Hands of Justice
The Lounge => General Gaming => Topic started by: Torgal on November 07, 2008, 01:11:01 PM
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Didn't take us long to get here did it? Sweeping balance changes, some people happy, some people pissed off. I see the cycle repeating many times in the future - buff/nerf/rebuff.
So I'm sat here musing to myself on a long friday afternoon : the TT game is very popular, and since there are many different races / armies for the players to make use of, how do they fare with balance issues? I know nothing about the game so am to all intents and purposes a layman. It seems that there's quite a lot of variables involved, so many units to build armies out of. I'm assuming different units have different stats etc etc, I'll also guess that GW make tweaks to game mechanics with their updated source books etc.
Are there issues of balance which cause such backlash as we've seen here in WAR and many times in WoW?
Are there FOTM races / units? Is there a BW of TT gaming, something that a disproportionate number of players make use of due to it's strength / coolness?
I know that TT gaming goes back way (way) before even GW started doing it and they probably have a solid base of balancing theory to draw from. MMORPGs are relatively a young 'genre' in this respect, and as such it's probably harder to find that sweet spot where true balance is acheived (if it even exists).
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repost after reading again ;)
i know from playing 40K (long time ago) that GW do this now and again, new sales of rulebooks etc, nobody can say they dont like making money.
i still remember (3rd ed??) 40k when space marines were unstoppable :) as that was my army i loved it.
although i do still own the original Rogue Trader book which is nothing like the current iteration of said rules. Change happens , live with it, moaning inevitably gets you nowhere its wasted energy . there are many more constructive ways to get you point across, thats what i say :)
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Change happens , live with it, moaning inevitably gets you nowhere its wasted energy . there are many more constructive ways to get you point across, thats what i say :)
I certainly agree with you, I feel somewhat the same way about pointless speculation which is another favourite pastime of online RPG forum goers. Just want to be clear that I'm not trying to have a moan with this post, was just briefly interested in this aspect of WAR's big sister game.
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yeah my comments were a generalisation of what seems to go on in every single forum these days, people dont seem to accept change as being an inevitable part of life, change with it or get stuck in the quagmire , trust me i knows ;)
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Seen 25 years of Warhammer TT has made me to come to the conclusion, that each new edition is more and more balanced (and simplified :P). Anybody remember the killer regiment of Dwarf Daemonslayer + 3 Dragonslayers + 11 Trollslayers from 1st edition? Front rank was Daemonslayer + 3 Dragonslayers + 1 Trollslayer -> all incoming damage was taken from troll-slayers (which used to be practically free in point back in those times) as there was at least one rank&file trooper in 1st rank :P Meanwhile the Daemon and Dragonslayers put out 17 strength 6 attacks, which resulted in practically automatical rout (Daemonslayer with Weaponskill 7 and Dragonslayer WS 6), which in return allowed the slayers to use one round of free-hack (those 17 attacks again, except each was a guaranteed hit now), and if that was enough to totally destroy the opponent regiment, you could "press on" the attack and charge at a nearby hostile regiment and a new comat begun; I was able in one epic fight to destroy four hostile regiments in one turn (and would have continued to kill more, but sadly my opponent said something along the lines of "fuck this" and picked his minis and left :( ).
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I looked into this a while ago as I reminisced about the game. In the tournament world there are "crutch" make ups for armies that give you a real edge. I remember Empire stacking steam tanks and goblins stacking monsters like wyverns causing great concern.
In 40 k space marines were seen to be the golden child and unbalanced for a long time.
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Meh... I have roughly 14 bolt throwers for big dwarf battles. That makes people cry too. Yet they forget that it means I can't have a lot of other stuff on the table like cannons, ironbreakers, hammerers, etc.
Just plain warriors, crossbowmen, maybe one unit of miners and maxed bolt throwers.
Friend of mine put up nothing but tanks in 40k against my orks a long time ago. That was the only time I ever really said f it on a game. I couldn't even make it out of my deployment zone. Course I was playing foot sloggers with about 180 miniatures, boss and nobs without any guns or vehicles. I liked the 'green tide' feeling. Although in my case it was more of a grey and metal coloured tide. ::)
So... I think what I want to say is that there will never be balance... really... something... it's too early.
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I think I remember a battle report where a greenskin player fielded almost exclusively Snotling Pumpwagons. Except for the couple that ran off the table or crashed into each other they minced the opposition up good. ;D
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I need to know where that licky avatar thing is from and if there's more of it somewhere.
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I suppose you can draw similarities with MMO balance and TT balance, but it doesn't go far.
For all their money grabbing ways, GW do know how to write games, and have years of experience to draw upon.
Occasionally you get flavour of the month armies (Space Marines in 40K atm, for instance), but it doesn't take long for the player base to formulate strategems to combat this. The meta game continues to shift.
Thankfully, when balance issues occur, they're nowhere near as bad as those that crop up in MMO's (Ret Pallies anyone?).
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I need to know where that licky avatar thing is from and if there's more of it somewhere.
Dunno :) Found it on some other forum and simply looked up its URL. :)
Forgot which it was I'm afraid. It may just have been on imageshack already. :(
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location of licky image from a simple right click goatey ;P
http://img98.imageshack.us/img98/9057/lickcatme0.gif (http://img98.imageshack.us/img98/9057/lickcatme0.gif)
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Licky images are taking over the world! ;D
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Can't say to much, even if I love warhammer I lack both an army (damn cancellation of chaos dwarfs) and people to play with.
But having read several army books and managed to win a game against my brother with my miniscule chaos dwarf army by maxing out Astragoth with items it seems to be wise to rebalance the game reasonably to be focused on tactics and "rank and file" instead of superheros and special regiments.
They had a inflation in power for each army book, a clear example is the difference between the elf and dwarf books where elfs got their Ithilmar armour. Why should HE with their already extreme movement get to have heavy armour without the penalty at a quite low cost when the dwarfs already pay for the "bonus" of carrying heavy armour by their statline?
Also dwarf cannons, worse than empire? wierd.
Although from what I've read the best change of all must be the ones affecting frenzy and chaos.
Old Khorne lord(iirc):
ws:8, 6str, 6 thoughness and 5 attacks (with frenzy 10 attacks!!!)
With a save of 1+ usually.
New one (afaik):
ws:8, str 5, 5 thoughness and 5 attacks (if they have frenzy which i don't know it should be 6 attacks or something)
So balancing is a good thing and needed to keep the game unpredictable and fun imo.
I just wish I had more of an army and someone to fight *sob*
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What they just up an' cancelled a whole race? You're a bit stuffed by that if you've bought all their miniatures aren't you? Doesn't seem very fair!
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Oh, I just remembered:
Skaven army, an edition back or so, in 2000+ point battles iirc:
You could select the greater daemon of the horned rat as your army general. Now put him in a rat ogre pack. Give them skavenbrew.
1. The rat ogres will now make their stupidity check at the leadership of the daemon (10)
2. They'll move at the speed of the slowest model, which is a rat ogre (6")
3. Skavenbrew may give them double movement speed in the first turn. (this is a random roll)
4. Use the first turn to charge (double movement) the opponent's cannons/squishies with your 24" (!) charge.
I believe the lads at White Dwarf coined the term "beardy" for tactics like these. ;)
And I think chaos dwarves were kinda unpopular, so I can see why they cancelled it. It still sucks if you bought an army though. :S
Then again, they cancelled entire games before (Man O' War, anyone?) and created entirely different rulesets for other games (I still have an first edition copy of Bloodbowl, which by the way is waaay funnier than any bit of the second edition)
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What they just up an' cancelled a whole race? You're a bit stuffed by that if you've bought all their miniatures aren't you? Doesn't seem very fair!
They've done all sorts of stuff ... the first instance of this I remember is the disappearance of 'The Slann'.
The Slann (no, not lizardmen) were lustrians with attitude (well, yes, Lizardmen) and pretty much were incredibly hard to kill, and if you got close, their Zoats would destroy you.
Oh, that reminds me of the Fimir ...
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Problem was I never got to buy an entire army :( only have a "regiment" or what to call it. But lost the will to get a new army after that.
But going to get one when I get a job, dwarfs here i come :)
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What they just up an' cancelled a whole race? You're a bit stuffed by that if you've bought all their miniatures aren't you? Doesn't seem very fair!
To be fair, Chaos Dwarfs never had an Army Book and never was regarded as an "official" WHFB race. They appeared as articles in Chaos books and the White Dwarf magazine (and a compiled "White Dwarf Presents: Chaos Dwarfs". Yet Chaos Dwarfs had a full range of miniatures from GW, altough many shops didn't actually stock them (so if you wanted them, you had to order them through 'Eavy Metal (or whatever that GW mail-shop is called these days).
Chaos Dwarfs in WHFB were possibly the "beardiest" army available, and I took part in quite a few tournaments were they were disallowed. Officially because they were not an official army, but in reality because they were so horribly imbalanced. The sturdiness of dwarfs combined with chaos sorcery and the masses of the green-skins... Chaos Dwarfs simply were invincible.
However, in Blood Bowl and Man O' War Chaos Dwarfs were/are officially present. In BB for example they are IMO a very balanced and well thought team (the team is based on Chaos Dwarfs (slow, tough and not very agile with the ball), hobgoblins (who are basically humans except the hobgobs are way squishier) and Bull-Centaur (excellent ball runners, if they are able to ever pick up the ball :p).