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Oh, in no means do I actually consider the Dev team so devious or even... focused... as to actually start overpowering units that are getting new models specifically. In fact, were they to do so a lot of people would probably catch on and we wouldn't be having this conversation.

But also remember that rules and competitiveness only contribute to sales, people will buy models that look cool, lots of people don't follow optimum army builds, and cool looking models are some of the biggest draws for new players. There's more than one reason armies get revamped to consumers.

Mannahnin wrote:Not necessarily. If everything is equally powerful, there is less incentive for people to buy new stuff. If part of their existing army gets downgraded, or a unit they didn't have before gets upgraded, they've got a good reason to change their army and pick up some new stuff.

Maybe for you, but what the new C:CSM did for me is convince me to NOT use it, stick with the previous version and NOT buy any new Chaos stuff. I'm damn sure not going to stop playing my pure World Eaters army (and non-tournament only) just because GW is looking for some "incentive for people to buy new stuff."

LordOfTheSloths wrote:

Mannahnin wrote:Not necessarily. If everything is equally powerful, there is less incentive for people to buy new stuff. If part of their existing army gets downgraded, or a unit they didn't have before gets upgraded, they've got a good reason to change their army and pick up some new stuff.

Maybe for you, but what the new C:CSM did for me is convince me to NOT use it, stick with the previous version and NOT buy any new Chaos stuff. I'm damn sure not going to stop playing my pure World Eaters army (and non-tournament only) just because GW is looking for some "incentive for people to buy new stuff."

The Chaos army isn't a great example in this case, as the list is just an example of the Dev team making a decent army into one that is simply bad, not unlike, say, the newer marine codexes. I fear what will happen to armies when 5th comes around.

Turtle wrote:

LordOfTheSloths wrote:

Mannahnin wrote:Not necessarily. If everything is equally powerful, there is less incentive for people to buy new stuff. If part of their existing army gets downgraded, or a unit they didn't have before gets upgraded, they've got a good reason to change their army and pick up some new stuff.

Maybe for you, but what the new C:CSM did for me is convince me to NOT use it, stick with the previous version and NOT buy any new Chaos stuff. I'm damn sure not going to stop playing my pure World Eaters army (and non-tournament only) just because GW is looking for some "incentive for people to buy new stuff."

The Chaos army isn't a great example in this case, as the list is just an example of the Dev team making a decent army into one that is simply bad, not unlike, say, the newer marine codexes. I fear what will happen to armies when 5th comes around.

I dunno. I think Sloths' reaction is atypical.

How are Thousand Sons sales doing post-Codex as opposed to pre-Codex? What about the same thing for the Iron Warriors box?

That would provide some insight into how upgrades/downgrades effect sales.

Yep, and it kinda shows too how good kits can sell even with bad rules, just not as well. The spawn and possessed boxes are really nice, and I know some people that have bought them for that reason in spite of their rules.

But I bet it wouldn't take much to tweak the rules to make them useful, which would cause a LOT of boxes to fly off the shelves. It really wouldn't have taken much.

Turtle wrote:Oh, in no means do I actually consider the Dev team so devious or even... focused... as to actually start overpowering units that are getting new models specifically. In fact, were they to do so a lot of people would probably catch on and we wouldn't be having this conversation.

And yet, the new model army has an overwhelming victory ratio in the pages of White Dwarf...

If the monkeys doing the Batreps can be so devious / focused, how can one expect any less of the Dev team?

Turtle wrote:

LordOfTheSloths wrote:what the new C:CSM did for me is convince me to NOT use it

The Chaos army isn't a great example in this case, as the list is just an example of the Dev team making a decent army into one that is simply bad,

And yet others are getting into Chaos after years out. So just because you don't like it, that's not universal. I really like the CSM book far more than any of its predecessors.

Toreador wrote:The spawn and possessed boxes are really nice, and I know some people that have bought them for that reason in spite of their rules.

*holds hands up*

Yeah, that'd be me. Got 2 boxes of Possessed and a friend and I split a Tide of Spawn when it was released, so we both have 6 now.

'Course, in our rules Possessed are useable, and Spawn don't completely suck, but even without that I would've bought them anyway. They're just so pretty!!

BYE

JohnHwangDD wrote:And yet, the new model army has an overwhelming victory ratio in the pages of White Dwarf...

Really? [New Army of the Month/New Expensive Model Release of the Month] did well in a BatRep in White Dwarf? How surprising! You could almost say that it was done to make it appeal to people and therefore generate sales!!

Those White Dwarf boyz are a wiley bunch!

BYE

JohnHwangDD wrote:

Turtle wrote:

LordOfTheSloths wrote:what the new C:CSM did for me is convince me to NOT use it

The Chaos army isn't a great example in this case, as the list is just an example of the Dev team making a decent army into one that is simply bad,

And yet others are getting into Chaos after years out. So just because you don't like it, that's not universal. I really like the CSM book far more than any of its predecessors.

I never claimed it was a "universal" opinion, merely my own. Others can speak for themselves, and have done so. HBMC's analysis certainly resonated with me. But this is not the time to rehash that issue.

[As I’ve posted on another forum]. I have three big issues with 40k:

1) The rules are poorly written: It's not that they contradict each other, they're just not well defined. For example, does a powerfist work against a Monolith or not??? (Don't answer that here) It's just not clear what constitutes a "doubling score" if it's not well defined.

2) Many rules are obscure: For example, the "Torrent of Fire" rule is hidden in text and there is no way to quickly reference it.

3) There needs to be more Universal Special Rules (USR): There are too many unique rules in the codices. The point of a rules book is to have a uniform and consistent set of game mechanics. Having some codex rules are fine. But having pages of unique rules and damage charts in specific codices slows down the game. If one side is unfamiliar with the opponent's codex then there is room for errors (both intentional and unintentional).

------------------------------------------------------------------------

On a side note: GW has claimed many times that they are in the business of creating models. They seem to want to create figurines to paint, not to play with. I think GW realizes that they can't compete with electronic games in the business of competitive gameplay (just look at the market sales). But GW can corner the market on creating figurines to paint.

Obviously the company invests time and money into creating a game system. But I honestly don't think it's a big part of their business model and I don't think they take it seriously. I've heard the stories of all the play testing they do, etc. etc. (It sounds like rhetoric to me). You can read various sources (financial statements, interviews, White Dwarf, online statements) and you can see the lack of money and time the company puts into rules development. Actions speak louder than words and GW does a poor job on the rules. From a business standpoint they don’t need to worry about creating good rules. People will play with their rules and use their models because there is no viable alternative (GW dominates the tabletop wargame strategy market). They will continue to do a poor job on the rules until another company can compete with them on the same international scale. Just my 2 cents.

~Logic

JohnHwangDD wrote:

Turtle wrote:Oh, in no means do I actually consider the Dev team so devious or even... focused... as to actually start overpowering units that are getting new models specifically. In fact, were they to do so a lot of people would probably catch on and we wouldn't be having this conversation.

And yet, the new model army has an overwhelming victory ratio in the pages of White Dwarf...

If the monkeys doing the Batreps can be so devious / focused, how can one expect any less of the Dev team?

I've heard that the White Dwarf team will play several battles until they get the desired results, if necessary. Sounds like a slipshot, as opposed to focused, method to me.

H.B.M.C. wrote:

ender502 wrote:If GW is purposefully making these disparities then it just shows a pretty bad business model.

The opposite really.

If something is good, everyone buys 'it'. Once everyone has 'it', they stop buying 'it'. So, to keep selling things, GW has to make something else into 'it', so they make something else really good, and maybe make the previous 'it' not as good. Then, for the new 'it', they release a shiny new model, so people go out and buy 'it' all over again. Then when it comes time to re-do everything again, they go back to the previous 'it', but they put in a new vehicle accessory sprue and up the price by 10 bucks.

The only times that doesn't work is when there's a unit everyone loves and they can't get away with nerfing them. To do that, they just make 'it' into a better 'it', but do it in such a way that you have to buy the new shiny model. Case in point - plastic Stealth Suits. They couldn't nerf Stealths without angering Tau players. So they actually give them more options, but make those options only available on shiny new plastic models. So they become the new 'it', and the old Stealths become 'not it'.

If not for their falling profits, I'd say it was a pretty good idea, if insidious.

BYE

Yeah... IF not for the falling profits......

I think you miss the point. Instead of buying the IT model in a poor rules set you can get folks to buy ALL the models in a balanced rules set. People bought more falcons but no guardians. Harlequins but few swooping hawks. Seems that GW designed a way to sell half the models instead of all of them.

No, I think GW is taking the easy way out and doing exactly as you've described... planned obsolescense. But in this case they aren't an apple. Instead of dominating the market with something innovative and well made, they are producing a crap system that has left a door open for competitors.

If not for the falling profits... That line pretty much invalidates even the suggestion that GW knows what it's doing.

ender502

My support is bouncing between Therion's hardcore rational actor theory and Mannahin's Therion-light theory. They both give rational explanations for the phenomena we're seeing.

Regardless, my biggest problem is that I don't have--and I doubt anyone does--data that explains who is buying what percent of new models with each new release. I also don't know how much more likely tournament gamers are to be swayed by new rules than are so-called beer and pretzel gamers (marginally v. substantially). If most gamers buy according to a unit's power in the new rules, both theories check out. If tournament gamers, who are a substantial chunk of the buyers, buy according to the unit's power, then both theories check out.

But, even assuming that tournament gamers are hardcore powergamer types, if they don't make up a very large part of the market that's buying the new models, then I doubt their behavior would explain GW's business model. I mean, if the gamers that like playing with cool models using house rules with their friends were to make up the vast majority of GW sales, I don't see GW having a stake in tying rules to model sales by any means other than coincidence.

Of course, I believe that power gamers/tournament players make up a very substantial part of GW's market, and that the purchasing habits of even casual gamers are affected by a model's rules, so the Therion and Mannahin theories make sense.

The recent appointment of Mark Wells as CEO (he's been head of sales at GW and with the company for like 7 years), might be an indicator that change is coming. Of course I have no idea how much change he represents other than a new name heading the company.

I think Occam's Razor or whatever it's called comes into effect, i.e. don't put down to devilishly cunning plots what can be explained by simply incompetence.

Things like Lash are not some elaborate method for GW to rule the world, it's just incompetent designing.


The model-rule see-saw is there, it's just a lot more blunt and basic than people think. Take Assault Cannons- who took Termies before, whoever took Tornados? Then came along Rending- and for quite a while Tornados where compulsory.
But then there were Techmarines, Land Raiders, etc, etc that have seen numerous new Codex's and been left on the shelves of crapdom. So it is more of a fluke on the Dev's team when things do improve.


I think the saddest thing about Games Workshop is that they've defined themselves as a miniatures company, where models drive the rules- the design process is started with artists and sculptors making models then the designers writing rules around them.
This has, to their credict, produced some of the finest miniatures and most available, but it says a lot about their games- the games, to GW, are a side-effect of models, something they have to pay lip service too but not much else.

FYI, that's actually Hanlon's Razor:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon's_razor

Indeed. Occam's Razor is (basically) "The simplest explanation is likely to be the correct one" (the full version is more complicated (), but that's the gist of it).

Viperion

I sure as hell hope the new edition comes, and the people who did drop the rumors are pretty reliable.

Though to be honest I just want to see the new edition come out to nerf the living hell out of Skimmer lists, mainly because I think the current reason that Eldar are so good is a pile of bull****, but hey I've got biases.

Right now the game has got a whole bunch of problems with a few lists being way too good, and the rest struggling to compete, hopefully this will get rectified in the future with a new edition.

*****************************

As far as the whole "new uber unit to boost sales" I think that's a bunch of bull. If it were really true, then things like Spawn, Banshee's, Wraithlords, and Possessed would get far better rules when released with new models for their respective codex's, rather than being stuck in the land of "No one uses me" that they are in now.

I see the Design Team's doling out of nerfs and buffs to be 100% reactionary rather than something based on what the bean counters tell them to do.

High Elves are a great example. People used to take Mage + Calvary lists, all Calvary with Silver Helms to be exact. And people who saw this, bitched. New book comes out and you can't make an All Calvary list and Silver Helms are never going to be used again because Dragon Princes are better, cost only a fraction more, and take up the same "slot" as the Helms do now.

Wraithlords used to be bitched about incessantly, except 4th edition got rid of that problem with hidden power fists, and they were "mostly" fixed before the 4th ed Eldar book. But they got nerfed anyway, because that's what the design team saw and heard from tournaments. Iron Warriors and Demon Bombs are probably the exact same thing. They see abusive lists at the UK GT's and nerf accordingly when it's time to do that book.

Things that "slip through" like Holofields + Spirit Stones actually seem to me to be a case of them taking the old Holofields rules, mixing up Spirit Stones, and then not bothering too much on seeing just how ridiculous they were on the same Falcon with a 4th Edition Damage table.

You can think of these Design folks as some sort of evil plotters, but they're just guys putting time in at work like the rest of us. Read the WD article about the work a designer puts into a codex release. Tons of it are centered around artwork, layout, and working on the MODELS and overseeing parts of the kits, etc. How much time do you really think gets spent on the rules?

Honestly, looking at the rules and seeing how they play out in "real" 40k or Fantasy, I get the distinct impression that what they play tested with or intended the rules to do in the games they played are very different than what's going on with the actual rules for the game. Who knows they probably thought "Oh skimmers are too good, lets changing to SMF = Hull Down" about 6 months after 4th Edition got released, and tested the new Falcon with those rules and found it fine. Or the Lash had a bunch of caveats they play tested it with or didn't count on the tons of possibilities it opens up with the way the rules were worded.

Look at Gav Thorpe's responses to the Steam Tank questions in Fantasy. He said that it gives up half VP's when taken below half it's starting wounds, when it was pointed out by just about everyone that this directly conflicts with the rules as written in the Empire Book, he recanted it.

How much do you want to bet when they play tested the steam tank for the Empire Book, they had it give up Half VP's when taken below the starting number of wounds, saw that once really wounded it was useless, and decided that it was "fine", never really going over the technical wording of the rules in the book?

To put it bluntly, the rules reek of being half finished and not quite working how they probably were intended rather than some kind of evil scheme.

Hopefully 5th ed fixes some of these issues with the core rules, or at least alleviates the current problems.

bigchris1313 wrote: believe that power gamers/tournament players make up a very substantial part of GW's market, and that the purchasing habits of even casual gamers are affected by a model's rules, so the Therion and Mannahin theories make sense.

I believe that power gamers / tournament players make up a very substantial part of GW's commentary, but a largely insignificant portion of GW's actual sales. If you count the number of GW customers compared to the number who actually play RTTs, I would not be surprised if the numbers worked out like this:
- less than 5% of all GW customers have ever played in an GW-organized GT,
- less than 10% of all GW customers are tournament players
- less than 20% of all GW customers are powergamers

I also suspect that the casual market is considerably larger than the tournament market. And things like Apocalypse and simplified / streamlined Codices are GW starting to realign their products toward the casual gamer who buys most of the stuff and plays only a handful of games each month or year.

Consider the total volume of rules required to play 40k in an environment of high-detail Codices. If you're not playing several days weekly, you probably won't be able to keep up with things. OTOH, if you play only once a month, it's a lot easier to remember how the simplified Codices work, allowing you to play the game with less looking up obscure rules for interactions and exceptions. And if the Codices have little more total volume than the original 40k3 Rulebook lists, well, you can practically memorize the entire thing in a night.

So, while Jervis Jr. is the poster boy for the newbie / casual player, there's a lot to be said for bringing things back closer to the 40k3 Rulebook lists in terms of speeding up comprehension and play in general.

I also believe a lot of the rules slips are caused by the typical corporate communication issues along with just generally not realizing what something does.

I would imagine they catch a lot of things, but really when you get down to it, releasing something into the wild with thousands of users will tend to show up things you never even thought of in testing. It's a problem with both design and playtesting groups. They get hung up on certain things, or ways of thought, which ends up to be quite unlike how we play out here. A lot probably gets lost in the shuffle and rush to market. Great ideas get lost in the shuffle as it takes too much testing and discussion to get it working correctly, and even at times I wonder if they are even using some of the base rules we do. Do they fix and FAQ things around the office without realizing we don't play that way out here?

I have seen few games with perfect rules. Even Star Fleet Battles with it's great tomes of Lawyer like books had problems. The problem is that they aren't reactionary enough with FAQ's or fixes once issues and problems are found. If they could even do that a little, I think it would change a lot of how we feel. 2-4 years is way too long to wait for something to be fixed.

Turtle wrote:Same thing with GW, they're legally obligated to remain profitable but if they never change the game balance then you'd only ever have a need to buy one army. So every 4-6 years they change the balance of units in each army to favour different sales, or they'll change the models/outfit of a certain unit. Makes sense to me, and without that process we'd all be playing with 2nd ed statue marines and Guardians with catapults counting as lasguns.

Here's the problem with that line of thinking.

GW's profits keep going down.

I've been playing since Rogue Trader days.

The units that were good back then, still are good.

GW doesn't seem to realize it's NEW SCULPTS that sell their SCULPTS, not the rules.

Raising the prices on what people want to buy, while making stupid rules for them, does not drive sales any direction but DOOOOWWWWNNN.

However, great rules for CRAP MINIS that cost TOO MUCH for a upper middle class person like myself to afford will STILL drive sales DOOWWWNN.

Great/bad rules, crap/great minis, my college car price for a new army = NO SALE.

I have a wife, and if she realized I spent 5 grand the last year buying stuff she'd beat me senseless.

Then wake me, and beat me again.

Viperion wrote:Indeed. Occam's Razor is (basically) "The simplest explanation is likely to be the correct one" (the full version is more complicated (), but that's the gist of it).

Viperion

It is actually "Numquam ponenda est pluralitas sine necessitate" or in english " Plurality ought never be posited without necessity" another common restatement of it attributed to Occam himself if "It is vain to do with more what can be done with less"

as to the whole topic of conversation I have little to say other than a rules bump would likely showcase a one time bump in sales. However to truly increase sales, prices do need to be dropped a tad or at the very least value needs to be enhanced by increasing # of models per box. The problem is not that the unit box is 35$ but that the unit box is only 10 orks, 8 genestealers, etc.

And giving people lots and lots of extra bits does not, in my view, 'enhance' the hobby nor make a box set more valuable.

In the end, I still only get 10 guys and I really would rather have more for my dollar.

Some units, paying a dollar a point....or more, is just...wrong.

I agree with stelek in that I would want more models in the kit for the money as opposed to more bits of stuff. I'm in it for the game, not for the modeling opportunities. If I want ot pay for a model of somethign for the sheer joy of putting it together, I'll prob. either build it from scratch, buy a WWII bomber model, or get something I can do with my son as a father/son project (we did this A-10 that he decided MUST be Ferrari red... b/c "red ones go fasta!")

GW does have nefarious schemes to bilk their customers out of money. It's called a business plan, and they will push it as long as they think they can support it. Businesses do not exist to perform a service or make a product. They exist to make money. Now, exactly how far those schemes reach, and what part of their actions we can put up to Occam's Razor, Hanlon's Razor, sheer stupidity, or rushing a product to market; probably "they" as a corporate entity do not even know. Anything that big HAS to have a certain element of the right hand not knowig what the left is doing.

One of the key benefits of playig GW games is that, for those of us who are very mobile, you can get a game in dang near any major city in the Industrialized World, and quite a few outside it. However, making any kind of changes or upgrades in such a large organization always has inherent difficulties directly proportional to the "economies of scale" they enjoy in the first place.

I understand such things, however, I am a customer. If I am going to participate in this hobby for whatever aspect of it I enjoy, I will do so without complaining about the prices. I WILL, however, demand the quality thse prices should command, IMNSHO. I could have hobbies that cost plenty more (like that boat I keep threatening my wife with), but I don't. You want to quail at the cost of a hobby? Look up some of the prices of golf. Boating. Cars, for the love of Craftsman! They become less a hobby and more a lifestyle.

I lean toward an opinion of excessive incompetence with GW, mixed with a businesses natural desire to stretch out their viability as long as possible by whatever means needed. How long has 40k been out? How many years? They've had HOW long to get their product RIGHT? And STILL don't? Show me an edition of 40 that was RIGHT, and generally held by the majority of the gaming world to be RIGHT. I think it has been stretched out, some by needs, and some by lack of competence.
</mindless rant>

Jervis admitted that GW makes mistakes in their rules. His specific example was the Ravenwing character (Sammuel?), who during playtesting was allowed to fire ALL his ranged weapons in the same phase. Codex comes out, and that special rule was omitted.

Jervis also talked about the various types of customers that GW has - people that are competitive tourney gamers, 'beer and pretzel' games, people who just paint models, and people that like to collect. In the US, the painter/collector market is, imho, relatively small. In Europe, the painter/collector market is apparently stronger (not saying it's 1/2 their sales, but apparently it's a sizable segment). So, GW is trying to appeal to more than just us gamers. And really, the painter/collector is their 'best' customer - no cries for better rules and it's very clear why a product is or is not selling to that segment.

Making good rules and properly balanced units will never drive anyone away from the game. Beer & Pretzel players, painters, collectors, etc will probably not notice the difference.

Writing poor rules, and imbalanced units will drive away players who are looking for a good game.

Maybe they don't need the 10-20% of their market that cares about the gameplay though. That strikes me as foolish and shortsighted, but maybe they've done the market analysis and figured that it would cost them more to do the rules right than they'd make/lose as a result of not doing so.

JohnHwangDD wrote:I believe that power gamers / tournament players make up a very substantial part of GW's commentary, but a largely insignificant portion of GW's actual sales. If you count the number of GW customers compared to the number who actually play RTTs, I would not be surprised if the numbers worked out like this:
- less than 5% of all GW customers have ever played in an GW-organized GT,
- less than 10% of all GW customers are tournament players
- less than 20% of all GW customers are powergamers

As I said, that's the kind of info that would invalidate the "We make good and bad units on purpose" theory. (Not that we've necessarily proven the theory to begin with). But do you have any data to support your assertion?

I think GW makes good and bad units, but not deliberately. There is a saying,

"I'll give a guy the benefit of the doubt, and assume he's just dumb and not malicious."