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Now I really like warhammer on the whole everything about it is really good, except, in my opinion, the game itself doesn't work very well.
Now before we write this off as conjecture, I would like to pose some evidence (anecdotal or otherwise).
From what I have seen on here (admittedly usually over the top) and my personal findings I believe the game is poorly designed.
The reason is that everyone manages to come up with the same conclusions on specific units and army lists from books independently of each other.
Using my personal experience I have looked at a number of codexes over the years and have instantly been able to draw out the 'best unit(s)' that are in the book. I have also been able to build the 'net list' myself without any input from anyone else. (You'll just have to take my word for that).

What I'm trying to say really is that the game really is as unbalanced and frustrating as everyone thinks it is if everyone looks at the same things and draws the same conclusions. Now that doesn't necessarily mean that particular people won't try to 'break the mould' in some attempt at variety, and kudos to them really.

What are the community thoughts on the game?

Also am I just a WAAC gamer because I instantly found the best units in the respective army and figured out how to make the 'best' lists or am I a product of a gaming environment that just offers me significantly better options?

I can falsify your argumentation simply by being someone who likes the game and who like other units then "everyone" (you will have a hard time finding an opinion where "everyone" agrees on). In Nova there was a winning Eldar list without Wave Serpents, so obviously there was at least one competitively successful player who didn't agree with "everyone".

Thus the main argument of your statement is falsified and as such the base of your claim that "warhammer is a poorly made game". Also weird: are you talking about 40k, which this board is about? Or about Warhammer Fantasy?

I like the game a lot and tbh its rare we have rules issues - the problem is that some units are way way too good for their points and some are absolutely terrible for their point - often in the same Codex - eg Wave Serpents are cheese incarnate and Howling Banshees are dire.

Couple this with a lack of FAQs/errata to fix these issues, compound it by making codexes in multiple books as "Supplements" / Dataslates and stupid things like making the Serpent the only Eldar Dedicated Transport means the game is being killed by its own creation team.

Boniface remember a few days ago you were thinking about leaving because of your parrot etc?Well I think this thread is your answer.

 Murenius wrote:
I can falsify your argumentation simply by being someone who likes the game and who like other units then "everyone" (you will have a hard time finding an opinion where "everyone" agrees on).

Actually, your liking the game doesn't falsify that it's poorly made.

If lack of balance can be objectively displayed (pyrovores and wave serpents) that's evidence enough that a game is poorly made. Though the game is complex enough that a having wave serpents alone doesn't insure a win, but I think it's pretty commonly felt that wave serpents are better than pyrovores.

A slightly more subjective point, the simple fact you have 3+ opportunities to move in any given turn, to me, is bad design in a game with as many models as 40k typically uses. I think this is indicative of a poorly made game.

It doesn't mean you can't like the game, you might not even consider those points in your liking or disliking of the game... but that doesn't change they are examples of a poorly made game.

I like to look at the ratio between General and YMDC threads. For example, right now there are 509k rules-related threads and 699k General threads in the 40k section. This gives us a ratio of 0.73, which is pretty high. Similarly Fantasy sits at 0.65, implying a high amount of clarification is needed. In contrast, Warmachine sits pretty at 0.093. I like this approach because it takes the traffic into account between more or less popular games. It implies that there are something like 7 times less rules threads needed for a game in the same market with similar objectives.

Another far more personal point is that I would gladly recommend my friends, family and acquaintances to pick up a WarmaHorde force, or take the plunge into Infinity or DZC if a friend picked it up. I could not do the same for 40k and the only reason I am still here is because I've already paid for the rules, paints and codices a long time ago and don't need to face the startup cost again.

It's poor because the company that produces the product believes it's a model company and not a wargame company

Mozzamanx wrote:
I like to look at the ratio between General and YMDC threads. For example, right now there are 509k rules-related threads and 699k General threads in the 40k section. This gives us a ratio of 0.73, which is pretty high. Similarly Fantasy sits at 0.65, implying a high amount of clarification is needed. In contrast, Warmachine sits pretty at 0.093. I like this approach because it takes the traffic into account between more or less popular games. It implies that there are something like 7 times less rules threads needed for a game in the same market with similar objectives.

Another far more personal point is that I would gladly recommend my friends, family and acquaintances to pick up a WarmaHorde force, or take the plunge into Infinity or DZC if a friend picked it up. I could not do the same for 40k and the only reason I am still here is because I've already paid for the rules, paints and codices a long time ago and don't need to face the startup cost again.

7th edition is less than 6 months old. You said you purchased the rules a long time ago. You consider 6 months a long time?

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
Actually, your liking the game doesn't falsify that it's poorly made.

That's correct, but I just falsified his argumentation. Anyone is free to present a better one - like you outlined. Still, his one is flawed.

I accept the flaw in the generalisation of the term 'everyone'.
Ignoring personal feelings on the game (which to an extent I still love) I cant help but notice the many failing in it.

I think it was best summed up by

 Da krimson barun wrote:
Boniface remember a few days ago you were thinking about leaving because of your parrot etc?Well I think this thread is your answer.

I believe you are right, I've been involved with this hobby for many years and have been trying to recapture my youth. Maybe it's time I move on to something else.

Exploring the other fantastic games out there has made me more excited about the hobby than ever. I just bought X-Wing and even reading the rules got me excited. It's a big hobby world out there. Explore the space.

Can only second that. I do not limit myself to one game and trying the other ones made my realize what I love with 40k.

There is a quote from Nietzsche that fits to your situation: " one has to proceed like a wanderer who wants to know how high the towers in a town are: he leaves the town."

If everything that is liked by somebody isn't poorly made, that when exactly is the definition of poorly made? Nothing on the planet fits the bill for poorly made lol if that was the case. But, thankfully its not and we can rest assured that the balance and design team behind current 40k either dont know how to do their job, are lazy at their job, or, far more likely than both, their job is actually just to spend as little time as possible getting something new out there on the shelves to sell.

The definition of poorly made is found in how many different ways a rule can be interpreted for advantage. A recent example from YMDC was the argument about using some wargear to deepstrike a fortification. The argument hinged on whether the fortification was a unit based on when it was deployed, and veered into what constitutes deployment. Multiple pages of theory and counter-theory. A well designed game would have more precisely worded rules to limit these arguments.

A well designed game wouldn't make some armies far more powerful than other armies, especially considering the time and money it takes to create an army.

 MWHistorian wrote:
A well designed game wouldn't make some armies far more powerful than other armies, especially considering the time and money it takes to create an army.

Going to have to disagree with this with a caveat:
You can't control what players do or do not bring.

If someone brings a list with a low model count which can't really shoot back and I brought my Illic Nightspear and Pathfinder list(3 units of 10 Pathfinders plus Illic), does that mean that Illic Nightspear and Pathfinders are overpowered?

What list did he bring that does that?

 Kanluwen wrote:

Going to have to disagree with this with a caveat:
You can't control what players do or do not bring.

If someone brings a list with a low model count which can't really shoot back and I brought my Illic Nightspear and Pathfinder list(3 units of 10 Pathfinders plus Illic), does that mean that Illic Nightspear and Pathfinders are overpowered?

No, it means that the theoretical balance and the theoretical low model count army would have some capacity to mitigate being shot to death, forcing both players to adapt and out play eachother.

What if they brought a low model count army that had superior shooting? Does that mean your list is underpowered?

We could play what-ifs forever, really.

It wouldn't matter so much what players bring if you make the game balanced in so far as no list or unit being head and shoulders above other lists and units.

I was talking more in general terms. Compare Eldar with CSM. Overall there's a huge power difference between the two codexs.
And that's not even mentioning the internal power levels. CSM: go Nurgle or go home style of play is boring. Mutilators? Warp Talons? 1Ksons? Penitent Engines? No excuses for such crappy units.
Wave Serpent? Riptides? No excuse for such an undercosted unit.

 MWHistorian wrote:
I was talking more in general terms. Compare Eldar with CSM. Overall there's a huge power difference between the two codexs.

Fair enough then. I misunderstood what you were saying.

And that's not even mentioning the internal power levels. CSM: go Nurgle or go home style of play is boring. Mutilators? Warp Talons? 1Ksons? Penitent Engines? No excuses for such crappy units.

And it's not even units alone that should be considered. It's upgrades as well.
There is no excuse for Guard to pay as much as they do for Vox-Casters, nor is there any excuse for Guard to pay Space Marine prices for melee/pistol upgrades on Veteran Sergeants.

Wave Serpent? Riptides? No excuse for such an undercosted unit.

I'm on the fence about Riptides. I've never seen them perform too well, personally, but the people I have seen use them might just have kitted them out wrong or something.

Wave Serpents though...there is a reason I refuse to get any of them for my Eldar at this point. 60" on that Shield Shot is just dumb.

What it sounds like the poster is really saying that there is poor internal balance in the codexes. This is a point about which most people agree, however it seems to be getting better as recent codexes (while people may cry about the best units getting nerfed) are more internally balanced. Giving more leyway to alter list.

That said, it isn't clear to me that poor internaly balance makes the game itself poor. Maybe it pushes you into certain list for each race but so what? once you build that list if there is a varity of races (which there are) to play against you can play and enjoy the game which means it certainly isn't "poor."

IN SHORT, has problems with internal balance, yes. Poor game? No.

 CrosisDePurger wrote:
What it sounds like the poster is really saying that there is poor internal balance in the codexes. This is a point about which most people agree, however it seems to be getting better as recent codexes (while people may cry about the best units getting nerfed) are more internally balanced. Giving more leyway to alter list.

That said, it isn't clear to me that poor internaly balance makes the game itself poor. Maybe it pushes you into certain list for each race but so what? once you build that list if there is a varity of races (which there are) to play against you can play and enjoy the game which means it certainly isn't "poor."

IN SHORT, has problems with internal balance, yes. Poor game? No.

For some people (myself included) being forced into a single army list because everything else just kinda sucks, is poor game design. I love the fluff for 1Ksons, but on the table they're just painfully awful. This is poor game design and puts me off of the game.

MWHistorian I see what you are saying and basically agree with you, but to me that is an issue with the game that isn't crippling. Is it a problem YES. But every game has problems, I always point to Starcraft 2 which is my favorite RTS of all time, but Starcraft 2 has problems, for example the vulnerability of the base encourages many forms of cheese and discourages engaging each other’s armies in the field which to me is the point of the whole game.

That doesn’t make it a poorly designed game though; it is a fun game, with issues. If 40k was poorly designed it wouldn’t have been around 30 years. Should it be more refined? feth YEAH. But having read every codex released this year I think they are moving in the right direction with regards to internal balance.

Boniface wrote:The reason is that everyone manages to come up with the same conclusions on specific units and army lists from books independently of each other.

This is the natural result of 40k being a strategy game.

A strategy game is one in which player choice effects the outcome of the game. This necessarily means that weaker decisions are more likely to make you lose, and stronger decisions are more likely to make you win. The less this is true, the less of a strategy game it is (until you get all the way down to the point of, say, rock paper scissors, where player choice has no impact on the outcome because its completely random).

40k has many parts of the game where a player's choices influence how the game will go, including in list building. Player choices matter here, just like in other parts of the game. Therefore, it's part of 40k being a strategy game.

Which means that for people who just want to win, they will do their research and experimentation, and apply their brain power and player skill, and come up with the strongest combination of units to bring (just as they would come up with the strongest combination of ways to deploy them, ways to move them, which units get targeted first, etc.). The natural result of having some things better than others is that one thing is at least slightly better than everything else. Which people who are looking to win will figure out. Regardless of the game.

So what's really bothering you about 40k, then, is that it has an element of strategy that you don't care for, not something fundamentally broken with the game. There are ways of fixing this in 40k, for example, insisting that you play mirror matches. Otherwise, I'd switch over to a game where choosing which pieces you play with don't matter, like chess (where you aren't given the freedom to choose), or monopoly (where each of the player tokens have exactly the same impact on the outcome of the game).

 Ailaros wrote:

Boniface wrote:The reason is that everyone manages to come up with the same conclusions on specific units and army lists from books independently of each other.

This is the natural result of 40k being a strategy game.

A strategy game is one in which player choice effects the outcome of the game. This necessarily means that weaker decisions are more likely to make you lose, and stronger decisions are more likely to make you win. The less this is true, the less of a strategy game it is (until you get all the way down to the point of, say, rock paper scissors, where player choice has no impact on the outcome because its completely random).

40k has many parts of the game where a player's choices influence how the game will go, including in list building. Player choices matter here, just like in other parts of the game. Therefore, it's part of 40k being a strategy game.

Which means that for people who just want to win, they will do their research and experimentation, and apply their brain power and player skill, and come up with the strongest combination of units to bring (just as they would come up with the strongest combination of ways to deploy them, ways to move them, which units get targeted first, etc.). The natural result of having some things better than others is that one thing is at least slightly better than everything else. Which people who are looking to win will figure out. Regardless of the game.

So what's really bothering you about 40k, then, is that it has an element of strategy that you don't care for, not something fundamentally broken with the game. There are ways of fixing this in 40k, for example, insisting that you play mirror matches. Otherwise, I'd switch over to a game where choosing which pieces you play with don't matter, like chess (where you aren't given the freedom to choose), or monopoly (where each of the player tokens have exactly the same impact on the outcome of the game).

I think the complaint is that this form of strategy cancels out the fluff and creativity aspect of the game.
If you're playing CSM and actually like to win, chances are you're going to have a mono-Nurgle army because point for point, they're just the best option. For some people that might want a Slaanesh or Tzencth themed army (Or heaven forbid, Iron Warriors or Word Bearers) that's not just boring, it's off putting to the game as a whole.

I concur that Warhammer is a poorly made game in that once I really got into it...

I was made poor haha!

Mozzamanx wrote:
I like to look at the ratio between General and YMDC threads. For example, right now there are 509k rules-related threads and 699k General threads in the 40k section. This gives us a ratio of 0.73, which is pretty high. Similarly Fantasy sits at 0.65, implying a high amount of clarification is needed. In contrast, Warmachine sits pretty at 0.093. I like this approach because it takes the traffic into account between more or less popular games. It implies that there are something like 7 times less rules threads needed for a game in the same market with similar objectives.

Another far more personal point is that I would gladly recommend my friends, family and acquaintances to pick up a WarmaHorde force, or take the plunge into Infinity or DZC if a friend picked it up. I could not do the same for 40k and the only reason I am still here is because I've already paid for the rules, paints and codices a long time ago and don't need to face the startup cost again.

However, consider that:
1. Warmachine is already a MUCH less popular game, therefore less posts are going to be made in the first place, especially when:
2. This is a Warhammer centric forum, so the amount of people that would come here for a ruling dispute is going to be low. If you were to go onto a Warmachine forum, you would find that not a lot of people ask Warhammer ruling questions.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

Mozzamanx wrote:
I like to look at the ratio between General and YMDC threads. For example, right now there are 509k rules-related threads and 699k General threads in the 40k section. This gives us a ratio of 0.73, which is pretty high. Similarly Fantasy sits at 0.65, implying a high amount of clarification is needed. In contrast, Warmachine sits pretty at 0.093. I like this approach because it takes the traffic into account between more or less popular games. It implies that there are something like 7 times less rules threads needed for a game in the same market with similar objectives.

Another far more personal point is that I would gladly recommend my friends, family and acquaintances to pick up a WarmaHorde force, or take the plunge into Infinity or DZC if a friend picked it up. I could not do the same for 40k and the only reason I am still here is because I've already paid for the rules, paints and codices a long time ago and don't need to face the startup cost again.

However, consider that:
1. Warmachine is already a MUCH less popular game, therefore less posts are going to be made in the first place, especially when:
2. This is a Warhammer centric forum, so the amount of people that would come here for a ruling dispute is going to be low. If you were to go onto a Warmachine forum, you would find that not a lot of people ask Warhammer ruling questions.

Then go to the PP forums. It's the same.
Dude 1 - "I got a question about _____ rule. Can I use it for _____?"
Dude 2 - "Nah, it says right on page 27 that you can't.
*end of discussion*

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

However, consider that:
1. Warmachine is already a MUCH less popular game, therefore less posts are going to be made in the first place, especially when:
2. This is a Warhammer centric forum, so the amount of people that would come here for a ruling dispute is going to be low. If you were to go onto a Warmachine forum, you would find that not a lot of people ask Warhammer ruling questions.

That was already taken into consideration with the total amount of posts. It doesn't matter how many people may or may not be coming here to post, what matters is that a certain number are posting and can be expressed as a ratio.

But still, it's not a serious comparison. Absolutely nothing else is controlled for.

If I went to stormfront and blackpanther.net, even if they had the same number of people on their forums, I'd get very different kinds of responses because there are very different kinds of people on those websites.

In any case, I wouldn't learn anything serious about race relations, just like how I wouldn't learn anything serious about game balance by comparing two gaming forums.