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Maybe GW should get out the tournament rules business and let each host do their own rules.

 _SeeD_ wrote:
Maybe GW should get out the tournament rules business and let each host do their own rules.

This is already partly what's happening and it is a problem. All american hardcore competitive players play a heavily houseruled version of the game which is more boring than the real game and focuses even more on killing. It doesn't stop them from complaining about GW.

 Crimson wrote:

 _SeeD_ wrote:
Maybe GW should get out the tournament rules business and let each host do their own rules.

This is already partly what's happening and it is a problem. All american hardcore competitive players play a heavily houseruled version of the game which is more boring than the real game and focuses even more on killing. It doesn't stop them from complaining about GW.

Complaining alone wouldn't be a problem. Demanding point values that fit their houseruled version better is a problem, especially when FLG is part of official playtesting...

nou wrote:

 Crimson wrote:

 _SeeD_ wrote:
Maybe GW should get out the tournament rules business and let each host do their own rules.

This is already partly what's happening and it is a problem. All american hardcore competitive players play a heavily houseruled version of the game which is more boring than the real game and focuses even more on killing. It doesn't stop them from complaining about GW.

Complaining alone wouldn't be a problem. Demanding point values that fit their houseruled version better is a problem, especially when FLG is part of official playtesting...

Well yeah. It is an utterly bonkers situation that half of the playtesters are not playing using the rules they're supposed to test...

ITC is a big part of the issues seen at the competitive level, at least here in the states, but honestly the best option would be for the ITC to go back to what they had to do in 6th and 7th and do their own.errats and balance. They already change the way the game is played so why not go whole hog I stead of pretending things are fine. FLG is basically the GW ministry of propaganda at this point and little more than corporate shills.

RE: testing a huge issue is apparently the playtesters are not allowed to test certain things so a lot that they might catch they aren't allowed to check. Since it's all kept secret it's hard to tell but bits and pieces indicate they get given a fixed army list from GW and told to use that and check for specific interactions. They are not allowed to create their own lists and find broken combos. Or that's what it appears to be.

From what I remember rumours were that GWs playtest instructions were "do the units play like they feel they should", not "do these units feel OP/UP".

 JohnnyHell wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 JohnnyHell wrote:
I mean, it does work if you read my take on it. If you ignore it and repeat yours of course it doesn’t. That’s how opinions work.

I get the frustration some people have with Strats. Seeing them as the more heroic moments helps me reconcile them. Units are using their Auspexes and scanners and fly clouds and knife feet etc all the time. That one Hellfire Shell is the one that hits the crucial spot, whereas the others plinked off the armour and might as well have been regular rounds. All the Eldar planes are jinking about but that one gal is just *super good at it*. That kind of thing. The exemplars and outliers are the ones the Strats represent, to me. YMMV. Whatever is most fun for you.

It's very shallow to think it's just the one Heavy Bolter that landed the shot on the Imperial Knight out of 15 you have in your army, meanwhile the rest are shooting with 2 hits average.

So no it still doesn't work in your bizarre interpretation.

Yes. Yes it does work. And it isn’t shallow or bizarre. Try arguing without throwing in insults. It’s perfectly reasonable and one way of reconciling Matched Play’s limitation. Bizarre would be something like mentioning IGOUGO in every thread on every topic, or berating people as CAAC before they’ve even posted. That’s bizarre behaviour.

As others have noted “why only once per phase?” is only a “problem” (if you call it that) in Matched Play, a mode which has extra limiters added in a vain quest for balance. It’s a gamey patch to curb the worst abuses. If you want to play a game with 15 Hellfire Shells fired in a Phase then you absolutely can. The assumption on Dakka is that every game is 2k meta netlist WAAC, though, right?

No, it is shallow, as the Imperial Knight is a big target. It's baffling to think as well, even if you decide to do Narrative to get rid of the once a turn restriction, that STILL doesn't help your case. Assuming you spent all your CP to fire at that Imperial Knight, all the sudden you're out of CP and now NONE of the Auspex Scanners work in your army! Play with no restrictions AND unlimited CP, and you get the same rules bloat that everyone loved from 7th. Sorry, but you don't get to say "no THIS particularly breaks immersion" when there are several instances of core rules breaking immersion you're choosing to ignore on purpose to make your argument seem better. So you want to bring up something breaking immersion on my end? Well you get to hear all the stuff we haven't talked about yet!

Also I love the whole "vain quest for balance" like this is some terrible idea. No,

So seems that Slayer Fan has realised that games use abstractions and thus do not perfectly reflect what the reality would be. Quelle horreur!

You do understand that this is the case with every bloody game ever made, even the RPGs which focus on immersion? Even various hero or drama points that allow characters perform better than normally for a limited number of times are pretty common in RPGs.

 Crimson wrote:
So seems that Slayer Fan has realised that games use abstractions and thus do not perfectly reflect what the reality would be. Quelle horreur!

You do understand that this is the case with every bloody game ever made, even the RPGs which focus on immersion? Even various hero or drama points that allow characters perform better than normally for a limited number of times are pretty common in RPGs.

Yes you're right. The is an abstraction of two armies, where one does a bunch of stuff while the other does absolutely nothing outside firing at charging models, an abstraction where high tech gear can only work once a turn and if you somehow use abstraction points to much it doesn't work anymore, an abstraction of an absolute joke of balancing armies. Did I get that right for ya? Are some of you really willing to die on this hill that immersion is of utter importance only when you decide it is?

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

Yes you're right. The is an abstraction of two armies, where one does a bunch of stuff while the other does absolutely nothing outside firing at charging models, an abstraction where high tech gear can only work once a turn and if you somehow use abstraction points to much it doesn't work anymore, an abstraction of an absolute joke of balancing armies. Did I get that right for ya? Are some of you really willing to die on this hill that immersion is of utter importance only when you decide it is?

Immersion is important and it works in 40K pretty well for a wargame. I don't see your point and that is probably because as usual you don't have one.

 Crimson wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

Yes you're right. The is an abstraction of two armies, where one does a bunch of stuff while the other does absolutely nothing outside firing at charging models, an abstraction where high tech gear can only work once a turn and if you somehow use abstraction points to much it doesn't work anymore, an abstraction of an absolute joke of balancing armies. Did I get that right for ya? Are some of you really willing to die on this hill that immersion is of utter importance only when you decide it is?

Immersion is important and it works in 40K pretty well for a wargame. I don't see your point and that is probably because as usual you don't have one.

It does? Really? My Land Raider can't fire because one Guardsman ran up and knocked on the hull? My Vindicator is going to shoot its fixed-forward gun behind it and hit your tank square-on because an antenna was poking out behind the bunker? I'm going to fire an orbital bombardment and it's going to kill two dudes and take one wound off your character? Psykers get worse the more of them you have?

8e is terrible at immersion by comparison to itself in earlier editions when the writers were putting a bit of effort into immersion and the playerbase spent all their time grumbling about how much work it took to handle the immersion in a tournament environment and how much better it'd be if all the character and personality got stripped out in favour of long-winded descriptions of why these guys deserve to-hit rerolls or extra mortal wounds.

 Crimson wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

Yes you're right. The is an abstraction of two armies, where one does a bunch of stuff while the other does absolutely nothing outside firing at charging models, an abstraction where high tech gear can only work once a turn and if you somehow use abstraction points to much it doesn't work anymore, an abstraction of an absolute joke of balancing armies. Did I get that right for ya? Are some of you really willing to die on this hill that immersion is of utter importance only when you decide it is?

Immersion is important and it works in 40K pretty well for a wargame. I don't see your point and that is probably because as usual you don't have one.

What's immersive about anything I listed? You say I don't have a point because of the blind eye you've turned to GWs poor rules writing. The point I made, which was incredibly clear by the way, was you cannot claim one thing is totally immersive breaking while ignoring all the other issues pretending everything is fine.

So no I want you to explain how anything in the base 40k game is immersive instead of just pretending only certain things are immersion breaking.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

What's immersive about anything I listed? You say I don't have a point because of the blind eye you've turned to GWs poor rules writing. The point I made, which was incredibly clear by the way, was you cannot claim one thing is totally immersive breaking while ignoring all the other issues pretending everything is fine.

So no I want you to explain how anything in the base 40k game is immersive instead of just pretending only certain things are immersion breaking.

Things you list as faults are abstractions. These exist in every game. In overwhelming majority of RPGs my character gets a turn and does all their actions at once, while everyone else is 'frozen in place.' In many RPGs I use some meta resource to power my characters abilities. You need to focus to the overall flow of the events rather than the minutiae. For example that tank that fires when only small part of it's hull can draw LOS to the target is obviously not in reality immobile, it can 'peek' behind the cover a bit to fire and then withdraw back. And yes, sometimes abstractions can create immersion breaking WTF moments like a same warrior being both risen as a plague zombie and being revived by an apothechary. At least in the eight edition there no longer are biker characters that can protect entire units of infantry by dodging bullets!

Also, Immersion and what breaks it is highly personal. I for example found D&D 4th edition to be so 'gamey' that it hurt my immersion. Other people though it was fine. And as this was about subjective experience neither was wrong.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 JohnnyHell wrote:
I mean, it does work if you read my take on it. If you ignore it and repeat yours of course it doesn’t. That’s how opinions work.

I get the frustration some people have with Strats. Seeing them as the more heroic moments helps me reconcile them. Units are using their Auspexes and scanners and fly clouds and knife feet etc all the time. That one Hellfire Shell is the one that hits the crucial spot, whereas the others plinked off the armour and might as well have been regular rounds. All the Eldar planes are jinking about but that one gal is just *super good at it*. That kind of thing. The exemplars and outliers are the ones the Strats represent, to me. YMMV. Whatever is most fun for you.

It's very shallow to think it's just the one Heavy Bolter that landed the shot on the Imperial Knight out of 15 you have in your army, meanwhile the rest are shooting with 2 hits average.

So no it still doesn't work in your bizarre interpretation.

"That Chaos Knight is on its last legs - load the Hellfire rounds in the Heavy Bolter Brother Carl!"

"Uh, Sergeant, what Hellfire rounds?"

"Carl! You had one job!"

I obtain plenty of immersion from my 40K games - if I didn't I probably wouldn't play. I am a 30 year military guy, and I love when things go sideways on the tabletop battlefield. Some other guy called Carl mentioned something about friction and the fog of war. For me, Stratagems and CPs are the commander's (aka my) influence on the battlefield. Its a finite thing. I can spend it affecting that one weapons's firing or take a broader view. Works for me - you are under no obligation to try it and also under no obligation to enjoy the narrative aspects of the game.You are free to find your own way to enjoy the game.

I almost always try to find narrative moments, even when I'm at a tournament. I'll send my Master into close combat with the Demon Prince even though it would make more sense to allow the Terminators to grind it down on their own. So I might give up a Slay the Warlord VP to my opponent - its about the glory of the moment. The "Narrative way of playing" is not the same thing as playing narratively. I don't tend to play scenarios or "historical refights." I do, however, enjoy playing in a style where the narrative emerges.

Regarding the thread in general, perhaps GW should hire a few ex-poachers to be their game wardens. Bring them in-house to find the loopholes and wombo-combos that hard-core tourney players exploit during the design phase. It would cost money, though, and even then would not be perfect. I think that GW designs 40K in the frame of games between friends. They rely on moral suasion and restraint. Works great amongst friends but not so much out in the wilds of the FLGS. As it works now, I think they test for rules interactions and then rely on the community of play test after the book releases. I guess its working for them. Our local tourneys sell out and have a waiting list. The big tournies seem to have the same thing going on.

Anyhoo...

40k is so abstract that it isn't very immersive. The mechanics are so sparse and shallow that any story that emerges comes more from our imaginations than anything that happens on the table. Sure, an objective could be an important place to protect, a computer with information that needs to be downloaded, or a piece of lostech, or whatever.

Mechanically, though, it's just a thing that, if you control more of than the other person at the end of the game, somehow makes you win. Contrast with other games, like Infinity where hacking into a mainframe is something a model can actually do, and the problem becomes clearer.

8th 40k is a lot like D&D 5th- light on detail, interaction, and storytelling, heavy on resolving attacks in combat. Basic frameworks for moving, shooting, and stabbing. That's all.

If 40k was immersive, the core rules would be deeper, allowing units to behave in narrative ways.

AngryAngel80 wrote:
GW like most companies wants the best of all worlds. They could, very easily clear all this up and just state on their community page " Warhammer is not and never will be meant to be a hardcore competitive game, play it as such at your own peril. We only give a passing glance balance, never expect more than this from this product. "

If they stated that, quite clearly for all their customers to see, I'd gladly never say another word on their awful balance as they quite clearly made it known that's a non issue for them.

However, they toss around the word and idea of balance about as much any tournament thumper does but it's awful usually.

For the people giving GW a pass, just have GW be clear what the game is and is not and many of these topics would die. GW is as to blame for lack of simple clarity that leads people to believe they actually care about balance, as what else are all these paid point changes, why would they care at all about Legends in tournaments, why would they even run their own tournaments or attend ones they aren't running, etc, etc that makes it seem a lot like they are trying for balance just crap at it.

Have you ever watched any Voxcasts or whatever?

The designers routinely DO say, quite clearly, that balance and hardcore competition is not their priority for 40k. They even tend to make fun of people wanting perfect balance and put scare quotes around it.

nataliereed1984 wrote:

AngryAngel80 wrote:
GW like most companies wants the best of all worlds. They could, very easily clear all this up and just state on their community page " Warhammer is not and never will be meant to be a hardcore competitive game, play it as such at your own peril. We only give a passing glance balance, never expect more than this from this product. "

If they stated that, quite clearly for all their customers to see, I'd gladly never say another word on their awful balance as they quite clearly made it known that's a non issue for them.

However, they toss around the word and idea of balance about as much any tournament thumper does but it's awful usually.

For the people giving GW a pass, just have GW be clear what the game is and is not and many of these topics would die. GW is as to blame for lack of simple clarity that leads people to believe they actually care about balance, as what else are all these paid point changes, why would they care at all about Legends in tournaments, why would they even run their own tournaments or attend ones they aren't running, etc, etc that makes it seem a lot like they are trying for balance just crap at it.

Have you ever watched any Voxcasts or whatever?

The designers routinely DO say, quite clearly, that balance and hardcore competition is not their priority for 40k. They even tend to make fun of people wanting perfect balance and put scare quotes around it.

None of which means that they shouldn't be trying. Especially since they call out in 8th especially how matched play is meant to be balanced and suitable for competitive play.

Wayniac wrote:

nataliereed1984 wrote:

AngryAngel80 wrote:
GW like most companies wants the best of all worlds. They could, very easily clear all this up and just state on their community page " Warhammer is not and never will be meant to be a hardcore competitive game, play it as such at your own peril. We only give a passing glance balance, never expect more than this from this product. "

If they stated that, quite clearly for all their customers to see, I'd gladly never say another word on their awful balance as they quite clearly made it known that's a non issue for them.

However, they toss around the word and idea of balance about as much any tournament thumper does but it's awful usually.

For the people giving GW a pass, just have GW be clear what the game is and is not and many of these topics would die. GW is as to blame for lack of simple clarity that leads people to believe they actually care about balance, as what else are all these paid point changes, why would they care at all about Legends in tournaments, why would they even run their own tournaments or attend ones they aren't running, etc, etc that makes it seem a lot like they are trying for balance just crap at it.

Have you ever watched any Voxcasts or whatever?

The designers routinely DO say, quite clearly, that balance and hardcore competition is not their priority for 40k. They even tend to make fun of people wanting perfect balance and put scare quotes around it.

None of which means that they shouldn't be trying. Especially since they call out in 8th especially how matched play is meant to be balanced and suitable for competitive play.

It doesn't mean they're not trying. It means it's not their main priority, as has been said a bajillion times in this thread. And it's to make the point that "well if it's not meant to be a highly balanced and competitive game, they should come out and SAY that! Then it would be fine!" is silly, because they DO come out and say that. And it's additionally plain as day for anyone who's willing to look at a game for what it is rather than what they wish it was instead.

They don’t need to try. We keep buying this stuff regardless so they don’t need to change or invest the effort it would take to balance 87 codices.

 Fajita Fan wrote:
They don’t need to try. We keep buying this stuff regardless so they don’t need to change or invest the effort it would take to balance 87 codices.

And they know that everyone who complains bitterly and hates the game will still go right on playing it because "nothing else is as popular", so they never have to worry about Warmahordes or Infinity ever outpacing them…

nataliereed1984 wrote:

AngryAngel80 wrote:
GW like most companies wants the best of all worlds. They could, very easily clear all this up and just state on their community page " Warhammer is not and never will be meant to be a hardcore competitive game, play it as such at your own peril. We only give a passing glance balance, never expect more than this from this product. "

If they stated that, quite clearly for all their customers to see, I'd gladly never say another word on their awful balance as they quite clearly made it known that's a non issue for them.

However, they toss around the word and idea of balance about as much any tournament thumper does but it's awful usually.

For the people giving GW a pass, just have GW be clear what the game is and is not and many of these topics would die. GW is as to blame for lack of simple clarity that leads people to believe they actually care about balance, as what else are all these paid point changes, why would they care at all about Legends in tournaments, why would they even run their own tournaments or attend ones they aren't running, etc, etc that makes it seem a lot like they are trying for balance just crap at it.

Have you ever watched any Voxcasts or whatever?

The designers routinely DO say, quite clearly, that balance and hardcore competition is not their priority for 40k. They even tend to make fun of people wanting perfect balance and put scare quotes around it.

whenever they have a game/rules person on, it is reiterated over and over again.

it's like those against GW's stated position are standing in an echo chamber of their own creation. They choose to ignore it since it does not fit their narrative(see what I did there). I could understand this viewpoint if (@some point in the past) GW was the bestest, mostest, awesomest balance machine ever. With the tightest most efficient rules and no OP/under overcosted units. Since this is clearly not the case, continuing to complain about something that clearly is not even a moderate priority for GW, is insane.

nataliereed1984 wrote:
...They even tend to make fun of people wanting perfect balance and put scare quotes around it.

...Nobody wants "perfect balance". Everyone wants the rules not to punish them for liking the wrong models, points values that aren't gibberish, and rulebooks that aren't made nonfunctional by endless typos. I don't understand where the question "can you make (army X) not be unplayable garbage/not be an auto-win button?" turns into "can you make a perfectly balanced wargame in which everyone has precisely a 50.00% winrate against everyone else?" in GW designers' brains.

TangoTwoBravo wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 JohnnyHell wrote:
I mean, it does work if you read my take on it. If you ignore it and repeat yours of course it doesn’t. That’s how opinions work.

I get the frustration some people have with Strats. Seeing them as the more heroic moments helps me reconcile them. Units are using their Auspexes and scanners and fly clouds and knife feet etc all the time. That one Hellfire Shell is the one that hits the crucial spot, whereas the others plinked off the armour and might as well have been regular rounds. All the Eldar planes are jinking about but that one gal is just *super good at it*. That kind of thing. The exemplars and outliers are the ones the Strats represent, to me. YMMV. Whatever is most fun for you.

It's very shallow to think it's just the one Heavy Bolter that landed the shot on the Imperial Knight out of 15 you have in your army, meanwhile the rest are shooting with 2 hits average.

So no it still doesn't work in your bizarre interpretation.

I almost always try to find narrative moments, even when I'm at a tournament. I'll send my Master into close combat with the Demon Prince even though it would make more sense to allow the Terminators to grind it down on their own. So I might give up a Slay the Warlord VP to my opponent - its about the glory of the moment. The "Narrative way of playing" is not the same thing as playing narratively. I don't tend to play scenarios or "historical refights." I do, however, enjoy playing in a style where the narrative emerges.

Then we get purposely bad moves like this. This is why GW probably doesn't catch broken crap. They probably play like THIS.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

nataliereed1984 wrote:

 Fajita Fan wrote:
They don’t need to try. We keep buying this stuff regardless so they don’t need to change or invest the effort it would take to balance 87 codices.

And they know that everyone who complains bitterly and hates the game will still go right on playing it because "nothing else is as popular", so they never have to worry about Warmahordes or Infinity ever outpacing them…

That's because none of you CAAC players vote with your wallets. You gobble up everything.

I don't know how someone can see all the changes to Matched Play 40K from the original rules, two three Chapter Approved with points updates, twice yearly general FAQs, and 2-Week FAQs for each product and say GW isn't trying to balance the game.

They may not be great at it. They may not be close to achieving it. They may not be putting in "enough" effort to satisfy you, but they are definitely trying.

I guess they have other competing priorities that prevent them from satisfying some people.

nataliereed1984 wrote:

Wayniac wrote:

nataliereed1984 wrote:

AngryAngel80 wrote:
GW like most companies wants the best of all worlds. They could, very easily clear all this up and just state on their community page " Warhammer is not and never will be meant to be a hardcore competitive game, play it as such at your own peril. We only give a passing glance balance, never expect more than this from this product. "

If they stated that, quite clearly for all their customers to see, I'd gladly never say another word on their awful balance as they quite clearly made it known that's a non issue for them.

However, they toss around the word and idea of balance about as much any tournament thumper does but it's awful usually.

For the people giving GW a pass, just have GW be clear what the game is and is not and many of these topics would die. GW is as to blame for lack of simple clarity that leads people to believe they actually care about balance, as what else are all these paid point changes, why would they care at all about Legends in tournaments, why would they even run their own tournaments or attend ones they aren't running, etc, etc that makes it seem a lot like they are trying for balance just crap at it.

Have you ever watched any Voxcasts or whatever?

The designers routinely DO say, quite clearly, that balance and hardcore competition is not their priority for 40k. They even tend to make fun of people wanting perfect balance and put scare quotes around it.

None of which means that they shouldn't be trying. Especially since they call out in 8th especially how matched play is meant to be balanced and suitable for competitive play.

It doesn't mean they're not trying. It means it's not their main priority, as has been said a bajillion times in this thread. And it's to make the point that "well if it's not meant to be a highly balanced and competitive game, they should come out and SAY that! Then it would be fine!" is silly, because they DO come out and say that. And it's additionally plain as day for anyone who's willing to look at a game for what it is rather than what they wish it was instead.

You really want to look at it for what it is? Okay? If it weren't for 30+ years of lore and story writing, the game would be trashed as 0/10 due to poor mechanics and poor balancing.

Because they put out crap like the IH supplement. It's prima facie broken.

Racerguy180 wrote:
...whenever they have a game/rules person on, it is reiterated over and over again.

it's like those against GW's stated position are standing in an echo chamber of their own creation. They choose to ignore it since it does not fit their narrative(see what I did there). I could understand this viewpoint if (@some point in the past) GW was the bestest, mostest, awesomest balance machine ever. With the tightest most efficient rules and no OP/under overcosted units. Since this is clearly not the case, continuing to complain about something that clearly is not even a moderate priority for GW, is insane.

Newbie who likes Dawn of War comes into a gamestore and says "Hey, I like (this army) and I want to buy a starter box/learn more about the game." The community is then presented with a choice. Do they say "Don't buy that army, the design team doesn't like them and their rules are all incredibly s**t", or do they lie about the state of the game to get the newbie to buy the stuff and then wait for them to discover that everything is grotesquely mis-priced and they're going to lose every game unless they go into games with a large points handicap?

Who wins in this situation? Who is this good for?

 alextroy wrote:
I don't know how someone can see all the changes to Matched Play 40K from the original rules, two three Chapter Approved with points updates, twice yearly general FAQs, and 2-Week FAQs for each product and say GW isn't trying to balance the game.

They may not be great at it. They may not be close to achieving it. They may not be putting in "enough" effort to satisfy you, but they are definitely trying.

I guess they have other competing priorities that prevent them from satisfying some people.

Not putting in effort =/= trying.

nataliereed1984 wrote:

 Fajita Fan wrote:
They don’t need to try. We keep buying this stuff regardless so they don’t need to change or invest the effort it would take to balance 87 codices.

And they know that everyone who complains bitterly and hates the game will still go right on playing it because "nothing else is as popular", so they never have to worry about Warmahordes or Infinity ever outpacing them…

If that's the case, and I've nothing to suggest it isn't, then how soon they forget the lessons of history.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 alextroy wrote:
I don't know how someone can see all the changes to Matched Play 40K from the original rules, two three Chapter Approved with points updates, twice yearly general FAQs, and 2-Week FAQs for each product and say GW isn't trying to balance the game.

They may not be great at it. They may not be close to achieving it. They may not be putting in "enough" effort to satisfy you, but they are definitely trying.

I guess they have other competing priorities that prevent them from satisfying some people.

Not putting in effort =/= trying.

I read this several times and can only say