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Andykp wrote:
Firstly I don’t think we have been ignored but this very vocal minority that don’t represent all tournament players shout very loudly for changes to the whole game to make “balance” better for their style of play. The danger is GW will be overly swayed by them as they lobby very hard. So far they haven’t and all the books and add ins to 40k so far have catered very nicely to narrative and “casual” players as you call us.

(no sarcasm)
"Vocal minority shouting" does seem to be an inbuilt problem of humanity, huh? Consider the "Lunatic Fringe" of the band Red Rider song. At least, in representative democracies, right?

That said, I don't think that "GW will be overly swayed by them". You yourself state that, "So far they haven’t and all the books and add ins to 40k so far have catered very nicely to narrative and “casual” players as you call us." So, perhaps, there is not quite such a need for alarm that is thread addresses?

(BTW: Is there a better label than 'casual'? Perhaps the terms GW uses, "narrative" and "open"?)

Andykp wrote:
I prefer more hobby minded players. Maintaining the three ways to play is vital to that so that changes can be made that don’t impact the casual player adversely.

I totally agree.

Andykp wrote:
The danger is I hear from players who aren’t lucky enough to have a group like me and who have to tiptoe around a minefield of pick up games where match play is the standard and tournament “rules” are enforced, see rule of three for an example.

I agree that this has become the norm, but with good reason (not purposely, but as a matter of happenstance). Pick up games have always been wildly variable (points, rule interpretations, opponent quality and experience, etc), and I experienced this throughout 4e & 5e, before my 40k community became solid.

The mechanism that is making this happen, is that tourney players play more games, thus laying a firmer (deeper? more plentiful?) foundation of experience on how to play, like knowing current FAQs and such. On pick-up game night, it's likely that the tourney guys are there in majority. Now, I'm willing to play a book mission for a new player to the FLGS, and knowing my group, most of them would be willing, too. Once the pick up guy finds that he can play more games because most of us are playing the tourney format, then yeah, he might just have to go along with the majority and how they play. So your concern has some validity.

Narrative games ( I'm guessing ) can just as easily be played on a pick up game. I would guess that a narrative campaign takes more preparation.

So, I get your point: Narrative or 'casual' players might lose out given tourney players are dominant of the scene.

This can be fixed the way I stated in my post to Grimtuff. The ability of organizing a like minded group has never been easier and more powerful. Start a group on FB and there ya go. Post a notice on the FLGS bulletin board and the "minefield" is dodged. Right?

Andykp wrote:
All this call for banning soup is another example. Soup and CP farming and all that work fine if you don’t abuse it. It isn’t broken. It’s inky when you look for a competetive edge that it goes from a nice narrative tool to being a game changer. And my group and many players like me don’t abuse it because we don’t want to win. We want a fun narrative exciting game. So ban soup for tournaments fine, but keep match play there. I’m told time and time again the balance is better for everyone, and I’m sure it could be but the game is balanced fine the way we play. Best it has been ever.

I agree here, too. 40k is currently better than ever.

Andykp wrote:
For your last point I guess you aren’t familiar with the epic 40000 rules or I wasn’t clear. Epic 40000 had rules for units

Spoiler:

where units provided fire power to attacks and they had set stats for units regardless of options. So balance was easier to achieve. The game flowed quickly and felt very tactical because the way attacks both damaged units and added blast markers to them. Hindering them in coming turns. It wasn’t I go you go. It alternated phases. List building was efficient and could provide characterful detachments that behaved tactically as you expect. It would fix all the things tournament players go on about wanting. It doesn’t just mean a small core rule book but stripped down rules for very model. And best of all it worked. It was a great game to play it just lacked a bit of character and detail

, but tournament lists are as dull and uncharacterful as it gets anyway. So that is fine.

I am not familiar with epic, but thank you, I do know more now.

Andykp wrote:
I’ve played every edition of 40k and epic and have seen the change the rise of the tournaments have had, just look on here at the you make the call section or the tactics threads. You can’t have a normal conversation about the game on there.

'Not having a normal conversation' is the Internet's mechansim of anonymity and its tendency to foster trolling and misunderstandings, not so much 40k, IMHO.

Andykp wrote:
8th is the best of both, a good game for casuals and a thriving tournament scene. The two are like oil and water. The only way to improve one without damaging the other is to keep them separate.

Well put!

And I think a lot of folks don't realize that the state of affairs is just this. ITC makes for tourney buffage and growth, and local leagues can foster narrative and casual players.

I really think that this thread needs that character from the Simpsons to say, "Move along, people. There's nothing to see here."

Oh! I remember: All this is called "Chicken Little" syndrome. People griping and waving their arms like there's a problem, a massive problem, when, really, there isn't. 40k is the best it's ever been.

 Grimtuff wrote:

Andykp wrote:

 barboggo wrote:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
Obviously there will always be variation between individuals but US culture is very competitive starting at an early age. The idea of intentionally holding back for no other reason than to be more evenly matched is pretty alien to many people. I've even had people not believe me when talking about doing so; they found it more plausible I was making it up to cover for losing. That says quite a lot, I feel.

This is it. US culture is just a lot more intensely competitive than EU and the 40k crowd reflects it. GW is a British company but for better or worse they cannot ignore their US customers.

But they shouldn’t listen to only their ultra competitive customers and alienate the rest of the player base. And the vocal minority on here and other sites want them too. I firmly believe we need a paired down simple rule set like epic 40000 just for competitive play.

This.

It's like a cancer that has infected the game. 40k's rule have never, ever been great for tournaments (well not like these so-called "pros" are wanting (lol, remind me again of when people got paid for attending 40k tourneys?)) as the rules are just not up to scratch. It's not a eSport. It never will be. Stop trying to make this game into something it is not and take your horrible incoherent soup lists away from this game I have loved for over 20 years and let the game go back to normality so we can stop having people think this is the normal way to play the game.

See this here is part of the problem "Hey some people actually are pro at 40k" "lul what losers"

stratigo wrote:
See this here is part of the problem "Hey some people actually are pro at 40k" "lul what losers"

What's wrong with that opinion? 40k tournament prizes struggle to even cover the cost of attending an event you have to travel to, there's no way anyone is genuinely playing 40k professionally like professional MTG players and their $50,000+ cash prizes. When someone says "pro 40k player" it's pretty safe to assume we're talking about someone maybe, at best, making poverty-level wages off social media donations while living with their parents because they can't afford to pay rent from their "professional career". It's much like the misuse of "pro painted" on ebay, meaningless self-promotion by someone who is nowhere near as important as they think they are.

(And no, a game store owner who plays some 40k but gets their primary income from the retail business is not a "professional 40k player".)

The closest thing to pro 40k players would be like the tabletop tactics guys, who have patreon subscriptions to private sites to give them steady income. I don't think anyone would believe Jim Vesal or Nick Nanavati make enough money playing 40k tournaments to not need a primary income source.

 Peregrine wrote:

stratigo wrote:
See this here is part of the problem "Hey some people actually are pro at 40k" "lul what losers"

What's wrong with that opinion? 40k tournament prizes struggle to even cover the cost of attending an event you have to travel to, there's no way anyone is genuinely playing 40k professionally like professional MTG players and their $50,000+ cash prizes. When someone says "pro 40k player" it's pretty safe to assume we're talking about someone maybe, at best, making poverty-level wages off social media donations while living with their parents because they can't afford to pay rent from their "professional career". It's much like the misuse of "pro painted" on ebay, meaningless self-promotion by someone who is nowhere near as important as they think they are.

(And no, a game store owner who plays some 40k but gets their primary income from the retail business is not a "professional 40k player".)

And you tubers should go get a real job eh? If you don’t make money in a specifically narrow way, you’re just a freak right?

stratigo wrote:
And you tubers should go get a real job eh? If you don’t make money in a specifically narrow way, you’re just a freak right?

Make your money any way you like. I'm kind of horrified that people are gullible enough to throw money at youtube "personalities" producing seriously underwhelming content, but good for them for identifying a source of income and exploiting it. I'm just extremely skeptical that anyone is making above poverty-level wages playing 40k "professionally". You don't get to call yourself a success if the average fast food employee is making more money than you and has a higher quality of life.

stratigo wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

stratigo wrote:
See this here is part of the problem "Hey some people actually are pro at 40k" "lul what losers"

What's wrong with that opinion? 40k tournament prizes struggle to even cover the cost of attending an event you have to travel to, there's no way anyone is genuinely playing 40k professionally like professional MTG players and their $50,000+ cash prizes. When someone says "pro 40k player" it's pretty safe to assume we're talking about someone maybe, at best, making poverty-level wages off social media donations while living with their parents because they can't afford to pay rent from their "professional career". It's much like the misuse of "pro painted" on ebay, meaningless self-promotion by someone who is nowhere near as important as they think they are.

(And no, a game store owner who plays some 40k but gets their primary income from the retail business is not a "professional 40k player".)

And you tubers should go get a real job eh? If you don’t make money in a specifically narrow way, you’re just a freak right?

I genuinely have no idea how you come to that conclusion from what you've quoted. There are no "professional 40k tournament players" as has been asserted in this thread and others. There are a few people who make a living from various things to do with 40k but not purely from playing tournaments, which is the point being made here. Very few tournaments offer cash prizes in general and those that do hardly offer enough to call a living wage. It seems like some people want to elevate certain players to some lauded status in an effort to turn 40k into some sort of eSport, but that's just not going to happen. I'm sure there are people who make OK money from 40k-related YouTube or Patreon donations but I think it's a stretch to call them pro-40k players in the same sense as pro-MtG players, or pro-LoL players. 40k is just nowhere near that level.

Slipspace wrote:
There are a few people who make a living from various things to do with 40k but not purely from playing tournaments, which is the point being made here. Very few tournaments offer cash prizes in general and those that do hardly offer enough to call a living wage. ... I'm sure there are people who make OK money from 40k-related YouTube or Patreon donations but I think it's a stretch to call them pro-40k players in the same sense as pro-MtG players, or pro-LoL players. 40k is just nowhere near that level.

Roger Federer makes around twelve times as much money from sponsorships and endorsements as he does from actually playing tennis. Does that mean he's not really a "professional tennis player"? No, because his income from sponsorships and endorsements only exists because he's a famous tennis player. The fact that his "directly from playing tennis" income is a tiny fraction of his total income is irrelevant.

Likewise, if someone's income is ultimately dependent on them playing 40K, then they are a professional 40K player, regardless of whether most of that income is directly from tournament prizes or from secondary sources that in turn depend on their playing 40K, such as YouTube videos.

 Duskweaver wrote:

Slipspace wrote:
There are a few people who make a living from various things to do with 40k but not purely from playing tournaments, which is the point being made here. Very few tournaments offer cash prizes in general and those that do hardly offer enough to call a living wage. ... I'm sure there are people who make OK money from 40k-related YouTube or Patreon donations but I think it's a stretch to call them pro-40k players in the same sense as pro-MtG players, or pro-LoL players. 40k is just nowhere near that level.

Roger Federer makes around twelve times as much money from sponsorships and endorsements as he does from actually playing tennis. Does that mean he's not really a "professional tennis player"? No, because his income from sponsorships and endorsements only exists because he's a famous tennis player. The fact that his "directly from playing tennis" income is a tiny fraction of his total income is irrelevant.

Likewise, if someone's income is ultimately dependent on them playing 40K, then they are a professional 40K player, regardless of whether most of that income is directly from tournament prizes or from secondary sources that in turn depend on their playing 40K, such as YouTube videos.

The distinction here is between professional tournament player and professional player. Federer could quite easily get by on just his winnings from tournaments. Indeed, many lesser ranked players without those sort of endorsements do just that (though it's worth noting those towards the bottom of the pro ladder in tennis often struggle to make a living from it). The point I'm making (as are others) is that it's not possible to make a living purely as a 40k tournament pro, thus there aren't any people who could be considered as such. I'd argue there are a vanishingly small number of people who could even call themselves some sort of more general "40k pro", when taking all 40k-related income into account besides retail sales (since someone making their living selling gaming merchandise is just a regular retailer). My issue is with the way these people seem to be raised up by the wider community, often on the basis of a flawed designation as a "pro" player. It seems to cause some problems with the attitudes some people then display towards both those players and the "non-pros".

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
Obviously there will always be variation between individuals but US culture is very competitive starting at an early age. The idea of intentionally holding back for no other reason than to be more evenly matched is pretty alien to many people. I've even had people not believe me when talking about doing so; they found it more plausible I was making it up to cover for losing. That says quite a lot, I feel.

Actually, there are plenty of actual sports that use handicapping to balance games between unequal opponents. It happens countless times every day on the links. It just isn't part of 40K culture for the most part. The attitude is often that if you draw a baby seal, club it. It's why I chuckle a little when people talk about how amazing the gaming community is. There are real sports that have much higher standards regarding fairness, sportsmanship and gentlemanly play.

This is an interesting thread to read through. One thing I'll add is that experience with "all the previous editions of 40K" doesn't actually apply very much to how GW works and how they make balance or FAQ changes. In fact, it doesn't apply at all. Games Workshop hasn't engaged with the community like they've done in eighth edition *literally ever* ... in part because the last time they even had meaningful playtesting, the internet didn't exist in its current rapid-consumption format (and I'm not certain how meaningful that playtesting really was in terms of the feedback provided, the methods by which it could be provided, and the degree to which that feedback was truly trusted).

The playtesting teams have established unprecedented trust with GW at the inner rings of testing, so you've got a lot more willingness to actually make changes for the sake of balance / etc., and the choice to put points in the back makes it much more palatable for them to tweak at least that part of how units work, since it doesn't require reprinting everyone's datasheets. By and large, the core testers are serious-minded people with a stake in the game being more successful than *just* for hardcore tournament players, don't leak, understand what GW is trying to do, are deferential to the company's goals, etc., and so when they make recs it tends to be taken seriously.

The game is in its best place ever in part because GW listens to the community, in part because of how the game of 8th edition was built internal to their studio, and in part because there is a cadre of testers who are not purely "tournaments 4ever" there to help parse through the infinite volume of noisy internet feedback and recommend care and caution // aggressive tweaking where they are needed.

It's also nowhere near how good a game it is GOING to be still, IMO, because all of these things they are doing to make it more balanced and more enjoyable for *ALL* player types are still in relative infancy when you think about it, this being only a couple of years into a new approach and methodology that by needs takes time over the course of lengthy print-based production cycles. There are still testing whiffs, design flaws, and plenty of community angry opinion about what's right and wrong. But it's at its best ever place, and it's only going to get better as time goes on.

Andykp wrote:

Automatically Appended Next Post:

“When you're actually at events, there's tons of celebration of the hobby going on still. A well painted army gets a ton of buzz and word of mouth sends players over to whatever table they can see it in action. Players joke about their favorite units and ask to see really cool conversions and paint jobs as they set up and nights are often spent regaling tales of improbable dice results over a round of drinks. A thing I've discovered over the years is that much of the banter you see on forums is between people that largely aren't winning or even going to many tournaments and the players that do don't bother to wade into the forums very often. It creates a situation where what you read about online is mostly a hollow echo of the actual event”

And this is why it’s sad, the idiots mouthing off on line about competition being the be all and end all put many reasonable people like me off ever going near an event.

I think the whole "casual/competitive" divide is pretty artificial and just in need of some middle ground. For me, I find it easier to make changes personally to find a compromise and I find that those changes tend to work better if I give towards the competitive end of things. There's a certain.... reality, to competitive environments that is easier to bow to. I mean, I might wish I could breath underwater, but I've compromised that I might need to take some specific things to do so because reality says otherwise. Unless something about the tournament format has a significant impact on balance (which should never be the goal of a tournament format but it happens), games played at that level are pretty true to the reality of the game itself, and fighting against them is generally rather disappointing. Most changes for competitive gaming are attempts to make the reality more open to everyone, which is why they tend to trickle down to all levels of play.

Where I see "casual" players really struggle is if they become unwilling to compromise. When I get hung up on wanting to play with something I try to step back and think about how much chance of winning I'm willing to give up to play it. Most things in the game won't lose you a game on their own, particularly with the steady updates we've seen to cut back on extreme outliers. I see a lot of people get frustrated because they really love Terminators and feel like their army should be nothing but Terminators. They'd probably be a lot happier if they stuck to a unit or two of Terminators and focused on having fun with them. Sometimes I want my Blackstar to drop of Artemis and a set of Frag Cannons and blow up a bunch of stuff, and yeah, none of that is optimal and taking it might lose me the game, but sometimes that's a fine trade to have some fun with it.

Sometimes you have to add something you're not super in love with to be more competitive. I don't LOVE Guard (though I modded my stuff a bit to fit my army better and now I want more of them....) but cutting out a few Hellblasters or something to make playing my Deathwatch more fun made the stuff I love more fun. It's also worth remembering that there are a LOT of cool things in the game and even if its not your first choice, its not like you can't have fun with a big stompy robot or whatever little module is popular right now. It's very easy, particularly in 8th, to focus on something you love, play models you love and do pretty well competitively with a couple concessions. Personally, that's where I've felt gaming as a whole shines. Take something you love and do the best you can with it, whether its at a tournament or just with your local pals. Just be open to change. Half the fun is growing and evolving both your army and how you play. That's sort of been my attitude, and its served me well, no matter how "competitive" or "casual" things get.

 LunarSol wrote:
Unless something about the tournament format has a significant impact on balance (which should never be the goal of a tournament format but it happens)

That's exactly what we see with the ITC format. The results of recent ITC and non-ITC tournaments have been rather different, and ITC objectives have a strong impact on army selection.

 LunarSol wrote:
Most changes for competitive gaming are attempts to make the reality more open to everyone, which is why they tend to trickle down to all levels of play.

I'd argue it goes both ways. Having competitive players out there to really do the grunt work of testing, analyzing, and exploiting provides a wealth of balancing data that you won't get from casual players. At the same time, when the game is balanced around competitive players, that can have unintended impact on less-competitive players. Case in point is the Renegade Castellan, which has been nerfed into worthlessness because the loyalist variant overperformed when paired with a CP battery and specific set of stratagems/warlord trait/relic/etc. The game has been balanced around the competitive meta, and non-competitive players suffer for it.

Part of this certainly comes down to the sledgehammer solutions (points adjustments) used to achieve balance, but with such big differences between fluffy, thematic and cutthroat, competitive lists I don't think it's possible to balance both simultaneously.

catbarf wrote:
The game has been balanced around the competitive meta, and non-competitive players suffer for it.

If winning is not important for the non-competitive players, then how can they "suffer" due to some units being bad in un-optimized lists?

bogalubov wrote:
If winning is not important for the non-competitive players, then how can they "suffer" due to some units being bad in un-optimized lists?

Winning may not be important, but balance is desirable. It's hard to have a fair fight if you have no idea what the relative power of your armies is, and it's not fun if every ostensibly equally-matched game is a one-sided stomp because one side overperforms.

When AoS launched without a points system, it wasn't just competitive players who complained.

I keep seeing people talk about balance, but when it comes down to it, something like 40k is literally impossible to balance (without making concessions that most people wouldn't want). For instance, if you have an amphibious unit costed at X points on a map with no water - that's wasted points. But if you are on a map with lots of water, that unit might be worth twice what his points cost is. Not only are point not adequate in representing the changing value of this unit, there's really only two ways to balance it - you either never play on a map with water (and thus the unit is never played because it wastes valuable points) or you create a more granular version of the points that makes it obnoxious (like unit is worth X points, on maps with water, X + Y points).

Ultimately, what happens is that in an effort to take a wide, expansive, and variable game and make it balanced, the end result is options being continually removed from the game. If you want to be "competitive" in 40k, you will not even consider using at least half of the models available to you. Scenarios which venture into interesting territory, or maps which are no symmetrical with a very limited subset of features, become "unfair" and "unbalanced" because the only way to not give an advantage to one player over the other is to literally give the same thing to both players. To add insult to injury, players like to treat dice rolls like having a 60% chance is fair because every player gets the same 60% chance, but it is entirely possible for a player to roll poorly on five or six rolls in a row, significantly destroying any ability to strategize over the course of a game. Competitive play eventually becomes "of the 10% of the game we are allowed to experience, this player made good decisions and his dice rolls conveniently fell right of the middle in the Bell Curve".

I think competitive players hate casual players because casual players want more added to the game, even if it isn't very good or only very rarely good. The strategy for competitive games of 40k is more about what you don't play with rather than what you do. When GW decides to get a bit narrative and starts adding a bunch of weird things to the game (something like Urban Conquest, for example, or building your own tanks from Chapter Approved), the end result is something that competitive gamers will ignore - but will also resent. And because they resent GW not catering to their needs, they also resent the gamers who enjoy these efforts.

I remember in Age of Sigmar when they released a model (I think it was a White Dwarf anniversary model) which didn't have a point value for matched play, and the competitive players went ballistic. Actually, Age of Sigmar, in general, when it released without point values created such an uproar in the community. At that point, most non-competitive wargamers had actually left wargames, and all that was left was competitive players - and they could not wrap their heads around the idea that something didn't have points. The amount of vitriol was truly amazing over something so small and trivial... Balance for a casual player is a game that feels like they are involved and doing things the whole game, and wounds or warscroll limitations can create those kind of games. Balance for competitive players is a game where you build armies to give yourself so much of an advantage that you've probably won before you even play the game.

You know, I think AoS and 40k have brought back a lot of the more casual players, and if they released a game without points now, I think it would go over much better. I think it was that AoS did it when casuals were more or less excised from the community that it got as bad as it did. In a way, it created a community without competitive players, which might be while AoS still has the most friendly and helpful playerbase of any miniature game out there.

catbarf wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:
Unless something about the tournament format has a significant impact on balance (which should never be the goal of a tournament format but it happens)

That's exactly what we see with the ITC format. The results of recent ITC and non-ITC tournaments have been rather different, and ITC objectives have a strong impact on army selection.

 LunarSol wrote:
Most changes for competitive gaming are attempts to make the reality more open to everyone, which is why they tend to trickle down to all levels of play.

I'd argue it goes both ways. Having competitive players out there to really do the grunt work of testing, analyzing, and exploiting provides a wealth of balancing data that you won't get from casual players. At the same time, when the game is balanced around competitive players, that can have unintended impact on less-competitive players. Case in point is the Renegade Castellan, which has been nerfed into worthlessness because the loyalist variant overperformed when paired with a CP battery and specific set of stratagems/warlord trait/relic/etc. The game has been balanced around the competitive meta, and non-competitive players suffer for it.

Part of this certainly comes down to the sledgehammer solutions (points adjustments) used to achieve balance, but with such big differences between fluffy, thematic and cutthroat, competitive lists I don't think it's possible to balance both simultaneously.

Any scenario alters "what's good" to some degree. Much of the time its simply because games assume players will advance on one another but need a scenario to make doing so worthwhile. I do think the ITC is heavy handed in how it attempts to control what players take, but I also recognize that GW's stuff is a little too exploitable at list design to hold up for very long. I'd much rather see something in the middle, but GW has been a little too happy to let the community manage that side of things rather than take the time to do it themselves.

Personally, I take issue with the idea that fluffy, thematic and cuthroat, competitive are mutually exclusive ends of the same axis. Honestly, I think most of the competitive lists this edition are fluffier than what I've seen in the past. I'll take Guard + Smash Captains + Knight as what I envision 40k to look like any day over a line of Rhinos each full of Marines that I used to see when I'd wander through tournaments. That's fluffy to me; Marines as superhumans among average joes, but that's the thing about fluff though; people get in their head what their army SHOULD look like and impose all of their own weird hand ups. I played a game against a Blood Angels player who claimed to have no way of answering my Dreadnoughts. I suggested the obvious and he informed me that Blood Angel captains aren't allowed to have Jump packs according to some page in the codex or something? It was... mildly mind blowing.

Yeah, it sucks when something you've got in your head isn't as good as you want it to be. Sure the Renegade Castellan was nerfed and I guess that player who had a pure Renegade Knight army suffered for it (they better not of had Chaos allies though, right?) but we've also known that Renegade Knights are getting their own Codex and who knows what changes might come in that that might put it right back on the table. I think though, if you're arguing something is "worthless" you're taking a competitive stance on the matter. Maybe its overcosted; maybe its a solid 200 points overcosted, but that's not the same as worthless. Being open to change makes it a lot easier to be casual in my experience. You don't have to have the current best list, but being willing to change even a third of it to adapt to changes in the game is a great way to make the most out of your favorite things.

And the spikey bitz posted 3D printed custodes tanks winning a tourney and everyone loses thier minds

 lord marcus wrote:
And the spikey bitz posted 3D printed custodes tanks winning a tourney and everyone loses thier minds

The frustrating thing is just that things like this are exactly why its hard for tournament organizers have to make their rules for conversions and proxies overly strict and limiting for hobby potential. Someone takes things way too far and you lack the rules to do anything about it fairly.

 LunarSol wrote:

 lord marcus wrote:
And the spikey bitz posted 3D printed custodes tanks winning a tourney and everyone loses thier minds

The frustrating thing is just that things like this are exactly why its hard for tournament organizers have to make their rules for conversions and proxies overly strict and limiting for hobby potential. Someone takes things way too far and you lack the rules to do anything about it fairly.

I don't consider it too far. in fact considering they're out of production or at the very least on backorder at the moment I think 3D printed virgins are fine as stand-ins. plus if it's a local game that I don't think it matters that much at all because not everyone can afford $150 tank let alone four of them

 LunarSol wrote:

 lord marcus wrote:
And the spikey bitz posted 3D printed custodes tanks winning a tourney and everyone loses thier minds

The frustrating thing is just that things like this are exactly why its hard for tournament organizers have to make their rules for conversions and proxies overly strict and limiting for hobby potential. Someone takes things way too far and you lack the rules to do anything about it fairly.

Seems infinitely easier to implement painting requirements instead so you can't see they are 3d printed models.

bogalubov wrote:

catbarf wrote:
The game has been balanced around the competitive meta, and non-competitive players suffer for it.

If winning is not important for the non-competitive players, then how can they "suffer" due to some units being bad in un-optimized lists?

This is a very misleading saying that I see tossed around occasionally, usually as part of a hit job against casual players. Let me explain,

The vast majority of people play Warhammer 40K or other miniature games like Bolt Action because they want to have *fun*. While what exactly is fun is different for any individual, and that definition of fun often has a wide overlap with winning. For some people, Fun is recreating a battle from the fluff and playing it out on a large scale, for some people fun is proving a point that a bad unit *is* viable, for others fun is a slobberknocker game where both sides are tearing eachother apart, and yes, for some, fun is winning for the sake of winning.

I bring this up because in general there is a trend. People are playing Warhammer 40k because they want to play a game to have fun. What is not fun, whether it be for a competitive player or for a casual player, is to put their army on the table, get absolutely stomped, and not feel that they ever had a chance. Let me give you another example. I used to play tennis, when I took tennis lessons the pro would "play down to my level", because if he played to win he would crush me. But he wanted me to have fun playing, he wanted me to get better playing, so he would play in rough parity so that I could work on volleys and keeping the ball in play and start to improve. If he just came out and service aced me four quick times in succession, then said "you are not a competitive player, how can you suffer due to not being as skilled as me?" I probably would not be having a great time, and I probably would dislike that pro.

This is true of warhammer as well. There are different types of casual players just as there are different types of competitive players. Some casual players are more purist where they feel constrained to build an army a certain way for aesthetic or fluff reasons, or to fit a story they wrote about their army. Some casual players just do the best they can with what they have because they don't want to buy a new army or repaint their marines into the chapter du jour. Other players just simply have difficulty grasping certain list building or tactical concepts that hold them back from true competitive play. None of these players want to be stomped. There is a difference between a good game and a stomp, and its something that the oversimplified quoted post, and others like it, seem to forget.

Let me give you another example. I'm a good player, and can hold my own in a competitive event, but I don't put the effort in, and I'm not in that upper echelon of skill to ever really be a top contender. I mostly look for slobberknockers and I love it when a game feels like both players are at eachother's throats and throwing punches with everything they have every turn. If I look back over my favorite games that I have played since I have started wargaming... I've maybe won half of them? I win far more than 50% of my games, but those wins that aren't exciting just aren't... as fun or memorable. But I like those games because they create exciting moments and have multiple tide changing plays and actions from both players. This type of game is only possible where one side isn't curb stomping, and it requires a certain amount of balance to achieve. Even if a game is ultimately lost, sometimes a player just needs a streak of something amazing to hold onto to laugh about or some heroics from a commander in their army.

Lets look at one of my personal favorite games I've played and look at it through this angle.
5th Edition, small tournament, Eldar v Dark Eldar. I was playing Eldar and was matched against my buddy who had been using his Dark Eldar. We had both done fairly well in the previous round. The game was objective based, and both of our armies were highly mechanized and mobile. Raiders + Ravagers v Wave Serpents + Falcons. Despite this, neither of us were able to claim an objective because each turn we would tear the throat out of any unit trying to get to the objectives. As the game started to draw to a close, we both got increasingly desperate, throwing units at the objective with everything we could, and destroying any effort our opponent made to do the same. When time was called we had a hard draw. We drew on primary (claim objectives) and we drew on the secondary (kill points). Took both of us out of the running for placing in the event but it was probably the most fun I've ever had wargamming.

The point is, this game was fun not because of who won (nobody won), but it was fun because it was hard fought and was an example of two balanced armies clashing and one not having a huge leg up or advantage over the other. Both players were engaged, both players felt at all times that the game was winnable from their perspective, and both players will remember that game for a long time. It is an example of why i enjoy playing wargames. Sometimes its about the journey, but that doesn't mean that I don't care about balance, and it doesn't mean that casual players don't care about balance.

2)

and if they released a game without points now, I think it would go over much better.

I don't think it would. I think if they let 40k and AOS exist without points, that the competitive players would indeed howl but the fan base that stuck around would be so small as to not be worth keeping the lights on for GW.

There is a reason that they reversed course and put out points for AOS.

I'm fairly confident when I say 9 out of 10 players of both 40k and AOS are matched play type players. Thats not saying they are tournament players, tournament players are a subset of matched play players. However, matched play style standardized points and standardized scenarios are something the bulk of players not only want, but need to stay involved in a game.

 Ordana wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:

 lord marcus wrote:
And the spikey bitz posted 3D printed custodes tanks winning a tourney and everyone loses thier minds

The frustrating thing is just that things like this are exactly why its hard for tournament organizers have to make their rules for conversions and proxies overly strict and limiting for hobby potential. Someone takes things way too far and you lack the rules to do anything about it fairly.

Seems infinitely easier to implement painting requirements instead so you can't see they are 3d printed models.

Unless they're getting direct support from GW (that will be contingent on promoting their products), why should a TO care? Scratch-built, converted, 3D-printed, it's all the same.

 AndrewGPaul wrote:

 Ordana wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:

 lord marcus wrote:
And the spikey bitz posted 3D printed custodes tanks winning a tourney and everyone loses thier minds

The frustrating thing is just that things like this are exactly why its hard for tournament organizers have to make their rules for conversions and proxies overly strict and limiting for hobby potential. Someone takes things way too far and you lack the rules to do anything about it fairly.

Seems infinitely easier to implement painting requirements instead so you can't see they are 3d printed models.

Unless they're getting direct support from GW (that will be contingent on promoting their products), why should a TO care? Scratch-built, converted, 3D-printed, it's all the same.

Right? Use cardboard or wads of tape if you want. The important thing is finding out who's the most finely-tuned Warhammer athlete.

 auticus wrote:

and if they released a game without points now, I think it would go over much better.

I don't think it would. I think if they let 40k and AOS exist without points, that the competitive players would indeed howl but the fan base that stuck around would be so small as to not be worth keeping the lights on for GW.

There is a reason that they reversed course and put out points for AOS.

I'm fairly confident when I say 9 out of 10 players of both 40k and AOS are matched play type players. Thats not saying they are tournament players, tournament players are a subset of matched play players. However, matched play style standardized points and standardized scenarios are something the bulk of players not only want, but need to stay involved in a game.

In my opinion this is because Matched Play and points allow for rough approximations of balance for pick up games. Most players don't have a steady community to game with (myself included) and when we travel to shops to get a game in its really easy to set expectations with somebody we just met because everybody knows what a "2000 point game" is. Power Level tried to get around this in a way, but Power Level has many of the same shortcoming as points do, with additional variation that makes it an even less accurate prediction of army strength.

As I've played longer, I've met people and formed friendships, and we will on occasion branch out to try different game set ups and types. But matched play remains the most efficient way to get a one off game in with strangers. And that is why points are so important. Being able to set up and play one off games is hugely important for growing a community, and a points system is one of the most efficient ways of eyeballing balance between two forces on a gaming table, its not perfect, but... its better than nothing. That was the biggest problem with AOS' release. People would show up to an FLGS with players they didn't know very well, and it was really difficult to find a balance between the armies and create relatively fair games. Playing without points is easier if you always play the same people and know eachother and units inside and out. It doesn't work so well in new environments...

GW could sell specific 'tournament army' box sets.

 akaean wrote:

Let me give you another example. I'm a good player, and can hold my own in a competitive event, but I don't put the effort in, and I'm not in that upper echelon of skill to ever really be a top contender. I mostly look for slobberknockers and I love it when a game feels like both players are at eachother's throats and throwing punches with everything they have every turn. If I look back over my favorite games that I have played since I have started wargaming... I've maybe won half of them? I win far more than 50% of my games, but those wins that aren't exciting just aren't... as fun or memorable. But I like those games because they create exciting moments and have multiple tide changing plays and actions from both players. This type of game is only possible where one side isn't curb stomping, and it requires a certain amount of balance to achieve. Even if a game is ultimately lost, sometimes a player just needs a streak of something amazing to hold onto to laugh about or some heroics from a commander in their army.

I like to tell people that I don't really play to win; I play to almost lose.

 akaean wrote:
But matched play remains the most efficient way to get a one off game in with strangers. And that is why points are so important.

Part of that, though, is that nobody has tried anything else. When GW said, during early AoS, to bring one hero, one monster, several units, no more than 30 wounds - very few people actually tried it. The ones that did usually said that they got a good game out of it. Granted, they weren't power gamers looking to exploit every limitation towards their own dominance, but it worked for the 6 people who bothered to try it. If I tried it and played against another people who exploited the system to build a power army, I'd blame him personally, but somehow, we've arrived at the conclusion that the system was at fault for not factoring in that wargaming if filled with people who "model for advantage" wherever they can get away with it.

We don't need POINTS. We need a system that creates a decent game - and there are several of them out there that either don't use points, or when they do, don't use them primarily. For instance, Path to Glory creates a slow grow campaign without points. Actually, campaign systems in general do very well here, such as Firestorm, Urban Conquest, Necromunda's Dominion campaign, and so on - the goals of the games are not about winning ONE game, so per-game imbalances are largely unimportant.

Being able to set up and play one off games is hugely important for growing a community, and a points system is one of the most efficient ways of eyeballing balance between two forces on a gaming table, its not perfect, but... its better than nothing.

But it probably isn't better than something else. Or better yet, a lot of somethings. There are other solutions to points out there that... well, to be perfectly frank, I think that points are the reason why competitive players even exist in the first place. When we talk about them, it is almost always about the list building and rarely about the playing (after all, how can you stomp a newbie if your lists are equal power?). Using points gives them an excuse to build the most abusive lists they can, because we allow it. The points say these two armies are equal, so who are we to disagree?

But imagine that there were a dozen different common list building formats out there. One uses wounds, one power levels, one price based (no more than $200 worth of models), one based on limiting warscrolls, one path to glory, one skirmish, one firestorm, and so on. If there was someone who exploited one of those formats, he would not be able to exploit the other ones at the same time. It's because we've made points the standard that we've allowed this abusive list building exploitation to become standard as well. If we played more than one type of game, it would solve the problem largely because the individual values of each model would change with each type of game, making "list building for advantage" virtually impossible

That was the biggest problem with AOS' release. People would show up to an FLGS with players they didn't know very well, and it was really difficult to find a balance between the armies and create relatively fair games.

I think this was exaggerated and largely a hypothetical put forth by the competitive players who didn't actually play the game. The idea that people would show up with a dozen bloodthirsters just because the rules didn't say they couldn't was one born from paranoia rather than experience.

Playing without points is easier if you always play the same people and know eachother and units inside and out. It doesn't work so well in new environments...

Because competitive players have literally made us afraid of playing with each other. The way they've ruined the game community is so absolute that the idea that we might have to confront these players and negotiate a fair game has us quaking in our boots.

 akaean wrote:

We don't need POINTS. We need a system that creates a decent game - and there are several of them out there that either don't use points, or when they do, don't use them primarily. For instance, Path to Glory creates a slow grow campaign without points. Actually, campaign systems in general do very well here, such as Firestorm, Urban Conquest, Necromunda's Dominion campaign, and so on - the goals of the games are not about winning ONE game, so per-game imbalances are largely unimportant.

But imagine that there were a dozen different common list building formats out there. One uses wounds, one power levels, one price based (no more than $200 worth of models), one based on limiting warscrolls, one path to glory, one skirmish, one firestorm, and so on. If there was someone who exploited one of those formats, he would not be able to exploit the other ones at the same time. It's because we've made points the standard that we've allowed this abusive list building exploitation to become standard as well. If we played more than one type of game, it would solve the problem largely because the individual values of each model would change with each type of game, making "list building for advantage" virtually impossible

Everything has points. The system you mentioned used wounds as a point system with additional "special" point for hero and monster. Even Guild Ball gives players 4 squaddie points, 1 mascot point, and 1 captain point to build their list with. Honestly, the wounds system is a good example of how point systems as a whole fail to grasp the whole system. A save throw is largely a wounds multipler in most situations, so a 5 wound model with a 4+ is probably "worth" about 10 wounds, while one with a 5+ is probably only "worth" about 7 or 8 despite them both being "worth" 5. That doesn't make it an unworkable system; just one with a pretty obvious flaw that will only work if the developers design around it. Blaming players for the flaws in the system doesn't make for better games. Fixing the system does.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 auticus wrote:

I'm fairly confident when I say 9 out of 10 players of both 40k and AOS are matched play type players. Thats not saying they are tournament players, tournament players are a subset of matched play players. However, matched play style standardized points and standardized scenarios are something the bulk of players not only want, but need to stay involved in a game.

Weird... editing the auto append deleted my response to this.... so sorry if this is less well thought out than before.

I think there's a lot of reasons people stick to standard size games. The pick up game factor is pretty obvious and generally speaking it's actually pretty hard to just cut points in most systems. Very rarely do you have an easy 500 to drop without significantly reworking things, particularly when there are other restrictions like detachment slots at play. Even against long time friends, having the points down before you start reduces a lot of the already significant setup time. I tend to skew towards the competitive end of list building simply because that's where I feel like points start to work like players think they do. I honestly see stomps happen way more often when players are trying to negotiate a game at a lower tier simply because they're doing so without any real frame of reference beyond "stuff that's not too good".