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Are they playing a game? If yes, then they're a gamer. Simple.
What is the preferred method of when narrative play Jim jumps in and says something stupid on Competitive play Tim's thread about how he lost to X at a Tournament?
I don't know what this has to do with this thread, or your comment, seeing as Narrative Play Jim isn't turning round to Competitive Play Tim and calling him a fake gamer just because he plays the game in a different way.
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Reemule wrote: ...when you can't resist saying something in competitive play threads...
Mate, ClockworkZion STARTED this thread. You can't exactly complain at him for "commenting in a competive play thread" when he created it.
You might have missed the context. Reread? I'm aware he started the thread.
I did reread it, and it was just as flawed, as was your first post on this thread, gatekeeping who is and is not a "gamer".
Are they playing a game? If yes, then they're a gamer. Simple.
What is the preferred method of when narrative play Jim jumps in and says something stupid on Competitive play Tim's thread about how he lost to X at a Tournament?
I don't know what this has to do with this thread, or your comment, seeing as Narrative Play Jim isn't turning round to Competitive Play Tim and calling him a fake gamer just because he plays the game in a different way.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Reemule wrote: ...when you can't resist saying something in competitive play threads...
Mate, ClockworkZion STARTED this thread. You can't exactly complain at him for "commenting in a competive play thread" when he created it.
You might have missed the context. Reread? I'm aware he started the thread.
The context is I started the discussion and you're trying to kick me out of it just because I don't play ITC level tournaments.
I'm not jumping into other people's discussions, you jumped into one I started and have been a part of since the beginning and are now trying to tell me to go away because you want to gate keep the term "gamer" while claiming competitive play was the entire reason I started this discussion.
Reemule wrote: So the only people who are any good in america at "exploitative play" are the same 20 odd people that keep ending up at the top tables? Year after year? No one else is good at it?
There are two types of winning lists in tournaments:
1. The unbeatable list 2. The counter to the unbeatable list
Tactics & strategy is so one-dimensional in this so called "wargame". Shoot, or be shot (or smash captained).
I may not be cultured enough in the competitive scene - can you provide me some links to any tournament coverage where a player outwitted and outmaneuvered another player with an inferior list for a win? Because all of the coverage I've read and watched talked about who brought what list and why/how nothing could be done to it.
Now, I get it - you've spent time and money to attend these major events. Of course, you;d want to walk away with a big trophy, and this means having to maximize one's chance of winning. But the chances of winning aren't determined by how good of a strategist you are and how well you can outwit the other player, but nearly 100% at list building.
Look at how many variants of knights/IG/imperium flavor of the month there were prior to the castellan nerf. Look at how many variants of knights/IG/Imperium flavor of the month there are now. A single change made so many other lists viable & top tier competitive. This is what we're asking for - bridging the power gap as to open the doors for other non-cookie cutter builds.
This message was edited 7 times. Last update was at 2019/09/11 20:19:00
This kinda makes me wonder why, when balance is brought up, not everyone is "on board" with building a more balanced game. At the end of the day, everyone benefits when the units and models they love are balanced well with the other options. I'm in the (likely majority) group of folks who fit into the "competitively casual" description. I just want to be able to field Killa Kanz, or Burna Boyz, or even a Stompa and for my opponent to also be able to field all the units they want to, and for us both to play to the best of our ability while doing so. Don't think this is too outrageous of a desire.
flandarz wrote: This kinda makes me wonder why, when balance is brought up, not everyone is "on board" with building a more balanced game. At the end of the day, everyone benefits when the units and models they love are balanced well with the other options. I'm in the (likely majority) group of folks who fit into the "competitively casual" description. I just want to be able to field Killa Kanz, or Burna Boyz, or even a Stompa and for my opponent to also be able to field all the units they want to, and for us both to play to the best of our ability while doing so. Don't think this is too outrageous of a desire.
I feel like most of us are, but the problem is what we feel balanced to actually feel like is the problem. You ask four different people you're likely to get five different answers.
I applaud the studio for trying to capture the feeling of the lore and the models in the rules. It's a good design feature, but the way they value certain rules and stats (like anything to do with melee) over others is part of the problem. It doesn't look like they plan to kill 8th edition anytime soon so it'll be a while before we see core parts of the rules reworked to improve the game, so all we can really hope for is something to come out in CA to patch the core mechanics, while the codexes improve in quality as they get updated.
flandarz wrote: This kinda makes me wonder why, when balance is brought up, not everyone is "on board" with building a more balanced game. At the end of the day, everyone benefits when the units and models they love are balanced well with the other options. I'm in the (likely majority) group of folks who fit into the "competitively casual" description. I just want to be able to field Killa Kanz, or Burna Boyz, or even a Stompa and for my opponent to also be able to field all the units they want to, and for us both to play to the best of our ability while doing so. Don't think this is too outrageous of a desire.
I feel like most of us are, but the problem is what we feel balanced to actually feel like is the problem. You ask four different people you're likely to get five different answers.
.
Most folks, including myself, actually, will be on board with the 'idea' of balance-of a balanced game- or at least, a game that has tighter/cleaner/tidier rules, and rightly so, more or less, but whilst folks might agree with the idea of wanting this, I wonder how many are willing to go ahead and actually pay the price to acheive it, or really, what that price should be.
As an example of a solution, and it's consequences, someone, much earlier in the thread pointed out gw's games are generally quite bloated in terms of content (fair point) and posed the question - 'would you rather a hundred choices, where ten percent are 'at a level', or twenty choices where three quarters are 'at a level'.
Now, fair point. Fewer choices are easier to balance. So let's run with this. What twenty choices are we saving from the pit for the 'new balanced' game (while we kill off everything else). What are we cutting? and can we square that circle without screwing over a huge amount of people by deleting their armies? Is this a business model thst can sustain a company?
Spoiler:
I've played a lot of different Wargames - some good, some bad, most interesting. And some, like warmachine implemented a lot of features to balance the game - for example with WMH, the game I am most familiar with - played it from mk1- you had multiple win conditions (scenario, kill the caster) and multi-list formats as general features of the game, character limitations, the killing power versus survivability was ridiculous, to the point where while it empowered you by letting you be Able to kill stuff, the flip side was stats like armour was irrelevant a lot of the time, especially for single wound infantry. These features for the most part, went a long way towards making a more balanced game, though while generally, but not always 'good enough', it still had its howlers. Infinity is, essentially if modelled with 40k terms, flak armoured, or carapace armoured guardsmen or veteran guardsmen with Lasguns, autoguns and them ocasional heavy stubbers. It's a small scale skirmish game where the biggest thing is a crisis suit. It is, in my opinion, the most technically brilliant wargame out there (but a headache to play) with the best metal models. But tell the 40k community at large that crisis suits are the biggest things in the game from now on. The outrage will be tsunami-like.
That said, these features stirred up a huge amount of negativity amongst people who didn't like them ('I hate kill the king! Killing a warcaster shouldn't end the game!' And 'why should I have to buy TWO armies for this'?! Would be two frequently seen responses, amongst many more) so it's no time so simple as saying 'these companies do it. Why can't gw?' The truth is, if they did, they'd cop flak for whatever decision they'd make. There isn't no magic lever to pull. And regardless of what you do, there is a price to be paid, and I don't think a lot of people, for all the talk actually want to pay that tab or want the responsibility. And I suspect, that while some folks claim not to be looking for 'perfect' balance, and that this is a strawman, but will be happy for 'better' balance, I don't think you will see any let up in the criticisms, as I suspect 'better' will never actually be 'good enough'.
This message was edited 5 times. Last update was at 2019/09/11 22:38:11
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flandarz wrote: This kinda makes me wonder why, when balance is brought up, not everyone is "on board" with building a more balanced game. At the end of the day, everyone benefits when the units and models they love are balanced well with the other options. I'm in the (likely majority) group of folks who fit into the "competitively casual" description. I just want to be able to field Killa Kanz, or Burna Boyz, or even a Stompa and for my opponent to also be able to field all the units they want to, and for us both to play to the best of our ability while doing so. Don't think this is too outrageous of a desire.
I feel like most of us are, but the problem is what we feel balanced to actually feel like is the problem. You ask four different people you're likely to get five different answers.
.
Most folks, including myself, actually, will be on board with the 'idea' of balance-of a balanced game- or at least, a game that has tighter/cleaner/tidier rules, and rightly so, more or less, but whilst folks might agree with the idea of wanting this, I wonder how many are willing to go ahead and actually pay the price to acheive it, or really, what that price should be.
As an example of a solution, and it's consequences, someone, much earlier in the thread pointed out gw's games are generally quite bloated in terms of content (fair point) and posed the question - 'would you rather a hundred choices, where ten percent are 'at a level', or twenty choices where three quarters are 'at a level'.
Now, fair point. Fewer choices are easier to balance. So let's run with this. What twenty choices are we saving from the pit for the 'new balanced' game (while we kill off everything else). What are we cutting? and can we square that circle without screwing over a huge amount of people by deleting their armies? Is this a business model thst can sustain a company?
Spoiler:
I've played a lot of different Wargames - some good, some bad, most interesting. And some, like warmachine implemented a lot of features to balance the game - for example with WMH, the game I am most familiar with - played it from mk1- you had multiple win conditions (scenario, kill the caster) and multi-list formats as general features of the game, character limitations, the killing power versus survivability was ridiculous, to the point where while it empowered you by letting you be Able to kill stuff, the flip side was stats like armour was irrelevant a lot of the time, especially for single wound infantry. These features for the most part, went a long way towards making a more balanced game, though while generally, but not always 'good enough', it still had its howlers. Infinity is, essentially if modelled with 40k terms, flak armoured, or carapace armoured guardsmen or veteran guardsmen with Lasguns, autoguns and them ocasional heavy stubbers. It's a small scale skirmish game where the biggest thing is a crisis suit. It is, in my opinion, the most technically brilliant wargame out there (but a headache to play) with the best metal models. But tell the 40k community at large that crisis suits are the biggest things in the game from now on. The outrage will be tsunami-like.
That said, these features stirred up a huge amount of negativity amongst people who didn't like them ('I hate kill the king! Killing a warcaster shouldn't end the game!' And 'why should I have to buy TWO armies for this'?! Would be two frequently seen responses, amongst many more) so it's no time so simple as saying 'these companies do it. Why can't gw?' The truth is, if they did, they'd cop flak for whatever decision they'd make. There isn't no magic lever to pull. And regardless of what you do, there is a price to be paid, and I don't think a lot of people, for all the talk actually want to pay that tab or want the responsibility. And I suspect, that while some folks claim not to be looking for 'perfect' balance, and that this is a strawman, but will be happy for 'better' balance, I don't think you will see any let up in the criticisms, as I suspect 'better' will never actually be 'good enough'.
How many of those 100 choices are that much different though that they need a separate entry though? That's part of the reason why Deathwing sucks but regular Terminators suck but less so.
CaptainStabby wrote: If Tyberos falls and needs to catch himself it's because the ground needed killing.
jy2 wrote: BTW, I can't wait to run Double-D-thirsters! Man, just thinking about it gets me Khorney.
vipoid wrote: Indeed - what sort of bastard would want to use their codex?
MarsNZ wrote: ITT: SoB players upset that they're receiving the same condescending treatment that they've doled out in every CSM thread ever.
flandarz wrote: This kinda makes me wonder why, when balance is brought up, not everyone is "on board" with building a more balanced game. At the end of the day, everyone benefits when the units and models they love are balanced well with the other options. I'm in the (likely majority) group of folks who fit into the "competitively casual" description. I just want to be able to field Killa Kanz, or Burna Boyz, or even a Stompa and for my opponent to also be able to field all the units they want to, and for us both to play to the best of our ability while doing so. Don't think this is too outrageous of a desire.
I feel like most of us are, but the problem is what we feel balanced to actually feel like is the problem. You ask four different people you're likely to get five different answers.
.
Most folks, including myself, actually, will be on board with the 'idea' of balance-of a balanced game- or at least, a game that has tighter/cleaner/tidier rules, and rightly so, more or less, but whilst folks might agree with the idea of wanting this, I wonder how many are willing to go ahead and actually pay the price to acheive it, or really, what that price should be.
As an example of a solution, and it's consequences, someone, much earlier in the thread pointed out gw's games are generally quite bloated in terms of content (fair point) and posed the question - 'would you rather a hundred choices, where ten percent are 'at a level', or twenty choices where three quarters are 'at a level'.
Now, fair point. Fewer choices are easier to balance. So let's run with this. What twenty choices are we saving from the pit for the 'new balanced' game (while we kill off everything else). What are we cutting? and can we square that circle without screwing over a huge amount of people by deleting their armies? Is this a business model thst can sustain a company?
Spoiler:
I've played a lot of different Wargames - some good, some bad, most interesting. And some, like warmachine implemented a lot of features to balance the game - for example with WMH, the game I am most familiar with - played it from mk1- you had multiple win conditions (scenario, kill the caster) and multi-list formats as general features of the game, character limitations, the killing power versus survivability was ridiculous, to the point where while it empowered you by letting you be Able to kill stuff, the flip side was stats like armour was irrelevant a lot of the time, especially for single wound infantry. These features for the most part, went a long way towards making a more balanced game, though while generally, but not always 'good enough', it still had its howlers. Infinity is, essentially if modelled with 40k terms, flak armoured, or carapace armoured guardsmen or veteran guardsmen with Lasguns, autoguns and them ocasional heavy stubbers. It's a small scale skirmish game where the biggest thing is a crisis suit. It is, in my opinion, the most technically brilliant wargame out there (but a headache to play) with the best metal models. But tell the 40k community at large that crisis suits are the biggest things in the game from now on. The outrage will be tsunami-like.
That said, these features stirred up a huge amount of negativity amongst people who didn't like them ('I hate kill the king! Killing a warcaster shouldn't end the game!' And 'why should I have to buy TWO armies for this'?! Would be two frequently seen responses, amongst many more) so it's no time so simple as saying 'these companies do it. Why can't gw?' The truth is, if they did, they'd cop flak for whatever decision they'd make. There isn't no magic lever to pull. And regardless of what you do, there is a price to be paid, and I don't think a lot of people, for all the talk actually want to pay that tab or want the responsibility. And I suspect, that while some folks claim not to be looking for 'perfect' balance, and that this is a strawman, but will be happy for 'better' balance, I don't think you will see any let up in the criticisms, as I suspect 'better' will never actually be 'good enough'.
@content bloat: quick look at the GWs webstore shows that there are currently ~1300 choices for imperium, ~200 choices for chaos and ~300 choices for xenos armies. But large number of those imperial choices are basic ~100 shop entries multiplied by colors of the rainbow and their subfaction rules, so we should either multiply chaos and xenos options by subfactions which often are differently limited in what they can and cannot inlcude and how they function, resulting in ~4k different choices in 40K; or folding Imperial subfactions the other way around, which is more difficult as there are many unique models for non compliant chapters and I don't want to go one-by-one counting those... But one could say that there are not 4k but 1k options in 40K instead. Plus FW.
Then on top of this are weapon options, wargear and other pointed choices to ballance out.
How many faction/unit/wargear options are there in Infinity or Warmahordes, as I honestly don't know those games well enough to do even a quick count like this?
In regards to the 100 vs 20 comment, I'd probably pick the latter, honestly. Because that one gives me far more viable options for play. In "apple" terms, would you rather have 100 apples, but 90 of them are rotten, or 20 apples, but only 5 of them are rotten? The former givea you 10 "good apples" and the latter 15. I'll choose the latter every day of the week.
Of course, this would only be one possible solution. I'm a fan of options myself, so I'd be happier with a solution that keeps them all, but makes the ones that are "bad" better, while reining in the "OP" options. I don't think it would be easy to do, or would happen quickly, but I DO think it's possible and I think it should be a priority for GW, if their goal is to allow their players to run these awesome armies.
flandarz wrote: This kinda makes me wonder why, when balance is brought up, not everyone is "on board" with building a more balanced game. At the end of the day, everyone benefits when the units and models they love are balanced well with the other options. I'm in the (likely majority) group of folks who fit into the "competitively casual" description. I just want to be able to field Killa Kanz, or Burna Boyz, or even a Stompa and for my opponent to also be able to field all the units they want to, and for us both to play to the best of our ability while doing so. Don't think this is too outrageous of a desire.
For me the game is as balanced as it needs to be. The narrative and the players balance it themselves. That’s the way we play and it isn’t difficult. We are a group who all know each other. The suggestions I see for achieving “balance” would make the game worse for me and my mates. We enjoy a looser rule set and the opportunities that come with that. At the minute I think GW is getting the balance right regarding matched and casual/narrative play. All the nerds and changes to matched play and faqs haven’t changed the game for me as I ignore most of them and house rule things anyway. What we do have is a good depth of optional rules that make the game as immersive or as fast and fluid as you like.
This here is the difference. I understand your attitude but disagree with it strongly. It isn’t how I approach it. But can appreciate that you see a game as a competitive thing. I, and many others don’t view the game as competitive, it genuinely doesn’t matter at all to me who wins or loses. Its about the experience.
What if you stopped calling yourself a gamer.. as your not, and started calling your self something else, like a experincers or social hour person with purpose? It would stop confusing people no?
Wow, you go for a 12 hour night shift and come back to three pages of “gate keeping” talk.
1. Oxford English dictionary definition of a game.
an activity that one engages in for amusement or fun.
"the kids were playing a game with their balloons"
Also.
a form of competitive activity or sport played according to rules.
You clearly see 40k as option 2. I see it as option one. Both are games.
You can chose to ignore all the definitions that don’t support your argument but that is just stupid so please don’t.
2. I never called myself a “gamer”. At least I hope I didn’t. To me a gamer is a specific thing. It is someone who plays electronic games. I may on occasion call my self a “wargamer”. But not often.
I play 40k. It’s a game. As in something I do for fun. End of.
This here is the difference. I understand your attitude but disagree with it strongly. It isn’t how I approach it. But can appreciate that you see a game as a competitive thing. I, and many others don’t view the game as competitive, it genuinely doesn’t matter at all to me who wins or loses. Its about the experience. Players like yourself seem to struggle to even accept that that can be the case. Peregrine has even called me a liar for saying it, like somehow I’m covering up for being a mad payer and losing by saying I don’t care. It’s bonkers. And in the respect of playing the game the way I do the engine runs just perfectly.
So in answer, their will not ALWAYS be competition. The out come of games is about the overall story and fantastic narrative moments that come from them. I have enjoyed games where I have been slaughtered as much as ones where I have been doing the slaughtering. It’s about the one guy who holds out against all odds or the desperate charge to try and turn the tide. I enjoy seeing units perform the way they do in the fluff, be they mine or my opponents. If we keep track of who wins it’s for narrative purposes only. You might not agree with my attitude but as long as you stay ignorant of it you will always be part of the problem. It does seem to be a cultural issue as much as anything, most going on the way you do about ALWAYS being competition tend to have Stars and Stripes next to their names. To me and many others, and the designers, the game is a large scale role playing game. It even used to be in the rules that the warlord you chose represented you on the battlefield.
So with the designers saying the game is supposed to be the way it is, you can keep playing it which ever way you want but don’t expect it to become something else.
To use your analogy before, it’s like you have gone to a beauty therapist for skin cancer treatment. Enjoy your open pores and go see a doctor for the cancer.
I think that I appreciate where you are coming from and I am sure that I would prefer to play 100 times with you than 1 time with an obnoxious WAAC, Andy.
Nonetheless, I think that if the game is with points and objective IS competitive. There are no ways around it so a good setup is a good way to make it fun for different type of people. If GW wanted an RPG, they would have not streamlined rules, removed options and so on. Really, the reality of the ruleset does not add up with the statements from the designers.
Exciting epic moments happen all the time with well written rulesets, in no way those hamper epic scenes of battle. But a tight ruleset can avoid frustration. Seriously, is a win-win if such thing is implemented. The rest is the design team hiding behind a fig leaf.
Also, reading that from a native speaker I am very flattered by the "star and stripes" comment, because I am Italian and only in US since few years. I lived elsewhere in Europe before, included my native country. It appears that my English (not the Queen's English I suppose) improved a bit if this confusion happened, albeit I am aware of the many mistakes I still make, and I thank Dakka for bothering to read my posts... but you know, if you have to change country every 3 years it happens to every time adjust to new languages.
Cheers for the reply. Your English is good mate, prob better than mine. I think the stream lining and the like comes from 2 things, one is trying to please all people and secondly that all the rules bloat in 6th and 7th didn’t actually make the game more immersive. Quite the opposite. It felt like an exercise in book keeping and policy management. To me 2nd edition had the fog/wargame balance just right but I accept 8th is more fun to play. And thanks to all the option rules printed about it can be quite in depth and is very immersive. Best of both.
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2019/09/12 06:11:32
I'm not wasting my time in the deep end of the pool just to try and sort through a couple thousand rulesets just to find something worth looking into. You want to make some recommendations I'll bite, but my time is finite and I don't want to spend it trawling through page after page of games just to try and find something that might pique my interests.
Ok, you said " I don't want to waste my money " that is fine, new games can be expensive. Then you get a list of free rules, it's given and now you want people to spoon feed what things you may like. While the only way you'd know if you'd like them is checking them out for yourself. While saying how important your time is and limited, when you spend so much of it here arguing about utterly pointless things, like defending GW being bad at writing rules and then trying to jazz hand it away by saying they forge the narrative. Ain't life strange sometimes.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2019/09/12 09:34:25
https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/0/766717.page A Mostly Renegades and Heretics blog.
GW:"Space marines got too many options to balance, therefore we decided to legends HH units." Players: "why?!? Now we finally got decent plastic kits and you cut them?" Chaos marines players: "Since when are Daemonengines 30k models and why do i have NO droppods now?" GW" MONEY.... erm i meant TOO MANY OPTIONS (to resell your army to you again by disalowing former units)! Do you want specific tyranid fighiting Primaris? Even a new sabotage lieutnant!" Chaos players: Guess i stop playing or go to HH.
skchsan wrote: Exactly. There's nothing "competitive" about competitive (i.e. major tournaments) 40k. It's all about finding the most broken units and exploiting it. There is no contest of skills or luck, but only how much money you've spent on matching up to the "competitive" meta.
To you, competitive = exploitative. And please don't rebut with "but it wasn't knights that were broken, it's soup and CP batteries" argument.
Many of us don't see eye to eye on that stance.
CP batteries are why I say AoS does CP better. Generating it on a turn by turn basis (with some small bonuses for fluffy builds that cost bonus points for extra rules) is a better mechanic in my book than building it in the list building phase. Then again I had a similar mechanic with C:WH and Faith Points and wasn't really into it then either.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Reemule wrote: So the only people who are any good in america at "exploitative play" are the same 20 odd people that keep ending up at the top tables? Year after year? No one else is good at it?
Not everyone can play at that level, or approach the game with the right mindset to come up with things like 0" charges, the loyal 32, ect, ect. These things are generally pioneered by a small percentage of players and copied by the rest.
I don't know if I'd say the loyal 32 was some kind of genius only thought of in the mind of a few players. Any imperial player who knew the cost of guard and the useful state of CPs jumped on the soup ship and understood after maybe one match the importance of spacing and chaff units. All the 32 came from was nerfing the conscripts and needing to find the next best way. If there is skill in this game understanding basic math and how to abuse CP generation with cheap spammable troops isn't one of them.
I would say as well not every very good player wants to play in tournaments I'd imagine there are some amazing players who just don't care to partake in it.
I'm not wasting my time in the deep end of the pool just to try and sort through a couple thousand rulesets just to find something worth looking into. You want to make some recommendations I'll bite, but my time is finite and I don't want to spend it trawling through page after page of games just to try and find something that might pique my interests.
Ok, you said " I don't want to waste my money " that is fine, new games can be expensive. Then you get a list of free rules, it's given and now you want people to spoon feed what things you may like. While the only way you'd know if you'd like them is checking them out for yourself. While saying how important your time is and limited, when you spend so much of it here arguing about utterly pointless things, like defending GW being bad at writing rules and then trying to jazz hand it away by saying they forge the narrative. Ain't life strange sometimes.
So I'm not allowed to have a life and have to spend my free time trying to go through nearly 2k different games to find ones that are outside of GW's wheel house and I'd actually like to play? I'm trying to meet people halfway by actually trying to look at other games, trying to narrow down a massive list to something reasonable to sort through.
Gates of Antares is probably the closest comparison to 40k in size of game as well as genre.
My standards for a game are that it be reasonably balanced so don't have to buy/sell armies regularly to be able to have good games, and have rules that are somewhat immersive and make sense and operate as a battle would operate.
When I played Antares, that was the sci fi game that I enjoyed most for those things that I'm looking for.
People even came up with a way to use 40k models using Antares rules instead.
People even came up with a way to use 40k models using Antares rules instead.
I'd be interested in taking a look at that, if possible. D'you have any links?
Bharring wrote: At worst, you'll spend all your time and money on a hobby you don't enjoy, hate everything you're doing, and drive no value out of what should be the best times of your life.
Reemule wrote: So the only people who are any good in america at "exploitative play" are the same 20 odd people that keep ending up at the top tables? Year after year? No one else is good at it?
There are two types of winning lists in tournaments:
1. The unbeatable list
2. The counter to the unbeatable list
Tactics & strategy is so one-dimensional in this so called "wargame". Shoot, or be shot (or smash captained).
I may not be cultured enough in the competitive scene - can you provide me some links to any tournament coverage where a player outwitted and outmaneuvered another player with an inferior list for a win? Because all of the coverage I've read and watched talked about who brought what list and why/how nothing could be done to it.
Now, I get it - you've spent time and money to attend these major events. Of course, you;d want to walk away with a big trophy, and this means having to maximize one's chance of winning. But the chances of winning aren't determined by how good of a strategist you are and how well you can outwit the other player, but nearly 100% at list building.
Look at how many variants of knights/IG/imperium flavor of the month there were prior to the castellan nerf. Look at how many variants of knights/IG/Imperium flavor of the month there are now. A single change made so many other lists viable & top tier competitive. This is what we're asking for - bridging the power gap as to open the doors for other non-cookie cutter builds.
The "talk" is generally wrong. The bulk of the talk is not from the actual good players but from the larger mass of players who do not really understand why games were won or lost. Mediocre players think it is the list when in reality the big victories are player-led and they build a list to support their tactics and strategy. It takes almost no time to read a list and post half-baked comments about it online. It takes real time and effort to watch the game, analyse the moves and comment on the strategy and tactics on the tabletop. Guess which dominates online discussion?
The winning Nova list is functionally very similar to most of the Tau lists at Nova - the archetype of 3 riptides and a bunch of shield drones is easily the most common tournament Tau list right now. In other hands that list archetype had a poor record at Nova and its win/loss when you take out the record of that one outstanding player was right down there with Grey Knights. The difference was exactly what you say is not covered in tournament coverage - the clever ways in which the player used those models to outwit or outmanoeuvre opponents. Sure you might see the usual clickbait article on BOLS about the Unbeatable List but it was not the list that won all those games, it was the player.
The "talk" is generally wrong. The bulk of the talk is not from the actual good players but from the larger mass of players who do not really understand why games were won or lost. Mediocre players think it is the list when in reality the big victories are player-led and they build a list to support their tactics and strategy. It takes almost no time to read a list and post half-baked comments about it online. It takes real time and effort to watch the game, analyse the moves and comment on the strategy and tactics on the tabletop. Guess which dominates online discussion?
The winning Nova list is functionally very similar to most of the Tau lists at Nova - the archetype of 3 riptides and a bunch of shield drones is easily the most common tournament Tau list right now. In other hands that list archetype had a poor record at Nova and its win/loss when you take out the record of that one outstanding player was right down there with Grey Knights. The difference was exactly what you say is not covered in tournament coverage - the clever ways in which the player used those models to outwit or outmanoeuvre opponents. Sure you might see the usual clickbait article on BOLS about the Unbeatable List but it was not the list that won all those games, it was the player.
A fair point, but it doesn't account for one problem: net listing is a major thing in the game (well in a lot of games) which leads to a sort of ripple effect whenever a new game breaker is found.
It may not get them to the top tables, but it can push mid or bottom table players up a few notches. In the end while net listing doesn't make people into the top tables alone, it has lead to a lot of people exploiting certain combinations in the name of trying to win more games.
And before anyone tries to make any claims: I am not against people wanting to win or getting their enjoyment from winning games, I am merely stating that the abuse of certain mechanics is rather common because of the commonality of net listing.
happy_inquisitor wrote: The "talk" is generally wrong. The bulk of the talk is not from the actual good players but from the larger mass of players who do not really understand why games were won or lost. Mediocre players think it is the list when in reality the big victories are player-led and they build a list to support their tactics and strategy. It takes almost no time to read a list and post half-baked comments about it online. It takes real time and effort to watch the game, analyse the moves and comment on the strategy and tactics on the tabletop. Guess which dominates online discussion?
The winning Nova list is functionally very similar to most of the Tau lists at Nova - the archetype of 3 riptides and a bunch of shield drones is easily the most common tournament Tau list right now. In other hands that list archetype had a poor record at Nova and its win/loss when you take out the record of that one outstanding player was right down there with Grey Knights. The difference was exactly what you say is not covered in tournament coverage - the clever ways in which the player used those models to outwit or outmanoeuvre opponents. Sure you might see the usual clickbait article on BOLS about the Unbeatable List but it was not the list that won all those games, it was the player.
Sure, a seasoned player is able to utilize and squeeze the most juice out of a broken list. A lot of play testing and adjusting positioning to minimize liability while maximizing on return.
Even the best sword in the world is just a chunk of metal in the hands of a novice.
I see your concern, but what I'm more interested in is whether an inferior list came out top over min-maxed meta list. There has not been a single tournament event where an underdog has won with luck and skill using less than optimal-most list.
Say, you're playing a fighting game with an opponent of same level of skills. Does picking a better character always guarantee victory?
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2019/09/12 14:20:11
GW's rule intent is to make the most money possible for the least amount of effort.
So release gak rules and say fix them yourselves or buy the annual paid for patches. Spread the rules among as as many books possible and if it is pointed out for example that your rules for scenery are gak release an expensive boxset to add less gak
but still mostly gak rules.
I mean ultimately they now have no incentive to actually make good functioning rules. Between record sales of the now near infinite book releases(at this point outside marines and sigmarines they release more books than minatures) which seem to be increasing in pace if every sub sub faction is getting a codex.
Not to mention the shiny new annual revenue stream of paying for fixes, do you imagine that the designers at GW would be allowed to produce a fully functional rule set and dent the record profits the gak rules produce by not needing the annualized fixes
You have effectively got a company that has policies that mean if they provided a functioning product to customers they would lose money. So anyone honestly believe 40k or AoS will get better or be permanently 1 step forward 2 steps back.
Were all ready seeing them reintroducing rules that they removed previously as broken.
Your last point is especially laughable and comical, because not only the 7th ed Valkyrie shown dumber things (like being able to throw the troopers without parachutes out of its hatches, no harm done) - Irbis
I'm not wasting my time in the deep end of the pool just to try and sort through a couple thousand rulesets just to find something worth looking into. You want to make some recommendations I'll bite, but my time is finite and I don't want to spend it trawling through page after page of games just to try and find something that might pique my interests.
Ok, you said " I don't want to waste my money " that is fine, new games can be expensive. Then you get a list of free rules, it's given and now you want people to spoon feed what things you may like. While the only way you'd know if you'd like them is checking them out for yourself. While saying how important your time is and limited, when you spend so much of it here arguing about utterly pointless things, like defending GW being bad at writing rules and then trying to jazz hand it away by saying they forge the narrative. Ain't life strange sometimes.
So I'm not allowed to have a life and have to spend my free time trying to go through nearly 2k different games to find ones that are outside of GW's wheel house and I'd actually like to play? I'm trying to meet people halfway by actually trying to look at other games, trying to narrow down a massive list to something reasonable to sort through.
You're *allowed* to do anything that you want.
The point people are trying to make is that its difficult to call GW's balance "good" or "bad" without a frame of reference. Its like hearing someone claim that microwave pizza is the best food in the world - and then hearing that they've never eaten anything else. Even in the popular, sold-at-FLGS games there are a dozen alternate wargames, and there are hundreds or even thousands of rules sets available online.
You don't *have* to read or play any of them... but doing so gives a great perspective in to what GW gets wrong with its games and how those things can easily be done better.
Well they aren't always the embodiment of satan on earth. For example a lot of space marine players at my store are very happy, that instead of buying 3 boxs of eliminators, they can buy one and two easy to build reavers, and get two units with snipers and one with AA las weapons.
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The point people are trying to make is that its difficult to call GW's balance "good" or "bad" without a frame of reference.
But you can compare their own rules to their other rules. If you read the marine codex and the csm codex, then there seem to be a big difference in what GW design team wanted to give each faction. And those are mostly copy factions, with a lot of overlaping unit types. And it doesn't have to be some fringe stuff like comparing WB rules and codex sm +ultramarines supplement.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2019/09/12 14:52:11
If you have to kill, then kill in the best manner. If you slaughter, then slaughter in the best manner. Let one of you sharpen his knife so his animal feels no pain.
skchsan wrote: I see your concern, but what I'm more interested in is whether an inferior list came out top over min-maxed meta list. There has not been a single tournament event where an underdog has won with luck and skill using less than optimal-most list.
This is a "no true Scotsman" kind of argument.
Quite regularly there will be a tournament winner who takes an odd choice in the list, and people will spend ages talking about the supposedly suboptimal choice and why it worked well.
A well known example is the "Lictorshame" army from 7th (I think?) - so named because it was shameful to lose against an army featuring such trash units as Lictors. More recent examples, 2018 LVO Winner featured a big unit of Blightlord Terminators which were widely considered pretty bad. Just this week a CSM army with triple Kytans got to the podium.
These obviously aren't *bad* armies. There's only so far a bad army can take you, because even if you trash a bad player with a good army in round 1/2 eventually you end up fighting good players with good armies... But these are armies which were considered bad, and good players did well with them.
I do think its funny how much people downplay skill in the game. The tournament winners are the same few dozen people all the time.
Trasvi wrote: More recent examples, 2018 LVO Winner featured a big unit of Blightlord Terminators which were widely considered pretty bad. Just this week a CSM army with triple Kytans got to the podium.
These obviously aren't *bad* armies. There's only so far a bad army can take you, because even if you trash a bad player with a good army in round 1/2 eventually you end up fighting good players with good armies... But these are armies which were considered bad, and good players did well with them.
I do think its funny how much people downplay skill in the game. The tournament winners are the same few dozen people all the time.
Which is exactly our point. When were these "sub-optimal" lists made viable or had success with them? Was it pre or post castellan nerf?
Less OP the OP units get, more and more skill comes to light, because smaller the gap in power level, more of these "off-lists" can surface!
Also, how many people attend LVO and other major tournaments? Last year's bracket hit the 512 mark. So a "dozen" players out of 512... roughly 2%. How many of these LVO attendees do you think are "regulars"? Do you believe these "regulars" represent the top level players across the entire world? Or do you think there are other great players out there that just can't be made available to attend these events due to differing circumstances? Do you think maybe you're making a very off assumption based on small fraction of the 40k community?
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2019/09/12 15:19:39
I'm not wasting my time in the deep end of the pool just to try and sort through a couple thousand rulesets just to find something worth looking into. You want to make some recommendations I'll bite, but my time is finite and I don't want to spend it trawling through page after page of games just to try and find something that might pique my interests.
Ok, you said " I don't want to waste my money " that is fine, new games can be expensive. Then you get a list of free rules, it's given and now you want people to spoon feed what things you may like. While the only way you'd know if you'd like them is checking them out for yourself. While saying how important your time is and limited, when you spend so much of it here arguing about utterly pointless things, like defending GW being bad at writing rules and then trying to jazz hand it away by saying they forge the narrative. Ain't life strange sometimes.
So I'm not allowed to have a life and have to spend my free time trying to go through nearly 2k different games to find ones that are outside of GW's wheel house and I'd actually like to play? I'm trying to meet people halfway by actually trying to look at other games, trying to narrow down a massive list to something reasonable to sort through.
You're *allowed* to do anything that you want.
The point people are trying to make is that its difficult to call GW's balance "good" or "bad" without a frame of reference. Its like hearing someone claim that microwave pizza is the best food in the world - and then hearing that they've never eaten anything else. Even in the popular, sold-at-FLGS games there are a dozen alternate wargames, and there are hundreds or even thousands of rules sets available online.
You don't *have* to read or play any of them... but doing so gives a great perspective in to what GW gets wrong with its games and how those things can easily be done better.
My local FLGS has GW games, Mtg, X Wing (which no one is currently playing at the store at least) and WMH which is only recently seeing anything played in the store. That's it.
And I know I don't have to, but I am trying to show some good faith and go outside of my comfort zone, so I was askijg to be met half way and given some help to reduce a rather unwieldly list of games into something I can reasonably read through. Calling me out for trying to be reasonable while not wasting all my free time seems a bit silly honestly.
The point people are trying to make is that its difficult to call GW's balance "good" or "bad" without a frame of reference.
But you can compare their own rules to their other rules. If you read the marine codex and the csm codex, then there seem to be a big difference in what GW design team wanted to give each faction. And those are mostly copy factions, with a lot of overlaping unit types. And it doesn't have to be some fringe stuff like comparing WB rules and codex sm +ultramarines supplement.
Yeah, GW balance does need a lot of work. I play mostly competitively and I'll be the first to admit it.
I was responding to ClockworkZion who seems to be of the opinion that GW balance is in a good state, and 40k is an objectively good game, and we can't really expect anything more, without having much experience with other game. Maybe I'm getting his position wrong.
My opinion is that 40k is an objectively *bad* rules system, but survives off the strength of the fluff, quality of the models and indoctrination from GW. There are massive, unresolvable issues with the core rules set, let alone inter unit balance.
That all being said... 40k as a competitive game is probably at the best point it ever has been, with every faction having at least one Tier 1 army build and some factions having dozens.
Although that might say more about how terrible 40k was previously....
SeanDrake wrote: GW's rule intent is to make the most money possible for the least amount of effort.
So release gak rules and say fix them yourselves or buy the annual paid for patches. Spread the rules among as as many books possible and if it is pointed out for example that your rules for scenery are gak release an expensive boxset to add less gak
but still mostly gak rules.
I mean ultimately they now have no incentive to actually make good functioning rules. Between record sales of the now near infinite book releases(at this point outside marines and sigmarines they release more books than minatures) which seem to be increasing in pace if every sub sub faction is getting a codex.
Not to mention the shiny new annual revenue stream of paying for fixes, do you imagine that the designers at GW would be allowed to produce a fully functional rule set and dent the record profits the gak rules produce by not needing the annualized fixes
You have effectively got a company that has policies that mean if they provided a functioning product to customers they would lose money. So anyone honestly believe 40k or AoS will get better or be permanently 1 step forward 2 steps back.
Were all ready seeing them reintroducing rules that they removed previously as broken.
I see a lot of unfounded bias on what the dev intent is. While the company wants to make money as a whole, James lays out his job rather clearly: to capture the feel of the lore and the models in the rules. Now we can argue how well they actually do that, but their intent is to the the gameplay to the lore and feel of the models.
If the sole goal was to make money we'd see the new stuff continually creep up in power, but that is mixed bag of stuff that is good and bad for competetive play.
Exemple, introduction of Flyers and certain new and expensive kits.
https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/0/766717.page A Mostly Renegades and Heretics blog.
GW:"Space marines got too many options to balance, therefore we decided to legends HH units." Players: "why?!? Now we finally got decent plastic kits and you cut them?" Chaos marines players: "Since when are Daemonengines 30k models and why do i have NO droppods now?" GW" MONEY.... erm i meant TOO MANY OPTIONS (to resell your army to you again by disalowing former units)! Do you want specific tyranid fighiting Primaris? Even a new sabotage lieutnant!" Chaos players: Guess i stop playing or go to HH.
Trasvi wrote: More recent examples, 2018 LVO Winner featured a big unit of Blightlord Terminators which were widely considered pretty bad. Just this week a CSM army with triple Kytans got to the podium.
These obviously aren't *bad* armies. There's only so far a bad army can take you, because even if you trash a bad player with a good army in round 1/2 eventually you end up fighting good players with good armies... But these are armies which were considered bad, and good players did well with them.
I do think its funny how much people downplay skill in the game. The tournament winners are the same few dozen people all the time.
Which is exactly our point. When were these "sub-optimal" lists made viable or had success with them? Was it pre or post castellan nerf?
Less OP the OP units get, more and more skill comes to light, because smaller the gap in power level, more of these "off-lists" can surface!
I'm in complete agreement that the smaller the gap between the most powerful and least powerful lists, the better.
I would LOVE to be able to pick a few models that I like the look of, build an army around them, and know that its within a few percentage points of optimal. I don't think every unit should be viable in every army, but there should be a viable build that features every unit. I think that casual and competitive players alike would benefit greatly - competitive because there is more variety and less trap units, casual because you don't have to do GW's job for them and handicap yourself to play fair games.
GW is doing a much better job of keeping balance up to date than they used to - which was not at all. They'll keep adjusting points up and down. There is a bit of "tall poppy syndrome" going on, but at the same time there are units that get brought up - see all the underused Slaanesh Daemon units last CA. I think the community could probably cope with points updates every 6 months instead of every year though.
Blightlord list was pre-castellan nerf. Although to be honest I think it might have just been pre-castellan. Lol. They were still considered a bad unit at the time.
The point people are trying to make is that its difficult to call GW's balance "good" or "bad" without a frame of reference.
But you can compare their own rules to their other rules. If you read the marine codex and the csm codex, then there seem to be a big difference in what GW design team wanted to give each faction. And those are mostly copy factions, with a lot of overlaping unit types. And it doesn't have to be some fringe stuff like comparing WB rules and codex sm +ultramarines supplement.
Yeah, GW balance does need a lot of work. I play mostly competitively and I'll be the first to admit it.
I was responding to ClockworkZion who seems to be of the opinion that GW balance is in a good state, and 40k is an objectively good game, and we can't really expect anything more, without having much experience with other game. Maybe I'm getting his position wrong.
My opinion is that 40k is an objectively *bad* rules system, but survives off the strength of the fluff, quality of the models and indoctrination from GW. There are massive, unresolvable issues with the core rules set, let alone inter unit balance.
That all being said... 40k as a competitive game is probably at the best point it ever has been, with every faction having at least one Tier 1 army build and some factions having dozens.
Although that might say more about how terrible 40k was previously....
I feel like you're over shooting my position. I'd argue the game is functional and reasonably fun as long as both players aren't trying to break the game. The game doesn't really hold up competively, and I have made several posts about how there are things I feel the game could improve on.
So functional, reasonably fun, but far from perfect but equally far from "broken".
