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"just negotiate to your opponent the day before the game", "you do not need the balanced game, one sided games are fun, cos your army is fluffy themed", or this magic "just play casual and the balanced games will appear (btw, where could I get those casual rules? I really really want them)"

Remember those in 7ed is ok threads xD

Silver144 wrote:
"just negotiate to your opponent the day before the game", "you do not need the balanced game, one sided games are fun, cos your army is fluffy themed", or this magic "just play casual and the balanced games will appear (btw, where could I get those casual rules? I really really want them)"

Remember those in 7ed is ok threads xD

Dakka never changes

 Melissia wrote:

 SHUPPET wrote:
Now please prove that those numbers are a higher ratio of competitive players to casual ones, than the 40k community as a whole.

Moving the goalposts isn't something I respect. I proved that the majority of dakka players when asked in a poll will say that they are primarily competitive, which was my assertion. You're asking me to cite a source for an argument I never made.

Let's go through this from the start.

Wayniac made a statement that the majority of people in the community play Points, not PL.

You went on a rant about this being baseless assertion, and asked for proof.

He cited Dakka polls as his proof.

You refuted this proof, claiming that "Dakka tends on the competitive side."



And this is where I asked YOU for proof that this isn't reflective of the community as a whole, as you asserted.




Please have a shred of self awareness here, thanks.

It's just obvious by the very nature of what it means to be a casual player that they would be less likely to be active here than a competitive player.

There's no data to statistically prove it, it's just a logical deduction.

Deadnight wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

 Melissia wrote:

 SHUPPET wrote:
Now please prove that those numbers are a higher ratio of competitive players to casual ones, than the 40k community as a whole.

Moving the goalposts isn't something I respect. I proved that the majority of dakka players when asked in a poll will say that they are primarily competitive, which was my assertion. You're asking me to cite a source for an argument I never made.

It's isn't moving the goalposts because it's the only way to give your assertion any meaning. For "Dakka tends towards competitiveness" to be true in any useful way it has to be considered with reference to the 40k community as a whole. For example, if 60% of people on dakka play competitively but 90% of people in the wider 40k community play competitively then dakka would be a less-competitive community.

Why? You're post is very hard to decipher. Stating that dakka tends towards competitiveness is fine. It qualifies the data it generates.I don't see why or how this needs to be tied to how or why the greater community plays, or collects. Dakka is dakka.

Maybe it's my reading comprehension here (ts my anniversary, Ive had a few lovely whiskeys and frankly have more important things on today), but it seems that reading this, that for your assertion to be true, that dakka is seemingly (or should be) reflective of the community. That's not necessarily true. It's perfectly logical to suggest that the competitive elements of a community will congregate under one banner, but which wouldn't necessarily represent the greater community.

Can you please clarify your point?

 Peregrine wrote:

And it would be absurd to dismiss an argument based on opinions of dakka members as "dakka is exceptionally competitive", as the original comment that started this whole argument did.

Not necessarily. While that argument may be true for the opinions of dakka members who are competitive, it may hold no relevance to a (hypothetical) greater community that isn't. It may be that dakka indeed doesn't necessarily reflect the 'real wargaming world'.

See above post. The point is that the claim Melissia made that "Dakka is more competitive than the community as a whole" to dismiss his proof of his opinion, is no less of an unsourced generalization than the claim that "the majority of people use points not PL" that she went on a big tirade about being a "dismissive, arrogant assertion" that he just "pulled out his ass" (her words, not mine). Surely you can see the laughable hypocrisy in that in particular lol, it's why she's so eager to change the subject right now.

Oh gods, all this barking “citation needed!” “prove it!” “no you prove it!” for a mostly unproveable-either-way thing is silly. Guys, just step away from the keyboard and have a cuppa.

 Stux wrote:
It's just obvious by the very nature of what it means to be a casual player that they would be less likely to be active here than a competitive player.

There's no data to statistically prove it, it's just a logical deduction.

It's also a logical conclusion that the majority of people play with the working ruleset not the busted one, but it didn't stop the rant about how big a fallacy that is now did it? This is my whole underlying point.



That said, I think you misunderstand what casual play means. It doesn't mean they like the game less, it means they like different aspects. I was on 40k discussion MORE when I didn't play competitively. This is a community for modelling, lore, and just general love of the game. ONE of the FOUR painting subcategories has double as many threads than the entire "40k tactics" subcategory alone, so no, I don't agree that logic alone says that this place is going to be significantly more competitive than the general community of the game at all. At the VERY least, claiming that it is a certain way based off "logic", is literally the exact thing that Melissia complained about Wayniac doing, how can you not see that? I don't know how we get to this level of cognitive dissonance.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 JohnnyHell wrote:
Oh gods, all this barking “citation needed!” “prove it!” “no you prove it!” for a mostly unproveable-either-way thing is silly. Guys, just step away from the keyboard and have a cuppa.

My. Exact. Point.


There's no real way to prove any of this jive, it's all speculation and interpretation, so at the very least, don't completely gak all over someones reasonable summary simply because they didn't have hard empirical evidence of their interpretation, but then turn around and literally do the exact same thing yourself. It's beyond hypocritical.

Sorry but different interpretations have differing levels of merit, even if you can't conclusively prove them.

Not misunderstanding anything. Being casual doesn't mean for certain that they are less into the game, I absolutely agree. Competitive players however REQUIRE a level of engagement in communities to be competitive.

All I'm saying is there will be a correlation between casual players and players who are less into the game. Not all of them, by any means, but a correlation.

Surely you agree that there will be a correlation between people who are less into the game and people who engage with communities less.

Therefore there will be a bigger drop in representation from casual players compared to competitive players when surveying people on a community forum.

What we don't know is how big that difference is. It might be trivial, or it might be huge.

 Stux wrote:


Not misunderstanding anything. Being casual doesn't mean for certain that they are less into the game, I absolutely agree. Competitive players however REQUIRE a level of engagement in communities to be competitive.

As do painters looking to improve, or to showcase, or to commission, or to help. As do people looking to discuss the lore. As do people from all facets of the hobby for all number of reasons.



Claiming that this forum's polls will have more competitive players than the ratio found in the entire community at large, is exactly that - an assertion based off your personal interpretation of how you suspect it is, but at the end of the day don't have any real proof of - just like the claim that the majority of people play Points and not PL (something that also seems pretty logical, even as a narrative player,we only use Points, the other system just bad on multiple levels). Trying to separate these two statement into "well one is a baseless assertion, but the other is a fair enough claim to make because I agree with it", is just absurdity, all you are doing is picking which one supports your personal perspective more, and throwing any sort of objectivity out the door. If you are going to dismiss people's claims like that, demand they provide proof, and call it "arrogant" to make such assertions, you do not get to turn around and make claims as if you are aware of the exact ratio of competitive players to casuals both here and in the community as a whole. As for you, your post goes on to say that you even don't know, which is exactly my point here. Let's get that understood.

Thread lock in 3... 2... 1...

 SHUPPET wrote:

 Stux wrote:


Not misunderstanding anything. Being casual doesn't mean for certain that they are less into the game, I absolutely agree. Competitive players however REQUIRE a level of engagement in communities to be competitive.

As do painters looking to improve, or to showcase, or to commission, or to help. As do people looking to discuss the lore. As do people from all facets of the hobby for all number of reasons.

I think you're misunderstanding my position.

I recognise that the people you talk about exist, that there are quite a lot of them even. People who are big into the lore/painting/hobby aspect, but don't care as much for competitive style play. Those people ARE represented here to some degree. I'm not talking about those though, I'm talking about the truly casual people - not just casual to the mechanics, but casual to all respects of the hobby.

They are UNDOUBTEDLY under represented here. That's not a matter of perspective, it's simple logic based on what they are as a demographic. Polls here do not represent their position at all, they can't.

Therefore we know that the proportion of true casuals (in all aspects of the hobby) will be higher outside of Dakka than within this community.

That is my primary assertion. We know with a pretty high certainty that the set of all people who play skews more True Casual than the Dakka data would suggest. Again, we don't know how much, but it will be more than we see here.

 Stux wrote:


That is my primary assertion.

Good than you're on the same page as me then. I agree, it could go either way, and there is logic that could support it either way, neither perspective is flawed. The fact is you admit this claim to be an assertion, as kicked up the entire drama to begin with, so whether made by you or by anyone else also working off intuition and not hard facts (just as the points/power level claim was), this is my entire point here.

Now, can we stop going around in circles?

Honestly, I don't get the vehemence against wanting social interaction before/during/after. This isn't fething WoW where you just queue up in the Dungeon Finder and get placed with randoms who might as well be AI and don't need to say a word during the entire run, and then leave immediately afterward.

It's a social hobby, by intent and design. All of the wargaming hobbies are. It's not the sort of hobby where you should just roll up, pick somebody at random, say like one or two words and then start setting up, say nothing else except announce your moves, and when you're done maybe say good game, shake hands and then pack up and leave without another word.

It's kinda like begging for a handicap because gw can't do math. People get sick of playing down.

Martel732 wrote:
It's kinda like begging for a handicap because gw can't do math. People get sick of playing down.

I get that, but it seems to be the intended way to play (not necessarily the negotiation part, but actual social interaction beyond gamespeak), and things like ITC that remove it seem like the outlier. Besides, you can have social interaction with someone that isn't "playing down" or talking about house rules. But it seems like there's a bunch of people who don't want to talk to their opponent AT ALL except to say stuff in-game, whether that's just shooting the gak or talking about some new release or a tournament result or whatnot.

Martel732 wrote:
It's kinda like begging for a handicap because gw can't do math. People get sick of playing down.

IDK I think you maybe haven't come to terms with the fact that you just aren't playing the right game. Warhammer 40k is a tabletop hobby for exploring war stories within an expansive, unique sci-fi universe. It's so far from being or intended to be a top-level strategic skills competition, and IMO is all the better for it. You're trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. Why not invest yourself into something competitively balanced (or at least competitively intended) like MTG, or Chess?

It's only a "math problem" if you think the main goal is top level competitive balance and not maximizing the ability to tell fluffy stories and experience the universe on the tabletop.

Alternately like is suggested above, you can just have a discussion with your opponent about what you're bringing and what missions you're playing to maximize balance, and then sit down and have a great time.

 SHUPPET wrote:

 Stux wrote:


That is my primary assertion.

Good than you're on the same page as me then. I agree, it could go either way, and there is logic that could support it either way, neither perspective is flawed. The fact is you admit this claim to be an assertion, as kicked up the entire drama to begin with, so whether made by you or by anyone else also working off intuition and not hard facts (just as the points/power level claim was), this is my entire point here.

Now, can we stop going around in circles?

Sure. I just found it quite odd that you seemed to refuse to accept that the users of GW products as a whole would undoubtedly skew more casual in their relationship to all aspects of the hobby than a sample taken somewhere like Dakka.

If we can accept that much, then we have no disagreement!

I don't like the fluff, and the crunch is prohibitive with respect to ba fluff anyway. Except getting eaten by nids. BA do that real well.

I mean in my area if you aren't playing 40k competitively you aren't playing. The competitive scene here is huge.

Yeah there are some guys that push the narrative and thats awesome but you have to go out of your way to find those games.

Now if GW would just balance their game, this schism wouldn't exist in the first place. If I'm developing this game, I make sure trash tactical marines and CSMs, for example, have a purpose to being taken. Because no one will otherwise, and the narrative fluff will never be realized.

Gordoape wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
It's kinda like begging for a handicap because gw can't do math. People get sick of playing down.

IDK I think you maybe haven't come to terms with the fact that you just aren't playing the right game. Warhammer 40k is a tabletop hobby for exploring war stories within an expansive, unique sci-fi universe. It's so far from being or intended to be a top-level strategic skills competition, and IMO is all the better for it. You're trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. Why not invest yourself into something competitively balanced (or at least competitively intended) like MTG, or Chess?

It's only a "math problem" if you think the main goal is top level competitive balance and not maximizing the ability to tell fluffy stories and experience the universe on the tabletop.

Alternately like is suggested above, you can just have a discussion with your opponent about what you're bringing and what missions you're playing to maximize balance, and then sit down and have a great time.

Where I sit, and where I assume many other 'competitive' players sit, is wondering why it cant be both.

A Well balanced game, that provides strategic and tactical depth, does not stop a game from providing a framework for building rich narratives, where as a game that is poorly balanced, and has many mechanical flaws, still adds work to those looking for a rich narrative as they have to manually patch holes, while being directly bad for those looking for a strategic and tactical challenge.

The entire community should want GW to produce well balanced, deep rulesets, that reward good play, because, its healthy for both extremes of gamer. Regardless of what 40k is meant to be, we should not let 'its just meant to be narrative fun', be a get-out clause for not holding game developers to at least some level of expectation, to making an acceptably adequate game for everyone.

Gordoape wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
It's kinda like begging for a handicap because gw can't do math. People get sick of playing down.

IDK I think you maybe haven't come to terms with the fact that you just aren't playing the right game. Warhammer 40k is a tabletop hobby for exploring war stories within an expansive, unique sci-fi universe. It's so far from being or intended to be a top-level strategic skills competition, and IMO is all the better for it. You're trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. Why not invest yourself into something competitively balanced (or at least competitively intended) like MTG, or Chess?

It's only a "math problem" if you think the main goal is top level competitive balance and not maximizing the ability to tell fluffy stories and experience the universe on the tabletop.

Alternately like is suggested above, you can just have a discussion with your opponent about what you're bringing and what missions you're playing to maximize balance, and then sit down and have a great time.

This is a bit on the extreme side, but it is true. 40k has been the round peg forced into a square hole by things like the ITC, and sure it can resemble a tournament game, even behave as a fairly decent one (with tweaks), but it's still not the intended use for the game.

Marines being poor sabotages narrative play, too. At least that's my view.

Unpopular Opinion/Tinfoil Hat Theory:

1- 40k is not at all adequate for any real fair, competitive play.

2- Over time people have sort of brute-forced it to give the illusion of a fair, competitive game.

GW is fully aware of both of these things, and rather than make it clear that their system and product is not made for fair, competitive gaming- they stay silent because it makes them money when competitive players are spending the money.

 Adeptus Doritos wrote:
Unpopular Opinion/Tinfoil Hat Theory:

1- 40k is not at all adequate for any real fair, competitive play.

2- Over time people have sort of brute-forced it to give the illusion of a fair, competitive game.

GW is fully aware of both of these things, and rather than make it clear that their system and product is not made for fair, competitive gaming- they stay silent because it makes them money when competitive players are spending the money.

I think this is actually correct. But it does fracture the game. I mean, GW may be trying to balance things but they seem to be doing a poor job overall. So maybe it's time for ITC to step up again and balance the stuff GW won't, since they already have market share over competitive 40k so their word is essentially law when it comes to that. As much as I dislike ITC skewing the game, I think if they actually go whole hog like they had to in 7th and have their own houserules and such to fix competitive 40k, it at least does what GW won't: Divide Matched Play into matched play (as in points) and competitive play (with extra restrictions to help further balance the game). Things like reigning in soup, or limiting you to one battalion, or whatever the hell, you get the idea - just go full on split rather than this weird half split.

Yawn. The old, GW is so Machiavellian they get people coming and going with tolls argument.

The truth is GW puts out a game. Its not a great game, its a good game. People naturally try to put it in the framework they feel comfortable with, be it Competitive, beer and pretzel, or sime casual, or whatever self descriptor they assign.

And none of that matters.

"40,000 is in a pretty good place."
Trying to stay on topic, though the "competitive" discussion and fact finding was a fun aside: the game actually had me dusting off my "store" of models and building more than I ever have.
Too many models seemed to fall in the realm of not worth the points to the point of it being a handicap in prior editions.
Not quite as bad this time around, again more of my own impression of the game than a blow by blow points to benefit ratio investigation.

I had been compiling the unit and weapon costs for comparative cost effectiveness (damn them rolling-in weapon unit costs on occasion for giggles) so i could have subjective evidence of "fairness" as I remake my friend's "Squat Codex 8th edition", I even had to do an update based on the FAQs and couple "Chapter Approved".
Being able to to do this and not lose my mind says something of a better attempt at balance, I particularly like how they change the weapon cost depending on the "BS" value they anticipate firing it.

I think we may never quite do away with the occasional models that are a "deal" in points, you can never tell if that is an intentional sales tool or an oversight in their game testing.

secretForge wrote:

Gordoape wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
It's kinda like begging for a handicap because gw can't do math. People get sick of playing down.

IDK I think you maybe haven't come to terms with the fact that you just aren't playing the right game. Warhammer 40k is a tabletop hobby for exploring war stories within an expansive, unique sci-fi universe. It's so far from being or intended to be a top-level strategic skills competition, and IMO is all the better for it. You're trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. Why not invest yourself into something competitively balanced (or at least competitively intended) like MTG, or Chess?

It's only a "math problem" if you think the main goal is top level competitive balance and not maximizing the ability to tell fluffy stories and experience the universe on the tabletop.

Alternately like is suggested above, you can just have a discussion with your opponent about what you're bringing and what missions you're playing to maximize balance, and then sit down and have a great time.

Where I sit, and where I assume many other 'competitive' players sit, is wondering why it cant be both.

A Well balanced game, that provides strategic and tactical depth, does not stop a game from providing a framework for building rich narratives, where as a game that is poorly balanced, and has many mechanical flaws, still adds work to those looking for a rich narrative as they have to manually patch holes, while being directly bad for those looking for a strategic and tactical challenge.

The entire community should want GW to produce well balanced, deep rulesets, that reward good play, because, its healthy for both extremes of gamer. Regardless of what 40k is meant to be, we should not let 'its just meant to be narrative fun', be a get-out clause for not holding game developers to at least some level of expectation, to making an acceptably adequate game for everyone.

I’m not saying it can’t be both, but that’s a significantly more difficult equation than a “math problem” as stated above. The easiest way to competitively balance is to aggressively streamline and personally I don’t want that. It’s not about a get out clause (GW clearly cares about balance as at least one of thee priorities, if not the top one), but just that the lamenting is missing the point. I do think the concept of having an ITC tournament and treating that as the main barometer of the state of health of the game is way way missing the point of 40k.

Nobody asked them to be 100% successful every time. But when they observe that two specific army compositions (castellan + AM, ynnari eldar mix) take up 60-70% of the top 30 tables in every tournament for a whole year, then don't just go whistling about and pretending that nothing is wrong with them, then let them go through CA unscathed...

Gordoape wrote:
I do think the concept of having an ITC tournament and treating that as the main barometer of the state of health of the game is way way missing the point of 40k.

I think that gets down to what is the measurement of 40k "health"?
We could comparatively measure the annual financial report for Games Workshop, because ultimately the game's health is based on us buying their stuff and them getting an income.

People such as myself may not add much to this measurement since I am not buying any more than I had in the past BUT I am fielding much more of my stuff and catching up on my backlog.
That will probably change as they inevitably add new models that I will feel i need.

The pool of players in my local area has increased by about 1/4 of what it was.
I am playing 40k at least twice a month which changed from twice a year with 6th and 7th.
I used to only play my one reasonably complete army, I now field any 4 and combinations of them (Black Templar, Deathwatch, Astra Militarum, Mechanicus) and building and painting almost daily.

This is only my little part of my world but I figure I am not so "special" that I am the only one who has changed based on this more positive outlook of the 40k ruleset and support.

I’m part of a club that had to cap membership and I can find a game any night of the week, so I’m with you as far as the game’s health being very strong.