyone plays TAC lists" meta and requires really lot of games to equilize outcome.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

A.T. wrote:

nou wrote:
...removing armour facings and fire arcs, removing blasts, removing targeting freedom, removing rock-paper-scissors type of interactions, decrease number of unique abilities etc

Is ultimately counterproductive IMO, particularly things like armour facings, fire arcs, and blasts.

When you have something as varied and random as 40ks armies and dice rolling your best bet for balancing is to maximize the impact of the players decisions on the game. The position of the unit, its formation, and its facing for instance.

What you say is true only if players have equal access to spectrum of possible decisions, wich isn't true in game with flavoured factions. Of course one can argue that a vital part of winning strategy is choosing a faction in the first place (and I agree here), but it is a root cause of many, many frustrustrations of players who value aesthetics/feel/lore at least as much as desire to win games. So this solution, paradoxically, lands in the bag of chessification and decreasing variety and is not possible without losing 40k feel of 40k. Unless of course you can establish reasonable balance between e.g. all deep striking assault army vs static gunlines or any other extreme matchup that presents both players with completely different set of decissions to make during the game.

nou wrote:

 Thousand-Son-Sorcerer wrote:
Ummmm...

What is "good enough" balance?

You never actually say what good enough balance is.

I did not define it, because it is not my term - it is commonly used in dakka balance discussions to construct "no one is talking about perfect balance" strawman and dismiss any valid criticism of point system based balance. It can range from "IG+Castellan vs Ynnari soup is good enough because all top table players have equal knowledge about what is good at the moment" to "any not randomly generated list should have at least 40-60 chance of winning assuming equal player skill". You can assume any own definition as long as you explicitly state it, after all this thread can be alternatively utilized as a platform to establishing "what exact level of balance can be reasonably expected from GW" kind of discussion.

LOL okay so uh. You have no definition...also its impossible.

How do you know it's impossible if you have no definition?

What if the minimal amount of balance needed to maintain the hobby population is completely obtainable?

 Thousand-Son-Sorcerer wrote:

nou wrote:

 Thousand-Son-Sorcerer wrote:
Ummmm...

What is "good enough" balance?

You never actually say what good enough balance is.

I did not define it, because it is not my term - it is commonly used in dakka balance discussions to construct "no one is talking about perfect balance" strawman and dismiss any valid criticism of point system based balance. It can range from "IG+Castellan vs Ynnari soup is good enough because all top table players have equal knowledge about what is good at the moment" to "any not randomly generated list should have at least 40-60 chance of winning assuming equal player skill". You can assume any own definition as long as you explicitly state it, after all this thread can be alternatively utilized as a platform to establishing "what exact level of balance can be reasonably expected from GW" kind of discussion.

LOL okay so uh. You have no definition...also its impossible.

How do you know it's impossible if you have no definition?

What if the minimal amount of balance needed to maintain the hobby population is completely obtainable?

The minimal amount of balance needed to mantain the hobby population in widely defined brackets existed since the very begining of 40K and continues to exist. That does not stop people to be permanently discontent about state of said balance. As for me not providing "good enough" definition it is because I personally don't think you actually can define it in any objective and usefull way nor then achieve it. If it sounds like dodging your question then I can only direct you to abstract math courses...

nou wrote:

 Thousand-Son-Sorcerer wrote:

nou wrote:

 Thousand-Son-Sorcerer wrote:
Ummmm...

What is "good enough" balance?

You never actually say what good enough balance is.

I did not define it, because it is not my term - it is commonly used in dakka balance discussions to construct "no one is talking about perfect balance" strawman and dismiss any valid criticism of point system based balance. It can range from "IG+Castellan vs Ynnari soup is good enough because all top table players have equal knowledge about what is good at the moment" to "any not randomly generated list should have at least 40-60 chance of winning assuming equal player skill". You can assume any own definition as long as you explicitly state it, after all this thread can be alternatively utilized as a platform to establishing "what exact level of balance can be reasonably expected from GW" kind of discussion.

LOL okay so uh. You have no definition...also its impossible.

How do you know it's impossible if you have no definition?

What if the minimal amount of balance needed to maintain the hobby population is completely obtainable?

The minimal amount of balance needed to mantain the hobby population in widely defined brackets existed since the very begining of 40K and continues to exist. That does not stop people to be permanently discontent about state of said balance. As for me not providing "good enough" definition it is because I personally don't think you actually can define it in any objective and usefull way nor then achieve it. If it sounds like dodging your question then I can only direct you to abstract math courses...

I mean, how much balance is needed to maintain the game.

That is the minimal amount. With out the ability to maintain the population of the game there is no game.

I was always a fan of crowd computing. Look at results of major tournaments and balance based on those.

A bunch of dedicated nerds will be better than you at finding balance skewness, always. Use them for what they're worth. Seems pretty straightforward to identify some elements that could use some... correction these days.

nou wrote:

A.T. wrote:
When you have something as varied and random as 40ks armies and dice rolling your best bet for balancing is to maximize the impact of the players decisions on the game. The position of the unit, its formation, and its facing for instance.

What you say is true only if players have equal access to spectrum of possible decisions, wich isn't true in game with flavoured factions. / Unless of course you can establish reasonable balance between e.g. all deep striking assault army vs static gunlines or any other extreme matchup that presents both players with completely different set of decissions to make during the game.

The original function of the FoC was to prevent these extreme match-ups. It went downhill with tank squadrons, massed heavy weapons in troop slots, scoring bikes, etc, but the principle was sound.

 Thousand-Son-Sorcerer wrote:

nou wrote:

 Thousand-Son-Sorcerer wrote:

nou wrote:

 Thousand-Son-Sorcerer wrote:
Ummmm...

What is "good enough" balance?

You never actually say what good enough balance is.

I did not define it, because it is not my term - it is commonly used in dakka balance discussions to construct "no one is talking about perfect balance" strawman and dismiss any valid criticism of point system based balance. It can range from "IG+Castellan vs Ynnari soup is good enough because all top table players have equal knowledge about what is good at the moment" to "any not randomly generated list should have at least 40-60 chance of winning assuming equal player skill". You can assume any own definition as long as you explicitly state it, after all this thread can be alternatively utilized as a platform to establishing "what exact level of balance can be reasonably expected from GW" kind of discussion.

LOL okay so uh. You have no definition...also its impossible.

How do you know it's impossible if you have no definition?

What if the minimal amount of balance needed to maintain the hobby population is completely obtainable?

The minimal amount of balance needed to mantain the hobby population in widely defined brackets existed since the very begining of 40K and continues to exist. That does not stop people to be permanently discontent about state of said balance. As for me not providing "good enough" definition it is because I personally don't think you actually can define it in any objective and usefull way nor then achieve it. If it sounds like dodging your question then I can only direct you to abstract math courses...

I mean, how much balance is needed to maintain the game.

That is the minimal amount. With out the ability to maintain the population of the game there is no game.

I get you, but that isn't useful definition - this game has been continuously existing in seven different iterations (I'm excluding RT as it had different goal than 2nd and later editions), always maintaining population large enough for continuous sales and development. Your definition is so broad it is trivially fulfilled by 40K having more to it than balance and drawing enough people based on aesthetics and lore alone to occasionally throw some dice and have a good time. And if that is your goal then yes, obviously that level of balance is clearly and objectively achievable but I don't think that all that many players would agree that it is what "good enough" stands for.

Your "proof" doesn't even bother to quantifiably define what "good enough" balance is, all I see is a lot of words and self-congratulation over a very weak argument.

Well good enough seems to be the moment when there can be a large enough sample of an army found among multiple tiers of different ways of playing the game.

If IG for example are found in some way among the worlds best, but also among new people starting the play, then the faction seems to be good enough.

If it is impossible to even find data, if someone plays a certain army or unit, then it is probably not balanced. Because it means that even if people liked them, they still aren't playing with them, which means they have to be realy bad for that to be true.

A.T. wrote:

nou wrote:

A.T. wrote:
When you have something as varied and random as 40ks armies and dice rolling your best bet for balancing is to maximize the impact of the players decisions on the game. The position of the unit, its formation, and its facing for instance.

What you say is true only if players have equal access to spectrum of possible decisions, wich isn't true in game with flavoured factions. / Unless of course you can establish reasonable balance between e.g. all deep striking assault army vs static gunlines or any other extreme matchup that presents both players with completely different set of decissions to make during the game.

The original function of the FoC was to prevent these extreme match-ups. It went downhill with tank squadrons, massed heavy weapons in troop slots, scoring bikes, etc, but the principle was sound.

Agreed, limiting army structure is good mechanism of limiting the volume of phase space (I did not explicitly mentioned it in my initial post but it falls into "permanently limiting the volume" bag of tools). But as FOC based editions have shown it still leaves enough room for impossible matchups and unacceptable imbalance, so it is most definitely not enough to achieve "good enough". Even with rigid missions and explicit terrain placement rules neither 4th or 5th were balanced and still had much less variety in them that we have nowadays.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Peregrine wrote:
Your "proof" doesn't even bother to quantifiably define what "good enough" balance is, all I see is a lot of words and self-congratulation over a very weak argument.

See my answers to Thousand-Sons-Sorcerer.

And if you think this argument is so weak you should have no problems with coming up with "good enough" definition that is at the same time, well, good enough, achievable and not easily countered by practical example. You perfectly know I think you, of all people, most certainly cannot perform such a feat.

torblind wrote:
I was always a fan of crowd computing. Look at results of major tournaments and balance based on those.

A bunch of dedicated nerds will be better than you at finding balance skewness, always. Use them for what they're worth. Seems pretty straightforward to identify some elements that could use some... correction these days.

It's, not that simple. Models taken in conjunction with each other cause them to become worth more points, with out actually paying points. What we need is something that everyone can benefit from, has not points cost and benefits "Elite" armies more.

So something like "The High Ground-for every inch of elevation add 1" of range to the weapon being fired."

nou wrote:
See my answers to Thousand-Sons-Sorcerer.

And if you think this argument is so weak you should have no problems with coming up with "good enough" definition that is at the same time, well, good enough, achievable and not easily countered by practical example. You perfectly know I think you, of all people, most certainly cannot perform such a feat.

Some people claim that 40k's current balance is "good enough", so by their standards not only is "good enough balance" achievable in theory GW has already achieved it. And no, I don't owe you a definition, this is your argument and it's not my job to write it for you. If you can't bother to define all of your terms then we can just lock up the pointless word salad and be done with it.

 Peregrine wrote:

nou wrote:
See my answers to Thousand-Sons-Sorcerer.

And if you think this argument is so weak you should have no problems with coming up with "good enough" definition that is at the same time, well, good enough, achievable and not easily countered by practical example. You perfectly know I think you, of all people, most certainly cannot perform such a feat.

Some people claim that 40k's current balance is "good enough", so by their standards not only is "good enough balance" achievable in theory GW has already achieved it. And no, I don't owe you a definition, this is your argument and it's not my job to write it for you. If you can't bother to define all of your terms then we can just lock up the pointless word salad and be done with it.

Hes got a point...

Karol wrote:
Well good enough seems to be the moment when there can be a large enough sample of an army found among multiple tiers of different ways of playing the game.

If IG for example are found in some way among the worlds best, but also among new people starting the play, then the faction seems to be good enough.

If it is impossible to even find data, if someone plays a certain army or unit, then it is probably not balanced. Because it means that even if people liked them, they still aren't playing with them, which means they have to be realy bad for that to be true.

That is one way to test if we already have "good enough" balance for set condition, yes. But it is just a method of establishing verification procedure and it gives us no clue about what exactly it means in terms of game parameters and whether or not those parameters required are consistent and not contradictory. Which leaves the question if "good enough" balance is achievable open while some folks insist that "good enough" balance is obviously achievable despite noone being able to actually define what it means. It most certainly have never been achieved in the last 30 years despite using even such advanced list building restriction tools as non-linear comp systems.

 Thousand-Son-Sorcerer wrote:

torblind wrote:
I was always a fan of crowd computing. Look at results of major tournaments and balance based on those.

A bunch of dedicated nerds will be better than you at finding balance skewness, always. Use them for what they're worth. Seems pretty straightforward to identify some elements that could use some... correction these days.

It's, not that simple. Models taken in conjunction with each other cause them to become worth more points, with out actually paying points. What we need is something that everyone can benefit from, has not points cost and benefits "Elite" armies more.

So something like "The High Ground-for every inch of elevation add 1" of range to the weapon being fired."

So why not have progresive unit costs. A unit could cost X points, two of it could cost X+some procentage extra. The higher the trouble from taking the same unit the higher the unit cost would get. At the same time some units that are safe, could always just cost X, or have added unit cost if you really go ham with them and take like 6. Same could be done with really problematic units that work in combos. Taking a farseer in a soup list could be rising the point cost of all of your units in an army. Then GW could also make pre build detachments with costs that may not follow the patern, but the mono build nature of such detachments, and I assume a lot of testing by GW, could keep such combinations safe.

So while lets say a combination of termintors and oblits in a chaos list could follow the x+% cost, a detachment of NL termintors that wouldn't get access to cultists, marks etc would cost less and probably come with some extra rules to sweeten the deal. Less flexible, but more characterful, and if given enough extra rules maybe worth playing.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

nou wrote:

Karol wrote:
Well good enough seems to be the moment when there can be a large enough sample of an army found among multiple tiers of different ways of playing the game.

If IG for example are found in some way among the worlds best, but also among new people starting the play, then the faction seems to be good enough.

If it is impossible to even find data, if someone plays a certain army or unit, then it is probably not balanced. Because it means that even if people liked them, they still aren't playing with them, which means they have to be realy bad for that to be true.

That is one way to test if we already have "good enough" balance for set condition, yes. But it is just a method of establishing verification procedure and it gives us no clue about what exactly it means in terms of game parameters and whether or not those parameters required are consistent and not contradictory. Which leaves the question if "good enough" balance is achievable open while some folks insist that "good enough" balance is obviously achievable despite noone being able to actually define what it means. It most certainly have never been achieved in the last 30 years despite using even such advanced list building restriction tools as non-linear comp systems.

nie rozumiem, za trudne dla mnie. sorki.

 Thousand-Son-Sorcerer wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

nou wrote:
See my answers to Thousand-Sons-Sorcerer.

And if you think this argument is so weak you should have no problems with coming up with "good enough" definition that is at the same time, well, good enough, achievable and not easily countered by practical example. You perfectly know I think you, of all people, most certainly cannot perform such a feat.

Some people claim that 40k's current balance is "good enough", so by their standards not only is "good enough balance" achievable in theory GW has already achieved it. And no, I don't owe you a definition, this is your argument and it's not my job to write it for you. If you can't bother to define all of your terms then we can just lock up the pointless word salad and be done with it.

Hes got a point...

Then ask him why he is the most vocal person to shout that 40K has always been and remains an unbalanced mess. He is known to switch goalposts to whatever suits him best and here you have an example of eristic manouver to dismiss a valid challenge he cannot undertake.

If "good enough" can be universally defined as "some folks agree to it" then this thread fulfilled it's purpose and any future balance discussion can end in first post by just linking this reply as we obviously can now dismiss any balance complaint because I can most certainly name few dakkanauts who are indeed content with GW balance of the game. You see how ridiculous such definition is?

nou wrote:
Then ask him why he is the most vocal person to shout that 40K has always been and remains an unbalanced mess. He is known to switch goalposts to whatever suits him best and here you have an example of eristic manouver to dismiss a valid challenge he cannot undertake.

I can't undertake a challenge when you haven't defined the terms of the challenge. It's like yelling I PROVE THAT YOU CAN'T DRIVE TO YOUR LOCAL GW FAST ENOUGH without even bothering to define what "fast enough" means. There's no point in getting a car and a timer and trying to prove you wrong until you define what the conditions for success or failure are.

If "good enough" can be universally defined as "some folks agree to it" then this thread fulfilled it's purpose and any future balance discussion can end in first post by just linking this reply as we obviously can now dismiss any balance complaint because I can most certainly name few dakkanauts who are indeed content with GW balance of the game. You see how ridiculous such definition is?

You're missing the point entirely. I'm not defining "good enough" at all or stating whether I agree with the people who claim it's currently good enough, I'm simply pointing out that by the definitions some people use your argument has already been proven wrong. By other definitions of "good enough" your argument might be right. Until you quantifiably define what "good enough" means there's no point in trying to evaluate whether your claim is true or false. You've posted poorly defined word salad in an attempt to show off how smart you are, and it isn't working.

Karol wrote:

 Thousand-Son-Sorcerer wrote:

torblind wrote:
I was always a fan of crowd computing. Look at results of major tournaments and balance based on those.

A bunch of dedicated nerds will be better than you at finding balance skewness, always. Use them for what they're worth. Seems pretty straightforward to identify some elements that could use some... correction these days.

It's, not that simple. Models taken in conjunction with each other cause them to become worth more points, with out actually paying points. What we need is something that everyone can benefit from, has not points cost and benefits "Elite" armies more.

So something like "The High Ground-for every inch of elevation add 1" of range to the weapon being fired."

So why not have progresive unit costs. A unit could cost X points, two of it could cost X+some procentage extra. The higher the trouble from taking the same unit the higher the unit cost would get. At the same time some units that are safe, could always just cost X, or have added unit cost if you really go ham with them and take like 6. Same could be done with really problematic units that work in combos. Taking a farseer in a soup list could be rising the point cost of all of your units in an army. Then GW could also make pre build detachments with costs that may not follow the patern, but the mono build nature of such detachments, and I assume a lot of testing by GW, could keep such combinations safe.

So while lets say a combination of termintors and oblits in a chaos list could follow the x+% cost, a detachment of NL termintors that wouldn't get access to cultists, marks etc would cost less and probably come with some extra rules to sweeten the deal. Less flexible, but more characterful, and if given enough extra rules maybe worth playing.

That is exactly how army comp systems work and Peregrine here was always first to argue, that they simply shift imbalance to different combos and did not result in truly improved balance.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

nou wrote:

Karol wrote:
Well good enough seems to be the moment when there can be a large enough sample of an army found among multiple tiers of different ways of playing the game.

If IG for example are found in some way among the worlds best, but also among new people starting the play, then the faction seems to be good enough.

If it is impossible to even find data, if someone plays a certain army or unit, then it is probably not balanced. Because it means that even if people liked them, they still aren't playing with them, which means they have to be realy bad for that to be true.

That is one way to test if we already have "good enough" balance for set condition, yes. But it is just a method of establishing verification procedure and it gives us no clue about what exactly it means in terms of game parameters and whether or not those parameters required are consistent and not contradictory. Which leaves the question if "good enough" balance is achievable open while some folks insist that "good enough" balance is obviously achievable despite noone being able to actually define what it means. It most certainly have never been achieved in the last 30 years despite using even such advanced list building restriction tools as non-linear comp systems.

nie rozumiem, za trudne dla mnie. sorki.

To co opisales to bardzo dobra metoda sprawdzenia, czy udalo sie uzyskac satysfakcjonujaca rownowage, ale nie daje zadnych wskazowek jak podejsc do samego problemu osiagniecia owej rownowagi. Natomiast to co skomentowalem powyzej to juz proba mechanizmu rownowazacego (army comp), ktory moznaby przetestowac statystycznie i wyciagnac wnioski.

nou wrote:
That is exactly how army comp systems work and Peregrine here was always first to argue, that they simply shift imbalance to different combos and did not result in truly improved balance.

No, that's not what comp systems are at all. Comp was a system where you were scored on how "competitive" or "fun" your list was, often based on the TO's personal opinions about what a "fluffy" army should look like. You could still take the exact same overpowered list and ruin everyone's day, you'd just get a WAAC TFG label and a 0/10 comp score (and probably a 0/10 sportsmanship score). They inevitably failed to improve balance because they were almost always based on personal opinions about the fluff and hatred of "spam" rather than any significant understanding of balance issues. That's not at all the same as a variable point cost system where unit costs increase based on certain combos making them more powerful and the overpowered list is no longer possible to build.

In fact, what you are describing is the exact system that comp advocates were deliberately avoiding. For some reason they got this bizarre idea that it isn't "real 40k" if you change point costs of overpowered units, so they tacked on a pesudo-sportsmanship score to shame people into avoiding the overpowered stuff. At the time I stated quite clearly that I was in favor of making point cost adjustments and that this would be a far more effective way of improving balance.

Karol wrote:

 Thousand-Son-Sorcerer wrote:

torblind wrote:
I was always a fan of crowd computing. Look at results of major tournaments and balance based on those.

A bunch of dedicated nerds will be better than you at finding balance skewness, always. Use them for what they're worth. Seems pretty straightforward to identify some elements that could use some... correction these days.

It's, not that simple. Models taken in conjunction with each other cause them to become worth more points, with out actually paying points. What we need is something that everyone can benefit from, has not points cost and benefits "Elite" armies more.

So something like "The High Ground-for every inch of elevation add 1" of range to the weapon being fired."

So why not have progresive unit costs. A unit could cost X points, two of it could cost X+some procentage extra. The higher the trouble from taking the same unit the higher the unit cost would get. At the same time some units that are safe, could always just cost X, or have added unit cost if you really go ham with them and take like 6. Same could be done with really problematic units that work in combos. Taking a farseer in a soup list could be rising the point cost of all of your units in an army. Then GW could also make pre build detachments with costs that may not follow the patern, but the mono build nature of such detachments, and I assume a lot of testing by GW, could keep such combinations safe.

So while lets say a combination of termintors and oblits in a chaos list could follow the x+% cost, a detachment of NL termintors that wouldn't get access to cultists, marks etc would cost less and probably come with some extra rules to sweeten the deal. Less flexible, but more characterful, and if given enough extra rules maybe worth playing.

That is just a strait points increase, plus building your army becomes an algebra test which people wont be too keen on.

Like I said adding rules which benefit Elite armies more then horde armies will be the best way to go.

nou wrote:
But as FOC based editions have shown it still leaves enough room for impossible matchups and unacceptable imbalance, so it is most definitely not enough to achieve "good enough".

I can only think of one impossible match-up offhand in early editions, that being 3e daemonhunters with sanctuary vs 4e daemons - a result of outdated rules.In any case the FoC itself was not the cause of imbalance, other than perhaps by not scaling with the game.

3rd through to early 5th (before designers started to 'cheat' the FoC) the issues were more to do with unassailable targets, the early edition equivalents of invisible deathstars, and the game scoring rules. The game still has both of these issues without the FoC.

And to iterate once more - I do not provide definition of "good enough" because I firmly believe that all such definitions are either insufficient, easily countered or so limited in scope that they are useless. In the last three years of my discussing balance theory here on dakka nobody ever gave one that could get widely agreed upon other than "any army which was given enough consideration should have at least 40-60 chance of winning assuming equal player skill" or variations on something similarily vague (and definitions like this can usually be countered by showcasing some uderdog army that in order to balance it would have to either become something completely different or become something already existing). I most certainly cannot provide one exactly because I don't think anything close to static balance can be achieved in a sandbox game. Not perfect, not "good enough" to not bump into frustrating matchups or purchase choices. If I knew how to construct such nontrivial definition I would obviously provide one.

 Thousand-Son-Sorcerer wrote:


That is just a strait points increase, plus building your army become an algebra test which people wont be too keen on.

Like I said adding rules which benefit Elite armies more then horde armies will be the best way to go.

But I thought everyone loves math? IMO progresive costing can deal with combos,unwanted spaming . Elite armies could technicly get really good rules to balance horde, but the rules would have to be REALLY good . The little expiriance I have with GW rules makes me a bit sceptic about it really happening.

To co opisales to bardzo dobra metoda sprawdzenia, czy udalo sie uzyskac satysfakcjonujaca rownowage, ale nie daje zadnych wskazowek jak podejsc do samego problemu osiagniecia owej rownowagi. Natomiast to co skomentowalem powyzej to juz proba mechanizmu rownowazacego (army comp), ktory moznaby przetestowac statystycznie i wyciagnac wnioski.

ok. I don't know what a comp system is. So can't comment on that.

 Peregrine wrote:

nou wrote:
That is exactly how army comp systems work and Peregrine here was always first to argue, that they simply shift imbalance to different combos and did not result in truly improved balance.

No, that's not what comp systems are at all. Comp was a system where you were scored on how "competitive" or "fun" your list was, often based on the TO's personal opinions about what a "fluffy" army should look like. You could still take the exact same overpowered list and ruin everyone's day, you'd just get a WAAC TFG label and a 0/10 comp score (and probably a 0/10 sportsmanship score). They inevitably failed to improve balance because they were almost always based on personal opinions about the fluff and hatred of "spam" rather than any significant understanding of balance issues. That's not at all the same as a variable point cost system where unit costs increase based on certain combos making them more powerful and the overpowered list is no longer possible to build.

In fact, what you are describing is the exact system that comp advocates were deliberately avoiding. For some reason they got this bizarre idea that it isn't "real 40k" if you change point costs of overpowered units, so they tacked on a pesudo-sportsmanship score to shame people into avoiding the overpowered stuff. At the time I stated quite clearly that I was in favor of making point cost adjustments and that this would be a far more effective way of improving balance.

I'm talking about e.g. australian community comp, which was an elaborate nonlinear army composition system for 7th ed with progressive cost of units and other list building restrictions, not a comp score on tournaments.