10th edition tournament results - it doesn't look good

[Kythnos]

2 hours ago, Rogue said:

Well, same unit by name, but if it has a whole different load-out and/or battlefield function, then it's still adding something new.

 

I get that thought, but I still feel more drawn towards units I do not possess at all than to new variations of those I already own. So I can relate to those saying they feel pressured by PL to buy stuff they otherwise wouldn't have. You have an open an rational view towards this issue, which is a good thing. But there is an emotional component to this as well and at least the vocal frater feel negatively influenced by PL forcing them to use units/weapons/loadouts they might have not considered otherwise.

 

2 hours ago, Rogue said:

And yes, I'd agree that WYSIWYG helps to prevent abuse of the power level system (and is a good way to play in general).

 

Certainly. WYSIWYG needs some leeway if players' collections differ too much in size, but apart from that it helps to facilitate more enjoyable games in my experience. It cannot solve large power gaps between factions, however :-(

[Sea Creature]

Won’t be too long now til they release the new data slate into the wilds… kind of exciting.

[Captain Idaho]

2 hours ago, DemonGSides said:

And they could very easily bring that bolt pistol up to "side-grade" level by simply increasing the number of shots it gets to take every turn.

 

How many S4 AP0 shots are worth a plasma pistol though? How does that affect other weapons comparatively? A bolt pistol getting more shots than a bolter?

 

I mean there are rules that could be added of course. Extra attack in melee springs to mind. Then we're just piling more special rules on things too.

 

Remember the bolt pistol/plasma pistol comparison is just one. There are so many circumstances of this we're gonna be piling up rules at this rate.

[Lexington]

This all reminds me of when AoS was first released, and you’d see endless forum threads where people would try to cock their heads and squint in just the right way to see how eliminating points altogether was, in fact, a really sensible bit of outside-the-box thinking for a new age of gaming.

 

Of course, all these years later, we know what was really going on - Studio management at the time was a disaster of poor communication, mismanaged expectations and bizarre, contradictory agendas. No one was carefully crafting a masterful new approach to tabletop systems, they were just trying to satisfy an impossible set of bizarre demands in order to keep their jobs.

 

I imagine that after time has done it’s inevitable march forwards once more, we’ll find out that “Oops, All Power Levels” (and the dismal release of 10th in general) was the result of a similar situation.

 

When you’re trying to equalize the output of Bolt and Plasma pistols just to prop up a particular balance system, the disparity between the weapons isn’t the problem.

Edited September 7, 2023 by Lexington

[Karhedron]

37 minutes ago, Lexington said:

I imagine that after time has done it’s inevitable march forwards once more, we’ll find out that “Oops, All Power Levels” (and the dismal release of 10th in general) was the result of a similar situation.

 

I suspect you will be proved right. One thing to remember is that the majority of the development work for 10th probably took place during the height of the assorted lockdowns. It is probably too generous to blame Covid for everything but I bet it didn't help.

[DemonGSides]

18 hours ago, Captain Idaho said:

 

How many S4 AP0 shots are worth a plasma pistol though? How does that affect other weapons comparatively? A bolt pistol getting more shots than a bolter?

 

I mean there are rules that could be added of course. Extra attack in melee springs to mind. Then we're just piling more special rules on things too.

 

Remember the bolt pistol/plasma pistol comparison is just one. There are so many circumstances of this we're gonna be piling up rules at this rate.

To answer the specific question; idk, probably like 3 shots?  And i'm not comparing other weapons, but everyone was acting like there was no possible way a bolt pistol could become side-grade to a plasma pistol.

Edited September 7, 2023 by Tyriks
be constructive

[Kallas]

1 hour ago, DemonGSides said:

everyone was acting like there was no possible way a bolt pistol could become side-grade to a plasma pistol

I don't think that's quite the position people were holding. Taking the pistol example: you give a Bolt Pistol 3 shots, well now how do you balance out the Bolter or the Bolt Carbine, or similar anti-light infantry weapons that they might have? Now do you buff up the Bolter to let it compete with the 3-shot Bolt Pistol? Then how does that further knock on into additional balance headaches?

 

Of course, you can adjust several things, but there's still the relative feels of weapons that need to be accounted for: a Bolt Pistol isn't exactly a fast firing weapon anyway, and giving it shots to match/exceed the Bolter/Bolt Rifle begins to feel strange, whereas adjusting points to make things viable options against one another does less damage to that 'appropriate feel' of a weapon.

[Special Officer Doofy]

1 hour ago, DemonGSides said:

This may come as a surprise, but Warhammer is literally just a pile of rules.

And to answer the specific question; idk, probably like 3 shots?  And i'm not comparing other weapons, but everyone was acting like there was no possible way a bolt pistol could become side-grade to a plasma pistol and that just feels dumb and short sighted.

 

And now that a bolt pistol is 3 shots, what do you do for the bolter? Because that is more shots than a bolter and can be shot in combat. And if you change the bolter profile, you got alot more to change as well. It's almost like if there was a point cost associated with wargear, you could avoid this all together... Talk about short sighted.

 

GW's biggest mistake of wargear cost was making everything a multiple of 5. A flamer is most likely not worth 5 more points than a bolter on a marine. Plague marines before 2W were 16 points each, and every weapon option they had was like 10 points, which was almost never worth it short of the flail or maybe the launcher. GW made taking extra bodies better than taking over costed wargear.

 

Edit: Kallas beat me to it.

Edited September 7, 2023 by Special Officer Doofy

[DemonGSides]

12 minutes ago, Kallas said:

I don't think that's quite the position people were holding. Taking the pistol example: you give a Bolt Pistol 3 shots, well now how do you balance out the Bolter or the Bolt Carbine, or similar anti-light infantry weapons that they might have? Now do you buff up the Bolter to let it compete with the 3-shot Bolt Pistol? Then how does that further knock on into additional balance headaches?

 

Of course, you can adjust several things, but there's still the relative feels of weapons that need to be accounted for: a Bolt Pistol isn't exactly a fast firing weapon anyway, and giving it shots to match/exceed the Bolter/Bolt Rifle begins to feel strange, whereas adjusting points to make things viable options against one another does less damage to that 'appropriate feel' of a weapon.

 

I just find it funny that the same people clamoring for sweeping changes are now the same people worried about a potential 3 shot bolt pistol, a number I literally came up with.  It could be 2 shots!  I don't know; i'm not a game designer.  But I do know that points changes aren't the only way to balance things, and I know that dicking around with points is fun to SOME of the people who play the game, but for just as many, it's annoying and not worth the effort.

[Kallas]

6 minutes ago, DemonGSides said:

people worried about a potential 3 shot bolt pistol, a number I literally came up with.  It could be 2 shots!  I don't know; i'm not a game designer

Your choice was an example, and the extrapolation of that was also in the same vein, not as a be-all/end-all criticism of that specific choice. If you modify weapon stats to balance, it has similar knock-on effects, but they are more wide-reaching that points, because unit/weapon profiles change the kind of role and 'feel' of the unit/weapon.

 

Take the Termagants' Fleshborers for example. They used to be basically Bolters (S4/AP5, or 4/0/1, depending on how far back you want to go) and roughly equivalent when you considered the size of the units fielding them. But then in late 8th and 9th, they jumped up to 18" 5/-1/1, which put them punching quite substantially harder than a Bolter, which I generally a bit of "...What?" kind of reaction to - it felt weird and bit off for what the basic Tyranid gaunt-type horde was fielding compared to the super-human basic weapon.

 

So similarly, bumping up an underperforming weapons' profile is of course an option, it's a much more intricate thing to deal with because you have many more ways to go wrong: upping shot numbers or AP makes something radically different than increasing cost to make it an appealing choice but still functioning in the way it "should". 

[DemonGSides]

I mean "Should" is just tradition, and :cuss: tradition.

If a bolt pistol shooting twice is so much better than a bolt rifle (Which it isn't, mind you, but that's ancillary), then also upgrade the bolt rifle.  Space marines feeling like an elite force would be a welcome change, imo.

Your example undermines your argument, because no one was worried about Termagaunts in 9th ed.  The upgaded fire-power could've just been a side-grade; i don't know what the points were then and I'm not inclined to look it up, because I hate granular points systems, because they are boring and time consuming.

[Kallas]

1 hour ago, DemonGSides said:

If a bolt pistol shooting twice is so much better than a bolt rifle (Which it isn't, mind you, but that's ancillary), then also upgrade the bolt rifle.  Space marines feeling like an elite force would be a welcome change, imo.

And now we're into full on power creep mode. Inflate the bolt pistol, so then you need to inflate the bolt rifle; oh, so now you need to inflate the heavy bike; oops, now we need to inflate... and on and on.

 

Keeping things relatively grounded is important for things to not just snowball. This is literally how the AP Creep of 8/9th developed.

 

1 hour ago, DemonGSides said:

Your example undermines your argument, because no one was worried about Termagaunts in 9th ed. 

The point wasn't about whether they were meta definingly strong, it was about them feeling out of place in comparison to similar weapons. They went from right equivalent to a Bolter but slightly weaker (due to being a horde weapon) to suddenly much stronger for some reason.

 

This is what I mean by the relative 'feel'. These weapons are roughly equivalent, but one becoming much stronger isn't necessarily an argument for the other to be buffed to match. Avenger Shuriken Catapults and regular ones are another example: the regular SC got better AP, so they made the ASC better to define it further, but that just led to more and more AP Creep.

 

Point being, escalating weapon profiles isn't necessarily the answer, because some things aren't feasibly equal. A bolt pistol should not be as powerful as a plasma pistol, but then other factors can come into play to balance them - ie, points.

 

You may not like granular points, which is why the removal of actual Power Level and the dumbing down of Points is just a bad decision. In 8th and 9th, you could choose to just play PL, but in 10th those of us who don't want to play PL are forced into it.

[DemonGSides]

21 minutes ago, Kallas said:

And now we're into full on power creep mode. Inflate the bolt pistol, so then you need to inflate the bolt rifle; oh, so now you need to inflate the heavy bike; oops, now we need to inflate... and on and on.

 

Keeping things relatively grounded is important for things to not just snowball. This is literally how the AP Creep of 8/9th developed.

 

The point wasn't about whether they were meta definingly strong, it was about them feeling out of place in comparison to similar weapons. They went from right equivalent to a Bolter but slightly weaker (due to being a horde weapon) to suddenly much stronger for some reason.

 

This is what I mean by the relative 'feel'. These weapons are roughly equivalent, but one becoming much stronger isn't necessarily an argument for the other to be buffed to match. Avenger Shuriken Catapults and regular ones are another example: the regular SC got better AP, so they made the ASC better to define it further, but that just led to more and more AP Creep.

 

Point being, escalating weapon profiles isn't necessarily the answer, because some things aren't feasibly equal. A bolt pistol should not be as powerful as a plasma pistol, but then other factors can come into play to balance them - ie, points.

 

You may not like granular points, which is why the removal of actual Power Level and the dumbing down of Points is just a bad decision. In 8th and 9th, you could choose to just play PL, but in 10th those of us who don't want to play PL are forced into it.

 

We can just agree to disagree, I don't need paragraphs on something I'm not really arguing against.  I think the weapons can be balanced without needing each to have granular points. You disagree.  We can move on.

[Scribe]

7 hours ago, Lexington said:

This all reminds me of when AoS was first released, and you’d see endless forum threads where people would try to cock their heads and squint in just the right way to see how eliminating points altogether was, in fact, a really sensible bit of outside-the-box thinking for a new age of gaming.

 

Of course, all these years later, we know what was really going on - Studio management at the time was a disaster of poor communication, mismanaged expectations and bizarre, contradictory agendas. No one was carefully crafting a masterful new approach to tabletop systems, they were just trying to satisfy an impossible set of bizarre demands in order to keep their jobs.

 

I imagine that after time has done it’s inevitable march forwards once more, we’ll find out that “Oops, All Power Levels” (and the dismal release of 10th in general) was the result of a similar situation.

 

When you’re trying to equalize the output of Bolt and Plasma pistols just to prop up a particular balance system, the disparity between the weapons isn’t the problem.

 

Its EXACTLY this.

 

There is no scenario outside of gross incompetance, which I will not subscribe to, that explains it.

 

Its the same company, its the same staff, its the same management. 10th is CLEARLY another botched AoS style release, not to the same degree of course as that was a failure of epic laughable proportions, but yeah.

 

Eventually when the NDA's wear off, its going to come out again, but by then we will crying about how 12th sucks. ;)

 

[jaxom]

I think the big problem is we are dealing with units that were designed in a different paradigm and all their options were grandfathered into the new paradigm.

 

4 hours ago, Kallas said:

Taking the pistol example: you give a Bolt Pistol 3 shots, well now how do you balance out the Bolter or the Bolt Carbine, or similar anti-light infantry weapons that they might have? Now do you buff up the Bolter to let it compete with the 3-shot Bolt Pistol? Then how does that further knock on into additional balance headaches?

 

Of course, you can adjust several things, but there's still the relative feels of weapons that need to be accounted for: a Bolt Pistol isn't exactly a fast firing weapon anyway, and giving it shots to match/exceed the Bolter/Bolt Rifle begins to feel strange, whereas adjusting points to make things viable options against one another does less damage to that 'appropriate feel' of a weapon.

 

It only becomes an issue with older units where everyone has the option to swap non-equivalent weapons. Death Company have come up a few times as an example where the whole squad can take Plasma Pistols. Making all Death Company Bolt Pistols 3 shots doesn't feel right. But in a paradigm where we don't see that, and only 1-2 members of a 5 person squad can take a Plasma Pistol, allowing 1-2 Master-crafted Bolt Pistols with three shots a piece seems more reasonable.

 

4 hours ago, DemonGSides said:

 

people clamoring for sweeping changes are now the same people worried about a potential 3 shot bolt pistol, a number I literally came up with.  It could be 2 shots!  I don't know; i'm not a game designer.  But I do know that points changes aren't the only way to balance things, and I know that dicking around with points is fun to SOME of the people who play the game, but for just as many, it's annoying and not worth the effort.

 

This would definitely require playtesting, to get the feel @Kallas was talking about, correct. A sergeant's master-crafted hand flamer which feels worth taking relative to plasma or what-have-you. Pick a role for the unit and give them the upgrade weapons from their kit to go with it, and you should get the same relative value towards that role, regardless of upgrade.

 

3 hours ago, DemonGSides said:

I mean "Should" is just tradition, and tradition.

If a bolt pistol shooting twice is so much better than a bolt rifle (Which it isn't, mind you, but that's ancillary), then also upgrade the bolt rifle.  Space marines feeling like an elite force would be a welcome change, imo.

 

I agree with the first sentiment when the paradigm change we're seeing is so large in the design space. I think the bigger issue is when we see a paradigm shift in the the play space because that's where player investment tends to be. If Space Marines ended up being 8x as effective as they are now, and only double in points cost, we're still looking at Marine players needing to halve their average model count. I wouldn't feel as good about that compared to them shifting how they design, market, and make rules for units so long as I can keep using most of my little toy soldiers (or don't feel like I'm being forced to buy a ton more if they drop the points cost).

 

1 hour ago, Kallas said:

And now we're into full on power creep mode. Inflate the bolt pistol, so then you need to inflate the bolt rifle; oh, so now you need to inflate the heavy bike; oops, now we need to inflate... and on and on.

 

Keeping things relatively grounded is important for things to not just snowball. This is literally how the AP Creep of 8/9th developed.

 

The point wasn't about whether they were meta definingly strong, it was about them feeling out of place in comparison to similar weapons. They went from right equivalent to a Bolter but slightly weaker (due to being a horde weapon) to suddenly much stronger for some reason.

Yeah, at the end of the day it comes down to establishing a baseline. I think this is why we now have 4+BS Skitarii and Hearthkin; 4+BS is the new baseline for 'soldiers in a world of eternal war' while 3+BS is reserved for super-soldiers and uncannily graceful xenos. Mind, I don't know why Battle Sisters are still 3+BS in that case... maybe because they have such limited weapon options. Regardless, once a baseline is established for average unit weapons, the swappable/upgradeable weapons can be improved without power creep occurring. The switch to individual weapon profiles on unit data slates makes this easier than ever. Weapons don't even technically need different names to have different stats. Make an Infernus Squad's Flamer profile d6A 4Str 0AP 1D Torrent (the baseline for a flamer) and a Tactical Squad's Flamer profile d6+3 4Str -1AP 1D Torrent because it's an upgrade and should feel worth taking compared to a bolter; in the same way a meltagun feels worth taking compared to a bolter.

[jaxom]

Sorry for the double post, but this went up while I was working on the last one.

22 minutes ago, Scribe said:

 

Its EXACTLY this.

 

There is no scenario outside of gross incompetance, which I will not subscribe to, that explains it.

 

Its the same company, its the same staff, its the same management. 10th is CLEARLY another botched AoS style release, not to the same degree of course as that was a failure of epic laughable proportions, but yeah.

 

Eventually when the NDA's wear off, its going to come out again, but by then we will crying about how 12th sucks. ;)

 

 

The concept is sound: Avoid analysis-paralysis. Buy a box, build it with the bits and bobs, and don't stress out about if you chose the right upgrade or if the unit is now 3 points more than you could fit into your list because you decided the banner looked so cool and you had to use it. The AoS launch complaints were due to that philosophy being extremely contrary to WHFB and 40k unit design (balance using different points for different options). Now, third edition AoS is supported by factions and model lines design to fit the concept and people love it. Now it's not for everyone (duh), but the feedback to GW has been overwhelmingly positive.... Though part of it is the WHFB who didn't join the bandwagon have also stopped replying to surveys.

 

The 40k Design Team was clearly given the same memo, but they weren't told (or given the time) to make it work. Instead, we have the AoS launch were old faction/unit designs actively hinder what GW wants to see play out. They're trying to rebuild the car while we're still driving.

Edited September 7, 2023 by jaxom

[Evil Eye]

6 hours ago, DemonGSides said:

I mean "Should" is just tradition, and tradition.

Because...?

[Lexington]

8 hours ago, jaxom said:

The 40k Design Team was clearly given the same memo, but they weren't told (or given the time) to make it work. Instead, we have the AoS launch were old faction/unit designs actively hinder what GW wants to see play out. They're trying to rebuild the car while we're still driving.

I think you’re probably right on this for the most part - there seems to be a lot of belief within GW that AoS is the answer to life, the universe and everything. Unfortunately for them, it’s not a principle that’s been consistently applied. There’s lots of kits, even in the past year or two, with options that aren’t blue to usefully be made equivalent. These sorts of kits are enormous percentage of 40K’s catalogue, and many almost certainly still see high sales, unlike anything that WHFB had.

 

If they wanted to go the Power Levels route and have it be anything but a disaster, I think they needed to wait another five or ten years to cycle more of those kits out. Now they’re stuck in a jam with no good way out beyond going back on one of 10th’s biggest changes.

[jaxom]

Yeah, the only other option is to make each build (including no upgrades) meaningful and worthwhile. There’s no sign of this happening though.

[appiah4]

I'm a bit late to this bot wow, 10E is an unsalvagable mess..

[jaxom]

25 minutes ago, appiah4 said:

I'm a bit late to this bot wow, 10E is an unsalvagable mess..

It’s not unsalvagable, but they’ve got to thread the needle of management demands and not alienating the player base. I think the bones of the edition are good; it just needed more time to bake and/or more eyes on interactions. Once that happens, a swift implementation of a singular vision could work. I think the other thread has more folks talking about timeliness (codex-drip, physical vs digital, etc).

[Lexington]

1 hour ago, appiah4 said:

I'm a bit late to this bot wow, 10E is an unsalvagable mess..

I don’t know if it’s totally unsalvageable, but the amount of work it needs just makes it unappealing for the foreseeable future. There was a boomlet of “hey, maybe some 40K” in my little gaming group when 10th was first announced, but now we’re already back to Heresy and Infinity.

[Xenith]

1 hour ago, appiah4 said:

I'm a bit late to this bot wow, 10E is an unsalvagable mess..

 

Like, I'm sure a lot of people said that about 8th. And AoS. 

[DemonGSides]

And literally every edition ever.  Long beards gonna grumble, that's what they do.

[phandaal]

17 minutes ago, Xenith said:

 

Like, I'm sure a lot of people said that about 8th. And AoS. 

 

To be fair, AoS was unsalvageable in its first iteration. They basically had to scrap it and do it over with 2nd edition.