My opinion:

Fully accounting for general opinions not backed up by battle reports allows too much authorial bias into the army list design process. Its not a question that people who just give opinion are lying, its a question of the fact that by definition they are not giving objective data, just heresay.

Every opinion includes bias that is unavoidable, whether contextual (quality of opponents, styles of play, occaisional rules mistakes, the access to terrain, even luck). Add to this the fact that people can and do have a perspective that can twist their view of data, then the weight of opinoin is lessened in my eyes.

Therefore its not arguable that its of equal merit to battle report data, which minimises bias as it allows the reader to do the interpretation him(or her)self.

Its potentially arguable that opinion can add a gloss onto battle report data, but change should only be driven by as objective data as possible.

To do anything else removes community power from the design process - it means those who speak loudest and speak most will have their bias included within the decision making process. One of the appealing things for me about epic has been community involvement. As counter intuitive as it sounds, including heresay opinion lessens that.

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They are free, yes, but not entirely free; for they have a master, and that master is Law.

Noone has addressed the vital point - just because a unit acts a certain way in a battle report, that doesn't mean it's over/underpowered. Battle reports compromise maybe 1% of the games played, and that's just not a large enough sample to avoid a huge margin of error.

Experience gained over a large number of games is more accurate as statistical evidence than the cherry picking that goes with battle reports. Too often the 'evidence' of a battle report or two is used, which could easily be statistical noise.

During the Necron development, time and again several people mentioned that we had an almost perfect win record with them, and a 50ish% win record with other armies. Yet, time and a again this was "refuted" by saying "well, look at battle report X, the necrons lost there.". That one battle report was extremely harmful to the development of the list, as it was taken as evidence that the list was balanced, which proved blatently untrue.

Unless every single game of Epic is written up as a battle report, and the statistics calculated from that, they are harmful as a method of list development. The margin of error is unacceptable. There's no way I'm writing up every game I play.

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http://www.troublemakergames.co.uk/
Epic: Hive Development Thread

Why not write up every battle you *playtest*?

There's a big difference between "playing games" and "playtesting games", and, honestly, it's actually pretty easy to do battle reports; I churn out tonnes of them, and, I think I'm safe in believing, they're pretty decent and they really don't need to take a lot of effort.  

You don't need to write up anything funny or do a backstory or anything like that.  You can just keep a record of actions/results as the turns progress, and some pictures of setup and positioning.  Hell, you don't even have to do a play-by-play write-up, but can just take some notes and post an after action report with some photos. I don't see how that can be hard.

And, here's the important bit: discuss with your opponent *before* the game that it's going to be a playtest and reported... so they can help!  Hand the recording duties or camera back and forth as you play, each take notes, discuss stuff afterwards, make the playtesting part of the fun.  When ever I have people over to play EPIC I ask them if they'd like to playtest or "just play", and more times than not, they want to playtest!  They like seeing the games posted online and seeing what other people think of tactial choices (The one Necron player is disappointed no one has commented on "Pylon bombs".) and feel good about being part of the design process.

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"EPIC: Total War" Lead Developer

Now living in Boston... any EPIC players want to meet up?

I take your point that people draw too firm conclusions from single battle reports, but that is an argument against poor use of the data gleaned from battle reports, not an argument for watering down the data gained with opinion.

Quite honestly the issue here is that yes, it is a very large and possibly frustrating task to methodically go through the process to make lists balanced.

THe point isnt that opinions can't be right, its that there is no way of judging whether they are or not to the observer. From a battle report, the observer has a better chance of deciding for himself.

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They are free, yes, but not entirely free; for they have a master, and that master is Law.

Let me take a crack at summarizing the last half dozen posters...

Batreps are not a perfect system for balancing army lists, but they have turned our to be one of the best tools in helping in those endeavours, running in a close tie with intuition.

Fair enough?

Point in fact: Neal Hunt is one of the most trusted people on these boards and Epic is second nature to him.  He constantly issued warnings about Monolith popcorn armies that would slaughter any player.  Chroma's series of popcorn batreps mitigated that worry sufficiently so that we were better able to make decisions on balancing the Monolith pricing.

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author of Syncing Forward and other stories...

It's a dog-eat-dog world, and I've got my Milkbone underwear on.

I like the pictures ...

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Legion 4 "Cry Havoc, and let slip the Dogs of War !" ... "People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf."

Precisely the sort of thing I'm talking about. I still feel the popcorn army is broken, and my playtests show this, but apparently that has been debunked by a couple of battle reports. I contend that those were statistical anomolies, and that on average the popcorn army will, even with the monolith downgrades and price increases, still annihiliate most opposition.

Just because a couple of battle reports showed it to be ok, that doesn't mean it actually is ok. Conversely, if I post a battle report showing them broken, that doesn't mean they're broken, it means in the context of that battle they were effective.

By playing multiple games and number crunching can we get the real impression.

I'm not saying battle reports aren't useful, but I think it's pretty offensive to say that without a battle report an opinion is worthless, as several people have done.

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http://www.troublemakergames.co.uk/
Epic: Hive Development Thread

Not to me. I play 1-3 games a week, and almost all of them are "playtests", experimenting with new stats, costs etc. I shouldn't have to write up every game for my opinions to not be considered worthless. I shouldn't be accused of lying just because I have a different opinion on the usefulness of battle reports.

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http://www.troublemakergames.co.uk/
Epic: Hive Development Thread

Could you direct me to these playtests or any reports on them?

With individual Monoliths costing 125 points and three FF5+ attacks, how, do you feel, they are broken?  Could you take this to the Necron forum to discuss?  With the reduction in their firepower and increase in points, I've found Monoliths greatly reduced in power.  With "infinite" FF attacks of old, I can see how brutal a "Murder of Monoliths" could be, but how are they *still* broken?  Just because they allow massed, cheap, formation?  All armies can do that, what, specifically, is wrong with Necrons in this regard?

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"EPIC: Total War" Lead Developer

Now living in Boston... any EPIC players want to meet up?

I don't know what the heck this "lying" thing is all about, but why can't you post a list of forces, a picture of deployment, and some play-by-plays about those fights?  And, I hate to say it, but you *do* seem to have a difference in "playtesting" and "playing"; to me, it seems you enjoy experimenting with stats/changes/etc, but, if you're not reporting that, you're not actually playtesting, you're experimenting at home... and I don't see how that can help change lists for everyone else.  Playtesting is experimenting *and* sharing the information discovered, along with the processes that got you that information.

Seeing the terrain setup people use, their deployments, and the moves they make all help to allow others to understand how their opinions on things are formed.

Just get your opponent to take notes as you act and take notes as they act!  *laugh*  I'd love to see your reports.

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"EPIC: Total War" Lead Developer

Now living in Boston... any EPIC players want to meet up?

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http://www.troublemakergames.co.uk/
Epic: Hive Development Thread

I have never said your opinion is worthless.  I have said that I value batreps over your conjecture and your summations.

 I contend that those were statistical anomolies, and that on average the popcorn army will, even with the monolith downgrades and price increases, still annihiliate most opposition

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author of Syncing Forward and other stories...

It's a dog-eat-dog world, and I've got my Milkbone underwear on.

Exactly.

"Your playtests" are completely useless to the rest of us if we never see the information.  For example, how are "Murder of Monolith" armies broken in your area?  What are they annihilating?  Can anything stop them or are they completely dominant?  You just saying, "They're broken" doesn't help anyone determine what to change to fix any possible problems.

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"EPIC: Total War" Lead Developer

Now living in Boston... any EPIC players want to meet up?

5 x Phalanx = 1125
15 x Monolith = 1875
total 3000

20 activations

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http://www.troublemakergames.co.uk/
Epic: Hive Development Thread

I wasn't referring to you saying my opinion was worthless, I was referring to others in the Tau debate.


So you haven't DONE the popcorn army with the new list then...  

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http://www.troublemakergames.co.uk/
Epic: Hive Development Thread