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is competitive 40k getting to the point where we are going to need hotfixes/patches to the rules/datasheets to keep the 40k competitive scene fresh and fun. This is super common in moba's like League of Legends to keep the game legit and the player base happy, League of Legends has to apply small buffs/nerfs and game mechanic changes every month or so, some of the changes being super tiny yet having a huge impact on the game and its meta. I came to this idea noticing the auto-include units in competitive lists, currently the twin-vulkite dreadnought, previous the space marine apothecary, previously the space marine eradicators. Its not a good sign when 15/15 space marine lists in a 50 man tournament all had twin-vulkite dreadnoughts. This could be a human psychology thing too tho. Once a unit is so auto-include its human nature to jump on the band-wagon (in example, you don't want to be the ONLY space-marine without your auto-include unit; your choice of units would come into a range of ostracization (like when you run a build in League of Legends that isn't meta you run an extreme risk of your teammates/opponents salting you for trying to go off meta).

Unfortunately in the age of google, strategy games that are based largely off your build, (like deck building or army building) any one can do quick searches to get the "best" list and also how to play it. This will make tweeks to the game hit harder and harder. Thank you for the read.

Nope, the compi tribe is happy with whay they got right now.

Are you a regular tournament player and perceive this as a problem, or do you think other players have this problem?

As tournament games have 0 impact on my local meta and playstyle and I'm not attending tournaments myself, this is a complete non issue to me.

I think only regular tourney players should input wether they like changes, or not.

The (half?) yearly errata for everything and Chapter Approved are kinda like regular balance patches.

There will always be tweaks.

I don't think TVCs will get hit, because they're honestly not that bad. They are an effective tool to fill a hole for marines, but they're not a cure all.

Case in point at a recent tournament someone took three and they just wound up being duds.

TVCs became popularized by a single list that did well pre DE nerf. People will eventually find other units that work well. You just won't see them meme as hard.

Meta changes with each codex release or faster already. 'Auto-includes' already come and go and come again fast enough in this hobby.

'Day 0 patches to make the game good*' would be nice, but there's already a rate the game is fixed.

Balance passes are completely fine and lots of competitive tabletop games do it these days. The problem with GW is that as always they got greedy and decided to charge you for it.

Changes to the codex of each army should be completely free and online. Expansion books should only be for new rules.

Would it be good? Yes, of course it would be good. Has GW shown any interest or capability to do it? No. This is a company that struggles to put out a FAQ fixing the typos it introduced in its last release in less than a month. Let that sink in for a while.

Before something can be kept fresh and fun, first it must actually be fresh and fun...

a_typical_hero wrote:
Are you a regular tournament player and perceive this as a problem, or do you think other players have this problem?

As tournament games have 0 impact on my local meta and playstyle and I'm not attending tournaments myself, this is a complete non issue to me.

They do, you just don't realise it.

It would be nice if GW would do a 6 month "review of the points" and this was available online for free. Probably expectation that newest factions wouldn't be considered unless they needed urgent care.

An actual GW "review of the meta" could be interesting - beyond those slightly weird War-Com articles where the big names tell us things which we kind of already know. "We think X is a bit too good so we're bumping it up 10 points in this FAQ you are now reading" isn't all that informative.

I.E: "DE are definitely good, but following our FAQ we don't think they are dramatically out of kilter with Ad Mech, Sisters, Orks, Marines, DG, really all the new books except maybe Necrons, and even they are occasionally posting 4-1 runs in tournaments so can't really be said to be unplayable."

Admittedly it might just provoke massive arguments. And realistically they'd probably view it as a waste of money.

bat702 wrote:
is competitive 40k getting to the point where we are going to need hotfixes/patches to the rules/datasheets to keep the 40k competitive scene fresh and fun. This is super common in moba's like League of Legends to keep the game legit and the player base happy, League of Legends has to apply small buffs/nerfs and game mechanic changes every month or so, some of the changes being super tiny yet having a huge impact on the game and its meta. I came to this idea noticing the auto-include units in competitive lists, currently the twin-vulkite dreadnought, previous the space marine apothecary, previously the space marine eradicators. Its not a good sign when 15/15 space marine lists in a 50 man tournament all had twin-vulkite dreadnoughts. This could be a human psychology thing too tho. Once a unit is so auto-include its human nature to jump on the band-wagon (in example, you don't want to be the ONLY space-marine without your auto-include unit; your choice of units would come into a range of ostracization (like when you run a build in League of Legends that isn't meta you run an extreme risk of your teammates/opponents salting you for trying to go off meta).

Unfortunately in the age of google, strategy games that are based largely off your build, (like deck building or army building) any one can do quick searches to get the "best" list and also how to play it. This will make tweeks to the game hit harder and harder. Thank you for the read.

This can't happen. League's meta filters out in days, Warhammer filters out over the course of months. Constantly making kneejerk reactions because a really good unit has a successful couple of weeks before people learn how to play against it would be worse than what we have now.

If having some things cooled down in the FAQ is more or less fine, though it'd obviously be better if that didn't need to happen, but having already established units tweaked monthly would be asinine, as well as counter productive.

The problem of too good doesn't happen to often, and GW does seem to nerf those things after some time. Salamanders or liquifires are an example of that. Stuff being just good and balanced vs other new stuff, is okey I guess, although it does not do much for people who have to wait for years to get their turn. Which is the crux of the problem. GW just does not fix things which are bad, outside of a new codex release. Worse if they do release a codex and something is bad in it, it often stays bad for a very long time, often till either a big core rules change or the next codex for the faction. Which creates the problem of trap units, and those are a really bad thing for casual play. A tournament player is not going to lose sleep that reavers are a bad unit, that makes even less sense in a world were assault intercessors exist. It is a gigantic problem for someone who would like to include or even base his entire army around reavers.

 Sim-Life wrote:
They do, you just don't realise it.

Please elaborate.

Well GW changes the rule sets of whole armies based on tournament results. They clearly did not want to have salamander players being able to build an army out of 7 ETB boxs of aggresors and some characters. The changes to the army were very substential, and spilled over in to other armies too. When in 8th GW hiked up the prices of all transports, because Gulliman re-rolls existed, there were armies affected by it, who had neither access to re-rolls, nor to Gulliman. Tau change to 0-1 cmds. GK change that you have to run 2 different brotherhoods to get 2 GM NDKs, are all results of GW deciding that they don't want to see those run as double in single brotherhood armies. etc

OP is about balance fixes so the same units won't get spammed in each list and to keep the tourny scene "fresh".

This is not affecting my local scene, as nobody is spamming the same units over and over again.

People play what they have painted and what models they like.

Yes and if they painted two GM , 3-4 hive tyrants, 2-3 tau cmds and suddenly the rules say they can use 1-3, they are in a bit of a tight spot.

Same way if someone had his units moved in to legends or plain removed from the game. I had, or rather still have, a Librarian with a force staff and a stormshield and dreadnoughts with two AC, because the index allowed them. And I technically could spam the dreadnoughts, by virtue of having two of them.

a_typical_hero wrote:

 Sim-Life wrote:
They do, you just don't realise it.

Please elaborate.

Aside from what Karol has already mentioned about tournament results effecting the buffs/nerfs/points adjustments effecting everyone, the whole edition in centred around legalese systems involving keywords and esoteric equipment choices in order to appeal to the tournament crowds. Those guys LOVE very specific linguistics in their rules and set scenarios and it spills over into the casual arena whether you like it or not.

The equipment restrictions are less for tournament balance, but more “no model, no rules” build it from the box and not with 3rd party bits.

Marketing and sales, not game balance.

 Nevelon wrote:
The equipment restrictions are less for tournament balance, but more “no model, no rules” build it from the box and not with 3rd party bits.

Marketing and sales, not game balance.

It's more about the way that they've worded very specifically to sound more complicated than it needs to be.

 Nevelon wrote:
The equipment restrictions are less for tournament balance, but more “no model, no rules” build it from the box and not with 3rd party bits.

Marketing and sales, not game balance.

Not even going that far...

It seems like it was more for Kill Team->40k at this point.

bat702 wrote:
is competitive 40k getting to the point where we are going to need hotfixes/patches to the rules/datasheets to keep the 40k competitive scene fresh and fun. This is super common in moba's like League of Legends to keep the game legit and the player base happy, League of Legends has to apply small buffs/nerfs and game mechanic changes every month or so, some of the changes being super tiny yet having a huge impact on the game and its meta.

You know that saying "What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas"?
It should definitely apply to the competitive 40k scene. The last thing we need is for GW to continuously piss all over the game rules-wise that the rest of us play to keep things exciting for the tourney players. Because whatever changes get made? The tourney players will then simply bring the NEXT best thing. And the next one after that. And so on. If it's not X? Then it'll be Y. Then Z.
Meanwhile, out here in the real world, the rest of us will be up to our hips in FAQs/errata/constantly changing data sheets & the mangled wreckage of who knows how many units....

bat702 wrote:
I came to this idea noticing the auto-include units in competitive lists, currently the twin-vulkite dreadnought, previous the space marine apothecary, previously the space marine eradicators. Its not a good sign when 15/15 space marine lists in a 50 man tournament all had twin-vulkite dreadnoughts.

Hey, you know what I noticed in the same lists? That 15/15 SM lists all involved SM. Something needs to be done about that!

bat702 wrote:
This could be a human psychology thing too tho. Once a unit is so auto-include its human nature to jump on the band-wagon (in example, you don't want to be the ONLY space-marine without your auto-include unit; your choice of units would come into a range of ostracization (like when you run a build in League of Legends that isn't meta you run an extreme risk of your teammates/opponents salting you for trying to go off meta).

What garbage. Your opponents salty opinions on the units you use in a 40k tourney, your LoL build, etc? Means nothing.
And if you're on a team & they're doing this to you? Then you're on a team.

a_typical_hero wrote:

 Sim-Life wrote:
They do, you just don't realise it.

Please elaborate.

Sim-Life wrote:Aside from what Karol has already mentioned about tournament results effecting the buffs/nerfs/points adjustments effecting everyone, the whole edition in centred around legalese systems involving keywords and esoteric equipment choices in order to appeal to the tournament crowds. Those guys LOVE very specific linguistics in their rules and set scenarios and it spills over into the casual arena whether you like it or not.

Also, it's 2021. If your meta is composed entirely of people who never, ever go on the Internet to look for guidance on what units are good, what's bad, how to build their army, how to optimize it, or what tricks to use, then you are in an extremely tiny minority.

Most players may not be chasing tournament metas, but the general sense of what works and what doesn't permeates into casual play.

There is one guy who is using a Dhrukari netlist on purpose. The rest of the crowd is playing whatever they want.

Doesn't mean everybody is playing unoptimised trash tier compositions, but the only time I see three of the same is our Red Corsair player who uses 3x5 CSM for the extra 3 CP.

Apart from troops, most of the time there is 1-2 of a kind of the datasheets on the table. Even up to 1500p.

I can be so sure because I got access to all of the Crusade rosters on Google docs for my group.

Of course some armies like GK break these observation, but if your army can be varied, people make use of their whole codex.

So yeah, if units get balance updates based on tournament performances, the impact is pretty much irrelevant. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

People do look online to get a general idea, but nobody wants an arms race. We keep it "civilized"

a_typical_hero wrote:
There is one guy who is using a Dhrukari netlist on purpose. The rest of the crowd is playing whatever they want.

Doesn't mean everybody is playing unoptimised trash tier compositions, but the only time I see three of the same is our Red Corsair player who uses 3x5 CSM for the extra 3 CP.

Apart from troops, most of the time there is 1-2 of a kind of the datasheets on the table. Even up to 1500p.

I can be so sure because I got access to all of the Crusade rosters on Google docs for my group.

Of course some armies like GK break these observation, but if your army can be varied, people make use of their whole codex.

So yeah, if units get balance updates based on tournament performances, the impact is pretty much irrelevant. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

People do look online to get a general idea, but nobody wants an arms race. We keep it "civilized"

If it works for your local gaming, that’s good.

But your post comes off, to me at least, as ragging on people who are trying to win. Which, considering 40k is an inherently competitive game, seems pretty rude to me.

Huh? Maybe thats a language barrier, but where am I ragging on people?

Everybody is trying to win, just not at all costs.

The OP point is asking wether we need balance fixes more often to keep the tournament scene fresh. I say it does not affect me locally, so I would leave it to the tournament crowd if they want to have more changes more often.

If your local scene consists of people who take heavy inspiration from tournament lists, your mileage might vary.

Karol wrote:
The problem of too good doesn't happen to often, and GW does seem to nerf those things after some time. Salamanders or liquifires are an example of that. Stuff being just good and balanced vs other new stuff, is okey I guess, although it does not do much for people who have to wait for years to get their turn. Which is the crux of the problem. GW just does not fix things which are bad, outside of a new codex release. Worse if they do release a codex and something is bad in it, it often stays bad for a very long time, often till either a big core rules change or the next codex for the faction. Which creates the problem of trap units, and those are a really bad thing for casual play. A tournament player is not going to lose sleep that reavers are a bad unit, that makes even less sense in a world were assault intercessors exist. It is a gigantic problem for someone who would like to include or even base his entire army around reavers.

I have to a agree with this. People complain A LOT about units being too good, but that's not the biggest flaw with GW's game design. The biggest flaw is the percentage of units that are terrible. The ratio is like 5 to 1 in most books bad units to OP units. They also definitely do take way longer to fix weak units than strong ones. Assault marines have been bad since at least 6th.

That's normal.
There's an old saying in game's design.

UP units ruin themselves.
OP units ruin the game.

Consider the following scenario:

Today we are announcing the Meta-Buster Tournament. Accompanying this document you will find a list of two dozen possible tweaks and modifications to unit abilities and point costs. At the start of each day, a document will be provided to all players in the tournament specifying which (if any) tweaks are being applied to each of the codexes. It is possible that all of the units in a codex will be tweaked, it is also possible that no units in a codex will be tweaked. After receiving the document, players will have one hour to prepare and submit their list(s) for the day's game

Doesn't that sound like the recipe for the ultimate "freshness"? And doesn't the very proposal fill you with the desire to take bets before tournament players make posts about the format being "stale", "boring" and "solved"?

It sounds confusing and annoying.

bat702 wrote:
is competitive 40k getting to the point where we are going to need hotfixes/patches to the rules/datasheets to keep the 40k competitive scene fresh and fun.

What do you call the AdMech and Drukhari nerfs? Hotfixes to prevent the game from becoming more or less just those two factions which would obviously become stale very quickly.

Its not a good sign when 15/15 space marine lists in a 50 man tournament all had twin-vulkite dreadnoughts.

No, it isn't, but hotfixes should be for external balance (Drukhari were OP compared to every other faction), not for internal balance fixes which should be handled annually in Chapter Approved (VolCons are only OP relative to other SM units). "But Chapter Approved 2021 was bad and the 2020 one was garbo" Yeah, and monthly hotfixes aren't going to be any better.

The game isn't going to get great balance until GW has their testers stress tests units and options, 3 Blood Angels Eradicators aren't going to ruin anybody's day, but will 3x6 Salamander Eradicators? That needs to be tested. There needs to be a spreadsheet where the playtesters can link battle reports of tests they've run next to tests that GW requires like Eradicator spam, Land Raider spam, using Relic X, Y or Z etc, etc. Finally, GW has to listen to their god damn testers when they tell them that a unit costs too little or too much. They also shouldn't change the rules after the points have been finalized, how stupid can you be?

Today we are announcing the Meta-Buster Tournament. Accompanying this document you will find a new radically different mission set.

There, it doesn't have to be more complicated than that. Make a mission set that rewards vehicles and you'll find yourself in a vehicle meta. Give every character a Wounds characteristic of 10 and you'll see players doing very different things in list-building and during play and you probably won't see any Primarchs.