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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...

And you're someone who has constantly tried conflating people saying things like "power level is easier for balancing casual games than points" with "power is better than points for everything".


But since this is so hard for you:
Power is better for any kind of casual setting. It allows for variances in lists better than points do. It also is an easier metric to introduce people to the game assuming they're actually introduced into playing the game, rather than just told to go to reddit or discord.

That last part involves fostering a community that is not just throwing memelists at each other though, so I can understand why it is so difficult for the "POINTS ONLY NO POWER!" crowd to get.

Points are good for going into the more granular methods of play, i.e. tournaments not pick-up game night.

That hasn't, unfortunately, stopped points being a blight upon PUG nights though.

 Kanluwen wrote:
Power is better for any kind of casual setting. It allows for variances in lists better than points do.

Allowing for more variance means worse balance.

Hecaton wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:
Power is better for any kind of casual setting. It allows for variances in lists better than points do.

Allowing for more variance means worse balance.

(Pssst...you're not helping the cause of "the game should be more balanced" defend itself against the "why don't you just go play chess, then?" people here.)

 Kanluwen wrote:
It allows for variances in lists better than points do.

Why?

I mean, it does permit you to swap upgrades around without affecting the PL total, but that only functions to begin with because PL is less precise. I can replace ten plasma guns across my army with lasguns and reduce a bunch of squads to 6-man instead of 10-man, and the fact that this doesn't affect the PL is a bug, not a feature. Plus there are issues like how six Scourges with Shardcarbines are valued at nearly double the PL of five Scourges with Dark Lances. As a balancing mechanism, PL is pretty bad; at best its utility is to quickly get roughly the same amount of stuff on the table if your opponent is following the same mindset as you.

You can still tune down or tune up a points-based list, you just have to acknowledge that you're imposing a handicap. Which is what you are doing when you voluntarily de-tune your list or encourage your opponent to take some more upgrades, regardless of whether they're tracked via points or unaccounted for by PL's imprecision. And if you want to talk about introducing new people to the game, newbies lack the game knowledge to be able to balance out their own PL-based lists. It's a great approach if you know the game inside and out and can coach them through it, it's not great if you and some friends are just starting out with 40K and don't have someone to act as game balance arbiter for you.

I get where folks are coming from in saying that PL forces you to acknowledge that the balancing mechanism isn't perfect and thus take it upon yourself to construct a fair game, but that's practically a stone soup approach to game balance. You're better off using points to construct initial lists, and then applying handicaps as necessary through the same heuristic process you'd apply to PL-based lists.

 Kanluwen wrote:
... the "POINTS ONLY NO POWER!" crowd to get...

There is no such 'crowd'. It is an imaginary adversary you have concocted so you can get worked up about Power Levels (and plasma guns) and scream about tournament players in threads like this.

Points aren't a 'blight'. Points are the default. They are the method through which most players have interfaced with this game for almost its entire existence. They've been part of the game for longer than you or I have been playing it. Your dogged insistence that they are some kind of slight against casual play or that they are somehow making the game worse in nonsensical.

 catbarf wrote:


I get where folks are coming from in saying that PL forces you to acknowledge that the balancing mechanism isn't perfect and thus take it upon yourself to construct a fair game, but that's practically a stone soup approach to game balance. You're better off using points to construct initial lists, and then applying handicaps as necessary through the same heuristic process you'd apply to PL-based lists.

Not really, no. That is because points are sold as being an accurate tool, while they are absolutely not an accurate tool, which leads to the whole misconception of points as a balance mechanism. PLs are sold as a rough guide and as such are used as a rough guide, exactly as points should be used.

What fascinates me the most in the recent part of this thread is that people don't seem to be able to grasp the fundamental relationship between "list building for advantage" and "point balance". The whole skill of list building is based on the imbalance of the point system. You literally try to find "best bang for your buck" and squeeze as much effective point value as possible out of nominal 2000pts. For this "skill" to exist the "bang for buck" of nominal points has to differ between options you are presented with - the options have to be imbalanced. There have to be top builds as well as mediocre and gakky builds possible, which translates to effective point values of those builds be less or more than 2000pts. Mathematically there is nothing more to list building for advantage, null, zip, nada.

The whole "we want cross faction balance but we want the list building skill to be a part of the game" translates to math as "we want the best builds for any given faction be roughly equal in effective points value but at the same time effective point values of best builds be substantially higher than those of mediocre builds and drastically higher than those of uninformed or random builds". In other words, we want "just right" amount of imbalance, not balance.

You can't have a cake and eat it too.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
And a word about why "synergies" are an epitome of imbalance (as the other name for the same thing suggests - "force multiplier"). Consider the following scenario: Arnie and Bob both play the same faction and are pretty good at list building. For the next 2000pts match against each other, they build lists with the same optimal choices of the same faction, same troops, same fast attack, same heavy, 1850 pts are exactly the same, but then Arnie found a great synergistic HQ option for the last 150pts of his army, that through a combined magic of special rules, auras, whatever, boosts the damage output of 1/4th of his units by 20%. Arnie is very proud of himself as he sure should be. Now Bob found an even better synergy for the last 150pts of his army and his HQ buffs 1/3rd of his units by whooping 30%. He is also proud of himself, as he should be.

As a result, armies that are 92.5% identical have nearly 4% difference in effective points value. The last piece of the puzzle, a 150pts HQ gave 74 free points advantage to Bob. Now you may say, that this means, that Bob's HQ option is undercosted by those 166,5 points (as Arnies HQ is undercosted by "just" 92.5 points). But what if you take him in an army, where he only buffs 15% of your force, because you took fewer of synergistic units? He is now undercosted by just 83 points...

See the problem with synergies and balance through point costs?

Why hasn't any tournament adopted a veto feature? Fighting games do it to veto stages. For example after seeing opponents list, you can select one unit to veto or remove from the game? Or maybe not as harsh and you force it into reserves so it isnt deployed turn 1.

Or a sideboard option where after reviewing opponents list you pick what units you want to bring to the match. This would work better under a PL system than points from a timing perspective.

Because that would be a hellish waste of time, and its problematic for a lot of armies because it often isn't a clean swap.

A card game sideboard is 1 card to 1 card (up to however many). 40k doesn't work out that nicely, even with PL. So that's a lot of pregame hemming and hawing

nou wrote:
Not really, no. That is because points are sold as being an accurate tool, while they are absolutely not an accurate tool, which leads to the whole misconception of points as a balance mechanism. PLs are sold as a rough guide and as such are used as a rough guide, exactly as points should be used.

So... Do exactly that? You'll have an easier time balancing out two armies if they're both starting at 2000pts than if they're both 50PL.

This argument is so weird to me- if the PL is purely a rough guide then it's blatantly not a better balancing mechanism; you're the one doing the balancing to make up the difference, and the most charitable thing you can say about it is that it's so bad nobody can contest that it needs external input to produce a fair fight. Again, stone soup- GW supplies the illusion of a balancing mechanism, you're expected to supply the rest.

If you've got people willing to play with PL then they're clearly open-minded enough to talk about balancing out with unequal points. Someone under the impression that points produce a fair game probably won't want to play a PL game in any case.

All you have to do to see how a little change in points will radically change the outcome of a battle is take 2 units of Flayed Ones, in a spreadsheet calculate the average damage each unit of Flayed Ones will deal and take to the other per round. Now add 10% more Flayed Ones to one unit, you end up with 20% surviving on the side that got an extra 10%.

 auticus wrote:
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.

I'm sorry but this to me just shows that you don't know 9th that well, because there is more to it than offensive and defensive output, actions, mobility and abilities. Perhaps you can show me with two units that are considered the top and bottom of the SM faction, Assault Marines with jump packs and Vanguard Veterans with jump packs, storm shields and power swords.

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.

Care to say what the lists were? Not expecting a Battlescribe file, but I'd really appreciate a general idea. My best guess would be old Tau railgun Hammerheads and Ork buggy spam, but you'd really have to be a sucker for punishment to play multiple old railgun Hammerheads.

nou wrote:

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.

Something that everyone outside America knows about pts as well, which is why we advocate not bringing a competitive list to a casual game without prior agreement. "It's so obviously gak at what it's trying to do that you really cannot help but agree that it's gak enough that we just ignore the rules about list building and finish our lists at the table to get a measure of balance" is not something that makes me want to use it more. The fact that I can get a 50% win rate with almost every list out of 15 lists all winning 1/3 or 2/3 games in pick-up games where neither player changed lists shows me that pts are pretty robust, the most we did to balance things was in one game where we agreed to play on less terrain than we normally would to give Deathmarks a chance to shine (which they didn't because the rules are blergh).

 Kanluwen wrote:
Power is ... an easier metric to introduce people to the game assuming they're actually introduced into playing the game, rather than just told to go to reddit or discord.

I don't want new players to think that thunder hammers don't cost more points than a power sword. You can find guides on how to make your first 500 pt list on Battlescribe, it's not rocket science, if you cannot bother to read the freely available core rules and cannot bother to make a list on Battlescribe then 40k is probably too much hassle for you to play with the constant release of new rules supplements and codices.

 AnomanderRake wrote:

Hecaton wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:
Power is better for any kind of casual setting. It allows for variances in lists better than points do.

Allowing for more variance means worse balance.

(Pssst...you're not helping the cause of "the game should be more balanced" defend itself against the "why don't you just go play chess, then?" people here.)

Balance with a variety of fluff-inspired stats and dice rolls cannot be found in chess since there are no fluff-inspired stats or dice rolls. All 40k needs is constricting balance more year over year and not giving up in the face of the doomers that say it's impossible.

nou wrote:
What fascinates me the most in the recent part of this thread is that people don't seem to be able to grasp the fundamental relationship between "list building for advantage" and "point balance". The whole skill of list building is based on the imbalance of the point system. You literally try to find "best bang for your buck" and squeeze as much effective point value as possible out of nominal 2000pts. For this "skill" to exist the "bang for buck" of nominal points has to differ between options you are presented with - the options have to be imbalanced. There have to be top builds as well as mediocre and gakky builds possible, which translates to effective point values of those builds be less or more than 2000pts. Mathematically there is nothing more to list building for advantage, null, zip, nada.

GW could reign things in such that the difference isn't as massive as it sometimes is. The size of the difference matters. A Knight fighting a Warlord Titan is pointless, X Knights and Y Astra Militarum fighting a Warlord Titan and X Space Marines might not be pointless depending on the exact amount of X, Y and Z.

The whole "we want cross faction balance but we want the list building skill to be a part of the game" translates to math as "we want the best builds for any given faction be roughly equal in effective points value but at the same time effective point values of best builds be substantially higher than those of mediocre builds and drastically higher than those of uninformed or random builds". In other words, we want "just right" amount of imbalance, not balance.

You can't have a cake and eat it too.

It's not so much my interest in making list-building matter as that's just something that automatically happens due to imperfections in balance. One thing I don't want for example is for Assault Marines with jump packs to always be terrible and for Vanguard Veterans with jump packs and storm shields to always be amazing. If Vanguard Veterans do well with a jump pack Captain and a jump pack Lieutenant then that's fine, when I say that's the good kind of list building skill I mean I don't want to whack it with a hammer to make it go away the same way I want to make the imbalance between VanVets and Assault Marines go away. It's impossible to make a Rhino equally good for every unit that can go inside, some units need the protection and mobility more than others, this is fine. A meltagun should be more pts-efficient against a tank than boltgun, this is fine, it's just the cost of having fluff-adjecent rules and interesting counters instead of the stupid gak that Apocalypse did.

See the problem with synergies and balance through point costs?

No. Bob made a better list, this is fine assuming the options Arnie took in some other build would have been good. It's unavoidable, all I can do is shrug and say that it's fine, I don't know what you want me to say here. Unless you have an excellent game master you cannot balance combos perfectly against each other. It is to some degree a draw for the game as well, Bob and Arnie both liked looking for the more synergistic options in their codex, that Arnie eeked out an extra 3% win rate over the course of their 30 games until the rules changed based on his better options does not ruin the world (I can pull numbers out of a hat with the best of them). Making Assault Marines with jump packs attractive in a few lists and decent in a lot of others just requires a pts reduction, it doesn't require a game master or agreeing with your opponent to take or not take a flamer based on their list's weakness or strength against Assault Marines.

I'm sorry but this to me just shows that you don't know 9th that well, because there is more to it than offensive and defensive output, actions, mobility and abilities. Perhaps you can show me with two units that are considered the top and bottom of the SM faction, Assault Marines with jump packs and Vanguard Veterans with jump packs, storm shields and power swords.

At this point I think we just need to agree to disagree. Now we're going to wind the route of "well there are these other synergies here you can't account for so...." thats all a bad faith conversation that there is no coming back from.

If I can do double your output for half your cost, thats bent. Period. And thats the point of listbuilding. To find a way to take your point cost and get as high output as you possibly can with it through buffs and free points and synergies.

Pretty much 100% every tournament player I have ever known in my life knows that to be true and most have spreadsheets calculating output in some form or fashion, to include the guys that now sell their services to build you your list for you for a couple hundred bucks.

You can "yeah but" that all day long. "but synergy you can't account for (you sure can)", "but storm shields (thats a part of their defense score)"

Your argument is really "you can't balance something perfectly, a rhino can't be costed fairly because if its transporting satan its worth more than if its transporting 5 tactical marines, a thunder hammer can't be costed fairly because if satan is wielding it its worth more than if joe the assault marine is wielding it" - and thats absolutely correct.

And has nothing to do with tuning lists to perform high above their point value to the tune of over double the baseline output of their opponents.

If Satan with a storm hammer does 10 points of damage on average every turn against the game's average defense and Joe Tac marine does 2 points of damage on average every turn against it, then you have an idea using linear regression models about how much that hammer is worth to Satan and how much its worth to Joe the Tac Marine, and you can assign a value from there. It may not be perfect because you may play a mission where a parameter makes it so Satan has to move an extra 6" to get to an objective and his opponent doesn't feed him free points, so it doesn't seem like its worth as much - but you know where it should reside on the bell curve and can get a HELL OF A LOT closer than what GW currently does.

Because if you have tuned the BASELINE to be 200% or more of your opponent, then that opponent sure better have a SHED TON of intangibles in his pocket to have a good game (and synergies and buffs can be calculated - tourney players in 40k have been doing it since before the internet on ancient excel spreadsheets and aol bbs service).

For a solid year in AOS land when we did Azyr thats all that we were told. You can't balance points you can't balance points you can't balance points, too much synergy too much this too much that, you obviously don't know what you're talking about etc etc etc... And then that turned into "YOU KILLED LISTBUILDING EVERYTHING IS BORING AND WORTH THE SAME". That came about from getting a good solid leash around the baseline. Turns out when you do that, the intangibles are still a thing but the baseline is a solid foundation you can build off of. The baseline for 40k is hot garbage and has been hot garbage since I've been a player of 40k and did my first regression on it in 3rd edition when Blood Angels alpha strike and their marines having +1 S and +1 A and a shed load of power weapons but costing the same as a vanilla marine were a thing and fisting everything in their path.

I know you can make things in this game multitudes closer as I have been on a team that did it and am proud of what that team did because they achieved their goal. But you absolutely cannot have that kind of balance if you want listbuilding to have an impact. At all. Those two things cannot ever reside in the same game because they are two totally different desires on two totally different polar opposites of the ball. You can only try to find a good middle ground, and brother - GW hasn't had that middle ground pretty much ever.

Nor should they. Chasing the meta makes them a whole pile of money.

nou wrote:
Not really, no. That is because points are sold as being an accurate tool, while they are absolutely not an accurate tool, which leads to the whole misconception of points as a balance mechanism. PLs are sold as a rough guide and as such are used as a rough guide, exactly as points should be used.

Everyone knows that points aren't perfect either, it's just that for a 750 person tournament you can't sit everyone down and negotiate their lists. You accept it as "good enough" and move on. In the same token, power level is "good enough" for the narrative league down at the nearest hobby shop.

 auticus wrote:

I'm sorry but this to me just shows that you don't know 9th that well, because there is more to it than offensive and defensive output, actions, mobility and abilities. Perhaps you can show me with two units that are considered the top and bottom of the SM faction, Assault Marines with jump packs and Vanguard Veterans with jump packs, storm shields and power swords.

We'll just end the conversation there lol. Now we're going to wind the route of "well there are these other synergies here you can't account for so...." thats all a bad faith conversation that there is no coming back from.

If I can do double your output for half your cost, thats bent. Period. And thats the point of listbuilding. To find a way to take your point cost and get as high output as you possibly can with it through buffs and free points and synergies.

Pretty much 100% every tournament player I have ever known in my life knows that to be true and most have spreadsheets calculating output in some form or fashion, to include the guys that now sell their services to build you your list for you for a couple hundred bucks.

You think they ignore HQ buffs, actions and mobility when designing lists? There is nothing broken about a slow vulnerable melee unit doing double the damage of a vulnerable shooting unit with access to a Stratagem that lets it MSM, like say Dark Reapers vs Flayed Ones.

You can "yeah but" that all day long. "but synergy you can't account for (you sure can)", "but storm shields (thats a part of their defense score)"

Storm shields weren't part of my argument lol, they were an example of something you could analyze for me to understand your method and verify whether it makes sense. I leave myself open to be convinced to change my opinion, something I have done on several topics in the past and gain new tools to add to my game design repertoire. I don't just slink away like all the people that said that Drukhari and Iron Hands were fine, I admitted for example that Iron Hands were significantly more broken in ITC than in whatever GW called their basic missions in late 8th. I'd have to ask for forgiveness if you showed me to actually be wrong, but that's just the thing about the internet you cannot trust anything anyone says.

I don't know where you're coming from saying that I don't believe in the power of math, I have already said multiple times that math is the foundation of a balanced game and that it'll take years to approach the same level of balance by doing trial and error pts changes based on tournament data, like how I lamented the problems in CA2020 because 9th doesn't have time to become balanced before 10th. I have also said that I think CA should come once every 12 months, not every 6 months, with a balanced foundation and some good pre-release testing there should not be a need for a 6-month pts update schedule. But maybe I'm starting to understand the criticism that Azyr comp got that you were unresponsive to playtesting results, perhaps you cared too much about your theoretical efficiency and not enough about what was actually stomping or getting stomped on tables.

...And then that turned into "YOU KILLED LISTBUILDING EVERYTHING IS BORING AND WORTH THE SAME"...

You still haven't shown anyone that has said this, I don't get why someone who wasn't interested in balance would even seek out a comp system, maybe they just followed the project out of hate. The comments on the project I've found from what I remember described either a lack of balance or praised the balance, which isn't the version of events you're putting out at all. But it all happened in a Facebook group that is now closed I think you've told me before. It sounds like with some other things you have been involved with a small group of people should have been banned because they weren't interested in the project (whether that be a game store where different kinds of fun can be had or balanced pts system for AOS).

The people that say balancing the game kills listbuilding definitely isn't me, otherwise, there would be no unit or faction tiers, something I'd be happy if everyone just said everything was A or B tier, either solid or situational but good, no S tier auto-takes or F tier trash.

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.


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

GW stock prices and sales numbers show a definite downward trend in 6th and 7th, with a huge rebound following the release of 8th. The company wasn't in the red, but it was definitely losing sales (and customers). I don't know if anecdotal, but Warmahordes, Infinity and a host of other alternates to 40K grew exponentially during the 6th-7th slump.

9th is hugely more popular than 6th or 7th ever were. There can be exceptions locally, but the global numbers leave no doubt.

@auticus: As much as I value your input, and as I always had, it has to be stressed here, that linear regression model could work in AOS because it had independent linear parameters to begin with. You moved a fixed value, you hit on a fixed value, you wounded on a fixed value and then you saved on a mostly fixed value, since there was little AP proliferation, so SV was also an almost linear parameter. As soon as you manage to establish relative weights of mobility, offense and defense in such linear system, you can sort units by their absolute positions in those dimensions and your point approximations will work smoothly.

But as soon as there is enough AP around, linear regression stops working for AP vs SV pair, as this becomes a dynamic game time parameter. Same thing was with the old S vs T - here even the basic relationship was nonlinear as you had the double 6+ and then a hard cutoff. Even movement in 7th was nonlinear due to all the random rolls and then it was heavily dependant on terrain.

And modern 40K? To hit is nonlinear with all those modifiers; to wound is nonlinear with modifiers and cutoffs; damage is nonlinear with modifiers and cutoffs; save is nonlinear, including invulnerables; even movement becomes nonlinear recently. So linear regression models cannot work reliably to sort units along any dimension, because you don’t have independent dimensions anymore, you have dynamic pairs which are inherently chaotic in nature, and a wholy different math discipline is used to describe those.

But while linear regression is not enough to balance things out, it is enough to find glaring holes in the momentary state of the system and so it can be used to listbuild for advantage, as it obviously is.

 Stormonu wrote:

GW stock prices and sales numbers show a definite downward trend in 6th and 7th, with a huge rebound following the release of 8th. The company wasn't in the red, but it was definitely losing sales (and customers). I don't know if anecdotal, but Warmahordes, Infinity and a host of other alternates to 40K grew exponentially during the 6th-7th slump.

6th edition release June 2012: Stock price 9.
7th edition release May 2014: 9.56
AoS release July 2015: 8.47
GHB release July 2016: 6.4
8th release July 2017: 15.53
9th release July 2020: 119.75
Peak June 2021: 171.9
Present 2/3/2022: 113.55

While all of 6th the stock price stayed consistent, 7th the price didnt really dip until the abysmal launch of AoS and it bottomed out with the release of the General Handbook, the price then soared nearly 160% higher than it was at the start of 7th by the release of 8th. While the playerbase was upset about 7th's bloat and power creep, this didn't seem to have much affect on their stock price.

I've not said anything disparaging about 8th edition, and the success of 8th should not be used as a metric on the success of 9th. Prior to Psychic Awakening, my LGS's/clubs had constant support from the players for 8th. The support for 9th however mirrors the GW stock for the past 18months. That is, an increase in support for the system for the first few months, then a downward trend ever since. Again, I know it's anecdotal, no one in my area wants to play 40k pick up games anymore, but I can get a pick up game for AoS, Blood Bowl, Necromunda, Warcry, or Kill Team. The only GW game less popular than 40k 9th in my area is Warhammer: Underworlds.

I see this sentiment manifesting in many corners of the 40k online community forums as well.
"boring missions, tournament edition, unbalanced, power creep, too much bloat, hate strategems, etc etc etc"

nou wrote:

 catbarf wrote:

I get where folks are coming from in saying that PL forces you to acknowledge that the balancing mechanism isn't perfect and thus take it upon yourself to construct a fair game, but that's practically a stone soup approach to game balance. You're better off using points to construct initial lists, and then applying handicaps as necessary through the same heuristic process you'd apply to PL-based lists.

Not really, no. That is because points are sold as being an accurate tool, while they are absolutely not an accurate tool, which leads to the whole misconception of points as a balance mechanism. PLs are sold as a rough guide and as such are used as a rough guide, exactly as points should be used.

What fascinates me the most in the recent part of this thread is that people don't seem to be able to grasp the fundamental relationship between "list building for advantage" and "point balance". The whole skill of list building is based on the imbalance of the point system. You literally try to find "best bang for your buck" and squeeze as much effective point value as possible out of nominal 2000pts. For this "skill" to exist the "bang for buck" of nominal points has to differ between options you are presented with - the options have to be imbalanced. There have to be top builds as well as mediocre and gakky builds possible, which translates to effective point values of those builds be less or more than 2000pts. Mathematically there is nothing more to list building for advantage, null, zip, nada.

The whole "we want cross faction balance but we want the list building skill to be a part of the game" translates to math as "we want the best builds for any given faction be roughly equal in effective points value but at the same time effective point values of best builds be substantially higher than those of mediocre builds and drastically higher than those of uninformed or random builds". In other words, we want "just right" amount of imbalance, not balance.

You can't have a cake and eat it too.

Automatically Appended Next Post:
And a word about why "synergies" are an epitome of imbalance (as the other name for the same thing suggests - "force multiplier"). Consider the following scenario: Arnie and Bob both play the same faction and are pretty good at list building. For the next 2000pts match against each other, they build lists with the same optimal choices of the same faction, same troops, same fast attack, same heavy, 1850 pts are exactly the same, but then Arnie found a great synergistic HQ option for the last 150pts of his army, that through a combined magic of special rules, auras, whatever, boosts the damage output of 1/4th of his units by 20%. Arnie is very proud of himself as he sure should be. Now Bob found an even better synergy for the last 150pts of his army and his HQ buffs 1/3rd of his units by whooping 30%. He is also proud of himself, as he should be.

As a result, armies that are 92.5% identical have nearly 4% difference in effective points value. The last piece of the puzzle, a 150pts HQ gave 74 free points advantage to Bob. Now you may say, that this means, that Bob's HQ option is undercosted by those 166,5 points (as Arnies HQ is undercosted by "just" 92.5 points). But what if you take him in an army, where he only buffs 15% of your force, because you took fewer of synergistic units? He is now undercosted by just 83 points...

See the problem with synergies and balance through point costs?

Well said, sadly most will probably ignore your post and the arguments contained therein and simply focus on dogpiling on Kanluwen while claiming that there are only weak arguments against matched play points/for Power Level and that catbarf is making "devastating counterarguments" to defeat them.

 catbarf wrote:

nou wrote:
Not really, no. That is because points are sold as being an accurate tool, while they are absolutely not an accurate tool, which leads to the whole misconception of points as a balance mechanism. PLs are sold as a rough guide and as such are used as a rough guide, exactly as points should be used.

So... Do exactly that? You'll have an easier time balancing out two armies if they're both starting at 2000pts than if they're both 50PL.
This argument is so weird to me- if the PL is purely a rough guide then it's blatantly not a better balancing mechanism; you're the one doing the balancing to make up the difference, and the most charitable thing you can say about it is that it's so bad nobody can contest that it needs external input to produce a fair fight. Again, stone soup- GW supplies the illusion of a balancing mechanism, you're expected to supply the rest.

If you've got people willing to play with PL then they're clearly open-minded enough to talk about balancing out with unequal points. Someone under the impression that points produce a fair game probably won't want to play a PL game in any case.

Bruv, matched play points are the illusion of a balancing mechanism already, but a more thorough illusion that has convinced you that you don't have to "supply the rest", even though you very clearly should. Matched play points are not and will never be the balancing mechanism you believe it to be or want it to be. The whole point of PL being the system that it is is to try to force you to "supply the rest" so you can generate a fairer experience for all parties involved. That alone makes it a better system than the one which pretends to deliver you balance while doing nothing of the sort.

You (and seemingly others in this thread) have fallen for the myth of granularity - the idea that because points are more granular than PL they must produce a closer approximation to a weapon/model/units capability or power, but thats only true if the more granular system is accurately calculating/measuring capability and power - if its not then the more granular system becomes more prone to error and thus *less* helpful as a balancing mechanism. As nou and auticus (and less directly, vict0988) have just mathematically demonstrated, there is very little evidence that matched play points are actually measuring this accurately, and thus they are not actually going to give you an "easier time balancing out two armies" than PL does. Nor will they ever, because balance exists only within the context of a meta, and that meta is crafted by points values. The moment you adjust a points value, you change the meta, and with that change you rewrite the context within which "balance" exists.



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Tittliewinks22 wrote:

 Stormonu wrote:

GW stock prices and sales numbers show a definite downward trend in 6th and 7th, with a huge rebound following the release of 8th. The company wasn't in the red, but it was definitely losing sales (and customers). I don't know if anecdotal, but Warmahordes, Infinity and a host of other alternates to 40K grew exponentially during the 6th-7th slump.

6th edition release June 2012: Stock price 9.
7th edition release May 2014: 9.56
AoS release July 2015: 8.47
GHB release July 2016: 6.4
8th release July 2017: 15.53
9th release July 2020: 119.75
Peak June 2021: 171.9
Present 2/3/2022: 113.55

While all of 6th the stock price stayed consistent, 7th the price didnt really dip until the abysmal launch of AoS and it bottomed out with the release of the General Handbook, the price then soared nearly 160% higher than it was at the start of 7th by the release of 8th. While the playerbase was upset about 7th's bloat and power creep, this didn't seem to have much affect on their stock price.

I think its really cute when people think the stock price is actually reflective of playerbase or game popularity. Its not. Its reflective of things like earnings per share, price to earnings ratio, debt, revenue, profit, forward guidance, etc. Investors don't spend time googling "is 40k popular right now" or whatever. They don't care. They make the value judgements based solely on the guidance that GW issues twice yearly (typically around May/June/July and November/December/January timeframes) and what few headlines manage to make it into the news (things like "Warhammer Total War just set a new sales record for RTS games" and "Games Workshop inks $3 billion deal with Netflix for Warhammer 40k series"). These prices are also reflective of broader market movements. The 2015-2017 timeframe is when the market last cycled from value investment to growth investment, many smaller companies with large potential upside saw their stock prices multiple several times over like GWs did. When GW peaked at 171 USD basically the entire market was doing the same, driven up unsustainably high by investor euphoria backed by massive fiscal stimulus from various governments which otherwise abruptly ended and caused many stock values to fall off a cliff. Right now we're cycling back from growth to value and many growth companies are seeing their stock values deflate by anywhere from 30-80% as a result - over the past few years GWs fundamentals have leveled out and the stock has somewhat transitioned from a growth play to a value play in some respects which has insulated it against incurring heavier losses than it did. In GWs case, the stock price of the USD OTC stock (i.e. the one being referenced here) is also effected by the exchange rate between the USD and GBP.

 catbarf wrote:

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.

As an aside, I'm pretty sure GW has done exactly this with the points of some characters (to compensate for the fact that Warlord traits and Relics can't have their costs adjusted).

e.g. the DE succubus seems to be priced with the assumption that they'll be using the Triptych Whip and Precision Blows - otherwise you're paying 80pts for a T3 model with a glorified Power Sword.

Back in early-8th, there were also models like Shining Spears (IIRC) that seemed to be priced with the assumption that they'd be used in Ynnari armies.

To be clear, I'm not arguing against your point about points. I'm just saying that we're already seeing the same awkwardness with PL with points, because there are currently so many factors (subfaction, stratagems, warlord traits, artefacts etc.) which don't have point values but which nevertheless drastically change the effectiveness of certain units.

 vict0988 wrote:
Something that everyone outside America knows about pts as well, which is why we advocate not bringing a competitive list to a casual game without prior agreement. "It's so obviously gak at what it's trying to do that you really cannot help but agree that it's gak enough that we just ignore the rules about list building and finish our lists at the table to get a measure of balance" is not something that makes me want to use it more.

That's pretty much where I'm at. I can't take seriously the argument that increased granularity only provides the illusion of better balance, when it's being compared to a system where a lasgun and a plasma gun have the same value and a unit of 6 has the same value as a unit of 10. My wife's Scourges are a perfect example of a unit that PL just does not work for, as their equipment massively affects their power on the tabletop. I won't say all their weapon options are perfectly costed in points, but at least they're accounted for.

The argument seems to basically go from 'points aren't perfect' straight to 'granularity is an illusion, balance is impossible, points are no better than PL', and that's a heck of a stretch. Points are far from perfect, but being better than PL is a low bar to meet. You still need to have the same conversations if you really want to ensure a fair fight, but in my experience it's more along the lines of 'did you bring a casual list? Great' and less having to sit down, go over lists, and perform last-minute tuning.

Like I've said I've found PL useful when I'm having to put together a list on the spot, but the resulting games have never left me feeling like PL got us closer to a fair fight than points.


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 vipoid wrote:

 catbarf wrote:

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.

As an aside, I'm pretty sure GW has done exactly this with the points of some characters (to compensate for the fact that Warlord traits and Relics can't have their costs adjusted).

e.g. the DE succubus seems to be priced with the assumption that they'll be using the Triptych Whip and Precision Blows - otherwise you're paying 80pts for a T3 model with a glorified Power Sword.

Back in early-8th, there were also models like Shining Spears (IIRC) that seemed to be priced with the assumption that they'd be used in Ynnari armies.

To be clear, I'm not arguing against your point about points. I'm just saying that we're already seeing the same awkwardness with PL with points, because there are currently so many factors (subfaction, stratagems, warlord traits, artefacts etc.) which don't have point values but which nevertheless drastically change the effectiveness of certain units.

Yup, I'd consider that a significant problem too.

Subfactions in particular are a prime example of a synergy that can significantly improve the value of a unit without touching the cost. Back in 4th Ed if you took Doctrines on Guard or Chapter Tactics on Marines you generally had to pay for them on a per-unit basis. It was crude- a squad of Veterans gets more mileage out of carapace armor than a regular Guardsman squad- but at least it wasn't free.

Meanwhile in 8th/9th, there are relics and warlord traits that never see play because they just aren't interesting or impactful compared to the alternatives, and there's no mechanism to represent that different value. I've had a few games where I choose to take an under-used relic or WLT just for the sake of doing something different, but it's not a particularly fun choice.

And we're not even getting into how stratagems affect units. Six Hive Guard are more than twice as effective as three Hive Guard because Single-Minded Annihilation exists.

So yeah, you won't find me saying that the current implementation of points is perfect or guarantees a balanced game. What I can't agree with is the notion that because these issues with the points system do exist, the best recourse is to throw it all out the window and use a system that has those issues and more, in the hopes that having a balance mechanism that's more overtly broken will encourage us to perform the necessary balancing ourselves.

Just talk to your opponent on facebook before showing up to the LGS ffs,

"hey guys, i'll be looking for a game at John's Wargames this saturday around 1pm. Looking to play Matched Play casual, i'll be playing my Eldar"

"Sweet, i can do that, its cool if i bring Drukhari?"

"sure, but please don't spam too many talos, i'm trying out something new"

Ironically in my experience, less-granular points system tie in better aid the quest for better balance than more granular points systems. Warmaxhine/hordes being the perfect example.

Let's be clear though. That game isn't better balanced than 40k, because of less-granular points, it's better* balanced because of all the other stuff, points are basically the least important thing - as auticus points out, theyre about giving 'structure', not balance.

*relatively better. Wmh 'balance' still has plenty traps, crutches and issues...

When it comes to PL vs Points, my opinion is in its current state I'd do either if I was playing because both are a flaming trash fire for their own reasons in regards to how the game feels balance-wise. Granular points are for sure more detailed, and if done right would be more balanced, but they feel as busted as PL does in the end when I do either one.

Here's a radical thought (which would require a heavy codex readjustment)....

What if PL and points were discarded entirely and instead, all units were worth one point - with perhaps the occasional high power unit worth 2.

What this would require is really tuning the capabilities of units, and creating a carefully fixed set of parameters for unit customization, such that the durability, damage output, mobility, and battlefield capabilities of any unit was roughly on par with any other (obviously some units would be faster or slower, weaker or stronger, have more or fewer models, etc.)

What might this mean in actual terms? A "1" point unit might be a fixed X-number of models depending on the army (5 marines, 20 guardsman, etc.) with clear stipulations around options (must take 1 heavy or special weapon, etc.)

You could of course have things work such that like-units could be combined into larger squads for morale purposes or split into fire teams, etc. Two 5-man tactical combat squads could be formed into a 2-point 10-man squad, or 20 models of guards split into two 10-man squads, etc. Special rules that apply to certain units would be a way to further add strengths/weaknesses to units to bring them closer into alignment.

The advantage of something like this is that, in theory, it should matter much less about what slot or unit type it is (troop vs. fast attack, etc.) and players would do something like play a "10 point match" and that would be that.

From a competitive standpoint, if each unit is more narrowly defined and balanced, it DOES let you have things like a sideboard, since it's easy to remove one unit and swap in a different one.

Really, I suppose, this is taking the idea of power level to the extreme edge and just saying everything is power level 1 and defining the units themselves more narrowly to be balanced around what PL 1 means under this paradigm. But unlike the current PL system, where a huge variance in output can be had within a unit at the same PL based on what options you take, here it would be more consistently and predictably defined.

Thats how azyr worked in AOS.

An entire unit was worth 1, 2, 3, etc. A full game was 20 points.

 Mezmorki wrote:
Here's a radical thought (which would require a heavy codex readjustment)....

What if PL and points were discarded entirely and instead, all units were worth one point - with perhaps the occasional high power unit worth 2.

What this would require is really tuning the capabilities of units, and creating a carefully fixed set of parameters for unit customization, such that the durability, damage output, mobility, and battlefield capabilities of any unit was roughly on par with any other (obviously some units would be faster or slower, weaker or stronger, have more or fewer models, etc.)

What might this mean in actual terms? A "1" point unit might be a fixed X-number of models depending on the army (5 marines, 20 guardsman, etc.) with clear stipulations around options (must take 1 heavy or special weapon, etc.)

You could of course have things work such that like-units could be combined into larger squads for morale purposes or split into fire teams, etc. Two 5-man tactical combat squads could be formed into a 2-point 10-man squad, or 20 models of guards split into two 10-man squads, etc. Special rules that apply to certain units would be a way to further add strengths/weaknesses to units to bring them closer into alignment.

The advantage of something like this is that, in theory, it should matter much less about what slot or unit type it is (troop vs. fast attack, etc.) and players would do something like play a "10 point match" and that would be that.

From a competitive standpoint, if each unit is more narrowly defined and balanced, it DOES let you have things like a sideboard, since it's easy to remove one unit and swap in a different one.

Really, I suppose, this is taking the idea of power level to the extreme edge and just saying everything is power level 1 and defining the units themselves more narrowly to be balanced around what PL 1 means under this paradigm. But unlike the current PL system, where a huge variance in output can be had within a unit at the same PL based on what options you take, here it would be more consistently and predictably defined.

Just as auticus' comp for AOS and my proposal, if this could even be achieved anyhow, it would remove list building for advantage from the game and leave only list building for flavour, so you should now get checked for butt cancer

You would also have to reduce current 40K to something like Apocalypse to make that work.

Why is the concept of granularity seen as a boon for points vs PL but is not considered for the new S:T interaction?

The current S:T chart only has 5 tiers:
half, <, =, >, double

This makes ALOT of weapon strengths not desirable because the toughness is always 3-8. So 5 tiers of damage, and only 6 toughness values means the strength breakpoints are deterministic across most armies.
GW should expand the toughness characteristic a bit more and revert back to the old S:T chart. Odd numbered strength values would actually be worth a damn then.

 Mezmorki wrote:
Here's a radical thought (which would require a heavy codex readjustment)....

What if PL and points were discarded entirely and instead, all units were worth one point - with perhaps the occasional high power unit worth 2.

What this would require is really tuning the capabilities of units, and creating a carefully fixed set of parameters for unit customization, such that the durability, damage output, mobility, and battlefield capabilities of any unit was roughly on par with any other (obviously some units would be faster or slower, weaker or stronger, have more or fewer models, etc.)

What might this mean in actual terms? A "1" point unit might be a fixed X-number of models depending on the army (5 marines, 20 guardsman, etc.) with clear stipulations around options (must take 1 heavy or special weapon, etc.)

You could of course have things work such that like-units could be combined into larger squads for morale purposes or split into fire teams, etc. Two 5-man tactical combat squads could be formed into a 2-point 10-man squad, or 20 models of guards split into two 10-man squads, etc. Special rules that apply to certain units would be a way to further add strengths/weaknesses to units to bring them closer into alignment.

The advantage of something like this is that, in theory, it should matter much less about what slot or unit type it is (troop vs. fast attack, etc.) and players would do something like play a "10 point match" and that would be that.

From a competitive standpoint, if each unit is more narrowly defined and balanced, it DOES let you have things like a sideboard, since it's easy to remove one unit and swap in a different one.

Really, I suppose, this is taking the idea of power level to the extreme edge and just saying everything is power level 1 and defining the units themselves more narrowly to be balanced around what PL 1 means under this paradigm. But unlike the current PL system, where a huge variance in output can be had within a unit at the same PL based on what options you take, here it would be more consistently and predictably defined.

But since you are thinking about such radical change, then consider this: in the 40k replacement my group plays, the cost of most units ranges from 1 to 6 (but we have a fractional system), but then this total cost is also subdivided into three separate values for mobility, offence and defence. You build your army to a points total, but then use those subtotals to compare relative mobility, offence and defence of the armies and appropriate stratagems are handed out to the worse army in all three categories to equalise them.

We also use percentage cost increase for HQ buff abilities dependant on the size of the detachment this HQ buffs.

It works extremely well, but also removes list building for advantage and leaves only list building for flavour.

Privateer press' warcaster game is also extremely interesting to look at if you want to see an alternative approach. In some ways it's a game that's breaking new ground.

The hot take is There is a unit cap that you can bring onto the field, and units are basically 'summoned' from reserves.

Your list is whatever you summon, up to the unit cap. It can be a different list every time. They summon a 'question', you summon an 'answer'.

The game is in its very early stages though and doesn't have a player base worth speaking qbout.

Deadnight wrote:
Privateer press' warcaster game is also extremely interesting to look at if you want to see an alternative approach. In some ways it's a game that's breaking new ground.

The hot take is There is a unit cap that you can bring onto the field, and units are basically 'summoned' from reserves.

Your list is whatever you summon, up to the unit cap. It can be a different list every time. They summon a 'question', you summon an 'answer'.

The game is in its very early stages though and doesn't have a player base worth speaking qbout.

A sideboard approach to the extreme I like it.