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Made in at
Second Story Man





Austria

GW is charging a premium price for their products, so not expecting a premium product but some alpha test that otherwise GW would need to pay people to play, and getting the people to believe it cannot be done better, is one hell of marketing that we need to give credit to GW for bulling that off

regarding the rules itself, the problems with the core rules can be explained as:
GW writes the core for the previous army books, not for the upcoming ones

9th Edi Core was written with 8th Edi armies in mind
so there is no progress in rules development but just backwards compatible patchwork that is replaced by the time too many new army rules are added to keep it working (as in 7th)

Harry, bring this ring to Narnia or the Sith will take the Enterprise 
   
Made in us
Regular Dakkanaut




GW: Lists out exactly what Melta, Plasma, and Flamers do in the "Abilities" section of the weapon profile because USR aren't desirable.

Also GW: Blast, Plague Weapon


Bring back USR.
   
Made in gb
Longtime Dakkanaut




 vict0988 wrote:
The melta change was a mistake. The darklance change was a mistake, to me you're just arguing GW should make another mistake.


You're missing the point. It's not so much whether lascannons are good or bad or whether the melta change was good or bad. It's about having a set approach for AT for the game. Whether that's single-shot, with a fixed component plus a small random component, or a flat damage stat, or 2-3 shots with smaller damage per shot. GW's current approach is to give armies whatever the hell it feels like, usually resulting in an escalating power creep.
   
Made in us
Longtime Dakkanaut




Annandale, VA

 Jidmah wrote:
Sure, but that's why cars have thousands of dollars for this baked into their costs. Of a 50k dollar BMW roughly 10% of its costs is just for this kind of stuff and they sell about as many cars per year as there are Warhammer 40k players.

I'm fairly sure that you aren't willing to spend thousands of dollars on an edition.


GW has a current market cap of $3.73 billion, already charges a premium for both models and rules, has been raking in massive profit over the past several years, and regularly implements price rises in excess of inflation anyways. Why are you talking like they're a skin-of-their-teeth startup that can't perform more extensive planning and testing without doubling consumer prices?

Smaller companies than GW are putting out tighter rulesets on far lower budgets and selling them for less. It's not a multi-million-dollar operating expense; with the Internet and willing beta testers it's cheaper than ever. Fail-fast and product-focused design are now commonplace and the whole point is to get the product right through rapid iteration before it goes to customers.

They could hire another ten staff full-time solely to help design and test their games and it would eat into their revenue by less than a fifth of a percent. Or pony up for three industry veteran designers instead of hiring for 'enthusiasm'. Or pay effectively nothing and recruit more extensive alpha testing from the community.

The idea that GW can't better plan or test their games without charging thousands of dollars for an edition is ludicrous.

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2022/01/21 14:55:47


   
Made in us
Decrepit Dakkanaut





Biloxi, MS USA

 kodos wrote:
as if the GW designers never play 40k against each other


GW do not play the same game we do, members of the studio have confirmed this. I don't mean "play the same WD BatRep game for the most interesting version",either. It's been all but confirmed that nearly every internal game has some form of narrative scenario with rules they want to try out.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2022/01/21 14:51:53


You know you're really doing something when you can make strangers hate you over the Internet. - Mauleed
Just remember folks. Panic. Panic all the time. It's the only way to survive, other than just being mindful, of course-but geez, that's so friggin' boring. - Aegis Grimm
Hallowed is the All Pie
The Before Times: A Place That Celebrates The World That Was 
   
Made in gb
Witch Hunter in the Shadows





 Captain Joystick wrote:
Someone who has better memory can confirm or deny this for me, but wasn't the Land Raider's super-incredible ability to let you charge into combat straight out of the vehicle due to a USR called 'boarding ramp' or something to that effect?

I know the rule itself existed back in 5th edition but I can't remember if it was USR or codex level. All I know for sure is that for a good long while Sisters and Grey Knights were too clumsy to run out of that front door, until they fixed it with an FAQ years later to confirm that only Sisters couldn't do it.
Edition differences to some degree, it wasn't a restriction in 3rd and landraiders were exempted in 4th.
Later books (i.e. 4e Dark Angels and CSM) included the assault vehicle rule in the codex as well.

The GK got their landraider errata at the start of 4th edition (2004) even though they were included under the core rules exemption.


3e sister didn't get the assault rule in either the 4e or 5e errata, despite it being a copy/paste from the DH book. Templars didn't get their assault rule until 2011 IIRC - GWs approach to errata was rightly regarded as farcical.
The Imperial Armour 2 update (2008) gave players with older books an alternate option. That said the 3e sisters landraider was a dedicated transport, and none of their assault units could embark on vehicles anyway.
   
Made in at
Second Story Man





Austria

 Platuan4th wrote:
 kodos wrote:
as if the GW designers never play 40k against each other

GW do not play the same game we do, members of the studio have confirmed this. I don't mean "play the same WD BatRep game for the most interesting version",either. It's been all but confirmed that nearly every internal game has some form of narrative scenario with rules they want to try out.

I know that they don't play the game that we do, but the problem is, they don't even use the same rules that we do
so whatever problem we have with the game, the devs will never understand because they are playing a different game (if they play at all)

this is not a problem exclusive to GW, also some MMOs have the same problem were additions/changes to the game are made because someone has a crazy idea that sounds good and fun on paper but because they haven't played the game, it is just that, good on paper

or you could say, 40k is so bad, even they people who are paid to play it don't use the official rules

Harry, bring this ring to Narnia or the Sith will take the Enterprise 
   
Made in ca
Librarian with Freaky Familiar






The gak show that 9th has turned into is the main reason I abandoned 9th and went to 30k and 7th Ed again.

To many unpainted models to count. 
   
Made in us
Dakka Veteran






GW, by far the biggest player in the market, has the resources to hire whatever design talent they want (probably) and could allocate resources to making an incredible, tight, complete, coherent ruleset and accompanying codexes, all beautifully choreographed. The question then is, why haven't they?

I suspect, like all tenacious problems, its complex and systemic. The reality is likely a combination of all of the below items:

(A) The company is making awesome money doing what they're doing already - why spend more resources to make a "better designed product" if it may not even translate into more sales? The worst outcome would be that everyone loves the "perfect" edition and stops clamoring for a new edition. They could potentially get LESS revenue by making a better game. Even if that isn't the case, how clear is the case the a better game would translate into more profit? They probably get more return on investment by pumping more resources into marketing and PR than game design.

(B) Team management and coordination issues - Back in the day of the Rick Priestley's and Andy Chambers' the design team was smaller and most everyone had their hand in everything that was put out (their names are right there in the credits). The ability to be successful despite having loose design/workflow controls may have worked "well enough" back in the day. But now with different teams and many, many, more people involved in the process, without those controls and continuity between authors it turns into a free for all. GW could invest in those design/workflow controls - but see point (A).

(C) Production schedule and timing - GW has a lot more product they are moving compared to twenty years ago. The books are bigger, there's more artwork, new models, new supplements, new campaigns, new stuff galore. The more things that get pushed out means the schedules for delivery of all of this stuff is a driving factor. Design and playtesting takes a LOT of time to get right - it's a labor of love to put in that time. When everyone is pressed to meet deadlines, "good enough" is often what gets delivered at the end of the day.

(D) Personalities & politics - So much can come down to this. I wouldn't be surprised if some higher up fell in love with the idea of "OMG, all of 8th edition core rules fits on 12 pages?! - We need to do this!" The ego's of people involved can push things in directions that may or may not make sense. Sure, the core rules are simplified, but look what's happened to the codex bloat. Or you have different team's and leadership with different visions of how projects get delivered and not be willing to collaborate. Its easy in a big corporate situation to get into office politics that end up reflected in the product.

Again - this is all conjecture - but a combination of the above being the case wouldn't surprise me in the least.

EDIT: And it seems to be, that a lot of started around 5th edition, after many of the Rick Priestley's and Andy Chambers' of old had left or were no longer closer involved in the design process. Unsurprising to me that the impending "codex creep" started shortly there after. Followed by the escalating mess of 6th/7th and now the escalating mess of 8th/9th.

But I guess we can all look forward to 10th edition coming out in the next year or two right? Maybe they'll do a "hard reset" and we can all buy everything all over again and hope it's better this time. Something...something about the definition of insanity.


This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2022/01/21 17:52:39


Want a better 40K?
Check out ProHammer: Classic - An Awesomely Unified Ruleset for 3rd - 7th Edition 40K... for retro 40k feels!
 
   
Made in us
Decrepit Dakkanaut






SoCal, USA!

 vipoid wrote:
Here's the catch, though - for this to work, their rules would need to be free. You don't get to charge £25-30 for a book that isn't even finished yet.


Ohoho... someone hasn't played a brand-new AAA computer or console game in the past 20 years.

   
Made in us
Norn Queen






 JohnHwangDD wrote:
 vipoid wrote:
Here's the catch, though - for this to work, their rules would need to be free. You don't get to charge £25-30 for a book that isn't even finished yet.


Ohoho... someone hasn't played a brand-new AAA computer or console game in the past 20 years.


Not really true. While yes, some gak gets released half finished (and yeah. the video game industry is jam packed with problems), there are also plenty that released with a lot of polish. Witcher 3 had a ton of free patches/dlc. But the game without them was a complete finished game worth it's sticker price.


These are my opinions. This is how I feel. Others may feel differently. This needs to be stated for some reason.
 
   
Made in au
Owns Whole Set of Skullz Techpriests






Versteckt in den Schatten deines Geistes.

 Mezmorki wrote:
The question then is, why haven't they?
This:



This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2022/01/22 02:57:42


Industrial Insanity - My Terrain Blog
"GW really needs to understand 'Less is more' when it comes to AoS." - Wha-Mu-077

 
   
Made in de
Ork Admiral Kroozin Da Kosmos on Da Hulk






That nails it.

GW's goal is to make money, not to design the best game ever. It just needs to be good enough to keep drawing in new customers and while not driving away those existing customers willing to pay money.

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2022/01/22 09:38:53


7 Ork facts people always get wrong:
Ragnar did not win against Thrakka, but suffered two crushing defeats within a few days of each other.
A lasgun is powerful enough to sever an ork's appendage or head in a single, well aimed shot.
Orks meks have a better understanding of electrics and mechanics than most Tech Priests.
Orks do not think that purple makes them harder to see. They do think that camouflage does however, without knowing why.
Gharkull Blackfang did not even come close to killing the emperor.
Orks can be corrupted by chaos, but few of them have any interest in what chaos offers.
Orks do not have the power of believe. 
   
Made in at
Second Story Man





Austria

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
 vipoid wrote:
Here's the catch, though - for this to work, their rules would need to be free. You don't get to charge £25-30 for a book that isn't even finished yet.


Ohoho... someone hasn't played a brand-new AAA computer or console game in the past 20 years.

But they call it early Access most of time and necessary patches are free

Even EA does not have the balls to charge full price for the day 1 bug fix

Harry, bring this ring to Narnia or the Sith will take the Enterprise 
   
Made in us
Norn Queen






 Jidmah wrote:
That nails it.

GW's goal is to make money, not to design the best game ever. It just needs to be good enough to keep drawing in new customers and while not driving away those existing customers willing to pay money.


Which then comes down to why do the individuals pay for it? Especially now, having worked out how fethed up their business practice of charging premium prices for garbage content is, why would you (or any individual who has seen behind the curtain) pay a single red cent for a book of content you know is obsolete in no time flat?

It's one thing when they got you and you didn't realize you were being got. It's entirely different when you know they are doing this and you keep doing it anyway.


These are my opinions. This is how I feel. Others may feel differently. This needs to be stated for some reason.
 
   
Made in de
Ork Admiral Kroozin Da Kosmos on Da Hulk






Our maybe people are making a reasonable decisions that what they are getting is worth their money because they are having fun with their products.

I know that doesn't fit the "GW conning brainless sheeple into a disfunctional game" narrative, but that's how it is.

7 Ork facts people always get wrong:
Ragnar did not win against Thrakka, but suffered two crushing defeats within a few days of each other.
A lasgun is powerful enough to sever an ork's appendage or head in a single, well aimed shot.
Orks meks have a better understanding of electrics and mechanics than most Tech Priests.
Orks do not think that purple makes them harder to see. They do think that camouflage does however, without knowing why.
Gharkull Blackfang did not even come close to killing the emperor.
Orks can be corrupted by chaos, but few of them have any interest in what chaos offers.
Orks do not have the power of believe. 
   
Made in us
Decrepit Dakkanaut






Springfield, VA

I think there is more to it than that.

You can have fun with 40k miniatures playing 4th, or Mezzo's ProHammer. Those are "finished" - no churn, no obsolescence, no rebuying the same thing but slightly different.

I think there's something more to it than "it's fun so why not do it?" You can see this in the 'cult of officialdom' where actively unfun things are embraced by players with a shrug and a wince because "hey, it's official".

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2022/01/22 13:45:58


 
   
Made in ie
Veteran Wolf Guard Squad Leader





Dublin

It's swings and roundabouts if you ask me. In 1st and 2nd ed we had datafaxes for vehicles and lots of unit specific special rules.3rd to 7th largely did away with it*. Now we're back to it.

*During this time there was a tendency in tabletop games design to reduce the number of stats on units, and supplement with USRs. It failed in its original purpose to make things simpler, because its easier to remember a bunch of numbers, but I think it added great flavour to units, because utilities and synergies are more interesting than just bunches of numbers. Another trend that will come and go.

I personally preferred the use of USRs, but I don't think there's anything intrinsically wrong with either approach. It's more a case of how well they're implemented. GeeDubs repeated mistake is that they revamp and simplify the game, and then gradually add so much extra material it becomes bloated and unwieldy.

I let the dogs out 
   
Made in us
Decrepit Dakkanaut






Springfield, VA

I still remember the fifth-to-sixth changeover.

"Let's see what they fixed..."
"Well, they added challenges, which take ALL of a character's attacks on just the Sergeant!"
"O... Kay..."
"And we changed how psychic powers work!"
"But those weren't broken..."
"We added hullpoints to tanks because they were too hard to kill"
"Maybe, but you could just change the damage chart rather than add a whole second damage mechanism... still not convinced..."
"... it's an official rules update from the designers?"
...
"I'M IN LET'S PLAY SIXTH BABY HYPE HYPE!"

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2022/01/22 14:04:34


 
   
Made in us
Dakka Veteran






 Unit1126PLL wrote:
I still remember the fifth-to-sixth changeover.

"Let's see what they fixed..."


And we added random charge distances because we wanted to punish careful planning/positioning (?)

And we added flyers and tons of flyer special rules and make em super strong because, you see, we have all these flyer models to sell

And the list goes on....


Want a better 40K?
Check out ProHammer: Classic - An Awesomely Unified Ruleset for 3rd - 7th Edition 40K... for retro 40k feels!
 
   
Made in at
Second Story Man





Austria

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
I think there is more to it than that.

yes, russian archives and battlescribe

I would say about 2/3 to 5/6 of the people play 40k because of the models/background and they can get all the rules needed for free

Harry, bring this ring to Narnia or the Sith will take the Enterprise 
   
Made in us
Growlin' Guntrukk Driver with Killacannon





Italy

 Mezmorki wrote:
GW, by far the biggest player in the market, has the resources to hire whatever design talent they want (probably) and could allocate resources to making an incredible, tight, complete, coherent ruleset and accompanying codexes, all beautifully choreographed. The question then is, why haven't they?

(C) Production schedule and timing - GW has a lot more product they are moving compared to twenty years ago. The books are bigger, there's more artwork, new models, new supplements, new campaigns, new stuff galore. The more things that get pushed out means the schedules for delivery of all of this stuff is a driving factor. Design and playtesting takes a LOT of time to get right - it's a labor of love to put in that time. When everyone is pressed to meet deadlines, "good enough" is often what gets delivered at the end of the day.

(D) Personalities & politics - So much can come down to this. I wouldn't be surprised if some higher up fell in love with the idea of "OMG, all of 8th edition core rules fits on 12 pages?! - We need to do this!" The ego's of people involved can push things in directions that may or may not make sense. Sure, the core rules are simplified, but look what's happened to the codex bloat. Or you have different team's and leadership with different visions of how projects get delivered and not be willing to collaborate. Its easy in a big corporate situation to get into office politics that end up reflected in the product.

Again - this is all conjecture - but a combination of the above being the case wouldn't surprise me in the least.


Just wanted to echo your sentiments on C & D. It's all conjecture but having worked acquisitions in the government you really hit the nail on the head there. While GW has dramatically more capital than a smaller game/mini company being that large does come with it's own share of issues the biggest being how hard it is to pivot compared to a smaller company. That said I have to disagree on A & B, while it's true GW is making a profit and doesn't need to change that's a bit short sighted since if one part of your brand (rules / balance) becomes associated with poor quality it makes it easier for competitors to eat up your market share. Additionally stagnation in a creative market can easily lead to losing market share as well.

GW is doing great financially and market share, but if they want to remain on top spending small amounts to improve their design and play testing would be more than worthwhile in the long run.
   
Made in us
Decrepit Dakkanaut






SoCal, USA!

 kodos wrote:
 JohnHwangDD wrote:
 vipoid wrote:
Here's the catch, though - for this to work, their rules would need to be free. You don't get to charge £25-30 for a book that isn't even finished yet.


Ohoho... someone hasn't played a brand-new AAA computer or console game in the past 20 years.

But they call it early Access most of time and necessary patches are free

Even EA does not have the balls to charge full price for the day 1 bug fix


EA's Battlefield 2042 wasn't full price?

How about Projekt Red's Cyberpunk 2077? LOL

I've spend enough big money on computer games at launch not to do that any more. I just wait for the games to get shaken out.

   
Made in gb
Fixture of Dakka







Even in the cases of those two, the publishers weren't charging you to get patches for the games, and definitely not at a similar price to the game, were they?

I think kodos' point there was more similar to a Custodes player - especially one with FW units - who has picked up a Codex today, only to find there are points changes in the CA being released next week. It isn't an issue if they're sticking to Codex-only units, admittedly.

We've seen a couple of times now where a book has come out, with CA following closely behind with changes to the points.

Heck, from the proposed seasons model, our theoretical tournament Custodes player (who, for argument's sake, doesn't have Warhammer+) will need to pay for a new CA to keep their Codex updated in six months, even if they got a PDF of the changes via WHC this time.

2021-4 Plog - Here we go again... - my fifth attempt at a Dakka PLOG

My Pile of Potential - updates ongoing...

Gamgee on Tau Players wrote:we all kill cats and sell our own families to the devil and eat live puppies.


 Kanluwen wrote:
This is, emphatically, why I will continue suggesting nuking Guard and starting over again. It's a legacy army that needs to be rebooted with a new focal point.

Confirmation of why no-one should listen to Kanluwen when it comes to the IG - he doesn't want the IG, he want's Kan's New Model Army...

tneva82 wrote:
You aren't even trying ty pretend for honest arqument. Open bad faith trolling.
- No reason to keep this here, unless people want to use it for something... 
   
Made in us
Decrepit Dakkanaut






SoCal, USA!

IIRC, CP2077 was no refunds for a full-price AAA game that obviously didn't deliver what it said it would, in direct violation of basic consumer protection law.

At least in the case of a book, players should be allowed to play RAW, based only on what's printed within the 4 corners of the document.

   
Made in us
Norn Queen






 JohnHwangDD wrote:
IIRC, CP2077 was no refunds for a full-price AAA game that obviously didn't deliver what it said it would, in direct violation of basic consumer protection law.

At least in the case of a book, players should be allowed to play RAW, based only on what's printed within the 4 corners of the document.


"Should" being the operative word.

Lets not pretend that GWs history of this crap doesn't include completely broken rules that don't function on the table in any reasonable fashion. Who else remembers the Pyrovore rule that blew up the entire table? That codex was released in 6th, was the codex through all of 7th. And when they released the end of 7th FAQ document they never addressed it. The guy who wrote that codex is the lead designer for the entire game for the past 2 edition.

This message was edited 3 times. Last update was at 2022/01/23 10:40:04



These are my opinions. This is how I feel. Others may feel differently. This needs to be stated for some reason.
 
   
Made in at
Second Story Man





Austria

not giving a full refund depends on where you bought/play it
early access has its own conditions (and I never get this anyway for a reason)
but there was no bug fix or patch you had to pay for

and the same way, you cannot buy a Custodes Army, buy the books, build the models, play 2 games and bring them back to the store and get a refund because the army is not what GW advertised it or you don't like the points changes in CA


and if we get in more details, CP2077 is still on full price I guess, the same as the Custodes Book is after CA is released because paying full price for outdated rules and full price for the update is industry standard

Harry, bring this ring to Narnia or the Sith will take the Enterprise 
   
 
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