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 auticus wrote:
I think GW has some talented guys working for them.

Which is why I also think that the imbalance that is always rife in their rulesets is intentional.

Yep.

It's just that in this instance, GW has happened to decide that all the things major event organizers don't like (players using large hordes to slow play, requiring a ton of terrain on every board, unpainted armies, vaguely worded rules, complicated list building, etc) get cut out of 8th and the mission structure is coincidentally identical to ITC.

This is Warhammer 40,000: We Realized Large Events Are Good Press Edition. Of course they shuffle around which unit categories are good every edition, this edition is the walking monster/vehicle/Elite Infantry edition, 8th was the light infantry/make everyone buy an ally detachment edition, 7th was the make everybody buy a transport for every squad/monster edition, 6th was the flyer/fortification edition, etc.

Apple fox wrote:

 auticus wrote:
I think GW has some talented guys working for them.

Which is why I also think that the imbalance that is always rife in their rulesets is intentional.

Sometimes i think its the end results of Rule of Cool, Everything has to be cool, even when it doesn't really make sense, or just ends in other things not being cool. Its hard to write good rules if you dont get all the peaces to make those rules really play nice.

Many of their rules are blatantly busted after a couple minutes reading the army book. I don't believe its because of rule of cool. I believe its because imbalance drives model sales. Firmly believe this. There are things in 40k and AOS where even the dullest among us figured out in 5 minutes that taking a lot of that thing is really good, or that an entire faction is as good as steamed crap in a tupperware bowl.

There is no rule of cool to describe how entire factions are horrible for years / entire edition durations. But we (the community) celebrate it and shovel money their way anyway.


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the_scotsman wrote:

 auticus wrote:
I think GW has some talented guys working for them.

Which is why I also think that the imbalance that is always rife in their rulesets is intentional.

Yep.

It's just that in this instance, GW has happened to decide that all the things major event organizers don't like (players using large hordes to slow play, requiring a ton of terrain on every board, unpainted armies, vaguely worded rules, complicated list building, etc) get cut out of 8th and the mission structure is coincidentally identical to ITC.

This is Warhammer 40,000: We Realized Large Events Are Good Press Edition. Of course they shuffle around which unit categories are good every edition, this edition is the walking monster/vehicle/Elite Infantry edition, 8th was the light infantry/make everyone buy an ally detachment edition, 7th was the make everybody buy a transport for every squad/monster edition, 6th was the flyer/fortification edition, etc.

This is the cycle of gw unfortunately. WHFB went through the tournament editions. 40k has had tournament editions (4th and 5th were largely tournament editions, 6th and 7th largely narrative editions). I agree, this is firmly going into tournament player edition. The only thing I can really say about that is their community surveys have shown them that the tournament player is the majority audience and where they are going to get their money from and based on my observations I'd agree with them. They are the ones that buy new armies every time a new power list is brought out. They are the cash cow.

 auticus wrote:

Apple fox wrote:

 auticus wrote:
I think GW has some talented guys working for them.

Which is why I also think that the imbalance that is always rife in their rulesets is intentional.

Sometimes i think its the end results of Rule of Cool, Everything has to be cool, even when it doesn't really make sense, or just ends in other things not being cool. Its hard to write good rules if you dont get all the peaces to make those rules really play nice.

Many of their rules are blatantly busted after a couple minutes reading the army book. I don't believe its because of rule of cool. I believe its because imbalance drives model sales. Firmly believe this. There are things in 40k and AOS where even the dullest among us figured out in 5 minutes that taking a lot of that thing is really good, or that an entire faction is as good as steamed crap in a tupperware bowl.

There is no rule of cool to describe how entire factions are horrible for years / entire edition durations. But we (the community) celebrate it and shovel money their way anyway.

I would buy this a little bit more if GW were actually consistent about making new units OP. The thing is though, they tend not to be. Everyone remembers instances when they are (Like, say, now, with the new primaris stuff) and forgets the instances when they invested huge money releasing stuff that was hot garbage (like say, all the other primaris stuff when it came out. Remember that time GW released more kits in 2 years for the faction that had the most kits already than any other faction got combined, and all of it was hot trash on release?)

I don't think new units have to be OP. There just has to be some units OP, and some units that are not so good.

That way you can rotate new units in and out.

The only other answer is their rules writers are truly incompetent.

 auticus wrote:
I don't think new units have to be OP. There just has to be some units OP, and some units that are not so good.

That way you can rotate new units in and out.

The only other answer is their rules writers are truly incompetent.

^and that's the one I'm going with.

There is no rational reason for units like Shining Spears, Guardsmen, Vauls Wrath Batteries, Catachans, Dark Reapers, Necron Destroyers, and all these low-profit sculpts from 3rd-5th edition to be busted good if you buy into the grand GW-spiracy. Every time one of them becomes OP they INSTANTLY go out of stock and stay that way for MONTHS. If you know some way that that is somehow a corporation pulling a "just as planned" and profiting off some janky-ass ancient-ass sculpt made of fossilized shaving cream that they call Finecast I would love to know.

The real answer is just...stuff ain't balanced. 25% of the game makes the other 75% look like a joke, and when GW releases new stuff, about a quarter of it lands in that category (go figure).

People just remember the Kelermorph, and forget about the biophagus magus sanctus jackal alphus locus and nexos that all come out at the same time, cost GW the same exact amount of investment capital, and often have bottom of the barrel rules.

Occam's razor. Gw's just incompetent, and people just remember the hits and forget the misses. Remember that being a psychic medium is like a billion dollar industry. People aren't that smart.

 auticus wrote:
I don't think new units have to be OP. There just has to be some units OP, and some units that are not so good.

That way you can rotate new units in and out.

The only other answer is their rules writers are truly incompetent.

I think after reading that recent interview, I would suspect there rules writers are often at the bottom on what really makes the game work. They just the ones putting it all together.
This is entirely made worse when factions are in real need of specific units to facilitate there ability to play the game, Why other army get units that they have allmost no place for.
All this why they are having to design and write rules for an ever expanding scale of game, why a big part of the games factions still miss even basic parts of the games intended play.

Agree on Kelermorph versus other similar kits. Tbh I was also wrong when his rules leaked. I think he was and remains good, but also so hard to keep alive after appearing that he never gets a chance to be that problematic.

You can call it incompetence, but I think GW just doesn't think about balance the way "competitive" players do. Or even players who just spend a long time thinking about the game. This is why I think getting narrative players more involved would be a mixed blessing - GW already provide that themselves. You are likely to just see people push the narrative they want.

For example the longest time the GW "idea" of building a list was essentially Highlander with maybe some duplicate troops. Spam and skew was an unknown concept - because who would want to turn up with 5 Hive Tyrants? Don't you want to show off your collection of lots of different kits? Unsurprisingly with such a mentality, you don't write lists thinking people will just max out the good squads and ignore all the bad. Indeed you might even think its cool that certain squads are "good" for their points, so they stand out and do cool things on the tabletop.

So generally every new codex (although not always) some of the explicitly too good stuff gets toned down and the bad stuff gets toned up. Cynics say this is about getting people to buy new models - but really, isn't it how you'd try to balance the game? The fact its done semi-randomly is more evidence of not really understanding the game in a cohesive way than some sort of grand master plan.

I think competitive players enjoy imbalance. Without imbalance there are no skew lists. Without skew lists, they are "bored". If there was actual balance in the game, more things would be viable and listbuilding wouldnt' be as impactful.

Its the narrative and casual players that suffer most from imbalance. They are the ones that walk into the gw store and get suckered by the store manager into buying the necrons or whatever other tepid crap army exists because they look awesome, but whose rules are flaming garbage.

And then they get face planted game in game out and told to get good, while being out nearly a grand.

Tyel wrote:
Agree on Kelermorph versus other similar kits. Tbh I was also wrong when his rules leaked. I think he was and remains good, but also so hard to keep alive after appearing that he never gets a chance to be that problematic.

You can call it incompetence, but I think GW just doesn't think about balance the way "competitive" players do. Or even players who just spend a long time thinking about the game. This is why I think getting narrative players more involved would be a mixed blessing - GW already provide that themselves. You are likely to just see people push the narrative they want.

For example the longest time the GW "idea" of building a list was essentially Highlander with maybe some duplicate troops. Spam and skew was an unknown concept - because who would want to turn up with 5 Hive Tyrants? Don't you want to show off your collection of lots of different kits? Unsurprisingly with such a mentality, you don't write lists thinking people will just max out the good squads and ignore all the bad. Indeed you might even think its cool that certain squads are "good" for their points, so they stand out and do cool things on the tabletop.

So generally every new codex (although not always) some of the explicitly too good stuff gets toned down and the bad stuff gets toned up. Cynics say this is about getting people to buy new models - but really, isn't it how you'd try to balance the game? The fact its done semi-randomly is more evidence of not really understanding the game in a cohesive way than some sort of grand master plan.

There's also almost certainly a whole lot of telephone game time-lag going on. We know that rules are written a very long way in advance. If you view 9th edition's rules changes through the lens of the current, post marines 2.0 world, it's comical how much they favor the currently dominant faction paradigm and penalize the current weakest factions.

But orks, GSC, Daemons, and Nids making up the bottom of the barrel is a recent enough development that, were the formative work on 9th to have begun even just 1 year ago, the idea of having to clamp down hard on large blobs of light infantry makes a ton more sense.


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 auticus wrote:
I think competitive players enjoy imbalance. Without imbalance there are no skew lists. Without skew lists, they are "bored". If there was actual balance in the game, more things would be viable and listbuilding wouldnt' be as impactful.

Its the narrative and casual players that suffer most from imbalance. They are the ones that walk into the gw store and get suckered by the store manager into buying the necrons or whatever other tepid crap army exists because they look awesome, but whose rules are flaming garbage.

And then they get face planted game in game out and told to get good, while being out nearly a grand.

If someone invests a grand into 40k before playing their first game, I have zero sympathy for them to be honest.

No list you build before playing your first game is going to be good.

I've been through six edition changes now with 40k. I have over a grand sunk into my necron army. I've had them since 5th edition.

There is no excuse for them or any faction to be a laughing stock throughout an entire edition.

Lets back the truck up and see a more common scenario. The suckers that walk into the store and end up sinking... $200 or so into a faction they think is cool. And then they put their stuff together, come to the table with a partial force and find out they chose the wrong faction because half or more of the store are chasing the ITC meta and they are getting piledriven.

Not as bad as a grand, not carried over from previous editions where they were good or at least worth having a game with and made into garbage by the GW rules team, but still... $200 is $200 and GW got their money.

They then put that stuff up on the local buy/sell and sell it off for peanuts and either leave or buy the latest ITC power build now that they know better (setting them up of course for the inevitable nerfing they will take forcing them to buy a new army)

 auticus wrote:
I've been through six edition changes now with 40k. I have over a grand sunk into my necron army. I've had them since 5th edition.

There is no excuse for them or any faction to be a laughing stock throughout an entire edition.

Lets back the truck up and see a more common scenario. The suckers that walk into the store and end up sinking... $200 or so into a faction they think is cool. And then they put their stuff together, come to the table with a partial force and find out they chose the wrong faction because half or more of the store are chasing the ITC meta and they are getting piledriven.

Not as bad as a grand, not carried over from previous editions where they were good or at least worth having a game with and made into garbage by the GW rules team, but still... $200 is $200 and GW got their money.

They then put that stuff up on the local buy/sell and sell it off for peanuts and either leave or buy the latest ITC power build now that they know better (setting them up of course for the inevitable nerfing they will take forcing them to buy a new army)

Oh, sure. I agree with you there. I was mostly envisioning the common "guy gets into 40k, gets real excited, ebays a whole army from a previous edition for a grand, realizes he has absolutely zero clue how to play the game even at all and get dumpstered on and, for that matter, usually ripped off, because ebay is a website designed to make idiots think they're really smart while getting ripped off" that unfortunately I see a lot of.

At least I have the blessing of the place I play being such a casual meta that only the most bonkers rule changes actually ruin games. Pretty much the only meta shift throughout all of 8th that had an impact was "everybody who has a space marine army/bought the starter box for the game now has a nigh-unbeatable meta list and games against them are so miserable that every non-marine player either steps away from the game or decides to stop playing against marines".

Knight meta? Nobody bought one of the big knights. Eldar flyer meta? Two guys play eldar, neither have flyers. Guard meta? Our local catachan player is so ridiculously fluffed out that I don't think there's a rule you could give his army short of "you win automatically" that could make him feel OP to play against. Regular guard squads mounted in valkyries, every officer gets a powerfist, regular ogryns, hellhounds, and lascannon scout sentinels for antitank.

They are lucky if they can sell a bad army localy in the first place, at least in places where people can't afford to buy bad armies.

GW games should come with a warrning of some sorts. Don't start it unless you earn at least 500$ per month and still live with your parents, or something like that.

I guess with other games one can get burned on a bad faction or bad units too. Though I only imagine it, as the only non w40k game I saw being played is AoS on tables next to me. But still spending a 100$ and losing it to a bad investment is not the same as 600-800$.

Karol wrote:
They are lucky if they can sell a bad army localy in the first place, at least in places where people can't afford to buy bad armies.

GW games should come with a warrning of some sorts. Don't start it unless you earn at least 500$ per month and still live with your parents, or something like that.

I guess with other games one can get burned on a bad faction or bad units too. Though I only imagine it, as the only non w40k game I saw being played is AoS on tables next to me. But still spending a 100$ and losing it to a bad investment is not the same as 600-800$.

I can't think of many hobbies you can afford if you're making $3.12 an hour, to be fair tho.

That's like...1/4 of the minimum wage where I live.

You can call it incompetence, but I think GW just doesn't think about balance the way "competitive" players do. Or even players who just spend a long time thinking about the game. This is why I think getting narrative players more involved would be a mixed blessing - GW already provide that themselves. You are likely to just see people push the narrative they want.

There-in lies the problem. I've been as critical as anyone of GW's "Play testing" efforts, but I'm always very careful to point out that we don't know where the fault lies. Entirely possible the testers did things perfectly and GW ignored them, or that GW asked them to work in a way that prevented them from actively seeing the problems they would otherwise have called out. The big issue is that I'm not sure HOW the rules writers actually work. When you listen to any of the authors who worked on the HH series speak, they often go to great length to describe the meetings and discussions, and calls, etc etc they had with the other authors to make sure they were all on the same page and no one was about to do something to screw up the story.

You NEVER hear the rules writers say this, and often times it feels like they don't spend as much time thinking about the game as some of the players do. Their definition of competitive is certainly different (these are the folks who thought the 6th ed CSM codex was good after all), and there doesn't seem to be any cohesion once we've gotten to the point of writing codexes. So within their own team, they don't seem to have much of a "unifying view", and then add in to that, the multitude of different definitions of "narrative play" and you just add even more confusion.

Getting narrative players to weigh in a bit is good, and should be done, but if you ask any three narrative players what their definition of that play style is, you are likely to get 4 different answers. I'm largely a narrative player myself these days, and I can tell you that sometimes, narrative is long and complex like an ongoing campaign, other times it's a one-off re-enactment of a famous 40k battle, and at still other times, it's deliberately playing a wildly imbalanced game just for the fun of having that "heroic last stand". So how on earth do you balance that? You don't. Narrative players have a wider field to modify the game in their individual scenarios, so it almost doesn't matter.

On the other hand, matched play and "competitive 40k" at least gives a common point from which to start and doesn't generally have the variables described above. I mean take Winters SEO review of Crusade for example. A lot of narrative players are gushing over it. He's a self described narrative player and his exact review was essentialy "some will like this, but this isn't MY kind of narrative play".

450-500$ is the avarge pay where I live. For adults.
I can make that working durning summer, next year when I am older, but that is it. Before that people are limited to getting confirmation money, and then birthday-christmas-new year gifts. Good when you have big family, bad when your mom marries a second time and doesn't invite anyone from your dads family, and she herself has no siblings.

Knight meta? Nobody bought one of the big knights.

Im jealous. My last 40k game was two summers ago at our for fun narrative campaign we run every year.

Let me bold for fun. FOR FUN and CASUAL NARRATIVE which was made very apparent to everyone.

I brought my casual narrative FOR FUN rubric marine army.

I was paired with dude that brought... his ITC all knight army. This was his for fun army. (this is a lot of the people in my area not just bad luck to pick this one guy)

I was tabled in 2 turns. Thats the type of rules disparities I'm talking about. (I know you know, I'm just highlighting what I mean lol)

His exact words that day: "its not my fault you don't know how to build lists."

This attitude right there.

Karol wrote:
450-500$ is the avarge pay where I live. For adults.
I can make that working durning summer, next year when I am older, but that is it. Before that people are limited to getting confirmation money, and then birthday-christmas-new year gifts. Good when you have big family, bad when your mom marries a second time and doesn't invite anyone from your dads family, and she herself has no siblings.

Looks like it's more like double that, according to google. And this is a very strange thread to be concluding that you can't enjoy 40k because your mom has no siblings.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 auticus wrote:

Knight meta? Nobody bought one of the big knights.

Im jealous. My last 40k game was two summers ago at our for fun narrative campaign we run every year.

Let me bold for fun. FOR FUN and CASUAL NARRATIVE which was made very apparent to everyone.

I brought my casual narrative FOR FUN rubric marine army.

I was paired with dude that brought... his ITC all knight army. This was his for fun army. (this is a lot of the people in my area not just bad luck to pick this one guy)

I was tabled in 2 turns. Thats the type of rules disparities I'm talking about. (I know you know, I'm just highlighting what I mean lol)

His exact words that day: "its not my fault you don't know how to build lists."

This attitude right there.

Yeah. I've been playing a pretty much entirely rubric-based Thousand Sons army (well, 20 rubrics and 10 terminator rubrics, but that, their Rhinos, and the HQs are over 1500 points right there lol) and have never not been able to compete. they're not primaris level stupid, but they are fairly nasty at this point with double-shoot for 1CP.

I've found the 8th meta generally softer - although Knights and flyers are certainly not unusual. Whether this is because there has been greater churn in faction power is unclear - but I don't think people do just go and drop £500 or whatever on a new army unless they are really into the tournament scene - and so will drop far more than that on transport and accommodation over the year.

Admittedly my low point in 7th was being creamed by Eldar at my FLGS, looking across the 8 or so other tables being played on, and seeing 5 wraithknights.

the_scotsman wrote:

Karol wrote:
450-500$ is the avarge pay where I live. For adults.
I can make that working durning summer, next year when I am older, but that is it. Before that people are limited to getting confirmation money, and then birthday-christmas-new year gifts. Good when you have big family, bad when your mom marries a second time and doesn't invite anyone from your dads family, and she herself has no siblings.

Looks like it's more like double that, according to google. And this is a very strange thread to be concluding that you can't enjoy 40k because your mom has no siblings.


.

yes for the entire country as an avarge, it is something crazy like 3000zl 750. Only no one gets such salary, not even the people that live in big cities like warsaw. Or to be more precise, those people that do work in western companies or goverment funded companies, earn gigantic salaries. Everything the party can set up comes with huge salaries. The chief of polish banks has two secretaries that earn more money then some people on the polish central bank council.

Outside of big cities, party or union jobs you get salaries that are much lower. My mom is a teacher, with 5 years bonus , earns less then 2000zl after taxs monthly. and 2000zl is around 500$. No idea how much my stepdad makes, but my dad works as a clerk at his local town and makes 2500zl/625$. I know that because I heard him argue with my mom many times, about money.

Looks like it's more like double that, according to google. And this is a very strange thread to be concluding that you can't enjoy 40k because your mom has no siblings.

nah it has more to do with the fact what when my birthday rolls up, I don't get any money, because no one from my dads family has enough, and me being born in june means money is needed for holidays. When my sister has birthday, her dads 2 brothers and aunt come, both her godparents, and she was born after 6th of january, so she gets money from catholic and ortodox christmas, and then those from her birthday. She gets a ton more stuff, even now when both her grandparents are dead now.

Tyel wrote:
I've found the 8th meta generally softer - although Knights and flyers are certainly not unusual. Whether this is because there has been greater churn in faction power is unclear - but I don't think people do just go and drop £500 or whatever on a new army unless they are really into the tournament scene - and so will drop far more than that on transport and accommodation over the year.

Admittedly my low point in 7th was being creamed by Eldar at my FLGS, looking across the 8 or so other tables being played on, and seeing 5 wraithknights.

Yeah, it definitely felt like in 6th and 7th people were less tired of the meta churn. We've maintained our usual playerbase size of 30-40 active folks at any given time, with about 1/2 to 2/3 of that turning up any given week (Before the lockdown, at least, right now we've kind of octopus'd out to take over the store's 4 socially distanced game tables 3 days a week) but you've got a lot fewer folks who are keeping up with the joneses when it comes to the new meta stuff.

We have a looooooot of people still going pure oldmarines, a lot of people playing the exact same 2000 point list they built in 7th, and a lot of the major new stuff-buyers, myself included, have massively slowed down particularly on the book front.

The last big surge where people got actually excited was the SOB launch. The space marine players are absolutely tapped out with 250$ of new kits they could buy seemingly every month, and when quarantine set in at least half a dozen of the previously primarily marine players started building up a different army. Most of them because they wanted to go back to a place where their rules would stay stable for at least a couple months.

Lots of drukhari, actually! I'm really excited about that, i was the only person playing harlequins or drukhari for ages.

I do think the rules team is incompetent. Arrogant as well, judging by the tone of recent FAQs, snippets from Twitch and even the way the LOTR rulebook drips with pretension.

It's obvious they don't think deeply about the game- every edition and codex since I started in late 5th has been "the same, but different." Armor value is now gone, but somehow IGOUGO, the phases, and their tunnel-vision on gameplay being roll to-hit, wound and save ad nauseam, are above examination. Now, this would be fine if the game were in a good place and only needed tweaking, but, yeah........

They lack imagination and an openness to self-critique. Many choices made with 9th so far are very weird. A Psyker may be able to make a "psychic action," so this gets stapled onto the rules for the psychic phase, powers, and individual units, yet it never occurred to them that abandoning IGOUGO and the phases for AA might be a simpler method for the players, and provide more opportunities for minis to do cool stuff? Unit coherency gets changed in a way that will surely cause more harm than good, instead of, say, re-analyzing the value of aura buffs and the mobility of factions, which may make conga lines a poor tactic most of the time.

Characters are another great example. How does GW show a commander's ability to lead? Aura buffs. Auras aren't inherently bad, of course, but GW's implementation is. And sooooo boring!


Here's the Kaddar Nova from MEDGe for comparison. They even have an aura buff, too!

https://www.maelstromsedge.com/medge/forcelist.jsp?f=2&u=16

Epirians are even better, but require more understanding of the core rules. Short version: when a ROBOT unit in the force is issued an order, its bot protocols activate. Stuff like Dig-In, Dodge, extra movement, the ability to move and suppressive fire, etc.

I will say the LOTR is pretty good. I have a few issues here and there-like your opponent choosing your mini's LOS in certain situations, or two-handed weapons imposing a -1 penalty to it's wielder's Fight rolls-but it's miles above 40k and AOS. LOTR is a separate team, I think?

I do think the rules team is incompetent. Arrogant as well, judging by the tone of recent FAQs, snippets from Twitch and even the way the LOTR rulebook drips with pretension.

I like to cut them some slack whenever a "tone" eeks its way into an FAQ. I truly believe the TT world has "grown up around them" and they were too busy to notice. I also think they could do with an entire revamp of their processes, some better editorial oversight, and some polish around the rough edges. But that being said, for all their perceived "faults", they also have to deal with people asking things like "What does it mean when a model is dead" and "If I concede, do I lose the game", so between that and the legitimate flack they get, I can over-look/forgive the occasional snark ...

the_scotsman wrote:

I would buy this a little bit more if GW were actually consistent about making new units OP. The thing is though, they tend not to be. Everyone remembers instances when they are (Like, say, now, with the new primaris stuff) and forgets the instances when they invested huge money releasing stuff that was hot garbage (like say, all the other primaris stuff when it came out. Remember that time GW released more kits in 2 years for the faction that had the most kits already than any other faction got combined, and all of it was hot trash on release?)

It would be too obviously pay-to-win if every new unit was OP. The trick is to release new units all the time, make SOME of them OP every once in a while, and save the rest for later, giving them the OP treatment in the future depending on a variety of (likely external) factors such as overall sales history of a particular kit, remaining stock, plans for future products, etc.

Obfuscating a pay to win scheme over the long term really doesn't seem that hard when you have years or even decades to do it.

 slave.entity wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:

I would buy this a little bit more if GW were actually consistent about making new units OP. The thing is though, they tend not to be. Everyone remembers instances when they are (Like, say, now, with the new primaris stuff) and forgets the instances when they invested huge money releasing stuff that was hot garbage (like say, all the other primaris stuff when it came out. Remember that time GW released more kits in 2 years for the faction that had the most kits already than any other faction got combined, and all of it was hot trash on release?)

It would be too obviously pay-to-win if every new unit was OP. The trick is to release new units all the time, make SOME of them OP every once in a while, and save the rest for later, giving them the OP treatment in the future depending on a variety of (likely external) factors such as overall sales history of a particular kit, remaining stock, plans for future products, etc.

Obfuscating a pay to win scheme over the long term really doesn't seem that hard when you have years or even decades to do it.

Biiiiiinnnnngggoooo.

No seriously, but also the FAQ thing , i remember the Salamander one patching out the stratagem shenanigans for mortals galore Lacked some serious courtesy...

Also we know of atleast one case of new Made op with the wraithknight..

 slave.entity wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:

I would buy this a little bit more if GW were actually consistent about making new units OP. The thing is though, they tend not to be. Everyone remembers instances when they are (Like, say, now, with the new primaris stuff) and forgets the instances when they invested huge money releasing stuff that was hot garbage (like say, all the other primaris stuff when it came out. Remember that time GW released more kits in 2 years for the faction that had the most kits already than any other faction got combined, and all of it was hot trash on release?)

It would be too obviously pay-to-win if every new unit was OP. The trick is to release new units all the time, make SOME of them OP every once in a while, and save the rest for later, giving them the OP treatment in the future depending on a variety of (likely external) factors such as overall sales history of a particular kit, remaining stock, plans for future products, etc.

Obfuscating a pay to win scheme over the long term really doesn't seem that hard when you have years or even decades to do it.

So basically, anything that's overpowered at release is part of the big evil conspiracy to sell the new models, but anything that isn't overpowered was just sacrificed into obscurity in order to obfuscate the previously mentioned conspiracy.

A'ight.

 Arachnofiend wrote:

 slave.entity wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:

I would buy this a little bit more if GW were actually consistent about making new units OP. The thing is though, they tend not to be. Everyone remembers instances when they are (Like, say, now, with the new primaris stuff) and forgets the instances when they invested huge money releasing stuff that was hot garbage (like say, all the other primaris stuff when it came out. Remember that time GW released more kits in 2 years for the faction that had the most kits already than any other faction got combined, and all of it was hot trash on release?)

It would be too obviously pay-to-win if every new unit was OP. The trick is to release new units all the time, make SOME of them OP every once in a while, and save the rest for later, giving them the OP treatment in the future depending on a variety of (likely external) factors such as overall sales history of a particular kit, remaining stock, plans for future products, etc.

Obfuscating a pay to win scheme over the long term really doesn't seem that hard when you have years or even decades to do it.

So basically, anything that's overpowered at release is part of the big evil conspiracy to sell the new models, but anything that isn't overpowered was just sacrificed into obscurity in order to obfuscate the previously mentioned conspiracy.

A'ight.

The whole point of a business is to sell things. There are many levers available to a business to pull in order to increase or decrease sales in certain areas. If you don't think strong rules is one of those levers, I don't know what to tell you.

 slave.entity wrote:
The whole point of a business is to sell things. There are many levers available to a business to pull in order to increase or decrease sales in certain areas. If you don't think strong rules is one of those levers, I don't know what to tell you.

So who do you think at GW decided they really didn't want to push the Ork Buggies then?

Tyel wrote:

 slave.entity wrote:
The whole point of a business is to sell things. There are many levers available to a business to pull in order to increase or decrease sales in certain areas. If you don't think strong rules is one of those levers, I don't know what to tell you.

So who do you think at GW decided they really didn't want to push the Ork Buggies then?

Frankly I'm more interested to know why GW decided they didn't want to push Intercessors until a full year after they were released.

There is no point in arguing about this. Either you understand business or you don't. It is not 'an evil conspiracy' for a business to tune its products for its customers.

 Arachnofiend wrote:
Frankly I'm more interested to know why GW decided they didn't want to push Intercessors until a full year after they were released.

Its all part of the master plan.
Because GW clearly wanted people hunting down Forgeworld Dreads, Centurions, Whirlwinds and Thunderfire Cannons and not... idk, Hellblasters and Inceptors.
Its very important to the business that people buy the right plastic and not the wrong plastic.