I think having a set number of games is a very good idea, it sets a definite target for people to aim for.
I do think the AC should have latitude to make some minor tweaks to the list if these tweaks have widespread approval at the conclusion of the 15-18 games.

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http://hordesofthings.blogspot.co.nz/

Maybe it's time to talk thoose numbers over dince it's obviously not working very well at all. Maybee change it to fifteen games in total but wirh only 2 playgroups as the minimum (3 could do 5 each, 4 could do 4 each).

It would be great seeing the blood angels, the AMTL, Gargant Zbig Mob, Tyranids and Squats get approved very soon!
Then theres the Vior'la Tau, the Iron Hands Marines and some of the chaos lists.

We can't really complain about Grandma Wendy killing the game if we employ regulations that caused total stagnation in list development, becsuse we're killing it ourselves then.

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"You have a right to be offended" - Steve Hughes
"Your feelings are hurting my thoughts" - Aron Flam

To play Devil's Advocate, G Dubya are currently killing the competitive side of their flagship 40K game by rapidly releasing unbalanced, insufficiently tested codexes, dataslates, escalations and expansions. In my opinion, the impact of untested, overpowered or broken lists on a game is far more negative than a delay in new releases.

Having said that, I don't personally have an objection to more flexibility in the amount of playtests or how many locations they come from if the current approach is too rigid, but since there are a lot of approved armies already the quality of new additions is more important than the quantity.

Thanks but that was not what I meant. (Trying to rephrase myself ) Lets take the Aliatoc list, is it 4.0 in the Tournament pack?

I totally agree! The fixed number of games have its point in that you force people to actually play the list, it is the actual form of the report that I question. Wouldn't an army list of both armies, a score and a small text with conclusions be enough?

There are a number of lists in the approved status but no tyranids and no squats, that is not good, and by the look of it they will never be approved and allowed at tournaments etc. The way around this seems to be that if some of the people actually have Tyranids then we "allow" lists in development at the tournaments, but then you open up for lists that actually are developing and might ruin the balance...

Right now we give new players a false hope that some day their army will be approved.

I would actually disagree with this. From the progress we have made with the Squats I would expect tehm to be approved within the next 6 months. Although there are things that I believe still need ironing out in 1.4 I would be happy to approve it as is if the AC wished to put it forward.

Same goes with Tyranids, there are some combinations which I feel have not been tested enough to check for balance, but the list can be finished off very quickly without any major changes.

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www.epic-uk.co.uk - home of the UK Epic tournament scene
NetEA NetERC Xenos Lists Chair
NetEA Ork + Feral Ork + Speed Freak Champion

Really cool to hear! But CAN BE is something and WILL BE is another thing. And according to Dave theres been no list development in the recent years...

I agree that AMTL, Squats and Tyranids should probably have first dibs on being approved. They're not variants of any of the other lists.

I also agree on that theres good to have a charter in place that tries to keep balance/Quality of lists up. But if it proves to strict and actually halts the process completly then it should be reworked! It's not a matter of black and white, but shades of grey.
For instance keeping the 18 battles but lower the minimum amount of playgroup from 3 to 2 (and also letting the 18 battles be split on more groups of course!) is a small adjustment that could help. I have alot of time on my hands and realy like this game (especially the AMTL list) so i could provide alot of playtest data. But it doesn't matter right now because when i've done my 6 reports then we're stuck until 2 other guys with the same enthusiasm AND time comes along.

When something stagnates it eventually dies. In this time when: A) The community are the ones keeping the game alive, which lets it shape the game like the players want to and B) Lots of independet designers are putting out awesome models that work woderfull as proxies to the games forces. Shouldn't we use this opportunity to futher evolve the game and keep it going forward? If the old guard feel like they don't have the time or interest in doing so maybe there should be some changes at that level?
Here in Sweden I´m actually convinced Epic will start to grow a little again as more and more guys seems to be interested in the game when you talk about it. And when 40K gets beaten to death by it's creators then this is a excellent time to give players an alternative ruleset within the same cool universe!

So, to use a really old phrase: Are we going to be a part of the problem or the sollution?

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"You have a right to be offended" - Steve Hughes
"Your feelings are hurting my thoughts" - Aron Flam

I think cutting the number of games down to 4 would be better than reducing the number of groups, as we've seen from recent discussions, different groups round the world have very different metagames, Onyx and his group play terrain very differently from the way we play it, there's no right and wrong way, but if has a massive effect on list balance if we test out something and because terrain blocks more LoS in our games, we might say 'yeah that gun is fine' but the Perth crew might find it far too powerful with their more TLoS approach

reducing the number of groups means lists don't get the breadth of playtesting they require and could lead to lists being railroaded by people really keen to get them approved, before some people have been able to get the games in....

I also agree wholeheartedly with Matt-Shadowlord's post (sums up my feelings perfectly) and quality is better than quantity

Also unless you're playing in tournaments, I'm pretty sure you could happily use the same developmental list in your group forever unless someone has a major problem with it.... the 'approved' description doesn't mean your games are somehow less valid

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Just some guy

My hobby/painting threads

Army Forge List Co-ordinator

But the quality-argument can easily become a justification for stagnation (which it seems to have become) and thats never ever a good thing.

But I agree that maybe 4 games by 3 different groups would solve this. Or atleast make it easier.

The only big problem with this is that there is a strong probability that the debate about it would take a year and then alot of enthusiastic gamers would have grown tired of waiting and moved along...

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"You have a right to be offended" - Steve Hughes
"Your feelings are hurting my thoughts" - Aron Flam

unless you mostly play in tournaments, I don't see using a developmental list as being a huge problem really (and many event organisers will allow developmental lists on a case-by-case basis anyway) so it isn't a huge roadblock to using the list as much as you want

if the list is early developmental, then it probably needs a good year of playtesting anyway

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Just some guy

My hobby/painting threads

Army Forge List Co-ordinator

I think it's a mistake to assume that the requirement for 18 games from 3 playgroups is the reason why lists haven't been approved since it was instigated. The fact is that development was stagnated BEFORE this, and many people argued that this was (at least partly) because the community was not organised enough - there was no clear path to Approved status.

Now there is a clear path.

I also would not advocate reducing the number of groups required from 3 to 2, at least not yet. Metagames are VERY different between groups. However, I do think that the current "6 games each from 3 groups" might be a bit too restrictive, depending on how it is interpreted. Let's think for a minute about how lists actually develop:

1. A version of the list is published
2. Some games are played
3. The AC decides to change the things that are causing problems (maybe big things, maybe small things)
4. Repeat 2 and 3 several times
5. The AC decides the list is "ready" to move along to the next stage (developmental or approved) and submits it.

So, do you need 18 games from 3 groups of the same version of the list? Or something less restrictive. I think it's not hard to imagine a situation where a list is quite stable for a long time, except for one or two problems with certain units. The AC issues a change to "fix" those units. I think a case can be made that you don't need to reset the counter to zero afterwards. For me, as soon as 3 groups all say they have played at least 1 game with the fix and are happy they are balanced (note this is not the same as being happy with the unit overall), it should be deemed OK so long as all of the major issues that were raised in those 18 games have been subsequently fixed.

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Kyrt's trade list

No idea, the numbering on lists has never been consistent or followed any discernible pattern.



I'd actually like to see what the players did, one because it's more enjoyable and two so I can form opinions based on actual actions in the game rather than being given the opinion of someone who played it. Full battle reports are also helpful for getting a picture of the local meta, which is helpful when looking for ways to break a list.

At the end of the day, reducing the number of games required to get approval isn't going to solve anything if people aren't playtesting in the first place. If people want list X approved then playtest it. The ERC or an AC shouldn't be waving its wand and just calling it approved.

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Dave

Blog

NetEA Tournament Pack Website

Squats 2019-10-17

Ok, so it's better to carrying on as before then? Even though no lists have bern aporoved since the charter was put in place...

Sure you guys aren't secretly hired by The Grotesque Weirdos to kill all further interest in the game? ;-P

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"You have a right to be offended" - Steve Hughes
"Your feelings are hurting my thoughts" - Aron Flam

At the end of the day, a game without active development is a dead game.

If approving a list means its development ends, then you are burying the game in your very articles of association. Considering the extremely conservative ongoing policy towards approved lists, I can't say I am unhappy there is little move towards approved status of lists. For that matter, the conservativeness is already extended to Developmental lists, as those have also become increasingly difficult to even propose changes too.

Incidentally, I find the development path very easy to follow and I can only think that there is no real desire to bring lists to approved status for there not to be more of them up there. In view of the conditions for it to happen, it is clearly a political process, but the general approach to it has been hopelessly bureaucratic instead. With proper dynamic leadership, negotiated development, buzz creating and incentivization all the lists could have reached approved status long ago. Instead we just see a bunch of list administrators who just wait for the sun to dawn on them. It's a bit like running a parliament without an executive government: Laws will only exceptionally come through.

In essence, what I am saying that is that if ACs can't get new lists to approved status despite the extremely easy conditions to do so, we are definitely not hiring the right people for the job.

If desire to develop this game further is not lacking, then the first step is for central leadership to get its act together, set objectives, set timetables, delegate clear mandates to competent people, distribute incentives and personally contribute.

Then, monitoring, assessing, encouraging, and if the method fails, change method or change people involved. Ultimately, change leadership whenever ability to create momentum is lost.

With the quantity of players playing this game and the amount of interest it constantly generates, we should already be playtesting EA second edition at this time, so what are we waiting for?

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"War is not about who is right, but about who is left". - B. Russell

There seems to be more desire to approve lists right now than I've seen in the last year I've been on this board, probably a lot longer from what people keep saying. That must be a good thing right?

I'm all for getting lists approved but do we really need a second edition ruleset? If it ain't broke don't fix it and I don't see anything massively broken.

Hiring? No one's getting paid for this.

It takes playtests to get a list approved, an AC can't make the community test a list if they don't want to. Let's assume for a minute that this is not because of lack of interest but rather because of a difference in opinion on the list. "I don't like X in the list, so I'm not going to test it". Should we just drop that AC and appoint someone new? I guarantee anyone whoever comes in is not going to make everyone happy. So when they can't get the list approved for the same reasons do we dump them and start again?



In an ideal world, yes. But then we run into: real life issues popping up, lack of community interest/playtests and interest in the game waning due to the snide comments/needling/inability to compromise.

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Dave

Blog

NetEA Tournament Pack Website

Squats 2019-10-17