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 ThePaintingOwl wrote:

It most assuredly does not. "I don't care that my house is on fire" means you are, at best, severely underestimating the consequences of the problem you have. You still very much have a problem even if you say those words in the moment.

A problem is something that causes you difficulty or concern. If you don't care about the house burning down, and are not affected by the resultant issues that arise from a house burning down, then the house being on fire is not a problem. Not even if someone else insists that you should be upset that your house is on fire, or that other people might be upset if their houses were on fire.

Trying to reframe this into 'It's a problem even if you don't realise it' is absurd. It's right back to telling people that they're having fun the 'wrong' way. If PL are how people enjoy playing the game, and they don't care about the inherent imbalance that results from the current application of this system, then those imbalances are not a problem for those players.

 insaniak wrote:
A problem is something that causes you difficulty or concern. If you don't care about the house burning down, and are not affected by the resultant issues that arise from a house burning down, then the house being on fire is not a problem. Not even if someone else insists that you should be upset that your house is on fire, or that other people might be upset if their houses were on fire.

Except the overwhelming majority of people do care and will suffer difficulties even if they say the words "I don't care" at that moment. Maybe they think insurance will cover way more than it will. Maybe they're in shock and denial and saying "I don't care" to cope with the loss. But whatever the reason is we shouldn't take their words very seriously, the problem very much exists even if it isn't acknowledged.

Trying to reframe this into 'It's a problem even if you don't realise it' is absurd. It's right back to telling people that they're having fun the 'wrong' way. If PL are how people enjoy playing the game, and they don't care about the inherent imbalance that results from the current application of this system, then those imbalances are not a problem for those players.

Not necessarily. Imagine we can look at two parallel worlds, one with PL and one with only the traditional point system. If the PL advocates in the alternate points-only universe are having more fun than their PL-using counterparts then PL is a problem for them, even if they don't realize they could be doing better. Or if we have a group of tournament players using the "X units" system, where the guy with 20 warlord titans always wins, and celebrating how balanced their system is we should point out that no, there is a better system for that task. And the traditional point system will be objectively better for their task no matter how many times they insist that there can't possibly be a better system, that losing 100-0 to the titan guy every time is the best 40k can ever be.

And, once again, it's not at all the same as Jervis and his "you're having fun the wrong way". Jervis says "you're wrong about enjoying X, you should enjoy Y instead". I am saying "if X is your goal then here is the best way to achieve that goal". Nobody is playing 40k with using PL (or any other point system) as the goal. PL is a means to an end and it is entirely valid to say that if you have a particular goal in mind there are better ways of getting there.

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:

 insaniak wrote:
A problem is something that causes you difficulty or concern. If you don't care about the house burning down, and are not affected by the resultant issues that arise from a house burning down, then the house being on fire is not a problem. Not even if someone else insists that you should be upset that your house is on fire, or that other people might be upset if their houses were on fire.

Except the overwhelming majority of people do care and will suffer difficulties even if they say the words "I don't care" at that moment. Maybe they think insurance will cover way more than it will. Maybe they're in shock and denial and saying "I don't care" to cope with the loss. But whatever the reason is we shouldn't take their words very seriously, the problem very much exists even if it isn't acknowledged.

The problem exists for you. It doesn't exist for the person who doesn't care about it. Even if you think they should care about it, or think you have a deeper understanding of the issue than they do.

I mean, sure, assuming that everyone who likes PL is in 'shock and denial' about it is an option... but I'm really not sure what that achieves. Seems a lot easier to just accept that different people like different things.

 insaniak wrote:
The problem exists for you. It doesn't exist for the person who doesn't care about it. Even if you think they should care about it, or think you have a deeper understanding of the issue than they do.

It absolutely does exist for them even if the don't acknowledge it at the time. If you ask that person a year later, once all of the consequences have been experienced, if their house burning down was a problem they're almost certainly going to say that it was. And they'll probably say something like "wow I was an idiot for saying that" about their earlier claim that it wasn't a problem.

And that's just one example. No matter how many times a drug addict says "it isn't a problem" as they spiral down towards a miserable death those words are not the same as the person not having a problem. You can argue about whether or not the person really experienced enough negative consequences in that case but your earlier assertion that "this is how it works in English" is simply not true. The language very clearly recognizes cases where "I don't have a problem" and "I don't see this as a problem" are not the same thing.

I mean, sure, assuming that everyone who likes PL is in 'shock and denial' about it is an option... but I'm really not sure what that achieves. Seems a lot easier to just accept that different people like different things.

I don't think it's shock and denial, don't put words in my mouth. That was a comment specific to the house on fire example, not to PL. And I do accept that people like different things. For example, I would not be a fan of PenitentJake's games (at least in 40k, perhaps they would be more fun in a system that is better suited to them) but I recognize that he clearly enjoys them. Please do not confuse "this is a better way of achieving your goals" with "your goals aren't reasonable or believable".

 insaniak wrote:

The problem exists for you. It doesn't exist for the person who doesn't care about it. Even if you think they should care about it, or think you have a deeper understanding of the issue than they do.

That doesn't make sense. A problem can exist regardless of whether or not a person has knowledge of its existence or the capacity or willingness to care about it.

Also why did my post get deleted? The only real argument I've seen in favor of PL is the "simpler math" one, which is neglegible in comparison to the downsides of PL.

Why is a house burning down being compared to building systems for a wargame? Or the issues of being homeless relative to potentially lackluster balance in said wargame?

Presumably we're all adults here and can recognize that comparison does not imply equivalence.

 insaniak wrote:
The point being made is that Power Levels are a list building system designed for people who don't optimise their lists.

The point that's been made over and over again is that Power Level as a system is worse if you don't optimize. It doesn't assuage the differences between levels of optimization, it magnifies the difference between the guy who thinks Hunter-Killer missiles look lame and the guy who thinks having missiles sticking out of every tank is just the raddest thing ever. And you can be a casual player not super concerned with balance, but getting crushed by a lopsided matchup isn't fun. Having your star characters suck because they have the 'wrong' wargear isn't very fun. Losing games as a new player and being told that you built your models wrong and need to break them apart and reassemble them 'correctly' isn't fun.

Competitive players don't care about points vs PL; they're either taking the objectively best options (PL) or the most cost-effective (points) either way. It's specifically for casual players that failing to account for suboptimal loadouts results in a worse play experience, and creates trap options where you can very well build your models 'wrong' and have them perform terribly on the tabletop. There is a stronger incentive to optimize under PL than under points, because you don't get anything in return for taking units that aren't honed to the bone.

It's not catering to people who don't optimize. It's catering to people who don't want to either perform basic addition or use a listbuilding app, and are willing to sacrifice a lot to save that effort. If you want to run a non-optimized list and have a fighting chance against an optimized one- or just have a level playing field against other casual players- you're still better off with a system that takes wargear into account.

 catbarf wrote:
There is a stronger incentive to optimize under PL than under points, because you don't get anything in return for taking units that aren't honed to the bone.

This right here shows that you're still stuck on the idea that building the most effective army is the goal. It's not. The point of PL is to give you a rough framework to turn your collection of models into a game-ready force.

Sure, you can imagine edge examples where both players have nothing but Leman Russ tanks in their armies, so the one with fewer options winds up at a distinct advantage. But that sort of matchup is always going to be an outlier, not the norm. In a normal game, the player who doesn't like HK missiles is going to have taken other stuff, and the player with missiles all over all of his tanks is going to also have other stuff in their army. They're not showing up with identical (but differently equipped) armies of one replicated model.

PL were designed for two players who have collected a bunch of models they like and assembled them how they like, and just want to put them on the table and roll dice.

Aha okey. So dude starts a custodes or GK army now. Loads up banner, apothecary etc on his unit. Another dude started his army before 10th. Banner guy is a character, so he maybe has one per army. Same with apothecary for GK. Wardens pre 10th, either run at 5 or 10 squad size. Now somehow they are 3 or 6, which doesn't even follow the unit size you get in the box.
Armed your dudes with axes as custodes, well they are mathemathicly always worse then halbards.

PL simplification for my army ment LOSING options. I lost Thunder hammers as melee army because of them.

The system is only good for people with gigantic collections who have way over 2000pts of an army and those that are starting. It is a non change for people whose armies have no options. For everyone else it is worse. Took powerfists or power weapons on your sgts, because of the cost of thunder hammers? Well now you have to replace all the models.

 JNAProductions wrote:
Why is a house burning down being compared to building systems for a wargame? Or the issues of being homeless relative to potentially lackluster balance in said wargame?

Because insaniak tried to make the argument that English requires his "if they say they don't see a problem then they don't have a problem" claim to be correct as some kind of general rule. It is obviously a false argument as demonstrated by things like the house example.

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:
Why is a house burning down being compared to building systems for a wargame? Or the issues of being homeless relative to potentially lackluster balance in said wargame?

Because insaniak tried to make the argument that English requires his "if they say they don't see a problem then they don't have a problem" claim to be correct as some kind of general rule. It is obviously a false argument as demonstrated by things like the house example.

Except it's not.

You can say "I don't believe someone wouldn't care about their house burning down," and I agree, but let's suppose a trillionaire bought a fixer-upper, just to see what they could do with it. It then burns down, with nothing of importance and no one at all inside. They are basically entirely unaffected by that-it's not a problem to them.

 insaniak wrote:
PL were designed for two players who have collected a bunch of models they like and assembled them how they like, and just want to put them on the table and roll dice.

And it fails badly at this goal. It lacks the "any choice of how to build your models is viable" factor of the traditional point system, and it lacks the simplicity and speed of use of the "take X units" system. At best it's an awkward compromise that should be discarded as soon as a better system is available.

This is the recurring problem with PL: no matter what set of player needs you start from PL is never the best solution for that goal. The only way to defend PL is to start from the assumption that you want PL to be the answer and then work backwards to try to define a hypothetical set of needs it could serve.

 insaniak wrote:

 catbarf wrote:
There is a stronger incentive to optimize under PL than under points, because you don't get anything in return for taking units that aren't honed to the bone.

This right here shows that you're still stuck on the idea that building the most effective army is the goal. It's not. The point of PL is to give you a rough framework to turn your collection of models into a game-ready force.

Points does the exact same thing at about the same rate, unless you don't have a piece of paper and a calculator, at the exact same rate if you have an app to handle list building. There are other systems that could achieve aims that pts cannot, like if you wanted a system that builds varied lists that are roughly equal against other lists then you might need something like a Decurion for each faction and then you select the core of that decurion and two side formations for that decurion and you're done, that'd be fast and you wouldn't get insanely skewy lists but it wouldn't offer the same freedom or balance as pts. The problem with PL is that it is pts, it just doesn't recognise the very obvious problem of sponsons being worth more than 0 which makes it pretty much strictly worse as a pts system, while the weird Decurion system would be different enough to offer entirely different benefits and downsides. It'd be like if you had PL and then you had nuPL which is exactly like PL except Infantry Squads are 0 PL because adding up all those little numbers is a bother and it's just Infantry Squads so no big deal, except it makes 6 units of Infantry Squads loaded to the gills mandatory and leaves a big gap between armies with and without them, it's strictly worse. Adding up 6*4 is such a small task as to be irrelevant, you have to provide a relevant benefit to weigh against the downsides, we might then disagree with whether the downsides outweigh the upsides. The problem is that adding up the costs of wargear upgrades doesn't even register on the scale, it's not "my side weight 2 kilos and your side weighs 1 kilo so my side is objectively better" it's "my side weighs 2 kilos and you've got a feather over there, I'm sorry but that doesn't even register on the scale we're using so I am objectively right".

I don't think Owl is right that PL fans would enjoy the game more if they were forced to use pts, I buy that they enjoy the game more with PL, but that in itself does not change the argument of which is better, you can enjoy attending games for a bad soccer team, that does not make the soccer team good.

 JNAProductions wrote:
You can say "I don't believe someone wouldn't care about their house burning down," and I agree, but let's suppose a trillionaire bought a fixer-upper, just to see what they could do with it. It then burns down, with nothing of importance and no one at all inside. They are basically entirely unaffected by that-it's not a problem to them.

You're missing the point. Insaniak did not argue that "I don't see a problem" and "there is no problem" can be the same, he tried to make the argument that in English they are the same thing. Whether or not there are individual (extremely rare) cases where a person doesn't care if their house burns down the reality is that there are abundant examples in English where someone says "I don't see a problem" despite there clearly being a problem.

 insaniak wrote:
This right here shows that you're still stuck on the idea that building the most effective army is the goal. It's not.

Frankly, in my years of wargaming I've known exactly one person whose approach to the hobby is so casual that their list is a total mess, they lose every game, they don't care, and they don't change anything.

This is an inherently competitive game. There's an inherently competitive nature to choosing your army to fight your opponent with the objective of winning, and most people want to have a solid chance at victory even if they aren't win-at-all-costs competitive. As soon as you lose a game horribly due to listbuilding and then start to examine how to have a better experience in the future, the optimization incentives become blatantly obvious. You don't need to be a tournament player to recognize that there isn't any reason to take a chainsword over a thunder hammer, or that an infantry squad should take their complementary heavy weapon.

Building the most effective army is not the goal for most players. Building a credible one that can have a fair shot against their friends or random pick-up opponents is. Maybe more importantly, listbuilding systems are a shaping mechanism for the designer to tell you what a force should look like; if hunter-killer missiles are free across the board and there is no reason not to take them, you can't exactly be shocked when a new player has HKs on all his tanks. It's not WAAC, it's playing the game as designed and demonstrating analytic skills greater than that of the average houseplant.

Sometimes the level of optimization between two armies is comparable enough to balance out, sometimes it isn't. Sometimes differing levels of upgrade optimization is just another weight on the scale between two forces that are already differently optimized in terms of unit choices and/or coming from differently powerful codices to begin with. We point to specific examples that illustrate the problem, but that doesn't mean the problem only exists when one army is entirely composed of tanks with HKs and the other army is entirely composed of tanks without them. Particularly if there are other factors- like, say, a new edition making pseudo-PL the standard and tacitly encouraging newly-built armies to be armed to the teeth- that may contribute to unequal optimization across the armies.

But sure, let's say we're playing as a post-work Friday evening beer-and-pretzels social activity and we just want to slap models on the table and see what happens...

 insaniak wrote:
PL were designed for two players who have collected a bunch of models they like and assembled them how they like, and just want to put them on the table and roll dice.

...In which case we don't need a dedicated listbuilding system for it, and never have. We can spitball points by rounding to the nearest 10 or just guessing as to the overall value of a unit, or simply assemble our narrative forces, eyeball the balance, and adjust accordingly. If you just want to put models on a table and roll dice, you've always been able to just do that without requiring a derived points system that an intern knocked out in an afternoon by feeding the more granular points system through an Excel spreadsheet.

The ostensible draw of PL was that as long as you're not trying to use it for LVO, you got comparable balancing accuracy with a massively reduced workload in building an army. But it wasn't balanced and didn't even try, and the tedium of adding single-digit numbers was replaced with the tedium of trying to slot the Tetris blocks into your PL limit, so there was little point. Even in this thread, the things I've seen praised most about PL weren't factors of PL to begin with. See: Andykp praising how PL was right on the datasheet (formatting) and not updated regularly (ease of access), neither of which has anything to do with PL itself as a listbuilding system.

The sidegrade system of 10th is a better approach, but the glaring omission of costs or tradeoffs for obviously superior gear is a major blind spot. Just putting a cost on straight upgrades, rounded to the nearest 5pts, would have been an improvement.

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:

Because insaniak tried to make the argument that English requires his "if they say they don't see a problem then they don't have a problem" claim to be correct as some kind of general rule. It is obviously a false argument as demonstrated by things like the house example.

That's also not what I actually said.

I never said that the problem doesn't exist if someone doesn't see it. I said the problem doesn't exist if they don't care about it. Not seeing the problem means you don't know it exists. Not caring about it means you know about it and don't care.

A problem is something that causes you difficulty or concern. If it is not causing you difficulty or concern, (ie: you don't care about it) it is by very definition not a problem.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:

And it fails badly at this goal. It lacks the "any choice of how to build your models is viable" factor of the traditional point system, ...

Which GW games have featured a points system that made every option viable?



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 catbarf wrote:
Building the most effective army is not the goal for most players. Building a credible one that can have a fair shot against their friends or random pick-up opponents is.

And for that PL are just fine, because if their list doesn't work, they have more freedom to swap options around without having to rework their entire list.


Honestly, the rest of your post is still thoroughly steeped in a preconception of how 'everyone' plays the game. I regularly played against a guy some years ago who always used the exact same army, and always used the exact same strategy, and almost always lost. I've seen players who just ignored points entirely, put whatever they happened to own on the table and played until one side is all dead, or they get bored or run out of time. I've played in gaming groups where we built lists specifically intended to stomp each other, and others where we deliberately built lists to be silly, or based around a narrative, or just to find out how a given combo would work against another army. For myself, even in my fairly brief stint playing in tournies, winning has rarely specifically been the objective, and some of the most entertaining games I've played have been ones where I lost horribly.

There are a lot of players out there for whom how powerful their list is, is a minimal factor in how they enjoy the game.

What is the practical difference, between I don't see a problem and I don't care about a problem. Besides philosophical one of course. Because the practic result if either seem to be the same, especialy as far as other people goes.

 catbarf wrote:

This is an inherently competitive game. There's an inherently competitive nature to choosing your army to fight your opponent with the objective of winning, and most people want to have a solid chance at victory even if they aren't win-at-all-costs competitive. As soon as you lose a game horribly due to listbuilding and then start to examine how to have a better experience in the future, the optimization incentives become blatantly obvious. You don't need to be a tournament player to recognize that there isn't any reason to take a chainsword over a thunder hammer, or that an infantry squad should take their complementary heavy weapon.
.

Game that can't be played competititely can't have competitive nature.

I have very good bridge on sale for cheap btw

 insaniak wrote:


There are a lot of players out there for whom how powerful their list is, is a minimal factor in how they enjoy the game.

That happens only if people have options. If someone has 2000pts and is limited to one game, because of the limiting effect of both GW games cost and what is played world wide, and you tell them that now, because of an arbitrary choice by GW they are going to be losing all of their games for the next 2-3 years, they are not going to be happy, and very few people are able to survive more then an edition playing like that. I have seen it countless times. People falling for the play what you like meme and then facing the harsh reality of the games GW produces. There is a reason why the retention of players is so bad for GW games. And I don't think that the game needs fixs to its core systems, in the form of PL, when there is both bigger problems to fix. Anything that starts to work, as soon as you can stop to care about it, is something hard to pull off when people do care about. For many reasons starting for how much they invested in to the an army, and ending with lore and similar stuff I don't really get.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

tneva82 810334 11575828 wrote:

Game that can't be played competititely can't have competitive nature.

I have very good bridge on sale for cheap btw

I am not sure how this works in the english language, but we have different names for both playing and games that can and can not be won. A game of knife stabbing can not be won, it can only be lost. w40k is a game which clearly can be won or lost. There is a whole industry to make it so. Starting with rules being created to tell people how the game is won, and ending with coaching, training etc.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Which GW games have featured a points system that made every option viable?

Comparing to PL? Everyone one. PL litteraly make playing the non optimal full squad load out a bad option. Under regular points there can be a thousand and weapon reasons for taking a Power Sword on a sgt, when the TH is technicaly the best option. Stuff ranging from points cost of the upgrade, the need to fit units in to an army of certain size, the need to fill out the points etc.

 insaniak wrote:
A problem is something that causes you difficulty or concern. If it is not causing you difficulty or concern, (ie: you don't care about it) it is by very definition not a problem.

Nope. An alcoholic who says "I don't have a drinking problem" still has a problem, even if they genuinely think it isn't causing them any difficulty or concern.

Which GW games have featured a points system that made every option viable?

None, but that's an absurd standard to judge the system by. The traditional point system doesn't have a 100% success rate but PL's failure rate is far worse and, unlike the traditional point system, is a deliberate systemic error that can not be corrected.

And for that PL are just fine, because if their list doesn't work, they have more freedom to swap options around without having to rework their entire list.

This is technically true but irrelevant. PL only offers an advantage here if you treat the point limit as a hard limit, which is something you only do in the kind of competitive environment where PL's balance issues make it a hopelessly invalid system. In any environment where PL is appropriate point limits should be treated as rough guidelines and it's just fine to change some options around and bring 2015 points to your 2000 point game.

This is what I was saying to PenitentJake about the absurdity of caring immensely about both lists having the same point total even if the only way to get there is to make the numbers inaccurate. This defense of PL says that it's better to have two "2000 point" lists where one has 1900 points of value and the other has 2100 points than to accurately evaluate all of the units and options and have a 1990 point list against a 2010 point list.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

tneva82 wrote:
Game that can't be played competititely can't have competitive nature.

Which is irrelevant because 40k is indisputably played competitively. You may not like competitive 40k but it still exists and is extremely popular.

 insaniak wrote:
And for that PL are just fine...

No it's not. And never has been. And never will be.

PL does not take into account differences in relative power. It is an inherently and deeply flawed system for this reason. There is no way to compare unit loadouts, as every loadout has the same cost. That is functionally broken on a fundamental level.

 insaniak wrote:

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

Just because you don't care about a problem, does not mean it is not actually a problem.

In the English language it most assuredly does.

No, it doesn't. A skyscraper with no fire evacuation plan is a problem regardless of whether any individual within that skyscraper cares whether it has one or not.

The design of the watertight compartments on the Titanic was a problem even though nobody acknowledged it when it first set sail.

Ignoring a design flaw doesn't make it go away.

An alcoholic saying that there is no problem because he does not care and still has fun

His friends telling everyone that alcoholism is bot a problem in general as long as they all still have fun

His family arguing that it is a problem for them being shut down because their opinion does not matter because it is not a problem as long as the others don't care and still have fun

Nicht alles was hinkt ist ein Vergleich (and I really don't know how to translate that into English)

Yeah, I can totally see why we have a problem solving real problems because of people thinking that there is none as long as some people don't care

So, in summary of the last two pages of tripe from the usual pro points lot.

1. PL players definitely don’t realise how wrongly they are playing the game

2. We are all liars.

3. Liking power levels is the same as alcoholism. (That ones a belter by the way and no way insulting to anyone who has alcohol issues or suffered because of loved ones who do)

4. Painting owl still cannot understand that anyone else might like something they don’t.

5. HBMC is still really angry about something

6. Hecaton really didn’t like how voidweavers were priced in 9th.

To clear up a couple of accusation, when I talk about about PL I am referring to the mechanic from 8th/9th that was actually called power levels. Not what you have decided to call points in 10th. So I am not lying. When I talk about current points I will make it clear. That’s not me lying, that’s you misinterpreting my words because of your own definition you have applied.

PL will never work with people who want to optimise lists, voidweavers or not. They weren’t intended for people who do that and rely on a basic understanding of that. That’s why it was good that points existed as well.

And if we are really playing the game wrong and having so much less fun than everyone (this is your assumption not mine) then why have GW decided that everyone should use a similar system this edition?? Maybe, you were all playing the game wrong and were too wrapped up in your own self importance to realise it.??

Or maybe it’s just a ploy to get remove barriers to entry like we have said all along. Who knows!

 kodos wrote:
An alcoholic saying that there is no problem because he does not care and still has fun

His friends telling everyone that alcoholism is bot a problem in general as long as they all still have fun

His family arguing that it is a problem for them being shut down because their opinion does not matter because it is not a problem as long as the others don't care and still have fun

Nicht alles was hinkt ist ein Vergleich (and I really don't know how to translate that into English)

Yeah, I can totally see why we have a problem solving real problems because of people thinking that there is none as long as some people don't care

"Not everything walking with a limp is an (or should be considered as a) comparison."

For those not mighty of the "angry language", Comparisons, analogies, etc. often get dismissed in german with the sentence "Der Vergleich hinkt", the comparison is limping.
Which means the comparison or analogy is a bit too far away situationally.
This sentence basically describes a state in which an argument or comparison isn't just limping but still somewhat viable (you could describe that as the thermodynamics of language) but rather we are at a point where just because it looks like a comparison, it really isn't anymore.

PL can clearly work with people who want to optimise, its just that the optimisation is going to be different than with points.

The perk with regular points is that you can say have a min-sized bare bones unit, a medium-sized 2 special weapon unit, and a max-sized fully blinged out unit at different points levels. And they are all efficient/viable for those points. They can fit into different lists.

Whereas clearly if they are all the same points, you'd take the max-sized blinged out unit in all circumstances.

But yes - whether its an issue will vary. It was interesting for example a while back hearing Peachy talk about AOS 1.0 which infamously didn't have points. They supposedly played by just randomly selecting 3 characters and 3 units. And I can see how if you don't care about the result this maybe can work. But for me it would be letting randomness have far too big an impact on the game.

It can sometimes be an illusion - but I like thinking I win a game because of decisions I made - both at the list building stage, and on the tabletop. And this is why imbalance bothers me - but I realise other people are less concerned.

And to keep hammering it home, I think broad imbalance is a much bigger issue than "but if I take a laspistol rather than a plasma pistol my list is technically suboptimal". If most factions were near a 50% win rate into each other, and most units were efficient at what you would expect them to do, I wouldn't have a problem. But most frankly aren't, and so I do.

Tyel wrote:
PL can clearly work with people who want to optimise, its just that the optimisation is going to be different than with points.

The perk with regular points is that you can say have a min-sized bare bones unit, a medium-sized 2 special weapon unit, and a max-sized fully blinged out unit at different points levels. And they are all efficient/viable for those points. They can fit into different lists.

Whereas clearly if they are all the same points, you'd take the max-sized blinged out unit in all circumstances.

But yes - whether its an issue will vary. It was interesting for example a while back hearing Peachy talk about AOS 1.0 which infamously didn't have points. They supposedly played by just randomly selecting 3 characters and 3 units. And I can see how if you don't care about the result this maybe can work. But for me it would be letting randomness have far too big an impact on the game.

It can sometimes be an illusion - but I like thinking I win a game because of decisions I made - both at the list building stage, and on the tabletop. And this is why imbalance bothers me - but I realise other people are less concerned.

And to keep hammering it home, I think broad imbalance is a much bigger issue than "but if I take a laspistol rather than a plasma pistol my list is technically suboptimal". If most factions were near a 50% win rate into each other, and most units were efficient at what you would expect them to do, I wouldn't have a problem. But most frankly aren't, and so I do.

And this is my point all along. The amount it’s an issue will vary on how badly the changes effect you.

I also think looking at points as the main way to balance armies, I think they should have done more to balance units before adopting the 10th edition points style, it really works if units have say two options, neither stronger than the others. But when units have many upgrades and many of them been an alternative no upgrades it is going to matter in the competitive arena which upgrades you choose. Tank sponsons being a prime example. I remember when AoS came out and units had options of hand weapons or spears, where spears would lose some lethality but gain a bit of range. The options had distinct advantages and disadvantages.

But these are issues don’t have an impact on my small gaming group, but I still think a two system solution would be best, it would still be simple for beginners and simple for those of us who value that over the perceived benefits of balance but would allow the granularity needed in competitive gaming.

I also think the community needs to give itself a shake. This idea that match play is the only isn’t healthy as we can see in this thread and others where people are saying legends wouldn’t be allowed in pick up games in spite Gw explicitly saying they are because that goes against the match play philosophy. That’s just stopping people playing with their toys and goes against the whole idea of the hobby being fun, which surely we can all agree is the point.

Tyel wrote:
And to keep hammering it home, I think broad imbalance is a much bigger issue than "but if I take a laspistol rather than a plasma pistol my list is technically suboptimal". If most factions were near a 50% win rate into each other, and most units were efficient at what you would expect them to do, I wouldn't have a problem. But most frankly aren't, and so I do.

40k has always had internal balance problems and external ones, everyone accepts that, what I want is for there to be decent reason for any option not being viable. I don't see why naked Canoptek Wraiths need to be unviable, it is not serving anyone to any great degree. The people who genuinely love the blinged out Wraiths get to skip some trivial math, that's a terrible reason. In a theoretical state of the game Necron Warriors need a Lord with a reanimation orb to be viable? Well either the Lord with the reanimation orb could be nerfed and the Warriors could be buffed to make Warriors without the Lord viable, but in that case the Lord may no longer be viable for Immortals. Lords could be more expensive but only for Warriors and then Warriors could be less expensive, but testing every combination of units like this to make sure it's truly necessary would be an absurd tax on GW, so Lords have one cost and it's okay if they end up being mandatory for Warriors even if game balance isn't perfect, at least Warriors and Lords both have a place in the game.

Personal preference of something objectively bad is fine. Shouting down people that question your preference is not okay. Some things are objectively better than others, 3,14 is an objectively better approximation of pi than 3, arguing otherwise is fine but don't get mad when people still insist that 3 is an objectively worse approximation of pi than 3,14.

I would still want pts if GW perfected external balance, there is no good reason to have PL instead of pts, at least the terrible external balance of 9th shows that GW are not better equipped at handling PL balancing than pts balancing, fewer options =/= great external balance.

Andykp wrote:
I also think the community needs to give itself a shake. This idea that match play is the only isn’t healthy as we can see in this thread and others where people are saying legends wouldn’t be allowed in pick up games in spite Gw explicitly saying they are because that goes against the match play philosophy. That’s just stopping people playing with their toys and goes against the whole idea of the hobby being fun, which surely we can all agree is the point.

It's not about preventing people that already own the legends units from using them, the problem is the case where a Legends unit is undercosted and therefore becomes extremely popular despite their lack of official availability. Timmy shouldn't be able to buy out of print kits to get an advantage, it'll hurt Timmy in the long run when the rules get removed entirely. But then it's not really fair if Frank gets to keep using his legends to get an advantage while Timmy can't get them so the most fair thing is to ban them. None of this matters if you play with people that don't care about winning, but most people do and they're willing to change their list to increase their chances of winning.

Andykp wrote:
The amount it’s an issue will vary on how badly the changes effect you.

How much you care about it or think that it impacts you (or how little) is utterly irrelevant.

A system that is better able to account for differences in power/ability between units and upgrades within units will always be superior to a system that does not.

Andykp wrote:
1. PL players definitely don’t realise how wrongly they are playing the game

Misrepresentation.

Andykp wrote:
2. We are all liars.

I gave you a choice of how to label your actions: Lack of comprehension or wilful deception.

Andykp wrote:
4. Painting owl still cannot understand that anyone else might like something they don’t.

More misrepresentation.

Andykp wrote:
5. HBMC is still really angry about something

The aforementioned misrepresentations, strawman, endless dodging and failing to address any points raised whatsoever.

Andykp wrote:
To clear up a couple of accusation, when I talk about about PL I am referring to the mechanic from 8th/9th that was actually called power levels. Not what you have decided to call points in 10th.

A distinction without a difference.

Andykp wrote:
So I am not lying.

So it's a lack of comprehension then. I appreciate you clearing that up.

 insaniak wrote:


There are a lot of players out there for whom how powerful their list is, is a minimal factor in how they enjoy the game.

The percentage of players who don't care if they lose because their army is underpowered are vanishingly small. In my experience, it's competitive players who are more able to absorb a 10-game losing streak than the CAAC types.


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Andykp wrote:


To clear up a couple of accusation, when I talk about about PL I am referring to the mechanic from 8th/9th that was actually called power levels. Not what you have decided to call points in 10th. So I am not lying. When I talk about current points I will make it clear. That’s not me lying, that’s you misinterpreting my words because of your own definition you have applied.

There are very good reasons that people in this thread are saying 10th's point costs are basically power level. Go back and read it and get back to us.

Andykp wrote:


PL will never work with people who want to optimise lists, voidweavers or not. They weren’t intended for people who do that and rely on a basic understanding of that. That’s why it was good that points existed as well.

Source on the intent of PL? Or did you just make that up wholesale.

If it wasn't "intended" for that then why isn't there some big sign in the rulebook that says "attention! If you try to optimize your army this won't work!"

Also, that fails for the case of someone who accidentally makes an overpowered list because it is also thematic. Given that it has no way to handle "I just happened to like overpowered unit x" then it's objectively inferior to points.

Andykp wrote:

And if we are really playing the game wrong and having so much less fun than everyone (this is your assumption not mine) then why have GW decided that everyone should use a similar system this edition?? Maybe, you were all playing the game wrong and were too wrapped up in your own self importance to realise it.??

Because GW is objectively balancing the game wrong.

Andykp wrote:

Or maybe it’s just a ploy to get remove barriers to entry like we have said all along. Who knows!

A shortsighted one that will create more problems than it will solve. When I was 12 and my brother was 10 we were adding army lists up with calculators. If we could do it you can too.