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Hecaton wrote:

...except you could buy something else from the game store. If you don't have some irresistible compulsion to buy GW stuff and only GW stuff because you worship the company for some reason...

And it's very convenient for you to say that no boycott of GW is possible because it will hurt precious LGS's more than them. Almost like you don't want people to stop buying GW products, and are flailing around for a justification for it...

Not at all, you are right, they could go buy something else if they're so inclined, but a lot of people will want to play 40k even if they don't agree with GW. So yes they can boycott Votann or whatever, but they'll just play what they have. Of course they could try a different game but that's a personal choice.

I'm not flailing at all, find me an example of 1 effective GW boycott please and I'll rewind my comments. Unlike the above suggestion from EP, Votann were boycotted before they were released, which is to say, not a boycott.

It's actually a weird sociological thing in the US more than anything else, you don't tend to see other people's doing it like this.

I've talked about "remedial statements" all over this thread. Re-implement a points-like system is one of them. You can go looking for it.

Good for you, I think most have at some point, some have not. I was using that statement as an example.

No, that's Daed and the other pro-PL crowd's argument. I gave good reasons for mine.

I'm sure they feel they gave good reasons for theirs too, you don't have to just discredit them due to not agreeing, which is a point you raised.

I mean that kind of is what you suggest; you're saying no criticism, no boycotts, this state of the game being gak will continue forever and to want more is wrong.

I never said no criticisms, to want more is fine, to act towards it is fine, to just moan at the internet endlessly and gak on other people's joy isn't. Raise the complaint, discuss it as needed, move on to those other games you advocate.

There will always be some donkey-caves, but the vast majority of people are calling GW out for good reasons and would stop if GW stopped doing those things. The issue is, you don't see those good reasons because you don't approach the game for its merits. See my earlier comment about some people having a parasocial relationship with GW, not a customer/business relationship.

Not at all, it fulfills a want to a degree I find acceptable. I like to play games with my buddies and roll some dice, we like the setting, we like the minis and the rules are passable enough to play a game for a few hours. Their supply is meeting my demand. I will admit a degree of Sunken cost fallacy exists in that equation but the product as sold is, for me, up to a standard that fulfils my needs.

Dudeface wrote:

Not at all, you are right, they could go buy something else if they're so inclined, but a lot of people will want to play 40k even if they don't agree with GW, so yes the can boycott Votann or whatever, but they'll just ay what they have. Of course they could play a different game but that's a personal choice.

I'm not flailing at all, find me an example of 1 effective GW boycott please and I'll remind my comments. Unlike the above suggestion from EP, Votann were boycotted before they were released, which is to say, not a boycott.

It's actually a weird sociological thing in the US more than anything else, you don't tend to see other people's doing it like this.

Huh? You weren't saying a boycott isn't effective, you were saying it's morally wrong to do - so giving evidence of an effective boycott wouldn't help that. Either you're moving the goalposts or don't understand what you yourself are saying.

Dudeface wrote:
Good for you, I think most have at some point, some have not. I was using that statement as an example.

It's irrelevant to the conversation; you're only using it because it's easier to argue against than what people are actually saying.

Dudeface wrote:
I'm sure they feel they gave good reasons for theirs too, you don't have to just discredit them due to not agreeing, which is a point you raised.

Nah, when they avoid answering posts that discredit the points they're making, it's tantamount to saying that the evidence doesn't matter, they're right because they're right.

Dudeface wrote:

I never said no criticisms, to want more is fine, to act towards it is fine, to just moan at the internet endlessly and gak on other people's joy isn'traise the complaint, discuss it as needed, move on to those other games you advocate.

If someone says something blatantly incorrect ("PL is better for casual gaming!") I will correct them and explain why. And I do play those other games, and discuss them. I also advocate for 40k to be better.

Dudeface wrote:
Not at all, it fulfills a want to a degree I find acceptable. I like to play games with my buddies and roll some dice, we like the setting, we like the minis and the rules are passable enough to play a game for a few hours. Their supply is meeting my demand. I will admit a degree of Sunken cost fallacy exists in that equation but the product as sold is, for me, up to a standard that fulfils my needs.

I need games where they outcome is decided at the table, not by a codex writer in Nottingham who's bad at math and who gets an erection when making their least favorite faction's codex underpowered. It's a waste of time to play games where the outcome is predetermined, or where the players need to re-balance it themselves via "discussion" before playing.

Hecaton wrote:

Dudeface wrote:

Not at all, you are right, they could go buy something else if they're so inclined, but a lot of people will want to play 40k even if they don't agree with GW, so yes the can boycott Votann or whatever, but they'll just ay what they have. Of course they could play a different game but that's a personal choice.

I'm not flailing at all, find me an example of 1 effective GW boycott please and I'll remind my comments. Unlike the above suggestion from EP, Votann were boycotted before they were released, which is to say, not a boycott.

It's actually a weird sociological thing in the US more than anything else, you don't tend to see other people's doing it like this.

Huh? You weren't saying a boycott isn't effective, you were saying it's morally wrong to do - so giving evidence of an effective boycott wouldn't help that. Either you're moving the goalposts or don't understand what you yourself are saying.

Also I fail to see how my Votaan example isn't a boycott in its own right.

Hecaton wrote:

Dudeface wrote:

Not at all, you are right, they could go buy something else if they're so inclined, but a lot of people will want to play 40k even if they don't agree with GW, so yes the can boycott Votann or whatever, but they'll just ay what they have. Of course they could play a different game but that's a personal choice.

I'm not flailing at all, find me an example of 1 effective GW boycott please and I'll remind my comments. Unlike the above suggestion from EP, Votann were boycotted before they were released, which is to say, not a boycott.

It's actually a weird sociological thing in the US more than anything else, you don't tend to see other people's doing it like this.

Huh? You weren't saying a boycott isn't effective, you were saying it's morally wrong to do - so giving evidence of an effective boycott wouldn't help that. Either you're moving the goalposts or don't understand what you yourself are saying.

Dudeface wrote:
Good for you, I think most have at some point, some have not. I was using that statement as an example.

It's irrelevant to the conversation; you're only using it because it's easier to argue against than what people are actually saying.

Dudeface wrote:
I'm sure they feel they gave good reasons for theirs too, you don't have to just discredit them due to not agreeing, which is a point you raised.

Nah, when they avoid answering posts that discredit the points they're making, it's tantamount to saying that the evidence doesn't matter, they're right because they're right.

Dudeface wrote:

I never said no criticisms, to want more is fine, to act towards it is fine, to just moan at the internet endlessly and gak on other people's joy isn'traise the complaint, discuss it as needed, move on to those other games you advocate.

If someone says something blatantly incorrect ("PL is better for casual gaming!") I will correct them and explain why. And I do play those other games, and discuss them. I also advocate for 40k to be better.

Dudeface wrote:
Not at all, it fulfills a want to a degree I find acceptable. I like to play games with my buddies and roll some dice, we like the setting, we like the minis and the rules are passable enough to play a game for a few hours. Their supply is meeting my demand. I will admit a degree of Sunken cost fallacy exists in that equation but the product as sold is, for me, up to a standard that fulfils my needs.

I need games where they outcome is decided at the table, not by a codex writer in Nottingham who's bad at math and who gets an erection when making their least favorite faction's codex underpowered. It's a waste of time to play games where the outcome is predetermined, or where the players need to re-balance it themselves via "discussion" before playing.

And yet you still play 40k?

ccs wrote:

And yet you still play 40k?

Not very much. I play other games much more often. I'll also argue that games where the outcome isn't predetermined by imbalance are objectively better.

Hecaton wrote:

ccs wrote:

And yet you still play 40k?

Not very much. I play other games much more often. I'll also argue that games where the outcome isn't predetermined by imbalance are objectively better.

Uh oh, you played once or twice. That means all criticisms are invalid!

EviscerationPlague wrote:

Hecaton wrote:

ccs wrote:

And yet you still play 40k?

Not very much. I play other games much more often. I'll also argue that games where the outcome isn't predetermined by imbalance are objectively better.

Uh oh, you played once or twice. That means all criticisms are invalid!

Right, it's the option select by ccs. If I play it a lot, then obviously the game is good enough despite my objections. If I don't play it, I'm not allowed to have an opinion.

I exist in this weird middle state, though, wonder how he's gonna spin it.

Hecaton wrote:

EviscerationPlague wrote:

Hecaton wrote:

ccs wrote:

And yet you still play 40k?

Not very much. I play other games much more often. I'll also argue that games where the outcome isn't predetermined by imbalance are objectively better.

Uh oh, you played once or twice. That means all criticisms are invalid!

Right, it's the option select by ccs. If I play it a lot, then obviously the game is good enough despite my objections. If I don't play it, I'm not allowed to have an opinion.

I exist in this weird middle state, though, wonder how he's gonna spin it.

Just seems strange when someone lists all the things they don't want in a game & then gives the impression/admits that they still play a game where they can get exactly the experience they don't want....

40k is one of the easiest systems to get a game in, and one where we've already invested a considerable amount of money and energy . . . So like, how dare us for wanting it to be better!?

Is that the argument?

 Insectum7 wrote:
40k is one of the easiest systems to get a game in, and one where we've already invested a considerable amount of money and energy . . . So like, how dare us for wanting it to be better!?

Is that the argument?

Does that surprise you that's the basis of the argument?

I have played 3 games of 10th and enjoyed zero for the same reasons I didn't enjoy ninth, so...

Yeah. The rules are free and I have the minis. Figured I would give it a fair shake. It didn't pan out. The end.

What didn't you like about 10th?

Tsagualsa wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:


I don't know about you, but 1% of my list isn't worth stressing about if the unit works the way I want it to.

To put it bluntly, what you do here is ass-backwards sophistry. You can arrive at any conclusion you want by assigning arbitrary value to things and then obfuscating the lot of it with pseudo-accurarcy in form of lengthy calculations that serve no deeper purpose. Yes, 1% of a list is not something worth 'stressing', but these percentages are everywhere, and accumulate. Yes, you can construct extreme outlier scenarios where a loadout that is strictly better in 90-95% of cases is only as good as the lesser one, or maybe even worse, but that has no bearing on averages. I don't know if you're making these wild jumps between nitpicky tablework and 'just assume 5 here, and 10 there, and bob's your uncle' out of motivated reasoning or if you're successfully confused yourself with the enormeous amount of writing you have dedicated to this issue that is immediately obvious to most people, but the hoop-jumping and shadow-boxing you're doing here is just stunningly, utterly amazing.

Okie dokie. I'm done engaging. You didn't have a perfect system then. You won't have a perfect system now, but you'll jump through your own hoops to pretend like you had something more functional then. Ring me when you've solved it.

 Daedalus81 wrote:

Tsagualsa wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:


I don't know about you, but 1% of my list isn't worth stressing about if the unit works the way I want it to.

To put it bluntly, what you do here is ass-backwards sophistry. You can arrive at any conclusion you want by assigning arbitrary value to things and then obfuscating the lot of it with pseudo-accurarcy in form of lengthy calculations that serve no deeper purpose. Yes, 1% of a list is not something worth 'stressing', but these percentages are everywhere, and accumulate. Yes, you can construct extreme outlier scenarios where a loadout that is strictly better in 90-95% of cases is only as good as the lesser one, or maybe even worse, but that has no bearing on averages. I don't know if you're making these wild jumps between nitpicky tablework and 'just assume 5 here, and 10 there, and bob's your uncle' out of motivated reasoning or if you're successfully confused yourself with the enormeous amount of writing you have dedicated to this issue that is immediately obvious to most people, but the hoop-jumping and shadow-boxing you're doing here is just stunningly, utterly amazing.

Okie dokie. I'm done engaging. You didn't have a perfect system then. You won't have a perfect system now, but you'll jump through your own hoops to pretend like you had something more functional then. Ring me when you've solved it.

Ummmm ...pretty sure that the reverse is true. You're "jumping through hoops" to pretend that the current system is "functional" (it isn't, btw).

C'mon, Daed. They absolutely failed in the "sidegrade" concept. It conceptually could have been done. But they didn't do it. I'll admit that some of the theories as to why are insulting (laziness, incompetence). But they still didn't do it . For whatever reason.

 Gadzilla666 wrote:

C'mon, Daed. They absolutely failed in the "sidegrade" concept. It conceptually could have been done. But they didn't do it. I'll admit that some of the theories as to why are insulting (laziness, incompetence). But they still didn't do it . For whatever reason.

Incompetence isn't insulting when it's a genuine thing. Some people are just incompetent at certain tasks.

 Daedalus81 wrote:
... like you had something more functional then.

So now we're just going to act as if the previous points system didn't work? And that that the new "points" system is better?

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:
... like you had something more functional then.

So now we're just going to act as if the previous points system didn't work? And that that the new "points" system is better?

To me it seems like people are comparing PL in its perfected form with the flawed execution of pts. Are datasheet options, codex datasheets and codexes more internally balanced, balance between codexes? Okay so execution is worse. Theoretically PL is just pts without pts for options that are superior like sponsons without an alternative Movement buff.

Building PL lists isn't much faster because using all your pts can be a tricky puzzle. So if you don't like the that puzzle you are left with nothing. Switching weapons is just as easy in pts, just pay for the most expensive option, easy to downgrade as you please, if the downgrade happens to make your list stronger you can grab an extra dude somewhere in your list.

 Daedalus81 wrote:

Tsagualsa wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:


I don't know about you, but 1% of my list isn't worth stressing about if the unit works the way I want it to.

To put it bluntly, what you do here is ass-backwards sophistry. You can arrive at any conclusion you want by assigning arbitrary value to things and then obfuscating the lot of it with pseudo-accurarcy in form of lengthy calculations that serve no deeper purpose. Yes, 1% of a list is not something worth 'stressing', but these percentages are everywhere, and accumulate. Yes, you can construct extreme outlier scenarios where a loadout that is strictly better in 90-95% of cases is only as good as the lesser one, or maybe even worse, but that has no bearing on averages. I don't know if you're making these wild jumps between nitpicky tablework and 'just assume 5 here, and 10 there, and bob's your uncle' out of motivated reasoning or if you're successfully confused yourself with the enormeous amount of writing you have dedicated to this issue that is immediately obvious to most people, but the hoop-jumping and shadow-boxing you're doing here is just stunningly, utterly amazing.

Okie dokie. I'm done engaging. You didn't have a perfect system then. You won't have a perfect system now, but you'll jump through your own hoops to pretend like you had something more functional then. Ring me when you've solved it.

They're not wrong though. You literally concocted a bunch of theoretical numbers from out of nowhere, declared the imbalance for grav weapons to equal 1% of a list without any justification, then justified your conclusion using those made-up numbers. Change the made-up numbers to 10%, or 23.6692% or any other fanciful number you want and the argument totally changes. You can't even claim this was just a rough example, because the whole point of the argument is that the value of that discrepancy matters.

For the millionth time, nobody expects a perfect system. PL is points, just with way less granularity. So any imperfection in the points system is magnified by the PL system. Even worse, the PL system has no real way to adjust for that imbalance. A points system has all the worthwhile advantages of a PL system, while also being easier to adjust to get closer to a balanced game. So if you want a "solution", it's already been invented and it's called points. It won't be perfect, but it will be much better than PL can achieve.

 vict0988 wrote:
Building PL lists isn't much faster because using all your pts can be a tricky puzzle.

I've built a ton of lists for 10th so far, and every single time it is an absolute chore. There's no choice. There's no give and take. No sacrifice.

I take the things I want to take (because there are virtually no restrictions now), and then I'm left going "What costs 145 points?" or "Is there anything in the list that costs 35 points?". And when the answer is no, or there is but it's a special character for an army I don't play (Marine list is really guilty of this), or its for something I don't own, I can't just reduce a squad size here and there to free up points, or downgrade Lascannons to Missile Launchers to free up points, or ditch the sponsons on something to free up 10 points.

I can't even take a Tactical Squad and a damned Razorback now because they're locked at 10, Combat Squads is gone, and despite giving the rule to other armies, the Razorback didn't get a split unit rule! The Razorback is a barely functional unit that now. I think it can only carry 5 units now (5-man Dev Squads, non-Jump Assault, non-Jump Vanguard, Command Squads and Servitors) and nothing else (as now all Sternguard are Tacticus, even if they aren't! ).

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:
... like you had something more functional then.

So now we're just going to act as if the previous points system didn't work? And that that the new "points" system is better?

And we all know when GW is moving back to the old system Daedalus will defend it as the best thing ever.

Sgt. Cortez wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:
... like you had something more functional then.

So now we're just going to act as if the previous points system didn't work? And that that the new "points" system is better?

And we all know when GW is moving back to the old system Daedalus will defend it as the best thing ever.

Which would be nice because you'd all be in agreement and happy then, right?

 Daedalus81 wrote:
How are you costing weapons? Just into their preferred targets? What happens if they face a mixed force - what is their value then? What about PG or Melta in half range? Cover? Stationary? What if it's hazardous?

I'd like to give an answer to this as I went through the same kind of questions when I did the points for my homebrew.

Weapons are costed for their raw stats and special rules*, if applicable. You can't argue for a lascannon to be worth next to nil just because the current meta is full of 5pts horde bodies. Or the other way around, that a heavy bolter shouldn't cost anything because everybody brings as many vehicles as possible.

Weapons with strength values of 7-10 pay a higher price for each point of strength than those with 1-6. The reason is twofold:
1. Spamming only high end weapons should not be a viable strategy against armies that bring a lot of cheap bodies.
2. Vehicles under these rules use the old AV system. They are immune to small arms fire and pay a relatively big cost already just for their hulls. Weapons that can counter them needed an adjustment to get closer to the goal of a 33% lethality rate of the system (as well as having more special rules than cheaper guns on average). That means 100 points invested should be able to kill 33 points when attacking their preferred target.

These values do not take into account any kind of cover. Cover is quite generous, actually. It confers +2 to your armor save and incurs a -1 to hit penalty for the attacker (if they don't use the "Stand & Shoot" order). Armor saves can be taken in addition to invulnerability saves. So a unit of Death Guard Terminators sitting on an objective in cover is quite the PITA to get rid of... as it should be.

*Special rules are most of the time too complex to translate into points. Good examples are the ones you have given: Melta, Rapid Fire, Suppression and so on. If I can't come up with a fair and logical point cost for it, I handwave them under the increased base cost for a weapon with the respective strength value.

If the game's meta is full of a specific type of unit, it needs to be looked at what is the reason for it. Maybe the missions favour it, maybe the rules are too good, or other units not interesting enough. Sometimes its just real life cost (f.e. Flayed Ones) that skews how often a unit is seen on the table. Some of the reasons need adjustment, somes do not.

Edit:
What I want to say is: There is an absolute value of a weapon. It can't be relative, as then you won't be able to cost anything at all, since "relative" is changing all the time.

 Daedalus81 wrote:

I don't know about you, but 1% of my list isn't worth stressing about if the unit works the way I want it to.

1% of a 2k army is 20 points. 1% over 10 units is 200 points.

There's plenty of room for sub 1% granularity. And there's plenty of space to create lots wiggle room for squeezing extra efficiencies or units into an army.

 Insectum7 wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:

I don't know about you, but 1% of my list isn't worth stressing about if the unit works the way I want it to.

1% of a 2k army is 20 points. 1% over 10 units is 200 points.

There's plenty of room for sub 1% granularity. And there's plenty of space to create lots wiggle room for squeezing extra efficiencies or units into an army.

1 point is 0.05% of 2000 points. 1 point times 400 models is 400 points. There's plenty of room to go back to charging 1PPM for grenades. But I'd rather not.

Breton wrote:
1 point is 0.05% of 2000 points. 1 point times 400 models is 400 points. There's plenty of room to go back to charging 1PPM for grenades. But I'd rather not.

"Sub 1% granularity" is anything between 0 and 20 points. I don't know what you are getting at with 1 point grenades.

a_typical_hero wrote:

Breton wrote:
1 point is 0.05% of 2000 points. 1 point times 400 models is 400 points. There's plenty of room to go back to charging 1PPM for grenades. But I'd rather not.

"Sub 1% granularity" is anything between 0 and 20 points. I don't know what you are getting at with 1 point grenades.

The bait and switch in the original post. 1% of points, then 1% of X units as if they're sharing a common denominator.

1PPM grenades is a poor or perhaps misleading example.

Let's look at some actual upgrades from 9th, specifically Tyranid Warriors.

They came in units of 3-9. If you had a unit of 3, Adrenalin Glands cost 15 points for the whole unit. If you had a unit of 9 however, that same upgrade ended up costing you... also 15 points.

People commented at the time that this was a bad way to do upgrades, as it meant that a minimum-sized squad paid 5 points per model for the same upgrade that a maximum-sized squad paid 1.67 points per model for.

This is a small example of why upgrades should cost points, and should scale to the unit they're with, rather than being blanket one-size fits all costs. This was a small example of this nonsense (and there were others), that 10th takes and makes into a "writ large" situation, where everything is the same regardless of what you take or how many you take.

In summary: Grenades were 1 point per model because you might take 5 guys in a squad, and you might take 8 guys in a squad, and 8 guys with grenades should pay more for them than 5 guys. The fact that we're talking about 1 point per model rather than 10 points per model is irrelevant.

Upgrades. Should. Cost. Points.

a_typical_hero wrote:

Breton wrote:
1 point is 0.05% of 2000 points. 1 point times 400 models is 400 points. There's plenty of room to go back to charging 1PPM for grenades. But I'd rather not.

"Sub 1% granularity" is anything between 0 and 20 points. I don't know what you are getting at with 1 point grenades.

In a system where everything works out in increments of 5 points and most units are bought in block of 5 or 10 grenades at one point per model are not exactly a difficult math problem. Idk, 5 points for frag (for the whole unit) and 10 for krack does not seem like an entirely outlandish cost.

Tsagualsa wrote:

a_typical_hero wrote:

Breton wrote:
1 point is 0.05% of 2000 points. 1 point times 400 models is 400 points. There's plenty of room to go back to charging 1PPM for grenades. But I'd rather not.

"Sub 1% granularity" is anything between 0 and 20 points. I don't know what you are getting at with 1 point grenades.

In a system where everything works out in increments of 5 points and most units are bought in block of 5 or 10 grenades at one point per model are not exactly a difficult math problem. Idk, 5 points for frag (for the whole unit) and 10 for krack does not seem like an entirely outlandish cost.

Well again, it wasn't literally about the grenades, it was about the 1% of Points turning into the 1% of X units, as if X units and Y points are related in any meaningful way.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
1PPM grenades is a poor or perhaps misleading example.

Let's look at some actual upgrades from 9th, specifically Tyranid Warriors.

They came in units of 3-9. If you had a unit of 3, Adrenalin Glands cost 15 points for the whole unit. If you had a unit of 9 however, that same upgrade ended up costing you... also 15 points.

People commented at the time that this was a bad way to do upgrades, as it meant that a minimum-sized squad paid 5 points per model for the same upgrade that a maximum-sized squad paid 1.67 points per model for.

This is a small example of why upgrades should cost points, and should scale to the unit they're with, rather than being blanket one-size fits all costs. This was a small example of this nonsense (and there were others), that 10th takes and makes into a "writ large" situation, where everything is the same regardless of what you take or how many you take.

In summary: Grenades were 1 point per model because you might take 5 guys in a squad, and you might take 8 guys in a squad, and 8 guys with grenades should pay more for them than 5 guys. The fact that we're talking about 1 point per model rather than 10 points per model is irrelevant.

Upgrades. Should. Cost. Points.

and this is also why fractional costs should be at least possible, it makes scaling by unit size a lot easier, its also why the trend some games have jumped on but thankfully GW resisted to "simplify" things with a 0-100 point scale