Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

I am curious about the overall community's attitude toward game balance and how much (or little) overall people care about playing a game that is very badly balanced, or if the community is largely apathetic towards balance in general and consider other factors of the games that they play more important.

Hm, I feel like the options here need to be refined. Maybe replace the second with "important, but I am willing to adapt/change my army to remain viable" and the third with "important, but I will put up with it when I like a game for other reasons". Possibly reword the first as "severe balance issues will keep me from playing a game".

Game balance is not attainable.
You just have to live with it.

It really, really depends.

If I’ve played a good game, the dice have been at least average, and I still get flattened? Not much fun.

For example, X-Wing. Against players of roughly equal skill, it’s bloody good. But if one of the players is better versed? It’s not actually much fun for their opponent.

40k? Needs some work in that regard. Knowing your own list still makes a big difference, but there’s no denying certain forces are very much on the back foot from the get go.

So I guess it depends on how one defines balance. I’m not gonna try, because that’s just a red rag to a bull. So I present it as a wide opinion!

I would have voted for an option that was more in the line of "The more balanced the better, but at the same time I can still enjoy a unbalanced game if it isn't TOO bad"

For example 8th of 40k is the most balance the game has been. And not because you don't have OP or UP builds, but because most of the game is balanced towars the middle. The difference in power between a weak faction and a mid tier or powerfull faction is much smaller than in previous editions.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
Hm, I feel like the options here need to be refined. Maybe replace the second with "important, but I am willing to adapt/change my army to remain viable" and the third with "important, but I will put up with it when I like a game for other reasons". Possibly reword the first as "severe balance issues will keep me from playing a game".

Yeah, this options are much better and are less loaded.

Its not very important to me at all as I only really play with friends and we have a laugh no matter what.

I think 100% of every poll I've seen in my life has people chiming in with "it would be better if these were the options". The options I have given above mean similar things to what was suggested and offer the same type of information that I am after.

I have conducted this poll in a couple of other places and the answers there are very similar to the answers here. That being balance is not important, or people are chiming in saying balance is not attainable so you just have to deal with it (which isn't really an answer, as I'm interested in if they will just keep up with the meta then or just be ok with getting trucked over)

I'm after four data points:

Imbalance keeps one from playing a game (severity of imbalance is subjective and not useful, it can be argued chess is imbalanced and then spin off into a circular debate for example)
Imbalance is acceptable and I'll just adapt my list to stay on top of the power skew
Imbalance is acceptable and I'm ok with getting trucked
Imbalance is not only acceptable, it is the last thing I care about

For balance discussions I would like to objectively have some data to work with. If its true the majority of the community really does not care overall about balance as that big a deal, thats important to keep into perspective.

I can't help but feel that the poll is biased by its given options. Of the four options only one is actually against imbalance and only provides one viewpoint with regard to it. Meanwhile there are three options that propose imbalance acceptable with three variations on context.


The lack of suitable context on imbalance being unacceptable and using a rather extreme example in your option is, I think, not going to give you a beneficial nor suitable set of results.

I disagree with your assertion. I don't need 5 different formats of saying the same thing. Because all I will do is take those 5 different ways of saying the same thing and make them say the same overall.

You are against imbalance. Or you are ok with some imbalance and will play. Or you totally don't care about imbalance. If you are ok with some imbalance, you typically fall into two camps: keeping on top of the meta, or not caring if you get trucked by OP lists.

There really doesn't need to be more gradients than that.

If you are against imbalance but will grudgingly play anyway, that is the same thing as being ok with some imbalance because your actions indicate you will play with some imbalance. I don't need multiple options that mean the same thing. I care about the end action, not if you hate imbalance but will play anyway or are ok with some imbalance and will play anyway because those both mean the same thing to me: you will play anyway despite bad balance. For those that will play anyway despite bad balance I want to know what route they will take - staying on top of the meta - or coming to peace that when they play they know they will get trucked by an OP list and being cool with that (or accepting it, if not cool with it).

auticus wrote:


Imbalance keeps one from playing a game (severity of imbalance is subjective and not useful, it can be argued chess is imbalanced and then spin off into a circular debate for example)
Imbalance is acceptable and I'll just adapt my list to stay on top of the power skew
Imbalance is acceptable and I'm ok with getting trucked
Imbalance is not only acceptable, it is the last thing I care about

But thats not what most people would chose or think. In general, most people think balance is a nice thing to have, and the more balanced the game the better, but it is not his top priority in having a fun game and we can have still enjoyable games in a more or less imbalanced game when people is in the same mentality. That doesnt mean they will just adapt to the top of the power skew or they are ok with getting trucked.

I don't know. Yeah, polls have always people asking for other options but as I said I just don't think you are really offering clear options.

Irrelevant poll options.

Important qualifiers:
1. In a lot of situations, balance is either situational or circular. Divide your army points between Rock, Paper and Scissors and play a game.
2. In a lot of situations, you can watch two people with completely different balance criteria arguing at cross purposes over whether something is balanced.
3. The existence of scenarios and external factors that change the balance between elements. For instance, the effect that tournament schedules have on game results when games end prematurely.
4. The contrasting view concerning game balance which looks at the difference of effectiveness of different choices as a choice between different difficulty settings. "Wow, you won with a terrible army, you must be amazing (or lucky)!"
5. The players who either don't know about other game, or don't feel that they have other games as viable choices in their area. "40k is a terrible game, but it's the only thing going on at the store" or "I'd rather play X, but I can't a group together to do it."

Its not a huge deal especially as I don't tend to play with strangers/in tournaments

assuming the the games mechanics are fun, you can always negotiate a handicap with friends if the balance is awful or just play an unbalanced match up and see how well you can do


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I wonder if the poll should be asking about 'matches' (ie you verses your opponent) rather than 'games' which some will take to mean system and some will take to mean match

especially as a system may be wildly unbalanced for certain faction subsets but not too bad for others

I'm asking about a game.

You pick a game. Game has factions. The more balanced the game, the more viable all of the factions are. The less balanced the game, the more you have obvious factions that you should play and trash factions you should never play.

auticus wrote:
I'm asking about a game.

You pick a game. Game has factions. The more balanced the game, the more viable all of the factions are. The less balanced the game, the more you have obvious factions that you should play and trash factions you should never play.

When I got into the game I didn´t even know what balance was. I just chose what models I liked and rolled with it and I have the exact mindset today. The game will never be balanced but people can break it by applying a min-max play style or by gaming the game. You just have to play with the right people. Notions such as balance, viability or competition don´t belong into 40K. It´s a board game after all and not a sports contest.

I forgot to add the fifth option: "I don't think balance exists or can exist so I don't care". though that does mean "I don't mind imbalance" and I will be missing "and so I trade armies out as the meta changes to keep up" or "and so I just accept I'm going to get trucked and am ok with that"

None of the above. I'm largely with Galas here. Context is important too. For example:

[/b] Very important. I won't play games that have extreme OP or underpowered factions in it [/b]

Not applicable. 40K DOES have OP and underpowered armies. I still play it, but I will rarely play an extremely uneven setup.

[/b] Somewhat important, but I'll just buy or change my armies out to match the powerful lists in the current meta [/b]

It IS somewhat important, but pay to win has little interest for me. I'd rather negotiate: you take this and I'll drop that, and we'll see what happens: houseruled balance, if you like.

[/b]Somewhat important, but I'm ok with trucking over a weak list or myself being trucked over by an OP list, I'll still play [/b]

Don't be silly. Where's the fun in that?

[/b]Not at all important, balance is not one of the considerations that I give to playing a game[/b]

Also not applicable: balance is a factor, but not the only one. Who and how I'm playing matter too, to varying degrees.

[/b]I don't think balance exists or can be made to exist so this poll is irrelevant [/b]

Also not applicable. It's a long way off perfect, but for me balance is less important than attitude.

You basically answered the poll by saying balance is somewhat important to you but you'll still play an unbalanced game.

Balance is fairly important to me, not just between factions, but within the faction as well, and this is a big part of why I don't play 40k anymore. I found that with GW's tendency to throw everything at the wall and see what sticks, there were a lot of units that you looked at and wondered why you'd ever take it compared to another unit that was either cheaper or clearly better at the same job. I've yet to find a game with perfect balance (and doubt there is such a thing), but have found plenty where they've done a much better job.

I agree that perfect balance is in fact impossible and that shouldn't be a reasonable goal.

Balance is very important to me, but I’ll use house rules to fix those parts I don’t agree with. Meta be damned, I actively avoid tournament-minded games.

You basically answered the poll by saying balance is somewhat important to you but you'll still play an unbalanced game.

Yep. It's *A* factor. Not the only one, and at present, overall, the pros outweigh the cons, and I have fun.

Bit more thinks on it.

I'm not massively in favour of a game that relies solely on skill, not when I'm playing it for entertainment.

This is where I fell out with X-Wing. It's a great game, no debate on that. But I simply found myself getting absolutely panelled every time by more experienced gamers.

Sure, player skill should be a factor - but I just don't think it should be the sole factor. Otherwise, it can become impenetrable to new players if a given community isn't careful.

Of course, that's just my opinion, and is absolutely no reason at all to not play X-Wing yourself, or indeed similar games. It's just something I don't find especially appealing.

Yep. It's *A* factor. Not the only one, and at present, overall, the pros outweigh the cons, and I have fun.

My interest is not in all the factors one cares about, it is how important or not important the balance factor is.

I'm not massively in favour of a game that relies solely on skill, not when I'm playing it for entertainment.

This poll was not asked to question player skill and how heavily it should factor in.

A balanced game does not mean player skill is high or player skill is low. XWing is not a balanced game either and has a tournament meta and ships you'd never take. Balance indicates that the factions represented all have builds that are viable, and you don't have factions you'll never see.

Extreme balance means that all the units in the factions are all viable against each other.

Bad balance indicates factions where factions as a whole exist that cannot compete against others without crazy luck and massively better player skill than the opponent.

Most important to me, to where I don't care if models look amazing if the rules for them are horrible, and honestly I can't stand people who say they don't care about the rules and just want pretty models.

In effect, I buy pretty models because they are part of a game, not play a game because it lets me use pretty models.

Yet I play Warhammer...

To create balance, one must look inward.

It used to be pretty important to me. Then I started playing 40k.

Or I should say when balance started being less important to me, only then could I enjoy 40k.

Or I should say when balance started being less important to me, only then could I enjoy 40k.

Fair enough and well said.

I find balance very important. Having played games like 40k, LOL, HS, etc. Choosing cool things you like the background, look, and play-style of only to discover they suck ruins the fun of playing.

Can't really vote as no option fits neatly with me.


Balance is important enough to me that I went back to an older version of WFB and 40K rather than deal with the pendulum that is current GW meta.

As I get older it becomes more and more important. I used to enjoy the requirement of constantly buying and painting things to adjust to the cutthroat meta but I just don't have the hobby and game time to either hobby that much or blow entire evenings in a frustrating game.

It's become particularly clear to me since starting LotR this year. I don't win often but I can always see what my opponent did better than I did or what mistakes I made that cost me the game.

The balance both internal and external are much better than other games I've tried and the 12 core missions are a brilliant mix of requirements making list building far more interesting as just pure killiness won't carry the day in many of them.