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CS - v4.3.4 Topics?
thurse	Post subject: CS - v4.3.4 Topics? Posted: Fri Feb 17, 2006 5:52 pm
Brood Brother Joined: Sun Feb 05, 2006 3:13 pm Posts: 185 Location: Dundee, Scotland	I found something strange on the last tau list. It has perhaps already been reported, but here it is : 6 tetras = 175 points ( 29.1 per tetra ) +3 tetras =  75 points  (25 per tetra ) In comparison : 6 piranhas = 150 points ( 25 per piranha ) + 4 piranhas =  100 points ( 25 per piranha ) Why adding a cost to the tetra contingent and not to the piranha one?
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Tactica	Post subject: CS - v4.3.4 Topics? Posted: Fri Feb 17, 2006 6:32 pm
Brood Brother Joined: Sat Jul 09, 2005 12:12 am Posts: 2241	Thurse, Different units have different impacts when taken as a stand alone formation vs. as an upgrade. Some formations get weaker, some formations get stronger based upon their rules and impact on the rest of the list. Tau Examples, 1 - Tau Jet Pack equipped troops joining infantry without jet packs loose some of their potential in speed and combat avoidance. When fielded together, they are more valuable. 2 - When marker light tetras are bolted onto a seperate formation that doesn't have them, the tetras have to get close to become effective in their main role. They formation they are bolted onto now have to be drug in close as well. The tetra as an upgrade has limited uses as other Tau formations usually don't want to be close if they can avoid it. 3 - However, as a stand alone formation, the tetra can scout in close to do their job well enough... JG felt they did their job as a stand alone formation too well so gave them a bump in points from their upgrade per unit variant. There were people that disagreed with that increase BTW. 4 - Piranhas provide the same benefit to the player whether they are in a stand alone formation or bolted on and thus far they have proved to be balanced in either role. Non-Tau examples: Shadowswords are cheaper when fielded in threes as a company. However, when individually fielded - they go up in cost. Warhound titans are the same price whether they are individually fielded or whether they are fielded in pairs. Cheers, _________________ Rob
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dysartes	Post subject: CS - v4.3.4 Topics? Posted: Fri Feb 17, 2006 10:10 pm
Brood Brother Joined: Mon Nov 08, 2004 12:16 pm Posts: 908	Here's a general question for the Tau players: are you going to downgrade anything (other than the assumed alteration to the A-X-10), or are you just going to increase the power of the list further? Not meaning to start an argument here, but I'm intrigued - why the need for further increases in the lists power when (according to Battlestats) you're winning a higher % of games than the Eldar list? Just some food for thought (I hope)... *Ducks into a trench, dons his promethium-proof armour, and legs it..... _________________ The forgotten Champion - AMTL, baby! Dysartes.com - Resources for the Modern Wargamer - Last updated: December 2004 - Next Update: In Progress Sentinels are just young titans that haven't grown up yet!
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nealhunt	Post subject: CS - v4.3.4 Topics? Posted: Fri Feb 17, 2006 11:03 pm
Purestrain Joined: Thu Feb 13, 2003 10:52 pm Posts: 9617 Location: Nashville, TN, USA	Heh.  I hadn't noticed the battlestats.  I'd say the trend to have so many possible options may be having a cumulative effect. _________________ Neal
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Tactica	Post subject: CS - v4.3.4 Topics? Posted: Sat Feb 18, 2006 12:00 am
Brood Brother Joined: Sat Jul 09, 2005 12:12 am Posts: 2241	Quote (dysartes @ 17 Feb. 2006 (15:10)) Here's a general question for the Tau players: are you going to downgrade anything (other than the assumed alteration to the A-X-10), or are you just going to increase the power of the list further? Not meaning to start an argument here, but I'm intrigued - why the need for further increases in the lists power when (according to Battlestats) you're winning a higher % of games than the Eldar list? Just some food for thought (I hope)... *Ducks into a trench, dons his promethium-proof armour, and legs it..... [EDIT] I've removed my original comments here [/EDIT] This question assumes Battles Stats as a quantifiable scientific measure by which any credance should be given. So one must first question whether Battle stats is a reliable source of measure. If in a given period of time, battle stats is being updated an equal amount of time by a multitude (wide variety) of players that do NOT have the same agenda, then we can start to give *some* wieght to its results reported. However, if its being updated by a select few more than others, and the amount of data is only a negligable subset from those actually playing, and if one particular point in time can skew the results, then we would say the data is wieghted - heh, to say the *least* about battle stats. I for one, quit updating Battle Stats many MANY months (if not years) ago. I know I've lost more than I've won with the tau and only recently seen a balance of results against *some* lists. I suspect if you look most recently (in the last month or two), many if not most of the updates will be from TRC and his group which some would say he had an agenda to prove concerning the AX-1-0 - which is now being addressed BTW. So if we could somehow remove all of those 'wins' which he claimed he was posting, we could then address the rest of the stats - and then again, we'd have to assume that we would have an equal amount of data provided by a multitude of players over a given period of time. We would then have to further compare that data from that time against the list of that time. So you see - battle stats is quite questionable from any scientific measure - much less, a development standard. [obvious extremes mode on] Regards to 'every seeing toning down'... If we would have started with Tau list has 2+ to hit with everything, all units cost 1 point each, and all units have initiative 1 with Strategy 6... [obvious extremes mode off] ...then your question would have more merit to me personally. [EDIT] I've removed my original comments here [/EDIT] _________________ Rob
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Tactica	Post subject: CS - v4.3.4 Topics? Posted: Sat Feb 18, 2006 12:01 am
Brood Brother Joined: Sat Jul 09, 2005 12:12 am Posts: 2241	Quote (nealhunt @ 17 Feb. 2006 (16:03)) Heh. ?I hadn't noticed the battlestats. ?I'd say the trend to have so many possible options may be having a cumulative effect. or there are [EDIT] other factors to consider [/EDIT] _________________ Rob
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clausewitz

Post subject: CS - v4.3.4 Topics? Posted: Sat Feb 18, 2006 12:23 am

Brood Brother Joined: Thu Jul 07, 2005 2:02 pm Posts: 916 Location: Glasgow, Scotland

or there are those on battlestats with an agenda... Yeah, we're all out to get you Tactica! Seriously though I don't think either Neal or Dysartes has an axe to grind with the Tau list.  There's no problem with people questioning the power level of the list.  In fact its necessary to keep us focused on creating a good balanced list thats fun to pay and fun to play against. Of course Battlestats isn't the be all and end all of measures of list power.  But it is an oft-quoted statistic when other lists are being discussed (SM and Eldar come to mind).   Besides the answer to the question is yes.  We do downgrade units that our extensive playtesting shows a problem with.  The "dreaded" AX-1-0 is an example of that, and a while back the Broadsides became LV, which most people will agree is a slight downgrade. I am confident that we can discuss these issues in a friendly manner.

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nealhunt	Post subject: CS - v4.3.4 Topics? Posted: Sat Feb 18, 2006 12:43 am
Purestrain Joined: Thu Feb 13, 2003 10:52 pm Posts: 9617 Location: Nashville, TN, USA	Everyone is aware of the limitations of the Battlestats site.  Personally, I take it simply as a metastudy of batreps.  Regardless of the potential for various kinds of error to creep in, it seems to be holding pretty close to board-reported experiences over the long haul. _________________ Neal
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dysartes

Post subject: CS - v4.3.4 Topics? Posted: Sat Feb 18, 2006 12:59 am

Brood Brother Joined: Mon Nov 08, 2004 12:16 pm Posts: 908

Originally posted by Tactica Not meaning to start an argument here? Really? What did you expect with this post? How constructive was your post? Yes, really. My intention was to get people to take a step back and question whether improvement on improvement is actually needed (which is what the inital post seemed to reflect), and to provide figures from one of the few sources of such information around. As for how constructive was it? It's got at least one other person thinking. That, if nothing else, is constructive, as I understand it. Originally posted by Tactica This question is agenda driven to say the least, but I'll humor it.

Counter-humoring - What agenda do you see?

Originally posted by Tactica
This question assumes Battles Stats as a quantifiable scientific measure by which any credance should be given.

So one must first question whether Battle stats is a reliable source of measure.

To my knowlege, its as reliable as anything of this type can be - though you'd need to ask Pixelgeek about that.

As for if any credence should be given to it - figures from the stats are used as justification for why the Eldar, BSM & Feral Orks need toning down (despite the BSM having ~15-20% of the games Tau have, and F.Orks having about 10%). Statistics from there are also used as justification for tweaking the SM list upwards, seeing as it has won a mere 33.7% of their games.

As a general rule, though, the larger the sample size, the more accurate the results.

Originally posted by Tactica
If in a given period of time, battle stats is being updated an equal amount of time by a multitude of players that do not have the same agenda - we can start to give it some wieght to its results.

However, if its being updated by a select few more than others, then we would say the data is wieghted - to say the least.

I for one, quit updating Battle Stats many, many months (if not years) ago. I know I've lost more than I've won and only recently seen a balance against some lists.

Last I heard, the intention was for as many people as possible to report into B.Stats, especially with results from tournaments or other such events. Assuming this is the case, and I have no reason to doubt it,

Originally posted by Tactica
I suspect if you look most recently (in the last month or two), many if not most of the updates will be from TRC and his group which some would say he had an agenda to prove concerning the AX-1-0 - which is now being addressed.

So if we could somehow remove all of those 'wins' which he claimed he was posting, we could then address the rest of the stats - and then again, we'd have to assume that we would have an equal amount of data provided by a multitude of players over a given period of time. We would then have to further compare that data from that time against the list of that time.

Addressing the first paragraph first, which seems to make sense, I don't have access to that level of data. I don't know if anyone does, bar whoever maintains the database with the results on it. Furthermore, I don't recall seeing TRC mention that he'd submitted his results to B.Statas or not, though knowing TRC, I wouldn't be surprised.

Looking at the second paragraph, I'm a little confused as to what you think makes TRC's games less valid than anyone else's, merely because he was testing a particular combination - that, after all, is part of the development process. The "5 Aces" list which he was using appears to have remained stable for quite a while, which certainly makes it viable as a tournemant list. He was playing opponents who didn't know who or what they were facing on a given evening (I accept that they may have known the player, but probably not the force or list being used - without TRC online, we can't confirm this, though), so the "Out of the Box" criteria can be met - in a way, it fits for TRC as well, as he didn't appear to be tailoring his list for specific opponents. The games were at about average size (2700 points, IIRC), and were played using GT Scenario rules - as far as I'm concerned, perfectly valid playtest games.

I'll admit it - I fail to see why you'd say they didn't count, given that they met the above criteria.

Originally posted by Tactica
So you see - battle stats is quite useless from any scientific measure - much less, a development standard.

Note: I've had to clean up my post here. Suffice it to say I've gained a new appreciation today.



If we were to solely work off Battlestats, then yes, in its current form I'd agree with you. However, it is meant to be there as a quick reference, so we can pick up obvious list imbalances at the army vs army level.

I'm curious as to what you've gained a new appreciation of, too - is a question about the possibility of force downgrades discouraged?