new balance data slate update this Thursday

[Mogger351]

1 hour ago, Captain Idaho said:

 

My post details things beyond the video, particularly the cognitive burden of patching an imbalanced game constantly. That was the main point.

 

I also say we're not where Warhammer Fantasy 7th edition was yet.

 

People like to think the tournament community has no bearing on the rest of the community, as if the rest of the community are playing with different rules and models to the tournament community. As said in the video and I'll support, what happens in the tournament scene mirrors what happens outside it.

 

Also, the non-tournament part of the community aren't a unified group any more than the tournament part of the community is. There's more than a lot of them who take borked units just like anyone else, or enjoy winning games.

The current environment and online persona for 40k is by and large competitive-centric. The big competitive personalities, who create consumable media, say they're not playing as they find the state of the game boring due to the imbalance.

 

People then echo that as the game is broken and people are stopping playing because of it. This is irrespective of their personal experience a lot of the time.

 

These competitive persona play more games with and against more armies in a week than my group will manage in 6+ months.

 

Their concerns are not the same as mine and I won't be not playing because eldar have an 60+% tournament win rate.

 

Some of that trickles down to casual play, but by and large people in casual play are capable of balancing out their games to match their expectations or largely don't need to because they don't just spam the OP stuff and play to win so heavily.

 

People think the game is at a point of failure because there's an endless chain of people pointing at meta monday and saying "game bad, pros stopped".

 

Where are peoples own personal experiences in any of this?

 

Special Officer Doofy has provided his own experience and that great, I respect that they've tried it and don't like it in the context of their own games.

[SkimaskMohawk]

If the rules writers stated goal is to keep balance in a certain threshold of winrates, then making a brand new edition with a theoretical couple of years of development that misses is....a failure. The product has failed to deliver that design goal. 

 

Does that mean the edition is ruined beyond salvaging? Absolutely not. 8th launch was an absolute joke of balance, but it got a lot better (and had some very drastic changes to core mechanics in the first 8 months or so). 9th had some insane hiccups in the form of dark eldar and then crusher stampede-custodes-eldar-tyranids, but people praise the last 6 months of it as meeting the winrate intent (though let's be fair and remember that it was often one specific subfaction out of a total six doing all that heavy lifting per codex). 

 

 

 

 

[Captain Idaho]

7 minutes ago, Mogger351 said:

The current environment and online persona for 40k is by and large competitive-centric. The big competitive personalities, who create consumable media, say they're not playing as they find the state of the game boring due to the imbalance.

 

People then echo that as the game is broken and people are stopping playing because of it. This is irrespective of their personal experience a lot of the time.

 

These competitive persona play more games with and against more armies in a week than my group will manage in 6+ months.

 

Their concerns are not the same as mine and I won't be not playing because eldar have an 60+% tournament win rate.

 

Some of that trickles down to casual play, but by and large people in casual play are capable of balancing out their games to match their expectations or largely don't need to because they don't just spam the OP stuff and play to win so heavily.

 

People think the game is at a point of failure because there's an endless chain of people pointing at meta monday and saying "game bad, pros stopped".

 

Where are peoples own personal experiences in any of this?

 

Special Officer Doofy has provided his own experience and that great, I respect that they've tried it and don't like it in the context of their own games.

 

Funnily enough I agree with you broadly on the points you make, but don't come to the same conclusion. 

 

A casual gaming group, ignoring for a moment will have competitive minded players also, need a balanced ruleset arguably more than ever simply because they're casual - if my group has to balance your game for you then we'll go play a game that is less hard work.

 

We got jobs, rent, kids and ex wives to pay for so we're not working to play a game, especially if it's not the only game in town.

 

Likewise, the state of the game from media personality perspective is important to promote the game. Allowing such people to decide for you is not desirable but they can help us have an insight into the game we might not get quickly etc. 

[Special Officer Doofy]

35 minutes ago, Isual said:

 

If you only play each other, why didn't you just set some guidelines so everyone can have fun?
 

That's the thing we have compared to the competitive crowd. If we don't want to play a busted list we don't have to. And if we play our friends it should be even more easy... "hey X, we both know that WK are op right now. Please don't bring a list with three of them, we all want to have fun"

 

And if they don't agree there are probably more issues.

 

And if somebody comes up with "I don't want to do GWs job for them...", than yea I can't really help you with that.

 

Because after we all paid $100's for unpainted unassembled models, bought the supplies, built and painted them, made our own tables and terrain, bought a $60 core rule book and $40 individual rule books for our faction's every edition, we kind of hoped the billion dollar company we all paid over a $1,000 to would make their own rules fun and playable. So yeah, "I don't want to do GW's job for them".

Edited September 8, 2023 by Special Officer Doofy

[Xenith]

3 hours ago, Xanthous said:

They've just added a second aspect to the 'Spread the Sickness' detachment rule. It will function the same in terms of 'one in, one out' when the rest of the DG detachments come out, its just a bit more multifaceted now. Doesn't make it good, though.

 

So they're getting around their "one-in, one-out" rule by doubling the length of existing rules? Seems silly. 

[Blindhamster]

40 minutes ago, Special Officer Doofy said:

 

Because after we all paid $100's for unpainted unassembled models, bought the supplies, built and painted them, made our own tables and terrain, bought a $60 core rule book and $40 individual rule books for our faction's every edition, we kind of hoped the billion dollar company we all paid over a $1,000 to would make their own rules fun and playable. So yeah, "I don't want to do GW's job for them".

its the dream but literally no game or company manages to be exactly what everyone wants. Groups always end up having their own rulings, house rules, adjustments etc. For basically any game.

Look at wizards, a significantly larger company that make D&D... thats still a mess even with their playtesting approach.

[Special Officer Doofy]

9 minutes ago, Xenith said:

 

So they're getting around their "one-in, one-out" rule by doubling the length of existing rules? Seems silly. 

 

Well what's your suggestion when the faction's rule is so terrible and they rock a 30% win rate? If your answer is actually play test and catch this stuff before you send the rules out, I'll admit that's a good answer. Or if your answer is to make the faction ability 5+++ and the detachment bonus the stupid contagion, that would also be a good answer.

 

You only need to read the faction focus thread for death guard to see how others and I easily saw how terrible they are without even seeing all the units or the point costs. I'm sure LoV players are feeling the same.

Edited September 8, 2023 by Special Officer Doofy

[Xenith]

I'm not arguing the quality of the rules, just that they've already broken (in my eyes) one of their promises for this edition - not adding in loads of extra rules, and to remove a rule for every new rule they put in.

 

Within that constraint (assuming everyone's first choice is to get it right first time), I'd rather they tweak an existing rule to be much stronger, or, my favourite solution, bake the toughness directly into the statline, rather than giving them a 'marine' statline and adding in more special rules. T6 base plagues would be hard, T7 terms horrible. Doesn't help the M value however - but access to rhinos should help. 

[Special Officer Doofy]

5 minutes ago, Xenith said:

I'm not arguing the quality of the rules, just that they've already broken (in my eyes) one of their promises for this edition - not adding in loads of extra rules, and to remove a rule for every new rule they put in.

 

Within that constraint (assuming everyone's first choice is to get it right first time), I'd rather they tweak an existing rule to be much stronger, or, my favourite solution, bake the toughness directly into the statline, rather than giving them a 'marine' statline and adding in more special rules. T6 base plagues would be hard, T7 terms horrible. Doesn't help the M value however - but access to rhinos should help. 

 

I mean marines get T6 3W battleline troop that can take a 6+++ from multiple detatchment bonuses. 2W T5 5+++ is not crazy. No DG players I know want it baked into their statline, we want it baked into our rules, like DR was. 1 extra toughness means alot less when every faction went up in toughness on some units. 

Edited September 8, 2023 by Special Officer Doofy

[Dont-Be-Haten]

4 hours ago, Mogger351 said:

Having subjected myself to that podcast to perform a measured response: top table competitive 40k is not "the community", it never should be, never should have been. Those people need to realise this isn't an e-sport, it can't be. The game can and should be balanced better. But 99% of people are not playing top end tournament play, I'd wager less than 10% attend formal events where they'll experience the bulk of these problems.

 

The game is "doomed" because the top 1% can't play it like a sport. Then people repeat that ad nauseum because they mindlessly echo it and can't divorce "fun" from "being competitive". The game is nowhere near on it's knees and will not be because of a 2-3 month period of imbalance after a total reset, people need to temper their expectations and stop chicken little-ing.

 

The community needs to stop pushing the game as a competitive sport like a video game, it isn't in a framework to support it.

No one in any of the major cities where I play, play anything other than up to date rules, matched play with net lists etc. If they do play another way, they are individuals who play at home and not at any of the FLGS that I've seen.

 

Most recent tournaments at one of the bigger stores had 7 Eldar players, 2 knights, 2 GSCs. That was it.

 

It's been like this since 4th- 5th, when we started using the internet and forum boards more frequently, and cookie cutter nelisting  became a thing. It really opened up when 7th edition nuked the fridge, and has continued to be more and more competitive with each edition.

 

Maybe that's just the  people that play here locally Across 3 major cities. In my experience, almost no one really plays 40k crusade/narrative driven games. GW has removed any real flavor or ability to successfully play that way either. Retconning the Codex Astartes for example meant it is no longer 6 tacticals, 2 devs, and 2 assault squads, with minor changes to form a company for your chapter...

 

No force organization, penalties to taking whatever you want outside the rule of 3, has negatively impacted the casual gaming experience for me, and it builds upon the competitive nature of a lot of the new blood coming into the game.

 

Why take something weak, or does the same job a non battle-line unit can do with less efficiency in every other phase of the game? 

[phandaal]

2 minutes ago, Dont-Be-Haten said:

No one in any of the major cities where I play, play anything other than up to date rules, matched play with net lists etc. If they do play another way, they are individuals who play at home and not at any of the FLGS that I've seen.

 

This is my experience as well, living in one of the largest cities in the US. It is very difficult to get anyone to agree to a game of 40k that is not whatever is the latest iteration of GT rules.

[Cactus]

@Xenith I think you (or I) have misunderstood the scope of the 'one in one out' philosophy. From the WarCom previews I thought it was about the relationship between faction and sub-faction rules. So there are no special snowflakes with the generic faction rules and their own sub-faction rules layered on top making them faction++. If a sub-faction gains a new rule they also lose one of the faction rules. One in, one out.

[Dont-Be-Haten]

4 minutes ago, Cactus said:

@Xenith I think you (or I) have misunderstood the scope of the 'one in one out' philosophy. From the WarCom previews I thought it was about the relationship between faction and sub-faction rules. So there are no special snowflakes with the generic faction rules and their own sub-faction rules layered on top making them faction++. If a sub-faction gains a new rule they also lose one of the faction rules. One in, one out.

Which is weird, because they still do sub-factions within AoS. 

 

7 minutes ago, phandaal said:

 

This is my experience as well, living in one of the largest cities in the US. It is very difficult to get anyone to agree to a game of 40k that is not whatever is the latest iteration of GT rules.

Yeah. It's like the players that bring land raiders, repulsors, insert T12 models to a 1,000 point game.

[Xenith]

10 minutes ago, Cactus said:

@Xenith I think you (or I) have misunderstood the scope of the 'one in one out' philosophy. From the WarCom previews I thought it was about the relationship between faction and sub-faction rules. So there are no special snowflakes with the generic faction rules and their own sub-faction rules layered on top making them faction++. If a sub-faction gains a new rule they also lose one of the faction rules. One in, one out.

 

I'm not sure on that - my impression was that it was to avoid situations like Armour of contempt where they try to balance the armies by adding new rules on top of existing ones to make armies stronger, with those rules invariably spread over 2-3 documents. 

But also probably what you;re saying too. 

[DuskRaider]

8 hours ago, Cpt_Reaper said:

It really isn't a fruitless endeavour. The community just needs to stop declaring the game is dead every new release/update/edition. Seriously...do people legitimately think older editions were better? I wouldn't go back to pre-8th even if you threatened me, and I'd only begrudgingly go back to 8th or 9th.

I would pay to go back to 6th or 7th but drop all of the Formation crap. This is honestly why HHv1 was one of my favorite games, it took the bones of the older, more detailed and immersive rules from 40K but cut a lot of the fat off. 
 

One of my biggest gripes with GW has always been that when something needs to be fixed, they don’t go at the issue with a fine blade or scalpel, they grab an axe and just start hacking and cutting until they’ve completely mangled their creation. 

Edited September 8, 2023 by DuskRaider

[DemonGSides]

9 minutes ago, Xenith said:

 

I'm not sure on that - my impression was that it was to avoid situations like Armour of contempt where they try to balance the armies by adding new rules on top of existing ones to make armies stronger, with those rules invariably spread over 2-3 documents. 

But also probably what you;re saying too. 

 

Yeah you're just taking the words too strictly.  The idea was that you wouldn't be mixing and matching detachments like you could in previous editions; your detachment decides what your ancillary rules were for the faction, whereas in previous editions, you picked relics, warlord traits, etc and whatever detachments you wanted.

[Karhedron]

25 minutes ago, Cactus said:

@Xenith I think you (or I) have misunderstood the scope of the 'one in one out' philosophy. From the WarCom previews I thought it was about the relationship between faction and sub-faction rules. So there are no special snowflakes with the generic faction rules and their own sub-faction rules layered on top making them faction++. If a sub-faction gains a new rule they also lose one of the faction rules. One in, one out.

 

That was my understanding as well. If they implemented the one-in-one out rule on the basis of rules updates, it would make it very hard to fix anything like the DG situation. Still not sure the DG faction rule really represents how they are supposed to work but hey ho.

[Mogger351]

35 minutes ago, Dont-Be-Haten said:

No one in any of the major cities where I play, play anything other than up to date rules, matched play with net lists etc. If they do play another way, they are individuals who play at home and not at any of the FLGS that I've seen.

 

Most recent tournaments at one of the bigger stores had 7 Eldar players, 2 knights, 2 GSCs. That was it.

 

It's been like this since 4th- 5th, when we started using the internet and forum boards more frequently, and cookie cutter nelisting  became a thing. It really opened up when 7th edition nuked the fridge, and has continued to be more and more competitive with each edition.

 

Maybe that's just the  people that play here locally Across 3 major cities. In my experience, almost no one really plays 40k crusade/narrative driven games. GW has removed any real flavor or ability to successfully play that way either. Retconning the Codex Astartes for example meant it is no longer 6 tacticals, 2 devs, and 2 assault squads, with minor changes to form a company for your chapter...

 

No force organization, penalties to taking whatever you want outside the rule of 3, has negatively impacted the casual gaming experience for me, and it builds upon the competitive nature of a lot of the new blood coming into the game.

 

Why take something weak, or does the same job a non battle-line unit can do with less efficiency in every other phase of the game? 

I think you've perfectly summed up and highlighted the point I was trying to make though - it's all about apeing that hypercompetitive online trend. I'm sorry to say I think it's largely a result of the ITC and general US scene though as to how we got here.

[DemonGSides]

The new DG stuff is nice, but absolutely not enough to make a real difference.  All of their non-armor guns are just sad, and their lack of sticking power from where they used to be is just a feels bad.

[Xanthous]

1 hour ago, Xenith said:

 

So they're getting around their "one-in, one-out" rule by doubling the length of existing rules? Seems silly. 

There's really no standard length or complexity for a detachment rule; compare the Ork Waaagh Tribe or Berzerker Warband to Slaves to Darkness or Rad-Cohort. I don't really think it matters how long they are, but I will admit that the new Spread the Sickness is much more like two abilities stapled together than a single, complex yet coherent rule.

[phandaal]

4 minutes ago, Mogger351 said:

I think you've perfectly summed up and highlighted the point I was trying to make though - it's all about apeing that hypercompetitive online trend. I'm sorry to say I think it's largely a result of the ITC and general US scene though as to how we got here.

 

We probably disagree on some of the implications and causes here, but yes. There is an inclination towards using the GT set and it is not easy to get away from it.

[Rain]

10 minutes ago, Mogger351 said:

I think you've perfectly summed up and highlighted the point I was trying to make though - it's all about apeing that hypercompetitive online trend. I'm sorry to say I think it's largely a result of the ITC and general US scene though as to how we got here.

Even in a casual setting, there are big issues. Try playing a casual World Eaters list against a casual Custodes list. They shoot better than you (as they should), and if you charge them, they can give the charged unit FF. As defender activates first in each “subphase” of combat (WHY?!), they royally mess up your unit before you get to do anything. It feels awesome. Now, yes, you can get fight on death 4+ as a BOK roll, and Khârn always fights on death, but your unit is also probably depleted somewhat from shooting already, and you lose your unit.
 

It feels even worse than getting shot off the board before before getting to do anything, because you achieve the WE goal of getting into combat, but it doesn’t really matter, you get killed anyway. You can offset this a bit by charging with multiple units into multiple units, but (a.) easier said than done; and (b.) you still trade unfavorably on average. Feels kind of pointless to even play.

[Bloody Legionnaire]

10 hours ago, Cpt_Reaper said:

It really isn't a fruitless endeavour. The community just needs to stop declaring the game is dead every new release/update/edition. Seriously...do people legitimately think older editions were better? I wouldn't go back to pre-8th even if you threatened me, and I'd only begrudgingly go back to 8th or 9th.

I half agree but definitely not enough to hit the “respectfully disagree” emoji.

 

I wouldn’t go back to 7th, but I would go back to 6th..

 

People love to hate on me for this, but it’s really competitive 40k that’s the problem here. 10th as a core rule set doesn’t look like a bad edition for me right now. What’s causing all the issues are imbalances between indexes. So, maybe we shouldn’t be trying to approach the game from the position expecting streamlined “competitive” gameplay right now, considering we know changes are coming and indexes were temporary just to get people playing at the start of this edition?

 

I’m absolutely with you on the insanity that happens with every release. When expecting different results while continuing to do the same things, it really should be recognized the problem is with us the community, not with geedub, at least in regards to new edition releases. 

[DemonGSides]

5 minutes ago, Bloody Legionnaire said:

I half agree but definitely not enough to hit the “respectfully disagree” emoji.

 

I wouldn’t go back to 7th, but I would go back to 6th..

 

People love to hate on me for this, but it’s really competitive 40k that’s the problem here. 10th as a core rule set doesn’t look like a bad edition for me right now. What’s causing all the issues are imbalances between indexes. So, maybe we shouldn’t be trying to approach the game from the position expecting streamlined “competitive” gameplay right now, considering we know changes are coming and indexes were temporary just to get people playing at the start of this edition?

 

I’m absolutely with you on the insanity that happens with every release. When expecting different results while continuing to do the same things, it really should be recognized the problem is with us the community, not with geedub, at least in regards to new edition releases. 

 

I think most people would agree with you regarding "competitive" 40k, but youre T-minus 30 seconds from getting swarmed by people screaming at you that their local clubs only play hyper-competitive so we all have to suffer because of it.

[Sergeant Bastone]

4 hours ago, Redcomet said:

Physical media and constant patching just doesn’t go together well. Having your expensive book, whose only real value these days is the rules, be out of date before it has reached the shelves, is just a bad look. 

I can't believe that their plan in 2023 is still to make people buy physical books.  I hate my 9e guard codex because the thing contains so many typos, doesn't even contain everything i need to play, and cost so damn much.

 

One physical thing i do like are the physical datacards.  They are much handier than digging through a book or phone.  I'd be happy to keep buying those going forward.  But i'm not buying any more codices.