Do you like the 10th edition approach to unit upgrades?

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**Arschbombe**

chaos0xomega 810334 11567626 null. wrote:

I have never seen a game that increased its point scale to improve "granularity" actually get more balanced.

I would argue that X-wing 2.0 going from 100 point lists to 200 point lists resulted in a marked improvement in game balance with the caveat that there were a lot of other changes that went along with it that were complementary to improving balance. Variable point costs for upgrades, points adjusted periodically as they were no longer printed on the pilot cards, changed upgrade slots on pilots to prevent the worst combos.

X-wing 2.5 changed it back in the opposite direction going from 200 to 20 while making upgrades part of a separate resource pool. It led to the various pilot builds being solved in short order similar to how people are predicting that 10e 40k will go to the one most efficient build for a unit is identified. I can't speak to where this brought the game in terms of balance because these changes blew up my local group and soured my regular online opponent on the game. It was clear that the new design team wanted something very different. To be fair there were other questionable rules changes made by the new crew as well. It wasn't just the points that pushed people away.

**catbarf**

Unit1126PLL wrote:
Yeah, this is cart before the horse.

"Points can't achieve perfect balance so we gave up on balancing altogether" is like the kid that said "I will grow old and die someday and my teeth will rot then so why do I have to brush them now?"

Also, the notion that units in all prior editions neatly slotted into either 'must-take' or 'never-take' is some particularly brazen bs. 9th has been gone for all of a month, and for all its problems it did a good enough job of continuous balance that most units had reasons to exist and be worth considering.

Not that we're in a better position now, because the same system is in place for units. It's just arbitrarily gone for wargear, even stuff that can have as significant an effect as taking extra units.

**Slipspace**

Arschbombe wrote:
chaos0xomega 810334 11567626 null. wrote:

I have never seen a game that increased its point scale to improve "granularity" actually get more balanced.

I would argue that X-wing 2.0 going from 100 point lists to 200 point lists resulted in a marked improvement in game balance with the caveat that there were a lot of other changes that went along with it that were complementary to improving balance. Variable point costs for upgrades, points adjusted periodically as they were no longer printed on the pilot cards, changed upgrade slots on pilots to prevent the worst combos.

I was going to point out the same thing. X-Wing improved balance by doubling its points.

At this point it just seems like bad argument bingo from the PL advocates. chaosXomega's entire post basically boiled down to "points weren't perfect so we might as well go with the worse option anyway". An argument that has been debunked time and again here. It's true that points aren't really linear and most points systems break down beyond certain limits. But given that a standard 40k game is usually somewhere between 1k and 2k it's not really a problem to assume those limits when assigning points. Anyone going massively over those limits will encounter problems beyond just points as the game grinds to a halt fairly quickly once you get towards 3k, in my experience.

chaos0xomega 810334 11567626 null. wrote:
All this talk about PL giving time savings, etc. is just smoke. Its irrelevant, we all know it is. The fact of the matter is that points suck. Y'all were just as pissy and moany about game balance and complained about over-optimized lists when every individual piece of wargear in the game had a point cost associated with it, and endlessly tinkering with those costs never actually really produced the mythical balance that you argue that it would (units went from "must take in every army" to "I'll never take these off the shelf", rarely anything in between), etc. Balance now looks to probably be just as poor, the tweaks probably still won't make anything better, but at least theres no more over-optimization.

The problem is the optimisation is still there, it's just blindingly obvious which direction you need to go to achieve it. Furthermore, the PL system means there's no way to even attempt to balance the various loadouts to try to equalise that imbalance. Just see the Wraithknight for a perfect example of this in action. I'd also argue that towards the end of 9th and right before SM 2.0 in 8th, the game was actually pretty balanced, mainly due to points adjustments since it was still fairly rare to see rules being changed, and certainly not as frequently as points. There will always be outliers, but at least there's the possibility of fixing them under the old system. The current system literally removes the ability to fix most problematic units via points.

**ThePaintingOwl**

Arschbombe wrote:
X-wing 2.5 changed it back in the opposite direction going from 200 to 20 while making upgrades part of a separate resource pool. It led to the various pilot builds being solved in short order similar to how people are predicting that 10e 40k will go to the one most efficient build for a unit is identified. I can't speak to where this brought the game in terms of balance because these changes blew up my local group and soured my regular online opponent on the game. It was clear that the new design team wanted something very different. To be fair there were other questionable rules changes made by the new crew as well. It wasn't just the points that pushed people away.

Yeah, X-Wing 2.5 is a hard one to evaluate. It has some obvious balance issues where certain options are auto-takes but it also has deliberate balance issues. AMG wants you to play a superhero brawl in the middle of the table (the only game they know how to make) with all the coolest named characters so they deliberately made generic pilots weak for their point cost and gave them the most limited upgrade pools. The system itself might have some interesting potential but the way AMG is deliberately using it badly does not.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

MongooseMatt wrote:
It basically boils down to 90% of the effect for 10% of the effort. Think of the new edition's list building as the points equivalent of Contrast paints. You get 90% of everything needed for list building for 10% of the effort, much as Contrast paints do your base, shade and highlights in one pass.

Except that's not how it works. List building with PL/pseudo-PL is not 10% of the effort. It's more like getting 75% of the results for 99.9% of the effort, and often getting 75% of the results for 110% of the effort.

And, actually, you have just reminded me of something, a conversation I had with one of the 40k designers long ago - when it comes to rules writing, they said that if they had a choice between doing a page of rules that covered every possible eventuality or a single paragraph that covered 90% of them... they went with the single paragraph.

I believe its true that GW's writers are really that incompetent but that's a spectacularly bad and lazy way to write rules. Covering 90% of the possibilities makes it easier for the writers but immensely harder and more frustrating for the players as there is no clear resolution when those 10% situations come up in games.

As for smoother, the new system allows for army building within minutes (seconds?) with any addition done in your head or the back of an envelope.

False. The new system takes almost as long as the old one, and often takes longer than the old one. At most you're saving a few seconds in adding up the totals, you're still spending all the same effort on figuring out what you want and writing it all down. And it's often slower because you can only add or remove points in whole-unit increments. If you end up at 1960 out of 2000 points but your cheapest unit is 50 points you can either play 40 points down or try to reshuffle your existing units to find some combination that works out to 1950 or 2000. Under the old system you usually had either 40 points of upgrades to add or 10 points of upgrades to remove.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

MongooseMatt wrote:
- Units get to use wargear that was underutilised before.

But only at the cost of underutilising wargear that was used before. Trading "all sergeants have a laspistol" for "all sergeants have a plasma pistol" isn't an improvement, and PL/pseudo-PL makes it worse by invalidating a larger range of stuff. At least in the normal point system you usually had "most sergeants have a laspistol, some have a bolt pistol, some have a plasma pistol". Now every one of them has a plasma pistol and you're indisputably wrong if you don't take it.

Everything is right at your fingertips and just works so smoothly - in comparison, the last edition was a complete pain in the rear end with points tending to be scattered in different sections, and possibly multiple documents (and I say this as someone who has been playing since 1st edition, 8th and 9th were the two that really did not sit well with me, despite having a great core rules system).

False. All points were in a single downloadable pdf document, with your entire faction's points on 1-2 pages of it. You only had to look through multiple pages (but still the same document) if you wanted to take units from multiple factions.

I heard someone say the other day that they are quite happy for their Marine Sergeant to have the Plasma Pistol or Thunder Hammer, because those things are fundamentally more fun to use than a Bolt Pistol or Chainsword. I find that a difficult argument to beat.

Really? Because I find "I like PL because the overpowered things are the ones I want to use in my army" an easy argument to beat. Balance errors are bad, and people who want to use bolt pistols and chainswords on their sergeants should have their choices be just as valid as plasma pistols and thunder hammers.

**H.B.M.C.**

MongooseMatt wrote:
Yes, this is true, and I have been thinking about this. I have a suspicion (haven't spoken to anyone at GW HQ about this, so unsubstantiated comment coming) this might be intentional, and it is an aid to unit balancing.

It's because of box size, and the number of miniatures that come in a box.

**EviscerationPlague**

H.B.M.C. wrote:
MongooseMatt wrote:
Yes, this is true, and I have been thinking about this. I have a suspicion (haven't spoken to anyone at GW HQ about this, so unsubstantiated comment coming) this might be intentional, and it is an aid to unit balancing.
It's because of box size, and the number of miniatures that come in a box.

As are upgrades most of the time, or is Mongoose convinced the starting loadout of Havocs being 2× of a different heavy weapon is just coincidence?

**MongooseMatt**

ThePaintingOwl wrote:

I believe its true that GW's writers are really that incompetent but that's a spectacularly bad and lazy way to write rules.

It is not necessarily a bad or lazy approach, and it does not make GW's designers incompetent. It is not really a great position to make that assumption about them.

The idea is that you can have a compact and simplified set of rules that follows the assumption that if a gap does open up in interpretation, the two players will be motivated to find a friendly and reasonable resolution, and not automatically lean into advantage.

The alternative, to cover every eventuality, may require a 600 page rulebook (say). There are games that do that, but Warhammer was never intended to be one of them.

ThePaintingOwl wrote:

False. The new system takes almost as long as the old one, and often takes longer than the old one. At most you're saving a few seconds in adding up the totals, you're still spending all the same effort on figuring out what you want and writing it all down. And it's often slower because you can only add or remove points in whole-unit increments. If you end up at 1960 out of 2000 points but your cheapest unit is 50 points you can either play 40 points down or try to reshuffle your existing units to find some combination that works out to 1950 or 2000.

Well, it is not false, because I have done it. However, I think I am understanding your position a bit better, thank you.

In your example, you have put your 2,000 point army together, and it has everything you wanted to take (because the units or strong or are the cool stuff you want to use in that particular battle) and it is good to fight, but you have that 40 points left over.

Your army is done, and ready to go. The 2,000 points is a limit, not a target. If that 1,960 army has everything you think you need to play... you are good. Re-jigging things, all else being equal, will give you no appreciable advantage at 2,000 points, any more than facing an opponent who has a 1,980 point army gives them any appreciable advantage.

The exception would be someone whose skill at the game is so fine tuned that a percent difference in points does make that difference - but I am really not sure that such a player exists. Warhammer is just not that kind of game, and it was never intended to be (that last bit, I am sure about).

ThePaintingOwl wrote:
Really? Because I find "I like PL because the overpowered things are the ones I want to use in my army" an easy argument to beat. .

Sure... but you just misquoted me there, Sir. I didn't say that.

H.B.M.C. wrote:
It's because of box size, and the number of miniatures that come in a box.

First, the two are not mutually exclusive. Second, the box sizes have most changed between editions.

I absolutely agree with you that unit sizes in the game are dictated by the number of models in a box. That does not mean they would not have utilised that as part of a more global balancing within an army - and I stress, I do not know that. It is just an idea.

EviscerationPlague wrote:

As are upgrades most of the time, or is Mongoose convinced the starting loadout of Havocs being 2× of a different heavy weapon is just coincidence?

I am not convinced of that, no Sir.

**Not Online!!!**

I don't care, the ratio of pro PL-Pts dropped under 1 : 3 against PL-pts, that should be enough of a fething wakeup call to everyone defending this laughable nonsense GW produced and dares calla ruleset.

FFS the same company has created some of the better systems at the same time and managed to iterate on 7th into an highly interesting system with HH. That alone shows that the 40k side of things has either A willfully lobotomised itself or B just thinks it can vomit out whatever.

**kodos**

MongooseMatt wrote:
The alternative, to cover every eventuality, may require a 600 page rulebook (say). There are games that do that, but Warhammer was never intended to be one of them.

how do other games manage to get to that point with half the pages of rules current 40k has, but 40k would need much more and still does not work

and that the rules writer were lazy is kind of shown by the current Indices as somehow the initial concept that works, was not expanded to all units but stopped in between

Your army is done, and ready to go. The 2,000 points is a limit, not a target. If that 1,960 army has everything you think you need to play... you are good. Re-jigging things, all else being equal, will give you no appreciable advantage at 2,000 points, any more than facing an opponent who has a 1,980 point army gives them any appreciable advantage.

but that is no different no matter what point system is used
the difference is that you don't have the possibility to adjust that and use some 40 points on upgrades that don't matter

if people are fine with playing 1900 VS 2100 points now, they were fine doing that with the old points as well, there is no change or advantage here

**H.B.M.C.**

MongooseMatt wrote:
First, the two are not mutually exclusive. Second, the box sizes have most changed between editions.

And they match the current boxes almost perfectly. Carnifexes went to max 2 per unit... because they're two to a box. Spawn went from 1-5 to exactly 2 per unit, because they come two to a box. Things that have come in squadrons for longer than most people playing have been alive (eg. War Walkers, Vypers, etc.) now don't, because they don't come in squadrons in the box.

The bizarre squad sizes that Custodes and Harlis now suffer from are all box-based restrictions.

There's inconsistencies, such as Sentinels or Outriders, but the only consistent thing about GW is their inconsistency, so the exceptions only further prove the rule.

MongooseMatt wrote:
I absolutely agree with you that unit sizes in the game are dictated by the number of models in a box. That does not mean they would not have utilised that as part of a more global balancing within an army - and I stress, I do not know that. It is just an idea.

And I don't think they've put that much thought into it, and I believe that everything else they do proves that.

**vict0988**

MongooseMatt wrote:
It is not really a great position to make that assumption about them.

It provides fantastic predictive qualities, unless you have an assumption that has better predictive validity then why shouldn't we hold to that belief? I predicted GW would jump to PL, now this isn't quite PL because the points are much finer but the difference is negligible. Rounding things to the nearest 20 wouldn't change a tonne, I would like GW to do it so we could at least stop arguing over whether 10th is truly using PL.

The alternative, to cover every eventuality, may require a 600 page rulebook (say). There are games that do that, but Warhammer was never intended to be one of them.

Spoiler:

That's what the pts document should look like. 4 pages x 25 armies, is about 100 pages, include what units characters can join and you could halve the number of pages in the indexes for a net reduction in the number of pages for the game. It is quite frustrating when PL fans make some of these outrageous claims like "I'll whip together a PL list in seconds but it takes me a long time to add up the pts costs of the options in my list." or "Unless you get a 600 page document you won't be happy."

Sure... but you just misquoted me there, Sir. I didn't say that.

Owl was referring the argument that you said nobody could beat about more thunder hammers always making the game more fun.

**MongooseMatt**

kodos wrote:
how do other games manage to get to that point with half the pages of rules current 40k has, but 40k would need much more and still does not work

I think that is a very good question. I would venture that 40k is much, much broader in scope than most other games, with a lot more moving parts that cannot be easily set aside for historical reasons, all of which introduce interactions that get very complex very quickly.

Put another way, it might be very easy to imagine a games designer approaching a new edition thinking 'right, I'll start by dropping all the Firstborn, all those Aspect Warriors that have really old miniatures, all the Imperial Agents...' and so on, reducing that broad scope and the complexity that goes with it to create a solid base to move on from.

But, of course, they cannot do that. There would be riots.

I am trying to think of another game system that would be comparable. I find myself glancing at a nearby shelf to see BattleTech, but while that has an incredibly diverse range of units, they all (mostly) use a common design system and each faction (mostly) uses the same units.

I think it would be interesting considering similar games and how they have approached things - I also think that might be off topic :(

H.B.M.C. wrote:
And I don't think they've put that much thought into it, and I believe that everything else they do proves that.

You see, I think we are acknowledging the same point but coming out in different directions (and I am not married to my point, it is just speculation). However, I am extremely unwilling to fall back on the idea that GW's design team is incompetent/lazy/stupid because a) in the past I have known some of them and they were smart people and b) for decades they have been producing games that, for any rough edges, have been giving us all joy for all that time. That ain't nothing. That is far from nothing, and it does not point to silly people doing silly things.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

vict0988 wrote:

Owl was referring the argument that you said nobody could beat about more thunder hammers always making the game more fun.

But I did not say that!

I said that an argument stating that special weapons were fundamentally more fun than standard weapons was something that I found difficult to beat. Me. Just me.

I am not sure we can have an objective argument about fun. I was just raising the point, nothing more.

**kodos**

GW has all the possibility to cut down units, they have already done and it people are told to move along because there was no other option for balance
so if they can do it for others but not for Marines it is their decision and cannot be used as an excuse

simple as that, if it is too much work to get things done, either get more people doing it or cut things down to be manageable
but adding more and telling people it is too much to handle so the players must accept it is just lacy and nothing more

PS: and there are many Marine units nobody uses any more and of Primaris would get the treatment of other factions, there would be 1 unit per armour type and everything would be much easier

**a_typical_hero**

MongooseMatt wrote:
kodos wrote:
how do other games manage to get to that point with half the pages of rules current 40k has, but 40k would need much more and still does not work
I think that is a very good question. I would venture that 40k is much, much broader in scope than most other games, with a lot more moving parts that cannot be easily set aside for historical reasons, all of which introduce interactions that get very complex very quickly.

Put another way, it might be very easy to imagine a games designer approaching a new edition thinking 'right, I'll start by dropping all the Firstborn, all those Aspect Warriors that have really old miniatures, all the Imperial Agents...' and so on, reducing that broad scope and the complexity that goes with it to create a solid base to move on from.

But, of course, they cannot do that. There would be riots.

I am trying to think of another game system that would be comparable. I find myself glancing at a nearby shelf to see BattleTech, but while that has an incredibly diverse range of units, they all (mostly) use a common design system and each faction (mostly) uses the same units.

I think it would be interesting considering similar games and how they have approached things - I also think that might be off topic :(

It just so happens that I'm making my own homebrew ruleset of 40k, which covers - with some caveat - all units and options, GW or FW, all the way back to 1998 with 3rd edition. The core rules are 37 pages. I dare you to go play it and come up with an unsolved situation! No really, I do. Please play it and give me feedback so I can improve the ruleset

All jokes aside, that is something I came up with in my spare time as a hobby project over the course of a year and I think it is a robust and fun ruleset. I have no idea how many unresolved gamestate situations are still able to show up, but I doubt that - even in a worst case scenario - it would be another 5 pages in total. GW with all the ressources in time, personal, money and focus should be able to make their game waterproof with no issues without scrapping units.

**ThePaintingOwl**

MongooseMatt wrote:
It is not necessarily a bad or lazy approach, and it does not make GW's designers incompetent. It is not really a great position to make that assumption about them.

It's absolutely lazy and incompetent. Rules should be clear and if your rules need 600 pages of clarification to cover virtually all possible scenarios you suck at writing rules. Good rule design starts with a solid foundation of general principles (timing rules, priority rules, etc) so that most interactions are covered by the core rules and few things need special-case rulings. That is far better, though more difficult, than writing rules full of gaps and inconsistencies and saying "just 4+ it".

The 2,000 points is a limit, not a target.

Then why use a point system at all if you aren't expected to get exactly 2000 points? Why not just do a simple "take X units and Y characters" system if all you're trying to do is get it roughly close enough?

Sure... but you just misquoted me there, Sir. I didn't say that.

I quoted you 100% accurately. You claimed it's an advantage for PL that there's an obvious balance error of plasma pistol + thunder hammer being the automatic correct choice over bolt pistol + chainsword because "those things are fundamentally more fun to use". That fun is a subjective personal opinion and balance issues are not acceptable just because they favor one person's idea of fun over what other people consider fun.

**shortymcnostrill**

MongooseMatt wrote:
kodos wrote:
how do other games manage to get to that point with half the pages of rules current 40k has, but 40k would need much more and still does not work

I think that is a very good question. I would venture that 40k is much, much broader in scope than most other games, with a lot more moving parts that cannot be easily set aside for historical reasons, all of which introduce interactions that get very complex very quickly.

Stares in onepagerules

Also, which moving parts does the game have that are especially complex compared to other games? I'm more inclined to think the opposite, that it's a pretty simple game that tries to appear deep by covering itself with superficial stuff (stratagems come to mind). If you're referring to the amount of armies and their units instead then I'll simply resume staring...

Edit: re the thunder hammer and plasma pistol thing: the clue lies in why those options are more fun. I'm going to guess and say it's because those options actually do something on the table, a bolt pistol/chainsword simply isn't that impactful. But if a choice increases a unit's utility and/or power then you might want to balance that in some way...

**vict0988**

MongooseMatt wrote:
I said that an argument stating that special weapons were fundamentally more fun than standard weapons was something that I found difficult to beat. Me. Just me.

All Owl said was that it's an easy argument to beat and found it difficult to believe you would have difficulty with it, that's just his belief and not something Owl misquoted in that case is it?

I think that is a very good question. I would venture that 40k is much, much broader in scope than most other games, with a lot more moving parts that cannot be easily set aside for historical reasons, all of which introduce interactions that get very complex very quickly.

GW messed up balance in Apocalypse as well, do you know how I was able to predict that would happen despite the limited scope and extremely simple math? Because of GW's way of doing things, they're lazy and inept. Lazy and inept people sometimes make good things, if they keep plotting along and maybe get some good feedback from the community they sometimes end up in good places (most people were happy with pre SM2.0 8th ed despite SM not being quite right at the time and late 9th ed despite internal balance on units being stripped out because GW couldn't be bothered with internal balance, same way people will be okay with having only PL in 10th if they get PL as perfect as possible. Why wasn't the launch of 10th better than the launch of 8th or 9th if PL is so much easier to balance? Would saying 10th had the least balanced release in the history of 40k be wrong? How far back do we have to go? Maybe 7th edition with invisible super cheap 6th edition Eldar Wraithknights or 6th edition flying circus Necrons when no army had counters for them yet. The Eldar win rates against non-mirrors have been absurd in tournaments I've heard.

I have known some of them and they were smart people

Writing "We'll playtest it and then do the ole' dartboard method" doesn't scream smart, publishing that in the guide for how to design wargames... That sounds stupid. Not like the town fool stupid, but like going from one patient to the next without washing your hands because you don't know what germs are so if you don't have bodily fluids on your hands you think you're good to see the next patient. GW needs to level up. Write the rules, get feedback on the rules, rewrite rules that are problematic because of infinite or near infinite damage output or things becoming invulnerable or just not sounding fun to play with, playtest the rules a bit and see if they are fun and fluffy, redesign anything that isn't fun and fluffy, do the math for unit effectiveness and come up with a points range for each option in the game, stress test every datasheet in the game with competitive players trying to break each datasheet in turn and adjust points up or down according to it, release, get tournament feedback, adjust pts.

shortymcnostrill wrote:
MongooseMatt wrote:
kodos wrote:
how do other games manage to get to that point with half the pages of rules current 40k has, but 40k would need much more and still does not work

I think that is a very good question. I would venture that 40k is much, much broader in scope than most other games, with a lot more moving parts that cannot be easily set aside for historical reasons, all of which introduce interactions that get very complex very quickly.

Stares in onepagerules

Also, which moving parts does the game have that are especially complex compared to other games? I'm more inclined to think the opposite, that it's a pretty simple game that tries to appear deep by covering itself with superficial stuff (stratagems come to mind). If you're referring to the amount of armies and their units instead then I'll simply resume staring...

Edit: re the thunder hammer and plasma pistol thing: the clue lies in why those options are more fun. I'm going to guess and say it's because those options actually do something on the table, a bolt pistol/chainsword simply isn't that impactful. But if a choice increases a unit's utility and/or power then you might want to balance that in some way...

1p40k is much simpler. The 1000 unique abilities certainly add a lot of complexity.

**ThePaintingOwl**

shortymcnostrill wrote:
Edit: re the thunder hammer and plasma pistol thing: the clue lies in why those options are more fun. I'm going to guess and say it's because those options actually do something on the table, a bolt pistol/chainsword simply isn't that impactful. But if a choice increases a unit's utility and/or power then you might want to balance that in some way...

Yep. That's definitely the reason, it's just not a universally true reason. Some people like plasma pistol + thunder hammer because it has the highest impact on the game and maximizes the chance of their sergeant doing something cool. Some people hate plasma pistol + thunder hammer because it goes against the lore and lore matters more than on-table performance. Therefore the point system shouldn't favor either option, both should be accurately evaluated and assigned appropriate point costs so that whichever one you prefer is a valid option. The traditional point system can do this, PL/pseudo-PL by deliberate design can not.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

vict0988 wrote:
1p40k is much simpler. The 1000 unique abilities certainly add a lot of complexity.

Yep. A majority of GW's problem with writing consistent rules that cover 99.9% of all situations is that they're consistently terrible at writing deep and engaging core rules. And after making a core game with all the tactical depth of a puddle they try to cover it up with layer after layer of special snowflake rules and "roll 1d6 to see how many more d6s you roll on each of d3 different tables LOOK HOW FUN ROLLING DICE IS" nonsense. So yeah, when you have 10x the word count of a better-designed game and compulsively attach special rules to even the most basic of infantry units you're going to struggle to keep it all straight.

**MongooseMatt**

shortymcnostrill wrote:

Stares in onepagerules

Also, which moving parts does the game have that are especially complex compared to other games? I'm more inclined to think the opposite, that it's a pretty simple game that tries to appear deep by covering itself with superficial stuff (stratagems come to mind). If you're referring to the amount of armies and their units instead then I'll simply resume staring...

Yeah, I was not a fan of the implementation of stratagems before and, while better now, I am still not convinced that there are not too many basic ones. Army specific seem fine in terms of number, yet to see any issues there.

However, I was wondering if someone would bring up the OPR. That is a set of rules I like, and my group almost adopted them wholesale as there were some real peeves with 8th and 9th. The only thing we felt they lacked (and this is really subjective) was a bit of... soul. Clashes with core units were great, but as soon as you added in the cooler characters or funkier war machines like Imperial Knights, we just found it lacked a certain... 40kedness... for want of a better term.

Don't get me wrong, there is a lot to like about OPR. It would also be worth pointing out that OPR has not gone through the crucible/scrutiny that 40k has.

But yes, I like them. Haven't yet tried the OPR variants - I really like what GW have been doing with Age of Sigmar anyway, but I am interested in trying out the OPR equivalent of Kill Team as I am not too fond of the current version of that.

**kodos**

shortymcnostrill wrote:

Also, which moving parts does the game have that are especially complex compared to other games?

a new game every 3 years
other games don't have this and don't need to compensate or start from scratch with the balancing of units every time

what other games call an Edition change is what 40k calls FAQ/Errata, what 40k calls an Edition change is called "new game release" by others

this is the one moving part that no one else has and that makes it extremely hard to balance, because you only have a short amount of time to get things done and any data or experience collected is worthless after 3 years because you start from scratch
(and even if the Codex rules stay the same, something very simple like changing the terrain rules or how the "to wound" table works has a huge impact and means the point costs of all the units need to be adjusted)

**Slipspace**

MongooseMatt wrote:

In your example, you have put your 2,000 point army together, and it has everything you wanted to take (because the units or strong or are the cool stuff you want to use in that particular battle) and it is good to fight, but you have that 40 points left over.

Your army is done, and ready to go. The 2,000 points is a limit, not a target. If that 1,960 army has everything you think you need to play... you are good. Re-jigging things, all else being equal, will give you no appreciable advantage at 2,000 points, any more than facing an opponent who has a 1,980 point army gives them any appreciable advantage.

The exception would be someone whose skill at the game is so fine tuned that a percent difference in points does make that difference - but I am really not sure that such a player exists. Warhammer is just not that kind of game, and it was never intended to be (that last bit, I am sure about).

That just seems to be excusing the mediocrity of the current system. We had a system that made it much easier to get within, say, 10 points of the limit without any real problems. Now we're just supposed to accept a system where being 40 points out is fine. Bear in mind, that 1960 point army could also have a bunch of sponson-less LRBTs and other sub-optimally set-up units, against a 2k army that is the exact opposite. Why is this preferable? For a (questionable) advantage in speed of list creation? Even if I accept that list creation is quicker (which I don't) that doesn't seem like a good trade-off to me.

It also ignores the problem of being 20 points over when the cheapest unit in the army is 85 points. I can remove that unit but now I'm 65 points short, but there's nothing below 100 points that I can add to get closer to the limit so we're back to messing around with chunks of points that are too large in some sort of frustrating list tetris to arrive at something even vaguely close to the limit. Again, how is this superior? What are we actually gaining here?

**EviscerationPlague**

MongooseMatt wrote:

However, I am extremely unwilling to fall back on the idea that GW's design team is incompetent/lazy/stupid because a) in the past I have known some of them

Aaaah so you're not even being objective with your defense.

**Dudeface**

EviscerationPlague wrote:
MongooseMatt wrote:

However, I am extremely unwilling to fall back on the idea that GW's design team is incompetent/lazy/stupid because a) in the past I have known some of them

Aaaah so you're not even being objective with your defense.

Conversely something not being what you want doesn't make the creator incompetent/lazy/stupid by proxy. The fact this pointing method is widely disliked doesn't mean that the game designers don't also dislike it or understand it's flaws, nor that they were lazy with the execution. They work to the spec, timescales and the wants of those above them.

**vipoid**

ThePaintingOwl wrote:

It's absolutely lazy and incompetent. Rules should be clear and if your rules need 600 pages of clarification to cover virtually all possible scenarios you suck at writing rules. Good rule design starts with a solid foundation of general principles (timing rules, priority rules, etc) so that most interactions are covered by the core rules and few things need special-case rulings. That is far better, though more difficult, than writing rules full of gaps and inconsistencies and saying "just 4+ it".

Absolutely this.

In fact, this paints an accurate picture of why so many army/special rules are a convoluted mess - because they're clearly designed to be read and interpreted with basically no wider context beyond the most basic aspects of the game (e.g. what a model is).

However, in the context of a rules system, this long-winded, legalese approach should rarely (if ever) be required. Because it should be the job of the core rules to spell out how all the core mechanics and interactions work, with special rules merely using/referencing them.

e.g. there should be a core mechanic that describes how healing and reviving works for units (e.g. if there are multiple wounded models). Could simply have a rule, too, that healing abilities cannot revive dead models unless they also have the REVIVE keyword. That way, rules like Reanimation Protocols would only need a sentence of rules text at most. Because the mechanics heling and reviving models would already be spelled out in the core rules. Moreover, this would also cover any other abilities that heal/revive models.

This is just one example, but there are so many more that should not require every single instance to spell out the full mechanics because that should be the job of the core rules. That's the point of having core rules - so that you can establish the core mechanics of your game in a single location, allowing other rules to be much simpler as a result.

ThePaintingOwl wrote:

Yep. A majority of GW's problem with writing consistent rules that cover 99.9% of all situations is that they're consistently terrible at writing deep and engaging core rules. And after making a core game with all the tactical depth of a puddle they try to cover it up with layer after layer of special snowflake rules and "roll 1d6 to see how many more d6s you roll on each of d3 different tables LOOK HOW FUN ROLLING DICE IS" nonsense. So yeah, when you have 10x the word count of a better-designed game and compulsively attach special rules to even the most basic of infantry units you're going to struggle to keep it all straight.

Ever since 8th, GW have had this weird obsession with making the core rules as short as possible, as if this is a goal in and of itself. However, making core rules that are too short for purpose and so require every codex to pick up the slack is not an achievement in any way, shape or form.

**EviscerationPlague**

Dudeface wrote:
EviscerationPlague wrote:
MongooseMatt wrote:

However, I am extremely unwilling to fall back on the idea that GW's design team is incompetent/lazy/stupid because a) in the past I have known some of them

Aaaah so you're not even being objective with your defense.

Conversely something not being what you want doesn't make the creator incompetent/lazy/stupid by proxy. The fact this pointing method is widely disliked doesn't mean that the game designers don't also dislike it or understand it's flaws, nor that they were lazy with the execution. They work to the spec, timescales and the wants of those above them.

"They were just doing what corporate asked them to do" isn't really a hill you want to die on, is it?

Even so, if they DID understand the flaws, they would've fought against it or at the very least wrote the rules with that in mind.
They didn't, and they're lazy and/or absent minded. Ergo, it's hard to take Mongoose seriously on their defense just because they say they know them.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

vipoid wrote:

Ever since 8th, GW have had this weird obsession with making the core rules as short as possible, as if this is a goal in and of itself. However, making core rules that are too short for purpose and so require every codex to pick up the slack is not an achievement in any way, shape or form.

It's the classic GW pendulum swing of 7th's "Why is Missile Lock a USR" vs "yeah we kinda forgot to write rules for terrain, sorry".

**Dudeface**

EviscerationPlague wrote:
Dudeface wrote:
EviscerationPlague wrote:
MongooseMatt wrote:

However, I am extremely unwilling to fall back on the idea that GW's design team is incompetent/lazy/stupid because a) in the past I have known some of them

Aaaah so you're not even being objective with your defense.

Conversely something not being what you want doesn't make the creator incompetent/lazy/stupid by proxy. The fact this pointing method is widely disliked doesn't mean that the game designers don't also dislike it or understand it's flaws, nor that they were lazy with the execution. They work to the spec, timescales and the wants of those above them.

"They were just doing what corporate asked them to do" isn't really a hill you want to die on, is it?

Even so, if they DID understand the flaws, they would've fought against it or at the very least wrote the rules with that in mind.
They didn't, and they're lazy and/or absent minded. Ergo, it's hard to take Mongoose seriously on their defense just because they say they know them.

I've no want or need to die on any hill, it's a fact of corporate life, the minions get given criteria to work towards and they will get overridden. If they're crunched for time, mistakes will happen, same is true of everyone in any role. Fully rewriting and rebalancing the game in their 2-3 year window can't be easy whilst also having to create content for the current edition and potentially other projects.

**ThePaintingOwl**

Dudeface wrote:
I've no want or need to die on any hill, it's a fact of corporate life, the minions get given criteria to work towards and they will get overridden. If they're crunched for time, mistakes will happen, same is true of everyone in any role. Fully rewriting and rebalancing the game in their 2-3 year window can't be easy whilst also having to create content for the current edition and potentially other projects.

Ok, I'll grant that maybe you can pass the blame up the chain because someone who could be doing better work is forced to print garbage because their boss demands it. But that doesn't change the fact that someone at GW is incompetent. For example, insisting on a complete re-write of the game every 2-3 years is a profoundly stupid way of doing things and whoever insists on doing it that way is clearly incompetent.

**Arschbombe**

ThePaintingOwl wrote:
Dudeface wrote:
I've no want or need to die on any hill, it's a fact of corporate life, the minions get given criteria to work towards and they will get overridden. If they're crunched for time, mistakes will happen, same is true of everyone in any role. Fully rewriting and rebalancing the game in their 2-3 year window can't be easy whilst also having to create content for the current edition and potentially other projects.

Ok, I'll grant that maybe you can pass the blame up the chain because someone who could be doing better work is forced to print garbage because their boss demands it. But that doesn't change the fact that someone at GW is incompetent. For example, insisting on a complete re-write of the game every 2-3 years is a profoundly stupid way of doing things and whoever insists on doing it that way is clearly incompetent.

The mistake you're making is assuming that the goal is to improve the game. It is not. The goal is to increase revenue. We like to think that if GW could just focus on making the best game they could, then things would be like Field of Dreams. If they build it, we will come. But that's not their goal. That's why the game design goes in circles. Simplification followed by needless bloat and complexity followed by another redo. Each one promising that they've really listened this time and got it right. They never have and they never will. The only thing that matters is generating revenue and their methods, for all of the frustration they cause in the community, work.

**Mozzamanx**

GW have no incentive to develop a perfect ruleset because then they don't get to sell you a new wave of rulebooks.
By keeping the game in a permanently flawed state, they're keeping people hooked on the hope that the next ruleset will finally get it right.

**ThePaintingOwl**

Arschbombe wrote:
The mistake you're making is assuming that the goal is to improve the game. It is not. The goal is to increase revenue. We like to think that if GW could just focus on making the best game they could, then things would be like Field of Dreams. If they build it, we will come. But that's not their goal. That's why the game design goes in circles. Simplification followed by needless bloat and complexity followed by another redo. Each one promising that they've really listened this time and got it right. They never have and they never will. The only thing that matters is generating revenue and their methods, for all of the frustration they cause in the community, work.

Making a quality game is more profitable than making a dumpster fire and hoping the addicts will keep playing, especially in the era when anything GW publishes will be up on wahapedia 15 minutes later and hardly anyone buys the rules anymore.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Mozzamanx wrote:
GW have no incentive to develop a perfect ruleset because then they don't get to sell you a new wave of rulebooks.
By keeping the game in a permanently flawed state, they're keeping people hooked on the hope that the next ruleset will finally get it right.

Nobody buys rules anymore, except newbies who don't know any better yet (and aren't buying multiple editions).