Post by mattblowers on Aug 25, 2017 13:50:53 GMT
This is long, so skip to the TL;DR if you don't want to read it all. I've spent a lot of time with 8th edition. Here is the list of armies I have played with or against in this edition: CSM, Chaos, Necrons, Harlequins, Eldar, Yanarri, Dark Eldar, Astra Militarum, Space Marines, Primaris Marines, GSC, Tyranids, Inquisition, Sisters of Battle, Scions, Imperial Knights, Dark Angels, Death Guard, and Rubric Marines. I can tell you this: the game is nowhere near balanced. It might be better than the 7th in terms of balance, but I'm not sure. Without progressive scoring missions the games are often over by turn 4 with one of the people tabled. I've actually seen far more tablings than I did in the 7th. I'm fine with that because deathstars are done.
I've been mystified in how we were sold a bill of goods that told us the game was far better balanced and how everything was playable. We were told this by GW (to be expected) and the playtesters. FLG was really touting 8ths praises.
On early rumor releases GW told us how everyone got their own movement category and showed us how some units move 4" whilst others move 8", and how vehicles and bikes had wildly different movement values. Then the game actually releases and we find that they cherry picked the movements. In reality everything moves 5-6" except a few notable cases. Each unit is not unique and special because of their movement. It helped genestealers by 2" but has almost no in game impact on necrons or conscript blobs. But that's GWs job, to build product hype.
What I couldn't understand was FLG guys touting of the new ruleset. What they said and what I was finding in games was really different. I really like and respect the FLG guys and I couldn't understand what was going on. The internet has been really harsh on them. They have been accused of being shills for GW, being bought off, and worse. I want to give them the benefit of the doubt so I've tried to do some thinking about what is going on.
Consider this: they described pyrovores and DE Wyches as the most improved units in the game. I don't know anyone that uses them as Tyranid and Drukhari players find them nearly unplayable. How could they be so wrong on these units?
Next we were told that everything was playable and was decent enough to include in your lists. As many of our threads here point out most of our MCs and many of our units are unplayable in a competitive environment.
Were the FLG guys deliberating misleading us and being downright dishonest? I don't think so. In fact, if you listen to their podcasts regularly as I do, you'll find that they acknowledge seeming contradictions and take questions from anyone. This is not something a con artist does. So what is going on?
When apparent contradictions appear they tell us to be patient and that we just need to wait for the codexes to all release and we will understand. They also tell us terrain is really important (and it is) and if we had more LOS blocking terrain our games would be much better. Partially true but still misleading. Often true LOS blocking terrain simply delays a player being tabled by a turn or two.
Here is what I think is going on:
FLG has been playtesting everything. They playtested all the indexes and continue playtesting the codexes. Playtesting everything really skews your view of the game. You get so focused on the big picture that you don't see the little things that will sneak in and destroy balance. When the game first dropped I spent the first month playing the entire Tyranid codex. It was glorious! Everything felt new and exciting. Everything felt playable and like it could have a place in a list. I was having a ton of fun. The people I was playing were all playing the models they hadn't played in forever as well. It was great. Time becomes a factor when you are play testing everything. You aren't going to take skew lists when GW is waiting for your feedback on everything. When you take everything, the indexes are fairly balanced. However, we don't play highlander in competitions. They have been looking for balance and I'm sure there was metric crapton of bad ideas that got left on the cutting floor.
So where is the disconnect? I think I've found it out. This past weekend some FLG attended a GT to play. One of them went 1-3-1. How does this happen? He reported that every one of his games except the tie ended with a tabling. For someone that has been playing this game for over a year how could he have been so far off as to have a list that performs that badly? They said their wasn't enough LOS blocking terrain and that he was being shot off the table from the start. Fair point, terrain IS important. However, these games aren't played in a vacuum. Tournaments are played on tables that typically don't have a ton of LOS blocking terrain and often struggle to have enough terrain. This is the reality that games in the real world are played in. In a testing environment things may have been balanced, but in the real world they are much better.
When you can't hide your army and your opponent is Space Marines and they go first, you are in for a world of hurt. They reroll everything. In an edition where things die quickly rerolling all to hit and to wound is downright silly. The only answer to that is hordes of cheap bodies. Guess what is winning tournaments right now? hordes of bodies.
They playtested this game in a test enviroment under ideal conditions where they played everything. When those conditions are removed and people are intentially trying to break the game, things change dramatically. -1 to hit is a great ability under normal conditions. It's far less valuable when your opponent gets straight up rerolls. I had a friend that worked at EA sports for years. He was on the playtesting team for Madden and NCAA Football. His sub-teams job was to try to break the game. Balance and playability was what other people did. He focused on deliberately trying to exploit things the programmers hadn't accounted for. I think this is why the FLG missed how skewed some of the units are. They had a ton on them: they had to see that everything actually worked. They had to see how units interacted, they had to account for weapons profiles and units cost as well as there upgrades. From my point of view they did a pretty good job. However, as the dust begins to settle, I find that the game really isn't that much different than before. Instead of facing deathstars that you can't kill, you are facing lists that can wipe you off the table in 2 turns unless you get lucky and seize or there is a ton of terrain to exploit.
TL;DR: We got reports from playtesters about how balanced the game was and how everything was playable because they were playtesting everything instead of trying to exploit the holes by breaking the game. It was playtested in a controlled environment with situations often not found in the real world.
I've been mystified in how we were sold a bill of goods that told us the game was far better balanced and how everything was playable. We were told this by GW (to be expected) and the playtesters. FLG was really touting 8ths praises.
On early rumor releases GW told us how everyone got their own movement category and showed us how some units move 4" whilst others move 8", and how vehicles and bikes had wildly different movement values. Then the game actually releases and we find that they cherry picked the movements. In reality everything moves 5-6" except a few notable cases. Each unit is not unique and special because of their movement. It helped genestealers by 2" but has almost no in game impact on necrons or conscript blobs. But that's GWs job, to build product hype.
What I couldn't understand was FLG guys touting of the new ruleset. What they said and what I was finding in games was really different. I really like and respect the FLG guys and I couldn't understand what was going on. The internet has been really harsh on them. They have been accused of being shills for GW, being bought off, and worse. I want to give them the benefit of the doubt so I've tried to do some thinking about what is going on.
Consider this: they described pyrovores and DE Wyches as the most improved units in the game. I don't know anyone that uses them as Tyranid and Drukhari players find them nearly unplayable. How could they be so wrong on these units?
Next we were told that everything was playable and was decent enough to include in your lists. As many of our threads here point out most of our MCs and many of our units are unplayable in a competitive environment.
Were the FLG guys deliberating misleading us and being downright dishonest? I don't think so. In fact, if you listen to their podcasts regularly as I do, you'll find that they acknowledge seeming contradictions and take questions from anyone. This is not something a con artist does. So what is going on?
When apparent contradictions appear they tell us to be patient and that we just need to wait for the codexes to all release and we will understand. They also tell us terrain is really important (and it is) and if we had more LOS blocking terrain our games would be much better. Partially true but still misleading. Often true LOS blocking terrain simply delays a player being tabled by a turn or two.
Here is what I think is going on:
FLG has been playtesting everything. They playtested all the indexes and continue playtesting the codexes. Playtesting everything really skews your view of the game. You get so focused on the big picture that you don't see the little things that will sneak in and destroy balance. When the game first dropped I spent the first month playing the entire Tyranid codex. It was glorious! Everything felt new and exciting. Everything felt playable and like it could have a place in a list. I was having a ton of fun. The people I was playing were all playing the models they hadn't played in forever as well. It was great. Time becomes a factor when you are play testing everything. You aren't going to take skew lists when GW is waiting for your feedback on everything. When you take everything, the indexes are fairly balanced. However, we don't play highlander in competitions. They have been looking for balance and I'm sure there was metric crapton of bad ideas that got left on the cutting floor.
So where is the disconnect? I think I've found it out. This past weekend some FLG attended a GT to play. One of them went 1-3-1. How does this happen? He reported that every one of his games except the tie ended with a tabling. For someone that has been playing this game for over a year how could he have been so far off as to have a list that performs that badly? They said their wasn't enough LOS blocking terrain and that he was being shot off the table from the start. Fair point, terrain IS important. However, these games aren't played in a vacuum. Tournaments are played on tables that typically don't have a ton of LOS blocking terrain and often struggle to have enough terrain. This is the reality that games in the real world are played in. In a testing environment things may have been balanced, but in the real world they are much better.
When you can't hide your army and your opponent is Space Marines and they go first, you are in for a world of hurt. They reroll everything. In an edition where things die quickly rerolling all to hit and to wound is downright silly. The only answer to that is hordes of cheap bodies. Guess what is winning tournaments right now? hordes of bodies.
They playtested this game in a test enviroment under ideal conditions where they played everything. When those conditions are removed and people are intentially trying to break the game, things change dramatically. -1 to hit is a great ability under normal conditions. It's far less valuable when your opponent gets straight up rerolls. I had a friend that worked at EA sports for years. He was on the playtesting team for Madden and NCAA Football. His sub-teams job was to try to break the game. Balance and playability was what other people did. He focused on deliberately trying to exploit things the programmers hadn't accounted for. I think this is why the FLG missed how skewed some of the units are. They had a ton on them: they had to see that everything actually worked. They had to see how units interacted, they had to account for weapons profiles and units cost as well as there upgrades. From my point of view they did a pretty good job. However, as the dust begins to settle, I find that the game really isn't that much different than before. Instead of facing deathstars that you can't kill, you are facing lists that can wipe you off the table in 2 turns unless you get lucky and seize or there is a ton of terrain to exploit.
TL;DR: We got reports from playtesters about how balanced the game was and how everything was playable because they were playtesting everything instead of trying to exploit the holes by breaking the game. It was playtested in a controlled environment with situations often not found in the real world.
