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Spoletta wrote:
I've not seen the point changes for all factions, but out of sisters, tyranids and marines, which I was interested in, most of the point changes fall into the "Makes sense" or "Weakly disagree" caterogies.


There are only an handful of cases which are really weird (condemnor boltguns and eradicators).

I understand that guardians, gretchins and kabalites fall into this last category, but if the average of the factions is like the 3 that I have studied, then it's not a praise worthy work, but neither a bad one.

When it is 100% of the troops choices for your army that fall into the "WTF how does this make any sense at all" category, then it's more of an evident problem, I'd say.

He has the time and dedicate to post wall after wall of text arguing his point, but doesn’t have the time to simply post a single one of these so-called multiple polls, that he claims any one of which would vindicate his position. And because we cannot find them either, as they quite blatantly do not exist, he keeps spouting out these invented statistics all day long and telling us we are the ones at fault for not looking hard enough.

But even worse than all that, he’s so bad at this that he’s making slayer look smarter than someone. This man needs to be stopped

Hey Spoletta, why did the Tervigon go up significantly? Mawloc? Gargoyles? Those were off the top of my head, I'm sure there are more.

I just don't get why anybody wastes timing defending this points update, it is on-the-face absurd.

the_scotsman wrote:

Spoletta wrote:
I've not seen the point changes for all factions, but out of sisters, tyranids and marines, which I was interested in, most of the point changes fall into the "Makes sense" or "Weakly disagree" caterogies.


There are only an handful of cases which are really weird (condemnor boltguns and eradicators).

I understand that guardians, gretchins and kabalites fall into this last category, but if the average of the factions is like the 3 that I have studied, then it's not a praise worthy work, but neither a bad one.

When it is 100% of the troops choices for your army that fall into the "WTF how does this make any sense at all" category, then it's more of an evident problem, I'd say.

Let me guess... CWE?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Gene St. Ealer wrote:
Hey Spoletta, why did the Tervigon go up significantly? Mawloc? Gargoyles? Those were off the top of my head, I'm sure there are more.

I just don't get why anybody wastes timing defending this points update, it is on-the-face absurd.

Gargoyles at 7 in the new format makes complete sense. They are really good in the new format. They are in the "makes sense" category.

Mawlock received only a slight (relative) increase, but those too are exceptional in the new missions. They are in the "Could make sense, need some games" category.

Tervigons needed to go up because the troop that they now produce has been increased in cost by 25%. They could have used a smaller increase because they weren't really good in the first place, so instead of fitting solidly into the "Make sense" they are actually in the "Weakly disagree." The increase is correct, but it was a wasted occasion to give them a little push. We are talking about a 16,6% increase here though, so there isn't any "increase" just a rescale.

I know I'm not the first person to say this, but it seems more pertinent than the constant bickering that dominates this thread.

I don't need *perfect* balance, I just want the extreme outliers to be brought in line. Eradicators are 40 ppm? That's insane value, most people agree they got that unit wrong. Grots are 5 ppm? Holy crap, who thought that was a good idea?!?

Eliminate the outliers so we can at least pretend there is some balance. If GW wants to enforce how armies "should look" then bring back unit limits like the old days.

Spoletta wrote:
This isn't an high competitive game, it is mostly a narrative one. Even the ones that play it competitively, are still mostly narrative players which will not switch from one FoTM to the next in the blink of an eye. Almost all of us are attached to our factions, to our fluff, to those models that we can't leave home and so on. This isn't starcraft, this isn't MtG. Most don't care about winning, they only care about winning with "My dudes" even if that means being at a disadvantage at times. As long as the balance of the game is good enough that I'm not at an overwhelming disadvantage to play what I like, then most don't care about perfect balance.

As such, the results of that poll make a lot of sense.

Caring about winning with 'my dudes' makes it a competitive game by definition, but not necessarily a narrative one.
In that, it's exactly like Starcraft and MtG. There is theoretically a narrative, but it's in the background and most actual games don't intersect with it.

IronNerd wrote:
I know I'm not the first person to say this, but it seems more pertinent than the constant bickering that dominates this thread.

I don't need *perfect* balance, I just want the extreme outliers to be brought in line. Eradicators are 40 ppm? That's insane value, most people agree they got that unit wrong. Grots are 5 ppm? Holy crap, who thought that was a good idea?!?

Eliminate the outliers so we can at least pretend there is some balance. If GW wants to enforce how armies "should look" then bring back unit limits like the old days.

You mean "bring back unit limits FOR EVERYONE."

Fluff-based unit limits do exist. They just only exist for a couple of factions and specific units.

-You can only include Courts of the Archon units in your drukhari army if you have an archon.

-You can only include Beasts if you include a Beastmaster

-You can only have 1 Commander per Tau detachment

-You can only have 1 of each GSC character per GSC detachment. Because I guess there's always only ever one Magus per Genestealer Cult I guess? Honestly I've never gotten it, and I've played GSC since they rereleased it, this is a new thing with the 8th ed codex.

Unit limits based on fluff basically seem to be a xenos-only thing for the most part. Dunno why.

Spoletta wrote:
This isn't an high competitive game, it is mostly a narrative one

When was the last time you or your opponents decided actions and outcomes in a game based on the narrative rather than the rules, in order to guide the game along a storyline rather than trying to score the most victory points?

Have you ever decided to have a chaos lord stand atop a fallen statue for a few turns to gloat?, had ork units attack each other because one shot an enemy unit off the board before the others could krump them?, had an Eldar force flee the board after killing the enemy warlord because that was all they came for?

40k has had more than a few nods to that kind of gameplay, but not for a very long time, and certainly not in any of the tournaments that GW themselves have run.

Spoletta wrote:
I've not seen the point changes for all factions, but out of sisters, tyranids and marines, which I was interested in, most of the point changes fall into the "Makes sense" or "Weakly disagree" caterogies.


There are only an handful of cases which are really weird (condemnor boltguns and eradicators).

I understand that guardians, gretchins and kabalites fall into this last category, but if the average of the factions is like the 3 that I have studied, then it's not a praise worthy work, but neither a bad one.

When it is 100% of the troops choices for your army that fall into the "WTF how does this make any sense at all" category, then it's more of an evident problem, I'd say.

Let me guess... CWE?

A.T. wrote:

Spoletta wrote:
This isn't an high competitive game, it is mostly a narrative one

When was the last time you or your opponents decided actions and outcomes in a game based on the narrative rather than the rules, in order to guide the game along a storyline rather than trying to score the most victory points?

Have you ever decided to have a chaos lord stand atop a fallen statue for a few turns to gloat?, had ork units attack each other because one shot an enemy unit off the board before the others could krump them?, had an Eldar force flee the board after killing the enemy warlord because that was all they came for?

40k has had more than a few nods to that kind of gameplay, but not for a very long time, and certainly not in any of the tournaments that GW themselves have run.

40K is a narrative game. Doesn't mean that you must do goofy stuff in order for it to be narrative.

In MtG, if Goblins are no longer a competitive deck, I just switch to another deck. I'm not attached to it. I don't try to find combinations to make "My goblins" work.

In 40K you do. Your purpose is something more than just competing and winning. You want to win with your guys.

That's a huge difference.

Spoletta wrote:

A.T. wrote:

Spoletta wrote:
This isn't an high competitive game, it is mostly a narrative one

When was the last time you or your opponents decided actions and outcomes in a game based on the narrative rather than the rules, in order to guide the game along a storyline rather than trying to score the most victory points?

Have you ever decided to have a chaos lord stand atop a fallen statue for a few turns to gloat?, had ork units attack each other because one shot an enemy unit off the board before the others could krump them?, had an Eldar force flee the board after killing the enemy warlord because that was all they came for?

40k has had more than a few nods to that kind of gameplay, but not for a very long time, and certainly not in any of the tournaments that GW themselves have run.

40K is a narrative game. Doesn't mean that you must do goofy stuff in order for it to be narrative.

In MtG, if Goblins are no longer a competitive deck, I just switch to another deck. I'm not attached to it. I don't try to find combinations to make "My goblins" work.

In 40K you do. Your purpose is something more than just competing and winning. You want to win with your guys.

That's a huge difference.

That's not the case at all. My buddy plays blue white control every single format and standard. It's the archetype he enjoys. Finds a way to make it work everytime. Myself, I've played Infect since it was standard all the way through to modern, and boy have we had some ups and downs.

It's funny that you say Goblins because there are some die hard goblin players out there.

40k is less of a narrative game than MTG is for some people. It's so silly that you force your own standards onto others than dictate that this is "the game". No sir, you are wrong, and I say that as someone who IS a narrative player as well as a competitive player.

Spoletta wrote:
I've not seen the point changes for all factions, but out of sisters, tyranids and marines, which I was interested in, most of the point changes fall into the "Makes sense" or "Weakly disagree" caterogies.

The seemingly automated changes strikes me as a 'ok, but why though?' change.

9e armies could comparatively shrink or grow by 10% or more purely on rounding errors. You'd have gotten much the same effect if you just flipped a coin for every unit and added a point if it came up heads.

the_scotsman wrote:

-You can only have 1 of each GSC character per GSC detachment. Because I guess there's always only ever one Magus per Genestealer Cult I guess? Honestly I've never gotten it, and I've played GSC since they rereleased it, this is a new thing with the 8th ed codex.

I thought they had this with the 7E release too?

Unit limits based on fluff basically seem to be a xenos-only thing for the most part. Dunno why.

Guard have it too.
Tempestus and <Regiment> Command Squads require an Officer per instance.

I agree 100% that more armies need these things though. Marine Captains should be locked to 1 per Detachment, if not 1 per Codex.

I would say more restriction for Guard Officer choices...but they already did that to us fluff players by renaming them to "Company Commanders" for the HQs and "Platoon Commanders" for the Elite choice. They need to bring back the Senior, Junior, and Heroic Senior Officer rankings.

I don't necessarily agree with what auticus is saying, but I would like to say one thing in his defence - unless he's in the habit of of saving and cataloguing every post in every thread he's in, then providing the evidence people are asking for is going to be a mammoth task.

I understand that the burden of proof is ultimately on him to prove his claims. However, expecting someone to search for multiple old threads on dakkadakka/warseer/Facebook and then sift through every post, poll and/or comment chain to find the relevant material is not what I would consider a reasonable ask.

Each to their own, of course, but I wouldn't go to that much trouble unless I was being paid to do so.

Again, I'm not saying I agree with the points he's making. Only that I can understand the frustration at basically being asked to do the work of a paid archivist just to score points in an internet debate.

Spoletta wrote:
In 40K you do. Your purpose is something more than just competing and winning. You want to win with your guys.
That's a huge difference.

A huge difference compared to what?
"I want my guys to win" is not a narrative.

 vipoid wrote:
I don't necessarily agree with what auticus is saying, but I would like to say one thing in his defence - unless he's in the habit of of saving and cataloguing every post in every thread he's in, then providing the evidence people are asking for is going to be a mammoth task.

I understand that the burden of proof is ultimately on him to prove his claims. However, expecting someone to search for multiple old threads on dakkadakka/warseer/Facebook and then sift through every post, poll and/or comment chain to find the relevant material is not what I would consider a reasonable ask.

Each to their own, of course, but I wouldn't go to that much trouble unless I was being paid to do so.

Again, I'm not saying I agree with the points he's making. Only that I can understand the frustration at basically being asked to do the work of a paid archivist just to score points in an internet debate.

sure its a big task, but when you come in a thread and start saying the exact opposite of what the thread is saying, you kinda need to prove your point.
60% of all statistics quoted on the internet are made up.

 vipoid wrote:
I don't necessarily agree with what auticus is saying, but I would like to say one thing in his defence - unless he's in the habit of of saving and cataloguing every post in every thread he's in, then providing the evidence people are asking for is going to be a mammoth task.

I understand that the burden of proof is ultimately on him to prove his claims. However, expecting someone to search for multiple old threads on dakkadakka/warseer/Facebook and then sift through every post, poll and/or comment chain to find the relevant material is not what I would consider a reasonable ask.

Each to their own, of course, but I wouldn't go to that much trouble unless I was being paid to do so.

Again, I'm not saying I agree with the points he's making. Only that I can understand the frustration at basically being asked to do the work of a paid archivist just to score points in an internet debate.

Why can't he source a single one of the multiple polls he is referencing? That wouldn't be a mammoth task at all, please don't enable this bs.

IronNerd wrote:
I know I'm not the first person to say this, but it seems more pertinent than the constant bickering that dominates this thread.

I don't need *perfect* balance, I just want the extreme outliers to be brought in line. Eradicators are 40 ppm? That's insane value, most people agree they got that unit wrong. Grots are 5 ppm? Holy crap, who thought that was a good idea?!?

Eliminate the outliers so we can at least pretend there is some balance. If GW wants to enforce how armies "should look" then bring back unit limits like the old days.

Well from what the designer says, the points are not about balance, but about what GW thinks people should buy and play with.
They want people to use the new erdictors and they do not want swarms of cultists or grots in their respective armies. It does of course go against the your dudes thing, but I guess that is how GW games are.

Can you source a poll the disproves what he's saying?

I'm not going to say there's a poll anywhere, but he's not really wrong that the same people complaining loudly for "balance" are usually the same that will be complaining loudly when something they like is balanced in a way they dislike.

I'm incredibly guilty of this in that I think the nonsense with Conscripts and Commissars was handled in the worst possible manner, and have loudly said so since it happened. They both didn't go far enough and went the wrong way to start with!

Spoletta wrote:
This isn't an high competitive game, it is mostly a narrative one. Even the ones that play it competitively, are still mostly narrative players which will not switch from one FoTM to the next in the blink of an eye. Almost all of us are attached to our factions, to our fluff, to those models that we can't leave home and so on. This isn't starcraft, this isn't MtG. Most don't care about winning, they only care about winning with "My dudes" even if that means being at a disadvantage at times. As long as the balance of the game is good enough that I'm not at an overwhelming disadvantage to play what I like, then most don't care about perfect balance.

As such, the results of that poll make a lot of sense.

Well there is a small matter of time and money involved though. I don't think even in western countries many people buy a new army every 3 weeks. I mean I stayed with my army, bought a box of strikes and a librarian model, besides all the books needed to play. Does it mean I am a narrative player, because I can tell you that "forge the narrative" was used as a mocking terms at my store.

Karol wrote:

Well from what the designer says, the points are not about balance, but about what GW thinks people should buy and play with.
They want people to use the new erdictors and they do not want swarms of cultists or grots in their respective armies. It does of course go against the your dudes thing, but I guess that is how GW games are.

See, this? This is the kind of comment you ask for a source on.

Which designer? When?

 Kanluwen wrote:
Can you source a poll the disproves what he's saying?

I'm not going to say there's a poll anywhere, but he's not really wrong that the same people complaining loudly for "balance" are usually the same that will be complaining loudly when something they like is balanced in a way they dislike.

I'm incredibly guilty of this in that I think the nonsense with Conscripts and Commissars was handled in the worst possible manner, and have loudly said so since it happened. They both didn't go far enough and went the wrong way to start with!

Don't turn this around. We don't need to counterprove his point with a poll since he didn't prove his point at all. If he presented it as a personnal opinion, it wouldve been fin , the fact that he says the majority of players think this way is why hes getting so much flak.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Kanluwen wrote:

Karol wrote:

Well from what the designer says, the points are not about balance, but about what GW thinks people should buy and play with.
They want people to use the new erdictors and they do not want swarms of cultists or grots in their respective armies. It does of course go against the your dudes thing, but I guess that is how GW games are.

See, this? This is the kind of comment you ask for a source on.

Which designer? When?

it was discussed in the first page of this thread, litterally the second post was quoting what they said in the podcast.

 vipoid wrote:
I don't necessarily agree with what auticus is saying, but I would like to say one thing in his defence - unless he's in the habit of of saving and cataloguing every post in every thread he's in, then providing the evidence people are asking for is going to be a mammoth task.

I understand that the burden of proof is ultimately on him to prove his claims. However, expecting someone to search for multiple old threads on dakkadakka/warseer/Facebook and then sift through every post, poll and/or comment chain to find the relevant material is not what I would consider a reasonable ask.

Each to their own, of course, but I wouldn't go to that much trouble unless I was being paid to do so.

Again, I'm not saying I agree with the points he's making. Only that I can understand the frustration at basically being asked to do the work of a paid archivist just to score points in an internet debate.

Then don't make bizarre claims about what "everybody's opinion" is.

Asking for a source is honestly more polite than what the default response to a claim made without evidence should really be: Dismissal without evidence.

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:
Can you source a poll the disproves what he's saying?

I'm not going to say there's a poll anywhere, but he's not really wrong that the same people complaining loudly for "balance" are usually the same that will be complaining loudly when something they like is balanced in a way they dislike.

I'm incredibly guilty of this in that I think the nonsense with Conscripts and Commissars was handled in the worst possible manner, and have loudly said so since it happened. They both didn't go far enough and went the wrong way to start with!

Don't turn this around. We don't need to counterprove his point with a poll since he didn't prove his point at all. If he presented it as a personnal opinion, it wouldve been fin , the fact that he says the majority of players think this way is why hes getting so much flak.

Do you really think that "a majority of players" are posting in this thread? Threads tend to get a self-contained momentum rather than an actual cross-section of people posting.

 Kanluwen wrote:

Karol wrote:

Well from what the designer says, the points are not about balance, but about what GW thinks people should buy and play with.
They want people to use the new erdictors and they do not want swarms of cultists or grots in their respective armies. It does of course go against the your dudes thing, but I guess that is how GW games are.

See, this? This is the kind of comment you ask for a source on.

Which designer? When?

it was discussed in the first page of this thread, litterally the second post was quoting what they said in the podcast.

So it's from the podcast...which is about talking to a "playtester". Not from a game designer.

Which means that it's effectively hearsay statements, because GW ain't gonna come out and confirm or deny these statements.
And it also means that, as usual, Karol is wrong.

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:
Can you source a poll the disproves what he's saying?

I'm not going to say there's a poll anywhere, but he's not really wrong that the same people complaining loudly for "balance" are usually the same that will be complaining loudly when something they like is balanced in a way they dislike.

I'm incredibly guilty of this in that I think the nonsense with Conscripts and Commissars was handled in the worst possible manner, and have loudly said so since it happened. They both didn't go far enough and went the wrong way to start with!

Don't turn this around. We don't need to counterprove his point with a poll since he didn't prove his point at all. If he presented it as a personnal opinion, it wouldve been fin , the fact that he says the majority of players think this way is why hes getting so much flak.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Kanluwen wrote:

Karol wrote:

Well from what the designer says, the points are not about balance, but about what GW thinks people should buy and play with.
They want people to use the new erdictors and they do not want swarms of cultists or grots in their respective armies. It does of course go against the your dudes thing, but I guess that is how GW games are.

See, this? This is the kind of comment you ask for a source on.

Which designer? When?

it was discussed in the first page of this thread, litterally the second post was quoting what they said in the podcast.

If we're quoting the podcast, he was a playtester seperate from the dev team who was approaching the changes with his own understanding.

So it's from the podcast...which is about talking to a "playtester". Not from a game designer.

Which means that it's effectively hearsay statements, because GW ain't gonna come out and confirm or deny these statements.
And it also means that, as usual, Karol is wrong.

I don't know how the person that said it is called, but the link to the podcast is in the first post in this thread.
Not sure if this is the Nanavati or Kopach guy.

 Kanluwen wrote:

Karol wrote:

Well from what the designer says, the points are not about balance, but about what GW thinks people should buy and play with.
They want people to use the new erdictors and they do not want swarms of cultists or grots in their respective armies. It does of course go against the your dudes thing, but I guess that is how GW games are.

See, this? This is the kind of comment you ask for a source on.

Which designer? When?

me, from the first page:

"God, it's so funny listening to them come up with dumb gak justifications for how awful the point values are.

"GW is balancing the game based on how they want armies to look, not for cross-faction balance, that's why cultists are awful on purpose they dont' want CSM armies to be all cultists"

OK cool, so they don't want Dark Eldar armies to include...ANY dark eldar troops then? What units DO they want to see in Dark Eldar armies?"

Karol has here taken my paraphrasing of the opinion of a playtester on what GW's intention is with the changes, to a statement by an actual GW designer on the intent.

This is something of a tendency with him. Someone somewhere interprets an event, and Karol posts it as the truth of the actual thing that happens or as a direct firsthand statement from the people involved. I've actually started thinking of this tendency as Bacon Sandwiching because of it.

Neither of which are developers.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

the_scotsman wrote:

me, from the first page:

"God, it's so funny listening to them come up with dumb gak justifications for how awful the point values are.

"GW is balancing the game based on how they want armies to look, not for cross-faction balance, that's why cultists are awful on purpose they dont' want CSM armies to be all cultists"

OK cool, so they don't want Dark Eldar armies to include...ANY dark eldar troops then? What units DO they want to see in Dark Eldar armies?"

Karol has here taken my paraphrasing of the opinion of a playtester on what GW's intention is with the changes, to a statement by an actual GW designer on the intent.

This is something of a tendency with him. Someone somewhere interprets an event, and Karol posts it as the truth of the actual thing that happens or as a direct firsthand statement from the people involved. I've actually started thinking of this tendency as Bacon Sandwiching because of it.

I figured it was something like that after having read your post on the first page, but it's one of those things which I would actually want to see in writing from GW before going too far into the rabbit hole of interpreting.

This isn't even a "Guard bias" thing. I don't get why we keep trying to use the Infantry Squad as the basis for these kinds of units instead of Conscripts getting downgraded to Grot/Cultist stats and bumping Infantry Squads up a bit.

The adjusted points costs are pretty weird in some places, but gee people seem quick to forget the bad old days of 3rd-7th edition where nary a points update was seen? Armies could go entire editions, sometimes two, without getting a look in or even an FAQ?
The points updates are far from perfect. Its pretty lazy in fact. And it makes me angry that GW's so-called writers did something so lazy and in many cases completely undid 3 years worth of balancing. But just the fact that GW has addressed points costs after an edition change AT ALL is a small step in, maybe not quite the right direction, but not completely backwards.

With any luck, after the first couple of events roll in, we'll see refined points costs coming in before the end of the year.

IronNerd wrote:
I know I'm not the first person to say this, but it seems more pertinent than the constant bickering that dominates this thread.

I don't need *perfect* balance, I just want the extreme outliers to be brought in line. Eradicators are 40 ppm? That's insane value, most people agree they got that unit wrong. Grots are 5 ppm? Holy crap, who thought that was a good idea?!?

Eliminate the outliers so we can at least pretend there is some balance. If GW wants to enforce how armies "should look" then bring back unit limits like the old days.

Its kinda funny because most of the competitive marine players I'm talking to don't think eradicators are must-takes, because the entire rest of the marine roster is still so strong. Grav Devastators in Drop pods sound like a thing though.

Regarding Grots etc... I think GW has kind of woken up to the idea that there is some inherent value in simply putting bodies on the board no matter how terrible they are. People will still take 50pt Grot units because 50pts is about the minimum you should pay for 'existing on the table', and 10 Grots are roughly as good as 10 Boyz at doing that job.

6 point cultists vs 5 point guardsmen is criminal though.

" I think GW has kind of woken up to the idea that there is some inherent value in simply putting bodies on the board no matter how terrible they are. People will still take 50pt Grot units because 50pts is about the minimum you should pay for 'existing on the table', and 10 Grots are roughly as good as 10 Boyz at doing that job."

The existence tax that didn't exist in 8th.