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Dudeface wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:

Dudeface wrote:
Which in reality beyond occasionally flipping which is the "best" option by mistake, is pretty much what we get now anyway.

Why "now"? It has never been any different.

You are correct but I'll grant Hellbore that they give the appearance of caring and adjusting more, more often. They haven't given anyone any reason to think they could or would handle it any differently under this guise, but that was the point really - they hypothetically would try corrections now, whereas they didn't before.

I'm glad you - unlike Hellbore - actually address the argument. The key difference here is, in my opinion, that it's not like GW has never tried to balance options in such a way, but they have failed over and over again despite seriously trying and actually implementing modern game design processes. While they are continuously getting at balancing units and armies, no such progress is being made for options.
And by options I mean anything that allows you to pick from a list of two or more things, be it warlord traits, psychic discipline, wargear or battle honors. Neither point costs, PL, pick two or free options have changed that there always is one or two superior choices, and maybe a third niche one. There is no strategic reason to pick any of the others unless the best options are unique. This is why splitting datasheets seems to work out ok, when in reality it is tweaking point costs, offering alternative abilities and different wargear to reduce problem they were never able to handle like crisis suits into another "balance 3 options against each other" puzzle they are able to solve.

They are failing to balance nob wargear. They are failing to balance tau commander wargear. They are failing to balance the knight chassis options on both imperial and chaos side. Carnifex, Leman Russ, Plague Marines, Helbrutes, Land Fortress, Battle Sister Squads, Havocs.
GW has been removing options left and right, but it's not like units with plenty of options have disappeared from the game. And yet, every single one of those is - barring some gentlemen running an old model and giving a damn about WYSIWYG - not run ignoring 90% of the possible configurations.

In addition, multiple narrative event organizers are outright banning the new character creations rules before they had the chance to land in people's hands, because it's just that badly balanced.

Just like Faster Than Light travel, which is possible in theory, the theory is meaningless to reality if you don't have the means to achieve it.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Breton wrote:
One could even argue their target audience has changed. They're more about competitive gaming than a sandbox for narratives.

One surely has proof to support that? Crusade might not be as popular as matched play decks, but it's for sure drawing more people to narrative play than their half-assed campaign books with disconnected badly balanced missions were in the past.

 Jidmah wrote:


One surely has proof to support that? Crusade might not be as popular as matched play decks, but it's for sure drawing more people to narrative play than their half-assed campaign books with disconnected badly balanced missions were in the past.

Who said anything about their campaign books? I'm pretty sure I said competitive gaming (tournament play) than sandboxing for narratives (pickup and more). I don't see them putting on invitational Crusade Leagues. Since you want to be so combative I'll ask - When is the Crusades World Championships? is there a War-Com article about it?
https://www.warhammer-community.com/en-gb/articles/40dvsrcq/experience-the-world-championships-of-warhammer-in-spain-in-2026/

Breton wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:


One surely has proof to support that? Crusade might not be as popular as matched play decks, but it's for sure drawing more people to narrative play than their half-assed campaign books with disconnected badly balanced missions were in the past.

Who said anything about their campaign books? I'm pretty sure I said competitive gaming (tournament play) than sandboxing for narratives (pickup and more). I don't see them putting on invitational Crusade Leagues. Since you want to be so combative I'll ask - When is the Crusades World Championships? is there a War-Com article about it?
https://www.warhammer-community.com/en-gb/articles/40dvsrcq/experience-the-world-championships-of-warhammer-in-spain-in-2026/

By definition you can't have a crusade championship as it's not a competitive mode. It's not designed to bum rush through the crusade in 2 days to get to an end result.

That said GW does host multiple grand narrative events which are focused on narrative play. Most independent tournaments also hold a narrative event.

You're essentially going "well if people playing a casual long-form narrative system is so popular why aren't GW shoving 2 day competitive events out for it". Which is an oxymoron.

Do GW regularly push crusade groups? Honestly I dont think so, but likewise it's mote free-form nature doesn't really suit that either.

There is 100% more competitive matched play noise online though, which gives it the impression of being the most played.

Dudeface wrote:
There is 100% more competitive matched play noise online though, which gives it the impression of being the most played.

As with everything today, it highly depends on your social media bubble, really. Matched play clearly gets the most attention because it's the default way to play, but not all of it is tournament grade competitive. Some of the most successful battle report channels are run by fairly bad players. People prefer watching a nice person getting some rules wrong with a bad list against their buddy while socializing over a two highly competitive guys playing a perfect game against each other.

There are also large crusade-focused communities, but they tend to focus more on running crusades, which campaigns to run, grasping the rather complicated crusade rules or how to build your own campaign. It's comparable to TTRPGs. Just because there is less content for DMs/GMs than for broken combos, horror storries and insane character builds doesn't man that either is more relevant.

It's also worth noting that the majority of tactics applies equally to crusade and matched play. The only exception would be mission-focused strategy, which also has quite some impact on list building. On the flip side, crusade-specific tactics are rather rare since the main goal of crusade is either the narrative or leveling your army, not winning games. Some of GW's 10th edition crusades can be won as a whole even if you lose every single one of your games. It's quite difficult to be a successful content creator for something people don't actually care about. I know goonhammer is trying, but their crusade content is rather low quality compared to their competitive stuff.

Dudeface wrote:

Breton wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:


One surely has proof to support that? Crusade might not be as popular as matched play decks, but it's for sure drawing more people to narrative play than their half-assed campaign books with disconnected badly balanced missions were in the past.

Who said anything about their campaign books? I'm pretty sure I said competitive gaming (tournament play) than sandboxing for narratives (pickup and more). I don't see them putting on invitational Crusade Leagues. Since you want to be so combative I'll ask - When is the Crusades World Championships? is there a War-Com article about it?
https://www.warhammer-community.com/en-gb/articles/40dvsrcq/experience-the-world-championships-of-warhammer-in-spain-in-2026/

By definition you can't have a crusade championship as it's not a competitive mode. It's not designed to bum rush through the crusade in 2 days to get to an end result.

That said GW does host multiple grand narrative events which are focused on narrative play. Most independent tournaments also hold a narrative event.

You're essentially going "well if people playing a casual long-form narrative system is so popular why aren't GW shoving 2 day competitive events out for it". Which is an oxymoron.

Do GW regularly push crusade groups? Honestly I dont think so, but likewise it's mote free-form nature doesn't really suit that either.

There is 100% more competitive matched play noise online though, which gives it the impression of being the most played.

No, I'm essentially going the GW environment has changed, and they're no longer focused on the narrative player - to which someone tried to disagree. At which point I referred them to the article for the tournament and asked when the Crusade Invitational was. Because there isn't one. Because their focus isn't on the narrative player. You even agreed with this, then tried to deny it. Most tournaments have a narrative event. All of them have a tournament event. They don't even give you a downed starship and pilot in the boxed set anymore.

Breton wrote:

Dudeface wrote:

Breton wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:


One surely has proof to support that? Crusade might not be as popular as matched play decks, but it's for sure drawing more people to narrative play than their half-assed campaign books with disconnected badly balanced missions were in the past.

Who said anything about their campaign books? I'm pretty sure I said competitive gaming (tournament play) than sandboxing for narratives (pickup and more). I don't see them putting on invitational Crusade Leagues. Since you want to be so combative I'll ask - When is the Crusades World Championships? is there a War-Com article about it?
https://www.warhammer-community.com/en-gb/articles/40dvsrcq/experience-the-world-championships-of-warhammer-in-spain-in-2026/

By definition you can't have a crusade championship as it's not a competitive mode. It's not designed to bum rush through the crusade in 2 days to get to an end result.

That said GW does host multiple grand narrative events which are focused on narrative play. Most independent tournaments also hold a narrative event.

You're essentially going "well if people playing a casual long-form narrative system is so popular why aren't GW shoving 2 day competitive events out for it". Which is an oxymoron.

Do GW regularly push crusade groups? Honestly I dont think so, but likewise it's mote free-form nature doesn't really suit that either.

There is 100% more competitive matched play noise online though, which gives it the impression of being the most played.

No, I'm essentially going the GW environment has changed, and they're no longer focused on the narrative player - to which someone tried to disagree. At which point I referred them to the article for the tournament and asked when the Crusade Invitational was. Because there isn't one. Because their focus isn't on the narrative player. You even agreed with this, then tried to deny it. Most tournaments have a narrative event. All of them have a tournament event. They don't even give you a downed starship and pilot in the boxed set anymore.

There doesn't need to be a crusade invitational, it isn't a metric of success or popularity, they've produced enough materials and support for crusade to show they care and included it in their official events.

If you want to spin pointless statements around to prove subjective opinions, how many matched play expansion books have they included in the end of edition series? As a hint it's a lot lower than the narrative ones.

I have not agreed their focus isn't on narrative, I disagree strongly. I stated their public facing elements fixate on matched play, because the vocal online community does.

Ultimately you cannot prove me wrong, just as I cannot prove myself right. There is no evidence, as nobody collects the data. People can't even regularly define matched play or "not mactched play".

<insaniak is right>

 Jidmah wrote:
All his arguments are pointless. And as soon as you point out that he has a long history of arguing in bad faith and refusing to ever back down from an argument, no matter how stupid, he gets some mod to delete all posts related to that.

'He' didn't get a mod to delete his posts in this case. The thread had multiple reports, and the ridiculous and overly snarky back and forth was pruned. If you could all tone it down considerably, that would be appreciated.

As a reminder, if you see someone you think is arguing in bad faith, you can choose to just move on and do better things with your time rather than engaging with it. Quite a lot of the time, it's just a misunderstanding of viewpoints, and nothing is gained by turning up the snark.

Sigh, I guess you are right.

I would just prefer if this forum had anything worth reading anymore. Way too many people have chosen to move on and do better things than dakkadakka.

 Jidmah wrote:
I would just prefer if this forum had anything worth reading anymore. Way too many people have chosen to move on and do better things than dakkadakka.

Then respond to the posts that you consider worth reading to boost that conversation, and ignore the stuff you don't want to read. That's a far more reliable way of improving the level of discourse than getting into slinging matches.

Dudeface wrote:


I don't think it's a leap to say that balancing the points on a sisters squad with no wargear costs is far simpler than doing it with wargear costs. They've got 1 points value to move based on the units represented effective rate. Put the costs back in and now youve got to balance the points and output of all options simultaneously whilst also balancing the cost of the raw profile against the impact of the gear.

You don't need them to spend 6 year flailing about to tell tha GW would, at best, balance the "most representative" loadout then spend forever having dud options alongside the optimal. Which in reality beyond occasionally flipping which is the "best" option by mistake, is pretty much what we get now anyway.

That's not the argument being made. It has been stated that GW CAN'T balance wargear as evidenced by the previous 40 years.

However the paradigm is not equivalent. If I had said 3 years ago that GW was just incapable of balancing army lists based on the last 30 years of evidence, i'd be just as correct. Because up until recently, GW didn't do balance updates. They updated the wargear and army list when they updated the edition.

So, every edition the core rules, the army list and the wargear options would all be completely redone. Making everything effectively a prototype. So there was no ability to see any improvement, because when they did new wargear balance, they were also changing the game and army underneath the wargear at the same time.

When GW introduced their intra- edition multi year balance system, they also stripped out wargear options. So we've not seen how this process would apply. And no one has made a convincing argument that wargear is so super snowflake special exceptional that it intrinsically just doesn't balance, when it uses the same mechanics as every other aspect of the game.



And of course, there are a whole lot of stops along the 0 options to infinite options line of game development. people keep making strawmen and tilting at them. you could make a game where every stat and component of a unit was purchased and try to balance that. and while I don't think that's impossible, the lift and complexity makes it impractical. GW have done some good work in their attempts to differentiate equipment options so that they don't need cost options - making all the weapons available to a marine captain different in ways that make them equally useful. It's not perfect, but they could have just rolled them into a single 'captain weapons' profile and been done with it.

They've shown they can balance the mechanics of gear through the above, so having that apply to other things isn't impossible. They already have a 5 variants of the same unit - marine captain which are just fixed gear loads in separate sheets rather than gear list in one sheet. And this leads to being able to take 15 captains (50% more than a chapter actually has), rather than 3 that single captain profiles with wargear would offer.


i don't think there are many people who are asking for a zillion options. A wargear list of 6 different items is not impractical. the crucible rules are effectively taking these multi sheet units and putting their wargear together to select from.

If there's an issue like the 3 railgun battlesuit, GW's ability to update rules quickly now means they just need to put out an addendum that has ^this item can only be taken once/twice for the railgun. That's just following the inbuilt table exceptions they've already got in those rules.

The two autarch models have two different special rules and a couple of core rules different, those can be put in a table to select from. They're just artificially separate at the moment.


Something that irks me about the whole assumption of 'well people will find the best' is that by removing options you remove the ability for people to find new ways to use things. It makes the fallacious assumption that every player has perfect understanding of optimisation in all scenarios and there is 0 chance a seemingly suboptimal option will ever be useful or allow for a unique way to play. Turning the game into cookie cutter net lists removes a whole bunch of emergent gameplay because so called experts think if they haven't found it, it doesn't exist.

Just seeing the leaderboards of the tournaments shifting army composition shows that even at that top level new ways to play can be found. Reducing the options you have to find those new ways is not a good thing for the game.

 Hellebore wrote:

The two autarch models have two different special rules and a couple of core rules different, those can be put in a table to select from. They're just artificially separate at the moment.

That's the current recipe template - they change it to either avoid stacking or duplication. They also separate leaders into their movement rate categories. The Power Armor Libby joins 6" move power armor units and has a 4++ unit invuln. The 5" Terminator Libby has SH1 because it can only join Terminators that already have a 4++ invuln. My guess is they don't want Swooping Hawks and/or Warp Spiders to get as much bonus to their mobility so they gave them a chance to refund their token instead of increasing the gain.

 Hellebore wrote:
...Something that irks me about the whole assumption of 'well people will find the best' is that by removing options you remove the ability for people to find new ways to use things. It makes the fallacious assumption that every player has perfect understanding of optimisation in all scenarios and there is 0 chance a seemingly suboptimal option will ever be useful or allow for a unique way to play. Turning the game into cookie cutter net lists removes a whole bunch of emergent gameplay because so called experts think if they haven't found it, it doesn't exist...

I'd like to add that it also prevents people from choosing subpar options for reasons of fluff or fun (that thing that I think we're legally barred from having while playing a game, but I won't not anti-no neganarc if you won't).

I recall a lot of ink being spilled about D&D's 3.x Ed design philosophy due to the existence of "trap options" (equipment, spells, classes, races, feats/skills etc. that were objectively inferior or nonfunctional for a given task). While I don't like the thought of devs explicitly making things bad on purpose, I don't recall the discussions generally ending with an agreement that the options should be removed. Rather, they would often end in discussions of how to fix the trap options, because most of the people involved understood that things like "it's what my character would choose", "I enjoy using it", or "it feels right to take this" are perfectly valid reasons to include something as an option. To be sure, there were some options so poorly formulated that starting over from scratch would be the right choice, and there were others that could largely be done better using non-trap options (making deletion of the trap option less of a loss). Also, RPGs lend themselves to houseruling solutions a lot more easily than wargames (though I'd suspect this to be more of an artifact of wargaming culture). That said, a wargaming force can be just as much of a "mydudes" experience as creating an RPG character, and I don't think that blindly removing suboptimal choices improves the overall experience.

 waefre_1 wrote:

 Hellebore wrote:
...Something that irks me about the whole assumption of 'well people will find the best' is that by removing options you remove the ability for people to find new ways to use things. It makes the fallacious assumption that every player has perfect understanding of optimisation in all scenarios and there is 0 chance a seemingly suboptimal option will ever be useful or allow for a unique way to play. Turning the game into cookie cutter net lists removes a whole bunch of emergent gameplay because so called experts think if they haven't found it, it doesn't exist...

I'd like to add that it also prevents people from choosing subpar options for reasons of fluff or fun (that thing that I think we're legally barred from having while playing a game, but I won't not anti-no neganarc if you won't).

I recall a lot of ink being spilled about D&D's 3.x Ed design philosophy due to the existence of "trap options" (equipment, spells, classes, races, feats/skills etc. that were objectively inferior or nonfunctional for a given task). While I don't like the thought of devs explicitly making things bad on purpose, I don't recall the discussions generally ending with an agreement that the options should be removed. Rather, they would often end in discussions of how to fix the trap options, because most of the people involved understood that things like "it's what my character would choose", "I enjoy using it", or "it feels right to take this" are perfectly valid reasons to include something as an option. To be sure, there were some options so poorly formulated that starting over from scratch would be the right choice, and there were others that could largely be done better using non-trap options (making deletion of the trap option less of a loss). Also, RPGs lend themselves to houseruling solutions a lot more easily than wargames (though I'd suspect this to be more of an artifact of wargaming culture). That said, a wargaming force can be just as much of a "mydudes" experience as creating an RPG character, and I don't think that blindly removing suboptimal choices improves the overall experience.

With RPGs, a less optimal item or reward can be freely giving out as well without breaking it, so much of 3.5 was finding random fun things to give players and seeing where it goes !

The problem 40K has had is that if every time the lascannon is the best option, then making it useless for its points is the only way to balance it. And 40K has almost ignored opportunities as a balance factor. Other games of comparable size are fine handling this to a certain extent.
I think it’s also why we see tanks with weapons overload getting more common as well, as GW is unsure from a mini side how to fix there issues. And then with edition change they often reinventing a bunch rather than fixing issues, so it all goes under the rug until it’s a big issue again.

 Hellebore wrote:


That's not the argument being made. It has been stated that GW CAN'T balance wargear as evidenced by the previous 40 years.

Snip

I understand what you're saying, but whilst GW hypothetically could balance the options, they have repeatedly shown they can't. There's a slew of options this edition that people don't use because they're not equivalent in the current wargear system. Adding points to them, which GW have admitted they maybe should in places, won't magically fix the issue as then they're still having to spin more plates than they are now.

Regards the views on the playerbase and "solving the game", your entire posit requires GW to create a rules change that impacts the balance of a faction to enable players to "rediscover" a new solution.

I think the best example currently is a battlesisters squad. GW are on record that their options aren't balanced now and mechanics need changing to make it so. Multimeltas win out most of the time, heavy flamers have a place in some builds, heavy bolters atm need not exist for most. To make the heavy bolter worth it, all 3 need different points and need rebalanching every pass, or you need to rewrite the weapon profiles, or invent a new detachment. None are an easy step and GW has done none of the 3 even acknowledging this discrepancy.

I would love to be wrong going forwards, but I can't see it.

Given GWs profits, they could clearly put resources into more granular balance. They just aren't incentivised to do so.

Dudeface wrote:

 Hellebore wrote:


That's not the argument being made. It has been stated that GW CAN'T balance wargear as evidenced by the previous 40 years.

Snip

I understand what you're saying, but whilst GW hypothetically could balance the options, they have repeatedly shown they can't. There's a slew of options this edition that people don't use because they're not equivalent in the current wargear system. Adding points to them, which GW have admitted they maybe should in places, won't magically fix the issue as then they're still having to spin more plates than they are now.

GW's draft of balance between options might be wrong, sword and board beats two-handed weapons for Lychguard for example, but then without points it's just unfixable. With points you get another chance every 6 months. We know GW never gets balance right in the first go, so we know GW needs lots of chances to improve, ergo GW needs points for wargear so they do not have to get it right on release or be left with a useless weapon option until the next codex releases.

 vict0988 wrote:

Dudeface wrote:

 Hellebore wrote:


That's not the argument being made. It has been stated that GW CAN'T balance wargear as evidenced by the previous 40 years.

Snip

I understand what you're saying, but whilst GW hypothetically could balance the options, they have repeatedly shown they can't. There's a slew of options this edition that people don't use because they're not equivalent in the current wargear system. Adding points to them, which GW have admitted they maybe should in places, won't magically fix the issue as then they're still having to spin more plates than they are now.

GW's draft of balance between options might be wrong, sword and board beats two-handed weapons for Lychguard for example, but then without points it's just unfixable. With points you get another chance every 6 months. We know GW never gets balance right in the first go, so we know GW needs lots of chances to improve, ergo GW needs points for wargear so they do not have to get it right on release or be left with a useless weapon option until the next codex releases.

But this is equally untrue as they can and have changed weapon profiles post-codex release on a fair few occasions. They just.... don't.

The issue is how you get meaningful data on these things.

I mean say there was the choice for a DE Archon to have +1 attack for free. Logically everyone would take it. But say you didn't for RP reasons or whatever. Would there be any measurable difference in the win% for those who didn't? Probably not. In which case how do you balance it?

I feel GW's balancing has got much better because they've moved away from the RP style +1 point system towards "write rules that vaguely work, look at win rates and compositions for 2k armies and smudge things together as required". If an army is winning a lot of games and always taking 3 units of X, knock them up by 10% points. If its always losing, maybe go for a broad-brush 10% points reduction and see how that lands.

This will usually get you to the right position. Trying to balance [Chassis Price] and [Weapon Choice] with [Extra Option] by contrast is almost impossible. There's almost always going to be winning and losing combinations. This was especially true when the margin between rules was governed by RP feel and so resulted in massive variation in output.

Tyel wrote:
I feel GW's balancing has got much better because they've moved away from the RP style +1 point system towards "write rules that vaguely work, look at win rates and compositions for 2k armies and smudge things together as required". If an army is winning a lot of games and always taking 3 units of X, knock them up by 10% points. If its always losing, maybe go for a broad-brush 10% points reduction and see how that lands.

This will usually get you to the right position. Trying to balance [Chassis Price] and [Weapon Choice] with [Extra Option] by contrast is almost impossible. There's almost always going to be winning and losing combinations. This was especially true when the margin between rules was governed by RP feel and so resulted in massive variation in output.

Case A: A Captain has a powerfist and costs 100pts.

Case B: A Captain has either a chainsword or a powerfist and costs 100pts. Tournament data says 99% of successful players take the powerfist.

Case C: A Captain has a chainsword and costs 99pts. He can take a powerfist for 1pt. Tournament data says 98% of successful players take the powerfist.

In all three cases the 'winning' combination is a Captain with a powerfist, costing 100pts, and you can balance the unit cost around that assumption. Then if time and effort permit, you can either tweak underperforming wargear profiles (case B), or drop the cost of the unit a bit and raise the cost of the auto-take options to compensate (case C).

The point is, having options and points doesn't rule out broad-brush balancing. GW has more data than ever with which to determine what the winning and losing combinations are, and the means to make a coarse balance pass before the codex ink is even dry. They don't need to analyze exact win rates, just look at what setups are being taken in well-performing lists and use those as the baseline for balancing.

 catbarf wrote:

Tyel wrote:
I feel GW's balancing has got much better because they've moved away from the RP style +1 point system towards "write rules that vaguely work, look at win rates and compositions for 2k armies and smudge things together as required". If an army is winning a lot of games and always taking 3 units of X, knock them up by 10% points. If its always losing, maybe go for a broad-brush 10% points reduction and see how that lands.

This will usually get you to the right position. Trying to balance [Chassis Price] and [Weapon Choice] with [Extra Option] by contrast is almost impossible. There's almost always going to be winning and losing combinations. This was especially true when the margin between rules was governed by RP feel and so resulted in massive variation in output.

Case A: A Captain has a powerfist and costs 100pts.

Case B: A Captain has either a chainsword or a powerfist and costs 100pts. Tournament data says 99% of successful players take the powerfist.

Case C: A Captain has a chainsword and costs 99pts. He can take a powerfist for 1pt. Tournament data says 98% of successful players take the powerfist.

In all three cases the 'winning' combination is a Captain with a powerfist, costing 100pts, and you can balance the unit cost around that assumption. Then if time and effort permit, you can either tweak underperforming wargear profiles (case B), or drop the cost of the unit a bit and raise the cost of the auto-take options to compensate (case C).

The point is, having options and points doesn't rule out broad-brush balancing. GW has more data than ever with which to determine what the winning and losing combinations are, and the means to make a coarse balance pass before the codex ink is even dry. They don't need to analyze exact win rates, just look at what setups are being taken in well-performing lists and use those as the baseline for balancing.

Thats a wonderfully granular example though, compare that to 9th eds captain with half a dozen melee options, 2 sets of 6 warlord traits from 2 books it can douple up on, 4 sets of 6 relics that can be doubled up on (noting they didnt cost points either) and then try and maintain it.

I use that as the example because that is what no small minority want back and are upset is gone.

 catbarf wrote:


Case B: A Captain has either a chainsword or a powerfist and costs 100pts. Tournament data says 99% of successful players take the powerfist.

100% of those players took the Captain. That doesn't mean the Captain is broken. By the same token if 99% of successful players take the one option on this one dude, that is not proof they were successful BECAUSE OF that one option on that one dude.

Dudeface wrote:
Thats a wonderfully granular example though, compare that to 9th eds captain with half a dozen melee options, 2 sets of 6 warlord traits from 2 books it can douple up on, 4 sets of 6 relics that can be doubled up on (noting they didnt cost points either) and then try and maintain it.

I use that as the example because that is what no small minority want back and are upset is gone.

Sure, I was being reductive, but you're also conflating upgrades that were tied to points (weapons/equipment) with upgrades that didn't have points costs (relics/WLTs), which was a huge part of why they were a balance problem.

In a world where all of these things have points costs associated with them, you can look at tournament data, see that Marines are winning 60% of games, then look at the actual lists. If every one has a Captain + thunder hammer + jump pack + Relic A + WLT 01, but no other Captains are ever taken, then you can hit each part of that combo with a cost increase (coarse adjustment) and then see if mildly reducing the cost of the Captain himself and other equipment, relics, and WLTs (fine adjustment) makes other combinations see play. You don't have to get it perfect in one fell swoop, or ever, you just need more than one viable build, which is doable when you have ready access to an enormous volume of global playtest data.

The point is that, in response to Tyel, win percentages are not the only actionable data we have access to. Things are different now than twenty years ago, it's never been easier to figure out not only what factions are winning, but what units they're taking and what options on those units.

I'm not saying the actual balancing part is easy or that we should return to 3rd/4th Ed levels of customization, but balancing granular costs for wargear is more viable now than it used to be. Maybe skip the +1pt bolt pistol upgrades and other minutiae, but your example of multi-melta vs heavy flamer vs heavy bolter is a perfect example where having different costs is way easier to work with as a balancing mechanism than changing rules.

Dudeface wrote:
Thats a wonderfully granular example though, compare that to 9th eds captain with half a dozen melee options, 2 sets of 6 warlord traits from 2 books it can douple up on, 4 sets of 6 relics that can be doubled up on (noting they didnt cost points either) and then try and maintain it.

I mean, you've still got a lot of data.
- What detachments are being used.
- What base wargear is being used.
- What artefacts/WLTs are being used.

Yeah, it's a bit more involved but you've still got a lot to work with. Especially when it comes to interactions. e.g. if a particular detachment is very popular but not the associated artefact/WLT.

Also, GW charges for rules.
Is it tough to do well? Sure. But they’ve got the funds to do it well.

Dudeface wrote:
Thats a wonderfully granular example though, compare that to 9th eds captain with half a dozen melee options, 2 sets of 6 warlord traits from 2 books it can douple up on, 4 sets of 6 relics that can be doubled up on (noting they didnt cost points either) and then try and maintain it.

Now imagine that they'd had 10 editions and 30 years to perfect it, instead of throwing the bathwater out every 3 years...

Breton wrote:
100% of those players took the Captain. That doesn't mean the Captain is broken. By the same token if 99% of successful players take the one option on this one dude, that is not proof they were successful BECAUSE OF that one option on that one dude.

Vaguely recalling a Vampire Count or Dark Elf cavalry unit for WHFB back in the day that GW decided were overcosted because nobody used them, when the actual problem was that the models were insanely expensive to buy.


Although I'm also remembering that time GW made Librarians better because they were convinced that nobody used them, when Librarians were actually already the best character option in the Marine codex and everybody was using them. So, hopefully their data collection has improved...

Tbh the wrap up statement is really:

GW can conceptually give people customisable characters, they can balance it based on the slew of data. They have not tried in earnest historically and there is no historic data to support that they'd do it well. There is no future facing information suggesting they'll bring it back.

 insaniak wrote:

Dudeface wrote:
Thats a wonderfully granular example though, compare that to 9th eds captain with half a dozen melee options, 2 sets of 6 warlord traits from 2 books it can douple up on, 4 sets of 6 relics that can be doubled up on (noting they didnt cost points either) and then try and maintain it.

Now imagine that they'd had 10 editions and 30 years to perfect it, instead of throwing the bathwater out every 3 years...

Breton wrote:
100% of those players took the Captain. That doesn't mean the Captain is broken. By the same token if 99% of successful players take the one option on this one dude, that is not proof they were successful BECAUSE OF that one option on that one dude.

Vaguely recalling a Vampire Count or Dark Elf cavalry unit for WHFB back in the day that GW decided were overcosted because nobody used them, when the actual problem was that the models were insanely expensive to buy.


Although I'm also remembering that time GW made Librarians better because they were convinced that nobody used them, when Librarians were actually already the best character option in the Marine codex and everybody was using them. So, hopefully their data collection has improved...

I'd say the biggest change to the environment that gets us these frequent and frequently "better" updates is the internet. Used to be you had to buy a Chapter Approved book, which meant they had to write one, print one, distribute it to brick and mortar locations and on and on. The time needed for updates now are way shorter.

Dudeface wrote:

 Hellebore wrote:


That's not the argument being made. It has been stated that GW CAN'T balance wargear as evidenced by the previous 40 years.

Snip

I understand what you're saying, but whilst GW hypothetically could balance the options, they have repeatedly shown they can't. There's a slew of options this edition that people don't use because they're not equivalent in the current wargear system. Adding points to them, which GW have admitted they maybe should in places, won't magically fix the issue as then they're still having to spin more plates than they are now.

Regards the views on the playerbase and "solving the game", your entire posit requires GW to create a rules change that impacts the balance of a faction to enable players to "rediscover" a new solution.

I think the best example currently is a battlesisters squad. GW are on record that their options aren't balanced now and mechanics need changing to make it so. Multimeltas win out most of the time, heavy flamers have a place in some builds, heavy bolters atm need not exist for most. To make the heavy bolter worth it, all 3 need different points and need rebalanching every pass, or you need to rewrite the weapon profiles, or invent a new detachment. None are an easy step and GW has done none of the 3 even acknowledging this discrepancy.

I would love to be wrong going forwards, but I can't see it.

Your argument is requiring that all options in the current game must be balanced to prove that wargear can be balanced. A single unit with unbalanced options in the game is not proof. In fact it's the opposite, because it shows that the overwhelming majority of options the game has across all factions in toto can and are balanced against each other.

One Sisters squad is no more proof than the 3.5 chaos codex is proof that GW can't balance armies. If the majority of modern 40k options are imbalanced like the sisters squad, then that also speaks to GW's inability to balance their armies in general. They're tied together. Their balance updates don't have a wargear and an army section, they balance them all at once because its all one army.

If GW are getting it more right than wrong in their datasheet options and choices, then they are already proving they can balance internal unit options. And they're doing this with one arm tied behind their back by not providing point costs for upgrades as another balance lever. Which is something they've added back in for the crucible champions. The hamfisty way they currently do it in the game is multiple datasheets, which has its own issues like the proliferation of snowflake special rules for no reason other than its a different unit and the aforementioned over abundance of certain units to model the different options without having them on the same datasheet.


If we are arguing that GW can't balance its internal unit options now, then we're saying that their whole balance apparatus isn't working and their army lists aren't balancing.


This comes back to a hobby horse of mine which is splitting tournament play out of standard play by creating tournament lists and seasons of lists. If tournament players are already cherry picking for optimisation, then they are the tail wagging the dog for the rest of the army that will never be chosen. GW should just create a set of limited unit tournament lists for each faction that have been playtested to death and have people pick one to use. Every season they release different ones.

What this does is it decouples tournament victories from unit quality and stops the public getting caught in the tournament rat race because they can't meaningfully measure the whole army roster against a tournament list when the tournament list is curated. It says that the tournament environment is an artificial one aimed at pure competition and the normal game has more freedom. If tournament players can't choose units that normal players are using, then there's no FOMO or comparing going on.

For fun GW could even create suboptimal tournament lists for everyone and have a battle of the dregs tournament where you have to win with poor composition. Anything to decouple the public discourse from tournament optimisation.

The problem with the kind of balance people are talking about is that the more things you tie to a single balancing factor (ie points) the more changing one element of it impacts all of the others. The idea that if you just micromanage points endlessly sounds good. I heavily subscribed to the idea for years, but the reality is that it doesn't actually work because you're never just working on one thing.

Lets take the Captain that is in every list. Upping the points on the options taken likely doesn't increase the number of combinations seen on the table. In most cases, that simply removes that as an option because the additional points have to come out of something and its likely going to be the Captain. That's always been the issue with points granularity. A list is a puzzle, and making your pieces more uniquely shaped just limits the ways they can go together.

Ultimately points are more of an economy that determines balance as much as any other stat. It's not without value, but in general having components differentiated more by function than cost creates more meaningful options than Sword vs Sword+1.