10th edition wishlisting/"How do we fix this mess?" thread

[Inquisitor Eisenhorn]

@Scribe there’s a lot to take in from your post but I’ll just address balance; I said this on the “points” thread but balance only matters if you want equal possible outcomes for all players, and that’s hardly the way narrative games are run.  Where does the balancing stop? Perfectly symmetrical terrain? What happens to armies who exist to hard-counter other units like Sisters of Silence and psykers?  Your point about superheavies skewing the power of other units is also a result of trying to balance their inclusion, and your case for their exclusion in matched play.  

Saying “balance matters” sounds good but it just doesn’t really mean much in the end when you’re talking about a game with as many variables as 40k, and ultimately there will be elements that aren’t symmetrical or balanced, so where is the line?  

All balancing efforts ultimately lead to restrictions that work against the freedom to create narratives.  
 

The scenario where a net-lister rolls up and crushes me would never happen, because I wouldn’t play against them to begin with.  If someone only wants to play strangers or doesn’t have a group to play with, that either their choice or their bad luck. Either way it’s not a reason to disallow or restrict certain things in the rules.
 

Im not against people trying to play that way if that’s what they want, but I don’t think it results in anything good when GW tries to do it by cutting the baby in half and having the rules support matched play AND narrative play.  They keep trying to take out points from their games and people complain so they put them back in, but GW has been trying to tell us their games don’t balance and don’t need to if we play them as GW intends, and I’ve only finally started to understand what people like Jervis were saying for so long.  We don’t need points, and balance is up to you and your fellow gamers.

 

 

 

 

[Scribe]

21 minutes ago, Inquisitor Eisenhorn said:

I said this on the “points” thread but balance only matters if you want equal possible outcomes for all players, and that’s hardly the way narrative games are run.

 

Exactly, so balance can never harm you. It doesnt matter if the game is balanced for a Narrative scenario, because the scenario dictates the engagement more than '2 lists at 1500 points each.' ever will. Deployment options, different points allowance, different FOC allowance, heck maybe its 10 Primaris, against an endless tide of Orks, how many can you get before the Primaris die.

 

In that regard, Narrative play, especially scenarios, will never be harmed by balance, because its not particularly relevant to what you are doing.

 

21 minutes ago, Inquisitor Eisenhorn said:

Where does the balancing stop? Perfectly symmetrical terrain? What happens to armies who exist to hard-counter other units like Sisters of Silence and psykers?  Your point about superheavies skewing the power of other units is also a result of trying to balance their inclusion, and your case for their exclusion in matched play.  

 

Indeed, so where does it stop? When the inclusion of a Unit Type, so badly tilts the field that vast allowances need to be made. I'm not against hard counter type behavior, thats part of game design, but thats exactly not what GW has done. Instead of the 'hard counter' they have gone for 'everyone can do damage to it, and some weapons can do MASSIVE damage' which...is why 9th is such a disaster. Those SoS/GK examples against Psykers or Daemons? Well they should have to pay for that as part of their cost. Should it make them extremely effective at some things? Yes. Should they be slightly over priced against say...Guard? Also yes.

 

21 minutes ago, Inquisitor Eisenhorn said:

Saying “balance matters” sounds good but it just doesn’t really mean much in the end when you’re talking about a game with as many variables as 40k, and ultimately there will be elements that aren’t symmetrical or balanced, so where is the line?  

 

Addressed above, but also there really dont need to be that many variables. If you played enough of 5th or 6th, you could very much get a handle on the flow, and see where a game was likely to end up after 2 turns, in many cases even if that meant 'its going to come down to turn 5'.

 

21 minutes ago, Inquisitor Eisenhorn said:

All balancing efforts ultimately lead to restrictions that work against the freedom to create narratives.  

 

This is I believe the pivot point of the discussion between us. This is not true, because while the Matched Play would be a restrictive format for trying to bring some competitive balance to a game as wide as 40K, a Narrative format, specific scenarios, or your own desires at the table in that moment, can simply disregard them. You dont need to follow restrictions when you are simply trying to craft a narrative encounter, unless you choose to put some into that particular scenario.

 

Pick up games do not have that luxury as they must share an assumed and understood rule set. If I say 'we are going to play X's and O's' most people here know exactly what that entails.

 

21 minutes ago, Inquisitor Eisenhorn said:

Im not against people trying to play that way if that’s what they want, but I don’t think it results in anything good when GW tries to do it by cutting the baby in half and having the rules support matched play AND narrative play.

 

It quite literally can though.

 

What is it about matched play that could possibly prevent a narrative game for you, at your table?

 

21 minutes ago, Inquisitor Eisenhorn said:

They keep trying to take out points from their games and people complain so they put them back in, but GW has been trying to tell us their games don’t balance and don’t need to if we play them as GW intends, and I’ve only finally started to understand what people like Jervis were saying for so long.  We don’t need points, and balance is up to you and your fellow gamers.

 

Frankly, hes wrong, or he dramatically misunderstands a very large, highly invested segment of GW's customer base.

 

They balance well enough. They balance well enough to the point where former designers have admitted to undercosting models when sales asked them to push them. They balance well enough get within spitting distance, and let variables like dice rolling, get within an acceptable range. They tell us that they dont balance well, because they dont want to do the work needed to get us there anymore. Its more important for someone to drop $200 on a Super Heavy.

 

GW keeps trying to pull out points, because they dont want to make a functional game for people to just pick up and play against each other with an expectation that both players have an equal chance at victory. They just want to provide a vehicle to push plastic at massive mark up.

 

I mean man come on. GW, released AoS V1. It is a tribute to GW's position within the Table Top space, that that 'game' didnt sink them, and make them a laughing stock.

 

EDIT: You brought up MTG (I think) earlier. Its like this.

 

Kitchen Table.

Standard.

Modern.

EDH/Commander.

 

All are "MTG", but all have slightly different restrictions, or build rules, while all follow the basic 'rules' of Magic the Gathering.

 

Therefore: Crusade, Matched, Apocalypse, are all 40K, with different restrictions or build rules, while all follow the basic 'rules' of 40K.

Edited October 20, 2022 by Scribe
MTG Example.

[Inquisitor_Lensoven]

16 minutes ago, Inquisitor Eisenhorn said:

@Scribe there’s a lot to take in from your post but I’ll just address balance; I said this on the “points” thread but balance only matters if you want equal possible outcomes for all players, and that’s hardly the way narrative games are run.  Where does the balancing stop? Perfectly symmetrical terrain? What happens to armies who exist to hard-counter other units like Sisters of Silence and psykers?  Your point about superheavies skewing the power of other units is also a result of trying to balance their inclusion, and your case for their exclusion in matched play.  

Saying “balance matters” sounds good but it just doesn’t really mean much in the end when you’re talking about a game with as many variables as 40k, and ultimately there will be elements that aren’t symmetrical or balanced, so where is the line?  

All balancing efforts ultimately lead to restrictions that work against the freedom to create narratives.  
 

The scenario where a net-lister rolls up and crushes me would never happen, because I wouldn’t play against them to begin with.  If someone only wants to play strangers or doesn’t have a group to play with, that either their choice or their bad luck. Either way it’s not a reason to disallow or restrict certain things in the rules.
 

Im not against people trying to play that way if that’s what they want, but I don’t think it results in anything good when GW tries to do it by cutting the baby in half and having the rules support matched play AND narrative play.  They keep trying to take out points from their games and people complain so they put them back in, but GW has been trying to tell us their games don’t balance and don’t need to if we play them as GW intends, and I’ve only finally started to understand what people like Jervis were saying for so long.  We don’t need points, and balance is up to you and your fellow gamers.

 

 

 

 

Outside of a few scenarios that will be once or twice a year, who wants to play a narrative game that doesn’t have relatively equal chance of victory?

 

like sure the occasional last stand, or sudden invasion scenario game where things are clearly lopsided, can be fun now and then, but you will never convince me that there’s a large population of players who are regularly having games like this.

even in those scenarios points balance gives each player an idea of how much of an up hill fight one player will face.
 

all of your arguments fall flat.

in a game that’s well balanced over all we can choose to play unbalanced games if we want. The inverse is not true though. A game that’s not generally well balanced cannot be played in any manner with balance.(at least not without the community doing a LOT of math hammer and experimenting on their own to create a balanced points system)

[Inquisitor Eisenhorn]

6 minutes ago, Scribe said:

 

Exactly, so balance can never harm you. It doesnt matter if the game is balanced for a Narrative scenario, because the scenario dictates the engagement more than '2 lists at 1500 points each.' ever will. Deployment options, different points allowance, different FOC allowance, heck maybe its 10 Primaris, against an endless tide of Orks, how many can you get before the Primaris die.

 

In that regard, Narrative play, especially scenarios, will never be harmed by balance, because its not particularly relevant to what you are doing.

 

 

Indeed, so where does it stop? When the inclusion of a Unit Type, so badly tilts the field that vast allowances need to be made. I'm not against hard counter type behavior, thats part of game design, but thats exactly not what GW has done. Instead of the 'hard counter' they have gone for 'everyone can do damage to it, and some weapons can do MASSIVE damage' which...is why 9th is such a disaster. Those SoS/GK examples against Psykers or Daemons? Well they should have to pay for that as part of their cost. Should it make them extremely effective at some things? Yes. Should they be slightly over priced against say...Guard? Also yes.

 

 

Addressed above, but also there really dont need to be that many variables. If you played enough of 5th or 6th, you could very much get a handle on the flow, and see where a game was likely to end up after 2 turns, in many cases even if that meant 'its going to come down to turn 5'.

 

 

This is I believe the pivot point of the discussion between us. This is not true, because while the Matched Play would be a restrictive format for trying to bring some competitive balance to a game as wide as 40K, a Narrative format, specific scenarios, or your own desires at the table in that moment, can simply disregard them. You dont need to follow restrictions when you are simply trying to craft a narrative encounter, unless you choose to put some into that particular scenario.

 

Pick up games do not have that luxury as they must share an assumed and understood rule set. If I say 'we are going to play X's and O's' most people here know exactly what that entails.

 

 

It quite literally can though.

 

What is it about matched play that could possibly prevent a narrative game for you, at your table?

 

 

Frankly, hes wrong, or he dramatically misunderstands a very large, highly invested segment of GW's customer base.

 

They balance well enough. They balance well enough to the point where former designers have admitted to undercosting models when sales asked them to push them. They balance well enough get within spitting distance, and let variables like dice rolling, get within an acceptable range. They tell us that they dont balance well, because they dont want to do the work needed to get us there anymore. Its more important for someone to drop $200 on a Super Heavy.

 

GW keeps trying to pull out points, because they dont want to make a functional game for people to just pick up and play against each other with an expectation that both players have an equal chance at victory. They just want to provide a vehicle to push plastic at massive mark up.

 

I mean man come on. GW, released AoS V1. It is a tribute to GW's position within the Table Top space, that that 'game' didnt sink them, and make them a laughing stock.

 

EDIT: You brought up MTG (I think) earlier. Its like this.

 

Kitchen Table.

Standard.

Modern.

EDH/Commander.

 

All are "MTG", but all have slightly different restrictions, or build rules, while all follow the basic 'rules' of Magic the Gathering.

 

Therefore: Crusade, Matched, Apocalypse, are all 40K, with different restrictions or build rules, while all follow the basic 'rules' of 40K.

Scribe, it just seems like we’re playing two entirely different games in entirely different social circumstances.  I just don’t care what happens to pick up games, sorry.  None of the things you argue really matter to me because I’m not in it to win, just have a nice time trying out a scenario and seeing what happens.  So if they take out certain units from the game in the name of balance, that’s a bummer for me and not something that I can ignore, to follow up with your suggestion I just ignore the points.  Plus it has an effect on how annoying the way they word rules are, it has an effect on how much space they dedicate to list building when they could focus on other things.  The rules are so bloated and change so often chasing something I’m not sure ($$$) that it seems like a nightmare to expect a balanced experience from the game, and if I wanted one, I’d just play something else.  

[Inquisitor_Lensoven]

Here’s an example.

me and my brother can agree next time he’s in town he brings his DE, and I’ll use my guard, and create fun narrative of all day play of DE ‘raiding parties’ where I don’t remove killed models, just lay them on their side, and to take them as slaves he had to get a vehicle within 1” of the model, and we can agree on each game i get I get increase my points allowance to represent the PDF getting their response together.

 

a well balanced game for competitive purposes doesn’t stop that, but I cannot go to a store and expect someone to have that same scenario in mind let alone want to play such a scenario 

[Inquisitor Eisenhorn]

4 minutes ago, Inquisitor_Lensoven said:

Here’s an example.

me and my brother can agree next time he’s in town he brings his DE, and I’ll use my guard, and create fun narrative of all day play of DE ‘raiding parties’ where I don’t remove killed models, just lay them on their side, and to take them as slaves he had to get a vehicle within 1” of the model, and we can agree on each game i get I get increase my points allowance to represent the PDF getting their response together.

 

a well balanced game for competitive purposes doesn’t stop that, but I cannot go to a store and expect someone to have that same scenario in mind let alone want to play such a scenario 

Yeah that sounds cool! That’s why it’s good to play with like-minded players.  I’m just not interested in arguments that hinge on playing with strangers.

[Inquisitor_Lensoven]

15 minutes ago, Inquisitor Eisenhorn said:

Scribe, it just seems like we’re playing two entirely different games in entirely different social circumstances.  I just don’t care what happens to pick up games, sorry.  None of the things you argue really matter to me because I’m not in it to win, just have a nice time trying out a scenario and seeing what happens.  So if they take out certain units from the game in the name of balance, that’s a bummer for me and not something that I can ignore, to follow up with your suggestion I just ignore the points.  Plus it has an effect on how annoying the way they word rules are, it has an effect on how much space they dedicate to list building when they could focus on other things.  The rules are so bloated and change so often chasing something I’m not sure ($$$) that it seems like a nightmare to expect a balanced experience from the game, and if I wanted one, I’d just play something else.  

And we dont care about what happens to Low.

you cry because people are calling for moving LoWs from standard 40K to a special ruleset, but are completely disregarding the experiences of (likely) the overwhelming majority of the player base, and trying to throw that out completely.

[Scribe]

16 minutes ago, Inquisitor Eisenhorn said:

Scribe, it just seems like we’re playing two entirely different games in entirely different social circumstances.  I just don’t care what happens to pick up games, sorry.  None of the things you argue really matter to me because I’m not in it to win, just have a nice time trying out a scenario and seeing what happens.  So if they take out certain units from the game in the name of balance, that’s a bummer for me and not something that I can ignore, to follow up with your suggestion I just ignore the points.  Plus it has an effect on how annoying the way they word rules are, it has an effect on how much space they dedicate to list building when they could focus on other things.  The rules are so bloated and change so often chasing something I’m not sure ($$$) that it seems like a nightmare to expect a balanced experience from the game, and if I wanted one, I’d just play something else.  

 

Fair enough. In my ideal world, we can all be playing 40K, but in the world where you dont want points, or lists or whatever, then there is simply no game for me. Its not like Knights would cease to exist. They simply would not fit into the "Matched Play" format, while they would still be part of the Codex, part of the 'rules' and part of 40K.

[Inquisitor Eisenhorn]

31 minutes ago, Scribe said:

 

Fair enough. In my ideal world, we can all be playing 40K, but in the world where you dont want points, or lists or whatever, then there is simply no game for me. Its not like Knights would cease to exist. They simply would not fit into the "Matched Play" format, while they would still be part of the Codex, part of the 'rules' and part of 40K.

In both our ideal worlds there would be a rule set that would serve all kinds of players and it is to GWs credit that they have tried to do that.  But I just don’t think that they can make the game all things to all players, and I would just prefer that they acknowledge that and choose a more committed direction.  To be honest if that direction were pure competitive I would prefer that to this current mess.  

[spessmarine]

On 10/16/2022 at 12:50 PM, Evil Eye said:

Not a bad idea, though myself I'd argue good ol' fashioned blast templates are the way to go.

why not combined systems, templates but drop scatter in favour of rolling to hit

large blast -> place it over a blob, oh it touches lets say 11 models -> 11 hits rolls to make

[Xenith]

=][= I've cleaned up this topic and merged the many double posts. Things are heated so I'm locking this down so people can take a breather, and look at reopening in 24h if the team agrees that this is a place of constructive discussion =][=

[Brother Tyler]

A late update...

 

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