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 Sim-Life wrote:
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.

Pick any army that has been OP then. The same point applies. One person can pick a "weak" army and one person can pick a "strong" army and they will never have a good game because one person's army is garbage and one person's army is good. That is the opposite of "good enough for casual play"

nataliereed1984 wrote:
.

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.

Why do you even need rules at all for that? You just fairly accurately explained the likely outcome, if you're that bothered by the "story" just move the models and remove however many casualties from each side that "feels" right? Or play an RPG.

Narrative players (which, incidentally, is only a term that GW seem to have created in 6th to excuse their own wooly writing) are the most likely to adapt the rules to suit their purposes, therefore the argument has to be in favour of a tight ruleset for people who do play to determine a winner and loser, because modifying a tight ruleset is infinitely easier than tightening a loose one.

 Sim-Life wrote:
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.

Six months does not a "temporary" make friendo

 Azreal13 wrote:

nataliereed1984 wrote:
.

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.

Why do you even need rules at all for that? You just fairly accurately explained the likely outcome, if you're that bothered by the "story" just move the models and remove however many casualties from each side that "feels" right? Or play an RPG.

Why not just "move the models and remove however many casualties... 'feels' right"? For the exact same reason RPGs have rules! JFC! Are you guys not even bothering to TRY understanding where we're coming from here???

nataliereed1984 wrote:

 Azreal13 wrote:

nataliereed1984 wrote:
.

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.

Why do you even need rules at all for that? You just fairly accurately explained the likely outcome, if you're that bothered by the "story" just move the models and remove however many casualties from each side that "feels" right? Or play an RPG.

Why not just "move the models and remove however many casualties... 'feels' right"? For the exact same reason RPGs have rules! JFC! Are you guys not even bothering to TRY understanding where we're coming from here???

@nataliereed, now you can see what I meant

@Azreal13, you forgot about making pew pew noises while moving those models for narrative purposes to complete this classic "argument".

The nature of the game resulting from a given set of rules is entirely different "dimension" than tight vs loose. You can have a tight ruleset that does not convey any narrative at all - see GO for an extreme example, but even in 40K history you can look at difference between, say, early 3rd ed close combat rules that left completely no room for interesting story happening in CC after charges were made, and 2nd ed rules that, when applied to a proper scale of battle of 2nd/Necromunda, resulted in ongoing duels with ups and down within the CC phase itself. Tightness of those rules interacting with weapons/wargear/codices or language used to describe those rules, or point balance of units in the game at that time had absolutely nothing to do with resulting differences in "feel" of combat phase gameplay between those two editions.

When you add different expectations about accepted length of game and complexity of rules, capacity of rules to tell interesting stories, simulationism of rules etc between narrative players and tournament players it should be clear enough, that narrative vs competitive rules design is way, way more complex consideration than simple "loosening a tight ruleset is easier than tighting a loose ruleset".

It's easier to omit parts of a ruleset than it is to invent and include new rules. Especially when it comes to agreeing houserules with your opponent. If someone find the rules are "good enough" to work for what they want, then that's totally fine, and within their right to say. Likewise, if someone finds the rules are not "good enough" then that's also fine, and they can ask for such. When it comes down to it, this is a very subjective area, and comes down to the individual and their own group. But for me, I'd rather have a tighter ruleset that I can exclude rules from, than a basic ruleset that I would have to invent my own ruleset to add to it.

nou wrote:

nataliereed1984 wrote:

 Azreal13 wrote:

nataliereed1984 wrote:
.

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.

Why do you even need rules at all for that? You just fairly accurately explained the likely outcome, if you're that bothered by the "story" just move the models and remove however many casualties from each side that "feels" right? Or play an RPG.

Why not just "move the models and remove however many casualties... 'feels' right"? For the exact same reason RPGs have rules! JFC! Are you guys not even bothering to TRY understanding where we're coming from here???

@nataliereed, now you can see what I meant

Okay, okay. I owe you a beer.

 Sim-Life wrote:
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.

Scatterbikes + D Weapons and Battle Demi-Company existing last edition, and the broke ass formations besides that in 7th? The interaction of Roboute and Asscanbacks existing until the new codex? Conscripts having to be nerfed to be the same exactly damn points as an existing unit that's still more broken than other armies' troops? The broken Castellan that took a whole year to actually nerf properly somehow? Or how about wound allocation making it impossible to kill Paladins in 5th? In 6th where Wave Serpents were shooting better than their own army's dedicated firing platforms, let alone other armies with their own tanks?

I'm not even CLOSE to finished, but sure call it "oh you're just cherry picking this right now the game is fine".

nou wrote:

Spoiler:

nataliereed1984 wrote:

 Azreal13 wrote:

nataliereed1984 wrote:
.

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.

Why do you even need rules at all for that? You just fairly accurately explained the likely outcome, if you're that bothered by the "story" just move the models and remove however many casualties from each side that "feels" right? Or play an RPG.

Why not just "move the models and remove however many casualties... 'feels' right"? For the exact same reason RPGs have rules! JFC! Are you guys not even bothering to TRY understanding where we're coming from here???

@nataliereed, now you can see what I meant

@Azreal13, you forgot about making pew pew noises while moving those models for narrative purposes to complete this classic "argument".

The nature of the game resulting from a given set of rules is entirely different "dimension" than tight vs loose. You can have a tight ruleset that does not convey any narrative at all - see GO for an extreme example, but even in 40K history you can look at difference between, say, early 3rd ed close combat rules that left completely no room for interesting story happening in CC after charges were made, and 2nd ed rules that, when applied to a proper scale of battle of 2nd/Necromunda, resulted in ongoing duels with ups and down within the CC phase itself. Tightness of those rules interacting with weapons/wargear/codices or language used to describe those rules, or point balance of units in the game at that time had absolutely nothing to do with resulting differences in "feel" of combat phase gameplay between those two editions.

When you add different expectations about accepted length of game and complexity of rules, capacity of rules to tell interesting stories, simulationism of rules etc between narrative players and tournament players it should be clear enough, that narrative vs competitive rules design is way, way more complex consideration than simple "loosening a tight ruleset is easier than tighting a loose ruleset".

You know what RPGs have too? Independant third parties that have the power to make, break or modify rules on the fly to serve the purpose of the narrative. 40K is an adversarial game played to detrmine a winner. Any "narrative" is the player's imagination imposing itself on the output of a mathematical construct. A construct, incidentally, that allows for very few meaningful choices outside of army building. 40K isn't just a poor choice for narrative gaming because it is adversarial, it is a poor choice of an adversarial game to play narratively.

It is the classic hammering of a screw, sure, you'll get some way to the result you wanted, but it'll never be the right tool for the job.

Also, I thought the pew pew was implied.

Wayniac wrote:

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.

Exactly.

Years ago, my wife thought Tyranids were cool, so she bought some. She's not super competitive, she just likes to take units that appeal to her (Gaunts and Zoanthropes, mostly) and have fun. End result: she lost every single game she played with someone who wasn't me, and didn't have any fun. Eventually she didn't want to play any more, even with me.

Balance is *more* important for "casual" or "narrative" players, not less.

In 6th where Wave Serpents were shooting better than their own army's dedicated firing platforms, let alone other armies with their own tanks?

Now that was truly funny. I remember the run on Wave Serpents was so bad they were shipped in white Citadel boxes with build instructions printed off a copier and stapled.

We’re deep into the disingenuous arguments in this thread I see!

Narrative as a tag is not new or “invented by GW in 6th”.

Historical wargamers like to refight battles. The outcome is known and the dice may end up changing history. This isn’t pointless, and people enjoy it.

Some of these Historical games have very simple rules with just Cavalry, Infantry, Artillery and Officer unit types. They can still allow the players to tell a story and have memorable moments even without special rules.

Bringing up examples of bad balance from 5th and 6th does nothing to refute that GW is updating the game twice a year with FAQs and points changes. You might as well point out 2nd’s Virus Grenade if you wanna go full cliche.

Memorable moments crop up when It’s crucial that a roll succeeds, or a unit succeeds against the odds. Mathhammer cant predict these. The players bring that spirit to the table irrespective of rules.

There are so many ways to enjoy the game. It’s kinda sad how many threads become “you’re playing it wrong” or “if you enjoy this you are [insert epithet]”. Stop telling other people how to have fun...

So the points are:

Balance is not a problem for casual games within a fixed group, as you can use house-rules to overcome it

Balance is not an issue for high competitive games, as everyone will just take the flavour of the week and use it.


Balance is an issue for those in between, and this is most likely the majority of the people.
Competitive games were the TO want to make Codex hopping/borrowing armies impossible (so if you did not choose the current top army by accident a year ago, no chance to be within the top tier)

Pick up games, or casual events were people want to play the stock game, or the process on agreeing to some house-rules takes longer than actual playing the game


Narrative is a thing, but GW does not really support it.
It is not new, neither in TT in general nor for GW, and it is the thing were the old "no points needed to have fun" comes from.
Burt than you need a lot of Scenarios with different pre-made army lists that you gonna use

Just the "play narrative but do everything on your own" does not work, as those how want to do it don't need GW for it, and those who don't want to do all on their own are in the same situation as before


Balance Issues are a problem for casual pick-up games, for non high-competitive events, new players or those who base their army/unit choice on fluff.

and just because other games have minor balance issues in the high competitive scene, does not mean that GW should not even start trying to get a game done that is playable out of the box without the need of house-rules (and yes, additional limits to the unit choice to make armies not as strong in casual games are house-rules too)

What baffles me at this point.

If people want competitive values quite so badly, and GW does not officially support it. Why not make organization specific point values? Toss them on to relics and warlord traits while you're at it. Sure it's a lot of work, yes yes I'm sure you think GW should do it for you, but they aren't. You all clearly know better, why not put that to use.

Do something like say a guardsman is worth 10 points, and work your way out from there. Chaos cultists and conscripts maybe 8, Genestealer cultists probably 9 or 10. Even I was screwing around with things like this to see where space marines should sit cost wise, and frankly, I think the game is plenty salvageable with redone points, but no one is going to like how much their big center piece models cost after being priced fairly.

Jep exactly these. I don't get it. All tournament using own rules and house rules but still cry ofer bad balance? Hell give own house ruled points if you don't play the official game

I shouldn't have a need to talk to my opponent about how the game is played in terms of lists outside point levels, period. There's a bizarre disconnect there for the CAAC crowd here that you're suddenly anti-socializing because of that. In reality that's more time put into an already long game as is. Could I talk to my opponent asking where he got that awesome Relic Blade proxy? Yeah that's cool. Could I talk to my opponent asking them to please oh pretty please don't use their nicely painted Dark Reapers? No that's just stupid.

YeOldSaltPotato wrote:
What baffles me at this point.

If people want competitive values quite so badly, and GW does not officially support it. Why not make organization specific point values? Toss them on to relics and warlord traits while you're at it. Sure it's a lot of work, yes yes I'm sure you think GW should do it for you, but they aren't. You all clearly know better, why not put that to use.

Do something like say a guardsman is worth 10 points, and work your way out from there. Chaos cultists and conscripts maybe 8, Genestealer cultists probably 9 or 10. Even I was screwing around with things like this to see where space marines should sit cost wise, and frankly, I think the game is plenty salvageable with redone points, but no one is going to like how much their big center piece models cost after being priced fairly.

It's too hard to reach a consensus. Here's the thing envisage a group of competitive players playing a perfectly balanced game, they only have two factions to use. Even if 40k was only two, perfectly balanced factions people would still complain about balance because there are too many other variables to account for and confirmation bias is a thing.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
I shouldn't have a need to talk to my opponent about how the game is played in terms of lists outside point levels, period. There's a bizarre disconnect there for the CAAC crowd here that you're suddenly anti-socializing because of that. In reality that's more time put into an already long game as is. Could I talk to my opponent asking where he got that awesome Relic Blade proxy? Yeah that's cool. Could I talk to my opponent asking them to please oh pretty please don't use their nicely painted Dark Reapers? No that's just stupid.

Except thats not at all how it is. Generally you agree on a points level before hand and when we turn up inform the opponent of any non-WYSIWYG models and away we go. Generally people don't spam models in casual games. Your assumption that all casual players operate at the same "spam X unit to win" method of playing as competitive players. Most casual games I've played over my 20 or so years most lists consist of a single version of a given unit unless its a Troops choice or the army in question has limited options in a such a given role.

I feel balance is a spectrum.
IMO at least 8th is far more balanced than 7th.
Yes, if you bring Grey Knights, and someone brings IH, you are at a disadvantage. But I don't feel you have a 0% chance to win the game - and by contrast in 7th, I feel if you played say CSM, Orks, Tyranids without Flying Hive Tyrant Spam etc, you had essentially a 0% chance versus Eldar, Tau, Marines. You did no damage, while they casually swept you from the table.

Every Chapter Approved GW make things "better". The bad units get buffs - the always takes get nerfed. Is this mathematically perfect? No.
But again - its a spectrum.
Moving from:
|----------------------|
to:
|--------|
Is improvement.

Are Ironhands (and the SM factions in general) out of whack? Yes - so enjoy the next 12 months. Because I am confident they will be nerfed by this time next year.

If you create a game where you have a 50% win rate regardless of what faction you play, regardless of what units you bring, regardless of how you use them on the table, you are not creating balance, you are essentially making winning or losing a random consequence of the dice. Which is not (imo again) good for the game. You want a bit of random luck - so yes, the mathematically inferior choices can still sometimes win - but I don't want list building and decision making to become irrelevant.

Which is another point about balance. On this forum people always seem to get "average" dice. They never roll badly or well. So we are meant to believe the mathematically superior faction (and in turn the inferior faction) have a 100%/0% win rate respectively. Thats just not true.

Now obviously if one faction has say a 60% chance to win and another has only a 40% chance to win, its going to skew tournaments. The odds of winning 5 games in a row on purely this luck basis, is nearly 8% for the 60% player, and just 1% for the 40% player. If very few players play the 40% faction - and a huge number play the 60% faction - it should not be surprising that the 40% faction almost never wins 5 games.

This isn't to say a faction with a 40% win rate is in a good place and shouldn't be buffed - but you play 5 games, you should expect to win 2. This is not "unplayable".

This screed might be a bit white knighting - but I am still enjoying 40k, Marine burnout or no, and struggle with the view it isn't a lot better than its been for this decade at least.

Tyel wrote:
I feel balance is a spectrum.
IMO at least 8th is far more balanced than 7th.
Yes, if you bring Grey Knights, and someone brings IH, you are at a disadvantage. But I don't feel you have a 0% chance to win the game - and by contrast in 7th, I feel if you played say CSM, Orks, Tyranids without Flying Hive Tyrant Spam etc, you had essentially a 0% chance versus Eldar, Tau, Marines. You did no damage, while they casually swept you from the table.

Every Chapter Approved GW make things "better". The bad units get buffs - the always takes get nerfed. Is this mathematically perfect? No.
But again - its a spectrum.
Moving from:
|----------------------|
to:
|--------|
Is improvement.

Are Ironhands (and the SM factions in general) out of whack? Yes - so enjoy the next 12 months. Because I am confident they will be nerfed by this time next year.

If you create a game where you have a 50% win rate regardless of what faction you play, regardless of what units you bring, regardless of how you use them on the table, you are not creating balance, you are essentially making winning or losing a random consequence of the dice. Which is not (imo again) good for the game. You want a bit of random luck - so yes, the mathematically inferior choices can still sometimes win - but I don't want list building and decision making to become irrelevant.

Which is another point about balance. On this forum people always seem to get "average" dice. They never roll badly or well. So we are meant to believe the mathematically superior faction (and in turn the inferior faction) have a 100%/0% win rate respectively. Thats just not true.

Now obviously if one faction has say a 60% chance to win and another has only a 40% chance to win, its going to skew tournaments. The odds of winning 5 games in a row on purely this luck basis, is nearly 8% for the 60% player, and just 1% for the 40% player. If very few players play the 40% faction - and a huge number play the 60% faction - it should not be surprising that the 40% faction almost never wins 5 games.

This isn't to say a faction with a 40% win rate is in a good place and shouldn't be buffed - but you play 5 games, you should expect to win 2. This is not "unplayable".

This screed might be a bit white knighting - but I am still enjoying 40k, Marine burnout or no, and struggle with the view it isn't a lot better than its been for this decade at least.

The 40% win rate player in this example doesnt have a 1% chance to win but rather 0,1% or maybe even much less. His 40% chance to win is against mostly other bad armies and against marines for example he might only have a 10 % chance to win.

Go look up the stats for the sub 45% win rate armies against marines and you see many of them have closer to 10-20% win rates.

Only reason it doesnt go lower than 30-40% is that the meta isnt only marines. But if he is unlucky and there are 50% marines at a tournament then it means lots of marine players will win against other marines and put marines over the whole playing field and not just the top. An unlucky Blood Angels player (before the new PA is what im taking stats for) might then have 5 games in a row against codex marines with each game having a 10% chance to win. For him to win that tournament would need a miracle and most likely he will go 0-5 and get crushed in most games. He could get lucky and win a game to then be crushed for the rest of the event.

Balance is way worse than it might seem. I have heard of tournaments losing up to 50% of the players because they dont want to face marines and marines some times being close to 50% of the participants. The above example could be a reality and not many want to spend time and money and risk having a ruined weekend.

My team decided to skip a 3 day event in a nearby city due to rules being locked before the IH faq. Why go there and risk just losing the whole team match if one of the 4 opponents had an IH list, having them automatically start with 1-0 in a best of 4 isnt worth spending lots of money on.

If you don't want a weekend ruined then don't play in tournaments. Just arrange a game with a friend and have fun, like GW intended.

 Azreal13 wrote:

You know what RPGs have too? Independant third parties that have the power to make, break or modify rules on the fly to serve the purpose of the narrative. 40K is an adversarial game played to detrmine a winner. Any "narrative" is the player's imagination imposing itself on the output of a mathematical construct. A construct, incidentally, that allows for very few meaningful choices outside of army building. 40K isn't just a poor choice for narrative gaming because it is adversarial, it is a poor choice of an adversarial game to play narratively.

It is the classic hammering of a screw, sure, you'll get some way to the result you wanted, but it'll never be the right tool for the job.

Also, I thought the pew pew was implied.

It might surprise you to realise that we as players also have the power and abilities to make, break and modify rules on the fly to serve the narrative. We have been doing this for 5 years in our group and we are far from the only ones. It is also possible to have an umpire or third party help organise or build the games. Even if it's not explicitly stated in the rules, plenty players, especially in the historical sphere do this.

Just because a game is adversarial doesn't mean that both players can't collaborate on building an interesting and fair game prior to the dice being rolled. Or for one player to take the lead and build a game and the other to trust them that it will be a fair one. Again, quite a common approach outside of the competitiv scene. Saying because it's adversarial, and therefore none of this can happen or there can be no cooperation is silly, small minded and leads down the road to competitive at all cost and the idea that there is no kinship, everyone is an island, everyone is an opponent just to be beaten and you must do everything in your power, nothing else matters and you must sacrifice every other aspect on the altar to get that win.

while I agree that a narrative is, as you say, 'the player's imagination imposing itself on the output of a mathematical construct', I disagree that the
construct allows for very few meaningful choices outside of army building. What game you play, what scenario you use/build, the terrain set up,any other 'twists' to use the Warcry term etc. All of that is a factor.

40k is fine for narrative games. It's got lore. It's got mechanics that try to bring the lore to life. As do all other games. I've had narrative games of warmachine/hordes and infinity, flames of war and other historicals. I genuinely enjoy this approach and apply it to all games. 40k is no better or worse as fundamentally, 'narrative" is an approach brought to the table by the players, not something any set of rules can do by themselves. Where 40k falls down for me is that it's a clunky interface. Think of a computer game with awkward controls where you have too many things that you can do that require too many buttons pressed in awkward ways and a menu system that is crude and barely functional. You can work with it, for sure. the source material is so rich that oftentimes this can overcome the awkwardness, but let's be fair - I like my game mechanics like my power - green and clean. There could be less bloat,less dice rolling, simpler resolutions, etc. That said, like any other game, 40k is fine for narrative games, so long as you approach it the right way.

And funnily enough, regarding the RPGs comment, I've seen terrible gm's and I've seen awful munchkin powergamers that were only interested in crushing their peers. It's not as separate as you might think.

 JohnnyHell wrote:

Historical wargamers like to refight battles. The outcome is known and the dice may end up changing history. This isn’t pointless, and people enjoy it.

No. Please don't take this as a criticism, but...

Historical wargamers sometimes refight battles. But historicals are so much more. Reenactments are less of a thing than you realise, at least in my experience - no different to following the vraks campaign or something like that for 40k. Mostly, historicals seek to represent 'reflective' battles of a particular era - the kind of battle between your celts and my Romans 'that could have happened' , such as a raid, a siege, a set-piece, an ambush etc rather than specifically relighting the battle of x. Truth be told, the historical record is patchy, with huge holes and there is a vast tapestry to play with and bring to life. It's a lot more open ended that players of fantasy and sci fi games often realise.

Cheers!

Is it that time again? Ok, well lets do a quick summary of the last 20 years or so to save everyone some time.

Player 1: 40k is meant to be competitive.
Player 2: No its not
Player 1: GW should make the game more balanced so we can have better competition.
Player 2 (Probably paid by Gdubs): YOU AREN"T FORGING THE NARRATIVE HARD ENOUGH!


Sorry that was too much fun

Seriously though it boils down to this. You have a huge player base that DOES NOT play competitively and loves the game and a smaller player base that plays tournaments and competitively. Both think the game has issues and needs things addressed. Here is the kicker though.....

The tournament players want the game to be more balanced because it will make the tournament scene more fun. Guess what Casual players? That would make your games more fun as well! Unless you happen to be that random WAAC casual player who takes borderline NET lists to "Friendly" games; you will only be happier if the game becomes more balanced.

I play both casual and tournaments. I would love to be able to take more of my models to tournaments and I would love to play more casual games where my army isn't at a massive handicap from the start of the game.

Also, almost every game at its roots is a competitive game. Saying you dont want balance because you don't view the game as competitive is just silly. Would you ever play Tick Tack Toe if X got to have 2 moves instead of 1? No. Balance makes games more enjoyable. If you want to play casually that is absolutely fine and I encourage it. But how would balance ruin that? It wouldn't, it would just make it better and make competitive games more balanced.

 Sim-Life wrote:
If you don't want a weekend ruined then don't play in tournaments. Just arrange a game with a friend and have fun, like GW intended.

I like to have fun games against players I havent met before or players I havent seen in a long time. Just playing at our small club against the same players and same armies every week isnt that fun compared to tournaments.

Im just keeping it to events in my city while the game isnt so balanced so if im unlucky or everyone is with a marine infested event I can just pack up and go home and only lose 10-20€ instead of 10x that amount for a weekend somewhere else.


Think I have only had 1 bad tournament game so far due to a bad opponent and I have played 40k 4th/5th/8th, WFB, Warmachine and Blood Bowl tournaments. Tabletop tournament gamers are usually awewome so it sucks that the rules we use arent.

Klickor wrote:

 Sim-Life wrote:
If you don't want a weekend ruined then don't play in tournaments. Just arrange a game with a friend and have fun, like GW intended.

I like to have fun games against players I havent met before or players I havent seen in a long time. Just playing at our small club against the same players and same armies every week isnt that fun compared to tournaments.

Im just keeping it to events in my city while the game isnt so balanced so if im unlucky or everyone is with a marine infested event I can just pack up and go home and only lose 10-20€ instead of 10x that amount for a weekend somewhere else.


Think I have only had 1 bad tournament game so far due to a bad opponent and I have played 40k 4th/5th/8th, WFB, Warmachine and Blood Bowl tournaments. Tabletop tournament gamers are usually awewome so it sucks that the rules we use arent.

My point was more that if playing in tournaments isn't enjoyable for some people, maybe they shouldn't be playing at tournament level? I played in Warmachine tournaments for a while because thats what the game was based around but I got sick of everyone bringing their factions top tier list because everyone was always using tournaments as practice for the next big Master/IG/WTC so I never had fun with my weird casual lists. I stopped playing at tournament level and guess what? Suddenly the game was fun again.

I get that some people find competitive level play fun but expecting 40k to be the game for that just isn't going to happen. It's always going to be balanced for casual level play.

Is it though? My first 8th edition games were quite casual and they were some of the worst games I have ever had in a tabletop game.

Do you know how terribly bad a BA list with terminators in a land raider, whirlwind, devastators, predator, furioso dread, MM attack bike, 10 man tactical marines, non smash captain HQs and a bunch of assault marines are?

At least with my more competetive lists as a BA player I get much more of a game out of it. The game isnt balanced at all at a casual level unless you spend a bunch of time pre game houseruling stuff or tailor lists for a close game. You have to spend more effort getting a balanced matchup in casual games than if using tournament lists.

YeOldSaltPotato wrote:
What baffles me at this point.

If people want competitive values quite so badly, and GW does not officially support it. Why not make organization specific point values? Toss them on to relics and warlord traits while you're at it. Sure it's a lot of work, yes yes I'm sure you think GW should do it for you, but they aren't. You all clearly know better, why not put that to use.

We already had this, it took 1 and a half Edition to get people into using that and it was thrown way as soon as GW announced a new Edtion because "GW will solve all problems now and we don't need it any more"

At the end of 7th we were also close to the point were people were ready to accept a community comp system (deep changes were always out of question is it would stop the game from being 40k, except when GW made something similar but even going a step further, than it was the best 40k ever) but as soon as 8th hit and a "GW will adress balance issues with point changes on their own", it was over again as GW will take care and everything is perfect.


In the end, 8th was better than 7th at the beginning and now is the same as all editions at the end of their live. Nothing new or special.
People again fight for a community comp/point system as GW proofed again (as with every edition so far) to be not be able to get out of their power creep and bloated style of faction rules

But whatever the community will do, it will be worth nothing as soon as 9th hit as "it will be the edition were GW will finally make a good game"



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Sim-Life wrote:
If you don't want a weekend ruined then don't play in tournaments. Just arrange a game with a friend and have fun, like GW intended.

If I want to have a fun game with friends, I play everything but 40k

It is just that 40k is the one game were you will find larger events everywhere and playing outside your usual group and meet other people with other armies is a thing for a lot of people.

You would think by this time people would realize that GW in general and the 40k team in particular aren't capable of making a good game (with the possible exception of the LOTR game which actually was pretty good and the self-contained games). For whatever reason, intentional or incompetence or overwhelmed with work, they never have and probably never will without essentially changing direction from a model company that oh yeah has that game thing too back to a game company that sells both a tabletop wargame and high quality gaming models that are also great for display. As long as the game is an afterthought to the models the game will suffer. It should be a tag team effort and it's not anymore.

The 40k team in particular just seems to be trash at rules. But remember it's mostly the same guys from 6th and 7th edition's "forge the narrative" (Cruddace, Grant, maybe He Who Must Not Be Named, etc.) so not exactly designers with a good track record. At least the AOS team is new and has at least one tournament player.

I consider myself a narrative player but I still want tighter balance.

I know Iron Hands are the to to example, but there are loads of imbalanced interactions at the narrative level. Consider mono-Slaanesh Daemons (fluffy and narrative) vs. gunline Imperial Guard or Tau, just as an example.

Right this very moment I am playing a map campaign with my friends and it is turning into an arms race. Everything started narratively, but because there are things on the line with each game (map regions, bragging rights, narrative promotions, character levels, etc) people are beginning to break things more and more to try to win. I don't blame them though - blame GW. The new Marine Book dropped, which forced the Chaos players into a more soupy meta build. CSM squads, what should be the core of the army, disappeared overnight, just as an example. The fact that we had any in the first place is a testament to my player's dedication in the narrative but it is unsustainable to simply lose every narrative game because of bad balance.

 Azreal13 wrote:

nou wrote:

Spoiler:

nataliereed1984 wrote:

 Azreal13 wrote:

nataliereed1984 wrote:
.

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.

Why do you even need rules at all for that? You just fairly accurately explained the likely outcome, if you're that bothered by the "story" just move the models and remove however many casualties from each side that "feels" right? Or play an RPG.

Why not just "move the models and remove however many casualties... 'feels' right"? For the exact same reason RPGs have rules! JFC! Are you guys not even bothering to TRY understanding where we're coming from here???

@nataliereed, now you can see what I meant

@Azreal13, you forgot about making pew pew noises while moving those models for narrative purposes to complete this classic "argument".

The nature of the game resulting from a given set of rules is entirely different "dimension" than tight vs loose. You can have a tight ruleset that does not convey any narrative at all - see GO for an extreme example, but even in 40K history you can look at difference between, say, early 3rd ed close combat rules that left completely no room for interesting story happening in CC after charges were made, and 2nd ed rules that, when applied to a proper scale of battle of 2nd/Necromunda, resulted in ongoing duels with ups and down within the CC phase itself. Tightness of those rules interacting with weapons/wargear/codices or language used to describe those rules, or point balance of units in the game at that time had absolutely nothing to do with resulting differences in "feel" of combat phase gameplay between those two editions.

When you add different expectations about accepted length of game and complexity of rules, capacity of rules to tell interesting stories, simulationism of rules etc between narrative players and tournament players it should be clear enough, that narrative vs competitive rules design is way, way more complex consideration than simple "loosening a tight ruleset is easier than tighting a loose ruleset".

You know what RPGs have too? Independant third parties that have the power to make, break or modify rules on the fly to serve the purpose of the narrative. 40K is an adversarial game played to detrmine a winner. Any "narrative" is the player's imagination imposing itself on the output of a mathematical construct. A construct, incidentally, that allows for very few meaningful choices outside of army building. 40K isn't just a poor choice for narrative gaming because it is adversarial, it is a poor choice of an adversarial game to play narratively.

It is the classic hammering of a screw, sure, you'll get some way to the result you wanted, but it'll never be the right tool for the job.

Also, I thought the pew pew was implied.

The notion that adversarial games cannot convey compelling narratives and you require RPG-like approach baffles me. Wolsung Miniature Game was born as a utility to resolve skirmishes that arose as a part of Wolsung pen&paper RPG. Inq28/Inquisimunda exist solely for playing out narratives. The core of Oldmunda was 2nd ed 40k and made a great narrative system for nearly two decades - campaign layer of Necromunda is just an additional level of the story, not the sole narrative element... People, including names like John Blanche, have been using 40k as a narrative tool for three decades and what, should suddenly stop doing that and apologize for being dumb enough to hammer screws? Or is it more plausible to assume that some other people have a mindset too narrow to see how 40k can be used this way?

One more way to show why „tight vs loose” is not the crux here and that competitively focused system may not be universally beneficial. Imagine three core rule systems and assume for a moment, that probabilities resulting from resolution systems given below in a typical situation are the same, so overall math stays identical:
1. You roll a single modified dice to see if attack suceeded and target is removed from play
2. You roll flat to hit, flat to wound, opponent rolls flat save, either cover or armour
3. You roll modified to hit, formula to wound, separate modified cover, separate modified armour and finally an injury roll

There is nothing about tightness or balance above, but thise three systems differ greatly in how many possible story points emerge from the resolution system alone. In the first case you wont know which modifier made the roll a succes, so you must make up the missing part of the emergent narrative yourself. The second case gives you a bit more to hold on, but does not handle heroic duels or lone-hero-against-hordes-of-zombies types of situations all that impressive. The third is the most simulationist approach, and would be pain to resolve in mass battles, but gives you detailed information about what and when exactly happened during a fight.

Now those three examples can be discussed whether they are adequate to the scope of the game you wish to play, do they manage the time required to resolve well enough, are they an overkill or too dumbed down, but there is nothing inherently unbalanced or not tight about them. None.

MiguelFelstone wrote:

nataliereed1984 wrote:
or the Castellan, they correct that with FAQ / Errata as quickly as they can.

If they corrected it as quickly as they could it wouldn't have taken nearly a year to address it.

Castellans came out in June of 2018, which was far too close to Fall FAQ and CA given the printing delays. So they took a swing at it in March through soup and when that wasn't enough they knocked it down in September.

GW moved forward on it consistently and I'm skeptical a faster timeline for most balance changes is wise, but with the patch to IH they might be more willing to do that in the future.

I don't accept that it has to be one or the other, how about you develop and test something competently and THEN release it.

Sure, I dont disagree, but they're clearly understaffed and you have to weigh getting everyone's books out fast or doing it proper.

Layer on top the fact that they're still changing the dynamic of the game, which makes it hard to keep all the books on the same playing field.