How is 40k 7th edition "less competitive" than 40k 5th edition

[Auticus]

A topic that is brought up often, but one that rarely has any real insightful answers:

5th edition is considered the paramount of "competitive" editions... and 7th edition is "not competitive" and for RPG gamers that want to forge a narrative.

So how exactly is 5th edition more competitive than 7th?

Some cite game balance, however that is a very large laugh. Game balance was shoddy in 3rd, shoddy in 4th, shoddy in 5th, shoddy in 6th, and shoddy today. Every edition has had reams of topics on how the game is not balanced yet people tried tournament gaming them anyway.

However with 6th suddenly you just couldn't do that anymore, people claimed.

No - game balance definitely is not the real answer to me. No one can say that if they had lived through the eldar starcannon spam days, or the blood angels rhino rush days, or the chaos 3.5 codex days, or the leaf blower guard days, or the draigo and his buddy paladins days that nearly 4 out of 5 gamers around my parts pushed.

Balance - lol that one is a red herring. Most guys that want competitive tournaments actively try to break the game in the list building phase. The list building phase is the biggest factor in tournament gaming if you are playing to win - show up with a weak list and no matter how good you are you are going to be at a severe handicap.

Also things like super heavies being in normal games is also a red herring because most tournaments don't allow those or seriously restrict them in some ways.

Still others cite shoddy rules - but again the rules have always been complained about. Every edition there have been reams of threads about how crappy the rules are, but still tournament players were content with rolling until 6th.

So what were the biggest changes? What happened in 6th? Balance and shoddy rules are often cited but those existed in every edition and were complained about in every edition LOUDLY.

Wound allocation? That certainly shouldn't cause the game to be less competitive. Some may find it more annoying because you have to remove closest models but that doesn't really cause a game to be less competitive. It killed off the favored power build of the day (draigo and his paladins) but that is true with any edition change as one powerlist gives way to the other.

I think the biggest change that is commonly griped about are two fold:
1) allies
2) forge world

How so?

In 3rd, 4th, and 5th edition there were usually three power builds that the vast majority of players took (i am speaking from heavy 3rd and 4th tournament experience and saw it in 5th after i had gotten out of tournament play). You went in with one of the power lists, hoping to play the list you hard countered, and praying you didn't meet your hard counter that could beat you.

In 6th and 7th with allies and forge world present, there are many more combinations that result in having six or seven power builds present... which can hard counter a number of extreme lists themselves.

This makes it more difficult to list build against. (the misnomer "Take All Comers" list that people want is not really a "Take All Comers" list, it is a "Take on the Other Power Build I expect to face and Min/Max the Meta")

I think that this is the biggest gripe at the root.

Forge World was lobbied against for pretty much a decade because gamers:
1) didn't want to have to buy those books to memorize the rules too (or be at a disadvantage - something seen as heresy if you are a serious tournament player)

2) cited how "imbalanced" they were (with a straight face, while pushing the latest power build that broke the game)

When you get down to its base - I feel strongly that its not really about balance or shoddy rules or any of that - but more about you can't list build as effectively as you could in the past because the diversity is a lot greater today on what you can face that is still effective whereas in the past you had to worry about three on average powerlists (and you were bringing one so you had to know how to fight the other two)

Today you can face six or seven power lists and the listbuilding phase is much harder to win in.

[ShadowcatX]

Honestly, it sounds like your own personal bias is in the way. Any time you discount a legitimate complaint with "its a laugh" as you have here you pretty much invalidate your claims.

[Auticus]

I wish someone could quantify that legitimate complaint.

[Erik Setzer]

Eh... I don't know what the deal is. I do know there are days when I play a game or two of 40K and then feel so disheartened that I just want to go home right then and forget the game exists. Last weekend was yet another day like that, I first faced off against the new Necrons, where Nightbringer was absolutely ridiculous (granted, this was a 1000 point game). Sure, some of that game was down to meh dice rolls, but it just felt like I could throw everything at one model and it'd soak it up and not care, and dish out a lot more damage in return. The next game was Grey Knights... three Dreadknights in a 1000 point army. They mauled my army. On Saturday I'll likely be facing the infamous Space Wolf/IG hybrid with Endurance and Telepathy and a unit of Thunderwolf Cavalry that at best I might be able to fling something in front of to slow them down, so that probably won't help.

Maybe I'm just getting old or something, but I never felt this bad this often. I build armies that are designed to be balanced and fit the fluff... and they end up getting destroyed easily. For me to match these other armies, I'd have to go find the really hard stuff, and build a list around that.

I know balance has been crazy at times in the past. I haven't played Blood Angels since 3rd edition because I felt so dirty playing them at the time. Then there were the Iron Warriors armies, which I found out you could beat by just being a complete lunatic and confusing your opponents by doing things no sane person would do. And the 4th edition Space Marine codex could allow for some fluffy builds (and I'm really annoyed I can't do the one I wanted any more)... but then you had things like my dad's gun line army with multiple Devastator squads with Tank Hunters or Infiltrators, an army I borrowed once and snoozed through a tournament with. So yeah, not going to claim there was ever a magical perfect time.

I think part of it, for me, is the lack of viable assault without those killer units. Part of the fun of the game has disappeared because it seems to come down to uber-units either shooting or assaulting each other. But that's not so much an issue of "competitive," except I guess that you can't do the kind of list I consider fun and still be competitive.

I do believe that 7th edition gets its reputation mostly from Unbound and Tactical Objectives. Unbound removes all restrictions and lets you take the cheesiest buggery you want, and Tactical Objectives are incredibly random and bad luck on the draw could lose you a game before it's really started. Now, sure, you don't have to go crazy with Unbound, and Tactical Objectives should mostly be for fun games, but the perception of them remains at all times.

I haven't personally seen any tournaments in 7th yet, outside of Unbound tournaments, which went all kinds of silly. I've seen the results of tourneys at stores around town, and it seems the Eldar tend to grab the top spot most of the time, but that's not really new.

[Auticus]

Thanks for the reply Erik.

When I first started in 3rd my first army was Dark Angels and I was owned quite a bit because my army just wasn't up to snuff against what was the common builds of the day (mostly space wolves and blood angels rhino rush with a smattering of star cannon spam)

The day I picked up eldar star cannon spam, I went on a year and a half mauling of everyone I played. I lost two games (both in tournaments) - one to an ork player the other to a nid player. I went from losing every game to winning every game because of my army choice. That was 1998 - 2000.

When I tried playing a fluffy army in 4th, I went back to being owned half the time. When I switched to leaf blower - same thing. Won most of my games. My first chaos army was thousand sons. Owned most of the time. Switched to power list 3.5 dex - won most of the time.

I do think you hit the nail on the head though - its the perception that unbound can exist that has people steamed. Most of the big tournaments I've seen don't allow unbound and don't allow super heavies or heavily restrict them, so when I see 7th edition tournaments I note that they play out a lot like 5th edition. There are two or so builds that usually dominate and the rest fall where they may.

This is where I don't see how 7th is less competitive than 3, 4, or 5th.

[Defenestratus]

Talking about a game of dice and plastic dolls in any sense that its a competitive endeavor is silly at the onset.

[Mr Mystery]

Talking about a game of dice and plastic dolls in any sense that its a competitive endeavor is silly at the onset.

Yup.

And can someone please quantify the term 'viable', because to me, with Unbound on offer, anything is viable within your points.

[vonDietdrich]

Talking about a game of dice and plastic dolls in any sense that its a competitive endeavor is silly at the onset.

While it's certainly never going to be chess, most 'games with dolls' that sell rulebooks recognize that those rules ought to possess at least some claim to quality, consistency, and fairness for both (or all) players involved. That's common courtesy for a game that you can sink an hour or more into.. and makes people actually want to play the game. You could even argue that competitiveness (which can also be called 'fair chances to win for both players', cetaris paribus) is the main selling point of a rulebook. Nobody wants to sink their time into a game where they've lost at the outset, and they shouldn't have to.

'You're just glorified children, make pew-pew noises instead of having thoughts about things' is not a compelling way to shut down this conversation.

Anyway..

The biggest problems started showing up when GW realized that it could sell formations as a way to guarantee sales of specific kits, imo. Like the Fire Support Cadre and the Ghost Warriors formations that it sold over the holidays a couple years ago, they realized 'hey, if we make rules to make a certain combination of kits better, people will buy more of those kits all at once!'

And then formations started showing up everywhere, and in many cases they completely altered how a unit performed or gave it extra rules.. with no extra point price per model. And as we're getting into 7th, we're starting to see just how much of a pain this is, especially combined with the new Allies rules. The biggest selling point of the day one DLC 'companion codexes' is the formations.

Combine this with the game theory concept of 'dominant strategies', basically, strategies inherent in the game which are literally better than the other options 100% of the time. Many weapons and models in the game have this problem: there is no reason to take quite a few of them, because another choice is just superior in every possible way. GW rules design suffers from this quite a bit, especially in 40k (though I've noticed it in newer Fantasy books also).

The result is, community standards for the game have shifted to be more relaxed and all-inclusive, just like GW wanted them to. Except that also includes 'everyday game' lists with two Riptides, a Baneblade with a dedicated Divination buffer, and all of the other utter nonsense that I see when I look over at the 40k tables of my FLGS these days.

Is it possible to play friendly games? Yes, if you're lucky to have a good community that supports them. But in larger communities, it's drowned out by the cheese-list spam. Fluffy lists are just worse, unfortunately, because they're substantially less points-efficient than the good models. And the prevailing attitude is 'well GW says you can do it in the book, so it's okay for me to bring a Lord of War superheavy to every game'... it's just an arms race for who can buy the silliest models or formations, and that's an attitude I don't want to play with.

[Dave Mcturk]

Talking about a game of dice and plastic dolls in any sense that its a competitive endeavor is silly at the onset.

but poking someone with a tiny red plastic dot on the end of a flexible metal rod within 45 seconds is an olympic sport ?

[40kGamer]

I think you've hit near the heart of the current competitive complaints quite nicely. The game has progressed from a few spammed power builds that everyone could anticipate to a limitless supply of stinky cheese lists. This state of complete imbalance has now created a weird pseudo balance in and of itself. Such as you may as well take what you like cause there are a bazillion different lists that can wipe the table with whatever you choose anywho.

My biggest complaint at the moment is the plethora of rapid fire rules changes that have lead created an environment where rules errors are the norm rather than the exception. It is also essentially impossible to 'know' everything, so as a player you're not going to realize that things were played wrong until long after an event has closed. Either that or you burn a lot of game time clarifying and researching rules.