Balance isnt too hard to achieve under normal circumstances, but when you're releasing a new army every 2 months, and want that army to be good so it will sell, balance is practically impossible to get.
Balance isnt too hard to achieve under normal circumstances, but when you're releasing a new army every 2 months, and want that army to be good so it will sell, balance is practically impossible to get.
Considering that in those 5 years you went through 4 'editions', had at least 3 re-imaginings of your class, and had to be balanced against 30 other class/spec combo's in all areas of tank/dps/healing in solo/pvp/5-man/raid over 85 levels, I think blizzard did a reasonably good job. No matter which phase of the cycle you're at in the current WoW meta, you're a hell of a lot better off than you were as a pally in molten core raiding...Originally Posted by Galfinnan
Given the limitations of the medium of 40k over WoW, 'frequent' errata to keep balance probably isn't the way to go, but scheduled on a yearly basis might work.
However, a lot of the hassle could be cut out with some simple balance tests, not even playing games:
1) Write up the rules for a unit. Give the single unit rules to 5 tournament players and ask them to evaluate the different options the unit has. Are there certain choices which always make sense because of cost ratios?
2) Similarly, after all units are done individually, check between units in a single FOC slot. Does it always make sense to take particular units?
3) Check all FOC's against each other, in particular paying attention to where certain types of abilities (anti-tank, power weapons) come from.
4) Build a few army lists.
With a few hours of mathhammer you could probably identify the major causes of internal unbalance. Before even putting a unit on the table, you can identify which units are must-haves and which will never see the light of day, and this can be fixed either by adjusting points costs or by rethinking the army design. And then a scalar multiplier helps you get within balance range of the other armies.
At least, thats how I would do it and thats how I've balanced fan-made codices in the past...
On the matter of a single, forumla based points costs...would this not be a logistical nightmare?
For instance, if a player wished, with Imperial Guard he could utterly spam heavy weapons. One in every Infantry squad, and maxed out support squads, all back up by horrific anti-infantry firepower in various tanks. Someone commented about the cost comparisson between a Guardsman and a Firewarrior. How do you factor in the rest of their army around them? With just a couple of marker lights, that Firewarrior goes up massively in potential. Additionally, the Firewarrior can threaten most tanks in the game at a respectable range if presented with the right facing. This alone means the opponent plays differently around the respective squads.
Has anyone ever play tested for GW? (provided of course you're allowed, and willing to identify yourself!) Could you shine a little light?
I think the real issue is that GW aren't trying to achieve proper balance. Their ceo said something along the lines of 'we are a miniatures manufacturer, and rules are a way to sell them'. They may or may not achieve some semblance of balance in any given ruleset or army book, but likewise theres always going to be something out of whack so they can address it next edition and get credit for 'fixing' the problem. While people hopefully don't notice the new problems they introduced at the same time.
Balance can be done, but its against their business model, so they won't do it.
Like a friend who was heavily into online computer games said to me back when 40k 3.0 had just come out: wow, they're up to version 3 already and they still haven't fixed it?
Just because the horse is dead is no reason to stop flogging it.
they see me trollin, they hatin
DESTINY IS CALLING!!! but beer is on the other line.....
I think what really keeps true balance from happening is the huge number of different races. Even if there was a straight up way to back calculate points for a vanilla warrior of any race, once the race bonus, unit bonus, weapon/special bonus etc are added on top of that, balance between the armies ( which there are more than 10 in 40k alone ) becomes nigh impossible. This does not even include variable factors such as terrain, deployment and fortifications. What a frickin nightmare, I feel sorry for the codex writers. Except I am not suppose to feel sorry for Matt Ward, but I don't know why.......
So, what I guess I am trying to get at is, well, forget it, you will never have great balance between all armies, you may get close for a handful but you will never have them all. Not even a complete overhaul, in my opinion, would solve it without really making the armies so similar it would begin to wreck the "fluff". The best thing I can come up with is a list swap and modification before the game starts, i.e. show the opponent your list, allow him to make changes to his list, then you get to make changes to your own, limit any changes to less than 20% of the army total or something, or let you and your opponent remove one combat/tactical/heavy/fast squad, followed by re-balancing the points so broken lists are less likely to get played. I am not saying this would work...just throwing out crap and hoping something will stick or spark.
All IMHO of course.
Write all the codices at the same time you write the main rules. You don't need to have models sculpted and painted (or possibly even designed at this point), you don't need the background fiction or descriptions written, and they can still be released one at a time (though preferably at a faster rate). But what you would have is a set of books that have all been written with the same overall design plan, that have been written to work within the current iteration of the game, and that have been thoroughly tested and compared to each other. 100% Perfect balance isn't what's being asked for, or what's needed. But this would be a good starting point.
Compare to what we have now:
4th Edition Codex Dark Angels reduces the access to Assault Cannons, as they're the most powerful weapon in the game. Now Ravenwing Landspeeder squadrons cannot all be armed in classic Ravenwing pattern (HB and AC - the original model was released as a Dark Angels only Ravenwing Landspeeder). Months later, the Assault Cannon is (rightly) toned down. Regular Codex Space Marines get full access to it again.
Different Space Marine armies can take the exact same models, but using a different book can get the same army cheaper and/or with additional beneficial rules. There's a large thread about this issue in 40k general, and some of the disparities are alarming.
Whilst the later changes may be better (certainly the case for Assault Cannons), there clearly was no overall plan when Codex: Dark Angels was written. Likewise while Codex: Blood Angels and Codex: Space Wolves may be seen to 'rebalance' their respective units from Codex: Space Marines, it only creates further unbalance, especially when Codex: Space Marines is (probably) the most widely used book out there.
Any 40k players near Stroud, UK, send me a PM if you fancy a game.
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The following words and phrases should have no place in a wargame: Top Tier; [National/International] Meta; Spam (with the negative connotations); Yeah but when was the last time you saw those?
That's IT, in a nutshell: there is no overall vision behind the various changes and revisions to either of the core games, aside from 'drive sales numbers'.
Say what you will about Privateer Press (I personally don't like WM/H), but at least they have a vision driving their game design. Same deal with Magic the Gethering. Hell, same deal with goddamn Pokemon!
Nope, not kidding. The designers behind the kid's game of Pokemon have a clearer vision and a more organized design scheme than GW. I mean, the last generation introduced a couple of really BIG things that shook up their tournament scene and resulted in a metagame that's absolutely huge: a held item that buffs defense of unevolved Pokemon, and the Dream World where old generations of Pokemon can get new abilities that bring them to the fore. For example, until Pokemon W/B Politoed was a joke - but since the guys at Game Freak decided to add Drizzle to his repertoire, he's shot up the ranks like a champ as the keystone of a lot of weather teams.
(For those not in the know, there are a lot of Pokemon that benefit from having various weather effects on the battlefield such as Hail or Rain, and the ones that benny from Rain are among the best out there.)
GW even admits their lack of vision: each book is written by a different person, with different editorial orders, and tested by different people.
FWIW, I think part of the reason GW games are so difficult/impossible to balance is the sheer amount of numbers and rules interacting with each other. Each model has how many stats? 9? Throw into the equation there equipment, which is a further 2-3 "stats" (weapon strength, range, armor save) at least, and all the special rules attached to any one figure (including the special rules that go with his equipment). How can you ever hope to come up with a consistent formula to balance all of that? In such cases, a formula tends to become less and less reflective of a model's capabilities the further you get from "normal" stats (i.e. say the formula is based on a standard human - a dragon's point value will likely be skewed).
For a game with a lot of interacting variables like GW games, point formulas may be a fine place to start but it's just a launchpad, and a lot of profiles are going to need to be refined through playtesting or just common sense.
In my experience, more simplified game rules lead to more balanced games, but they take a lot of options away from players - and more choices or army-building flexibility are obviously things people like. Generally that seems to work out alright if there's a rich enough background, if the characters/factions each have a distinct feel, etc. so that even though you and your opponents' figures play very similarly, you feel like you're playing different armies.
I can't speak to the current status of balance in GW games, but in the past while there were always certain things that were unbalanced none of us were cutthroat enough to abuse them and we always felt that we had generally balanced games. It's been said more than once in this thread already, but to me the best approach to enjoying GW games (and any game IMO) really is as a "beer'n'pretzels" type of game - something you sit down and enjoy with a couple of friends that you would probably hang out with anyways.
The great thing about the dwarves is that, even though there's this comic element, when they fight - they really fight!
A beer and pretzels game can be balanced, too - that doesn't give a free ride to excuse GW's laziness. And what could be more beer-and-pretzels (well, OK, soda-and-cookies) than Pokemon? Yet it's remarkably well balanced; there's no one team build that can ruin every SINGLE other team build out there even at the highest level of play (and we're talking obsessed Pokenerds who make even the beardiest git of GW games look like a player who's just picked up his first Space Marine).
Or look at Super Dungeon Explore, which is definitely a beer-and-pretzels game. One side has a few, powerful Heroes (at most 5); the other a literal horde of monsters (sometimes more than 20!) backed up by a huge Boss monster and several Mini-Bosses. Each side is so radically different that balancing the game SHOULD be impossible; yet I've rarely played a game of it (in some 50+ sessions) where one side or the other had clear control of the game from the get-go, or that at any point the game couldn't've been won by one side or the other.
Even those games sometimes turned around radically near the end, not due solely to random luck (though sometimes bad luck HAS thrown an entire game), but due to skill and the way that the game dynamics scale upwards.
Now, admittedly the problems with 40k and WFB stem from their, shall we say, obsolete nature? The basic mechanics are rooted in gameplay that works on a small scale (20-30 models at most on a side), a statement amply proved by the playability of Necromunda/Mordheim. 28mm minis are just not MEANT for large-scale games.
These roots are more chains than anything else. I still remember the NERD RAAGE at 3rd Edition 40k's simplification of the stat line, which boiled down to "Remove save modifiers from weapons to avoid math and remove the Movement stat to speed up the movement phase." Radical changes to the game itself would alienate their remaining player base, which means the underlying problem (that their game hasn't scaled up well) is unfixable.
Still... I can't help but feel that there IS a solution out there, maybe not perfect but certainly better than the current "throw darts at a wall to determine points value", but GW has no interest in looking for it.
To me it seems very odd that a fun game is an unbalanced one. If it is indeed a 'beer and pretzels' game (who the hell eats pretzels with beer?) shouldn't the objective be that you can pick it up an have a game with anyone with a fair chance of winning? Others have already pointed out that even some of the 'fluffy' lists are the most deadly (Mech Guard). A Tyranids list which skips Hive Guard and Zoanthropes has very little chance of killing anything. A 'non-competitive' game doesn't mean that it doesn't matter who wins.
I think it is futile to make an army of randomly selected units balanced against a tuned army. However, ideally each army would have 3-4 highly competitive builds, which revolve around 80% 'core build' and 20% optional. Each build should represent a different facet of the army's background, which means that people will generally evolve towards a competitive build even if they follow pure fluff.
This I like. And I'd like to add: If a unit has several weapon options, start with one and see at what point-level they will switch to another. Eg. Necron Immortals have a Gauss Blaster. They can have a Tesla Carbine. Will they switch at 10 ppm? No. Will they switch at 5ppm? No. Will they switch for free? Maybe, depends on preference. So a Gauss Blaster and a Tesla Carbine are of equal value. (FYI, in the Codex they are.)
"But your basic 20-points Tomb Blades still pack a heavier punch than a Necron Immortal yet also benefit from increased manoeuvrability." WD389, May 2012.
yep, they know when something is balanced.
Results in the past are no guarantee for the future.
I’m only stating my opinion, it’s not fact.
Hi folks.
To arrive at a PV allocation method that is 'accureate enough'.
It requires a 2 stage process.
Assigning accurate comparative values of in game elements.(UNIT PV in 40k.)
And assesing synergistic anomalies in army composition.(Spam effects.)
As the latter can only be found by extensive playtesting .(Either actual, or computer simulation if standardised resolution methods used.)
Alot of game developers just assume that playtesting on its own is good enough.(Extensive unbiased playtesting IS good enough BTW.)
Unfortunatley , the limited playtesting and the opposing 'artistic' and 'corperate influence' at GW towers results in poor balance.
In fact the level of balance the developers achive is good , concidering the restrictions placed upon them.(IMO.)
The real problem 40k has is it has never had a rule set written for it.Its been lumbered with WHFB game mechanics which are far from apropriate.
Compare 40k to Epic Armageddon to see the MASSIVE difference a change in game mechanics makes !
Complexity is an illusion caused by lack of clear thinking.
The problem with Trasvi's idea is threefold:
1. You're not sure who you just handed new rules to.
2. A unit in a vacuum often doesn't tell you the power level of an army.
3. Tournament players will go to surprising lengths to gain an advantage.
There used to be a company called "comic images" (I think they still exist, but don't make games now...). There were deliberate misreportings of powerlevels on their CCG they made by some of their playtesters, to sneak through a superpowerful combo that they could exploit to win games.
Someone on page 1 also mentioned using a formula to make a unit. This just doesn't work out. Previous designers for GW have discussed in length how they tried formulating up some of the 3rd ed codexs. And we got sisters repentia to show for it, because the formula doesnt discount units for being a certain armor value while wielding certain weapons. It just bills them for what they have. The formula also can never contain the correct value to bill for a special rule. How much is the initiative rule on a wraith worth, for example.
That doesn't mean a formula does not work, it means they wrote an overly simplistic formula. It's the same mistake they made when writing the 3rd edition movement rules, and why we've got a great big pile of kludges like Fleet of Foot, Lumbering Behemoth and Slow and Purposeful.
It does mean though, that the formula is so complex you may as well just work out a ballanced points number yourself.
Definitely. This is much easier (and very doable) in fantasy, due to the lack of certain elements and its particular game mechanics, but for 40k i have always found too difficult to come up with a formula that works, again because of its specific mechanics and the abundance of completely different stuff and special rules.
Also the only way to come up with fixed values for special rules is to extensively playtest them, so you can get the ''feel'' of how they should be costed in the overall context of the game.
I'm not really suggesting any overall formula - a lot of it, especially special rules, are definitely intuitive. But on a per unit basis, one should be able to notice at least which options they would take at what prices. The 'tournament players' can just be the most competitive players in the GW team (surely they have a few tournament players amongst their number).
Similarly, there does need to be checks in between different units.
The point I was trying to make (unsuccessfully) is that skilled, experienced and objective players can intuitively see synergies or flaws and build effective or powerful army lists without ever putting a list on a table. A little more of this and we probably wouldn't have the tragedies of Hive Guard or Pyrovores...
Neatly overlooking the inferior save (that costs more to match), the smaller unit size available, and that Immortals have far less competition for their slots.... Immortals can win me the game, Tomb Blades can't. All would have to be factored in. And frankly, I haven't the foggiest where to begin.This I like. And I'd like to add: If a unit has several weapon options, start with one and see at what point-level they will switch to another. Eg. Necron Immortals have a Gauss Blaster. They can have a Tesla Carbine. Will they switch at 10 ppm? No. Will they switch at 5ppm? No. Will they switch for free? Maybe, depends on preference. So a Gauss Blaster and a Tesla Carbine are of equal value. (FYI, in the Codex they are.)
"But your basic 20-points Tomb Blades still pack a heavier punch than a Necron Immortal yet also benefit from increased manoeuvrability." WD389, May 2012.
yep, they know when something is balanced.
I'm of the opinion that imbalance between armies can actually be a good thing.
Isn't it good that there are some armies that are easier to learn and use than others? And "difficulty of mastering" an army is generally going to be a cause of imbalance. That way, veterans or people looking for more of a challenge can take a stab at one of the trickier armies (or army builds), while those who want to have an easier time can take command of one of the armies whose learning curve isn't as steep.
The only ways I see this being a problem are when people put too much of their own self-worth into their win/loss record, or when tournaments or other playing environments get overrun with identical armies. And in the latter case, I think people are mostly just going for the path of least resistance which, let's face it, isn't exactly a new problem.
"Ember of Dreams"
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A difference in learning curve is an acceptable cost for a more characterful ruleset, but if you are specifically looking for a more difficult challenge, you should just field a smaller army (1,500 points to their 1,750) or use some other self-imposed challenge. Someone who likes Eldar more than Space Marines (or vice versa) should not be penalised just because GW has arbitrarily decided that one is for veterans only.
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