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.

Bharring wrote:
"Maybe because we are still fielding a legal list?"
That's perfectly fine, if you're playing a legally-regulated match.

Not so perfectly fine, if you're playing a socially-regulated match.

Imagine going down to a local basketball court. You ask the people to play a pickup game. A bunch of random not-terribly-fit not-terribly-athletic people take you up on it. They agree to play you and your friends. You then bring in Kobe, Jordan, etc.

Sure, those randos might enjoy playing that game once to see how the big-shots play. But they certainly wouldn't enjoy running into that every week, every game.

Now, in this scenario, you didn't break any "legal" rules of basketball. But you ruined the game for everyone involved but you.

40k can be similar. You go to a major tournament? Bring whatever you can to do well. You're playing a PuG against people who just like to throw the ball around? Don't bring an NBA all-star team.

If you do, those randos who want to play pug basketball games will stop showing up. And so you've destroyed the meta.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
"Also why are we obligated to tone down?"
You're not obligated to tone down. You're not obligated to play.

But they are not obligated to play you, either.

"Why can't you bring a good list that will actually give a challenge instead of bland "one of everything!!!!1!" armies?"
Because:
a) They want to see *their* army on the table, not some netlist hodgepodge
b) They want a more interesting game than just a rerun of whatever happened at the top tables last tourny
c) They enjoy how the game plays with more spicy unit selection instead of bland netlists repeating the same game every time
d) They don't have / can't reasonably get a FOTM army right now
e) Or maybe they just aren't good.

You're not obligated to play their game. Why would *they* be obligated to play *your* game?

All matches are legally regulated as long as you follow the basic rules for list construction. "Social regulation" is merely limits in your own head.

If those basketball players are my friends, so be it.

Also I love the whole "netlist" argument, the ultimate sign of virtue signaling. Spoiler Alert: all "netlists" were original creations, and it isn't like GW said "play this!" and made them. People say down and actually wrote them. It's good to learn how to counter them and play it out. It you don't want that, too bad for you.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Wayniac wrote:

 Nithaniel wrote:

auticus wrote:

Why it bothers so many people confuses me.

It bothers a lot of people because it further cements the idea that playing properly means playing optimally (which by itself is fine) but which also means ignoring 90% or so of the model line to play optimally (which is where the problem comes in).

In matched play absolutely. Playing a game between two people that are competing to win with objective win conditions laid out in the rules framework then playing properly is unavoidably playing optimally. The fact that so many codexes have so many units that are sub-optimal in the current ruleset is an aspect of legacy issues. GW ostensibly has multiple versions of the game in matched, narrative and open and the codex caters to all of those. It is perfectly reasonable that in matched play some units are garbage but if you want to play them go nuts in narrative and open, thats your game to do it.

And the issue with this is that Narrative and Open are such a tiny minority that this can't be the norm. Matched Play is, by and large, the default style. The others might as well not exist since they are such a tiny fraction of games played. So what you are basically saying is that it's okay some units are garbage in the vast, vast majority of situations across the majority of games played (and yes, I do agree this is largely a player problem for making Matched Play the go-to default, but it's also GW's fault for trying to push the idea that Matched Play is for any sort of balance, and the others are for not. It's like saying Option A guarantees you a good meal, Option B or C might get you a good meal if you cook it right but it might also be poison. The vast majority will pick Option A). That's just not acceptable. Besides, there is a difference between matched play and competitive play, despite GW lumping them together.

If you have a private playgroup that doesn't care about the optimal builds, you are not touched by this.
If you don't have a like minded group of players and you do not like competitive gaming and you can't find casual players in your local gaming meta the problem might not be the game it might be that you have too many restrictions.

This just sounds like another "git gud" argument. e.g. "Don't restrict yourself to liking space marines if they are bad in the game, don't take them even if you like them"

The narrative and open play don't exist because the rules for them are written worse than the match play.

Wayniac wrote:

If you have a private playgroup that doesn't care about the optimal builds, you are not touched by this.
If you don't have a like minded group of players and you do not like competitive gaming and you can't find casual players in your local gaming meta the problem might not be the game it might be that you have too many restrictions.

This just sounds like another "git gud" argument. e.g. "Don't restrict yourself to liking space marines if they are bad in the game, don't take them even if you like them"

It might sound like it to you but it wasn't my intended point.

If the thing that you loved about 40k changed and the players around you changed to adapt to it and you didn't then you want to blame that change for being the problem. No one is talking about how good anyone else is at 40k. The Git Gud argument only applies to people who try to engage in competitive play and then complain that they couldn't beat anyone because ...XYZ. Thats not the case here.

From the only metric that matters to GW (Sales revenue) the game is in a really good place right now. We on Dakka used to argue that they didn't make any attempts at market research and they didn't engage with their customers and playerbase. That has clearly changed. They are delivering now on the things that the majority of people wanted. They can see directly through their sales that competitive 40k is driving purchases so they are doubling down on that. The vast majority of 40k players are probablly not competitive and play in their own social circles and aren't affected by the changes that much. The next largest groupd play competitively and are for the most part happy with the changes. that leaves the group of people who are stuck in the middle that don't like these changes and its a sad truth for those people that the game no longer fits their expectations. There's a sad truth in it for those players, adapt or quit.

There's a sad truth in it for those players, adapt or quit.

Truth. Which is why I have sold my 40k stuff off. Gotta find something you enjoy your free time with.

Drager wrote:
Honestly, attitudes like these are the most toxic thing in the 40k community at the moment, as far as I can tell...

...On the whole, I find the competitive community a pretty welcoming one, with some outliers, much like the casual community.

Okay, I think Wayniac and I would both say you are one of the 'good competitive guys'. I have a friend that's a bit like you, it's his gig to put down a super-powerful list for a tournament- but he makes it clear he wants to play a tournament list with someone, and if they don't feel like they can go up against that, he'll go and bang up a fun fluffy list or run a narrative game. He's also always willing to help people take their army and get more out of it and show them tricks to help them improve their game. So he, just like you, are not "toxic".

But, overall as a whole- my experience and very likely Wayniac's experience with the community is what is toxic.

Let's put it this way, I'll use a personal anecdote:

Shop A is a casual place with Escalation Leagues and Tournaments being just as common as painting/modeling competitions, narrative story games, and fun goofy scenarios. It was pretty much an "all-rounder" kind of atmosphere, and no matter what you really enjoyed about 40k as a hobby- you could find yourself having fun there.

Shop B was the more competitive place. The store had tournaments often, and the guys that played there took it very seriously and their focus was competitive play. There wasn't very much of a 'hobby' side there- they store owner didn't even allow building or painting in his shop, because that was space that could be used for another game table or more merch. Overall, if you wanted to kick your game up seriously- this is where you went.

Sounds like a great balance, right? Everyone's got their thing, so it seems like everyone's got a place to go to fit in. Well, yeah... but here's the problem...

Shop B had competitive players, and the thing about being competitive is that you want to win. And some of the guys there that weren't winning as often as they'd like began to get fed up with it. So, they decided to gravitate towards a more casual meta at Shop A. Of course, some of these guys were decent and just wanted to get away from the stressful competitive Shop- but they had a very hard time turning down their own competitive nature, and brought it to casual games.

A few others had every intention of playing the same way at Shop B- so they would come in and try to tell casual players they were 'just wanting a friendly game' and 'hated the competitive stuff'... but their list and playstyle said otherwise. They were just trying to get an easy win on an unsuspecting casual player. Not only that, but when new players came in- these guys zeroed in on them, and if the experience didn't drive away the new player it just created another competitive player.

Fast forward a couple of months, and the very same thing that was happening at Shop B was now happening at Shop A. All of the casual and friendly players were simply not playing- it was impossible for them to enjoy a fun game with a friend when you were surrounded by Competitive Players that were trying to coach you or take apart your lists. None of the tournaments were worth playing because the same guys would always haul in some FotM Netlist and score an easy win. Even when players tried to shift over to a different game to get away from them, the competitive players followed because they had to be beating someone at something all the time.

People just stopped going to Shop A. A lot of them went and built their own tables at home in the garage. And when they did that, they stopped buying from the store because it's just as easy to order things to your doorstep. I've not seen some of these people since they competitive infestation happened.

And then there's Shop C. A very much "hobby" focused shop with most games just being an excuse to play with your models after you finish customizing and painting them. Shop C put away their gaming tables to avoid this stuff coming and running them out.

So, while things eventually righted themselves once the Competitive guys had no one but each other to play with once again- it was still very much something that made a lot of players feel like they had been invaded. A lot of them felt like these guys screwed up their own shop and then came over and screwed another one up and it made them feel unwelcome, and they didn't want to waste their recreational time with that kind of environment. The damage has never fully healed.

So, while you and many others are not 'toxic'- what can be brought in with you unintentionally, or following at your heels may very well be. And people know it's not deliberate, but they tend to try and gatekeep a place where they feel comfortable and I can hardly blame them.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
Also I love the whole "netlist" argument, the ultimate sign of virtue signaling. Spoiler Alert: all "netlists" were original creations, and it isn't like GW said "play this!" and made them. People say down and actually wrote them. It's good to learn how to counter them and play it out. It you don't want that, too bad for you.

Reading up on a netlist to figure out how to counter it is good.

Using a netlist with the excuse that it's an original creation is like handing in a research paper to your professor that's a copypasta from Wikipedia and saying "Well it was researched, and sourced- it was just done by another person so I still get credit."

If gameplay counted more than listbuilding, netlists wouldn't be as big a deal.

Ok, maybe top end tournament lists do require some in depth soul searching and real meta knowladge. But good list for a store, or just seeing what unit could potentially be very good is, I think at least that way, not that hard to spot. Specially if a unit comes with a set of rules that are hot in a given setting.
I mean how long did it take for people to realise that the ravellan is kind of a good. Or when all re-rolling Gulliman was the rage with cheap razorbacks and stormravens.
I can imagine that some rare played armies can have hidden gems or combos too.

auticus wrote:
If gameplay counted more than listbuilding

It does.

 Adeptus Doritos wrote:

Drager wrote:
Honestly, attitudes like these are the most toxic thing in the 40k community at the moment, as far as I can tell...

...On the whole, I find the competitive community a pretty welcoming one, with some outliers, much like the casual community.

Okay, I think Wayniac and I would both say you are one of the 'good competitive guys'. I have a friend that's a bit like you, it's his gig to put down a super-powerful list for a tournament- but he makes it clear he wants to play a tournament list with someone, and if they don't feel like they can go up against that, he'll go and bang up a fun fluffy list or run a narrative game. He's also always willing to help people take their army and get more out of it and show them tricks to help them improve their game. So he, just like you, are not "toxic".

But, overall as a whole- my experience and very likely Wayniac's experience with the community is what is toxic.

Let's put it this way, I'll use a personal anecdote:

Shop A is a casual place with Escalation Leagues and Tournaments being just as common as painting/modeling competitions, narrative story games, and fun goofy scenarios. It was pretty much an "all-rounder" kind of atmosphere, and no matter what you really enjoyed about 40k as a hobby- you could find yourself having fun there.

Shop B was the more competitive place. The store had tournaments often, and the guys that played there took it very seriously and their focus was competitive play. There wasn't very much of a 'hobby' side there- they store owner didn't even allow building or painting in his shop, because that was space that could be used for another game table or more merch. Overall, if you wanted to kick your game up seriously- this is where you went.

Sounds like a great balance, right? Everyone's got their thing, so it seems like everyone's got a place to go to fit in. Well, yeah... but here's the problem...

Shop B had competitive players, and the thing about being competitive is that you want to win. And some of the guys there that weren't winning as often as they'd like began to get fed up with it. So, they decided to gravitate towards a more casual meta at Shop A. Of course, some of these guys were decent and just wanted to get away from the stressful competitive Shop- but they had a very hard time turning down their own competitive nature, and brought it to casual games.

A few others had every intention of playing the same way at Shop B- so they would come in and try to tell casual players they were 'just wanting a friendly game' and 'hated the competitive stuff'... but their list and playstyle said otherwise. They were just trying to get an easy win on an unsuspecting casual player. Not only that, but when new players came in- these guys zeroed in on them, and if the experience didn't drive away the new player it just created another competitive player.

Fast forward a couple of months, and the very same thing that was happening at Shop B was now happening at Shop A. All of the casual and friendly players were simply not playing- it was impossible for them to enjoy a fun game with a friend when you were surrounded by Competitive Players that were trying to coach you or take apart your lists. None of the tournaments were worth playing because the same guys would always haul in some FotM Netlist and score an easy win. Even when players tried to shift over to a different game to get away from them, the competitive players followed because they had to be beating someone at something all the time.

People just stopped going to Shop A. A lot of them went and built their own tables at home in the garage. And when they did that, they stopped buying from the store because it's just as easy to order things to your doorstep. I've not seen some of these people since they competitive infestation happened.

And then there's Shop C. A very much "hobby" focused shop with most games just being an excuse to play with your models after you finish customizing and painting them. Shop C put away their gaming tables to avoid this stuff coming and running them out.

So, while things eventually righted themselves once the Competitive guys had no one but each other to play with once again- it was still very much something that made a lot of players feel like they had been invaded. A lot of them felt like these guys screwed up their own shop and then came over and screwed another one up and it made them feel unwelcome, and they didn't want to waste their recreational time with that kind of environment. The damage has never fully healed.

So, while you and many others are not 'toxic'- what can be brought in with you unintentionally, or following at your heels may very well be. And people know it's not deliberate, but they tend to try and gatekeep a place where they feel comfortable and I can hardly blame them.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
Also I love the whole "netlist" argument, the ultimate sign of virtue signaling. Spoiler Alert: all "netlists" were original creations, and it isn't like GW said "play this!" and made them. People say down and actually wrote them. It's good to learn how to counter them and play it out. It you don't want that, too bad for you.

Reading up on a netlist to figure out how to counter it is good.

Using a netlist with the excuse that it's an original creation is like handing in a research paper to your professor that's a copypasta from Wikipedia and saying "Well it was researched, and sourced- it was just done by another person so I still get credit."

This is a great post, that not only illustrates how "solely competitive" players shallow communities, but also how "90% of people only ever play Matched" myth comes to life - I'm willing to bet on that some of those players, that you haven't seen after "shop A infestation" because they left to their garages actually introduced some new people to 40K afterwards and nurture "their way of fun" far away from FLGSs, dakka polls or online communites as a whole, as there is actually very little to discuss with strangers once you disconnect from "the meta". And why, despite all that grind about how narrative content is useless crap that nobody ever touches, FW published so many campaign IA books and GW dedicated a third of their developers time to Narrative.

 Adeptus Doritos wrote:

Drager wrote:
Honestly, attitudes like these are the most toxic thing in the 40k community at the moment, as far as I can tell...

...On the whole, I find the competitive community a pretty welcoming one, with some outliers, much like the casual community.

Okay, I think Wayniac and I would both say you are one of the 'good competitive guys'. I have a friend that's a bit like you, it's his gig to put down a super-powerful list for a tournament- but he makes it clear he wants to play a tournament list with someone, and if they don't feel like they can go up against that, he'll go and bang up a fun fluffy list or run a narrative game. He's also always willing to help people take their army and get more out of it and show them tricks to help them improve their game. So he, just like you, are not "toxic".

But, overall as a whole- my experience and very likely Wayniac's experience with the community is what is toxic.

Let's put it this way, I'll use a personal anecdote:

Shop A is a casual place with Escalation Leagues and Tournaments being just as common as painting/modeling competitions, narrative story games, and fun goofy scenarios. It was pretty much an "all-rounder" kind of atmosphere, and no matter what you really enjoyed about 40k as a hobby- you could find yourself having fun there.

Shop B was the more competitive place. The store had tournaments often, and the guys that played there took it very seriously and their focus was competitive play. There wasn't very much of a 'hobby' side there- they store owner didn't even allow building or painting in his shop, because that was space that could be used for another game table or more merch. Overall, if you wanted to kick your game up seriously- this is where you went.

Sounds like a great balance, right? Everyone's got their thing, so it seems like everyone's got a place to go to fit in. Well, yeah... but here's the problem...

Shop B had competitive players, and the thing about being competitive is that you want to win. And some of the guys there that weren't winning as often as they'd like began to get fed up with it. So, they decided to gravitate towards a more casual meta at Shop A. Of course, some of these guys were decent and just wanted to get away from the stressful competitive Shop- but they had a very hard time turning down their own competitive nature, and brought it to casual games.

A few others had every intention of playing the same way at Shop B- so they would come in and try to tell casual players they were 'just wanting a friendly game' and 'hated the competitive stuff'... but their list and playstyle said otherwise. They were just trying to get an easy win on an unsuspecting casual player. Not only that, but when new players came in- these guys zeroed in on them, and if the experience didn't drive away the new player it just created another competitive player.

Fast forward a couple of months, and the very same thing that was happening at Shop B was now happening at Shop A. All of the casual and friendly players were simply not playing- it was impossible for them to enjoy a fun game with a friend when you were surrounded by Competitive Players that were trying to coach you or take apart your lists. None of the tournaments were worth playing because the same guys would always haul in some FotM Netlist and score an easy win. Even when players tried to shift over to a different game to get away from them, the competitive players followed because they had to be beating someone at something all the time.

People just stopped going to Shop A. A lot of them went and built their own tables at home in the garage. And when they did that, they stopped buying from the store because it's just as easy to order things to your doorstep. I've not seen some of these people since they competitive infestation happened.

And then there's Shop C. A very much "hobby" focused shop with most games just being an excuse to play with your models after you finish customizing and painting them. Shop C put away their gaming tables to avoid this stuff coming and running them out.

So, while things eventually righted themselves once the Competitive guys had no one but each other to play with once again- it was still very much something that made a lot of players feel like they had been invaded. A lot of them felt like these guys screwed up their own shop and then came over and screwed another one up and it made them feel unwelcome, and they didn't want to waste their recreational time with that kind of environment. The damage has never fully healed.

So, while you and many others are not 'toxic'- what can be brought in with you unintentionally, or following at your heels may very well be. And people know it's not deliberate, but they tend to try and gatekeep a place where they feel comfortable and I can hardly blame them.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
Also I love the whole "netlist" argument, the ultimate sign of virtue signaling. Spoiler Alert: all "netlists" were original creations, and it isn't like GW said "play this!" and made them. People say down and actually wrote them. It's good to learn how to counter them and play it out. It you don't want that, too bad for you.

Reading up on a netlist to figure out how to counter it is good.

Using a netlist with the excuse that it's an original creation is like handing in a research paper to your professor that's a copypasta from Wikipedia and saying "Well it was researched, and sourced- it was just done by another person so I still get credit."

You can't possibly think nobody came up with the same list twice. There's only so many units in this game compared to the number of words to actually claim plagiarism. I worked at a university so I would know.

Also playing a list helps you understand it as well. You do realize that?

nou wrote:
This is a great post, that not only illustrates how "solely competitive" players shallow communities, but also how "90% of people only ever play Matched" myth comes to life - I'm willing to bet on that some of those players, that you haven't seen after "shop A infestation" because they left to their garages actually introduced some new people to 40K afterwards and nurture "their way of fun" far away from FLGSs, dakka polls or online communites as a whole, as there is actually very little to discuss with strangers once you disconnect from "the meta". And why, despite all that grind about how narrative content is useless crap that nobody ever touches, FW published so many campaign IA books and GW dedicated a third of their developers time to Narrative.

I can tell you I've met a lot of players who only know 40k as a competitive game, because that's all they've been exposed to. They simply do not know any other way to play the game, because when no other option presents itself, the idea of a "narrative game" or a "made-up scenario using the core mechanics" is an entirely alien concept. I've actually encountered lots of people whose only impression of 40k is the hyper-competitive aspect, and they believed that was simply what 40k was supposed to be and had absolutely no desire to be a part of that- after all, if you want that kind of thing you can just go play M:tG and you don't end up with glue on your fingers.

I am a part of a private club, and despite how much I enjoy being in a private club- I understand fully what being a complete isolationist group does to the overall communities of gamers- if all that's left are the competitive bro-players, then it either turns off new players or creates more competitive bro-players. Due to that, we actively 'scout' local places to find like-minded people and bring them into it, and the look on their faces when they see a completely different aspect of the game- and the absolute relief when you hear one of them say, "You know it's nice to buy and use the models I think are cool, instead of the ones I 'need' to stay competitive". I can honestly say that once I got away from the competitive groups, and started buying the stuff I wanted rather than throwing money into a plastic arms race... I realized "Oh, hey- I can afford to buy some terrain now. I can spend time doing conversions and making fun stuff. My painting is much better when I'm working on models I like."

What really changed my mind was getting my hands on a copy of Rogue Trader and seeing what the game was then, and then realizing that it's completely different from what it became and it lost quite a bit of the original intent. I'll be the first to say a lot of the stuff in Rogue Trader is showing its age, it's silly and kind of dumb in some ways, and there have been a lot of changes since then that really were for the best... but I hate that it drifted away from being a system designed to facilitate basic fun with models.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
Also playing a list helps you understand it as well. You do realize that?

I'm sure it does, I simply do not care enough to do so. And the more aggressively you defend it, the more assured I am that what I'm doing is the absolute best thing for my own recreation.

You're welcome to keep going, and keep lashing out- but at this point you're just serving as confirmation and not persuasion.

 Adeptus Doritos wrote:

Drager wrote:
Honestly, attitudes like these are the most toxic thing in the 40k community at the moment, as far as I can tell...

...On the whole, I find the competitive community a pretty welcoming one, with some outliers, much like the casual community.

Okay, I think Wayniac and I would both say you are one of the 'good competitive guys'. I have a friend that's a bit like you, it's his gig to put down a super-powerful list for a tournament- but he makes it clear he wants to play a tournament list with someone, and if they don't feel like they can go up against that, he'll go and bang up a fun fluffy list or run a narrative game. He's also always willing to help people take their army and get more out of it and show them tricks to help them improve their game. So he, just like you, are not "toxic".

But, overall as a whole- my experience and very likely Wayniac's experience with the community is what is toxic.

Let's put it this way, I'll use a personal anecdote:

Shop A is a casual place with Escalation Leagues and Tournaments being just as common as painting/modeling competitions, narrative story games, and fun goofy scenarios. It was pretty much an "all-rounder" kind of atmosphere, and no matter what you really enjoyed about 40k as a hobby- you could find yourself having fun there.

Shop B was the more competitive place. The store had tournaments often, and the guys that played there took it very seriously and their focus was competitive play. There wasn't very much of a 'hobby' side there- they store owner didn't even allow building or painting in his shop, because that was space that could be used for another game table or more merch. Overall, if you wanted to kick your game up seriously- this is where you went.

Sounds like a great balance, right? Everyone's got their thing, so it seems like everyone's got a place to go to fit in. Well, yeah... but here's the problem...

Shop B had competitive players, and the thing about being competitive is that you want to win. And some of the guys there that weren't winning as often as they'd like began to get fed up with it. So, they decided to gravitate towards a more casual meta at Shop A. Of course, some of these guys were decent and just wanted to get away from the stressful competitive Shop- but they had a very hard time turning down their own competitive nature, and brought it to casual games.

A few others had every intention of playing the same way at Shop B- so they would come in and try to tell casual players they were 'just wanting a friendly game' and 'hated the competitive stuff'... but their list and playstyle said otherwise. They were just trying to get an easy win on an unsuspecting casual player. Not only that, but when new players came in- these guys zeroed in on them, and if the experience didn't drive away the new player it just created another competitive player.

Fast forward a couple of months, and the very same thing that was happening at Shop B was now happening at Shop A. All of the casual and friendly players were simply not playing- it was impossible for them to enjoy a fun game with a friend when you were surrounded by Competitive Players that were trying to coach you or take apart your lists. None of the tournaments were worth playing because the same guys would always haul in some FotM Netlist and score an easy win. Even when players tried to shift over to a different game to get away from them, the competitive players followed because they had to be beating someone at something all the time.

People just stopped going to Shop A. A lot of them went and built their own tables at home in the garage. And when they did that, they stopped buying from the store because it's just as easy to order things to your doorstep. I've not seen some of these people since they competitive infestation happened.

And then there's Shop C. A very much "hobby" focused shop with most games just being an excuse to play with your models after you finish customizing and painting them. Shop C put away their gaming tables to avoid this stuff coming and running them out.

So, while things eventually righted themselves once the Competitive guys had no one but each other to play with once again- it was still very much something that made a lot of players feel like they had been invaded. A lot of them felt like these guys screwed up their own shop and then came over and screwed another one up and it made them feel unwelcome, and they didn't want to waste their recreational time with that kind of environment. The damage has never fully healed.

So, while you and many others are not 'toxic'- what can be brought in with you unintentionally, or following at your heels may very well be. And people know it's not deliberate, but they tend to try and gatekeep a place where they feel comfortable and I can hardly blame them.

I tink you might be mixing up competitive players and jerks. I've seen the same thing happen in reverse with a shop culture developing of "soft banning" lists that meant I couldn't get any tournament practice as when playing that sort of game (with someone who wanted to) we'd get eye rolling and catty comments from others, which just made it not worth it, as the environment was crap. This doesn't mean I think casual players are toxic, I think jerks are toxic and generalising a group you don't know much about is too.

Competitive players don't seek the easy win, that's WAAC players, competitive players are usually looking to lose, cause that's how you get better. Again I think there is a difference between the local 'big fish in a small pond' and the actual competitive scene and conflating the two isn't really healthy. Your description reads to me like two shops full of casual players, just a bunch of those casual were jerks. A regular player picking up a FotM netlist and playing me (or any other actual competitive player) will get stomped as they won't know what they are doing at a high enough level (I know Dakka tends to think list building is all that matters, but it really isn't). Sure I'll have a nasty list too, though one of my own design, probably just as or more competitive than their netlist, but that just means the playing field is level and that is where you can see the difference between a competitive player and a casual with a netlist. I find the kind of players you described to be toxic too, but from my perspective they are far closer to your end of the spectrum than mine. Which is why I prefer to look at it with nuance, they aren't competitive players ruining your meta, or casuals giving mine a bad name, they are just jerks who are spoiling other people's fun.

 Melissia wrote:

auticus wrote:
If gameplay counted more than listbuilding

It does.

Not really no. But there's no way to really quantify that which will devolve this into a circular yes it does no it doesn't.

I know in my experience I did very well in tournaments when I was powergaming and now my record is win some lose some and the only thing that changed was my list got weaker. I know in my experience that guys that do poorly without power lists do very well WITH power lists. I know that poor players with power lists at the store hold their own and win enough against proven good players that win local and regional tournaments (with power lists)), but are running poor to middling lists in the game vs the poor player with the power list.

Based off of 20+ years of seeing that every week that is why I feel it is the way it is. That lists > gameplay in 40k. Maybe not grotesquely so, but its enough of an edge where good players with middling lists vs poor players with tournament power lists usually make for at least a close game when the good player should always win every time, and at least in my experience thats rarely if ever the case when I see it (which is what drives players where I am to always feel tournament power lists because they don't like losiing because the lists were uneven so they bring the nuke to every game so they can't be out nuked)

However I will note that there plenty of people that say listbuilding < gameplay, and that is one reason why GW will continue down the path they are. There is no need to balance the game when there are people saying the balance is just fine and gameplay > listbuilding.

If indeed game play trumped listbuilding, it would conclude that the tournament superstar players wouldn't have to mostly rely on the powerlists to win tournaments. They should be able to win the big events with middling lists. However, that is a very rare thing to see.

Drager wrote:
Which is why I prefer to look at it with nuance, they aren't competitive players ruining your meta, or casuals giving mine a bad name, they are just jerks who are spoiling other people's fun.

I won't doubt this. I could also say that in a competitive meta, competitive players know how to deal with competitive jerks and keep them under control or run them off. And in the casual meta, when we get our version of the jerk we tend to do the same. Maybe when those folks go to another kind of meta it throws things off a bit.

I just will say that I sympathize with good people who play competitively, because it's not their fault if the competitive jerks either follow them around or take their scummy behavior to some other place and ruin the fun.

I've seen the opposite.

The game has become much more tournament friendly in 8th edition. Unless you're playing non-ultramarine or non-deathwatch space marines, you can probably field a list with your army in a tournament and if you play well, and put some thought into your list, you can do well.

The end result is that players who are OK losing games end up just playing in tournaments. Because it's an easy way to get some games in and meet new people. What happened in my local shop was that the guys who really hated losing and couldn't handle it really were pushed out of the tournament scene. Because if you play in tournaments, you will lose games. It is just a fact. And these guys couldn't handle it.

If you don't mind losing, there is 0 downside to playing in a tournament. If you carry the expectation that you should win, or need to win, then tournaments will be a bad experience for you. There are some people who can't handle it for a multitude of reasons (can't socialize, afraid to socialize, severe anxiety, etc) and that's no problem. But if someone says "I'm a casual player, I don't play in tournaments" I have to ask why, and what that means. Usually it revolves around winning or doing well as a pre-requisite to enjoy the game, which is a foundation for toxic behavior.

 Marmatag wrote:
But if someone says "I'm a casual player, I don't play in tournaments" I have to ask why, and what that means. Usually it revolves around winning or doing well as a pre-requisite to enjoy the game, which is a foundation for toxic behavior.

I'm not gonna pay an entry fee to play a game and do the same thing I can without paying an entry fee and playing outside of the tournament.

Of course, I'm saying this because very, very rarely does a completely new person I don't know show up for a tournament.

"All matches are legally regulated as long as you follow the basic rules for list construction. "Social regulation" is merely limits in your own head."
"Legal regulation" is just as much solely in your head as "social regulation". The "legal regulation" is better documented, but still just a mental construct, and only truly enforced by "social regulation" anyways.

"If those basketball players are my friends, so be it."
If those players just happened to be your friend, sure. If you made friends with them specifically to prove your superiority in said PUG games, not fine at all. That said, if those players were your friend, they'd most likely split up to have a more fun game for everybody. In other words, they'd most likely avail themselves of a social construct to "fix" the situation you're trying to cause.

"Also I love the whole "netlist" argument, the ultimate sign of virtue signaling. Spoiler Alert: all "netlists" were original creations,"
No. "Netlists" are almost always copies or implementations of non-"Netlists" people actually used - but a list that kicks ass isn't a netlist if it wasn't pulled from the "net" community.

"It's good to learn how to counter them and play it out."
*You* believe it's good for *you*. I believe it's not worthwhile *for me*. Different people like different things.

"It you don't want that, too bad for you. "
This vilification of anyone who doesn't feel the need to use this game to prove themselves "best" and "winning" matches in this game is toxic.

Some people like different things.

Unless you're playing non-ultramarine or non-deathwatch space marines, you can probably field a list with your army in a tournament and if you play well, and put some thought into your list, you can do well.

This may come down to what "do well" means. "Do well" can mean you win a match at least. It can mean you win half your matches. It can mean you place in the top ten. It can mean you place in the top three. To some it means you won the tournament.

So I'll say "do well" means to me placing in the top 10. Are we saying that 40k as it stands now has a diverse top 10 of rainbow armies that are all very different? Because thats not what I'm seeing or hearing, but maybe I don't have the full picture.

What I'm seeing is the same basic builds are predominantly what hits the top 10 of the big events with some outliers.

I used to be a pretty regular tournament player. I traveled North America to do the GW GTs back in the late 90s and early 2000s. I was a top 10 placer, though mainly in fantasy. I did have an eldar build in 1999 that did well and placed top 10.

I dont' play tournaments today because I got tired of riding the meta carousel and I like playing games where gameplay is the most important aspect. 40k was never that of course, my eldar top 10 finish in a GT was geared to slay marines fast, and I played five marine players and one tyranid player (i lost to the tyranid player).

I don't mind losing at all. Losing is great, so long as there was a bad play that I did or my opponent outplayed me. In 40k, outplaying someone is often they took the stronger list, and right now all of my armies that I had before selling them off cannot compete against the tournament meta for me to enjoy going to a tournament, because I'd feel like a jobber there to make my opponents look good. Thats not a fun time for me.

If one of my armies that I had a lot of emotional attachment to had a decent list, I may change my mind.

Is that toxic?

"You can't possibly think nobody came up with the same list twice."
Nobody's claiming it won't.

"There's only so many units in this game compared to the number of words to actually claim plagiarism."
Number of words to count as plagiarism might be a useful implementation, but isn't accurate. If I write 10,000 words, and Dragar writes the exact same 10,000 words, and neither of us based our writing on the other, no plagirism happened.

"I worked at a university so I would know."
Uni might be a good place to learn their implementation, but it's not the only place it's a concern. And your claim is wrong by definition.

"Also playing a list helps you understand it as well."
Probably. But it's not the only way. Some people think it's bad form. Others just don't want to.

"You do realize that?"
I don't think anyone disputed that.

We're talking about rogue trader tournaments, not GTs. And the competitive scene has deepened by a colossal margin since you last played in it.

At a 6-round tournament, if put real thought and energy into the game (practicing your play in local tournaments, honing your list, playing a wide variety of opponents, really challenging yourself) you should be able to go 3-3, even with a mediocre army. And if you don't, you should be able to trace your losses back to misplays you made against armies that are either tough for you in the first place, or armies you don't know very well. But 6-round tournaments are fundamentally different from 3-round local tournaments, which is what i'm discussing. Traveling to a tournament requires a whole different level of commitment and interest. We're talking about players not playing in a shop because it became "competitive," or something nebulous and anecdotal.

In a 3 round tournament you're going to see a huge variety of models, lists, and concepts. Many of the people will be there to roll dice and have a good time. If a local tournament has you concerned about "riding the meta," and an elaborate definition of what it means to do well, and will you do well, then that sounds like an attitude that is incompatible with a what is a competitive game at its core. 40k even on casual tables is a competition between two sides with a winner and a loser. I actually ran one of your narrative scenarios and it featured games where there was a clear winner and a clear loser. And in casual games people still get blown right out of the water sometimes, because that's 40k.

But it's also worth noting that again, 8th edition is wholly different from previous editions, where there was one, or a tiny few netlists that could stomp everything that wasn't on the meta curve. This isn't the case in 8th edition. There are two overpowered factions (guard, ynnari), but other than that, and if you don't include non-ultramarine non-deathwatch marines, the game is very close to balanced.

Here's a casual game, i'm going to share the rough lists, i would be curious to see how the casual players think this game turned out.

Army 1: Space Wolves
Arjac Rockfist
Njal Stormcaller
Wolf Guard Battle Leader
Wolf Priest
2x Units of Blood Claws
1x Unit of Intercessors
Murderfang
1x Unit of Long Fangs
1x Unit of Wulfen
1x Unit of Wolf Guard Terminators
1x Unit of 3 Thunderwolf Cavalry

Army 2: Dark Angels
Azrael
Sammael on Corvex
Belial
Librarian on Bike
1x Unit of 10 Terminators
1x Unit of Deathwing Knights
1x Land Raider Crusader
3x Units of Ravenwing Bikes
1x Unit of Scouts
2x Units of Intercessors
1x Dark Shroud

I only play in tournaments but as Marmatag says, I'm pretty casual. I don't play to win the tournament, I play to have fun. That means I try to do my best and win as much as I can within the boundaries of my army/list.

All the money of the entry fees goes to the prizes that are then given randomly to the participants. And all the participants normally will go to eat together, be the monthly small (10-16) tournament of my FLGS or even bigger ones with 64-86 people. So playing in a tournament is more of a social event, and is easier to reserve one day from work a month to play a bunch of games that playing a couple of games a week.

 Marmatag wrote:


If you don't mind losing, there is 0 downside to playing in a tournament. If you carry the expectation that you should win, or need to win, then tournaments will be a bad experience for you. There are some people who can't handle it for a multitude of reasons (can't socialize, afraid to socialize, severe anxiety, etc) and that's no problem. But if someone says "I'm a casual player, I don't play in tournaments" I have to ask why, and what that means. Usually it revolves around winning or doing well as a pre-requisite to enjoy the game, which is a foundation for toxic behavior.

Oh I have an anwser for that. A tournament or event entry costs as much as my monthly bus pass, and I am not going to spend that much money so someone else can get a prize. That is the main thing. The other thing is stuff like a month city fight event, where you have to buy the city fight book and specific unit to partake in it. Or there is a month of events with no monster class models, or no stock +2sv. the last one I skiped was 750pts, but you couldn't take any 3W or higher models, no +2sv and you had to build 5 civilian models that took part in the game scenarios. the tournament before it was 1000pts, but you could only play the game with an army you got with in the last 3 months. But in general I don't like the idea of paying for someone else prize while I lose 6 games and get to go home.

In a 3 round tournament you're going to see a huge variety of models, lists, and concepts. Many of the people will be there to roll dice and have a good time. If a local tournament has you concerned about "riding the meta," and an elaborate definition of what it means to do well, and will you do well, then that sounds like an attitude that is incompatible with a what is a competitive game at its core. 40k even on casual tables is a competition between two sides with a winner and a loser. I actually ran one of your narrative scenarios and it featured games where there was a clear winner and a clear loser. And in casual games people still get blown right out of the water sometimes, because that's 40k.

Nothing like that happens around here. the lists are very samy. IG+castellan+something . Eldar soups, one guy plays tau castel, I know one guy has a huge orc collection, but I don't think I ever saw him play anything else but eldar. Even the people that play only at the store events, have same looking lists. The difference is in optimisation, mostly due to army cost. So a guy with IG and castell is more often then not going to be just that or BA+scouts, then 3 jetbike custodes. Eldars mostly cap at 4 flyers. But the people who go to play in other cities have lists that are almost taken out of LVO or other big tournaments.

 Adeptus Doritos wrote:


I can tell you I've met a lot of players who only know 40k as a competitive game, because that's all they've been exposed to. They simply do not know any other way to play the game, because when no other option presents itself, the idea of a "narrative game" or a "made-up scenario using the core mechanics" is an entirely alien concept. I've actually encountered lots of people whose only impression of 40k is the hyper-competitive aspect, and they believed that was simply what 40k was supposed to be and had absolutely no desire to be a part of that- after all, if you want that kind of thing you can just go play M:tG and you don't end up with glue on your fingers.

I am a part of a private club, and despite how much I enjoy being in a private club- I understand fully what being a complete isolationist group does to the overall communities of gamers- if all that's left are the competitive bro-players, then it either turns off new players or creates more competitive bro-players. Due to that, we actively 'scout' local places to find like-minded people and bring them into it, and the look on their faces when they see a completely different aspect of the game- and the absolute relief when you hear one of them say, "You know it's nice to buy and use the models I think are cool, instead of the ones I 'need' to stay competitive". I can honestly say that once I got away from the competitive groups, and started buying the stuff I wanted rather than throwing money into a plastic arms race... I realized "Oh, hey- I can afford to buy some terrain now. I can spend time doing conversions and making fun stuff. My painting is much better when I'm working on models I like."

What really changed my mind was getting my hands on a copy of Rogue Trader and seeing what the game was then, and then realizing that it's completely different from what it became and it lost quite a bit of the original intent. I'll be the first to say a lot of the stuff in Rogue Trader is showing its age, it's silly and kind of dumb in some ways, and there have been a lot of changes since then that really were for the best... but I hate that it drifted away from being a system designed to facilitate basic fun with models.

I've met both kinds of people you describe as well. I was actually very lucky to be introduced to 40K by a group like yours back in early 2nd ed - a group of enthusiasts running a youth community centre focused on hobby aspects and monthly "apocalypse" night (read it as "2nd ed multiplayer game of magnitude of modern 2000pts" rather than a game with titans, but those were whole night social events that I have very vivid memory of nearly a quarter of century later). You can imagine my shock when some two years later I first attended a tournament only to have my Guardians focused list blown away by Wolf Guard Terminators from a "standard tournament table" with a single, rather symbolic hill as the entire scenery. When 3rd ed hit and the old group finally disbanded I've hit a wall of new players that were solely ficused on competition and quit soon after.

As to "scouting" and nurturing community: two players in my small group come from exact background you describe in the first paragraph - they were board game players with a strong desire to "go hobby" but were driven away by the "fame" of 40K bloat and toxicity. Our little group sparked into existence with me dusting my old 2nd ed minis and showing them that this game can be a great storytelling tool in competent and willing hands.

Small sidenote here to picture how it's also a myth that only "competitive players chasing new hotness" drive GW sales - three years later our combined total of new GW purchases among four people amount to more than 20.000 pts worth of models and a dense table worth of GW scenery. We also do not feed the second hand market as we have no incentive to sell anything as we can and do utilize any unit in our games, no matter how "broken" or "useless crap" it is in the eyes of typical competitive crowd. And I sincerely don't think that we are some sort of an odd exception in the overall GW playerbase - we may not represent the majority, but I don't think that financial contribution of groups like ours in GW overall results is negligible.

In our three round tournaments at the store there isn't much variety in the lists. Pedantically speaking they aren't mirrors of each other, but they are based on the same core concepts with some alternate outside bits that make the lists "different enough" but driven by the same netlist.

Where I am, if you bring a middling list to even casual night, 3-3 is a pipe dream. You have done extraordinarily well if you go 3-3.

When I see guys that go 5-1 and 6-0 regularly with a powerlist suddenly drop to 2-4 and 3-3 with middling lists, that tells me that the listbuilding in this game is heavier than the gameplay component. Because to me... a good player should always beat a player poorer in skill than them given a somewhat balanced game.

Thats at least how I compute listbuilding vs gameplay.

"Casual," and "competitive" are player attudes. GW may prefer their version of "casual" and "narrative," but their own rules do not lead to good casual or narrative games. I enjoy cutthroat, do everything-legal-to-win games. I also enjoy more narration. Why can't my cutthroat game also have the story of that game unfold as it plays? And why the do I have to choose between them, or re-write the rules that I paid for?

If GW wants 40k to be story-driven, unsuited for competition, fine- give up on the large battles, the "rolling dice is fun!" philosophy of mechanical design, and rebrand a new, detailed, character-driven KT as 40k 9th. Or maybe just write a good RPG in the 41st millennium instead. What we have now fails at GW's own stated intentions.

I'm just a college kid, and I recall, back in the mists of time, when people who played games were simply "gamers." None of this "you play the wrong way!" crap we focus on now. For some reason we each seem to think our gaming self-interest is in opposition to everyone else's. It is not. One, amazing, holistic ruleset can accommodate all of us. I would prefer to focus on playing and enjoying 40k, and discussing new army ideas and conversions. Not criticizing yet another boneheaded move by GW; whether it's the rules, their less-than-artistically-gifted sculptors or their awful prices.

when people who played games were simply "gamers." None of this "you play the wrong way!" crap we focus on now

I can assure you that the first internet forums in the late 90s had the same thing in them. There were always constant fights on powergamers vs casual gamers.

my dad told me his first army was space wolfs termintors 20 each one of them with twice as many hvy weapons as a whole squad of normal termintors could take.

auticus wrote:

 Melissia wrote:

auticus wrote:
If gameplay counted more than listbuilding

It does.

Not really no.

It really doesn't matter if you have a "netlist" if you play like crap. A "netlist" is a crutch.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Blastaar wrote:
I'm just a college kid, and I recall, back in the mists of time, when people who played games were simply "gamers."

Rose-tinted glasses. There's always been people who desire a reason to look down on everyone else.

Indeed the netlist is a crutch. And I've still seen hundreds of times a poorer player winning or having a close game with a solid player that is using a middling list to know that the crutch is a crutch for a reason - it makes up for lack of skill and keeps them in competition regardless of how bad they are.

Now when they face an actual good player who is ALSO fielding a powerlist, that poorer player is definitely going to get crushed most of the time.

I'm not disputing that. Good player with meh list is on par with Poor player with powerlist and will have a good game most of the time.

Which is in fact what good players to do for teaching purpoes, they play down by taking a weaker list so the poor player has a better game and isn't just getting wiped.

The list iin 40k is huge.

Karol wrote:
my dad told me his first army was space wolfs termintors 20 each one of them with twice as many hvy weapons as a whole squad of normal termintors could take.

Hi old veteran here They could. 2nd edition Wolf Guard terminators could take Assault Cannons AND Cyclone Missile Launchers on the same guy, and I think due to weird Wolf Guard rules each guy could do it rather than just 1 in 5 like the other termies. It was bonkers broken if you were a powergamer.

 Melissia wrote:


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Blastaar wrote:
I'm just a college kid, and I recall, back in the mists of time, when people who played games were simply "gamers."

Rose-tinted glasses. There's always been people who desire a reason to look down on everyone else.

I'll have to disagree with you there. It is quite possible to view the past objectively. Invoking "rose-tinted glasses" is merely an acceptable form of dismissing someone's opinion, because people enjoy pretending that history is a linear march where each day is better than the day before, as though nothing from the past can hold any value. And that wasn't really my point (which you ignored) was it? That division is pointless because we all enjoy playing games, and with the poor quality of many games currently in production, becomes unproductive when players blame each other for choices made by the companies producing these games. Yes, people should be held accountable for being donkey-caves. But do not lose sight that the poor rules cause the disparity in power, that the donkey-caves abuse, to exist in the first place. We argue about symptoms too much, instead of discussing the cause.