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 LunarSol wrote:
Personally, I take issue with the idea that fluffy, thematic and cuthroat, competitive are mutually exclusive ends of the same axis.

I don't think they're the same axis, and I apologize if I gave that impression. They are completely orthogonal to one another in 40K. A fluff-first player looking to recreate a particular company of Marines from the fiction isn't doing so from a competitive standpoint, and a competitive player putting together a list to take to a national tournament doesn't care one iota about whether his list fits the fluff or not. If a fluffy list happens to be competitive or a competitive list happens to be fluffy, it's pure coincidence- and I'd argue it doesn't happen more often than it does.

In a well-written wargame, what's optimal and what fits the background are the same thing. It's most obvious in historicals, where there's an implicit understanding that the tactics that worked in real life should work in the game, and if the optimal strategy bears little relation to history, then something's gone wrong. GW attempted this kind of fluff-crunch alignment with formations in 7th, providing bonuses to themed force composition, but that was so crudely implemented that it introduced severe balance problems of its own.

 LunarSol wrote:
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.

Most players, I think, aren't purely competitive or purely fluff-focused; they strike a balance between the two. They have a theme in mind for their army and they buy models they like, but they try to assemble it into something that works reasonably well on the table. If a particular unit underperforms, that puts the owner in the uncomfortable position of either ditching it in favor of something more meta, or keeping a choice that actively detracts from their army's viability. Building an army should be about fun choices, and that's not a fun choice.

The optimal scenario would be that by following the fluff, a casual player can create a competitive, tournament-viable army. Everyone wins. But that will never happen if the game is balanced entirely through feedback from tournaments and competitive play, where fluff isn't even considered. Competitive play is a great resource for playtesting, but a style of play that excludes currently suboptimal units and builds to begin with, and doesn't reflect how a majority of players approach the hobby, cannot provide a comprehensive assessment of game state.

I like robust points systems, not because I want to play cutthroat competitive all the time, but because it's lame when I have a one-sided game because my buddy's 1500pts of Ultramarines and my 1500pts of Astra Militarum aren't remotely similar in effectiveness. And I certainly don't want his army being balanced according to the assumption that Guilliman will always be there along with the Loyal 32 for CP, just because those are the kinds of gimmicks a competitive player would use.

 Sqorgar wrote:
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.

Oh come on, that's a bit hyperbolic, don't you think?

Any 2 given casual players will often have drastically mistmatched forces. Say one guy likes to play nothing but tanks in his Guard army, and the other player likes to play a genestealer cults army with lots of abberants and other nasty gribblies. You think the Guard player is going to have a fun, fair game when the Genestealer player assaults his entire army from turn and prevents him from ever firing again?

catbarf wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:
Personally, I take issue with the idea that fluffy, thematic and cuthroat, competitive are mutually exclusive ends of the same axis.

I don't think they're the same axis, and I apologize if I gave that impression. They are completely orthogonal to one another in 40K. A fluff-first player looking to recreate a particular company of Marines from the fiction isn't doing so from a competitive standpoint, and a competitive player putting together a list to take to a national tournament doesn't care one iota about whether his list fits the fluff or not. If a fluffy list happens to be competitive or a competitive list happens to be fluffy, it's pure coincidence- and I'd argue it doesn't happen more often than it does.

In a well-written wargame, what's optimal and what fits the background are the same thing. It's most obvious in historicals, where there's an implicit understanding that the tactics that worked in real life should work in the game, and if the optimal strategy bears little relation to history, then something's gone wrong. GW attempted this kind of fluff-crunch alignment with formations in 7th, providing bonuses to themed force composition, but that was so crudely implemented that it introduced severe balance problems of its own.

 LunarSol wrote:
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.

Most players, I think, aren't purely competitive or purely fluff-focused; they strike a balance between the two. They have a theme in mind for their army and they buy models they like, but they try to assemble it into something that works reasonably well on the table. If a particular unit underperforms, that puts the owner in the uncomfortable position of either ditching it in favor of something more meta, or keeping a choice that actively detracts from their army's viability. Building an army should be about fun choices, and that's not a fun choice.

The optimal scenario would be that by following the fluff, a casual player can create a competitive, tournament-viable army. Everyone wins. But that will never happen if the game is balanced entirely through feedback from tournaments and competitive play, where fluff isn't even considered. Competitive play is a great resource for playtesting, but a style of play that excludes currently suboptimal units and builds to begin with, and doesn't reflect how a majority of players approach the hobby, cannot provide a comprehensive assessment of game state.

I like robust points systems, not because I want to play cutthroat competitive all the time, but because it's lame when I have a one-sided game because my buddy's 1500pts of Ultramarines and my 1500pts of Astra Militarum aren't remotely similar in effectiveness. And I certainly don't want his army being balanced according to the assumption that Guilliman will always be there along with the Loyal 32 for CP, just because those are the kinds of gimmicks a competitive player would use.

I agree with pretty much all of this and I think its the ideal that pretty much every game designer strives for. I also understand the reality of interconnected complex systems means that the ideal is much harder than it seems. Changing one thing affects everything related to it in subtle ways that shake out in the real world in ways that are hard to account for. In many ways, its an engineering job like any other and often come down to design trade offs. Like adding anything to a rocket requires the weight being accounted for in additional thrust.... that needs to be accounted for in fuel consumption that needs to be accounted for the in weight of fuel.... despite being created from imagination, game systems are tied to realities that work themselves out in ways that don't play out until players put them to the test.

The thing I still don't wrap my head around is the idea that an army from a single codex is somehow more true to the fluff than what you see in competitive armies in 8th. Truth be told, I've only recently been a fan of the game on the tabletop, but rather enjoyed the universe through other means and I've just never seen in that way. I mean, sure, Tau aren't running behind an army of Boyz but pretty much every page of my Knights Codex has them towering over Guard or Marines holding the line in front of them and I've never really pictured Chaos Marines without demons pouring out of portals around them. When its really down to just marines, its usually a much smaller encounter; a Kill Team at most. That's the fluff to me and 8th seems to do it very well to the point where I really wonder if the loyal 32 is really just something a competitive player would do or a result of GW designing a system to get players to realize that there should really be some guardsmen dying in the front lines of any encounter played at 40k's scale. Like I said, I've only recently been a fan of the game on the table and a big part of that is just that the lists I see feel a lot fluffier to me than when I've looked into the game in the past. Less homogenous? Sure, but its a mix that reflects the world GW has long sold me through video games, books, comics, and art.

 Horst wrote:

 Sqorgar wrote:
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.

Oh come on, that's a bit hyperbolic, don't you think?

Yes. A bit. But there is some truth to it as well. Non-competitive players are afraid to play competitive players, and they are worried for any system which could potentially expose them to competitive behaviors and attitudes. The biggest complaints about AoS's lack of point were A) how do we know we'll get a balanced game where one side doesn't accidentally stomp the other? and B) how do we prevent the jerks from exploiting this open ended system to intentionally stomp their opponent? There is a terror of being stomped in this hobby, and it is entirely justified.

I'm perfectly okay playing a game I know I'm going to lose. I walk away happy if I feel like I did a good job in a bad situation. I'm not okay being stomped. There's something demoralizing about only being able to watch your opponent, without much of a chance to play, yourself. To me, a good game isn't about balance, but about being involved and active during the entire game.

Any 2 given casual players will often have drastically mistmatched forces. Say one guy likes to play nothing but tanks in his Guard army, and the other player likes to play a genestealer cults army with lots of abberants and other nasty gribblies. You think the Guard player is going to have a fun, fair game when the Genestealer player assaults his entire army from turn and prevents him from ever firing again?

Yeah, see, that's never going to happen. Casual players aren't stubborn like competitive players. If one player wants to play one thing and the other player wants to play another, they will usually play two games. Then something else for a third. Being experience focused rather than competitively focused means that they'll try out various unknown experiences, and repeat the ones they most enjoy. If playing that matchup above yielded a poor game, it won't get played a second time - and I think both players would be fine with that outcome.

 Horst wrote:

 Sqorgar wrote:
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.

Oh come on, that's a bit hyperbolic, don't you think?

Any 2 given casual players will often have drastically mistmatched forces. Say one guy likes to play nothing but tanks in his Guard army, and the other player likes to play a genestealer cults army with lots of abberants and other nasty gribblies. You think the Guard player is going to have a fun, fair game when the Genestealer player assaults his entire army from turn and prevents him from ever firing again?

He may actually feel that way. I've certainly had times in my life where I took out my frustrations with how a game was designed on the players and not the game. I used to love competitive Pokemon battles on the Game Boy, but ultimately found myself frustrated with how the competitive community attempted to take balance into their own hands and at odds with the SmogOn crowd. Ultimately though, my issues were with the game itself and had to accept that the reality of the game mechanics didn't line up with how the franchise presented itself to me. A lot of people continue to blame the players and while I understand why, ultimately I've decided that neither the game nor the players are elements of the experience within my control, and I'm much happier focusing on the things I can improve for myself without having to force those changes on others.

I mean at its heart, 40k and AOS are both games pushed to be won in the listbuilding phase before either army hits the table.

A lot of people approach the game that way.

As such, you're going to have stompings. These aren't the games for people who want to play the game as opposed to beating the spreadsheet because you'll only get a good game if both players bring similarly powered lists.

If one player is playing to beat Excel and the other player is putting together a force he likes from the novels, we all know the outcome of that "game" before the first plastic dude touches the table.

 LunarSol wrote:

He may actually feel that way. I've certainly had times in my life where I took out my frustrations with how a game was designed on the players and not the game.

That's not entirely accurate. I think the rules of 40k and AoS are absolutely appropriate for casual game "experiences", but fall apart completely at the highly competitive tournament level (which is why few or none of the tournaments use the 40k or AoS rules as written). Playing the games competitively is so out of whack for how these games are designed and intended to be played, that it often seems to me that people who do so are trying to shove a square peg into a round hole. And yet I often see people try to tell me that putting that square peg into the round hole is the right way to do it, and if I don't do it that way, then somehow, it is my fault. Or the peg's fault. Or the hole's fault. But it's never the fault of the idiot who can't see that the two don't fit together.

I used to love competitive Pokemon battles on the Game Boy, but ultimately found myself frustrated with how the competitive community attempted to take balance into their own hands and at odds with the SmogOn crowd. Ultimately though, my issues were with the game itself and had to accept that the reality of the game mechanics didn't line up with how the franchise presented itself to me.

Every single customizable game that has ever been made, and I assume ever will be made, falls apart when you minmax them. That's not the design's fault. It's just that when the edge cases become commonplace, the intent and purpose behind the design is lost to extremes.

It's like drinking water. It's good for you and you should do it often. But if you drink too much, you will die of water poisoning. Our bodies operate within a certain threshold, and when we leave that threshold, we tend to stop functioning so well. Game design is the same way, except that it tends to feel rewarding when you are ultimately poisoning the game.

A lot of people continue to blame the players and while I understand why, ultimately I've decided that neither the game nor the players are elements of the experience within my control, and I'm much happier focusing on the things I can improve for myself without having to force those changes on others.

While there is definitely wisdom in doing what you can to change what you can and not worrying about the rest, I think we've seen this hobby when competitive gamers become the dominant voice in it, and it was not a healthy place to be. By speaking up and making sure that the worst wheel isn't the only one squeaking, maybe we can all get some grease.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 auticus wrote:
I mean at its heart, 40k and AOS are both games pushed to be won in the listbuilding phase before either army hits the table.

Absolutely not. The list building is part of personalization and player identity, and should be viewed in exactly the same manner as which color your paint your models. It is absolutely not intended to be a spreadsheet that you minmax to model your army for advantage. People do that because they can, not because they are supposed to, should, or told to.

In AoS2, every single warscroll ability has been rewritten to come with flavor text. For instance, the Arch-Revenant from Looncurse allows friendly Kuronoth Hunters within 12" reroll hit rolls of 1. But why? "An Arch-Revenant commands instant obedience and commitment from Kuronoth Hunters that are nearby". That rule is designed to enhance the model and give it personality. It's meant to tie the Arch-Revenant to the Kuronoth Hunters thematically - as a rule itself, it is pretty limited. It has relatively little gameplay value, but an immense amount of thematic value. Same with the rule that allows them to sacrifice their spite (giving up flying and pincher attacks) to negate a wound - gameplay-wise, it is basically the same as adding an extra wound to the model, but thematically, it feels almost tragic to use this rule.

The idea that a game should be won or lost in the list building phase is absolutely the last thing GW ever wants to happen. They want your fully painted army to get on that battlefield and tell a story - and the story they want you to tell isn't "I lost because my opponent used a rules exploit to table me on the second turn".

A lot of people approach the game that way.

Square peg. Round hole. These games are primarily thematic and customizable, which is antithetical to competitive.

Horst wrote:
Any 2 given casual players will often have drastically mistmatched forces. Say one guy likes to play nothing but tanks in his Guard army, and the other player likes to play a genestealer cults army with lots of abberants and other nasty gribblies. You think the Guard player is going to have a fun, fair game when the Genestealer player assaults his entire army from turn and prevents him from ever firing again?

This is not confined to casual players having drastically mismatched forces though. It's happened to me plenty times playing wmh.

Same can be said of serious players and competitive players/games. Even games that are on the 'better balanced' end of the spectrum are not immune to the phenomenon you describe. Which is essentially 'gotcha!' armies, 'silver bullets', or 'hard counters'. It's the nature of ttgs in general.

LunarSol wrote:
The thing I still don't wrap my head around is the idea that an army from a single codex is somehow more true to the fluff than what you see in competitive armies in 8th. Truth be told, I've only recently been a fan of the game on the tabletop, but rather enjoyed the universe through other means and I've just never seen in that way.

On the scale of Epic - sure. On the scale of 40k, I'll personally disagree. A company or two of Marines deployed as the 'tip of the spear' alongside 80,000 guardsmen - awesome. 3 one chapter masters, a couple of titans and 32 guardsmen strikes me as more gamey than fluffy. IMO, of course.

Sqorgar wrote:
Playing the games competitively is so out of whack for how these games are designed and intended to be played, that it often seems to me that people who do so are trying to shove a square peg into a round hole. And yet I often see people try to tell me that putting that square peg into the round hole is the right way to do it, and if I don't do it that way, then somehow, it is my fault. Or the peg's fault. Or the hole's fault. But it's never the fault of the idiot who can't see that the two don't fit together.
[

I know we often disagree, but I cannot for the life of me fault this anaology. It's pretty spot on.

Sqorgar wrote:
Every single customizable game that has ever been made, and I assume ever will be made, falls apart when you minmax them. That's not the design's fault. It's just that when the edge cases become commonplace, the intent and purpose behind the design is lost to extremes.

Ttgs are very limited systems and can only hold so much 'weight'. It's like when you were a kid and your mum told you to play nice with your toys. Play with them hard enough, and they'll break.

Sqorgar wrote:
While there is definitely wisdom in doing what you can to change what you can and not worrying about the rest, I think we've seen this hobby when competitive gamers become the dominant voice in it, and it was not a healthy place to be. By speaking up and making sure that the worst wheel isn't the only one squeaking, maybe we can all get some grease.

Nnetheless, their voices should be heard. Like anything, you can't just listen to one section and ignore the rest.

Sqorgar wrote:
Absolutely not. The list building is part of personalization and player identity, and should be viewed in exactly the same manner as which color your paint your models. It is absolutely not intended to be a spreadsheet that you minmax to model your army for advantage. People do that because they can, not because they are supposed to, should, or told to.

Hmm, personally list build g is neither about personalisation. Or identity. To me, it's a function of scenario design and essential game-building.

Sqorgar wrote:
The idea that a game should be won or lost in the list building phase is absolutely the last thing GW ever wants to happen. They want your fully painted army to get on that battlefield and tell a story - and the story they want you to tell isn't "I lost because my opponent used a rules exploit to table me on the second turn".
[

I think what gw 'want to happen' is to let players play the game they want to play. Theirs is a broad church If players want to win or lose the game in the list building phase, gw won't stop them. They'll happily sell them stuff.

Sqorgar wrote:

A lot of people approach the game that way.

Square peg. Round hole. These games are primarily thematic and customizable, which is antithetical to competitive.

Disagree. Competitive players can appreciate both theme and customisation - the latter is a core component of list-building-for-advantage. And even competitive players can like themed armies, just like any one else

LunarSol wrote:
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..

The problem is, to a very large extent, 'the system' itself is fundamentally unfixable. You cannot have any kind of a systemvthst imposes flat, universal values to denote 'worth' on things with anything approaching even the vaguest sense of balance, or accuracy when the reality on the ground is that something's worth is entirely situational, and depends both on what it's fielded with, what it's fielded against, the terrain type, quantity, layout, objectives, player 'skill', and a dozen other variables. Unless you can create a self-correcting algorithm that can account for all of that, you will never have an accurate points system.

The truth is there is only so much developers can do, and be expected to do. Personally, I put some of the responsibility on players. Do I blame them for the flaws in the system? No, but I don't hold them as faultless when they take the flaws, grab them with both hands, run with them, and beat their opponents over the head with them, while shrugging their shoulders and pretending there was nothing they could do. On a point of principle, Just because it's in the book doesn't make things 'right' or 'fair ' or that you have to do it. There is a reason 'we were just following orders' doesn't get much traction at The Hague.

LunarSol wrote:
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.

The pragmatism of the 'pick-up-game' should certainly be valued. There is good value in just being able to get on with it. That said. A lot of things get sacrifice on the altar the make that happen. And it isn't always worth it.

quote=LunarSol]
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.

Deadnight wrote:

LunarSol wrote:
The thing I still don't wrap my head around is the idea that an army from a single codex is somehow more true to the fluff than what you see in competitive armies in 8th. Truth be told, I've only recently been a fan of the game on the tabletop, but rather enjoyed the universe through other means and I've just never seen in that way.

On the scale of Epic - sure. On the scale of 40k, I'll personally disagree. A company or two of Marines deployed as the 'tip of the spear' alongside 80,000 guardsmen - awesome. 3 one chapter masters, a couple of titans and 32 guardsmen strikes me as more gamey than fluffy. IMO, of course.

It's all kind of relative. I'm mostly used to stories that top out the marines at something around 10 or so plus like 1 dreadnaught. The 17 from a minimum Battalion is honestly a little on the high side for me, but its all very subjective.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Deadnight wrote:

LunarSol wrote:
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.

The problem with this is it leaves 97% of the game behind, and that isn't worth it in my eyes. I also disagree that points somehow only work at the ultra, or more optimised levels of the game.

At the moment its no where near 97%. Most of the factions in the game have a place in a competitive environment and that's actually pretty rare and incredible. There are definitely things in each codex left behind, but in most systems there'd really only be maybe 3 codexes to even consider. Sure, you might not be able to run a bunch of White Scar Terminators with Missile launchers or something, but the stuff you can run at the moment is really quite varied unless the only thing you consider valid is literally the 2000 points in the one list that won the latest tournament.

Absolutely not. The list building is part of personalization and player identity

Unfortunately does in no way reward that approach. It does, however, reward min/maxing, and 9 out of 10 players that I have ever encountered see 40k and aos as a listbuilding-first game where the goal is to win the game in the listbuilding phase if at all possible.

We can say square peg round hole and thats great, we can say "thats not what gw wants", but I don't think thats true. I don't think GW cares so long as they are selling you models.

In the end the majority of the player base sees it the other way around... and the game is defined by how the playerbase plays the game. And from where I am sitting, the player base has always been about listbuilding-first, min/max play over anything else. You typically have to dig deep to find players willing to play in a different way, whereas playing the min/max version of the game is as simple as walking into an LGS and plopping models down and setting up a pickup game and going as thats the default.

 Sqorgar wrote:
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.

Of course nobody tried it. It's a system that is clearly worse than the conventional point system so why waste time on proving that 1+1=2? The only reason to even consider playing a game that way is because GW, out of sheer unbelievable incompetence, failed to provide anything better and nearly killed half of their company in the process. If you have a functioning point system available there's no reason to use anything else.

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.

Campaigns can do well for certain things. But:

1) Campaign systems are useless for pickup gaming. A game that can only function if you can devote weeks/months to playing an extended campaign is a game that will hardly ever be played just for logistics reasons. The expectation is that two players can show up to a store, quickly agree on the details of the game (usually picking from a standard format or three), and start playing. A game that fails to support this is, at best, a niche-market product and is likely to be a financial failure.

2) Campaign systems, unless they are played between very similar forces, still require a conventional point system to set up the initial unit pool for each player and determine what can appear in a particular game. Maybe Necromunda works without it because everyone is playing the same poorly-equipped street gangs and any differences between forces are minor, but that kind of thing can't handle a game where you can have guardsmen and space marines fighting on the same battlefield.

3) Campaign systems are extremely vulnerable to snowball effects. The winner of one game gains advantages, making them more likely to win the next game and gain even more advantages. Often the campaign is decided in all but name by early successes and the rest of the campaign is a tedious slog through one-sided battles until the loser is finally officially eliminated. This isn't an automatic failure, of course, but campaign systems that appear to have even a chance of avoiding it seem few and far between.

But it probably isn't better than something else.

Not true at all. Point systems are the single most effective way of evaluating the strength of an army and allowing pickup games between customized forces. Other alternatives either don't work or are just point systems that are less accurate than they could be.

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

Uh, no, that's not how it would work at all.

1) Most of those list building ideas are just plain terrible. Nobody is going to play a game where you bring $200 worth of models because the dollar cost of the models is a terrible way of evaluating the strength of an army and creating a game where each player has a fair chance of winning. It doesn't matter if a game publisher puts that format in their rulebook, it's going to have zero effect on the game.

2) Competitive players can play multiple formats. Just like MTG players have standard decks, modern decks, and a lot of practice with drafting a competitive miniatures player would have armies for multiple formats. All of them would be competitive and optimized for that particular format. In fact, the non-competitive player would likely be at more of a disadvantage because they'd have an army that works ok in the format it was built for and not have the experience or interest to make it function at all effectively when the list building rules change.

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.

Well yes, of course it rarely, if ever, happened outside of theory. Everyone realized how incredibly stupid AoS's army construction rules were as soon as they were published and went straight to work on third-party point systems. And the game was pretty much dead until those third-party point systems were established. So no, "nobody really exploited that" isn't very convincing when the reason is that nobody was playing AoS until the exploit was no longer legal.

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.

If you're so afraid of competitive players that it has ruined your experience then that's a problem with you and your lack of social skills. And the competitive players could equally legitimately argue that people like you have ruined the community by making them afraid to have to deal with a "casual" player and all their self-serving unwritten rules about what is playing "the right way".


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Sqorgar wrote:
The list building is part of personalization and player identity, and should be viewed in exactly the same manner as which color your paint your models. It is absolutely not intended to be a spreadsheet that you minmax to model your army for advantage. People do that because they can, not because they are supposed to, should, or told to.

That's an awful lot of words to spend on saying "you're having fun the wrong way because I don't enjoy that".

 Sqorgar wrote:

 akaean wrote:


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.

I disagree with a lot of what you posted here, but this in particular seems utterly incorrect. You're correct that the 12 Bloodthirsters was hyperbole and possibly paranoia, though I'm not sure any one really thought people would show up with such an army, it's more the fact the lack of list building rules allowed it that people were complaining about. The biggest problem with AoS at launch wasn't that it allowed silly armies of nothing by Nagash, or whatever. It was that even attempting to put together a balanced army was an exercise in futility. My first couple of games involved Dark Elves against Orcs, using pretty typical, varied armies for each. They were disastrous. The Orcs were vastly better than the Dark Elves to the point that in both games there was absolutely no contest. Neither of us were trying to break the game, just explore a new system with our existing collections. This was a game between two experienced gamers, literally in my house, so it wasn't even a case of trying to get a pick-up game, which is largely impossible with the lack of system AoS launched with. I'm sure we could have negotiated our way to a balanced game but why bother? There are plenty of other games on the market that have at least attempted to provide a balance system.

So no, I don't think the problem was exaggerated at all. Further proof comes from the huge drop-off in players from WH to AoS. I remember one of our FLGSs posting a comment after their first AoS event along the lines of "worrying times ahead for Fantasy" due to the tiny numbers of people who showed up. I don't think it had anything to do with hypothetical worries and it had everything to do with actual problems with the absence of a points system.

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.

As Peregrine points out, if you're literally afraid of playing with other people that seems like a personal social issue. Either that or it's at least as exaggerated as you accuse others of being above. It also presupposes that the issue doesn't exist in reverse by blaming the competitive players rather than more casual players. The thing you seem to be missing about points is that the benefit of being able to show up with a standard army and play anyone is absolutely huge for a lot of people. They game maybe 1-2 times a month if they're lucky. They don't want to spend time negotiating a scenario and army composition, and they shouldn't have to. Even if there wasn't this supposed issue of competitive players terrifying people, the negotiation aspect of arranging a game would be too big a barrier for the vast majority of players I've met. Among a group of people who play together a lot it can work, but if that's the only way you play it makes it very difficult for outsiders to get involved. It's nothing to do with fear of losing or anything like that, it's just an unnecessary step that has too high a risk of causing either conflict or leading to an unsatisfying game.

AoS had its most balanced period starting at about 6 months in, when several fan comps had solidified to offer points that were revised based on testing & feedback. Those were good times for me; I could make a list however I wanted and show up to play anyone else expecting a decent game. I didn't have to worry if my list was too strong or too weak, didn't have to ask ahead of time what my opponent was bringing so I could match it in strength. I could just run what I wanted to run.

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

Because they're a bunch of content stealing, sensationalist, clickbaity scum. A guy on Reddit, who attended the tournament they were at told the full story where these were temporary stand-ins as the actual models did not turn up in time and no-one gave a gak. Only Spikeybits trying to stir up some gak made this an issue.

 Grimtuff wrote:

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

Because they're a bunch of content stealing, sensationalist, clickbaity scum. A guy on Reddit, who attended the tournament they were at told the full story where these were temporary stand-ins as the actual models did not turn up in time and no-one gave a gak. Only Spikeybits trying to stir up some gak made this an issue.

This. Spikey Bitz needs to be consigned to the compost heap of bad 40k sites that trade on controversy.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Sqorgar wrote:
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.

Of course nobody tried it. It's a system that is clearly worse than the conventional point system so why waste time on proving that 1+1=2? The only reason to even consider playing a game that way is because GW, out of sheer unbelievable incompetence, failed to provide anything better and nearly killed half of their company in the process. If you have a functioning point system available there's no reason to use anything else.

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.

Campaigns can do well for certain things. But:

1) Campaign systems are useless for pickup gaming. A game that can only function if you can devote weeks/months to playing an extended campaign is a game that will hardly ever be played just for logistics reasons. The expectation is that two players can show up to a store, quickly agree on the details of the game (usually picking from a standard format or three), and start playing. A game that fails to support this is, at best, a niche-market product and is likely to be a financial failure.

2) Campaign systems, unless they are played between very similar forces, still require a conventional point system to set up the initial unit pool for each player and determine what can appear in a particular game. Maybe Necromunda works without it because everyone is playing the same poorly-equipped street gangs and any differences between forces are minor, but that kind of thing can't handle a game where you can have guardsmen and space marines fighting on the same battlefield.

3) Campaign systems are extremely vulnerable to snowball effects. The winner of one game gains advantages, making them more likely to win the next game and gain even more advantages. Often the campaign is decided in all but name by early successes and the rest of the campaign is a tedious slog through one-sided battles until the loser is finally officially eliminated. This isn't an automatic failure, of course, but campaign systems that appear to have even a chance of avoiding it seem few and far between.

But it probably isn't better than something else.

Not true at all. Point systems are the single most effective way of evaluating the strength of an army and allowing pickup games between customized forces. Other alternatives either don't work or are just point systems that are less accurate than they could be.

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

Uh, no, that's not how it would work at all.

1) Most of those list building ideas are just plain terrible. Nobody is going to play a game where you bring $200 worth of models because the dollar cost of the models is a terrible way of evaluating the strength of an army and creating a game where each player has a fair chance of winning. It doesn't matter if a game publisher puts that format in their rulebook, it's going to have zero effect on the game.

2) Competitive players can play multiple formats. Just like MTG players have standard decks, modern decks, and a lot of practice with drafting a competitive miniatures player would have armies for multiple formats. All of them would be competitive and optimized for that particular format. In fact, the non-competitive player would likely be at more of a disadvantage because they'd have an army that works ok in the format it was built for and not have the experience or interest to make it function at all effectively when the list building rules change.

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.

Well yes, of course it rarely, if ever, happened outside of theory. Everyone realized how incredibly stupid AoS's army construction rules were as soon as they were published and went straight to work on third-party point systems. And the game was pretty much dead until those third-party point systems were established. So no, "nobody really exploited that" isn't very convincing when the reason is that nobody was playing AoS until the exploit was no longer legal.

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.

If you're so afraid of competitive players that it has ruined your experience then that's a problem with you and your lack of social skills. And the competitive players could equally legitimately argue that people like you have ruined the community by making them afraid to have to deal with a "casual" player and all their self-serving unwritten rules about what is playing "the right way".


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Sqorgar wrote:
The list building is part of personalization and player identity, and should be viewed in exactly the same manner as which color your paint your models. It is absolutely not intended to be a spreadsheet that you minmax to model your army for advantage. People do that because they can, not because they are supposed to, should, or told to.

That's an awful lot of words to spend on saying "you're having fun the wrong way because I don't enjoy that".

As loathe I am to admit it, Peregrine has made several points quite well.

 Peregrine wrote:

Of course nobody tried it. It's a system that is clearly worse than the conventional point system so why waste time on proving that 1+1=2? The only reason to even consider playing a game that way is because GW, out of sheer unbelievable incompetence, failed to provide anything better and nearly killed half of their company in the process. If you have a functioning point system available there's no reason to use anything else.

It's not worse than regular points. It's pretty much the exact same thing. When there is some ultimate limitation, people will naturally try to minmax it to some degree. So, if one unit is clearly a better value (be it in points or wounds), they'll choose to play that. Just like 2000 points of one army is by no means equal to 2000 points of another army, 30 wounds of one army is not equal to 30 wounds of another army, but for some reason, you think the latter is unbalanced because of it.

My point is that nobody actually tried it. It doesn't matter if it was better or worse - people made assumptions about it and never bothered to test those assumptions. I see people doing mathhammer theorycrafting all the time, making assumptions about how units play based on theories built around faulty premises and misunderstandings of how statistics work. More than anything about the competitive community, I hate how they think they are a lot better at math than they really are.

1) Campaign systems are useless for pickup gaming....A game that fails to support this is, at best, a niche-market product and is likely to be a financial failure.

While games like Frostgrave and Necromunda do technically support pick up games, their popularity is entirely due to campaign play. Granted, most people who play these games are playing with friends on kitchen tables rather than going and playing strangers at game centers - but I think more people play games in this manner than not. With miniature games increasingly targeting solo and coop, I think kitchen table campaign play will become more of the standard way to play miniature games rather than game center competitive matched play with strangers. Being useless for pickup gaming may actually be a selling point one day soon.

3) Campaign systems are extremely vulnerable to snowball effects.

Some are. Some use handicaps. Some use a variety of unbalanced scenarios that can allow even the underdogs to be overpowered in a scenario. And some make it so that the underdogs can gang up against the leader, keeping them in check. I think many, if not most, campaign style games have something in them to slow snowballing, just like many three player games have something in them to keep kingmaking from being the dominant strategy.

Not true at all. Point systems are the single most effective way of evaluating the strength of an army and allowing pickup games between customized forces. Other alternatives either don't work or are just point systems that are less accurate than they could be.

Are they? It should be pointed out that the most popular tournament customizable game doesn't use points at all (Magic the Gathering). There's pickup games of that all the time.

And points will only be an accurate evaluation of any army if they start measuring interactions. For example:
- Multiples tax. Each unit of the same type costs more (having three bloodthirsters is not equal to three times the power of one bloodthirster).
- Combo tax. Units that work well together should cost more when used together than when they are used separately.
- Environment tax. An amphibious ability is worthless in a desert, valuable in a swamp. Pay more for in the swamp.
- Exploitation tax. Certain strategies and combos are absurdly powerful and game breaking. This should be included in the cost of the army divided by the chance of it occurring. A strong strategy that happens once every 10 games should be 10x cheaper than a strong strategy that happens every game - but both should cost something.

And so on. Basing the points only on the internal stats of a unit and ignoring how that unit interacts with the table, the enemy, and its allies will never produce a point value that accurately represents its true value in the game.

1) Most of those list building ideas are just plain terrible. Nobody is going to play a game where you bring $200 worth of models because the dollar cost of the models is a terrible way of evaluating the strength of an army and creating a game where each player has a fair chance of winning. It doesn't matter if a game publisher puts that format in their rulebook, it's going to have zero effect on the game.

I think we've already established that competitive gamers aren't interested in fair games. They want to minmax points in order to give themselves a clear advantage when possible. Whether it is 200 points or $200, that's still possible. My point is that if you have a dozen different systems by which armies are built, it prevents a single meta from defining the value of a model. If you really like a particular character, you can find a format in which he is worth playing.

2) Competitive players can play multiple formats.

But they generally don't. At least in 40k. AoS just released rules for a new Meeting Engagements format for 1000 pt armies, and I guess we'll see if this becomes popular enough to change the meta surrounding AoS - but I get the impression that competitive gamers are far less dominant in AoS, and that AoS players are perfectly happy playing Skirmish, Path of Glory, Meeting Engagements, and 2000 pt Pitched Battles without any one of them becoming the "Right Way to Play". I think AoS's Three Ways to Play is more generalized across the line than 40k's. Like, I think 40k needed Kill Team to be a separate game for people to be okay with playing it, while AoS was okay making Skirmish a minor variation of the regular rules.

Well yes, of course it rarely, if ever, happened outside of theory. Everyone realized how incredibly stupid AoS's army construction rules were as soon as they were published and went straight to work on third-party point systems. And the game was pretty much dead until those third-party point systems were established. So no, "nobody really exploited that" isn't very convincing when the reason is that nobody was playing AoS until the exploit was no longer legal.

This is some revisionist history.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
AoS had its most balanced period starting at about 6 months in, when several fan comps had solidified to offer points that were revised based on testing & feedback. Those were good times for me; I could make a list however I wanted and show up to play anyone else expecting a decent game. I didn't have to worry if my list was too strong or too weak, didn't have to ask ahead of time what my opponent was bringing so I could match it in strength. I could just run what I wanted to run.

The day that "official points" came back to AOS was a bad bad day for me for that very reason. I knew things would go back to the same old same old GW with the same old same old listbuilding tea-bagging and chasing the meta year after year churn and burn.

 Sqorgar wrote:
It's not worse than regular points. It's pretty much the exact same thing. When there is some ultimate limitation, people will naturally try to minmax it to some degree. So, if one unit is clearly a better value (be it in points or wounds), they'll choose to play that. Just like 2000 points of one army is by no means equal to 2000 points of another army, 30 wounds of one army is not equal to 30 wounds of another army, but for some reason, you think the latter is unbalanced because of it.

It absolutely is worse. A conventional point system can, in theory, come close to a correct evaluation of an army and a balanced metagame, especially if you're talking about a less-competitive environment where everything isn't pushed to the limits. It may not always work, but the flaws are with the execution of the system not with the idea. A system of "take a monster, a hero, and a few units" suffers from fatal conceptual flaws and can't work in a game like AoS. As long as "a hero" or "a monster" applies to units of vastly different strengths trying to count out a number of each for each player will lead to broken results. Adding up 30 wounds for each side can't possibly be balanced when 30 wounds with a 2+ save and 30 wounds with a 6+ save both count as 30 wounds. Etc. And, assuming even minimal competence from the people creating the point system, the points will have fewer unbalanced units to exploit and their margin of superiority will be less extreme.

So yes, nobody tried it, because it's an obvious dead end that doesn't hold up under even superficial analysis. At absolute best it might be on par with a badly executed conventional point system and it's probably going to be worse. So why waste time on something that fails so badly on a conceptual level?

While games like Frostgrave and Necromunda do technically support pick up games, their popularity is entirely due to campaign play. Granted, most people who play these games are playing with friends on kitchen tables rather than going and playing strangers at game centers - but I think more people play games in this manner than not. With miniature games increasingly targeting solo and coop, I think kitchen table campaign play will become more of the standard way to play miniature games rather than game center competitive matched play with strangers. Being useless for pickup gaming may actually be a selling point one day soon.

This seems rather out of touch with reality. 40k is designed to support pickup games. AoS is designed to support pickup games. LOTR is designed to support pickup games. Kill Team is designed to support pickup games (and has a whole competitive play expansion to go with its campaign system). Blood Bowl is designed to support pickup games. In fact, the only GW games that aren't designed with support for pickup games are what, some of the more niche-market fantasy ones? And going outside of the dominant company in the market X-Wing is designed primarily for pickup games, WM/H is designed primarily for tournament-style pickup games, Infinity is designed to support pickup games, etc. In fact I can't honestly think of a major game on the market that isn't either designed primarily for pickup-style games or at least giving support to that style of play.

Are they? It should be pointed out that the most popular tournament customizable game doesn't use points at all (Magic the Gathering). There's pickup games of that all the time.

That's a terrible comparison because MTG has essentially nothing to do with miniatures games. The mechanics are completely different and the purpose that points serve in a typical miniatures game doesn't exist in MTG because of how the mana system constrains the power level of what you can play (helped by WOTC being willing to have 95% of the game be draft fodder that never sees constructed play).

And points will only be an accurate evaluation of any army if they start measuring interactions.

Not true at all. Points will only be a perfectly accurate evaluation if they do those things. But perfectly accurate is not the same as accurate enough to do the job. For example, you can simply price the amphibious rule based on a 50/50 chance at relevant water features being present, with the understanding that in most cases (and all tournament cases, where competitive optimization has its strongest presence) players are selecting their units before they know the terrain layout and over a large number of games the value of the rule will work out to about that much. Or maybe taking multiple copies of a unit does provide additional value, but the additional value is small enough that it doesn't skew the overall win percentages too badly.

And of course it needs to be noted that no other balancing mechanic does any better. A system of "bring $200 worth of models" doesn't evaluate the strength of ignoring water features any better than conventional points. The 40k PL system is just a less accurate point system and has the same inability to account for combos or spamming. So yes, the conventional point system isn't perfect, but it's still better than any other alternative.

If you really like a particular character, you can find a format in which he is worth playing.

Assuming that anyone plays these alternative formats. Nobody is going to play the $200 format, so who cares if a character is great in that format? And how exactly is lobbying for a certain balance system because it favors your army any better than building an army to be effective within a standard point system?

But they generally don't.

Well yes, because in the real world there is only one relevant format: matched play with points. Playing a 1000 point game or a 1500 point game or a 2000 point game is still matched play with points. If there was a genuinely interesting and relevant alternative format competitive players would probably use it, and if they did use it they'd still be playing competitively in that format. But currently the only "alternatives" are irrelevant nonsense that have no reason to exist.

And Kill Team is an entirely separate game with very different mechanics, not an alternative 40k format. Trying to claim that it had to be a separate game to appease the 40k tournament players is like trying to say that BFG had to be a separate game because nobody would play it as an alternative 40k format.

This is some revisionist history.

Hardly. The financial numbers speak for themselves. AoS had dismal sales numbers on launch, GW's profits took a significant hit, and AoS didn't recover until it had conventional point systems added (first from third party sources and eventually by GW, just as soon as they could get a book rushed through the print cycle).

 Peregrine wrote:

This seems rather out of touch with reality. 40k is designed to support pickup games. AoS is designed to support pickup games. LOTR is designed to support pickup games. Kill Team is designed to support pickup games (and has a whole competitive play expansion to go with its campaign system). Blood Bowl is designed to support pickup games. In fact, the only GW games that aren't designed with support for pickup games are what, some of the more niche-market fantasy ones? And going outside of the dominant company in the market X-Wing is designed primarily for pickup games, WM/H is designed primarily for tournament-style pickup games, Infinity is designed to support pickup games, etc. In fact I can't honestly think of a major game on the market that isn't either designed primarily for pickup-style games or at least giving support to that style of play.

It doesn’t take a genius to see where the industry is going. Campaigns are becoming more omnipresent, while matched play is increasing less emphasized. Walking Dead: All Out War, Fallout (and Skyrim), Rangers of the Shadow Deep, most Osprey games (Frostgrave, Last Days, Ragnarok, Dracula’s America, etc), Necromunda, Blood Bowl, Warhammer Quest. Then look at some of the recent expansions for other games. Kill Team had Rogue Trader, Armada’s next expansion is a campaign, Infinity’s latest book adds the Paradiso campaign, Warmachine is getting Oblivion, 40k recently got Urban Chaos, Middle Earth has Gondor at War, AoS has Path of Glory and Firestorm - and we don’t even know what is going on with Warcry yet (all signs point to a campaign game).

At the very least, you can say that there is enough interest in campaign games to support several popular game systems (Frostgrave, Necromunda), new games are being created that are campaign focused (Fallout, Skyrim, Rangers of the Shadow Deep), and that even older miniature games are now starting to see the value in campaign games. I mean, Warmachine is getting a campaign. Warmachine!

Maybe, 40k’s tournament style is like Magic or World of Warcraft. There’s really only room for one big one and everybody else is scrambling around for table scraps. You can find a game of 40k at your local game shop, but will it be a fun one? Meanwhile, Infinity is nowhere to be seen in the local meta. Sooner or later, they are going to realize that they’ll find more success appealing to kitchen table gamers over tournament gamers. Campaign games are just the first volley in that particular salvo. Next, I think AI opponents and solo/coop play is going to be the big thing (WD:AOW, Fallout, Skyrim, WHQ, Rangers of the Shadow Deep, Deadzone). AI opponents is a relatively new feature, but it is going to become increasingly common and tournament gamers will end up being replaced by tables and dice rolls - to the hobby’s benefit. Nobody really likes pickup games. As soon as necessary evils stop being necessary, people stop doing them.

 Sqorgar wrote:
Nobody really likes pickup games.

I really like a lot of what you've posted in this thread, but I don't believe you've asked everybody so this statement just won't fly. I, for one, don't mind pick-up games per se. I don't like getting stomped, but a pick-up game doesn't automatically guarantee that I will.

Honestly pick up games are intersting if you really like surprises.
And are also willing to negotiate with each other.

 Sqorgar wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

This seems rather out of touch with reality. 40k is designed to support pickup games. AoS is designed to support pickup games. LOTR is designed to support pickup games. Kill Team is designed to support pickup games (and has a whole competitive play expansion to go with its campaign system). Blood Bowl is designed to support pickup games. In fact, the only GW games that aren't designed with support for pickup games are what, some of the more niche-market fantasy ones? And going outside of the dominant company in the market X-Wing is designed primarily for pickup games, WM/H is designed primarily for tournament-style pickup games, Infinity is designed to support pickup games, etc. In fact I can't honestly think of a major game on the market that isn't either designed primarily for pickup-style games or at least giving support to that style of play.

It doesn’t take a genius to see where the industry is going. Campaigns are becoming more omnipresent, while matched play is increasing less emphasized. Walking Dead: All Out War, Fallout (and Skyrim), Rangers of the Shadow Deep, most Osprey games (Frostgrave, Last Days, Ragnarok, Dracula’s America, etc), Necromunda, Blood Bowl, Warhammer Quest. Then look at some of the recent expansions for other games. Kill Team had Rogue Trader, Armada’s next expansion is a campaign, Infinity’s latest book adds the Paradiso campaign, Warmachine is getting Oblivion, 40k recently got Urban Chaos, Middle Earth has Gondor at War, AoS has Path of Glory and Firestorm - and we don’t even know what is going on with Warcry yet (all signs point to a campaign game).

At the very least, you can say that there is enough interest in campaign games to support several popular game systems (Frostgrave, Necromunda), new games are being created that are campaign focused (Fallout, Skyrim, Rangers of the Shadow Deep), and that even older miniature games are now starting to see the value in campaign games. I mean, Warmachine is getting a campaign. Warmachine!

Maybe, 40k’s tournament style is like Magic or World of Warcraft. There’s really only room for one big one and everybody else is scrambling around for table scraps. You can find a game of 40k at your local game shop, but will it be a fun one? Meanwhile, Infinity is nowhere to be seen in the local meta. Sooner or later, they are going to realize that they’ll find more success appealing to kitchen table gamers over tournament gamers. Campaign games are just the first volley in that particular salvo. Next, I think AI opponents and solo/coop play is going to be the big thing (WD:AOW, Fallout, Skyrim, WHQ, Rangers of the Shadow Deep, Deadzone). AI opponents is a relatively new feature, but it is going to become increasingly common and tournament gamers will end up being replaced by tables and dice rolls - to the hobby’s benefit. Nobody really likes pickup games. As soon as necessary evils stop being necessary, people stop doing them.

That all seems like it's grasping at straws a bit. All of those systems you mention are insignificant in terms of market share even when compared to relatively smaller games like Infinity or Malifaux and are entirely inconsequential next to the likes of 40k, AoS and even the likes of WM/H and Bolt Action. I suspect the popularity of these kind of systems among manufacturers is the lower costs associated with games that aren't mass battle systems. However, I wouldn't call any of the games you've listed as being particularly popular or relevant in the market when taken as a whole. They're small fry. That in itself is possibly an indication that your argument is flawed - the biggest games aren't of the type you're saying the industry is headed towards. The most successful companies are producing pick-up games as their most successful products. The reason seems simple to me: convenience. The big problem all campaign-style games have always had is the extra effort required to run them and the inability to easily just jump in whenever you want. They cater to a small part of an already niche group.

Your conclusions seem to fly in the face of the rising popularity of 40k as a system in general and the huge increase we've seen in numbers at competitive events. I'd argue your point about Inifinty (for example) being nowhere to be seen in the local meta apply even more so to most systems you mention in your opening paragraph, with the possible exception of other GW games. Local metas are easily skewed by one or two enthusiastic gamers or random chance of a game picking up steam. When you look at it on a wider scale you get a more accurate picture, and all these games like Walking Dead or Fallout have absolutely tiny market share and penetration.

The vast bulk of all 40k games played in my area are pickup games.

 Sqorgar wrote:
Nobody really likes pickup games. As soon as necessary evils stop being necessary, people stop doing them.

Wo there. Pick up games are an important part of a hobby. A hobby world where pick up games are frowned upon is not one that I want to be in. I've met most of my wargaming friends through pick up games at one point or another. When I learned how to play 40K, I would show up to a hobby shop and play a game with somebody I've never met because my friends never met. I've played wargaming through 2 moves across the United States, and I wouldn't have been able to do that without pick up games.

Maybe you have this amazing friend group with a wide degree of different armies and playstyles and can get awesome games in all the time... as well as such stability in your life that you don't need to introduce new people into the community. But the truth is most of us aren't so blessed. Sure I've met some lame people out there, but I've also met some really good people out there. And being able to play a game where everybodies expectations are in line is an amazing experience. Even when I play games with my buddies we usually don't do full on campaigns. Because we don't always play regularly, and we like jumping systems, and there are a huge variety of reasons why a player might not want to commit to a campaign system.

Honestly... to use a Churchillhism "Points are the worst form of balance, except for all the others". There are balanced points systems, or at least more balanced points systems. Truthfully, people attacking points are more often than not just excusing Games Workshop's shoddy profit oriented balancing, by saying;

"Its not GWs fault the game isn't balanced, points are a flawed system, its the players fault for abusing it"

That is ridiculous. Book 1 and Book 2 Malifaux 2E were point based and exceptionally well balanced, with far more complex game workings than 40K. Warlord's Bolt Action is points based and while far from perfect is far closer to balanced than GW. The 9th Age is more balanced than any edition of WFB that I had played. I haven't played a mini game that is perfectly balanced, I probably never will, but I have played minigames that are more balanced than GW products. I love GW, I have played 40K and Fantasy for a long time now, and their world building is best in class. But I am not going to make any excuses for the shoddy game design that leads to massive imbalances.

 auticus wrote:
The vast bulk of all 40k games played in my area are pickup games.

Same. I have a feeling that sqorgar didn't really do his research to back up his statements.

Slipspace wrote:
That all seems like it's grasping at straws a bit. All of those systems you mention are insignificant in terms of market share even when compared to relatively smaller games like Infinity or Malifaux and are entirely inconsequential next to the likes of 40k,

With the exception of a few games, the entirety of miniature gaming is small potatoes. A healthy industry has variety in purpose and audience, but competitive gaming does allow for variety of purpose or audience. The smaller games must differentiate themselves from the market leader to find a niche audience - and that can’t happen with a competitive mindset. And remember, Infinity isn’t just competing against 40k. It’s also competing against board games (especially with Aristeia and Defiance). Increasingly, miniature games are being hybridized with the board game market.

However, I wouldn't call any of the games you've listed as being particularly popular or relevant in the market when taken as a whole. They're small fry. That in itself is possibly an indication that your argument is flawed - the biggest games aren't of the type you're saying the industry is headed towards.

But that’s my point. Something like Frostgrave could NEVER succeed as a competitive game. The market can’t support many of those. Because it is purely a kitchen table miniature game, it has found success (a dozen expansions, two spin offs, and a miniature line) despite originally intended to be a one off book and nothing more.

The most successful companies are producing pick-up games as their most successful products.

But there’s only 2 of them (GW, FFG). The next biggest miniatures line is D&D unpainted! Games like Warmachine are only popular when 40k is not. Competitive gaming is a zero sum game. Competitive gamers are neither created nor destroyed, they just change games. That’s an industry that can not grow or even really support the sheer volume of miniatures being released ever month.

The reason seems simple to me: convenience. The big problem all campaign-style games have always had is the extra effort required to run them and the inability to easily just jump in whenever you want. They cater to a small part of an already niche group.

Board games like Imperial Assault, Shadows of Brimstone, Arkham Horror, Arcadia Quest, etc are all more popular than Infinity or Malifaux. Campaigns aren’t the problem. The problem is that campaign players usually don’t all invest in their own copies of the game. How do you sell a player on something like that when they have to buy the books and miniatures, then list build before they even know if they like it?

auticus wrote:The vast bulk of all 40k games played in my area are pickup games.

How would you know, when they aren’t playing where you can see them? I think for every game of 40k you see, there’s probably a dozen games you don’t see, played in dens or on kitchen tables.

akaean wrote:Pick up games are an important part of a hobby.

Not for board games. And that industry is arguably heartier and more successful than the miniature game hobby (it does have an unsustainable addiction to kickstarter though). At the very least, there is plenty of room in that hobby for expansion and different player types.

That is ridiculous. Book 1 and Book 2 Malifaux 2E were point based and exceptionally well balanced,

And what happened with books 3 and beyond? Out can balance small games or a known, static version of the game. Infinitely expanding games ALWAYS become increasingly unbalanced over time. M2E’s first two books were written at the same time, balancing the existing models from 1E. After that, new models changed the formula. You can’t successful chase balance as a moving target. Not for long.

Warlord's Bolt Action is points based and while far from perfect is far closer to balanced than GW. The 9th Age is more balanced than any edition of WFB that I had played.

Haven’t played these, but isn’t Bolt Actions between armies of roughly similar abilities and make up? And does 9th Age have new releases to catch up to?

 Sqorgar wrote:

auticus wrote:The vast bulk of all 40k games played in my area are pickup games.

How would you know, when they aren’t playing where you can see them? I think for every game of 40k you see, there’s probably a dozen games you don’t see, played in dens or on kitchen tables.

How would YOU know? I really doubt this is true. In basically every 40k forum or facebook group I see, most people play at a FLGS or GW, or at tournaments. Some have home gaming setups, but those are not as common. The fact that you need a 6x4 table with a large amount of terrain to play 40k really pushes it towards a gaming store environment, where these things are supplied.

How would you know, when they aren’t playing where you can see them? I think for every game of 40k you see, there’s probably a dozen games you don’t see, played in dens or on kitchen tables.

I run a facebook group for my city for our wargaming community. It currently has 623 members. Nearly all games played by those people are played as pickup games or tournaments.

The number of games played at home in the kitchen or wherever are miniscule.

There is another city wide get together of people that play RPGs and wargames, with a lot of crossover. Again with them, nearly all games are played in public as pickup games or event games.

The RPGs have a lot more played at home groups. Wargames, not so much.

Unless there are legions of players in my area that completely buy all of their product online and never go to a store, nearly all games are public pick up or tournament games. There are some games played at home, but those are by and far the stark minority.

And I know that seems to be very common with a lot of people spread out across the USA. I can't speak to europe or other places.

Horst wrote:
How would YOU know? I really doubt this is true. In basically every 40k forum or facebook group I see, most people play at a FLGS or GW, or at tournaments. Some have home gaming setups, but those are not as common. The fact that you need a 6x4 table with a large amount of terrain to play 40k really pushes it towards a gaming store environment, where these things are supplied.

auticus wrote:Unless there are legions of players in my area that completely buy all of their product online and never go to a store, nearly all games are public pick up or tournament games. There are some games played at home, but those are by and far the stark minority.

And I know that seems to be very common with a lot of people spread out across the USA. I can't speak to europe or other places.

So, people’s local worldview skews their answers to this one quite a bit. A few points as someone who has played in various different situations on both sides of the Atlantic.

- First, GWs market includes an absolute TON of kids and younger teenagers playing against friends and siblings at home on the kitchen table or in after school clubs. All of those games count, as they’re a valid market GW aim at. I would guess that those games outnumber adults at the FLGS.

- Pickup games seem to be really common in the US, but relatively uncommon outside that. Most European gaming situations I’ve been in have been at games clubs, where people organise games ahead of time through Facebook groups or the like. Especially here in London, you’re not going to carry an army around on public transport on the offchance you might get a game!

- Tournaments are a terrible measure of how much ‘competitive 40k’ there is because tournaments are also social events, and the majority of people at a tournament aren’t really there expecting to compete or to win. Those people do exist, but in my experience the majority of tournament attendees are there for a weekend of gaming and beer with new people. I’m certainly not a competitive player and I go to tournaments pretty often.

- GW have not made a game ‘for pickup games’. Matched play does not equal pickup games, and even if it did, ⅔ of the ways to play are specifically non-Matched. I think it’s pretry clear that GW primarily make a narrative war game centred around cool action and playing friends, but realise that some people like to play pickup games and tournaments and cater for them too.