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 auticus wrote:
WHen I did campaign events I had to write houserules to curb the powergaming. Of course that leads to the age old chestnut of "who are you to rewrite the rules and make my army less effective? HOW DARE YOU!" arguments and screaming matches that can take place down at the good ole game store.

I believe the correct responses to this question are either "Me? I'm Batman." or "I'm the event organiser, hence I can change the rules as needed".

 auticus wrote:
I mean I have had a guy almost flip a table and storm out because I was using a warhammer world scenario which wasn't "real 40k" (wasn't an ITC tournament scenario) and another guy flip his **** at a campaign event because we were using Forgeworld campaign and those weren't "real 40k". Then there was the guy that wanted to go out into the parking lot to fight because houserules were toxic and ruined the community and he felt VERY strongly about that.

Guy 1 - ITC isn't real 40k either, and at least the scenario you were using was published by GW
Guy 2 - FW materials are released with the GW & 40k logos on them, ergo they're part of "real 40k". Suck it up, buttercup.
Guy 3 - "Hi, police? I've got a gentleman here threatening to assault me over a miniature wargame..."

Deadnight wrote:

Tyel wrote:There are many complaints on Dakka, but the idea people don't want an balanced game makes very little sense.

He's not wrong though. People say they want balance, but despite the words, what they often mean is they want the illusion of balance. What's more important than fair rules or balanced rules are official rules. Especially a lowest common denominator, minimum effort plug in and play that cannot be deviated from and which can be exploited. Competitive listbuilding is ultimately about squeezing five thousand points of power into a two thousand point list, but still claiming you are within the rules.

Drakthul wrote:
I think in general "competitive" play is toxic, personally. I don't really see the fun in it, at least not anymore. I used play it that way back in 4th and 5th, and I found it made me hate myself, and the hobby as a whole. I've largely moved onto other games, but I still collect GW minis because I like painting them. Overall, I'm not a fan of most of their 'balance' design still. I keep up to date, just because it is the biggest game.

Competitive play is not necessarily toxic. Competitive-at-all-costs play is toxic. Competitive play, with zero empathy or willingness to account for other approaches is toxic. 40k is a bad competitive game, full stop. It's never been good for it. I played WMH for years, competitively. Even claimed some scalps from folks who went on to win national masters. I was decent, have some medals, and could have been 'good'. And there was a time when I enjoyed the white knuckle excitement of the tournament scene immensely. I lived and breathed it. I get it. I do. There's nothing wrong with enjoying that kind of thing. But insisting only that kind of thing has value is where I draw the line. Dismissing other approaches as 'casual' grates - the opposite of competitive is not casual, it's non-competitive. The opposite of casual is serious. And you can be a serious player and seriously invested in the hobby and game who is simply uninterested in the top tier lists.

Drakthul wrote:
The last time I ran anything was an excitedly narrative campaign I ran. What did I find? The first four people who entered? Awesome. Then others found out and wanted to join, no one wanted to be the people to say 'no', so slowly more people joined. As more people joined, they had different ideas of what they wanted, and many of them were 'competitive'. Or through narrative campaigns just meant... test games? I'm not sure. But people started bringing increasingly hardened lists, avoiding things that were the basis of the campaign, IE, trying to have relatively soft, fluffy lists. A few bad apples basically came into the group, stomped people, accelerated an arms race, and turned the friendly narrative campaign into an unfun nightmare. Before people say anything, I mostly ran the campaign, I only played if someone's opponent couldn't show up. I wanted to build something for me and a few friends that was about following a narrative campaign.
And I'll point out, saying that you want to run your campaign narratively is great, but people who don't want that will show up, and will ruin it to basically just shot on other people's armies because they just care about winning.

Learn to say no. Our girls learn it early in life. Us nerds need to do the same.

In some ways, this was on them. In others, This was on you. You did the wrong thing for all the right reasons. With respect, the number one rule for wargsming need some to be 'play with likeminded individuals'. You need honest, open and up front communication. You need to be clear what' it entails. Too manyou people, it gets unwieldy. Different people want different things, often at different times. This is ok. Nothing wrong with it. But when tournament players come in, bring tournament lists to your grass leagues soft fluffy lists, whilst neither side is strictly wrong in the type ps of games they want to play, nonetheless there is a problem. For both camps. Not everyone needs to play together, you're not doing people favours saying yes just because. It's like an RPG, you need to be on the same page with the type of game you want. That may mean gate keeping. Its ok to say 'no'. It's Not necessarily a bad thing, but it is necessary for its long term health.

I should point something out, when the system broke down, I basically ended it and made it quite clear why it was ended. I got grumbles mostly from the players I didn't want to join, rather than the people who wanted to play just simple games with authentic-esque lists. The problem is, I didn't want these people to join, other people did because of peer pressure. When they were allowed in (often after weeks of me saying "I'd rather not") it had the exact effect I warned about.

Giving the players what they want is something you do have to relent to. Sometimes though, they just don't know what they want.

 Dysartes wrote:

 auticus wrote:
WHen I did campaign events I had to write houserules to curb the powergaming. Of course that leads to the age old chestnut of "who are you to rewrite the rules and make my army less effective? HOW DARE YOU!" arguments and screaming matches that can take place down at the good ole game store.

I believe the correct responses to this question are either "Me? I'm Batman." or "I'm the event organiser, hence I can change the rules as needed".

 auticus wrote:
I mean I have had a guy almost flip a table and storm out because I was using a warhammer world scenario which wasn't "real 40k" (wasn't an ITC tournament scenario) and another guy flip his **** at a campaign event because we were using Forgeworld campaign and those weren't "real 40k". Then there was the guy that wanted to go out into the parking lot to fight because houserules were toxic and ruined the community and he felt VERY strongly about that.

Guy 1 - ITC isn't real 40k either, and at least the scenario you were using was published by GW
Guy 2 - FW materials are released with the GW & 40k logos on them, ergo they're part of "real 40k". Suck it up, buttercup.
Guy 3 - "Hi, police? I've got a gentleman here threatening to assault me over a miniature wargame..."

heh oh the number of arguments I've had with locals about ITC and it not being official 40k either. To many its official 40k because its tournament standard. They are just using the wrong word. "official" doesn't mean GW official by the book, it means "tournament standard" to a lot of people. Thats what they are arguing for, because thats what they spent a grand on for in the first place, an army that does REALLY REALLY well in tournament standard, but does not do so well outside of that (or does moderately well but moderately well is not REALLY REALLY well so they are being "punished") - there's that "punished" word again some of us were discussing in the painting thread that got locked down.

Guy 1 and 2 were basically saying the same thing. Its not tournament standard 40k so it shouldn't be allowed (I'll never understand why people feel that they are entitled to say all events should run liike their ITC events)

Guy 3 - yeah he's special. And mostly a pariah now.

 auticus wrote:
Spend a year doing game design. You won't get another chance to fill in for GW like I did with the AOS initial release, but general game design in competitive style game like wargames will show you what people really want.

I've been doing game design, mainly video games but I have a shelf full of my own wargame supplements and alternate rulesets as well, for many years and I will say that there are designer conferences where this topic comes up and is talked about.

From a commercial standpoint, balance does not sell. I have seen the backlash of balance with my own eyes, and even if you aren't in game design you can look out at the other wargames on the market today that are mostly touted as being a lot tighter (no i'm not saying perfect balance) that have a very small fan base, yet the most imbalanced game also dominates the market. Imbalance sells because imbalance is exciting. Its exciting to chase after the imbalance. Its exciting to get the imbalance and win with it. It gives the rush of winning. (is this universal? am I saying EVERYONE is like this? Obviously no, it repels me to my core, and I know there are people like me but we are not in any way very well represented)

Because balance is not a primary concern for most people playing games, even if they say it is something they care about. So long as their faction can do well, they really don't care about the necron players getting their nose ground into the table. Thats the necron players' fault for liking necrons and they need to get good and buy a better faction.

To put it back on topic... competitive players (of which I used to belong to that group so I am speaking from my own desires and experience as one) want the opposite of balance. They actively seek imbalance, they build lists to skew balance so hard in their favor that they win by virtue of their list. Thats the goal of listbuilding and a game that reinforces listbuilding. To skew the game as hard as you can in your favor. To actively IMBALANCE the game as hard as you can.

Want to try an experiment? Make a tournament, supply the armies, and have the armies be the same. Thats as balanced as you can get. Everyone has the same tools, like a chessboard. And you will see it raged on and dismissed. You'd think tournaments should be about showing skill and who can play better, but we have infused listbuilding skews as equally tactical as playing the game. And that will NEVER change.

I think you are describing two things.
Obviously most people prefer to win than to lose, and there are some people out there who just want to win. All the time. Every game. If they are not winning the game sucks.
And so those people, to an extent, want to be supplied with an all conquering list from the internet, and then smash some scrubs. And they hate balance, because it means they have to buy another netlist. And another and another etc.
But I'm not convinced that is the bulk of playerbase, because this sort of behavior tends to be toxic.
And because few people like being farmed by such lists.
So over time, what you describe in the end, happens. All the armies in a club or whatever start to become the same, because only armies that are getting into the last 8 of the LVO are being played. And then people get bored.

For games design, I think the issue is a divide between "power" - i.e. I get more for my points than you do - and "interesting" - i.e. I get some sort of special rule that makes me play in a different way to other factions.
Which is sort of what the OP talked about. They don't like the idea that Orks are playing like Guardsmen, cowering in ruins to score objectives.

But I think the point is that people like variety. And the only way you get that is with a relatively balanced system.

Unfortunately though you can build a game system which is balanced but also very *boring*. Old 40k (and especially fantasy) used to be a bit like this. This is a space marine, this is a guardian, this is an ork boy - they all essentially walk and talk the same, barring a slight variation in stats and weapon profiles. I remember thinking Eldar getting fleet (or whatever the rule was back then) was the height of rules complexity. Take that slow imperial goons.

A lot of "balanced" custom editions - for AOS, 9th edition WHFB etc - I think make the mistake in thinking the game is balanced if you just remove everything interesting from the game. And sure, it probably is, but its also... dull. If playing your high elves is just like playing your friends chaos warriors is just like playing your other friends goblins, then it can be boring. You don't have that variety - unless you start going into dedicated narrative stories where there is no pretense both sides should have a roughly equal chance to win.

But I think the point is that people like variety. And the only way you get that is with a relatively balanced system.

I have never seen that actually played out in any communities, video game or tabletop. I'd LOVE to be proven wrong but even in design meetings for titles or games this is one of the things that gets discussed and chosen because imbalance is vastly the more profitable model.

If the people REALLY wanted balance, they wouldn't shovel money to game companies that provide the opposite. Or barring that, if they REALLY wanted balance they would prioritize that first. (this is MY personal priority, if the game is not balanced and I get "punished" for liking the wrong faction, I'm not going to play that game or give money to the company because the game and the game's results matter to me, thats why I play games to begin with and I don't want to have to fork over $1000 every year to get to keep doing that in a viable environment)

After all, game designers and companies are going to go after the money. If they are being rewarded for creating imbalance, they will keep down that path.

I have been made to by the publisher or producer alter rules to bring skew in because the publisher or producer knew that my balance would turn players off because then its "boring and not fun".

I have seen for example Age of Sigmar with the fan comp systems be just as different with each faction and also balanced. At least a ton more balanced than GW.

I also know that people hated that. Because listbuilding wasn't as impactful and thats why a lot of people are here. I had a guy take the time to write me on facebook to wish cancer on me because I made his listbuilding hobby not as good since we made 2000 points represent 2000 points. So I know it can be done. I've done it, I've had peers do it with their own systems. Not perfectly, nothing will ever be perfect, but leagues better than 40k or aos. And I've watched those efforts be largely wasted because thats not what people want enmasse.

I also know that the points model that GW chose had purposeful imbalances put in. The designer of that point system had said on their chat board that they intentionally made monsters cheaper to entice people to take more monsters by making them undercost. That point system is what GW adopted as "official points" in 2016.

Thats just one example out of hundreds, but one pertinent to GW games where I actually know an actual truth of the matter.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also notice, there are no competitive players in these threads trying to say otherwise that they want balance. Because they know they don't really want balance. They want to seek to skew the game with listbuilding and make the game as imbalanced as they are allowed. We had a painting thread get to 39 pages of back and forth so I know its not that they aren't reading this, its that there is little to argue against.

As pointed out in a post above, the ability to play a 5000 point army by squeezing it into 2000 points and then being legal by the rules. Thats what they are after. You see it every.single.day.

People love to have balance as long as they get balance+.

To be honest I would rather have GW create one tight mono build per codex with a something having an idea how it should work within the core rules of an editions. And not go full core rules philosophy change every 6-9 months. Some armies would still be better, some would be worse. Some probably be too good, if optimized, but at least there would be no of those armies that need tournament lists to play casual games.

But I don't know, maybe it would work only around here. Maybe stuff like that isn't really needed in other places.

 auticus wrote:

Spoiler:

 Dysartes wrote:

 auticus wrote:
WHen I did campaign events I had to write houserules to curb the powergaming. Of course that leads to the age old chestnut of "who are you to rewrite the rules and make my army less effective? HOW DARE YOU!" arguments and screaming matches that can take place down at the good ole game store.

I believe the correct responses to this question are either "Me? I'm Batman." or "I'm the event organiser, hence I can change the rules as needed".

 auticus wrote:
I mean I have had a guy almost flip a table and storm out because I was using a warhammer world scenario which wasn't "real 40k" (wasn't an ITC tournament scenario) and another guy flip his **** at a campaign event because we were using Forgeworld campaign and those weren't "real 40k". Then there was the guy that wanted to go out into the parking lot to fight because houserules were toxic and ruined the community and he felt VERY strongly about that.

Guy 1 - ITC isn't real 40k either, and at least the scenario you were using was published by GW
Guy 2 - FW materials are released with the GW & 40k logos on them, ergo they're part of "real 40k". Suck it up, buttercup.
Guy 3 - "Hi, police? I've got a gentleman here threatening to assault me over a miniature wargame..."

heh oh the number of arguments I've had with locals about ITC and it not being official 40k either. To many its official 40k because its tournament standard. They are just using the wrong word. "official" doesn't mean GW official by the book, it means "tournament standard" to a lot of people. Thats what they are arguing for, because thats what they spent a grand on for in the first place, an army that does REALLY REALLY well in tournament standard, but does not do so well outside of that (or does moderately well but moderately well is not REALLY REALLY well so they are being "punished") - there's that "punished" word again some of us were discussing in the painting thread that got locked down.

Guy 1 and 2 were basically saying the same thing. Its not tournament standard 40k so it shouldn't be allowed (I'll never understand why people feel that they are entitled to say all events should run liike their ITC events)

And here I was thinking the tournament crowd weren't keen on RAI instead of RAW - you'd think they'd pick their words better, wouldn't you?

And yes, not everything needs to run like a hardcore tournament.

 auticus wrote:
Guy 3 - yeah he's special. And mostly a pariah now.

Shiny metal body, white ceramic facemask, some form of gauss polearm? Sounds about right...

I'm not trying to speak for anyone other than myself, and deliver the experiences I have had on both sides of the fence.

I'd probably fall in the filthy casual category, but I've competed frequently throughout my life. Not usually in 40K, but in just about every hobby I've taken it to competitive extremes because the opportunity was there. I've not done that specifically in 40K because I learned very early on that competitive 40K isn't really... well... competitive. I think that comes from the game's roots in being a casual, narrative game that is more akin to large-scale D&D than it is like M:tG.

So, when I sit down to draft up an army, I look at a lot of the same things that competitive players do: what value does this unit bring to my overall army, what cost, what are the expected results on the table, how does this unit assist me in filling my objectives on the tabletop? Probably a lot how the designers look at units when they're building them. Each unit was designed to do something, and trying to unlock that understanding makes me feel like I can better make use of it and understand how GW envisions this army operating. Then, my "fluffy" list fields units with roles on the table. Roles are normally: fire support, area control, area denial, harassment, assassin, support, etc. Then comes picking the purpose of the army, and I normally start with a bit of area control (units that can move onto space and occupy it for like scoring objectives). This ranges anywhere from light units that can keep a low profile, like middling blobs of troops, to big units built to be durable and hard to remove. Then you support that with things like fire support (units designed to suppress your opponent and support those troops) or area denial to restrict the opponent's movement into spaces I don't want them in. Ultimately, the army hits the table and it becomes clear what the role of each unit is. The army more-or-less takes on the feel GW was trying to achieve, and for a narrative game... we get a pretty solid match between two well-built armies.

Competitive may have its roots in those areas, because the concepts don't really change, but the refinement phase is taken to a Nth degree. Things like optimal size, optimal loadouts, points efficiency, mathhammer... all of these fraction of a % decisions are applied to every aspect of the army. From that initial run of mathhammer, some units get dropped (oh, farewell Howling Banshees) in favor of maximizing others (oh, HELLO Nightspinners!). Normally, by this point, the armies look nothing alike. Then comes things like stratagem-hammer to get unintended power creeps, and application of weird rules like 1+ saves with nue-Stormshields (you know, clearly unintended things that have wild power swings in a game that I won't exploit and go with RAI over RAW).

Then comes the constant loop of the refinement phase of competitive play, where interactions are ironed out, timing of the tactics is tuned to the point of even the CP use is tactically optimal. And I mean, these are like fractions of a % of optimization, but that's where they spend a lot of time... and normally, this is where the filthy casual games come into play. It isn't about "stomping the life" out of the opposing player... it is about refinement and testing those changes or timings. It is unfortunate that they're not including the "filthy casual" in that process and they become a blind-sided victim in many cases. I mean, the most unfortunate part is that the opposing player's interest in the game is fundamentally irrelevant at this point. Their experience, interaction, feedback... means nothing. They are just a cardboard cutout that cuts out half the work of playing the game alone and allows the tuner to focus on the important data.

So now you have someone with a "TAC" army built to emulate a fighting force that could realistically be found in lore squaring off with a guy trying to field a fighting force optimized to do "something" to 100% and beyond. The TAC guy may be looking for a social experience and the tuner is looking for data gathering. From the onset of the game they're both after distinctly different outcomes (winning is not the outcome in either case... it is socialization vs data gathering/testing).

The problem is only aggravated because balance is impossible to achieve in this setting. Even if things are closer to balanced than they are, simple decisions like sub-faction choice shifts that balance because units just plain perform differently once these things hit. An Alaitoc CHE is way better than a Biel-tan one... does Alaitoc cost more or does Biel-tan cost less? They're clearly no balanced against each other. And these are the differences in the thought process. A more competitive player is never going to drop a CHE into a Biel-tan detachment, it strategically provides no benefit where there is an obvious "better choice" - but does that mean CHE should never be played in a Biel-tan army? Well, I'll play it, because it is an Aspect Warrior.

How do you achieve balance around that? Because this is 100% going to be a disconnect between fluff players and crunch players. And as long as a difference in valuation exists, crunch players are going to find the optimal combination of these differences to play at a level beyond what is expected. Once the power shifts, they shift their tactics to find the new undercosted or overperforming units and the cycle begins anew. GW can nip the worst of the worst, but as long as decisions like Alaitoc vs Biel-tan exist, there will always be a difference in power that cannot be overcome with balance. Which leads to decisions like that being removed, and now we start down the road to "normalization" where "bad" choices cannot be made to ensure "all armies are equal"ly bland.

I think as long as the overperforming units are brought back in line (oh hi, Tau Commanders and Flying Hive Tyrants) and GW spends a bit more time working on those poor units that are so god awful and lost (Howling Banshees) to get them at least CLOSE to the rest of the pack... then both groups will still naturally segregate based on ideal outcome of the match, but they won't be playing ENTIRELY different games (oh, hello there Iron Hands indestructible castle). Sure they'll cross over now and then, but the results shouldn't be AS tragic, though I doubt they'll still be pretty.

I mean, really, how many people at a tournament are there for the experience... and how many people are there to REALLY compete? So really, this normally plays out in tournaments, too, until a point that the groups start to separate due to the competitive guys rising over the normies and then they have to start squaring off due to standings. But like a solid 50% of the people there are just normies that you play against all the time, which makes that experience against normies almost as valuable as against the pros. You ever see a normie list demolish a pro list because it just happened to be the perfect storm of counter units and bizarre tactics that just totally blindsided the pro and he made critical play errors that compounded the issues? I have. It is kinda funny.

Anyways, rant over. Sorry. Again, not gospel, just my experiences vomited out all over the place. Maybe shed some light on why I think the two spaces can overlap, but ultimately the differences can never be reconciled.

You can't achieve perfect balance ever. What you can do is squash the obvious OP always-takes, and look at the units (or... entire factions) that are never taken and address why that is.

If the argument is a 50/50 knife's edge of balance, thats unreasonable. I don't mind playing an uphill game, if I have a chance.

But look at necrons in 8th edition as an example of steaming garbage. As an entire faction basically. There should never be an entire faction that sits in that category for that long.

Slaves to darkness in AOS is another example. They were hot flaming garbage for FIVE years.

the_scotsman 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, you're saying that in an incredibly cunning maneuver, James Workshop has taken a look at their game where, overall, about 1 in 4 units are competitive level strong, and has decided that the best way to create a "pay to win" scenario is to release models and ensure that about 1 in 4 is competitive level strong.

Well in that case, I hope they keep doing it that way? This is one of those conspiracies like "Obama creates the weather". Like, if it's true, I hope he keeps doing it then??

The sarcasm is unnecessary. If you want to discuss, let's discuss. If not, then why bother?

And yes, that's exactly what I'm saying. Not every unit is designed for the competitive player. Not every unit needs competitive-level rules to sell kits. Competitive players are a tiny fraction of the player base so it would follow that, across the entire 2 or 3 thousand SKUs (can't remember exactly), only a handful of them fulfill the needs of that segment of the customer base.

Pay-to-win is a term mostly used from the fan perspective so it's probably too strong here. There is no conspiracy of evil businessmen scheming to take your money. I know it can feel that way, especially if you've spent years on the competitive treadmill chasing the meta (see auticus's reply to my last post). But rest assured, at no point have the words "pay-to-win" ever been written on a design goals whiteboard at GW HQ.

The pay-to-win aspect of the business model, insofar as it addresses the needs of the competitive player base, is implicit. It is an obvious lever for the design team to pull in order to influence sales and meet business goals whenever the situation calls for it. Keep in mind though, all of the entry-level designers at GW doing the heavy lifting design work (writing datasheets, checking rules, etc) most likely hate pulling that lever. Younger designers tend to be bright-eyed, design rockstars, armed with a deep understanding of fundamental game design principles and strong opinions on what good game design looks like, all from a purely technical perspective. They don't think about business, marketing, PR, or sales. Their sole task is to design games. They also tend to be much closer to the fan base in terms of demographic, tastes, and general attitudes toward the product they're selling. So naturally they will be violently opposed to anything that smells even vaguely of the dreaded "pay-to-win" moniker.

Where does it ultimately come from then? You already know where. The business department. Not to say the business department knows a damn thing about game design. They may have never even heard the words 'pay-to-win' and they generally don't know anything about what makes a good game. That's not their job. But there is a single person they talk to who does, and that is the head of design.

As a head of design, your main responsibility is to ensure the design team produces results that keep the rest of your business afloat. Your job is to talk to everyone in charge of their respective departments and use that knowledge to create a basic design framework for the rest of the design team to act on. The idea is this framework, with minimal external guidance, enables your designers to come up with a ruleset that satisfies all of the requirements outlined by the other departments, and most importantly, the business department. Sometimes those requirements entail things like "grow the competitive scene" or "give competitive players something new to work with" or "attract new customers that fit our profile of a competitive player". Generally speaking, the guys in business will have identified who they need to sell to in order to keep their numbers more green and less red. They pass this information to the design department, and from that point on it's up to the head of design to decide how to go about executing.

You have to remember pay-to-win is never the explicit goal driving these design decisions. They don't call it pay to win. All they're doing is identifying a portion of their customers who generate revenue, and creating products for those customers. Competitive players generate buzz. They stay on top of all the new releases. They host big, flashy events. They like to play the game a certain way, they like to optimize, and they tend to get bored if the meta stagnates for too long. Picking and choosing a few competitively viable units every season, and rotating them in and out as time passes, appears to be the strategy GW has settled on. It appears to be working.

If you're only analyzing this situation from the perspective of a fan or if you only evaluate rules decisions from the perspective of game design, then you will be missing crucial factors in the bigger picture. A successful game business is a complex engine with many different moving parts. Design does not happen in a vacuum. And certainly not when talking about huge organizations like GW.

So what factor does GW use to determine which ancient 3rd ed era/finecast sculpts they're going to seemingly arbitrarily ascend to competitive godhood?

Certainly doesn't seem like it's "Do we have this thing in stock, ready to sell to our competitive playerbase" to me. considering that whether it's shining spears, or talos pain engines, or vauls wrath batteries, or whatever, it basically instantly goes out of stock and stays that way for months.

You would think that would...not make GW any money, particularly if they do something like, I dunno, release a brand new plastic banshees unit and then the supporting rulebook that comes out with them makes Vauls Wrath guns ridiculously OP while leaving the brand new banshees garbage.

So the new unit GW just invested money into doesn't sell to competitive players, but they instantly run out of stock of the ancient old sculpt and everyone competitively minded goes to ebay to get those.

It also seems to me like, were I a corporation interested in instituting some kind of pay to win situation, I would do something to kind of use those competitive sales to drive my business. I might, for example, if I were considering releasing a big wave of CSMs and I was planning on having one of the new models be super duper tournament competitive, I might go ahead and put that bad boy right there in the big box and make it so you have to buy the big box with all the non-competitive units in it to get the super competitive thing.

I wouldn't, for example, release the big box with all the non-competitive junk units in it, and then release the thing lets name for the sake of argument a Lord of Discord in its own SEPARATE kit that then all my competitive players would just buy that and not buy the box set.

It's not that simple. Not every release is designed to milk competitive players for all their worth. Furthermore, businesses make a lot of mistakes. You are correct in that it's not an evil conspiracy where every single tiny design decision is a calculated move designed to maximize sales. Lots of things simply fly under the radar, and end up being overpowered for no good reason. You've seen how sloppy their rules writing can be. Now imagine these same mistakes, but scaled up across the 10-20 different departments, not just the handful of guys in the rules department.

the_scotsman wrote:
So what factor does GW use to determine which ancient 3rd ed era/finecast sculpts they're going to seemingly arbitrarily ascend to competitive godhood?

Certainly doesn't seem like it's "Do we have this thing in stock, ready to sell to our competitive playerbase" to me. considering that whether it's shining spears, or talos pain engines, or vauls wrath batteries, or whatever, it basically instantly goes out of stock and stays that way for months.

You would think that would...not make GW any money, particularly if they do something like, I dunno, release a brand new plastic banshees unit and then the supporting rulebook that comes out with them makes Vauls Wrath guns ridiculously OP while leaving the brand new banshees garbage.

So the new unit GW just invested money into doesn't sell to competitive players, but they instantly run out of stock of the ancient old sculpt and everyone competitively minded goes to ebay to get those.

It also seems to me like, were I a corporation interested in instituting some kind of pay to win situation, I would do something to kind of use those competitive sales to drive my business. I might, for example, if I were considering releasing a big wave of CSMs and I was planning on having one of the new models be super duper tournament competitive, I might go ahead and put that bad boy right there in the big box and make it so you have to buy the big box with all the non-competitive units in it to get the super competitive thing.

I wouldn't, for example, release the big box with all the non-competitive junk units in it, and then release the thing lets name for the sake of argument a Lord of Discord in its own SEPARATE kit that then all my competitive players would just buy that and not buy the box set.

They bumble their way into making old models powerful.

Martel732 wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:
So what factor does GW use to determine which ancient 3rd ed era/finecast sculpts they're going to seemingly arbitrarily ascend to competitive godhood?

Certainly doesn't seem like it's "Do we have this thing in stock, ready to sell to our competitive playerbase" to me. considering that whether it's shining spears, or talos pain engines, or vauls wrath batteries, or whatever, it basically instantly goes out of stock and stays that way for months.

You would think that would...not make GW any money, particularly if they do something like, I dunno, release a brand new plastic banshees unit and then the supporting rulebook that comes out with them makes Vauls Wrath guns ridiculously OP while leaving the brand new banshees garbage.

So the new unit GW just invested money into doesn't sell to competitive players, but they instantly run out of stock of the ancient old sculpt and everyone competitively minded goes to ebay to get those.

It also seems to me like, were I a corporation interested in instituting some kind of pay to win situation, I would do something to kind of use those competitive sales to drive my business. I might, for example, if I were considering releasing a big wave of CSMs and I was planning on having one of the new models be super duper tournament competitive, I might go ahead and put that bad boy right there in the big box and make it so you have to buy the big box with all the non-competitive units in it to get the super competitive thing.

I wouldn't, for example, release the big box with all the non-competitive junk units in it, and then release the thing lets name for the sake of argument a Lord of Discord in its own SEPARATE kit that then all my competitive players would just buy that and not buy the box set.

They bumble their way into making old models powerful.

Exactly. From my experience working in the games industry as an entry level designer and later as the head of a department (art), all I can say is, well... game design is chaos. You would be shocked to find out how things really get made. Lol.

At this point, I'm not sure I would. It's clear that GW doesn't even give cursory thought to some obvious interactions that make it to print.

Hey, I think we just discovered Hanlon's Razor: "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity."

I'm not going to be as brash as to call the designers "stupid" - I mean there are tons of data points and interactions these people have to account for, surely something unintended is going to slip through. But I also think attributing these mistakes to malice is just... really... childish.

There is no doomsday clock of when your units are going to absolutely suck and then suddenly swing into power houses. Everything cycles around. New units probably get a white glove pass because they're new and the company genuinely wants them to succeed... they literally spent a ton of money in design on them, you don't want it to flop. Do they make them intentionally OP? No, but I think they try to find that line and get REALLY close, because they want you to want it. The model is never going to sell as well as when it is premiered, so you definitely do not want to sell a turd.

And that means other models kind of languish under the radar. Their rules are infrequently updated, how the game plays after an edition update diminishes their value even more... the unit starts to age, and not sell. Someone is then tasks with "give this unit a face lift so we can get it back on the table" or "new codex time, let's give this unit an extra pass because it's been notoriously underrepresented the past few editions"... kind of a way to give them another day in the sun, and even to get those kits into the hand of newer players who never gave them a try.

But really, I think a lot of this ascribing malice to everything we disagree with and do not like... bad way of living life. You see the worst in everything, believe everything is done as part of some monstrous design. And we forget that people make mistakes all the time, and it doesn't make them bad. People misinterpret things all the time, it doesn't make them evil. And most importantly: smart people can do some REALLY dumb things. Doesn't make them stupid or bad, just shows that they're still fallible regardless of how smart they are.

Martel732 wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:
So what factor does GW use to determine which ancient 3rd ed era/finecast sculpts they're going to seemingly arbitrarily ascend to competitive godhood?

Certainly doesn't seem like it's "Do we have this thing in stock, ready to sell to our competitive playerbase" to me. considering that whether it's shining spears, or talos pain engines, or vauls wrath batteries, or whatever, it basically instantly goes out of stock and stays that way for months.

You would think that would...not make GW any money, particularly if they do something like, I dunno, release a brand new plastic banshees unit and then the supporting rulebook that comes out with them makes Vauls Wrath guns ridiculously OP while leaving the brand new banshees garbage.

So the new unit GW just invested money into doesn't sell to competitive players, but they instantly run out of stock of the ancient old sculpt and everyone competitively minded goes to ebay to get those.

It also seems to me like, were I a corporation interested in instituting some kind of pay to win situation, I would do something to kind of use those competitive sales to drive my business. I might, for example, if I were considering releasing a big wave of CSMs and I was planning on having one of the new models be super duper tournament competitive, I might go ahead and put that bad boy right there in the big box and make it so you have to buy the big box with all the non-competitive units in it to get the super competitive thing.

I wouldn't, for example, release the big box with all the non-competitive junk units in it, and then release the thing lets name for the sake of argument a Lord of Discord in its own SEPARATE kit that then all my competitive players would just buy that and not buy the box set.

They bumble their way into making old models powerful.

Which means they're not spending time concocting strategies on how to sell those models. The result is a product of a poor play-testing process.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Purifying Tempest wrote:
Hey, I think we just discovered Hanlon's Razor: "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity."

I'm not going to be as brash as to call the designers "stupid" - I mean there are tons of data points and interactions these people have to account for, surely something unintended is going to slip through. But I also think attributing these mistakes to malice is just... really... childish.

There is no doomsday clock of when your units are going to absolutely suck and then suddenly swing into power houses. Everything cycles around. New units probably get a white glove pass because they're new and the company genuinely wants them to succeed... they literally spent a ton of money in design on them, you don't want it to flop. Do they make them intentionally OP? No, but I think they try to find that line and get REALLY close, because they want you to want it. The model is never going to sell as well as when it is premiered, so you definitely do not want to sell a turd.

And that means other models kind of languish under the radar. Their rules are infrequently updated, how the game plays after an edition update diminishes their value even more... the unit starts to age, and not sell. Someone is then tasks with "give this unit a face lift so we can get it back on the table" or "new codex time, let's give this unit an extra pass because it's been notoriously underrepresented the past few editions"... kind of a way to give them another day in the sun, and even to get those kits into the hand of newer players who never gave them a try.

But really, I think a lot of this ascribing malice to everything we disagree with and do not like... bad way of living life. You see the worst in everything, believe everything is done as part of some monstrous design. And we forget that people make mistakes all the time, and it doesn't make them bad. People misinterpret things all the time, it doesn't make them evil. And most importantly: smart people can do some REALLY dumb things. Doesn't make them stupid or bad, just shows that they're still fallible regardless of how smart they are.

That's part of the problem. Some people directly attribute improving a poorly performing unit or nerfing a strong one as no different than deliberately pushing rules. Damned if you do. Damned if you don't.

I think GW's biggest problem is there is no way to play test all these releases competently. Especially not in reference to each other. Indomitus started in earnest a year or more ago. The were designing units and a new edition about the same time the marines codexes hit. And according to Brian playtesting began in Dec/Jan, so, how did any of the new PAs get folded into those considerations?

Martel732 wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:
So what factor does GW use to determine which ancient 3rd ed era/finecast sculpts they're going to seemingly arbitrarily ascend to competitive godhood?

Certainly doesn't seem like it's "Do we have this thing in stock, ready to sell to our competitive playerbase" to me. considering that whether it's shining spears, or talos pain engines, or vauls wrath batteries, or whatever, it basically instantly goes out of stock and stays that way for months.

You would think that would...not make GW any money, particularly if they do something like, I dunno, release a brand new plastic banshees unit and then the supporting rulebook that comes out with them makes Vauls Wrath guns ridiculously OP while leaving the brand new banshees garbage.

So the new unit GW just invested money into doesn't sell to competitive players, but they instantly run out of stock of the ancient old sculpt and everyone competitively minded goes to ebay to get those.

It also seems to me like, were I a corporation interested in instituting some kind of pay to win situation, I would do something to kind of use those competitive sales to drive my business. I might, for example, if I were considering releasing a big wave of CSMs and I was planning on having one of the new models be super duper tournament competitive, I might go ahead and put that bad boy right there in the big box and make it so you have to buy the big box with all the non-competitive units in it to get the super competitive thing.

I wouldn't, for example, release the big box with all the non-competitive junk units in it, and then release the thing lets name for the sake of argument a Lord of Discord in its own SEPARATE kit that then all my competitive players would just buy that and not buy the box set.

They bumble their way into making old models powerful.

So it seems to me we have scenario "A" - Games Workshop wishes to construct a scenario of "Pay to win" so they make a certain fraction of their units competitive on purpose, to drive sales. Another larger fraction of their units, they do not give competitive rules, because they only need to drive the sales of certain models via competitive rules to the tournament gaming crowd.

Other units, they unintentionally make powerful, bumbling into accidentally making old sculpts extremely strong. This results in an end scenario where newer units, and older units, seem to have approximately the same fraction of strong vs weak contenders.

Scenario "B" - Games Workshop wishes to create a relatively balanced game. They create rules for new units, and refresh rules for older units, and each time they make a new unit or make new rules for an existing unit, they try to make sure it has some feature within its rules to make people excited about what it can do on the tabletop. However, they're not great at their job, and this results in an end scenario where newer units and older units seem to have approximately the same fraction of strong vs weak contenders.

What kind of metric could we use to determine whether we're seeing scenario "A" or scenario "B?"

If we see a release of a new unit, and somebody says "aha, clearly this new unit is just yet another example of a scenario "a" unit, intentionally made overly powerful in order to drive sales!" what metric could we use to determine whether they're correct or not?

What would be the difference in terms of a game state between scenario "A" and scenario "B"? Would it make a difference? Would it make an existing collection versus a new collection strong, or weak?

I ask, because I own several armies, and two of them include tons of the extremely recent 8th edition Ork Speed Freeks and Genestealer Cult Wave 2 models. Meanwhile, I have another two that are made up of old, and in many cases EXTREMELY old sculpts. The most recent are the early 7th ed era deathwatch veterans, the 5th ed era Vanvets/Sternguard, dreadnoughts and terminators from space hulk, and then the oldest are my Eldar army, which is plastic from 3rd ed and metal from 2nd ed and rogue trader.

Hands down, not even close, by an entire country mile, my eldar and marine armies blow my ork and GSC armies out of the fething park. All my brand new models with brand new rules get SLAUGHTERED by my 2nd ed era swooping hawks, rogue trader dark reapers, 2nd ed rangers, 2nd ed shining spears, and 3rd ed vauls wrath guns and wave serpents.

I mean, nothing described in the OP sounds worse then the re-rollable 2++ deathstars from 6th, or the summoning factories from 7th that allowed you to get hundreds of points of advantage over your opponent.

The thread is 7 pages in, so I'm sure everything that needs to be said has been said, but I'll just reiterate that you're using the same fallacies that people make when trying to criticize automated cars. A change does not need to be perfect in order to be superior to what came before it, it just needs to be a little bit better.

That Tesla autopiloted cars occasionally crash does not mean that Teslas are as safe or less safe than non-automated cars (they are vastly more safe than non-automated cars), and that games balanced around high end play may have its own balancing quirks does not mean that it is as poorly balanced as a game that has no balance, such as all of 40K pre-8th edition (depending on how you feel about 5th).

the_scotsman wrote:


So it seems to me we have scenario "A" - Games Workshop wishes to construct a scenario of "Pay to win" so they make a certain fraction of their units competitive on purpose, to drive sales. Another larger fraction of their units, they do not give competitive rules, because they only need to drive the sales of certain models via competitive rules to the tournament gaming crowd.

Scenario "B" - Games Workshop wishes to create a relatively balanced game. They create rules for new units, and refresh rules for older units, and each time they make a new unit or make new rules for an existing unit, they try to make sure it has some feature within its rules to make people excited about what it can do on the tabletop. However, they're not great at their job, and this results in an end scenario where newer units and older units seem to have approximately the same fraction of strong vs weak contenders.

What kind of metric could we use to determine whether we're seeing scenario "A" or scenario "B?"

This is a fun question and of course we can only speculate on why decisions get made. There are so, so many factors in determining whether or not a kit sells that it's impossible to say for sure. I assume competitive rules strength, or even "casual" rules strength are usually only minor factors in sales. Bigger factors are probably things like, well, how exciting the kit looks. How big the target audience is for that particular kit. How much marketing and retail support is available to allocate for that release. How much legacy hype has been built up for that unit over the years. Etc...

I don't think they will usually need to crank the power gamer lever on a datasheet unless there are very good, specific reasons to do so. Pure speculation but I think it'd make sense to buff up a datasheet for an old kit when you're trying to clear out old stock. And I'm not talking about the "In Stock" label on the GW store page, I'm talking about more behind-the-scenes stuff, like the remaining lifespan of ancient molds or the remaining length of a manufacturing contract between GW and an outsourced manufacturer. There are endless possible reasons behind the scenes that could eventually manifest on the tabletop as 3++ Shining Spears, reasons that you, as the end consumer, will never be aware of. I've never worked in miniature games but I do have enough experience in video games to know that fan theories on how a game company operates based solely on publicly available data are almost always 100% wrong.

On the flip side, I think the recent space marine supplements present a more obvious, readable scenario. Still speculation of course, but to me SM 2.0 was a reaction (or overcorrection) against most of the entire first half of 8th edition where space marines were getting smashed left and right. From a branding perspective, having marines be the laughingstock of every local store is a not a good look for the game. You really want to avoid the situation where your brand new customers bring in their shiny space marines for the first time, only to get mercilessly stomped by veteran players of expensive xenos factions. That is a serious issue which could have deep financial consequences if left unaddressed over the long term.

 Daedalus81 wrote:
I think GW's biggest problem is there is no way to play test all these releases competently. Especially not in reference to each other. Indomitus started in earnest a year or more ago. The were designing units and a new edition about the same time the marines codexes hit. And according to Brian playtesting began in Dec/Jan, so, how did any of the new PAs get folded into those considerations?

I would go a step further and say that the problem is that GW is beholden to an outdated design/sales model.

In a videogame, or a wargame written by a different company, generally you'd have a couple of stages of testing for new additions to the game:
-Initial system is playtested by the developers until the basic functionality seems right.
-That system goes out to a small cadre of alpha testers, who do more rigorous testing and provide immediate player-focused feedback.
-Revisions are made, and then you send out for an open beta, where anyone who owns the game can test the new content, and provide feedback from there. This is also a great time for the developers to collect metrics in a videogame, but even a traditional wargame can leverage electronic polls, surveys, and forums to gather feedback.
-Once the problems are ironed out, the final version is actually released. In a videogame it gets rolled into the main release, in a wargame it becomes official, tournament legal rules.

GW's problem here is that if they want to charge money for rules, they basically can't give out free rules for beta testing. Also, the lead time on printing books (typically 6-12 months) means that it would also dramatically slow down an already-slow process, and they'd run into problems with content that seemed fine when it was okayed being broken by subsequent releases after it went to print.

So basically, they do their in-house testing, they do their alpha testing (and it's unclear how much they actually listen to their alpha testers), and then they go straight to production, with no telling how things will change by the time the printed final product hits stores. This was standard practice in the 90s, but it's pretty outdated today.

The announcement of a listbuilding app, the introduction of beta rules (bolter discipline), and the free core rules all make me wonder if GW is heading in a more modern direction. Quarterly balance adjustments and beta rule/datasheet introductions in an all-digital format would be significantly easier for GW to manage than once-per-year Chapter Approved, but not as directly profitable.

I suspect the litmus test is/was how Psychic Awakening panned out. If enough people bought those books (on top of new codexes, Chapter Approved, and supplements), then that would be a strong profit motive to keep cranking out new books to be invalidated within a year. For my part, I've sworn off buying balance updates entirely.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 BlaxicanX wrote:
I mean, nothing described in the OP sounds worse then the re-rollable 2++ deathstars from 6th, or the summoning factories from 7th that allowed you to get hundreds of points of advantage over your opponent.

Did re-rollable 2++ deathstars regularly come up in casual play, or is that an example of imbalance at a high-end competitive level? OP's argument is that balancing around competitive play does not necessarily result in better balance for casual players, so a system that had exploits like that break competitive play might have still offered a better play experience for casual players.

I never played 6th so am not making an argument either way; I just don't think you've actually addressed OP's argument.

 Nitro Zeus wrote:

Tyel wrote:
There are many complaints on Dakka, but the idea people don't want an balanced game makes very little sense.

8th was the most balanced edition of 40k. In fact its probably *the only edition* where GW actively tried to bring balance to the game. Obviously its not perfect - but its infinitely better than the older method of "here's a codex, oh it sucks? Well, see you in some years time".

All the evidence is that 8th is also the most commercially successful edition. Admittedly this could be due to various other factors unrelated to how the game plays, but its a strange coincidence just to shrug off.

Are GW actively making the game worse by having CA points changes each year?

I guess for people who buy the current hotness and want that to remain the current hotness until the heat death of the universe - but I'm not convinced they make up a huge percentage of the playerbase.

I wouldn't call 8th the most balanced edition of Warhammer. STRETCHES of 8th? sure. The current state of 8th? No way. And this currently shift in focus seems to be lining GW's pockets with that PMarine money very effectively, and seems to be slated to keep up extra hard in 9th.

I hadn't considered the idea that balance may not be what the playerbase actually wants.... but it's been some pretty good arguments put forth as to why that may be, so I remain undecided. Is balance less profitable though? Well, almost certainly. You can't write extremely OP rules to shift units, without causing an imbalance.

Well think about it for a moment. Other than those with collector issues ( like me perhaps ) No one will need to expand on armies or start new ones unless they want to if there is a real balance to things. Like for instance if you really felt and saw that first born marines were at power parity with primaris, what reason would people have to get these " Exciting new powerful units ! ". There wouldn't be one aside from variety and desire to have new stuff but not perhaps better stuff.

Was there a reason to Legend Chaplain on a bike when they had in the works waiting primaris chaplain on bike ? Not a one. They cited balance and unintended rule interactions but all they would have to do is give them the rules with changes for wargear and less wounds for the first born bike chaplain, they'd operate almost exactly the same but for those differences. Was it balance he was booted out for ? I don't think most would say yes now. It was simply that model was old, getting it gives GW no money as the models are second hand, kit bashed or third party. This new one will cost a crap ton, but it'll be new so all the money will flow GWs way for it.

More and more decisions are made seemingly with this in mind. Slowly nerf, release units just flat out better and more cost effective and even when they change points the disparity just grows. Now either they don't understand how to balance things at all or these are decisions made to push agendas that have nothing to do with game play and more with sales. That leads to frustration from the players as they keep touting this balance and care for the game state when most of the decisions may be out of the game designers hands. So in that we may give them a bad look to blame them all the time.

 catbarf wrote:
Automatically Appended Next Post:

 BlaxicanX wrote:
I mean, nothing described in the OP sounds worse then the re-rollable 2++ deathstars from 6th, or the summoning factories from 7th that allowed you to get hundreds of points of advantage over your opponent.

Did re-rollable 2++ deathstars regularly come up in casual play, or is that an example of imbalance at a high-end competitive level? OP's argument is that balancing around competitive play does not necessarily result in better balance for casual players, so a system that had exploits like that break competitive play might have still offered a better play experience for casual players.

I never played 6th so am not making an argument either way; I just don't think you've actually addressed OP's argument.

It wasn't every game at every table, but it was pretty darn common to see re-rollable 2++ or "Hit only on 6s" units crawling around. It wouldn't be difficult to find at least one somewhere within the store. Freebies from formations ratcheted that up to 12... it became a totally different game at that point and "power combos" were pretty much the norm.

Forcing someone to play 7th edition (which was like 6.5, really) was indeed a hate crime. Hate to get ERJAK props with how overboard they normally react, but that statement was spot on

I would go a step further and say that the problem is that GW is beholden to an outdated design/sales model.

In a videogame, or a wargame written by a different company, generally you'd have a couple of stages of testing for new additions to the game:
-Initial system is playtested by the developers until the basic functionality seems right.
-That system goes out to a small cadre of alpha testers, who do more rigorous testing and provide immediate player-focused feedback.
-Revisions are made, and then you send out for an open beta, where anyone who owns the game can test the new content, and provide feedback from there. This is also a great time for the developers to collect metrics in a videogame, but even a traditional wargame can leverage electronic polls, surveys, and forums to gather feedback.
-Once the problems are ironed out, the final version is actually released. In a videogame it gets rolled into the main release, in a wargame it becomes official, tournament legal rules.

GW's problem here is that if they want to charge money for rules, they basically can't give out free rules for beta testing. Also, the lead time on printing books (typically 6-12 months) means that it would also dramatically slow down an already-slow process, and they'd run into problems with content that seemed fine when it was okayed being broken by subsequent releases after it went to print.

So basically, they do their in-house testing, they do their alpha testing (and it's unclear how much they actually listen to their alpha testers), and then they go straight to production, with no telling how things will change by the time the printed final product hits stores. This was standard practice in the 90s, but it's pretty outdated today.

The announcement of a listbuilding app, the introduction of beta rules (bolter discipline), and the free core rules all make me wonder if GW is heading in a more modern direction. Quarterly balance adjustments and beta rule/datasheet introductions in an all-digital format would be significantly easier for GW to manage than once-per-year Chapter Approved, but not as directly profitable.

I suspect the litmus test is/was how Psychic Awakening panned out. If enough people bought those books (on top of new codexes, Chapter Approved, and supplements), then that would be a strong profit motive to keep cranking out new books to be invalidated within a year. For my part, I've sworn off buying balance updates entirely.

IMO the very first sentence is accurate, but the reasons below it might not be. You absolutely CAN give out free rules for Beta testing and still charge later for the actual release. That's what NDAs are for and they already use them heavily.

The real issue is more than likely that they don't seem to ever have a true roadmap for development. Planning in production time for physical books is trivial to planning in code freeze for bug fixes on something like a AAA video game, and yet game studios do this successfully every day (well some do ... lol...not that I'm speaking from experience or anything ... ), but GW doesn't seem to. We already know they don't follow basic publishing best practices for the codexes (as evidenced in the numerous copy/paste errors across editions), and my guess is, they may not even know about modern development best practices. The feeling in the RT/2nd ed days was that it was a slightly grown up version of a bunch of guys making this up as they went along while sitting in their garage. That's fine for back then , but the problem is it still feels that way.

With a proper development road map, they would be able to do sufficient beta-testing, print books, and do releases without rushing and without some of the fairly egregious errors their materials routinely have (whether that be typos, omissions, or flat out broken units).

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

Yes, those are the guys making the minis.
Probably in the business offices as well.

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

Could be. Intentionally design things to always sell you the next book.

 catbarf wrote:
OP's argument is that balancing around competitive play does not necessarily result in better balance for casual players

And I've directly addressed that argument.

Tycho wrote:
You absolutely CAN give out free rules for Beta testing and still charge later for the actual release. That's what NDAs are for and they already use them heavily.

I meant more that from the perspective of profitability, if you give out free rules online for open beta among the general 40K community, people are less likely to pay for the tweaked (or unchanged) final version when it goes to print. NDAs are regularly used for their closed beta testing.

If GW gave up on the idea of selling rules, it would open a lot of doors. For a company that is very famously models-first, it's odd that they've seemed so opposed to the concept in 8th.

People are so quick to blame everything on incompetence, greed, or stupidity. But any corporation is a big, complicated organization, made up of dozens or hundreds or thousands of people just like you and me, and the complex interactions that arise from that are chaos theory made manifest.

So the answer is that it's incompetence, greed, AND stupidity.

I kid, I kid. I'm just coming off a multi-year, multi-million-dollar project that ended in blood and tears and legal ultimatums despite really good people being involved in every stage of the process. A lot of the problems arose because of the separate knowledge and goals each tier had - the trenches knew the product was trash and wanted to spend more time in development and QA, the team leads had a directive to include X number of features and so kept adding features to an already-buggy product, and management was weighing things like "long-term financial viability" and "contractual obligations" and "holy crap am I about to get 50+ people fired because I picked a bad product?"

I've used the example before, but even a game like Overwatch - where Blizzard can track every interaction, every combination, every bullet and every blow, run simulations until their eyes bleed - took YEARS to balance some heroes correctly. Mercy was continuously nerfed and was still an auto-take for forever. And that's in (to start with) a relatively small game, with fewer heroes than 40k has factions, let alone units.

By comparison, GW has a tiny window into their own world. They see tournament lists and results, new unit sales, playtest feedback, and maybe, occasionally, forum complaints. And the people working on these rules and releases - as Daedalus points out above - are often working years ahead, and trying to consider every possible interaction at every moment in time just makes it that much harder. And then you add in release schedules to keep player retention going, management mandates that you keep new player onboarding, as measured by certain unit sales, at specific levels, maintain a steady cadence of DLC... it gets difficult. It gets impossible.

Also, I think competitive players make for fine playtesters. They tend to have excellent knowledge about the ins and outs of their own armies - and they get as frustrated as everyone else when they're reduced to taking these five units to the exclusion of all else, because that's the only way to win in the current meta. A healthy meta balance is good for everyone in the long term, and the better competitive players out there recognize it. The more you can play around with, the more you can optimize and tinker and build, the happier a lot of these guys are.

 AngryAngel80 wrote:

 Nitro Zeus wrote:

Tyel wrote:
There are many complaints on Dakka, but the idea people don't want an balanced game makes very little sense.

8th was the most balanced edition of 40k. In fact its probably *the only edition* where GW actively tried to bring balance to the game. Obviously its not perfect - but its infinitely better than the older method of "here's a codex, oh it sucks? Well, see you in some years time".

All the evidence is that 8th is also the most commercially successful edition. Admittedly this could be due to various other factors unrelated to how the game plays, but its a strange coincidence just to shrug off.

Are GW actively making the game worse by having CA points changes each year?

I guess for people who buy the current hotness and want that to remain the current hotness until the heat death of the universe - but I'm not convinced they make up a huge percentage of the playerbase.

I wouldn't call 8th the most balanced edition of Warhammer. STRETCHES of 8th? sure. The current state of 8th? No way. And this currently shift in focus seems to be lining GW's pockets with that PMarine money very effectively, and seems to be slated to keep up extra hard in 9th.

I hadn't considered the idea that balance may not be what the playerbase actually wants.... but it's been some pretty good arguments put forth as to why that may be, so I remain undecided. Is balance less profitable though? Well, almost certainly. You can't write extremely OP rules to shift units, without causing an imbalance.

Well think about it for a moment. Other than those with collector issues ( like me perhaps ) No one will need to expand on armies or start new ones unless they want to if there is a real balance to things. Like for instance if you really felt and saw that first born marines were at power parity with primaris, what reason would people have to get these " Exciting new powerful units ! ". There wouldn't be one aside from variety and desire to have new stuff but not perhaps better stuff.

Was there a reason to Legend Chaplain on a bike when they had in the works waiting primaris chaplain on bike ? Not a one. They cited balance and unintended rule interactions but all they would have to do is give them the rules with changes for wargear and less wounds for the first born bike chaplain, they'd operate almost exactly the same but for those differences. Was it balance he was booted out for ? I don't think most would say yes now. It was simply that model was old, getting it gives GW no money as the models are second hand, kit bashed or third party. This new one will cost a crap ton, but it'll be new so all the money will flow GWs way for it.

More and more decisions are made seemingly with this in mind. Slowly nerf, release units just flat out better and more cost effective and even when they change points the disparity just grows. Now either they don't understand how to balance things at all or these are decisions made to push agendas that have nothing to do with game play and more with sales. That leads to frustration from the players as they keep touting this balance and care for the game state when most of the decisions may be out of the game designers hands. So in that we may give them a bad look to blame them all the time.

I have a cool life hack for anyone who owns an old legended chaplain on bike or old space marine bikers and is jealous of those fancy new primaris bikes.

It's a special thing I cooked up in my brain-meat as someone who owns and still plays regularly with 2nd edition eldar miniatures. And, you know, every other faction that isn't loyalist space marines who gets a new kit for anything they already own.

You just...

you just say it's the new thing. And you use the new rules.

 BlaxicanX wrote:

 catbarf wrote:
OP's argument is that balancing around competitive play does not necessarily result in better balance for casual players

And I've directly addressed that argument.

No, you have not.

If you want to use the autonomous car analogy: Let's say Tesla's development strategy for autopilot is designed and tested around high-speed collisions, because those are obviously a huge and obvious problem. The assumption is that designing autopilot to be better than a human at avoiding high-speed collisions will trickle down to making it better than a human driver at preventing low-speed fender-benders.

OP does a bunch of testing and finds that their self-driving car is actually worse at avoiding low-speed collisions than they were. And since they only use their car to get around town at low speed, and aren't the kind of driver where improved high-speed collision avoidance would be relevant, this has actually gotten them into more accidents than before.

You've come in and pointed to a 70MPH twenty-car pileup that doesn't happen now thanks to autopilot, so clearly OP is wrong and autopilot has made things better.

Put more bluntly: OP's complaint is that balance has gotten worse in specifically the context of casual/narrative play. Pointing out that the most egregious examples of imbalance have been corrected isn't a counter-argument, unless those situations were endemic to casual/narrative play to begin with.