So some things have happened in the past that suggest to me GW knows they're making gakky rules that aren't balanced.
I imagine it's part of a business ploy to sell more of something but I definitely think it's deliberate.
An example that sticks out in my mind is dire avengers.
Following the Eldar codex release dire avengers got changed from 10 to 5 man.
It is coincidence then that dire avengers are commonly taken in 5 man squads with a wave serpent.
I think they just can't balance things. There's instances of new models being overpowered but there's also instances of new models being crap. It's too hit and miss for there to be any kind of pattern.
They are bad a balance! There I said it! On multiple occasions they have stated they are a miniature making company not rule makers so enjoy your amazing models and if something is rampantly overpowered you can make edits to the rules as stated in the BRB until they nerf it back down. And to answer you question no they probably don't know how bad they have broken it because of all of the conflicting information they get on a daily basis.
Counter-argument: if GW's authors knew how bad the rules are they'd commit suicide in shame. They haven't done so, which means they don't know how laughably bad their work is.
Look at the new Tyranids for example. All new models, so presumably they wanted to sell them, and yet apart from the drop pod all of the others were mediocre/bad.
Peregrine wrote: Counter-argument: if GW's authors knew how bad the rules are they'd commit suicide in shame. They haven't done so, which means they don't know how laughably bad their work is.
I think that's a little OTT, lol.
I dunno, there are definitely some weird things, like making the 'new hotness' in space marines and Tau also their new models, instead of fixing some basics.
In Tau broadsides and Riptides were clearly made to be better, can't sell those rail versions of broadsides, people have them, let's make a new version (any money we see rail make a comeback in the future). Centurions for example seem like broadsides +1; more shots, better AP and ability to move.
Not by much. Publishing a rulebook this bad is the kind of incompetence that would get you fired in any other company/industry and probably end your career. Maybe not everyone would commit suicide in response to that, but it should certainly inspire that level of shame in the authors.
I dunno, there are definitely some weird things, like making the 'new hotness' in space marines and Tau also their new models, instead of fixing some basics.
In Tau broadsides and Riptides were clearly made to be better, can't sell those rail versions of broadsides, people have them, let's make a new version (any money we see rail make a comeback in the future). Centurions for example seem like broadsides +1; more shots, better AP and ability to move.
On the other hand you have the Tau flyers, new models with terrible rules. I think there's a lot of confirmation bias involved in the whole "GW makes overpowered stuff to sell models" thing, and the truth is that GW just sucks at writing rules in general. We remember the times they screw up memorably and make a new model an expensive must-buy, and we mostly forget the times they screw up and make terrible new units.
ImAGeek wrote: He's entiteld to his opinion as we all are.
He is.
Being of the opinion that the moon is made of cheese once or twice may well be explained by nescience, benefit of doubt and all that. Ranting about it for years on end cannot.
Peregrine wrote: Oh good, right on schedule we have the "you're not allowed to have negative opinions" post that no thread on GW would be complete without.
You are allowed to. I just don't believe your opinions can only be attributed to incompetence alone anymore these days, hence why I disagree with Psienesis.
ImAGeek wrote: Psienesis meant GW bad balance was down to incompetence, not Peregrines negative opinion. Also, how is having a negative opinion incompetance...
I don't think it is.
If it were grounded in mistakes of inference and other cognitive abilities, it wouldn't persist over years and years in such an obsessive fashion, nor would it be expressed in obviously aggressive terms such as those suggesting suicide for GW game-designers for the (neither entirely flawless, nor entirely meritless) product they put out.
Such downright violent expressions, doubly so, given how long he's been at it, suggest a psychologically driven obsession/substitution that is no longer exclusively driven by simply an objective assessment of a set of tabletop-gaming rules, but a more personal beef he has with either the company or the game, possibly but not necessarily grounded in some extremely negative past personal experience related to GW/40K.
Thus, malevolence, not incompetence. Not dissimilar to how people work themselves into an obsession to smear ... Apple, Microsoft, certain Football-clubs, etc.., etc.., etc.. It's a strange human phenomenon for sure.
I think it's just greed in terms of maximising profit-margin by minimising costs. Rules testing and game-balancing, done well, cost time and thus money. The GW board think the models and books will sell however bad the rules are, so now rules are knocked out by a temp and customers have to house rule around the mess. The recent FAQ update would seem to back this up, certainly far less effort was put into providing the update than the thread just on here discussing it.
As others have said, if they did it on purpose to sell models, they would not have made so many new models have unplayable rules, and most of the OP units being old models that most players of the army already have multiples of.
Not by much. Publishing a rulebook this bad is the kind of incompetence that would get you fired in any other company/industry and probably end your career. Maybe not everyone would commit suicide in response to that, but it should certainly inspire that level of shame in the authors.
This. This suggests to me it is intentional, otherwise you're right, the rules writers would be ashamed or fired.
I dunno, there are definitely some weird things, like making the 'new hotness' in space marines and Tau also their new models, instead of fixing some basics.
In Tau broadsides and Riptides were clearly made to be better, can't sell those rail versions of broadsides, people have them, let's make a new version (any money we see rail make a comeback in the future). Centurions for example seem like broadsides +1; more shots, better AP and ability to move.
On the other hand you have the Tau flyers, new models with terrible rules. I think there's a lot of confirmation bias involved in the whole "GW makes overpowered stuff to sell models" thing, and the truth is that GW just sucks at writing rules in general. We remember the times they screw up memorably and make a new model an expensive must-buy, and we mostly forget the times they screw up and make terrible new units.
I agree with you mostly. I wonder if they intend to stagger the new stuff more. Like make something blatantly powerful to get loads of sales. Make something else a bit less powerful so it's new and still sells but then ramp it up at a later time to get more sales during a lull.
I just find it hard to believe any company would do it by accident.
Martel732 wrote: There have been models that NEVER sold well because they were crap in the game for years and years. And GW never buffed them. Like Vespids.
GW did buff Vespids. Its just that everything else in the Tau codex got buffed as well so they didnt become more attractive.
A good example however would be Rough Riders that actually got worse in the latest AM dex.
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LordBlades wrote: Look at the new Tyranids for example. All new models, so presumably they wanted to sell them, and yet apart from the drop pod all of the others were mediocre/bad.
I don't think thats it at all. GW is out of touch with their customers is all. We don't want a beer and pretzels game where losing can be part of the fun. We want a cutthroat futuristic battle simulator. We want brood-wars on the tabletop. We want to win. Thats all.
Xenomancers wrote: I don't think thats it at all. GW is out of touch with their customers is all. We don't want a beer and pretzels game where losing can be part of the fun. We want a cutthroat futuristic battle simulator. We want brood-wars on the tabletop. We want to win. Thats all.
You say that like you can't have both. You can have a tight, competitive ruleset that is enjoyable on multiple levels, even to the casual player. WM/H, Malifaux and Infinity do this fairly well.
GW is too stupid to do anything like this intentionally. For every riptide/wraithknight/centurion kit, there's a Logan Clause on his sleigh to show you that which new model will be powerful and which will be useless is chosen at random. I honestly don't think the codex authors understand what will be spammed and what will never be taken. When the 7th edition of your core rulebook has 10x more errors, contradictions and confusing wordings than the 2nd edition, it shows either incompetence, apathy or a combination of the two.
Xenomancers wrote: I don't think thats it at all. GW is out of touch with their customers is all. We don't want a beer and pretzels game where losing can be part of the fun. We want a cutthroat futuristic battle simulator. We want brood-wars on the tabletop. We want to win. Thats all.
I want a fair fight, honestly fought, where I don't lose or win because of a difficult to interpret rule or that the Codex author rolled a 6 when he started writing my faction's latest book, but because I made better or worse decisions than my opponent and with maybe a hint of luck.
If that's what you meant by the above, then fair enough, but I think you'll find far more people want an entertaining and fair game than want to win all the time.
Toofast wrote: GW is too stupid to do anything like this intentionally. For every riptide/wraithknight/centurion kit, there's a Logan Clause on his sleigh to show you that which new model will be powerful and which will be useless is chosen at random. I honestly don't think the codex authors understand what will be spammed and what will never be taken. When the 7th edition of your core rulebook has 10x more errors, contradictions and confusing wordings than the 2nd edition, it shows either incompetence, apathy or a combination of the two.
I just don't see how someone who writes the rules couldn't see the obviously powerful stuff. It takes a lot of people who've been playing a while about 5 minutes to spot and compare the units in their entirety. Someone who's been doing this for years must be able to spot the same trends.
Maybe I'm wrong.
I just don't see how someone who writes the rules couldn't see the obviously powerful stuff. It takes a lot of people who've been playing a while about 5 minutes to spot and compare the units in their entirety. Someone who's been doing this for years must be able to spot the same trends.
Maybe I'm wrong.
These are the same people that nerfed the Chaplain and buffed the Librarian because in their 'test' games, they found the Chaplain to be overpowered, and that none of them ever took a Librarian because they felt it was too weak.
They are quite literally that incompetent. They play the game in their own little bubble and never ever even consider that some players may look to optimize their lists in the slightest.
Xenomancers wrote: I don't think thats it at all. GW is out of touch with their customers is all. We don't want a beer and pretzels game where losing can be part of the fun. We want a cutthroat futuristic battle simulator. We want brood-wars on the tabletop. We want to win. Thats all.
I want a fair fight, honestly fought, where I don't lose or win because of a difficult to interpret rule or that the Codex author rolled a 6 when he started writing my faction's latest book, but because I made better or worse decisions than my opponent and with maybe a hint of luck.
If that's what you meant by the above, then fair enough, but I think you'll find far more people want an entertaining and fair game than want to win all the time.
My thoughts exactly. I'm a fluffy player but I need a fair fight to have fun.
And I do think it's incompetence or apathy that make GW's rules and dexes so awful. You get wraiths which were pretty strong and buff them even further, but then you get Penitent Engines were were borderline useless and the newest dex made them almost unplayable.
Someone above said it, the people who design the game are out of touch and don't really understand how the game is played.
I dont ever notice really, mostly because I dont play competitive. and I've said it before, when they balance for competitive the game drops faster then it has been.
Brennonjw wrote: I dont ever notice really, mostly because I dont play competitive. and I've said it before, when they balance for competitive the game drops faster then it has been.
Drops faster? Why do you think this?
Games with good balance are growing by large margins.
I didn't play competitively and I sure as heck noticed.
I just don't see how someone who writes the rules couldn't see the obviously powerful stuff. It takes a lot of people who've been playing a while about 5 minutes to spot and compare the units in their entirety. Someone who's been doing this for years must be able to spot the same trends.
Maybe I'm wrong.
These are the same people that nerfed the Chaplain and buffed the Librarian because in their 'test' games, they found the Chaplain to be overpowered, and that none of them ever took a Librarian because they felt it was too weak.
They are quite literally that incompetent. They play the game in their own little bubble and never ever even consider that some players may look to optimize their lists in the slightest.
People keep referencing this. What's the source for it?
Brennonjw wrote: I dont ever notice really, mostly because I dont play competitive. and I've said it before, when they balance for competitive the game drops faster then it has been.
Drops faster? Why do you think this?
Games with good balance are growing by large margins.
I didn't play competitively and I sure as heck noticed.
It seems to me that the way people want the game to go is purely focused on competitive play and only competitive play. IMO, when game dev. switches over to competitive rather than for fun, you end up getting 1 or 2 viable lists per army. The complaints about balance, while I agree on some points, ignore fluff. I think that balance should relate to fluff rather then what makes every army perfectly fair. And being that every army has their strong points in the fluff, every army would technically still have a decent chance at winning on the table top. Plus, when full competitive development becomes a thing, wouldn't it just switch more to every army gets 2 or 3 massive models with good stats to win? not saying every company does this, mind you, I just think people whining about competitive play misses the point of what it is, a game for fun.
Brennonjw wrote: I dont ever notice really, mostly because I dont play competitive. and I've said it before, when they balance for competitive the game drops faster then it has been.
Drops faster? Why do you think this?
Games with good balance are growing by large margins.
I didn't play competitively and I sure as heck noticed.
It seems to me that the way people want the game to go is purely focused on competitive play and only competitive play. IMO, when game dev. switches over to competitive rather than for fun, you end up getting 1 or 2 viable lists per army. The complaints about balance, while I agree on some points, ignore fluff. I think that balance should relate to fluff rather then what makes every army perfectly fair. And being that every army has their strong points in the fluff, every army would technically still have a decent chance at winning on the table top. Plus, when full competitive development becomes a thing, wouldn't it just switch more to every army gets 2 or 3 massive models with good stats to win? not saying every company does this, mind you, I just think people whining about competitive play misses the point of what it is, a game for fun.
What you describe as competitive is what we have now. (If I understood you correctly.) A balanced ruleset would open many more viable builds up and make taking super units a tactical choice, not an 'I win button.'
Slayer-Fan123 wrote:People keep referencing this. What's the source for it?
It was from a WD I believe, in reference to the upcoming marine codex. I'll see if I can find the specifics.
Brennonjw wrote:
It seems to me that the way people want the game to go is purely focused on competitive play and only competitive play. IMO, when game dev. switches over to competitive rather than for fun, you end up getting 1 or 2 viable lists per army. The complaints about balance, while I agree on some points, ignore fluff. I think that balance should relate to fluff rather then what makes every army perfectly fair. And being that every army has their strong points in the fluff, every army would technically still have a decent chance at winning on the table top. Plus, when full competitive development becomes a thing, wouldn't it just switch more to every army gets 2 or 3 massive models with good stats to win? not saying every company does this, mind you, I just think people whining about competitive play misses the point of what it is, a game for fun.
What people want is a good game, not something that inherently casual or competitive. By nature of being a properly designed and written wargame, it will cater to competitive and casual scenes alike. A poorly done game, will serve neither well, as we're currently seeing with 40k.
Not to mention, a better designed wargame would also fit the fluff better. Currently, there are numerous examples where fluff is directly contradicted or fails to live up to even the lowest of expecations crunch wise. A properly done game would not revolve around 1 or 2 lists, or a handful or strong units; it would be balanced so that every option works given the right combinations and playstyle.
No one is asking for a competitive game. They just want a good one. We have plenty of good rulesets that do this already, so its not far fetched or even particularly difficult.
Oldstyle Whip Coils were much better than the new version.
Only against small units as it only worked on base-to-base models. It's clear Swiftstrike is becoming the new standard rule for whip like weapons and we'll likely see it as a USR as some point (and likely eventually being given to the Agonizer and Neural Whips).
Moving on beyond that, I think the problem is that when GW playtests something they know what they intend by the rules and feel that the rules are written well enough to avoid any real confusion. Obviously not the case and while they do seem to be getting better in general the slip ups still do occur.
Boniface wrote: Also think about longevity. If they made a balanced game they wouldn't be able to sell new codices and rules anywhere near as frequently.
Nonsense. Making units balanced doesn't mean they can't make new versions of them with different options, or whole new units altogether. It doesn't mean they can't revisit and redesign kits, or introduce new factions or sub factions.
Literally every other widely played game out there is better balanced, and they're all doing fine. Yes, one could argue they're working with smaller product ranges and shorter time scales, but they're not working with the resources and number of players either.
Games Workshop have everything needed to make the best game on the market, except the best game on the market. The responsibility for that, and, more importantly, the singular apparent disinterest in working towards that, is solely in their hands.
People would be a lot more forgiving of their shortcomings if GW were seen to be trying: beta testing, regular FAQs, communicating and working with the community to fix issues as they arise, these things would all go a long way to predispose me, and I'm sure many others, to be more positive to GW and the game.
These things are, in the grand scheme of things, essentially free for a global PLC to implement, and will tell them how to make a better product, ultimately making them more successful.
I cannot think of a single decent reason beyond apathy, or incompetence, that stops GW dong this.
Given GW's size, customer base, and experience, there's no reason why the rules and codices shouldn't be the best on the market.
If the likes of Hawk and Spartan games can produce better written and better balanced games, it stands to reason the largest company should be able to produce a product of equal or superior quality.
GW's target market is not people who notice these things. They're aiming for the demographic that looks at the models, says "WOAH THAT'S AWESOME!", and runs out and buys a dozen, they don't care much what happens afterwards.
AnomanderRake wrote: GW's target market is not people who notice these things. They're aiming for the demographic that looks at the models, says "WOAH THAT'S AWESOME!", and runs out and buys a dozen, they don't care much what happens afterwards.
I just don't see how someone who writes the rules couldn't see the obviously powerful stuff. It takes a lot of people who've been playing a while about 5 minutes to spot and compare the units in their entirety. Someone who's been doing this for years must be able to spot the same trends.
Maybe I'm wrong.
These are the same people that nerfed the Chaplain and buffed the Librarian because in their 'test' games, they found the Chaplain to be overpowered, and that none of them ever took a Librarian because they felt it was too weak.
They are quite literally that incompetent. They play the game in their own little bubble and never ever even consider that some players may look to optimize their lists in the slightest.
People keep referencing this. What's the source for it?
I am pretty sure it was when the last Marine codex came?
People keep referencing this. What's the source for it?
I am pretty sure it was when the last Marine codex came?
It was a comment from one of the devs in (I think) the designers' notes for 7th ed, to the effect that they felt that Psykers needed a buff because none of the guys in the studio used Librarians, as they preferred to use Chaplains and Captains.
insaniak wrote: Or possibly by people with a different opinion to yours on the sort of product that they want to sell...
Defining your target market as "people who have low standards but lots of money to mindlessly throw at us" and using it as an excuse for why your product sucks isn't a different opinion, it's a badly run company.
insaniak wrote: Or possibly by people with a different opinion to yours on the sort of product that they want to sell...
Defining your target market as "people who have low standards but lots of money to mindlessly throw at us" and using it as an excuse for why your product sucks isn't a different opinion, it's a badly run company.
Let's take a look at their financials and see how this corporate attitude is working out for them.....oh.....yeah........
Peregrine wrote: Defining your target market as "people who have low standards but lots of money to mindlessly throw at us" and using it as an excuse for why your product sucks isn't a different opinion, it's a badly run company.
Well, no, it would be both of those things.
The point is, maybe dial down the hyperbole a little? You can disagree with how GW are choosing to run their business without being quite so insulting about it.
I think what the designers are doing and what the executives are doing are separate issues.
The designers are attempting to make a game they think is fun (and to be fair to them it is fun, for them, in their specific meta), the execs are the ones mucking up things involving choices like Finecast, pricing and the stores.
I can't fault the devs for trying to make a fun game, I can't even fault them for not being more connected to the community to fix issues sooner as that too is another exec based issue.
Basically I blame the suits in charge for making more of a mess of everything than I do the devs who are trying the best they can with their limited connection to the game played by everyone else outside of GW's headquarters.
Peregrine wrote: Defining your target market as "people who have low standards but lots of money to mindlessly throw at us" and using it as an excuse for why your product sucks isn't a different opinion, it's a badly run company.
Well, no, it would be both of those things.
The point is, maybe dial down the hyperbole a little? You can disagree with how GW are choosing to run their business without being quite so insulting about it.
He could but I suspect he won't.
There's a point in there though, GW seem to be obsessed with going after their perception of what their customer base, rather than what it actually is. Which would be consistent with a company that does so little market research.
They're still selling to the 14 year old boys, without realising that those 14 your old boys are now men in their thirties and forties with boys of that age of their own, that's a very different dynamic.
It all comes back to the belief that "they'll buy what we make, we don't make what they'll buy."
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ClockworkZion wrote: I think what the designers are doing and what the executives are doing are separate issues.
The designers are attempting to make a game they think is fun (and to be fair to them it is fun, for them, in their specific meta), the execs are the ones mucking up things involving choices like Finecast, pricing and the stores.
I can't fault the devs for trying to make a fun game, I can't even fault them for not being more connected to the community to fix issues sooner as that too is another exec based issue.
Basically I blame the suits in charge for making more of a mess of everything than I do the devs who are trying the best they can with their limited connection to the game played by everyone else outside of GW's headquarters.
I understand your thinking, but I think you'd need to be an awful lot more familIar with the dynamics at play to extricate what are decisions forced by corporate and what are just poor decisions.
After being with this game for 20 years, I'm still trying to figure out what the hell the developers are trying to do. They add more and more complexity, but constantly forget the small, hideously important facets. Or they fix something, but break something else that was working frigging fine.
ClockworkZion wrote: I think what the designers are doing and what the executives are doing are separate issues.
The designers are attempting to make a game they think is fun (and to be fair to them it is fun, for them, in their specific meta), the execs are the ones mucking up things involving choices like Finecast, pricing and the stores.
I can't fault the devs for trying to make a fun game, I can't even fault them for not being more connected to the community to fix issues sooner as that too is another exec based issue.
Basically I blame the suits in charge for making more of a mess of everything than I do the devs who are trying the best they can with their limited connection to the game played by everyone else outside of GW's headquarters.
I understand your thinking, but I think you'd need to be an awful lot more familIar with the dynamics at play to extricate what are decisions forced by corporate and what are just poor decisions.
I get what you're saying but as things go I still assume most of the problems we see are more driven by the decisions of the suits than the devs. But that's just my personal take on the whole mess.
How then, do you account for loss of creative staff and a general dip in the game?
Rick, Alessio etc have all gone on to do respectable work, not always flawless, but generally decent, yet we still have Jervis "roll a d6 for everything" Johnson in a senior position and the game has more d6 tables for game effects than at any time since 2nd.
Azreal13 wrote: How then, do you account for loss of creative staff and a general dip in the game?
Rick, Alessio etc have all gone on to do respectable work, not always flawless, but generally decent, yet we still have Jervis "roll a d6 for everything" Johnson in a senior position and the game has more d6 tables for game effects than at any time since 2nd.
I struggle to believe that's just coincidence.
You do realize problems caused by the suits can still push good devs out, right? Like if they feel their ideas aren't being given proper merit or they're being stifled.
I see no contradiction in my stance of "the suits are the source of most of GW's current problems" and your points.
AnomanderRake wrote: GW's target market is not people who notice these things. They're aiming for the demographic that looks at the models, says "WOAH THAT'S AWESOME!", and runs out and buys a dozen, they don't care much what happens afterwards.
IOW, GW is run by a bunch of incompetent morons.
Heinlein's Law. People are generally competent. You're not their target market, they don't care if they can sell the game to you, they're trying to sell it to someone else, which is why you think they're morons.
Azreal13 wrote: How then, do you account for loss of creative staff and a general dip in the game?
Rick, Alessio etc have all gone on to do respectable work, not always flawless, but generally decent, yet we still have Jervis "roll a d6 for everything" Johnson in a senior position and the game has more d6 tables for game effects than at any time since 2nd.
I struggle to believe that's just coincidence.
You do realize problems caused by the suits can still push good devs out, right? Like if they feel their ideas aren't being given proper merit or they're being stifled.
I see no contradiction in my stance of "the suits are the source of most of GW's current problems" and your points.
Well, I guess it depends how wide you want to cast the net in terms of "responsibility."
Certainly, creatives who didn't agree with the corporate direction may have felt compelled to leave. But then, perhaps if we'd spent more money on models the suits would have made different decisions, and those people would have stayed? So does that make it our fault for not being better customers?
The fact is the current team are culpable for writing bad rules, and the executives are culpable for making bad decisions, bad rules will contribute to poor sales, and poor sales will pressure the executives into bad decisions, which in turn pressures the studio and results in poor product etc, etc.
Blaming one side or the other is not really the issue, they're both responsible.
GW knows exactly what they're doing. Look at the Imperial Knight: Big $ cost, wicked-good rules and now you can pretty much expect to see at least one at even a friendly game.
Or what about the Riptide, or Heldrake? Again, expensive models with great rules.
As far as some of the game breaking combo deathstars, I think thats just a lack of playtesting.
I personally think that they are afraid of making every unit 'good' and in essence elevate the ceiling and create an arms race. In reality it would open up even more combinations and strategies, and with just a little bit of responsible playtesting they wouldn't be creating more deathstars for each codex...
Azreal13 wrote: How then, do you account for loss of creative staff and a general dip in the game?
Rick, Alessio etc have all gone on to do respectable work, not always flawless, but generally decent, yet we still have Jervis "roll a d6 for everything" Johnson in a senior position and the game has more d6 tables for game effects than at any time since 2nd.
I struggle to believe that's just coincidence.
You do realize problems caused by the suits can still push good devs out, right? Like if they feel their ideas aren't being given proper merit or they're being stifled.
I see no contradiction in my stance of "the suits are the source of most of GW's current problems" and your points.
Well, I guess it depends how wide you want to cast the net in terms of "responsibility."
Certainly, creatives who didn't agree with the corporate direction may have felt compelled to leave. But then, perhaps if we'd spent more money on models the suits would have made different decisions, and those people would have stayed? So does that make it our fault for not being better customers?
The fact is the current team are culpable for writing bad rules, and the executives are culpable for making bad decisions, bad rules will contribute to poor sales, and poor sales will pressure the executives into bad decisions, which in turn pressures the studio and results in poor product etc, etc.
Blaming one side or the other is not really the issue, they're both responsible.
Where did I say Devs were blameless? I've been saying I place most of the blame on the suits. That doesn't mean there aren't things the devs do that isn't a problem in and of itself.
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I haven't seen Knights quite that often and only this week finished building and painting one for use in an Apoc game.
Also Heldrakes aren't the beasts they once were now that the weapon is hull mounted, not turreted.
KthuluQball wrote: GW knows exactly what they're doing. Look at the Imperial Knight: Big $ cost, wicked-good rules and now you can pretty much expect to see at least one at even a friendly game.
Or what about the Riptide, or Heldrake? Again, expensive models with great rules.
As far as some of the game breaking combo deathstars, I think thats just a lack of playtesting.
I personally think that they are afraid of making every unit 'good' and in essence elevate the ceiling and create an arms race. In reality it would open up even more combinations and strategies, and with just a little bit of responsible playtesting they wouldn't be creating more deathstars for each codex...
What about all those kits that weren't awesome?
Nephilim? DJ Land Speeder? All the Daemon Chariots (one of which they actually re-wrote the edition for, rather than FAQ?) Bullgryns? The CSM Fiends (before the edition change made walkers good?) Assault Centurions? Stalkers? Hunters? People bang on about Riptides, but Sunsharks and Razorsharks have hardly set the game alight nor turned the meta on its head, have they?
I'm sorry, if there were more evidence to support new kit = best rules, I'd understand, but it isn't really even 50/50.
Azreal13 wrote: How then, do you account for loss of creative staff and a general dip in the game?
Rick, Alessio etc have all gone on to do respectable work, not always flawless, but generally decent, yet we still have Jervis "roll a d6 for everything" Johnson in a senior position and the game has more d6 tables for game effects than at any time since 2nd.
I struggle to believe that's just coincidence.
You do realize problems caused by the suits can still push good devs out, right? Like if they feel their ideas aren't being given proper merit or they're being stifled.
I see no contradiction in my stance of "the suits are the source of most of GW's current problems" and your points.
Well, I guess it depends how wide you want to cast the net in terms of "responsibility."
Certainly, creatives who didn't agree with the corporate direction may have felt compelled to leave. But then, perhaps if we'd spent more money on models the suits would have made different decisions, and those people would have stayed? So does that make it our fault for not being better customers?
The fact is the current team are culpable for writing bad rules, and the executives are culpable for making bad decisions, bad rules will contribute to poor sales, and poor sales will pressure the executives into bad decisions, which in turn pressures the studio and results in poor product etc, etc.
Blaming one side or the other is not really the issue, they're both responsible.
Where did I say Devs were blameless? I've been saying I place most of the blame on the suits. That doesn't mean there aren't things the devs do that isn't a problem in and of itself.
I'm sick of the fighting. I want to see other people.
I haven't seen Knights quite that often and only this week finished building and painting one for use in an Apoc game.
Also Heldrakes aren't the beasts they once were now that the weapon is hull mounted, not turreted.
That's what is cool about our 40k, everybody has a different little slice of experience. Don't get me wrong, I love playing against Knights. Its sometimes frustrating as hell, but it's always been a fun game. Although I've come to waking up in a cold sweat thinking about Stomp Attacks almost as much as I did with Markerlights...
Heldrakes are still respectable flyers, even if no longer OP. I'm cool with that nerf too, because the Heldrake still fills a niche in my CSM army, they're fun to play, the model is awesome and its no longer considered a d*ck move to take em.
...In the end, GW wants to make money, and I am totally cool giving them mine as long as the quality of the models continue and the game is supported in some fashion.
Now, the day that GW stops selling my plastic crack is the day I start to get real itchy and babies start crawling on ceilings...
AnomanderRake wrote: Heinlein's Law. People are generally competent. You're not their target market, they don't care if they can sell the game to you, they're trying to sell it to someone else, which is why you think they're morons.
No, the point is not about whether or not I'm their target market, it's that their supposed choice of target market is incredibly stupid. Essentially what you're proposing is that GW is aiming their products at a group of people that is so small that it might as well not exist: people with low standards who will buy anything you put in front of them AND lots of money to afford GW's prices. I'm sure every company would love to be in a situation where they had millions of customers like that, but in the real world you can't depend on selling to gullible rich people. You have to make a product that normal people want to buy, so if you're correct about GW's choices then it's an alarming sign of incompetence.
Peregrine wrote: Essentially what you're proposing is that GW is aiming their products at a group of people that is so small that it might as well not exist: people with low standards who will buy anything you put in front of them AND lots of money to afford GW's prices. .
Not quite. What they're aiming for is people who either ignore the game rules and just want to buy the pretty miniatures, and people who don't much care that the rules aren't perfect.
And from my experience, those two groups do make up most of GW's customer base, and always have.
insaniak wrote: Not quite. What they're aiming for is people who either ignore the game rules and just want to buy the pretty miniatures, and people who don't much care that the rules aren't perfect.
And from my experience, those two groups do make up most of GW's customer base, and always have.
The original post I was responding to suggested GW's target market had even lower standards than that, but even what you're saying here is just inexcusably bad management. It makes no sense at all to only sell to people who don't care about the quality of half your product when, for only a modest increase in costs, you could fix the broken rules and expand your market to include the people who do care about having good rules. It's killing GW now, and even when GW wasn't in such bad shape financially they could have been making even more profit. But unfortunately GW is run by a combination of clueless managers who don't understand why playtesting isn't just "playing games on company time" and "casual at all costs" rule authors who seem to think that doing their jobs properly would be the worst kind of heresy. And both groups need to be fired for their incompetence.
Peregrine wrote: Essentially what you're proposing is that GW is aiming their products at a group of people that is so small that it might as well not exist: people with low standards who will buy anything you put in front of them AND lots of money to afford GW's prices. .
Not quite. What they're aiming for is people who either ignore the game rules and just want to buy the pretty miniatures, and people who don't much care that the rules aren't perfect.
And from my experience, those two groups do make up most of GW's customer base, and always have.
I am both groups in practice, though I do hope for (and want) a tighter game i just don't let that get that in the way of having fun with what I have available.
AnomanderRake wrote: Heinlein's Law. People are generally competent. You're not their target market, they don't care if they can sell the game to you, they're trying to sell it to someone else, which is why you think they're morons.
No, the point is not about whether or not I'm their target market, it's that their supposed choice of target market is incredibly stupid. Essentially what you're proposing is that GW is aiming their products at a group of people that is so small that it might as well not exist: people with low standards who will buy anything you put in front of them AND lots of money to afford GW's prices. I'm sure every company would love to be in a situation where they had millions of customers like that, but in the real world you can't depend on selling to gullible rich people. You have to make a product that normal people want to buy, so if you're correct about GW's choices then it's an alarming sign of incompetence.
Games Workshop is the top of the line when you get to wargaming miniatures. The range, the flexibility, the customizability, the reliability, and the detail available in their plastic models have never (to my knowledge) been replicated. They're banking on that, they're going for people who are going to care about that instead of those who are going to take a look at their game, notice it's not competitively balanced, and start complaining.
AnomanderRake wrote: Games Workshop is the top of the line when you get to wargaming miniatures. The range, the flexibility, the customizability, the reliability, and the detail available in their plastic models have never (to my knowledge) been replicated.
Err, no. If you assume that fluff is a subjective preference the only thing GW really has these days is the sheer size of their product lines. Their prices are incredibly high, design quality is inconsistent, level of detail is nothing special (and pathetic by non-wargaming standards), and lots of kits are effectively unbuyable because they're finecast. And even their customization options start to look a lot less impressive if you don't have a huge budget to spend on conversion parts. They're certainly adequate for their purpose, but unless you already love the 40k/WHFB settings they don't really stand out from their competition.
They're banking on that, they're going for people who are going to care about that instead of those who are going to take a look at their game, notice it's not competitively balanced, and start complaining.
And that's a really stupid way to run a company. Why would any sane person voluntarily throw away large sections of their potential market (and, worse, hand those customers directly to their competition) just to save a fairly small amount of time and money? Fixing the rules isn't all that hard, the only thing stopping GW from selling to both of types of customer is their own incompetence.
Rules FAQ and Errata is just about the cheapest thing you can do, you take the most common questions, give them to the person who wrote the book, and have them type up some answers. Shouldn't take more than a couple of hours. Likewise for Errata for major game balance issues.
Every other game company on the planet can manage this, I'm not sure how or why GW either finds it so amazingly difficult or just doesn't care.
AnomanderRake wrote: Heinlein's Law. People are generally competent. You're not their target market, they don't care if they can sell the game to you, they're trying to sell it to someone else, which is why you think they're morons.
No, the point is not about whether or not I'm their target market, it's that their supposed choice of target market is incredibly stupid. Essentially what you're proposing is that GW is aiming their products at a group of people that is so small that it might as well not exist: people with low standards who will buy anything you put in front of them AND lots of money to afford GW's prices. I'm sure every company would love to be in a situation where they had millions of customers like that, but in the real world you can't depend on selling to gullible rich people. You have to make a product that normal people want to buy, so if you're correct about GW's choices then it's an alarming sign of incompetence.
Games Workshop is the top of the line when you get to wargaming miniatures. The range, the flexibility, the customizability, the reliability, and the detail available in their plastic models have never (to my knowledge) been replicated. They're banking on that, they're going for people who are going to care about that instead of those who are going to take a look at their game, notice it's not competitively balanced, and start complaining.
Id say that Malifaux has better detailed plastics.
Vaktathi wrote: Rules FAQ and Errata is just about the cheapest thing you can do, you take the most common questions, give them to the person who wrote the book, and have them type up some answers. Shouldn't take more than a couple of hours. Likewise for Errata for major game balance issues.
Every other game company on the planet can manage this, I'm not sure how or why GW either finds it so amazingly difficult or just doesn't care.
Maybe, along with overpriced website, they bought a product that makes PDFs, but GW gets charged thousands of pounds every time they run it.
AnomanderRake wrote: Heinlein's Law. People are generally competent. You're not their target market, they don't care if they can sell the game to you, they're trying to sell it to someone else, which is why you think they're morons.
No, the point is not about whether or not I'm their target market, it's that their supposed choice of target market is incredibly stupid. Essentially what you're proposing is that GW is aiming their products at a group of people that is so small that it might as well not exist: people with low standards who will buy anything you put in front of them AND lots of money to afford GW's prices. I'm sure every company would love to be in a situation where they had millions of customers like that, but in the real world you can't depend on selling to gullible rich people. You have to make a product that normal people want to buy, so if you're correct about GW's choices then it's an alarming sign of incompetence.
Games Workshop is the top of the line when you get to wargaming miniatures. The range, the flexibility, the customizability, the reliability, and the detail available in their plastic models have never (to my knowledge) been replicated. They're banking on that, they're going for people who are going to care about that instead of those who are going to take a look at their game, notice it's not competitively balanced, and start complaining.
Id say that Malifaux has better detailed plastics.
But they don't have kickass tanks, and I'm a treadhead.
Xenomancers wrote: I don't think thats it at all. GW is out of touch with their customers is all. We don't want a beer and pretzels game where losing can be part of the fun. We want a cutthroat futuristic battle simulator. We want brood-wars on the tabletop. We want to win. Thats all.
I want a fair fight, honestly fought, where I don't lose or win because of a difficult to interpret rule or that the Codex author rolled a 6 when he started writing my faction's latest book, but because I made better or worse decisions than my opponent and with maybe a hint of luck.
This. It doesn't bother me losing in the slightest bit. What bother me is losing to some gloating with no sense of strategy who thinks playing some super OP net-list from whatever broken codex is the current cock of the walk, that requires no skill or strategy to win with. I'll take a win or a loss just as happily, just give me a fair fight that's one or lost by the skill of the player. Hell, some of my favorite matches have been ones that I lost, but after seven turns of head to head, neck and neck struggle against a balanced list.
Xenomancers wrote: I don't think thats it at all. GW is out of touch with their customers is all. We don't want a beer and pretzels game where losing can be part of the fun. We want a cutthroat futuristic battle simulator. We want brood-wars on the tabletop. We want to win. Thats all.
I want a fair fight, honestly fought, where I don't lose or win because of a difficult to interpret rule or that the Codex author rolled a 6 when he started writing my faction's latest book, but because I made better or worse decisions than my opponent and with maybe a hint of luck.
This. It doesn't bother me losing in the slightest bit. What bother me is losing to some gloating with no sense of strategy who thinks playing some super OP net-list from whatever broken codex is the current cock of the walk, that requires no skill or strategy to win with. I'll take a win or a loss just as happily, just give me a fair fight that's one or lost by the skill of the player. Hell, some of my favorite matches have been ones that I lost, but after seven turns of head to head, neck and neck struggle against a balanced list.
The problem is the studio staff who WANTED to write better rules for 40k , (this started about 2000-2001 ish.)
Was they were told by the corporate management that the 40k rules are good enough for model collectors, which is GWs new target demographic.
So if they wanted to write their rules their way, they would have to write their rules somewhere else.
(Which many have done since then, and we have had some excellent games because if it!)
Every edition of 40k since 3rd edition has been 'compromised' in some way by the corporate management /sales department at GW plc.
Can we have a quick look at the numbers...
To employ a full staff of game developers and professional proof readers and editors.Along with well run and professional levels of play testing and managing feed back.
Would cost GW plc less than £500,0000 per year.
Currently GW plc are spending over £50M on their own chain of B &M stores, to promote isolationalist sales, because 40k and WHFB can not compete in the open market.
IF GW plc had still kept players as primary customers as well as collectors.They would have a turn over in excess of £300M .
So doing the job 'properly' costs 1/2 a million pounds .But could net you up to an extra 200 million pounds a year turn over ,
So unless you are isolated at the top of an ivory tower, wanting to take out as much money as possible in share bonuses over the next few years before you retire.
Who would not invest in proper game development...Oh wait...
Lanrak wrote: The problem is the studio staff who WANTED to write better rules for 40k , (this started about 2000-2001 ish.)
Was they were told by the corporate management that the 40k rules are good enough for model collectors, which is GWs new target demographic.
This doesn't make much sense. I could see GW management saying "the rules are good enough, we're not spending money on them" if GW didn't keep spending time and money on new editions every few years. But what we actually see is a company that is writing and printing new rules as fast as they can, and spending almost as much time and money on bad rules as it would take to make good rules.
Also, don't forget that GW's rule authors have always been a bunch of "casual at all costs" players who insist that the game is about "beer and pretzels" and it doesn't matter if the rules are perfect because nobody who cares about fun would ever do anything like take an overpowered unit or argue for a rule interpretation that favors their army. Awful balance and poorly designed rules have always been a problem, the only difference now is that GW is losing their near-monopoly and more people are realizing that GW's competition is doing a much better job of making games. GW's management sucks, but at some point you just have to accept that their rule authors aren't very good at writing rules and give them their fair share of the blame.
IF GW plc had still kept players as primary customers as well as collectors.They would have a turn over in excess of £300M .
Proof for this? I agree with the general idea that GW could be making more money with a better game, but I seriously doubt that anyone can put a specific number on that increase.
Hi Peregrine.
As far as the GW corporate management are concerned the 'rules for collectors' are to inspire sales.So they must make the 'thought' of 40k battles sound cool.And in particular the new models must be seen to be 'special' .(With as many special rules /cool sounding rules as possible to inspire sales. )
So the new edition rule and codex books are released to drive sales, as collectors need to be frequently reminded how 'cool' the latest releases are.(Other wise they may forget to buy something! )
The fact that the quality of the sculpts and artwork appeal to collectors anyway, seems to be lost on GW corporate.
GW game devs have not always been 'casual at all costs'.Long ago many 'specialist' games were comparativley well balanced and we had many happy years playing them.(Epic and Blood Bowl were my favorites.)
But as the corporate management and sales department set the goals of the game developers to focus on maximizing returns on short term sales.Those wanting to write good games, simply left, and wrote good rule sets for games at other companies.
And those left at GW plc are good at writing the 'inspiring rules ' to accompany the 'cool looking models,' each release.(Well inspiring those that like cool sounding rules , over well written games anyway.)
I totally agree if GW plc were interested in growing a player base long term,(like the other game companies,) their practices make no sense at all.
But when the man calling the shots is only looking at short term share bonuses, short term profit at the expense of long term growth makes sense to him.
I agree that the current game developers at GW towers would need more time to refocus the 40k rules than a development team made up of those developers that have left GW plc behind.
(If Rick P, and Andy C were allowed to use the rules they wanted for 3rd ed, 40k, and 4th ed 40k respectively, 40k would be a much more focused game with much more clarity and brevity in the rules.)
The current game developers are just following the design brief the sales department give them.
Having seen the quality of rules written by devs after they leave GW towers, I would like to give them the benefit of the doubt on this one.
To apply a poorly mixed metaphor..
Lions led by donkeys, rather than just jackasses all the way from top to bottom.
The £300M turn over was just a forcast based on annual reports and rate of growth back when GW were producing games with more focus on game play.(1987-1997
It may be more than they could actually achieve now there is so much competition.
(But at the height of the LoTR boom GW plc had over this sort of turn over,adjusted for inflation and price rises.)
Achieving £200m turn over should be a realistic goal in to days market conditions.IMO.
Everyone but Tom Kirby thinks this...
ADD MORE VALUE TO PRODUCT by writing good rules .
Rules with clarity brevity and intuitive interaction.The sort of rules everyone benefits from.
Cost so little in terms of %turn over , and has the potential to grow market share far more than any chain of B&M stores possible could.
Tom Kirby's view.
BUT this costs money that I could pay myself in share bonuses short term with.And who cares about a piddling little game of toy soldiers beyond the foul smelling basement dwellers I have been wallet raping for decades.
More share bonuses I say!
Peregrine wrote: Essentially what you're proposing is that GW is aiming their products at a group of people that is so small that it might as well not exist: people with low standards who will buy anything you put in front of them AND lots of money to afford GW's prices. .
Not quite. What they're aiming for is people who either ignore the game rules and just want to buy the pretty miniatures, and people who don't much care that the rules aren't perfect.
And from my experience, those two groups do make up most of GW's customer base, and always have.
I think insaniak is definitively right about this, and that GW has been very successful in catering to an audience that was less gameplay-driven and more models-driven. It makes me think of all the "Forge the Narrative" stuff they put out- GW would probably prefer it if they could get to producing fluff-only books that cost the same as hardcover codexes and their fans would be content buying the books and models and just talking about how awesome their models are...perhaps making "whoosh" and "pewpew" noises as they do. Obviously, that point probably will never come, but I have a feeling it's at least an aspiration of the plastic Leige.
Now, I believe there's a disconnect about how much of a game players want versus how much GW think is important. I think the level of agreement between the two used to be much more similar, but the cost of game supplementing materials became much much more expensive. It was like GW and a 40k fan are standing there, and both say "the rules for 40k aren't really that important" and GW says "they certainly aren't, so you won't mind if we raise the price of the codexes/rule books, take units out of books, and go the old DLC route, right?"
The rules now do matter because you're paying out the nose for them. Gaming in 40k has become so prohibitively expensive, both to start-up and maintain, that fans are expecting much higher quality for the things GW is putting out. And I think that is leading to the downfall of the game eventually from a well-known behemoth to something much more on the scale of WMH/Maulifax/Infinity. Which is sad to watch, seeing where they came from.
Not by much. Publishing a rulebook this bad is the kind of incompetence that would get you fired in any other company/industry and probably end your career. Maybe not everyone would commit suicide in response to that, but it should certainly inspire that level of shame in the authors.
I dunno, there are definitely some weird things, like making the 'new hotness' in space marines and Tau also their new models, instead of fixing some basics.
In Tau broadsides and Riptides were clearly made to be better, can't sell those rail versions of broadsides, people have them, let's make a new version (any money we see rail make a comeback in the future). Centurions for example seem like broadsides +1; more shots, better AP and ability to move.
On the other hand you have the Tau flyers, new models with terrible rules. I think there's a lot of confirmation bias involved in the whole "GW makes overpowered stuff to sell models" thing, and the truth is that GW just sucks at writing rules in general. We remember the times they screw up memorably and make a new model an expensive must-buy, and we mostly forget the times they screw up and make terrible new units.
The Tau flyer rules are not merely terrible. They are nonfunctional. Any bomber that cannot drop bombs ever does not deserve it's existence acknowledged.
Specialist games used to be both well-designed AND super casual, but then they got canned.
If GW could have kept that style of game-management, I would still be spending money on their rules material. I will still pay their exhorbitant costs on the occasional new kit because it looks awesome, but there's no way their rules material is worth what they price it at. If their rules and 40k codex books were worth $50 each, they wouldn't have to replace them with new versions so fast - they would be able to survive with rules releases like Privateer Press. At least with them you don't have to buy a book to keep using your existing models every couple of years.
They add plenty of books with new material, but even if you started playing one faction of WM way back with Prime Mk1, you would have nothing like the pile of Space Marine codexes you would have if you had started playing them with 2nd or 3rd edition till now.
I think insaniak is definitively right about this, and that GW has been very successful in catering to an audience that was less gameplay-driven and more models-driven.
But that makes no sense as far as generating sells goes. If someone likes lets say a tac marine model, how many boxs will he buy ? one. Serpents, riptides? same. Buy one and master class paint with added conversions. How many models will a person that plays the game buy? as many as are needed for a list. So if 4 serpents are needed to get a good list, he will buy 4. If he needs 4 valkyrias he will buy 4. Better yet, the player will buy horrible or bad designed models as long as they are effective, while the collector won't buy models he doesn't like.
If GW wanted to generated bigger sales, they would write their rules in a such a way that a maximum number of units would be used. IMO the books that were , some still are, seen as OP or game breaking are the only good ones they made. There are very few units in the eldar codex that no one wants to use, same with the old GK codex. For me those books were the good designed ones .
Now the question is, did GW make those GK or eldar books that way , with an intention to make most units usable or was this just an accidental thing.
Martel732 wrote: There have been models that NEVER sold well because they were crap in the game for years and years. And GW never buffed them. Like Vespids.
Maybe they don't want to make more Vespids. It's like the Sisters. They don't want to make more Sisters so they just price them ridiculously high so nobody will buy them.
If anything, your example actually supports the OPs idea, lol.
Martel732 wrote: There have been models that NEVER sold well because they were crap in the game for years and years. And GW never buffed them. Like Vespids.
Maybe they don't want to make more Vespids. It's like the Sisters. They don't want to make more Sisters so they just price them ridiculously high so nobody will buy them.
If anything, your example actually supports the OPs idea, lol.
It happens even with new kits. Vespids were *never* good even when Tau were brand new. The just made a new kit for Ogryn and the new Bullgryn unit, and they still have pretty naff rules.
Super Conspiracy: They a wide bevy of units with each codex release, but realize their dated method of game development is only self sustaining if you continue the merry-go-round of "Is it garbage?" Thus, you bring out gotta have it, must have it, so OP "QQ moar" models and some garbage ones. Wait for a codex/edition change, oh look, OP "QQ Moar" models are crap and the ones that sucked are AMAZING MUST HAVE TENOUTTA TEN!?
Whether intentional or not, we've seen this be the case. I'd more ascribe to incompetence at this point, but I wouldn't put it past them.
Boniface wrote: Following the Eldar codex release dire avengers got changed from 10 to 5 man.
It is coincidence then that dire avengers are commonly taken in 5 man squads with a wave serpent.
What do you guys think?
That would sound more like a conspiracy if almost all the squads didn't go from 10 to 5+ after hardcover codex releases, including boxes for basic infantry models that are made in 10s.
What's far more annoying to me are models that are only sold in 1s but are played in multiples, like Grotesques (unit = 3). But I mean, whatever -- whether something is $25 for 1 or $75 for 3 makes no difference in the end calculation, I guess.
Martel732 wrote: There have been models that NEVER sold well because they were crap in the game for years and years. And GW never buffed them. Like Vespids.
Maybe they don't want to make more Vespids. It's like the Sisters. They don't want to make more Sisters so they just price them ridiculously high so nobody will buy them.
If anything, your example actually supports the OPs idea, lol.
I see Sisters in bargain bins all the time. Nobody wants them, even when they're reduced to $5 a blister.
Peregrine wrote: Essentially what you're proposing is that GW is aiming their products at a group of people that is so small that it might as well not exist: people with low standards who will buy anything you put in front of them AND lots of money to afford GW's prices. .
Not quite. What they're aiming for is people who either ignore the game rules and just want to buy the pretty miniatures, and people who don't much care that the rules aren't perfect.
And from my experience, those two groups do make up most of GW's customer base, and always have.
@Insaniak - You hit the nail on the head. I'm a perfect example of such a person -- a steady flow of nice miniatures to model and occasionally play is more important to me than perfect rules. In addition, a constant trickle of new releases is preferable to me over an essentially static game, because I enjoy the modelling aspect greatly.
@Peregrine -- The group is actually not that small, and it's not that they have low standards; imperfect rules just doesn't really bother them. And, the cost of GW models, excluding independent characters, is actually pretty cheap compared to the competition.
I understand and appreciate that people who don't like the modelling aspect, and just want to play a game, get screwed because new stuff constantly comes out that disrupts their game mojo. But, I really think 40k is the wrong game for anyone who doesn't like painting and modelling stuff, because the model count and total cost of an army is just too high if you aren't squeezing enjoyment out of the hobby side of it.
Comparing 40k or WMH to video games and such make them seem very expensive. But, if you look at it a different way -- let's say, you actually enjoy putting together MPP kits, building and painting. Even taking the most expensive models, if you spend 10-30 hours on one independent character, per hour, that's still cheaper than even renting a PPV movie from a cable box, way cheaper than going to the movie theatre, and almost on par to a decent video game ($60 for a 60-100 hour game). But this requires that you actually spend time and enjoy the hobby aspect of it, and I get that this isn't the case for many.
So, as long as you don't care about the rules, 40k is alright? That does seem to be their target audience.
But it is a game and as such they should put effort into the rules.
Talys wrote: @Peregrine -- The group is actually not that small, and it's not that they have low standards; imperfect rules just doesn't really bother them.
That's the definition of low standards.
I understand and appreciate that people who don't like the modelling aspect, and just want to play a game, get screwed because new stuff constantly comes out that disrupts their game mojo. But, I really think 40k is the wrong game for anyone who doesn't like painting and modelling stuff, because the model count and total cost of an army is just too high if you aren't squeezing enjoyment out of the hobby side of it.
Why are you creating this artificial division between modeling/painting and playing the game? What about people like me who enjoy both sides of the hobby? And why are you assuming that improving the rules to sell to all of the gamers would hurt the painters? If rules don't really matter to them then improving the game shouldn't be a problem, and GW could easily expand their market without sacrificing their current customers.
But that makes no sense as far as generating sells goes. If someone likes lets say a tac marine model, how many boxs will he buy ? one. Serpents, riptides? same. Buy one and master class paint with added conversions. How many models will a person that plays the game buy? as many as are needed for a list.
That's the thing about having game rules for 'collectibles' though... they encourage the collector who doesn't really care about playing the game to buy armies anyway, because that's the way to make the collection mean something.
I've known plenty of 'players' over the years who rarely if ever play the game... they're far more interested in just putting armies together, because they like the models.
@Peregrine - you should respect that some people have different standards than you, which doesn't mean that they have low standards. I like lots of books, complex rules, tons of fluff, and a good game setting. I care little about 'tight' bulletproof rules.
I actually like playing the game too. I model more than I play, but I model a LOT (30+ hrs a week). I play maybe 20hrs a month, or less, in contrast. I'm just saying if those numbers, were inverted and i played 120+ hours and modelled less than 20 hours, I would prefer a game where I didn't have to spend tons of time to get a different battleforce ready to play.
Peregrine wrote: If rules don't really matter to them then improving the game shouldn't be a problem, and GW could easily expand their market without sacrificing their current customers.
If rules don't really matter to them, why would they think that the game needs to be 'improved'?
Sure, GW could invest extra time and effort (and thus money) into developing a tight, tournament-friendly ruleset. Macdonalds could invest extra time, effort and money into developing burgers that are actually edible... but they won't, until poor sales give them a valid reason for examining whether or not they need to change their current business model. Because they run their business around a particular model. They make the product that they want to sell, like just about any other business.
40K is the product that GW want to sell. They're not going to change it until they see a valid reason to do so... and your personal dislike for the game apparently isn't that reason.
insaniak wrote: If rules don't really matter to them, why would they think that the game needs to be 'improved'?
That's not what I said. Improving the rules is about selling to other potential customers who do care about the rules, I was just pointing out the fact that improving the rules wouldn't mean sacrificing anything that the current customers like. If you're a customer who doesn't care much about the rules then from your perspective nothing changes, unless you're a "casual at all costs" players who thinks that punishing competitive players and keeping them out of your game should be GW's top priority.
Sure, GW could invest extra time and effort (and thus money) into developing a tight, tournament-friendly ruleset. Macdonalds could invest extra time, effort and money into developing burgers that are actually edible... but they won't, until poor sales give them a valid reason for examining whether or not they need to change their current business model. Because they run their business around a particular model. They make the product that they want to sell, like just about any other business.
That's not a very accurate comparison. McDonalds would have to spend lots of money on developing a new product AND would have to change their entire business model because you can't make a profit selling good hamburgers for $0.99 each. GW, on the other hand, would only have to make minor financial investments in improving the rules. They already pay people to write rules, and even expanding the game design staff would be a small investment relative to their other costs. And their business is already built around selling rules for the game, the only change from the point of view of the customer is that the product would improve and become more appealing.
40K is the product that GW want to sell. They're not going to change it until they see a valid reason to do so... and your personal dislike for the game apparently isn't that reason.
I'm not debating the fact that 40k is exactly what GW wants to be doing, I'm arguing that what GW wants to be doing is unbelievable incompetence. The valid reasons are there and would be painfully obvious to anyone but GW (if only there was a way to find those reasons, we might call it "customer study" or something). But that's the difference between GW and a well-run company like WOTC: a good company is always looking for ways to grow, GW is content to declare that they're already perfect and let someone else make that profit.
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Talys wrote: @Peregrine - you should respect that some people have different standards than you, which doesn't mean that they have low standards. I like lots of books, complex rules, tons of fluff, and a good game setting. I care little about 'tight' bulletproof rules.
And, again, that's the definition of low standards. You don't dispute the fact that the product is flawed, you just don't care about the flaws.
But that makes no sense as far as generating sells goes. If someone likes lets say a tac marine model, how many boxs will he buy ? one. Serpents, riptides? same. Buy one and master class paint with added conversions. How many models will a person that plays the game buy? as many as are needed for a list.
That's the thing about having game rules for 'collectibles' though... they encourage the collector who doesn't really care about playing the game to buy armies anyway, because that's the way to make the collection mean something.
I've known plenty of 'players' over the years who rarely if ever play the game... they're far more interested in just putting armies together, because they like the models.
@Makumba -- since 1988 or so, I have bought an ungodly number of Tacticals. I have 4 boxes of the new BA tacs, for example -- since it takes 3 for the formation, and I wanted one box for different weapon configurations and extra bits. You may find it surprsing, bit I think the formation actually sucks. I just wanted to model the full 3 stormravens and 3 Yacs
Even though I don't play serpent spam, I own 5 wave serpents -- painted differently, and I have 2 more BNIB. A bunch of Hemlocks too, and DE Raiders, because when they came out, they were just such cool models.
Talys wrote: @Peregrine - you should respect that some people have different standards than you, which doesn't mean that they have low standards. I like lots of books, complex rules, tons of fluff, and a good game setting. I care little about 'tight' bulletproof rules.
I actually like playing the game too. I model more than I play, but I model a LOT (30+ hrs a week). I play maybe 20hrs a month, or less, in contrast. I'm just saying if those numbers, were inverted and i played 120+ hours and modelled less than 20 hours, I would prefer a game where I didn't have to spend tons of time to get a different battleforce ready to play.
You like complex rules, but don't care if they're "tight?"
Yeesh.
You're the embodiment of the ideal GW customer.
Thing is, while you yourself may not be bothered, your attitude gives GW's licence to continue churning out average product. Personally, I'm probably closer to your view than Peregrine's, but I want 40K to be better, and that isn't achieved by hand waving away all the issues, it's about taking a stand, withholding your cash and only spending it on things you feel are of sufficient quality to justify the price.
We would have an amazingly improved version of 40K within months of everyone just stopped buying it and told GW why, but while people continue to accept a poor product, what incentive is there to produce better?
If 40K were better written, nobody loses out. Tolerating sub par product because it doesn't bother you personally damages everyone who thinks differently to you.
@Talys.
The ONLY reason people are into 40k is because of the style of the artwork and the background.(This is inspiring enough IMO.)
However, I like complex game play delivered by straightforward rules .Rather than simple game play delivered by over complicated rules like 40k.
I like books to deliver what they are specifically written for.
So background books should be chocked full of narrative and pictures/art to make the world seem as real as possible to the reader.
And get them emotionally invested with the background environment , culture and ethos of the factions.
I like rule books to deliver clear and concise instructions on how to play the game.
If GW plc wrote rules focused on game play for 40k.
Well defined rules that were proof read and edited to a professional level.
This would make 40k more appealing to a much wider audience.
And as more people would be buying from GW , they could use the economies of scale to reduce retail prices, thus appealing to even more people.
So rather than HAVING to wallet rape the collectors, the only one buying from GW at the moment.
GW plc could sell more product to more people , and make more profit , even with lower retail prices.
Unless you like thinking of yourself as being 'elite' enough to buy lots of expensive stuff from GW.
And lord it over those poor folks who can not afford GW prices.
Why on earth would you not want GW to improve its rules enough to attract people wanting to play enjoyable pick up games using R.A.W.
Peregrine wrote: That's not what I said. Improving the rules is about selling to other potential customers who do care about the rules, I was just pointing out the fact that improving the rules wouldn't mean sacrificing anything that the current customers like. If you're a customer who doesn't care much about the rules then from your perspective nothing changes, unless you're a "casual at all costs" players who thinks that punishing competitive players and keeping them out of your game should be GW's top priority.
But, again, that still involves GW adopting a different writing strategy to what they currently use... and that requires them to want to do so.
That's not a very accurate comparison. McDonalds would have to spend lots of money on developing a new product AND would have to change their entire business model because you can't make a profit selling good hamburgers for $0.99 each. GW, on the other hand, would only have to make minor financial investments in improving the rules. They already pay people to write rules, and even expanding the game design staff would be a small investment relative to their other costs. And their business is already built around selling rules for the game, the only change from the point of view of the customer is that the product would improve and become more appealing.
So... McDonalds 'improving' their product would be unworkably expensive, but GW 'improving' their product would be a negligible cost because... uh... reasons?
The fact that they already employ rules writers doesn't change the fact that developing a more water-tight ruleset would take longer, and therefore cost more.
But that's the difference between GW and a well-run company like WOTC: a good company is always looking for ways to grow, .
Well, no. A good company that is looking to grow is always looking for ways to grow.
However, even assuming that GW's intention is to continue growing their customer base, doing so at the expense of what they feel makes their product what it is, is not always an option that a business is willing to explore. I'm sure Doctor Pepper would sell to more people if it had a flavour that appealed to more than 1 person in 40... but changing the flavour would make it a different product.
You don't think that 40K with better written rules would be a different product... But for whatever reason, clearly GW aren't interested in making that product. And however many times you insist it to be the case, incompetence isn't the only possible reason for that.
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Lanrak wrote: Why on earth would you not want GW to improve its rules enough to attract people wanting to play enjoyable pick up games using R.A.W.
For most, I suspect it's not so much about not wantingGW to improve their rules as simply not caring if they do, because they are happy with the current state of the game.
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Azreal13 wrote: Tolerating sub par product because it doesn't bother you personally damages everyone who thinks differently to you.
The people who are happy with the sub-par product buy the sub-par product and are happy with it.
The people who refuse to tolerate sub-par product refuse to buy the sub-par product and go and find an alternative product that they are happy with.
The only people who suffer are those who refuse to tolerate sub-par product and keep hanging around waiting for the sub-par product to improve despite 30 years' evidence that this isn't likely to happen...
@Peregrine - again, different standards are not low standards. I judge the quality of a game based on how much fun I can have playing it -- nothing else.
I can play 2-3sessions of 5-8 hours a stretch each month, and have great fun. Therefore, I say it's a good game. It isn't frustrating to me at all.
Could some of the language be clearer or lists be better? Sure, but that doesn't take away from my enjoyment, even a bit.
insaniak wrote: But, again, that still involves GW adopting a different writing strategy to what they currently use... and that requires them to want to do so.
Yes, of course it does. But "it would require them to change" isn't really a compelling counter-argument when my point is that GWneeds to change.
So... McDonalds 'improving' their product would be unworkably expensive, but GW 'improving' their product would be a negligible cost because... uh... reasons?
Yes, because McDonalds has a business model based around selling a product at the absolute lowest possible price and that means using the cheapest possible ingredients that are safe for human consumption. There's nothing mysterious about making better hamburgers, they just cost more to produce and therefore aren't suitable for a fast food restaurant. GW, on the other hand, has no such obstacle preventing them from improving the rules. The material costs of printing better rules are exactly the same as printing bad rules, so the only additional cost is the employees who write the rules. And based on what we know about the salaries of game designers and playtesters relative to GW's total expenses even a major expansion of GW's game design staff wouldn't be a major cost for the company as a whole.
The fact that they already employ rules writers doesn't change the fact that developing a more water-tight ruleset would take longer, and therefore cost more.
But by how much? And what percentage of GW's total expenses comes from rule authors? Doubling the cost of writing the rules doesn't make much of an impact if rule authors are currently only 1% of GW's total expenses.
Well, no. A good company that is looking to grow is always looking for ways to grow.
Every well-run company is always looking for ways to grow. If you ever say "we're already making enough money, let's be satisfied with what we have" then you're an incompetent manager who needs to be fired. A business can have different opinions on the risk vs. reward of various growth strategies, but making more money is always a goal.
However, even assuming that GW's intention is to continue growing their customer base, doing so at the expense of what they feel makes their product what it is, is not always an option that a business is willing to explore. I'm sure Doctor Pepper would sell to more people if it had a flavour that appealed to more than 1 person in 40... but changing the flavour would make it a different product.
Except, as I keep pointing out, improving the rules doesn't mean changing the product. It's a win/win situation for everyone who matters, and the only customers who suffer any harm are the "casual at all costs" players whose primary goal is to keep competitive players out of "their" game. And those people are toxic TFGs who need to be driven out of the community anyway.
And however many times you insist it to be the case, incompetence isn't the only possible reason for that.
And yet you still haven't given any reasons for why a well-run company would make GW's decisions. Saying "GW doesn't want to do it your way" over and over again does not mean that they're doing the right thing.
Azreal13 wrote: Tolerating sub par product because it doesn't bother you personally damages everyone who thinks differently to you.
The people who are happy with the sub-par product buy the sub-par product and are happy with it.
The people who refuse to tolerate sub-par product refuse to buy the sub-par product and go and find an alternative product that they are happy with.
The only people who suffer are those who refuse to tolerate sub-par product and keep hanging around waiting for the sub-par product to improve despite 30 years' evidence that this isn't likely to happen...
Yes, the world would be an awesome place if nobody ever cared enough to want things they love to change for the better and just walked away.
Oh, hang on..
No.
While it isn't exactly women's rights or racial equality in terms of scope or import, if people keep articulating their frustrations, who knows where it ends up? What if a GW employee reads someone's comments and thinks "actually, fair point, perhaps we could do more" or someone who is currently happily emptying their wallet into their local GW store every week stops and thinks "perhaps I could be a little more discerning in my purchases, because I'm not as happy with everything as I could be" and then starts spending less/elsewhere.
Things don't change by people giving up and walking away.
People would be a lot more forgiving of their shortcomings if GW were seen to be trying: beta testing, regular FAQs, communicating and working with the community to fix issues as they arise, these things would all go a long way to predispose me, and I'm sure many others, to be more positive to GW and the game.
I agree here.
I would suppose that whether they know how unbalanced the rules are or not, they simply don't care. They have certainly made mystifying decsions in the past, after all. It's as if they put the rules out as an afterthought because it's something they've always done, and it's part of their line, and it justifies putting out new kits; however, the general bloat, the way some units become practically mandatory for a strong list while others will never leave the shelf, makes me think that there's very little in the way of thorough testing and constructive criticism going on, more of a "yeah, that'll do" attitude.
People who are primarily interested in the painting/modelling side probably won't be as bothered by this - fair enough. But as someone who likes both that and the gaming side, it would be good to buy that (very expensive) army and be able to use it with a nice, elegant ruleset where you have a fighting chance whoever you pick and certain army books aren't regarded as "best" or "worst."
Writing good rules for a new edition costs the same as writing new rules for a crappy edition. They would lose nothing by making tighter rules and gain more customers from people with higher standards than "Feth it, good enough."
I think GW intentionally make broken rules.
Why do I think that?
Because of two main reasons.
1 - I've been playing GW games such as 40K and WHFB for over 20 years. By now, they should have perfected a gaming systems for one or both of the games. All the game designers will never admit that it must be in their gaming design protocol to make some stupid stuff so the game can be "broken" or they know that if they fix x and y the game would be better... but they don't. Their goal is to make FUN games and then the rules. If they have the option to make FUN and perfect rules.. or FUN and a bit broken rules... they would choose the fun and broken. Why do I think this, because of the number of edition and time spent on developing this game. Think about it....1980's to now... then can't get it right?
2. Profit. Every new edition they make money from old timer. I'll take myself as an example. If they perfected the game back in 80's, there would never be new books, just new update with art work and fluff, but the rules system would stays the same. Yes, new models and stuff... but no rules. That would means for people like me and many who have more than 2 or 3 editions of books in the basements, we wouldn't have spent 1,000 of dollars on new editions. Also, every new editions... it create new excitement to the hobby. If GW perfected the game back in the 80s I might have stop playing in the 90s because I am bored with the game.
So...to create a Perfect game is to make a fun games with room for improvement(always). This is how they keep players coming back for more. Trust me, if GW make a perfect rules...we all wouldn't be playing GW games after 5 years. GW would have to keep making new games every 5 years and no long term games like WH or 40K.
Think about games like Monopoly. It is a perfected gaming system for that game. We all play them once in a while but it couldn't be a hobby because it is stagnant. A Hobby must be fluid and ever changing so hobbits can keep enjoying the hobby.
Fezman wrote: makes me think that there's very little in the way of thorough testing and constructive criticism going on, more of a "yeah, that'll do" attitude.
This is true. I don't remember the source, but IIRCGW's management openly believe that playtesting is just playing with your toys on company time and you shouldn't get paid to do it. Add this to a group of rule authors that believe that the rules are just a general framework for building your own game and players can fix any problems they encounter and poor quality rules are almost inevitable.
Azreal13 wrote: No, I don't know how many GW products have been sold, but I'd guess it's less than $5bn, which is the total monopoly revenue at $20 a box.
Monopoly is not a hobby that requires large amounts of time and energy like 40k does. Short of reducing 40k to Monopoly levels (lol), it is bound to never have the same appeal.
As for balancing, how does one balance a player who has 3 Baneblades vs a player who only wants to run Flyers? There's too much diversity in this game to balance it without taking some of the options out.
david choe wrote: Why do I think this, because of the number of edition and time spent on developing this game. Think about it....1980's to now... then can't get it right?
Making a perfect game isn't easy, or something that happens just because you spend a lot of time on it. GW could spend another 50 years on the rules for 40k and they wouldn't have a perfect game unless they change their approach and make fixing the rules a priority. So the fact that they haven't fixed everything yet doesn't mean that they're deliberately sabotaging their own product.
That would means for people like me and many who have more than 2 or 3 editions of books in the basements, we wouldn't have spent 1,000 of dollars on new editions.
You haven't spend thousands of dollars on new editions, unless you're one of the very few hardcore collectors willing to buy every single thing GW publishes. The average customer spends about $2-300 on a new edition at most, $75ish for the main rulebook and $50ish each for the codex for the 1-2 armies they play. And that's at current prices, previous editions were cheaper. That's barely enough to reach $1000 in rules if you've been playing since the beginning. And if you've been playing that long you've probably spent way more money on models that don't have anything to do with new editions.
If GW perfected the game back in the 80s I might have stop playing in the 90s because I am bored with the game.
I think you're the minority here, for two reasons:
1) Good games don't disappear because their rules never change. Chess hasn't changed significantly in hundreds of years and yet people still play it.
2) A game like 40k doesn't depend on new rules to keep offering new things. Remember, the story is supposed to be important, and even if the core rules never change you can always create new missions, play against new opponents, etc. The ongoing story of your army and characters doesn't end just because you don't get a new rule for how to roll the dice.
Think about games like Monopoly. It is a perfected gaming system for that game. We all play them once in a while but it couldn't be a hobby because it is stagnant. A Hobby must be fluid and ever changing so hobbits can keep enjoying the hobby.
No, we rarely play Monopoly because it's a terrible game that drains all the fun out of your existence. And you're making a big mistake here by comparing board games for children to hobby games. Most people don't play games like Monopoly very often because there's nothing to get invested in. No fluff, no customizing your own force, and no real gameplay depth. The 10000000th time you play a game of Monopoly is just like the 10th time you play it. And that's fine, because those games are meant to be something you do to spend time with your kids or have an excuse to invite your friends over for beer. But that's not at all the case with a game like 40k, where there's just so much more to invest in and so much more return on investing a lot of time and money. Even if the rules never change and you never start a second army it still takes a long time to build a complete army, and then there's an almost endless number of stories to tell about your characters.
Azreal13 wrote: As of 7 years ago, Monopoly had sold 250m copies.
Big deal... you know how many GW products have been sold?
In my house we have one box of Monopoly....$20
GW products....$5,000 or more I don't even know.
IF GW perfected the game...I would have only spent maybe $500 to $1,000 and that is all. This $5,000 is still going and may never stop.
Well, I don't think the game will ever be 'finished' even if they really polished the rules. At most, I spend... $300 a year on rules, and I doubt it's even that(basically all the codex releases). The models is where the money is... Harlequins? There goes $500 in plastic. Blood Angels? $700. And so on.
I'm certain that when they finally get around to redoing Eldar, I'm going to blow a small fortune on models -- I miss them, but I'm not really willing to invest more energy on a faction with 6e rules, where almost all the infantry models are from two editions ago, and where there hasn't been a significant new release in a very long time.
Unit1126PLL wrote: As for balancing, how does one balance a player who has 3 Baneblades vs a player who only wants to run Flyers? There's too much diversity in this game to balance it without taking some of the options out.
Two things here:
1) You're taking for granted that removing options is a bad thing. In reality there's nothing wrong with imposing limits, as long as there's still enough depth within those limits for the game to be interesting. Why should an army of all Baneblades or all flyers be possible? In the "real" world you'd rarely, if ever, have an army consisting of three superheavy tanks with no support, and an all-flyer army is just an airstrike that has no story potential beyond "they dropped their bombs and returned home".
2) It's still possible to balance this situation. For example, the game might be about whether the flyers have the ability to kill the Baneblades fast enough to prevent them from scoring all of the objectives and winning without ever firing a shot at the flyers. This would probably be a boring game (which is why such absurd armies should not be possible), but you could still give each side a roughly 50% chance of winning.
Azreal13 wrote: No, I don't know how many GW products have been sold, but I'd guess it's less than $5bn, which is the total monopoly revenue at $20 a box.
Monopoly is not a hobby that requires large amounts of time and energy like 40k does. Short of reducing 40k to Monopoly levels (lol), it is bound to never have the same appeal.
As for balancing, how does one balance a player who has 3 Baneblades vs a player who only wants to run Flyers? There's too much diversity in this game to balance it without taking some of the options out.
You're drawing a false equivalency there. I didn't say it was a hobby, it was held up as an example of how keeping the rules the same "doesn't work" and I was merely pointing out that in fact Monopoly has been phenomenally successful for decades while doing exactly that.
@Peregrine -- he's been at it for 20+ years I think he said, so quite possible David has spent a fair amount on rules.
By the way, all of my gaming buddies own all or nearly all of the codex/hardcovers (some cheated on IK, escalation, etc and photocopied the few rules pages). If you buy the codices as they come out, at discounted prices, it's like $40 every few months.
This is a fallacy though. If an item (of any stripe, not just in this context, but anything in life) is overpriced, then finding a way of reducing or deferring the cost does not make the item less overpriced.
All you're doing is finding ways to justify paying a high price for something you want to yourself.
@Talys.
So you enjoy playing your version of 40k. This is good enough for you, so you are prepared to pay GW prices.
Why would you not want more people to enjoy playing 40k?
How could clearly defined rules ,(appx half the number of pages ,) that deliver twice as much game play.Along with better balanced force lists be bad in any way?
People could just turn up , play the R.A.W with ANY list from the allowed F.O.Cs and have a fun game .(No arguments or negotiating how to interpret the rules.)
The player pool would expand , a wider variety of armies and challenges and narrative would evolve naturally , enriching all aspect of the hobby.
@Peregrine.
I agree with you that writing good rules would be the most productive thing that GW plc could do.
However, there are two points I think we differ on.
1)The GWdev team are just making the best of a bad situation.They may not be the best game developers in the world.But the massive hindrance that the sales department and corporate management impede them with is the largest factor in play.
'Make the game better, but do not change anything too much.if we do not hit the next quarter sales forcast, we will be wanting to know why you did not do enough to inspire sales.'
They have 2 options toe the company line or leave.(Lots have left GW !).
2)People who have different expectations do not necessarily have 'low standards,' just different ones.
So I would say that GW plc are actively targeting the easier to please customers.
Those that are happy to pay more for GW product , and do not care about the quality of the rules , have different standards to us.
But from GW plc perspective they are easier to please.
They are not asking for well written rules focusing on game play , and more balance in the army lists.
They are not asking for better value from their purchases.
However, this is the point many seem to have missed.
Despite raising retail prices well over the rate of inflation for over a decade, GW plc are loosing sales volumes , and this is eating in to GW profits now.
More people are being priced out.And as the dwindling customer base is squeezed even more for more cash, even more customers will drop out.
So unless GW plc increase sales volumes,they will continue to loose profit , to the point where they are not in a position to counter it.
So GW plc NOT improving rules is bad for absolutely everyone long term,(Apart from Tom Kirby who is so rich he does not care at all.)
Unit1126PLL wrote: As for balancing, how does one balance a player who has 3 Baneblades vs a player who only wants to run Flyers? There's too much diversity in this game to balance it without taking some of the options out.
Two things here:
1) You're taking for granted that removing options is a bad thing. In reality there's nothing wrong with imposing limits, as long as there's still enough depth within those limits for the game to be interesting. Why should an army of all Baneblades or all flyers be possible? In the "real" world you'd rarely, if ever, have an army consisting of three superheavy tanks with no support, and an all-flyer army is just an airstrike that has no story potential beyond "they dropped their bombs and returned home".
2) It's still possible to balance this situation. For example, the game might be about whether the flyers have the ability to kill the Baneblades fast enough to prevent them from scoring all of the objectives and winning without ever firing a shot at the flyers. This would probably be a boring game (which is why such absurd armies should not be possible), but you could still give each side a roughly 50% chance of winning.
The way to balance it is rock-paper-scissors. The classic scheme where each type of inot is strong again certain types of units but weak against others.
For instance, air could be very strong against armor, moderately strong against infantry, but very weak against antiaircraft (and unable to hold objectives).
So, 100 points of air could defeat 400 points of tanks, 200 points of infantry; but die to 25 points of antiair.
100 points of armor could defeat 400 points of antiair, 200 points of infantry, but die to 25 points of air.
And so on. The point is to make no unit a jack of all trades and vulnerable to none, which if I had a single criticism of 40k would be the most significant. For instance, TWC is not particularly weak against a whole lot, and it's quite good against many opponents, making it a must take. Ditto for Dante, dreadknights, riptides, FMCs, etc.
40k would be a better game if these units all had an accessible Achilles heel, to force armies to be more varied and strategic, instead of making it so that players who want to field varied armies do so because they want to create interesting conflicts against one another.
Making a perfect game isn't easy, or something that happens just because you spend a lot of time on it. GW could spend another 50 years on the rules for 40k and they wouldn't have a perfect game unless they change their approach and make fixing the rules a priority. So the fact that they haven't fixed everything yet doesn't mean that they're deliberately sabotaging their own product.
That would means for people like me and many who have more than 2 or 3 editions of books in the basements, we wouldn't have spent 1,000 of dollars on new editions.
You haven't spend thousands of dollars on new editions, unless you're one of the very few hardcore collectors willing to buy every single thing GW publishes. The average customer spends about $2-300 on a new edition at most, $75ish for the main rulebook and $50ish each for the codex for the 1-2 armies they play. And that's at current prices, previous editions were cheaper. That's barely enough to reach $1000 in rules if you've been playing since the beginning. And if you've been playing that long you've probably spent way more money on models that don't have anything to do with new editions.
If GW perfected the game back in the 80s I might have stop playing in the 90s because I am bored with the game.
I think you're the minority here, for two reasons:
1) Good games don't disappear because their rules never change. Chess hasn't changed significantly in hundreds of years and yet people still play it.
2) A game like 40k doesn't depend on new rules to keep offering new things. Remember, the story is supposed to be important, and even if the core rules never change you can always create new missions, play against new opponents, etc. The ongoing story of your army and characters doesn't end just because you don't get a new rule for how to roll the dice.
Think about games like Monopoly. It is a perfected gaming system for that game. We all play them once in a while but it couldn't be a hobby because it is stagnant. A Hobby must be fluid and ever changing so hobbits can keep enjoying the hobby.
No, we rarely play Monopoly because it's a terrible game that drains all the fun out of your existence. And you're making a big mistake here by comparing board games for children to hobby games. Most people don't play games like Monopoly very often because there's nothing to get invested in. No fluff, no customizing your own force, and no real gameplay depth. The 10000000th time you play a game of Monopoly is just like the 10th time you play it. And that's fine, because those games are meant to be something you do to spend time with your kids or have an excuse to invite your friends over for beer. But that's not at all the case with a game like 40k, where there's just so much more to invest in and so much more return on investing a lot of time and money. Even if the rules never change and you never start a second army it still takes a long time to build a complete army, and then there's an almost endless number of stories to tell about your characters.
---------------SORRY, I HAVE A HARD TIME DOING MUTI QUOTE ---------BELOW IS ME ------ ABOVE IS PEREGRINE ---------
I know making a game is not easy. I didn't want to get into the "How to make a perfect game", just that when you have one life time already.... 30+ years is life long career for some... and you can't get it right? I call it as I see it. When GW can't get it right for over 30 years... I think it is intentional. This "intentional" makes them money.
New Edition cost me an average of about 1,000. This is how GW get me. Example... from WHFB, I got X amount of army. if GW stop at 7ed. and only update minis... I don't think I will ever buy more minis. Just a few minis that I like. But with 8ed. You need much more models count. My Black Orcs in 7ed was 25, now I have them at 40. I update a few armies which cost about $500 plus rules and then a new army. So I would guess average gamers who only have one army would only update his army and the new rules and maybe a few army book... would run him about 300. IF GW had no new edition...they would be dead in the water by now.
Chess is a good example. I should have use Chess and not monopoly. Chess... we play many times, but do we buy anything new for Chess? That would be if GW make a perfect game....chance are most people will never step into GW store ever again after that one buy. Once you perfected your table top and your army.. your friends will play the same stuff forever. You might look at new games that comes out, but I don't think you will spend more GW products... or if you do not as much as keep buying new edition..
I'll make this simple....
Ask yourself this.
Are you going to be buying new GW stuff for the new Edition in the future?
How many times have you buy new models because of rules changes?
How much have you spent on the above two questions?
That money are cash that GW will never have if they perfected the game.
Yes, you will buy new update minis...but that is not what the two questions above ask.
I think out of my GW budget, about 50% goes to the two questions. What I am saying ... by keep the gaming edition fluid and ever changing... they will generate more money. That is the incentive for a company and a path that any executives would take for more bonus. A Win Win.
@Lanrak - I don't disagree with you. Better rules would be an all around win. All I'm saying is that the rules as written doest detract from my fun.
Also: Hanging around FLGS, the #1 complaint about 40k is NOT rules. In my area, the top detractor for new players is the high cost of entry. Unequivocally.
In fact, many younger players start and abandon 40k because they find out that to be competitive, they need to spend a thousand bucks, and that's more than they can afford, and more than they expected getting into the game.
I think they should perfect the game for casuals and competitive players (because the divide is artificial anyway) and then use the money they'd give from a product people want to invest in other games, like Necromunda and Epic and even more. That's how they'd continue to get more money, diversify...the exact opposite of what they are doing.
Azreal13 wrote: No, I don't know how many GW products have been sold, but I'd guess it's less than $5bn, which is the total monopoly revenue at $20 a box.
Monopoly is not a hobby that requires large amounts of time and energy like 40k does. Short of reducing 40k to Monopoly levels (lol), it is bound to never have the same appeal.
As for balancing, how does one balance a player who has 3 Baneblades vs a player who only wants to run Flyers? There's too much diversity in this game to balance it without taking some of the options out.
You're drawing a false equivalency there. I didn't say it was a hobby, it was held up as an example of how keeping the rules the same "doesn't work" and I was merely pointing out that in fact Monopoly has been phenomenally successful for decades while doing exactly that.
I use monopoly as an example of a perfect game... and that is all.
GW games like WH and 40K are hobby games and not box game like monopoly. SpaceHulk is more like Monolopy.
Hobby need new things or it will die out. Example.. golf... perfect game..rules (for players), but they keep making better equipment.. so the company can continue. If a Golf equipment can change the rules of golf and players will keep buying their products.. why stop it?
GW will never stop making new edition because they can. Golf pro equipment maker can't do that. So they just keep making new and better equipment.
GW will keep making better models and change the rules because they can and it makes them more money.
@david choe - you are right about rules changes. I went out and snapped up all the flayed ones in town with the new necron book, and a third stormraven with the BA Book (and a lot of other stuff.. I was just saying that as an example)
david choe wrote: just that when you have one life time already.... 30+ years is life long career for some... and you can't get it right? I call it as I see it. When GW can't get it right for over 30 years... I think it is intentional. This "intentional" makes them money.
Except, again, time doesn't matter. You could spend 100 years making a game and if your process sucks your game won't be any better than when you started. The problem is that GW's entire approach to game design is fundamentally broken and will not produce good results no matter how many years old the game is. You don't need to resort to claims of intentional sabotage to explain it.
New Edition cost me an average of about 1,000.
Then you aren't a typical customer. Most people aren't spending $1000 on a new edition. They might spend $75 on the new rulebook or $50 on the new codex for their army, but they aren't going to make huge investments in new models unless they were willing to buy those models under the old rules.
Chess... we play many times, but do we buy anything new for Chess?
No, but that has nothing to do with the rules changing. You don't buy anything new for chess because you can buy everything there is to buy for $20. Maybe if you really love chess and want to decorate your house you buy a nice chess set to display, but then your purchases end. With 40k (and similar games) the cost to buy everything is much higher, so only a tiny minority of customers will even come close to running out of things to buy.
Are you going to be buying new GW stuff for the new Edition in the future?
No. I might buy new models, but the new rules aren't the reason why. I already have a list of what I want to buy for the foreseeable future, and it's unlikely that a new edition will change that significantly. Unless of course the new edition sucks so much that I give up on 40k entirely.
How many times have you buy new models because of rules changes?
Very rarely, and when new rules do motivate me to buy a new model it usually just replaces some other model I was going to buy instead, for a net gain of $0 for GW.
That money are cash that GW will never have if they perfected the game.
Sure, that specific money wouldn't be in GW's bank account, but right now GW is missing a lot of potential money because people know the rules suck and don't buy GW games. Is it better to get a relatively small amount of additional money from existing customers, or to get completely new customers who have to make all of the $500+ new army purchases?
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Talys wrote: In fact, many younger players start and abandon 40k because they find out that to be competitive, they need to spend a thousand bucks, and that's more than they can afford, and more than they expected getting into the game.
And guess what: that's a complaint about the rules. If the rules didn't suck then the cost of "being competitive" wouldn't be any higher than the cost of playing the game any other way. Only in badly designed games do you have problems with players having to spend additional money to play competitively.
Azreal13 wrote: No, I don't know how many GW products have been sold, but I'd guess it's less than $5bn, which is the total monopoly revenue at $20 a box.
Monopoly is not a hobby that requires large amounts of time and energy like 40k does. Short of reducing 40k to Monopoly levels (lol), it is bound to never have the same appeal.
As for balancing, how does one balance a player who has 3 Baneblades vs a player who only wants to run Flyers? There's too much diversity in this game to balance it without taking some of the options out.
You're drawing a false equivalency there. I didn't say it was a hobby, it was held up as an example of how keeping the rules the same "doesn't work" and I was merely pointing out that in fact Monopoly has been phenomenally successful for decades while doing exactly that.
I use monopoly as an example of a perfect game... and that is all.
GW games like WH and 40K are hobby games and not box game like monopoly. SpaceHulk is more like Monolopy.
Hobby need new things or it will die out. Example.. golf... perfect game..rules (for players), but they keep making better equipment.. so the company can continue. If a Golf equipment can change the rules of golf and players will keep buying their products.. why stop it?
GW will never stop making new edition because they can. Golf pro equipment maker can't do that. So they just keep making new and better equipment.
GW will keep making better models and change the rules because they can and it makes them more money.
So why do the rules need to be bad? Why can't they just be new? Why can't they release a new edition every decade or so, which exists purely to do housekeeping and consolidation (once they've cracked it of course, not the current mess) and spend the rest of time expanding on different ways to play, campaign sets, new factions etc etc?
Nothing about what you suggest inherently requires an intentionally poor ruleset or to not keep producing new material.
Azreal13 wrote: Yes, the world would be an awesome place if nobody ever cared enough to want things they love to change for the better and just walked away.
Oh, hang on..
No.
While it isn't exactly women's rights or racial equality in terms of scope or import, if people keep articulating their frustrations, who knows where it ends up? What if a GW employee reads someone's comments and thinks "actually, fair point, perhaps we could do more" or someone who is currently happily emptying their wallet into their local GW store every week stops and thinks "perhaps I could be a little more discerning in my purchases, because I'm not as happy with everything as I could be" and then starts spending less/elsewhere.
Things don't change by people giving up and walking away.
Sure. But things also don't change when the people making them have no interest in changing them.
The point wasn't that you can't want things you like to be better. The point was that if you're unhappy with the way GW writes the 40K rules, hanging around waiting for them to change is an exercise in futility, because GW are making the game they want to make, and have absolutely no interest in what you or I want the game to be.
The 40K rules being full of holes isn't a new thing. The current state of the rules is no worse than, say, 2nd or 4th edition was.
It's not going to change just because you want it to. And eventually, sitting around complaining about the state of the rules and hoping they'll change just starts to feel a little silly.
david choe wrote: just that when you have one life time already.... 30+ years is life long career for some... and you can't get it right? I call it as I see it. When GW can't get it right for over 30 years... I think it is intentional. This "intentional" makes them money.
Except, again, time doesn't matter. You could spend 100 years making a game and if your process sucks your game won't be any better than when you started. The problem is that GW's entire approach to game design is fundamentally broken and will not produce good results no matter how many years old the game is. You don't need to resort to claims of intentional sabotage to explain it.
New Edition cost me an average of about 1,000.
Then you aren't a typical customer. Most people aren't spending $1000 on a new edition. They might spend $75 on the new rulebook or $50 on the new codex for their army, but they aren't going to make huge investments in new models unless they were willing to buy those models under the old rules.
Chess... we play many times, but do we buy anything new for Chess?
No, but that has nothing to do with the rules changing. You don't buy anything new for chess because you can buy everything there is to buy for $20. Maybe if you really love chess and want to decorate your house you buy a nice chess set to display, but then your purchases end. With 40k (and similar games) the cost to buy everything is much higher, so only a tiny minority of customers will even come close to running out of things to buy.
Are you going to be buying new GW stuff for the new Edition in the future?
No. I might buy new models, but the new rules aren't the reason why. I already have a list of what I want to buy for the foreseeable future, and it's unlikely that a new edition will change that significantly. Unless of course the new edition sucks so much that I give up on 40k entirely.
How many times have you buy new models because of rules changes?
Very rarely, and when new rules do motivate me to buy a new model it usually just replaces some other model I was going to buy instead, for a net gain of $0 for GW.
That money are cash that GW will never have if they perfected the game.
Sure, that specific money wouldn't be in GW's bank account, but right now GW is missing a lot of potential money because people know the rules suck and don't buy GW games. Is it better to get a relatively small amount of additional money from existing customers, or to get completely new customers who have to make all of the $500+ new army purchases?
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Talys wrote: In fact, many younger players start and abandon 40k because they find out that to be competitive, they need to spend a thousand bucks, and that's more than they can afford, and more than they expected getting into the game.
And guess what: that's a complaint about the rules. If the rules didn't suck then the cost of "being competitive" wouldn't be any higher than the cost of playing the game any other way. Only in badly designed games do you have problems with players having to spend additional money to play competitively.
Enough with your theory of how to make a perfect game. Common sense tells me that if you can build a nuke bomb in 30years...paper and pencil game can be done under 10 years. Nobody is debating with the method of making good games, I am saying GW is not incompetence so, they are doing this intentionally because it is better for them.
New edition last about 5 years, in that 5 years I can spent over 1000 becuse of new edition only. Not talking about new minis update like TacSM squad. I am talking about flyers and anti air unit as an example. New edition always require more cash for the new mini to stay competive...in the basic level. I am not even talking about power gamer.
I remember when I started out, let's don't talk cash becuse in the 90s it was way cheaper. I was in my youth and not a lot of cash. I have a standard army. Then new edition. I buy new rules and my codex. And minimum of new stuff for my army. It cost me about 30% of my old army.
So every new edition, average army update will cost that person about 30%.
I will say this, I want perfect game but it will never happen.
Like my other example....if GW own the rights to basketball and all court and ball products and fans follow GW blindly GW will change the game of basketball every few years because players will buy new smaller or bigger ball, new require court size or paint job,etc
Azreal13 wrote: No, I don't know how many GW products have been sold, but I'd guess it's less than $5bn, which is the total monopoly revenue at $20 a box.
Monopoly is not a hobby that requires large amounts of time and energy like 40k does. Short of reducing 40k to Monopoly levels (lol), it is bound to never have the same appeal.
As for balancing, how does one balance a player who has 3 Baneblades vs a player who only wants to run Flyers? There's too much diversity in this game to balance it without taking some of the options out.
You're drawing a false equivalency there. I didn't say it was a hobby, it was held up as an example of how keeping the rules the same "doesn't work" and I was merely pointing out that in fact Monopoly has been phenomenally successful for decades while doing exactly that.
I use monopoly as an example of a perfect game... and that is all.
GW games like WH and 40K are hobby games and not box game like monopoly. SpaceHulk is more like Monolopy.
Hobby need new things or it will die out. Example.. golf... perfect game..rules (for players), but they keep making better equipment.. so the company can continue. If a Golf equipment can change the rules of golf and players will keep buying their products.. why stop it?
GW will never stop making new edition because they can. Golf pro equipment maker can't do that. So they just keep making new and better equipment.
GW will keep making better models and change the rules because they can and it makes them more money.
So why do the rules need to be bad? Why can't they just be new? Why can't they release a new edition every decade or so, which exists purely to do housekeeping and consolidation (once they've cracked it of course, not the current mess) and spend the rest of time expanding on different ways to play, campaign sets, new factions etc etc?
Nothing about what you suggest inherently requires an intentionally poor ruleset or to not keep producing new material.
Bad or good is not important , just new. How many new edition have bad or worst rules than the last Ed?
I just told you why they keep making new edition (new does equal good or bad), because more money.
david choe wrote: Enough with your theory of how to make a perfect game. Common sense tells me that if you can build a nuke bomb in 30years...paper and pencil game can be done under 10 years. Nobody is debating with the method of making good games, I am saying GW is not incompetence so, they are doing this intentionally because it is better for them.
Sigh. Once again, you can easily make a good game in 30 years if you have the right approach for making it. If you start with a coherent vision for what you want your game to be, make good design a high priority, and invest the required time into serious playtesting then you will get good results. If, like GW, you publish whatever random thoughts you have without testing anything or even bothering to sit down and decide what you want your game to be before you start writing then it doesn't matter how many years you spend, you'll never get a good product.
New edition last about 5 years, in that 5 years I can spent over 1000 becuse of new edition only. Not talking about new minis update like TacSM squad. I am talking about flyers and anti air unit as an example. New edition always require more cash for the new mini to stay competive...in the basic level. I am not even talking about power gamer.
Again, you are not a typical customer. Most people do not spend an additional $1000 on a new edition. They buy the rules, and maybe they adjust their purchase decisions a bit, but they don't massively increase their budget. And GW doesn't gain anything from selling you a $50 AA unit instead of the $50 tank you would have bought if 6th edition hadn't added flyers.
Like my other example....if GW own the rights to basketball and all court and ball products and fans follow GW blindly GW will change the game of basketball every few years because players will buy new smaller or bigger ball, new require court size or paint job,etc
Except "fans follow GW blindly" is an incredibly stupid assumption to base your business on. Most people aren't blindly loyal fanboys, and going from one broken edition to a slightly different broken edition is not a good way to generate additional sales from most customers.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Also, this whole "GW has to keep the game broken to make you buy new stuff" argument fails badly when you try to explain things like the DA flyers. If GW deliberately changes the rules to make you buy new stuff then why weren't the DA flyers given powerful rules to encourage you to buy them? Why are the only good units in the codex the bikes and terminators that every DA player already owned?
Talys wrote: In fact, many younger players start and abandon 40k because they find out that to be competitive, they need to spend a thousand bucks, and that's more than they can afford, and more than they expected getting into the game.
And guess what: that's a complaint about the rules. If the rules didn't suck then the cost of "being competitive" wouldn't be any higher than the cost of playing the game any other way. Only in badly designed games do you have problems with players having to spend additional money to play competitively.
No, that isn't what I meant at all.
Even if you know exactly what you want and have no waste, it costs $1,000+ to field 1,850 points that looks like something you'd be proud to show off. That isn't because of bad rules, that's because models aren't cheap, and you need a lot of models to field 1,850 for most factions.
When I say, "competitive" I don't mean winning the next tournament. I mean, going and playing a game with *anyone* and not having embarrassing units simply because all you own is a DV starter box and two $50 add-ons.
My point: the top reason potential players at my local stores don't start 40k is because they are smart enough to do the math, and see that fielding an army will cost them hundreds of dollars, and that isn't an investment they want to make. Even with a perfect set of rules, it would still cost them hundreds of dollars, and at that price, they'd rather get a new Xbox One, PC, make a mortgage payment, or whatever.
Talys wrote: When I say, "competitive" I don't mean winning the next tournament. I mean, going and playing a game with *anyone* and not having embarrassing units simply because all you own is a DV starter box and two $50 add-ons.
But that's also a rules complaint. If the rules weren't broken then a new player could show up with their starter set and two $50 add-ons and play a 500-1000 point game (or whatever point total those units add up to) and have a fun game. The only reason that's embarrassing for the new player is that the rules are broken in general and even more broken in small games. Fix the rules and this isn't a problem.
david choe wrote: Enough with your theory of how to make a perfect game. Common sense tells me that if you can build a nuke bomb in 30years...paper and pencil game can be done under 10 years. Nobody is debating with the method of making good games, I am saying GW is not incompetence so, they are doing this intentionally because it is better for them.
Sigh. Once again, you can easily make a good game in 30 years if you have the right approach for making it. If you start with a coherent vision for what you want your game to be, make good design a high priority, and invest the required time into serious playtesting then you will get good results. If, like GW, you publish whatever random thoughts you have without testing anything or even bothering to sit down and decide what you want your game to be before you start writing then it doesn't matter how many years you spend, you'll never get a good product.
New edition last about 5 years, in that 5 years I can spent over 1000 becuse of new edition only. Not talking about new minis update like TacSM squad. I am talking about flyers and anti air unit as an example. New edition always require more cash for the new mini to stay competive...in the basic level. I am not even talking about power gamer.
Again, you are not a typical customer. Most people do not spend an additional $1000 on a new edition. They buy the rules, and maybe they adjust their purchase decisions a bit, but they don't massively increase their budget. And GW doesn't gain anything from selling you a $50 AA unit instead of the $50 tank you would have bought if 6th edition hadn't added flyers.
Like my other example....if GW own the rights to basketball and all court and ball products and fans follow GW blindly GW will change the game of basketball every few years because players will buy new smaller or bigger ball, new require court size or paint job,etc
Except "fans follow GW blindly" is an incredibly stupid assumption to base your business on. Most people aren't blindly loyal fanboys, and going from one broken edition to a slightly different broken edition is not a good way to generate additional sales from most customers.
I am not sure if you are doing this on purpose.....nobody is arguing with your THEORY of how to make perfect game. Time is the evidence here. You keep saying GW Is doing wrong...and I am here to tell you they had the time and fund to correct their error by now. If your theory is correct, you don't think they can figure it out by now?
Are you saying that we all are better than GW at designing games? The answer is yes we are. You are proofing my point. If you can figure it out, why can't GW. They have and they know that keep making new edition and keep making more money. They CHOOSE not to make perfect game.
If I give 20 of us here 100,000 dollars each and 2 years to perfected 40k... I know we can do it. At worst ...it would be new edition....GW spend over 10 millions in development and 30 years and all we got is this crap....
I speak from experience and you can look up history of GW....they will always keep giving us new edition even if 10 TH is perfect, they will give us 11 which is 10-1 bad, and then 12 Ed will be 11+1 good....the system is always back and forth delete some and add some...it is fluid always.
Azreal13 wrote: No, I don't know how many GW products have been sold, but I'd guess it's less than $5bn, which is the total monopoly revenue at $20 a box.
Monopoly is not a hobby that requires large amounts of time and energy like 40k does. Short of reducing 40k to Monopoly levels (lol), it is bound to never have the same appeal.
As for balancing, how does one balance a player who has 3 Baneblades vs a player who only wants to run Flyers? There's too much diversity in this game to balance it without taking some of the options out.
You're drawing a false equivalency there. I didn't say it was a hobby, it was held up as an example of how keeping the rules the same "doesn't work" and I was merely pointing out that in fact Monopoly has been phenomenally successful for decades while doing exactly that.
I use monopoly as an example of a perfect game... and that is all.
GW games like WH and 40K are hobby games and not box game like monopoly. SpaceHulk is more like Monolopy.
Hobby need new things or it will die out. Example.. golf... perfect game..rules (for players), but they keep making better equipment.. so the company can continue. If a Golf equipment can change the rules of golf and players will keep buying their products.. why stop it?
GW will never stop making new edition because they can. Golf pro equipment maker can't do that. So they just keep making new and better equipment.
GW will keep making better models and change the rules because they can and it makes them more money.
So why do the rules need to be bad? Why can't they just be new? Why can't they release a new edition every decade or so, which exists purely to do housekeeping and consolidation (once they've cracked it of course, not the current mess) and spend the rest of time expanding on different ways to play, campaign sets, new factions etc etc?
Nothing about what you suggest inherently requires an intentionally poor ruleset or to not keep producing new material.
Bad or good is not important , just new. How many new edition have bad or worst rules than the last Ed?
I just told you why they keep making new edition (new does equal good or bad), because more money.
Not important to whom? It's bloody well important to me. It'll be bloody important to GW too, if people stop playing and buying because the game's gak.
There's not even strong evidence that a new edition does generate a massive amount of cash anyway, at least not for 6th or 7th, so if you're assumption is they're doing it to fluff sales is correct, they're failing at making good rules and making money.
But then, I'm old fashioned and I was always taught that the best way to succeed in business is to offer a quality product people want at a decent price, not to hurl half arsed gak at an increasingly jaded and shrinking customer base while jacking up prices and slashing your costs so that the diminishing returns are disguised for as long as possible, so what do I know?
@david choe -- I thought about your thought a little bit, and perhaps you're right, in a different way.
Instead of saying that the game is purposely broken, say try this theory on for size:
Games Workshop increases the relative value of some units to encourage the sales of models that don't sell well.
That sounds more plausible than GW wanting the game to stay broken, and amounts to the same thing. Buff unit x, people buy unit x. Unit Y sales doing poorly? Buff unit Y.
It sounds kind of cold-hearted and cruel, but it's pretty common in video games too, where the life of a video game is extended by giving buffs to unpopular classes and skills in order to encourage players to try something new (take Diablo, for instance).
The question is, do I mind? I'm not sure that I do, because being someone who would really like to own and have painted all the models of a faction I play anyhow, it just encourages me to try new things.
However, if I didn't enjoy collecting the faction and wanted to just play for years with one static army, then yeah, this would kind of suck.
david choe wrote: Time is the evidence here. You keep saying GW Is doing wrong...and I am here to tell you they had the time and fund to correct their error by now. If your theory is correct, you don't think they can figure it out by now?
No, I don't think they can figure it out because their process is fundamentally flawed. No matter how long GW spends working on 40k with their current methods it will never produce good results. So the absence of good results is not proof that GW is maliciously sabotaging their own product.
If I give 20 of us here 100,000 dollars each and 2 years to perfected 40k... I know we can do it. At worst ...it would be new edition....GW spend over 10 millions in development and 30 years and all we got is this crap....
Well yes, that's because GW is an incompetently-run company. They hire rule authors who aren't very good at what they do and then place them in an environment that is almost guaranteed to make them fail. That doesn't mean they're deliberately sabotaging their own product, it just means they're incompetent.
Talys wrote: When I say, "competitive" I don't mean winning the next tournament. I mean, going and playing a game with *anyone* and not having embarrassing units simply because all you own is a DV starter box and two $50 add-ons.
But that's also a rules complaint. If the rules weren't broken then a new player could show up with their starter set and two $50 add-ons and play a 500-1000 point game (or whatever point total those units add up to) and have a fun game. The only reason that's embarrassing for the new player is that the rules are broken in general and even more broken in small games. Fix the rules and this isn't a problem.
Dark Vengeance is perfectly fine as long as you use only the units that come in the box, and nothing else.
Nobody has a cost issue playing a 500 point game. But the people who have an issue with cost don't want to play Kill Team. They want to play 2,000 point games, and also realize that in order to know the game reasonably well, they need to buy at least a half dozen books. They also realize that those beautiful models sitting in showcases are beyond their patience to achieve, and move on.
And by the way, if you limit it to low point rules like Kill Team (and models permitted therein), the game is actually pretty balanced and fun. It's just not what people think of when they think 40k.
But we're getting away from my point: NEW players, who have never read the rules, look at the price stickers at hobby shops or GW stores, and don't start. They don't know if the rules suck, or if they're the best written, most internally balanced zen in the universe. Even if the Yin and Yang were in perfect harmony, they would still be scared of the price stickers and vast amount of boxes on the shelves.
I just wanted to add that creating 40k perfectly balance is not rocket science. It is a paper and pencil that anybody can do, but will take time....2 years time of 20 people like us gamers can do it. I mange if we have 2 or 3 professional designer in ther too? This is not rocket science...it is not a holy Grail quest....GW had 30 years with millions in it....they still can't do it is because they choose not to.
They choose not to because of incompetence or because new edition makes money?
Ther are only two reasons why we have so many editions.
1 GW is incompetence
2GW choose to do this to make new edition for more money
david choe wrote: Time is the evidence here. You keep saying GW Is doing wrong...and I am here to tell you they had the time and fund to correct their error by now. If your theory is correct, you don't think they can figure it out by now?
No, I don't think they can figure it out because their process is fundamentally flawed. No matter how long GW spends working on 40k with their current methods it will never produce good results. So the absence of good results is not proof that GW is maliciously sabotaging their own product.
If I give 20 of us here 100,000 dollars each and 2 years to perfected 40k... I know we can do it. At worst ...it would be new edition....GW spend over 10 millions in development and 30 years and all we got is this crap....
Well yes, that's because GW is an incompetently-run company. They hire rule authors who aren't very good at what they do and then place them in an environment that is almost guaranteed to make them fail. That doesn't mean they're deliberately sabotaging their own product, it just means they're incompetent.
As I said in my last post, perhaps GW buffs units to sell nice models that didn't sell well last time around (because they were underpowered), and to give it a little more oomph, they overcompensate. I wouldn't call that maliciously sabotaging their own product, nor incompetence. I mean, they didn't accidentally make anni barges sucky and wraiths and flayed ones great, y'know? And I'm sure they didn't do it to wreck the game either. But you know how many spiders and wraiths have sold at my store? O.o
Manipulating their customers into spending money, now, that I can run with
The manipulation in power levels of unit types could be considered a deliberate ploy (such as the swing in the power of MC from 5th-6th) but then how do you account for things like the Psychic Phase is barely playable RAW (because, RAWIC Psykers attached to a non psychic unit cease to be psykers) or how the Tzeentch Burning Chariot did not function as all but the most ardent contrarian would consider it was meant to?
There's manipulation of the rules to manipulate the players, and then there's writing rules that simply don't work properly, or have multiple, equally valid interpretations. That's not evil, it's just stupid.
david choe wrote: I just wanted to add that creating 40k perfectly balance is not rocket science. It is a paper and pencil that anybody can do, but will take time....2 years time of 20 people like us gamers can do it. I mange if we have 2 or 3 professional designer in ther too? This is not rocket science...it is not a holy Grail quest....GW had 30 years with millions in it....they still can't do it is because they choose not to.
They choose not to because of incompetence or because new edition makes money?
Ther are only two reasons why we have so many editions.
1 GW is incompetence
2GW choose to do this to make new edition for more money
Look at how many editions there are for Dungeons and Dragons. People like new stuff, so I think even if units were all really well balanced, people would still buy the new editions.
Also, there is game escalation. Since you've been around for a while, you must remember that when 40k first started, the number of models on a table were fewer, and the number of non-infantry models were very few. In Rogue Trader, there weren't even official lists, per se -- people had to make them up themselves. In time, there were bigger and bigger models -- in 1990 we would not have imagined Thunderhawks, Flyrants, Imperial Knights, Wraithknights, and so on, on the same table as space marines and aspect warriors.
This isn't just 40k -- WMH just announced a bunch of Garguantuan models like large flyers. One way of getting people to open up their wallets is definitely, "bigger and better!"
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Azreal13 wrote: The manipulation in power levels of unit types could be considered a deliberate ploy (such as the swing in the power of MC from 5th-6th) but then how do you account for things like the Psychic Phase is barely playable RAW (because, RAWIC Psykers attached to a non psychic unit cease to be psykers) or how the Tzeentch Burning Chariot did not function as all but the most ardent contrarian would consider it was meant to?
There's manipulation of the rules to manipulate the players, and then there's writing rules that simply don't work properly, or have multiple, equally valid interpretations. That's not evil, it's just stupid.
Yes, I certainly won't disagree with that There is unit manipulation, internal balance issues, and escalation to manipulate people to buy more models, and in a separate category, rules that are weird or apparently stupid.
Talys wrote: Look at how many editions there are for Dungeons and Dragons.
Not that many actually. D&D is older than GW and still only on its 5th edition, and not all of those new editions involved major changes. But yet somehow D&D still makes lots of money by selling campaign settings, new classes, etc, to add on to the core rules. They don't need to make a new edition for the sole purpose of making everyone buy the rules again.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Azreal13 wrote: The manipulation in power levels of unit types could be considered a deliberate ploy (such as the swing in the power of MC from 5th-6th) but then how do you account for things like the Psychic Phase is barely playable RAW (because, RAWIC Psykers attached to a non psychic unit cease to be psykers) or how the Tzeentch Burning Chariot did not function as all but the most ardent contrarian would consider it was meant to?
There's manipulation of the rules to manipulate the players, and then there's writing rules that simply don't work properly, or have multiple, equally valid interpretations. That's not evil, it's just stupid.
david choe wrote: I just wanted to add that creating 40k perfectly balance is not rocket science. It is a paper and pencil that anybody can do, but will take time....2 years time of 20 people like us gamers can do it. I mange if we have 2 or 3 professional designer in ther too? This is not rocket science...it is not a holy Grail quest....GW had 30 years with millions in it....they still can't do it is because they choose not to.
They choose not to because of incompetence or because new edition makes money?
Ther are only two reasons why we have so many editions.
1 GW is incompetence
2GW choose to do this to make new edition for more money
Look at how many editions there are for Dungeons and Dragons. People like new stuff, so I think even if units were all really well balanced, people would still buy the new editions.
Also, there is game escalation. Since you've been around for a while, you must remember that when 40k first started, the number of models on a table were fewer, and the number of non-infantry models were very few. In Rogue Trader, there weren't even official lists, per se -- people had to make them up themselves. In time, there were bigger and bigger models -- in 1990 we would not have imagined Thunderhawks, Flyrants, Imperial Knights, Wraithknights, and so on, on the same table as space marines and aspect warriors.
This isn't just 40k -- WMH just announced a bunch of Garguantuan models like large flyers. One way of getting people to open up their wallets is definitely, "bigger and better!"
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Azreal13 wrote: The manipulation in power levels of unit types could be considered a deliberate ploy (such as the swing in the power of MC from 5th-6th) but then how do you account for things like the Psychic Phase is barely playable RAW (because, RAWIC Psykers attached to a non psychic unit cease to be psykers) or how the Tzeentch Burning Chariot did not function as all but the most ardent contrarian would consider it was meant to?
There's manipulation of the rules to manipulate the players, and then there's writing rules that simply don't work properly, or have multiple, equally valid interpretations. That's not evil, it's just stupid.
Yes, I certainly won't disagree with that There is unit manipulation, internal balance issues, and escalation to manipulate people to buy more models, and in a separate category, rules that are weird or apparently stupid.
For sure you are correct. Model manipulation for greater sales is based on two main things, change basic rules or change the models rules. This goes back to my point of creating a "flaw" or i perfer to call it fluid system...so they can change here or there for the edition and bang...I need to buy three more rhinos and 20 more space marines for the new edition.
This is funny...but to proof my point...has there ever been an edition where you don't need to buy anything new... You have enough...to stay balance with the system, not power game. None.
My first 40k was in high school in the 80s ....10 orks was my army. Then in2000s was massive models count and vehicles. Then2015, Flyers and anti flyers.
david choe wrote: I need to buy three more rhinos and 20 more space marines for the new edition.
Except, as I keep telling you, most people don't do that. If they were planning to buy three more Rhinos under the previous edition they still buy them. If they were planning to spend the equivalent amount of money on other units then they just change their purchases to Rhinos and GW has no net gain. If they weren't planning to spend anything under the old edition then they probably aren't going to make any major purchases when the new edition arrives. They'll just keep playing their current armies and upgrade at the rate allowed by their current budget, and if they can't keep up with the new edition they'll either stop playing or only play with people who share their opinion and don't use the new stuff.
If you want some examples just look at how many people resisted adding flyers in 6th or LoW in 7th. They didn't immediately run out and buy a new Stormraven or Baneblade, they just said "this is stupid" and imposed a "no flyers/LoW/etc" house rule.
My first 40k was in high school in the 80s ....10 orks was my army. Then in2000s was massive models count and vehicles. Then2015, Flyers and anti flyers.
And now you're confusing two very different things: expanding the game to include new stuff as new models are created, and deliberately writing bad rules so that people have to buy the next edition that "fixes" them. Adding flyers to the game is a legitimate thing to do and nobody would have had any problems with it if there hadn't been so many balance issues and the rules hadn't been so poorly designed. We'd all be happily using our Stormravens and Valkyries and talking about how awesome the game is now. But what you're talking about is something completely different.
david choe wrote: I need to buy three more rhinos and 20 more space marines for the new edition.
Except, as I keep telling you, most people don't do that. If they were planning to buy three more Rhinos under the previous edition they still buy them. If they were planning to spend the equivalent amount of money on other units then they just change their purchases to Rhinos and GW has no net gain. If they weren't planning to spend anything under the old edition then they probably aren't going to make any major purchases when the new edition arrives. They'll just keep playing their current armies and upgrade at the rate allowed by their current budget, and if they can't keep up with the new edition they'll either stop playing or only play with people who share their opinion and don't use the new stuff.
If you want some examples just look at how many people resisted adding flyers in 6th or LoW in 7th. They didn't immediately run out and buy a new Stormraven or Baneblade, they just said "this is stupid" and imposed a "no flyers/LoW/etc" house rule.
Maybe in your gaming group. Almost everyone who played SM bought a Stormraven within the first year of release, and the occasional player has a baneblade. I haven't seen a local gaming group that says no flyers or no LoW, except at newbie tables.
My first 40k was in high school in the 80s ....10 orks was my army. Then in2000s was massive models count and vehicles. Then2015, Flyers and anti flyers.
And now you're confusing two very different things: expanding the game to include new stuff as new models are created, and deliberately writing bad rules so that people have to buy the next edition that "fixes" them. Adding flyers to the game is a legitimate thing to do and nobody would have had any problems with it if there hadn't been so many balance issues and the rules hadn't been so poorly designed. We'd all be happily using our Stormravens and Valkyries and talking about how awesome the game is now. But what you're talking about is something completely different.
I dunno. If guys in your group aren't having fun with the new units, and they were having fun before, then they should stop using the new units that are negative enjoyment. If they've never had fun playing the game, and for thirty years it's been awful, why not do something else?
In any case, I don't think GW writes bad rules to fix them in the next edition, though I do think they manipulate rules to encourage or discourage certain models. I'm not saying there aren't bad rules, just that GW doesn't go out of its way to make rules bad. I also reiterate that I don't think any rule or rule subset is so horrible and unfixable as to make the game just no fun anymore.
david choe wrote: I need to buy three more rhinos and 20 more space marines for the new edition.
Except, as I keep telling you, most people don't do that. If they were planning to buy three more Rhinos under the previous edition they still buy them. If they were planning to spend the equivalent amount of money on other units then they just change their purchases to Rhinos and GW has no net gain. If they weren't planning to spend anything under the old edition then they probably aren't going to make any major purchases when the new edition arrives. They'll just keep playing their current armies and upgrade at the rate allowed by their current budget, and if they can't keep up with the new edition they'll either stop playing or only play with people who share their opinion and don't use the new stuff.
If you want some examples just look at how many people resisted adding flyers in 6th or LoW in 7th. They didn't immediately run out and buy a new Stormraven or Baneblade, they just said "this is stupid" and imposed a "no flyers/LoW/etc" house rule.
My first 40k was in high school in the 80s ....10 orks was my army. Then in2000s was massive models count and vehicles. Then2015, Flyers and anti flyers.
And now you're confusing two very different things: expanding the game to include new stuff as new models are created, and deliberately writing bad rules so that people have to buy the next edition that "fixes" them. Adding flyers to the game is a legitimate thing to do and nobody would have had any problems with it if there hadn't been so many balance issues and the rules hadn't been so poorly designed. We'd all be happily using our Stormravens and Valkyries and talking about how awesome the game is now. But what you're talking about is something completely different.
That is not true....if GW never manipulate the model count....my army of orks would be about 20 and maybe 3 trucks...fron 30 years back. Look at army size from edition to edition in 1500 pt. and you know it is larger and some models are deleted or so crappy game rules that you need new ones.example of this shooting Ed...now what do you do with all they cc troops...you shelf them and buy shorty. Next edition.... For sure..cc will be back and people will have to buy cc and shelf their shoots. It's been like this for Many edition.
GW create this system to add or delete unit to enforce or encourage modifying your army at the cost of about 30% of your old army.
david choe wrote: That is not true....if GW never manipulate the model count....my army of orks would be about 20 and maybe 3 trucks...fron 30 years back. Look at army size from edition to edition in 1500 pt. and you know it is larger and some models are deleted or so crappy game rules that you need new ones.
Sigh. Once again, there's a difference between expanding the game and deliberately making bad rules. Increasing the model count to what it is today isn't deliberate sabotage, it's just a choice to make 40k a big game (and one of the few unique things it has to offer).
example of this shooting Ed...now what do you do with all they cc troops...you shelf them and buy shorty. Next edition.... For sure..cc will be back and people will have to buy cc and shelf their shoots. It's been like this for Many edition.
Except that:
1) 40k has been about shooting since 5th edition, so what you're saying isn't true.
2) This doesn't help GW very much. Sure, some people will replace their entire army when the new edition makes shooting useless but many more people will either ragequit and stop buying GW products entirely or keep playing 7th edition with their friends. And then on top of that GW loses sales every time a new potential customer expresses interest in 40k and someone tells them that the rules suck, melee armies can't win, and by the way here's a much better game you could play instead.
GW create this system to add or delete unit to enforce or encourage modifying your army at the cost of about 30% of your old army.
And this only works for the small minority of competitive players who are willing to spend huge amounts of money every time GW publishes new rules. Most people don't immediately spend 30% of the cost of their army like that, unless they were already in the process of expanding it and had 30% available in their budget. They just keep playing with the stuff they already have, and if they lose too much they stop playing.
david choe wrote: That is not true....if GW never manipulate the model count....my army of orks would be about 20 and maybe 3 trucks...fron 30 years back. Look at army size from edition to edition in 1500 pt. and you know it is larger and some models are deleted or so crappy game rules that you need new ones.
Sigh. Once again, there's a difference between expanding the game and deliberately making bad rules. Increasing the model count to what it is today isn't deliberate sabotage, it's just a choice to make 40k a big game (and one of the few unique things it has to offer).
example of this shooting Ed...now what do you do with all they cc troops...you shelf them and buy shorty. Next edition.... For sure..cc will be back and people will have to buy cc and shelf their shoots. It's been like this for Many edition.
Except that:
1) 40k has been about shooting since 5th edition, so what you're saying isn't true.
2) This doesn't help GW very much. Sure, some people will replace their entire army when the new edition makes shooting useless but many more people will either ragequit and stop buying GW products entirely or keep playing 7th edition with their friends. And then on top of that GW loses sales every time a new potential customer expresses interest in 40k and someone tells them that the rules suck, melee armies can't win, and by the way here's a much better game you could play instead.
GW create this system to add or delete unit to enforce or encourage modifying your army at the cost of about 30% of your old army.
And this only works for the small minority of competitive players who are willing to spend huge amounts of money every time GW publishes new rules. Most people don't immediately spend 30% of the cost of their army like that, unless they were already in the process of expanding it and had 30% available in their budget. They just keep playing with the stuff they already have, and if they lose too much they stop playing.
Sigh...you are providing proof for my argument... So I spent my army in 3rd and 4th chaos cc army then 5th came and I had to change from cc and pistol to Bolter. Rhino rush came out and people were buying transport...then nurf that...no more rhino crazy buy.
Somehow my theory of GW intentionally create fluid gaming system for them to delete or buff or nurf and manipulate the sales of their products seems to fit the pattern for the past 30 years.
You seems to not get this discussion.
You seems to be saying that GW is trying to make perfect game but fail.
I am saying they are trying to keep the system the way it is (with flawed).. Because it is easy for them to manipulate sales.
Their goal is to make fluid gaming system so they can manipulate sales wich create flawed games.
You are trying to give reason or explanation of how to fix or their method is flawed.
Actually, I don't even know what your point is...
Seems like you are saying that GW is an incompetence game designers, but is one of the most sucessful table top gaming company.
I'am saying that GW is intentionally being "incompetence" because it create more sales which is why they are one of the most successful table top gaming company.this is the practice mode that has made them bigger and richer than any other gaming company.
david choe wrote: Somehow my theory of GW intentionally create fluid gaming system for them to delete or buff or nurf and manipulate the sales of their products seems to fix the pattern for the past 30 years.
Except it doesn't, for two reasons:
1) It completely ignores the fact that GW often publishes bad rules for new models. If the rules are designed to manipulate model sales then why would GW do things like giving the DA flyer awful rules and making the best units in the codex the bikes that everyone already owns? Why was 7th edition more of the same shooting dominance that defined 6th edition instead of a swing in favor of melee armies? You're focusing on the few examples that suit your argument and ignoring the places where GW's actions don't line up with your theory.
2) It doesn't explain why GW keeps breaking the game in ways that don't help model sales. Most of the rule issues in YMDC are cases of GW being unwilling or unable to write rules that function properly, not one unit/upgrade being too weak or too powerful. The only effect those issues have is to harm GW's sales because people get frustrated with the lack of clarity and move on to a different game.
The much more likely explanation is that GW is bad at writing rules, and the reason why new editions change is that it's the inevitable result of bad rule authors publishing whatever they happen to think is a good idea without testing it. Some of it is overpowered, some is underpowered, and some of it just doesn't function. And there's no real pattern to it because there's no plan, it's just the random outcome of incompetent authors.
I'am saying that GW is intentionally being "incompetence" because it create more sales which is why they are one of the most successful table top gaming company.this is the practice mode that has made them bigger and richer than any other gaming company.
And this is just wrong. GW is the biggest for three reasons:
1) They were one of the first tabletop wargaming companies to get into the scifi/fantasy genre (and the UK retail source for D&D, non-GW miniatures, etc), giving them a big advantage over all of the newer companies that are trying to catch up to GW. Even if you have a better product than GW and would win a "fair" head to head comparison the fact that GW already has the store chain, the customers who are invested in GW and reluctant to start a new game, etc, means you've got an uphill climb in front of you.
2) Their IP is very strong. Even when the rules suck people love the fluff and models, and they're willing to put up with bad rules to play with their space marines. And those people would still keep loving the fluff and models even if GW never published new rules.
3) GW has been able to use their advantages as an established business to drive their competition out of the market. For example, GW has an ugly history of opening their own retail stores near established independent stores, and then mysteriously the independent store starts having problems getting the new releases in on schedule. The independent store loses customers and eventually goes out of business, removing the source of non-GW games from the area and making everyone default to buying from the local GW. This model hasn't worked as well outside of the UK, where GW stores are much rarer, but it has certainly helped GW gain and maintain market share.
And yet despite these advantages we see, in GW's own mandatory financial reports, that GW is in serious trouble. Profit is down, sales volume is down, market share is down, and GW shows no signs of being able to stop the decline (or even understanding that there is a problem). Meanwhile GW's competition is thriving, so we can't blame this on a bad economy. The simple fact is that GW's business model is not working, and they're only still alive because they started with such a dominant position.
david choe wrote: Somehow my theory of GW intentionally create fluid gaming system for them to delete or buff or nurf and manipulate the sales of their products seems to fix the pattern for the past 30 years.
Except it doesn't, for two reasons:
1) It completely ignores the fact that GW often publishes bad rules for new models. If the rules are designed to manipulate model sales then why would GW do things like giving the DA flyer awful rules and making the best units in the codex the bikes that everyone already owns? Why was 7th edition more of the same shooting dominance that defined 6th edition instead of a swing in favor of melee armies? You're focusing on the few examples that suit your argument and ignoring the places where GW's actions don't line up with your theory.
2) It doesn't explain why GW keeps breaking the game in ways that don't help model sales. Most of the rule issues in YMDC are cases of GW being unwilling or unable to write rules that function properly, not one unit/upgrade being too weak or too powerful. The only effect those issues have is to harm GW's sales because people get frustrated with the lack of clarity and move on to a different game.
The much more likely explanation is that GW is bad at writing rules, and the reason why new editions change is that it's the inevitable result of bad rule authors publishing whatever they happen to think is a good idea without testing it. Some of it is overpowered, some is underpowered, and some of it just doesn't function. And there's no real pattern to it because there's no plan, it's just the random outcome of incompetent authors.
I'am saying that GW is intentionally being "incompetence" because it create more sales which is why they are one of the most successful table top gaming company.this is the practice mode that has made them bigger and richer than any other gaming company.
And this is just wrong. GW is the biggest for three reasons:
1) They were one of the first tabletop wargaming companies to get into the scifi/fantasy genre (and the UK retail source for D&D, non-GW miniatures, etc), giving them a big advantage over all of the newer companies that are trying to catch up to GW. Even if you have a better product than GW and would win a "fair" head to head comparison the fact that GW already has the store chain, the customers who are invested in GW and reluctant to start a new game, etc, means you've got an uphill climb in front of you.
2) Their IP is very strong. Even when the rules suck people love the fluff and models, and they're willing to put up with bad rules to play with their space marines. And those people would still keep loving the fluff and models even if GW never published new rules.
3) GW has been able to use their advantages as an established business to drive their competition out of the market. For example, GW has an ugly history of opening their own retail stores near established independent stores, and then mysteriously the independent store starts having problems getting the new releases in on schedule. The independent store loses customers and eventually goes out of business, removing the source of non-GW games from the area and making everyone default to buying from the local GW. This model hasn't worked as well outside of the UK, where GW stores are much rarer, but it has certainly helped GW gain and maintain market share.
And yet despite these advantages we see, in GW's own mandatory financial reports, that GW is in serious trouble. Profit is down, sales volume is down, market share is down, and GW shows no signs of being able to stop the decline (or even understanding that there is a problem). Meanwhile GW's competition is thriving, so we can't blame this on a bad economy. The simple fact is that GW's business model is not working, and they're only still alive because they started with such a dominant position.
I kind of stop reading your disagreement rant when you have no position of your own. Everybody who read my posts knows where my position is.....
You don't have a position. Just arguing with everybody.
david choe wrote: I kind of stop reading your disagreement rant when you have no position of your own.
Then clearly you haven't been reading anything I've posted, because I have said many times what my position is: GW's management and rule authors are incompetent in their own ways, the problems with the rules are the almost-inevitable result of this incompetence and not some bizarre plan to sabotage their own product, and we'd all be better off if GW fired everyone involved and started caring about the quality of their rules.
david choe wrote: I kind of stop reading your disagreement rant when you have no position of your own.
Then clearly you haven't been reading anything I've posted, because I have said many times what my position is: GW's management and rule authors are incompetent in their own ways, the problems with the rules are the almost-inevitable result of this incompetence and not some bizarre plan to sabotage their own product, and we'd all be better off if GW fired everyone involved and started caring about the quality of their rules.
Finally, I got you to write your point. I've ask it for like 3 post and all I gor was your disagreement with me.
I agree with most of what you stated ( once I know where you stand, I read your point)....we both are speculating our position. Unless the CEOS comes right out that we are screwing with you so we can sell more or we are incompetence, it is all speculation. Of course, GW stances is we are trying our best to give you the best.
I will try to explain your rebuttals,
I should have said GW intention is to make "flawed" to sell more.... But they are also incompetence at making flawed system to their benefit.
1 yes, sometime they make stupid rules that hurt the sale of that model as you pointed out. This is now my reverse of your argument...they are incompetence...they can't even make the model they should have buff it... But failed. Yes GW even act incompetence in trying to screw the customer.
2 every new edition, all 40k players who continue with this hobby spent more. Those who drop out, well they were not going to buy anything new if the edition didn't change...so they do not effect the company sale.
3 I go back to this ... They are so good at making money because it is intentional...it is not by chance that their rules are stupid or they are incompetence at making good rules. Everything is thought with profit in mind. If a good system they though off but expected sales from models and everything els is 10m and a flawed system with stupid buff for this or delete that so player must buy new unit = 12m, they go with the flawed.
For sure GW has protocol guideline in game design, such as this new edition... Current Space marines player need to spend x amount to update their army and we build the rules around this x amount. Do not make the x too high or some will drop space marines. This is their hard ass protocol and this protocol will make the game flawed.
We all know that GW can fix the rules or have free update rules... But it screw their bottom line. Most important of all, if you can fix it and most of us have theory on how to fix it...why don't GW? Because it pays to not be perfect.
If GW were really on their game, you would see 40k in a situation like Warmachine, which has only had two major rules editions with everything else being essentially supplemental material in the time 40k has had, what....4 editions? And both those editions are generally considered to be tight and balanced.
I would love to have the universe of 40k with the rules development of Warmachine/Hordes. That would definitely be something worth paying GW prices for. Except of course if it was more like PP the rules and codex books would be cheaper than GW.
Peregrine wrote:Except, as I keep telling you, most people don't do that.
Peregrine wrote:Sure, some people will replace their entire army when the new edition makes shooting useless but many more people will either ragequit and stop buying GW products entirely or keep playing 7th edition with their friends.
I think it's a bit of a stretch to try and define what "most" or "many more" people do other than outside of anecdotal evidence of individual groups. I'm always surprised when I hear about people buying stuff to keep up with the game. There seemed to be plenty of people buying 3x Crones/Harpies and multiple Flyrants because of the Skyblight formation and overall efficiency of a Flyrant.
That said, I reckon GW's poor rules writing mostly comes down to not giving a damn, not playtesting enough and either not having decent editors or not listening to them. I don't really think it's incompetence simply because there's so many things wrong that only require a tiny amount of competence to realise are wrong and fix. I reckon they don't give a damn because they think good rules wouldn't make them any more sales.
david choe wrote: Finally, I got you to write your point. I've ask it for like 3 post and all I gor was your disagreement with me.
I've already said all of that here, so if you didn't see my position then you just weren't looking very hard.
Unless the CEOS comes right out that we are screwing with you so we can sell more or we are incompetence, it is all speculation.
Of course there's a degree of speculation, but that doesn't prevent us from having pretty good confidence in an answer. You just have to ask what it would look like if GW was doing X, and then compare the hypothetical situation to the real one. If we suggest that GW is deliberately sabotaging their own product to generate sales then we should expect to see consistency in new stuff being overpowered, major changes that require buying new models every time a codex is updated, etc. And when there are bad rules we should expect them to be limited to situations where a profit motive exists, not randomly scattered all over the rulebook in areas that don't really influence model sales. But what we see is exactly the opposite: there's no consistent trend of new releases being overpowered, and the bad rules aren't focused to things that could influence sales.
Now let's look at my hypothetical explanation: that the rule problems are purely the result of incompetence, not deliberate sabotage. If that is true we would expect the problems to be fairly random. Some would help sales, some would hurt sales (or at least fail to increase sales). Some would involve new releases, some would be random interactions in obscure corners of the rulebook that don't have model sales attached. And that's exactly what we see in the rules: random problems that have no real correlation with sales goals. So it's fairly likely that my explanation is an accurate one.
1 yes, sometime they make stupid rules that hurt the sale of that model as you pointed out. This is now my reverse of your argument...they are incompetence...they can't even make the model they should have buff it... But failed. Yes GW even act incompetence in trying to screw the customer.
Except this isn't plausible. Even a really stupid rule author can make something overpowered if they're deliberately trying to make it overpowered. So if it's a deliberate attempt to make things overpowered we should expect nearly every new release to be overpowered. But instead what we see is a trend that looks like the author thinks "this would be really cool" and doesn't playtest sufficiently to balance the new thing. And so some of the new releases are overpowered, while some are underpowered.
2 every new edition, all 40k players who continue with this hobby spent more. Those who drop out, well they were not going to buy anything new if the edition didn't change...so they do not effect the company sale.
And this is simply wrong. Many players who quit because they are frustrated with the state of the game would have continued to buy stuff if the rules hadn't changed. For example, I was planning to expand my abandoned Tau army significantly when the new codex arrived, but since I hated the new codex so much I canceled those plans. GW's bad rules directly resulted in lost sales.
Because it pays to not be perfect.
So why doesn't it work that way for other companies? Why are other companies making much better games without the kind of flaws that GW has, and having a lot of success with those games? Why is GW in a major financial crisis with their current strategy while the rest of the industry is growing? If it pays to publish broken rules then we should see the exact opposite. GW's competition should be going out of business because their attempt at perfection isn't profitable, while GW should be making tons of money. But instead it seems like the only thing keeping GW in business is the fact that it takes a while for their self-inflicted damage to kill a company with such a dominant starting position.
Peregrine wrote:Except, as I keep telling you, most people don't do that.
Peregrine wrote:Sure, some people will replace their entire army when the new edition makes shooting useless but many more people will either ragequit and stop buying GW products entirely or keep playing 7th edition with their friends.
I think it's a bit of a stretch to try and define what "most" or "many more" people do other than outside of anecdotal evidence of individual groups. I'm always surprised when I hear about people buying stuff to keep up with the game. There seemed to be plenty of people buying 3x Crones/Harpies and multiple Flyrants because of the Skyblight formation and overall efficiency of a Flyrant.
That said, I reckon GW's poor rules writing mostly comes down to not giving a damn, not playtesting enough and either not having decent editors or not listening to them. I don't really think it's incompetence simply because there's so many things wrong that only require a tiny amount of competence to realise are wrong and fix. I reckon they don't give a damn because they think good rules wouldn't make them any more sales.
I used to thought of this too, but if they have resources and some or all GW game designers are gamers too, they must have passion to make good rules. You would, I would...all of us here would. Who is stoping this progress? Not the designer incompetence...it must be the suites giving them protocols to make more sales with x rules that will create this new market, etc...
It is a company and I am sure that it was intentional. How many decade does it take to get this right?
david choe wrote: I used to thought of this too, but if they have resources and some or all GW game designers are gamers too, they must have passion to make good rules.
Not necessarily. GW's rule authors have proudly declared in the past, even before the current management took over, that this is supposed to be a "beer and pretzels" game, the rules are supposed to be just a general framework for creating your own game, and you should never care too much about silly things like "what the rulebook says" when you're having fun. That's an attitude that is almost guaranteed to produce bad rules because there's no motivation to go back and fix mistakes, or to test thoroughly with the goal of finding every possible flaw instead of saying "well, we had fun, so it's finished".
AegisGrimm wrote: If GW were really on their game, you would see 40k in a situation like Warmachine, which has only had two major rules editions with everything else being essentially supplemental material in the time 40k has had, what....4 editions? And both those editions are generally considered to be tight and balanced.
I would love to have the universe of 40k with the rules development of Warmachine/Hordes. That would definitely be something worth paying GW prices for. Except of course if it was more like PP the rules and codex books would be cheaper than GW.
If 40k followed PP pricing, the rules cost would be low, but the cost of models would be astronomical -- totally unaffordable for most.
Anyways, given time, when WMH has ten times as many models, I think there will be internal balance and escalation issues, too. There are now plenty of WMH players that are hoping that PP will slow down with escalation, what with all new Gargantuans being released. You begin to see similar things at WMH tables, complaining that they dont want to spend more money and such.
Shrug... the more companies that make cool models and war games, the happier I am
david choe wrote: Finally, I got you to write your point. I've ask it for like 3 post and all I gor was your disagreement with me.
I've already said all of that here, so if you didn't see my position then you just weren't looking very hard.
Unless the CEOS comes right out that we are screwing with you so we can sell more or we are incompetence, it is all speculation.
Of course there's a degree of speculation, but that doesn't prevent us from having pretty good confidence in an answer. You just have to ask what it would look like if GW was doing X, and then compare the hypothetical situation to the real one. If we suggest that GW is deliberately sabotaging their own product to generate sales then we should expect to see consistency in new stuff being overpowered, major changes that require buying new models every time a codex is updated, etc. And when there are bad rules we should expect them to be limited to situations where a profit motive exists, not randomly scattered all over the rulebook in areas that don't really influence model sales. But what we see is exactly the opposite: there's no consistent trend of new releases being overpowered, and the bad rules aren't focused to things that could influence sales.
Now let's look at my hypothetical explanation: that the rule problems are purely the result of incompetence, not deliberate sabotage. If that is true we would expect the problems to be fairly random. Some would help sales, some would hurt sales (or at least fail to increase sales). Some would involve new releases, some would be random interactions in obscure corners of the rulebook that don't have model sales attached. And that's exactly what we see in the rules: random problems that have no real correlation with sales goals. So it's fairly likely that my explanation is an accurate one.
1 yes, sometime they make stupid rules that hurt the sale of that model as you pointed out. This is now my reverse of your argument...they are incompetence...they can't even make the model they should have buff it... But failed. Yes GW even act incompetence in trying to screw the customer.
Except this isn't plausible. Even a really stupid rule author can make something overpowered if they're deliberately trying to make it overpowered. So if it's a deliberate attempt to make things overpowered we should expect nearly every new release to be overpowered. But instead what we see is a trend that looks like the author thinks "this would be really cool" and doesn't playtest sufficiently to balance the new thing. And so some of the new releases are overpowered, while some are underpowered.
2 every new edition, all 40k players who continue with this hobby spent more. Those who drop out, well they were not going to buy anything new if the edition didn't change...so they do not effect the company sale.
And this is simply wrong. Many players who quit because they are frustrated with the state of the game would have continued to buy stuff if the rules hadn't changed. For example, I was planning to expand my abandoned Tau army significantly when the new codex arrived, but since I hated the new codex so much I canceled those plans. GW's bad rules directly resulted in lost sales.
Because it pays to not be perfect.
So why doesn't it work that way for other companies? Why are other companies making much better games without the kind of flaws that GW has, and having a lot of success with those games? Why is GW in a major financial crisis with their current strategy while the rest of the industry is growing? If it pays to publish broken rules then we should see the exact opposite. GW's competition should be going out of business because their attempt at perfection isn't profitable, while GW should be making tons of money. But instead it seems like the only thing keeping GW in business is the fact that it takes a while for their self-inflicted damage to kill a company with such a dominant starting position.
First you point of incompetency works both ways you know. They can be incompentance at trying to make the models sell more too...bad planning and not double checking their new rules that was suppose to buff this model...just bad gak.
GW empire was built on broken rules....nobody came close to them.
If you think the company is failing and their compititors is catching up...they become competence and their rules is perfected? That will prove my point that they could have done this years ago but choose not to because their empire was built on a broken system and it worked for GW.
Oh, now they got their gak together because of warmachine.
You know...it would be interesting if an ex GW game designer would tell us the inside story with the truth. He would have to admit that he was incompetence or the suites gave him protocol to go by.
If 40k followed PP pricing, the rules cost would be low, but the cost of models would be astronomical -- totally unaffordable for most.
As opposed to current 40k pricing?
Yeah, PP isn't the cheapest around, but if you expand your views to beyond GW and PP, you'll find everything is significantly cheaper, from models to rules.
Anyways, given time, when WMH has ten times as many models, I think there will be internal balance and escalation issues, too. There are now plenty of WMH players that are hoping that PP will slow down with escalation, what with all new Gargantuans being released. You begin to see similar things at WMH tables, complaining that they dont want to spend more money and such.
If you look past just GW/PP, you'll find plenty of companies that can add to their games without creating some sort of escalation/power creep. Even then, my understanding of PP's colossal's is that they're fairly balanced, which is a far cry from what you could call 40k's equivalents.
Shrug... the more companies that make cool models and war games, the happier I am
Peregrine wrote:Except, as I keep telling you, most people don't do that.
Peregrine wrote:Sure, some people will replace their entire army when the new edition makes shooting useless but many more people will either ragequit and stop buying GW products entirely or keep playing 7th edition with their friends.
I think it's a bit of a stretch to try and define what "most" or "many more" people do other than outside of anecdotal evidence of individual groups. I'm always surprised when I hear about people buying stuff to keep up with the game. There seemed to be plenty of people buying 3x Crones/Harpies and multiple Flyrants because of the Skyblight formation and overall efficiency of a Flyrant.
That said, I reckon GW's poor rules writing mostly comes down to not giving a damn, not playtesting enough and either not having decent editors or not listening to them. I don't really think it's incompetence simply because there's so many things wrong that only require a tiny amount of competence to realise are wrong and fix. I reckon they don't give a damn because they think good rules wouldn't make them any more sales.
I used to thought of this too, but if they have resources and some or all GW game designers are gamers too, they must have passion to make good rules. You would, I would...all of us here would. Who is stoping this progress? Not the designer incompetence...it must be the suites giving them protocols to make more sales with x rules that will create this new market, etc...
It is a company and I am sure that it was intentional. How many decade does it take to get this right?
Maybe the designers are the type of gamers who just like to line up their models and throw dice and don't care about balance or clarity. There are definitely gamers like that, I don't think it's a stretch to think there might be designers like that as well. I don't think the read and/or absorb any community feedback.
The big hole in the "they do it on purpose" argument is there's too many flaws that aren't going to help them. Things like units that have been crap for multiple editions, longer than many players would have been playing or brand new units that suck right from the moment they're released. There's ambiguous rules that have slipped through from 6th to 7th and still remain. That's a sign of either incompetence or just not giving a crap and I tend to err on the side of the latter because in some cases I genuinely don't think someone could be that incompetent.
If the core rules were solid but the balance was wonky but shifts in balance were more consistent then I might believe they were doing it intentionally. If they're doing it intentionally then they're doing a really bad job of it.
Now obviously the reason they change rules frequently is to drum up more sales, but we're talking specifically about "how broken they make the game".
david choe wrote: First you point of incompetency works both ways you know. They can be incompentance at trying to make the models sell more too...bad planning and not double checking their new rules that was suppose to buff this model...just bad gak.
Again, it's very easy to make units overpowered if you want them to be deliberately overpowered. That new DA flyer? The bolt cannon is STR 10 AP 1, and it costs 10 points per model. Buy them or lose every game you play. The only way anyone with enough of a working brain to write rules at all could publish the actual rules is if there was no deliberate intent to make it overpowered. It only makes sense if you assume that the designer's thought process was something like "it has a cool gatling gun, so it should be a better bolter with lots of shots" and never bothered to do the math on how much damage it does to its intended targets.
GW empire was built on broken rules....nobody came close to them.
No it wasn't. GW's empire was built on a strong IP and early success in a market that had little or no competition for a long time. Their broken rules contributed nothing to their success, and in fact have probably hindered it significantly.
If you think the company is failing and their compititors is catching up...they become competence and their rules is perfected? That will prove my point that they could have done this years ago but choose not to because their empire was built on a broken system and it worked for GW.
Err, what? GW have always had broken rules. This isn't some new thing that GW just started doing, it's been a problem as long as GW has existed.
Oh, now they got their gak together because of warmachine.
Yeah, it makes so much sense that they're suddenly concerned about what PP is doing, and instead of looking at why PP is succeeding their response is "we'd better make our rules suck so that people will buy them more frequently".
Talys wrote: Anyways, given time, when WMH has ten times as many models, I think there will be internal balance and escalation issues, too. There are now plenty of WMH players that are hoping that PP will slow down with escalation, what with all new Gargantuans being released. You begin to see similar things at WMH tables, complaining that they dont want to spend more money and such.
Shrug... the more companies that make cool models and war games, the happier I am
I wonder if the folks complaining are actually paying attention to the rules? Colossals and Gargantuans are big and expensive but you don't need to have a Colossal to come to the table the way you need the new stuff in 40k; they're different, and they make for a different game, but they're not more or less powerful.
david choe wrote: I used to thought of this too, but if they have resources and some or all GW game designers are gamers too, they must have passion to make good rules.
Not necessarily. GW's rule authors have proudly declared in the past, even before the current management took over, that this is supposed to be a "beer and pretzels" game, the rules are supposed to be just a general framework for creating your own game, and you should never care too much about silly things like "what the rulebook says" when you're having fun. That's an attitude that is almost guaranteed to produce bad rules because there's no motivation to go back and fix mistakes, or to test thoroughly with the goal of finding every possible flaw instead of saying "well, we had fun, so it's finished".
As suppose to what? Yeah... We create this game with flawed stuff so you have to pay for new models, etc... Or. Like what you claim...we are idiots and incompentance sorry guys.
That statement of beer and chips is the biggest insurance for all their career ever. I joined Blizzard...emmmmm my WHFB days as designer were beer and chips game...give me a job.
You're making this broad assertion that GW are engineering the game to manipulate the customers into buying more/different models, but you've not really produced any compelling examples, in fact, I'd go so far to say for every one example you could suggest, there'd be at least two which were flat out mistakes.
We have evidence such as Jervis' WD column where his attitude is clearly that 40K is less wargame and more collaborative RPG battle story telling device. We have people claiming to have spoken to designers which have acknowledged that the Eldar and Tau books were mistakes, but they had no intention of addressing those errors, we have units which have been relentlessly bad for multiple editions and codex updates while others are randomly buffed despite there being no new kit.
There is ample evidence to suggest a lack of care, interest or ability. There's plenty to suggest that they're making a game for themselves and not for the people they expect to buy it, there's little to support the idea they're some sort of Machiavellian rules geniuses embedding deliberate flaws and built in obsolescence into every thing they produce.
Talys wrote: Anyways, given time, when WMH has ten times as many models, I think there will be internal balance and escalation issues, too. There are now plenty of WMH players that are hoping that PP will slow down with escalation, what with all new Gargantuans being released. You begin to see similar things at WMH tables, complaining that they dont want to spend more money and such.
Shrug... the more companies that make cool models and war games, the happier I am
I wonder if the folks complaining are actually paying attention to the rules? Colossals and Gargantuans are big and expensive but you don't need to have a Colossal to come to the table the way you need the new stuff in 40k; they're different, and they make for a different game, but they're not more or less powerful.
Generally speaking, the people who make such sweeping statements about WM/H do so from complete ignorance and have likely never played the game, their assumptions being based on what is true of GW games (big models being OP). Never mind facts like my $200 Cryx army that's comprised of a starter and add-ons can take out an opposing army that includes a Colossal. Yeah, we definitely can't have facts get in the way of good hyperbole.
As suppose to what? Yeah... We create this game with flawed stuff so you have to pay for new models, etc... Or. Like what you claim...we are idiots and incompentance sorry guys.
That statement of beer and chips is the biggest insurance for all their career ever. I joined Blizzard...emmmmm my WHFB days as designer were beer and chips game...give me a job.
There is an important distinction with any pen & paper game that ought to remain: they are inherently loose in mechanics. Anytime a designer forgets this, they will tend toward a direction reminiscent of rock, paper, scissors [balancing] and thus, become more of a 'board game'. I'm not insisting 40k should just up and chuck forget about balance, rather, balance should first be consistent with what the lore says, not the other way around.
To add to that, 40k lore is awesome because it's big enough to create your own stuff. There aren't other games where I can have my very own force that operates in a very specific way. You're shorehorned into a build by rules usually.
Like, for example, Infinity with it's AVAlability scores, or Warmachine with it's Unit Allowance.
Talys wrote: Anyways, given time, when WMH has ten times as many models, I think there will be internal balance and escalation issues, too. There are now plenty of WMH players that are hoping that PP will slow down with escalation, what with all new Gargantuans being released. You begin to see similar things at WMH tables, complaining that they dont want to spend more money and such.
Shrug... the more companies that make cool models and war games, the happier I am
I wonder if the folks complaining are actually paying attention to the rules? Colossals and Gargantuans are big and expensive but you don't need to have a Colossal to come to the table the way you need the new stuff in 40k; they're different, and they make for a different game, but they're not more or less powerful.
Generally speaking, the people who make such sweeping statements about WM/H do so from complete ignorance and have likely never played the game, their assumptions being based on what is true of GW games (big models being OP). Never mind facts like my $200 Cryx army that's comprised of a starter and add-ons can take out an opposing army that includes a Colossal. Yeah, we definitely can't have facts get in the way of good hyperbole.
That isn't really my point. You don't NEED a Colossal. You don't NEED an Imperial Knight, Riptide, Dreadknight, or Wraithlord either. The prevailing wisdom at various game tables in stores is that you must buy big units. If, for no other reason than peer pressure. Nobody in the wargaming world wants to show up with just a bunch of starter box units and without any of the new cool stuff.
As other people have pointed out, you can't randomly pick an army that just happens to add up to whatever point total you want to play in WM/H and have it work, and there are cheesy lists, and the starter armies won't get you anywhere (without adding on to it) when playing a game with someone who has invested some money into units for the game.
By the way, the 2-faction starter box units are not very good. The single-faction battle boxes are much better, but you could say the same thing about single-faction battleforce boxes in 40k -- every single unit in the Necron box, for instance, has play value, and most units in most of the single faction starter boxes are decent. It's only really DV that sucks.
Anyways, my entire point is that WM/H games have escalated since the launch of the game, and in 20 years, I suspect it will escalate even further. At some point, when the company needs money, it will push out some units that are better to incentivize people to buy them. I don't even see a problem with this.
And it's great that you can enjoy WM/H with a $200 army, but think of the FLGS -- it isn't going to stay in business if there's a horde of players all just investing $200 into a game. Unless you're buying a few games a year, you're not even paying for one guy's salary for 2 days.
As suppose to what? Yeah... We create this game with flawed stuff so you have to pay for new models, etc... Or. Like what you claim...we are idiots and incompentance sorry guys.
That statement of beer and chips is the biggest insurance for all their career ever. I joined Blizzard...emmmmm my WHFB days as designer were beer and chips game...give me a job.
There is an important distinction with any pen & paper game that ought to remain: they are inherently loose in mechanics. Anytime a designer forgets this, they will tend toward a direction reminiscent of rock, paper, scissors [balancing] and thus, become more of a 'board game'. I'm not insisting 40k should just up and chuck forget about balance, rather, balance should first be consistent with what the lore says, not the other way around.
My .02¢
There is an inherrent danager to that, though. In theory, Necron and Eldar should be able to just obliterate all the other races
The Eldar could snuff out suns, terraform planets, and all that, right? And all that knowledge is still in the Black Library. I mean, it's reminiscent of the Mimbari-Human wars in Babylon 5 -- the humans really didn't have a chance at all. There is also the problem that the whole concept of WH40k is inherrently flawed, because space faring races would not be slogging it out with infantry, tanks, and jetbikes on the ground... they would, you know, fight it out in space
But it's all good -- I love that 40k is a space-ification of the fantasy races (humans, elves, ogres, halflings, dwarves, undead, all that) and that there are cool models that duke it out on a tabletop with futuristic weapons in a totally unrealistic fashion.
Talys wrote: Nobody in the wargaming world wants to show up with just a bunch of starter box units and without any of the new cool stuff.
I do now wonder what sort of crazy nerds you play with
We are all old crazy nerds now. Most of us started in the late 80's when we were in high school/university -- for a long time, every week it was one night for D&D (or some other RPG.. we played everyhthing), and one night for tabletop stuff. Our first tabletop... "wargame"... was Car Wars by Steve Jackson. Then FASA Battletech. Oh, and when MtG came out, we went nuts, and I think that consumed 1 year of my life, lol.
Now we all have families and getting together to play is a lot tougher :(
My comments, though, were mostly aimed at the FLGS crowd, since I do enjoy checking out what other people are up to.
There is an inherrent danager to that, though. In theory, Necron and Eldar should be able to just obliterate all the other races
The Eldar could snuff out suns, terraform planets, and all that, right? And all that knowledge is still in the Black Library. I mean, it's reminiscent of the Mimbari-Human wars in Babylon 5 -- the humans really didn't have a chance at all. There is also the problem that the whole concept of WH40k is inherrently flawed, because space faring races would not be slogging it out with infantry, tanks, and jetbikes on the ground... they would, you know, fight it out in space
But it's all good -- I love that 40k is a space-ification of the fantasy races (humans, elves, ogres, halflings, dwarves, undead, all that) and that there are cool models that duke it out on a tabletop with futuristic weapons in a totally unrealistic fashion.
Uh.. I fail to see what point you are making about 'inherent danger'? Just because a race has the capability to blow up a star/planet, doesn't mean they should auto win. It doesn't mean you must represent it. It's an option for some scenarios I presume. However, keep in mind, no where did I say that everything from lore must be represented - that is sort of going into absolutism, eh? Warhammer 40k focuses in on infantry/ground warfare, so there are limitations, or rather, assumptions made, as to why either army is even fielding ground forces.
As far as ground warfare not really being realistic, I use to think the same way about 40k. Keep in mind a few things though: First, you can always find a fix it to near any problem in a fiction - if you think about it long and hard enough . Second, sometimes 'fix-its' can sound pretty convoluted. Now again, regarding ground warfare, here's what I've made of it as a 'realistic consideration':
Consider the matter of the war, are you preserving planets, conquering them, destroying them? The first two would be a fitting scenario for ground warfare. Don't forget to factor any fields around cities or areas on planets that are critical to keep intact - you can't really bombard them (Titan becomes more useful in this regard, as they would excel at sieging cities - where firing positions have more vertical considerations). Oh, and don't forget boarding actions either - or any other space siege related things. Battle lines and fixed positions could even be justified as well (think trench warfare): once you take away air superiority, from both sides, it's more likely to digress into a game of perpetual push and shove - imo.
So yes, there is a huge focus on naval warfare in space sci fi stuff, but there are also very realistic situations for ground warfare - unless you are bent on blowing the planet to smithereens or have drunk the Gene Roddenberry koolaid.
Martel732 wrote: There have been models that NEVER sold well because they were crap in the game for years and years. And GW never buffed them. Like Vespids.
I bought a squad of Vespids when they were launched in 2006 but I have to admit their rules are crap. A classic example of non-joined-up thinking.
Expensive.
Vulnerable to shooting and melee.
Reliant on a leader figure who was easily killed by Torrent Of Fire.
Weapons very effective against SMs but very short range.
Jump troop mobility added to an army that already had plenty of either cheaper or better jump troops.
Talys wrote: @Lanrak - I don't disagree with you. Better rules would be an all around win. All I'm saying is that the rules as written doest detract from my fun.
Also: Hanging around FLGS, the #1 complaint about 40k is NOT rules. In my area, the top detractor for new players is the high cost of entry. Unequivocally.
In fact, many younger players start and abandon 40k because they find out that to be competitive, they need to spend a thousand bucks, and that's more than they can afford, and more than they expected getting into the game.
How are rules not the problem here? They can get bad armies for cheap or cheaper, why don't they play those, if rules don't matter to the fun one gets out of the game?
Azreal13 wrote: You're making this broad assertion that GW are engineering the game to manipulate the customers into buying more/different models, but you've not really produced any compelling examples, in fact, I'd go so far to say for every one example you could suggest, there'd be at least two which were flat out mistakes.
.
Hmm, I think he has a point, each 'shift' in edition changes the power builds. Third was rhino rush, or shoot the rhino rush. Fourth was six man las/pas and assault cannon spam, and skimmer spam, fifth turned into mech hammer for the largest part etc. I think it's fair to say there is an attempt to push a certain 'style' of game with each new edition. There are over arching design goals and points to follow('push armour!','push shooting!', 'get away from assault!' Etc). Change, not improve being the key.
We have evidence such as Jervis' WD column where his attitude is clearly that 40K is less wargame and more collaborative RPG battle story telling device. We have people claiming to have spoken to designers which have acknowledged that the Eldar and Tau books were mistakes, but they had no intention of addressing those errors, we have units which have been relentlessly bad for multiple editions and codex updates while others are randomly buffed despite there being no new kit.
Remember though, jervis isn't a power player. In life or within the company. He's a fairly easy going, lAid back guy. Getting your face in white dwarf is pr, nothing more. There is no power there within its pages. Jervis is as beholden to the overall directives of sales and marketing as anyone else in the studio, with less power to affect change, or pick directions than many people realise.
There is ample evidence to suggest a lack of care, interest or ability. There's plenty to suggest that they're making a game for themselves and not for the people they expect to buy it, there's little to support the idea they're some sort of Machiavellian rules geniuses embedding deliberate flaws and built in obsolescence into every thing they produce.
I think it's a combination of lack of creative control (the designers are given a brief, a project and a time limit), a need to align with company attitudes, and personal interpretation.i don't think they need to be Machiavellian geniuses embedding deliberate flaws, just an attitude of 'change, not improve'.
Remember as well, the personal views and bias of the designers can have a huge role to play. Back in the day, when Pete Haines was a big name, when he designed codices for armies he liked, they were great (chas/ iron warriors being a prime example). When he didn't, thry were ok, or barely functional (fourth ed imperial guard). Iirc he also disliked the 'fantasy' races like eldar and orks which was why, at the time, they kept being pushed back in favour of other races. I got the same feeling from cruddace's fourth ed tau 'update'. It felt like he just didn't get it. It felt like he wasn't invested. And it felt, very much like he had a very limited brief, and limited scope and limited resources in which to do work within the scope of the update. Could this lack of care, or disinterest be part of it? All you need is someone who doesn't like dark Angels, and doesn't like flyers to make a bad dark Angels flyer. Not incompetence. Just bias.
in his time as well, and to his credit, pete haines tried to impose a greater 'discipline' in the design staff. Too often there was too much enthusiasm, and too much 'Rush', and not enough 'forethought', and you ended up with everything and it's monkey getting rules, unique index astartes articles/rules and massive bloat in rules 'bulk'.
I don't think there's any doubt that they change the game to try and make more money, but I still doubt the poorly written rules and piss poor balance is intentional with the goal of trying to make more money, rather I reckon they think better rules and balance wouldn't improve sales so they don't bother.
There is an inherrent danager to that, though. In theory, Necron and Eldar should be able to just obliterate all the other races
The Eldar could snuff out suns, terraform planets, and all that, right? And all that knowledge is still in the Black Library. I mean, it's reminiscent of the Mimbari-Human wars in Babylon 5 -- the humans really didn't have a chance at all. There is also the problem that the whole concept of WH40k is inherrently flawed, because space faring races would not be slogging it out with infantry, tanks, and jetbikes on the ground... they would, you know, fight it out in space
But it's all good -- I love that 40k is a space-ification of the fantasy races (humans, elves, ogres, halflings, dwarves, undead, all that) and that there are cool models that duke it out on a tabletop with futuristic weapons in a totally unrealistic fashion.
Uh.. I fail to see what point you are making about 'inherent danger'? Just because a race has the capability to blow up a star/planet, doesn't mean they should auto win. It doesn't mean you must represent it. It's an option for some scenarios I presume. However, keep in mind, no where did I say that everything from lore must be represented - that is sort of going into absolutism, eh? Warhammer 40k focuses in on infantry/ground warfare, so there are limitations, or rather, assumptions made, as to why either army is even fielding ground forces.
As far as ground warfare not really being realistic, I use to think the same way about 40k. Keep in mind a few things though: First, you can always find a fix it to near any problem in a fiction - if you think about it long and hard enough . Second, sometimes 'fix-its' can sound pretty convoluted. Now again, regarding ground warfare, here's what I've made of it as a 'realistic consideration': Consider the matter of the war, are you preserving planets, conquering them, destroying them? The first two would be a fitting scenario for ground warfare. Don't forget to factor any fields around cities or areas on planets that are critical to keep intact - you can't really bombard them (Titan becomes more useful in this regard, as they would excel at sieging cities - where firing positions have more vertical considerations). Oh, and don't forget boarding actions either - or any other space siege related things. Battle lines and fixed positions could even be justified as well (think trench warfare): once you take away air superiority, from both sides, it's more likely to digress into a game of perpetual push and shove - imo.
So yes, there is a huge focus on naval warfare in space sci fi stuff, but there are also very realistic situations for ground warfare - unless you are bent on blowing the planet to smithereens or have drunk the Gene Roddenberry koolaid.
I like the Roddenberry Koolaid
But anyhow, here's a nice, universal Eldar solution: I like that planet. BOOM! Planet wiped. Now, re-terraform. Yay, done. Or, "You will do what we say, or we will destroy the stars of your star systems." Hey, that's a good threat, right? Do it a couple times, and all those pesky younger races will fall in line.
Now, let's look at the Imperium side. If you go by fluff, they have Oribtal bombardment. Heck, SM captain can call for an oribital strike (once per game). So, why would anyone in their right mind ever go and fight hand to hand, when you can bomb the crap out of the other side, *then* let those drop pods come down?
The history of warfare is one of extended range; as we progress, we do more and more damage from an increasingly further distance. This has held true from the first tools fashioned by our genetic predecessors through to the bronze and iron ages. Today, we fly drones from half the circumference of the globe, and fire ballistic and guided missiles to take out targets without casualties.
But yeah, that would not make for a good tabletop wargame -- the "inherrent danger" I speak of is that the fluff doesn't make much sense if you think too much about it. So space Orks on floating space garbage versus space Dark Elves and their space Killer Clown allies... .FIGHT!
But anyhow, here's a nice, universal Eldar solution: I like that planet. BOOM! Planet wiped. Now, re-terraform. Yay, done. Or, "You will do what we say, or we will destroy the stars of your star systems." Hey, that's a good threat, right? Do it a couple times, and all those pesky younger races will fall in line.
Now, let's look at the Imperium side. If you go by fluff, they have Oribtal bombardment. Heck, SM captain can call for an oribital strike (once per game). So, why would anyone in their right mind ever go and fight hand to hand, when you can bomb the crap out of the other side, *then* let those drop pods come down?
The history of warfare is one of extended range; as we progress, we do more and more damage from an increasingly further distance. This has held true from the first tools fashioned by our genetic predecessors through to the bronze and iron ages. Today, we fly drones from half the circumference of the globe, and fire ballistic and guided missiles to take out targets without casualties.
But yeah, that would not make for a good tabletop wargame -- the "inherrent danger" I speak of is that the fluff doesn't make much sense if you think too much about it. So space Orks on floating space garbage versus space Dark Elves and their space Killer Clown allies... .FIGHT!
Wouldn't have it any other way.
About the Eldar - They simply don't have enough numbers in the galaxy to go around and start a mess like going after stars... that would probably ensure the destruction of their craftworlds. As of now, parts of the imperium are on negotiable footing with the eldar, and the eldar have their master plans to use the humans. Their motivations are not about dominance... they are trying to survive.
When it comes to the IoM - Did you read anything I typed in my previous post? I already stated, that objectives in an imperium are not about blowing crap up and simply rebuilding - some of the structures in the imperium are so complex and humongous it would take centuries to rebuild, thus, taking away any point in probably considering a world a strategic asset. When it comes to fighting hand to hand.... you do realize CQB is still a thing that goes in our age right? In any ground operations, particularly boarding actions or any sort of siege warfare, you are going to have some very ugly cramped conditions that will require close combat. When it comes to some of the close combat loadouts the SM's carry into battle, I think some are a bit over glorified. I can understand something like thunderhammers but a whole squads seems a bit too much. However, do consider, with factions like tyranids, orks or the waves of cultists willing to literally jump on you, close combat weapons would be very useful.
I agree that ranged warfare is indeed increasing, but what are you going to do with a hypothetical that cities or countries have shields protecting them from ranged issues? Subterranean networks? Strategic assets to capture and not blow up? Or even that both sides have mutually screwed each other up so bad that air superiority is not even a consideration anymore - for either side? Lastly, If one side focuses entirely on ranged technology, and has no ground forces, whats to stop and invading enemy if they do get in?
I agree Warhammer is quite the novelty, space elves, space knights, space orcs, space X. Its a fun what if. There are some other complexities that are truly intriguing that I quite admire, like the scale and bluntness of the warfare introduced. Other science fiction universes seem more novel in this way than warhammer, particularly Star Trek. They try to sell you on some pretty shallow progressive sophistication.
I use to watch the original, next gen, deep space nine, enterprise, voyager, but all of them are inundated with idealism over believability, such as:
communism magically works, peace among the races regardless of culture, an over excess of bipedal aliens, way too many species of aliens, essentially everyone is usually somewhat good (instead of what reality says).....
I could probably go on, but it would be kinda like a hammer looking for nails. Either way, warhammer is a fun novelty I admit, but I would say its more 'believable' than start trek - imo
Azreal13 wrote: You're making this broad assertion that GW are engineering the game to manipulate the customers into buying more/different models, but you've not really produced any compelling examples, in fact, I'd go so far to say for every one example you could suggest, there'd be at least two which were flat out mistakes.
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Hmm, I think he has a point, each 'shift' in edition changes the power builds. Third was rhino rush, or shoot the rhino rush. Fourth was six man las/pas and assault cannon spam, and skimmer spam, fifth turned into mech hammer for the largest part etc. I think it's fair to say there is an attempt to push a certain 'style' of game with each new edition. There are over arching design goals and points to follow('push armour!','push shooting!', 'get away from assault!' Etc). Change, not improve being the key.
Certainly, that's an idea not without merit, but equally those are changes which don't necessarily drive sales. If I've got an established collection, because I've been playing a few years, don't I just take a different collection of units off the shelf? I guess it may affect those in the midst of developing an army (or those who collect a list, rather than a faction) but we don't have enough data to form any picture of how many of what type of player exists.
I've seen it said (but I don't recall if it was mere speculation or supported by figures) that the real bump in sales from an edition change comes from model sales as people refresh their armies. Things is, making, I feel, the reasonable assumption that that's the case, it has stopped working, as neither 6th nor 7th really developed any substantial spike in sales, so that would suggest, even if this has been the approach historically, now may be the time for a different approach.
Either way, the best way to drive sales with a faction update is to put out something nobody has, and making those things with poor rules on purpose just seems too convoluted to be plausible.
We have evidence such as Jervis' WD column where his attitude is clearly that 40K is less wargame and more collaborative RPG battle story telling device. We have people claiming to have spoken to designers which have acknowledged that the Eldar and Tau books were mistakes, but they had no intention of addressing those errors, we have units which have been relentlessly bad for multiple editions and codex updates while others are randomly buffed despite there being no new kit.
Remember though, jervis isn't a power player. In life or within the company. He's a fairly easy going, lAid back guy. Getting your face in white dwarf is pr, nothing more. There is no power there within its pages. Jervis is as beholden to the overall directives of sales and marketing as anyone else in the studio, with less power to affect change, or pick directions than many people realise.
He's the head of the design studio, the game seems to have taken a significant turn in style towards his stated preferences for how a game should work in recent years. You can't say that's entirely coincidental?
There is ample evidence to suggest a lack of care, interest or ability. There's plenty to suggest that they're making a game for themselves and not for the people they expect to buy it, there's little to support the idea they're some sort of Machiavellian rules geniuses embedding deliberate flaws and built in obsolescence into every thing they produce.
I think it's a combination of lack of creative control (the designers are given a brief, a project and a time limit), a need to align with company attitudes, and personal interpretation.i don't think they need to be Machiavellian geniuses embedding deliberate flaws, just an attitude of 'change, not improve'.
Remember as well, the personal views and bias of the designers can have a huge role to play. Back in the day, when Pete Haines was a big name, when he designed codices for armies he liked, they were great (chas/ iron warriors being a prime example). When he didn't, thry were ok, or barely functional (fourth ed imperial guard). Iirc he also disliked the 'fantasy' races like eldar and orks which was why, at the time, they kept being pushed back in favour of other races. I got the same feeling from cruddace's fourth ed tau 'update'. It felt like he just didn't get it. It felt like he wasn't invested. And it felt, very much like he had a very limited brief, and limited scope and limited resources in which to do work within the scope of the update. Could this lack of care, or disinterest be part of it? All you need is someone who doesn't like dark Angels, and doesn't like flyers to make a bad dark Angels flyer. Not incompetence. Just bias.
in his time as well, and to his credit, pete haines tried to impose a greater 'discipline' in the design staff. Too often there was too much enthusiasm, and too much 'Rush', and not enough 'forethought', and you ended up with everything and it's monkey getting rules, unique index astartes articles/rules and massive bloat in rules 'bulk'.
Then that's a flat out lack of professionalism. While I can understand having less enthusiasm for some aspects of your work than others, one still has a responsibility to put that aside when tasked with doing it. That's the line between doing this for a living and doing it for a hobby.
Talys wrote: Anyways, given time, when WMH has ten times as many models, I think there will be internal balance and escalation issues, too. There are now plenty of WMH players that are hoping that PP will slow down with escalation, what with all new Gargantuans being released. You begin to see similar things at WMH tables, complaining that they dont want to spend more money and such.
Shrug... the more companies that make cool models and war games, the happier I am
I wonder if the folks complaining are actually paying attention to the rules? Colossals and Gargantuans are big and expensive but you don't need to have a Colossal to come to the table the way you need the new stuff in 40k; they're different, and they make for a different game, but they're not more or less powerful.
Generally speaking, the people who make such sweeping statements about WM/H do so from complete ignorance and have likely never played the game, their assumptions being based on what is true of GW games (big models being OP). Never mind facts like my $200 Cryx army that's comprised of a starter and add-ons can take out an opposing army that includes a Colossal. Yeah, we definitely can't have facts get in the way of good hyperbole.
That isn't really my point. You don't NEED a Colossal. You don't NEED an Imperial Knight, Riptide, Dreadknight, or Wraithlord either. The prevailing wisdom at various game tables in stores is that you must buy big units. If, for no other reason than peer pressure. Nobody in the wargaming world wants to show up with just a bunch of starter box units and without any of the new cool stuff.
As other people have pointed out, you can't randomly pick an army that just happens to add up to whatever point total you want to play in WM/H and have it work, and there are cheesy lists, and the starter armies won't get you anywhere (without adding on to it) when playing a game with someone who has invested some money into units for the game.
By the way, the 2-faction starter box units are not very good. The single-faction battle boxes are much better, but you could say the same thing about single-faction battleforce boxes in 40k -- every single unit in the Necron box, for instance, has play value, and most units in most of the single faction starter boxes are decent. It's only really DV that sucks.
Anyways, my entire point is that WM/H games have escalated since the launch of the game, and in 20 years, I suspect it will escalate even further. At some point, when the company needs money, it will push out some units that are better to incentivize people to buy them. I don't even see a problem with this.
And it's great that you can enjoy WM/H with a $200 army, but think of the FLGS -- it isn't going to stay in business if there's a horde of players all just investing $200 into a game. Unless you're buying a few games a year, you're not even paying for one guy's salary for 2 days.
Exactly, you don't NEED a Colossal and to be strictly accurate you don't NEED the 40k units you listed. The defining difference here; however, is that in WM/H you can have a viable force that will stand up to most, if not all, comers in a friendly or competitive environment without it. The same can't be said for the Riptide if you're a Tau player or Dreadknight if you're a Grey Knight player. That's why when there's a discussion of 40K tactics, there's a word that always comes up, "spam". GW has created an environment of winners and losers in their armies and if you want a chance at winning, I don't care if you're a "beer and pretzels" player like me or an ultra-competitive tournament player you are playing a game where you want at least the opportunity to beat your opponent, you MUST take certain units.
The difference between WM/H and 40K is that PP has actually made an honest effort to make each unit a viable choice when you're building an army list. Warcaster synergy plays a big roll but the diversity of units and how the different abilities interact changes how units can be used on the battlefield. It's tactical depth; something more than set up armies, rush them towards each other and roll a bunch of dice until someone gives up. Is WM/H a perfect game? No. Are the rules much tighter and as a result much more enjoyable to play to the casual AND competitive gamer? Yes! As an aside, for some reason you seem to be operating under the false assumption that there are actually less units in WM/H than 40K....I'd recommend you actually look; an example is Cryx, there are 12 unit entries and this doesn't take into account special characters, warcasters, solos, mercenaries, battle engines or Colossals, just regular units.
I'm a casual player. I've played in precisely 2, local, tournaments in my adult life, in more than 20 years of wargaming. The last thing I want to do after working all week, dealing with family obligations and finally having a once per month opportunity to kick back with a friend and play a game is to deal with ambiguous/poorly written rules. To me that drains ALL of the enjoyment out of my rare hobby time; and keep in mind I'm playing with like-minded people who don't want to argue but are still people and would like to win as well. "Forge the narrative" sounds great on paper but it winds up being an concession on the part of the manufacturer that they know that they have created a product that is broken and really can't be arsed to fix it. Much rather, PP's page 5 is a much better general rule which amounts to, have fun but don't forget that the other guy is there to have fun too.
As to economy. I think you missed the point. I own much more than $200 of Cryx and other faction products; that was not the point at all. The point is that you can build a viable force, based upon faction starters a few other purchases. The addiction for PP comes with the synergy I spoke about earlier; I want to try all of these cool combos that I can see might work by reading the rules so I buy the models to get there. There's also no law that says I can only ever buy one faction, the same in 40K. I own GK, IK, Tau, DE, and UM armies for 40K (I bought the knights because I'm a sucker for big, stompy robots damn FW for making some nice kits). I own 7 knights, 3 Paladin/Errants and one each of the FW variants (except for the 30K one) and have played them one time and felt like a complete ass for doing so, even after sending my army list to my opponent prior to playing, I stomped his army in 2 turns and destroyed the enjoyment of the afternoon for both of us. I relate this story because to illustrate that it simply doesn't happen in WM/H. I've never seen a battle so one-sided between two players of comparable skill levels in WM/H.
Edit: As to your point that at some point in the future when PP needs money we'll see hugely OP units. Meh, probably not if they continue on their current course. Their model of adding to and changing the game is completely different than GW's. It's also somewhat helpful in that they're not a publicly traded company so are not held to investor expectations on levels of profitability (very much like GW back in the distant past). PP's model of development is more centered on adding to the game and creating campaigns (much like the missed opportunity that GW had with the Eye of Terror Campaign) that do different things to create fervor and generate sales volume versus relying on rushing out unwashed product and hoping it sticks to the walls which seems to be GW's current MO.
Sorry for the wall of text. I seem to vacillate between one-off comments and wall-o-text posts but wanted to get my thoughts out there.
Let's give WH40k game a grade F to A+ scale based on balance, fun, good system.... You get the idea.
For me, the past 30 years...has been between c- to c+. I wish it were in the A scale....
I really wonder how those game designers can still have a job and how much they make a year? Are they earning 30,000£ a year? 50,000 or 100,000?
I am guessing they make between 40 and 60... Excellent pay and having fun all day....
They can't proof read or make 40k in the b+ range in 30 years?
Next Ed....for sure....close combat will make a come back like shooting pistol and assault same turn. Rhino can disembark and assault. IF GW does this...would you guys think it was intentional to encourage players to update their army...this could be about 30% or so change in each player's army.
GW make changes to the rules so players are encourage to modify their current army...the result is the same c+ game and fun...but you have to buy new stuff.
Lol...I'm tire of this...to each his own...dam pn hard to type on iPad.
Eldar lost most of their really powerful stuff during the Fall (aka the Birth of Slaanesh). Also, last I knew, the Black Library is only open to Harlequins and they aren't sharing.
And Necrons lost a lot of their doomsday toys in the 10+ million years they were asleep.
Also, you wouldn't always have a reason to fight in space, the ground wars exist because even if you destroyed someone's navy you still have reasons to take their land and that can require actually getting your hands dirty (the biggest reason being resources).
Automatically Appended Next Post: @David Choe: If we had the same exact design team for 30 years I'd be with you on that, but right now we only have one of the original designers left. And he doesn't do much of the work from what we can tell.
david choe wrote: Let's give WH40k game a grade F to A+ scale based on balance, fun, good system.... You get the idea.
For me, the past 30 years...has been between c- to c+. I wish it were in the A scale....
I really wonder how those game designers can still have a job and how much they make a year? Are they earning 30,000£ a year? 50,000 or 100,000?
I am guessing they make between 40 and 60... Excellent pay and having fun all day....
They can't proof read or make 40k in the b+ range in 30 years?
Next Ed....for sure....close combat will make a come back like shooting pistol and assault same turn. Rhino can disembark and assault. IF GW does this...would you guys think it was intentional to encourage players to update their army...this could be about 30% or so change in each player's army.
GW make changes to the rules so players are encourage to modify their current army...the result is the same c+ game and fun...but you have to buy new stuff.
Lol...I'm tire of this...to each his own...dam pn hard to type on iPad.
You sound way more cynnical than you should about balance - from my estimation.
If you are really wanting that kind of streamlined perfect gameplay, find a pc game or board game, as those will most likely contain the symmetry you desire.
@kveldulf.
You do realize that game balance does not mean you have to use symmetry like chess?
Many other games allow lots of different army types and play styles.AND they also have clearly defined rules, that allow any permitted selection of units to a set PV deliver a fun pick up and play game.
We are not asking for perfect game balance.Just close enough for people not to see the obvious imbalance the day a force composition (Codex,) book is released.
When the units you take are down to actual player choice , without handicapping your self or result in an 'auto win button,' against some opponents.Then game balance is good enough.IMO.
The real problem is the 40k core rules do not allow enough tactical depth, to allow the diversity the current range of units need to be expressed in game terms.
The units found in 40k have their abilities and functions best described by game play that has ,'an equal balance of mobility , firepower and assault.'
All the rule sets that are written with this core brief. work really well with units found in the 40k universe.(Epic SM and Epic Armageddon for example,)
The core rule set from WHFB is a really bad choice for 40k.It only can cover about 1/3 of the current game play, so all the additional rules have to be bolted on for any unit that is not 'standard infantry.'
(Considering the GW game devs have been trying to re-write the core rules since 4th ed 40k. And none of the ones that left GW behind have ever use WHFB type game mechanics in any thing but ancient /fantasy rules.The only reason a major re-write has not happened yet is down to the GW sales department.)
The real issue with 40K is not that the rules writers make mistakes, I will concede that with as many in-game options as are present in the game relative to a lot of the alternatives, it is a much tougher prospect getting it all right, all the time.
The issue is more that maintaining an approximation of decent balance is a moving target, and needs constant maitainence. It also requires an ability to admit things were wrong and need fixing, not historically something GW have excelled at.
How much better would the game environment be if they made a handful of minor points tweaks and rules adjustments? An extra few points on a Riptide, reducing a Serpent Shield to 18 or 24"?
People are frustrated with the game, the very same people that traditionally GW have said they rely on to market it. If the rules are being deliberately written to be poor and then manipulated further down the line, it isn't working any more.
While I'd prefer more player decision making, I'd probably live with the "everything is random" nature of 7th a lot better if some of the inherent issues were addressed.
Heinlein's Law. People are generally competent. You're not their target market, they don't care if they can sell the game to you, they're trying to sell it to someone else, which is why you think they're morons.
I think this sums it up nicely, and should just be reposted every time one of these threads springs up.
Heinlein's Law. People are generally competent. You're not their target market, they don't care if they can sell the game to you, they're trying to sell it to someone else, which is why you think they're morons.
Azreal13 wrote:
Hanlon's Razor wrote:Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.
This is far more relevant to this thread.
Maybe a bit of both ?
Just remember that even when you do not agree with their decisions, it is not always a case of malice or stupidity, or anoyone's part.
No, I understand that at it's heart 40K is the result of a creative process, and some elements are going to appeal or repel more than others.
But then there's all the stuff that requires a degree of interpretation to work, or doesn't function at all, and all the stuff which runs contrary to good practice.
There's stuff I don't like, sure, but then there's stuff which simply doesn't work as it should, where opinion isn't involved.
agnosto wrote: Exactly, you don't NEED a Colossal and to be strictly accurate you don't NEED the 40k units you listed. The defining difference here; however, is that in WM/H you can have a viable force that will stand up to most, if not all, comers in a friendly or competitive environment without it. The same can't be said for the Riptide if you're a Tau player or Dreadknight if you're a Grey Knight player. That's why when there's a discussion of 40K tactics, there's a word that always comes up, "spam". GW has created an environment of winners and losers in their armies and if you want a chance at winning, I don't care if you're a "beer and pretzels" player like me or an ultra-competitive tournament player you are playing a game where you want at least the opportunity to beat your opponent, you MUST take certain units.
This is untrue. You MUST only take certain units IF your opponent takes certain units. If you play in a friendly group that is more interested in trying things out and playing different stuff, this just isn't a problem, nor is rules lawyering (trying to pick at the ambiguity of language), which for our little group happens... never.
Many of the problems like wave serpents and riptides are also only an issue because people play on 6x4 tables devoid of meaningful terrain. If you pack an table with tons of line-of-sight blocking terrain, the "40k is a shooty game" dynamic changes dramatically.
There is also a difference between ambiguously written rules (which I don't think is a problem, unless you insist on making it one) and units that are less useful than others (which I do think is a problem, unless you insist on fixing it outside of RAW).
agnosto wrote: The difference between WM/H and 40K is that PP has actually made an honest effort to make each unit a viable choice when you're building an army list. Warcaster synergy plays a big roll but the diversity of units and how the different abilities interact changes how units can be used on the battlefield. It's tactical depth; something more than set up armies, rush them towards each other and roll a bunch of dice until someone gives up. Is WM/H a perfect game? No. Are the rules much tighter and as a result much more enjoyable to play to the casual AND competitive gamer? Yes! As an aside, for some reason you seem to be operating under the false assumption that there are actually less units in WM/H than 40K....I'd recommend you actually look; an example is Cryx, there are 12 unit entries and this doesn't take into account special characters, warcasters, solos, mercenaries, battle engines or Colossals, just regular units.
I actually play WM/H here and there, and I own a a massive PP model collection. They're cool models, though I wish I hadn't bought the "restic" ones. I also own almost a full set of (printed) current rulebooks, but mostly I just read them for fun, as my friends and I prefer 40k.
It's just a different game, with different mechanics. I dislike how the warcaster is so central -- if your warcaster dies, the game is effectively over, and you need the warcaster for all your neat stuff -- whereas, 40k, there's a table full of units, and every unit can be sacrificed. Whether Dante lives or dies matters little.
For myself, I am always sad when I see WM/H tables, because the tables look so sparse. I am really a models guy, and I am not happy unless a table has awesomely painted models packed in on a table. The more the better (equally, I don't want to play someone with just 7 imperial knights). Also, I'm not really a short game guy; I like epic battles. But whatever, WM/H is a good game, and I'm glad it exists.
agnosto wrote: "Forge the narrative" sounds great on paper but it winds up being an concession on the part of the manufacturer that they know that they have created a product that is broken and really can't be arsed to fix it.
My play group also has an ongoing RPG, which I guess is part of why we "get" the Forge a Narrative thing. Dropping models onto a table and fighting a random battle is much less fun than fighting for a reason, and knowing that the little battle is a part of something bigger.
I think if you want to meet up some random people that you don't know and play a quick game, WM/H is a better game, hands down. But, I don't really like meeting random people to play quick games, so it's really moot for me
As to economy. I think you missed the point. I own much more than $200 of Cryx and other faction products; that was not the point at all. The point is that you can build a viable force, based upon faction starters a few other purchases.
It's a smaller scale game with fewer models on the table, so of course it's cheaper. But, if you really like modelling, you run out of models very quickly. In 40k, you can buy a battleforce box, and a few addons, and have a perfectly viable force for smaller games. You can also spend $200 and participate in all the Kill Team games, which are now extremely popular -- just look at the thread of what's people like to play, and you'll see that even though KT isn't on the list of poll options, many people list it below as the preference.
In case you aren't familiar, KT games are short small skirmishes that highly restrictive in the units you may take. Rules are on BL, I think $4 or something.
As to your point that at some point in the future when PP needs money we'll see hugely OP units. Meh, probably not if they continue on their current course. Their model of adding to and changing the game is completely different than GW's. It's also somewhat helpful in that they're not a publicly traded company so are not held to investor expectations on levels of profitability (very much like GW back in the distant past). PP's model of development is more centered on adding to the game and creating campaigns (much like the missed opportunity that GW had with the Eye of Terror Campaign) that do different things to create fervor and generate sales volume versus relying on rushing out unwashed product and hoping it sticks to the walls which seems to be GW's current MO.
You've actually pretty much made my point. In the past, GW was a smaller, less profit hungry private company, and gamers liked the company a lot more (though arguably, the rules weren't any better or worse). At some point, the company went public because the creators wanted to cash out, and things changed, and now a lot of people hate the whole "corporate greed" thing and all that.
At some point, if PP continues to grow and be successful, as the founders age (and die), some of them or their successors will desire the same types of thing -- cashing out. It happens.
Some people happen to like small scrappy companies; personally, I don't really care. I don't want to be their friend, and I don't need to feel like they are mine. My only criteria is that the company make nice models in a good game universe that I have fun playing and modelling.
Heinlein's Law. People are generally competent. You're not their target market, they don't care if they can sell the game to you, they're trying to sell it to someone else, which is why you think they're morons.
I love this quote
What I really don't understand is people who aparently don't like 40k, but keep on collecting it or playing it There are other things to do on this shining little jewel in the cosmos!
'What I really don't understand is people who apparently don't like 40k, but keep on collecting it or playing it'
Because it's perfectly okay to dislike aspects of a game and even discuss that you don't like aspects of a game on a discussion forum, and yet still enjoy other parts of the game or the game as a whole. I know, difficult concept right.
Because it's perfectly okay to dislike aspects of a game and even discuss that you don't like aspects of a game on a discussion forum, and yet still enjoy other parts of the game or the game as a whole. I know, difficult concept right.
hell yeah. I think the rules have more or less sucked ass for two decades unless you are playing a Specialist Game (and even those have some problems) but I love, love, love converting and painting models set in the universe. Don't care which models - 40k, Necromunda, Gorkamorka, Battlefleet Gothic, or even Inquisitor.
Yeah, paining is my primary activity, if I didn't have much interest in that aspect I'd have likely have left the whole game behind, as it is, it's nice to do something with all the models I've accumulated once in a while.
As it is, most of my gaming time goes on X Wing, with beady eye often cast at DZC and Darklands when I finish my pile.
I love the fluff side mainly and the modelling side. That's why I focus on the 30k stuff now, the fluff is excellent, plenty of modelling opportunity and the rules are pretty good as a bonus, given what they have to work with. So I do like parts of the game. But there are parts I dislike too, unclear unbalanced rules, and the prices.
ImAGeek wrote: I love the fluff side mainly and the modelling side. That's why I focus on the 30k stuff now, the fluff is excellent, plenty of modelling opportunity and the rules are pretty good as a bonus, given what they have to work with. So I do like parts of the game. But there are parts I dislike too, unclear unbalanced rules, and the prices.
This is untrue. You MUST only take certain units IF your opponent takes certain units. If you play in a friendly group that is more interested in trying things out and playing different stuff, this just isn't a problem, nor is rules lawyering (trying to pick at the ambiguity of language), which for our little group happens... never.
Many of the problems like wave serpents and riptides are also only an issue because people play on 6x4 tables devoid of meaningful terrain. If you pack an table with tons of line-of-sight blocking terrain, the "40k is a shooty game" dynamic changes dramatically.
There is also a difference between ambiguously written rules (which I don't think is a problem, unless you insist on making it one) and units that are less useful than others (which I do think is a problem, unless you insist on fixing it outside of RAW).
Again, there's a friendly group and then there's the target audience that plays like the GW studio team, forging those narratives. The difference between 40K and other game systems is that outside of the few units in each army that "work", you're basically penalized for "trying things out and playing different stuff". Sure you can have some fun doing that but you're basically giving up any chance at all of winning a game if you're playing by the rules written in the rulebook.
I'm a big believer in terrain and my friends and I pack our tables so that they look like modern, downtown cityscapes; that still doesn't save anyone from a jetpack monstrous creature with markerlight support dropping cover-save ignoring pie-plates, where is there to hide on a 6x4 table, no matter how much terrain/buildings you pack on? Or large units of wraiths that ignore all the pretty terrain? Winners and losers; some units are more viable than others.
I agree with your last points here. Being a casual player, poorly worded rules are not necessarily as big an issue as they would be to a tournament player BUT the 15-20 minute conversation over what the rule means, could mean, the different interpretations of what was intended and how it may interact with some unit that was created after the rule; that all detracts from the precious little play time that I am actually able to squeeze into my calendar. My friends and I are beer-drinking, pretzel-eating chums but we would still like to win a game every now and then so the conversations do occur and not always with a clear decision which leaves a bad taste in all our mouths (or maybe that was the beer we chose this time around ).
Talys wrote: I actually play WM/H here and there, and I own a a massive PP model collection. They're cool models, though I wish I hadn't bought the "restic" ones. I also own almost a full set of (printed) current rulebooks, but mostly I just read them for fun, as my friends and I prefer 40k.
It's just a different game, with different mechanics. I dislike how the warcaster is so central -- if your warcaster dies, the game is effectively over, and you need the warcaster for all your neat stuff -- whereas, 40k, there's a table full of units, and every unit can be sacrificed. Whether Dante lives or dies matters little.
For myself, I am always sad when I see WM/H tables, because the tables look so sparse. I am really a models guy, and I am not happy unless a table has awesomely painted models packed in on a table. The more the better (equally, I don't want to play someone with just 7 imperial knights). Also, I'm not really a short game guy; I like epic battles. But whatever, WM/H is a good game, and I'm glad it exists.
I just used WM/H as an example. Sure, there are things about the game that I like and that I don't like but what WM/H is a bastion of purity in, compared to 40K, is in the tightness of the rules. I would love for the rules writers at PP to rewrite 40K and see what that would look like. Keep the feel of the game the same, just tighten everything up and clean up all the poor grammar, word choices and everything else that GW half-asses. Now that would be a treasure to behold. But something else here to realize is that PP doesn't make rules in a vacuum. Sure they have studio games, etc but MKII was written with a GREAT deal of community contact and feedback. Yes, a large group of people can often sound like the braying of a giant herd of jackasses but people will take you seriously if you just show that you're willing to listen.....and not close down every official avenue of corporate contact that ever existed as GW has done. A mature organization knows that a fair amount of customer contact is going to be worthless but you hire people who can sift through the chaff for the nuggets of gold, and believe me, there is gold to be had.
We can most certainly agree that modelwise, GW still generally tops PP but PP's coming along in that regard.
Talys wrote: It's a smaller scale game with fewer models on the table, so of course it's cheaper. But, if you really like modelling, you run out of models very quickly. In 40k, you can buy a battleforce box, and a few addons, and have a perfectly viable force for smaller games. You can also spend $200 and participate in all the Kill Team games, which are now extremely popular -- just look at the thread of what's people like to play, and you'll see that even though KT isn't on the list of poll options, many people list it below as the preference.
In case you aren't familiar, KT games are short small skirmishes that highly restrictive in the units you may take. Rules are on BL, I think $4 or something.
I'm very familiar with KT but you and I will differ here because I firmly believe that 40K does not scale well. Using WM/H as an example again, it is a system that scales very well IMO.
As to your point that at some point in the future when PP needs money we'll see hugely OP units. Meh, probably not if they continue on their current course. Their model of adding to and changing the game is completely different than GW's. It's also somewhat helpful in that they're not a publicly traded company so are not held to investor expectations on levels of profitability (very much like GW back in the distant past). PP's model of development is more centered on adding to the game and creating campaigns (much like the missed opportunity that GW had with the Eye of Terror Campaign) that do different things to create fervor and generate sales volume versus relying on rushing out unwashed product and hoping it sticks to the walls which seems to be GW's current MO.
Talys wrote: You've actually pretty much made my point. In the past, GW was a smaller, less profit hungry private company, and gamers liked the company a lot more (though arguably, the rules weren't any better or worse). At some point, the company went public because the creators wanted to cash out, and things changed, and now a lot of people hate the whole "corporate greed" thing and all that.
At some point, if PP continues to grow and be successful, as the founders age (and die), some of them or their successors will desire the same types of thing -- cashing out. It happens.
Some people happen to like small scrappy companies; personally, I don't really care. I don't want to be their friend, and I don't need to feel like they are mine. My only criteria is that the company make nice models in a good game universe that I have fun playing and modelling.
Not really because it's an unknown variable. No one can know at this point in time whether PP will be publicly traded at some point in the future and we certainly don't know what that will do to corporate culture. There are many publicly traded companies that are fantastic when it comes to customer support and engagement. GW is aces with customer care but we all know how they are with support and engagement; there's nothing to say that PP would change in that regard.
I could care less if GW or PP, or any company, implodes and fades into nonexistance. Heck, until last year, I owned a fair chunk of GW stock and was one of those faceless "investors" that was milking dividends out of the company; the dividends funded two entire 40K armies for me so who am I to complain, but I sold the moment the stock started tanking.
Side note:
You know, maybe being old and grumpy has resulted in my expecting more for my $ than I used to. GW's rules have always kind of sucked but it never really bothered me until I got back into 40K.
agnosto wrote: Being a casual player, poorly worded rules are not necessarily as big an issue as they would be to a tournament player
I think it's the opposite, actually. Tournament players at least have tournament FAQs and (theoretically) neutral judges to rule on an issue if there's a disagreement, casual players don't have that support. And casual players are a lot less likely to spend lots of time reading YMDC or studying every relevant rule to figure out how some obscure interaction works. So IMO clear and easy to understand rules are more important for casual players, not less.
It's imoortant to both. I don't get the whole 'if you play casual it doesn't matter' thing, tight, well written, balanced rules would greatly benefit both casual and competitive players.
@agnosto - I don't mean to gloss over your points (many are good), but I'm on my phone, waiting for my lovely wife as she picks up a carload of organic vegetables, so I'm hampered in my ability to respond
Your side note is kind of close to it. For me, GW has never been a particularly balanced game, but I've always had a blast playing 40k and for the hobby as a whole, it wins the #1 spot on my list. When I think of it, many of he games I've really enjoyed aren't particularly balanced -- from Diablo and WarCraft to 40k and MtG (the original release), to name just a few. My conclusion is that game balance only tangentially affects it's popularity, because each of these has seen more than a billion dollars of sales.
I think, for those that sink serious time (and often, money) into a game, what drives us to do so is addictiveness and fun, rather than game balance. Many (not all) of us want to get one more unit, one more card, one more item that will improve our performance just a bit. If only I had Centurions, I could do this; if only I put grav guns here, I could try that.
Game balance aside, I don't think 40k rules are bad at all. Then again, I was happy with AD&D, and I loved that there were complex, arcane tables and rules and all manner of polyhedral dice.
Going to WM/H when it first came out, I tried pretty hard to love it. I ended up kind of liking it, just never to the same addictive degree that any of the 4 titles I mentioned above. Part of it is that I'm a pretty obsessive guy when it comes to my games -- I am willing and want to spend hundreds of hours on something I really love, and WM/H never really gave me that, partly because of lower model counts, and partly because you can't configure models, and partly because there are no cool vehicle kits to assemble (I mean, there is nothing remotely like a Ravager or Stormraven). I like in 40k how I have the expectation that my collection -- and armies -- will never be done, whereas in WM/H I ran out of stuff to build (abd improve, from a model perspective) pretty fast.
On a totally different note, I disagree with you on scalability. If you tried to play WM/H with a hundred plus models per side, it would be a royal mess. And, there are much better rules and models in 40k for fortifications, which are a big part of games I really enjoy.
I completely agree that PP might never take the vector of GW, but I think it is a distinct possibility. Already, the cost of the models and game is significantly higher than when the game first started. Models are going plastic and increasing in price, just like GW. And, eventually people will seek out other fresh games (like Infinity or DUST) and PP may have to decide between making less money and making more from its playerbase.
Anyhow, as I've said before, I'm glad they're around.
ImAGeek wrote: It's imoortant to both. I don't get the whole 'if you play casual it doesn't matter' thing, tight, well written, balanced rules would greatly benefit both casual and competitive players.
As much as the WAAC/TFG is the focus of much discussion, there is a CAAC (Casual At All Costs) culture that's potentially just as damaging, but not talked about anything like as much. To these people. it simply is not cool to even act like winning is the least bit important, let alone look for an advantage or be seen to try.
ImAGeek wrote: It's imoortant to both. I don't get the whole 'if you play casual it doesn't matter' thing, tight, well written, balanced rules would greatly benefit both casual and competitive players.
As much as the WAAC/TFG is the focus of much discussion, there is a CAAC (Casual At All Costs) culture that's potentially just as damaging, but not talked about anything like as much. To these people. it simply is not cool to even act like winning is the least bit important, let alone look for an advantage or be seen to try.
Game balance aside, I don't think 40k rules are bad at all.
You what now?
Agreed. There's so much stigma here for even trying to optimise a list, it's pretty silly. I mean, it's a competitive game at nature. There's a winner and a loser. So what if someone wants to build a decent list and try to win...
If anything, more balanced rules would be better for casual players. 'WAAC' players don't really care what's most powerful, if we're to believe the stereotypes, they'll take it anyway. But if everything was decently balanced, the fluffy casual players could be as fluffy and casual as they wanted and still have a decent game without being tabled or not having a chance.
agnosto wrote: Being a casual player, poorly worded rules are not necessarily as big an issue as they would be to a tournament player
I think it's the opposite, actually. Tournament players at least have tournament FAQs and (theoretically) neutral judges to rule on an issue if there's a disagreement, casual players don't have that support. And casual players are a lot less likely to spend lots of time reading YMDC or studying every relevant rule to figure out how some obscure interaction works. So IMO clear and easy to understand rules are more important for casual players, not less.
I think "casual" and "person who doesn't care" are often lumped together. I'd describe myself as casual, I don't play tournaments and I don't play competitive. I'd describe myself as friendly as well. But my God I fething hate ambiguous rules with multiple interpretations or no clearly defined way of playing it.
A big one is whether you need to be 25% covered to gain a cover save due to intervening models, as it MASSIVELY affects my Tyranid army depending on which way it's played. It was worded poorly in 6th and amazingly they changed the wording in 7th and it's still unclear what you're supposed to do.
As someone who considers themselves casual and friendly, I appreciate a solid set of rules because it allows me to use the rules as a springboard to do more interesting things instead of trying to sort out stupid crap the developers didn't word properly and if I have a balanced ruleset to begin with it makes it more fun to do interesting scenarios like games with unequal points or made up scenarios.
Game balance aside, I don't think 40k rules are bad at all.
You what now?
Yeah, yeah, I know. I'm in the minority
But as a game system, for the types of battles we play, it works. I really don't think the ambiguity issues are that horrible -- and I see way more rules arguments on the Internet than actually in games that I observe, although I'm sure that's not everyone's experience.
Besides, like I said, I'm a big AD&D fan, back in the days when there was a chart for everything you could imagine, and a zillion Dragon magazine optional rules In fact, that is how I got into 40k -- because White Dwarf used to be (mostly) a D&D supplement magazine
Talys wrote: But as a game system, for the types of battles we play, it works.
But it could work so much better if the rules didn't suck.
I really don't think the ambiguity issues are that horrible -- and I see way more rules arguments on the Internet than actually in games that I observe, although I'm sure that's not everyone's experience.
Counter-example: virtually every game I've played or watched has had people digging through rulebooks to figure out how something works, and many of those have required calling over a neutral third party to get a ruling because the two players couldn't agree.
A big one is whether you need to be 25% covered to gain a cover save due to intervening models, as it MASSIVELY affects my Tyranid army depending on which way it's played. It was worded poorly in 6th and amazingly they changed the wording in 7th and it's still unclear what you're supposed to do.
Are you referring to the "partially obscured" rule under Intervening Models? If so, all the groups I've gamed with has understood partially obscured to mean 25%+ of the model's body, because for vehicles, the rules are pretty clear that less than 25% = not obscured, 25%+ but less than 100% = partially obscured (and 100% = no LOS).
When I play, I'm pretty generous about it. If there's a little bit of an arm that "obscures" LOS from an intervening model, I say, no cover save. But if there is any part of the torso in the way, I give the person the benefit of the doubt and call it partial cover (except for tall shooters, elevated firing position, barrage, etc. -- which is covered in the rules).
I really don't think the ambiguity issues are that horrible -- and I see way more rules arguments on the Internet than actually in games that I observe, although I'm sure that's not everyone's experience.
Counter-example: virtually every game I've played or watched has had people digging through rulebooks to figure out how something works, and many of those have required calling over a neutral third party to get a ruling because the two players couldn't agree.
If experienced players had to do that all the time, that would be horrible. For relatively inexperienced players, that's just par for the course. I don't see that in peoples' games as often as you, obviously. Usually, at our FLGS, when the players aren't sure about a rule, usually, they hollar out at someone who is more experienced than them (often a store employee -- "Hey, Dave, if..."), who will tell them the rule as they know it, and the players continue on using that rule, even if it's wrong.
If there's someone around that happens to be a very experienced player, usually, the two players will just defer to that person. I think in our local scene, a rulebook is a tool of last resort. Maybe it's all that Ork blood in us.
Now, I can see this being an issue if you're always playing against different people, and they have a different understanding of the rules. There might be one like AllSeeingSkink's example that really matters, but I really don't think most rules are THAT ambiguous. However, if you play against the same people all the time, you kind of figure those things out pretty quick, and you don't rehash them. Plus, as you say, tournaments have house rules, and those tend to spill over into local games.
But yes, your point is well taken: no ambiguity > ambiguity.
Saying what you said is somewhere in the vicinity of saying "likely instant death aside, being shot in the face is pretty ok!"
You've discounted one of the primary functions of the rules.
Oh, I see what you mean
I actually distinguish rules from unit balance, not because both aren't important, but because the unit balance part of it is more fluid. That is, within 7e, the rules won't change, but the balance of what's good and what's not will change a lot. All it takes is one new release, one new formation, or one dataslate, and the whole balance changes, yet the "rules" have not.
Yeah, I kind of thought you may be meaning something like that.
You're more talking about the meta than balance in that regard though. It is, categorically, the rules accompanying a new or updated unit which make it good or bad. If we lived in some sort of utopia where GW made an effort, we wouldn't so much have "good" and "bad" we'd have "better" and "worse" and those terms would likely be situational (ie in the context of a unit's role or performance against a given target.)
Updates, in this utopia, wouldn't so much turn the meta on it's head, as has happened so often in the past with the introduction of a shiny new, and broken, unit or army, but would see a shift where perhaps units that might have been considered a "worse" option in commonly encountered situations now gained ground on their competing units, but without making them a must take nor rendering their competition redundant.
But we don't get that.
But, I'll agree there is a world of difference between poor rules and poorly written rules, and balance is plagued more by the former, the core game more by the latter. I also agree that, except perhaps redressing the assault/shooting dynamic that there's little inherently unbalanced in the core book (except some psychic powers and disciplines being so out of whack that random generation is the only thing stopping it all getting ridiculous) it is only when the codexes are introduced that everything goes to gak!
Azreal13 wrote: Yeah, I kind of thought you may be meaning something like that.
You're more talking about the meta than balance in that regard though. It is, categorically, the rules accompanying a new or updated unit which make it good or bad. If we lived in some sort of utopia where GW made an effort, we wouldn't so much have "good" and "bad" we'd have "better" and "worse" and those terms would likely be situational (ie in the context of a unit's role or performance against a given target.)
Updates, in this utopia, wouldn't so much turn the meta on it's head, as has happened so often in the past with the introduction of a shiny new, and broken, unit or army, but would see a shift where perhaps units that might have been considered a "worse" option in commonly encountered situations now gained ground on their competing units, but without making them a must take nor rendering their competition redundant.
But we don't get that.
But, I'll agree there is a world of difference between poor rules and poorly written rules, and balance is plagued more by the former, the core game more by the latter. I also agree that, except perhaps redressing the assault/shooting dynamic that there's little inherently unbalanced in the core book (except some psychic powers and disciplines being so out of whack that random generation is the only thing stopping it all getting ridiculous) it is only when the codexes are introduced that everything goes to gak!
Yeah, pretty much that. In 40k, there is the unique (I think) situation where units may long outlive core rules. When you can (and are forced to) mix unit rules designed for 5e, 6e and 7e, there's the potential for some mayhem. 7e changed the Psychic phase, for instance, which greatly affected Grey Knights (even before their 7e codex came out). I don't think I that I can think of another game where we have such a wide gap between core rules and army lists.
I've maintained that it would be really nice if GW updated army lists (not the codex, just the lists) every year, and just sold that as 1 book, with updated definitions of every unit and formation. That would allow for a lot of microadjustments that would correct many of the imbalances without having to wait for 5 years to maybe get something fixed.
They can still force people to buy the codexes by not putting *everything* in the list book, like definitions of all the relics, warlord traits, and that kind of thing. And obviously, there would be scant pictures, and essentially no fluff.
40k punishes the fluffy player more due to rules that don't match the fluff and often fluffy armies are terrible on the table, especially against fluff breaking allied armies full of spam.
In other games I can make an army that I feel fits my narrative and is also playble. Win win.
I don't think they do anything for fluff or for balance. It is a simple cash grab. Stuff that should have been in one book gets choped up and divided in to 2-3 books. I mean people are forced to buy the fortress assault book only to be able to use fortification legaly, when the same fortifications had rules in the main rule book an edition ago.
Makumba wrote: I don't think they do anything for fluff or for balance. It is a simple cash grab. Stuff that should have been in one book gets choped up and divided in to 2-3 books. I mean people are forced to buy the fortress assault book only to be able to use fortification legaly, when the same fortifications had rules in the main rule book an edition ago.
Big time. I don't understand why we have GW apologist defending a company that over priced their products with sub par quality rules.
I used to smoke and I enjoyed cigarets and I don't blame them for my addiction.... But I do think that cigarets company are a dishonest and has an agenda to get people addicted to their products.
GW could be a better company and truly support players and give us what we want....but I don't see that. They might be 20 years ago....something happens in 2000s. I remember their GW forum with Tim Huckelberry answering questions and Fat Block White Dwarf has useful article.....now...I see GW as soulless company out to squeeze every penny and don't care about customer. It is a ready bad company that should be more customer friendly.
Makumba wrote: I don't think they do anything for fluff or for balance. It is a simple cash grab. Stuff that should have been in one book gets choped up and divided in to 2-3 books. I mean people are forced to buy the fortress assault book only to be able to use fortification legaly, when the same fortifications had rules in the main rule book an edition ago.
Nobody is forced to buy anything, Eeyore, let's dial down the hyperbole and try and at least pretend to be objective, hmmm?
I changed my opinion. There's a lot of different things you can do in 40k now.
I think it's disingenuous to say that your power list was fethed with by GW and the game sucks.
There's so many different options now, nothing really trumps the other. I think the relaxation of so many rules and method of play have some what balanced the game.
Makumba wrote: I don't think they do anything for fluff or for balance. It is a simple cash grab. Stuff that should have been in one book gets choped up and divided in to 2-3 books. I mean people are forced to buy the fortress assault book only to be able to use fortification legaly, when the same fortifications had rules in the main rule book an edition ago.
Big time. I don't understand why we have GW apologist defending a company that over priced their products with sub par quality rules.
I used to smoke and I enjoyed cigarets and I don't blame them for my addiction.... But I do think that cigarets company are a dishonest and has an agenda to get people addicted to their products.
GW could be a better company and truly support players and give us what we want....but I don't see that. They might be 20 years ago....something happens in 2000s. I remember their GW forum with Tim Huckelberry answering questions and Fat Block White Dwarf has useful article.....now...I see GW as soulless company out to squeeze every penny and don't care about customer. It is a ready bad company that should be more customer friendly.
You do realise that saying 'they don't make imbalanced rules on purpose, it's mostly incompetance' is not being a GW apologist or defending the company right?
Makumba wrote: I don't think they do anything for fluff or for balance. It is a simple cash grab. Stuff that should have been in one book gets choped up and divided in to 2-3 books. I mean people are forced to buy the fortress assault book only to be able to use fortification legaly, when the same fortifications had rules in the main rule book an edition ago.
Nobody is forced to buy anything, Eeyore, let's dial down the hyperbole and try and at least pretend to be objective, hmmm?
What do you mean by is not forced. To use a model you need the rules for it. No shop or tournament will let you play with scan, just like it won't let you play a model without rules , because you know what it does. The only place to get the rules for an aegis is in the fortress assault book. Now you aren't forced to use fortifications, well at least if your not playing some of the armies, others like IG or Tau have the more or less build in to their army.
Makumba wrote: I don't think they do anything for fluff or for balance. It is a simple cash grab. Stuff that should have been in one book gets choped up and divided in to 2-3 books. I mean people are forced to buy the fortress assault book only to be able to use fortification legaly, when the same fortifications had rules in the main rule book an edition ago.
Nobody is forced to buy anything, Eeyore, let's dial down the hyperbole and try and at least pretend to be objective, hmmm?
What do you mean by is not forced. To use a model you need the rules for it. No shop or tournament will let you play with scan, just like it won't let you play a model without rules , because you know what it does. The only place to get the rules for an aegis is in the fortress assault book. Now you aren't forced to use fortifications, well at least if your not playing some of the armies, others like IG or Tau have the more or less build in to their army.
Exactly, you aren't forced to use fortifications, so you aren't forced to buy the book. It was hyperbole.
A big one is whether you need to be 25% covered to gain a cover save due to intervening models, as it MASSIVELY affects my Tyranid army depending on which way it's played. It was worded poorly in 6th and amazingly they changed the wording in 7th and it's still unclear what you're supposed to do.
Are you referring to the "partially obscured" rule under Intervening Models? If so, all the groups I've gamed with has understood partially obscured to mean 25%+ of the model's body, because for vehicles, the rules are pretty clear that less than 25% = not obscured, 25%+ but less than 100% = partially obscured (and 100% = no LOS).
When I play, I'm pretty generous about it. If there's a little bit of an arm that "obscures" LOS from an intervening model, I say, no cover save. But if there is any part of the torso in the way, I give the person the benefit of the doubt and call it partial cover (except for tall shooters, elevated firing position, barrage, etc. -- which is covered in the rules).
There's 2 terms that are used that aren't defined, one is "partially obscured" the other is "through the gaps". The vehicle rules only talk about 25% = obscured, so does "partially obscured" mean even less than 25%, or does it equal 25%? And what does "through the gaps" mean?
I know people who play it both ways and to me it's a leap to do it either way because the key terms and not defined and there's logical reasons for both and it makes a pretty big difference to the viability of a Tyranid army made up of a wave of small things backed by a wave of monsters. Without the cover save, that army is not really viable, with the cover saves, it's a decent army.
I know it's one of the more extreme examples, but it simply demonstrates my point that just because you're a "casual" player doesn't mean "you aren't allowed to care". I have little to no interest in competitive play but it still annoys the hell out of me, that's one of the bigger examples but there's tons of smaller ones thrown in with all the terrible balance issues really reduces the fun of the game even though I consider myself a casual/friendly player.
When you have a good tight set of rules it allows the casual player to open up the game to more interesting out of the box things instead of just grappling with sorting out the excessively convoluted and poorly worded core rules.
It's funny how I agree about most things you and your little club say about the game etc but your online personas just makes me consider the opposite. You're condescending, passive agressive or just plain rude depending on post, it's not ofc only about this particular quote but many others.
Not that I'm better, though at least I know for sure that I do it as a lightweight trolling. You just seem to be full of it.
It seems to me that the biggest issue with GW's rules has always been that they play in a very specific and, often, very poor (tactically speaking) way. It's common knowledge that the design team, White Dwarf team etc. play what are basically fluffy armies and pick things for looks, not effectiveness.
The end result is that they don't know how to balance things because they're incapable of seeing how things work in tandem. You see OP units because they don't use them in the same number/combination as a competitive player, so they never realize that X + Y + Z is crazy powerful as they would never think of taking X, Y and Z in the same force. On the flip side you see things that are underpowered because they play in a very lax and laid back way, so maybe the underpowered things don't show to be completely worthless when you aren't trying to push them to do a particular thing.
The fact that in the past there has been actual articles from the designers that basically stated picking units based on how well they play is bad and you should feel bad* speaks volumes for the fact that they play in a particular way, and make the game under the assumption everybody else plays that way too. It's not necessarily incompetence as much as it comes off as arrogance and ignorance. They don't know or care how others play the game.
Look at the Librarian and Chaplain issue others have mentioned. To GW, Librarians weren't being used at all, it was mostly Chaplains and Captains. So they nerfed Chaplains and buffed Librarians to compensate for what they saw as a problem. The issue, of course, is that they play stupidly, lazily and poorly so they were picking bad units and not the good units because they're just poor players. While there's nothing wrong with playing casually, the problem is their lackadaisical attitude infests everything else, but you'll never see them restrict the game to their playstyle because they want it to be as open as possible, even though that leaves it wide open to abuse that they'll never see because they would never dream of taking multiple cheap units to spam Wave Serpents or allying 2-3 different armies to get an advantage.
I saw a similar thing during D&D 3.5: Wizards would publish books and had example characters that were absolutely terrible, and often had broken combos because they would never consider all the book as a whole, instead writing each book in a vacuum when hardly anybody playing the game outside of the company did that.
MWHistorian wrote: It seems that they just grab random crap from the studio armies, toss them on the table and roll random dice while snapping pictures.
They used to. It used to be common knowledge that the Studio Army was built to show off the range, not to be good on the table, so usually the battle reports featured lackluster choices because that was all that was available (which they even acknowledged and even lamented sometimes). BUT, at least when I last really looked at White Dwarf, they were using their own armies not the studio armies.
MWHistorian wrote: It seems that they just grab random crap from the studio armies, toss them on the table and roll random dice while snapping pictures.
They used to. It used to be common knowledge that the Studio Army was built to show off the range, not to be good on the table, so usually the battle reports featured lackluster choices because that was all that was available (which they even acknowledged and even lamented sometimes). BUT, at least when I last really looked at White Dwarf, they were using their own armies not the studio armies.
Sadly, that's probably how they do their playtesting as well.
About a 50 year long occupation that made my country poor and pushed it back civilisation wise around 30 years or more behind western countries? No we don't joke about that. Specialy what is going on right now . If you want to know more, we also don't joke about what nazis did in Poland and how their occupation was fun either.
In Soviet Poland, joke tells you!
You know what soviets did to my family ? Not only did my whole family on my other side lose all their homes, but they had to work in siberian camps, half the people that went there didn't come back and the last uncle returned with his family from that hell hole in 1963. There is nothing funny or joke worthy in soviets.
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Makumba wrote: I don't think they do anything for fluff or for balance. It is a simple cash grab. Stuff that should have been in one book gets choped up and divided in to 2-3 books. I mean people are forced to buy the fortress assault book only to be able to use fortification legaly, when the same fortifications had rules in the main rule book an edition ago.
Big time. I don't understand why we have GW apologist defending a company that over priced their products with sub par quality rules.
I used to smoke and I enjoyed cigarets and I don't blame them for my addiction.... But I do think that cigarets company are a dishonest and has an agenda to get people addicted to their products.
GW could be a better company and truly support players and give us what we want....but I don't see that. They might be 20 years ago....something happens in 2000s. I remember their GW forum with Tim Huckelberry answering questions and Fat Block White Dwarf has useful article.....now...I see GW as soulless company out to squeeze every penny and don't care about customer. It is a ready bad company that should be more customer friendly.
You do realise that saying 'they don't make imbalanced rules on purpose, it's mostly incompetance' is not being a GW apologist or defending the company right?
Agree to disagree. Seriously.... they can't proof their RAW? I used to work in a Testing Company... we have editors, test developer , etc... and we do screw up here and there... but that is because we make new items almost every 6 months. They are using the same damn game for 30years! As a person who deal in printing and creating "reading" and "communication" materials... nobody who make millions can be this incompetence...unless it is with intent. I can even do this gak ... alone if I have 30 YEARS to do this.
There are several quality issues with the 40k rules.
a)The 'technical aspects of printing literature ' eg professional editing and proof reading, are sadly lacking in GW printed product.
This means the instructions should be well written in terms of clarity. EG you can read the rules and KNOW EXACTLY what the rules actually mean.
Correct use of terms like 'only' ,' may',' must', and 'always'.Would help.
B) The 'technical aspect of game play'.Using the most suitable game mechanics and resolution methods for the game play you want to arrive at.
Using the best 'game engine , for the game you want to develop is very important to allow the best game balance and highest level of rules clarity.
(Reduces complication, without reducing complexity.)
C)'Internal' and 'external' balance in the army compositions.
All choices in a force , should be equally viable,depending on the style of play the player prefers. EG no obvious over or under costed units.
All units of the ability should cost the same P.V.
If something is counter back ground or scales synergistic effect in a non proportional way,
The unit should be restricted by rarity eg 0-1 , 0-2 etc.
Or cost the synergistic bonus of spamming units.
EG
1 x unit A=50 pts.
2 x unit A =120 pts.
3 x unit A =200 pts
All allowable forces selected from army composition lists should be equally powerful.(Not really noticed by the majority of players.)
Current 40k gives the illusion of player choice .But in reality so many force selections will be tabled, or never get a game because of accusations of being WAAC,
The experiences of new player , that is not put off by the cost in money, or the cost in time to work through poorly worded rules.
Can still be deterred by very poor game balance.
I think the dis connect is between what the GW studio are producing' an informal starting point for you to develop your own games from.'
A free PDF would be acceptable for this type of product.
And the way the GW sales department want to use this informal product to try to drive sales.
And try to infer it is a balanced rule set suitable for pick up games.
I am sure the GW studio write rules for the way they play the game.But fail to express how they play the game in the rules that GW publish.
MWHistorian wrote: It seems that they just grab random crap from the studio armies, toss them on the table and roll random dice while snapping pictures.
I don't think they even roll any dice, they just write up a story that sounds like it would have been a fun game and take some pictures to match. They've openly admitted in the past that if they roll dice and don't get a result they like they just ignore it.
About a 50 year long occupation that made my country poor and pushed it back civilisation wise around 30 years or more behind western countries? No we don't joke about that. Specialy what is going on right now . If you want to know more, we also don't joke about what nazis did in Poland and how their occupation was fun either.
In Soviet Poland, joke tells you!
You know what soviets did to my family ? Not only did my whole family on my other side lose all their homes, but they had to work in siberian camps, half the people that went there didn't come back and the last uncle returned with his family from that hell hole in 1963. There is nothing funny or joke worthy in soviets.
Not to mention there is no such thing like soviet Poland and such ignorant BS shouldnt be shruged off as 'joke'. There never was a soviet Poland, we were not in a fething union it was a straight occupation with labor camps, torture and stealing majority of produced resources throughout all of it. There never will be such thing like soviet Poland, anyone who doesnt believe can look up the Battle of Warsaw which took place in 1920 when servants and peasants willingly went to fight bolsheviks instead of joining the revolution, no communism in Poland because it's carved in hearts. I wonder show many countries at the time would have such luck with its culture btw.
But hey maybe it's all normal for Gorgeous Azrael, after all Adolf and Joseph might have taken a hint or two about governing other nations from British Empire, like concentration camps or slave labour camps or sth. Honorable Winston Churchill didnt seem to loose sleep over Yalta either, what were his noble words to Polish soldiers? 'If I had to choose from all nations, Id choose you' after battle for Monte Cassino, then 'no Poles or other firemen' when it came to win defilade and he didnt want to annoy his friend Stalin? Loose translation mind you people but I think I captured the sense well.
Oh and since we play the nation stereotyping game, I guess all Canadians are like Ricky from TPB. I mean I love the man but he's a bit limited.
If every Brit got up in arms about jokes about colonialism, every American about poor education or obesity, Canadians about being too polite etc, rather than taking it in the spirit in which it is (usually) intended, there would be threads grinding to a halt all over the shop.
My comment was meant as a harmless bit of good natured fun, I can guarantee Blacksails' was as well, if you don't find it funny, fine, move on, don't drag the thread off into a mire of patriotic outrage.
WayneTheGame wrote: It's common knowledge that the design team, White Dwarf team etc. play what are basically fluffy armies and pick things for looks, not effectiveness.
Yup. Add to it that they have the dev right there to clear up any rules questions (or were involved in writing them) and don't really approach the game with a "let's take 10 units of Cantopek Harvests" mentality and you can quickly see why the rules aren't the clearest, there are serious exploits available in some armies and the tone feels a lot more laid back.
I really think GW's playstyle is the "one of everything" sort of lists we used to see in WDs.
Ho boy, 'Soviet Poland' was a reference to the common 'Soviet Russia' joke, only I used your nation instead of Russia. Seriously, it was a joke. The two of you are looking for every reason to take offense and taking far deeper meaning than was ever intended.
Anyways, I know more people like Bubbles than Ricky up here, but close enough I suppose.
Yes you have no honour anymore and little to defend so youre mostly left with jokes. Soviet Poland is an insult not a joke btw, it's not the same as your examples.
Azreal13 wrote: Good lord, talk about a sense of humour failure.
If every Brit got up in arms about jokes about colonialism, every American about poor education or obesity, Canadians about being too polite etc, rather than taking it in the spirit in which it is (usually) intended, there would be threads grinding to a halt all over the shop.
My comment was meant as a harmless bit of good natured fun, I can guarantee Blacksails' was as well, if you don't find it funny, fine, move on, don't drag the thread off into a mire of patriotic outrage.
C)'Internal' and 'external' balance in the army compositions.
All choices in a force , should be equally viable,depending on the style of play the player prefers. EG no obvious over or under costed units.
All units of the ability should cost the same P.V.
If something is counter back ground or scales synergistic effect in a non proportional way,
The unit should be restricted by rarity eg 0-1 , 0-2 etc.
Or cost the synergistic bonus of spamming units.
EG
1 x unit A=50 pts.
2 x unit A =120 pts.
3 x unit A =200 pts
I would drop the game immediately if this were the case. Armies that have a "rare" object in the fluff still organize those objects into organized, multi-object units. For example, Baneblades are comparatively rare, and Baneblade companies even moreso, and Baneblade regiments moreso still, so do we do 0-1 baneblade per player and screw the Baneblade Company and Regiment players? or 0-1 Company?
What about Angron's 100 bloodthirsters from the First War on Armageddon? What if a player wanted to make that into an unbound list? Currently allowed in the rules (though the points would be a bit ) but would not be allowed in your system. What, would the hundredth bloodthirster cost 30,000 extra points or something?
Hell, Space Marines are rarer than Baneblades - are Space Marines 0-1?
with no sense of strategy who thinks playing some super 
)
There is unit manipulation, internal balance issues, and escalation to manipulate people to buy more models, and in a separate category, rules that are weird or apparently stupid.
) but would not be allowed in your system. What, would the hundredth bloodthirster cost 30,000 extra points or something?