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Currently the win rate for the faction according to Auspex Tactics is a mere 30 percent in Tournaments and Competitive Games. A balanced faction goes to 50 percent, ideally, so what happened exactly? Were the calls for nerfs backed by organized boycotts and relentless campaigns really based on sane reasoning or hysteria? I know the first handful of games shown on youtube showed Votann winning relatively easily, but was that just because people were attacking rocks with scissors or honestly because people were going by broad empirical data sets and rational analysis? To me this seems like a cautionary tale about putting too much stock in the judgment of large groups and authorities. Large groups are prone to hysteria i.e. individuals reasoning in a certain way vs groups reasoning in a certain way, and how authorities are inherently presumptuous. I'm not saying the individual is always right and the group or hierarchy are always wrong, but an objective analysis of just how badly the Community and Authorities were off (by almost 50%!) should be something everyone can learn from. At least I hope so. Otherwise it just means the whole group is incapable of self-reflection or ever admitting they are wrong, which is a really bad omen. It's kind of like the Salem Witch Trials in its level of delusion at that point.

That being said, nobody's perfect, and if everyone was it would be a boring world. At the same time, it should be noted sometimes groups of people make rash decisions based more on emotion and knee-jerk reactions then long, well-thought, rational contemplation. That's just human nature. There's nothing inherently wrong with that, and I myself am hardly immune to factors such as poor judgment or emotional reaction - but I do try to learn from my mistakes, I am hoping the Community of far more experienced, superiors can do the same.

To be fair this hasn't been at many official tournaments because they players were using proxied models so the numbers could be off by a bit.

Also remember that this is a brand new army and people are still getting the hang of how to use them, and which units work best. Not to mention their limited unit pool.

There also may just not be enough players of the faction to have a high win rate yet. It is just too early to tell.

That being said, while you are right in that groups can make bad decisions and GW is certainly prone to it as well, I don't think this is the case here. While I can't really say anything about the points, I think toning down judgement tokens was the correct decision. As more info comes out GW may reverse all they have done like they did with the Ad Mech.

 KingGarland wrote:
To be fair this hasn't been at many official tournaments because they players were using proxied models so the numbers could be off by a bit.

Also remember that this is a brand new army and people are still getting the hang of how to use them, and which units work best. Not to mention their limited unit pool.

There also may just not be enough players of the faction to have a high win rate yet. It is just too early to tell.

That being said, while you are right in that groups can make bad decisions and GW is certainly prone to it as well, I don't think this is the case here. While I can't really say anything about the points, I think toning down judgement tokens was the correct decision. As more info comes out GW may reverse all they have done like they did with the Ad Mech.

Yet their win rates in tournaments is a mere 30 percent. That's lowest tier. Even Admech and Guard which are generally considered under-powered have higher win rates,.

Also I have a problem with nerfing JT's, as they are supposed to be a buff but become a nerf. It is like if Marker Lights for Tau made units LESS accurate. It really makes no sense.

Just about any balance issue can be resolved with a change in points. A unit costs 2 times as much, 3 times as much, 4 times as much - there is a number that will balance it. The JT change made it so a feature that was supposed to benefit the Votann actually made tjem weaker which makes no sense and even removes the fun element. Why go for JT's if all they do is nerf your own weaoon? It seened like a lazy move, It is like if "Disguistingly Resulient" made some Nurgle Units more prone to damage - it makes no sense and undermines the faction as a whole.

How could we have comprehensive tournament data for an army that only goes fully on pre-order tomorrow? Yeeeehhhh......it's everyone else that jumped the gun on this one.......

Gadzilla666 wrote: How could we have comprehensive tournament data for an army that only goes fully on pre-order tomorrow? Yeeeehhhh......it's everyone else that jumped the gun on this one.......

I saw the video. It is unofficial data from private tournaments.

Asenion wrote:

 KingGarland wrote:
To be fair this hasn't been at many official tournaments because they players were using proxied models so the numbers could be off by a bit.

Also remember that this is a brand new army and people are still getting the hang of how to use them, and which units work best. Not to mention their limited unit pool.

There also may just not be enough players of the faction to have a high win rate yet. It is just too early to tell.

That being said, while you are right in that groups can make bad decisions and GW is certainly prone to it as well, I don't think this is the case here. While I can't really say anything about the points, I think toning down judgement tokens was the correct decision. As more info comes out GW may reverse all they have done like they did with the Ad Mech.

Yet their win rates in tournaments is a mere 30 percent. That's lowest tier. Even Admech and Guard which are generally considered under-powered have higher win rates,.

Two armies that people have been playing with and fine tuning for years.

 Gadzilla666 wrote:
How could we have comprehensive tournament data for an army that only goes fully on pre-order tomorrow? Yeeeehhhh......it's everyone else that jumped the gun on this one.......

Then why make a judgment at all? If it's untested, why not wait and see instead of deciding before it is even given a real test? That suggests bias.


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 KingGarland wrote:
To be fair this hasn't been at many official tournaments because they players were using proxied models so the numbers could be off by a bit.

Also remember that this is a brand new army and people are still getting the hang of how to use them, and which units work best. Not to mention their limited unit pool.

There also may just not be enough players of the faction to have a high win rate yet. It is just too early to tell.

That being said, while you are right in that groups can make bad decisions and GW is certainly prone to it as well, I don't think this is the case here. While I can't really say anything about the points, I think toning down judgement tokens was the correct decision. As more info comes out GW may reverse all they have done like they did with the Ad Mech.

But that works both ways. People will get more optimized with how they counter Votann as well.

KingGarland wrote:

Gadzilla666 wrote: How could we have comprehensive tournament data for an army that only goes fully on pre-order tomorrow? Yeeeehhhh......it's everyone else that jumped the gun on this one.......

I saw the video. It is unofficial data from private tournaments.

Right. So, not remotely enough data for a comprehensive data sample, wouldn't you agree?

Asenion wrote:

 Gadzilla666 wrote:
How could we have comprehensive tournament data for an army that only goes fully on pre-order tomorrow? Yeeeehhhh......it's everyone else that jumped the gun on this one.......

Then why make a judgment at all? If it's untested, why not wait and see instead of deciding before it is even given a real test? That suggests bias.

Yes, you're correct. It's untested and we should wait for more data before making any judgment. Doing otherwise would suggest bias.

Calm down. Let the full army be released into lots of people's hands, so that they can play lots of games at lots of tournaments. Then we'll have enough data to know the actual picture. Then we can start making judgment calls.

 Gadzilla666 wrote:

KingGarland wrote:

Gadzilla666 wrote: How could we have comprehensive tournament data for an army that only goes fully on pre-order tomorrow? Yeeeehhhh......it's everyone else that jumped the gun on this one.......

I saw the video. It is unofficial data from private tournaments.

Right. So, not remotely enough data for a comprehensive data sample, wouldn't you agree?

Asenion wrote:

 Gadzilla666 wrote:
How could we have comprehensive tournament data for an army that only goes fully on pre-order tomorrow? Yeeeehhhh......it's everyone else that jumped the gun on this one.......

Then why make a judgment at all? If it's untested, why not wait and see instead of deciding before it is even given a real test? That suggests bias.

Yes, you're correct. It's untested and we should wait for more data before making any judgment. Doing otherwise would suggest bias.

Calm down. Let the full army be released into lots of people's hands, so that they can play lots of games at lots of tournaments. Then we'll have enough data to know the actual picture. Then we can start making judgment calls.

Sure, why not? I'm just saying the calls for nerfs before even 1 tournament seems premature given what data we have available thus far. I mean a 30 percent win rate for a new faction is extremely low. Most factions start with a higher then average win rate in tournaments.

 Gadzilla666 wrote:
So, not remotely enough data for a comprehensive data sample, wouldn't you agree?

Win rates aren't the only source of data. People did the math and it was clear that squats were way out of line in efficiency and were going to be a major problem. Playtesting games backed up this analysis. We don't need to waste a month on a completely broken meta just to prove that yes, water is in fact wet.

Asenion wrote:
I mean a 30 percent win rate for a new faction is extremely low. Most factions start with a higher then average win rate in tournaments.

The 30% win rate is completely irrelevant because squats were playing with a very limited partial codex. None of those results have anything to do with what the real army is capable of.

I don't expect the limited roster available will.account for a 20% dip from their target end point however. It's really only the berserkers they were missing that people wanted to get heavy usage from.

Honestly I think they'll end up lower down than expected, but will have an impact on the meta by pushing knights further out and maybe preemptively hamstrings guard armour a little.

Asenion wrote:

 Gadzilla666 wrote:
Yes, you're correct. It's untested and we should wait for more data before making any judgment. Doing otherwise would suggest bias.

Calm down. Let the full army be released into lots of people's hands, so that they can play lots of games at lots of tournaments. Then we'll have enough data to know the actual picture. Then we can start making judgment calls.

Sure, why not? I'm just saying the calls for nerfs before even 1 tournament seems premature given what data we have available thus far. I mean a 30 percent win rate for a new faction is extremely low. Most factions start with a higher then average win rate in tournaments.

Still too early to tell how the Leagues will perform.

The timing of the nerf was appropriate. Players would be outraged if GW switched the rules right after they built out their armies.

At least people have some confidence in the lists they use.

Always better to buff I think than nerf mid season.
But with the way judgment tokens work/worked there interaction with other elements of the design seemed rather foolish.
As well as how explosive they could be.

I have to wonder if the team just didn’t think they would be so easy to interact with.
But I didn’t see any competent players really struggling to apply them.

 KingGarland wrote:
The JT change made it so a feature that was supposed to benefit the Votann actually made tjem weaker which makes no sense and even removes the fun element. Why go for JT's if all they do is nerf your own weaoon? It seened like a lazy move, It is like if "Disguistingly Resulient" made some Nurgle Units more prone to damage.

I don't understand this. A couple of weapons and like 1 strat are affected. But the weapons still benefit from the auto-wounding from JTs. They're still a hugely powerful tool for the army

Twilight Pathways wrote:

 KingGarland wrote:
The JT change made it so a feature that was supposed to benefit the Votann actually made tjem weaker which makes no sense and even removes the fun element. Why go for JT's if all they do is nerf your own weaoon? It seened like a lazy move, It is like if "Disguistingly Resulient" made some Nurgle Units more prone to damage.

I don't understand this. A couple of weapons and like 1 strat are affected. But the weapons still benefit from the auto-wounding from JTs. They're still a hugely powerful tool for the army

The big boogeyman rail guns lose a massive chunk of their threat value the second a JT is on a unit.

Aecus Decimus wrote:

 Gadzilla666 wrote:
So, not remotely enough data for a comprehensive data sample, wouldn't you agree?

Win rates aren't the only source of data. People did the math and it was clear that squats were way out of line in efficiency and were going to be a major problem. Playtesting games backed up this analysis. We don't need to waste a month on a completely broken meta just to prove that yes, water is in fact wet.

My comment pertains to the highly limited tournament data mentioned by the OP from players using the nerfed LoV rules. I wasn't talking about the nerfs, or their implementation at all. What are you arguing with me about?

I think its entirely possible the army was completely bonkers - but then when you apply a 20%~ hike - around 30% on the best stuff - it suddenly appears rather less so.

Your typical 2k points list went up 350-400 points. That's a lot of stuff you have to take out of your list and leave at home. If you just want the toys, you don't have much meat to do an objective game/take a counter-punch.

Put it another way, 2 Hekatons and say 15 Beserks shouldn't have cost just 790 points as per the codex. But they also possibly shouldn't cost 1050 points which they do now. There's quite a lot of middle ground here.

It's possible they were over nerfed. But mathematically they were too efficient and needed a nerf. Simple as.

Aecus Decimus wrote:

 Gadzilla666 wrote:
So, not remotely enough data for a comprehensive data sample, wouldn't you agree?

Win rates aren't the only source of data. People did the math and it was clear that squats were way out of line in efficiency and were going to be a major problem. Playtesting games backed up this analysis. We don't need to waste a month on a completely broken meta just to prove that yes, water is in fact wet.

But that doesn't sit well with those that bought notSquats(tm) wanting to piss in everyone's tourney wheaties....

This ridiculous obsession with win % needs to die

From what I understood it was overlapping rules causing exponential power creep. Therefore it wouldn’t surprise me that the rules nerf went overboard, but we need to wait for more data.

Likewise I also wouldn’t be surprised if the blanket points increase for every unit was unwarranted.

That said the reason the OP
state happened was because they only tested the codex against other soon to be released codexes. AKA the OP Tyranids,
T’au and what have you, hence why it was so off.

They should just use the SM codex as the bench mark for every edition.

Sure they should test against some other ones, specifically armies of a very different nature such as Death Guard versus Drukhari, as well as average model count. AKA a horde army like Orks and the opposite end of elite like Custodes.

It isn’t practical to test against every army though, someone did some basic math on that not too long ago and it would take 1-2
years to do it, however they did the math.

TreeStewges wrote:
[snip]

It isn’t practical to test against every army though, someone did some basic math on that not too long ago and it would take 1-2
years to do it, however they did the math.

It would take one weekend at Warhammer World.

A decision has been made that such testing is not to be undertaken. That shouldn't be mistaken for "impractical".

Aecus Decimus 807483 11449300 wrote:

Win rates aren't the only source of data. People did the math and it was clear that squats were way out of line in efficiency and were going to be a major problem. Playtesting games backed up this analysis. We don't need to waste a month on a completely broken meta just to prove that yes, water is in fact wet.

So were dark eldar or eldar, and people did the math too, yet somehow the books were not nerfed. In fact in case of DE, they were actualy buffed, after playtesters said the army is going to be very powerful. And both armies were left to be powerful for months, before any big changes happened. And by big changes I mean negative ones, because DE after they came out, almost instantly also got their cult of stryfe buff

It is always odd how with those armies, the players are told to wait, for the meta to adapt, to learn to play , for the armies not being popular so having low impact on the actual play field etc. Yet here we were with LoV, and they got killed off before ever getting their time to shine.


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TreeStewges 807483 11449490 wrote:
state happened was because they only tested the codex against other soon to be released codexes. AKA the OP Tyranids,
T’au and what have you, hence why it was so off.

They should just use the SM codex as the bench mark for every edition.

So why did they leave the powerful armies practicaly unchanged then. Harlis got a slap on the wrist, necron practicaly got a non change. Stuff like abadon, Creations of Bile or EC were unchanged, Tyranids got a nerf to leviathan, but people were already moving to Kraken. Tau bombers are unchanged. SoB, just like necron, are super uninteractive etc. And all of those factions were already out, by the time LoV leaks happened.

 Flinty wrote:

TreeStewges wrote:
[snip]

It isn’t practical to test against every army though, someone did some basic math on that not too long ago and it would take 1-2
years to do it, however they did the math.

It would take one weekend at Warhammer World.

A decision has been made that such testing is not to be undertaken. That shouldn't be mistaken for "impractical".

One weekend of the general public playing rapid fire games with proxies because the army doesn't exist yet? Yeah, sounds at best impractical.

We had the results of DE having above 60% win rates, same with harlequins in first week of their rules being out, and people were saying they will be at this win rates, before the rules were legal, because of playing with leaks. When something is powerful or bad, like GSC for example. There really is no need waiting for 3 months to check, if it is good or bad for real.

Since 8th ed, there has not been a single time, a book came out, got tested, was found weaker then the lists which are good at the time, to suddenly become good in 2-3 months,without direct intervention from GW in to the rules, and even then when it happened it was a heck lot of time when it happened vide necron and the new seson rules.

Dudeface wrote:

 Flinty wrote:

TreeStewges wrote:
[snip]

It isn’t practical to test against every army though, someone did some basic math on that not too long ago and it would take 1-2
years to do it, however they did the math.

It would take one weekend at Warhammer World.

A decision has been made that such testing is not to be undertaken. That shouldn't be mistaken for "impractical".

One weekend of the general public playing rapid fire games with proxies because the army doesn't exist yet? Yeah, sounds at best impractical.

If they so wanted, GW could run 10s of games over the course of a weekend at the substantial gaming facility that they operate. It would be trivial for them to get people willing to take part. Alternatively, as I understand it, GW have several employees that they could tap to undertake such a task.

Given printing and production lead times, they might need to use proxies, but that’s easy enough to achieve. Otherwise, if they are committed to doing day 1 patches, get some quick forces ginned up from the first arriving stock and do it as a pre-launch session.



Automatically Appended Next Post:
It might not chase out every single power play or dodgy match up, but it would likely help prevent the kind of revisions applied to the Votann this time around.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Addendum - is it now at the point where they would be better off not printing points costs in new codices, and just drop a pdf at the point of the army release to let players fill in the blanks?

The 30% win rate is completely irrelevant because squats were playing with a very limited partial codex. None of those results have anything to do with what the real army is capable of.

Wait, so wouldn't that make the call to nerf them even more premature seeing as it was based on ZERO Tournament games? If a handful of tournament games are "too little" in terms of data sets (a completely subjective standard - unless you can tell me exactly how many tournaments it takes for the data to become relevant) then zero tournaments should be even more irrelevant.

Asenion wrote:

Wait, so wouldn't that make the call to nerf them even more premature seeing as it was based on ZERO Tournament games? If a handful of tournament games are "too little" in terms of data sets (a completely subjective standard - unless you can tell me exactly how many tournaments it takes for the data to become relevant) then zero tournaments should be even more irrelevant.

It's almost like I addressed this already:

Aecus Decimus wrote:
Win rates aren't the only source of data. People did the math and it was clear that squats were way out of line in efficiency and were going to be a major problem. Playtesting games backed up this analysis. We don't need to waste a month on a completely broken meta just to prove that yes, water is in fact wet.

 techsoldaten wrote:

Still too early to tell how the Leagues will perform.

The timing of the nerf was appropriate. Players would be outraged if GW switched the rules right after they built out their armies.

At least people have some confidence in the lists they use.

Translation - some data is too little to argue a nerf is bad,

But ZERO data from Tournaments is enough to decide that a nerf is good.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Aecus Decimus wrote:

Asenion wrote:

Wait, so wouldn't that make the call to nerf them even more premature seeing as it was based on ZERO Tournament games? If a handful of tournament games are "too little" in terms of data sets (a completely subjective standard - unless you can tell me exactly how many tournaments it takes for the data to become relevant) then zero tournaments should be even more irrelevant.

It's almost like I addressed this already:

Aecus Decimus wrote:
Win rates aren't the only source of data. People did the math and it was clear that squats were way out of line in efficiency and were going to be a major problem. Playtesting games backed up this analysis. We don't need to waste a month on a completely broken meta just to prove that yes, water is in fact wet.

So the math included every single possible variable? Not one single variable was missing at all? Give me a break. If that was true you wouldn't need any testing at all - ever.

I mean anyone can cherry pick some numbers and claim "Well based on MATH I declare X faction OP!" What math is this exactly? Does it involve calculus, trigonometry, quadratic equations?

Asenion wrote:
So the math included every single possible variable? Not one single variable was missing at all? Give me a break. If that was true you wouldn't need any testing at all - ever.

I mean anyone can cherry pick some numbers and claim "Well based on MATH I declare X faction OP!" What math is this exactly? Does it involve calculus, trigonometry, quadratic equations?

You don't need to calculate every possible variable to see that squats were way out of line with the rest of the game: https://www.goonhammer.com/hammer-of-math-votann-break-all-the-rules-in-warhammer-40k/

And, again, it wasn't just math. People did the math and then ran playtest games that confirmed what everyone suspected.

Aecus Decimus wrote:

Asenion wrote:
So the math included every single possible variable? Not one single variable was missing at all? Give me a break. If that was true you wouldn't need any testing at all - ever.

I mean anyone can cherry pick some numbers and claim "Well based on MATH I declare X faction OP!" What math is this exactly? Does it involve calculus, trigonometry, quadratic equations?

You don't need to calculate every possible variable to see that squats were way out of line with the rest of the game: https://www.goonhammer.com/hammer-of-math-votann-break-all-the-rules-in-warhammer-40k/

And, again, it wasn't just math. People did the math and then ran playtest games that confirmed what everyone suspected.

Even your own source admits they took a lot of short cuts in the math because there are simply too many variables to calculate everything that goes into a game:

Nor does it tell you how much the result could vary. In order to perfectly understand the distribution of outcomes you would need to calculate every possible permutation of die rolls. This can easily be thousands or hundreds of thousands of combinations. The math sucks.

So let’s be lazy instead.

https://www.goonhammer.com/hammer-of-math-understanding-modifiers-and-re-rolls/

In other words your "math" is based on assumptions and cherry picking what data you want to include and exclude.

This is open to confirmation bias nine ways to Sunday. To me it seems almost comical.

The fact is even if you had an NSA Quantum Super-Computer running a host of variables I doubt the math would predict every game or balance in every possible way.

That's why play testing is critical.

Your own analogy proves it. You said we don't need a host of data to prove " water is wet". That's because we don't use math to prove that, you just go out and touch it. No math needed and any "math" claiming the opposite is worth less then a wooden nickel splintered into dust bits.

And no matter how much math you claim the data shows a 30 percent win rate in tournaments. That's based on math too.

This is based on far more data then the sets others used to call for a nerf.

You may not need a lot of data to prove water is wet, but if you're going to claim that geese can't fly I'd say a gander makes a lot more sense in terms of evidence then a single cooked bird on a stick!

I mean how low do the win rates have to be exactly? If they were 10 percent would the amount of data still be too little and made irrelevant because of "math"?

If it was 5 percent? 0 percent?

A 30 percent win rate is not some minor discrepancy, that is HALF of what should be expected from a balanced faction! Especially for a new faction.

And this is with the JTs still by and large intact ( your whole post about math was about how much JTs unbalanced the game - all that was removed was the exploding/splash 6s, that hardly accounts for a 20+% swing in the numbers).

The fact is you made a claim based on no data and now that the data is out - it doesn't count!

The Earth isn't round because the map you saw has edges!

Asenion wrote:
Even your own source admits they took a lot of short cuts in the math because there are simply too many variables to calculate everything that goes into a game:

Ok? That's how math works. But when the error margin on your analysis is +/- 5% and your data is showing that something is at 200% of reasonable point efficiency the error margin in those approximations is not relevant. Squats weren't just slightly too powerful, they were blatantly out of line on a level that even assuming all of the approximations erred in the direction of making things look worse you're still left with the conclusion that they need a nerf.

And no matter how much math you claim the data shows a 30 percent loss rates in tournaments. That's based on math too.

30% win rate (which is what I assume you mean, if squats currently have a 30% loss rate they need major nerfs) is irrelevant because that data set is not using the real codex. I can cite a 10% win rate for space marines operating on the restriction that they can only take basic captains and bolter tactical squads with no upgrades or stratagems permitted and that 10% win rate may in fact be accurate for what the crippled pseudo-army is capable of but that doesn't mean the data has anything to do with the performance of the real space marine codex.

That's why play testing is critical.

Once again: people did playtest it. Their playtesting confirmed the initial impression that the codex was completely out of line.