Guest writer Fluger brings us a follow up article: So, I just put out an article about ITC creating its own formations and it was mostly negatively received as an idea. That’s fine, I’m stubborn and passionate, so I keep coming atcha with ideas.
I was listening to the Cracked podcast and they had an interesting spotlight on a new technology: UNU. UNU is a way for people to harness the wisdom of crowds to make better choices.
UNU is relatively recently famous for correctly predicting the top 4 place finishers at this year’s Kentucky Derby. That’s a bet that rarely comes true, and it was done in a fairly simple manner. Basically, they took 20 self-described Horse Race Enthusiasts and first asked them to pick the top 4 finishers on their own, then they had them use UNU. On their own, only one person picked 2 finishers correctly, but using UNU, they predicted it perfectly.
This hits on a few interesting theories about group intelligence and takes a lot of cues from The Wisdom of Crowds. A book that goes over several examples of how just trusting to the average or mean of a group can be a better indicator than getting expert advice.
UNU is currently free to use and you can make up your own survey questions and invite who you want to join it. It can have big numbers of people involved in each session to make decisions.
I’m pretty sure you see where I’m going with this…
What I propose is this: let’s put a world-wide call out to get as many 40k players as possible to log in and start assigning points values to all the things that GW has points for.
My suspicion is that we’ll probably hit ideal points values for everything if we cast a wide enough net and are as detailed as possible. Even people who are tournament veterans and successful generals will disagree about the values of various things and have potentially outrageously wrong perceptions of value. By soliciting the hive intelligence we have a better chance of smoothing out the rough edges and getting a better result than just trusting to an individual or even a small cabal.
The process would be laborious for everyone involved as each question takes roughly 30 seconds to come to a conclusion on and I’d guess that there are probably about 1000 different things to assign points values to in 40k, that’d be about 8-9 hours of work. But, it would be problematic because we’d have to adjust for time zones (UNU is real-time), so we’d probably have to break it up into 30 minute chunks and do it over a two week period. If we went for groups of 20-30 people for each chunk (and divided each chunk over a wide swath of armies and items) we’d need about 250ish people total.
Could we get 250 people over all the world to commit to taking 30 minutes out of their day to work collaboratively to get good data about points adjustments?
I think it’s possible. And I think we have the tools at our disposal in UNU and social media in general.
So what would we do with this?
Now, the thing is we aren’t changing rules here, we are just adjusting points values. Is that still too much for people to handle? Would it be so terrible to have something that I’d call Tournament 40k that just takes all the rules as is and just adjust the points for everything? I have faith in the wisdom of crowds, and UNU has me sold that we’d get MUCH better points values, perhaps a Platonic ideal!
I’d be willing to bet that the same tired arguments against this will get thrown at me again. “If it’s not from GW, we don’t want it!” “ITC has gone too far!” “Leave house rules in the basement!”
Yeah yeah yeah, but, for reals, we can all see the imbalances, why not try and fix them? Why just shrug our shoulders and accept that only a few certain builds and units dominate? Why not go for more diversity? Why not go for balance? Why not take GW’s own advice and work things out to make the game more enjoyable?
This is crazy enough to work
I hope so!
I would definitely like to see what it comes up with.
And yes I’m quite tired of the crowd that will tell you straight up that the game is busted yet violently disapprove of any and all attempts to fix it. Maybe they’re currently winning with OP armies, or maybe they’re some of those “sleeper agent” trolls that play another game and want 40k players to see their game as the superior option. Who knows?
I’m now trying to think up a way to coordinate enough people to get together to do this. Then I’d have to break out a list of every single thing in the game that has points and then figure out a logical way to ask questions on pricing for them.
There is a really bad culture in 40K because GW is so expensive and suck so bad at writing rules the people that have spent all this time and $$ feel like they have to defend GW when people point out the things they do that make people upset. These people feel they have to defend GW to protect their investment so they don’t feel like a sucker for spending as much time and $$ as they have.
Some really bad side effects of this are. Really terrible rules that are obviously bad for the game get championed by people because we must play RAW even if everyone knows it’s dumb.
Reece has been trying to get something like the ITC going for like a decade He and Franky have finally succeed guess what it’s wildly popular.
There are many other side effects one of the worst in my mind is when a unit is a pile of junk and can’t do anything it gets described as a Fun unit or a Fun list these units get Championed by people yet you never see them on the table.
They’ll say it’s great unit for when you play with your mates or for garagehammer! When we know none of that is true.
I hate this term and mind set this is just a cover to gloss over how badly GW makes rules. Nobody that plays wargames of any stripe likes to put units that bought with hard earned money painted. Nobody likes units that just die and have zero impact on the game or units that are so over pointed you can never use them because it will make the rest of your list suffer to the point that it can’t function.
Good balance and solid rules that take the good of the game in to account are the Fun way to play. Not some crappy unit that dies or can’t impact the game at all that is not nor will it ever be FUN.
The cry about the ITC formations comes from this damaged way of thinking I hope one day it will end.
I think if you made quality formations people would love it and we could see some really cool and interesting armies units and fluffy wargear choices. That would make forces that were super fun to play and super fun to play against.
This is one of the best explanations for the loud defense of anything GW does despite all evidence to the contrary.
“There are many other side effects one of the worst in my mind is when a unit is a pile of junk and can’t do anything it gets described as a Fun unit or a Fun list these units get Championed by people yet you never see them on the table.
They’ll say it’s great unit for when you play with your mates or for garagehammer! When we know none of that is true.”
This is my favorite part. I’ve seen garage- and localclubhammer in so many variations and it is weirdly never the utopia of easy fun that people make it out to be. Hellions still go splat if they charge so much as a tactical squad and surprise surprise they don’t get played there either. The games are just as imbalanced if not more. The difference is that most of the time it isn’t the rules that get the blame but the players.
Count me in, I think it’s a great idea and would love to Contribute to it
I’m thinking that I’ll at least try and put together a small group of people that would be interested in signing up to at least be part of a group that would try and see what new points values we’d come up with.
I’d definitely be willing to contribute some time to it, even if only as a theoretical exercise.
Interesting concept, but it poses some problems that the UNU didn’t have with the horse race. As an aside, I’d like to see them repeat the same event at next year’s Derby and see if they can do it again. One piece of anecdotal evidence is not much.
But back on topic, unlike the Derby, people who would vote on this poll would have a horse in the race (pun intended). The derby poll just had racing “experts” vote on what horse they think would win. Here you are having people vote on armies they play (or play against) and whether they should be nerfed or buffed in terms of cost. This is one scenario where I think it is hard for a community to vote in a truly unbiased manner – especially when you can do it anonymously behind a computer. You might really think Eldar bikes need a points increase but when it’s your army and no one knows you’re voting… A majority of people may try to vote in an honest and unbiased manner, but all it takes is a few to swing a 50/50 vote.
Another important difference- in a horse race, there is an objectively correct answer to the question “who will win the race?”- SOMEONE will take each of the top four spots and predictions about that fact are either right or wrong.
On the other hand, there is not an objective standard to measure points values in 40K by- we might largely agree that some units are overcosted or undercosted, but how much is widely up for debate and even a crowd sampling is not necessarily going to get the “right” answer because a unit’s “proper” cost is so contingent on fine variables. (Rhinos were garbage until SM got them for free, Markerlights are a huge dependency for Stormsurge/Riptide lists, etc.)
I’m actually not all that worried about dishonest votes- that’s already quite possible in the ITC and the votes in the past haven’t really shown it to be a huge issue. However, I _am_ pretty concerned about the idea of leaving game design to a group of folks- the so-called “wisdom of crowds” is applicable only insomuch as they understand the subject and can offer a useful opinion on the subject. Polling a crowd of random people on quantum electrodynamics or the like is wholly fruitless, and while 40K may not be _that_ complex I think that the metaphor holds; you can’t make an informed decision on a subject you don’t really understand (and most people don’t fully understand 40K.)
The surprising thing about UNU is that results from experts underperform results of dabblers using UNU.
For what kind of questions, though? I absolutely will trust the advice of an expert on any kind of technical matter of random samplings of folks.
Yes, sure, a group with no knowledge of theoretical physics isn’t going to beat out a Nobel Laureate on some kind of crazy physics test, but it works with just dabblers vs experts. Most 40k players are dabblers.
I know a lot of 40K players who know only marginally more about the game than they do about theoretical physics. The guy who is still convinced that 5E IG “Leafblower” lists are all the rage two editions later is probably not a well-informed source.
Gotta agree with Abuse Puppy here. I hear stuff all the time that, when you actually look at the data, isn’t supported even a little bit.
That is very true. Balance certainly isn’t objective and there isn’t one “right answer.” Also, we have to remember changes aren’t made in a vacuum. One change can affect many other things. So, while people vote on changes one at a time with ‘yay’ or ‘nay,’ the net effect of multiple changes occuring at once could have a much different effect than anticipated.
That’s a really good point. We raise up Wraithknights to 400 pts, and Wyches drop to 2 pts, and then all hell breaks loose!
I highly recommend listening to the podcast. They also picked the trifecta at Preakness. They also picked 76% of the Oscar winners with complete neophytes while the average success rate of professional critics was about 66%.
Sure, but again- those aren’t things with objectively-true answers. “Which movie should win the Oscars” is just an opinion poll, not a statement of fact or interpretation of information.
I like this idea, however while it would bring things closer to a “balance”, ther would be a few things that you would need it to work.
You would need a baseline, a model (a tac marine would be a great example) that has certain stats and abilities and a point value, otherwise you have no reference point.
Going on that however you have a whole other issue and that is special rules. A lot of the imbalance in this game comes not from points costs (although there are a few notable exceptions out there) but from special rules and their interactions with others rules. In a vacuum a tac marine is a tac marine. However most would argue that a White Scar tac marine is better than an Iron hands tac marine. Would you make White Scar marines more expensive than Iron hands? What about specific cases where that Iron Hand CT now becomes “better” IE in the case of a 2+ or 1+ FnP IH IC with the Gorgon’s Chain?
Even points balance will mean nothing when you take in to account all the “free” formations out there. Having balanced points means nothing when your opponent has ton of free transports or wargear upgrades. In fact if you have “balanced” some of those units and taken their weargear into account, these “free” units now upset that balance even more.
All said, I like the idea. I like the idea of the community coming together and deciding how we want to play this game, which is what happens with the ITC votes. I just think that point balance is only one part, and not the largest part of the imbalance in our game. And I love the imbalance (mostly). I don’t want to face off against the same army as me, I like finding those interactions between units and rules that give this or that unit an edge. That’s part of the game.
Yet another point against formations. I will never understand why so many people defend formations when they’re the biggest balance-breaking factor in the game. I’m not saying the game is perfect without them, but everyone I know who plays no-formation games, even at events, finds the game immensely improved.
They would probably have to get nixed for the good of the game if costs were reassigned. You just can’t give a tac marine a cost and have that cost be correct in both a CAD and a battle company gladius.
I actually just had the opposite experience last weekend. Played in a ClassicHammer Tournament that was absolutely dominated by an Eldar Player using just ScatBikes and D-Cannon. No one even came close to beating him. Eldar are even worse for the Game’s balance than Formations, from what I’ve seen.
Without formations, you’ll just create a different set of imbalances, but instead of favoring armies with more powerful formations, it’ll just favor certain armies.
Eldar will easily beat everything else if you just restrict to CAD. Their base units are way too good for anyone else to stand a chance.
What formations do is that they not only give other armies tools to stand up to the more powerful armies, but they allow units which will see little use to be put on the table (even if they’re just “tax”) and promote variety.
Otherwise you see spam lists like double CAD eldar with 12x Scat bike squads and 6x Hornets (that list did win a recent major tournament).
Without formations one army will objectively be better. Always. But with formations, suddenly Ravenguard with their Decurion are actually a viable force AND they get to play it in a way that’s closer to their fluff. Win-win.
There is a lot more to the reason people love formations than what you give them credit for.
The ‘wisdom’ of crowds just F’d my country up royal, so you’ll forgive me if I’m a tad reticent 😛
Fair enough…
I was just thinking about that too. Great timing of the article. ^^
It’s an interesting idea for sure. It takes “community feedback” to a whole new level. However, I tend to think this is a bad idea.
In my article about adding/tightening restrictions to tournaments, there were comments (and fairly so) about the fear that changes might splinter the community. And that’s a relatively fair fear – when you change the baseline rules, you alienate people who don’t like it, and people who embrace it completely will stop going to events that don’t use it.
What this article is talking about is basically fandexing. Community-powered fandexing, to be fair, but the core is the same. While you dismiss staying close to RAW as general whinging, the reason that people stay close to it is because it keeps the community together, relatively. The further you get from the core rules, the more separated people’s ideas become, and the more the community becomes segregated.
I would definitely contribute if it became a thing, and would be interested to see the results, but I think it’s not the right solution to the problem.
You hit the nail on the head.
I’d argue that creating a re-write of points values exclusively for tournament play would allow the distinction between competitive and casual to be more clear. Fandexing being bad only makes sense when the official rules aren’t garbage (for balance purposes).
I think we must first solve the problem of spam, as long as someone can pick the best and repeat will make this idea useless.
The whole point of this is that, with balanced Points values, the difference between spamming the “best” and taking a variety of things is, on a Point for Point level, far, far smaller.
Exactly.
The reason people spam stuff is because they figure out what is best and take as much of it as they can. If everything is relatively close in ACTUAL value, then it comes down to a matter of taste.
Before you start making these types of changes you have to consider the reason why 40k ‘really’ remains so popular. Most games you can safely evaluate and then purchase an army/faction/race and feel rather comfortable in your investment…very low risk. In 40k, you may select an army, purchase hundreds of dollars worth of models, spend countless hours of painting, and then have your army rendered instantly impotent with the release of the next codex!! Most players have been through this roller coaster, and in many cases, quit the game for periods time(I know I have). Unfortunately, it is the volatility/uncertainty that keeps us coming back. Not unlike sports, every team has ups and downs. The Lakers had 4 to 5 years of greatness and now are one of the worst in the league. It is the belief that they can be great again that keeps us coming back.
I have frustrations over some of the recent changes but the strategy remains the same –deal with the anger, evaluate the changes and evolve. Life isn’t fair and neither is GW but that is what really makes it fun! What else would all those podcasters have to talk about!
Hadn’t thought of this point of view. Very interesting.
I have to reject everything you have said because you are a Lakers fan. If you also root for the Yankees, you might as well be Satan. 😛
But, for real, I can sorta see this point, but I think that a system in which most things are more evenly balanced SHOULD encourage the purchase of more units and armies. I know I’ve held off buying things in the past because I knew they were garbage.
I think you are severely underestimating the amount of work this would be. And then if you did get it to work, how is it administered? Is the ITC just going to print a giant pdf that you have to use when building your army? Are you going to get ArmyBuilder to implement the ITC point values into their app?
At that point, ITC should just make their own game, and convince people to play it. If they’re talking fundamental changes to 40k, then it’s no longer 40k: it’s ITC.
Not sure if I stated this again in this article. I don’t represent ITC or have any sway of any kind.
While I actually wouldn’t mind in the slightest if we called it ITC 40k or whatever, just so long as we implement substantive changes that encourage balance.
Yes, it would actually be pretty monumental in a lot of cases as the wording on all the questions would have to vary. UNU limits to 6 options for each question, so I can’t have innumerable options to get answers quickly.
So, first question for every unit would be
1. Keep Points the Same
2. Lower Points
3. Raise Points.
From there, have it branch out. If we get raise or lower, then it would have to figure out the range of change
1. Raise/Lower by 1-6 pts
2. Raise/Lower by 7-12 pts
3. Raise/Lower by 13-18 pts
4. Raise/Lower by 19-24 pts
5. Raise/Lower by 25-30 pts
6. Raise/Lower by more than 30 pts
Each one would then go to another set to figure out, and the bigger one we’d have to have new brackets as well.
I think most of the work would be in creating the right flowchart for the whole thing ahead of time, then getting the word out to get as many people interested in participating as possible, then organizing the questions to be divvied up well, then sending the questions out ahead of time and collecting intel, then running the UNU swarms, then collecting the data, then putting it out there.
If I was enterprising enough I’d throw the entirety of the list at a few experts and see what they get compared to the commons.
But for a lot of units, the problem isn’t the unit itself, it’s a particular upgrade (or set of upgrades.) No one cares about Windrider Jetbikes if they don’t have Scatter Lasers or Shuriken Cannons on them, and Screamers that aren’t getting buffed down to a 3++ or 2++ aren’t half as scary.
Yeah, it would take parsing out a bit more… hmmm.
This is a good idea, perhaps a tad impractical, but good none-the-less.
One challenge to this approach (as mentioned by JD above) is that many times the point on a model aren’t enough. In many cases it is combos that are generated by models, wargear, psychic powers, and formations.
You might consider approaching it in the way that Community Comp does where instead of changing “Points” they add “Comp Points” that are an independent, but relevant, and interesting measure of a lists exploitation of the rules.
http://www.communitycomp.org/
We’ve been testing out Community Comp locally, and found it to be an absolutely phenomenal effort. Those guys are doing their best, and most of the initial exploits we identified have proven to be not as effective as expected. It isn’t a perfect system, but it is light years better than the current ITC / GW model for army Comp. I think this style of Comp system is the obvious future of competitive 40K, it is just an unknown path to get from here to there, and how the Comp points will be controlled and refined, and Crowd-sourcing that part of it is as good a solution as any.
Another approach is to adjust points as you proposed, but then also go in and directly address rules that problematically confer or allow for unbalanced combos.
And then you’re basically making your own game using the same models. Which is fine, that’s basically how Kings of War does things, but at what point do you stop playing 40k and start playing Warhammer:UNU?
And that’s probably fine for some people, but you’re putting up a huge divide, especially between you and people that don’t agree with your decisions.
That is why I much prefer the Community Comp approach.
By the Way, what is and isn’t 40K is kinda a mess right now because GW is trying to muddy the waters. Apoc didn’t sell the way they thought it would so they renamed it “40K”. It is unclear to me that GW feels games should happen at less than 2,500 points, so when we play at 1850, are we still playing 40K?
Another example. DFtS was a festering pile of smelly garbage that had gone down a developmental dead end, and was standing in the way of their new 28mm version of X-Wing they are releasing now. So they took that garbage and shoveled it out the door naming it “40K” in an effort to boost sales. If I don’t have a flier (I play Nids) am I playing 40K?
Is 40K meant to be based around picking and choosing optional elements as it has traditionally been, or is it now “Everything is in all the time” as the ITC is essentially playing it?
I love rules – but man – community comp seems tremendously dense. Is there a tool that exists to assist with list building?
Not yet. If enough people start playing with it, I might develop and app to help calculate point totals. I’d need the Community Comp people’s permission of course, but I don’t think they’d objective.
Using the Community Comp document can be really overwhelming at 1st, but by the time you are calculating your 4th or 5th list it becomes much more familiar, and doesn’t take as long as you think.
Separately I’ve always wondered – isn’t there a mathematical solution to the points conundrum? I’d assume there must be a better way to statistically analyse and balance the game. But I’m no expert – is anyone out there?
Problem is, there is no definitive “mathematical analysis” of how effective a unit is. A unit of Flesh hounds is probably pretty fairly priced at 16 points per model. But throw on invisibility, the grimoire, or some Warp Storm/Daemonology buffs and all of a sudden it becomes a downright unstoppable unit. Assault Marines and Devastators are nothing special, but give them a formation that allows them to drop pod in and make themselves relentless/able to assault turn 1 and all of a sudden they are infinitely more useful than they were before.
Same thing can happen when a new edition comes out. Dark Eldar ain’t bad when they’ve got 4+ FnP, their transports only hit them for S3 when they explode, and everything has haywire grenades. New BRB comes out and 2 of those 3 things are severely nerfed without even a change to the codex. So now what do you do? Do you have to have another vote and change the points again?
Sure, there are some units (scatbikes, Wraithknight, etc) that are clearly undercosted and would not be nearly as potent if they were more expensive. But its not really possible to use a survey to come up with the “perfect mathematical solution.”
This is, I think, the fundamental problem- a lot of balance is based on external factors to a codex. Splinter weapons aren’t very good… unless you’re in an environment where Monstrous Creatures are dominating, at which point they become fantastic. You could, to an extent, balance things irrespective of other changes (since you don’t need to fine-tune everything to perfection), but I think the issue would still be large enough to be problematic.
Of course, even all of that aside you would still have to deal with player acceptance, which would be a major potential obstacle. But you could certainly run the system within the context of a smaller tournament scene as a “test” and to build momentum and trust and then expand it from there, much as ITC itself did.
There is a mathematical solution.
The issue is that it’s super hard. A *single* game of 40K is actually a pretty complicated system, and actually coming up with a nice, clean mathematical approach to it?
We’re talking doctoral level work. Especially if you don’t want to make some pretty sweeping simplifying assumptions that will leave everyone unsatisfied. And, to be perfectly blunt, someone capable of doing that has better things to do with their time, and likely more pressing questions, either mathematically or scientifically, to answer.
You might be able to make some statistical approximations based on points values, but they’ll be very coarse as compared to the complexity of the game itself.
I have to say this idea is PURE GENIUS. I’ve had numerous conversations about game balance and it almost always boils down to point efficiency. The point values range very differently based on a codex. Why does an imperial power sword cost the same for a S3 model as for a S4 or S5? It’s simply not balanced. Getting some form of automation tool to put some serious computational analysis into how players feel units are valued will spit out a pretty solid baseline. Then the hunk of poo units in the game could see some use simply because they’ll be priced like a hunk of poo is, not using GWs silly logic thinking that a single T4 wound with only a 3+ save is somehow worth 30 points simply by adding on some spiffy weapons and a couple of USRs.
I think, at the end of the day, if the best units were more expensive and bad units were cheaper, the game would work better.
Another controversial article. And a great idea. Keep them coming.
That said, I’d love to contribute to such a project, if it ever got started.
Great idea I would be up for helping out. Also re discussion about formations above, why don’t we assign pts to formations I.e. Liberian is good on own but in a conclave is a death star building …… so make people pay pts to take that formation plus the pts of models as normal. Can use UHU to price the formation s
Like the old Apoc Formations where something would be 50 or 100 Points or whatever, plus the cost of the Models. I like it.
Good idea! Maybe also negative points for bad formations?
Asking for feedback and changing points has one massive bonus: units work as written and avoid needing another layer of document. I posted a thread in Dakka where I suggested altering points a few times annually based on the usage rate of units. Essentially tax the used ones and lower the points of the ignored ones. It was met with less than stellar reception so who knows.
Changing points would not be that difficult and allow things to remain how they are.
I’ve advocated for the same thing for a while.
While I think this is necessary and could even work, it needs to be along lines more complicated than just points values.
We all know by now that a unit can be very appropriately costed, until someone comes along with an ‘re-roll saves’ psychic power and suddenly its durability increases 6-fold. Hence the super-friends deathstars that are incredibly points efficient.
Australia’s ‘Community Comp’ system is a way of doing this kind of thing – where units are assigned additional points depending on what else is in the army and what combos can be pulled off.
Sign me up….