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 Backspacehacker wrote:

What happens on dakka is you have a lot of people throwing out balance ideas that for one type of game makes total sense, but from the other perspective of what they think the game should be, would be a horrible mess.

This is why there needs to be 2 separate rulesets for Tourney & everything else...
And I mean distinctly different. One is for crushing your enemies and hearing the lamentations of their women, the other is for reenacting dramatic moments from the 30th-41st Millennium.

Or GW could just ya know, like stop being shortsighted and have a game that can work for both.

Racerguy180 wrote:

 Backspacehacker wrote:

What happens on dakka is you have a lot of people throwing out balance ideas that for one type of game makes total sense, but from the other perspective of what they think the game should be, would be a horrible mess.

This is why there needs to be 2 separate rulesets for Tourney & everything else...

Or GW could just ya know, like stop being shortsighted and have a game that can work for both.

Many people want this, and infact more or less this existed in the form of ITC rules. GW basically made 40k to be a game where you played out dramatic battles in the 41st millennia, then ITC game play had addional rules and regulations and objectives that they self regulated.
Most everyone was fine with it being that way.

Then GW decided to start focusing more on writing tournament rules themselves, however, GW home corp does not operate in a tournament player mind set, which is why we ended up with so many busted units and horribly written rules all through 8th, and are still dealing with this in 9th.

Now, 40k is the most sterile the game has ever been. Matches are pretty much always the same game, on the same table, with all the flavor stripped outta the game in the game of 'balance' for tournaments, but because GW is not good are making tournament rules we get what we have now.

 Backspacehacker wrote:
What happens on dakka is you have a lot of people throwing out balance ideas that for one type of game makes total sense, but from the other perspective of what they think the game should be, would be a horrible mess.

Yeah, totally agreed - this has to do with questions about game format. Crusade is a format geared around campaign and progressive/narrative play, with rules for force assembly, progression, mission selection, use of power level, etc. Balance is a different set of questions, since it's possible to have very unbalanced forces squaring off, but each getting value out of the battle. Matched Play is a format currently geared for competitive "fair" play in the mission selection and use of points as a detailed tool for force assembly and basically no guard rails on force composition (you can skew however hard the detachment rules allow) - and it's basically become synonymous with what was once a distinct tournament format. Open Play is a format that no one really uses - too unstructured.

There really isn't a format offered up for casual play that has more diverse missions and/or seeks to temper the extremes of list building and create a more level playing field.

Anyway, the point of all of this is that the balance conversation is geared towards different ends in each of these formats, and needs to be considered a little differently.

Exactly.
One of the problems is though, since we dont have a supported system that actually promotes a style of casual play that is not tournament balanced, all the balancing that is centered around competitive play ends up effecting every one else.

The sad reality is, at the moment, the best way to play casual 40k, is to play an older edition, or play 30k. which focused more of "Dramatic reenactments" then competitive balance.

Racerguy180 wrote:

 Backspacehacker wrote:

What happens on dakka is you have a lot of people throwing out balance ideas that for one type of game makes total sense, but from the other perspective of what they think the game should be, would be a horrible mess.

This is why there needs to be 2 separate rulesets for Tourney & everything else...
And I mean distinctly different. One is for crushing your enemies and hearing the lamentations of their women, the other is for reenacting dramatic moments from the 30th-41st Millennium.

Or GW could just ya know, like stop being shortsighted and have a game that can work for both.

Been saying this since about half way into 8th. There needs to be 2 seperate game systems...
Keep this ITC inspired 9th system for competitive tournament types that want rigidity.
Add codexes that are compatable with the HH rules for people who want more narrative/simulation gameplay

Tittliewinks22 wrote:

Racerguy180 wrote:

 Backspacehacker wrote:

What happens on dakka is you have a lot of people throwing out balance ideas that for one type of game makes total sense, but from the other perspective of what they think the game should be, would be a horrible mess.

This is why there needs to be 2 separate rulesets for Tourney & everything else...
And I mean distinctly different. One is for crushing your enemies and hearing the lamentations of their women, the other is for reenacting dramatic moments from the 30th-41st Millennium.

Or GW could just ya know, like stop being shortsighted and have a game that can work for both.

Been saying this since about half way into 8th. There needs to be 2 seperate game systems...
Keep this ITC inspired 9th system for competitive tournament types that want rigidity.
Add codexes that are compatable with the HH rules for people who want more narrative/simulation gameplay

THis so much, after going through the HH rules, they are basically 7.5ed and its so much better.
Are there still issues? yes, can it be fixed? yes, is it the most fluffy version we have? yes.

If they could put in the prohammer AP system, change the way the vehicle damage chart works, and put in some more rending type rules to make specific under performing weapons better, that would be amazing.

Honestly if you are playing with friend, you can pretty much use any 7th ed unit sheets as a base for units in 30k.

Racerguy180 wrote:

 Backspacehacker wrote:

What happens on dakka is you have a lot of people throwing out balance ideas that for one type of game makes total sense, but from the other perspective of what they think the game should be, would be a horrible mess.

This is why there needs to be 2 separate rulesets for Tourney & everything else...

I agree with this too. I LOVE Crusade, but it is somewhat problematic as an alternative to Matched, because it incorporates campaign based progression mechanics in its core rules, and many people aren't interested in campaign play. Open play has so little structure that it isn't really viable as an alternative to Matched either.

I think taking Matched and developing a tournament set from that might be a solution- something similar to KT18's Arena rules. Once you do this, it gives you more freedom to tune the rest of matched for more casual people who still want balance, who still prefer stand alone games and who still tend to play pick-up style games in public play spaces. Problem here is that you're essentially creating a 4th way to play, and some people already think the differences between ways to play are not well defined.

Another alternative is working with Open to formalize layers of structure that can be added, and try to make it the game for casuals, leaving them free to tweak matched specifically for the tourney circuit. The problem here is that Open is an amazing teaching tool for new players and a place where anything can happen, and I think the game still needs that. So it could be done, if the structured rules were done in layers and the system for incorporating them was clearly defined... But there is risk here.

Racerguy180 wrote:

Or GW could just ya know, like stop being shortsighted and have a game that can work for both.

I'm not entirely sure this can be done. I think it's probably possible, but it is crazy difficult.

I love the level of detail in 9th specifically because of the way I choose to play. Most people who play 2k competitive see that level of detail as bloat- and that's probably valid. I haven't actually escalated ANY of my Crusades to that level yet, and when I get there, I too might find it overwhelming. Because that's literally dozens of games away, I think I'll have plenty of time to internalize all the rules and bells and whistles, so I don't anticipate difficulty. But again, even as a Crusader, you can choose to funnel ALL of your RP into Supply Limit and you could escalate to 100PL pretty quickly. I just choose not to, because I want my armies to grow as I paint... And I am a deadly slow painter.

 Bloviator wrote:
If you look at GW's applied games design philosophy, mitigating player skill differentials is baked into the mechanics and distribution of effects on statistical extremities. This is deliberate because if you don't make it possible for newbies to win against veterans, you'll wind up with an incestuous dead game like Warmachine Hordes.

That's not why people moved away from Warhamordes. In general, games where player skill has minimal effect are bad games.

Hecaton wrote:

 Bloviator wrote:
If you look at GW's applied games design philosophy, mitigating player skill differentials is baked into the mechanics and distribution of effects on statistical extremities. This is deliberate because if you don't make it possible for newbies to win against veterans, you'll wind up with an incestuous dead game like Warmachine Hordes.

That's not why people moved away from Warhamordes. In general, games where player skill has minimal effect are bad games.

I don't want to derail this thread, but I agree it's not the only reason people moved away. However, toward the end, I saw a lot of potentially interested parties being driven away by veterans curb-stomping them, or the newbies realizing they would have to commit hundreds of (frequently updating) model profiles (and triangulating their interactions) to memory, just to avoid getting 'gotcha' moments during "casual play." And casual play was really just "practicing for the next Steamroller."

 Backspacehacker wrote:

Because a weapon that was designed to deal with MEQ at AP3 was pointed specifically to be able to deal with sv 3 models and nothing else.

And then it was either worhless if your opponent brought a Sv 2 skew, or overperforming if your opponent only had sv 3.

Plus the modifier system is actually less lethal than the old binary system, as Sv3 actually gets a save against former AP3 weapons.

Hecaton wrote:

 Bloviator wrote:
If you look at GW's applied games design philosophy, mitigating player skill differentials is baked into the mechanics and distribution of effects on statistical extremities. This is deliberate because if you don't make it possible for newbies to win against veterans, you'll wind up with an incestuous dead game like Warmachine Hordes.

That's not why people moved away from Warhamordes. In general, games where player skill has minimal effect are bad games.

They are bad games for competitive people who want a deterministic game. They are great games for the wider gaming audience that isn't really good or skilled at strategy because they offer excitement.

Which is ironic considering that 40k is the most played competitive game on the market

If we want to talk about player skill being a detriment, didn't the devs for Dreadball say being too balanced killed their game since it how good you were at the game was proportional to how long you were playing basically walling off newer players?

Thinking back to matched, maybe what we need is something like Maelstrom, or the old mission/deployment generation system of past editions for the non-GT play. It'd shake up how stale missions feel when they can be mixed and matched in a wider number of ways.

What we need is actually getting the community to play narrative games (and it would help if GW rewrote the narrative system with points rather than power).

Seriously all this talking about excitement and interesting mission/deployment, that's what narrative games are supposed to be.

 Tyran wrote:
What we need is actually getting the community to play narrative games (and it would help if GW rewrote the narrative system with points rather than power).

Seriously all this talking about excitement and interesting mission/deployment, that's what narrative games are supposed to be.

I think that will require people actually playing them and posting them up on battle reports, websites, twitch streams, and youtubes. I agree - they are fun as hell, but hard to find and come across!

 Tyran wrote:

 Backspacehacker wrote:

Because a weapon that was designed to deal with MEQ at AP3 was pointed specifically to be able to deal with sv 3 models and nothing else.

And then it was either worhless if your opponent brought a Sv 2 skew, or overperforming if your opponent only had sv 3.

Plus the modifier system is actually less lethal than the old binary system, as Sv3 actually gets a save against former AP3 weapons.

Yeah, the old all-or-nothing system was bad. It's funny to bring up AP3 for the old system as well because it was actively AVOIDED. Most AP5-6 had enough shots/attacks you can force wounds and eventually failed saved on MEQ, and AP2 I'd honestly argue was a more common profile even in older editions than specifically AP3.

With the size of the company there's no excuse not to put more resources into the on table experience for their customers.

I won't get into Matched balance as I feel they are correct in their approach in terms of making money. It's just not what I would want.

However Narrative as a game mode should get as much if not more attention.

Instead of "Matched but don't be a dick" with a sampling of Crusade etc. I'd completely rework how it functions. With the end result of Apocalypse or Epic 40,000 style combat mechanics with a TTRPG approach to the game.

Have games be more telling the story of the conflict with a mix of scripted/random generated elements.

I'd combo that with themed boxes that come with adventure modules and tilesets/terrain themed to that particular story.

 auticus wrote:

 Tyran wrote:
What we need is actually getting the community to play narrative games (and it would help if GW rewrote the narrative system with points rather than power).

Seriously all this talking about excitement and interesting mission/deployment, that's what narrative games are supposed to be.

I think that will require people actually playing them and posting them up on battle reports, websites, twitch streams, and youtubes. I agree - they are fun as hell, but hard to find and come across!

I think the Crusade missions are great as a basis for more narrative-centric play. The problem is that crusade missions, in most people's eyes, are bolted onto the crusade campaign/progression system, when they really should've been decoupled.

We also haven't mentioned the open war "deck" - which is also pretty damn cool and good way to potentially structure a more casual format. It lends itself to things like "draw 3 mission cards from the deck, each player gets to veto one, play the mission that's left." It works in more variability, the objective markers can be placed flexibly, etc. It's a good ideas and an improvement over the ITC mission approach FOR CASUAL PLAY.

Last - on a purely personal plug - I'll offer the up mission set we made for ProHammer - which should technically work with 9th edition still. Some part are still WIP, but the six core mission archetypes are all drafted. The ProHammer group has been testing these over the past year or so with good effect. The mission set has six archetypes, which as as follows:

[1] Breakthough - All about an attacking player having to break through an enemy line and get off their opponent's deployment zone. Represents ambush and blitz type missions. Has special rules for divided forces. Half the missions using progressive scoring, half use threshold scoring.

[2] Reconnaissance - All about controlling board zones, either quarters or sixths, all pitched battles. Scoring is based either on controlling the zones at the end of the game or for performing an action to recon a zone. 6 different deployment layout options.

[3] Intercept - Three different sub-types, all pitched battles. One is a relic extraction (searching through objective markers to find and control an artifact), another is tacking terminals, where simultaneously hacking multiple terminals using an objective actions grants escalating points, and the last is power siphon, where you get escalating points for holding multiple locations. Variable number of objective markers and placement. 6 different deployment layout options.

[4] Point Control - Basically encompasses all the traditional flavors of "control the points/circles". Variations allow for end of game scoring, progressive scoring, or threshold scoring. 6 different deployment options. Also 6 different objective marker layout options and point awards. You can get missions where all points are in neutral ground versus start out in each players DZ. Missons where points are all worth the same VPs, or escalate over the game, or are worth more in your opponent's DZ, etc.

[5] Destroy/Defend - Can be pitched battles or sieges (with attacking/defending sides). Primary sub-types include needing either secure/destroy pipelines or secure/control bunkers (e.g. bunker assault). Bunch of different deployment layouts.

[6] Critical Target - These are centralized objective-based games. The nexus is controlling a small or large zone in the middle of the table. Supply drop is about a marker that slowly moves around the board and needs to be held at the end. Can be structured as a siege (attack/defend) or pitched battle, with different deployment zones and some special considerations for each.

EDIT: We've also got a good system, we feel, for secondary objectives. Essentially, the secondary objectives are ONLY used if the neither player manages to achieve a win for a primary objective. If it's a "draw" game - then you look at secondary objectives. Some missions also specify a margin of victory that you need to win by, otherwise it's considered a draw and you go to secondary scoring.

Secondary scoring is fixed: points for killing the enemy warlord, points based on the % of point value of your opponent you've killed, points for keeping all enemy models out of your deployment zone, and points for units into your opponents deployment zone. It's been a cool dynamic to see players grapple over whether to force a tie and try to play it safe, and hope to win on a secondary, versus going for the primary objective and winning outright. It makes the strategy more compelling to have these systems be binary as opposed to always being active. It allows you to make more interesting sacrifices in the hopes of winning

Anyway - we've been having fun with these. We've been combing through all the past editions of 40K and thinking through how to incorporate the entire historic range of mission types into a unified set. It's been a fun endeavor!

Morki, how is it that you have only 721 posts? I feel like I see you post often, tho I guess often these are books, as above…

 Tyran wrote:
What we need is actually getting the community to play narrative games (and it would help if GW rewrote the narrative system with points rather than power).

Seriously all this talking about excitement and interesting mission/deployment, that's what narrative games are supposed to be.

Well that and GW should be highlighting narrative events on WHC, and hosting narrative events as part of the events they run.

 ClockworkZion wrote:

 Tyran wrote:
What we need is actually getting the community to play narrative games (and it would help if GW rewrote the narrative system with points rather than power).

Seriously all this talking about excitement and interesting mission/deployment, that's what narrative games are supposed to be.

Well that and GW should be highlighting narrative events on WHC, and hosting narrative events as part of the events they run.

Very good point.

 auticus wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:

 Tyran wrote:
What we need is actually getting the community to play narrative games (and it would help if GW rewrote the narrative system with points rather than power).

Seriously all this talking about excitement and interesting mission/deployment, that's what narrative games are supposed to be.

Well that and GW should be highlighting narrative events on WHC, and hosting narrative events as part of the events they run.

Very good point.

Yup, but GW has the tourney phallus well down their esophagus to change that...unfortunately.

Racerguy180 wrote:

 auticus wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:

 Tyran wrote:
What we need is actually getting the community to play narrative games (and it would help if GW rewrote the narrative system with points rather than power).

Seriously all this talking about excitement and interesting mission/deployment, that's what narrative games are supposed to be.

Well that and GW should be highlighting narrative events on WHC, and hosting narrative events as part of the events they run.

Very good point.

Yup, but GW has the tourney phallus well down their esophagus to change that...unfortunately.

People don't suddenly buy new armies due to a changing narrative meta. That's why.

Racerguy180 wrote:

 auticus wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:

 Tyran wrote:
What we need is actually getting the community to play narrative games (and it would help if GW rewrote the narrative system with points rather than power).

Seriously all this talking about excitement and interesting mission/deployment, that's what narrative games are supposed to be.

Well that and GW should be highlighting narrative events on WHC, and hosting narrative events as part of the events they run.

Very good point.

Yup, but GW has the tourney phallus well down their esophagus to change that...unfortunately.

Nah, they could do narrative content coverage too. Getting people to spend more money on narrative play would only help them, not hurt them.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Hecaton wrote:
People don't suddenly buy new armies due to a changing narrative meta. That's why.

No they don't tend to cycle through armies mainly through a second hand market, but they convert their dudes to fit their narrative games, and promoting kitbashing for narrative would sell more models.

Plus it targets customers who don't want the tournament treadmill experience, so it's only positive to tag that market too.

EviscerationPlague wrote:

 Tyran wrote:

 Backspacehacker wrote:

Because a weapon that was designed to deal with MEQ at AP3 was pointed specifically to be able to deal with sv 3 models and nothing else.

And then it was either worhless if your opponent brought a Sv 2 skew, or overperforming if your opponent only had sv 3.

Plus the modifier system is actually less lethal than the old binary system, as Sv3 actually gets a save against former AP3 weapons.

Yeah, the old all-or-nothing system was bad. It's funny to bring up AP3 for the old system as well because it was actively AVOIDED. Most AP5-6 had enough shots/attacks you can force wounds and eventually failed saved on MEQ, and AP2 I'd honestly argue was a more common profile even in older editions than specifically AP3.

which, was the very specific points of bringing Sv2 units, because having Sv 2 units meant you had to deal with them, with heavy hitting weapons, you could not just turn weapons that were -1 or -2 AP and severely reduce their ability to live.
That is exactly why a bunch of sv2 models got 2W in 9th ed because 2 sv does not mean anything any more.
A 2 sv at one point was a really big deal, now its nothing, now it means jack all. And any weapon can turn a 2 sv into a 3 or a 4 quite easily where as before, you had to bring specific weapons or abilities against them, Thats my point.

The old AP system for its faults was the better system because it was a check and balance system. Weapons that were AP 3 did great at killing sv 3, but sv 2 showed up that weapon was not nearly as good.
Now you just have catch all weapons, that apply negative modifiers to everything which is directly what resulted in more wounds on things, which then resulted in multi damage weapons which led to more invulns and wound on 4+ only now we are at ignore invuln. I can already see it now taht we are going ot start getting "Ignore -1 and -2 AP" on more stuff.

Which as a rubric player make me sad as a side note.

 ClockworkZion wrote:
and hosting narrative events as part of the events they run.

They do. The Championships they hosted in Grapevine at the Citadel had an attached Narrative event. They even mentioned it in the WHC article about the event(as well as the 40K vs AoS game that was played there).

 Platuan4th wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:
and hosting narrative events as part of the events they run.

They do. The Championships they hosted in Grapevine at the Citadel had an attached Narrative event. They even mentioned it in the WHC article about the event(as well as the 40K vs AoS game that was played there).

I forgot that even happened. Probably because it was such a footnote around the Championships when it should have been given proper coverage of it's own.

 Platuan4th wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:
and hosting narrative events as part of the events they run.

They do. The Championships they hosted in Grapevine at the Citadel had an attached Narrative event. They even mentioned it in the WHC article about the event(as well as the 40K vs AoS game that was played there).

Forgive me for sounding like a nob or a bell end here but

A single narrative event at a single GW shop thats sandwiched between a good year tire and a family wine shop does not say much for the support GW provides to narrative campaigns.

When you have companies like pizao that can run multi party pathfinder society events all at the same time which effect each others party, yet GW can only throw the most barest of narrative bones our way, i dont see that as being a win.

 Backspacehacker wrote:

EviscerationPlague wrote:

 Tyran wrote:

 Backspacehacker wrote:

Because a weapon that was designed to deal with MEQ at AP3 was pointed specifically to be able to deal with sv 3 models and nothing else.

And then it was either worhless if your opponent brought a Sv 2 skew, or overperforming if your opponent only had sv 3.

Plus the modifier system is actually less lethal than the old binary system, as Sv3 actually gets a save against former AP3 weapons.

Yeah, the old all-or-nothing system was bad. It's funny to bring up AP3 for the old system as well because it was actively AVOIDED. Most AP5-6 had enough shots/attacks you can force wounds and eventually failed saved on MEQ, and AP2 I'd honestly argue was a more common profile even in older editions than specifically AP3.

which, was the very specific points of bringing Sv2 units, because having Sv 2 units meant you had to deal with them, with heavy hitting weapons, you could not just turn weapons that were -1 or -2 AP and severely reduce their ability to live.
That is exactly why a bunch of sv2 models got 2W in 9th ed because 2 sv does not mean anything any more.
A 2 sv at one point was a really big deal, now its nothing, now it means jack all. And any weapon can turn a 2 sv into a 3 or a 4 quite easily where as before, you had to bring specific weapons or abilities against them, Thats my point.

The old AP system for its faults was the better system because it was a check and balance system. Weapons that were AP 3 did great at killing sv 3, but sv 2 showed up that weapon was not nearly as good.
Now you just have catch all weapons, that apply negative modifiers to everything which is directly what resulted in more wounds on things, which then resulted in multi damage weapons which led to more invulns and wound on 4+ only now we are at ignore invuln. I can already see it now taht we are going ot start getting "Ignore -1 and -2 AP" on more stuff.

Which as a rubric player make me sad as a side note.

Except that AP 2 weapons were just as good at killing sv 3. It was not a check and balance system, it was an escalation system that inevitable lead to AP 2 large blasts blasting away anyone that didn't have an invulnerable save.

Like sure, the modifier system weakened sv 2 models. But sv 3, 4, 5 and 6? they all benefit more in a modifier system than in a binary one. Also terminators really needed that extra wound, as it was easy to brute force through a sv 2 even without modifiers.

 Tyran wrote:
Except that AP2 weapons were just as good at killing sv3.

It was not a check and balance system, it was an escalation system that inevitable lead to AP 2 large blasts blasting away anyone that didn't have an invulnerable save.

Like sure, the modifier system weakened sv 2 models. But sv 3, 4, 5 and 6? they all benefit more in a modifier system than in a binary one.

Also terminators really needed that extra wound, as it was easy to brute force through a sv 2 even without modifiers.

Yes and you paid the points for them.

AP 2 and 1 being able to kill sv 3 4 and 5 jsut as good was not a problem, because you could not spam AP 2 and 3 nearly as easy, you had like 1 or 2 a squad, or had dedicated units that cost a lot of points.
Now in current 40k you can spam AP -1 and -2 which drastically reduce the survivability of anything they look at.

 Backspacehacker wrote:

 Tyran wrote:
Except that AP2 weapons were just as good at killing sv3.

It was not a check and balance system, it was an escalation system that inevitable lead to AP 2 large blasts blasting away anyone that didn't have an invulnerable save.

Like sure, the modifier system weakened sv 2 models. But sv 3, 4, 5 and 6? they all benefit more in a modifier system than in a binary one.

Also terminators really needed that extra wound, as it was easy to brute force through a sv 2 even without modifiers.

Yes and you paid the points for them.

AP 2 and 1 being able to kill sv 3 4 and 5 jsut as good was not a problem, because you could not spam AP 2 and 3 nearly as easy, you had like 1 or 2 a squad, or had dedicated units that cost a lot of points.
Now in current 40k you can spam AP -1 and -2 which drastically reduce the survivability of anything they look at.

... plasma, grav, battlecannons, demolisher cannons, Ion weapons, long fang spam. There were plenty of armies that could indeed spam AP 2 and 3, even as large blasts so they were efficient even against horde units.