HOW MANY THINGS DOES 40k HAVE TO BALANCE?

[@apjapki]

When the conclusion is, "By comparison, Magic the Gathering is a simple and streamlined system," you know you are in the weeds of something that barely functions as a coherent game.

[@ArbitorIan]

Yeah, I know magic isn't a perfectly balanced game either. But by comparison to 40k.....🤣

[@apjapki]

@@ArbitorIan To be fair, Magic IS often fairly well balanced (goodbye Eldraine) but its issues often lie in the complexity of the base game rules so it is apples and oranges. But it's still a fun joke for me to make. :)

[@apjapki]

@@ArbitorIan It is a fair comparison to 40k too as in both games we act as if competitive gaming is the focus but the vast majority of hobbyists (at least as far as I can see in both) never play competitive.

[@ScooterinAB]

lol

[@Bluecho4]

@@apjapki Also, WotC have had a better track record of fixing glaring balance problems...sooner or later. They might drag their feet on banning, say, Teferi Time Raveler. But they banned Oko fairly quickly. WotC does this because they just release a regularly updated ban list, for free. Whereas with 40K, GW only very recently bit the bullet and released a balance patch for the game on their website. You get FAQs at times, but that's more for the purpose of resolving unintentional exploits or poor wording. If a unit or system was working exactly as intended, it would previously only be addressed (if at all) in the yearly, _paid_ manuals. If it wasn't a persistent problem between releases of codexes, main books, or supplements, all of which needed to be printed and purchased. It's only now, when the ridiculous imbalance and complexity of the game because untenable, that GW started its (free) quarterly balance updates. Everything until that point was complete clown shoes, and it was entirely GW's fault for being greedy.

[@DiscourseMinis]

Well, I gotta say Ian, it's nice to finally be able to put a number on the chaos!

[@HistoritorJimaldus]

Well if the number is 7 it’s nurgle and if it’s 9 it’s tzeentch...

[@Ian_Butterworth]

@@HistoritorJimaldus If the number is 1, then it is my die rolls :(

[@thorveack]

You know what you forgot doing that ? Army Size. A unit's strenghts and weaknesses aren't the same weither you play a 500, a 1000, a 2000 or a 3000 points game. So yeah just counting like GW does (Patrol, Incursion, Strike Force, Onslaught) you can add a 4x multiplier to this nice calculation ;)

[@Peng-444]

This is why I've never understood people who take 40k seriously as a competitive game and get upset everything a new codex drops. Play it for fun with like minded people and don't get too hung up on winning.

[@thewindowsmaaane]

The fun in it anyway is that it's not balanced. Warfare ain't balanced but a good general prevails!

[@xBINARYGODx]

unless its entirely random or overly focuses on it, than total balance or some facsimile is not required to win - and yes, people playing would not if they just lost all of the time. Mostly no one thinks its enjoyable to lose most of the time. Leveled matchmaking exists for a reason (people like a fair fight, and dont not want randomness to matter more than skill in terms of who wins). This is well documented.

[@sethrenshaw8792]

As someone who works in the video game industry, and works with people who balance games for a living, I'd just like to point out: It's important to remember, this is a combinatorics problem. "What the heck does that mean," you ask? It means if you really wanted to make sure each aspect of the game was balanced, you'd need to have every possible combination of pieces balance against every other piece. So what does that look like? Well, for simplicity's sake, let's imagine you can only choose 1 item from each column in his spreadsheet, you pick one item from the first column, and for each item you could have chosen, you could pick one item from the second column, and for each of those combinations, you can pick one item from the third column, and so on... To get the final number of possible combinations, you multiply the numbers of each column. Which would give you the combinations for just ONE faction, so you would then need to multiply that faction's number with every OTHER faction's numbers to get how many different possible fights you'd need to make balanced. And remember, that's if we assume you get ONE choice for each column. That ignores multiple units, multiple equipment selections, multiple stratagems, and doesn't even begin to account for different table layouts! TL;DR: Warhammer 40k is a cool game, setting-wise; but the only way I could see GW even ATTEMPTING to balance any of their games, is by coding a simulator for nearly every option in every army, and essentially having a server farm running simulations of as many possible games, as they work through each faction. Which is unfortunately, a financial commitment GW would never make.

[@ArbitorIan]

Oh yeah, totally agree. With this I'm very much just making a starting point to compare with other games. It get exponentially more complex in reality!

[@KrullMaestaren]

There is also the abstract problems like board setup, starting player and player skill etc... these can have a huge effect on the values of the datasheet. Sure, you might have long range but it will be waisted on a board overfilled with terrain while it can become OP on an almost empty board. A simulator is a GD dream but often not what GD gets because it requires dev time, maintenance and updates to align with the product... money. Excel is usually what GD ends up with as their main tool for board games. computer games are usually a bit more forgiving because you can make the simulator a part of the game engine and thus decrease the dev cost/time a lot.

[@philipkelly7369]

nah

[@casanovafunkenstein5090]

That shade when he describes chess as 'an actual game of skill' 🤣

[@Gruntcakes69]

The greatest strategy game in the history of mankind

[@Zyphent]

@@Gruntcakes69 I'm partial to Go. Less memorizing pre-conceived moves and openings/responses, more nuance, and simpler ruleset.

[@ReverendMeat51]

Ha, I missed that bit. 40k is definitely a game of skill as well. I used to play competitive chess and recently started 40k playing casually against my friend. The dice rolls add a random element but the skill requirement to win with the current ruleset is definitely there imo

[@ScooterinAB]

It's so true. 40k is a game of RNG and having the thickest wallet. Skill is barely a consideration. Even Magic, a game even worse for RNG, still has a lot of skill in deck building and card use.

[@jasonbaxter3658]

Yea. I've always thought a well designed game has very few rules like Go, Chess and even Backgammon. Malifaux is probably the best designed tabletop game I've played in terms of rule simplicity and tactical depth. I'd put 40k at the bottom after Age of Sigma as all 40k usually amounts to is running directly towards each other and shooting. There are very few interesting tactical desicions to make in the game and many rules feel cheaply tacked on to keep the opponent from being bored to death when its not their turn. GW has built a game around the models not the other way around.

[@felis1977]

At first I thought about "combinations" and my brain just said - "NOPE!" :)

[@gabrielmarquez4029]

I can only imagine how crazy it gets when you start considering permutations of rules combinations for each faction and soup list. I’ve heard of scenarios where a couple of unremarkable rules can combine with interesting results.

[@AFnord]

Check out the infamous "Leaf Blower" if you want to see when this goes very very wrong. This was 5th edition Imperial Guard army which was nigh unbeatable thanks to how it combined with Daemon hunters, which more or less covered all the weaknesses of the guard army. The tournament scene was in a very sorry state until they got rid of Codex: Daemon Hunters in favour of the 5th edition Grey Knights codex. Really, I don't think they should ever have re-introduced allies in 40k, not for competitive play at least. Fluffy as it might be it really has made the game even more of a nightmare to balance.

[@walstafa]

Thank you! Slowly getting back into big 40k via kill team and the cognitive load of even a relatively limited faction (Death Guard) is a nightmare compared to the days of 2nd Ed.

[@JoshLikesFuzz]

I don’t play competitive and I’m not entirely interested in having complete mathematical balance, but it strikes me there’s still a lot of ‘stuff’ you need to remember. I’d like to see stategems, rerolls, and relics go in the next edition to reduce the amount of stuff you need to remember. I’d be happy if each faction or faction variant had some kind of doctrine that gives them a flavour. Nothing will ever be perfect (3rd edition was great but your video on 3rd to 7th showed the problems when it scaled really well), but keeping the barrier to entry low would be really welcome.

[@ScytheNoire]

This isn't just how many things GW has to balance, but how many things players need to remember about their army, and if they want to be effective, their opponents army. This is why Grimdark Future is so appealing.

[@scuba7891]

Really looking forward now to what I hope will be a feature-length video on balancing in 40k :D (Also reminds me again why I played next to no 40k lately and focussed on other systems)

[@brennonbrunet6330]

I love how you find interesting things about the hobby to dig up and analyze.

[@petsdinner]

This is why I'm getting back into 2e. It's...also not balanced...but it's so fun and easy to get into!

[@ScooterinAB]

Viva le 2nd Edition. Viva le Herohammer... which weirdly never went away, despite how much people rag on 2nd Edition for it.

[@Bluecho4]

And it's why I always recommend Grimdark Future from One Page Rules. It's everything you want in a 40K game, without the bullcrap getting in the way. Also, like early 40K, you can play Squats.

[@secondeditionwargaming]

I've got some 2nd ed stuff on my channel if that interests you, not a lot at the moment, but planning lots for the future!

[@lluiscavalcanticalvo1192]

Great video! I find interesting to have the number, but I found that you forgot to mention that balance is not about the amount of things, but the assimetric equal value of different things. Chess would not be noticeably less or more balance if you added 50 existing pieces or aded 5 new ones, since it is a symetrical game. It would be in need of balance if both players had different pieces, and that balance needs to be mesured somehow. Magic is a clear example where the standard value of a card can me, 1/1 creature + basic hability per 1 land. Any similar card with a cheapper cost, stronger hability of more stats is considered more powerfull by comparison, regardless of the number of existing cards. Thust, you can create thousands of balanced cards as long as you keep a good mesurement of the value of a card in relation to that standard. 40k's balance is pretty complicated because the mesurement of the value of a "thing" in comparison to a standard is complicated and the things are different from eachother multiple ways. Even with that is a game that works pretty well and in casual play is almost perfectly fine

[@abdulhammouda4884]

Amazing as always. You're one of my absalute fave 'newer' you tuber! I would say though I'm not sure that's how game design works. You don't really have 20 different entries as whatever, it's all within the constraints of a limited stat line. Sames goes with the weapons as combos. It IS amazingly hard to balance games though regardless. I'd be interested in looking into the game structure of 40k as it's much closer to the likes of MTG with its gotcha mechanics and weird power creep. It's monatiesed a bit like an abusive MMO system as opposed to a game deliberately trying to balance as a competitive game. No criticism of it, MTG and Yu Gi Oh is far more popular than other game types that balanceore directly and listening to things like the 9th age community there is a huge ammount of players that actually seek lack of balance as there is a sense of completion in having the objectively 'best' list. Games balance etc is super interesting to me. Keep going bud love it

[@JonBoy79]

I'm ok with 40k being a mess. It can't really be anything else. I've lost count of the number of 40k fans who have bemoaned its complexity with one breath...and a moment later complained about the 10 or so factions that should be added ASAP and why 8th edition at launch was oversimplified for noobs! 😀

[@JarlDM]

I found it basically impossible to make fun, narrative rules that fit with 40k because of this. With other systems, it's been really easy to make house rules, narrative rules, changes etc., for narrative campaigns, but with 40K it's a bloated nightmare. Great video, very interesting!

[@MrJTaylor8181]

Come over to 30k, we deal with none of the trash in video. Rule of cool and narrative is what 30k is all about.

[@Bluecho4]

It's this kind of thing that drives me toward One Page Rules. Where the game _starts_ as simple as it can go while maintaining army identity, and can be built on from there.

[@secondeditionwargaming]

I've nearly always found that 40k is best played using scenarios and force limitations set out by a GM. Not ideal in many ways, but much more fun.

[@JarlDM]

Yeah I've mostly switched to OPR, and a little bit of star wars legion

[@theodorebrook-ashmore8174]

That is a glorious spreadsheet, I would be up for any mathhammer. Also interested in Magic the Mathering.

[@mrmaster9801]

That's a good analysis, thank you. It may be a starting point, as you say, but it's very useful nonetheless. Unfortunately, I don't think this "problem" will be solved, because 1) it would require calculation resources that GW is not very likely to use and 2) it doesn't seem to have any benefit for GW, at least in the short term. However, for us players, there's always the solution of using simpler editions (3rd or 8th come to mind) or OPR: same minis, same setting, simpler rules.

[@TN-ci4ox]

God I’m happy my application to be a rules editor is a fake thing for a school project

[@johnwalton287]

Battletech manages to balance a similar number of units, almost every game I’ve played has been a close call too

[@Hurtone]

There is also the complexity of the gaming board itself - amount of terrain or layout etc.

[@giraton1]

And here is the worst part, because interaction is a thing, the more aspects that affect balance, the exponentially more problems appear. So like, if you are just comparing numbers between 40k and MTG, it looks bad, but then if you consider interaction then it is basically multiplied by its own amount in complexity of balance (and thats before things like model size and terrain interaction). Like this is pretty obvious, but some a need it pointed out cause err, big number make brain go "nope".

[@daganisoraan]

I'm fairly new to the new edition of Necromunda and i'm discovering the same thing. There's so much layers of possible customization that any desired balance is almost impossible.

[@captainparty]

with Necromunda, they see it as a very much more friendly and narrative game and don’t have balance as high up on their priories for design as much as giving lots of fun options to use in a campaign. The addition of an Arbitrator in the campaign adds a person who can look after the balance and ensure that no one is running into too much of an advantage or disadvantage.

[@xgonne]

The number of things wouldn't, necessarily, give a good indication on the balance or imbalance of a game system. As you mentioned, a number of elements have the same effect. However, how these elements interact would be of far greater import to a balancing of a game. Not even going so far as a full army/deck build, having one element which bolster another element, creating interlocking effects would be far more important to balance. Counting is great, it's often the first thing done (or attempted to be done) in statistics. But, for a true statistical analysis, one could start with a baseline and build out, applying weights to the elements as they are added (applying by a specific metric or unit type/class). At the moment, you're applying the same weight of important to the smallest of effects to the largest of influences. When you added additional builds, they were also added with the same weight as others, despite them not representing the same weight (simply, if you have ten units and each unit can have ten non-exclusive builds, you don't have just ten units [[because of the optional builds which require balancing]], but you also don't have one hundred units [[because each unit can only have one non-exclusive build]]). Also, one other factor would be the counting of a group of elements as a number of single elements rather than a factor of a group. Weighting would also help here, especially if/when an element from a table excludes other elements from that table for the unit or for the army list.

[@MasterofMistakes]

For myself I'm more interested in the fun/making of stuff for the game, but I can definitely see the effort in anyone trying to make sense of all this, best of luck in your project.

[@ScooterinAB]

Same. Though I don't think this gets too hard into Mathhammer. Something like this can even just highlight imbalances in model releases and how viable the army is from a modeling point of view. If an army has low numbers like Tyranids, a modeler-gamer might steer away from it because it seems like it doesn't has as many options for collecting and modeling.

[@Disc147]

Really enjoying your channel. Keep it up big guy.

[@stationary_bandit6607]

That was awesome! Great to see just one measure of 40K's complexity! Quick question for everyone to think over: What does balance mean? Are there specific measures that we can use on data produced by Arbitor Ian to characterize balance in 40K?

[@angrypirate1094]

Internal balance is when every unit in a codex has a role that it is good at, if Eradicators are always outperformed by Attack Bikes then there is a lack of internal balance. External balance is when no codex is nearly unbeatable by any other codex and no codex wins a lot more than it loses or loses a lot more than it wins, if Drukhari win 70% of games then there is a lack of external balance. You have to look at tournament lists and win statistics to figure out if something is balanced. There are confounding factors like skill and luck that means you cannot test your hypothesis in a casual environment, only form it, you have to test it or get others to test it to try to disprove your theory about a unit or codex.

[@youdontneedtoseehisidentif4939]

And this video illustrates why, although I really like modelling and painting its miniatures, I doubt I'll ever try to actually play 40K ;P (Although (if I had the friends to) I'd like to try some of the "specialist" games like Blood Bowl..!)

[@richardbradley2335]

How do you think i feel.,i play 7th and got the hedious eldar book

[@TrillyC84]

It may have already occurred to you (or been suggested), but given Day 1 indexes for 10th you could reprise this for the new game and see what it suggests (if anything) about 'simplification'.

[@kevincoffey4038]

Sorry, quick question. What was the unofficial website used to combine all the rules together?

[@ArbitorIan]

Definitely not Wahapedia. No? What? Never heard of it. 😂

[@oliverbutterfield9844]

My guess within the first 30 seconds, before you outlined the criteria, was 10000, so I feel pretty good about that!

[@Narcissus833]

Loving your videos; really great content and very well put together. This might get asked a lot, if so sorry, what’s the name of the song you use for your intro music? I really love it.

[@ArbitorIan]

It's in the description!

[@Narcissus833]

@@ArbitorIan ha!! Thanks, literally looked everywhere else on your KZbin except there!! 🤦‍♂️😄 thank you!!!

[@joelhenry2527]

Scenarios, secondaries, matchups all will add on top of this too.

[@Silvofox]

With the recent release of leagues of votann and the following and hilarious uproar on their rules, any chance you could tot them up and see if they were way over the top or actually ok?

[@DM-do2fc]

40K and spreadsheets. Love it!

[@jackbriggs9318]

All that good work for 8th edition out the window. Down with stratagems. Down with Chapter Tactics. Down with Warlord Traits.

[@Bluecho4]

Reject 40K. Embrace One Page Rules.

[@ReverendMeat51]

Tbh I don't know how anybody could keep track of all this stuff if it weren't for wahapedia. I don't think I'd ever have gotten into the hobby without it

[@ScooterinAB]

Easy. With Warhammer + and their army bui- I can't even finish typing that without laughing.

[@ianyapxw]

I think balance is done (practically) in a different way; the game developers will look at the competitive scene and see what things are overpowered, or more worryingly, game breaking, and try to tweak only a few things such that a fair few 'meta' options are viable in order to keep the game competitive. That is assuming that the game is meant to be competitive in the first place. I don't think 40k is meant to be a competitive pursuit for (most) due to the difficulty of constantly buying/painting models and the inability to have a very hardcore competitive scene the way e-sports does.

[@secondeditionwargaming]

I've nearly always found that 40k is best played using scenarios and force limitations set out by a GM. Not ideal in many ways, but much more fun.

[@stationary_bandit6607]

Is it time for 40K to go back to its RT roots and bring DM/GMs back into the fold?

[@secondeditionwargaming]

@@stationary_bandit6607 Perhaps never to the level that Rogue Trader was, but there's definitely space for a GM'd game now and then. Even in 9th.

[@stationary_bandit6607]

@@secondeditionwargaming Do you know of any published frameworks that folks have used to GM games of 40K?

[@secondeditionwargaming]

@@stationary_bandit6607 No I can't say I do unfortunately. It's always been a lot of work for the GM in my experience. I either decide on a scenario, then limit the units that I think would be present on such a scenario. Narrative would be the framework I guess. Or pick a cool force and think of a scenario that I'd like to see them in.

[@ogrimdoombringer]

Yep. Pretty much says why I use my Tyranid models as Alien Hives in Grimdark Future, and I'm having WAY more fun. Played over 20 GF games in 6 months and have much hope of GW changing their ways.

[@fullgreys0n738]

First! In my eyes, 40K has never been a game that is good for tournaments. Especially since a single game takes far too long. But it would be a start if the game were halfway balanced. I'm happy about your project.

[@craigjones7343]

We need to find the Chosen One before there will ever be balance.

[@bauguilhugo9037]

That's why Kill Team 2021 is so great and will be way more balanced !

[@EonsOfBattle]

YOU GOT A NURGLE PLUSHIE!!! Also, 44 stratagems for tyranid is absurd! get that down to 5... maybe 3. I don't know how you cap this madness, perhaps become VERY restrictive in list building, more AOS style. One sticking point for me is the bloat of elite options in codexes, in necrons its nearly HALF of all units are in the elite slot.

[@ScooterinAB]

I hate that Elites bloat thing. Half of the Chaos Codex is Elites, yet I can barely fill the Fast Attack slots. So much bloat comes from special snowflake units that have exactly one option, but could easily be blended together into a single entry.

[@ArbitorIan]

I did! I got him as an extra when I ordered the CANDLES But he turned up way before they did! Yeah. I think that's the takeaway really. If we want the design team to be able to balance 40k, or we want a competitive format that can be 'balanced', they need to do what Magic does and make the competitive format the smallest, simplest one, not the most complex one! As it stands, 40ks design philosophy is not compatible with competitive play.

[@ScooterinAB]

@@ArbitorIan Wait. 40k has a design philosophy?

[@EonsOfBattle]

@@ArbitorIan hopefully they learn some good lessons from kill team 21, simple list building, (NO POINTS). they brought back universal special rules, but only 26, not 10 pages like 6th ed.

[@Tommy9834]

Trying to balance this game must feel like trying to manage the administratum, or the militarum, or any other admin jobs in the Imperium. No wonder they use servitors

[@ArbitorIan]

I wonder if that's intentional? They used to hire trolls to do Mail Order...

[@boredsoim01]

Can we compare this number from 9th to 8th edition? I wonder how much more there is to manage in 9th vs 8th.

[@ArbitorIan]

It would be pretty easy to count up the numbers from the start of 8ed - indexes only.

[@thewindowsmaaane]

The fun in it anyway is that it's not balanced. Warfare ain't balanced but a good general prevails!

[@FatUberUddersOfChaos]

This is why I just paint and collect

[@m-tron5966]

Absolutely Amazing and a True Statistics Analysis.....further proving my point of how unbalanced and chaotic this game is 🏆🏆🏆

[@angrypirate1094]

I like the effort, but I don't see how abilities shared by many or most units are harder to balance around than an ability that one or a few units have or just basic stats. Whether your Guardians have M7 and can Advance and shoot without a penalty, M8 or M12 none are easy to account for. Relics have relatively little impact, the worst relic doesn't really matter, the best, second and third best all matter to some degree depending on how good they are relative to the Stratagems you have. On the other hand, I think you are vastly underestimating the difficulty of balancing Chapter Tactics. It's a multiplicative issue because you have to consider whether a Primaris Librarian, Scout Bike Squad or Redemptor Dreadnought with weapons X, Y and Z will be OP in Iron Hands and/or terrible in Salamanders, the game could become unbalanced if just one Chapter makes a few units OP and loads of people will be unhappy if they buy a Primaris Librarian for their Salamanders and he turns out to be terrible. The lack of balancing levers for Chapter Tactics makes it impossible to make them just a little worse, you can nerf a good Stratagem by making it cost more Command Points, but Chapter Tactics cost nothing, so all you can do is make all their Stratagems terrible to account for an overtuned Chapter Tactic.

[@blackwolf671]

>Rules about how you build the list aren't important. All of the formerly heavy support options that are now superheavys beg to differ. otherwise great, very informative.

[@ricoqwertz123]

Very nice Video!

[@joeofdoom]

They only need to balance the actual match play system, the secondaries ruin the game for many factions and make it nearly impossible to get enough points to keep up with the factions that either play the objective game better or just have much easier to achieve secondaries.

[@AFnord]

This is part of the reason why I cringe a bit when GW releases new armies, rather than update old ones. It just piles on to the stuff that needs to be balanced (the main reason why I cringe though is because it's so common for some armies to just kind of be forgotten by GW for a prolonged period of time. Granted, GW has got better at this than they used to be, and by the looks of it we're not going to see a lot of armies that go entire editions without getting a new codex (hopefully...))

[@ScooterinAB]

And by "some armies," you're talking about just the Eldar, right? :p I wouldn't be surprised if there isn't a company mandate to see how long they can screw Eldar players before throwing them a bone.

[@AFnord]

@@ScooterinAB Eldar is among them :P As a xenos player (Orks, Tyranids, Tau) I'm pretty used to long dry spells for all my armies... Though that has nothing on my poor Wood Elf army that I used to play back in WHFB.

[@ScooterinAB]

@@AFnord I didn't even play Fantasy and I know how rough it was for the Wood Elves.

[@KolinKrake]

Love your videos!

[@suppositionstudios]

God I want to play 40k but I can't be bothered wading into all the rules and having to compile all the articles, supplements and then the actual codex, for an army.

[@chrispalmer2353]

40k has lots of things to take and you are talking about the options not how many you can take and balancing at different points values will give you different answers on complexity the same as your judgement for magic. What you are referencing is Standard, but there are formats that allow larger cars pools for tournament play Modern, Legacy, Vintage all have card pools in the 5-10k range, plus the option to take up to 4 of a card. But you are talking about all of 40k, if we talk about all of magic that is 20k+ cards. For a real comparison you need to standard you would need to remove the non-competitive viable units, stratagems and options.

[@lukemcdonladson6648]

That is Nutz .. Does it really need that much Gump ? .. 👍💚

[@phaserminis9002]

Just getting back into the hobby and modern 40k seems to have waaay too much going on for my sense of fun. I've decided to settle back into 3rd instead.

[@ArbitorIan]

Open Play works surprisingly well for occasional games

[@secondeditionwargaming]

2nd ed is where it's at!

[@seanaustin2965]

Wait. Ian pronounced it Cad-ian! Am I wrong for pronouncing it Cay-dian?

[@lpmnewcro]

Matey I've been playing Cay-dians a long time. You're fine as you are. Ian must be having a giggle 😃.

[@ArbitorIan]

Oh I don't listen to the audio books so I have no idea! 😂

[@vegancam]

@Sean Austin Came here looking for this comment. Thought I was having a mini stroke, always been CAY-dians to me.

[@RoboticPope]

I believe it is meant to be a mutation of Arcadia, so it would be pronounced Caydian. Place names on Terra also mutated over the 40k years and lost letters; So the Gyptians were from Gyptus in Nord Afrik. Other examples are Merica, Franc, Jermani.

[@ScooterinAB]

We're dealing with largely made up words. I will forever pronounce it Thai-ranids, and pronounce the leader of the Ultramarines as Robot Gilligan.

[@ValeraManuel]

The magic the gathering comparison is not fair, since it is compared to the smallest competitive constructed format, in 40k terms it would be like making this analysis for combat patrol army sizes only.

[@ArbitorIan]

There isn't really a comparison to Limited formats, because there's no equivalent to a random pool of units in modern 40k. So the comparison is Standard (the most popular competitive Constructed format, which considers the last X sets to be valid) to Matched Play (the most popular/only competitive 40k format, which considers everything except Legends to be valid).

[@mathewkelly9968]

40k is a victim of its own success these days , im 44 have played miniature games since 1989 . I love 40k and actually don't mind GW , but I don't bother any more to keep up .

[@Hurricanelive]

$$$$ = Balance. The more money GW gets the more balanced the game is. It just works.

[@florentarlandis1209]

Here is my theory: 40k is not MEANT to be balanced and will never be. This unbalance is what forces players to constantly buy new stuff in order to remain competitive. A faction is overpowered? No problem, let me blindly overpower another one. Now buy this faction and win the game!

[@Grubnar]

That will eventually destroy the game. You can not just endlessly add more stuff on top of other stuff, in the end it will become to top-heavy and topple over.

[@florentarlandis1209]

@@Grubnar then they'll just have to reboot the rules, like they already did in the past

[@ArbitorIan]

I don't think this is the business model. The section of gamers that buy three of a model because the rules are OP just isn't big enough. Its more that they have so much variation its impossible to check every combo. When a product is released the comp crowd figure out how to break it and overpower it, and then they're aware that the next product has to be at the new power level. Constant running to catch up.

[@Grubnar]

@@florentarlandis1209 True ... but they just did that! And it is already even MORE bloated. There is seriously something very wrong with GW's game design.

[@Instar_nine]

You will never have balance If you did GW would not make as much money $ Great work Shows how complicated the game is

[@stephenneedham106]

Watched the lore vid you did on 40k, was tempted to start playing...watched this..... nah. I'm good.

[@ArbitorIan]

Agreed - I think there's still an awful lot to take in that doesn't need to be there, but if you play casually, with formats like Open Play, a lot of this becomes irrelevant.

[@rat-matt-miniatures8705]

I still feel certain armies should just never have been brought in as playable armies as the lore behind them is that they are so powerful that balance goes out of the window or that they are so under powered they feel wrong. Even certain units not just full armies.

[@ScooterinAB]

*cough Custodes cough*

[@Bluecho4]

Personally, I don't think having those armies are the problem. It's that the game as a whole is so dense with rules, and each individual army has whole systems bolted onto them. Creating fractal levels of complexity.

[@linamishima]

This isn't just about balance, but also about player mental load. Even within a single faction the sheer number of rules can at best necessitate stopping play to check the codex, and at worst cause critical game changing rules to be forgotten. GW have managed to combine a hobby with a high cost barrier to entry with one with a high mental cost. Whilst recent editions have helped slim the core rules, these unique rules all over the place are a problem, and make the issue of rules lawyering players even worse and encourage a bad culture amongst players. I can se why we ended up in this situation - if we assume an entirely well-meaning design team, they want each faction to feel different and unique, and they want each codex & army to feel "worth buying". This feels like a game design trap, however, layering on more rules rather than looking at where the fun actually is, and why people really collect different armies.

[@ArbitorIan]

I think it's a vicious cycle too. I don't think GW deliberately overpowers new releases to make people buy them - the competitive crowd just aren't big enough. Its more that they release a codex, realise there are broken combos when the comp crowd find them and it's way more powerful than firdt thought, then go to write the next codex thinking 'that last one had 50 options and was a bit more powerful than we expected, better make this one equal to the last one, and we kinda have to give it 50 options too'. And then the comp crowd get hold of it and it turns out it it's even MORE powerful and so on and so on. After five codexes, you need to release some MORE upgrades to the early ones to bring them up to par. Etc etc It's constant running to catch up.

[@linamishima]

@@ArbitorIan Absolutely! And in terms of player experience, those hyper competitive players who find these OP rules end up damaging the experience and culture for everyone else, and are really the only ones who can really use the depth of rules offered. I do have sympathy for GW versus say an MMORPG developer. Video game developers can issue a patch and change rules across the board instantly, but once a codex is published GW have limited options to address the issues with it. From a pure player experience perspective, rather than balance, this rules patching via new codex entries really is a nightmare. Effectively, even if you personally don't run that new codex, you still end up impacted by it and how the 'meta' changes. I really hope someone at GW is thinking about this problem for future game system editions.

[@darsis]

Well that's ten minutes I'm never going to get back; watching some dude count :-) Please do more videos based on retro 40K stuff! :-)

[@secondeditionwargaming]

I've got some 2nd ed stuff on my channel if that interests you, not a lot at the moment, but planning lots for the future!

[@darsis]

@@secondeditionwargaming *Immediately subscribes*

[@JonSteitzer]

heroic

[@shahinaryan-taasheedaar4516]

Expensive Models are too important.

[@captainparty]

The key question I think a lot of people aren’t getting is: is “balance” actually important for wargames? If the most successful franchise of the most successful player in the industry has a game that’s not really, and can’t really, be balanced, what does that mean for the concept of “balance”?

[@AFnord]

I personally think that, for the health of the "game" part, balance is important. While perfect balance might be nigh impossible to achieve, everything should at least be in the same ballpark, otherwise what's the point in treating it like a game?

[@benmartin1590]

This just demonstrates how complicated and bloated 40K is

[@ScooterinAB]

It's made even funnier because it's not even a tactical game. I loved Ian throwing that it.

[@jasonbaxter3658]

@@ScooterinAB Yeah as a former GW Chaos Space Marine player I often went to matches knowing I was going to lose just based on the opponents list. The next three hours was always just watching the elevatable play out.

[@Nomad6763]

Yeah lets be real, even if the game could be fully balanced in it's current state... would it be fun to play? I don't think so. My experience playing 9e has been a single enjoyable 750pt game at the start and then half a dozen 1500pt slogs where I felt mentally exhausted by the time the player who rolled worse conceded on turn 3 after 4 fucking hours of play.

[@ScooterinAB]

@@Nomad6763 Yes, it would be. Balanced doesn't mean boring. Balanced means the rules aren't being deliberately written to sell the new models. As for how mentally draining 1500 points was for you compared to a game half that size, maybe that's the difference.

[@andrewgalea5012]

99% of things can be fixed by points adjustments

[@Balderdashing]

While this is awesome, the comparison to MTG is a little flawed. Magic also has some much larger “non rotating” formats that they balance for such as Modern which includes almost all the cards printed since 2003.

[@Bluecho4]

Ian was deliberately limiting the scope of his comparison to the "Main Game". The one the creators expect you to start with at any given time, and thus the game the creators balance the game around. In 40K, this is Matched Play. In MtG, it is specifically the Standard Format. Of course the number of separate rules would balloon if you roped in every version of the game going back decades. But actually doing that for a video would take months of work. We have to draw the line of comparison somewhere.

[@ArbitorIan]

Yeah, this. We could compare to modern, in which case the 40k side would probably have to include all Legends units and every Crusade rule? But my purpose here was to compare the game formats that are considered to be the balanced, competitive play ones.

[@Balderdashing]

@@ArbitorIan except that modern is a competitive format played in the Pro Tour that Wizards aims keep balanced. I’m not saying that this makes Magic harder to balance than 40k, just that saying Magic only has X number of parts to balance against each other is a bit flawed.

[@Armageddon2077]

I feel like the board game version of the Imperium is as bloated as it's sci-fi fantasy counter-part

[@Inquisdrknss]

Never been big in the Mathhammer side to the game for this reason, way to many variables.

[@ScooterinAB]

1. Sounds like the game is bloated. Just in general. 2. Sounds like everything having special rules is bloating the game. Remember when most armies used bolters and lasguns? Pepperidge Farm remembers. 3. Sounds like there is a clear balance problem regarding Space Marines as well as some other armies. Armies should have similar kinds of options and rule that affect them, one army shouldn't clearly be the company favourite, and the sales numbers for armies shouldn't affect their viability (or lack there of) in game.

[@Bluecho4]

To use a Magic: The Gathering example, it would be like if a single Color got a disproportionate share of the cards released every set, and those cards were just better than any available to the others. It's not as if MtG hasn't had certain Colors be stronger at different times. But this was usually a result of some cards being accidentally too strong, or certain colors being a bit weaker. Up until recently, people were often complaining about White not getting as much good stuff. But if it were like 40K, you would just see them printing fewer White cards in general per set. Solely because the designers wouldn't care about White.

[@ArbitorIan]

It's worth saying that you'll never get all those options at once in Space Marines. It's just that the Space Marine model range can be taken as about 9 different armies, all with their own Relics and Stratagems and Abilities.

[@aderoberts550]

For me perfect balance off less important than interesting choices. As a game 40k fails at both.

[@ScooterinAB]

I looked through the Space Marine Codex and all of the boring Primaris entries almost put me to sleep. It's completely devoid of choice, which makes it feel like Baby's First Army.

[@Bluecho4]

@@ScooterinAB Really, the Primaris units are effectively the old choices you used to make for a single unit's loadouts (see the Tactical Marines), spread out over dozens of different units. The only reason you have choice at all is if you look at all these Primaris units as different loadouts of the same couple units (depending on which battlefield role they occupied). It's just the game never tells you this, AND makes all the choices have their own points and stat differences, AND gives them their own specific, non-intuitive names. THAT is the big problem. It takes a simple problem of which weapons to take, and overcomplicates it in multiple different ways. It's this kind of thing that makes me just want to go with Firstborn Marines. The old ways were so much easier.

[@ScooterinAB]

@@Bluecho4 Exactly. You don't need different unit entries just for a different loadout. I'm playing around with back converting things to 2nd edition. Back then, Chaos didn't have a dedicated heavy weapon squad. So I need to cost out a Havoc squad... or not, because a normal Chaos Marine squad can have 3 heavy weapons, so there's no need to do it. It's not 4 heavies, but there's no point in making a new entry just for 1 extra heavy. Or I need this or that Space Marine squad... which I can already do in the codex without needing to add anything.

[@ger5956]

Like and comment to appease the almighty algorithm 😁👍🏼

[@JahlisMan]

I love the universe, but tabletop itself... nah. even if I had the money for units and interest in painting.

[@ReverendMeat51]

It's fun as hell if you find a buddy to play it with (and I hate painting but still do it okay enough)

[@BentJacket]

Magics a mess when it comes to balance....how your not denying that at all, your saying warhammer is just worse! yikes....

[@lpmnewcro]

Honestly never understood folks in pursuit of a balanced game....Chess is there for you if you want. I play guard and enjoy it....usually dying in the name of the his boney holiness. For me wargaming and rpg narrative should always only an inch away from Pratchett and an inch away from Aliens. It should always be played for laughs with a touch of the cosmic horror. It's about emergent narrative...if I didn't want my army to be most often destroyed I'd play someone else....and it makes the rare victory all the more fun.

[@rauliglesias3210]

I grt you, but "balance" is something that absolutely doesn't hurt to narrative or fun games. Let's say that you want a last stand of a squad of guardsmen and officers vs waves of some kind of mook in a game of like 1:3 points... only to find the guardsmen steamrolling because the game was that unbalanced. Balance should help to roughly estimate matches, and to make them fun.

[@f0rth3l0v30fchr15t]

Balance is the whole point of matched play. The winner should be decided by a combination of skill and luck, because the forces are *drumroll* matched.

[@lpmnewcro]

@@rauliglesias3210 I don't disagree Raul. It's just I think 40k is unbalanced at its core. Human to Marine to Primaris to Custodes... Its Asymmetrical and always has been. But you're right trying to make it more balanced doesn't hurt( not sure it will be a successful effort). Either way, I wish you good games and good gaming company matey.

[@paulmiddleton8487]

I used to enjoy playing my guard but after a while it just got depressing. I don't mind losing if I take some units with me but when your mate's space wolves army is in your deployment zone on turn two and you've used a dust pan and brush to remove half your army before firing a shot its time to move on. Finding I'm enjoying Titanicus, Necromunda and battletech a lot more, I still lose but its not a one sided slaughter like my 40k games

[@rauliglesias3210]

@@lpmnewcro i agree too. 40k is broken at its core. A game which rules and scale are meant for small battles (like a hq, 3 troops, a tank and something else) can't handle the scale they are trying to push as "normal", both in size, rules, ammount and variety of units. They want the granularity of skirmishes with the spectacle of Epic.

[@ThroatSore]

Yes. The game is far too complicated with roo many layers of rules. This makes it difficult to balance.

[@F1fty]

You are WRONG! (Spells don't need to be balanced. 40k doesn't have any. Psychic powers need to be balanced. Thus, your entire argument is invalid.) And for the sake of the simpletons; ;) ;) ;)

[@ArbitorIan]

WIZZARDS IN SPAAAAAACE

[@Khashmonet]

Yes. But cool plastic army men.

[@enchainedprometheus]

Simply overcomplicated

[@billdithers6288]

Dont think this is a fair definition of balance. In the presented game of chess a queen and pawn arent considered equal by the people who play it competitively, but by that same measure theyll say there are countless possibilities where trading your queen for a particularily troublesome pawn is the correct move. This line of "big number=more difficulty in balancing" thinking really shrugs off some of most of the complaints people have about warhammer imbalance. The main of which being Codex creep (ie the need for the new codex to be unbalanced usually in favor of powerful in an effort to sell models) and inactivity in broken rules interactions which can make the game nearly unplayable (Iron Hand Dreads near the end of 8th come to mind). The weakest stratagem in the game does not have to be identical to the strongest points loudout on a named character for the game to be considered balanced. A far healthier metric would be generalized win rates by faction and chosen armies as outlined by the fine people of 40k stats center. Generally if the game could get the weakest army, build to win, could keep up with the strongest army built to win in a 55-45 win percentage split, you have a healthy meta, and therefore a "balanced" game. Perfection doesnt have to be the goal, general equal footing is.

[@ScooterinAB]

Except that he addressed that in the video. He never said this was a definitive list nor did he say. He just said that if you count up these things, there are far more of theme here than over here. Even if it was a more exhaustive analysis, in any study, you declare the scope of the study. Ian declared that.

[@billdithers6288]

@@ScooterinAB RIght, and the scope of that study as to indicate this many permutations as points of failure is the wrong way to approach it. It should idealistically be the 24 armies within the game. (high number for a competitive game sure) and then balanced focus within those subsets. If you have 3 really good stratagems and 17 bad ones, those things even out and give a fair function of an acceptable power level. Basic applied set theory can make something daunting as this video paints it as, to be something much simpler.

[@doomsmythe]

Game balance is a myth. There is no such things as a balanced game. They don't exist. So quit trying.

[@hobobeard]

This is all fine and well but what was the point of the video? You already knew what the conclusion would be. We already knew. Was it truly absolutely necessary to do all this counting just to say; ""balacing" this game near enough to impossible"? Moreover, I cannot honestly believe that anybody who has issues with currecnt 40k or GW is primarily concerned with game balance.

[@casanovafunkenstein5090]

It's because he's involved in producing an update to Heresy in order to make it easier for a 9th edition player to get into. This was presumably one of the tasks he had to do in order to identify how the game could be streamlined and paired down to make it more accessible. It's a project update that he thought would make a quick video

[@Lynch2507]

as someone who knows nothing about table top, i didnt know. So theres that.

[@ScooterinAB]

But now there's a number to prove it. It's not just neckbeards bitching for the sake of botching. There is a measurable disparity.

[@PikkuMao]

A rather disingenuous way to approach the subject. You absolute do not need to separately balance every single line item against every other. You can set upper land lower boundaries within a category for example. On the subject of MTG, they fail on balance too - see discussions on bans withim the standard format.

[@odeegrotsniffer4166]

Lmao, mtg is not balanced in standard. Mtg is not balanced anywhere, except maybe in limited formats. And you're leaving out modern, pioneer, etc. All the extended formats. You're also leaving out Commander: the single most popular way to play the game with almost every card printed.