Game Stability, Balance, and Health Over Time

[phandaal]

2 minutes ago, Schurge said:

 

People are wary of the simplicity and lack of fluff. Is it really much simpler than 40k? (Chess is simple too, but it allows for a lot of skill.) (Fluff comes as much from mindset, models, scenarios, as it does rules.)

 

That is probably the biggest hurdle for a lot of people.

 

It is simpler in terms of mental load because it leans heavily on USRs and some stats are fixed, but there are plenty of special rules and the alternating activations add a whole new layer of strategy. There are actually a ton of "advanced" rules that can be layered on top of the base game to make it as complex as people want as well.

 

Feels a lot like playing an older edition of 40k, honestly, from the time between toning down the OG 1st Edition RPG elements and before they went off the rails with special rules, rules to counter those special rules, etc.

[Inquisitor_Lensoven]

3 hours ago, Marshal Rohr said:

If you watch Duncan’s interview with Jordan Sorcery he spells out the main problem, essentially GW doesn’t have a clear vision of what the game is and it swings wildly back and forth between “competitive play doesn’t matter” and “competitive play is all that matters”. We are in the latter right now. It’ll swing back the other way eventually. 

Personally I think GW giving any attention to the tournament scene has ruined the game.

the overwhelming majority of players aren’t serious tournament people, and don’t want to spend a bunch of time hunting down and relearning rules every few months.

what’s killing it in tournaments isn’t necessarily what casuals are taking, so nerfing lynch pin units of those lists cripples people just having fun with lists that appeal to them and use those units.

 

they make the game worse for like 75%+ of the player base to appease a loud obnoxious 25%- of the player base.

[The Praetorian of Inwit]

@Inquisitor_Lensoven I agree 110%. That means I could backtrack 10% and still be fully behind you. 

 

Tournaments should have no say or influence whatsoever. 

 

Almost all of these "problems" when it comes to balance and whatnot are caused by tournament going WAAC types. 

 

10th edition is so utterly unappealing from a narrative/fun pov. 

[Karhedron]

23 minutes ago, The Praetorian of Inwit said:

Tournaments should have no say or influence whatsoever. 

 

Almost all of these "problems" when it comes to balance and whatnot are caused by tournament going WAAC types. 

 

WAAC players don't cause balance problems, they are just better at finding them and highlighting them. Tournaments make great sources of test data and I am all for MFM points adjustments at the very least.

 

Even if you don't like or want to play tournaments, using the data they produce to make the game more balanced benefits everyone.

[Marshal Rohr]

It never makes it more balanced just shifts the meta army into something else unfun to play against. 

[Mike Zulu]

10 hours ago, phandaal said:

 

That is probably the biggest hurdle for a lot of people.

 

It is simpler in terms of mental load because it leans heavily on USRs and some stats are fixed, but there are plenty of special rules and the alternating activations add a whole new layer of strategy. There are actually a ton of "advanced" rules that can be layered on top of the base game to make it as complex as people want as well.

 

I agree. I would argue that the rules are not simple, but rather they are succinct. This is due to both the consistent application of USRs and the reduction of trivial dice-rolls. 40k’s rules have done the exact opposite in recent years.

 

As for the fluff, I would also argue that the rules are a facsimile to represent your army, and not the other way around.

[Karhedron]

7 hours ago, Marshal Rohr said:

It never makes it more balanced just shifts the meta army into something else unfun to play against. 

 

I disagree. Look at the start of 10th edition, Eldar and Knights were dominating everything. Recent tournaments are wide open with most armies having at least a couple of competitive builds. The game is definitely better balanced than it was at launch. The other thing to remember is that stronger or weaker units would still exist without tournaments. The meta does not exist because of tournaments, they are just the easiest place to see it on display.

 

If you don't enjoy tournament play then go for narrative games, maybe give Crusade a try. But I have 3 kids and a full-time job so I don't really have the time for that style of play. When I get a free evening for a game, normally play with the latest rules. That is not because I am a WAAC  player or that my opponents are. It just means that a pickup game has the best chance of being a fun and balanced experience. 

[Doghouse]

For me it's a perception thing as in my eyes 40k was originally a wargame and is now a tabletop competitive online service, originally it was never intended to be balanced.

 

Wargames were designed as a test of the ability of generals to adapt to scenarios where you could find yourself outgunned and outnumbered. Originally it had referees and scenarios that could change mid battle and other factions could be introduced that throw the players off guard. This was later adapted with more fantastical elements with the rise of the likes of DND into a very niche hobby.

 

The three keywords I see constantly when talking about modern 40k are Narrative, Tournament and Balance but the issue for me is it doesn't matter whether you're playing either Narrative or Tournament you are still using the same rules and army books are the same tabletop model. I have personally seen a shift since when I started mid 80's from being able to just own a game that is self contained where you could stop playing for a few months and pick up with friends without anything having massively changed to having to having download pdfs, check FAQs, check data cards, update rules and make sure everyone is up to speed.

 

For me this has evolved this way because regardless of how we play the game as it is driven by sales ultimately because they're not a charity and in it to make money as a business which is sensible regardless of how we may see them.  They're pushing for mainstream IP acceptance to make more profits which is fair enough as like I say they are going to be chasing the money but due to how their business model has changed a book or game that stays the same for an entire edition doesn't sell as many minis.

 

The way I see it is that you are free to play it how you want and despite what GW may want you to think they do not own wargaming. If you are a competitive tabletop player that is fine and to be truthful the majority of players are always going to be chasing the 'official' rules because that is what the modern game mindset has become (back in my day the term 'official' was thrown around a lot which I think was the beginning of all this). I think the issue for me in this respect is that we never really had problems in the past with pick up games in my own personal experience despite there being imbalance. It was more to do with the nature of your opponent than the actual game mechanics until you get to later editions.

 

What I personally would like to see is a bit of wargaming renaissance where the hobby shifts away from the 'new edition is official' mindset to embrace the fact that older editions exist and that you don't have to stick to one edition if you can convince others to give it a try.

 

Like I said I don't think there is a right or wrong way rather than it's down to the player's mindset, how they find entertainment in the game and a willingness to remove the blinkers and stop chasing the meta if you are not happy and look at other editions as a possibility.

[Madao]

I don't mind balancing the game on the codex level (although they could playtest them before release to catch obvious power spikes), but I hate them changing the core rules

[alfred_the_great]

3 hours ago, Doghouse said:

For me it's a perception thing as in my eyes 40k was originally a wargame and is now a tabletop competitive online service, originally it was never intended to be balanced.

 

Wargames were designed as a test of the ability of generals to adapt to scenarios where you could find yourself outgunned and outnumbered. Originally it had referees and scenarios that could change mid battle and other factions could be introduced that throw the players off guard. This was later adapted with more fantastical elements with the rise of the likes of DND into a very niche hobby.

 

The three keywords I see constantly when talking about modern 40k are Narrative, Tournament and Balance but the issue for me is it doesn't matter whether you're playing either Narrative or Tournament you are still using the same rules and army books are the same tabletop model. I have personally seen a shift since when I started mid 80's from being able to just own a game that is self contained where you could stop playing for a few months and pick up with friends without anything having massively changed to having to having download pdfs, check FAQs, check data cards, update rules and make sure everyone is up to speed.

 

For me this has evolved this way because regardless of how we play the game as it is driven by sales ultimately because they're not a charity and in it to make money as a business which is sensible regardless of how we may see them.  They're pushing for mainstream IP acceptance to make more profits which is fair enough as like I say they are going to be chasing the money but due to how their business model has changed a book or game that stays the same for an entire edition doesn't sell as many minis.

 

The way I see it is that you are free to play it how you want and despite what GW may want you to think they do not own wargaming. If you are a competitive tabletop player that is fine and to be truthful the majority of players are always going to be chasing the 'official' rules because that is what the modern game mindset has become (back in my day the term 'official' was thrown around a lot which I think was the beginning of all this). I think the issue for me in this respect is that we never really had problems in the past with pick up games in my own personal experience despite there being imbalance. It was more to do with the nature of your opponent than the actual game mechanics until you get to later editions.

 

What I personally would like to see is a bit of wargaming renaissance where the hobby shifts away from the 'new edition is official' mindset to embrace the fact that older editions exist and that you don't have to stick to one edition if you can convince others to give it a try.

 

Like I said I don't think there is a right or wrong way rather than it's down to the player's mindset, how they find entertainment in the game and a willingness to remove the blinkers and stop chasing the meta if you are not happy and look at other editions as a possibility.

What evidence is there that GW does all the things you say? Or is it the “community” that does so? 
 

there have been multiple comments on here along the lines of 

 

“I can’t do that (ie go back an edition/homebrew/step out the official rules) because that’s not how we do it around here….”

 

I’ve never seen anything from GW that says 

 

“you can only play this game in this way, else consequences”

 

have you?

[phandaal]

32 minutes ago, alfred_the_great said:

What evidence is there that GW does all the things you say? Or is it the “community” that does so? 
 

there have been multiple comments on here along the lines of 

 

“I can’t do that (ie go back an edition/homebrew/step out the official rules) because that’s not how we do it around here….”

 

I’ve never seen anything from GW that says 

 

“you can only play this game in this way, else consequences”

 

have you?

 

He literally says multiple times in the very post you quoted that he hopes the community mindset will shift, and he understands why GW might want to change their rules up on a regular basis.

 

Either you did not read what you quoted and just reflexively commented because you are annoyed about people not praising GW unequivocally, or you are deliberately stirring up trouble in a thread where people are having a civil conversation. Neither is a good look.

[Marshal Reinhard]

4 hours ago, Doghouse said:

For me it's a perception thing as in my eyes 40k was originally a wargame and is now a tabletop competitive online service,

If 40k was to truly be a competetive online service then that would neccessitate the rules reflecting that. And by that I mean they would have to be freely available and updated online. To everyone. Not just the core rules, everything. No editions, extra rules in codices, everything. No sold books that are out of date before they're even done printing.

 

You can't do an online competetive service with rules updated piecemeal, scattered over time and paywalled.

[Doghouse]

2 hours ago, alfred_the_great said:

What evidence is there that GW does all the things you say? Or is it the “community” that does so? 
 

there have been multiple comments on here along the lines of 

 

“I can’t do that (ie go back an edition/homebrew/step out the official rules) because that’s not how we do it around here….”

 

I’ve never seen anything from GW that says 

 

“you can only play this game in this way, else consequences”

 

have you?

 

I think you may be misreading what I have said, which is ok because our hobby is full of passionate people. It's not really about assigning blame to anyone but more about a mindset. 

 

I have no idea how long you have played/collected so please forgive me if any of this sounds patronizing because that is not my intention but way back in the day there was a time when everything had to be 'official'. GW would repeat over and over in White Dwarf and rulebooks (often in big block texts) that the rules were a starting point and nothing was ever set in stone. They were perfectly clear time and time again that once you have the rules in your hands you were free to do with them what you wished and take out what you saw as the bad. So I would never knowingly say GW force anything on people unless I missed something.

 

In experience in the late eighties people used to stick to 'official rules' only and things began to turn the other way. Stuff that was in the White Dwarfs or rulebooks, which to be fair does make some sense given that then everyone is still on the same page but back then it was mostly gaming with your mates so was seen more in a similar light that people may argue narrative over competitive play but was a bit more open to scenarios rather than victory conditions. I think where I live it took about twenty years for the first organized clubs to emerge locally. I think a lot of this may be contributed to historical wargaming making a transition into something newer with sci fi and predominantly fantasy settings, I honestly couldn't say.

 

The original GW staff would get hand written letters and fan mail with suggestions about what they did and didn't like and based on the interviews from the original crew which are plastered all over Youtube they adapted and catered to what the feedback they saw with requests of people asking for a system that allowed customers to play with their entire collections of miniatures rather than a handful which eventually led to Second Edition with the big boxed set formats and beyond.

 

It's a symbiotic relationship of supply and demand so I won't be throwing shade at GW even if I didn't like them. It an entrenched mentality where you have to play the latest ruleset when you can, if you are unhappy with the current state of the game you can try persuade some gaming buddies to try older editions. I expect a lot of players still have all their old army books and rules if they are anything like me and newer player may find it interesting.

 

2 hours ago, Marshal Reinhard said:

If 40k was to truly be a competetive online service then that would neccessitate the rules reflecting that. And by that I mean they would have to be freely available and updated online. To everyone. Not just the core rules, everything. No editions, extra rules in codices, everything. No sold books that are out of date before they're even done printing.

 

You can't do an online competetive service with rules updated piecemeal, scattered over time and paywalled.

 

To be fair to your point I think I was being a bit of a hyperbolic grognard there!   I think my age is showing a bit, but I have waited a very long time to reach this age and intend to fully embrace it and occasionally shout at kids to get off my lawn! 

 

 

 

[alfred_the_great]

I’ve been playing since RT. 

[tychobi]

The reality is we are the play testers now. The game gets updated based on information GW can gather. Casual games don't get counted because they don't report. Bias towards competition is just a fact of data scarcity.  Contributing less data by not participating ensures your opinion to remain yours alone. Record profits will not lead to a change of coarse no matter a few lost fans feeling left out. So get involved! The tournament scene involves a ton of narrative and fun oriented players.  It's worth the effort to find em. Turning up your nose hurts no one but you

[phandaal]

13 minutes ago, tychobi said:

Contributing less data by not participating ensures your opinion to remain yours alone. Record profits will not lead to a change of coarse no matter a few lost fans feeling left out. So get involved! The tournament scene involves a ton of narrative and fun oriented players.  It's worth the effort to find em. Turning up your nose hurts no one but you.

 

Or just don't play with the current rules. That is also part of accepting that you are not individually responsible for changing anything about Games Workshop.

 

No one is hurting themselves by not participating in the latest extended beta test. Not when they could be spending their time doing other more satisfying things. Life is short, so spend your free time having fun.

[crimsondave]

7 hours ago, alfred_the_great said:

What evidence is there that GW does all the things you say? Or is it the “community” that does so? 
 

there have been multiple comments on here along the lines of 

 

“I can’t do that (ie go back an edition/homebrew/step out the official rules) because that’s not how we do it around here….”

 

I’ve never seen anything from GW that says 

 

“you can only play this game in this way, else consequences”

 

have you?

He didn’t say what you think he said.  Might want to reread that.

Edited June 22 by crimsondave

[Marshal Rohr]

19 hours ago, tychobi said:

The reality is we are the play testers now. The game gets updated based on information GW can gather. Casual games don't get counted because they don't report. Bias towards competition is just a fact of data scarcity.  Contributing less data by not participating ensures your opinion to remain yours alone. Record profits will not lead to a change of coarse no matter a few lost fans feeling left out. So get involved! The tournament scene involves a ton of narrative and fun oriented players.  It's worth the effort to find em. Turning up your nose hurts no one but you

If GW felt that the rules were contributing to their continued success they would utilize more resources supporting the rules instead of phoning it in with Metawatch and the Field Manual. 

[Deus_Ex_Machina]

There is a German Youtube channel which puts a strong emphasis on modern 40K and it´s competitive nature. Although they also do narrative games from time to time and even manage to cram in a HH 2.0 game once in a while and that´s the reason why I watch them.

 

However every time when they show their atrocious L-shaped tournament cityscape which looks totally artificial my wargamer soul dies instantly as the immersion into the universe is broken.

[Inquisitor_Lensoven]

On 6/21/2024 at 6:42 PM, Karhedron said:

 

WAAC players don't cause balance problems, they are just better at finding them and highlighting them. Tournaments make great sources of test data and I am all for MFM points adjustments at the very least.

 

Even if you don't like or want to play tournaments, using the data they produce to make the game more balanced benefits everyone.

The problem is, generally the game is balanced. Just because some try hards find a broken combo that no one outside of the sweaty tournament community is using, doesn’t mean the game is broken or unbalanced as a whole.

 

all these changes to army/detachment/unit rules just sets casual players up for feel bad moments.

 

Let’s take the MN example. A person who plays a game once every 2 months or so and doesn’t religiously follow updates goes to the FLGS and begins playing with a list that’s generally very under strength, but they have 5 man MN blob w/MB, and now it’s turn 4 the ork player has made 6or more FNPs at the 4+++ they’re used to and their opponent gets curious and looks it up, and sees its a 5+++. Now the ork player looks like a cheater, and their opponent is made that they’ve likely been cheated out of at least a few extra damage.

 

these changes don’t balance the game, they balance the tournament scene, and they set people up for feel bad moments unnecessarily.

 

leaving the rules the same, doesn’t create feel bad moments because tournament players can build their lists with that one unbalanced combo in mind to counter them, and if they don’t, that’s 100% on them.

[spessmarine]

The hobbying aspect, so the time, effort, and money investment, really conflicts with rapid balancing. It's entirely possible for your army plan to go up in smoke before you've finished painting due to how long it can take from planning to completion. An aside, it creates a preference for grey tide easy-to-build armies since that brings time to field down to a relatively short value.

Video games for comparison, balancing might be bumping around some numbers and requires no effort on the part of the player and neither does the player have sunk effort as all they do is pick off a screen to play.

[Timberley]

2 hours ago, spessmarine said:

An aside, it creates a preference for grey tide easy-to-build armies since that brings time to field down to a relatively short value.

With my tinfoil hat on, I'd say the expansion of monopose miniatures and Contrast paint is all about making the interesting part (to me) of the hobby as short as possible so you can field the new FotM army now, now, now!  You want the New Thing don't you?  It looks better than the Current Thing, and easier to paint so you can use it to win NOW!  It's yours for the small sum of your food bill for a fortnight (it's a new Primaris Lieutenant everyone)!  But wait, there's more... With the New Thing, you also need the New Rules for it, and they're valid until they're replaced by Newer Rules, or the New Thing is discontinued to be replaced by Newer Thing (like New Thing, but better and more expensive).  If New Thing proves to be very successful and we meet sales targets in the first 48 hours of release, New Thing will be power scaled so that it is comparable with Current Thing, because we don't want Current Edition to be unbalanced, do we?  However, the many rules changes to Current Edition means that you'll be unsure of New Thing is better than Current Thing, or if Newer Thing is better than New Thing.  We won't help you there, but present an FAQ and hide an update to a rule in an Errata that most players won't go over with a fine-toothed comb, so if you spot it you too can play a 'Gotcha' on your opponent who's 2 weeks behind the updates!  Remember though, we are a small gaming company, so please support us as we try and grow - by buying the new resin/plastic we push every week and you're addicted to buying it because it looks amazing.

 

Seriously though, this is why I decided that Necromunda, for all it's faults, is a better game because the the overall monetary investment is lower, the rules aren't updated every 5mins, and home rules are more prolific (the rules as written can be fairly obnoxious if you're playing against a WAAC type).  Plus, I can (if I want) buy two of each model and convert them to represent the characters I've created in my head gaining experience and such, which is much nicer with 8-12 models than it is with 30+...  Granted, the Necromunda models are mainly monopose (though the Ash Jumpers can be reposed quite nicely), but I'm already halfway through converting a Hekaton into an anti-grav transport for my Van Saar gang(s), which I couldn't do in 40K.  The expansion of Necromunda out of the Underhive was a bit strange (and not really needed in my opinion) but it adds a bit of variety to the overall setting and can be fun.  The Succession stuff was also odd, and smelled like an 'End of the Old World' moment, but it'll be interesting to see if GW develop it at all with Secundus, or whether it'll get shelved until they need another Big Event to advertise New Thing.

Edited June 23 by Timberley

[Inquisitor_Lensoven]

It seems to me there are a lot of people who really dislike this business model, and now in 3 different venues (FB, discord, and here) I’ve seen people say they’re stepping away from the game.

 

if they follow through or for how long is anyone’s guess, but they don’t seem like tantrums either.

 

i have a strong feeling if they keep this up they will lose players. Idk if it’ll be more than they gain or not though.

[Gillyfish]

I stopped playing 40k with the advent of 6th edition, really. Partly that was RL, partly that was formations and the fact that I enjoy spending time on painting and modelling, so I want my models to look reasonably good (for me), rather than bashing them out for a formation bonus. Kids arrived with subsequent editions, and although I bought the rules, I wasn't particularly sold on the rulesets.

 

I have had a game recently as my main group have recently started playing. Most of my favourite units are legends, so this probably isn't good for pick-ups and required a lot of effort to figure out how to play and then moving back and forth between different unit profiles to figure out their special rules. It all felt a little bit like second edition Epic where every unit had a special rule and power-up, which is not to say that I didn't have fun, it just seemed very complicated (for the record, at the time, I loved second edition Epic, it's just not to my taste now). Having a 'competitive' army in 40k for pick-up games now feels insurmountable and not worth the effort (for me), especially when I have models dating back to 2nd and third edition still to paint! 

 

All that said, I do enjoy Titanicus, which goes back to my first hobby love of Epic-scale battles, but that is designed around a small number of units. So I think there are games that GW produces that probably speak to different players. I have also found over the years that I have moved increasingly to mass-battle games with more straightforward rulesets like Blucher and Hail Caesar where, in my opinion, it tends to be more generalship than special unit power combos that decide matters (although the dice can still destroy you), or 'beer and pretzel' skirmish games like Frostgrave, where you can assemble a warband really quickly.

 

One thing I would observe is that no previous GW game has ever been perfect; there are simply too many variables and, therefore, too many possibilities for the 'killer combo', but the sense I get is that with all the (apparent) complexity in the combos in the latest editions, it has become even harder to find balance yet the pressure to release and update things more quickly has grown too. As others have observed, there's almost certainly a sales element to that, but probably also a player expectation element too.

[2PlusEasy]

There's alot of interesting points raised in this thread. Here's my two cents to contribute to some of the points:

 

• The cynic in me knows GW aren't a gaming company: The game and it's IP setting are tools to drive sales of their miniatures. GW also knows that neither have to be great, just "ok enough" to push their miniatures. Both the game and the setting are getting (subjectively) worse with time: we're the fools for allowing it to happen because we keep buying the miniatures with a 6% annual price increase.

 

• I fully agree with the remarks that modern 40k feels like a tabletop eSport. 40k was being referred to as "twitch-hammer" on a podcast recently and the slant stuck in my gaming circle. Such frequent updates are well and good when it's free or with a cheap subscription, but not when it costs $93AUD and the codex is unusable before its even sold or lasts less then 3 months.

 

• I also agree with the comments that there is futility in trying to make 40k balanced. The game came from RPG roots, designed by historical wargamers. The years of release bloat also works against balance. It's just simply not a gaming system designed for competitive settings.

 

The saddest part of this is that for me it's a bitter case of "be careful what you wish for:" in the past we wanted more updates to the game and progression of the storyline. GW delivered, just not in the way many of us were hoping.

 

But, I've found my renaissance in Oldhammer and Necromunda. My gaming circle and I recently started replaying 4th edition and won't look back. It's not for nostalgia's sake, it's more that 4th edition better fits what we want 40k to be compared to modern 40k. Smaller armies, no super heavies or flyers, limited special weapons, big emphasis on thematic missions etc. It reminded all of us why we got into this hobby in the first place as kids / adolescents. I'm sure others have done the same for similar reasons and I know alot of gaming channels have gone back to playing oldhammer such as 2nd and 4th edition.

 

 

Edited June 24 by 2PlusEasy