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Wayniac wrote:

 Crimson wrote:
I am sure that some of the issues indeed stem from the swift release schedule and this is not something that can even necessarily be fixed by hiring more people. Writers simply have no time to compare notes, and this would obviously be highly important for achieving balance between factions.

Like it is decided that marines of all sorts need buffs, and one writer works on updated CSM book and another on updated loyalist marine book, and sure enough, both give buffs to these factions. It just happens that the CSM writer gives quite moderate buffs and the SM writer gives massive buffs. It is even possible that the marine supplements were written by different people, as they're so uneven.

It's hard to tell with the fact they don't give much information about their design process, but that seems like it's exactly what happens. The bits and pieces revealed seem to indicate that the initial parts at least are done essentially in isolation without communicating with the other designers about interactions. Likely without comparing multiple books (so missing the whole take X detachment with Y detachment combos) and, it would seem, even their own errata.

The rumor in older editions (and it’s so silly it actually sounds like GW) is that the codex writers all did their books by themselves with just their circle of friends playtesting so each book was done in a silo. The allure of 8th Ed with its massive reset to points values and paring down of useless rules into those four indexes was the hope that they’d plan the codices together for once instead of in separate cycles years apart.

It appears likely there was far less of a reboot in the codices than there was in the rule book sadly. Still I think everyone tried to build more balanced take all comers lists we’d see a more balanced game instead of trying spam min/max deathstar combos.

 JNAProductions wrote:
Except if you balance for the competitive well, you'll get balance for casual play too.

His point was balance isn't a priority to majority of the (casual) player base and thus isn't one for the company who makes it, and i can't say i disagree, but it shouldn't be this way.

MiguelFelstone wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:
Except if you balance for the competitive well, you'll get balance for casual play too.

His point was balance isn't a priority to majority of the (casual) player base and thus isn't one for the company who makes it, and i can't say i disagree, but it shouldn't be this way.

That's a fair statement, but only partially true, I feel.

If I play my Nurgle Daemons against someone's Nids, we'll have a good game in all probability.
If I play GK against your SM... Not so much.

I think this statement is true: "Casual players don't care as much about balance as tournament players" where tournament players are those who want a good challenge and game, not including meta-chasing netlisters who just want easy wins. But to say they DON'T care is, far as I can tell, false.

 Fajita Fan wrote:

Wayniac wrote:

 Crimson wrote:
I am sure that some of the issues indeed stem from the swift release schedule and this is not something that can even necessarily be fixed by hiring more people. Writers simply have no time to compare notes, and this would obviously be highly important for achieving balance between factions.

Like it is decided that marines of all sorts need buffs, and one writer works on updated CSM book and another on updated loyalist marine book, and sure enough, both give buffs to these factions. It just happens that the CSM writer gives quite moderate buffs and the SM writer gives massive buffs. It is even possible that the marine supplements were written by different people, as they're so uneven.

It's hard to tell with the fact they don't give much information about their design process, but that seems like it's exactly what happens. The bits and pieces revealed seem to indicate that the initial parts at least are done essentially in isolation without communicating with the other designers about interactions. Likely without comparing multiple books (so missing the whole take X detachment with Y detachment combos) and, it would seem, even their own errata.

The rumor in older editions (and it’s so silly it actually sounds like GW) is that the codex writers all did their books by themselves with just their circle of friends playtesting so each book was done in a silo. The allure of 8th Ed with its massive reset to points values and paring down of useless rules into those four indexes was the hope that they’d plan the codices together for once instead of in separate cycles years apart.

It appears likely there was far less of a reboot in the codices than there was in the rule book sadly. Still I think everyone tried to build more balanced take all comers lists we’d see a more balanced game instead of trying spam min/max deathstar combos.

Well yes. The idea seems to be that people are building TAC lists at best or hodgepodge "I bought these kewl models let me use them" at worst, not heavily min/maxed uber lists. That's always been the case though, and GW has never really focused on building anything remotely resembling a "strong" list but usually something with a variety that, I would guess, makes for a fun game at the club over a pint. Whether that's intentional is up for debate.

The design process is hard to nail down. It appears at some point they do communicate, but it doesn't appear to be during the actual design of the rules, or if they do it seems like there's little or no discussion about how this interacts with X in another codex. From the bits I've read about their external playtesting it's very basic. Things like here take this 1500 point army we designed and play a game or two and see if the rules feel like they work. So completely ignoring the fact that the main issues come up in listbuilding. Since all the playtesters are under NDA it's impossible to really tell but that's the rumor.

 JNAProductions wrote:

MiguelFelstone wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:
Except if you balance for the competitive well, you'll get balance for casual play too.

His point was balance isn't a priority to majority of the (casual) player base and thus isn't one for the company who makes it, and i can't say i disagree, but it shouldn't be this way.

That's a fair statement, but only partially true, I feel.

If I play my Nurgle Daemons against someone's Nids, we'll have a good game in all probability.
If I play GK against your SM... Not so much.

I think this statement is true: "Casual players don't care as much about balance as tournament players" where tournament players are those who want a good challenge and game, not including meta-chasing netlisters who just want easy wins. But to say they DON'T care is, far as I can tell, false.

You're right i shouldn't have generalized.

Wayniac wrote:

MiguelFelstone wrote:

Pointed Stick wrote:
Competitive games are the ones that can withstand a lack of perfect balance and a constantly shifting metagame, because these attributes become features for the game to remain interesting over time.

I love it when the thing i hate most about this game suddenly becomes a virtue ...

It's not wrong though. The competitive players seem to WANT there to be uber broken combos so they can feel superior by finding them (the irony being that GW's combos are so poor that anyone with a brain could look at them and figure out the "best" one) compared to your average scrubs who don't know. So yes, it would appear that comp players really don't want balance because they find the most interesting part to be finding and using the unbalanced things, and if things were balanced then they wouldn't be able to do that. At least that's how it often seems since a key part of being a competitive player is finding the broken combos and using them to the max, so those existing have to factor into the picture.

What you're describing isn't imbalance, though. You're just describing the game having tactical components. Some strategies, combos, etc being better than others is just an inherent part of ANY game of skill with win/lose conditions. Finding and exploiting them to their best potential is the skill in question. Balance is about different factions or units or characters within a game that offers such choices having relatively comparable abilities to succeed; like if ALL the best combos / strategies / moves / whatever were for a certain faction / character / whatever, and all the worst ones were for another, that would be an example of (severe) imbalance.

Like, it's not "unbalanced" for King's Pawn to King Four to be the best opening move in chess.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

MiguelFelstone wrote:

If that's how i came across i apologize.

Thank you, I appreciate that.

MiguelFelstone wrote:

 Sim-Life wrote:
The game is balanced for a casual level, so expecting it to be balanced for high level competition is unrealistic and never going to happen.

That's quite the defeatist attitude. If the Broom Makers Kabal had thought like - Curling wouldn't be an Olympic sport

Name a mini wargame with good balance at high level competitive play. I'll wait.

 Sim-Life wrote:

MiguelFelstone wrote:

 Sim-Life wrote:
The game is balanced for a casual level, so expecting it to be balanced for high level competition is unrealistic and never going to happen.

That's quite the defeatist attitude. If the Broom Makers Kabal had thought like - Curling wouldn't be an Olympic sport

Name a mini wargame with good balance at high level competitive play. I'll wait.

Good balance? Take your pick of any non-GW game.

Perfect balance with no crazy combos? There's your "I'll wait" but again nobody is asking for that, just for GW to do better which clearly IS possible since all their competitors can achieve better balance.

Was that a serious post that Sim made? LOL

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
Was that a serious post that Sim made? LOL

Now now. I get what they're going for, even if I disagree. I think they are missing the idea that just because other games have balance issues:

A) Those issues are inevitably less profound than the issues in 40k at best, and at worst take more than 10 minutes flipping through a "tested" book to discover.
B) That doesn't mean GW isn't doing a piss poor job and should do better
C) Every game imaginable is going to have SOME balance issues. Eliminating them isn't the goal, but minimizing them should be.

 Sim-Life wrote:

MiguelFelstone wrote:

 Sim-Life wrote:
The game is balanced for a casual level, so expecting it to be balanced for high level competition is unrealistic and never going to happen.

That's quite the defeatist attitude. If the Broom Makers Kabal had thought like - Curling wouldn't be an Olympic sport

Name a mini wargame with good balance at high level competitive play. I'll wait.

X-Wing was pretty balanced for a few years but a single good dice roll could change a game on turn 2.

I think that this poll I took a couple weeks ago seems relevant to this thread.

Wayniac wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
Was that a serious post that Sim made? LOL

Now now. I get what they're going for, even if I disagree. I think they are missing the idea that just because other games have balance issues:

A) Those issues are inevitably less profound than the issues in 40k
B) That doesn't mean GW isn't doing a piss poor job and should do better.

The game seems to work "fine" (for varying definitions of fine) for people who don't try to push it to the breaking point and see what snaps. Using it as an ultra-competitive game and expecting balanced rules is a fool's errand. I contend (and will likely continue to do so) that the fault lies with the consumer for using the product in a manner inconsistent with its intended usage, and then being upset that the product doesn't work "as advertised."

We can debate all day the varying levels of "fine" the game may or may not be. We can debate whether or not GW "should" do "better" for varying definitions of should and better. However, the fact remains that it is the best-selling wargame on the market, and I think it's disingenuous to claim that is solely due to people buying a sub-standard product out of some misplaced loyalty to a company.

 Octopoid wrote:

Wayniac wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
Was that a serious post that Sim made? LOL

Now now. I get what they're going for, even if I disagree. I think they are missing the idea that just because other games have balance issues:

A) Those issues are inevitably less profound than the issues in 40k
B) That doesn't mean GW isn't doing a piss poor job and should do better.

The game seems to work "fine" (for varying definitions of fine) for people who don't try to push it to the breaking point and see what snaps. Using it as an ultra-competitive game and expecting balanced rules is a fool's errand. I contend (and will likely continue to do so) that the fault lies with the consumer for using the product in a manner inconsistent with its intended usage, and then being upset that the product doesn't work "as advertised."

We can debate all day the varying levels of "fine" the game may or may not be. We can debate whether or not GW "should" do "better" for varying definitions of should and better. However, the fact remains that it is the best-selling wargame on the market, and I think it's disingenuous to claim that is solely due to people buying a sub-standard product out of some misplaced loyalty to a company.

I'm not sure. I think it's the best-selling by happenstance and not by actual effort; remember there was a long period of time (and still is in many areas) where Warhammer was the only game in town. But I agree with your first point. Trying to make it this uber-competitive min-maxed to the nines game just exposes all of the broken flaws, and were that not a thing I think it would be at least tolerable. It's just when you have people who want to use it in that way, the rest sort of have a go along or get crushed mindset.

Any argument that relies on claiming a majority of any given human community or population are all "duped", acting under false motivations, and/or just don't do or say what they really want, is a bad argument. People are irrational, sure, and don't always act in their best interests, but you can't just handwave away the fact that people aren't acting as they presumably would if your argument was true.

Wayniac wrote:
It's just when you have people who want to use it in that way, the rest sort of have a go along or get crushed mindset.

While i'm not a huge fan of hive mind:
This is exactly why i apologized earlier for generalizing. There are "casual" ("hobby" whatever you want to call it) aspects of this game i love. The story in all its glorious forms, learning to airbursh, building my first diorama and terrain pieces, hell i enjoy the banter on 40klore - but none of that negates the fact i want a balanced game for both the tournament scene / weekly games with the club, and i honestly don't think i'm asking much.

Wayniac wrote:

 Sim-Life wrote:

MiguelFelstone wrote:

 Sim-Life wrote:
The game is balanced for a casual level, so expecting it to be balanced for high level competition is unrealistic and never going to happen.

That's quite the defeatist attitude. If the Broom Makers Kabal had thought like - Curling wouldn't be an Olympic sport

Name a mini wargame with good balance at high level competitive play. I'll wait.

Good balance? Take your pick of any non-GW game.

Perfect balance with no crazy combos? There's your "I'll wait" but again nobody is asking for that, just for GW to do better which clearly IS possible since all their competitors can achieve better balance.

But again I contend that 40k does have decent balance at a casual level. Competitive play is based entirely around crazy combos because that's the standard that competitive players judge a units rules at and claiming that 40k is unbalanced because of competitive outliers is a mistake. Look at that Sisters review thread from a few weeks back. The poster compared the entire codex to what was the strongest faction on the competitive scene and judged it to be weak, whereas most people who played Sisters at a casual level seemed to think there was a lot of good stuff in there.

If you want to play highly competitive ANYTHING you need to accept that you'll be playing/comparing against what is most broken at a given time because there will always be a dominant list in any given mini wargame because no game can have good balance when pushed to extremes that the competitive scene encourages, even with stuff like public testing so to demand balance where it isn't wanted is silly.

 Sim-Life wrote:
But again I contend that 40k does have decent balance at a casual level.

That seems to be the crux of a lot of these arguments, different players have different views on what they'd consider "decent" balance.
Someone like myself for example, a "competitive" player (someone who gets to play 2 games a week if i'm lucky) would not consider the current state of the game balanced for anyone.

Say two best friends start collecting together, one picks Necron, the other Iron Hands - that would be the end of that friendship

Casual / competitive / whatever the game is not balanced in any format, and to argue otherwise seems laughable (to me).

MiguelFelstone wrote:

Say two best friends start collecting together, one picks Necron, the other Iron Hands - that would be the end of that friendship

I'm not sure that's necessarily true, though? How hardcore is the guy who picked Iron Hands? Is he min/maxing and looking for hardcore combos and ideal ways to exploit the factions and such, or did he pick them just because he likes grumpy cyborgs and he enjoys the story of a legion that have unknowingly utterly perverted the values of their primarch, and focuses on using lots of dreadnaughts and tech-priests and servitors and tarantulas and stuff, because that fits the feel of the chapter? How about the one who picked Necrons? Is she a good sport? Does she mind losing? Is she more focused and competitive than the IH player, and consequently puts much more attention into choosing optimal units, traits and strategems than he does?

This sounds like a tangent, but it really is key to our entire point that while it's not perfect, the game really isn't THAT bad for the purpose of friendly games between people mostly drawn in by the IP and the models. For most pairings of armies, if built by people who are primarily choosing their units around which models they like best and suit the "story" they have in mind for their army, the relative skill of the players will matter far more than which faction they chose (with the exception of those pairings with a clear rock-paper-scissors issue going on).

Also, if those two friends keep those two armies for a few years, sooner or later the rules and tiers will shift, and Necrons will become the "better" army anyway.

nataliereed1984 wrote:
I'm not sure that's necessarily true, though?

I was being hyperbolic.

MiguelFelstone wrote:

nataliereed1984 wrote:
I'm not sure that's necessarily true, though?

I was being hyperbolic.

Okay, sorry.

Still… it is a worthwhile idea to think about.

Thing is IH are pretty damn crazy without any attempts to intentionally break the game. They just get a crazy amount of powerful bonus rules.

So yeah, if one people chooses an army made out of random IH units and another makes an army out of random Necron units, the former will have a significant advantage and will probably result an unfun gaming experience.

 Crimson wrote:
Thing is IH are pretty damn crazy without any attempts to intentionally break the game. They just get a crazy amount of powerful bonus rules.

So yeah, if one people chooses an army made out of random IH units and another makes an army out of random Necron units, the former will have a significant advantage and will probably result an unfun gaming experience.

IH is one of those outliers that everyone can see getting nerfed from a mile away but meta-chasers buy into anyway.

 Sim-Life wrote:

 Crimson wrote:
Thing is IH are pretty damn crazy without any attempts to intentionally break the game. They just get a crazy amount of powerful bonus rules.

So yeah, if one people chooses an army made out of random IH units and another makes an army out of random Necron units, the former will have a significant advantage and will probably result an unfun gaming experience.

IH is one of those outliers that everyone can see getting nerfed from a mile away but meta-chasers buy into anyway.

And I look forward to post FAQ threads talking about how the Iron Hands nerf clearly indicates that GW must have sold enough Marine models, so they moved on to selling all those Necron kits they had in the warehouse (Please, GW. I'd love to be the new hotness. Just this once).

 Sim-Life wrote:

 Crimson wrote:
Thing is IH are pretty damn crazy without any attempts to intentionally break the game. They just get a crazy amount of powerful bonus rules.

So yeah, if one people chooses an army made out of random IH units and another makes an army out of random Necron units, the former will have a significant advantage and will probably result an unfun gaming experience.

IH is one of those outliers that everyone can see getting nerfed from a mile away but meta-chasers buy into anyway.

This is my inner b**** coming through, but I sort of feel like anyone who bought an Iron Hands army just to exploit a temporary meta advantage for a couple months kiiiiiiinda deserves what they inevitably get.

I also think the Grey Knights situation is somewhat funny, because in lore they're the Big Awesome Ultra-Elite Incorruptibly-Pure Even-Better-Than-Astartes Astartes Top-Secret Weapon Of The Imperium, and the idea of players who wanted them for that "most elite" aspect (before Custodes, anyway) ending up stuck with the worst army in-game is… well, with due sympathy for GK players, you still gotta admit it's kinda hilarious.

Back in 3rd ed when marines were 14 pts/model GK were 25. Terminators were 46 pts/model, the psycannon only had special rules vs demons, and their only ranged anti tank were lascannons on dreads or LRs. In 3rd edition it was appropriate to paint a bullseye on your dread because they were dead on turn 1.

 Sim-Life wrote:

Wayniac wrote:

 Sim-Life wrote:

MiguelFelstone wrote:

 Sim-Life wrote:
The game is balanced for a casual level, so expecting it to be balanced for high level competition is unrealistic and never going to happen.

That's quite the defeatist attitude. If the Broom Makers Kabal had thought like - Curling wouldn't be an Olympic sport

Name a mini wargame with good balance at high level competitive play. I'll wait.

Good balance? Take your pick of any non-GW game.

Perfect balance with no crazy combos? There's your "I'll wait" but again nobody is asking for that, just for GW to do better which clearly IS possible since all their competitors can achieve better balance.

But again I contend that 40k does have decent balance at a casual level. Competitive play is based entirely around crazy combos because that's the standard that competitive players judge a units rules at and claiming that 40k is unbalanced because of competitive outliers is a mistake. Look at that Sisters review thread from a few weeks back. The poster compared the entire codex to what was the strongest faction on the competitive scene and judged it to be weak, whereas most people who played Sisters at a casual level seemed to think there was a lot of good stuff in there.

If you want to play highly competitive ANYTHING you need to accept that you'll be playing/comparing against what is most broken at a given time because there will always be a dominant list in any given mini wargame because no game can have good balance when pushed to extremes that the competitive scene encourages, even with stuff like public testing so to demand balance where it isn't wanted is silly.

Yeah I'm calling BS on this argument. Somebody playing a casual Grey Knights or Harlequins or Dark Angels list will always have a disadvantage against a casual Iron Hands or Eldar or Imperial Knights. Casual lists for those armies are hurt because they get less out of trying to do the same exact combos (especially for Dark Angels compared to even the base Marine codex without Supplements).

If you're saying casual means "nobody cares what happens and sometimes you'll charge your Fire Warriors into melee just because it's fun", then you don't even need to buy GWs garbage rules to do that. You could simply just roll dice, not even pay attention to the value, and go "pewpew". HOWEVER, you are paying for rules, and the rules aren't even "good enough". They're just bad.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 Sim-Life wrote:

Wayniac wrote:

 Sim-Life wrote:

MiguelFelstone wrote:

 Sim-Life wrote:
The game is balanced for a casual level, so expecting it to be balanced for high level competition is unrealistic and never going to happen.

That's quite the defeatist attitude. If the Broom Makers Kabal had thought like - Curling wouldn't be an Olympic sport

Name a mini wargame with good balance at high level competitive play. I'll wait.

Good balance? Take your pick of any non-GW game.

Perfect balance with no crazy combos? There's your "I'll wait" but again nobody is asking for that, just for GW to do better which clearly IS possible since all their competitors can achieve better balance.

But again I contend that 40k does have decent balance at a casual level. Competitive play is based entirely around crazy combos because that's the standard that competitive players judge a units rules at and claiming that 40k is unbalanced because of competitive outliers is a mistake. Look at that Sisters review thread from a few weeks back. The poster compared the entire codex to what was the strongest faction on the competitive scene and judged it to be weak, whereas most people who played Sisters at a casual level seemed to think there was a lot of good stuff in there.

If you want to play highly competitive ANYTHING you need to accept that you'll be playing/comparing against what is most broken at a given time because there will always be a dominant list in any given mini wargame because no game can have good balance when pushed to extremes that the competitive scene encourages, even with stuff like public testing so to demand balance where it isn't wanted is silly.

Yeah I'm calling BS on this argument. Somebody playing a casual Grey Knights or Harlequins or Dark Angels list will always have a disadvantage against a casual Iron Hands or Eldar or Imperial Knights. Casual lists for those armies are hurt because they get less out of trying to do the same exact combos (especially for Dark Angels compared to even the base Marine codex without Supplements).

If you're saying casual means "nobody cares what happens and sometimes you'll charge your Fire Warriors into melee just because it's fun", then you don't even need to buy GWs garbage rules to do that. You could simply just roll dice, not even pay attention to the value, and go "pewpew". HOWEVER, you are paying for rules, and the rules aren't even "good enough". They're just bad.

Right. The thing is, it's not good enough for casual play. Someone who picks the army du jour unintentionally will curbstomp someone who picks a weak army. It doesn't matter if the guy playing IH is cheesing or not; he will likely crush his friend who plays Necrons no matter what because his army is just so much better because they got lucky. That's the antithesis of "good enough" for casual play unless you think it's okay that someone is unfairly punished just because they liked how the "terminator zombie robots" (i.e. Necrons) look.

That's why it's not good enough at any level: The game tells you pick what you think is cool, and then turns around and kicks you in the balls if you picked one of the factions that haven't gotten love.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

If you're saying casual means "nobody cares what happens and sometimes you'll charge your Fire Warriors into melee just because it's fun", then you don't even need to buy GWs garbage rules to do that. You could simply just roll dice, not even pay attention to the value, and go "pewpew". HOWEVER, you are paying for rules, and the rules aren't even "good enough". They're just bad.

Uh… there's worth to rules beyond just determining who wins.

Like… actually conveying an immersive story? If a player decides to have their fire warriors charge into melee because it's fun, they probably want the rules to reflect what would happen if a bunch of riflemen try to punch people to death: they die when they hit close combat, inflicting only minor injuries. You can't get that just by "rolling a die".

For narratively-focused players, the rules and balance aren't there for winning vs losing, it's for having the battle play out in a way that shows an interesting story that "makes sense" for the lore and the units involved and the modelling thereof, and that the players can't overly anticipate in advance.

But again, IH are a temporary outlier that will get nerfed in March (if not before), so you can't really base an argument on the overall state of the game on one temporary cherry picked example.