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I disagree, a mixed team of Intercessors wouldn't improve the capabilities of the team nearly as much as an extra dude has.

An army wholesale could be struggling genuinely because everything is overcosted.
Take Imperial Guard, if Guardsmen were 1pt each and Leman Russes were 10pts each, I'm sure we can agree they'd be pretty OP.
There is necessarily a middle ground on that sliding scale of points where theyre getting balanced winrates.

 kirotheavenger wrote:
I disagree, a mixed team of Intercessors wouldn't improve the capabilities of the team nearly as much as an extra dude has.

An army wholesale could be struggling genuinely because everything is overcosted.
Take Imperial Guard, if Guardsmen were 1pt each and Leman Russes were 10pts each, I'm sure we can agree they'd be pretty OP.
There is necessarily a middle ground on that sliding scale of points where theyre getting balanced winrates.

I don't agree 100%.

For most units, there's a points value where they're good, but not broken. But something like a Land Raider, given its horrible niche... I'm not sure there's a points value that makes it worth taking, but not worth spamming.

 kirotheavenger wrote:
I agree points alone won't fix the game, but they are a great tool for fixing imbalances.

If a unit is overperforming increasing it's points is an easy way to bring it back in line unless there's something really weird/crazy going on.
In those situations it's best to nerf those things in particular (it might be a strategem or a particular buff interaction).
But buy and large points work well enough as a quick fix.

Disagree. Somethings can currently only truly be fixed by a rules rewrite. Makings cheap or expensive in response is only a bandage on deeper issues.

 ClockworkZion wrote:

 kirotheavenger wrote:
I agree points alone won't fix the game, but they are a great tool for fixing imbalances.

If a unit is overperforming increasing it's points is an easy way to bring it back in line unless there's something really weird/crazy going on.
In those situations it's best to nerf those things in particular (it might be a strategem or a particular buff interaction).
But buy and large points work well enough as a quick fix.

Disagree. Somethings can currently only truly be fixed by a rules rewrite. Makings cheap or expensive in response is only a bandage on deeper issues.

Oh I totally agree.
But a massive ground up rewrite is rarely feasible for a number of reasons.
Conversely; increasing or decreasing the cost of a unit is very easily done
Perfect is often the enemy of good enough.

Problem is many of the worst performers aren't even "good enough" and just dropping their points so low that people take them merely bexause they're cheap bodies doesn't improve them.

It objectively does improve them.
It might feel like gak because your Chaos Space Marines are now a horde army, but that's besides the point.

 kirotheavenger wrote:
It objectively does improve them.
It might feel like gak because your Chaos Space Marines are now a horde army, but that's besides the point.

And when GW swings the army the other direction because they've rewritten the rules and you now can only take half as many models?

Face it: points are not the universal answer to every balance problem.

 ClockworkZion wrote:

 kirotheavenger wrote:
It objectively does improve them.
It might feel like gak because your Chaos Space Marines are now a horde army, but that's besides the point.

And when GW swings the army the other direction because they've rewritten the rules and you now can only take half as many models?

Face it: points are not the universal answer to every balance problem.

No, they aren't. Sometimes it's better to make a unit worth its price instead of just making it cheaper.

Take the aforementioned Land Raider: instead of dropping their points, give them Assault Ramps again, and some kind of durability buff (-1 damage or AP?). Make them provide something other than 4 lascannon and 6 heavy bolter shots.

 ClockworkZion wrote:

That's effectively the same as a points drop and no, we do not need to keep dropping points. And not every problem can be solved with points.

Not every problem can be fixed that way, but for the external balance issue, it often can, which is what we were talking about.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 ClockworkZion wrote:
And when GW swings the army the other direction because they've rewritten the rules and you now can only take half as many models?

Face it: points are not the universal answer to every balance problem.

Nobody's saying they are. But it's a better alternative than your take of "Oh, you picked Imperial Guard as your faction? Sucks to suck, you're gonna lose a lot and that's by design."

You keep trying to use points changes like a hammer, but not every problem is a nail.

 ClockworkZion wrote:
You keep trying to use points changes like a hammer, but not every problem is a nail.

You need to explain why this specific problem isn't, though. Otherwise that's a very weak argument.

Hecaton wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:
You keep trying to use points changes like a hammer, but not every problem is a nail.

You need to explain why this specific problem isn't, though. Otherwise that's a very weak argument.

Guard do not need to be as cheap as or cheaper than Grits. They need their core mechanics to be better instead.

I don't know who else here has played WFB towards its end but that game raced to the bottom to the point where you had models worth half a point. 100 Skaven Slaves for 50 points. It was ridiculous and only served to hurt the game by letting things continue to trend down. If anything more things need to trend up instead.

 ClockworkZion wrote:

Hecaton wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:
You keep trying to use points changes like a hammer, but not every problem is a nail.

You need to explain why this specific problem isn't, though. Otherwise that's a very weak argument.

Guard do not need to be as cheap as or cheaper than Grits. They need their core mechanics to be better instead.

I don't know who else here has played WFB towards its end but that game raced to the bottom to the point where you had models worth half a point. 100 Skaven Slaves for 50 points. It was ridiculous and only served to hurt the game by letting things continue to trend down. If anything more things need to trend up instead.

In fairness Skaven never got an 8th Ed book, so things were costed for 7th. No one took units of 100 slaves in 7th.

 ClockworkZion wrote:

Hecaton wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:
You keep trying to use points changes like a hammer, but not every problem is a nail.

You need to explain why this specific problem isn't, though. Otherwise that's a very weak argument.

Guard do not need to be as cheap as or cheaper than Grits. They need their core mechanics to be better instead.

I don't know who else here has played WFB towards its end but that game raced to the bottom to the point where you had models worth half a point. 100 Skaven Slaves for 50 points. It was ridiculous and only served to hurt the game by letting things continue to trend down. If anything more things need to trend up instead.

We just did that. Literally, 9th started with a nigh-universal points bump. It didn't matter, primarily because they didn't leave enough room at the bottom. And now what (some) factions are getting for those points is getting absurd (primarily in terms of weapons, which they've never done well at balancing against the theoretical 'base cost' of the model)


'Cheaper than grots' is a deflection that doesn't answer anything- grots aren't priced right either.

Voss wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:

Hecaton wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:
You keep trying to use points changes like a hammer, but not every problem is a nail.

You need to explain why this specific problem isn't, though. Otherwise that's a very weak argument.

Guard do not need to be as cheap as or cheaper than Grits. They need their core mechanics to be better instead.

I don't know who else here has played WFB towards its end but that game raced to the bottom to the point where you had models worth half a point. 100 Skaven Slaves for 50 points. It was ridiculous and only served to hurt the game by letting things continue to trend down. If anything more things need to trend up instead.

We just did that. Literally, 9th started with a nigh-universal points bump. It didn't matter, primarily because they didn't leave enough room at the bottom. And now what (some) factions are getting for those points is getting absurd (primarily in terms of weapons, which they've never done well at balancing against the theoretical 'base cost' of the model)


'Cheaper than grots' is a deflection that doesn't answer anything- grots aren't priced right either.

I agree, they didn't bring points far enough up.

And I didn't say that Grots were priced correctly, I said that at no point should Guardsmen be the same points cost or cheaper than Grots.

 ClockworkZion wrote:

I agree, they didn't bring points far enough up.

And I didn't say that Grots were priced correctly, I said that at no point should Guardsmen be the same points cost or cheaper than Grots.

That's a non-sequitur argument; fundamentally we're arguing about whether Guard are priced right vs. Custodes, Vertus Praetors, Tyranid monsters, etc.

 ClockworkZion wrote:

Voss wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:

Hecaton wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:
You keep trying to use points changes like a hammer, but not every problem is a nail.

You need to explain why this specific problem isn't, though. Otherwise that's a very weak argument.

Guard do not need to be as cheap as or cheaper than Grits. They need their core mechanics to be better instead.

I don't know who else here has played WFB towards its end but that game raced to the bottom to the point where you had models worth half a point. 100 Skaven Slaves for 50 points. It was ridiculous and only served to hurt the game by letting things continue to trend down. If anything more things need to trend up instead.

We just did that. Literally, 9th started with a nigh-universal points bump. It didn't matter, primarily because they didn't leave enough room at the bottom. And now what (some) factions are getting for those points is getting absurd (primarily in terms of weapons, which they've never done well at balancing against the theoretical 'base cost' of the model)


'Cheaper than grots' is a deflection that doesn't answer anything- grots aren't priced right either.

I agree, they didn't bring points far enough up.

And I didn't say that Grots were priced correctly, I said that at no point should Guardsmen be the same points cost or cheaper than Grots.

That's a terrible argument, though. You're basically saying they can't fix guard unless they fix grots first. That's not productive.
Neither relies on, or needs to be predicated on, the other. And given that GW won't change grots because doesn't want to see lots of grots because its against what they see as 'the spirit of the army,' using grots as a comparison point for guard is utterly terrible.

Sorry to ork players, but that's effectively set in stone. Guard (and cultists) don't need to suffer because of it, however.

Hecaton wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:

I agree, they didn't bring points far enough up.

And I didn't say that Grots were priced correctly, I said that at no point should Guardsmen be the same points cost or cheaper than Grots.

That's a non-sequitur argument; fundamentally we're arguing about whether Guard are priced right vs. Custodes, Vertus Praetors, Tyranid monsters, etc.

One of the posts in this thread specifically mentioned making Guard cheaper. It's the whole reason I said they shouldn't be getting cheaper.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Voss wrote:
That's a terrible argument, though. You're basically saying they can't fix guard unless they fix grots first. That's not productive.
Neither relies on, or needs to be predicated on, the other. And given that GW won't change grots because doesn't want to see lots of grots because its against what it sees as 'the spirit of the army,' using grots as a comparison point for guard is utterly terrible.

No, no I'm not. Nice strawman though. Needs fresher straw though, it's getting moldy.

What I've been saying for several posts now is this: POINTS REDUCTIONS ALONE IS NOT THE CORRECT METHOD TO LIFT UP WEAK UNITS AS NOT ALL PROBLEMS ARE A NAIL WAITING TO BE HAMMERED DOWN VIA POINTS ADJUSTMENTS. GAME BALANCE IS MORE NUANCED AND INVOLVES PULLING DIFFERENT LEVELS SUCH AS UPDATING DATASHEETS, CORE RULES FOR THE FACTION IN QUESTION OR CHANGING CORE GAME MECHANICS IN ADDITION TO POINTS CHANGES.

So are you done shoving words in my mouth? Good.

I'm not saying Grots need to be fixed first, I'm saying that Guard, who have better stats and equipment than Grots shouldn't ever be priced the same as Grots, or heaven forbid be even cheaper. If they're as bad or worse than Grots then other levers should be pulled to make them better instead of just making them cheaper.

 ClockworkZion wrote:

One of the posts in this thread specifically mentioned making Guard cheaper. It's the whole reason I said they shouldn't be getting cheaper.

Well then your idea about there being different "tiers" of army is completely unworkable and should be ignored.

 ClockworkZion wrote:
No, no I'm not. Nice strawman though. Needs fresher straw though, it's getting moldy.

No, that's exactly what you're saying, multiple people in this thread can see it, and we're not falling for your attempts at evading being called out.

 ClockworkZion wrote:
What I've been saying for several posts now is this: POINTS REDUCTIONS ALONE IS NOT THE CORRECT METHOD TO LIFT UP WEAK UNITS AS NOT ALL PROBLEMS ARE A NAIL WAITING TO BE HAMMERED DOWN VIA POINTS ADJUSTMENTS. GAME BALANCE IS MORE NUANCED AND INVOLVES PULLING DIFFERENT LEVELS SUCH AS UPDATING DATASHEETS, CORE RULES FOR THE FACTION IN QUESTION OR CHANGING CORE GAME MECHANICS IN ADDITION TO POINTS CHANGES.

You can say that, but you haven't shown how Guard specifically wouldn't be aided by points changes. Once you figure that you you might have an argument.

 ClockworkZion wrote:
So are you done shoving words in my mouth? Good.

I'm not saying Grots need to be fixed first, I'm saying that Guard, who have better stats and equipment than Grots shouldn't ever be priced the same as Grots, or heaven forbid be even cheaper. If they're as bad or worse than Grots then other levers should be pulled to make them better instead of just making them cheaper.

Or we could make Grots even cheaper than that. You still haven't presented an argument as to why that isn't workable, just using bold caps-lock text as if yelling will make your baseless points more true.

Hecaton wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:

One of the posts in this thread specifically mentioned making Guard cheaper. It's the whole reason I said they shouldn't be getting cheaper.

Well then your idea about there being different "tiers" of army is completely unworkable and should be ignored.

Tiers use a seperate mechanic than points for balancing. In Blood Bowl they use Team Value, and I pointed towards Power Level as a way it could be done in 40k. You're the person who keeps saying it has to be points.

Hecaton wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:
No, no I'm not. Nice strawman though. Needs fresher straw though, it's getting moldy.

No, that's exactly what you're saying, multiple people in this thread can see it, and we're not falling for your attempts at evading being called out.

No, you keep making statements that points can fix everything and when you're disagreed with you go "no, that can still be fixed with points" without actually showing how merely moving points up and down magically fixes issues involved in complexity.

Hecaton wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:
What I've been saying for several posts now is this: POINTS REDUCTIONS ALONE IS NOT THE CORRECT METHOD TO LIFT UP WEAK UNITS AS NOT ALL PROBLEMS ARE A NAIL WAITING TO BE HAMMERED DOWN VIA POINTS ADJUSTMENTS. GAME BALANCE IS MORE NUANCED AND INVOLVES PULLING DIFFERENT LEVELS SUCH AS UPDATING DATASHEETS, CORE RULES FOR THE FACTION IN QUESTION OR CHANGING CORE GAME MECHANICS IN ADDITION TO POINTS CHANGES.

You can say that, but you haven't shown how Guard specifically wouldn't be aided by points changes. Once you figure that you you might have an argument.

The only points changes that'd help guard is by taking basically everything in the game that's better than them and ratcheting them up in points, because making things cheaper as a means of buffing is only a negative to the game as I clearly pointed out with how WFB's race to the bottom with points was unhealthy for the game.

Hecaton wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:
So are you done shoving words in my mouth? Good.

I'm not saying Grots need to be fixed first, I'm saying that Guard, who have better stats and equipment than Grots shouldn't ever be priced the same as Grots, or heaven forbid be even cheaper. If they're as bad or worse than Grots then other levers should be pulled to make them better instead of just making them cheaper.

Or we could make Grots even cheaper than that. You still haven't presented an argument as to why that isn't workable, just using bold caps-lock text as if yelling will make your baseless points more true.

Or we can stop pretending that we need to keep pushing things down until Grots cost a point each.

Anyone who thinks points is the only way to fix this game is gak at game design. Period. You do not understand game design if points costs is your argument on how to fix the game's problems.

 ClockworkZion wrote:

Tiers use a seperate mechanic than points for balancing. In Blood Bowl they use Team Value, and I pointed towards Power Level as a way it could be done in 40k. You're the person who keeps saying it has to be points.

Bull. You're the one saying it *can't* be points, and I'm saying "prove it" - you're discounting the fact that in blood bowl there are 11 models on the field, so you can't just drop points as a balancing mechanism the same way .

 ClockworkZion wrote:

No, you keep making statements that points can fix everything and when you're disagreed with you go "no, that can still be fixed with points" without actually showing how merely moving points up and down magically fixes issues involved in complexity.

You made the initial claim, and you've failed to make an argument that supports your claim. I'm guessing because you can't, really, you just don't like the idea.

 ClockworkZion wrote:

The only points changes that'd help guard is by taking basically everything in the game that's better than them and ratcheting them up in points, because making things cheaper as a means of buffing is only a negative to the game as I clearly pointed out with how WFB's race to the bottom with points was unhealthy for the game.

Not necessarily applicable here, and would have similar gameplay effects as increasing the points on everything else. But even if we accept that what you're saying is true, it would immediately give the lie to your statement that points adjustments can't solve the problem.

 ClockworkZion wrote:

Or we can stop pretending that we need to keep pushing things down until Grots cost a point each.

Nobody's pretending that.

 ClockworkZion wrote:
Anyone who thinks points is the only way to fix this game is gak at game design. Period. You do not understand game design if points costs is your argument on how to fix the game's problems.

I never said it was the only way. You're saying that it *cannot* work and I'm saying that's an unsupported statement. Any statement about design from you should be taken with a grain of salt given you can't even make arguments without contradicting earlier ones. And I guarantee I understand game design better than you, but that's neither here nor there.

Hecatron, you're telling me to prove a negative. How about you stop employing an unfalsifiable argument and prove it can work.

I'm not sure the Blood Bowl tier system works entirely how you think it does, based on how you talk about it.

Firstly, Bloodbowl has a strong limit of 11 guys on the field at once, this presents a hard limit to how far points can help balance a faction in a way that 40k hasn't got.

Secondly, the tiers are not balanced.
Halflings as a tier 3 team are absolutely a massive uphill struggle. Yes they have a bunch of special rules, but they're tier 3 in spite of that.
Tiers don't really have anything to do with the number of special rules a player has - at least not directly.
But you do notice a tendency for the better teams to have high stats to reliably brute force their way through problems. Whereas the bottom tiers are Stunties how have a lot of special rules representing how small they are, but also low stats for the same reasons so they struggle to actually achieve anything.

In tournaments it's common to give out a bunch of additional buffs to low tier teams (usually in the form of additional skills) to rebalance things.
In other leagues/tournaments it's common for the veterans to use the low tier teams to voluntarily hobble themselves and give the less experienced players a shot.

The Bloodbowl system is absolutely rubber stamping "Halflings suck, if you want to win play Dwarves".
It works for Blood Bowl because teams are small and cheap. It won't work for 40k because armies are very much neither of those.




Automatically Appended Next Post:
As for points, we have shown it can work for the stated aim of making armies more competitive.

Your response was "well I don't like that result".
Well... tough.
I don't even disagree - I don't want Guard to the worst troops in the game anymore than you do. My point is until they get around to redesigning their rules they need to rebalance them, and that means points.
I'm using Guard as the example but it applies to any such imbalance.

 kirotheavenger wrote:
I'm not sure the Blood Bowl tier system works entirely how you describe it.

Firstly, Bloodbowl has a strong limit of 11 guys on the field at once, this presents a hard limit to how far points can help balance a faction in a way that 40k isn't.

Secondly, the tiers are not balanced.
Halflings as a tier 3 team are absolutely a massive uphill struggle. Yes they have a bunch of special rules, but they're tier 3 in spite of that.

In tournaments it's common to give out a bunch of additional buffs to low tier teams (usually in the form of additional skills) to rebalance things.

The Bloodbowl system is absolutely rubber stamping "Halflings suck, if you want to win play Dwarves".
It works for Blood Bowl because teams are small and cheap. It won't work for 40k because armies are very much neither of those.

You're ignoring allotments (like purchasable re-rolls, referee bribes, ect), or how teams on lower tiers have lower TV's which give them more allotments or even star players access at the start of the game.

Also some teams can field extra players (namely snotlings).

I'm only ignoring them because I wasn't trying to go for a detailed breakdown of every mechanic in Bloodbowl.

Point is, Halflings (or Goblings, or whatever), are noticeably worse than Dwarves (or Skaven, or Woodelves, or whatever).

None of the allotments or inducements rebalance that at equivalent team values.

Tournaments rebalance them by giving Halflings substantially more Team Value. But this is not accounted for in core rules.

 kirotheavenger wrote:
I'm only ignoring them because I wasn't trying to go for a detailed breakdown of every mechanic in Bloodbowl.

Point is, Halflings (or Goblings, or whatever), are noticeably worse than Dwarves (or Skaven, or Woodelves, or whatever).

None of the allotments or inducements rebalance that at equivalent team values.

Tournaments rebalance them by giving Halflings substantially more Team Value. But this is not accounted for in core rules.

My point was the mechanic has merit and could be applied to 40k as an additional level that could be used, not that Blood Bowl perfectly executed the idea.

Heck the fact that tournaments CAN adjust TV to level the playing field shows that it'd be valuable for the competitive scene when GW is busy refusing to update armies for long periods of time or generally fixing other balance issues.

When you say tier system it confuses me, because I don't know what you mean.

Do you want the Blood Bowl system, which is specifically designed to show how some teams are worse than others.

Or do you still want all armies to be equally viable?
In which case what's this tier system doing? Complexity tier?
Sure, I can get behind that.
But then I don't really see the relevance to Bloodbowl tiers at all.

 kirotheavenger wrote:
When you say tier system it confuses me, because I don't know what you mean.

Do you want the Blood Bowl system, which is specifically designed to show how some teams are worse than others.

Or do you still want all armies to be equally viable?
In which case what's this tier system doing? Complexity tier?
Sure, I can get behind that.
But then I don't really see the relevance to Bloodbowl tiers at all.

The Blood Bowl tier system does more than go "this team isn't as innately easy to win with as that team" but serves as the core of how teams are designed and how the allotment system works. A clear cut system of telling players how complex their army is to play and how it can make it harder to win with is something that should be communicated to players because armies are not all innately equally easy to win with because the differences between statlines and wargear create massive differences in how armies work. Additionally having a different level for balance that goes "this army has things that are too strong/weak but we don't want to reduce or increase the number of models on the table so we can give the army extra bonuses against stronger armies, or give their opponents more bonuses in non-mirror matches so let's adjust the army's power level" would give an additional lever to pull outside of changing points, or changing rules when the issue isn't the army that's updated to where the game's supposed to be balanced to, but rather the armies that aren't up to date.

I'm not claiming that the game can just slap this onto 9th, this is a system that would need to be built in from the ground up around this additional level but having more levers to balance the same outside of making armies bigger or smaller is important.

 ClockworkZion wrote:
Hecatron, you're telling me to prove a negative. How about you stop employing an unfalsifiable argument and prove it can work.

Maybe you shouldn't have made that claim then if it can't be proven.

The Bloodbowl tier system has no impact on allotments/inducements. Players have a gold cost, supportstaff/rerolls have a gold cost, skills/stat advancements have a gold cost equivalance. Combined these create an overall team value - that is what impacts inducements.

The tier system doesn't add any levers for balance at all. In fact the whole thing is literally GW/the community accepting it isn't balanced.

We already have some community effort to create tiers in 40k. You can look up any army and get a tier ranking for their units for example.

A tier system doesn't add anything, it's an acknowledgement of failure to balance.