Spring FAQ thoughts?

[MARK0SIAN]

Are we expecting much in this one? I don’t know why but I just kind of assumed there wouldn’t be much in this one as there doesn’t seem much for them to cover.

[CaptainMarsh]

When it comes to contents, we have only their article on the subject back in March where they said not to expect anything too major since they believed the game was in a good place. Small balancing tweaks but nothing too major.

Then you have the BolS wish-lists which they disguise as rumors.

[PiñaColada]

I think it's weird GW stated that they game is in a good place (I agree with the sentiment however, on a broader level) but then wait until the extreme last second to drop it. If the game was truly in a good place and nothing major was discovered at Adepticon then why wasn't it released like a week after? If the plan was for it to be released alongside the Ynnari mini-dex all along they simply should've stated that from the get-go. GWs whole thing about FAQs that they can drop at any time, any day is a pretty annoying practice IMO, just give the players more transparency.

Regarding what's going to be in it? I'd wager a small change to the FLY rule, points changes/updates for drukhari and IK (also Orks possibly, and obliterators to 115). GW has previously stated that they primarily wished to fix points in CA which is the aboslute worst place for it since drukhari (april 2018 IIRC) came out too late to be adjusted in CA 2018, which dropped in december because of lead times. 

 

Other than that, I'm sure a new beta rule is going to be introduced. Maybe something regarding CP, not unlike the GSC solution.

[MARK0SIAN]

I’m surprised they think the game is in a good state when there is such disparity between the different codexes. I’d wager not many Grey Knights players think the game is in a good state.

[Mr4Minutes]

According to a couple podcasts it’s going to be pretty big. I’ve heard space marines are getting love, but no one has said what that actually means.

 

We haven’t had a shadowspear faq, so we still don’t know the “proper” interaction of things like the GSC DS stratagems with the infiltrators 12” denial bubble.

 

CSM hasn’t received their faq either to clarify things like the oblits point cost.

 

I’m also thinking it’s going to be a big shake up with how long its taken to come out. As stated above GW basically said the faq was ready to be dropped and they were just waiting for post adepticon before releasing it. 3+ weeks later and we’re still waiting.

 

Hopefully they are figuring out a way to fix flier spam. We need a rule interaction to ignore flier bases for ground troops/vehicles movement.

[BLACK BLΠFLY]

The game is in an okay state imo... it’s a bit disheartening when they start patting themselves on the back.

[Interrogator Stobz]

Agreed, what's their metric for measuring that? Sales? :P

[Ishagu]

In fairness the army variety at events around the globe is far greater, and the win/loss ratios between armies is closer than ever...

[Interrogator Stobz]

Can you back that up?

Genuinely interested.

[toaae]

Can you back that up?

Genuinely interested.

 

40kstats.com certainly tries to quantify the game's balance, or at least the competitive meta. He even has an interesting, baseball-esque stat: TiWP, or Tournaments in Winning Position (that is, how often a primary faction went 4-0). The highest for that fun stat is Knights at 11.9%, with Orks (10%), Daemons (9.4%), IG (7.5%), Ynnarri (7.5%), Drukhari (6.3%), Tyranids (6.3%), GSC (5.6%), and Tau (5.6%) all within my arbitrarily-chosen-distance. That is the percentage chance of going 4-0 with that primary faction.

 

That seems a decent spread to me. Obviously, there's so much more to balance that that, but it does at least show me that I think we're in a decent place when it comes to faction variety.

[Morticon]

 so we still don’t know the “proper” interaction of things like the GSC DS stratagems with the infiltrators 12” denial bubble.

 

Is there actually an issue here? 

[Trevak Dal]

Punted to Amicus as this isn't news, rumours, or a board announcement.

I saw it and was sad in the face after I read it. Man this is turning out to be like "Orktober".

 

I really dislike anything BOLs related and it annoys me when it comes up in other articles. I read something being tangentially from BOLs (balls more like), and immediately discount anything about it, but I imagine they are like political/news sources that hype up stuff to cause "you" to get pissed/react and generate more clicks and views their way. If it doesn't show up here, I don't care.

 

Gamesworkshop have a terrible time with editors, I mean the chaos rules are all over the place, I'd really LIKE to use a thunderhammer but I don't need it bad enough to jump through the hoops of buying two books and downloading a bunch of stuff to lug around to the store, this is getting 7th edition-ish, and I'll play with the "vanilla" 8th chaos book until/whenever they release a world eaters book.

[Interrogator Stobz]

This has been asked a lot on the net over the last few months, and I've done my best to relay the information GW has given us. This is GW's initial post about the FAQ schedule, which was shortly after the first Chapter approved. This was the first Big FAQ, which includes them announcing that future Spring FAQs would be in April. This is big FAQ 2, this past fall. And finally, their announcement of the Spring FAQ this year, though it's light on any actual details we didn't already know.

 

Some takeaways:

• The first Big FAQ came out on a Tuesday
• The second came out on a Friday (and on the 28th of September)

Can you back that up?

Genuinely interested.

40kstats.com certainly tries to quantify the game's balance, or at least the competitive meta. He even has an interesting, baseball-esque stat: TiWP, or Tournaments in Winning Position (that is, how often a primary faction went 4-0). The highest for that fun stat is Knights at 11.9%, with Orks (10%), Daemons (9.4%), IG (7.5%), Ynnarri (7.5%), Drukhari (6.3%), Tyranids (6.3%), GSC (5.6%), and Tau (5.6%) all within my arbitrarily-chosen-distance. That is the percentage chance of going 4-0 with that primary faction.

 

That seems a decent spread to me. Obviously, there's so much more to balance that that, but it does at least show me that I think we're in a decent place when it comes to faction variety.

Thanks heaps for your links Brother toaae.

 

That spread looks like a vast lack of balance to me; I see some armies being five times more likely to succeed when compared to others.

There is obviously a bunch of factors that cannot be measured so it is as loose as a goose statistically.

But again, thanks heaps for that data.

[toaae]

 

Thanks heaps for your links Brother toaae.

 

That spread looks like a vast lack of balance to me; I see some armies being five times more likely to succeed when compared to others.

There is obviously a bunch of factors that cannot be measured so it as loose as a goose statistically.

But again, thanks heaps for that data.

 

I certainly don't wanna act like there isn't a huge load of things that need to be balanced. Truth be told, I just got excited about sharing that website and stat. I do think that there's more variety in factions winning tournaments now then in the past, though I don't have previous stats to compare that to.

 

They still need to do a lot to balance.

[Interrogator Stobz]

Yep, looking forward to the FAQ with bated breath :P

[BLACK BLΠFLY]

Thanks toaee.

 

8th was great at first but then the Knight codex was a big kick in the junk.

[MARK0SIAN]

Thanks toaee.

 

8th was great at first but then the Knight codex was a big kick in the junk.

Grey Knights and (to a lesser degree Space Marines) were bottom tier and underpowered/overcosted and Eldar were top tier and overpowered/undercosted way before the Knight codex dropped. If you removed knights as a faction tomorrow the game would still have loads of balance issues.

 

Most of the core problems with the game aren’t related to knights, they just get complained about a lot because people see them often and everyone has trouble with them, including people who may not have complained much before because their armies were great or benefited from the core mechanics of 8th like Imperial Guard or Eldar.

[Panzer]

 

Thanks toaee.

 

8th was great at first but then the Knight codex was a big kick in the junk.

Grey Knights and (to a lesser degree Space Marines) were bottom tier and underpowered/overcosted and Eldar were top tier and overpowered/undercosted way before the Knight codex dropped. If you removed knights as a faction tomorrow the game would still have loads of balance issues.

 

Most of the core problems with the game aren’t related to knights, they just get complained about a lot because people see them often and everyone has trouble with them, including people who may not have complained much before because their armies were great or benefited from the core mechanics of 8th like Imperial Guard or Eldar.

 

 

That's true, Knights aren't THE problem balance-wise. However for casual gamers it seems like a much bigger problem since you rather rarely face Eldars but face regularly Imperial armies which all can just splash in a Knight. ^^

[Dark Shepherd]

Fixing flyer base blocking might come in for supersonic units/long stem flyer bases

 

Am not sure Knights ie Castellans will get a big nerf specific to them; it was one of the reputable blogs/pods but its their second best selling kit so they wont want to dent sales too much

[Ishagu]

If you actually look at the individual army win ratios the game isn't in a terrible state. Most armies have a win rate between 45% - 55%

 

The outliers are GK and Ynnari. GK are lower at around 30% and Ynnari much higher at over 60%

 

We know Ynnari are about to be overhauled so they might not be a problem. Astartes need to adjusted after that as they perform on the lower end but are a popular army and it paints a bad picture.

[CaptainMarsh]

Whenever someone says, "I hear it is going to be big" I tend to ask, "where are you hearing this?" and I am almost never satisfied with the answer.

If they decided to make big changes after Adepticon, it would stand to reason that they saw something there that caught them by surprise that they hadn't planned for.

So what did they see that would warrant such a big delay and that they hadn't seen before? I can't see a larger rule area that would require an overhaul that stood out as new then.

The fact that it is taking this long could just as easily be argued as a sign that it is very minor as much as anything else. If they don't view it as an imperative to get it out there to fix a problem(commonly cited 'problems' including Soup, Knights, 'marines need help', etc.), they could very well be fine tuning ideas that they see as fun balance additions. A boost to mono-codexes which, since they don't seem to see Soup as it exists as a problem, would be nice to see in terms of an attempt being made?

I don't know. I can't claim to know what the FAQ will have.

What I do know is when I read a BolS article about 'rumors' about the FAQ and it just so happens to hit every major sore spot they could ever want to hit, I tend to disbelieve it. When people say, "they hear it will be big!" and you ask, "from who?" and the question is followed by a pregnant pause or a link to that same BolS article, I tend to consider the whole thing a farce.

I may very well be wrong. Maybe it will be big and throw 40k on its head randomly and out of the blue despite them saying they think the game is ina  good place. 
But if I were a betting man? Well, when the FAQ later this year hits, I fully expect to be reading a BolS article with all the same claims and half-hidden fantasies in it.

[kombatwombat]

If you actually look at the individual army win ratios the game isn't in a terrible state. Most armies have a win rate between 45% - 55%

Do we have any data from previous editions to compare that to?

 

It sounds good, but if previous editions were 50%+/-0.5% then 45-55% is terrible. OTOH, if previous editions were 30-70% then the game is doing well for balance. Without a comparison point the data is rather meaningless.

[Interrogator Stobz]

@ Ishagu,

 

What win ratios are you referring to?

To me those loss ratios vary enormously, therefore so must the win ratios.

 

Balance appears to be in a terrible state, can the FAQ fix it? Not if GW fails to acknowledge it.

[PiñaColada]

Also, let's not forget that something that GW considers a minor fix might ende up being a huge balance shift. Like the FLY nerf, that was implemented for 1 reason only (because Juice from Long War managed to pull off 1" charges after deepstriking 10" on top of the unit he wanted to charge in front of a rules writer at a tournament). The obvious solution to this problem would've been to state that deepstrikes have to be at least 9" horisontally from the closest enemy unit, not the thing they came up with.

The point is, even though the change was made with the best of intentions (since a 1" charge from deepstrike for free seems very much against the spirit of the game) it can still end up leaving a huge impact on the game. 

[Brother Crimson]

 

If you actually look at the individual army win ratios the game isn't in a terrible state. Most armies have a win rate between 45% - 55%

Do we have any data from previous editions to compare that to?

 

It sounds good, but if previous editions were 50%+/-0.5% then 45-55% is terrible. OTOH, if previous editions were 30-70% then the game is doing well for balance. Without a comparison point the data is rather meaningless.

 

 

I will just take two exemples to where the game is heading

 

Ynnari (2018, pre fall FAQ) : 66%

Ynnari (2018, post FAQ): 59%

Ynnari (2019, post CA 2018): 58%

 

Imperial Guard (2018, pre FAQ): 55%

Imperial Guard (2018 post FAQ): 52%

Imperial Guard (2019): 51%

 

Most top tier armies received small nerfs to bring them back closer to 50% win rate. Just inside 8th edition the top armies are getting leveled closer and closer.

 

Problematic part: bottom tier

Adeptus Astartes (2018, pre fall FAQ) : 40%

Adeptus Astartes (2018, post FAQ): 40%

Adeptus Astartes (2019, post CA 2018): 41%

 

Grey Knights (2018, pre fall FAQ) : 31%

Grey Knights (2018, post FAQ): 33%

Grey Knights (2019, post CA 2018): 33%

 

So even if you compress top armies closer to 50% some are left behind and dont rise up. This is what we were expecting Chapter approved to help, but it did not. There is hope for this FAQ.

 

FYI all numbers are from 40kstats spreadsheets, that record every GT/Major they can find.