If you think there's nothing wrong with 40K, then this might not be the thread for you. If you think formations are cool, and they're in the best interest of a balanced game, then this thread might not be for you. If you think GMCs and Super-heavies belong in a standard game of 40K, well, I think you understand that we will disagree
But, how does GW fix what it has broken: a hopelessly complicated and unbalanced melange of codexes, supplements, webstore exclusive formations, and one-off rules additions? I don't think it can. I don't foresee a time when GW tells its customers that all of these formations and gigantic $100+ models are no longer welcome in a standard game. How could it? What would be the backlash to such a complete walk-back of existing rules?
So, if GW is unable or unwilling to fix its game, what chance is there of an independent ruleset being introduced and widely played? Ninth Age and Kings of War have had decent success, but they stepped in to a void that GW created with its abandonment of WFB. Can a new, independent ruleset be created and adopted by players while GW still actively produces an official version of 40K?
I see threads created about fixing this unit or that codex, and it never ceases to amaze me that the majority of the suggestions to fix something almost invariably involve MORE RULES: this gun needs rending, this unit needs FNP, or this codex needs this set of special rules. Needless complexity and never-ending, cascading rules are what's wrong with 40K. It's like looking at a rotting building with structural problems, and thinking "If we just add a few more floors and extra rooms..." 40K needs a complete re-thinking of its core mechanics. It would need a complete re-balance and re-write of every single codex in one fell swoop. GW will never do this. It is not their financial interest to do so.
TL;DR Can a third-party created 40K ruleset be successful while GW still actively promotes its bloated, broken version of 40K? Are a significant number of people so hopelessly wed to GW that they are willing to circle the drain for as long as an official ruleset (no matter how bad it may be) exists?
GW cant fix it game. However GW AND the playerbase can. If GW would listen to us and maybe fully playtest its rules with people outside of GW then I think you will see a better edition. Let GW make a codex and not release it. Then ask for volunteers on their website to recieve an un published codex to test the rules and have them give feedback.
I think that GW saw what PP did with warmachine and hordes, making everything balanced by making it all over powered. Rather than de-escalating the game, GW seems to be trying to fix the kiln by burning out the heating coils.
Look at the Tau Codex: Tau players were fully expecting some nerfing of the codex, with the mildest being a 15 point increase for the Ion Accelerator. That didn't happen. GW proceeded to take some of the most broken units and allowed them to be taken in multiple model units rather than monats, and Stormsurges as GMCs instead of SHW to maintain the feel of the codex.
If 8th isn't a de-escelation ala 3rd after RT, I may just give up on this game.
I get the feeling GW really has put itself into a spot where the only way to go is up. That is stronger units, powers what have you. So fantasy end times style pretty much. Which isn't what I'd want. I don't mind the whole MORE rules thing. As long as it adds flavour and doesn't break the game.
I don't think 7th edition is that bad either. I mean, all of GW's rules could use a revamp and some tweaking to actually work the way they should. And they definitely need some kind of layer/timing system -_-. But I don't think it's the base rule set that is so broken. That came with the power avalanche.
That said, they should rethink the whole game system and then reboot from there. Not changing it so much in spirit, but in mechanics. GW being who they are though, I am pretty confident they are unable to fix the game... like... ever. Nor do GW have any intention to do so. They clearly don't care about the actual game.
I'm not so sure anybody else could pick it up if it ever breaks either. I like to believe that most people play the game because of the lore for the most part. Not in the sense of building fluffy armies, but it is what drives people to play 40k. The whole grimdark thing and art design is just so awesome.
Take that away and there isn't really much left. The actual gameplay isn't all that engaging with no in game formations/flanks mattering or tactics in the sense of hidden tricks. Epic or armageddon would fare better I think. Armageddon mostly because it looks so darn awesome lol
Xerics wrote:GW cant fix it game. However GW AND the playerbase can. If GW would listen to us and maybe fully playtest its rules with people outside of GW then I think you will see a better edition. Let GW make a codex and not release it. Then ask for volunteers on their website to recieve an un published codex to test the rules and have them give feedback.
Historically, GW has not given much thought to its customer's desires when it comes to games design. Previous FAQs have been seemingly random fixes either to questions that were never asked or, worse, created new questions that needed to be further clarified. There also seems to be a major disconnect between RAW and RAI: honestly, we don't know what a given designer is thinking because they do not share any of their thought processes beyond some tepid White Dwarf articles the week a new release hits the shelves.
carldooley wrote:
If 8th isn't a de-escelation ala 3rd after RT, I may just give up on this game.
I would agree with the need to bring the game back down to a more manageable level, but how exactly is that possible? How do you tell someone who bought in to the Gladius Strike Force that all those Rhinos and Drop Pods now have a points cost again? How do you tell the guy with the Imperial Knights codex that his Adamantine Lance is no longer game legal? I just do not see an 8th Edition that turns the clock back to a 3rd-5th Edition paradigm of single FOC, no allies, no free stuff, and no LoWs gameplay.
the_Armyman wrote: I would agree with the need to bring the game back down to a more manageable level, but how exactly is that possible? How do you tell someone who bought in to the Gladius Strike Force that all those Rhinos and Drop Pods now have a points cost again? How do you tell the guy with the Imperial Knights codex that his Adamantine Lance is no longer game legal? I just do not see an 8th Edition that turns the clock back to a 3rd-5th Edition paradigm of single FOC, no allies, no free stuff, and no LoWs gameplay.
By doing it? Apoc is quite likely still going to be a thing, and you are mentioning things like Knight Lances and so on? GW is in the business of selling models - and it won't just be knight players who will have models that they cannot use anymore (or make centerpieces); tau have the stormsurge, eldar have the wraithknight, etc. I play tau, but I also have Coteaz and a bunch of assassins. If they limit us back to solo CADs with no allies, are people likely to toss their partial armies that used to be acceptable allies, or will people acquire more models to make those detachments into legal CADs?
Frankly, I was surprised that the Ally schtick lasted beyond 6th. I expected it to be a solo edition move to sell more models.
No. The game is going exactly how GW wants it to go. They release a large plastic model or a box set with minimum models in it at rediculiously high prices and people still buy three of them because they release a rule set that allows them too.
In GWs eyes, there is nothing to fix.
As for a third party, any rules set released by anyone that scales to include 28mm models can be used with gw models. Heck I just played an game of infinity that was DE vs Space Wolves. (Aleph vs. Pan-O) It's all count as and infantry based, but it was cool looking.
I honestly don't think GW can fix 40K. Thankfully my group spun off half way through the 5th Ed - we could see the writing on the wall back then. Unfortunately most players don't have a regular cadre of players with similar tastes or the desire to 'fix the game' to an acceptable standard...it takes a fair bit of work. The trouble was worth it for us, and don't see any of us going back to chasing GW's latest insult. It's a shame this just isn't practical for most people.
As mentioned in the OP, it's ridiculous how so many players accustomed to the GW mindset try to solve mistakes with more layers of the same kind of tripe. I sympathize with those caught in GW's incessant maelstrom, but unless they find an alternative the future for them is bleak.
Eldarain wrote:Judging by the average crap Chaos and Orks just got compared to the OOT Marine stuff I dont think they have the ability or inclination.
Jayden63 wrote:No. The game is going exactly how GW wants it to go. They release a large plastic model or a box set with minimum models in it at rediculiously high prices and people still buy three of them because they release a rule set that allows them too.
In GWs eyes, there is nothing to fix.
As for a third party, any rules set released by anyone that scales to include 28mm models can be used with gw models. Heck I just played an game of infinity that was DE vs Space Wolves. (Aleph vs. Pan-O) It's all count as and infantry based, but it was cool looking.
Sounds about right. And I think Amanita is right - I don't think they can, either. Warhammer 40K is broken beyond repair simply because GW has made too many choices (I don't want to say mistakes because it's too easy for us to say that in hindsight) that haven't been to the benefit of the game.
That being said, this is why you can House Rule things and, especially in a more casual setting and/or with mates, you can be selective about which rules you do and do not use. [This obviously isn't going to work with many strangers or acquaintances at your FLGS or at Tournaments]. There are often been times when I've used House Rules, and it's a fantastic way to try and balance the game, but as far as GW doing it? They're too far up crap creek with too small of a paddle to do anything about it now.
With all that in mind, I think a Third Party Rule Set could work just fine as long as GW would be willing to outsource such a thing to somebody else. Without the express permission of GW, I don't think it can work purely because a Third Party trying to do it would either be a company or organisation trying to do it (who would be immediately sued for Copyright Infringement because they don't have GW's permission), or a person or small group of people who I would bet would run out of steam before getting to the end.
TLDR? I think it can deffinitely work as long as GW is willing to outsource the creation of Rule Sets to a Third Party. For now, either not playing or House Ruling will work.
Grief wrote:You give them money and the wheels keep turning.
The only way to change the game is to not play or buy anymore.
You want to make a difference? Vote with your wallet because money talks and Bull***** walks.
As seemingly noble and logical as that idea sounds, I get the feeling that would more likely lead to bankruptcy than a fixed, balanced game that we can all enjoy. So this may not be the best solution if you want to be able to come back to the hobby one day when it's balanced and fair [because there may not be a hobby to come back to if everyone does this]. The other thing is that they are a modelling company first and a games company second (ironic given their name, right?), so at the very least it should be no surprise they're not getting the rules right.
Thats the whole point. Starve GW out. Put them out of business.
Maybe another company can buy their IP. If not who cares. Another company can finally step up and fill the void with their own IP. If GW doesnt exist, then they cant sue people for making stuff very similar to their designs.
GW owns non miniature games such as Dawn of War and Battle Fleet Gothica, Blood Bowl, and that Warhammer Total War. GW cant truly go bankrupt if they can make money off of those games.
But havent you noticed something? They remade blood bowl, Battlefleet gothica and total war: warhammer on a digital platform?
What if, wh40k finally becomes unprofitable they stop making minatures. Years latter they try to reboot it digitally. No not like Dawn of War, but how they did battle fleet gothica to closely resemble the table top version.
Grief wrote: Thats the whole point. Starve GW out. Put them out of business.
But in the context of the OP's question, this is one of the worst things that can happen. We're taking about dishing out the rights and ability to make a coherent, balance Rule Set to a Third Party, not "Starving GW Out" to the point where they don't even make the models anymore. What would be the point in that? We would have a company that isn't making models or rules anymore because it no longer has the capacity to do so. Also, I doubt any Third Party will create a Rule Set to pair with a set of models that is no longer in production.
Whether or not GW can be successful by simply making games on a digital platform has nothing to do with what the OP asked. Absolutely nothing.
TL;DR Can a third-party created 40K ruleset be successful while GW still actively promotes its bloated, broken version of 40K? Are a significant number of people so hopelessly wed to GW that they are willing to circle the drain for as long as an official ruleset (no matter how bad it may be) exists?
Yes, but the fans won't let this happen.
Put any two 40k fans together and try to get them to agree to (a) what the problems are and (b) what is the solution to said problem. Won't happen, because everyone and their monkey has a different idea of how this should be done (and their way is the Right Way). Now multiply this by thousands.
House rules and home brews work, but on a local scale with small groups of like minded individuals. But for anything larger scale thry cause as many problems as they solve. The other problem is you end up with dozens of competing sets of fan made comps, and most fan designed systems (designed my amateurs essentially, and I mean no disrespect by that!) for all their enthusiasm, are often somewhat lacking in quality and direction most of the time, as a lot of the, are about playing the game 'the RIght WAy' and punishing those that want to have fun in different ways.
Aos has gone down this direction with various fan comps. And there is already disagreement as to what gets used where. Or whether to stick with the official 'pointless' approach and just 'eyeball' the balance. And Aos is a 'new' game. With a small playerbase. Try doing that to what still remains one of the largest single games in the niche...
Grief wrote: Thats the whole point. Starve GW out. Put them out of business.
But in the context of the OP's question, this is one of the worst things that can happen. We're taking about dishing out the rights and ability to make a coherent, balance Rule Set to a Third Party, not "Starving GW Out" to the point where they don't even make the models anymore. What would be the point in that? We would have a company that isn't making models or rules anymore because it no longer has the capacity to do so. Also, I doubt any Third Party will create a Rule Set to pair with a set of models that is no longer in production.
Whether or not GW can be successful by simply making games on a digital platform has nothing to do with what the OP asked. Absolutely nothing.
As long as people give money to GW, GW doesn't have to fix the game.
Only when GW cant make money off of wh40k then they can scrap wh40k and stop making models. There is enough wh40k modes floating around on ebay and 3rd party resellers.
Only then can wh40k can be fixed by making rule without the intentions to sell the models.
Grief wrote: Thats the whole point. Starve GW out. Put them out of business.
30K/40K is very good. GW is done good except in gaming. You can fix these by using different rules. Lore and models are good IMO. Setting is superb.
You can use old rules if you want. But it is not easy because other people uses different rules, we need a strong gaming community if we want use a other rules than current gw rules.
Grief wrote: Thats the whole point. Starve GW out. Put them out of business.
30K/40K is very good. GW is done good except in gaming. You can fix these by using different rules. Lore and models are good IMO. Setting is superb.
You can use old rules if you want. But it is not easy because other people uses different rules, we need a strong gaming community if we want use a other rules than current gw rules.
That's a matter of opinion. Because I know some people, myself included that hate the retconning of the Necrons and also Wolfy McWolf Wolf riding his WolfWolf of Wolfyness.
Rules are a mess that GW won't fix, because people have already fixed it for them (see FLG, house rulings, etc). They're looking to sell their big kits as much as possible
Grief wrote: Thats the whole point. Starve GW out. Put them out of business.
But in the context of the OP's question, this is one of the worst things that can happen. We're taking about dishing out the rights and ability to make a coherent, balance Rule Set to a Third Party, not "Starving GW Out" to the point where they don't even make the models anymore. What would be the point in that? We would have a company that isn't making models or rules anymore because it no longer has the capacity to do so. Also, I doubt any Third Party will create a Rule Set to pair with a set of models that is no longer in production.
Whether or not GW can be successful by simply making games on a digital platform has nothing to do with what the OP asked. Absolutely nothing.
As long as people give money to GW, GW doesn't have to fix the game.
Only when GW cant make money off of wh40k then they can scrap wh40k and stop making models. There is enough wh40k modes floating around on ebay and 3rd party resellers.
Only then can wh40k can be fixed by making rule without the intentions to sell the models.
3rd Party Re-sellers of models aside: You want GW to give up what they do best (Creating models) because they can't do rules (Which - I'll remind you again - is something that is secondary to models for them)?
And you want to get better rules for the models they create by driving them from the tabletop industry entirely? Which, mind you, could send them bankrupt. I'm not talking "Our tabletop division is flopping - let's stick to other platforms and games", I'm talking flat out, 100%, GW doesn't exist anymore bankrupt. That won't help W40K, it will destroy it.
But what if somebody else picks up the IP? My bet is that it will take them years to bring it back up to speed. And what's to say that if somebody else pick up the IP, that they won't make the same sorts of choices and mistakes that GW have?
What you're suggesting we do is essentially destroy a company in the hopes that the MIGHT pull their act together in some way or another and eventually allow for a better version of the game to be born. I feel very confident in saying that your idea will NOT work.
And in all honesty, I'd rather a hobby centered around a set of models with a set of broken rules than a hobby centered around buying used models and outdated rules off of online stores that are overpriced because it's a discontinued line of products.
Draco wrote:
Grief wrote: Thats the whole point. Starve GW out. Put them out of business.
30K/40K is very good. GW is done good except in gaming. You can fix these by using different rules. Lore and models are good IMO. Setting is superb.
You can use old rules if you want. But it is not easy because other people uses different rules, we need a strong gaming community if we want use a other rules than current gw rules.
I agree with this. Everything apart from the rule set is fantastic. Obviously due to the scope, there's always going to be elements that I do and don't like, and any other given person isn't going to necessarily agree with me, but such is the way of things with such a big fictional universe. But as I have said repeatedly - they are a model company above all else, and realistically, that's the only thing we can almost surely trust them to get right.
Also, take any person: If they are in this hobby for the gaming while at the same time they find the rules unbearably broken, then this is not the hobby for you. Period.
Rules need to be rebuilt from the ground up honestly. If the cores rotten it doesn't matter how much work you out into codexes and units.
The very core of the game is conflicting. They need to pick to either be a smaller platoon scale type game with cool character and detail (Bolt action scale of say 30-50 infantry and a vehicle or two tops per side) or go for a more streamlined mass battle game.
To do the former, more strict limits need to be put on units that belong in apocalypse (knights, riptides, baneblades, etc.) And toning down on weapons and abilities like invisibility or D spam. Rules that support using "fodder" like orks and guardsmen need to be put in place to make them relevant. More emphasis can be put on characters and special rules, with a heavy emphasis on UNIVERSAL special rules used over each unit getting its own special snowflake rules in its codex, with a couple flavor abilities kept in each book like orders for IG and Waaaagh for Orks.
To do the latter, the game needs to be streamlined, quite ruthlessly in many places. The "hit/wound/save/potential second save" system works fine with a few squads are on the table, but when it's a platoon of guardsmen shooting at a mob of boyz it's hell. Honestly, a "shooter rolls to hit/defender rolls to save" system would work just as well, with perhaps a few modifiers for special situations like cover or range bonuses/penalties and heavier weapons giving a basic penalty to the save the defender can make. Thus cutting the rolling in half. Characters need to have their insanely long lists of special rules slashed and simplified if there's going to be dozens of models per side. Casualty removal would need to go back to owner chooses unless models have precision shot. I can go on and on.
Dropping the outdated "move/shoot/ charge" system at IGOUGO and embracing things like alternating unit activation (ala dropzone commander/bolt action) freedom to do actions in any order with a limit of the amount (like starship trooper's 'two actions, in any order or even the same twice") and embracing some sort of reaction mechanic to keep the opposing player engaged while you're moving would all help too (Starship troopers,/bolt action) We've come a long way in game design in the past two years, and it makes me really sad to see 40k stuck in the mud as all these cool new ideas pop up.
GW can easily fix the game. They just have to 1) admit the game is important to selling models, 2) admit there is a problem, and 3) hire good rules writers who will 4) platest.
Haha yep. We can hope. I'll be the first person to admit that when there's a problem caused by me or with me, I'm probably going to be down low on the list of people admitting it out aloud. What makes you think that GW is going to hold a different mentality to this?
I don't think their rule writers are bad per se, but I think the writers need to take a step back and take a look at the big picture of what they've created. I reckon @MrMoustaffa isn't very far off the mark at all when (s)he says that they need to look at the very core rules, restructure or rewrite them, and then work from there. But I honestly don't think they're going to do anything remotely like this. A Third Party might if the writing of rules was outsourced to them. It'd definitely be easier for a Third Party to do it as well. I mean, you remember looking over your maths homework or your english essay and finding no problems, but the minute somebody else looks at it, they pick out all the problems and help you fix it? That's what it will be like, but the Third Party won't be helping GW fix it, the Third Party will be doing it themselves.
That brings up the question though: If it's only a matter getting an outside perspective, why don't GW do that? Or listen to its fans/customers? Simple - for whatever, reason, that's not really how GW works in the grand scheme of things.
The big problem is that GW is essentially asking novelists to design a statistics/numbers based game. Leave the novelists to the fluff, hire a couple statisticians to write the rules and assign stats/point values. The writers are out of their depth.
slip wrote: The big problem is that GW is essentially asking novelists to design a statistics/numbers based game. Leave the novelists to the fluff, hire a couple statisticians to write the rules and assign stats/point values. The writers are out of their depth.
Not just novelists, but novelists that have a screwed perspective. They think that everyone enjoys the game purely based on the fluff, so "obviously they will not want to min-max at all! They will all want to recreate games from these awesome stories we're telling!"
We take the rules infinitely more seriously than the writers of the rules do.
jonolikespie wrote: GW can easily fix the game. They just have to 1) admit the game is important to selling models, 2) admit there is a problem, and 3) hire good rules writers who will 4) platest.
Whats worse is GW could get player feedback really cheap and easy by hosting tournaments and do quick quizzes.
TL;DR Can a third-party created 40K ruleset be successful while GW still actively promotes its bloated, broken version of 40K? Are a significant number of people so hopelessly wed to GW that they are willing to circle the drain for as long as an official ruleset (no matter how bad it may be) exists?
I for sure would like to play an unofficial 40k version with rebalanced point costs of everything.
I don't want other rules etc. I still want to play 40k and don't mind things being powerfull, what I do mind is players not paying enough points or too many points for those models. Just a rebalancing of points based on the community comp system or something similar would be good enough for me.
Automatically Appended Next Post: A note such system should have been build by a larger group of sensible persons that play multiple armies and should also get lots of feedback based fine-tuning. I don't want to play a game rebalanced from the point of view from a single army / player who likes to play with rocks and thus nerfs paper.
carldooley wrote: I think that GW saw what PP did with warmachine and hordes, making everything balanced by making it all over powered. Rather than de-escalating the game, GW seems to be trying to fix the kiln by burning out the heating coils.
Look at the Tau Codex: Tau players were fully expecting some nerfing of the codex, with the mildest being a 15 point increase for the Ion Accelerator. That didn't happen. GW proceeded to take some of the most broken units and allowed them to be taken in multiple model units rather than monats, and Stormsurges as GMCs instead of SHW to maintain the feel of the codex.
If 8th isn't a de-escelation ala 3rd after RT, I may just give up on this game.
I certainly wasn't expecting any nerfing of the codex, as Tau have been lower-tier for a while now. Eldar, Necrons, even Space Marines (think Battle Company MSU) over took them.
What I'd like to see is IG, DE, Nids, Orks, CSM get a boost up to the top-tier in power level.
A simple errata would fix Eldar - make scatterlasers one per 3 bikes, add 100 points onto the Wraithknight, allow the warp spiders to jump only once per shooting phase.
But... as evidenced by the whole CSM debacle (two supplements, NO NEW CODEX...), geedubs are only (half?) listening.
I do think they are improving - but change is slow.
I don't think their rule writers are bad per se, but I think the writers need to take a step back and take a look at the big picture of what they've created. I reckon @MrMoustaffa isn't very far off the mark at all when (s)he says that they need to look at the very core rules, restructure or rewrite them, and then work from there. But I honestly don't think they're going to do anything remotely like this. A Third Party might if the writing of rules was outsourced to them. It'd definitely be easier for a Third Party to do it as well. I mean, you remember looking over your maths homework or your english essay and finding no problems, but the minute somebody else looks at it, they pick out all the problems and help you fix it? That's what it will be like, but the Third Party won't be helping GW fix it, the Third Party will be doing it themselves.
That brings up the question though: If it's only a matter getting an outside perspective, why don't GW do that? Or listen to its fans/customers? Simple - for whatever, reason, that's not really how GW works in the grand scheme of things.
They could do themselves a huge favour by outsourcing their games design to WotC or FFG.
I imagine most people like myself have bought a model they're not all that keen on the look of simply because it's required for your force to be effective, and it's usually dam expensive.
If Games Workshop are a model company first and gaming company second why do they still make overpowered rules for their latest kits whilst neglecting the old ones.
As with most things in the world it all sadly boils down to money.
Games Workshop won't fix 40k simply because it wouldn't make them more money, I also don't think they have the ability too either.
My guess is we'll soon have a new madatory unit type, maybe something like a massively overpowered burrowing unit (Morlocs for all) , or suddenly everyone will be given Hellicopters or boats will start making an appearance. Every one will buy them, and the old units will flounder, this will continue whilst it makes them money
Just..not the way you want. 40k seems to be returning to the "crazy/zany" days of 2nd edition, moreso than it is returning to the "we are trying to be a srs wargame type activity" days of 4th and 5th.
Which is great, and I love it. But I have a feeling it's going to be highly unpopular with the competitive crowd.
Before anyone can fix 40k rules.You need to define what 40k rules are supposed to be?
If you follow the scale of the minatures, that leads to a skirmish rule set , focused on detailed model interaction.
The largest size game skirmish rules can support is around 2nd ed size games.
And as there are many great skirmish rule sets all ready out there,No Limits,(Warzone/2nd ed type rules) to Beyond the Gated of Antares.(Bolt Action type rules.)
Trying to compete in the very crowded skirmish games market with lots of well written rules, that are already well supported, is a bit of a pointless exercise for GW and 40k fans,IMO.
If you follow the size of the game , you are looking at detailed UNIT interaction in a battle game.
If 40k used appropriate scale minatures , eg 6mm to 15mm for its large battle game.We could use any of the good rule sets already out there as a starting point for conversion. Epic Armageddon, Drop Ship Commander, Dirt-side, etc.
As the smnaller scale makes players more comfortable with unit interaction because of 'blob squad infantry units on a base'.
However, the insistence by GW of using skirmish sized minatures in a battle sized game has cause so many disconnects and disjointed perspectives.A complete and total re-write focusing on the intended game play.(What ever this is supposed to be.)
Is the only way to fix 40k.
No half hearted tweeks, or PV adjustment can fix the game.These just make it acceptable to play for some.But are still light years away from a well defined, intuitive and fun to play rule set.(Straight out of the book)
I admit there is a lot here and i have not read it all, but to inject myself into the conversation, and give my two cents here is goes.
1)Remove GMC and Heavy walkers from normal games
2)Remove, and or greatly reduce formations. IMO allowing things like the hunter killer, and for example the vindicator formations that used to only apply to apoc games into normal games is dumb, i mean...pie plate o doom.
I think a good example of a formation is one that involves fluff.
3) Remove D weapons from standard games
4)Remove the hardcore cheese from the game, eldar quickly come to mind, or the ridiculous amount of special rules on units. If you have more then 3 spcial rules on a unit, not counting global common rules like FNP or They shall know no fear. the unit needs to be looked at again. Example, black knights, relentless, hit and run, and hammer of wrath can get pretty cheese.
To be clear, a rewrite of the rules would, by absolute necessity, be free of anything that would infringe upon the IP. I come back to Ninth Age and Kings of War as a reference because they've written rules that are obviously intended for use with GW miniatures, but they've done it in a such a way that there's no legal ramifications. Again I ask the question: are they popular as an alternate ruleset simply because WFB no longer exists? Can a sci-fi rules setting expressly aimed at GW collectors work while GW produces an official ruleset?
GW has created a great universe of fluff and fantasy history. There is no reason that a mechanical change in rules should affect anyone from retaining the great stories behind their armies. IMO, the depth of the galaxy is the reason why 40K has such a dedicated fanbase. It's the reason why settings like Infinity and Warmachine will have a limited appeal: those game worlds are well defined and set within a limited scope of time and setting. That's not to say that they don't have better game rules or don't appeal to a large number of people, they just don't allow for people interested in fluff to carve out their own niche.
They will never get rid of formations because they're the ultimate key to selling models that would never sell otherwise. Oh that vyper sucks compared to literally everything else in your codex and you're never going to waste your time and money to buy and paint one? Guess what? Now that model is mandatory if you want to effectively spam scat bikes and wks. You have a fire prism? Now you need 3 for the formation bonus. Oh crap, everyone already has as many rhinos/drop pods as they'll ever need but we want to sell more. Guess what? Now they're FREE! GO BUY MORE!
Whatever the lowest selling kits for a particular army are, GW will make them mandatory in the next super formation or encourage spamming the hell out of them.
carldooley wrote: I think that GW saw what PP did with warmachine and hordes, making everything balanced by making it all over powered.
PP balanced?
That game has ton's of balance issues as well. Some warcasters are, simply put, better than others. They also play the 'pay to win' game by releasing slightly better models with each supplement so you need to buy them to be competitive.
There is nothing wrong with this. They are a business and need to earn a profit. But lets not delude ourselves and say that PP games are 'balanced'.
1- No GW can't.
2- They don't want to.
3- No one else can while 40k still exists.
If GW goes all End Times / AoS on 40k, then you might see the community commitment and cooperation necessary to put together some sort of 9th age style fan-made edition based on whatever past edition the fans who make it think was the best, but even then good luck finding local communities willing to run it.
like so many other game that have so much choice, you run into the issue of its almost impossible to balance everything.
A large part needs to come from GW yes, but additionally, if there is to be true balance, then the community will need to accept that there will never be a jack of all trades armies. Maybe space marines.
But the community will need to accept that each army should have one good thing, but pretty much suck at the rest. As is stands GW is trying to make rules for armies so that they can do anything the player want, which is just not very good.
Probably it has been said before, but something that xould help a lot to have agood ruleset woud be if GW created an app/ebook/something techy where they published all of their rules. Instead of buying the rulebook (£50) plus a couple of codexes (£60-£70) You paid (£110-£150) for a lifetime access to all rules/ codexes. Alternatively they could charge £30-£50 for a year subscription this might be better due to lower entry cost. This would be a lot easier to update too, everyone would get the updates instantly without having to search for them in the White Dwarf/webpage etc...
Besides being a lot more friendly to updates and modern times it would also leave us with more money for what we want in the first place... our plastic crack!!! And fielding larger armies/models would be more common.
And for the die hard fans of paper they could still print some special edition codexes with extra art, short stories and the like...
So, to answer OP's question.. can 40K be fixed by GW? certainly... Will it be done? Not very likely
Lanrak wrote: However, the insistence by GW of using skirmish sized minatures in a battle sized game has cause so many disconnects and disjointed perspectives.A complete and total re-write focusing on the intended game play.(What ever this is supposed to be.)
Is the only way to fix 40k.
That, matched with a coherent vision for the armies that you play the game with. There's no point writing a tight, functional ruleset if every damn unit's gonna have special rules.
But I don't think either GW or the fanbase would go for the level of abstraction that a good game (of this type and scale) needs. They'd see it as simplistic and limiting if all these hundreds of guns didn't have slightly different rules.
I think just fixing the crap codexes will bring a new level of balance. Orks, Chaos, IG are a few exemple of codexs that have internal issues. Fix them and we'll most likely see a decrease in balancing issues.
But GW is a model company, so release op stuff, and people will buy it. They just want to sell gak, so I doubt they're going to do anythign about it.
If they make the older codexs into new op ones like everybody else, then everybody will be op so game will be balanced. Easier hen to nerf all the recent codexs. Not saying it's the thing to do, but it's a quick n easy sort of fix.
Regarding the rules - I also agree that it's a complete re-write. I think this COULD be done, but it would invalidate all current publications and force GW to stop releasing stuff for a while as it's prepared.
I think you could certainly still include Formations, or Flyers and Superheavies / GMC size models if you like, but they just need to be massively toned down. Your Baneblade is now a 9HP Leman Russ. That's it. No split fire, no ignoring this and that damage effect, etc, etc. No D weapons. But yes, a total rules re-write from the ground up with minimal special rules and massive simplification of how models/units interact.
Will they actually do this? - doubt it. At the moment they seem to be doing well with their one-week special rules laden marketing splashes. I agree that they need to see the game as an essential part of the hobby before they change it, and even though it would definitely be a good thing to start again, a million players will whine when their books become invalid.
Regarding alternate rules - I don't think any fan-written alternative has a hope as long as GW are still publishing 40k. It's just much, much easier to get people to play a game if they know what they're playing. We see this problem with fandexes - only the author ever plays them.
WHFB 9th has a boost because WHFB changed so much, but in my regular club I've seen a drop in players of 9th as people realise that either AoS is actually a pretty viable and fun game, or that KoW is a much faster, simpler way of doing a mass battle game.
Byte wrote: Are they not selling enough models? Isn't that the priority?
You would think if they made a better game, people would be more willing to keep playing.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
ArbitorIan wrote: Regarding alternate rules - I don't think any fan-written alternative has a hope as long as GW are still publishing 40k. It's just much, much easier to get people to play a game if they know what they're playing. We see this problem with fandexes - only the author ever plays them.
A similar problem exists in the programming world.
You might write an amazing piece of code, but if it's very specific to your company then finding someone to manage the code is hard. Using third party products ensures you can find support for the systems, even if the managing engineer leaves. Sure, that third party code might not be as good, and it might be more expensive -- but the ability to do a linked in search for that specific toolset is very helpful for employers.
In a similar way, I know 40k is overpriced and the rules are unbalanced. However, I know I can go to a tourney and play with a group of new people with a common ruleset. Modifications of that ruleset are found (ITC rules, NOVA rules, Adepticon Rules) but even they still provide common enough ground to where I can drive to a different state and be playing the same game.
Regarding the rules - I also agree that it's a complete re-write. I think this COULD be done, but it would invalidate all current publications and force GW to stop releasing stuff for a while as it's prepared.
I think you could certainly still include Formations, or Flyers and Superheavies / GMC size models if you like, but they just need to be massively toned down. Your Baneblade is now a 9HP Leman Russ. That's it. No split fire, no ignoring this and that damage effect, etc, etc. No D weapons. But yes, a total rules re-write from the ground up with minimal special rules and massive simplification of how models/units interact.
Will they actually do this? - doubt it. At the moment they seem to be doing well with their one-week special rules laden marketing splashes. I agree that they need to see the game as an essential part of the hobby before they change it, and even though it would definitely be a good thing to start again, a million players will whine when their books become invalid.
Regarding alternate rules - I don't think any fan-written alternative has a hope as long as GW are still publishing 40k. It's just much, much easier to get people to play a game if they know what they're playing. We see this problem with fandexes - only the author ever plays them.
Pretty much this for me.
Im wondering with the lack of actual bonified codex releases of late are they quietly ramping up for 8th. Whether thats (another) retweaking of the basic ruleset with a new machnaic/dynamic thrown in or a complete rewrite who knows.
I'd like to think they take a punt ala AoS and gut the ruleset (not the fluff) but with 40k still being their safe bet and go to flag bearer probably not.
First let me say that I do believe that GW has slowly begun to move in a more positive direction. More rapid codex releases was positive, recent board games where the models could be used in 40k, and much to everyones surprise GW rebuilding an online presence; even going to far as to ask for FAQ's. That said there is a great deal more that they could do to significantly improve the actual 40k game itself.
Clearly GW uses the 'rules' to improve sales of certain models, so I won't rehash those comments. The question being is, can 40k be fixed by GW? I believe it can.
However, I think what GW needs to change their approach to writing rules. Right now they are all over the place. Chaos gets rehashed supplement's with mostly sub par recycled Apoc formations. While Space Marines get a swath of new awesome Psychic powers. It is this kind of approach that hampers any chance of seeing a better, more streamlined, and balanced game coming any time soon.
Fundamentally they can't scrap the current rules because it isn't realistic, it just isn't feasible that GW will do one huge release of codex's to go along with a new edition. So with that in mind, what can they do?
They need to focus on Codex's. GW needs to be consistent going forward. They need a truly dedicated team of rules designers who have a vested interest in creating a "Whole Game". They have to stop 'shifting gears' all the time. If they could maintain a steady hand when it comes to updating codex's then I think that over time they could begin to advance in a direction where the Whole Game can improve. It really doesn't matter if they want to ramp up the power levels, include Super Heavies, or tone things down. What is important is that they be consistent in what they do.
If they could apply this method to updating every codex in the future, until ALL codex's were updated; then perhaps they could re-examine the core rules.
Byte wrote: Are they not selling enough models? Isn't that the priority?
Sales of models dropped by 15% last year according to their financials, so they must not be selling a whole lot of extra models. If 3 people quit for every 1 guy that buys 12 rhinos, GW didn't gain anything. They probably took a net loss because the 3 guys that quit started spending money with GW's competitors and then each told 10 other people not to start 40k because it's a horrible, unbalanced mess.
The only way for them to fix the game truly would be to start from scratch and come with a concept for the whole game. There is too much content to do it all at once. So they would need to think of ways to expand from the beginning and how they want to do it. Like perhaps, a system of campaigns that are technically self contained and play somewhat differently. If people then want to mix and match everything , they could but if things start to break, that truly isn't GW's fault then.
GW did create a department just for their board games, so I guess it's not entirely impossible to see something similar with 40k, but I just don't see it happening. It would make sense for the company to separate the models and rules though. That way they could even go ahead and make collector only items alongside stuff that has actual function in game. It would require too much restructuring and commitment for them to go through with it though.
Will they actually do this? - doubt it. At the moment they seem to be doing well with their one-week special rules laden marketing splashes. I agree that they need to see the game as an essential part of the hobby before they change it, and even though it would definitely be a good thing to start again, a million players will whine when their books become invalid.
I'm legitimately curious when this culture of "we're a model company, not a games company" started. When you listen to guys like Rick Priestley and Andy Chambers talk, they're always very respectful, but they also state that at some point the Studio was subordinated to the business side of the company. This seems to have been the time when we started to see a significant downturn in the quality of the rules writing.
Regarding alternate rules - I don't think any fan-written alternative has a hope as long as GW are still publishing 40k. It's just much, much easier to get people to play a game if they know what they're playing. We see this problem with fandexes - only the author ever plays them.
It saddens me some, but I'd have to agree. There are some folks out there who really write some flavorful, balanced fandexes. I've enjoyed some of your batreps that featured the Adeptus Arbites. If anything, good fandexes tend towards being underpowered, much how the FW guys used to write some of their earlier Imperial Armour books. They were hobbyists, and they weren't interested in gaming the system to put a favored unit on the tabletop. They just wanted to make something cool.
I think we have quite a bit of unrecognized talent in the community, and a fan rueset could easily be better than what the professionals produce at that big building in Nottingham.
WHFB 9th has a boost because WHFB changed so much, but in my regular club I've seen a drop in players of 9th as people realise that either AoS is actually a pretty viable and fun game, or that KoW is a much faster, simpler way of doing a mass battle game.
That's interesting. I don't play Fantasy, but Ninth Age seemed like it would edge out Mantic's offering. But, again, it may also be that Mantic is an established company with a full-colored, printed book that can be purchased in most gaming stores. Ninth's Age, even though it's designed to be more familiar to WFB players, just doesn't have that polish and expansive reach that an established publisher can muster.
Grief wrote: Thats the whole point. Starve GW out. Put them out of business.
But in the context of the OP's question, this is one of the worst things that can happen. We're taking about dishing out the rights and ability to make a coherent, balance Rule Set to a Third Party, not "Starving GW Out" to the point where they don't even make the models anymore. What would be the point in that? We would have a company that isn't making models or rules anymore because it no longer has the capacity to do so. Also, I doubt any Third Party will create a Rule Set to pair with a set of models that is no longer in production.
Whether or not GW can be successful by simply making games on a digital platform has nothing to do with what the OP asked. Absolutely nothing.
As long as people give money to GW, GW doesn't have to fix the game.
Only when GW cant make money off of wh40k then they can scrap wh40k and stop making models. There is enough wh40k modes floating around on ebay and 3rd party resellers.
Only then can wh40k can be fixed by making rule without the intentions to sell the models.
3rd Party Re-sellers of models aside: You want GW to give up what they do best (Creating models) because they can't do rules (Which - I'll remind you again - is something that is secondary to models for them)?
And you want to get better rules for the models they create by driving them from the tabletop industry entirely? Which, mind you, could send them bankrupt. I'm not talking "Our tabletop division is flopping - let's stick to other platforms and games", I'm talking flat out, 100%, GW doesn't exist anymore bankrupt. That won't help W40K, it will destroy it.
But what if somebody else picks up the IP? My bet is that it will take them years to bring it back up to speed. And what's to say that if somebody else pick up the IP, that they won't make the same sorts of choices and mistakes that GW have?
What you're suggesting we do is essentially destroy a company in the hopes that the MIGHT pull their act together in some way or another and eventually allow for a better version of the game to be born. I feel very confident in saying that your idea will NOT work.
And in all honesty, I'd rather a hobby centered around a set of models with a set of broken rules than a hobby centered around buying used models and outdated rules off of online stores that are overpriced because it's a discontinued line of products.
Draco wrote:
Grief wrote: Thats the whole point. Starve GW out. Put them out of business.
30K/40K is very good. GW is done good except in gaming. You can fix these by using different rules. Lore and models are good IMO. Setting is superb.
You can use old rules if you want. But it is not easy because other people uses different rules, we need a strong gaming community if we want use a other rules than current gw rules.
I agree with this. Everything apart from the rule set is fantastic. Obviously due to the scope, there's always going to be elements that I do and don't like, and any other given person isn't going to necessarily agree with me, but such is the way of things with such a big fictional universe. But as I have said repeatedly - they are a model company above all else, and realistically, that's the only thing we can almost surely trust them to get right.
Also, take any person: If they are in this hobby for the gaming while at the same time they find the rules unbearably broken, then this is not the hobby for you. Period.
Giving them your money has worked out so well hasn't it?
Grief wrote: Giving them your money has worked out so well hasn't it?
If you don't want to give GW or FW your money, that can be your agenda. Why you seem to insist that we all follow your lead and at the very least drive GW and FW out of the industry is beyond me. Would you mind explaining exactly how you see this panning out, and how exactly everyone refusing to be ongoing customers is going to fix the rules? Because I don't see the customer base diminishing to next to nobody ever leading to GW and FW going "Oh wait... let's make better rules."
On your point of me giving them money working so far, might I remind you of something I said in the very post you quoted:
IllumiNini wrote: And in all honesty, I'd rather a hobby centered around a set of models with a set of broken rules than a hobby centered around buying used models and outdated rules off of online stores that are overpriced because it's a discontinued line of products.
I don't think their rule writers are bad per se, but I think the writers need to take a step back and take a look at the big picture of what they've created. I reckon @MrMoustaffa isn't very far off the mark at all when (s)he says that they need to look at the very core rules, restructure or rewrite them, and then work from there. But I honestly don't think they're going to do anything remotely like this. A Third Party might if the writing of rules was outsourced to them. It'd definitely be easier for a Third Party to do it as well. I mean, you remember looking over your maths homework or your english essay and finding no problems, but the minute somebody else looks at it, they pick out all the problems and help you fix it? That's what it will be like, but the Third Party won't be helping GW fix it, the Third Party will be doing it themselves.
That brings up the question though: If it's only a matter getting an outside perspective, why don't GW do that? Or listen to its fans/customers? Simple - for whatever, reason, that's not really how GW works in the grand scheme of things.
They could do themselves a huge favour by outsourcing their games design to WotC or FFG.
Yep, most definitely. Shall we take wagers on how long it will take GW to do something like this? I have $10 on never haha
GW is not responsible for this mess. Munchkin gamers will always arise, eventually, in any system that has been around this long.
The fact that people blame GW is hilarious and a self serving cycle. These people whine and complain at GW, and at the same time, praise and admire people who take the obvious 2-3 toughest units in a codex and fit as many as possible of said units as they can into a list... (not all, but generally from my experience).
...and you call these people champions? It's no wonder that this is what GW gave you.... it's what you showed them you wanted. Not a game that we can realize amazing sci-fi stories with, but like the reality of insecure people themselves, an arms race where we can use our societal leverage (money) to gain traction against everyone around us.
We ALL messed this up, not GW. Blame them all you want, but I've been passive on this board watching many of you jump amongst the strongest meta army time after time, with your dollars actually winning games for you. Its funny. Now, after the game is reaching the point where those same people can't spend enough to keep ahead of the meta, the complaints of brokenness have risen drastically. Ha!!! You created this.
Disclaimer... I've played mech Tau since 3rd. I had fielded a riptide during 6 and 7th on 3 different occasions, each a single one in those games. I have never used riptides in any but those three. My win ratio was at about 40% at that time with draws happening frequently as well. Don't let munchkin gamers intimidate you. They are too afraid to try to face you in a fair match, and are the ones who complain, as their ego has a vested interest in 40k, instead of their imagination.
(Edit...I will admit that the players that switch armies to play to the current meta are a large driver of GWs total sales, so in a weird paradoxical way their method of playing is also one of the main things that keeps the game afloat.)
carldooley wrote: I think that GW saw what PP did with warmachine and hordes, making everything balanced by making it all over powered.
PP balanced?
That game has ton's of balance issues as well. Some warcasters are, simply put, better than others. They also play the 'pay to win' game by releasing slightly better models with each supplement so you need to buy them to be competitive.
There is nothing wrong with this. They are a business and need to earn a profit. But lets not delude ourselves and say that PP games are 'balanced'.
And yet mk3 Warmachine was just announced, and the stated purpose of that was that PP felt balance needed addressing. They are rebalancing EVERY UNIT IN THE GAME.
GW have never released a new edition with the purpose of addressing the problems in the last, they release new editions because they want to sell you a new book.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
spacelord321 wrote: GW is not responsible for this mess. Munchkin gamers will always arise, eventually, in any system that has been around this long.
No.
Just no.
GW are writing the rules, and the rules are clearly flawed. Therefore GW is at fault, plain and simple.
Grief wrote: Giving them your money has worked out so well hasn't it?
If you don't want to give GW or FW your money, that can be your agenda. Why you seem to insist that we all follow your lead and at the very least drive GW and FW out of the industry is beyond me. Would you mind explaining exactly how you see this panning out, and how exactly everyone refusing to be ongoing customers is going to fix the rules? Because I don't see the customer base diminishing to next to nobody ever leading to GW and FW going "Oh wait... let's make better rules."
On your point of me giving them money working so far, might I remind you of something I said in the very post you quoted:
IllumiNini wrote: And in all honesty, I'd rather a hobby centered around a set of models with a set of broken rules than a hobby centered around buying used models and outdated rules off of online stores that are overpriced because it's a discontinued line of products.
I don't think their rule writers are bad per se, but I think the writers need to take a step back and take a look at the big picture of what they've created. I reckon @MrMoustaffa isn't very far off the mark at all when (s)he says that they need to look at the very core rules, restructure or rewrite them, and then work from there. But I honestly don't think they're going to do anything remotely like this. A Third Party might if the writing of rules was outsourced to them. It'd definitely be easier for a Third Party to do it as well. I mean, you remember looking over your maths homework or your english essay and finding no problems, but the minute somebody else looks at it, they pick out all the problems and help you fix it? That's what it will be like, but the Third Party won't be helping GW fix it, the Third Party will be doing it themselves.
That brings up the question though: If it's only a matter getting an outside perspective, why don't GW do that? Or listen to its fans/customers? Simple - for whatever, reason, that's not really how GW works in the grand scheme of things.
They could do themselves a huge favour by outsourcing their games design to WotC or FFG.
Yep, most definitely. Shall we take wagers on how long it will take GW to do something like this? I have $10 on never haha
If you like what GW is doing then give them money. If you or anyone else dont like what GW is doing then dont give them your money.
When do you think they would even consider re evaluating their business?
When it is still making money, Or would they make a last ditch effort to save their own IP when sales plummet and flat line? Would they do something drastic like realize a large majority of , "Collectors," of ,"Miniatures," and ,"Novels" actually buy these things to play a game? Would they finally get the notion that they need to improve the game rules to revive sales?
GW is not going to go bankrupt if it loses wh40k on the table top. GW will still be in business.
carldooley wrote: I think that GW saw what PP did with warmachine and hordes, making everything balanced by making it all over powered.
PP balanced?
That game has ton's of balance issues as well. Some warcasters are, simply put, better than others. They also play the 'pay to win' game by releasing slightly better models with each supplement so you need to buy them to be competitive.
There is nothing wrong with this. They are a business and need to earn a profit. But lets not delude ourselves and say that PP games are 'balanced'.
And yet mk3 Warmachine was just announced, and the stated purpose of that was that PP felt balance needed addressing. They are rebalancing EVERY UNIT IN THE GAME.
GW have never released a new edition with the purpose of addressing the problems in the last, they release new editions because they want to sell you a new book.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
spacelord321 wrote: GW is not responsible for this mess. Munchkin gamers will always arise, eventually, in any system that has been around this long.
No.
Just no.
GW are writing the rules, and the rules are clearly flawed. Therefore GW is at fault, plain and simple.
No. GW is making models, but, because it sells exponentially better, they make rules to cater to insecure gamers, in the same way that drugs sell to self envisioned embattered folks. (See the "don't spend money!" thread).
Those same codex junkies that get a false feeling of self accomplishment every time they can rightly guess the three new best units in a codex and spam them. This is where you and I differ. I despise these people. I blame the electorate, not the politicians.
Grief wrote:If you like what GW is doing then give them money. If you or anyone else dont like what GW is doing then dont give them your money.
That's always been my standpoint and I have made it abundantly clear that I will still be giving them my money, whether it's $10 a month or $1,000.
Grief wrote:When do you think they would even consider re evaluating their business?
I have no idea, though I'd be willing to be that they would if they started losing money hand over fist. In any case, GW is not likely to make the exact changes you specifically are looking for simply because they're losing money hand over fist. They might, but that's a very, very big IF.
Grief wrote:When it is still making money, Or would they make a last ditch effort to save their own IP when sales plummet and flat line? Would they do something drastic like realize a large majority of , "Collectors," of ,"Miniatures," and ,"Novels" actually buy these things to play a game? Would they finally get the notion that they need to improve the game rules to revive sales?
That's hard to say. I honestly don't know the circumstances in which they would "See the Light", but as I've said before - starving them out of the industry isn't the way to do it. The results are too unpredictable.
All this being said, I think it's fair to say that starving GW out of the industry is a bad idea and have nothing more to say on the matter. Feel free to practice what you preach by not giving GW and FW any more money, but my involvement in this is done and I will continue to support both companies.
Grief wrote:GW is not going to go bankrupt if it loses wh40k on the table top. GW will still be in business.
That is an oversimplification at best. There would be a whole set of circumstances during the decline of W40K resulting from a diminished customer base that could very well lead to bankruptcy. There are so many "What Ifs" that nobody here can properly predict that could lead to the downfall of the company. Similarly, there's nothing stopping them from withdrawing from modelling and tabletop gaming and still being a successful company in other industries. There's too many factors we can't predict; and my best guess is that if they lost W40K, the circumstances surrounding its demise would likely lead to bankruptcy.
spacelord321 wrote: GW is not responsible for this mess. Munchkin gamers will always arise, eventually, in any system that has been around this long.
No.
Just no.
GW are writing the rules, and the rules are clearly flawed. Therefore GW is at fault, plain and simple.
I humbly disagree. I think SpaceLord321 has a point. As a non-competitive player who has no interest or knowledge in tournament play and competitive play in general, I think (s)he's made a good point that many people (or at least myself) haven't previously considered. Also I think the only thing that SpaceLord321 is missing on is that GW is partially at fault here because their sample size is people in tournaments and other competitive players, and not the wider community as well. [SpaceLord321 - Forgive me if I misread or misinterpreted your post.]
spacelord321 wrote: GW is not responsible for this mess. Munchkin gamers will always arise, eventually, in any system that has been around this long.
The fact that people blame GW is hilarious and a self serving cycle. These people whine and complain at GW, and at the same time, praise and admire people who take the obvious 2-3 toughest units in a codex and fit as many as possible of said units as they can into a list... (not all, but generally from my experience).
...and you call these people champions? It's no wonder that this is what GW gave you.... it's what you showed them you wanted. Not a game that we can realize amazing sci-fi stories with, but like the reality of insecure people themselves, an arms race where we can use our societal leverage (money) to gain traction against everyone around us.
We ALL messed this up, not GW. Blame them all you want, but I've been passive on this board watching many of you jump amongst the strongest meta army time after time, with your dollars actually winning games for you. Its funny. Now, after the game is reaching the point where those same people can't spend enough to keep ahead of the meta, the complaints of brokenness have risen drastically. Ha!!! You created this.
Disclaimer... I've played mech Tau since 3rd. I had fielded a riptide during 6 and 7th on 3 different occasions, each a single one in those games. I have never used riptides in any but those three. My win ratio was at about 40% at that time with draws happening frequently as well. Don't let munchkin gamers intimidate you. They are too afraid to try to face you in a fair match, and are the ones who complain, as their ego has a vested interest in 40k, instead of their imagination.
(Edit...I will admit that the players that switch armies to play to the current meta are a large driver of GWs total sales, so in a weird paradoxical way their method of playing is also one of the main things that keeps the game afloat.)
That's not how it works. If you create a situation that gets out of hand, YOU will be held responsible for the outcome.
Say for example you give a monkey a gun. If he shoots somebody, the police are not going to arrest the monkey. They're going to arrest you. In your case; GW gave a bunch of monkeys guns. You got shot and now you want to go all Charlton Heston on them.
It's all well and good to say that a evil competitive player is evil when he takes units that are OP, but what about little Timmy who constantly beats the snot out of little Jimmy, and subsequently makes litle Jimmy leave the hobby, all because the game tells them that two 1500 point lists are fair and they aren't experienced enough to know better, but Timmy likes his fluffy elda jetbike list while Jimmy thinks chaos space marines look cool and he wants to run 50 of them across the board?
spacelord321 wrote: GW is not responsible for this mess. Munchkin gamers will always arise, eventually, in any system that has been around this long.
The fact that people blame GW is hilarious and a self serving cycle. These people whine and complain at GW, and at the same time, praise and admire people who take the obvious 2-3 toughest units in a codex and fit as many as possible of said units as they can into a list... (not all, but generally from my experience).
...and you call these people champions? It's no wonder that this is what GW gave you.... it's what you showed them you wanted. Not a game that we can realize amazing sci-fi stories with, but like the reality of insecure people themselves, an arms race where we can use our societal leverage (money) to gain traction against everyone around us.
We ALL messed this up, not GW. Blame them all you want, but I've been passive on this board watching many of you jump amongst the strongest meta army time after time, with your dollars actually winning games for you. Its funny. Now, after the game is reaching the point where those same people can't spend enough to keep ahead of the meta, the complaints of brokenness have risen drastically. Ha!!! You created this.
Disclaimer... I've played mech Tau since 3rd. I had fielded a riptide during 6 and 7th on 3 different occasions, each a single one in those games. I have never used riptides in any but those three. My win ratio was at about 40% at that time with draws happening frequently as well. Don't let munchkin gamers intimidate you. They are too afraid to try to face you in a fair match, and are the ones who complain, as their ego has a vested interest in 40k, instead of their imagination.
(Edit...I will admit that the players that switch armies to play to the current meta are a large driver of GWs total sales, so in a weird paradoxical way their method of playing is also one of the main things that keeps the game afloat.)
That's not how it works. If you create a situation that gets out of hand, YOU will be held responsible for the outcome.
Say for example you give a monkey a gun. If he shoots somebody, the police are not going to arrest the monkey. They're going to arrest you. In your case; GW gave a bunch of monkeys guns. You got shot and now you want to go all Charlton Heston on them.
And so in your comparison you're the monkey?
I think I see the problem...
Automatically Appended Next Post:
jonolikespie wrote: It's all well and good to say that a evil competitive player is evil when he takes units that are OP, but what about little Timmy who constantly beats the snot out of little Jimmy, and subsequently makes litle Jimmy leave the hobby, all because the game tells them that two 1500 point lists are fair and they aren't experienced enough to know better, but Timmy likes his fluffy elda jetbike list while Jimmy thinks chaos space marines look cool and he wants to run 50 of them across the board?
As has been pointed out before, they were never trying to pass time with a game, they were just trying to beat each other.
Don't let the vets fool you into playing their game. (Some of) The vet tourney players are the biggest complainers of the meta, nowadays and always. Many of those same voices have been the most unapologetic narcissists this game has seen. They don't like a game that can't be decided in the list purchase phase.
You blame GW for giving them the ability to be donkey-caves, even when the players decides that is the way they want to play.
Automatically Appended Next Post: As an aside, I play both low level and competative, haven't played since a month after seventh edition released, but have kept up on the game vicariously so...
I will be taking a min maxed hunter contingent with one (maybe two if I can paint it quick enough) riptides, no keels or surges, to DelaWar. I'm registered as Dan Theman. We'll see how I do.
I have no personal problems with tourney lists. I'm an adult who's ego is not so hinged upon his wargaming abilty (although I'd KYA. Just don't expect me to congratulate you for winning with 5 knights/riptides. I will give you a zero comp score right in front of you, and explain it with a smile. I enjoy these people in my gaming scene. They remind me that my personal quirks balance out!
In order to fix 40k they would need to rewrite the rules and codex's simultaneoulsy. And this done by a core group of skilled game designers that can bring balance and character to each of the army types.
This cannot be done because of the way GW work as a PLC. They need to constantly drip feed product to the market to ensure revenue streams are constant.
The sample size point is a good one, and I tried to pay it service by admitting that the "play with their wallet" types (not all by far) are perhaps the largest monetary contributors to our hobby.
Nah, they'll bring back mass 1st turn assault in 8th and the other half of the generals will have their chance to sit back and congratulate themselves on their tactical brilliance. And the pseudo (un)balance of life shall continue. And I shall play Tau.
Nithaniel wrote: In order to fix 40k they would need to rewrite the rules and codex's simultaneoulsy. And this done by a core group of skilled game designers that can bring balance and character to each of the army types.
So.. they need to copy what literally every other company in the market do
Seriously, GW are the only ones that try for backwards compatibility in their editions aren't they?
spacelord321 wrote: GW is not responsible for this mess. Munchkin gamers will always arise, eventually, in any system that has been around this long.
...
GW made the game. They are responsible. Other games reduce munchkinism by either being balanced, or not bothering with balance at all (e.g. AoS, or historical rules that use realistic OOBs to generate army lists.)
It is the illusion of balance created by a points based system that's actually out of whack that encourages munchkinism.
GW have over the past 10 years disappeared down a rabbit hole of pretending the game is balanced with points, while simultaneously unbalancing it more and more by the use of formations and so on.
During the same time they've lost a significant percentage of sales, so their strategy obviously is wrong.
GW can fix the game, but they need to identify what is wrong with it and address various different ideas about what it should be -- competitive or casual -- tight or sprawling --- skirmish or mass battle. They need ideally to square these various circles in order not to drive away a significant chunk of players who lean towards one or other end of the spectrum.
I thin this can be done by reorganising the rules into a small level skirmish game, a medium size competitive game, and a big battle game, which share a common core of rules that is expanded by optional add-on books.
spacelord321 wrote: GW is not responsible for this mess. Munchkin gamers will always arise, eventually, in any system that has been around this long.
The fact that people blame GW is hilarious and a self serving cycle. These people whine and complain at GW, and at the same time, praise and admire people who take the obvious 2-3 toughest units in a codex and fit as many as possible of said units as they can into a list... (not all, but generally from my experience).
...and you call these people champions? It's no wonder that this is what GW gave you.... it's what you showed them you wanted. Not a game that we can realize amazing sci-fi stories with, but like the reality of insecure people themselves, an arms race where we can use our societal leverage (money) to gain traction against everyone around us.
We ALL messed this up, not GW. Blame them all you want, but I've been passive on this board watching many of you jump amongst the strongest meta army time after time, with your dollars actually winning games for you. Its funny. Now, after the game is reaching the point where those same people can't spend enough to keep ahead of the meta, the complaints of brokenness have risen drastically. Ha!!! You created this.
Disclaimer... I've played mech Tau since 3rd. I had fielded a riptide during 6 and 7th on 3 different occasions, each a single one in those games. I have never used riptides in any but those three. My win ratio was at about 40% at that time with draws happening frequently as well. Don't let munchkin gamers intimidate you. They are too afraid to try to face you in a fair match, and are the ones who complain, as their ego has a vested interest in 40k, instead of their imagination.
(Edit...I will admit that the players that switch armies to play to the current meta are a large driver of GWs total sales, so in a weird paradoxical way their method of playing is also one of the main things that keeps the game afloat.)
That's not how it works. If you create a situation that gets out of hand, YOU will be held responsible for the outcome.
Say for example you give a monkey a gun. If he shoots somebody, the police are not going to arrest the monkey. They're going to arrest you. In your case; GW gave a bunch of monkeys guns. You got shot and now you want to go all Charlton Heston on them.
And so in your comparison you're the monkey?
I think I see the problem...
You're right, I apologize for disagreeing with you.
I find it interesting you play Tau and you seem to be advocating the very argument that the anti-tau lobby is pushing. "All Tau players are donkey-caves, for simply choosing to play that army in the first place."
I find it more interesting that anyone who plays competitively is apparently being painted with the same brush as the very worst WAAC That Guys, and worse that anyone who cares at all for balance must all of a sudden be competitive players.
I wasn't a competitive player at all when I played 40k, but the crap balance was still what drove me away from it because fluffy players are effected by crap balance too *shock* *gasp*.
But, how does GW fix what it has broken: a hopelessly complicated and unbalanced melange of codexes, supplements, webstore exclusive formations, and one-off rules additions? I don't think it can. I don't foresee a time when GW tells its customers that all of these formations and gigantic $100+ models are no longer welcome in a standard game. How could it? What would be the backlash to such a complete walk-back of existing rules?
So, if GW is unable or unwilling to fix its game, what chance is there of an independent ruleset being introduced and widely played? Ninth Age and Kings of War have had decent success, but they stepped in to a void that GW created with its abandonment of WFB. Can a new, independent ruleset be created and adopted by players while GW still actively produces an official version of 40K?
I see threads created about fixing this unit or that codex, and it never ceases to amaze me that the majority of the suggestions to fix something almost invariably involve MORE RULES: this gun needs rending, this unit needs FNP, or this codex needs this set of special rules. Needless complexity and never-ending, cascading rules are what's wrong with 40K. It's like looking at a rotting building with structural problems, and thinking "If we just add a few more floors and extra rooms..." 40K needs a complete re-thinking of its core mechanics. It would need a complete re-balance and re-write of every single codex in one fell swoop. GW will never do this. It is not their financial interest to do so.
It's not that GW can't fix the game. It's that they will not. It's also not that formations and huge things make the game worse, their point costs do. At the moment 2 worst things in the game are eldar spams and deathstars, neither of which really depend on formations. More rules is also not a problem either since they almost always are the thing that make units viable.
Correct pricing on units would fix it all. This would include adding points to imperial knights and wraithknights, adding tax units to too good formations and so on.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
jonolikespie wrote: I find it more interesting that anyone who plays competitively is apparently being painted with the same brush as the very worst WAAC That Guys, and worse that anyone who cares at all for balance must all of a sudden be competitive players.
I wasn't a competitive player at all when I played 40k, but the crap balance was still what drove me away from it because fluffy players are effected by crap balance too *shock* *gasp*.
My experience is that it's the WAAC players who do not care about the balance...which is almost every competitive player out there.
Indeed they are. They're codex will have it's time again. I played through early 6th with the 3rd edition dex and people couldn't understand why I would still play Tau. I had just switched gaming groups from a group of friends, to a new flgs in a new area. Most there weren't 40k players exclusively. Just gamers. They already had 1-3 armies, and many were working on what they considered the new power list in the meta. These were the first to drop from 40K, as they eventually succumbed to the cool new dex of the day, and GW started throwing new rules at them faster than their wives would allow them to buy their way ahead of.
That is just not true. Players play the game GW made and use the tools given to them. Nothing more. Sure, some personality traits lead to more extreme behavior but if that behavior leads to huge balance problems the fault is not in the gamer but rather in the tools given to him. Try playing monocodex CSM agains mono eldar. Try using fluffy list agains extreme tournament builds. If the game was done right then neither of these was a situation where the winner would be predetermined. Since the winner is predetermined in both of these the design is....botched.
The only way to fix 40k would be to start the design from the ground up, currently some units are very favoured while others are absolutely abysmal.
Some minor fixes here and there in the BRB could go a long way, but it doesn't fix the mess that some Codexes are when it comes to point costs.
The points pricing is utterly ridiculous as well. Back in 2nd ed, a Land Raider would cost 220 points while the Tactical Marines would cost 300 points for 10. With the current pricing, it would make Land Raiders at 105 points. At this point level, a Land Raider would be a very useful investment.
Take the Chaos Marines then, paying 10 points for a super useless gift of mutation while Eldr pay 10 points for a Scatter Laser.
____
The way to fix 40k would be to create a general ruleset and one for each weapon and units based on the universe. Here are some few simple steps :
1) Set the physics of the universe and make it make sense so it's intuitive for players to strategize.
Predator tanks are supposed to be advancing on the enemy while pumping out shots. Yet, they can't do that and be worth the plastic in the current ruleset.
2) Picture how each unit fits within the universe. What are their capabilities ? What is their power level ? Then put the stats on them.
3) Add special rules to the units. Because special rules go a long way in making a unit have flavour and character. If we look at Warmahordes, we can see how much character they give to units due to unique special rules, and this allow them to balance out the points issues.
Want a Melta to be a tank slagger ? Make it deal huge damage rather than having a better chance to deal 1 damage. Want HYMP to have a very large amount of shots ? Do that.
4) Price accordingly and according to basic formulas. Price based on resistance and Price based on damage dealt. Factor in the possible synergies that players will find and increase the cost accordingly on a unit per unit basis.
I fully accept competative 40k players. I like those style formats, and I enjoy taking my Tau to them. That said, I don't play net Tau. Sure, its tough. An army of all MCs breaks so many of the game mechanics that it skews the odds immensely. Still, that player will likely congratulate himself for the win, without acknowledging the list won it for him. Even as a competative player, I feel these people should be called out for the trolls they are. I will play against them, and enjoy it if they are humble. But those who act superior should be called out as the munchkin gamers they are. When you see battle reports that promote this uber unit min max unit crap, down vote them and leave comments ridiculing them. Tell them to actually LTP. Put up your own batreps with much more sensible lists (Tabletop Tactics comes to mind. A good mix with those guys. Thanks!).
In the end, GW produces nice minis and fun rules, balance only slightly factored, and shifting in phases. They are not ruining your game, you are, when you support people who play in this fashion.
Competative players are ruining your game and recreating it in their image, not GWs. If you want it to stay casual, stand up and call out munchkin gamers.
Once again I will add that the meta chasers are what keep 40k afloat monetarily, so damned if ya do.....and if ya don't.
In the end, GW produces nice minis and fun rules, balance only slightly factored, and shifting in phases. They are not ruining your game, you are, when you support people who play in this fashion.
.
I'm sorry, but that's a load of BS. No offense meant, but you can't expect players to be responsible for the possibilities allowed by a ruleset.
By nature, 40k is a PvP game, and PvP is competitive by nature. The rulemakers are responsible for making units absolutely overpowered and units pile of crap within a constrained ruleset.
When you play Poker or Tarot, the game is balanced enough that if you lose, it's because the other player was better and no one is given crap about being " munchkin player" if he wins a game. You don't lose because you have crap cards while the opponent has good cards, especially when there are only 3 to 4 cards per faction that are worth bringing.
That is just not true. Players play the game GW made and use the tools given to them. Nothing more. Sure, some personality traits lead to more extreme behavior but if that behavior leads to huge balance problems the fault is not in the gamer but rather in the tools given to him. Try playing monocodex CSM agains mono eldar. Try using fluffy list agains extreme tournament builds. If the game was done right then neither of these was a situation where the winner would be predetermined. Since the winner is predetermined in both of these the design is....botched.
CSM... I remember being cried to how they were a useless dex while I was losing to them with my 3rd ed dex in 6th. They're jealous envy of the imperials really is fitting.
In the end, GW produces nice minis and fun rules, balance only slightly factored, and shifting in phases. They are not ruining your game, you are, when you support people who play in this fashion.
.
I'm sorry, but that's a load of BS. No offense meant, but you can't expect players to be responsible for the possibilities allowed by a ruleset.
By nature, 40k is a PvP game, and PvP is competitive by nature. The rulemakers are responsible for making units absolutely overpowered and units pile of crap within a constrained ruleset.
When you play Poker or Tarot, the game is balanced enough that if you lose, it's because the other player was better and no one is given crap about being " munchkin player" if he wins a game. You don't lose because you have crap cards while the opponent has good cards, especially when there are only 3 to 4 cards per faction that are worth bringing.
Oohh, oohhh! Lets use your poker analogy!
If GW made decks of cards, then they are a casino that let's me pick my hand before the poker game starts. "Well I'll take a straight flush, because i can only be betean by a straight flush of the trump suit" (codex of the day).
It's not balanced and never has been. Is it skewing towards larger units? Yes. Is the meta set in stone? No!!! It changes a lot! Are there codex imbalances? Absolutely, but they do shift over the years. I've left myself when I felt I would just wait out the whole serpent shield meta.... and it ended (I know, I know!).
If you have to win just to feel justified in your hobby, switch armies. If you want to start sticking it to the meta chasers, start taking hard counters to SPECIFIC meta builds to tourneys, not for the purpose of winning overall. Enough specific counters start working and those OP players will have to shift out of her comfort zone. I'm trying to design my next tourney list to specifically counter Tau tidewing and Surge builds. I hate the bad name these players have given Tau, and I hope that I can make some munchkin monster tau players rage quit and sell on ebay.
Me and a friend playing since 3rd Edi and for some army's we just have the same models and lists since than.
So I have my Thousand Sons and he his Eldar SamHain and and now GW should not be the one to blame that we both can only Play against each other (using old rules) and not against someone else because I have no chance with the current rules and my friend would be called "that guy"
Me and a friend playing since 3rd Edi and for some army's we just have the same models and lists since than.
So I have my Thousand Sons and he his Eldar SamHain and and now GW should not be the one to blame that we both can only Play against each other (using old rules) and not against someone else because I have no chance with the current rules and my friend would be called "that guy"
As I said the meta shifts. It'll come back around. I feel assault is the next direction GW will go to drive sales, and us shooy armies will be the ones crying.
Oh... and except for the most dire of matchups, you always have a chance for a close game. GW allows those uber army builds for those who enjoy it. But a PUG doesnt have to be that. But plenty of people have said this many times. Also, multiple formats exist to allow different armies better chances.
So as not to veer too far off OPs topic, I will be perfectly fine if the 'tide gets nerfed soon. Tide spam made it hard to get a game in 6th, let alone 7th. And the surge should be a vehicle w/o stomps imho.
Taking a wing/surge list is autoplay. Those people deserve no credit.
And that is my main point... no matter what format, gamers will try to break it just for the act itself. It will happen to all of the fledgling companies that GW is held up against, should they wish to grow to such a size. The large amount of variety leads to a large margin of unbalance, and neccesarilly so, as it would be stale and boring otherwise.
Lastly, to once again reference the card game "balance" you mentioned earlier, how many new numbers and suits have they added in the last few years?
They've slowly nerfed Assault over the years. The only recent support it's had is for Marines only, which is charge from Deep Strike and deny Overwatch (howling banshees get this too, but they are S3 lol).
And what has the Meta to do with GW not writing a CSM Codex for 4 Editions now?
I thought they got one in 6th...
But I still think orks got it worse... they need some MC status for KK
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Frozocrone wrote: They've slowly nerfed Assault over the years. The only recent support it's had is for Marines only, which is charge from Deep Strike and deny Overwatch (howling banshees get this too, but they are S3 lol).
Which is why it's coming back now. The Marines are just the beginning. I can't wait for old first turn stealer charges and whatnot again!
spacelord321 wrote: GW is not responsible for this mess. Munchkin gamers will always arise, eventually, in any system that has been around this long.
The fact that people blame GW is hilarious and a self serving cycle. These people whine and complain at GW, and at the same time, praise and admire people who take the obvious 2-3 toughest units in a codex and fit as many as possible of said units as they can into a list... (not all, but generally from my experience).
...and you call these people champions? It's no wonder that this is what GW gave you.... it's what you showed them you wanted. Not a game that we can realize amazing sci-fi stories with, but like the reality of insecure people themselves, an arms race where we can use our societal leverage (money) to gain traction against everyone around us.
We ALL messed this up, not GW. Blame them all you want, but I've been passive on this board watching many of you jump amongst the strongest meta army time after time, with your dollars actually winning games for you. Its funny. Now, after the game is reaching the point where those same people can't spend enough to keep ahead of the meta, the complaints of brokenness have risen drastically. Ha!!! You created this.
Disclaimer... I've played mech Tau since 3rd. I had fielded a riptide during 6 and 7th on 3 different occasions, each a single one in those games. I have never used riptides in any but those three. My win ratio was at about 40% at that time with draws happening frequently as well. Don't let munchkin gamers intimidate you. They are too afraid to try to face you in a fair match, and are the ones who complain, as their ego has a vested interest in 40k, instead of their imagination.
(Edit...I will admit that the players that switch armies to play to the current meta are a large driver of GWs total sales, so in a weird paradoxical way their method of playing is also one of the main things that keeps the game afloat.)
That's not how it works. If you create a situation that gets out of hand, YOU will be held responsible for the outcome.
Say for example you give a monkey a gun. If he shoots somebody, the police are not going to arrest the monkey. They're going to arrest you. In your case; GW gave a bunch of monkeys guns. You got shot and now you want to go all Charlton Heston on them.
And so in your comparison you're the monkey?
I think I see the problem...
You're right, I apologize for disagreeing with you.
I find it interesting you play Tau and you seem to be advocating the very argument that the anti-tau lobby is pushing. "All Tau players are donkey-caves, for simply choosing to play that army in the first place."
Because you can, doesn't mean you should. My fellow Tau players spamming tides is one of the situations that has people fleeing the game. They are playing within the rules but not within ettiquette.
Xerics wrote: GW cant fix it game. However GW AND the playerbase can. If GW would listen to us and maybe fully playtest its rules with people outside of GW then I think you will see a better edition. Let GW make a codex and not release it. Then ask for volunteers on their website to recieve an un published codex to test the rules and have them give feedback.
What's the player base?
Here I think about tournament players in the first place. They have a quite different opinion about 40k than players playing for leisure.
If GW made decks of cards, then they are a casino that let's me pick my hand before the poker game starts. "Well I'll take a straight flush, because i can only be betean by a straight flush of the trump suit" (codex of the day).
It's not balanced and never has been. Is it skewing towards larger units? Yes. Is the meta set in stone? No!!! It changes a lot! Are there codex imbalances? Absolutely, but they do shift over the years. I've left myself when I felt I would just wait out the whole serpent shield meta.... and it ended (I know, I know!).
If you have to win just to feel justified in your hobby, switch armies. If you want to start sticking it to the meta chasers, start taking hard counters to SPECIFIC meta builds to tourneys, not for the purpose of winning overall. Enough specific counters start working and those OP players will have to shift out of her comfort zone. I'm trying to design my next tourney list to specifically counter Tau tidewing and Surge builds. I hate the bad name these players have given Tau, and I hope that I can make some munchkin monster tau players rage quit and sell on ebay.
You gotta love it when someone arguments against you and end up making your case even further
You see, once again in the casino example, the casino designed an imbalanced game. And not even you blame the players for these imbalances. Acknowledging that there are imbalances doesn't imply accepting these imbalances and just put up with them, waiting for the oh merciful meta change.
When you design good hands and crap cards, and sell both of them at equal value without telling the players whether they are good or gak, it's borderline false advertising :p
You see, what you don't understand is that I don't want to stick it to the meta chasers, because they are not ruining the game. They did not take the game and make it into something awful, because everything they do is 100% legal within the ruleset. There will always be players who play competitively in PVP games and that's perfectly fine. But when the game is awful enough that the competitiveness is defined in the meta (unit selection) rather than the game itself (ruleset). Just because something is allowed, it will be done. It's human nature
You then take solace in the fact that the imbalances change from Codex to Codex. Sweet Eisenhorn, thank the Emprah that GW gives me the opportunity to buy my way into winning games because I can afford to spam the new flavour of the month which coincidentally matches with their brand new kit. Pay2Win games always have had a good reputation, and enjoy long lasting succes, don't they /sarcasm off.
You suggest to change armies, because the game is rigged and might as well take the rigging in your favour. That's a sound advice, good outside of the box thinking and I can't argue with that. I'll even go one step further, why not change games at all, because many players share my disinterest for rigged games. And that's no wonder why GW has been bleeding sales at a staggering pace for the past few years, and the combined release of AoS and B@C (+ the release of the new SM codices which are the most played faction) managed only to stop the bleeing without starting the healing process. If 2 big releases per year is the only thing that allows a company to keep their customers, then clearly they are on the wrong track.
The implied premise of a game is that everybody starts with a fair chance and their skills as well as a tad of randomness are what determines the outcome of the game. It is not the case in 40k and that's definitely not the fault of any type of player if some players have access to good rules and some others don't.
The new releases of GW clearly show that they care nothing about the game balance. I can't wait to see players ragequit because of the stupid Librarius psychic powers.
Xerics wrote: GW cant fix it game. However GW AND the playerbase can. If GW would listen to us and maybe fully playtest its rules with people outside of GW then I think you will see a better edition. Let GW make a codex and not release it. Then ask for volunteers on their website to recieve an un published codex to test the rules and have them give feedback.
What's the player base?
Here I think about tournament players in the first place. They have a quite different opinion about 40k than players playing for leisure.
Exactly. I enjoy both (having a top mid dex), but the two sides seem to be at odds more than I can l remember
Xerics wrote: GW cant fix it game. However GW AND the playerbase can. If GW would listen to us and maybe fully playtest its rules with people outside of GW then I think you will see a better edition. Let GW make a codex and not release it. Then ask for volunteers on their website to recieve an un published codex to test the rules and have them give feedback.
What's the player base?
Here I think about tournament players in the first place. They have a quite different opinion about 40k than players playing for leisure.
The player base changes according to the state of the rules.
I used to be a casual 'fun' player who went to small local tournaments as a good way of getting several games in a day, as well as motivation for fininshing armies and terrain. I gave it up because of rules sprawl and expense.
How can GW get me back into the game? Simply by taking all the Apoc stuff they produced as optional supplements during 5th edition, and making it optional supplements agains, not core rules.
Would this change piss off everyone who thinks the current edition is best game ever? I hope not, because all the Psychich Phase, Gigantic Creatures, Flyers and so on would still be a valid part of the game, but not compulsory for those who didn't want to play them.
Because you can, doesn't mean you should. My fellow Tau players spamming tides is one of the situations that has people fleeing the game. They are playing within the rules but not within ettiquette.
People who pick the units that give don't give them handicaps are not insufficiently devoted to The Hobby. They're not impure. They just have knowledge of a competitive game and use that knowledge to maximize utility within the game. That's what the framework of the rules exist to do. That players like to do competitive 1-on-1 matches is something that GW has acknowledged for over thirty years now. It's why there are army lists, points values, unit categories, rules for all the weapons etc etc. It's why we no longer need game masters! Those who want GW to write balanced rules that properly express the character of each faction aren't some sinister lot, they're people with an understanding of game design. They know and respect good design when they see it and aren't prepared to waste money and time on bad design.
A rules system that allows one player to build a fluffy list filled with units they just wanted to paint and one player to cram as much specialised power out of 1500 points as is possible and still have the game come down mostly to who knows how to use each unit and how to make the most out of the battlefield is vastly preferable to one where the former player gets destroyed no matter how clever they are. What's possibly even more disheartening is showing up with your favourite army filled to the brim with fluffy units that are lovingly painted and be sneered at because this edition your army happens to be the single most powerful one around. Bad balance makes people feel bad about the game. This is a terrible state for any game but catastrophic for one that relies so much on the pure style of the factions as 40K does. Investing emotionally into your models only to have it count for nothing in the actual game is something that GW should want to avoid at all costs.
Your reaction of blaming the players for the state of the game is myopic. You don't understand that the rules are the framework of the community and that well-written, balanced, clear rules make for far better ground to grow a community than a set of rules that have to be wrestled with and argued endlessly before two strangers can agree on a pick-up game.
In the end, GW produces nice minis and fun rules, balance only slightly factored, and shifting in phases. They are not ruining your game, you are, when you support people who play in this fashion.
Not true. It is easier to find a game breaker player than one that is not. GW has no know this at this point => GW is the one failing.
Well, I think GW doesn't have the game designers atm able to make a balanced game out of 40k. This would require more ingenuin people to work for GW. I guess the corresponding kind of salaries will not be paid by GW.
GW have at this stage got over 100 people in their design studio. This includes various types of artists, true, but if there isn't a single game designer, GW could easily select a Dream Team from ex-GW staffers like Rick Priestly, say three of them, and give them £300,000 to write a complete update and revision of the rules in a year.
GW would need to support them with a project manager and a technical writer to get their prose into a good format, and playtesting facilities and staff..
The main problem with 40K at the moment is that it has been written to fulfil the needs of the company's management accountants, not game players.
Kilkrazy wrote: GW have at this stage got over 100 people in their design studio. This includes various types of artists, true, but if there isn't a single game designer, GW could easily select a Dream Team from ex-GW staffers like Rick Priestly, say three of them, and give them £300,000 to write a complete update and revision of the rules in a year.
GW would need to support them with a project manager and a technical writer to get their prose into a good format, and playtesting facilities and staff..
The main problem with 40K at the moment is that it has been written to fulfil the needs of the company's management accountants, not game players.
Explain ''to fulfill the needs of the ... accountants''.
Kilkrazy wrote: GW have at this stage got over 100 people in their design studio. This includes various types of artists, true, but if there isn't a single game designer, GW could easily select a Dream Team from ex-GW staffers like Rick Priestly, say three of them, and give them £300,000 to write a complete update and revision of the rules in a year.
GW would need to support them with a project manager and a technical writer to get their prose into a good format, and playtesting facilities and staff..
The main problem with 40K at the moment is that it has been written to fulfil the needs of the company's management accountants, not game players.
Explain ''to fulfill the needs of the ... accountants''.
For example, Apocalypse introduced giant tanks and creatures into 40K as an optional supplement. This created a new market for expensive giant model kits. Unfortunately, a significant proportion of players weren't interested in Apocalypse and failed to buy the book or the models.
Accountancy solution: Put the Apocalypse rules into the core 40K book, making them "compulsory" so that everyone starts buying Apoc kits, and increase the core rules price too.
Kilkrazy wrote: GW have at this stage got over 100 people in their design studio. This includes various types of artists, true, but if there isn't a single game designer, GW could easily select a Dream Team from ex-GW staffers like Rick Priestly, say three of them, and give them £300,000 to write a complete update and revision of the rules in a year.
GW would need to support them with a project manager and a technical writer to get their prose into a good format, and playtesting facilities and staff..
The main problem with 40K at the moment is that it has been written to fulfil the needs of the company's management accountants, not game players.
Explain ''to fulfill the needs of the ... accountants''.
Accountants who don't know anything about the game or what we, the customers, want make decisions about what they should be selling.
For example for a while the mandatory stock my FLGS had to carry included most of the Vampire Counts line but not the core units needed for a lot of popular armies like High Elves, because whoever sad down to decide what should be mandatory stock did that in the same moth that a Vampire Counts army book was released, and saw that (that month) Vampire models were very popular. They didn't stop to think that might just be because of the new army book though.
We've given up, and most of the group has been playing since Rogue Trader. Just gave up. The washer was broke, so they tried to fix it by adding more laundry and hand grenades.
The thing I think is funny, is this is everything we were asking for. More flavor, more rules, more scenarios, let me play my Stompa in regular 40k...and it just made a mess. We got what we were asking for.
For anyone looking for a good ruleset that harkens to the days of old, try Bolt Action. Our group is loving it.
Unit1126PLL wrote: Just... to clarify: nothing in 40k is compulsory. Don't feel like you must play a game against superheavies or anything.
To say something is 'compulsory' that once was 'optional' is to miss the entire point of 7th edition imo.
I don't like Apoc, Gigantics, Flyers, Fortifications, Pychics, Unbound, or Allies, and I find Formations a good idea that is seriously flawed in its execution. I'm not interested in another copy of the fluff or another copy of a bunch of pics even though they are separate from the rules. So that leaves a rulebook filled with a lot of new rules I don't like that GW are asking £50 for.
Result: I won't buy the book. I won't play the game. I won't buy any new codexes or models. Lots of other people feel the same. GW's sales drop 15%.
My point is that all these things could be included as optional supplements, not part of the core rules, making the core rules chear, and keeping people like me happy as well as keeping people who like Apoc happy too.Then GW has more customers and more sales.
Unit1126PLL wrote: Just... to clarify: nothing in 40k is compulsory. Don't feel like you must play a game against superheavies or anything.
To say something is 'compulsory' that once was 'optional' is to miss the entire point of 7th edition imo.
They're compulsory in the sense they're part of the core rules. The moment you start saying "no superheavies" or "no fortifications" you're veering into houserule territory.
Kilkrazy wrote: GW have at this stage got over 100 people in their design studio. This includes various types of artists, true, but if there isn't a single game designer, GW could easily select a Dream Team from ex-GW staffers like Rick Priestly, say three of them, and give them £300,000 to write a complete update and revision of the rules in a year.
I bet if they did this they'd recover those £300,000 within a year. The Hype train alone would be tremendous.
Unit1126PLL wrote: Just... to clarify: nothing in 40k is compulsory. Don't feel like you must play a game against superheavies or anything.
To say something is 'compulsory' that once was 'optional' is to miss the entire point of 7th edition imo.
While I normally agree with this concept, it feels like so much of 40k is junk that you might as well play another game.
Back in the day, a couple of my mates didn't like psykers in 40k or magic in WHFB. So we tended to just not use them all that often. Some people might say those are integral parts of the game, but somehow we managed to get by without them in around 4 out of 5 games.
But now, as KK says, it's Superheavies/GC, flyers, fortifications, allies, unbound (or even if you go "bound" the army construction rules are extremely relaxed).
It's all stuff that didn't exist a couple of editions ago but these days to play without them would actually be a pain in the arse (the number of people who build an army around an IK or WK is quite large).
I've always been one to say you should modify rules as you see fit, but there's times that's not practical and in the case of 40k you start asking yourself why you're even bothering to start with GW's rules when they're such a mess.
As someone who has played a lot of games with heavily modified army construction rules, IMO it's almost always easier to start from a core system that has a more rigid and limited structure and then add to it than it is to start with something that has no structure and barely any limits and try to dial it back.
Yeah, any time I look at getting back into the game I abandon the idea when I realize I'll probably never get enough opponents to justify the time and monetary investment because I'd probably only ever want to play casual 1k point games with half the core rules stripped out.
Fair enough. I have found that people would rather remove stuff from existing rules than add new stuff. All through 4th and 5th and some of 6th most of my superheavies never saw play, because they weren't in the core rules and were an add-on, as you say.
Now, I am happy to play without them, as always, but I have encountered less "no on principle" answers than I did in, say, 5th.
There is an absolute GLUT of codecies, campaign books with additional rules/formations, digital downloads, WD articles, and other sources.
I'd like to see a complete reboot with all of the codecies balanced against each other through points or nerfing of various OP units. Removal of super heavies, reworking MC and walker vehicles to be on par with each other. And so on.
However, that would invalidate all of the existing sources in one go.
GW, in their infinite wisdom, has decided that "Everyone can ally with everyone, so it's all fair" is the easiest way to balance 40k. For those of us that don't want to play super friends, that puts us behind the 8-ball.
Unit1126PLL wrote: Fair enough. I have found that people would rather remove stuff from existing rules than add new stuff. All through 4th and 5th and some of 6th most of my superheavies never saw play, because they weren't in the core rules and were an add-on, as you say.
Now, I am happy to play without them, as always, but I have encountered less "no on principle" answers than I did in, say, 5th.
The problem is that the game scale of 40K is suitable for small infantry actions supported by a few vehicles, and GW have at the behest of their accountants crammed all sorts of over-sized stuff into it that doesn't really fit.
There's the potential for a great game of Lords Of War, with flyers and giant fortresses, but not using 28mm scale models on a standard tabletop. It needs to be done in the garden, or else use 1/285th scale models, otherwise the board ends up looking like a supermarket carpark.
jonolikespie wrote: And yet mk3 Warmachine was just announced, and the stated purpose of that was that PP felt balance needed addressing. They are rebalancing EVERY UNIT IN THE GAME.
GW have never released a new edition with the purpose of addressing the problems in the last, they release new editions because they want to sell you a new book.
If they can pull off game balance I will be highly impressed -- and pleased since I like the PP concepts and models. Even just removing the 'required models to be even slightly competitive' would be a nice change.
I am impressed that they are releasing their rules online for free -- something all game companies should do IMHO. People are going to find e-copies anyway, so you might as well make the rules free and charge for the models.
I think you are selling GW a little short on their rules. They do take some look at them. If you look over the past 3 editions, there have been changes to do the following.
- Address 'stupid' parts in the rules, like beasts not being able to climb stairs
- Add apoc rules to the game (something I still don't think a good idea)
- Make the game more in line with Fantasy Battles (warp dice, challenges)
We might agree or disagree with the changes, but the editions have not just been put out to sell new books.
Considering GW do not bother with professional proof reading , or editing of the rule books.
(Resulting in stupid mistakes in the first place.)
And what ever limited play testing is carried out by studio staff.
(Resulting in horrendous balance issues.)
And the resulting mess actually appeals to the two player groups that GW finds easiest to sell to.
(Ignoring the collectors who see GW plastic models as' jewel like objects of wonder,' apparently. )
A)The super competitive crowd LOVE poorly worded rules and massive imbalance that give them auto win lists and rules lawyer heaven.
B)The martyr narrative player, who just buys the fluffiest weakest units , and says I do not play to win, winning just is not cool.I forge the narrative .
GW accountants think they have the market sewn up.Because gamers are either 'fluff bunnie', or' WAACs '.right?
Unfortunately the average person who just wants to play a fun game for a couple of hours, is left cold by the vitriol spewed by these two extreme players groups.
The loss of the' average gamers' has lead to GW plc losing over HALF of its player base for 40k in the last decade.(Based on financial reports and inside info from GW towers.)
Until GW plc realize that writing rules for average gamers , would net them more money that playing off the extreme ends of the player group against each other.
Whoever said GW's system best supports small scale infantry actions supported by a few vehicles is god damn right.
Let's not forget that the system we have today is a derivative of RT/2nd edition which was a skirmish game rather than a battle game, where unequipped Tactical Squads would cost 300 points of a game of 1000 points, on a board size very similar if not slightly smaller than we have today.
The need to sell more models blew up the size of the battles without changing the core mechanics. Result : Rules that are evolutions of the skirmish ruleset but are unfit for the current scale of the battle.
Of course, that's on top of the oblivious pricing of units and upgrades.
GreyCrow wrote: Whoever said GW's system best supports small scale infantry actions supported by a few vehicles is god damn right.
Let's not forget that the system we have today is a derivative of RT/2nd edition which was a skirmish game rather than a battle game, where unequipped Tactical Squads would cost 300 points of a game of 1000 points, on a board size very similar if not slightly smaller than we have today.
The need to sell more models blew up the size of the battles without changing the core mechanics. Result : Rules that are evolutions of the skirmish ruleset but are unfit for the current scale of the battle.
Of course, that's on top of the oblivious pricing of units and upgrades.
This is probably pretty accurate. The currently game in just the last 3 years has basically merged with Apocolypse. So many iconic units are basically useless now because of this. They just don't fit in anymore.
I think to answer the OP question, 40k COULD be fixed by GW, it just won't be. The game needs a lot of core changes to make things work better and then following that an across the board simultaneous codex revamp.
GW would view that as a loss. It would rather keep pouring out monthly updates to keep customers coming in. They won't do faqs because they would rather you just be forced to by a whole new book. The whole thing becomes a band-aid on a band-aid on a band-aid. Then you have an occasional huge release which screws things up further.
This is probably pretty accurate. The currently game in just the last 3 years has basically merged with Apocolypse. So many iconic units are basically useless now because of this. They just don't fit in anymore.
I think to answer the OP question, 40k COULD be fixed by GW, it just won't be. The game needs a lot of core changes to make things work better and then following that an across the board simultaneous codex revamp.
GW would view that as a loss. It would rather keep pouring out monthly updates to keep customers coming in. They won't do faqs because they would rather you just be forced to by a whole new book. The whole thing becomes a band-aid on a band-aid on a band-aid. Then you have an occasional huge release which screws things up further.
Indeed to all your points. Rather than a core change, I would say complete write up from the basics. It's just a bloated system that makes no sense, with crazy pricing all around.
GreyCrow wrote: Whoever said GW's system best supports small scale infantry actions supported by a few vehicles is god damn right.
Let's not forget that the system we have today is a derivative of RT/2nd edition which was a skirmish game rather than a battle game, where unequipped Tactical Squads would cost 300 points of a game of 1000 points, on a board size very similar if not slightly smaller than we have today.
The need to sell more models blew up the size of the battles without changing the core mechanics. Result : Rules that are evolutions of the skirmish ruleset but are unfit for the current scale of the battle.
Of course, that's on top of the oblivious pricing of units and upgrades.
Maybe it was just my local scene, but with 2nd edition, we NEVER played it as a small scale skirmish game. It was always 2000 point or more. Heck, I think I used more models back then in a game than I do in my games now. The way I saw it, GW was just giving fans what they were already playing by shifting the points down and expanding the battlefield.
More to the point, why does GW need to tell us what sized game we should be playing? Why does there need to be an "Apocalypse" game when the rules were the same, just expanded missions and such. I prefer the open-ended approach when ti comes to game size. If I have an entire evening, break out the reserves and go for broke. If I've got just an hour or so, go for something small, 1000 or less. I find that the sweet spot for this game is 1500 points. Less than that and some armies have a hard time being competitive. More than that and the rules bloat starts to drag the game down. You can easily get through a 1500 point game in about a couple of hours (providing both players know their army and the core rules).
I'd rather GW just streamline the various phases so that regardless of points size, the game works efficiently. Next, they need to learn how to appropriately price something, get an established formula and apply it to EVERY ARMY! It amazes me that as long as GW has been doing this, they clearly do not have a stock pricing formula for determining points cost of something. That should be the very foundation of any points-based game.
Maybe it was just my local scene, but with 2nd edition, we NEVER played it as a small scale skirmish game. It was always 2000 point or more.
But 2000 points 2nd Edi were not really that much with some characters worth 900 points.
In 4th Edition Fantasy we were also playing 4k points each side because our generals were alons worth 1000 points (and a 3k amry list used much less models than a 8th edition 2000 point list)
In 4th Edi 40k it was similar. We were playing 2000 points but had less models on the table as today's 7th Edition 1850 points list
I'd rather GW just streamline the various phases so that regardless of points size, the game works efficiently. Next, they need to learn how to appropriately price something, get an established formula and apply it to EVERY ARMY! It amazes me that as long as GW has been doing this, they clearly do not have a stock pricing formula for determining points cost of something. That should be the very foundation of any points-based game.
they have one, that is why the system does not work. A game like 40k which has a lot non-linear profile values and mechanics and a lot of synergies cannot work with a formula alone.
That was the reason in the past why models had to pay a lot of points for high WS and BS without being worth them because the formula tell the designer BS 5 is worth X points. Never mind that the model does not have a ranged weapon and those points are woth nothing on the table.
the same for WSIni etc above a specific level were you pay a lot of points without any benefit.
And than there is the AP value, which is worth nothing in points if it is 4-6 but very important if it is 1 or 2. So models pay to much points for AP5, while others get cheap AP2 weapons.
But you cannot calculate the AP value even if you change the formula because having a lot of expensive AP2 weapons is still worthless if facing an enemy whos best save is 4+ or playing on the table with a lot of cover.
so only a lot of play testing would help to get the points right but this would mean an open-beta test with regular errata to the codex books.
Looking at the way GW has changes the rules since 3rd ed.its almost like they want to use game mechanics and resolution methods that generate results that are impossible to arrive at accurate costs for.
A.O.A came up with a very good (not perfect though,) creature creation formula.(Over 10 years ago.)
At the same time lots of game companies were using mechanics and resolution methods to allow provable levels of imbalance.
GW seemed to be doubling down on 'all or nothing' rules writing. Giving the impression that their best guess is as good as it can be, so go hang if you do not like it.
The ever more randum rules , make tactical play impossible for those wanting this sort of game.
Reason: They do not see anything that needs fixing.
Little else can be said until that day comes.
We as players could do many things but GW does litigate to preserve their IP so we may not do much until they step aside.
kodos wrote: We can do lot and work around their IP but as long players hope that GW will do it right sometimes in the future......
Yes I understand that.
I started in 2nd edition so I know where that "hope springs eternal" is coming from.
It is "nice" to have an official rule set to have competitive play but we do not even have that.
Them willing to get back into tournaments has kindled far more hope than I think can be justified.
Net Epic Armageddon is an example of fan-base rules after the IP holder has abandoned their product.
I have seen some very good attempts to fix things but to try to address everything is massive.
All those new models plus the old, trying to address them all is no small task (can be done but would need a team to agree on a common outcome).
jonolikespie wrote: And yet mk3 Warmachine was just announced, and the stated purpose of that was that PP felt balance needed addressing. They are rebalancing EVERY UNIT IN THE GAME.
GW have never released a new edition with the purpose of addressing the problems in the last, they release new editions because they want to sell you a new book.
If they can pull off game balance I will be highly impressed -- and pleased since I like the PP concepts and models. Even just removing the 'required models to be even slightly competitive' would be a nice change.
I am impressed that they are releasing their rules online for free -- something all game companies should do IMHO. People are going to find e-copies anyway, so you might as well make the rules free and charge for the models.
I think you are selling GW a little short on their rules. They do take some look at them. If you look over the past 3 editions, there have been changes to do the following.
- Address 'stupid' parts in the rules, like beasts not being able to climb stairs
- Add apoc rules to the game (something I still don't think a good idea)
- Make the game more in line with Fantasy Battles (warp dice, challenges)
We might agree or disagree with the changes, but the editions have not just been put out to sell new books.
In one way though what you are saying is actually a truism since if the new books were the same as the old books, there would not be any need for people to buy them. The key point is whether the new rules are improvements, or additions for the same of changing the book. For instance, allowing beasts to climb stairs might be a good thing, addressing a hole in the rules, but it was not necessary to put Apocalypse into the rules as the Apocalypse already existed as an optional supplement (that as you noted, lots of players didn't want.)
Amishprn86 wrote: I think 40k is better than ever... Just bring up a couple dex's to the same power is all I want.
Better than ever? Questionable and highly subjective. Which implies the question: Does GW's Warhammer 40,000 Rules need fixing? Of course it does, otherwise this thread wouldn't exist.
More expansive and flexible than ever? Definitely.
Kilkrazy wrote: In one way though what you are saying is actually a truism since if the new books were the same as the old books, there would not be any need for people to buy them. The key point is whether the new rules are improvements, or additions for the same of changing the book. For instance, allowing beasts to climb stairs might be a good thing, addressing a hole in the rules, but it was not necessary to put Apocalypse into the rules as the Apocalypse already existed as an optional supplement (that as you noted, lots of players didn't want.)
I freely admit that Apocalypse in base 40k irritates the crap out of me. D, stomp, or super heavies have no place in 40kIMHO.
I am sure though, that there are some people who love to have their knight armies.
Kilkrazy wrote: In one way though what you are saying is actually a truism since if the new books were the same as the old books, there would not be any need for people to buy them. The key point is whether the new rules are improvements, or additions for the same of changing the book. For instance, allowing beasts to climb stairs might be a good thing, addressing a hole in the rules, but it was not necessary to put Apocalypse into the rules as the Apocalypse already existed as an optional supplement (that as you noted, lots of players didn't want.)
I freely admit that Apocalypse in base 40k irritates the crap out of me. D, stomp, or super heavies have no place in 40kIMHO.
I am sure though, that there are some people who love to have their knight armies.
If they were implemented well then I'd call 7th a step forwards for GW, but I daresay most people's problems with superheavies in core 40k isn't there mere existence, but the fact they were introduced poorly.
Amishprn86 wrote: I think 40k is better than ever... Just bring up a couple dex's to the same power is all I want.
Why exactly do you think this?
So aside from the Stupid-Apocalypse rules, there are a lot of really nice advantages of the current 40k system.
- Allied armies add a lot of flavor and unique feel to armies. There are now dozens of army combinations now.
- The amount of unit combinations has skyrocked with allies. It opens up a lot more options for cool lists.
- Formations encourage fluff lists by giving power to fluff based armies. Balance is an issue in some cases, but the intent is there.
- The psychic phase engages both players, making it a more enjoyable phase than before.
- Decursion style formations are a refreshing change from the CAD formations we have seen for years. I like building decursion lists just because of the change.
- The tournament scene has banded together finally to make unified rule modifications like the ITC.
As someone who has played 40k pretty regularly since 2008, I would say it's in better shape than any other time since then. Sure, I still hate GMC's but there will always be falcons with a rerollable holofield to deal with.
jonolikespie wrote: If they were implemented well then I'd call 7th a step forwards for GW, but I daresay most people's problems with superheavies in core 40k isn't there mere existence, but the fact they were introduced poorly.
How were they introduced poorly?
It's all a matter of points. You can have a T8, 6 wound model with FNP and a 5++ save wielding a D sword, but that model should cost 450 or 500 points. If those models are considered 'must have' for every army that can possibly take them -- then something is wrong.
It's too late to ditch Superheavies, Gargantuan Monstrous Creatures, Flyers and the like. They are already lose and in the game. Likewisedetachments, bound, detachementsformations and allies at this point is also probably a non starter. They've already become a major part of both the competitive and casual gaming sceness.
But the above are not the problem with 7th.
The problem is the rules for so many of these things were written by an author with one hand down the front of their pants and not thoroughly vetted through rigorous play testing.
The game could be built with formations of Titans that could ally with Xenos psykers that arrive in flying transports and still be balanced and enjoyable. The rules just have to be arranged in such a way to make it happen right.
It's too late to ditch Superheavies, Gargantuan Monstrous Creatures, Flyers and the like. They are already lose and in the game. Likewisedetachments, bound, detachementsformations and allies at this point is also probably a non starter. They've already become a major part of both the competitive and casual gaming sceness.
But the above are not the problem with 7th.
The problem is the rules for so many of these things were written by an author with one hand down the front of their pants and not thoroughly vetted through rigorous play testing.
The game could be built with formations of Titans that could ally with Xenos psykers that arrive in flying transports and still be balanced and enjoyable. The rules just have to be arranged in such a way to make it happen right.
Which, if possible, would be infinitely harder and more complex than simply removing most of these things and playing the game like it was for most of the last 20 years, and would almost certainly still be open to wide abuse. There are just certain things that fundamentally don't balance right, especially without a singular points level game to balance around. If they're going to keep this stuff, they need to rebuild the game essentially as an RPG with a 3rd player GM setting stuff up for players the way Rogue Trader was set up.
labmouse42 wrote: - Formations encourage fluff lists by giving power to fluff based armies. Balance is an issue in some cases, but the intent is there.
No, they really don't encourage fluff-based lists. They encourage lists that follow GW's cookie-cutter list ideas, regardless of how that relates to your own fluff. If you start with "what is the story of my army" and pick appropriate units then you probably won't meet the formation requirements, and you'll be at a significant disadvantage compared to someone who just brings a bunch of powerful formations without caring about the fluff.
- The psychic phase engages both players, making it a more enjoyable phase than before.
It doesn't engage both players at all, unless both players have lots of psykers. If I bring my IG tank army then the psychic phase consists of me sitting around waiting for my opponent to finish doing their stuff, and maybe throwing my D6 deny dice with a 0.0000000001% chance of accomplishing anything. It's no more engaging than the rest of 40k's awful IGOUGO mechanics.
Amishprn86 wrote: I think 40k is better than ever... Just bring up a couple dex's to the same power is all I want.
Why exactly do you think this?
So aside from the Stupid-Apocalypse rules, there are a lot of really nice advantages of the current 40k system.
- Allied armies add a lot of flavor and unique feel to armies. There are now dozens of army combinations now.
Which happen to almost exclusively be built around plugging capability gaps or taking advantage of unintended synergies rather than building fluffy armies.
- The amount of unit combinations has skyrocked with allies. It opens up a lot more options for cool lists.
Which is almost never what actually happens.
- Formations encourage fluff lists by giving power to fluff based armies. Balance is an issue in some cases, but the intent is there.
They encourage whatever GW wants to sell with that release cycle. We get just as much spam and unfluffy stuff with formations as without, it's just way more powerful with it.
- The psychic phase engages both players, making it a more enjoyable phase than before.
Only if both players are relatively evenly equipped in terms of psychic abilities. It's not particularly engaging at all for a Tau player facing off against Eldar or SM's for example.
- Decursion style formations are a refreshing change from the CAD formations we have seen for years. I like building decursion lists just because of the change.
And the fact that a non-Decurion Necron list is just about nonexistent has nothing to do with its power level...
- The tournament scene has banded together finally to make unified rule modifications like the ITC.
Not all tournaments use the ITC, and the ITC has some major issues. It's a step in the right direction, but not a huge one.
As someone who has played 40k pretty regularly since 2008, I would say it's in better shape than any other time since then. Sure, I still hate GMC's but there will always be falcons with a rerollable holofield to deal with.
2008 didn't have rerollable 2++ invul saves, basic Necron Warriors with resiliency to match Terminators or Wraith units capable of tanking more S10 firepower than a Warhound Titan, Jetbike troops units with 40 S6 shots able to reach out from across the board or D weapons on infantry, or armies that get to play with 400+ more points than their opponents "just because". The game is in *way* worse shape, then the worst you had to worry about was lots of tanks and min-maxing and maybe some Nob Biker wound allocation gimmicks. 2008 wasn't perfect, he game had gobs of major issues, but they are tiny next to what the game has to deal with today. The stuff possible today was literally the realm of internet hyperbole, the type of stuff people in 2008 would joke about on 4chan when dreaming up ridiculous stuff.
Amishprn86 wrote: I think 40k is better than ever... Just bring up a couple dex's to the same power is all I want.
Why exactly do you think this?
So aside from the Stupid-Apocalypse rules, there are a lot of really nice advantages of the current 40k system. - Allied armies add a lot of flavor and unique feel to armies. There are now dozens of army combinations now.
Which happen to almost exclusively be built around plugging capability gaps or taking advantage of unintended synergies rather than building fluffy armies.
I've always hated the addition of allies as core options. To me, allies is the perfect thing that players should add to a game rather than needing to be written in to the rules. If you like the fluffy aspect of allies and don't care so much about winning it's easier just to add them in yourself rather than screwing up the core balance of the game by allowing armies to get rid of deficiencies with allies. The only pass allies get is the fact codex balance is already so shocking.... but adding allies on top is like trying to put out a fire with a bucket of petrol instead of water.
Not with the current 40k rules.
We have options which would still be useless if they would cost 0 while others would always be taken no matter how much they cost
The point cost adjustment would have been something at the beginning of 6th Edition. Now itvis too late for that.
shiwan8 wrote:
My experience is that it's the WAAC players who do not care about the balance...which is almost every competitive player out there.
You have a very skewed and innacurate view of competitive players if that’s what you believe. There is a huge difference between ‘competitive’ and ‘WAAC’. WAAC isn’t even exclusive to the competitive circuits.
spacelord321 wrote:
In the end, GW produces nice minis and fun rules, balance only slightly factored, and shifting in phases. They are not ruining your game, you are, when you support people who play in this fashion.
So those rules, that shift in phases, and arbitrarily invalidate whole armies and play styles are not 'ruining the game' for people. Wrong.
The rules for 40k are actually quite clunky, bloated and counter-intuitive in a lot of ways. Theyre based on a rules set that is essentially for napoleonic battles. They're like the proverbial space hulk. Ancient, cobbled together and with decades of ad-hoc add ons, bodges, with no thought towards consequence or direction. Oh, and then there's the gene stealers running around causing all sorts of mayhem. I would neither call the rules for 40k ‘fun’, nor make the claim that they are not ruining the game. At the very best, in my opinion, they get in the way.
That said, gw's lotr rules set is surprisingly refreshing (once you avoid the movie characters!) and intuitive. It never got the appreciation it deserves in my mind.
spacelord321 wrote:
Competative players are ruining your game and recreating it in their image, not GWs. If you want it to stay casual, stand up and call out munchkin gamers.
Define ‘casual’?
Its not zero/sum spacelord. Its not a case of its either the filthy competitive crowd, or GW. Both have a hand in this mess. I’ll agree with you in that gamers very often do not help themselves, and that there is a lot they could do. But a lot of it boils down to trying to avoid the mines whilst picking up various pieces that don't have jagged edges and trying to cobble them together into something that resembles 'functionality'. I'm all for a pro-active, and even a co-operative approach, especially with gw games (as its really the only way any more of getting anything positive out of them) but there is a very valid argument out there that the players shouldn't need to have to do anything of this in the first place - jumping through hoops just to play a game is not necessarily a good thing.There shouldn't be the mine fields that they need to step around, there shouldn't be all the jagged pieces, and areas ripe for exploitation in the first place. and they shouldn't have to deal with poorly implemented rules, design choices and game directions. In other words, them doing this is nothing more than 'making the best of a bad situation'. The situation should never have been this bad. GW should not be producing rules/games that are so obviously open to abuse. They do themselves no favours by producing a product that has so many jagged edges.
Its not so much ‘competiitve gamers’ that are the problem, nor are munchkin gamers synonymous with competitive gamers either (often munchkins can be casual at all costs scrubs) – in better balanced games that are more suited to competitive play (warmachine/hordes, infinity etc), what you so often see as issues in 40k, and what you often see laid at the feet of the filthy competitives simply do not come up. It does suggest that the rules set produced by the company and any faults therein has a lot of relevance to any issues that arise, in that it can exacerbate, magnify and multiply any negative effects and these would not exist to anywhere near that level if the game itself was more structurally sound – like I said earlier – GW are also to blame for its jagged edges ,since they’re the ones who build them in and send them out into the world that way.
spacelord321 wrote:
As I said the meta shifts. It'll come back around. I feel assault is the next direction GW will go to drive sales, and us shooy armies will be the ones crying.
And its neither fair nor fun to be on the receiving end of a meta shift for years at a time, or to swing the nerf bat against such huge sections of the game. Sadly, its what GW does – theyre interested in ‘changes’ and not ‘improvements’. Those assault armies that have suffered in sixth and seventh have done so for 5+ years. Is it really fair to expect players to wait that long before their play style becomes viable, and that when it does, it becomes viable at the expense of someone else’s fun? It's not unfair to ask for viability and variety now. It is unfair to expect people to suck it up for years at a time with cynical edition shifts that have no intention of making a better game. There is a big difference between ‘perfect imbalance’ or circular balance, which you seen in WMH and so on, and the massive inequalities that litter 40k.
So to fix 40k I believe we need to revert back to 4th/5th edition size game.And put the big toys in an expansion like Apoc.
(So they can be used by people that want to play with them,And are not forced on new players learning the game...)
And then write rules specifically for this game play .(Modern rules for a company level battle game, focusing on detailed unit interaction.)
Does anyone think 40k is still a skirmish game with 100s of models a side?
It's too late to ditch Superheavies, Gargantuan Monstrous Creatures, Flyers and the like. They are already lose and in the game. Likewisedetachments, bound, detachementsformations and allies at this point is also probably a non starter. They've already become a major part of both the competitive and casual gaming sceness.
But the above are not the problem with 7th.
The problem is the rules for so many of these things were written by an author with one hand down the front of their pants and not thoroughly vetted through rigorous play testing.
The game could be built with formations of Titans that could ally with Xenos psykers that arrive in flying transports and still be balanced and enjoyable. The rules just have to be arranged in such a way to make it happen right.
Which, if possible, would be infinitely harder and more complex than simply removing most of these things and playing the game like it was for most of the last 20 years, and would almost certainly still be open to wide abuse. There are just certain things that fundamentally don't balance right, especially without a singular points level game to balance around. If they're going to keep this stuff, they need to rebuild the game essentially as an RPG with a 3rd player GM setting stuff up for players the way Rogue Trader was set up.
But doing away with them simply won't work at this point. If they'd never been introduced to the mainstream game, their rules issues wouldn't matter. But now they are here and are too popular to go anywhere (if they weren't, GW wouldn't be cranking them out as fast as they can). So instead of turning the financial and emotional investments of a large portion of the potential player pool into complete wastes, we need the rules around those things, to be done right.
The rules issues aren't just with the flyers, superheavies, etc. It's also with a lot of basic units in the game. 'De-escalating' 40k would do nothing about a lot of the cheese in all armies (Eldar would still have Scatbike spam, SM would still have invisible deathstars, Tau would still have Riptides, etc). The game is going to need to be re-written anyway to get these right, so doing the super stuff right at the same time is no major increase in effort.
If I were to include superheavies in normal-scale 40K it would be as special objectives for tightly balanced missions. I'm highly doubtful that you can just let Baneblades romp around in a squad-based skirmish game.
So, obviously, if I were to rewrite the rules the first batch wouldn't include them. They would be slowly added to the game through special missions. Players should absolutely be able to eventually use their large models but not without a scenario or a return to the alternative Apocalypse mode (which should prove more popular now that people actually have models for it!).
Rosebuddy wrote: I'm highly doubtful that you can just let Baneblades romp around in a squad-based skirmish game.
Why not? A squadron of LRBTs has similar firepower and durability for around the same point cost. Baneblades aren't the issue, nor are LoW in general. The problem is a small number of specific LoW units with obviously overpowered rules.
At large, this thread seems to not be for me, so i apologize if you consider me to be unworthy of participating in it (there seems to be a weird animosity against casual players when it comes to this topic, i guess we just don't belong to the wargaming elite or something). Though I can't resist on butting in because I love 40K and seeing what happened to fantasy I'm worried about similar troll-flips for 40K. Also, some seem to overlook certain oddities in the GW business model and just wanting to explain it with that GW is "run by morons, for morons".
In general I don't really buy the better rules as a selling point of models. On closer look they don't really make much sense at all. GW should be able to make much enough money by just re-releases and new products that fall in line with the old ones. It even seems like a smarter business model when thinking about the money they loose by having products standing on shelves and molds not used to the max when older models are replaced by newer rules wise better ones which are then favored at the cost of the old stock. This just doesn't make sense from a business stand point.
Thought there is one group of players that GW benefits from by making better rules for new units. The competitive players. So essentially, those of you who feel a need to always have the best units, and rush to buy them, are the people who are the main supporters of this utterly bizarre business model.
As for what might fix it. Well, i am leaning as suggested on a third party rule set dedicated to tournament play.
Meos wrote: (there seems to be a weird animosity against casual players when it comes to this topic, i guess we just don't belong to the wargaming elite or something).
Not at all, I think there's a misunderstanding of what "casual" means.
I'd personally say most competitive players ARE casual players. Tourny players are a whole separate group, but in my observation people who give 0 feths about competitiveness are a rarity even among casuals.
There's a sliding scale of how much people care about different things, rarely does a person fall entirely in to one category or another. I couldn't care less about tournament play, I've played a couple of tournaments in my 20 year gaming history and don't really intend to play any more.
The main thing I care about is being able to take the armies and units I want without feeling like I'm hamstringing myself, within reason of course (I don't expect an army of nothing but Rhinos to compete, but it'd be nice if, for example, it'd be nice if Pyrovores didn't suck donkey balls, or if an Ork player had a fighting chance against any Eldar player who isn't actively trying to lose).
I'd most definitely call myself a casual player.... I'm easy going and don't really care if I win or lose, but I'd have to actively turn my brain off to take some units because it's so obvious they are terrible and despise the fact some rules are just so piss poorly written that you can take it one of multiple ways and since it's an abstract game it's impossible to say what was "intended".
Maybe there is some confusion to what is meant by better rules?
My definition of better rules for the game of 40k would be...
A clearly defined instructions set to play the game of 40k, that have been written focusing on game play, rather than short term sales pitch for the latest releases.
And after the rules are written they are professionally proof read and edited , to arrive at the clearest and best worded set of instructions for the intended game play.
I would like a 40 page rule book for 40k that covers ALL the game play , with clearly defined intuitive rules.(And between 10 and or 20 special rules for special abilities.)
All the units from all the factions would just be as useful because the tactical depth is increased to allow this to happen.
You know like all the other well written rule set out there that DO NOT FORCE A FALSE DICHOTOMY FLUFF VS COMPETITIVE ON THE PLAYER BASE.
Well defined rules that drive intuitive tactical game play help ALL gamers .
(That is why all the good rule sets are out growing market share, and 40k /A.O.S are loosing market share.)
@Lanrak & Meos : Indeed, GW is losing market share due to their wrong rules.
To be fair, it's no surprise Warmahordes started picking up steam as WHFB started losing traction. They want to focus on making and selling the models, fair point, and they understand that strong abilities sell more models... in the short term.
Because players might be okay to buy a unit to be on par with the new meta, but when it's recurring players start to feel that they are getting forced.
That's also due to the complete inability of GW in recent years to capitalize on its player base and create revenue stream using existing models. Companies like PP and FFG are much more involved in the tournament scene for example, and it works because their events generate cash through sales that were already made.
Because GW focuses on models, its only business incentive right now is to push the sale of more models (the formations, the new beasty units, etc).
The issue is the core business model of GW. Until that changes, 40k won't change.
shiwan8 wrote:
My experience is that it's the WAAC players who do not care about the balance...which is almost every competitive player out there.
You have a very skewed and innacurate view of competitive players if that’s what you believe. There is a huge difference between ‘competitive’ and ‘WAAC’. WAAC isn’t even exclusive to the competitive circuits.
Win At All Cost players do what ever they can to win, right? That's pretty much anyone who goes to tournaments and aims to win starting from list building. Cheaters get kicked so that's not something they can do but as far as social contracts and rules permit they do what ever they possibly can to win...which is exactly what competitive players do.
I play to win but do not build to win and will not try to break the game to win. This makes me a casual gamer. WAAC players will list tailor, try to break the game and do what ever they can in the actual game to win...exactly like competitive players do. This is why competitive is synonymous to WAAC at the moment.
shiwan8 wrote: My experience is that it's the WAAC players who do not care about the balance...which is almost every competitive player out there.
You have a very skewed and innacurate view of competitive players if that’s what you believe. There is a huge difference between ‘competitive’ and ‘WAAC’. WAAC isn’t even exclusive to the competitive circuits.
Win At All Cost players do what ever they can to win, right? That's pretty much anyone who goes to tournaments and aims to win starting from list building. Cheaters get kicked so that's not something they can do but as far as social contracts and rules permit they do what ever they possibly can to win...which is exactly what competitive players do.
I play to win but do not build to win and will not try to break the game to win. This makes me a casual gamer. WAAC players will list tailor, try to break the game and do what ever they can in the actual game to win...exactly like competitive players do. This is why competitive is synonymous to WAAC at the moment.
No they aren't synonymous. WAAC very literally does mean win at all costs. WAAC players are the cheaters, the ones who will fudge a rule for an advantage, not correct an opponent on a ruling if it benefits them, manipulate their dice and how they roll them to get desired results, enjoy stomping on inexperienced players and gloat about it.
Being a competitive player is simply wantng to play play and win because of it.
Keep 40k as it is, make it the new Apoc, perhaps streamline a few things so basic troops can get weapons upgrades cheaper or at no cost given how easily they die - just accept its a big toys game.
Then take the LotR rules and adapt them into a 40k universe skirmish game that doesn't have rules for the larger toys - this becomes the intro game
Win At All Cost players do what ever they can to win, right? That's pretty much anyone who goes to tournaments and aims to win starting from list building. Cheaters get kicked so that's not something they can do but as far as social contracts and rules permit they do what ever they possibly can to win...which is exactly what competitive players do.
Nope. There is playing to win within the confines of the rules, which starts with building a good list. This does not stop you being a good bloody sport about it, and you can still play to win the game whilst still playing fair and being a decent guy to play against. Ergo not Waac.
That is NOT THE SAME as Waac. Waac is win at all costs. All. So, not about being fair, or being a good sport. It's precisely the opposite. You will see from Waac players things like blatant outright cheating, underhanded moves, subtle cheating, twisting rules to suit ones self, deliberately misremembering rules if it profers an advantage, movement 'surfing' to get those extra couple of inches, being very lazy about measurements, fast dice rolling, list tailoring, terrain tailoring, noobstalking etc. Bear in mind, the vast majority of competitive players despise this kind of play - it is a direct antithesis to the art of sportsmanship and fair play which is a hallmark of honest competition.
there is also the art of subtle and not so subtle intimidation of your opponent and doing whatever psychological tricks to throw them off their gsme - I knew a guy who would sing terrible songs at his opponent badly when it wasn't his turn, because he knew it would grate on the people he was playing against, and knock them off their game. Waac. That same guy, in a tourney game against me (which I won. With tau. Against iron warriors back in fourth. Pretty much David v Goliath). At the time. He was my mate. He counted up the vp's called it a draw and said he'd go to the to and let them know. Thinking nothing of it at the time, I said fair enough. Did the math in my head later and realised I had won on vp's and he'd blatantly lied to me, because he couldn't stand the idea of losing. So fair to say, Waac, and not my mate any more.
Waac. See the difference? Ask most competitive players would they act like this, and like me, they'll say 'no, that behaviour was disgraceful'.
So please - learn to differentiate. because tarring all the competitives as Waac is neither fair, not accurate.
I play to win but do not build to win and will not try to break the game to win. This makes me a casual gamer. WAAC players will list tailor, try to break the game and do what ever they can in the actual game to win...exactly like competitive players do. This is why competitive is synonymous to WAAC at the moment.
If you 'play to win' then you are competitive. End of. 'Casual' implies a far more laid back approach, in some ways, almost not caring about the outcome.
And like I said, you are wrong. List tailoring, breaking the game and doing whatever you can to win is not 'exactly what competitive players do'. It's what Waac players do. They are not the same thing. Those things you ascribe to the filthy competitives happen in the casual circuits as well, and if my experience is anything to go by, they prefer the casual circuits for the easy pickings.
CAN it? Yes. WILL it? I doubt it. The fundamental issue is GW sees no problem with it, and seem to feel that if you do see issues, you aren't playing it right. They have peddled this "spirit of the game" horsegak for a decade or more now where there is a "right" way to play the game that involves a lot of talking with your buddies about what should/shouldn't be allowed for this game, and basically customizing every bit of the rules if needed to ensure an enjoyable game. The game itself is basically intended to be barely playable out of the box and requires that sort of "social construct" to make it playable. On top of that, the biggest issue with "spirit of the game" is it boils down to this:
We let you play the game in the way you choose, but if you play it the wrong way it's your fault for not knowing the right way. That basically sums up what "spirit of the game" means. Play the game as GW plays it, even though they make it so you can play it the way you want. You CAN take this unit, but if you do you're a bad person and not playing the game right, but we aren't going to stop you from taking it if you want. That's bullgak.
The issue is, as evident in this thread alone, is there is a hard divide, a civil war if you will, between "casual" and "competitive" because they often draw lines in the sand. One can be casual and still want to win (the competitive part), one can be competitive and not go to extremes (i.e. "WAAC" or extreme mn/maxing). In most games this is not a problem. The issue is in 40k this IS a problem because there is a gulf-sized disparity between things.
Here's a concrete example taken from my own experiences during a past consideration of starting up 40k again. I like Terminators. I love the fluff behind them, I love how they are the best of the best of their chapter, how they are truly both vanguard and bulwark of the Adeptus Astartes. And they are absolute gak in the game (or were at the time I was looking at it), for no discernible reason. Perhaps a year ago now I wanted to do an all Terminator army, with the background being that it was an elite strike team tasked with capturing some key objective in a planetary conflict (I had no idea at this point who opponents would be, so was being as generic as possible), that was so key to victory that it required the absolute best men in the chapter, i.e. the 1st company, to do it; nothing else would suffice. This idea was insanely fluffy, look awesome, and would likely lose every game because the rules are gak. Could I do a similar thing with, say, Sternguard that are actually considered good? Sure. But I wanted Terminators, not Sternguard, and simply because I wanted Terminators over Sternguard this army would be unfairly punished due to GW's lack of care.
Now, I recently considered starting Necrons. I always liked them (I quit 40k when they first got a real codex), and while I'm on the fence about the "Newcron" fluff I like them having personalities and not being just mindless killer robots. Using a random dynasty trait generator I found on 1d4chan, I made some rolls and came up with results that started to gel into a traditional, but still customizable, type of Necron dynasty and I started looking at options. In the case of Necrons, the Decurion is amazing. It's also insanely fluffy. This would be my go-to choice because I like formations, it basically spells out purchases for me to build a greater whole, and I love that. But the power level of the Decurion is off the charts, again due to GW's lack of wanting to balance the game.
Do you see the issue here? One of my ideas (the Terminator army) is fluffy and garbage. The other (very typical Necron phalanx) is fluffy and amazing. Why? That's the problem. Why should one idea be almost unplayable, and the other be so amazing that I would likely get called a WAAC competitive powergaming cheesemonger for no reason, because my army is very powerful because that's how GW made it, and I have no doubt this would happen and people would roll their eyes at me playing a Necron Decurion, despite the fact I would have my own dynasty fluff and the Decurion itself is a very fluffy, traditional type of Necron formation that represents a typical Necron army on the tabletop, which is what I want. A similar thing happened when I was looking at doing an Eldar Iyanden ghost army with all Wraiths, including a Wraithknight (IIRC it was only one). Very fluffy, and so good that it immediately gets called powergaming even when it's not abused but done in a fluffy style.
That's the biggest issue with 40k. Things like that should not exist. If GW wanted to they could fix it by having a new edition that tried to balance things in a reasonable way (i.e. no randomly picking who to do next so some codexes go years before updates) and make a set of rules that was balanced but flexible enough for true narrative games and campaigns to expand.
I don't think they ever will do it, because they see no reason to. They seem to want to put as little effort into the actual rules, to focus on the miniatures and leave the nuances of the rules to the players, which honestly would be fine other than the fact they charge an arm and a leg for the rules and codexes. If the rules were say a slim booklet that was like $15 and a codex was the same, with the fluff parts handled by Black Library, then it would not be such a huge deal. But instead they want to charge what, $85 for the rules, $50 for the Codex and then insane amounts for miniatures that you have a 50% chance of being insanely good or complete garbage (and an equal chance of switching between the two every "new" edition of the game). That's what isn't acceptable.
If I want to play a fluffy Terminator army with a background that makes sense, am I casual or competitive? If I play a fluffy Decurion that doesn't overly spam units and has a backstory, am I casual or competitive? If I play an Iyanden army with all wraith constructs because that's what Iyanden does, am I casual or competitive? If I play Saim-Hann with all Jetbikes (not all with scatter lasers) am I casual or competitive? The problem with all of these is that A) casual/competitive is a mindset. I would play to win, ergo competitive, but want to have fun and have narrative games, ergo casual. Mind = blown. Is it my fault as a player if I like Necrons and the Decurion is a normal formation for my mostly normal "Necron Raider" dynasty? Should I not play it just because it's too good, even if it makes sense? What about the Terminators. Should I not play that because it sucks? The problem with this argument is it usually boils down to it's okay to play something that sucks if it's fluffy, but not to play something that's too good if it's fluffy, and that's not right. An all-Terminator army is fine because it's underpowered. A fluffy Decurion or Jetbike host or Gladius Strike Force (which come on is as generic as it freaking gets, it's a Demi Battle Company, the most fluffy way to play Space Marines!) is bad because it's strong. So it increases the divide because it makes the pro-casual argument seem like sour grapes.
So TL;DR Yes it can be fixed, but that would require having GW care about fixing it.
GW can fix the game, but they need to identify what is wrong with it and address various different ideas about what it should be -- competitive or casual -- tight or sprawling --- skirmish or mass battle. They need ideally to square these various circles in order not to drive away a significant chunk of players who lean towards one or other end of the spectrum.
I thin this can be done by reorganising the rules into a small level skirmish game, a medium size competitive game, and a big battle game, which share a common core of rules that is expanded by optional add-on books.
This is the biggest problem, IMO. In their never ending quest to SELL MORE MODELS! they have completely lost sight of what they even want the game to be. A points system, true line of sight and the mission structures make it a competitive game. The gaping holes in the rules and randomness everywhere make it more of a casual game. Things like challenges and wound allocation make it a skirmish game. The amount of models needed to play and combat resolution make it a mass battle game. They've tried to do everything at once with this ruleset and just ended up doing it all poorly. There are better beer and pretzel games out there. There are better skirmish games, narrative games, pick up games, etc. You can say what you want about the balance in WMH, X wing, Infinity, etc, but how many of those companies have said "We don't care about the quality of the rules, if you do, you're playing our game wrong"? As far as I can remember, GW is the only company in the history of TTWG to basically tell their customers they don't give a feth about tight, balanced rules.
The issue is people disagree about what balance is. A year or three ago someone from GW suggested somewhere they would like to make the game more rock/paper/scissors. The community jumped all over them as if this was the worst idea in the world.
The thing is this PP do this and it sort of works. Every faction can (to a degree) ARM skew or DEF skew and various other types of skew. At the same time however everyone gets tools in their faction to counter this. If a faction is struggling PP release a new unit which they hope will help them out. Its not perfect but they try.
In 40k you don't have this. Balance is far softer and as a result rather than units having niches you just have good units and bad units. Eldar maybe have good units and better units. Because the bad units are objectively bad you should never see them in a competitive game and to be honest you don't.
The result of this is that each Codex has its tournament list - or variations on a theme. They then fight each other and some counter each other and some don't.
Lets say your friend plays Eldar. You know he is going to have Warp Spiders, Scatter Bikes & a Wraithknight or two. He has played the same list every week since the new codex dropped. What is the counter pick for say Tyranids, Orks or CSM? There isn't one. There are better and worse options - but these are probably better or worse vs everything you will ever face.
A no point would someone go "well since they are playing X I guess I will ditch they Flyrants and other FMC and instead bring along some Genestealers". You wouldn't do this because Genestealers are a bad unit and will be a bad unit until GW fundamentally changes their rules.
The problem is in 40k if there was a counter pick to Warp Spiders, Scatter Bikes & Wraithknights then it would just have an "anti-Eldar" pick because it would probably handle anything else they could bring. Eldar would then be bottom tier. Which might make a change but it wouldn't be any more balanced.
Bad rules are attractive to the WAAC mind because you can pretty much interpret what you want and few have a good enough handle on the rules to challenge them on it: they live in the grey-zone.
Remember also that the WAAC player is not terribly concerned with playing within the rules so long as they can get away with what they want to do. They cheat.
Competitive players want to win but ALWAYS within the rules, even if taken to the max. They will beat you, but will not cheat.
The problem is, the "scrub" viewpoint would view them as "cheaters" for not playing to the rules as they see them ("rules as intended" or other viewpoints).
Bad rules are a good smoke screen for a cheat, bad rules are a puzzle at first for competitive players but interest wanes when the "imbalance" is figured out.
In this case, less pure tactical decisions, more mechanics left to a dice roll is terribly boring, outcome by pachinko.
BUT good players not facing much luck will crush you every time (think chess) so luck is a game developer crutch to give the "bad" players a shot taking on the knowledgeable.
You can only make so many backup plans when the dice gods fail you for the third time.
That is why the list building is so important: it is one of the few areas you get to make actual decisions (darn random warlord traits and psychic abilities!).
The other problem is GW refuses to balance at a normal nature. For instance, PP releases something for each faction (well, each full faction, sorry Cyriss/Merc/Minion players) in each game's book. None of this well this month we update Cygnar, then we update Cryx 3 months later, sorry Khador you don't get an update for 5 years but Cygnar gets updates every few months because Cygnar is the most popular faction.
That's the biggest issue. They need to release updated rules with every edition change that brings all factions in line, and then they can sure do things like their campaign packs that detail a specific conflict and then provide *additional* things for the factions involved. There's no problem with that, it's when you have like Chaos being shafted for years or what was it, Orks not having an update in 10 years before the last codex that's ridiculous, when Space Marines get updates constantly sometimes multiple updates while some factions never get so much as an update.
Balance the game first, then add OPTIONAL formations/units/etc. to represent forces in specific campaigns. I don't think anyone would have an issue with Marines getting a few variants to represent the forces that fought in particular theatres of war, it's just that Marines get a new codex/new toys every few months while other factions don't get updates for years, and when they do the power scale is all over the place.
I think formations are good, I really do, because they provide a "shopping list" of sorts. But the power level needs to be relatively close to make the game enjoyable. GW seems to never encounter this situation where someone is using one faction/formation that's bad and their opponent is using one that's good, and the game is just a one-sided massacre for the good player. Either they do see that and don't care or don't see it for whatever reason (in fact I recall them stating that for WD batreps they would often restart and fight the battle again if the first time it went lopsided).
As has been stated in the past, a good, balanced ruleset hurts no one. I'm not entirely sure where the "casual, fluffy players don't need rules" and/or "competitive players like to game a broken system" stuff comes from. What I do know is that I'm no longer interested in having a pre-game negotiation with some rando about the type of game we want to have. I don't want to have to ask him to dial his list back because I brought pure Deathwing and he brought max-grav, drop-podding Gladius Strike Force.
TBH, as much as I may dislike the guy who takes full advantage of the rules and his codex, I can't say he's wrong for doing so. It's just sad that in trying to cater to everyone in their rules-writing, GW has in fact done the opposite: their rules appeal to a smaller and smaller subset of wargamers.
The first action GW should take if they decide they want to make a decent set of rules is a promise to dismiss any thought of the previous 30 year old Priestley, Johnson et al love in, think alike, gak fest RPG lite rules.
The narrative and cooperative game play element has long been a crutch that enables sloppy and inconsistent writing. The sales and marketing behmoth of these shinies is guilty of letting the design team stagnate as they want to sell as much plastic as possible - They probably don't understand that broken rules interactions may actually prevent sales.
It bears repeating, and I will do so, here. Casual and beer and pretzel gamers benefit the most from a rule set where basic interactions, are understandable, legible and sensible.
Fluffy gamers benefit too as rules which are concise and clear for everyone means that there can be more scope for building a campaign or fighting an asymmetric battle.
The fun for all concerned is that, in a game of winners and loosers, a ruleset where there are very few loopholes and very limited interpretation of loopholes in a system which has dedicated staff who can rule on such issues and errata or add changes to later editions of said rules can not be used as a crutch or a stick to beat your opponent with. Win or loose the rules are neutral.
the_Armyman wrote: As has been stated in the past, a good, balanced ruleset hurts no one. I'm not entirely sure where the "casual, fluffy players don't need rules" and/or "competitive players like to game a broken system" stuff comes from. What I do know is that I'm no longer interested in having a pre-game negotiation with some rando about the type of game we want to have. I don't want to have to ask him to dial his list back because I brought pure Deathwing and he brought max-grav, drop-podding Gladius Strike Force.
TBH, as much as I may dislike the guy who takes full advantage of the rules and his codex, I can't say he's wrong for doing so. It's just sad that in trying to cater to everyone in their rules-writing, GW has in fact done the opposite: their rules appeal to a smaller and smaller subset of wargamers.
Inadvertently this is another issue. For instance, a Gladius Strike Force is fluffy at its core: it's a Battle Demi-Company, doesn't get much more fluffy than that. But, I think even within that there are levels. For instance, max-grav drop-podding pushes it to the level of cheesy, because it's taking the "best" options for the sake of being the best options, while a truly "take all comers" Demi-Company would likely not max out on particular weapon type but have one squad for close quarters, one for tank hunting, one for rapid response to anything, etc. (which also brings up another point, IS it fluffy for Marines to tailor their force? They would have to know, for example, that they are assaulting let's say an Ork stronghold and make sure to equip weapons that can best deal with Orks). Which again boils down to rules that try to cater to everyone and caters to nobody as a result. There's nothing stopping you from taking all Grav weapons and all drop pods, and can be argued as fluffy (see above justification about Marines knowing their opponent). It's the fault of the rules that a max-grav drop-podding Gladius Strike Force is insanely overpowered, not the person who takes it.
The issue between competitive and casual has always been the fact that, in GW's own words from ages ago, someone who picks the "best" options simply because they are the best options is the min/maxer cheesy beardy WAAC powergamer (insert your word of choice) because they are knowingly picking the better options in favor of the not-as-good options, based only on effectiveness and not the feel or tone of the army. Here's a concrete example:
The Fire Angels chapter is noted for the following in their tactical doctrine:
The Chapter prefers to largely rely on rigid and proven strategic doctrines within the Chapter as to the arming of their forces from which they seldom deviate save in unusual circumstances. Examples of this standard panoply include a focus on regularly arming their Tactical squads with heavy bolters for fire support and melta weapons for close range anti-armour capability, while flamers see extensive use by their assault formations as a preferred anti-personnel weapon.
Ergo, it's against the "spirit of the game" to play a Fire Angels force and max out on grav weapons, while fluffy would be having Tac Squads with heavy bolter/meltagun as per the established canonical doctrine, with very little or no deviation. Having a small handful is acceptable (but again where is the line drawn? In a chapter of 1,000 Marines, how many is enough? Clearly the chapter has to maintain a number of grav weapons in their Armory, so whose to say the captain cannot requisition it for a specific purpose) but maxing out clearly goes against the defined fluff.
You can see the issue here. Again, it's the rules. The rules are too disparate between "good" and "bad" choices when it should largely be a matter of preference and/or fitting the theme, not the fact that grav weapons are the "most optimal" choice compared to everything else. Otherwise you run into issues like the above where it's 'cheese" to take the better option in almost all cases, even if it fits or even if it's something that realistically might be a viable choice.
Then those choices need to be codified for those chapters. And no one would play the chapter that can't get max grav. GW can't accept that people don't like losing because they said so.
the_Armyman wrote: As has been stated in the past, a good, balanced ruleset hurts no one. I'm not entirely sure where the "casual, fluffy players don't need rules" and/or "competitive players like to game a broken system" stuff comes from. What I do know is that I'm no longer interested in having a pre-game negotiation with some rando about the type of game we want to have. I don't want to have to ask him to dial his list back because I brought pure Deathwing and he brought max-grav, drop-podding Gladius Strike Force.
TBH, as much as I may dislike the guy who takes full advantage of the rules and his codex, I can't say he's wrong for doing so. It's just sad that in trying to cater to everyone in their rules-writing, GW has in fact done the opposite: their rules appeal to a smaller and smaller subset of wargamers.
Because many of us have to listen to complaints ad nauseam, many times about things that really are actual issues on a theoretical level only. And you know what, that constant torrent of complaints really brings one down, despite the complaints not touching your games in any way. There seems to be a hard rooted culture of whining about each and everything new that GW, only to be forgotten when the next new thing comes around. I don't like to struggle with friends who i have not played a game with in years saying they don't want to play the game because something in the current Tau meta is broken, when he is playing Space Marines and i am playing Eldar! It's ridiculous. And so you get people who counter react to that.
But yeah, you are right, a balanced game wont hurt anybody. And it is true that at large GW is doing a pretty gakky job with the rules when seen from a larger perspective and especially the perspective of people who play in more random groups. And a change to that would be most welcome to all.
Because many of us have to listen to complaints ad nauseam, many times about things that really are actual issues on a theoretical level only. And you know what, that constant torrent of complaints really brings one down, despite the complaints not touching your games in any way. There seems to be a hard rooted culture of whining about each and everything new that GW, only to be forgotten when the next new thing comes around. I don't like to struggle with friends who i have not played a game with in years saying they don't want to play the game because something in the current Tau meta is broken, when he is playing Space Marines and i am playing Eldar! It's ridiculous. And so you get people who counter react to that.
I have to ask: how long have you played 40K? I don't ask it as a matter of assessing your worth or opinion, I just ask it to determine how much you know about the evolution of the game. How many armies have you had invalidated, retconnned, or simply made unplayable because of a new edition or codex? Orks don't have access to an invulnerable save. Deathwing can't 1st turn assault. CSMs are inexplicably inferior to their brother loyalists in nearly every way. A Leman Russ tank can't fire its main gun without forcing snapshots of all its other guns. This is just a list of arbitrary edition changes off the top of my head. There is virtually no reason why this should ever happen under a competent team of rules designers. Yet, here we sit where people who play Orks or CSMs or IG are relegated to playing a very narrow interpretation of their codex to have any hope of having an enjoyable game under the current rules.
I think that the biggest problem plaguing 40k is that while there are a lot of rules that are important and fluffy, there are also a lot of rules that have just been grandfathered in because the game is just that old. A Lot of these rules just don't make sense in the current state of the game. Ordinance seems to be one of the biggest offender of this. In 4th or 5th edition, firing a battle or demolisher cannon was a big deal, they were some of the strongest weapons (if not the strongest) pie plates in the game. So it made sense that firing them was gonna effect any other weapons you had. It was a way to balance that sheer power of it. At that time though, the scale of the game was a lot smaller, where a vindicator could wreck an enemy if it got too close, So antitank was incredibly useful and needed.
Now, Destroyer weapons are commonplace and SHV and GMC rules make it so there is no downside to using them, In this edition, Ordinance has no place besides hindering units with it. So the rule needs to modified to be be less malignant or actually a boon to have, for example maybe making Ordnance weapons TL if the vehicle has remained stationary in the movement phase. Unfortunately, you can't remove the rule, too many weapons have it as part of their profile, and if there is anything i've learned about GW, its that they can add whatever they want, but they WILL NEVER take anything out or change profiles of something once its established.
This is evident with codex releases also. If a codex misses an update during an edition, it also loses the power level and point adjustments of the edition along with whatever flavor of the month that edition entailed. I'll use CSM as my example since its what I'm the most familiar with. CSM missed its 5th edition release, but it got it's 5th edition book in the form of its 6th edition release, thus why its points, power level. and playstyle are relative to the 5th edition style of game (AKA Randomness). Yet, because they were a 5th edition book being forced into 6th, they were not designed with the 6th edition change that favored making walkers into monstrous creatures, encouraging flyers, and allies, (The only thing in the codex that was at 6th edition power level is the heldrake, so, I think it kind of got shoehorned in at the end.) So, as the later codices that were actually designed for 6th dropped, certain new units were considered monstrous creatures instead of a walker as they would of been in 5th (AKA Riptide).
When 7th dropped, it favored SHVs, GCs, and formations. Yet, besides the escalation book released near the start of the edition, The starting codexes of 7th lacked these staples. Which makes me think that Necrons were the first actual 7th edition intended release in forms of power level, formations, etc. In which the trend continued with the other books released (With obvious exceptions).CSM also has missed its 7th edition release, So, its lacking both the staples of 6th and 7th which is part of the reason it's so weak. This is also why the upcoming updated supplements don't fix anything. Sure, we get some formations, but its just like putting a bandaid on a missing limb since our entire book is designed with a 5th edition points and playstyle.
So, GW can't really balance the rules for their game partially because they don't know what edition to design around. By the time they release 8th, they now have to cater to 5th, 6th, 7th, and upcoming 8th edition armies, all with differing playstyles, points levels, and edition centric gimmicks, and somehow find a way to make them all even. Personally, I don't even think that is possible.
So the alternative is gutting the game and redesigning it from the ground up. Removing and modifying rules, reevaluating game phases, Adjusting points across the board, etc. The problem that rises is that every codex has to by updated simultaneously to make sure all the rules that no longer exist are removed and the armies are balanced around one edition. The ONLY way I see them doing that is either updating the edition and releasing a huge FAQ for every faction for free (Which I highly doubt) or including every army and variant of the armies they decide not to "squat" in the the 8th edition book release. Making it so everyone just needs to buy the 8th edition rulebook to have all the armies codexes updated. They can then later start releasing codex updates again with a singular edition in mind and models to go with them. Similar to how supplements are added now. Just with more models.
They'll eat some cost on it early with the loss of the initial codex sales but make it up by making the game more approachable to new players while also keeping in enjoyable to current players. Right now, the biggest bar to entry in this game is the complicated ruleset and the initial starting cost. After you buy the start collecting box, the codex, and rulebook, dice, and templates. You are looking at a pretty sizable monetary investment. Let alone the time investment of learning all the rules of the game. Simplifying the game and putting the codices and rulebooks together with ease some of this pain.
Also having one massive book with all the codexes helps encourage allied play, Which GW has made necessary to play the game. If you really NEED to have single army codex, make it a small paperback version added to a rulebook that you can include with start collecting boxes, similar to the one dark vengeance box had. Include some dice, templates, and a ruler to make it playable out of the box. The only barrier to entry to the game should be a single start collecting box.
Anyway, that's the only way I can see GW "fixing" the game. The problem that arises is GW has to recognize that the game is broken and be willing to take a financial hit to save their game. I just don't foresee that happening.
Because many of us have to listen to complaints ad nauseam, many times about things that really are actual issues on a theoretical level only. And you know what, that constant torrent of complaints really brings one down, despite the complaints not touching your games in any way. There seems to be a hard rooted culture of whining about each and everything new that GW, only to be forgotten when the next new thing comes around. I don't like to struggle with friends who i have not played a game with in years saying they don't want to play the game because something in the current Tau meta is broken, when he is playing Space Marines and i am playing Eldar! It's ridiculous. And so you get people who counter react to that.
I have to ask: how long have you played 40K? I don't ask it as a matter of assessing your worth or opinion, I just ask it to determine how much you know about the evolution of the game. How many armies have you had invalidated, retconnned, or simply made unplayable because of a new edition or codex? Orks don't have access to an invulnerable save. Deathwing can't 1st turn assault. CSMs are inexplicably inferior to their brother loyalists in nearly every way. A Leman Russ tank can't fire its main gun without forcing snapshots of all its other guns. This is just a list of arbitrary edition changes off the top of my head. There is virtually no reason why this should ever happen under a competent team of rules designers. Yet, here we sit where people who play Orks or CSMs or IG are relegated to playing a very narrow interpretation of their codex to have any hope of having an enjoyable game under the current rules.
I started playing back in 3rd edition. Quit somewhere along 4th. Came back to 6th, realized the game got souped up and started liking it a lot. 7th edition, or as i like to see it as 6.5 was reached a point that i would love to see as something that stays around a bit longer. During this time i have played Eldar, Chaos, Space Marines, Grey Knights and currently have built a list for the Inquisition. I have never felt any of my armies becoming rubbish. However I do know the reason is that i don't play in any form of competitive setting and instead build armies to fit themes, then those themes do however they do against whatever my friends play. Of course i try to build well rounded forces that can do a bit of this and that but i never try to go for whatever is the best meta wise, nor do my friends, so it works. Also, when i returned to the hobby i had plenty of friends who were still playing old editions of the rules and were quite happy doing so. So what i don't see is why people don't just pick the rules they want to roll with.
I personally don't think GW will or will ever have a will to "fix" 40K simply because it is a massive game with a copious amount of exceptions compared to the rules and quite frankly there seems to be a very different view of what that "fixing" would need to be depending on who you ask. I mean, for me "fixing" would mean to erase any record of the god awful Centurions and the Space Wolf quasi Caestuses and a handful of other tacky things. Are some of the rules broken beyond repair? Certainly. Does this stop people from enjoying the game? Not really.
What i don't understand is why people don't make a community project of making a set of unofficial competition rules. It could be based on any old rules edition, use any codexes people just agree on together, could ban certain units and allow certain ones that are FW or some actual third party if the idea of running balanced competitive matches is important. Jesus guys, we live in the golden age of internet, something like that could just even be an ever evolving thing built on top of a wiki. I mean that is how EPIC and Necromunda are still alive and kicking ass.
The only issue with would be that you would still end up with people complaining about what would be unbalanced and what not, because there is good deal of people who will never be satisfied with how stuff is, especially when we talk a game with RNG.
I started playing back in 3rd edition. Quit somewhere along 4th. Came back to 6th, realized the game got souped up and started liking it a lot. 7th edition, or as i like to see it as 6.5 was reached a point that i would love to see as something that stays around a bit longer. During this time i have played Eldar, Chaos, Space Marines, Grey Knights and currently have built a list for the Inquisition. I have never felt any of my armies becoming rubbish.
For some of us 5th was the best balanced Edition and 6th/7th was a step back which added just randomness instead of real improvements (but here we also never used the 5th edi rulebook missions and tournaments had their own mission system).
What i don't understand is why people don't make a community project of making a set of unofficial competition rules. It could be based on any old rules edition, use any codexes people just agree on together, could ban certain units and allow certain ones that are FW or some actual third party if the idea of running balanced competitive matches is important. Jesus guys, we live in the golden age of internet, something like that could just even be an ever evolving thing built on top of a wiki. I mean that is how EPIC and Necromunda are still alive and kicking ass.
First it is not that easy any more because it would need to be done from scratch (also to avoid IP problems) and it is a lot of time consuming work to bring all fractions on the same level.
The other thing is that somehow the community wants to wait for GW to do it or start playing something else instead.
I try it from time to time to get people into such project but as soon as something new is released or GW start asking for a FAQ (or people realise that it is hard work) everything is stopped because now the official 40k will become the game they want.
1. Getting a community consensus on what is balanced. GW's rules are so bad some things can unanimously be fixed. But a lot of things it's hard to get a consensus, even if people entirely agree something is broken and overpowered you're unlikely to get people to agree on how it should be fixed. This is why GW needs to take community suggestions, but your actual rules writing group remains small so it can be filtered in to a cohesive package.
2. Splintering the community. One of the biggest strengths of 40k is the size of the community. Being able to walk in to a game store or club anywhere and play a game. The more systems there are, the harder it becomes to find someone who wants to play your own system.
3. Time. We aren't silly, we know it takes time to balance and play test a game. It takes effort to go set up a system to collect and then go through community responses and implement them appropriately. For someone who is doing it as their full time job, it's not a big deal, I'd say it's far less stressful than most jobs, but it's still a job and doing it in your spare time you're unlikely to get good results or even finish.
4. The community isn't single minded. You aren't going to get a singular set of rules that everyone is happy with. Indeed there's already a lot of people who have modified versions of different editions that they play at home or with their own small group. Getting the whole community to agree isn't as easy, we're never going to have 1 dominant community set of rules because not everyone wants the same thing.
That's why the absolute best thing to happen would be GW just to fix their own bloody game. It's easier to get people to begrudgingly accept the things they don't like or agree with about 40k than begrudgingly accept your home grown modifications that they don't like or agree with. It's just 40k has gone so far down the hole at this point. People DO play modified versions, but you don't get large cohesive groups playing those modified versions.
I actually think the WHFB community was more flexible when it came to home grown rules for whatever reason, even though WHFB at no point in in the past 20 years has been as much of a train wreck as 40k currently is.
Meos wrote: What i don't understand is why people don't make a community project of making a set of unofficial competition rules. It could be based on any old rules edition, use any codexes people just agree on together, could ban certain units and allow certain ones that are FW or some actual third party if the idea of running balanced competitive matches is important. Jesus guys, we live in the golden age of internet, something like that could just even be an ever evolving thing built on top of a wiki. I mean that is how EPIC and Necromunda are still alive and kicking ass.
Two major reasons:
1) Fixing 40k would require a complete re-write of the entire system. As in literally deleting the entire 7th edition rulebook and starting over with a blank piece of paper. This would require a massive amount of work, both in coming up with a good system and thoroughly playtesting it. That's a full-time job, not a casual weekend project. And at that point you really have to ask why you're bothering with a game in the 40k IP that you will never be able to sell instead of making a game in your own IP and getting paid for it.
2) Getting the community to unify behind a single rule set is like herding cats. So every time someone comes up with a new version of 40k it never gets the critical mass required to be successful. Some people comment on it, maybe someone other than the author even plays a game with it, and then everyone gets tired of trying to persuade people to use it and says "screw it, GW's version sucks but at least everyone agrees on it".
So essentially what is said here is that the GWs game designers should be able to cater to a group that vastly disagrees on how things should be like?
This is why some of us find the whole arguing largely silly. Because for every valid concern there seems to be twenty people screaming and shouting nonsense or at least things that are largely irrelevant. Take the new psychic powers, rules that are clearly broken due to lacking clarity, but that are discussed with arguments like "now my opponent is going to field Skyshield Landing Pads and teleport his army around on them", something that will probably not end up being seen in games because when someone does that the opponent might just walk out the door and not want to play (doubt it would be funny for anyone). Then you have people jumping on that train of ridiculous thought and you end up with a royal mess instead of a discussion, which in turn spills over to hobby communities world wide and has people just being negative about stuff that doesn't really actually end up being an issue at all.
At the end it seems to fall on the fact that GW doesn't want to stay with the same base rule-set for a long enough time. Doing so would ensure that codices get to a level playing field and that people would at least have to suck up the fact that things are a certain way and you either play with it, or you play around it. Here i think they made a slight improvement with keeping 6th and 7th ed. largely as the same (save psychic phase which was a very welcome addition).
Also, thanks for letting me know a bit about 5th ed guys, I had no idea how that one used to work since i missed out on it completely.
Meos wrote: So essentially what is said here is that the GWs game designers should be able to cater to a group that vastly disagrees on how things should be like?
No, GW should write good rules, period. The issue is not that the community has wildly divergent demands that no single set of rules could satisfy, it's that any fan-made alternate rules are fighting an uphill battle. GW's rules, for all their flaws, are at least something everyone knows already. So when you go to your local store/club/whatever and want to play a game with your 40k models it's going to be much easier to just play a game of 40k than to try to convince your opponent that this new set of rules is worth learning and using. So the end result is that lots of people come up with better versions of 40k, but none of them get the critical mass to take over.
Take the new psychic powers, rules that are clearly broken due to lacking clarity, but that are discussed with arguments like "now my opponent is going to field Skyshield Landing Pads and teleport his army around on them", something that will probably not end up being seen in games because when someone does that the opponent might just walk out the door and not want to play (doubt it would be funny for anyone).
Sorry, but "this rule is obviously terrible, but it's ok because anyone who takes advantage of it will be shunned from the community" is not an excuse. The rule sucks, and GW's incompetence in writing it is inexcusable. It would have been trivially easy to prevent the problem from happening in the first place by writing better rules, and we should expect that from GW.
Then you have people jumping on that train of ridiculous thought and you end up with a royal mess instead of a discussion, which in turn spills over to hobby communities world wide and has people just being negative about stuff that doesn't really actually end up being an issue at all.
I strongly disagree with this. The mere fact that we have rules where doing something is entirely legal (and clearly so, not even rules lawyering) but actually doing it will get you labeled a TFG and shunned from the community is a really bad issue. It's a toxic mess that just doesn't exist in better games.
Meos wrote: So essentially what is said here is that the GWs game designers should be able to cater to a group that vastly disagrees on how things should be like?
I wrote a response but for some reason Dakka logged me out and I lost it.
Basically, no, if that's the point you took away, you missed the point.
People disagree on the finer points of how the game should be, that can kill a community project in its tracks. However they can agree on the larger points, so if GW fixed the larger points then the finer points being a bit out of whack would be less of a problem.
If you take an example like Scat Bikes. Everyone knows what we have is crap. But they aren't necessarily going to agree on how to fix it, and that disagreement makes community projects difficult. If GW just released something that was less crap out of the box, using one of half a dozen options that the community might have come up with, then the community may still not agree on it, but they will be able to agree that it's massively better than the junk we have now and since it forms a solid baseline for 40k players across the globe it's a far better solution.
And make no mistake, people can and do modify various editions of 40k to play in their own homes and clubs. There's just good reasons why there isn't a globally accepted set of community rules for 40k. There might be some for Epic 40k and Necromunda.... but those communities are TINY compared to 40k. I haven't seen a game of Epic played that I myself didn't organise in over a decade. I don't have much experience with Necromunda, but in the case of Epic the core rules as supplied by GW were frankly not all that bad compared to the mess that is 40k.
A homemade ruleset can be widely accepted, but people expect it to be universally accepted within days of its release
Maybe it's a side effect of the buzz mechanics of marketing right now so we expect this to be changed really quickly. The truth is that most people won't change their gaming habits because they don't have the will to do something different than what GW does, even if it means being vocal about the incompetence of the current rules writers to make a good and fun game.
I thought about it over the week end and even though it would require a complete write up (which GW isn't likely to do after the AOS flop), GW could make it happen over a year by releasing monthly rules fixes over the web.
Players would play with these new rules for a month, get the change, accept the change, then move on to the next release.
It actually wouldn't take much to make a palatable, balanced and fun core ruleset while the points issue from each Codex is being fixed :
1) Changes to the BS system to tone down the extremely powerful and illogical aspects of the shooting phase :
- 0-12" : full BS - 12-24" : BS-1
- >24" : BS-2
- Snap shots : BS-2
- Remove Cover Saves as they re (because they favour light infantry a lot more than anything else)
- Cover : Soft Cover (intervening models, forests, etc) at -1 BS, Heavy Cover (Ruins, Fortifications) at -2 BS. Stealth and Shrouded respectively remove -1BS and -2BS
- Cover requires the model to either be 25% obscured, or the base fully in area terrain (no more dipping the toe)
- Everybody takes advantage of cover the same way (including MCs and vehicles)
- Jink is -2BS
- Go To Ground is declared like Jink, -1Bs modifier
- Modifiers are cumulative to a minimum of BS1 (unless the model already has BS0 in its base profile)
- Remove Scatter roll for Blasts : instead, the number of models below are the numbers of rolls to hit with all the modifiers (e.g. A Plasma Cannon shot covers 3 models at 23" in ruins, 3 rolls To Hit at BS-3)
- Remove Ignores Cover for Template weapons, work as described above for the Blasts (roll To Hit with modifiers to the BS)
- Heavy Weapons can fire after moving, but at -1BS penalty. Shooting prevents charging if fired. Relentless/SnP removes the -1BS penalty and allows charging if fired.
- A unit can shoot at different target for each different weapon it has (example : All Boltguns shoot the same target, Flamer can choose another one, Multi-Melta can shoot another one)
- Weapons with the Ignores Cover special rule ignore BS penalties from cover
So, while this first set of modifications would create a lot of issues with some cover specific rules for some armies (Dark Angels Ravenwing, Markerlights off the top of my mind) and would require case by case erratas, they are much more representative of the proper mechanics of shooting. I'm sure that many of you probably already have fired a weapon, and since the game scale is 1/56, 1 inch represents 56". After 112 feet (24" in game), it becomes quite hard to shoot effectively at something, especially with the chaos of the battle going on.
But it follows the general principle : the closer you are to something, the closer it is to shoot.
Right now, range doesn't matter at all when determining the effectiveness of shooting, which is an aberration. We've also have Blasts scatter 8" sideways while the bearer was only 5" away from its target, why ? Now, Blasts are interesting because you can securely hope to hit multiple targets. Obviously though, a Space Marine throwing a Plasma Cannon from down range to guys clustered in ruins will have much more trouble effectively hitting the blast compared to point blank range in the open.
2) Movement changes, because some rules are just WTFBBQ and let's cut the crap about it :
- Basic movement for infantry : 6"
- Difficult terrain : half the remaining movement
- Dangerous terrain : models moving in it take an armour save (because really, Dangerous terrain is pretty much a bloated rule as it is now).
- Run moves : 3" flat (not slowed by difficult terrain)
- Charge distance : 6" flat (-2" for difficult terrain)
- Jump Infantry : Can use its jump pack in the movement or assault phase. Increases the movement to 12" or the charge range to 12". Not slowed by difficult terrain but considers it as dangerous.
- Bikes & Jetbikes : No change (they are pretty representative of the fast moving stuff, what sets them apart from other units is the secure Turbo-Boost distance compared to the weird rolls other units have to make because reasons ?)
- Jetpacks assault move : 6" base
- Move through Cover : Model Ignores the penalties for difficult terrain
3) Non-Superheavy Vehicles rebalance, because they really need to be made not useless again :
- Targeting systems : vehicles ignores the BS penalties for range
- Vehicles can fire all of their weapons after moving combat speed. Vehicles moving at cruising speed can fire only 1 weapon at full BS plus modifiers, Snap shooting the rest.
- Fast vehicles moving at cruising speed can fire 2 weapons at full BS plus modifiers, snap shooting the rest.
- Heavy vehicles : Are not affected by weapons with the Ordnance special rule.
- A vehicle can shoot each of its different weapon types at different targets (mini POTMS for all !).
4) MC Rebalance :
- Remove AP2 from Smash except for the single S10 attack.
- See point 1) for cover.
Peregrine wrote: I strongly disagree with this. The mere fact that we have rules where doing something is entirely legal (and clearly so, not even rules lawyering) but actually doing it will get you labeled a TFG and shunned from the community is a really bad issue. It's a toxic mess that just doesn't exist in better games.
This in a nutshell is my main issue with GW rules lately and our "community response" to them.
A new player will not know they have committed an atrocity in gaming when they are playing within the rules.
A competitive player finds it illogical to be playing within the rules and be treated like a cheater.
A TFG finds it incredibly funny he can play within the rules and be able to cave-face at will.
I do not see this problem with Bolt Action which is a similar system made by the same folks who made prior editions of 40k.
Meos wrote: So essentially what is said here is that the GWs game designers should be able to cater to a group that vastly disagrees on how things should be like?
No, GW game designers should actually design a game. What you basically have is little more than made-up (as in little rhyme or reason) rules for "kewl toys" to go "pew pew". There is zero reason the game cannot be balanced and cater to both casual players who want to only play campaigns and narrative games, and hardcore gamers who want to compete in national tournaments. These things are not mutually exclusive in any game except for GW's products. Everyone would benefit from balanced rules that are not ambiguous, points and models that are balanced with a proper power level instead of being all over the place, and not choices that are too good/bad as to always or never see play time.
That's a problem with game design, not the community.
Peregrine wrote: I strongly disagree with this. The mere fact that we have rules where doing something is entirely legal (and clearly so, not even rules lawyering) but actually doing it will get you labeled a TFG and shunned from the community is a really bad issue. It's a toxic mess that just doesn't exist in better games.
This in a nutshell is my main issue with GW rules lately and our "community response" to them.
A new player will not know they have committed an atrocity in gaming when they are playing within the rules.
A competitive player finds it illogical to be playing within the rules and be treated like a cheater.
A TFG finds it incredibly funny he can play within the rules and be able to cave-face at will.
I do not see this problem with Bolt Action which is a similar system made by the same folks who made prior editions of 40k.
This. I will use myself as an example again: I am seriously considering, probably in the summer after my divorce, to start 40k with a small Necron force. I know Necrons are "OP" nowadays, but I like the models and the fluff and feel they are well-suited to how I want to play. I would, eventually, likely build up a Decurion formation as this is the "typical" Necron army and that's what I am going for. Is it right that I get labeled a WAAC/TFG/powergamer because I like the idea of an eons-old civilization that sold their souls to the devil for immortality, and now are waking from slumber to reclaim the galaxy that "lesser races" have infested? Is it right that I can be shunned or told to "tone it down" when I'm playing a fluffy army (which the Decurion is) for my race? Is it right if, on the flip side, I was dead-set on playing Chaos because I love their background and wanted evil Space Marines, I end up finding that the army is basically garbage and I'd lose by fielding the type of army I wanted (e.g. little or no daemons, lots of Marines) and get my face kicked in despite all efforts because their rules are just bad?
I seriously do not get this. In what world is that acceptable? How on earth is it okay for someone to get told it's okay to play what you want, but find out either it's so bad they lose all the time through no fault of their own, or win constantly and are labeled a bad person because they happened to pick something that's really good?
It actually wouldn't take much to make a palatable, balanced and fun core ruleset while the points issue from each Codex is being fixed :
Spoiler:
1) Changes to the BS system to tone down the extremely powerful and illogical aspects of the shooting phase :
- 0-12" : full BS - 12-24" : BS-1
- >24" : BS-2
- Snap shots : BS-2
- Remove Cover Saves as they re (because they favour light infantry a lot more than anything else)
- Cover : Soft Cover (intervening models, forests, etc) at -1 BS, Heavy Cover (Ruins, Fortifications) at -2 BS. Stealth and Shrouded respectively remove -1BS and -2BS
- Cover requires the model to either be 25% obscured, or the base fully in area terrain (no more dipping the toe)
- Everybody takes advantage of cover the same way (including MCs and vehicles)
- Jink is -2BS
- Go To Ground is declared like Jink, -1Bs modifier
- Modifiers are cumulative to a minimum of BS1 (unless the model already has BS0 in its base profile)
- Remove Scatter roll for Blasts : instead, the number of models below are the numbers of rolls to hit with all the modifiers (e.g. A Plasma Cannon shot covers 3 models at 23" in ruins, 3 rolls To Hit at BS-3)
- Remove Ignores Cover for Template weapons, work as described above for the Blasts (roll To Hit with modifiers to the BS)
- Heavy Weapons can fire after moving, but at -1BS penalty. Shooting prevents charging if fired. Relentless/SnP removes the -1BS penalty and allows charging if fired.
- A unit can shoot at different target for each different weapon it has (example : All Boltguns shoot the same target, Flamer can choose another one, Multi-Melta can shoot another one)
- Weapons with the Ignores Cover special rule ignore BS penalties from cover
So, while this first set of modifications would create a lot of issues with some cover specific rules for some armies (Dark Angels Ravenwing, Markerlights off the top of my mind) and would require case by case erratas, they are much more representative of the proper mechanics of shooting. I'm sure that many of you probably already have fired a weapon, and since the game scale is 1/56, 1 inch represents 56". After 112 feet (24" in game), it becomes quite hard to shoot effectively at something, especially with the chaos of the battle going on.
But it follows the general principle : the closer you are to something, the closer it is to shoot.
Right now, range doesn't matter at all when determining the effectiveness of shooting, which is an aberration. We've also have Blasts scatter 8" sideways while the bearer was only 5" away from its target, why ? Now, Blasts are interesting because you can securely hope to hit multiple targets. Obviously though, a Space Marine throwing a Plasma Cannon from down range to guys clustered in ruins will have much more trouble effectively hitting the blast compared to point blank range in the open.
2) Movement changes, because some rules are just WTFBBQ and let's cut the crap about it :
- Basic movement for infantry : 6"
- Difficult terrain : half the remaining movement
- Dangerous terrain : models moving in it take an armour save (because really, Dangerous terrain is pretty much a bloated rule as it is now).
- Run moves : 3" flat (not slowed by difficult terrain)
- Charge distance : 6" flat (-2" for difficult terrain)
- Jump Infantry : Can use its jump pack in the movement or assault phase. Increases the movement to 12" or the charge range to 12". Not slowed by difficult terrain but considers it as dangerous.
- Bikes & Jetbikes : No change (they are pretty representative of the fast moving stuff, what sets them apart from other units is the secure Turbo-Boost distance compared to the weird rolls other units have to make because reasons ?)
- Jetpacks assault move : 6" base
- Move through Cover : Model Ignores the penalties for difficult terrain
3) Non-Superheavy Vehicles rebalance, because they really need to be made not useless again :
- Targeting systems : vehicles ignores the BS penalties for range
- Vehicles can fire all of their weapons after moving combat speed. Vehicles moving at cruising speed can fire only 1 weapon at full BS plus modifiers, Snap shooting the rest.
- Fast vehicles moving at cruising speed can fire 2 weapons at full BS plus modifiers, snap shooting the rest.
- Heavy vehicles : Are not affected by weapons with the Ordnance special rule.
- A vehicle can shoot each of its different weapon types at different targets (mini POTMS for all !).
4) MC Rebalance :
- Remove AP2 from Smash except for the single S10 attack.
- See point 1) for cover.
Somehow this is the way GW make their new Editions.
The game is fine we just need to add this and change that.
But it is not that easy and some your suggestions are too specific to work out well (just shifting the problem around instead of solving it) while you are missing some important stuff
(eg "Cover requires the model to either be 25% obscured, or the base fully in area terrain (no more dipping the toe)" without a list how big each model has to be and/or what base size they have this will lead to some problems on the table)
Then we add a template for each size, like Infinity has. There are no issues, only potential solutions waiting to happen !
GW doesn't try to adress the specific issues, rather they premake rules to publish later models within these ruleset. Moreover, they wait for 2 years between each core rules release at least which means they either are lazy slowpokes or not interested at all.
Releasing monthly rules changes, with a clear end goal of making the most enjoyable scifi battle wargame for all players, not only holds the hands of the playerbase when it comes to changing the ruleset because it's a rapid fire of small changes over one big vast ruleset (and we all know how everyone is resistant to change, being a business strategy consultant I have to gradually implement change in my client companies so that stuff doesn't get FUBARed), but it also creates a dialog with the market. GW boasts they know their consumer base. Their -10% sales per year over the past 3 to 4 years begs to disagree. On top of that, it allows them to leverage the new technology from internet to get some proper feedback regularily to hunt for "abuses" (as in stuff permitted by the RAW not in their RAI mindset).
GW still makes rules like it's 1998. It's not hard to make a good ruleset quickly when the designers actually give a feth about it and it's not their 9 to 5
WayneTheGame wrote: This. I will use myself as an example again: I am seriously considering, probably in the summer after my divorce, to start 40k with a small Necron force.
Sorry to hear... or not so sorry since it needed to happen I guess. (hey! it rhymes!)
... Is it right that I can be shunned or told to "tone it down" when I'm playing a fluffy army (which the Decurion is) for my race?
What I find a little irritating is the being told to "tone it down": how do their wants trump mine?
Could they consider sharpening their pencil a bit and give a good honest try to be competitive?
Is it right if, on the flip side, I was dead-set on playing Chaos because I love their background and wanted evil Space Marines, I end up finding that the army is basically garbage and I'd lose by fielding the type of army I wanted (e.g. little or no daemons, lots of Marines) and get my face kicked in despite all efforts because their rules are just bad?
Yep, got the size of a steamer chest full of chaos but is pointless to play.
I seriously do not get this. In what world is that acceptable? How on earth is it okay for someone to get told it's okay to play what you want, but find out either it's so bad they lose all the time through no fault of their own, or win constantly and are labeled a bad person because they happened to pick something that's really good?
It is OK if you are GW because we all have to suck it up so the new models / new flavor of the month can have it's day.
We are expected to lose for the sake of the new model sales.
Oddly, if we saw more balance, it would just be a different way to play not the huge advantage GW likes to start off with.
If they really were a "model company" they would not need to fluff them up with OP rules / points values too.
I don't even mind wanting to sell new models, it's the fact they shouldn't sell new models by making them so overpowered that they expect every cheeseweasel to rush out and buy a bunch and every "collector" to buy them for their mantlepiece.
The worst part is that there should be internal and external balance so faction choice doesn't doom you to losing constantly until you quit in frustration and say feth this stupid game, or so overpowered that you feel like TFG for winning so much just because your army is better than your opponents. The extremes are the problem. I shouldn't have to decide between wanting to play Chaos because I like the fluff/background/models and having to lose (unless I'm forced to play in a way I don't want e.g. spam daemons) or play Necrons and be labeled a WAACTFG douchebag because I'm playing an "OP" army, or having to decide between the two extremes.
That, in a nutshell is my problem. I would be unfairly punished if I wanted to play a fluffy Iron Warriors CSM army, because I don't want daemons I want Marines (and no, using Iron Hands rules is not acceptable). I would be unfairly labeled TFG if I want to play a fluffy Necron force because the Decurion is OP. Why am I punished because GW is gak at writing rules?
WayneTheGame wrote: The extremes are the problem. I shouldn't have to decide between wanting to play Chaos because I like the fluff/background/models and having to lose (unless I'm forced to play in a way I don't want) or play Necrons and be labeled a WAACTFG douchebag because I'm playing an "OP" army, or having to decide between the two extremes.
Agreed.
The play should only be different, not some strange rock/paper/scissors outcome depending on what army you picked.
I mainly picked my armies early-on because I liked how they looked and played much like in the stories, then over time things changed and it became obvious some armies just cant be competitive AND be fluffy.
kronk wrote: If you define "It" as unbalanced armies/units:
It would require a complete reboot of rules and the invalidation of all existing codecies, supplements, and campaign formations.
So, no. It can't be fixed.
Publish the big reboot.
Everyone freaks out.
Within a week publish the "starter (core?) formations" in little codexes like back in the day of 3rd edition for each army (make it cheap to lessen the screaming).
Release one new kit/model or add-on kit for each army the following week.
Showcase the gameplay with some battle reports in WD and tips on how the WD "experts" adjusted their armies for the new style of play.
Continue to publish the add-ons like nothing happened.
I would strongly suggest each "add-on" document be a formation release that contains something for all armies.
That way EVERYONE is forced to buy it, steady income, we all know everyone's armies, they can be balanced together.
Win-win for everyone.
They would need to put out IMHO slim codexes (think 3.0 size) all together, or at least in the span of a month at most, so everything is balanced together. But then they'd run into the same thing over time, updating some armies (read: Space marines) frequently and other armies so infrequently that the power gulf expands exponentially.
What they would have to do is put out balanced things for everybody first, and then publish campaign supplements that have additions (along with miniatures) for the armies fighting, and do it on a schedule so that say this month is Marines vs. Chaos, next month Eldar vs. Tyranids, month after IG vs. Tau, etc.
What they need to do is have free rules for the models online, then use the codexes as pure art and fluff books for the armies that don't need to be brought to the table. Then whenever there is a new edition EVERY unit gets updated on the online database.
Backwards compatibility between editions is such a stone age concept at this point, I can't think of any other company that tries to do it.
jonolikespie wrote: What they need to do is have free rules for the models online, then use the codexes as pure art and fluff books for the armies that don't need to be brought to the table. Then whenever there is a new edition EVERY unit gets updated on the online database.
Backwards compatibility between editions is such a stone age concept at this point, I can't think of any other company that tries to do it.
Don't give them any ideas to lower the barriers to entry to their hobbie. It's fun watching them trying to figure it out for the next 10 years
jonolikespie wrote: What they need to do is have free rules for the models online, then use the codexes as pure art and fluff books for the armies that don't need to be brought to the table. Then whenever there is a new edition EVERY unit gets updated on the online database.
Backwards compatibility between editions is such a stone age concept at this point, I can't think of any other company that tries to do it.
Exactly. They position codexes as art books anyways, make them pure fluff, charge an arm and a leg for pretty pictures and glossy pages and a gallery of "amazing Citadel miniatures", and put rules for models with them (a la start collecting boxes) and available online like AoS stuff.
GreyCrow wrote: Don't give them any ideas to lower the barriers to entry to their hobbie. It's fun watching them trying to figure it out for the next 10 years
This is why we cannot have nice things...
The humor is appreciated but they have dragged this creaky system far longer than it really needed.
jonolikespie wrote: What they need to do is have free rules for the models online, then use the codexes as pure art and fluff books for the armies that don't need to be brought to the table. Then whenever there is a new edition EVERY unit gets updated on the online database.
Backwards compatibility between editions is such a stone age concept at this point, I can't think of any other company that tries to do it.
kronk wrote: If you define "It" as unbalanced armies/units:
It would require a complete reboot of rules and the invalidation of all existing codecies, supplements, and campaign formations.
So, no. It can't be fixed.
The 2nd and 3rd editions all did this, though. If GW announces a major edition change in advance and maybe even lowers model prices in the meantime I believe that a total overhaul of the game rules would be widely accepted, especially if the rules are actually good. Even more so if they adopt a living edition approach and have all the rules online for free so they can be updated as necessary.
Obviously this would not be without its difficulties but a little pain now to avoid a slow collapse of the game would be worth it. The game is approaching a crisis or is already in one and either you make a choice now or you let it spiral out of control and give you a nasty surprise one day. Hopefully the starter sets and all the boardgames are proof that changes are coming.
People would accept everything from GW, not matter what the rules of the new Edition are.
(as long as it is a new edition and not a new game like it was with AoS)
The thing is 2nd edition was broadly in line with what gamers actually asked for.
(Our old games group sent of lots of ideas via snail mail for 2nd ed.And we got a nice letter back from Andy C, for one of them.)
AFAIK, 2nd ed 40k was well received and was very popular.(Despite a bit of over complication here and there. )
Unfortunately 3rd edition was what GW sales department asked for, and resulted in a rushed 11th hour rules set.
This was less well received, and I often think if the 3rd ed skirmish rules were allowed to be published, instead of the rushed 3rd ed battle game.We could well have ended up with 'BtgoA' type skirmish game for 40k.
AND a separate 40k battle game with rules written specifically for it, that were properly developed and play tested over years, instead of rushed out over a few weeks.
What really annoyed me is after the GW sales department interference messed up the rules for 40k, they prevented the game devs from ever fixing the mistakes with a complete re-write.
I am a bit concerned that as most of the actual game development has been pushed aside by short term sales drives.That the current studio team may not be up to the challenge.
But we can live in hope of the devs being allowed to' run free as nature intended' at GW towers one day.
No, he went to Mongoose Puplishing and the game that should have been 3rd Edi 40k became StarshipTroopers. (which could have been a big game if another company would have taken it)
Okay thanks, I'll check these out ! It's true that they could have chosen a better universe than a sci-fi political satire :p
I wonder how much leeway would Forgeworld have to publish a new set of rules. Right now, they seem to have quite the leeway compared to GW in terms of publishing, and players react favourably to the releases of Forgeworld.
The problem is that MP is the perfect company to screw an IP.
Ever heard of the Judge Dredd Skirmish, or Babylon 5 Space Battle game?
If X-Wing would have been produced by MP, the game would have been gone after a year.
But the SST game was not based on the movie but the book, therefore had a third race and 4 different fractions (and an in official 2nd Edition which added more).
The game itself works well on different scales and can be played with 100 bugs a side and 4 marauder suites on the other.
But it need much more terrain and is much faster than 40k (one unit moving 60" per turn is nothing special)
MeanGreenStompa wrote:It can be fixed incredibly easily, if they look to 5th ed, and also to 30k and what FW do.
A lot of people have their nostalgia blinds on - Fifth was pretty terrible in terms of balance. It certainly would not be a good jumping off point.
Lanrak wrote:
This was less well received, and I often think if the 3rd ed skirmish rules were allowed to be published, instead of the rushed 3rd ed battle game.We could well have ended up with 'BtgoA' type skirmish game for 40k.
Thst could have been interesting. It was a shame that Andy c tried to do the same with 4th ed and was made to walk the plank instead (various versions of what actually happened exist, I don't know which is true sadly!)
GreyCrow wrote:@Lanrak : Are any of these rules leaked somewhere ? And didn't the guy who made them go on to found/work at Warlord games ?
Mongoose. What Andy c envisioned as 40k 4th ed (I've instead of what we actually got) eventually went on to become the core DNA of their starship troopers and battlefield evolution games. Alas, it was mongoose, and they were pretty bad at supporting them.
kodos wrote:No, he went to Mongoose Puplishing and the game that should have been 3rd Edi 40k became StarshipTroopers. (which could have been a big game if another company would have taken it)
Yeah, mongoose didn't have the resources or the player base to do a good job, the models were ok at best, and in the end, they didn't do the best job they could have done. to be fair, I don't know where they could have gone with it - starship troopers is incredibly limited as an IP in terms of where you can go (marines, bugs, skinnies)
GreyCrow wrote:Okay thanks, I'll check these out ! It's true that they could have chosen a better universe than a sci-fi political satire :p
Starship troopers is a brilliantly flawed game. Flawed because it had some severely broken mechanics (that were in line to be fixed, but then the game died) and needed some work, along with the previously mentioned very limited scope and produced by a company who couldn't push it as well as a bigger company could have. It was brilliant though because in wargaming terms it was probably ten years ahead of the curve mechanically wise, in terms of how the game was built. It was the first truly 'modern' Wargame if you ask me. I look at it and while its flawed, there is a real gem in there.
Mongoosematt (bigwig over there) who posts here, mainly in the Aos section told me thst their judge dredd game is the spiritual successor to starship troopers, and apparently, a lot of what made it so clever has been incorporated into that game as well. Could be worth a look too.
Yeah, mongoose didn't have the resources or the player base to do a good job, the models were ok at best, and in the end, they didn't do the best job they could have done. to be fair, I don't know where they could have gone with it - starship troopers is incredibly limited as an IP in terms of where you can go (marines, bugs, skinnies)
[...]
Starship troopers is a brilliantly flawed game. Flawed because it had some severely broken mechanics (that were in line to be fixed, but then the game died) and needed some work, along with the previously mentioned very limited scope and produced by a company who couldn't push it as well as a bigger company could have. It was brilliant though because in wargaming terms it was probably ten years ahead of the curve mechanically wise, in terms of how the game was built. It was the first truly 'modern' Wargame if you ask me. I look at it and while its flawed, there is a real gem in there.
You should look for SSTpK, which is the never done 2nd Edi (there is no fixed rulebook out there, but some sort of Errata/FAQ).
It solved most of the broken stuff, made Skinnies playable and added another Fraction (free colonies).
A lot of people have their nostalgia blinds on - Fifth was pretty terrible in terms of balance. It certainly would not be a good jumping off point.
No Edition of 40k is a good jumping point off.
Thats one of the reasons why it need to be done from scratch. There is nothing from 2nd to 7th that you can take as base to start but just keeping the main elements, add the best ideas from every edition and write a new rulebook
I personally don't think 40k can or will be fixed long as GW is in control. They fix on thing with each edition but create 5 more problems. For example 5th edition people complained vehicle where to tough, so 6th edition adds HP to vehicles which makes them to weak, then adds a broken allied table, wound allocation, fliers, SH vehicles where added, Challenges, ect..
Nothing is going to change as long as accountants tell the rules department what to do. I'm not even going to talk about how bad the army codex are balanced because everyone knows
You should look for SSTpK, which is the never done 2nd Edi (there is no fixed rulebook out there, but some sort of Errata/FAQ).
It solved most of the broken stuff, made Skinnies playable and added another Fraction (free colonies).
I think that rings a bell, actually. I remember, years ago, speaking to a bunch of guys 'in the know', and got terribly excited about its 2nd ed. and then, it just quietly vanished :(
No Edition of 40k is a good jumping point off.
Thats one of the reasons why it need to be done from scratch. There is nothing from 2nd to 7th that you can take as base to start but just keeping the main elements, add the best ideas from every edition and write a new rulebook
The reason why so many people pick 5th edition as a starting point is that for all their flaws 4th and 5th -- very similar to each other -- actually were the most popular and widely played editions. This is proved by sales numbers, which increased since 1st/2nd/3rd and decreased in 6th/7th.
Lots of people left the game after 5th thanks to unwelcome changes brought in by 6th and made worse in 7th. These people would rather go back to 5th than play 7th, and naturally they hope that 8th might do that.
I think that rings a bell, actually. I remember, years ago, speaking to a bunch of guys 'in the know', and got terribly excited about its 2nd ed. and then, it just quietly vanished :(
I found some of the links for the Errata from one of the guys "in the know", you still need the original core rulebook and it is not complete regarding army lists (everything below is legal and does not offend any IP by MP):
Kilkrazy wrote: The reason why so many people pick 5th edition as a starting point is that for all their flaws 4th and 5th -- very similar to each other -- actually were the most popular and widely played editions. This is proved by sales numbers, which increased since 1st/2nd/3rd and decreased in 6th/7th.
Lots of people left the game after 5th thanks to unwelcome changes brought in by 6th and made worse in 7th. These people would rather go back to 5th than play 7th, and naturally they hope that 8th might do that.
And it seems like 30k is the closest we'll ever be to getting back to the glory of 5th. I guess I can live with just playing 30k, the lack of space wizards moving terrain 24 inches is at this point enough to keep me there.
jonolikespie wrote: What they need to do is have free rules for the models online, then use the codexes as pure art and fluff books for the armies that don't need to be brought to the table. Then whenever there is a new edition EVERY unit gets updated on the online database.
Backwards compatibility between editions is such a stone age concept at this point, I can't think of any other company that tries to do it.
An always changing rules manual that just tells you where the latest changes were made would really be the future of tomorrow here today kind of a thing and actually be a proper way to solve the issues. Seeing they already have interactive books of all codices (that seem to patch in errata) I can't see why that would be impossible. But here, i believe that sadly it will be the money that talks and the fear of trying something new holding back the rest.
And iI repeat, there is nothing in the world that locks this down to being something that is released by GW, apart from demanding a need to dodge licenses, even though it certainly would be nice if they were the ones to do it if not for anything else but for the sake of simplicity and lowering the bar for entry.
5th was excellent in terms of balance. It was certain codexes that were the problem. The core rules were fine.
The 5th was missing a good tank-system and had no rules for flyers which were introduced there. Wound allocation was also a problem because you were doing more damage if you shot less weapons.
So no, if you want to start from something, 5th is not an option.
5th was excellent in terms of balance. It was certain codexes that were the problem. The core rules were fine.
The 5th was missing a good tank-system and had no rules for flyers which were introduced there. Wound allocation was also a problem because you were doing more damage if you shot less weapons.
So no, if you want to start from something, 5th is not an option.
But compared to the other editions 5th was fine
Wound allocation was only a problem on a handful of (admittedly common, due to being able to exploit it) units. This is a codex problem. Not a problem with the rule itself.
This article crossed my facebook feed and I found it relevant to this topic as it reads to me of an example of game designers knowing what they are doing and giving their game the treatment 40k has been in desperate need of for at lest 2 editions now: http://privateerpress.com/community/privateer-insider/insider-04-18-2016
They talk about streamlining rules for faster play, removing randomness to make underutilized units more appealing without giving them too much of a boost, clearing clutter (both on the table and in the rules), removing a core mechanic and rebalancing EVERYTHING. All while trying to keep the core 'identity' of the game the same.
Wound allocation was only a problem on a handful of (admittedly common, due to being able to exploit it) units. This is a codex problem. Not a problem with the rule itself.
You didn't get it, the problem was not on the receiving end but by the shooting unit.
A 10 man squad with 2 plasma guns shooting at 10 Bolter Marines had a problem if it also used their standard weapon because than only 1 marine would die without save while using the plasma guns only, up to 4 marines die (if all hit).
It was not the exploit of TWC but that 08/15 dudes become markers for health points only again because shooting with them made the whole unit less effective.
MeanGreenStompa wrote:It can be fixed incredibly easily, if they look to 5th ed, and also to 30k and what FW do.
A lot of people have their nostalgia blinds on - Fifth was pretty terrible in terms of balance. It certainly would not be a good jumping off point.
Well, you're welcome to that opinion no matter how wrong it may be...
5th was excellent in terms of balance. It was certain codexes that were the problem. The core rules were fine.
If there were broken codices, (space wolves long fang spam, ig leaf blower, nob bikers, grey knights etc) then by definition it wasn't 'excellent in terms of balance'. Let's also not forget some of the other ridiculous things that existed at the time such as the wound allocation shenanigans. The game devolved into parking lots and armour hammer, which means, like all editions of 40k, it pushed a particular style over and above others.
Fifth was a refinement of third and fourth but like all the 40k games, it was clunky and unwieldy and a poor framework to build on.
There are two possibvle approaches. One is to modify or refine 40K from the existing rules. For the same of this project, that can include taking 5th edition and modifying it. After all, 6th and 7th editions are only modified versions of 5th, so clearly it's possible. It's also possible to turn 40K into Age of Emporer.
However if you believe all of 40K ever is irretrievably crocked, it would be best to start again from scratch.
This second course is unlikely as it would run a high risk of losing a lot of current players.
However if you believe all of 40K ever is irretrievably crocked, it would be best to start again from scratch.
This second course is unlikely as it would run a high risk of losing a lot of current players.
You lose players with both (look at fantasy, T9A is based on 8th Edition, all those who did not like that left), but the game does not need to be that much different just because you start from scratch.
Main elements from 2rd to 7th did not change, so keeping IGYG-Phase System, to hit/to wound tables, armour saves and tank armour.
Changes can be to add a movement value, roll back to armour modifications, add generic traits instead of unit types and special rules (the reduce the amount needed) and streamline the reaction rules (bring over watch, intercept and close combat in the line)
New rules can be about air units (complete new system for flyers) and psionic powers.
The changes overall would be on a level like 4th to 5th edition but without taking over some problems by copy & paste an existing edition
Kilkrazy wrote: There are two possibvle approaches. One is to modify or refine 40K from the existing rules. For the same of this project, that can include taking 5th edition and modifying it. After all, 6th and 7th editions are only modified versions of 5th, so clearly it's possible. It's also possible to turn 40K into Age of Emporer.
However if you believe all of 40K ever is irretrievably crocked, it would be best to start again from scratch.
This second course is unlikely as it would run a high risk of losing a lot of current players.
The first option I could see taking as many as two to three "Editions" of the game to get right, because I feel like you'd have to bring up all the codeces to the same edition (i.e. bring codeces like CSM up to 7th Edition), then play test and listen to the community about what's wrong, fix the existing problems (at least the big ones) and then repeat. Though I feel like this sort of thing would take an unrealistic amount of time and would also involve the fact that GW and FW can't add much (if anything), which isn't going to happen. So this option could work (and is still the more likely option), but I feel it would be a big risk in a business sense (because you're spending a lot of time trying to fix something and not adding anything to really entice new customers).
As for the second option, I only see that happening if at least GW withdraws completely from the industry for whatever reason. In other words, somebody else would have to pick up W40K for this to happen.
Kilkrazy wrote: There are two possibvle approaches. One is to modify or refine 40K from the existing rules. For the same of this project, that can include taking 5th edition and modifying it. After all, 6th and 7th editions are only modified versions of 5th, so clearly it's possible. It's also possible to turn 40K into Age of Emporer.
However if you believe all of 40K ever is irretrievably crocked, it would be best to start again from scratch.
This second course is unlikely as it would run a high risk of losing a lot of current players.
Also, what do you guys think about the vast amount of special rules and USR in general ?
I feel like they give flavour to the unit, but they are a pain to manage
___
@Kilkrazy : I still think it would be a lot easier to start from scratch for a new edition, because 40k is just so all over the place that it really lacks consistency. With a few steps :
1) Define a set of core mechanics for the rules with a clear goal in mind (right now the goal is to sell and allow players to put models on the table, which I see many people being vocal about). It can be anything really : a strategy game, a RPG-like game where unit stats are more important than how you play them. As long as all the mechanics make sense within the goals they're trying to achieve, the game designers will be praised.
2) Appropriately price the units in terms of points based on how what they can do within the current ruleset. For example, if Power Armour provides a 3+ save, then a model with a 3+ save could be priced 66.7% higher than a model with the same stats without Power Armour. Similarily, an AP3 weapon should be priced 66.7% higher than the same gear without AP3. Alternatively, an exponential pricing model can be designed based on the probability to fail saves : a 2+ model would technically fail twice as less saves as a 3+ save model, so it could be prived twice as much. Proper points pricing is not hard to do, if a baseline for the cost is clearly established.
3) Playtest and release several armies for the first wave. Complete a second wave of releases within a couple of months.
4) Profit.
GW say they are a model company, I think they should stick to that and stop writing rules all together.
Get a 3rd party to write the rules.
After the death of WHFB I started playing a lot of other companies games. Mantic's approach with KoW was a great change from GW's. Their recent expansion book was written by a 3rd party and it works really well. The armies are extremely well balanced.
GreyCrow wrote: Also, what do you guys think about the vast amount of special rules and USR in general ?
They are out of control.
GW cut of a lot of rules just to bring it back with the new unit release.
At the moment there are more units in the game which ignore most of the core rules than following them (and those that do are considered bad)
Yeah, I agree as much. Like you said, I think that the core (aka shared) rules should be as expansive as possible, and special rules being several exceptions.
For example, "Interceptor" is a cool rule. But rather than having it limited to several models, I would have it that a unit can forfeit its shooting to shoot at something that enters into its line of sight in their opponent's activation (with penalties). It would make playing defensively quite a bit more effective for people who choose to do so.
Then, the ability for the player to strategize will be more important than the Codexes having access to special rules.
@grendel : Interesting info, I'll check these out !
GreyCrow wrote: Also, what do you guys think about the vast amount of special rules and USR in general ?
I feel like they give flavour to the unit, but they are a pain to manage
I have a HUGE problem with the way they work.
It's something that's easier to compare with ye ol' Warhammer fantasy and Kings of War than 40k, but the concept is exactly the same.
In WHFB, just like 40k, there where a lot of special rules in the core book, then each army book (codex) would add a few more more special rules, and then on top of that a TON of units would each have their own rules. The worst part is so many of those rules are just wordy ways to express the same thing. Kings of War had all it's special rules in the core book. Every single one of them. Unit entries would then just say 'Pathfinder' 'Brutal' and 'Elite' and you'd know EXACTLY what that unit does.
How many different units in 40k currently have fluffy names for rules that could replaced with 'reroll X' USRs?
AoS is a horrible offender of this, with no USRs at all and EVERY unit in the game having it's own special rules written in full on it's unit entry, and seemingly every unit has some sort of unique ability. GW's design philosophy seems to be leaning towards this more and more, everything is unique, making it seem fluffy and cool, but it bogs the game down so much and, imo, doesn't add much that couldn't be added with a cleaner, clearer system.
kodos wrote: Agree
The Kings of War style is the way it should be done and they are more like unit and weapon traits than real special rules
So, I checked KOW and Mantic Games, and I'm not sure how well they are doing from a financial standpoint or a sales perspective (I just have no info). Do you guys know how well they are recieved ?
kodos wrote: Agree
The Kings of War style is the way it should be done and they are more like unit and weapon traits than real special rules
So, I checked KOW and Mantic Games, and I'm not sure how well they are doing from a financial standpoint or a sales perspective (I just have no info). Do you guys know how well they are recieved ?
Growing consistently, got huge numbers for their Kickstarters, and when AoS hit they rushed their already about to be released KoW 2nd ed out the door and became the go to place for warhammer fantasy players who didn't want what AoS was offering. Like a lot of other companies they seem to be doing very well in the current climate, and while people will complain about the quality of the models, they are dirt cheap. It is run by a lot of the old timers who built up and then left or were driven out of GW, so not surprisingly it feels much like GW did back in the.. I wanna say it was the early-mid 90s?
Reflecting back to the OP, this is an example of GW's modus operandi for "fixing" things:
1. Back in 2nd edition, there was a Movement stat. It told you how far any unit could move, run or charge.
2. Clearly this was too complicated, it needed fixing, so first we remove the Movement stat...
3... then we add a gakload of special rules dealing with how each unit moves, runs, charges, flees, pursues, moves on difficult terrain, etc.
4. ?????
5. PROFIT!
Good luck having 40k fixed, folks.
The best thing that could happen would be 40k End Times -> Age of Whatever -> Community takes over -> a "ninth edition" style ruleset. Won't be perfect, not everybody will like it, still it will be a thousand times better than what we currently have.
Isn't part of the big issue that the rules have basically been unchanged since 3rd? This isn't really "7th" edition, it's basically 3.4th edition.
The biggest issue for me is that I remember 3rd edition, and it was still roughly a platoon-type game. You had a bunch of units, a couple of vehicles (although this was the age of Rhino Rush) and that was it. The rules were fine at that point. The issue now is the game has grown, the rules have not. So you have platoon level rules in a battalion-level game. But if you look at virtually every other larger-scale game, the rules are more abstract. 40k focuses on minutiae: This model has a plasma gun, this other model has a lascannon, all these models have boltguns. At battalion level, that should be largely irrelevant.
What there needs to be I think is two scales of 40k, using the same models. Your skirmish/platoon level that focuses on the minutiae, and then an abstracted version that uses movement trays (those weirdly shaped round pegged trays you see in games like SAGA I think) so you can easily handle units, and lots of them. That might have the effect that third party people make Not-40k 15mm or 20mm or 6mm or whatever scale figures that people start using, but GW needs to ignore that. An abstracted "apocalypse" 40k that allows all the big toys but streamlines unit combat would make things a lot better. Basically true 28mm Epic, since that's what the game seems to want to be. Epic (and I mean the last version, I'm not familiar with the old one) had abstracted rules but it was fun, it didn't care about the specific heavy weapon a unit had, just that it had one, so an abstracted large-scale 40k game should be the same way. GW could easily make movement trays (I imagine something like 5-model trays that snap together) and sell those (overpriced, but IMHO maybe worth it). And then you have the added benefit of being able to play abstracted 40k for a large battle, and drop down to low-level 40k for specific chunks of battles or skirmish-type scenarios, and play out campaigns that way.
Watching that game is like people mashing two bricks together and rolling dice, until an arbitrary number of successful dice have been rolled by one side and one brick mysteriously disappears.
The game play of 40k has been compromised from the beginning.
Rick and Brian wrote Rogue Trader to help sell Citadels (GWs) 28mm scifi minatures.
As WHFB was the biggest non historical game back them they used the WHFB rule set as a base for the new skirmish/RPG hybrid game.
This cross over , allowed lots of WHFB players to switch to scifi minatures without having to learn a new rule set.
2nd ed was simply an attempt to increase the game size slightly to large skirmish , and make it more suited to pick up and play games then R.T. was.
Most 40k players were happy with the changes from RT to 2nd ed.(No need for a GM any more!)
The rushed 3rd ed rules were a rushed hatchet job of WHFB rules,the devs made mistakes under pressure from the sales department, and admitted later that they had 'thrown the baby out with the bath water.'
In the 11th hour rush they cut the level of complication, but also cut the game play complexity far more.
3rd ed soon got the title 'bland hammer', and the devs tried to fix this by adding in variety back in by adding in USRs, special rules, and faction specific special rules in the codex books.
4th an 5th edition tried to carry on tweeking the game play .But the complete lack of fine adjustment in the hatcheted WHFB core rules , only allowed heavy handed swings in meta. The only way open for the devs was to use more special rules to try to off set the imbalance between shooting and assault. causing the meta swing.
I think we can say the game size of 4th and 5th ed was the most popular.
As the larger Apoc/7th ed games using all the big toys takes far more negotiation to arrive at a mutually agreeable fun game, and is therefore not suited to random pick up games.
As players have ALWAYS had the ability to make up cool scenarios campaigns and special rules for any units, when they want to ARRANGE NARRATIVE GAMES WITH LIKE MINDED PLAYERS.
Why the feth do they need to have official permission in the rule book to support this type of game ?I know GW sales department want to push as many big kits as far as they can.But come on dudes think of the newbs !
If experienced 40k players coming back to the game after a break are confused by the amount of information they have to wade through, what chance have the potential new players got?
If we look at the units in the 4th and 5th ed of 40k.And then look at the sort of rules inclusive rules writing would use.(EG cover as much of the game play as possible.)
They would look very different to WHFB based rues that have been modified with exclusive rues writing to promote short term sales interest.(Special snowflake special rules.)
But oddly enough simpler rules could deliver much more tactical depth.As proved by lots of other games written by games companies!
Watching that game is like people mashing two bricks together and rolling dice, until an arbitrary number of successful dice have been rolled by one side and one brick mysteriously disappears.
You mean how virtually all historical games work? Sorry, I happen to think the KOW model is great. Abstract enough to not take all day to play, but flexible enough to make things up if needed to fit the "narrative".
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Lanrak wrote: The game play of 40k has been compromised from the beginning.
Rick and Brian wrote Rogue Trader to help sell Citadels (GWs) 28mm scifi minatures. As WHFB was the biggest non historical game back them they used the WHFB rule set as a base for the new skirmish/RPG hybrid game.
This cross over , allowed lots of WHFB players to switch to scifi minatures without having to learn a new rule set.
2nd ed was simply an attempt to increase the game size slightly to large skirmish , and make it more suited to pick up and play games then R.T. was. Most 40k players were happy with the changes from RT to 2nd ed.(No need for a GM any more!)
The rushed 3rd ed rules were a rushed hatchet job of WHFB rules,the devs made mistakes under pressure from the sales department, and admitted later that they had 'thrown the baby out with the bath water.'
In the 11th hour rush they cut the level of complication, but also cut the game play complexity far more.
3rd ed soon got the title 'bland hammer', and the devs tried to fix this by adding in variety back in by adding in USRs, special rules, and faction specific special rules in the codex books.
4th an 5th edition tried to carry on tweeking the game play .But the complete lack of fine adjustment in the hatcheted WHFB core rules , only allowed heavy handed swings in meta. The only way open for the devs was to use more special rules to try to off set the imbalance between shooting and assault. causing the meta swing.
I think we can say the game size of 4th and 5th ed was the most popular.
As the larger Apoc/7th ed games using all the big toys takes far more negotiation to arrive at a mutually agreeable fun game, and is therefore not suited to random pick up games.
As players have ALWAYS had the ability to make up cool scenarios campaigns and special rules for any units, when they want to ARRANGE NARRATIVE GAMES WITH LIKE MINDED PLAYERS.
Why the feth do they need to have official permission in the rule book to support this type of game ?I know GW sales department want to push as many big kits as far as they can.But come on dudes think of the newbs ! If experienced 40k players coming back to the game after a break are confused by the amount of information they have to wade through, what chance have the potential new players got?
If we look at the units in the 4th and 5th ed of 40k.And then look at the sort of rules inclusive rules writing would use.(EG cover as much of the game play as possible.)
They would look very different to WHFB based rues that have been modified with exclusive rues writing to promote short term sales interest.(Special snowflake special rules.)
But oddly enough simpler rules could deliver much more tactical depth.As proved by lots of other games written by games companies!
This is the thing. The rules themselves should be as tightly-focused, clear and concise as possible. That way there's no rule ambiguity (e.g. does power x work in situation y, because the wording is vague), no rules arguments, no having to decide beforehand with house rules or the like how to interpret X rule. This also lends itself to balanced competitive play when forces are balanced. The narrative/fluff/casual/whatever gamers have never needed approval to change things up for the scenario or campaign, ever. I do not get why GW feels the need to shoehorn everything in. I get they want you to be able to buy whatever and use it in a game, but even with their "blessing" your opponent can choose to not play you if you field something they don't want to play against. So GW has in effect done nothing but make the game gakky as a whole because it's an unbalanced mess, and the logic behind including everything doesn't work because your opponent isn't forced to play you.
A balanced set of rules could appeal to everybody, casual and competitive alike. GW doesn't want to understand that, for whatever reason and want to focus on not only the extreme least likely to care about the rules at all (since they would change things depending on the scenario) and does such a poor job at it that they actually hurt casual/narrative/fluff players more than competitive players anyways.
Watching that game is like people mashing two bricks together and rolling dice, until an arbitrary number of successful dice have been rolled by one side and one brick mysteriously disappears.
You mean how virtually all historical games work? Sorry, I happen to think the KOW model is great. Abstract enough to not take all day to play, but flexible enough to make things up if needed to fit the "narrative".
Well, I've played Field of Glory and Flames of War, which are both historicals, and there's more distinction than "here are two bricks" including complex interactions between pike walls and shield walls, or IS-2 tanks and Puma armoured cars...
... In my experience, you could replace the square bases of Kings of War regiments with cardboard, or actual bricks and have no miniatures at all and the game would function just fine.
I had an old friend who used to say that "if you can play the game without miniatures, it isn't a miniatures game."
I had an old friend who used to say that "if you can play the game without miniatures, it isn't a miniatures game."
Guess what, I can play 40k without models and a table at all, just need 2 army lists and some dice.
Unit1126PLL wrote: OMG Please don't use the Kings of War model.
Watching that game is like people mashing two bricks together and rolling dice, until an arbitrary number of successful dice have been rolled by one side and one brick mysteriously disappears.
So because you have seen regiments on the table you know how the rules-model work?
And 40k works completely like you describe it (roll some dice and by magic the other one lost the game)
Watching that game is like people mashing two bricks together and rolling dice, until an arbitrary number of successful dice have been rolled by one side and one brick mysteriously disappears.
You mean how virtually all historical games work? Sorry, I happen to think the KOW model is great. Abstract enough to not take all day to play, but flexible enough to make things up if needed to fit the "narrative".
Well, I've played Field of Glory and Flames of War, which are both historicals, and there's more distinction than "here are two bricks" including complex interactions between pike walls and shield walls, or IS-2 tanks and Puma armoured cars...
... In my experience, you could replace the square bases of Kings of War regiments with cardboard, or actual bricks and have no miniatures at all and the game would function just fine.
I had an old friend who used to say that "if you can play the game without miniatures, it isn't a miniatures game."
Granted I am ignorant of many historical games, but doesn't the same thing apply there due to basing? Can't you use rectangles with "Pikemen" or "Infantry" written on them for FOG since it's still, IIRC from what I've read, based on a certain width (i.e. DBx basing)? I was under the impression that KoW used a similar concept to where it's the depth/size of the entire unit, not the individual models that mattered, which to me makes it a great prospect because you can do "diorama basing" and spread your money even further, buying a single box of models can give you several units worth if you do quasi-DBx style basing (albeit larger scale) with like 4 figures on a scenic base as one unit of infantry instead of 20 individual figures ranked up.
Watching that game is like people mashing two bricks together and rolling dice, until an arbitrary number of successful dice have been rolled by one side and one brick mysteriously disappears.
You mean how virtually all historical games work? Sorry, I happen to think the KOW model is great. Abstract enough to not take all day to play, but flexible enough to make things up if needed to fit the "narrative".
Well, I've played Field of Glory and Flames of War, which are both historicals, and there's more distinction than "here are two bricks" including complex interactions between pike walls and shield walls, or IS-2 tanks and Puma armoured cars...
... In my experience, you could replace the square bases of Kings of War regiments with cardboard, or actual bricks and have no miniatures at all and the game would function just fine.
I had an old friend who used to say that "if you can play the game without miniatures, it isn't a miniatures game."
Granted I am ignorant of many historical games, but doesn't the same thing apply there due to basing? Can't you use rectangles with "Pikemen" or "Infantry" written on them for FOG since it's still, IIRC from what I've read, based on a certain width (i.e. DBx basing)? I was under the impression that KoW used a similar concept to where it's the depth/size of the entire unit, not the individual models that mattered, which to me makes it a great prospect because you can do "diorama basing" and spread your money even further, buying a single box of models can give you several units worth if you do quasi-DBx style basing (albeit larger scale) with like 4 figures on a scenic base as one unit of infantry instead of 20 individual figures ranked up.
YMMV though.
In Field of Glory the base of a given battlegroup changes size, so you have to have miniatures (or at least base segments) to remove. But strictly speaking, no, minis are not required for that game either.
Unit1126PLL wrote: OMG Please don't use the Kings of War model.
Watching that game is like people mashing two bricks together and rolling dice, until an arbitrary number of successful dice have been rolled by one side and one brick mysteriously disappears.
So because you have seen regiments on the table you know how the rules-model work?
And 40k works completely like you describe it (roll some dice and by magic the other one lost the game)
Well, there's usually more to it than that, including models being killed and removed, others entering the table from reserves, still more suffering damage like tanks with their main guns pulled off...
Last time I checked line of sight I needed a model. Unless you're just being snarky and missed my point.
With the current state of the game, for some pairings it is enough to roll for psionic powers, draw mission cards and who goes first to know who will win.
Not even worth to put the minis on the table any more.
GreyCrow wrote: Also, what do you guys think about the vast amount of special rules and USR in general ?
I feel like they give flavour to the unit, but they are a pain to manage
I have a HUGE problem with the way they work.
It's something that's easier to compare with ye ol' Warhammer fantasy and Kings of War than 40k, but the concept is exactly the same.
In WHFB, just like 40k, there where a lot of special rules in the core book, then each army book (codex) would add a few more more special rules, and then on top of that a TON of units would each have their own rules. The worst part is so many of those rules are just wordy ways to express the same thing. Kings of War had all it's special rules in the core book. Every single one of them. Unit entries would then just say 'Pathfinder' 'Brutal' and 'Elite' and you'd know EXACTLY what that unit does.
How many different units in 40k currently have fluffy names for rules that could replaced with 'reroll X' USRs?
AoS is a horrible offender of this, with no USRs at all and EVERY unit in the game having it's own special rules written in full on it's unit entry, and seemingly every unit has some sort of unique ability. GW's design philosophy seems to be leaning towards this more and more, everything is unique, making it seem fluffy and cool, but it bogs the game down so much and, imo, doesn't add much that couldn't be added with a cleaner, clearer system.
There was an honest attempt in 6th Edition to reign-in special rules, and move all USRs to the BRB. Unfortunately, it was short-lived, and the codexes that tried to adhere to this design model ended up being the ones that got left behind when later books abandoned this concept. But, the idea that ALL codexes would have to adhere to a consistent USR model of design would be necessary in any talk of a fan edition to 40K. Every army might have a handful of rules which are unque to itself, but no more special rules on EACH fething unit.
Which brings me to a question: how would people feel if the basic Troop armament was relegated to a generic "assault weapon" profile? No more boltguns, lasguns, shuriken catapults, spinefists, shootas, or gauss rifles. Every unit from every codex would have a Troop unit with basic assault rifles that always wound on a 4+. There would be options for upgrades to specials and heavies like normal, but there would be no more comparing Strength to Toughness and there would be no special rules attached to the weapons of basic Troops.
Which brings me to a question: how would people feel if the basic Troop armament was relegated to a generic "assault weapon" profile? No more boltguns, lasguns, shuriken catapults, spinefists, shootas, or gauss rifles. Every unit from every codex would have a Troop unit with basic assault rifles that always wound on a 4+. There would be options for upgrades to specials and heavies like normal, but there would be no more comparing Strength to Toughness and there would be no special rules attached to the weapons of basic Troops.
While I like the streamlining it brings, it will be difficult to keep the troop differences in some factions with that system.
It will work fine for units with pretty big stat differences, so your space marine will be fundamentally different to your guardsman, even with identical guns.
But how would a Tau Fire Warrior be different in game to a Guardsman in that scenario? Their statline is basically the same. Without having a superior gun you can't really justify the increased cost of the Fire Warrior and so you end up with Fire Warriors basically becoming alien clones of guardsmen.
Which, again, from a streamlining point of view is great but it does erode some of the character of the armies.
But how would a Tau Fire Warrior be different in game to a Guardsman in that scenario? Their statline is basically the same. Without having a superior gun you can't really justify the increased cost of the Fire Warrior and so you end up with Fire Warriors basically becoming alien clones of guardsmen.
Is it necessary for the basic weapon of every race to be different? Some races will be better marksmen, and some races will have better armor. Do we really need the added complexity of different ranges, power, and special rules for the basic building block of all armies?
Which, again, from a streamlining point of view is great but it does erode some of the character of the armies.
Can you really avoid losing some flavor when the goals are to avoid IP infringement and to make a simpler, more intuitive game? If you don't start at the basic level of the game (Troops), how can you hope to balance Elites and more diversely equipped units in the game?
BTW, these are legitimate questions. I'm not claiming a flat, 4+ to wound assault rifle is the (only) way to go.
But while it might sounds good for streamlining, it is not necessary and may end up bad.
Because removing strength vs toughness and replace it by a to wound roll of the acting model is the worst you can do.
Thats one reason why AoS is a bad design.
You would always roll against the "toughness" of the target if a comparing table is removed.
My weapon always wounds on a 3+, no matte if I shot at guardsman, Carnifex or Baneblades just do not work for a wide range of different models like 40k
The "to wound" table is of the basic rules of 40k and also one thing that is an advantage because it allows an open scale.
as long as there is a hardcap of +/-2 or 3 you are not limited in profiles etc.
(as an example: no need for special rules that make a Titan unkillable by standard weapons and special rules for TK weapons, just give him T20 and the Titankiller weapon S20. Now the titan can only be killed by special weapons and the TK weapons instant kills everything with T10 or less. No special rules needed, it uses the same core rules like everything etc)
Can you really avoid losing some flavor when the goals are to avoid IP infringement and to make a simpler, more intuitive game? If you don't start at the basic level of the game (Troops), how can you hope to balance Elites and more diversely equipped units in the game?
BTW, these are legitimate questions. I'm not claiming a flat, 4+ to wound assault rifle is the (only) way to go.
The IP is not the problem, it is just about names and not rules (as long as they are not copy paste)
And it is a basic Design question. Give all the same weapon and make elite just be a better profile, or give elite better weapons.
And are Marines an Elite compared to guard, or are they the same and a basic marine is just a better protected guardsman
Look. Determining point values for units is not that hard, it just takes a lot of practice games. Get 8-12 players and increase the point value on a unit until most of the players are on the fence about taking the unit. If players never take a unit, it needs to be cheaper. If something is being spammed, it needs to be more expensive. You don't need to be dead on.But you need to be close A 15 pt model that costs 17 or 13 isn't game breaking. A 290 pt WK that should be 450 is.
GreyCrow wrote: Also, what do you guys think about the vast amount of special rules and USR in general ?
I feel like they give flavour to the unit, but they are a pain to manage
I have a HUGE problem with the way they work.
It's something that's easier to compare with ye ol' Warhammer fantasy and Kings of War than 40k, but the concept is exactly the same. In WHFB, just like 40k, there where a lot of special rules in the core book, then each army book (codex) would add a few more more special rules, and then on top of that a TON of units would each have their own rules. The worst part is so many of those rules are just wordy ways to express the same thing. Kings of War had all it's special rules in the core book. Every single one of them. Unit entries would then just say 'Pathfinder' 'Brutal' and 'Elite' and you'd know EXACTLY what that unit does.
How many different units in 40k currently have fluffy names for rules that could replaced with 'reroll X' USRs? AoS is a horrible offender of this, with no USRs at all and EVERY unit in the game having it's own special rules written in full on it's unit entry, and seemingly every unit has some sort of unique ability. GW's design philosophy seems to be leaning towards this more and more, everything is unique, making it seem fluffy and cool, but it bogs the game down so much and, imo, doesn't add much that couldn't be added with a cleaner, clearer system.
I don't think special rules are a problem, it doesn't really matter if they are written in the codices or the main rulebook, as long as they are *special* rules and not *everyone has one* rules.
With more recent editions of 40k I just start forgetting what special rules are, even the core ones in the rulebook because there are just so fething many of them. "Is that the rule that does this, or is it the one that does that?" The special rules section of the rulebook are the most worn out pages
Having a couple of army wide special rules written in to your codex (like, 1 to 3 at most) and maybe elite units having their own special rule (like, 1 at most) would be fine.
Korinov wrote:Reflecting back to the OP, this is an example of GW's modus operandi for "fixing" things:
1. Back in 2nd edition, there was a Movement stat. It told you how far any unit could move, run or charge. 2. Clearly this was too complicated, it needed fixing, so first we remove the Movement stat... 3... then we add a gakload of special rules dealing with how each unit moves, runs, charges, flees, pursues, moves on difficult terrain, etc. 4. ????? 5. PROFIT!
Good luck having 40k fixed, folks.
The best thing that could happen would be 40k End Times -> Age of Whatever -> Community takes over -> a "ninth edition" style ruleset. Won't be perfect, not everybody will like it, still it will be a thousand times better than what we currently have.
The removal of the movement stat is one of the most baffling choices GW made. It was so fething simple and to replace it with a universal system just makes it too complicated.
Personally I don't mind having lots of stats on the unit sheets, having 10 or so stats doesn't bother me in the slightest, I don't see it as advantageous in other games that "simplify" by removing stats that could be used to differentiate units.
But I think the removal of the movement stat comes back to GW thinking we're all morons that can't do math. They are scared to give us anything that is a modifier or requires us to calculate something, so instead make up silly rules to try and account for things that would be sooo much better as modifiers. Like movement, God forbid someone has calculate what double or half of their movement might be. Or snap shots, we can't have to poor kids subtracting a modifier from their ballistic skill, better make it an all or nothing so they don't have to think about it. Or cover, calculating a to hit modifier is too complicated, better make it a flat save that is either negated or not. Or armour, can't have armour modifiers, instead we have to invent an all or nothing armour system, because our customers are surely too stupid to figure out if their Spehss Mareen has a 3+ save and gets hit with a -2 modifier what the result will be.
Unit1126PLL wrote:I had an old friend who used to say that "if you can play the game without miniatures, it isn't a miniatures game."
Yeah pretty much every game can be played with counters instead of miniatures. At most you have to modify line of sight rules (and LoS rules are always a compromise anyway so it's hardly a big deal).
It's just KoW the counters will be larger, representing entire units instead of individual models.
@kodos : I agree you need a relative measure, but some absolutes are always interesting.
For example, Power Armour works for any shot that has a worse AP than 3, then stops working as soon as you throw a S1 AP2 shot at it.
Having to roll to penetrate armour, then having an absolute To Wound roll works exactly the same in terms of game statistics
Regarding having different stats for the basic Troops, it's not really that hard and would actually show the difference of doctrines between armies.
But, the game system needs to create niches where each basic Troops has an advantage.
If we had modifiers to BS (+/-) based on range, it would make infantry much more viable due to getting more efficient the closer they are and the harder to hit at long range due to their smaller profile. (I'm sure you're well aware of this, but for the other people who don't understand why range modifiers for BS make sense, spoiler alert : a smaller target is harder to hit, and the further a target is, the smaller it becomes relative to the field of view of the shooter). Same goes for cover.
Then, within that "close range is where infantry shines", different armies would have different strengths based on their basic doctrines. While Space Marines would want to be in melee to capitalize on their better physiology, Tau Firewarriors would instead love to be more defensive.
But, for that, we also need some form of reaction fire.
This is nothing new
similar formats are there for more than a year now and all of them have one big issue.
they only are for one specific group of the actual players, oldhammer, hardcore, fluff-points etc there is nothing that brings the community together but just helps to split it up even more
People have been trying for the past 2 decades. Probably longer, but that's the extent of my experience.
People all over the world have been using modified rulesets for a long time. It's getting to have widespread use, even in your local area if not the whole world, usually ends up an exercise in futility and a splintered community playing better versions of 40k is arguably worse than everyone just playing the one crap version.
People have been trying for the past 2 decades. Probably longer, but that's the extent of my experience.
People all over the world have been using modified rulesets for a long time. It's getting to have widespread use, even in your local area if not the whole world, usually ends up an exercise in futility and a splintered community playing better versions of 40k is arguably worse than everyone just playing the one crap version.
Well the issue is that given the "ideal" situation to play 40k, i.e. a gaming club, having "club rules is a thing. The issue is that they are also positioning 40k as being something you can play against anyone anywhere, while the rules are so poorly balanced that it's impossible to know who interprets what in which way.
Tournament "house rules" are an ideal testing ground: you will never find a more dedicated crew trying to leverage the rules.
Any large gaming group hosting a tournament can become an authoritative body due to experience and trial by fire.
The top two "winners" should be able to submit a "fix" as part of the prize.
Maybe the person voted as the most "fluffy" gets a say too.
AllSeeingSkink wrote: The removal of the movement stat is one of the most baffling choices GW made. It was so fething simple and to replace it with a universal system just makes it too complicated.
Personally I don't mind having lots of stats on the unit sheets, having 10 or so stats doesn't bother me in the slightest, I don't see it as advantageous in other games that "simplify" by removing stats that could be used to differentiate units.
But I think the removal of the movement stat comes back to GW thinking we're all morons that can't do math. They are scared to give us anything that is a modifier or requires us to calculate something, so instead make up silly rules to try and account for things that would be sooo much better as modifiers. Like movement, God forbid someone has calculate what double or half of their movement might be. Or snap shots, we can't have to poor kids subtracting a modifier from their ballistic skill, better make it an all or nothing so they don't have to think about it. Or cover, calculating a to hit modifier is too complicated, better make it a flat save that is either negated or not. Or armour, can't have armour modifiers, instead we have to invent an all or nothing armour system, because our customers are surely too stupid to figure out if their Spehss Mareen has a 3+ save and gets hit with a -2 modifier what the result will be.
There's nothing wrong with having many stats if they have a real impact on the game. You'd think Movement would be one of the most important stats, but somehow GW decided that some units moving one inch less or more than others would be too complicated. Piling tons of special rules upon more special rules is clearly the way to go! And on a more serious note, the "special rule to fix anything" design philosophy has ended up poisoning the minds of too many players, just give a look at any proposed rules thread (or at its entire subforum) and you'll find people asking for more, more and more special rules, while the general view of the game is that it already has too many damn special rules to begin with.
The current cover mechanic is also incredibly slowed. The game even forces you to choose between armor/invul or cover save, which is amazingly stupid (I get behind a wall, now I must choose between the wall and my armor to stop the bullet... wtf?). The excuse about "speeding up" the game by not allowing more than one save has got ridiculous at this point, in a game where you're rolling dice on random tables before you even begin to play.
An armor modifiers mechanic would also be preferable to the 'all or nothing', but I fear the D6 system is too limited for it, you'd need D10 at least. Which by the way is a vastly superior dice system if compared to D6, and infinitely more suited for a game with as much gear diversity as 40k.
A good read and seems to echo a lot of what people are saying in this thread. I find it interesting that he thinks the Angels of Death supplement might be a tipping point for people leaving the game. Personally, I find the supplement and the psychic powers obnoxious. We know GW loves to sell Space Marines, but the whole idea that they needed more buffs came out of nowhere and just piles more gak on the gakpile.
But his basic premise of simply limiting what can be taken in a tournament setting is not really new (he admits as much), and it doesn't address the more important point that the rules are becoming toxic to the community.
the_Armyman wrote: Personally, I find the supplement and the psychic powers obnoxious. We know GW loves to sell Space Marines, but the whole idea that they needed more buffs came out of nowhere and just piles more gak on the gakpile.
Yeah and the constant shakeup of the release format makes it just one more nail in the coffin.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
the_Armyman wrote: But his basic premise of simply limiting what can be taken in a tournament setting is not really new (he admits as much), and it doesn't address the more important point that the rules are becoming toxic to the community.
No but it hopefully brings out the like minded people who miss the skirmish game they used to play that's been drowned out by all the apoc sillyness. That doesn't balance the codex's but at least it limits crazy to some degree. It's nice to see an army comprising of just a single faction for once. A combined force of arms is always better than the GI collection of stuff that we see more and more of. I'd play that format in a heartbeat. It doesn't balance the codex's but it can't. No sense making the perect the enemy of the good I say, just getting rid of all the silly army creation nonsense like formations and all the lord of war and knight crap can give everything else room to breath.
Crablezworth wrote: No sense making the perect the enemy of the good I say, just getting rid of all the silly army creation nonsense like formations and all the lord of war and knight crap can give everything else room to breath.
This is where I have to disagree. Like it or not formations are now part of the game. Things like alternate detachments and characters with FOC swaps (which were perfectly acceptable in previous editions) have been replaced by formations. And people have built their armies around those alternate options, so it isn't really fair to take them away. Likewise with LoW. There's an obvious argument for nerfing the game-breaking ones, but LoW are here to stay. The focus needs to be on making these things work in a sensible way, not imposing blanket bans and trying to force the game back into an edition that no longer exists.
Crablezworth wrote: No sense making the perect the enemy of the good I say, just getting rid of all the silly army creation nonsense like formations and all the lord of war and knight crap can give everything else room to breath.
This is where I have to disagree. Like it or not formations are now part of the game. Things like alternate detachments and characters with FOC swaps (which were perfectly acceptable in previous editions) have been replaced by formations. And people have built their armies around those alternate options, so it isn't really fair to take them away. Likewise with LoW. There's an obvious argument for nerfing the game-breaking ones, but LoW are here to stay. The focus needs to be on making these things work in a sensible way, not imposing blanket bans and trying to force the game back into an edition that no longer exists.
And those people can play itc and everyone's happy.
Crablezworth wrote: No sense making the perect the enemy of the good I say, just getting rid of all the silly army creation nonsense like formations and all the lord of war and knight crap can give everything else room to breath.
This is where I have to disagree. Like it or not formations are now part of the game. Things like alternate detachments and characters with FOC swaps (which were perfectly acceptable in previous editions) have been replaced by formations. And people have built their armies around those alternate options, so it isn't really fair to take them away. Likewise with LoW. There's an obvious argument for nerfing the game-breaking ones, but LoW are here to stay. The focus needs to be on making these things work in a sensible way, not imposing blanket bans and trying to force the game back into an edition that no longer exists.
And those people can play itc and everyone's happy.
Everyone is somewhat happy, but only at the cost of fragmenting the community. It was a bad situation when FW units were rarely allowed and if you had the wrong army you weren't welcome unless you were able to find one of the few events that had a sensible policy, but then the anti-FW crowd wouldn't go to those events. You're talking about bringing back the same kind of thing, where a person can't just say "hey, a 40k tournament, I'll go play some games", they have to find the right group that hosts events where their army is legal.
Peregrine wrote: You're talking about bringing back the same kind of thing, where a person can't just say "hey, a 40k tournament, I'll go play some games", they have to find the right group that hosts events where their army is legal.
We have this situation already, at least here around.
3 different FAQ's and players are just visiting those events that use the FAQ which suits their army more and block the rest
3 different kind of restrictions (old school 40k, FW+30k allowed, everything allowed except FW) and players are blocking the one they don't like
And with Angels of Death it got worse.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Peregrine wrote: not imposing blanket bans and trying to force the game back into an edition that no longer exists.
Obviously, people don't like bans, just look at the rage when their favourite unit/army gets nurfed
Which is why a "brave new world" approach where none of their investment is wasted because each thing they bought can do something cool is an elegant and sensible approach.
I think that aside from the obivous moneygrab from some rules, most of the detachments/formations were designed to help players in the army design, but it backfired due to some ludicrous requirements and the obivous quirks in the rules as well as the poor pricing of some units and weapons.
Typically, with Marines I spend 50% of the points in "line units" (with Objective Secured, whether it's in the Gladius or CAD), 25% in proper fire support (which can be anything that has long range dakka) and 25% in proper melee capabilities (anything that can punch through a lot in melee). The line unit is then equipped to provide a backup AP2 high strength support at any range (including Power Fists). I found that this was quite a decent set up for the Marines, as long as you realize that the core line units will only be a backup for the damage carried by other units.
The issue with formations like the Gladius is the fact that the requirements for some auxiliaries are quite ludicrous, so people tend to create imbalanced list, which defeats the purpose of the "army template".
The current cover mechanic is also incredibly slowed. The game even forces you to choose between armor/invul or cover save, which is amazingly stupid (I get behind a wall, now I must choose between the wall and my armor to stop the bullet... wtf?). The excuse about "speeding up" the game by not allowing more than one save has got ridiculous at this point, in a game where you're rolling dice on random tables before you even begin to play.
.
Yeah, the cover system is horrible as it is today and is unfair to high armour saves while providing an amazing boost to units with low saves.
GreyCrow wrote: Obviously, people don't like bans, just look at the rage when their favourite unit/army gets nurfed
Which is why a "brave new world" approach where none of their investment is wasted because each thing they bought can do something cool is an elegant and sensible approach.
...
This is where a system based on the AoS idea of war scrolls and key words could work very nicely. You want to play without Lords of War? Just don't use any scrolls with the LoW key word. You want to play a real game? Don't use any war scrolls with the Infantry key word. And so on.
Age of Emporer war scrolls will also have a power rating that allows the selection of balanced armies to chosen point limits.
Formations will be used to offer pre-set balanced armies that are fluffy and nicely themed (recon unit, siege unit and the like.)
40K players are used to the idea that all of their books will become obsolete over the course of four years due to a new rules edition (except the poor old Xenos players who often have had to wait 6 to 10 years for a new codex.)
It should be too much of a pain to abandon the whole rulebook and start again with an Age of Emporer system that provides free rules and war scrolls.
Korinov wrote: An armor modifiers mechanic would also be preferable to the 'all or nothing', but I fear the D6 system is too limited for it, you'd need D10 at least. Which by the way is a vastly superior dice system if compared to D6, and infinitely more suited for a game with as much gear diversity as 40k.
I think armour modifiers can work with a D6. The problem back in 2nd edition with armour modifiers was damned near everything was at least -1. Even your lowly lasgun or bolter or chainsword was -1, the only things that didn't have a modifier were stuff like autoguns. Do autoguns even exist anymore?
I'd propose an armour modifier system where the vast majority of weapons have a modifier of 0, all you basic infantry weapons would be 0 and only a few special kinds would be -1. It'd have to be something reasonably powerful to get -2 or -3. Some things like Terminators might get a rerollable save.
Obviously a D10 system would allow more granularity. I prefer D6 though, they roll nicer when you have handfuls of them, lol.
Part of the reason 40k manages to keep afloat are the internet leaks that are doing GW's marketing for them. Rules sell models, there is little point in holding them back. Codex can still be sold as a data medium for these rules, but the access shouldn't be exclusive.
It really depends on the value the company wants players to put on the miniatures. In Bolt Action for example, units are usually very survivable until they're put in a situation where decisive action is unavoidable.
In 40k, units are designed as a tool for army building, and army building (metagame) usually defines the chances of success or failure or an army.
So, it makes previous purchases useless and some purchases mandatory, and on top of that the game system and its contents doesn't give players the tools to properly design their armies because the ruleset focuses on the game and not the metagame.
With that Age of Emperor system you talk about, the game system in itself should make the units relevant, rather than their capabilities in the army building phase.
The army building metagame is an important part of it for a lot of people, but thanks to growing imbalance it has gone badly wrong.
That is not an argument for abandoning it, but I do think we ought to see army building as a way of selecting a force that's at least roughly equal to the opponent, rather than a way of selecting a force that is better than the opponent.
In some cases, selections and formations are simply exploits, for example the Tau Piranha formation that lets you drop all your drones, go and pick up another lot, drop them, rinse and repeat, so you get dozens of free gun drones added to your force.
In other words, the variation available for your army selection is for the purpose of fluffy theme (recon, assault, anti-tank, penal battalion, etc) rather than a mechanism which you try to win the game in advance.
AoS addresses this by abandoning points, relying on players to work out balanced forces, and by reducing the amount of options within each war scroll.
I like the reduced options, because I don't think the game needs so many trivial variations of weapons and defences, and the rule system groans with the effort of trying to make these variations do something visible on the tabletop. For example there are about eight different basic infantry weapons (i.e. rifles) in the game and each one has five different factors plus a special rule. That's 48 variations of the basic infantry weapon!
However I think it is a lot easier for people to work out balanced forces with a clear and reasonably reliable metric to do so. Points would not be necessary if each war scroll listed a few defined options and had a power rating that applied to any of them.
I feel the best approach would be to keep formations and detachments (I do like them, I admit, although its not like I have seen them in action) but reel them in a bit. For instance, the Gladius allowing free transports (?!) is outright ridiculous.
LoW can be kept in 2k+ size games or 3k+ or whatever, keep them in the game but make them part of a larger game (without opponent's permission of course) but still then you can use them for specific scenarios (e.g. imagine a game where there is a semi-operational Titan being repaired, and every so often maybe it gets a shot off as its powering up).
I think the overwhelming problem is:
1) The rules themselves are vague and unclear, to where you need group-specific FAQs or various online discussion to figure out just what certain rules mean since they are left up to interpretation.
2) The army lists are all over the place of varying power levels; at that point just don't use points values at all because they literally don't mean anything.
3) GW refuses to update things in a concise manner. Space Marines get a dozen updates a year (roughly speaking), while other factions have to wait years and across entire editions just for an update. That's beyond ridiculous.
It's juts the entire thing is a mess because there's no care. It's like building a house and saying eh this looks like a house, who cares if we used balsa wood for the foundation but installed a golden toilet. It looks good enough, it'll work.
Yeah, the cover system is horrible as it is today and is unfair to high armour saves while providing an amazing boost to units with low saves.
Which is ok up to apoint, because a light armoured soldier can easier hide behind a tree and get cover than a terminator
The main issue with the current cover system is that armour is useless as long as it is not 3+.
An easy way to fix it would be to add armour save modifier instead of a flat negation first (instead of AP1 a Melter gets AP6, Plasma weapons AP5, Boltgun AP1 etc).
Than, cover is a bonus for the armour save and "ignore Cover" will also be a modifier instead of a flat removing all cover bonus
A soldier with 4+ armour in 4+ cover has a 0+ save (a natural 1 always fails) and gets hit by plasma gun (AP5) and is left with a 5+ save.
With this solution, light armour is not useless any more, heavy armoured troops have still less boost from cover than light armoured ones (but not that much), you have only one save and must not decide if you use cover or armour and the BS modification is free to be used for other rules
for example fast moving skimmers or bikes, flyers and jink in general gives -X on the BS instead of a cover bonus.
The problem we have is that lots of people like to roll lots of D6 in a 40k game.
And that a D6 has a limited amount of results .So if we use additional modifiers,(Like 2nd ed did.) that stack or get to values greater than 2, its gets very wonky very quickly.
Also 40k has suffered for very 'fudged' development over the years.Cover should adjust the chance to hit not the armour save.
Smoke and long grass etc just make the target harder to see.(We can say hard cover makes the unit harder to see and gives the chance of deflecting some incoming fire,so give +2 to targets Stealth value.)
This applies to all units equally.
EG if we use a Stealth value in opposition to BS,(Like S vs T).We can say models in cover get + 1 to their Stealth value.
This means all units gain a bonus from cover, but it is separate from all armour values.
This concept can be applied to all combat resolution.
Rather than have lots of modifiers to clog up the game.We just used opposed stats, in a universal resolution chart.
For small games you can always look back at Necromunda where each weapon had a modifier.
This is around the similar path that Bolt Action took: the bigger the weapon, the bigger the strength, the greater the armor, the higher the toughness value.
Then you dole-out the number of hits in proportion to how effective an area the weapon can "spray".
I can still remember the outcry when they came up with "AP" in 40k (4th edition? ...will have to check).
Talizvar wrote: For small games you can always look back at Necromunda where each weapon had a modifier.
This is around the similar path that Bolt Action took: the bigger the weapon, the bigger the strength, the greater the armor, the higher the toughness value.
Then you dole-out the number of hits in proportion to how effective an area the weapon can "spray".
I can still remember the outcry when they came up with "AP" in 40k (4th edition? ...will have to check).
3rd edition, I would think. The old necron book was released in 3rd, and that had AP values.
Never had the 3rd ed rulebook, but I had the necron book, and that would reference things like terrain generation, which was not present in the 4th ed BRB.
Talizvar wrote: For small games you can always look back at Necromunda where each weapon had a modifier. This is around the similar path that Bolt Action took: the bigger the weapon, the bigger the strength, the greater the armor, the higher the toughness value. Then you dole-out the number of hits in proportion to how effective an area the weapon can "spray". I can still remember the outcry when they came up with "AP" in 40k (4th edition? ...will have to check).
3rd edition was when most of those sorts of changes came about. In 2nd edition GW was all about the modifiers, to hit modifiers, to save modifiers, movement modifiers. 3rd edition was when that stuff went away. 40k hasn't had a major rules change since then.
I thought the AP system was terrible in 3rd edition some 18 years ago and I still think it's a terrible system now. It's one of those things that unbalances the game at it's core, the points value of armour becomes entirely dependent on what your opponent chose for their weapons.
awbbie wrote: How can we expect GW to change if none of us agree on what the change should look like...
GW will change of their own accord and they will choose the path of change that they believe will maximise sales, whatever we all disagree on, so in a sense the important thing is to offer a variety of opinions and let GW choose between them.
Lanrak wrote: The problem we have is that lots of people like to roll lots of D6 in a 40k game.
And that a D6 has a limited amount of results .So if we use additional modifiers,(Like 2nd ed did.) that stack or get to values greater than 2, its gets very wonky very quickly.
Having lots of rolls can somewhat counter the lack of granularity of the D6, but GW doesn't leverage it.
And the main problem with modifiers in 2nd is they were applied to readily so you far too often had things stacking OR your base value was meaningless because almost everything had a built in modifier (eg, Space Marines were effectively a 4+ save because most stuff had a -1 save modifier).
awbbie wrote: How can we expect GW to change if none of us agree on what the change should look like...
We don't have to agree on what the best solution is.... we just have to mostly agree that what we currently have is terrible. GW could pick one of half a dozen solutions to fix certain rules or certain units, even though it might not be the choice I *personally* would have made, I will accept it as being vastly superior to no solution at all.
This is why GW needs to take community input, but still have a small cohesive team of writers who decide "Ok, these are our options, which one is going to work best and how will we implement it". It's also why community systems rarely get off the ground, you can't usually assemble a small dedicated team to put in the effort and once too much of the community gets involved it turns in to a mess.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Martel732 wrote: In 2nd ed, power armor was virtually useless. It's why loyalist marines were unplayable.
Yep, but it was entirely the fault of weapon stats being too powerful, not the modifier system being flawed.
It's similar to why a saves are less important now than they were back in 3rd edition, the core rules haven't changed all that much, but the availability of powerful low AP weapons has increased.
Also 40k has suffered for very 'fudged' development over the years.Cover should adjust the chance to hit not the armour save.
Smoke and long grass etc just make the target harder to see.(We can say hard cover makes the unit harder to see and gives the chance of deflecting some incoming fire,so give +2 to targets Stealth value.)
This applies to all units equally.
I disagree here for one simple reason.
High BS units would therefore just ignore cover which would lead in the end to the same problem we have now
Just for the game mechanics with the different units in game, Cover need to be split into 2 categories, one being a save and the other one being a BS modifier.
If all kind of cover is treated the same, no matter if as a save or as BS modifier, problems we have now will still exists.
And you are right that an opposing value for BS would be good to have to bring all to hit rolls in line (but I am not sure how players would react to that and if it would be good for the game if there are a lot of units which would start hitting on 2+ with their ranged weapons)
awbbie wrote: if none of us agree on what the change should look like...
Like with everything in live, discussion and finding a compromise
awbbie wrote: How can we expect GW to change if none of us agree on what the change should look like...
We don't have to agree on what the best solution is.... we just have to mostly agree that what we currently have is terrible. GW could pick one of half a dozen solutions to fix certain rules or certain units, even though it might not be the choice I *personally* would have made, I will accept it as being vastly superior to no solution at all.
This is why GW needs to take community input, but still have a small cohesive team of writers who decide "Ok, these are our options, which one is going to work best and how will we implement it". It's also why community systems rarely get off the ground, you can't usually assemble a small dedicated team to put in the effort and once too much of the community gets involved it turns in to a mess.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Martel732 wrote: In 2nd ed, power armor was virtually useless. It's why loyalist marines were unplayable.
Yep, but it was entirely the fault of weapon stats being too powerful, not the modifier system being flawed.
It's similar to why a saves are less important now than they were back in 3rd edition, the core rules haven't changed all that much, but the availability of powerful low AP weapons has increased.
D6 is too small for save modifiers. Even a -4 made the mighty terminator way overcosted.
The real problem with GW balance is that it isn't all done at the same time.
I don't mind a muted power system.
I don't mind a "every unit should be really good so you want to buy everything" system.
What annoys me, and I think the bulk of the players, is the asymmetry of the system. There is no way the same rules that came up with say Orks produces the Eldar codex. Its incredibly obvious and its been GWs weakness for the best part of two decades.
Currently you get a bad codex and your stuffed for the next few years. Worse still GW then go "Oh we made you so crap that no one is buying your models? Well we have no motivation to give you a new codex." As a result you may end up being stuffed for the best part of a decade. Which is a ludicrous situation in the wider miniature war gaming sector.
If GW adopted PP's practices and had new releases for every faction every year it would be something even if it was a naked money grab with these units invariably being better than anything else in their respective lists.
Tyel wrote: The real problem with GW balance is that it isn't all done at the same time.
If GW adopted PP's practices and had new releases for every faction every year it would be something even if it was a naked money grab with these units invariably being better than anything else in their respective lists.
I figure a "basic" codex released for all groups all within a few months levelling the playing field.
Then a "supplement" can be released with formations for each army that could be considered together for balance.
Everyone needs to buy the supplement and know what is going on, everything gets balanced, win-win.
Heck, every 6th supplement GW can publish the "40k-compendium(tm)" grouping them all together (Or get the yearly subscription with everything being updated live!!! at the Black Library or the extra special iTunes store!).
The above is what I believe-in because about half-way through 6th edition I gave up trying to get everything.
All prior editions I bought ALL the codex's because I would either play those armies or play against them, I like to know my opponent's capabilities rather than take their word for it.
To literally be on "the same page" and to consider formations together can assist in the balance we are looking for.
The document would be good advertising exposing players to other armies they may not have considered playing.
What I propose is pure corporate evil but gaming goodness, tell me I am wrong!
Lanrak wrote: @Kodos.
If cover makes units harder to hit, how would higher BS unit ignore cover
If it is a BS modifier, a unit with BS 6 will stil hit on 2+
If it is a flat -1 to hit, it is something different
Adding ANOTHER saving roll system to the three they already use, is pointless complication, that can easily be avoided.
Why should there be another one.
I suggested to merge armour and cover into one save, which will leave the ward save (FnP is not a classic save an I would remove it entirely from the game)
Hi Kodos.
Either cover adds 1 to the targets stealth value if we are using an opposed stat chart for the to hit roll Balistic skill vs Stealth skill.(Like S vs T )
Or a straight -1 to hit target in cover , if we stick with the flat BS system currently used.
Save roll methods currently used.
1)As vs AP
2)Additional invunerable saves
3)Separate vehicle rules AV vs Strength of hit.
I forgot to include the Special rules that add on extra ways to negate wounds! FNP and WBB, etc
So why not just use one chart AV value (1 to 10) vs AP (1 to 10) value to give the save roll required for all units?
Rather than limit the values to the values found in the face if a D6 .
Using values from 1 to 10, allowing auto succeed and auto fail as legitimate results.
awbbie wrote: How can we expect GW to change if none of us agree on what the change should look like...
We don't have to agree on what the best solution is.... we just have to mostly agree that what we currently have is terrible. GW could pick one of half a dozen solutions to fix certain rules or certain units, even though it might not be the choice I *personally* would have made, I will accept it as being vastly superior to no solution at all.
This is why GW needs to take community input, but still have a small cohesive team of writers who decide "Ok, these are our options, which one is going to work best and how will we implement it". It's also why community systems rarely get off the ground, you can't usually assemble a small dedicated team to put in the effort and once too much of the community gets involved it turns in to a mess.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Martel732 wrote: In 2nd ed, power armor was virtually useless. It's why loyalist marines were unplayable.
Yep, but it was entirely the fault of weapon stats being too powerful, not the modifier system being flawed.
It's similar to why a saves are less important now than they were back in 3rd edition, the core rules haven't changed all that much, but the availability of powerful low AP weapons has increased.
D6 is too small for save modifiers. Even a -4 made the mighty terminator way overcosted.
Well -4 modifier to a Terminator in 2nd would be a 50% chance of surviving, and my suggestion would be that only heavy armour piercing weapons would be -4 or better.
Though I probably wouldn't use the 2nd edition system for Terminators, simply because it's too time consuming. I'd probably do something like halve the modifier for Terminators or stackable saves (so a Terminator would have to fail 2 tests to die).
Change it to a D10 system and fix the power creep.
(It's not power creep that's an inherent problem per se. It's the blatant pandering to certain factions and the (sometimes/sometimes-not) long release times that, combined with power creep, leave entire factions not only outdated, but also barely viable to play with due to said out-datedness.)
Also 40k has suffered for very 'fudged' development over the years.Cover should adjust the chance to hit not the armour save.
It depends really, if you see cover as 'adding protection' then a positive modifier to armour saves is perfectly acceptable. Starship troopers did it this way.
In infinity, cover modifies both the chance to hit, and the armour save and it works perfectly well.
The trick with modifiers (and the problem with how gw would in all likelihood implement them) is to be conservative. A -1 modifier in a d6 system should be a massive deal, and these things should not be handed out like candy to every gun and trooper. H.bolters? Yeah, maybe. Bolters, pulse rifles and lasguns - nope.
If modifiers would come back, there are 2 simply possible solutions to the "Terminator" problem.
First, adding the Cover Bonus to the armour save and allow negative values (Terminator in 4+ Cover has a -1+ save and with a -4 modifier still has a 3+ save)
Another one would be to get an unmodified armour save for heavy armour (instead of the invulnerable save)
So a Terminator is 2+/4+ and his armour can only be modified to up to 4+.
Another possibility would be to have not the direct save in the profile but an armour value were the save is calculated from.
Penetration VS Armour = Armour Save.
The other 2 solutions are easy and simple because they can be added to the current system and their impact on the game can be tested.
Another comparison chart has a much larger impact on the game and testing is more complicated and to be done mor4e carefully.
Also it removes one of the base mechanics of the game which can be too much for the community.
Hi Kodos.
Either cover adds 1 to the targets stealth value if we are using an opposed stat chart for the to hit roll Balistic skill vs Stealth skill.(Like S vs T )
Or a straight -1 to hit target in cover , if we stick with the flat BS system currently used.
Save roll methods currently used.
1)As vs AP
2)Additional invunerable saves
3)Separate vehicle rules AV vs Strength of hit.
I forgot to include the Special rules that add on extra ways to negate wounds! FNP and WBB, etc
So why not just use one chart AV value (1 to 10) vs AP (1 to 10) value to give the save roll required for all units?
Rather than limit the values to the values found in the face if a D6 .
Using values from 1 to 10, allowing auto succeed and auto fail as legitimate results.
A little bit more text incoming:
We have this discussed and also tested over times ("we" is me and my club and a group of guys that actually have designed their own games now. Some are working on a SciFi RPG Skirmish, others on a Steampunk P&P RPG. From time to time I get in contact and we are discussing ideas, test results, how each others work go on.) and we came always back to the same basic problem.
What is the core of 40k that should stay and what can be removed without offending the gamers.
For Example if I take a similar System like WM/H, the rules will be more like a 40k mod for that game which something different than most players want.
Back to Cover
The current save system with FnP, armour save, AV etc is garbage.
We have 2 complete different kinds of "to wound" mechanics, saves do not stuck except you have a specific one which is limited etc.
So it should be reduced to an armour save, cover bonus and the invulnerable save should be limited again.
A Cover bonus can now be a BS modifier or a bonus to the actual armour save
Both systems have their advantage and for 40k both of them should be in the game.
Why?
Because both have a very different impact on the game it self and a -1 to hit is not comparable to 4+ cover.
Increasing the models save with a cover bonus have an effect that small arms fire (laserguns, puls rifles, shuriken etc) has the possibility to spam wounds and that the opponent will roll enough "1's" to fail some saves.
-1 to hit removes this ability, which can be an advantage and buff some underrated units, but the game balance shifts completely and small arms fire which is already quite useless get nerfed.
So the question is what you want from the game. For a small battle game (5 Marines, 1 Dreadnought, 1 Tank, 1 HQ VS 1 IG Platoon, 1 Sentinel, 1 Tank, 1 HQ unit), a BS modifier is better because it increases the overall survivability
For 40k I would add both.
An armour bonus for 08/15 cover (area terrain, walls etc) and a BS modifier for fast moving skimmer/flyers (jink), smoke (ork bikes) etc.
@Streamlining
Yeah, 40k should use full values from 1-10 and above for large units and a universal chart (so no problem to use the same chart if Titans have toughness 20)
So Strength VS Toughness and Strength VS AV use the same mechanic and the same table.
While AV has no armour save but therefore starts at a higher value.
Same system for ranged to hit and Armour Saves is now difficult because it changes the basic shape of the game.
For the moment I would keep the simple BS mechanic and rather use the same for WS instead of adding BS VS Stealth
WS VS WS has not that bad but a simple to hit value would speed things up.
And before someones argue, we can still add the -X to hit value here as we do it for BS (and -X to hit become a flat modifier for BS and WS at the same time and high agility models like Harlequin, while -X BS for flyers)
Penetration VS Armour = Save, is different (I need to sleep a night over this) and the outcome is more or less the same like adding modifiers.
Give troops a To Hit and a To Save value. All infantry armour saves will be reduced by one, so a Terminator's 2+ becomes 3+, an M's 3+ becomes 4+, and so on.
The To Hit combines their BS and the S of their weapon. There will have to be some compromises in working this out, but winners and losers can be compensated for by adjusting other factors such as points value, range and ROF.
If the target is in cover, -1 DRM to your To HIt rolls. A To Hit of 4+ becomes 5+.
If the target is in hard cover, they get a +1 to their To Save rolls.
This means Terminators can't get a save better than +2 but if in hard cover they are still better off than in soft cover.
I don't think it's possible to make significant changes to the game's rules without quite a bit of compromise and adaptation to a lot of the weapon and unit factors.
awbbie wrote: How can we expect GW to change if none of us agree on what the change should look like...
We don't have to agree on what the best solution is.... we just have to mostly agree that what we currently have is terrible. GW could pick one of half a dozen solutions to fix certain rules or certain units, even though it might not be the choice I *personally* would have made, I will accept it as being vastly superior to no solution at all.
This is why GW needs to take community input, but still have a small cohesive team of writers who decide "Ok, these are our options, which one is going to work best and how will we implement it". It's also why community systems rarely get off the ground, you can't usually assemble a small dedicated team to put in the effort and once too much of the community gets involved it turns in to a mess.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Martel732 wrote: In 2nd ed, power armor was virtually useless. It's why loyalist marines were unplayable.
Yep, but it was entirely the fault of weapon stats being too powerful, not the modifier system being flawed.
It's similar to why a saves are less important now than they were back in 3rd edition, the core rules haven't changed all that much, but the availability of powerful low AP weapons has increased.
D6 is too small for save modifiers. Even a -4 made the mighty terminator way overcosted.
Well -4 modifier to a Terminator in 2nd would be a 50% chance of surviving, and my suggestion would be that only heavy armour piercing weapons would be -4 or better.
Though I probably wouldn't use the 2nd edition system for Terminators, simply because it's too time consuming. I'd probably do something like halve the modifier for Terminators or stackable saves (so a Terminator would have to fail 2 tests to die).
It was like that in 2nd. Except weapons liked to jump to -6. And there were weapons with -3 like the shuriken cannon that fired a TON of shots.
Yeah as I've said, 2nd edition's problem with regard to armour modifiers wasn't the way it works but the fact modifiers were given out too readily. It should be something special that has -1, not everything has -1, and only heavy weapons specifically designed for armour piercing would be -3 or better.
I personally don't think 40k needs the granularity of a D10 system, but at the moment and really through its history it doesn't even use the the D6 effectively.
AllSeeingSkink wrote: Yeah as I've said, 2nd edition's problem with regard to armour modifiers wasn't the way it works but the fact modifiers were given out too readily. It should be something special that has -1, not everything has -1, and only heavy weapons specifically designed for armour piercing would be -3 or better.
I personally don't think 40k needs the granularity of a D10 system, but at the moment and really through its history it doesn't even use the the D6 effectively.
Yeah, it really does. D10 would help bring the fluff to life better I think. Eldar wouldn't be running around with marine saving throws, for example.
I personally don't think 40k needs the granularity of a D10 system, but at the moment and really through its history it doesn't even use the the D6 effectively.
Yeah, it really does. D10 would help bring the fluff to life better I think. Eldar wouldn't be running around with marine saving throws, for example.
No, D10 would only be an advantage if the direct rolls needed were in the profile.
And for armour, just because now only 2+/3+ matters, doesn't mean D10 make it better. An Edlar 7+ Save on a D10 would still be useless if everyone has hat least AP6 weapons
I personally don't think 40k needs the granularity of a D10 system, but at the moment and really through its history it doesn't even use the the D6 effectively.
Yeah, it really does. D10 would help bring the fluff to life better I think. Eldar wouldn't be running around with marine saving throws, for example.
No, D10 would only be an advantage if the direct rolls needed were in the profile.
And for armour, just because now only 2+/3+ matters, doesn't mean D10 make it better. An Edlar 7+ Save on a D10 would still be useless if everyone has hat least AP6 weapons
Turn the 40K units into war scrolls (I prefer the term Combat Unit Numeration Texts) and give them a To Hit and a To Save. Drop S T and AP.
Your To Hit and To Save are the target number to roll under on a D10, so the larger they are the better. A 1 is always a hit. a 10 is always a miss.
DRMs can be used for cover and so on, modifying your To Hit stat up or down.
An increase or decrease of 1 in the stat or the DRM translates to an average 5% increase or decrease in the chance of success, considered across the whole possible range.
This system allows units to be created with a stat higher than 10, without them becoming invincible.
Kilkrazy wrote: Turn the 40K units into war scrolls (I prefer the term Combat Unit Numeration Texts) and give them a To Hit and a To Save. Drop S T and AP.
Your To Hit and To Save are the target number to roll under on a D10, so the larger they are the better. A 1 is always a hit. a 10 is always a miss.
DRMs can be used for cover and so on, modifying your To Hit stat up or down.
An increase or decrease of 1 in the stat or the DRM translates to an average 5% increase or decrease in the chance of success, considered across the whole possible range.
This system allows units to be created with a stat higher than 10, without them becoming invincible.
I think this is an interesting concept (And I do enjoy AoS). My question is, then how would you figure in vehicles? I'd be interested to see.
I think I would create different key words, such as infantry, lo-power, hi-power, vehicle, monstrous creature. I would cross-grid these to show relationships of what weapons can attack what targets. Essentially I would make an infantry weapon like a bolt gun lo-power, therefore give a +1 DRM to the save of a monstrous creature, and ineffective against a vehicle. However, anti-tank weapons like a railgun, plasma gun and so on, could be hi-power, gridded for a negative To Hit modifier against infantry targets.
Bear in mind that with the War Scrool system each different type of weapon in a squad can have its own stat line.
The armour facings of vehicles could be expressed as DRMs to its basic save, or the scrool of a vehicle could just show it's saves depending on facing.
These are rough ideas I haven't thought through completely. My basic assumptions are that the game needs to be streamlined while preserving as much granularity as possible, with minimum variety of exceptions, special rules and non-intuitive rules.
I think I would create different key words, such as infantry, lo-power, hi-power, vehicle, monstrous creature. I would cross-grid these to show relationships of what weapons can attack what targets. Essentially I would make an infantry weapon like a bolt gun lo-power, therefore give a +1 DRM to the save of a monstrous creature, and ineffective against a vehicle. However, anti-tank weapons like a railgun, plasma gun and so on, could be hi-power, gridded for a negative To Hit modifier against infantry targets.
Bear in mind that with the War Scrool system each different type of weapon in a squad can have its own stat line.
The armour facings of vehicles could be expressed as DRMs to its basic save, or the scrool of a vehicle could just show it's saves depending on facing.
These are rough ideas I haven't thought through completely. My basic assumptions are that the game needs to be streamlined while preserving as much granularity as possible, with minimum variety of exceptions, special rules and non-intuitive rules.
Just a question: I see alot in both videogames and table-top games that higher powered weapons, such as lascannons and railguns, are "harder to hit infantry with" than low-powered weapons. I have always wondered why that is the case - surely a person effectively trained in the use of such a weapon could hit infantry targets as readily as someone effectively trained in the use of, say, a sniper's rifle or bolt-action rifle at least?
Higher power weapons in that circumstance might have more of a rev time which would make it more difficult to hit a quick small moving target at an effective range.
Could be just an attempt at balancing mechanics too, since then there'd be no reason to not take high power weapons all the time.
Before we delve too far in to relative worth of different game mechanics and resolution methods 40k could use.
I think we can all agree that the core rules from WHFB are no longer good enough to cover the scale and scope of the current game play.
Just to recap quickly on what 40k current core rules are.
Everything moves the same,( 6"/D6")
Everything hits everything else in close combat on a roll of 3+, 4+ or 5+.
Practically every units hits every other units at range on the roll of 3+ 4+or 5+.(Comparatively few units have BS 5, or over or BS 1.)
All units have a save value of 2+ to 6+ or no save.(Totally negated by weapons with AP values of equal or lower.)
Models in units are wounded on the roll of 2+ to 6+ or are unable to be wounded.
Not very expansive or inclusive are they.
As someone pointed out 40k does not use the D6 effectively .So it may be worth looking at using the D6 in more effective ways before swapping to a D10.
WHFB rules were fine for WHFB, but they were never a good fit for a 40k battle game.
WHFB WAS all about maneuvering large blocks of troops in close formation in to the best close combat match ups.With ranged attacks only used in a supporting role.
The last time I looked 40k units were very varied in shape and size.And the majority of them have ranged attacks.Making ranged attacks far more prominent in the game play, and units much more varied targets at range than the 'massed ranks' in WHFB.
I may start a thread in the Game Design forum , discussing why WHFB based rules are so unsuitable for a 40k Battle game.(This is a sort of tangent topic to this thread perhaps?)
So for GW to actually fix the game of 40k, they need to address the issues with the WHFB based core rules.
EG perform a complete re-write focusing on the intended game play of 40k.(What ever GW decide that should be. )
. Just don't expect me to congratulate you for winning with 5 knights/riptides. I will give you a zero comp score right in front of you, and explain it with a smile. I enjoy these people in my gaming scene. They remind me that my personal quirks balance out!
)