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 vict0988 wrote:

 auticus wrote:
I've long stated that in gw-land points don't equal horse and never have. They provide structure to optimize within.

You can't have strong horn impact along with strong horse. You can have one or the other (or a mix of the two - a little horse and a little horn).

Right now its all about the structure provided to min/max within. Horn is all about finding the combos that make your 2000 point list fight at a higher weight class / act like its 4000 or 5000 points.

If horn + horse = unicorn then 2000 points would be 2000 points at its most extreme end, and any 2000 point horse would have a good game against any other 2000 point horse.

Thats how a lot of people infer horns, and how I myself would like horns to be (and how I design horses to be) but the unicorns do not like that because it removes horses from mattering as much.

The best 2k list got nerfed by 200 pts and had some errata and went from 70% to 45% win rate. There are no 2k lists that act like 1k lists or 3k lists.

I strongly disagree with you.

I just watched a game of 40k this past weekend where the one list was very much about 50% capability of the other list and got destroyed. But they were both "2000 points". One was a casual list, the other an optimized LVO list. They were in no way shape or form in the same ballpark as each other, it was like watching a high school football team go up against an NFL team. The only similarity was "40k" was the game they were playing.

 Tyran wrote:
I think we need a clear definition on what is casual play and how it differs from competitive play.

I know it kinda sounds obvious, but obvious isn't the same as clear.

Casual play is what I don't like if I'm competitive, and vice versa.

Obviously.

 Tyran wrote:
I think we need a clear definition on what is casual play and how it differs from competitive play.

I know it kinda sounds obvious, but obvious isn't the same as clear.

I agree with that. And I think the even bigger challenge is what, from a written rules standpoint, would result in an actual difference between competitive and casual play?

Point Limits
- Matched (Competitive): Uses points, 2K standard for full games
- Matched (Casual): Uses points, 2k standard for full games

Missions
- Matched (Competitive): Uses tournament mission pack (e.g. basically what's in 9th edition right now)
- Matched (Casual): Broadens the mission pack. Control point missions less rigid (more flexible point placement), more focus on asymmetric and /or varied primary objectives (could overlap with Crusade mission pack). Victory determination can require a margin of victory to have a declared winner (below the margin of victory games treated as a draw).

Table Setup
- Matched (Competitive): Symmetrical board layouts (per typical tournaments)
- Matched (Casual): Guidelines for establishing asymmetrical board layouts. Provides a process for players alternating placement of terrain or defines another procedure to use.

Force Organization
- Matched (Competitive): Per existing 9th edition rules. Can use any detachments paying CP costs as needed. Use of allies per current rules.
- Matched (Casual): "Unified force organization method" (TBD) to allow less room for skew. Use of special characters and Lords of War, or other deviations in force organization with opponent's concurrence. May have limits on taking repeats of specialist units (TBD). Single detachment. No allies except with opponent's concurrence.

Are there other rule dimensions that would feed into this?

EviscerationPlague wrote:
No it's because points make you pay a more appropriate cost for a weapon compared to the "take whatever you want" approach of PL.

Right, that's why points were so well balanced that Guard ended up needing to have a whole other set of points costs added to them for BS4+ and BS3+ weapons.

Because points "make you pay a more appropriate cost for a weapon".

Points aren't perfectly balanced right now, but they're certainly more balanced than PL. To pretend otherwise is pure denial in the land of "GW perfect!!!1!"

PL is balanced in a situation where you're actively involved in a community that talks about their lists and isn't just there to tell people to "git gud"...

I can see why you wouldn't know that though. Git gud.

 Kanluwen wrote:

EviscerationPlague wrote:
No it's because points make you pay a more appropriate cost for a weapon compared to the "take whatever you want" approach of PL.

Right, that's why points were so well balanced that Guard ended up needing to have a whole other set of points costs added to them for BS4+ and BS3+ weapons.

Because points "make you pay a more appropriate cost for a weapon".

Points aren't perfectly balanced right now, but they're certainly more balanced than PL. To pretend otherwise is pure denial in the land of "GW perfect!!!1!"

PL is balanced in a situation where you're actively involved in a community that talks about their lists and isn't just there to tell people to "git gud"...

I can see why you wouldn't know that though. Git gud.

In a situation where your actively involved in a community that talks about their lists and how to balance them you don't need points, or PL.

PL is the exact same thing as points, but less precise.
There is no situation in which using PL gives a more 'balanced' result then using points would have done.

In your community situation, the exact same thing would happen if you used points and then talked about your lists with eachother.

 auticus wrote:
I've long stated that in gw-land points don't equal balance and never have. They provide structure to optimize within.
You can't have strong listbuilding impact along with strong balance. You can have one or the other (or a mix of the two - a little balance and a little listbuilding).
Right now its all about the structure provided to min/max within. Listbuilding is all about finding the combos that make your 2000 point list fight at a higher weight class / act like its 4000 or 5000 points.
If Points == Balance then 2000 points would be 2000 points at its most extreme end, and any 2000 point list would have a good game against any other 2000 point list.
Thats how a lot of people infer points, and how I myself would like points to be (and how I design games to be) but the listbuilding folks do not like that because it removes listbuilding from mattering as much so I see

this as a perpetual struggle between those two styles clashing.

Accurate, but the majority of players are not game designers and don't understand that points are a shaping mechanism rather than a balancing mechanism, nor what those distinctions mean and why they wont see "balance" the way they want it. If you try to educate them on it, they'll usually just try to argue the point with you or insist upon the idea that the game can be adequately balanced by making x cost y points as though that will magically correct everything and bring it all into line.
Frankly, I don't think the design studio fully understands that distinction either, but thats neither here nor there.

EviscerationPlague wrote:
No it's because points make you pay a more appropriate cost for a weapon compared to the "take whatever you want" approach of PL.
Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Kanluwen wrote:
Honestly, they just need to make a big ol' statement to the effect of:

Power is meant for pick-up games where people might need to make changes to their lists on the fly to ensure both parties can have an enjoyable game without requiring swapping units out wholesale.
Points are made for a more structured and granular play experience where both players have agreed to a more cutthroat experience, such as a tournament.

I'm sick and tired of people assuming points = balance.

Points aren't perfectly balanced right now, but they're certainly more balanced than PL. To pretend otherwise is pure denial in the land of "GW perfect!!!1!"

Points make you pay *a* cost, that doesn't mean that the cost is automatically appropriate. One would be inclined to think that a weapon with a longer range, more shots, higher strength, better ap, or higher damage stat, etc. should cost more than the default but there are various tradeoffs that can be made or inferred between weapons with varying stats that would otherwise make the cost between them a wash. In some cases GW has already acknowledged that, with the tendency to price heavy bolters and autocannons identically, likewise meltaguns and plasmaguns, and flamers/grenade launchers sometimes being simply a free upgrade over a bolter, etc. There are many variables that need to be considered in terms of how these weapons actually perform vs how they look on paper, etc. In some cases, even free weapon upgrades will get passed up vs just keeping the stock weapon, sometimes you would rather have an extra lasgun for FRSR than take a flamer or whatever, etc. This doesn't even begin to address the differences that the *platform* has on the utility of a weapon.

A meltagun on a BS5+ model with Mv 2", T2, W1, Sv 6+ and no options for transports or deep strike, etc. is not the same as a meltagun on a BS2+ model with Mv 20", T8, W12, Sv 3+. Same weapon, completely different results, ergo completely different levels of "appropriate cost". You can make the costs for the melta weapon variable from unit to unit to try to achieve "balance" but in reality all what you're accomplishing is making one platform a more efficient source for meltaguns than the other, which actually creates imbalance - because now you've incentivized the use of one unit over the other by attempting to cost something "appropriately", potentially rendering one option a must-take and the other a never-take by comparison. The resulting internal imbalance feeds into the external imbalance of the wider meta (and vice versa). You can play with the internal balance all you want but you will never get it to the point that both options are equally viable choices where the player has to make a meaningful decision between the two selections because its never just these two weapons on just these two units and you're essentially always trying to hit a moving target. Raising/dropping the price of one or the other may adjust the relationship the two units have with eachother, but it also adjusts their relationship with the rest of the codex/army list they exist within. Something will always become more/less effective than something else, and what that something is will change as other armies are updated, because the entire meta exists within an interconnected structure, and changing one small thing can butterfly effect its way into completely rewriting the meta and how the game is being played, thereby throwing off every algorithm, calculation, and playtest game you ran previously to try to determine what "appropriate" is.

Our group exclusively uses PL because it's more akin to AoS point system (and we much prefer that as opposed to micro of 40k points).

We don't have anyone bringing absolutely every possible upgrade you can think of because "lol it's free" We adhere to strict WYSIWYG and the "would you take that loadout if it were points?" clause.

Basically the list building is not enjoyable in 9th to any of us so we prefer to minimize the amount of time spent in that aspect of the Hobby, PL lets us achieve that, but we typically bring loadouts we would normally take if we were using points, but now we don't need to actually waste time adding it up etc.

One of the things I like about PL, is that you can swap things in or out of units once both players put their armies on the table without needing to rebuild your list.

So if I bring fully optimized squads and the opponent turns out to be someone who did not, I can say, "Ahh. Let me swap out some of these heavies for normal dudes, otherwise I'm going to crush you." And it doesn't change the value of the army.

I could also say to the dude "Oh, you should take a few of the upgrades," and again, his list is still going to work.

PenitentJake wrote:
One of the things I like about PL, is that you can swap things in or out of units once both players put their armies on the table without needing to rebuild your list.

So if I bring fully optimized squads and the opponent turns out to be someone who did not, I can say, "Ahh. Let me swap out some of these heavies for normal dudes, otherwise I'm going to crush you." And it doesn't change the value of the army.

I could also say to the dude "Oh, you should take a few of the upgrades," and again, his list is still going to work.

Have had this happen a few times and I agree, it is so much easier to just swap a few options to level the playing field.

Of course this is in a casual-competitive setting, would never fly in a tournament scene.

EviscerationPlague wrote:

Points aren't perfectly balanced right now, but they're certainly more balanced than PL. To pretend otherwise is pure denial in the land of "GW perfect!!!1!"

I don't even know how anyone makes the "PL is better for balance" argument with a straight face. Sure points don't give us perfect balance but I fail to see how making a plasma or melta the same cost as a bolt pistol will lead to better balance.

 Kanluwen wrote:
Right, that's why points were so well balanced that Guard ended up needing to have a whole other set of points costs added to them for BS4+ and BS3+ weapons.

That is how weapons should be balanced, yes. Different costs for different bearers/profiles.

This is still better balanced than power level.

The issue is that GW's rules exist solely to sell more models, and all other concerns are secondary.

Frankly, we'd just be buying one or two models of each type if it weren't for the rules GW was peddling. Their pricing - 10 "troops" costing $35 or so, and 3 "elite" costing $55 is just a sample of the artificial pricing model they do, its not because the plastic for the "elite" kit costs them any more.

Requiring armies of 2K points is just icing, and to further sell things each rulebook has to one-up the last, otherwise everyone would just stick with what they already have - both book and model wise. If a model isn't selling, they change the rules about to encourage sales - but because their concern isn't the game itself but the sale of models, they're as apt to make things worse ruleswise than better. They won't put too much effort in the rules because with the money they're making hand over fist, "good enough" is sufficient effort to keep the purchases flowing - and why bother dumping money into good rules when your customer base will fall over themselves to buy your product regardless how lousy your rules are*?

* Though there is an apparent basement to how bad folks will let the rules go before they start wandering away, as evidenced by 7th edition.

It's a self-feeding cycle that only benefits GW. Why would they change a system that is working to their benefit?

 Kanluwen wrote:

EviscerationPlague wrote:
No it's because points make you pay a more appropriate cost for a weapon compared to the "take whatever you want" approach of PL.

Right, that's why points were so well balanced that Guard ended up needing to have a whole other set of points costs added to them for BS4+ and BS3+ weapons.

Because points "make you pay a more appropriate cost for a weapon".

At least the codex costs recognized a difference between a lasgun and a plasma gun, even if it didn't recognize the difference between BS4+ and BS3+. Nobody said points are perfect, just that they're better.

And holding up the fact that GW then improved on deficiencies in the points system as an argument for why points are bad is weird.

 Kanluwen wrote:

Points aren't perfectly balanced right now, but they're certainly more balanced than PL. To pretend otherwise is pure denial in the land of "GW perfect!!!1!"

PL is balanced in a situation where you're actively involved in a community that talks about their lists and isn't just there to tell people to "git gud"...

I can see why you wouldn't know that though. Git gud.

If you're performing a heuristic assessment of the relative strengths of two PL-equivalent forces to figure out how to actually balance them, obviously the PL isn't balanced.

This reminds me of the AoS release, when some people said it wasn't a problem that the points system amounted to '1 model = 1 point' because you could always just take on the effort of figuring out balanced forces on your own. Well, sure, if you have a good understanding of the game, the relative capabilities of two forces, and both have the same subjective impressions of overall strength, then you can compose a balanced matchup regardless of what balancing mechanisms have been provided by the designers.

That approach falls apart as soon as you run into someone who has a different impression of your armies' relative power, cannot come to a consensus, and have to rely on a mechanical means of assessing relative strength.

PenitentJake wrote:
One of the things I like about PL, is that you can swap things in or out of units once both players put their armies on the table without needing to rebuild your list.

So if I bring fully optimized squads and the opponent turns out to be someone who did not, I can say, "Ahh. Let me swap out some of these heavies for normal dudes, otherwise I'm going to crush you." And it doesn't change the value of the army.

I could also say to the dude "Oh, you should take a few of the upgrades," and again, his list is still going to work.

I mean, you can just as easily downgrade some weapons to come in under points, or give them extra points to work with. There's no functional difference between points handicaps and using the inherent inaccuracy of PL to adjust your army's power while maintaining the same PL.

I'd love to see a sideboard mechanic in 40K to allow you to swap things around before a game starts. Or take a page out of AoS and balance equipment as sidegrades that can be swapped out without changing points costs. AOS does a good job of using points to provide granularity without getting into the weeds with individual equipment producing different costs.

Toofast wrote:

EviscerationPlague wrote:

Points aren't perfectly balanced right now, but they're certainly more balanced than PL. To pretend otherwise is pure denial in the land of "GW perfect!!!1!"

I don't even know how anyone makes the "PL is better for balance" argument with a straight face. Sure points don't give us perfect balance but I fail to see how making a plasma or melta the same cost as a bolt pistol will lead to better balance.

The people claiming it are just making bad faith arguments.

I absolutely agree that PL is less of a hassle and makes it much easier to throw lists together without having to calculate all the little points and upgrades.

Nothing wrong with sacrificing a bit of balance in the name of easy of use, so long as you recognise that is what your doing.

 Stormonu wrote:
* Though there is an apparent basement to how bad folks will let the rules go before they start wandering away, as evidenced by 7th edition.

Is this accurate?

Anecdotal, but there was a much much larger community playing 40k in 6th-7th than there are currently playing 9th in my area, in fact almost all local clubs (5 of them) are now exclusively running blood bowl, warcry, AoS, necromunda or kill team and if you show up looking for a game of 40k, you will rarely find an opponent willing. 7th never ever had a lack of players around here. Though this could also be due to the increased in amount of side games supported by GW now.

Also noticing more and more talks among locals (as well as my own group ~7 or so people) of abandoning 9th to go back to 7th or earlier.


EDIT: On the PL vs Points Balance debate, I am not advocating PL is any more balanced than points, its purely a time:enjoyment factor for my group

 catbarf wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:

EviscerationPlague wrote:
No it's because points make you pay a more appropriate cost for a weapon compared to the "take whatever you want" approach of PL.

Right, that's why points were so well balanced that Guard ended up needing to have a whole other set of points costs added to them for BS4+ and BS3+ weapons.

Because points "make you pay a more appropriate cost for a weapon".

At least the codex costs recognized a difference between a lasgun and a plasma gun, even if it didn't recognize the difference between BS4+ and BS3+. Nobody said points are perfect, just that they're better.

And holding up the fact that GW then improved on deficiencies in the points system as an argument for why points are bad is weird.

If you're going to pretend that "points equal balance", then you need to acknowledge what the issue was.

It wasn't plasma guns in squads of veterans or infantry squads that were the big problem. It was the stupid Scion Command Squads getting allied in by other factions for suicide drops.

But I mean hey, what do I know. IM JUST A DUMB CASUAL LOLOL.

 Kanluwen wrote:

Points aren't perfectly balanced right now, but they're certainly more balanced than PL. To pretend otherwise is pure denial in the land of "GW perfect!!!1!"

PL is balanced in a situation where you're actively involved in a community that talks about their lists and isn't just there to tell people to "git gud"...

I can see why you wouldn't know that though. Git gud.

If you're performing a heuristic assessment of the relative strengths of two PL-equivalent forces to figure out how to actually balance them, obviously the PL isn't balanced.

This reminds me of the AoS release, when some people said it wasn't a problem that the points system amounted to '1 model = 1 point' because you could always just take on the effort of figuring out balanced forces on your own. Well, sure, if you have a good understanding of the game, the relative capabilities of two forces, and both have the same subjective impressions of overall strength, then you can compose a balanced matchup regardless of what balancing mechanisms have been provided by the designers.

That approach falls apart as soon as you run into someone who has a different impression of your armies' relative power, cannot come to a consensus, and have to rely on a mechanical means of assessing relative strength.

Except that approach only "fell apart" because of people like some of these posters who cannot seem to grasp that a game is a two-sided affair. There was so much disingenuous garbage about how lists like 15 Nagashes or whatever would become prevalent.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Tittliewinks22 wrote:

EDIT: On the PL vs Points Balance debate, I am not advocating PL is any more balanced than points, its purely a time:enjoyment factor for my group

Sorry, you're stuck with the rest of us. Apparently thinking PL isn't the absolute worst means you're a lapdog for GW.

But hey, we have hats and a secret handshake!

chaos0xomega wrote:

Accurate, but the majority of players are not game designers and don't understand that points are a shaping mechanism rather than a balancing mechanism, nor what those distinctions mean and why they wont see "balance" the way they want it. If you try to educate them on it, they'll usually just try to argue the point with you or insist upon the idea that the game can be adequately balanced by making x cost y points as though that will magically correct everything and bring it all into line.
Frankly, I don't think the design studio fully understands that distinction either, but thats neither here nor there.

Spoiler:

EviscerationPlague wrote:
No it's because points make you pay a more appropriate cost for a weapon compared to the "take whatever you want" approach of PL.
Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Kanluwen wrote:
Honestly, they just need to make a big ol' statement to the effect of:

Power is meant for pick-up games where people might need to make changes to their lists on the fly to ensure both parties can have an enjoyable game without requiring swapping units out wholesale.
Points are made for a more structured and granular play experience where both players have agreed to a more cutthroat experience, such as a tournament.

I'm sick and tired of people assuming points = balance.

Points aren't perfectly balanced right now, but they're certainly more balanced than PL. To pretend otherwise is pure denial in the land of "GW perfect!!!1!"

Points make you pay *a* cost, that doesn't mean that the cost is automatically appropriate. One would be inclined to think that a weapon with a longer range, more shots, higher strength, better ap, or higher damage stat, etc. should cost more than the default but there are various tradeoffs that can be made or inferred between weapons with varying stats that would otherwise make the cost between them a wash. In some cases GW has already acknowledged that, with the tendency to price heavy bolters and autocannons identically, likewise meltaguns and plasmaguns, and flamers/grenade launchers sometimes being simply a free upgrade over a bolter, etc. There are many variables that need to be considered in terms of how these weapons actually perform vs how they look on paper, etc. In some cases, even free weapon upgrades will get passed up vs just keeping the stock weapon, sometimes you would rather have an extra lasgun for FRSR than take a flamer or whatever, etc. This doesn't even begin to address the differences that the *platform* has on the utility of a weapon.

A meltagun on a BS5+ model with Mv 2", T2, W1, Sv 6+ and no options for transports or deep strike, etc. is not the same as a meltagun on a BS2+ model with Mv 20", T8, W12, Sv 3+. Same weapon, completely different results, ergo completely different levels of "appropriate cost". You can make the costs for the melta weapon variable from unit to unit to try to achieve "balance" but in reality all what you're accomplishing is making one platform a more efficient source for meltaguns than the other, which actually creates imbalance - because now you've incentivized the use of one unit over the other by attempting to cost something "appropriately", potentially rendering one option a must-take and the other a never-take by comparison. The resulting internal imbalance feeds into the external imbalance of the wider meta (and vice versa). You can play with the internal balance all you want but you will never get it to the point that both options are equally viable choices where the player has to make a meaningful decision between the two selections because its never just these two weapons on just these two units and you're essentially always trying to hit a moving target. Raising/dropping the price of one or the other may adjust the relationship the two units have with eachother, but it also adjusts their relationship with the rest of the codex/army list they exist within. Something will always become more/less effective than something else, and what that something is will change as other armies are updated, because the entire meta exists within an interconnected structure, and changing one small thing can butterfly effect its way into completely rewriting the meta and how the game is being played, thereby throwing off every algorithm, calculation, and playtest game you ran previously to try to determine what "appropriate" is.

To just add to the above, this "appropriate cost" varies for any particular match, depending on the opposing force. So a list that is effectively worth 2000pts in one matchup, can be effectively worth 1800pts in another and 2500pts in a "hard counter" matchup and there is no way around it. None. Now, the defenders of "quest of balance through points" raise a statistical results as a metric here, but in this very thread it has been illustrated, that 50% win rate can be a result of loosing 70% of one kind of matchup/scenario and winning 70% of another matchup/scenario. Hardly an example of a balanced system.

Since my return to the hobby in the middle of 7th this has been discussed countless of times and the discussion never ended with "balance through points" advocates learning anything. It usually ends with "stop defending GW incompetence" posts.

There’s also issues that come up with some squads getting a way better deal out of PL. ork boyz get like no wargear compared to something like kabalites which you can kit out to the teeth.

 Kanluwen wrote:
If you're going to pretend that "points equal balance", then you need to acknowledge what the issue was.

It wasn't plasma guns in squads of veterans or infantry squads that were the big problem. It was the stupid Scion Command Squads getting allied in by other factions for suicide drops.

But I mean hey, what do I know. IM JUST A DUMB CASUAL LOLOL.

I'm not pretending points are perfectly balanced, refusing to acknowledge what the issue was with plasma spam, or calling you 'casual'. You seem to be engaged in a very spirited argument with a straw man.

I am only saying granular points are better as a balancing mechanism than what is, functionally, a much coarser points system that doesn't account for wargear.

Now, in fairness, you can always balance Scion Command Squads by hiking up their PL cost. But then the fluffy players have their command squads overpriced because they're costed as if they're taking quad plasma, rather than a banner and a medic, because again, it's just a coarse points system that doesn't account for wargear.

 Kanluwen wrote:
Except that approach only "fell apart" because of people like some of these posters who cannot seem to grasp that a game is a two-sided affair. There was so much disingenuous garbage about how lists like 15 Nagashes or whatever would become prevalent.

You can want to have a balanced, fun, casual game and still disagree over the power disparity between your armies. Points are still a useful tool for casual play as it gets you closer than PL.

A lack of balancing mechanism is my #1 complaint about Spectre. Not because I'm trying to min-max it, but because I do not have enough experience to gauge whether four hardcore Navy SEAL operators against twenty insurgents is a fair game or a stomp one way or the other, or how equipment changes the metric. Is a grenade better than upgrading a guy's rifle to an RPG? I don't know, but I shouldn't have to become an expert in a game system before I can set up a fair fight.

If you know the game inside and out and only play against people who share your impressions of balance, then great- you don't need points, and you don't really need PL either.

I like PL as a way to quickly set up matches with my friends, but saying it's just as balanced because you can do the work of balancing it yourself is unreasonable.

 Some_Call_Me_Tim wrote:
There’s also issues that come up with some squads getting a way better deal out of PL. ork boyz get like no wargear compared to something like kabalites which you can kit out to the teeth.

I've not met/seen anyone who will say PL is inherently more balanced than Points, most people I know that prefer PL do so because it's less time consuming, and the illusion of balance that points provide is not worth the decrease in enjoyability it brings to make the list.

I do not believe PL advocates want it to become the de-facto system used by all competitive players, but the competitive crowd always dunks on anyone who voices any semblance of respect for the PL system and what it stands for.

I don't know how this topic turned into Point vs PL since there are plenty of larger issues with 9th edition than the point/pl debate.

 Kanluwen wrote:

EviscerationPlague wrote:
No it's because points make you pay a more appropriate cost for a weapon compared to the "take whatever you want" approach of PL.

Right, that's why points were so well balanced that Guard ended up needing to have a whole other set of points costs added to them for BS4+ and BS3+ weapons.

Because points "make you pay a more appropriate cost for a weapon".

Points aren't perfectly balanced right now, but they're certainly more balanced than PL. To pretend otherwise is pure denial in the land of "GW perfect!!!1!"

PL is balanced in a situation where you're actively involved in a community that talks about their lists and isn't just there to tell people to "git gud"...

I can see why you wouldn't know that though. Git gud.

Under your logic you don't need PL either if you're just actively talking about lists.

Toofast wrote:

EviscerationPlague wrote:

Points aren't perfectly balanced right now, but they're certainly more balanced than PL. To pretend otherwise is pure denial in the land of "GW perfect!!!1!"

I fail to see how making a plasma or melta the same cost as a bolt pistol will lead to better balance.

Ignoring the "better" part - because thats a separate can of worms - differentiating the cost is unnecessary. PL are "wide brackets" that (in theory) argue that pound for pound each power level basically buys you the same value of capability (which is not actually how matched play points work), any two units at an equivalent power level built "optimally" (or maybe "ideally"? "averagely"? whatever the term here is) will be approximately equivalent in terms of cost-efficiency and value. There is no sense asking you to pay extra for the plasma gun replacing your bolter, because the expectation is essentially that both you and your opponent will select the plasma gun, or one of you will select the plasma gun and the other will select two flamers, or whatever it is that both players feel is an approximation of equivalency whereby each players collection of units remain roughly equivalent to one another in terms of value and capability. This is why its used for narrative play and not matched play, because it relies on the assumption that you and your opponent will *communicate* and that neither player is arriving at the table with the intent of maximizing their advantage in the listbuilding step in order to brutalize their opponent. The points cost of the plasmagun is irrelevant, because the points system that is power level is attempting to balance the game at the macro level (with the assistance of the social contract) as opposed to the micro level used by matched play points.

Its tough to wrap your head around if you've been coddled by the more common system of building a list of an agreed upon points value in a vacuum without real consideration for your opponent as another individual and your shared gameplay experience. Building a PL based list instead is a much more dynamic and open process that requires a good amount of discussion and negotiation, done correctly you are building your opponents list almost as much as you are building your own, and vice versa, where in matched the only input you have is on your own list. If you don't go into a PL game ready and prepared for this dynamic and treat it the same way you would matched, of course you're not going to get a balanced outcome, because theres no constraints or process to prevent either player from taking the maximalist approach and tooling up their units with all the wargear options available or aggressively spamming the most OP units.

 catbarf wrote:

If you're performing a heuristic assessment of the relative strengths of two PL-equivalent forces to figure out how to actually balance them, obviously the PL isn't balanced.

This reminds me of the AoS release, when some people said it wasn't a problem that the points system amounted to '1 model = 1 point' because you could always just take on the effort of figuring out balanced forces on your own. Well, sure, if you have a good understanding of the game, the relative capabilities of two forces, and both have the same subjective impressions of overall strength, then you can compose a balanced matchup regardless of what balancing mechanisms have been provided by the designers.

That approach falls apart as soon as you run into someone who has a different impression of your armies' relative power, cannot come to a consensus, and have to rely on a mechanical means of assessing relative strength.

Yep, which is why its really meant to play with friends or people you know well, preferably so that you can negotiate/discuss in advance of gametime, rather than walking into a store and just pointing at someone and saying 'lets go'. This is a big failure of the PL system, in that its not very useful for playing pickup games, which is theoretically the domain of the casual gamer moreso than it is the competitive gamer (serious competitive gamers generally seem to prefer to schedule their games with select opponents in advance as it doesn't do them much good as a practice game to play a pickup game against a casual non-optimized list being played by a scrub), therefore it doesn't get used as much as matched play does, and when it does get used it often produces bad results.

That being said, IIRC the 1 model = 1 point system came after release, as I recall the original system used on release was essentially 1 warscroll = 1 point, with the intent being that you and your opponent would agree to a game based on a fixed number of warscrolls, and then basically alternate taking turns nominating which warscrolls you would use so that you could attempt to hard-counter your opponents choices. Its a system that works in theory, but only if both players have equally large and flexible collections of models to choose from. If you have 2 dragons, but your opponent only has 1 unit of dragon-killers, you can very easily overpower them.

Tittliewinks22 wrote:

 Stormonu wrote:
* Though there is an apparent basement to how bad folks will let the rules go before they start wandering away, as evidenced by 7th edition.

Is this accurate?
Anecdotal, but there was a much much larger community playing 40k in 6th-7th than there are currently playing 9th in my area, in fact almost all local clubs (5 of them) are now exclusively running blood bowl, warcry, AoS, necromunda or kill team and if you show up looking for a game of 40k, you will rarely find an opponent willing. 7th never ever had a lack of players around here. Though this could also be due to the increased in amount of side games supported by GW now.
Also noticing more and more talks among locals (as well as my own group ~7 or so people) of abandoning 9th to go back to 7th or earlier.

This seems so outlandish I'm tempted to think you're making it up. The vast majority of us seem to have more or less agreed over the years that we have had the opposite experience, where the community steadily declined through 6th and 7th to the point that nobody was playing games locally (certainly the case in the NJ, NYC, Philly area, everyone went over to Warmachine at the time and 40k was all but dead), and that 8th and 9th have brought back a huge number of veterans along with many new players into the fold. I'm seeing discontent with 9th, but I've yet to see anyone (other than maybe you) seriously with a straight-face claim that they would rather play 7th or even advocate for that. The very few people Ive seen pushing alternatives either go back to 4th/5th or 8th, if they even call for that at all.

EDIT: On the PL vs Points Balance debate, I am not advocating PL is any more balanced than points, its purely a time:enjoyment factor for my group

I'm pretty sure they know that nobody is advocating it as a more balanced system, they're just making bad faith arguments to derail discussion about the value and usage of PL.

nou wrote:

To just add to the above, this "appropriate cost" varies for any particular match, depending on the opposing force. So a list that is effectively worth 2000pts in one matchup, can be effectively worth 1800pts in another and 2500pts in a "hard counter" matchup and there is no way around it. None. Now, the defenders of "quest of balance through points" raise a statistical results as a metric here, but in this very thread it has been illustrated, that 50% win rate can be a result of loosing 70% of one kind of matchup/scenario and winning 70% of another matchup/scenario. Hardly an example of a balanced system.
Since my return to the hobby in the middle of 7th this has been discussed countless of times and the discussion never ended with "balance through points" advocates learning anything. It usually ends with "stop defending GW incompetence" posts.

Indeed true. Bringing 20 meltaguns to the table might be really helpful if you're up against a list heavy on monsters/vehicles, etc. but bring it into a match against a list of 250 guardsmen on foot with no vehicle support and they might as well be wasted points that would have been better invested into flamers or grenade launchers or bolters, etc.

"This means that you cannot change the number of models in that unit, the wargear they are equipped with, or any of the abilities, Warlord Traits, Relics, psychic powers etc. you have chosen for that unit."

You cannot change wargear after you show up to a Narrative game. You're being silly.

 auticus wrote:
I just watched a game of 40k this past weekend where the one list was very much about 50% capability of the other list and got destroyed. But they were both "2000 points". One was a casual list, the other an optimized LVO list. They were in no way shape or form in the same ballpark as each other, it was like watching a high school football team go up against an NFL team. The only similarity was "40k" was the game they were playing.

There are no lists that are more than 20% overcosted or more than 20% undercosted, it doesn't take more than 10% for there to be a dramatic difference that looks very unfair and then there are all the things that can swing a match in someone's favour, terrain, skills, luck, having counters to enemy units and the enemy having insufficient counters.

The problem is this leads into how much babysitting can be expected.

Lets say I run an Imperial Fists list, with some random characters, some bogstandard tactical marines to make up my troops, and then two thirds or so of my list is 30 Reivers and 30 Assault Marines. Who are just going to jog across the table and try to stab stuff.

Its one dimensional with no synergy. In most games I can imagine, its going to be ripped to bits.

How much handholding should there be to try and make such a list viable - or encourage the player to take something else, and recognise that if they want to do this, it sucking is a feature rather than a bug.

 vict0988 wrote:

There are no lists that are more than 20% overcosted or more than 20% undercosted, it doesn't take more than 10% for there to be a dramatic difference that looks very unfair and then there are all the things that can swing a match in someone's favour, terrain, skills, luck, having counters to enemy units and the enemy having insufficient counters.

Having counters and not having counters translates exactly to "having effective point advantage" as explained above.

And in an IGOUGO system, where single turn damage output can be as high as 90% (a recent case) and is commonly around 50%, 10% difference in relative strength of the armies has exactly zero meaning, let alone create "dramatic difference".

Tittliewinks22 wrote:


I've not met/seen anyone who will say PL is inherently more balanced than Points

There's a frequent commenter in this thread who has made that statement repeatedly without any argument other than "but points aren't perfectly balanced" as if that magically makes any other balancing system better...

Toofast wrote:

Tittliewinks22 wrote:


I've not met/seen anyone who will say PL is inherently more balanced than Points

There's a frequent commenter in this thread who has made that statement repeatedly without any argument other than "but points aren't perfectly balanced" as if that magically makes any other balancing system better...

As chaos0xomega tries to explain above, PL system creates more balanced gaming experience exactly because it is known and accepted that it is not precise enough for "no cross-tailoring" approach known from point system. I know this seems paradoxical, but it's how it always worked even with points in narrative context and PLs are just more convenient for that. Two players sit and build the expected flavour of a given gaming session with tools "good enough" as a language to express approximate size of the forces involved.

No matter if we are talking about points or PLs, both try to be a linear approximation of n-dimensional phase space, so both are bound to be an utter failure. The difference is that points advocates don't accept the reality of it, while PL users accept this fact.

 vict0988 wrote:
"This means that you cannot change the number of models in that unit, the wargear they are equipped with, or any of the abilities, Warlord Traits, Relics, psychic powers etc. you have chosen for that unit."

You cannot change wargear after you show up to a Narrative game. You're being silly.

 auticus wrote:
I just watched a game of 40k this past weekend where the one list was very much about 50% capability of the other list and got destroyed. But they were both "2000 points". One was a casual list, the other an optimized LVO list. They were in no way shape or form in the same ballpark as each other, it was like watching a high school football team go up against an NFL team. The only similarity was "40k" was the game they were playing.

There are no lists that are more than 20% overcosted or more than 20% undercosted, it doesn't take more than 10% for there to be a dramatic difference that looks very unfair and then there are all the things that can swing a match in someone's favour, terrain, skills, luck, having counters to enemy units and the enemy having insufficient counters.

Also strongly disagree. You can do a simple output differential using the game statics to compare offensive and defensive output scores to see that the tuned lists often run at 200% of what a non tuned list runs.

If I have an army that on average does 10 points of damage and can take 20 points of damage that costs X and my opponent also has an army that costs the same X but only does 5 damage and can only take 10 points of damage, there is a 200% difference in the two. Army A doubles the output of Army B for the same price. One can also easily apply statistical probability and algebra to determine those same output scores for a 40k army to get a baseline output score and compare it to point cost to see that.

Most armies that I have analyzed when I was doing points analysis were usually on average 25-40% output different from each other, with the tuned lists going as high as 300% more (outlier). This particular matchup when we did the analysis it was 185% higher so not quite double but the equivalent of say 3800 vs 2000 point match (if you assumed points == balance) and watching that guy get erased in 2 turns - yeah it sure did look like a 3800 vs 2000 point game too.

Toofast wrote:
There's a frequent commenter in this thread who has made that statement repeatedly without any argument other than "but points aren't perfectly balanced" as if that magically makes any other balancing system better...

There's one person in this thread who thinks that points are the root of all evil and that PL are better and balanced (ignoring the fact that points have been part of the game since Rogue Trader and that PL are inherently unbalanced by their very nature, but whatever...), usually brings up plasma guns (in this and other topics, weirdly), blames tournament players for all the ills in the world, and gets maniacally hyperbolic even in the face of some of the calmest and most measured people at this site (like Catbarf) when presented with reasonable (and completely devastating) counter-arguments. I find the whole thing delicious, but I can see how it would frustrate others.

All PL is is quicker. It takes a lot of the fiddling out. It's also inherently imbalanced. "This unit of 5 models is 6PL, but if I take just 1 more model, it doubles to 12PL... so I might as well take the full extra 5, as 1 more model costs as much PL as 5 more models". That's not balanced. Anyone who thinks that this is somehow more balanced than paying points for individual models is a lunatic.