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Wayniac wrote:
Knowing GW, I would assume that they used the base points and completely forgot that they've changed them several times over the years

Given the inexplicable reversions on Scions and Killa Kans, I suspect this is the case.

They took the base points cost, said 'we don't see these models much, let's not increase their cost now', and ignored all the changes that had been made over the course of 8th.

topaxygouroun i wrote:

 Yarium wrote:
Well, my Tyranids and GSC are absolutely neutered. Between trial games of 9th, videos of 9th, and the release of basic FAQ's and leaked points yesterday, I have seen that my GSC and Nids are absolutely god awful at the current version of the game, and are absolutely over-costed for it. Now, that's not just Nids, there are other forces in the same boat too, and yet others that are seeing big buffs. That's all fine, because I finally understand the updates and FAQ changes.

These points updates and the FAQs were honestly just meant to IMMEDIATELY port over units and abilities to 9th edition and shrink the size of the games. With just a few rare exceptions for the absolutely most EGREGIOUSLY over-performing units, the port over was achieved through use of a formula that they just plugged into current points costs, with absolutely no care or concern for how that impacted these unit's abilities. They know that this will cause a big upset in the game, and they want that. They want people to be chomping at the bit to get their new codex that will fix up their issues. They want people to be shocked by how good or bad their previous strategies from before have changed over. They do NOT want to try and fix the game early.

So, I'm going to sit back, patiently wait, and take the hits on the chin. I'm going to become a better player while playing with terrible stuff, and when the cult and nids do get better, I'll be better able to use them.

Let's go.

Brave of you to assume that Nids will get better.

After sitting through a couple editions of my factions being pretty bad in both 40k and AOS I have gotten rid of GW for the most part.

You are absolutely right, that's what this point update is all about. No rebalances, just simple rescaling. And probably not even from the most recent point values from the last CA.

So, not that I'm defending them here, but I'm kind of confused by the response to this. Agree or disagree with the results, but GW was pretty up front from day 1 that the new points were about trying to rescale the game. They never really mentioned anything about balance. When the company literally says "This is about rescaling the game", I'm not sure how people were caught off guard when the points come out and they just ... rescale the game?

I would argue they don't REALLY accomplish that either, but regardless, they were pretty up front about their intentions with these.

Also - to the GSC players - I feel your pain. The start of this edition is going to be brutal for you on so many levels. From the new force org to some of these points issues, you have a long road ahead ...

If they wanted to scale up games, they could've just doubled points and worked from there, but thinking is too complicated for GW

Tycho wrote:

You are absolutely right, that's what this point update is all about. No rebalances, just simple rescaling. And probably not even from the most recent point values from the last CA.

So, not that I'm defending them here, but I'm kind of confused by the response to this. Agree or disagree with the results, but GW was pretty up front from day 1 that the new points were about trying to rescale the game. They never really mentioned anything about balance. When the company literally says "This is about rescaling the game", I'm not sure how people were caught off guard when the points come out and they just ... rescale the game?

I would argue they don't REALLY accomplish that either, but regardless, they were pretty up front about their intentions with these.

Also - to the GSC players - I feel your pain. The start of this edition is going to be brutal for you on so many levels. From the new force org to some of these points issues, you have a long road ahead ...

The problem is exactly that they don't accomplish this. Rescaling the game, if that's literally all GW wanted, was to say "Multiply the current points cost of the unit by 10, standard game sizes are now 17,500." That's rescaling the game, and took me less effort than whatever wretched abomination of a methodology they used here.

It's clear they have some other agenda than the simple rescale.

The purpose of the points changes was to upscale games (i.e. reduce the number of models on the table)? Riiiiiiiiggghhhtt.

There are definitely other ways to upscale the game such as reorganization of the FOC.
With two elites, heavy support and fast attack each, and spending CP to acquire detachments besides the detachment containing the Warlord, the game size could have been toned down.

If they wanted to scale up games, they could've just doubled points and worked from there, but thinking is too complicated for GW

Yes. Thinking is hard and GW are idiots. That's why they INCREASED points to scale the game UP. Because that's how math works right? We want bigger games so we make everything more expensive while still playing at the same points levels?

Making the games BIGGER was not what they were going for ...

The problem is exactly that they don't accomplish this. Rescaling the game, if that's literally all GW wanted, was to say "Multiply the current points cost of the unit by 10, standard game sizes are now 17,500." That's rescaling the game, and took me less effort than whatever wretched abomination of a methodology they used here.

It's clear they have some other agenda than the simple rescale.

Yeah, as I said in my other post, I don't think this will end up having had the desired effect. I've been saying for a while now that reducing armies by only one or two squads really isn't going to help make games play faster (speed-of-play being the primary driver for them wanting smaller games). There were other bigger factors causing 8th to take so long, but those are related to core mechanics that they seem to want to keep so attempting to reduce army size was one of the only ways they had to tackle it. That being said, again, I agree that dropping y 100-200 pts isn't saving anyone much time.

There are clearly ways they could have done this better. I like what Goonhammer said - basically, they had a decent idea here, but skipped the critical step of going back in and looking at each unit and literally asking the question "does this really need an adjustment". So completely agree they handled it poorly. Especially given that they seemed to think they would be ok rescalling the points but seemingly ignoring the balance issues. However, if you're going to attribute some kind of evil conspiracy to their actions? No. Can't go there. I refuse to believe that a company so disorganized they often carry the same copy/paste error through multiple editions of the same book can somehow also pull off super-secret agendas like this. You can't really have it both ways ...

Tycho wrote:
So, not that I'm defending them here, but I'm kind of confused by the response to this. Agree or disagree with the results, but GW was pretty up front from day 1 that the new points were about trying to rescale the game. They never really mentioned anything about balance. When the company literally says "This is about rescaling the game", I'm not sure how people were caught off guard when the points come out and they just ... rescale the game?

That's not what people are complaining about- people are complaining that they didn't just rescale the game; there are some massive balance changes in there as well.

At the simplest level, a lot of armies getting more expensive troops with cheaper wargear options dramatically shifts how they're built. And not everything got increased by the same amount. Some units had their price increase by 67% (!), some units had their price reduced, and wargear options received a totally scattershot approach to cost adjustments.

They said 'this is about rescaling the game', and then they made sweeping and inexplicable balance adjustments that actively degrade the game from where it was in 8th.

If they just increased the cost of everything by about 20%, there would be some winners and losers due to the granularity of a single point, but it wouldn't be nearly as inconsistent and meta-changing as it is.

Tycho wrote:

You are absolutely right, that's what this point update is all about. No rebalances, just simple rescaling. And probably not even from the most recent point values from the last CA.

So, not that I'm defending them here, but I'm kind of confused by the response to this. Agree or disagree with the results, but GW was pretty up front from day 1 that the new points were about trying to rescale the game. They never really mentioned anything about balance. When the company literally says "This is about rescaling the game", I'm not sure how people were caught off guard when the points come out and they just ... rescale the game?

I would argue they don't REALLY accomplish that either, but regardless, they were pretty up front about their intentions with these.

That seems... not disingenuous, but obtuse. Obviously if you're going to muck about with points you're going to at least aim in the vague direction of balance. There's no point messing about with them otherwise. Just decree 'No,' and focus on PL rubbish.

The increases aren't universal enough to just be 'upscaling.' Some things went up or down independent of any sort of general formula or general upscaling, whether the reasons were 'this is too good,' 'we think this is bad' or 'we don't want people to play this way' (which is what obviously motivated some changes), or 'oops, we forgot' (which seems to be behind the warp talon and noise marines, among others)

Part of it is simply that this is the third time they've done system wide point values (indexes, CA2019 and now). Its obviously beyond them... which, to be fair, its a HUGE task. But after three tries, it seems pretty clear that the scope is too big to do correctly.

What they did was create a mess. It wasn't a simple rescaling of the game, it was a weird spread-sheet based points adjustment to 95% of the units in the game that was not based on a flat across-the-board increase - i.e. , a rescaling - but instead based upon a number of obtuse, balance-agnostic principles like "everything should cost at least 5 points" or "round points values to the nearest 5 where at all possible" that results in a less balanced game, not a more balanced one.

That seems... not disingenuous, but obtuse. Obviously if you're going to muck about with points you're going to at least aim in the vague direction of balance. There's no point messing about with them otherwise. Just decree 'No,' and focus on PL rubbish.

The increases aren't universal enough to just be 'upscaling.' Some things went up or down independent of any sort of general formula or general upscaling, whether the reasons were 'this is too good,' 'we think this is bad' or 'we don't want people to play this way' (which is what obviously motivated some changes), or 'oops, we forgot' (which seems to be behind the warp talon and noise marines, among others)

Part of it is simply that this is the third time they've done system wide point values (indexes, CA2019 and now). Its obviously beyond them... which, to be fair, its a HUGE task. But it seems pretty clear that the scope is too big to do correctly.

It is neither but thanks.

I'm simply saying, that when GW said "We're increasing points to make smaller games" and were pretty clear in pretty much not ever mentioning balance or meta or any of the like, that a lot of us said "Yeah, not gonna go well". Now that's happened, and, not gone well, I'm just .. surprised at the amount of surprise there seems to be. I get a newbie being surprised by this, but anyone that's been here a while and is still sincerely surprised at the outcome needs to take off the fan-boy glasses.

Gw said "We will redress the points to make smaller games". That's exactly what they've done, but in typical GW fashion they didn't ever stop to ask about balance (or at least it certainly doesn't appear as though they did), so like I said before, if you want to complain about the results, or the process - yeah, fair game. This wasn't done well.

But if you're crying about being surprised they didn't take anything into account outside of what they said they were doing - that's on you. I called this when they first mentioned they were doing it. I said it would end up exactly this way while also not really fixing speed-of-play. I was accused of knitpicking, being a "needle gacker" (what ever the feth that is), etc, but here we are.

If you're angry about the results - ok. If you say they could have done this better - yep. If you're sincerely surprised by this? No. You haven't been paying attention.

Well, paint me Captain Obvious but they should be looking into balance regardless of what they said.

When taking an initiative to change most all the points in the game, balance should be of utmost importance and should be driving the whole endeavor.

Ah. I didn't realize that was an 'I called it' post.

Makes more sense now. But if you sincerely believe that the majority of the customers didn't expect GW to make some attempt at balance while redoing points, you win the Hopeless Optimism Derby. Congrats, I guess.

To me, changing points at all inherently implies an attempt at balance. Not success, but attempt.

Well, paint me Captain Obvious but they should be looking into balance regardless of what they said.

When taking an initiative to change most all the points in the game, balance should be of utmost importance and should be driving the whole endeavor.

And in a vacuum, I would agree with you. But over the years, GW has consistently NOT acted in this way, so again, why are we surprised? CA rebalancing points is the exception to GW behaviour and even then, they often got it wrong, so, where, in the 30+ year history of this game do you see them acting in the way you describe. That's my point. Does this suck? Oh yeah. But to be surprised by it? You'd have to be new, totally oblivious, or buried too deep in your own fanboy-ism.

Even the people who were being optimistic and saying this would be the time they get it right, shouldn't be surprised that they didn't ...

Ah. I didn't realize that was an 'I called it' post.

Makes more sense now. But if you sincerely believe that the majority of the customers didn't expect GW to make some attempt at balance while redoing points, you win the Hopeless Optimism Derby. Congrats, I guess.

To me, changing points at all inherently implies an attempt at balance. Not success, but attempt.

A LOT of people called it. It's FAR from the first time this has happened. So I just really don't get the surprise is all. Fair to be angry. Surprise is on you.

Yeah, "we're addressing points to rescale the game" doesn't say what you think it says.

There's an assumption that points are balanced - why else do they even exist, if not to balance? Why not use Power Level, or Number of Wounds, or literally any other army-building methodology?

Saying "We're upscaling the game" is not the same thing as saying "We're upscaling the game, balance be damned!" because there is a default assumption that equal point armies should be balanced. That's built into what points mean, objectively and to the community.

It is a worse betrayal to the community to disconnect points from balance than it is to depart from the sacred standard of 2000 points.

Tycho wrote:
Yeah, as I said in my other post, I don't think this will end up having had the desired effect. I've been saying for a while now that reducing armies by only one or two squads really isn't going to help make games play faster (speed-of-play being the primary driver for them wanting smaller games). There were other bigger factors causing 8th to take so long, but those are related to core mechanics that they seem to want to keep so attempting to reduce army size was one of the only ways they had to tackle it. That being said, again, I agree that dropping y 100-200 pts isn't saving anyone much time.

So drop it from 17,500 to 15,000, or 10,000, or 12,345 points. The specific numbers don't matter; if they were seeking granularity and smaller games, then

Tycho wrote:
There are clearly ways they could have done this better.

Oh, you took the words right out of my mouth.

Tycho wrote:
I like what Goonhammer said - basically, they had a decent idea here, but skipped the critical step of going back in and looking at each unit and literally asking the question "does this really need an adjustment". So completely agree they handled it poorly. Especially given that they seemed to think they would be ok rescalling the points but seemingly ignoring the balance issues. However, if you're going to attribute some kind of evil conspiracy to their actions? No. Can't go there. I refuse to believe that a company so disorganized they often carry the same copy/paste error through multiple editions of the same book can somehow also pull off super-secret agendas like this. You can't really have it both ways ...

I mean we can either attribute it to evil (as in they had some other agenda than rescaling or smaller games) or stupidity. Neither one is a good look.

And if we pick stupidity, let's just be clear what we're saying. We're saying that GW's rules designers are:
1) too stupid to look at the currents points cost of a unit when considering future changes.
2) so stupid that their ineptitude actively makes them work harder (since upscaling and resizing could've been done in myriad easier and low-effort ways)
3) so idiotic that they don't understand what the points in their game are even for (balancing armies) and instead just kinda make phrrrbt noises and write numbers based on the pattern of spit that lands on the table (and then round to the nearest five for ... reasons.)

Like, I'm all for Hanlon's Razor, but assuming the game designers are this stupid hurts me because I tend to believe that most humans are capable of basic sensemaking and sapience. This is literally "can't pour water out of a boot with instructions on the heel" levels of dumb for an entire organization of people.

I mean we can either attribute it to evil (as in they had some other agenda than rescaling or smaller games) or stupidity. Neither one is a good look.

They aren't organized enough to be that intentionally evil, but I don't thin they're "stupid" either. I think they looked "inward" for far too long while the industry grew up around them. Publishing practices changed, the way you create content changed dramatically, wargames rules "grew up" and became more advanced, etc. This was all during the time when they had shuttered themselves away and didn't interact with anyone. Now, in the last few years they've kind of come out of that bear cave and what once was just an empty plain has become a huge metropolis.

I'm willing to bet they are also pretty closed-off internally. Hearing stories from different HQ employees, it's clear that if you're a marketing person, you can't just stroll on down to the design studio and get a update. You get a handful of "talking points" for what the designers are TRYING to do. Then that person has to spin a campaign around it. Since they don't have proper access to the team doing the work, and since the team doing the work really can't talk to freely (even within their own company), you end up with stuff like this.

They aren't "stupid" but they are definitely behind the curve on things like modern game design, publishing best practices, etc etc. They need to fix this because the problems are often bizzarely glaring, but again, not "stupid". They are essentially Windows XP in an era of Windows 10. Behind the times and in need of an update.

Ok, well, MANY updates ... lol

Tycho wrote:

Well, paint me Captain Obvious but they should be looking into balance regardless of what they said.

When taking an initiative to change most all the points in the game, balance should be of utmost importance and should be driving the whole endeavor.

And in a vacuum, I would agree with you. But over the years, GW has consistently NOT acted in this way, so again, why are we surprised? CA rebalancing points is the exception to GW behaviour and even then, they often got it wrong, so, where, in the 30+ year history of this game do you see them acting in the way you describe. That's my point. Does this suck? Oh yeah. But to be surprised by it? You'd have to be new, totally oblivious, or buried too deep in your own fanboy-ism.

Even the people who were being optimistic and saying this would be the time they get it right, shouldn't be surprised that they didn't ...

Ah. I didn't realize that was an 'I called it' post.

Makes more sense now. But if you sincerely believe that the majority of the customers didn't expect GW to make some attempt at balance while redoing points, you win the Hopeless Optimism Derby. Congrats, I guess.

To me, changing points at all inherently implies an attempt at balance. Not success, but attempt.

A LOT of people called it. It's FAR from the first time this has happened. So I just really don't get the surprise is all. Fair to be angry. Surprise is on you.

You keep saying 'surprise.' And sometimes 'anger.' I'm not sure why.
I'm not picking a bone with anything but your claim that they never intended to include balance while working on points. Which are for balance.

GW points have never really been about balance. They are for structure.

You keep saying 'surprise.' And sometimes 'anger.' I'm not sure why.
I'm not picking a bone with anything but your claim that they never intended to include balance while working on points. Which are for balance.

Yeah sorry. I said "you" but I didn't literally mean YOU. I meant the "royal you". I should have specified that I didn't literally mean to aim that at you. Apologies.

EDIT:

Because apparently not everything posted the first time -

Look at the evidence. It's not MY claim that they never intended to use this points update to balance. They literally said, multiple times, in multiple formats and in a very clear manner "This is about making the game smaller to play faster".

Looking at the end results, it's pretty clear they didn't even try to balance a lot of this. So, what can you conclude? "Company says thing A is about Item B". They do "Thing A and item B kind of happens and now maybe thing C will also happen later,

OR

they do Thing A but also tried thing C but never actually mentioned wanting to look at thing C but many felt it might have been implied because why wouldn't it be, but then they clearly didn't and the evidence at the end says they really just did *literally* what they said they would do and left the other part for later, but yeah, they're definitely idiots because that thing they never actually said they'd do was done wrong ....

Both scenarios are bad, I'll grant you that, but only one of them happened and IMO it's pretty clear it's the first scenario.

But points have been a balancing thing since ... literally 2nd Edition?

Even if they just are hopelessly clueless about the world and only last year got their internet, they should still know that "points = balancing mechanism". It's been a balancing mechanism since well before (and during and after) their shut-in.

They know that points exist literally as a balancing mechanism. That's not one of the "new evolutions in wargaming" you're talking about.

EDIT:
As far as points being about structure, that's not true. Power Level is a structural mechanism, but points are preferred because they're "more balanced" which is achieved through "greater granularity." As I've been told hundreds of times in points vs PL thread. The community can't on one hand say "points are more balanced than other structural methods!" and then turn around and say "Points have nothing to do with balance; they exist purely as a structural method."

Well we can agree to strongly disagree in that case. GW points are no where near anything remotely "balanced". They exist to let people min max within a structure.

AOS was the shining example of that. No points meant no structure to powerlist in. Bad points with bad balance came out, everyone returned. They needed that structure.

I am in no way shape or form any part of the community telling you points balance crap in GW-land. I have been in those discussions about PL vs Points and I always say the same thing. That people are trying to argue that the really bad balanced points are better than the imbalanced PL is something I find morbidly hillarious.

What I find a lot of those people are really arguing is points are more granular for sure, and you can power list more effectively at the granular level, since Power Level you take bundles of models, and points you can fine tune the powerlisting. Its more "efficient".

But points have been a balancing thing since ... literally 2nd Edition?

Even if they just are hopelessly clueless about the world and only last year got their internet, they should still know that "points = balancing mechanism". It's been a balancing mechanism since well before (and during and after) their shut-in.

They know that points exist literally as a balancing mechanism. That's not one of the "new evolutions in wargaming" you're talking about.

Nope. You're right. But we also don't know the whole story. Maybe the play-testers flubbed this. Maybe they plan on gathering data to fix the new issues and releasing a new CA in 6 months. Maybe they don't actually care anymore. Maybe they wanted to release 9th very differently but Corona virus and extreme pressure to start making money again forced them into a workflow that caused their already sub-optimal workflow to well and truly break. IDK.

I just know they aren't good enough at what they do to be pulling off these "evil schemes", and I don't think they're truly "stupid". I just think they're very guilty of navel gazing, in BAD need of new blood and modern updates, and until that happens, we should stop being surprised every time something like this goes wrong. They've shown time and again over the years, that they'll make a mistake, and then, rather than creating something new to fix it, they'll go back into their "bag of tricks" from previous editions, and simply replace the "new mistake" with an older, previous mistake.

This is pretty common in companies that have been too walled off for too long and have simply become echo-chambers. This is (IMO) largely damage from the "Kirby era" and isn't going to get better for a long long time imo.

This is (IMO) largely damage from the "Kirby era" and isn't going to get better for a long long time imo.

That and the company has no real incentive to invest a ton of time and resources into balance, since they make money hand over fist from the community everytime they release a new edition and a new space marine expansion that is always just as poorly balanced as the edition it follows.

 auticus wrote:
What I find a lot of those people are really arguing is points are more granular for sure, and you can power list more effectively at the granular level, since Power Level you take bundles of models, and points you can fine tune the powerlisting. Its more "efficient".

What people argue about power level is that there is no difference between a squad with the best or worst collection of weaponry they could choose - havoks with flamers or just bolters vs havoks with lascannons for instance, or a bare bones russ vs one with all the trimmings.

Power level works fine with primaris marines, or aspect warriors, or daemon packs, but not so much the optional wargear-centric units.

Power level works fine with primaris marines, or aspect warriors, or daemon packs, but not so much the optional wargear-centric units.

Yeah - just look at what a minimal squad of plague marines with no updates costs, versus a max squad with all the possible upgrades. WAY too big a jump.

A.T. wrote:

 auticus wrote:
What I find a lot of those people are really arguing is points are more granular for sure, and you can power list more effectively at the granular level, since Power Level you take bundles of models, and points you can fine tune the powerlisting. Its more "efficient".

What people argue about power level is that there is no difference between a squad with the best or worst collection of weaponry they could choose - havoks with flamers or just bolters vs havoks with lascannons for instance, or a bare bones russ vs one with all the trimmings.

Power level works fine with primaris marines, or aspect warriors, or daemon packs, but not so much the optional wargear-centric units.

Tycho wrote:

Power level works fine with primaris marines, or aspect warriors, or daemon packs, but not so much the optional wargear-centric units.

Yeah - just look at what a minimal squad of plague marines with no updates costs, versus a max squad with all the possible upgrades. WAY too big a jump.

And the reason any of that matters is balance. Not structure. The only reason Havocs with bolters cost less than Havocs with lascannons pointswise is because they're worse - i.e. balance. Power Level provides structure, but not balance. Points have (the assumption of) balance, back to my original point.

And GW really stuck their penis into the puppy with this one.

 auticus wrote:

topaxygouroun i wrote:

 Yarium wrote:
Well, my Tyranids and GSC are absolutely neutered. Between trial games of 9th, videos of 9th, and the release of basic FAQ's and leaked points yesterday, I have seen that my GSC and Nids are absolutely god awful at the current version of the game, and are absolutely over-costed for it. Now, that's not just Nids, there are other forces in the same boat too, and yet others that are seeing big buffs. That's all fine, because I finally understand the updates and FAQ changes.

These points updates and the FAQs were honestly just meant to IMMEDIATELY port over units and abilities to 9th edition and shrink the size of the games. With just a few rare exceptions for the absolutely most EGREGIOUSLY over-performing units, the port over was achieved through use of a formula that they just plugged into current points costs, with absolutely no care or concern for how that impacted these unit's abilities. They know that this will cause a big upset in the game, and they want that. They want people to be chomping at the bit to get their new codex that will fix up their issues. They want people to be shocked by how good or bad their previous strategies from before have changed over. They do NOT want to try and fix the game early.

So, I'm going to sit back, patiently wait, and take the hits on the chin. I'm going to become a better player while playing with terrible stuff, and when the cult and nids do get better, I'll be better able to use them.

Let's go.

Brave of you to assume that Nids will get better.

After sitting through a couple editions of my factions being pretty bad in both 40k and AOS I have gotten rid of GW for the most part.

And yet somehow, you're still here.

And it's not just a failure to balance wildly different unit types. Take this example of Venoms vs Starweavers; basically the same unit from related codexes (Drukhari and Harlequin):

A Venom with 2 Splinter Cannons has:
- A capacity of 5 models
- Subtract's 1 from shooting attacks against it.
- A 5++ against shooting
- 12 S- AP- D1 Poison 4+ shots at 18" (half that many further away).


A Starweaver with 2 Shuriken Cannons has:
- A capacity of 6 models
- Subtract's 1 from shooting attacks against it.
- 4++
- Always Advances 6"
- 6 S6 AP- D1 Rending shots at 24" (Can still be fired after the model Advances).

As of the points changes, the Venom costs 90pts, while Starweaver costs 80pts.

And yet somehow, you're still here.

Yep a $10,000 collection of horribly ruled models that were once pretty competitive keeps me here hoping that I can reuse them someday when their rules don't suck and guarantee me a tabling by virtue of showing up.

And the reason any of that matters is balance. Not structure.

If that were really true, that balance was so important to people, then 40k wouldn't be 1/10th as popular as it is. If that were really true then forums and twitterverse and facebook wouldn't be crammed full of people trying to break the game and make a 2000 point list operate like it was 4000-5000 points to purposely IMBALANCE the game. The game has never been balanced, and honestly feels like the past ten years it has gone the polar opposite direction of balance. And people line up to throw money at the company anyway, and will on this forum and others say very loudly they don't care about the imbalance, thats not why they play the game.

Same in AOS land.

 auticus wrote:

And the reason any of that matters is balance. Not structure.

If that were really true, that balance was so important to people, then 40k wouldn't be 1/10th as popular as it is. If that were really true then forums and twitterverse and facebook wouldn't be crammed full of people trying to break the game and make a 2000 point list operate like it was 4000-5000 points to purposely IMBALANCE the game. The game has never been balanced, and honestly feels like the past ten years it has gone the polar opposite direction of balance. And people line up to throw money at the company anyway, and will on this forum and others say very loudly they don't care about the imbalance, thats not why they play the game.

Same in AOS land.

That's because what people want is the illusion of balance, rather than the actual thing. In philosophy, it's essentially perception vs. reality. People want the perception that a game is balanced - indeed, this perception is why they try to break it, because if you can break something that's perceived to be balanced, then "WOW! Aren't you clever!?" The reality of balance has to be close enough only that the perception can do the rest of the work.

When a shoddy job like this is done, it pulls back the veil - the reality of balance tears away from the perception of balance - and demonstrates that it's not really balanced at all and that ruins the perception of balance, which makes the game-breakers feel less smart and dissolves the casual's (mistaken) belief that the game is winnable if they just learned to up their skills and try harder.