Game design, "balance", "fun" and how they interact

[Antarius]

So, as a sort of spin-off from the More Dakka detachment thread, I thought I'd make a thread for us to discuss game design as it pertains to the current edition of Warhammer 40.000 (and earlier editions or other games, if you find there are relevant insights to be had). Specifically, I was thinking it might be interesting to discuss the concepts of "balance" and "fun", how they are achieved and how they interact.

My own personal experience is that, let's say, roughly 80% of the problems encountered when actually playing centres around "balance" in some way, especially when that balance or perceived lack of balance detracts from the "fun" of the game. So much so that the concept of "fun" is often subsumed into the idea of balance or overlooked altogether (i.e. people seem to forget that fun exists as something different from balance; the thought often seems to be that if only balance can be achieved, fun will automatically follow).

 

Now, this is not intended to be a "casual vs competitive play" thread, so much as a thread to explore ideas about what makes a game fun and how a game can be balanced; ideally we'll come up with something brilliant that can solve all game design problems forever (and, if so, I promise to credit you somewhere and think fondly of you when I'm sitting in my mansion on top of my piles of game design money...), but, more realistically, we might hit on something that'll open our eyes to new ways of looking at the game and perhaps help us have more fun with our friends. So, let's see if we can keep it friendly and constructive and perhaps benefit from any differences in perspective.

 

Personally, I've been playing casually forever, but with definite -some times years long- detours into competitive play (sometimes of the unexpected and/or unwanted kind). A lot of my time has been spent arguing with other players about what units, armies, etc. were supposedly unbalanced and at some point, I just didn't bother with the hassle anymore. So now, I simply say "well that's too bad, what do you suggest we do about it?" when someone says something about balance, which works well enough when you're just playing with personal friends but is not necessarily a viable strategy for everyone. But that's neither here nor there.

I only bring it up because my personal experiences with 2nd-8th and 10th edition has taught me a couple of things that are relevant to the subject of the thread:

"Balance" sounds like a much more concrete and measurable term than "fun", but it is actually:
a) very dependent upon both the observer and the specifics of the situation being observed  
b) much more nebulous than it sounds (it seems to me that "balance" is a bit like "objectivity" in this regard; it can mean different things in different contexts and it is often misunderstood), and of course
c) a good excuse for being a sore loser and, by extension, it is often difficult to ascertain whether balance complaints are valid (even when you yourself is doing the complaining)

 

"Fun", by contrast, is actually not quite as nebulous a concept as it appears at first glance, because: 
a) you always know whether you're having fun or not 
b) while fun is subjective, it is almost always possible to detect whether your opponent is having fun and, even more importantly, it is quite often the case that you can predict whether something will be fun for your opponent or not

c) game mechanics observably impact fun, even if the specific way they do so is sometimes difficult to pinpoint, and

d) in games such as Warhammer 40.000, fun is often, but not always, strongly linked to how well the crunch of the game reflects the fluff

 

The way I see it, the two concepts are strongly correlated but not actually causally linked. In general, I would say that balance only truly impacts fun negatively when it is not possible for us to accurately gauge how a specific game is balanced, leading to mismatched expectations and shattered hopes and dreams, or when the (usually noble) quest for balance leads designers to forget that fun is, in fact, the object of the game.
On the other hand, fun (or at least, things done in the name of fun) often have unintended consequences for balance. The 3rd and 3.5 ed. codices should be a good illustration of this; the initial codices were quite stripped down and with fewer options and I think most people would agree that the game was more balanced at that point. When the 3.5/4th ed. codices started to pop up they definitely made the game more unbalanced, if for no other reason than they included many more options for customisation. People still obsess over the 3.5 Chaos codex though, whereas I don’t think I’ve ever heard any nostalgia for the 3.0 codices.

So, what do you think? What makes a game of Warhammer 40.000 (or indeed, other games) fun? To what degree can balance be achieved and to what degree do we need it? How would you go about designing, house ruling or playing 40k so balance and fun can both thrive and complement each other?

Edited yesterday at 09:32 AM by Antarius

[Cleon]

I'll throw out some thoughts from random chats with gaming friends, that may or may not be things people agree with on the related topic of where 'enthusiasm' for a game comes from (as we play multiple games, so 40k and GW games are competing for attention even for hobby time, never mind against other responsibilities and hobbies).

 

Firstly the idea of to be attractive these three forces should look very similar

1 - The force that fits the background of the setting

2 - The force that is fun to play (not too complex, units behave like they should)

3 - The force that is game effective

 

Here current 40k fails spectacularly for us. While some Codex/detachments can nod do this, mostly since the watering down and then the removal of the org chart any nod towards the most common units in setting actually appearing on the tabletop has been players handicapping themselves because they want to make them work.

 

Secondly the idea that rules (both core and lists/points) should be the appropriate depth, that even if you only play once every 3-5 weeks you should be able to play the game correctly without spending more time keeping up on rules than actually gaming and have at least a run of 6-8 games without significantly reworking what you are doing.

 

Again here current 40k fails badly in our eyes, the 'every unit has a distinct rule' makes actually playing the game correctly and effectively a higher mental load for playing casually than I remember it being since 3rd ed (second was crazy, but we were young and had enough time to master it) with identifying what randomly works together during army build and then remembering your combos way more important than actually where your models are going and the shape of the battle. Add this to the frequency new rules, or points, or balance updates, drop and it doesn't feel worth even trying to run more than one or at most two forces anymore.

 

[Antarius]

I've not played all that much 10th, yet, but I do agree that the "bespoke rule on every unit" thing is a complicating factor that sort of runs counter to the simplicity of the basic rules (I do really like the basic rules though; in fact I think 10th might be tied with 4th for my favorite 40k ruleset so far). At this point, we're mostly playing smaller games, which means it's not really a problem but at 1500+ points I guess it would be rather cumbersome.

 

One thing I enjoy about the current ruleset, which runs along the lines of your three points, is that Marines actually feel tough and even smaller units stick around for a while (at the points values we play, anyway - I know that larger points games sometimes run into the familiar "unit deleted" problem from earlier editions). To me, this is a good example of how 40k should work; it should feel worthwhile taking regular space marines in your space marine armies and they should behave (more or less) according to the lore. At 750 points, I think they actually do, which is a nice change from earlier editions, where everybody and their mothers seemed to run around with ap3 guns.

[Valkyrion]

It shouldn't be that difficult for cleverer folk than me to work out a Points Formula using the results of a 6 sided dice.

e.g, hitting 2/6 times should cost less than hitting 5/6 times, so working out a points value for WS3+, BS3+, S4, T4, W1, A1, LD8, Sv3+ should be relatively straightforward for maths geniuses, and there will be proper maths geniuses out there that play 40k.

From there you can work out precisely what each model and weapon (S, AP, Damage, number of shots) should cost, and the nuance of the game is provided by unit choice and player tactics.

 

This would give you genuine unit balance across the entire system. The balance could still be upset by unique rules, like rerolls or exploding sixes, but the units and weapons themselves would be mathematically balanced. 

 

[gideon stargreave]

Part of the discourse I think is that there is an issue with casual/ competitive dichotomies. 
I spent hundred of euros and the best part of the year making a 10 man warband for a single day of narrative gaming. I’m currently doing it again. That’s not exactly casual, I take it very seriously, it’s just not competitive either. 
what I am looking for in this weird nebulous space is opportunity for cinematic moments (and in fact that is where the competitiveness comes in, we do a debrief and award the coolest thing that someone did). What I need is a ruleset that allows for it. Balance is only circumstantially necessary. Instead I need a ruleset that has as little book keeping as possible, that can have environmental effects (house ruled or official doesn’t really matter) and that is utterly deadly in a lot of circumstances, but allows for risk taking. The necessary  balance is that it is equally rewarding for all parties throughout the game and afterwards.

I think objectives and sub objectives are useful for this. It means I can play a last stand, or a shootout, or a rescue, or an exploration mission and everyone involves feels like they have agency.

this for me feels like an accurate representation of the universe. It is normal in the lore for a million guard to be sent to their deaths and that one space marine changes the balance of the fight, but those deaths to still happen. I want that feeling regardless of outcome. 
I’m not sure how to achieve that though. I’ve tried a lot of rulesets over the years and the funnest one (old Necromunda and 2nd ed) in terms of interactivity, also gave the most accounting, while the most stripped down one (3rd) didn’t feel cinematic enough at small scales. 
nowadays I’m all for interacting systems and campaigns, using a skirmish ruleset, battlefleet gothic, ICRPG (sort of an osr rpg), and maybe a larger battle game like HH. (As I said, I don’t play competitively, but I am the opposite of casual in this)

[Antarius]

1 hour ago, gideon stargreave said:

Part of the discourse I think is that there is an issue with casual/ competitive dichotomies. 
I spent hundred of euros and the best part of the year making a 10 man warband for a single day of narrative gaming. I’m currently doing it again. That’s not exactly casual, I take it very seriously, it’s just not competitive either. 

I think you're quite right that there is something up with the language we use regarding different approaches to the hobby, because really, who's "casual" about this hobby when it comes down to it (I mean, I've spent ridiculous amounts of time and money on this, so I'm not "casual" by any reasonable definition).

I think in this particular instance it's a case of the "competitive" players setting the tone by defining themselves as competitive and people who play differently as "casual", implying that they take the game more seriously, but most other terms have similar problems ("narrative" players is probably a better term than "casual", though. Although "casual" might also refer to the attitude at the game table, I guess). Which is not to say that there's no condescension in the opposite direction sometimes, because there definitely is.

[Antarius]

1 hour ago, Valkyrion said:

It shouldn't be that difficult for cleverer folk than me to work out a Points Formula using the results of a 6 sided dice.

e.g, hitting 2/6 times should cost less than hitting 5/6 times, so working out a points value for WS3+, BS3+, S4, T4, W1, A1, LD8, Sv3+ should be relatively straightforward for maths geniuses, and there will be proper maths geniuses out there that play 40k.

From there you can work out precisely what each model and weapon (S, AP, Damage, number of shots) should cost, and the nuance of the game is provided by unit choice and player tactics.

 

This would give you genuine unit balance across the entire system. The balance could still be upset by unique rules, like rerolls or exploding sixes, but the units and weapons themselves would be mathematically balanced. 

 

I seem to recall seeing an interview with Jervis (and perhaps Andy Chambers) at some point, where he actually talks about this. I think the gist of it was that they don't have a formula, exactly but a sort of loose idea. Supposedly, it's down to a formula not really begin able to account properly for a lot of variables.
Whether it's actually true that it doesn't work, I don't know, but one would suppose that having a formula is easier at the end of the day, so I guess at least the GW designers honestly believe that it doesn't work.

 

As a side note, I'm pretty sure they did have a formula for Blood Bowl back in the day. At least I remember my friends and I thinking we had worked it out and being able to correctly arrive at the cost of the different team players and star players using it. But BB was a different kettle of fish than a wargame like 40k, of course.

[RWJP]

I'm going to disagree slightly on the idea that balance and fun are not causally linked. In my opinion they can be in some circumstances. It's contextual.

In a narrative game, the link between the two is less significant, or in some cases inverse. For example, imagine a narrative game where one player only has 1000 points and has to hold for as long as possible against a player who has a 2000 point army and can bring units back from the dead each turn to represent reinforcements. That game is absolutely not balanced in any way but both players will be having fun because they're telling an awesome story. In this context, balance isn't required to have fun.

On the otherhand, in a casual pick up game at a store, balance is absolutely required for a game to be fun. No one wants to show up and get steamrolled because their opponents army has unbalanced/overpowered rules. Similarly, no one should want to show up and steamroll their opponents. 40k is still meant to have some semblance of tactical play after all, so the fun of most games should be utilising all of your units and their abilities in the most tactically optimal ways to achieve the mission objectives.

[Antarius]

 

4 minutes ago, RWJP said:

I'm going to disagree slightly on the idea that balance and fun are not causally linked. In my opinion they can be in some circumstances. It's contextual.

In a narrative game, the link between the two is less significant, or in some cases inverse. For example, imagine a narrative game where one player only has 1000 points and has to hold for as long as possible against a player who has a 2000 point army and can bring units back from the dead each turn to represent reinforcements. That game is absolutely not balanced in any way but both players will be having fun because they're telling an awesome story. In this context, balance isn't required to have fun.

On the otherhand, in a casual pick up game at a store, balance is absolutely required for a game to be fun. No one wants to show up and get steamrolled because their opponents army has unbalanced/overpowered rules. Similarly, no one should want to show up and steamroll their opponents. 40k is still meant to have some semblance of tactical play after all, so the fun of most games should be utilising all of your units and their abilities in the most tactically optimal ways to achieve the mission objectives.

I definitely agree that they're often closely linked and I actually tried to account for what you're describing here by including "I would say that balance only truly impacts fun negatively when it is not possible for us to accurately gauge how a specific game is balanced, leading to mismatched expectations" in my introductory post, but I might have worded it clumsily and so it might not quite have gotten across what I meant.

But what you're describing about e.g. pick up games is exactly right and I think it's also why the idea that people can just "agree not to make crazy armies" or similar is a bit misguided, because if we can't accurately gauge the (im)balance, we can't really do anything about it. Once we do know that e.g. Orks are better than Space Marines though, we can start to account for that in our preparations for the game. So yeah, there's an obvious, strong correlation there.

I would still maintain that it's not a causal link, though. A game can be perfectly balanced but no fun at all, just as a game that's severely imbalanced can be fun enough that winning or losing doesn't really matter. In most cases, though, balance - or at least the ability to kinda-sorta approximate balance - is a necessary component for a game like 40k to work well.
I guess at the end of the day, I think of it more along the lines of both concepts being "necessary, but not sufficient" for 40k to work well, rather than one leading to the other 

[Teetengee]

so, riot games has some research on types of fun in games (https://www.riotgames.com/en/urf-academy/fun-and-feeling), and different people will focus and want different things from different games

1. Sensation: This about sensory enrichment. The modeling part of 40k, the paint jobs, the scenery, physically moving little plastic piece around the board. All of that is seen here. Players who most want this are probably some of the people arguing for rules bonuses for fully painted armies.

2. Fellowship: Hanging out with other people. Team game support in particular helps with this, but so can friendly tournament environments and gaming nights with multiple tables.

3. Challenge: Overcoming difficulty. These folks are gonna be some of that group who cares the most about the rules. Some don't care if they're balanced as long as they're clear, so they understand what they're doing. Others want a tight balance to allow for tournament play and the opportunity to display tactical skill/mastery.
4. Fantasy: This is about experiencing things vicariously you can't in your own life. An obvious one for 40k is the power fantasy.
5. Narrative This is about the story. Campaign play supports this most of all, but so do the little bits of lore, and often these folks will want those painted armies and rules that sell the expected feeling of an army.

6. Discovery: This is about exploration and learning new things. Random elements can contribute to this, but also variety in opponents. Each game becomes an opportunity to learn about a new person's perspective and how that translates to the table experience.

7. Expression: This is about identity and personal expression. Almost all the customization people do for their minis (outside modeling for advantage or modeling for rules that don't have a direct kit) as well as custom paint schemes, writing rules, etc... involve expression. These folks don't necessarily care whether someone else's army is painted or kitbashed, but you can bet theirs is at least one of the two. Customizable multipose models, interchangeable bits, and rules the support modifications to the minis all invite expression seekers.

8. Submission: This is about flow. It's that part where you don't have to think any more, and you're just doing. Some folks might find this in painting trim, others in moving a block of 300 orcs a few inches across the table. Repetition and rhythm are critical for a submission seeker.


I would say that 40k and tabletop wargaming in general are always going to have a big draw for Sensation and Expression, but rules questions come up the most for people focuses on Challenge and Narrative. Challenge needs the rules to create the environment and obstacle to overcome. Meanwhile, narrative wants the rules to facilitate the stories promised by the fluff. A well designed ruleset can support both, but it needs to be clearly written, well tested, and have rules which allow for story as emergent property and problem solving tool. Sometimes these are in tension, but there are ways to resolve it.

Consider mutation and spawndom, conceptually, for a 40k chaos legionnaire. A player hoping to show mastery might reject a random aspect of it, throwing a wrench in their gameplan, while a narrative (and discovery) player might welcome such emergent stories. But you could make it so that the mutations are strictly beneficial (or at least with predictable drawbacks) so the challenge seeker isn't too put out, or maybe you could even make it so that random mutations aren't random if you don't want them to be, a list of options you choose from, or can randomize, as you see fit. I would argue the latter makes for a better rules system, because it facilitates the fun of more players simultaneously.

[Deus_Ex_Machina]

Here is how I approach the scenarios in my campaign:

 

1. What kind of scenarios could make sense as a follow-up? Logic applies in the sense of writing episodes for a TV series.

2. Once a scenario idea has been formulated the two opposing forces need to be conceived.  

3. A slight imbalance might be tolerated as a boon in favour for the faction which has performed better in past scenarios.

 

Balance is closely related to fun as it usually provides the foundation of an interesting game in which the victor is not predetermined in the list writing phase. 

[phandaal]

2 hours ago, Antarius said:

Whether it's actually true that it doesn't work, I don't know, but one would suppose that having a formula is easier at the end of the day, so I guess at least the GW designers honestly believe that it doesn't work.

 

Formulas do work, because other games with just as many layers of rules use formulas for their points. So if people at GW think otherwise, they would be mistaken.

 

Problem for 40k is that would require them to redo the points/rules on pretty much everything. Weapons would cost different points for each unit, USR cost would change for different units (i.e., FNP being more or less valuable depending on how tough the model is), and you would have to account for the value of something like an aura by averaging out the effects you expect it to have and potentially limiting the number of units it can affect. Detachment rules would need to be calculated to account for some given percentage of an army's points values, strategems would need a value in the background, etc.

 

Not impossible by any means, but given that GW is on a strict release schedule and is basically constantly writing/adjusting new editions, probably not something they have the time to do. So instead we get a ruleset balanced around semi-arbitrary points tweaks based on armies' performance in 2k games on L-shaped ruin battlefields, targeting the units people happen to find good combos for. That might actually be the best they can do with the time they have available.

[chapter master 454]

Personal take is that it will always be subjective. I personally think Eldar are always overpowered and just impossible to handle, however I like playing big tanks and heavy duty units and the people that I play games with are often tournament level players (who can tone it down but when practicing for tournaments they do ask to get a chance to turn up the heat) so I tend to get folded by that. Who knew slow ponderous armies get folded by the super fast army.

 

In terms of the actual balance, the issue is that trying to balance EVERY faction against each other is an impossible task when you start to realise the layers involved. Lets look at Devastator Centurions. These boys were hilariously blasting people around easy clap in ONE detachment with ONE specific character support and due to that need points hikes to compensate...which was toned back when that was fixed. However that fix was for the detachment, it was for the character who enabled it. Were centurions broken? The detachment? The character? Which was it? Because Ventris is now going to very likely be just a neat bit of Ultramarine bloat now for most people who now have 6 centurions they don't know what to do with. Personally this is my time to play with him and see what he can do...deep striking sternguard sounds fun!

 

The issue lies in that sometimes it isn't the individual pieces that are broken but more the combined effect of 3 or 4 put together that breaks the back. 40k has hundreds of pieces to account for, from individual units, to unit interactions (like we saw with Ventris), to unit interactions that extend out into detachment interactions, detachment interactions, enhancement interactions. This is all before we talk about what kind of terrain layout you are playing on.

Are you playing a fluffy terrain set-up? Competitive? Is it dense with ruins, covered with forests or are you playing in the dunes of a desert? These all change what is good. So then do we ask then "is terrain balanced?" whats the best layout, can we mathematically create the perfect layout that...ironically means that no side nor style nor turn advantage player is at benefit over the other...hmm...that doesn't sound right does it?

 

I think part of the fun of the game isn't in having a game that Thanos would be proud of. It's in having SOME amount of unbalance that you have to overcome that is a fun challenge. Then again...that's my opinion showing there so if you prefer both armies are perfect mirrors in power then fair enough.

 

I find fun in faction inter-rule-interactions. I like it when things can be crossed with other things and make things sing. Right now...I am bored of my current dreaded 15 list (15 deathwing knights) because that is not anything special. Just a bunch of burly terminators that are hard to shift. No cool plays or tricks...just straight up "Its bonking time". I am cooking on a Vanguard that would look similar to old ultramarine lists because I find vanguard more fun due to the tricks. Yes, can't Deep Strike Centurions but deep striking sternguard as I said, could be good.

But these sort of overlapping rules cause issues because how do you find EVERY combination and how do you know how EVERY combination works on all layouts of terrain. It could be BUSTED when you have nothing but ruins ruins ruins everywhere like your average WTC layout but complete trash on lighter layouts.

 

Again, I find myself being a casually competitive player, I enjoy trying to push the limits of what I want to play with to their limits. Not going to chase anything I don't like. But I also stand that Tau should have BS3+ on battle Suit units across the board bar stealth suits, especially when I look through all the tyranid units and see how much 3+ they get...HOW ARE TYRANIDS A BETTER SHOOTING ARMY THAN TAU?

 

-screams into tau waifu body pillow-

[Karhedron]

3 hours ago, chapter master 454 said:

Because Ventris is now going to very likely be just a neat bit of Ultramarine bloat now for most people who now have 6 centurions they don't know what to do with. Personally this is my time to play with him and see what he can do...deep striking sternguard sounds fun!

 

Deep Striking Eradicators are my next experiment.