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2022/02/14 23:17:49
Subject: 9th edition is proven to be far less externally balanced than 8th.
So first off, I specified “external” in the title because I actually believe internal balance is better now. A large chunk of units and list build styles within most books can be viable for that army. Except vehicles, those by in large always suck.
That said while things looked promising at first, it’s becoming quite clear that 9th is very bad at keeping the best armies in check. It’s not pure powercreep, since some of the newer codex’s haven’t been broken (orks, tsons), but it’s clear that too many OP rules are being made. First it was DE and Ad-mech, now it’s custodes, Tyranids, and Tau. Based on leaks Craftworld and Chaos may be the next armies to push the envelope. All these armies have had > 60% winrates at tournaments, with them also often being the most played armies.
Some of you may tell me “oh that’s only in a competitive environment, so who cares?” Or “I only play against/hate SM, so since they’re bad I’m happy.” To this I would tell you those of who play the game feel it at all levels. People refuse to play my custodes outside of competitive games. I’m therefore, forced either to bring another army or bargain some house-rule nerfs if I want to play them in a non-sweaty game. Many newer players are asking how it’s possible to beat their newbie friends Tau list. Neither of these books need to use the best things in their books to win either, it’s just general lists that automatically win.
This is not good balance. I’m used to some level of power creep, but if I can win with no effort just by playing an overturned faction, that’s a huge issue. I’m 8-1 with my custodes, and that one lose was my first test game where I didn’t fully understand the new rules. These are mostly against people who normally prove a challenge against me and certainly outplayed me in some of those wins. All 8 where still crushing victories (especially post CA updates).
People need to start complaining to GW more about this problem. Realistically, only sales numbers will really make a change, but I want them to know that price increases aren’t the only reason why sales are declining.
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2022/02/14 23:21:31
2022/02/15 00:48:27
Subject: 9th edition is proven to be far less externally balanced than 8th.
I think the power of some books is a little more difficult to control. DE took quite a few nerfs ( and some dumb buffs ), but kept on ticking, because what makes them run isn't entirely locked behind points.
Custodes, in theory, should be kept in check by -1D stuff, but they're so god damn efficient it doesn't matter.
T'au is running a ton of units that should promote D2, but people probably still dodge it, because of D1. I haven't had the pleasure of playing them yet, but most of the lists look like they just aim to mostly wipe you out as fast as possible.
Nids are running an AoR with book mechanics that they shouldn't have.
With the Custodes points ping pong and the book schedule so clearly awry is seems GW can't stay ahead of the curve. It's very reminiscent of patching video games after release. I do think they have some overarching design decisions, but nothing is ready to test with everything before it.
Fortunately, we do have an outlet with 6 month CA and 3 month slates, but few want to deal with the seesaw if the spikes are going to be this steep.
I think with enough ( calm ) pressure we could perhaps force GW to put point adjustments in the slate until the book releases calm down or they get their internal issues under control.
2022/02/15 01:56:16
Subject: Re:9th edition is proven to be far less externally balanced than 8th.
That discussion is general catch all thread where people complain about whatever problem they have with the game at large. Where little on real balancing outside of CA complaints. Speaking of…
Gadzilla666 wrote: If the points changes in the dataslate are as minimal as the ones in the latest CA I don't know if they'd make much difference.
Yea, I just think CA is also a victim of the pace of releases on top of schedule delays.
Regardless of the reason, GW released a balance update which hurt the game’s balance. If GW isn’t willing to update the rules digitally in order to solve this, than I’m not willing to buy any of their rules.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2022/02/15 04:28:12
2022/02/15 04:58:11
Subject: 9th edition is proven to be far less externally balanced than 8th.
We spoke for many many pages on the balancing problems of the edition and various ways to dream of changing how to fix that. Pages of discussion on why they don't care about balancing the game (the community overall doesn't care about balance, and bad balance makes them a shed load of money).
Thats also why I sold off my 40k collection, because I grew exhausted with having to buy new models every year to keep up with my powergamer friends that played to break the game.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2022/02/15 04:59:23
2022/02/15 05:20:57
Subject: 9th edition is proven to be far less externally balanced than 8th.
Salt donkey wrote: ...People need to start complaining to GW more about this problem. Realistically, only sales numbers will really make a change, but I want them to know that price increases aren’t the only reason why sales are declining...
People have been complaining about balance at GW near constantly for twenty years. It hasn't made a lick of difference yet.
auticus wrote: We spoke for many many pages on the balancing problems of the edition and various ways to dream of changing how to fix that. Pages of discussion on why they don't care about balancing the game (the community overall doesn't care about balance, and bad balance makes them a shed load of money).
Thats also why I sold off my 40k collection, because I grew exhausted with having to buy new models every year to keep up with my powergamer friends that played to break the game.
Sorry. What I mean is that this edition’s balance is specifically worse than 8th’s. This true both for competitive and non-competitive players. For competitive players, as long as you owned some units used in your factions soup build, you didn’t have to work hard to make a tournament ready army. If you where casual, simpy don’t play soup or knights and you had a fine time. Putting it another way, in 8th you had to optimize your list in order to crush someone.
In 9th, however, you just have to play an OP army to crush everyone else (that will inevitably be nerfed when a newer/more OP army comes out 3-6 months later).
Salt donkey wrote: ...People need to start complaining to GW more about this problem. Realistically, only sales numbers will really make a change, but I want them to know that price increases aren’t the only reason why sales are declining...
People have been complaining about balance at GW near constantly for twenty years. It hasn't made a lick of difference yet.
You’re right, but the community will complain regardless of how good or bad balance actually is. 5th edition is widely considered the most Balanced edition ever. You’d never know this by forums like this, warseer, BoLS lounge, etc. it was not stop complaining about transports being OP, monsters sucking, SM being the worst, etc, etc.
My point is balanced in 9th has taken a step back from 8th, similar to how 6th was a step back from 7th.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2022/02/15 06:55:27
2022/02/15 09:40:11
Subject: 9th edition is proven to be far less externally balanced than 8th.
Salt donkey wrote: 5th edition is widely considered the most Balanced edition ever.
By whom? I thought 5th edition is widely considered the edition ruled/ broken by Space Wolves and Grey Knights.
5th is simply the last edition before the gak hit the fan formally.
Conversely I'd argue that no, 9th has better external balance overall. Some books have been consistently better than others admittedly at this stage, but the fact it's a singular book or two causing problems is significantly better than having impossible to track combinations of units from multiple books in a temporary super faction all throwing gak out the window. I'd argue the individual stand alone factions were maybe better in 8th prior to marines v2, but the rules as a whole imbalanced external combinations due to the impossibility of covering them all.
Actually the damage done by marines v2 actually probably makes 8th so much worse.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2022/02/15 11:11:03
2022/02/15 11:12:05
Subject: 9th edition is proven to be far less externally balanced than 8th.
Yeah. IMHO 5th is where things *started* to jump the shark, but only barely.
Definitely wasn't that balanced though. GW has never successfully balanced an edition. *That said*, which form the imbalance takes is significant too. High Lethality vs. High Durability in the top list for example.
2022/02/15 11:26:58
Subject: 9th edition is proven to be far less externally balanced than 8th.
I think you'd need some evidence of this.
I mean to my mind.
Early 8th - kind of busted rules in general, Imperial (Guilliman) Soup preferred. Then the Eldar book came out.
Mid 8th. Still kind of busted. Imperial soup (with a knight) and Eldar soup preferred.
Late 8th. Marines marines and more marines. Eldar still competitive. Tau considered dreadful, Seigler wins a major with them, Internet briefly considers them mad OP before normalcy is restored.
9th has had power factions but the variety of factions that have placed has been considerable. I think this is because of 9ths nature as a game and so there is less in "my army is odds on to do more damage than yours" even though lethality is incredibly high. DE should have been nerfed earlier. Ad Mech synergies were obviously stupid.
Its probably not great we are going to have a reign of Custodes and Tau with 60%+ win rates. I think its clear GW is giving in to its ever-present desire for Codex creep. But I'm not sure its obviously worse than in 8th where much the same happened.
I also think you need to see if there can be a meta adaption. Part of the odd thing about the LVO was that Custodes, Tyranids and DE were below 25% of lists. A concern therefore if you want to go the distance but if you'd hard skewed to counter Custodes you might just not have run into one before losing against other factions. I suspect Custodes player % will be on the up, but if it tips out at 10-15% is it really apocalyptic for the game?
The issue right now for external balance is that GW has spun the rules reset again and so certain codexes which kind of worked with multi-chapter builds are now wanting. GW should release points updates to recognise this reality. But they need data.
2022/02/15 13:16:26
Subject: 9th edition is proven to be far less externally balanced than 8th.
The more "balance" they add the the game the less "fun stuff" they can include.
Balance advocates despise high variance and randomness even though these types of rules tend to be very fun or comical to your average 40k player. I do not see how GW can create a fun fluffy rule that is also balanced. It will always be either too poor or too overpowered.
Even though 7th had its fair share of problems, the codex's felt like they had more flavor (excluding Orks, SW, and Dark Eldar). I look back at my 7th edition guard and necron codex, or my 5th edition ork and dark eldar books and wonder where the magic was lost.
2022/02/15 13:43:21
Subject: 9th edition is proven to be far less externally balanced than 8th.
Salt donkey wrote: [Sorry. What I mean is that this edition’s balance is specifically worse than 8th’s. This true both for competitive and non-competitive players. For competitive players, as long as you owned some units used in your factions soup build, you didn’t have to work hard to make a tournament ready army. If you where casual, simpy don’t play soup or knights and you had a fine time. Putting it another way, in 8th you had to optimize your list in order to crush someone.
In 9th, however, you just have to play an OP army to crush everyone else (that will inevitably be nerfed when a newer/more OP army comes out 3-6 months later).
That's not true though. You still have to make an effort with 9th to win games. I play Drukhari and haven't won a game. I play Deathwatch and even using Narrative scenarios, haven't won a game. Conversely in 8th I just took whatever Guard stuff I wanted and won all but one game I played with them.
There is not a single army where you are guaranteed a win every single game you play but the Internet being the Internet would like you to believe that is the case. A good player will beat a bad player 9 times out of 10, the 10th being the one where the bad player gets lucky. Looking at tournaments as a way of determining game balance as a whole is an utterly flawed concept because the players at tournaments are playing on a different level to everyone else.
You’re right, but the community will complain regardless of how good or bad balance actually is. 5th edition is widely considered the most Balanced edition ever. You’d never know this by forums like this, warseer, BoLS lounge, etc. it was not stop complaining about transports being OP, monsters sucking, SM being the worst, etc, etc.
My point is balanced in 9th has taken a step back from 8th, similar to how 6th was a step back from 7th.
Considered by whom? My memories of 5th are getting curb stomped by T'au, Blood Angels, and Grey Knights. My friends likely remember having a great Edition where they won loads of games. You may consider 5th to be the best balanced but I would disagree.
2022/02/15 14:10:00
Subject: 9th edition is proven to be far less externally balanced than 8th.
Salt donkey wrote: ...5th edition is widely considered the most Balanced edition ever...
5e's widely considered to have the best core rulebook. It's also where the power creep started growing out of control, and has some of GW's first cases of colossal overcorrections ("nobody's taking Rhinos? Better a) revise the transport rules to let you charge out of them if they stand still, b) revise the damage tables so you need pens to kill them, and c) drop them from 50pts to 35pts, that's obviously going to make people take them in sane quantities and not turn the entire game into parking lots of mechanized SM spam!"). To my recollection 3rd and 4th were way better on the balance front.
I know exactly what you mean OP, but the Orks and TSons books were not externally balanced either.
Orks required the general rules of the game to be altered to nerf their power (rule of 2 for aircraft and rule of 1 squad for buggies). This alphork list that people keep posting about also sounds terrible for the game.
TSons are currently near and dear to me. Yes, they never went on a tournament winning streak like DE, AM, GK, Nids and that now Cust/Tau are starting. But, they are miserable to play against for 8th edition codexes and some 9th edition codexes like Necrons and especially Death Guard. Space Marines sometimes have game into them, but I can tell at list reading stage if the Space Marine I'm about to face is going to stand a chance.
On the attack - They just shred some armies. Either they have no MW defence or massed 24" S4 AP2 is super efficient into them. They also can turn 1 teleport to get off the game ruining alpha strike most people hate.
On the defence - They have an effective army wide 2+ save against D1 attacks, with their terminators being a 1+ and then both targets being able to grab cover to negate AP1 (or AP1 and 2 for the terminators). While massed 5++ makes low volume high AP inefficient.
2022/02/15 14:44:44
Subject: 9th edition is proven to be far less externally balanced than 8th.
EightFoldPath wrote: Orks required the general rules of the game to be altered to nerf their power (rule of 2 for aircraft and rule of 1 squad for buggies). This alphork list that people keep posting about also sounds terrible for the game.
Also an internal balance issue, since aircraft + buggies + mek gunz was winning tournaments, while green tide decidedly isn't.
I'm amazed they still can't do it after dumbing down the gameplay so much it really is just a simple formula of damage output vs damage soak with no tactics to speak of in between.
The old meta is dead and the new meta struggles to be born. Now is the time of munchkins.
2022/02/15 15:11:22
Subject: 9th edition is proven to be far less externally balanced than 8th.
EightFoldPath wrote: Orks required the general rules of the game to be altered to nerf their power (rule of 2 for aircraft and rule of 1 squad for buggies). This alphork list that people keep posting about also sounds terrible for the game.
Also an internal balance issue, since aircraft + buggies + mek gunz was winning tournaments, while green tide decidedly isn't.
What a bunch of uninformed nonsense. Green tide by itself is a symptom of terrible internal balance, unless you want to argue that bringing 1000+ points of single datasheet is healthy for any army.
Green tide only ever is a top tournament build when everything but boyz sucks - which has been the case for so many years, some people seem to mistake this for intention.
What is winning tournaments are two distinct armies with buggies which is freeboota buggies on one side and speed freeks army on the other. Both armies build and play completely differently, sharing only some fast unit elements between them. The third is the goff tempo archetype which is essentially a ton of kill ork stuff running across the board to carve your face in, with no two builds looking like the other.
Almost two thirds of the codex can be considered playable and has been in a top placing list, and almost everything that isn't is either a LoW, a fortification or a support character.
The alphork list is a gimmick list that is famous here at dakka (and no where else, really) because Semper is the one championing it and it is a blast to play. While he has some decent success with it locally, it hasn't really shown up in any grand tournaments.
No proof, just yet another person stating their subjective opinion as absolute truth and telling everyone to complain to GW while they complain to dakka.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2022/02/15 15:15:23
7 Ork facts people always get wrong: Ragnar did not win against Thrakka, but suffered two crushing defeats within a few days of each other. A lasgun is powerful enough to sever an ork's appendage or head in a single, well aimed shot. Orks meks have a better understanding of electrics and mechanics than most Tech Priests. Orks actually do not think that purple makes them harder to see. The joke was made canon by Alex Stewart's Caphias Cain books. Gharkull Blackfang did not even come close to killing the emperor. Orks can be corrupted by chaos, but few of them have any interest in what chaos offers. Orks do not have the power of believe.
2022/02/15 15:29:40
Subject: Re:9th edition is proven to be far less externally balanced than 8th.
I will argue that bringing 1000 points of a single data sheet is unhealthy, but only cause 120 boyz should be under 1k points .
Green tide is great, the only people who I’ve heard complain about it always do it for git reasons. Have other options, but let me take da ladz.
"Us Blood Axes hav lernt' a lot from da humies. How best ta kill 'em, fer example."
— Korporal Snagbrat of the Dreadblade Kommandos
2022/02/15 15:47:20
Subject: 9th edition is proven to be far less externally balanced than 8th.
Jidmah wrote: Almost two thirds of the codex can be considered playable and has been in a top placing list
You're getting on my case about saying the internal balance has issues, then saying a third of the codex is unplayable?
Forgive me for not providing a comprehensive unit-by-unit breakdown of the entire codex with my short remark intended to point out that not everything within the Ork codex is doing great, even while certain units are so successful they had to be heavily limited by rules patch. Didn't realize 'green tide' meant 'an army of literally nothing but Boyz' around here as I've always heard it refer to infantry-based Ork armies, which I haven't seen do nearly as well as the archetypical tournament-winning lists lately.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2022/02/15 15:47:57
When are people going to wake the feth up and realize that the issue is the mission design.
A particular faction and/or specific army build will keep winning because the game has only one mission, only one way to play. There is nothing that changes from one game to the next. It's rinse and repeat each and every time.
There is nothing to push a player to use their army in a different way from game to game.
For anything to change... The meta must change... This places the onus on each new book to enact change throughout the whole environment. Warhammer Tourney-K requires a significant power escalation from book to book to force this change on the play environment lest the whole thing become stale. Historically, this was something the missions / mission design handled. Not any more. No thanks to Mike Brandt.
2022/02/15 15:58:54
Subject: 9th edition is proven to be far less externally balanced than 8th.
oni wrote: When are people going to wake the feth up and realize that the issue is the mission design.
A particular faction and/or specific army build will keep winning because the game has only one mission, only one way to play. There is nothing that changes from one game to the next. It's rinse and repeat each and every time.
There is nothing to push a player to use their army in a different way from game to game.
For anything to change... The meta must change... This places the onus on each new book to enact change throughout the whole environment. Warhammer Tourney-K requires a significant power escalation from book to book to force this change on the play environment lest the whole thing become stale. Historically, this was something the missions / mission design handled. Not any more. No thanks to Mike Brandt.
Ash (Guerilla Miniature Games) had a bit of tirade on this point, the game being just "standing in circles and pushing buttons" on stream, first segment
The old meta is dead and the new meta struggles to be born. Now is the time of munchkins.
2022/02/15 16:06:44
Subject: 9th edition is proven to be far less externally balanced than 8th.
Salt donkey wrote: ...5th edition is widely considered the most Balanced edition ever...
5e's widely considered to have the best core rulebook. It's also where the power creep started growing out of control, and has some of GW's first cases of colossal overcorrections ("nobody's taking Rhinos? Better a) revise the transport rules to let you charge out of them if they stand still, b) revise the damage tables so you need pens to kill them, and c) drop them from 50pts to 35pts, that's obviously going to make people take them in sane quantities and not turn the entire game into parking lots of mechanized SM spam!"). To my recollection 3rd and 4th were way better on the balance front.
3rd edition Blood Angels, 3rd edition Eldar, 3rd edition Iron Warriors. 4th edition Fish of Fury, 4th edition Eldar Wave Serpant Spam.. Just off the top off my head as to what people hated back in 3rd and 4th.
2022/02/15 16:13:34
Subject: 9th edition is proven to be far less externally balanced than 8th.
5th edition probably had the best core rules IMO but the balance was just as jacked. It was the edition of grey.
Grey Knights, Space Wolves, and Necrons. And then things like Nob Biker armies.
That was the first editon I tried to do campaign gaming and narrative gaming coming out of 3rd and 4th edition as a mostly powergaming tournament player and 5th was the first edition I started feeling frustration with the balance disparity because it was impossible to get good narrative games with narrative armies when your opponent wanted to run their tournament nob bikers or paladin armies or space wolf army with 18 rocket launchers.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2022/02/15 16:39:42
2022/02/15 16:22:08
Subject: 9th edition is proven to be far less externally balanced than 8th.
Jidmah wrote: Almost two thirds of the codex can be considered playable and has been in a top placing list
You're getting on my case about saying the internal balance has issues, then saying a third of the codex is unplayable?
Orks currently have 74 datasheets available for play. Two thirds of that is ~49. Show me a single codex in the game that has ever had that many datasheets show up top tournament lists in any edition.
But it gets better, 33 of those datasheets are said characters, lords of war or fortifications. Those are already severely limited by their battlefield role and they will rarely form an archetype or an army's backbone on their own.
Pretty much every "regular" multi-model unit and almost every vehicle in the codex are playable. Any other codex would die for an internal balance comparable to that, even if it means getting your troops gutted.
Heck, I'm not even sure how GW managed to do that well considering how terrible the overall coherency of the rules in the codex is. But you won't see me complaining about having a good book for the first time since 5th.
Forgive me for not providing a comprehensive unit-by-unit breakdown of the entire codex with my short remark intended to point out that not everything within the Ork codex is doing great, even while certain units are so successful they had to be heavily limited by rules patch.
Well, too bad that there isn't a comprehensive unit-by-unit breakdown done by someone here on dakka.
Didn't realize 'green tide' meant 'an army of literally nothing but Boyz' around here as I've always heard it refer to infantry-based Ork armies, which I haven't seen do nearly as well as the archetypical tournament-winning lists lately.
Green tide almost always refers to spamming as many boyz as you can plus support for said boyz.
Many of the goff pressure lists bring large blocks of infantry, kommadoz, snagga boyz, burnas, storm boyz and MANz regularly pop up in top spots. There even have been some people placing in top tens running nobz and lootas.
The only infantry units that are not showing up anywhere are flash gits and tank bustas, but due to their per model costs neither unit would fit in well with an infantry theme anyways.
7 Ork facts people always get wrong: Ragnar did not win against Thrakka, but suffered two crushing defeats within a few days of each other. A lasgun is powerful enough to sever an ork's appendage or head in a single, well aimed shot. Orks meks have a better understanding of electrics and mechanics than most Tech Priests. Orks actually do not think that purple makes them harder to see. The joke was made canon by Alex Stewart's Caphias Cain books. Gharkull Blackfang did not even come close to killing the emperor. Orks can be corrupted by chaos, but few of them have any interest in what chaos offers. Orks do not have the power of believe.
