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nou wrote:

So please tell me, how much is an AP-4 D2 worth in a competitive meta context, when the top dog army, so the most popular on the top tables is Drukhari, and how much the same weapon is worth, when the top dog army is Space Marines?

I don't know. That's why you playtest and iterate. Not knowing, and there not being an answer within a certain acceptable error range are not the same thing.

Quick thought experiment: Player A decides that gun/unit combo is worth 100 points per model. Player B decides it should be 1 point. Both are clearly wrong so the answer is obviously somewhere in the middle. The question of where exactly it falls on that spectrum is the whole point of playtesting. Nobody's asking for perfection in all cases here, but what we are asking for is something better than we have. A good starting point for GW would likely be to stop adding so many goddamn special rules to every single unit and weapon so there's at least a common baseline to work from.

There's no requirement for a given unit or weapon to be perfectly balanced in all scenarios and match-ups. However, a game with better cross-faction balance means the decisions players make about their list-building choices should be more about creating well-rounded armies capable of taking on all-comers. When external balance is so bad you know you're going to be facing lots of the same type of lists that further exacerbates poor balance by pushing certain units and weapons over others. It's a vicious cycle of imbalance.

Competitive 40k has (imo anyway) rarely worked on a meta basis - its usually just been a function of grabbing the most bang for your points. The issue is that the same offense/defence/movement stats/abilities should cost roughly the same points between Codex A and Codex B.

This has historically not been the case. So 10 BS3+ S5 AP-4 D2 shots has cost say 100 points in "Codex September 2020" - and yet by "Codex February 2021" it only costs 90 points. And then by "Codex September 2022" its only going to cost 80 points.

In the old days this resulted in codexes just being crept out of existence. The CA process now tries to keep things vaguely in check - but its still not a great system.

 Sim-Life wrote:


The best thing you can do is stop defending GW just because the issue doesn't effect you. We know GW responds if people complain loudly enough. The fix would be for GW to balance their game and make it mechanically sound so that airfleet armies are neither terrible or broken and again, what is good for Matched play is good for Crusade. Better balance in one means better balance in the other.

I don't so much defend GW as react to proposals from other people that would break the game for me.

When people propose making changes to Matched play only, I either get on board and discuss their ideas or stay out of the discussion entirely because I really don't have the experience, expertise or interest to effectively contribute to the discussion.

But then you get someone who makes a suggestion like reducing the number of datacards IN THE GAME to 200, or removing ALL strats FROM THE GAME. Saying that these are stupid ideas that would effect Crusade players and suggesting that they should restrict their proposals to Matched play is NOT defending GW.

Did you realise that all this discussion about power creep and design drift would be pointless if GW release all the rules at once digitally at the beginning of the edition?

psipso wrote:
Did you realise that all this discussion about power creep and design drift would be pointless if GW release all the rules at once digitally at the beginning of the edition?

Yes. But asking for that is like asking for a solid gold toilet, it's just not on the cards.

psipso wrote:
Did you realise that all this discussion about power creep and design drift would be pointless if GW release all the rules at once digitally at the beginning of the edition?

I wish it was a solution.

Your honour, may I refer you to exhibit A.

Privateer Press' mk3 launch.

And it went down like a lead balloon. And this is a company who are generally regarding as writing decent rules. And who provided the cards/rules/stats of all models in the game up front.

Releasing everything for an edition/entire game digitally up front, as well as being developmentally extremely challenging, also fails to account for people leaving, new people joining, new ideas or, or 'new' releases and in this industry, 'new' is what makes money, hence how nearly every ttg has 'waves' built into its business model. Remember as well, even if its released at once, all the factions design/faction elements won't be designed simultaneously/concurrently prior to this.

And, you know, 'digital' isn't the bees knees either. some of us like our books and appreciate this game because its not hooked up to a tablet.

Tyel wrote:
Competitive 40k has (imo anyway) rarely worked on a meta basis - its usually just been a function of grabbing the most bang for your points. The issue is that the same offense/defence/movement stats/abilities should cost roughly the same points between Codex A and Codex B.

This has historically not been the case. So 10 BS3+ S5 AP-4 D2 shots has cost say 100 points in "Codex September 2020" - and yet by "Codex February 2021" it only costs 90 points. And then by "Codex September 2022" its only going to cost 80 points.

In the old days this resulted in codexes just being crept out of existence. The CA process now tries to keep things vaguely in check - but its still not a great system.

"Vaguely" being the operative word. It's obvious that they just concentrate on whatever is currently "meta" and a few hand picked units in CA, while leaving older/more obscure units/factions to rot. I seriously doubt letting top level competitive players in on the "balancing" decisions will help with that either. They'll mostly just be interested in whatever is currently "competitive".

nou wrote:

 catbarf wrote:


A wholly abstract game that makes no pretention to simulating accompanying lore or anything tied to the real world, and which is designed to be exploitable and more of a 'problem to solve', could be fun I suppose. But that's generally not why I'm into wargaming.

You are aware, that you just gave a pretty good description of 8th/9th ed 40K from a meta chaser POV?

Keenly aware. And it's why I don't buy the 'what's good for competitive is good for casual' argument. There are different expectations and goals from each group.

Deadnight wrote:
And, you know, 'digital' isn't the bees knees either. some of us like our books and appreciate this game because its not hooked up to a tablet.

Honest question, how do you play 40K at the moment? I need so many patches, tweaks, and limitations spread across so many books that I find it more convenient to just have a laptop open with Battlescribe and Wahapedia on my sideboard, and I normally dislike electronic rules and strongly prefer written books. I find it more confusing to use the books because I don't always remember what's been patched, errata'd, or expanded on, or where the rule I remember is located.

I mean, I'd be ecstatic if GW released the rules online all at once (after public beta testing), then produced hardcopy codices (with the same rules) as printing schedules allow. I'd rather print out the 10-30 pages of rules for a new edition and then wait for them to be formatted in a shiny new codex rather than have getting new rules be tied to the book.

But of course GW wouldn't sell as many books that way, so here we are.

 waefre_1 wrote:

Toofast wrote:
It's not that easy to tone lists down because I don't buy units unless they're being used in meta lists. If a unit sits on my shelf for years without rotating into the meta, it usually goes on ebay. I only have 2k-2.5k points for any given army at a time and usually it's a 2k meta list with a few other competitive units to swap in for different metas...

I may be misreading this, so feel free to correct me, but this bit sounds like you expect new players to purchase new units that they may not want or like so that their list can be "toned up" to your standards, yet you are unwilling to keep extra units around (or potentially purchase a few yourself) to "tone down" your list to their capacity. If so, why do you consider that OK?

If they don't want to buy more powerful units, that's fine but they should expect to lose just like I expect to lose before I have properly learned my army.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 catbarf wrote:


It's an overtly adversarial style of play where you're not looking to both have a good time; it's on your opponent to create their own fun while you do the same.

Yes

Toofast wrote:

 waefre_1 wrote:

Toofast wrote:
It's not that easy to tone lists down because I don't buy units unless they're being used in meta lists. If a unit sits on my shelf for years without rotating into the meta, it usually goes on ebay. I only have 2k-2.5k points for any given army at a time and usually it's a 2k meta list with a few other competitive units to swap in for different metas...

I may be misreading this, so feel free to correct me, but this bit sounds like you expect new players to purchase new units that they may not want or like so that their list can be "toned up" to your standards, yet you are unwilling to keep extra units around (or potentially purchase a few yourself) to "tone down" your list to their capacity. If so, why do you consider that OK?

If they don't want to buy more powerful units, that's fine but they should expect to lose just like I expect to lose before I have properly learned my army.

cool, so when will you learn your army?

Because if you're just going to keep on doing your whole "buy units only if they're being used in meta lists"? It means you haven't learned your army. It means you've learned where to find lists to copypasta.

nou wrote:


If 40K, entirely as it is rules wise and codex wise, would be played with dirt cheap paper tokens ...

Would you consider 40K a mechanically interesting game in such scenario?

That's how we played when I was deployed. It didn't change anything about the game played, just how it looked.

 Gadzilla666 wrote:
"Vaguely" being the operative word. It's obvious that they just concentrate on whatever is currently "meta" and a few hand picked units in CA, while leaving older/more obscure units/factions to rot. I seriously doubt letting top level competitive players in on the "balancing" decisions will help with that either. They'll mostly just be interested in whatever is currently "competitive".

Its possible. Varies I think from player to player.

I know that while I want a balanced game - I'm simultaneously interested in meta churn. Its always disappointing if a codex is released and the result is "eh, its kind of fun I guess, but its just going to get steamrolled by the top lists at the moment so few competitive players are going to bother with it". But having every codex be "New meta!!!" undoubtedly feeds the codex creep I dislike.

The argument could be that a more tightly balanced game would allow for organic meta evolution - but as said, its not happened historically in 40k and I think its relatively rare after the first few weeks in any game outside of changes to that game state. The best stuff would still be the best stuff, even if the gap would hopefully be lower.

It sort of brings you back to "what would a balanced game look like". Because the idea you should be able to bring anything and win a major feels kind of impossible. Equally however if you see many factions placing, its probably in a reasonably healthy place. But this leads to the idea that 9th actually is fairly balanced - but lots of people feel upset about it.

 Kanluwen wrote:

Deadnight wrote:

Toofast wrote:
It's not that easy to tone lists down because I don't buy units unless they're being used in meta lists. If a unit sits on my shelf for years without rotating into the meta, it usually goes on ebay. I

Don't put things on ebay. Simples.

Simpler things:
Don't just buy units because "they're being used in meta lists".

If I play against mostly competitive lists and in tournaments, why would I buy units that aren't competitive? This is the classic "my way of having fun is the only way you're allowed to have fun" argument. Then the people making this argument claim that competitive players are killing the hobby. LUL


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 auticus wrote:


They should be just "events" and that everyone should chase the meta along with them to play "properly".

I play narrative events sometimes and hear the same complaints. My stance is if you want list-building restrictions, then tell me about them before the event starts. Don't say "ok we're running a necromunda campaign starting at 1,000 creds" and then get mad when I rock up with 4 plasma guns on my van saar. If you don't want me bringing 4 plasma, that's fine just limit special 1 weapons to 1 of each kind per gang. I'm fine with that. I'm not fine with making arbitrary restrictions halfway through an event just because certain people feel a list is "too strong". If you want fluffhammer comps, make that a requirement to begin with. Don't just tell me a point value and then complain my army is too strong when it's built to your army composition requirements in the first place.

ccs wrote:

nou wrote:

Spoiler:

An interesting (I think) question just occurred to me:

If 40K, entirely as it is rules wise and codex wise, would be played with dirt cheap paper tokens instead of expensive miniatures and all the rules were in the living ruleset electronic format you only have to pay once or pay a very small subscription for it, would you consider "solving the unbalanced meta" a bug or a feature?

Absolutely a bug.
Because MY hobby is miniature gaming/miniature wargaming. And you've just taken the minis out of it.

And to add insult? Then you propose charging me a subscription fee?? FOR WHAT? I can already get every rule & pictures of the models free. So can everyone else.

nou wrote:

Spoiler:

Would you consider 40K a mechanically interesting game in such scenario?

No, it'd just be the same as it currently is - but with no minis. So I wouldn't likely consider it at all.

Toofast wrote:

nou wrote:

Spoiler:

If 40K, entirely as it is rules wise and codex wise, would be played with dirt cheap paper tokens ...

Would you consider 40K a mechanically interesting game in such scenario?

That's how we played when I was deployed. It didn't change anything about the game played, just how it looked.

I think those two answers side by side nicely illustrate the hard division of the playerbase.

Toofast wrote:
This is the classic "my way of having fun is the only way you're allowed to have fun" argument.

If you refuse to tone down your list so that a less-cutthroat opponent can have fun too, or refuse to take a thematic/narrative force for a narrative event when there's opportunity to min-max, that's exactly what you're doing.

Toofast wrote:

 waefre_1 wrote:

Toofast wrote:
It's not that easy to tone lists down because I don't buy units unless they're being used in meta lists. If a unit sits on my shelf for years without rotating into the meta, it usually goes on ebay. I only have 2k-2.5k points for any given army at a time and usually it's a 2k meta list with a few other competitive units to swap in for different metas...

I may be misreading this, so feel free to correct me, but this bit sounds like you expect new players to purchase new units that they may not want or like so that their list can be "toned up" to your standards, yet you are unwilling to keep extra units around (or potentially purchase a few yourself) to "tone down" your list to their capacity. If so, why do you consider that OK?

If they don't want to buy more powerful units, that's fine but they should expect to lose just like I expect to lose before I have properly learned my army.

I'm not sure I'd call "buying meta units" learning the army. The problem with this approach is it's just as likely - if not more likely - to lead to new people just not wanting to play, either against you, or the game in general. Maybe you don't see that as your problem, but eventually it will be.

A more balanced game benefits everyone. Except, ironically enough, players like you who try to buy their way to success. The biggest barrier I've found to getting people involved in 40k is when new players see how bad the balance is and baulk at having to invest time and effort into getting units they don't want, just to be competitive. Alternatively, they look at the units they have bought and get discouraged because their fluffy Tau army is getting dismantled by a spammy DE list. I'm all for groups playing how they want, but taking an attitude towards new players that is extremely likely to be discouraging is TFG behaviour, IMO.

Toofast wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:

Deadnight wrote:

Toofast wrote:
It's not that easy to tone lists down because I don't buy units unless they're being used in meta lists. If a unit sits on my shelf for years without rotating into the meta, it usually goes on ebay. I

Don't put things on ebay. Simples.

Simpler things:
Don't just buy units because "they're being used in meta lists".

If I play against mostly competitive lists and in tournaments, why would I buy units that aren't competitive? This is the classic "my way of having fun is the only way you're allowed to have fun" argument. Then the people making this argument claim that competitive players are killing the hobby. LUL

If you're playing "mostly competitive lists and in tournaments", you're not playing with casual players. LUL

Toofast wrote:

 waefre_1 wrote:

Toofast wrote:
It's not that easy to tone lists down because I don't buy units unless they're being used in meta lists. If a unit sits on my shelf for years without rotating into the meta, it usually goes on ebay. I only have 2k-2.5k points for any given army at a time and usually it's a 2k meta list with a few other competitive units to swap in for different metas...

I may be misreading this, so feel free to correct me, but this bit sounds like you expect new players to purchase new units that they may not want or like so that their list can be "toned up" to your standards, yet you are unwilling to keep extra units around (or potentially purchase a few yourself) to "tone down" your list to their capacity. If so, why do you consider that OK?

If they don't want to buy more powerful units, that's fine but they should expect to lose just like I expect to lose before I have properly learned my army.

No. They, and everyone else, should expect gw to give us a reasonable enough balance that there isn't a massive gap between various units/factions. At that point actual player skill would start to matter more than ones ability to follow the meta and buy their way to the top by throwing money at "meta units".

Tyel wrote:

 Gadzilla666 wrote:
"Vaguely" being the operative word. It's obvious that they just concentrate on whatever is currently "meta" and a few hand picked units in CA, while leaving older/more obscure units/factions to rot. I seriously doubt letting top level competitive players in on the "balancing" decisions will help with that either. They'll mostly just be interested in whatever is currently "competitive".

Its possible. Varies I think from player to player.

I know that while I want a balanced game - I'm simultaneously interested in meta churn. Its always disappointing if a codex is released and the result is "eh, its kind of fun I guess, but its just going to get steamrolled by the top lists at the moment so few competitive players are going to bother with it". But having every codex be "New meta!!!" undoubtedly feeds the codex creep I dislike.

The argument could be that a more tightly balanced game would allow for organic meta evolution - but as said, its not happened historically in 40k and I think its relatively rare after the first few weeks in any game outside of changes to that game state. The best stuff would still be the best stuff, even if the gap would hopefully be lower.

It sort of brings you back to "what would a balanced game look like". Because the idea you should be able to bring anything and win a major feels kind of impossible. Equally however if you see many factions placing, its probably in a reasonably healthy place. But this leads to the idea that 9th actually is fairly balanced - but lots of people feel upset about it.

No, you shouldn't be able to bring just "anything" and win a major. But things should be balanced enough that you can't just pick a winner based on looking at two army lists. There should be reasonable internal and external balance for as many different units/factions as possible. And right now gw is not trying very hard to do that.

You can look at some things and see how bent they are after about 5 minutes. Those are the things that need culled.

Its been a while but two examples from 40k I had a problem with when I quit that I posted a few pages back that I'll reiterate here:

My thousand sons couldn't operate as thousand sons because their units were just very minimal output and very high cost. That was glaringly obvious in 5 minutes of reading the book. That should never have been released.

Playing against an army at the time that could just bring back dead models into new units over and over again. I was told that that wasn't a problem at top tables so wasn't a problem.

That attitude is exactly one of my problems, because thats great if you are running a top meta army - the free extra points those armies at the time were getting weren't a problem for those top table armies. But for the rest of the game they were absolutely a problem and a huge negative play experience. It shouldn't have existed in the way it did.

The knight army I faced that vaporized me in 2 turns. Not a problem on top tables I was told... but against casual armies that weren't rocking top 5 meta lists a huge problem.

Those things can be spotted from a great distance immediately and should not exist. Or if we feel compelled, there should be formats that exist that are more restricting that don't have to be houseruled (because houserule comp never turns out well and always generates anger and rage and red faced tantrums in my experience).

Now the answer I hear often is simply "git gud - you played a bad army you should lose" - but thats not really how 40k is marketed. It would be nothing to have for me run the magnus/mortarion/demon tag team combo that you were supposed to run in the day and suddenly I've gitten gud and can play well again like magic - but 40k is supposed to be this grand game of choice that we all know doesn't really exist. It requires people knowing how to tone down for the appropriate scenarios and events, which is the thing that is a problem at the end of the day because some consider that arbitrary, some will do their best to hyper optimize in any system so even if you give them a houseruled comp they will find a way to bust it - because the game is just not in a good state as far as that is concerned, and many are under the mistaken belief that points == balance so when they get in to the hobby they feel 2000 points should feel like 2000 points and are then given the awakening that sometimes 2000 points will be 5,000 points and you have to rock up to the table with that type of army or not bother playing.

I dont know that that is a problem in 40k land because the player base is so massive it self sustains itself when people quit so the people that want to hyper optimize are really not affected at all and it truly is a not my problem kind of scenario. In smaller games this would be felt more acutely.

 Gadzilla666 wrote:

Tyel wrote:It sort of brings you back to "what would a balanced game look like". Because the idea you should be able to bring anything and win a major feels kind of impossible.

No, you shouldn't be able to bring just "anything" and win a major. But things should be balanced enough that you can't just pick a winner based on looking at two army lists.

I'd say that in a balanced game it should still be possible to build a list wrong, and I would not expect (or want) that you can take just anything and still have an even shot at winning.

However, I would expect 'building a list wrong' to mean not taking critical functions needed for your army to win, like building a completely static army when the objectives will require movement, or not bringing any anti-tank. Whereas right now in 40K it's too easy to build a list wrong by stumbling into pitfalls that you probably wouldn't recognize without game experience- units that seem like they should fulfill a valid niche but can't do it effectively, cost too much for what they provide, or imply a style of play that doesn't function in practice.

It's also better if there aren't any standout units that constitute must-haves and shape listbuilding. That's where a lot of the meta-chasing comes from, spamming certain units and combos that punch above their weight.

Basically I'd like to see listbuilding being about thinking how your army is supposed to work and what objectives it needs to accomplish, and not about taking more of X and less of Y and don't forget this upgrade, this relic, and this WLT that together let you crap out 3D6 mortal wounds and regenerate wounds on Tuesdays.

Short answer, yes. Long answer, yes. Hopefully they can do better with deeper connections to the ITC.

 catbarf wrote:

Toofast wrote:
This is the classic "my way of having fun is the only way you're allowed to have fun" argument.

If you refuse to tone down your list so that a less-cutthroat opponent can have fun too, or refuse to take a thematic/narrative force for a narrative event when there's opportunity to min-max, that's exactly what you're doing.

Except certain armies are straight up better with a TAC list vs other armies and their TAC list. So how does that work for you?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Kanluwen wrote:

Toofast wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:

Deadnight wrote:

Toofast wrote:
It's not that easy to tone lists down because I don't buy units unless they're being used in meta lists. If a unit sits on my shelf for years without rotating into the meta, it usually goes on ebay. I

Don't put things on ebay. Simples.

Simpler things:
Don't just buy units because "they're being used in meta lists".

If I play against mostly competitive lists and in tournaments, why would I buy units that aren't competitive? This is the classic "my way of having fun is the only way you're allowed to have fun" argument. Then the people making this argument claim that competitive players are killing the hobby. LUL

If you're playing "mostly competitive lists and in tournaments", you're not playing with casual players. LUL

Why not? Maybe not everyone wants to use silly looking loadouts like one-of-each special weapon like the Skitarii have right now, but you can thank GW for making the rules match the kit and the casual players for defending it.

EviscerationPlague wrote:

Why not? Maybe not everyone wants to use silly looking loadouts like one-of-each special weapon like the Skitarii have right now, but you can thank GW for making the rules match the kit and the casual players for defending it.

LMFAO.

You think casual players were responsible for that frigging trash?

 Kanluwen wrote:

EviscerationPlague wrote:

Why not? Maybe not everyone wants to use silly looking loadouts like one-of-each special weapon like the Skitarii have right now, but you can thank GW for making the rules match the kit and the casual players for defending it.

LMFAO.

You think casual players were responsible for that frigging trash?

This lol

Most casual players I knew of were more then fine with units that did not come in the box. I never once saw a player happy that GW removed unit options that did not come in a kit.

Casual players overwhelmingly are the ones taht want GW to release rules for models that don't even exist to give us an excuse to kitbash and convert stuff, but sure, its *our* fault that GW is only providing units with options that are in the kit.

Still butt blasted my librarian on a bike got chucked into legends.

 catbarf wrote:
Basically I'd like to see listbuilding being about thinking how your army is supposed to work and what objectives it needs to accomplish, and not about taking more of X and less of Y and don't forget this upgrade, this relic, and this WLT that together let you crap out 3D6 mortal wounds and regenerate wounds on Tuesdays.

To be contrarian - I think the issue is that 9th does let you do this, its just most players aren't interested.

I mean I'm not sure people would have identified Siegler's LVO winning list as the best available.

To my mind a good MSU list will focus on a few shooting threats (often not that many really - at least in the current meta before the changes kick in), some potent combat options to keep pressure on objectives and hopefully exchange up, and plenty of of small chaff units who can commit to orders, can sit on backfield objectives, or just generally chaff up the opponent - and deny those enemy assault units those good exchanges mentioned before.

But... well, I'm sort of done. You then get into what units/bonuses to plug into those various bits to theoretically be better than the rest.

EviscerationPlague wrote:

 catbarf wrote:

Toofast wrote:
This is the classic "my way of having fun is the only way you're allowed to have fun" argument.

If you refuse to tone down your list so that a less-cutthroat opponent can have fun too, or refuse to take a thematic/narrative force for a narrative event when there's opportunity to min-max, that's exactly what you're doing.

Except certain armies are straight up better with a TAC list vs other armies and their TAC list. So how does that work for you?

Tweak as necessary, get somewhere in the ballpark of a fair fight, rather than crossing your arms and saying 'I refuse to use anything other than the strongest possible meta-chasing competitive build the rules will allow'?

Yeah I'd second Tyel's comments. Players aren't interested in that type of list building. Thats just the current culture defining the game and what they want.

If I ruled the 40k world, you'd have a series of scenarios that were in the mix randomly generated that all benefited certain builds and were challenging for certain other builds.

The scenarios would enforce composition so if you min maxed one way, you risked rolling a scenario that didn't suit your min maxing, pushing you to have to keep all of those things in consideration.

That also is not desirable from a tournament player stand point because you can't optimize very well in that type of environment, but thats how any game I design is usually built around.

Tyel wrote:
To my mind a good MSU list will focus on a few shooting threats (often not that many really - at least in the current meta before the changes kick in), some potent combat options to keep pressure on objectives and hopefully exchange up, and plenty of of small chaff units who can commit to orders, can sit on backfield objectives, or just generally chaff up the opponent - and deny those enemy assault units those good exchanges mentioned before.

But... well, I'm sort of done. You then get into what units/bonuses to plug into those various bits to theoretically be better than the rest.

Well yeah, that's definitely part of the game already, although as you note it's pretty shallow. But where it falls apart for me is that you can correctly observe all the things you need to make a functional army, and then pick seemingly appropriate units for those roles that just don't work. You need an understanding of which units are good or bad for their points, whether their capabilities align with their fluff/description, and what combos to take to wring the most effectiveness out of the units. That's where the min-maxing and pitfalls come in that make or break a list.

You could easily take Siegler's winning list, substitute each unit with a less-performant but theoretically role-equivalent counterpart, and make it considerably worse while in theory being based on the same set of identified needs.

 auticus wrote:
Yeah I'd second Tyel's comments. Players aren't interested in that type of list building. Thats just the current culture defining the game and what they want.

That I can't argue with. There does seem to be success in encouraging players to churn-and-burn in pursuit of an ever-changing meta.