Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Yes, it can!

Just..not the way you want. 40k seems to be returning to the "crazy/zany" days of 2nd edition, moreso than it is returning to the "we are trying to be a srs wargame type activity" days of 4th and 5th.

Which is great, and I love it. But I have a feeling it's going to be highly unpopular with the competitive crowd.

Before anyone can fix 40k rules.You need to define what 40k rules are supposed to be?

If you follow the scale of the minatures, that leads to a skirmish rule set , focused on detailed model interaction.
The largest size game skirmish rules can support is around 2nd ed size games.

And as there are many great skirmish rule sets all ready out there,No Limits,(Warzone/2nd ed type rules) to Beyond the Gated of Antares.(Bolt Action type rules.)

Trying to compete in the very crowded skirmish games market with lots of well written rules, that are already well supported, is a bit of a pointless exercise for GW and 40k fans,IMO.

If you follow the size of the game , you are looking at detailed UNIT interaction in a battle game.
If 40k used appropriate scale minatures , eg 6mm to 15mm for its large battle game.We could use any of the good rule sets already out there as a starting point for conversion. Epic Armageddon, Drop Ship Commander, Dirt-side, etc.
As the smnaller scale makes players more comfortable with unit interaction because of 'blob squad infantry units on a base'.

However, the insistence by GW of using skirmish sized minatures in a battle sized game has cause so many disconnects and disjointed perspectives.A complete and total re-write focusing on the intended game play.(What ever this is supposed to be.)
Is the only way to fix 40k.

No half hearted tweeks, or PV adjustment can fix the game.These just make it acceptable to play for some.But are still light years away from a well defined, intuitive and fun to play rule set.(Straight out of the book)

I mean, I like the scale of both the models and the game - baneblades are WAAAAY cooler at 28mm than at 15mm, IMO.

And I like to take three of them in a company to a game, because that company looks fething fantastic at 15mm.

How would you 'fix' that army? Skirmish system? What?

I admit there is a lot here and i have not read it all, but to inject myself into the conversation, and give my two cents here is goes.

1)Remove GMC and Heavy walkers from normal games

2)Remove, and or greatly reduce formations. IMO allowing things like the hunter killer, and for example the vindicator formations that used to only apply to apoc games into normal games is dumb, i mean...pie plate o doom.
I think a good example of a formation is one that involves fluff.

3) Remove D weapons from standard games

4)Remove the hardcore cheese from the game, eldar quickly come to mind, or the ridiculous amount of special rules on units. If you have more then 3 spcial rules on a unit, not counting global common rules like FNP or They shall know no fear. the unit needs to be looked at again. Example, black knights, relentless, hit and run, and hammer of wrath can get pretty cheese.

To be clear, a rewrite of the rules would, by absolute necessity, be free of anything that would infringe upon the IP. I come back to Ninth Age and Kings of War as a reference because they've written rules that are obviously intended for use with GW miniatures, but they've done it in a such a way that there's no legal ramifications. Again I ask the question: are they popular as an alternate ruleset simply because WFB no longer exists? Can a sci-fi rules setting expressly aimed at GW collectors work while GW produces an official ruleset?

GW has created a great universe of fluff and fantasy history. There is no reason that a mechanical change in rules should affect anyone from retaining the great stories behind their armies. IMO, the depth of the galaxy is the reason why 40K has such a dedicated fanbase. It's the reason why settings like Infinity and Warmachine will have a limited appeal: those game worlds are well defined and set within a limited scope of time and setting. That's not to say that they don't have better game rules or don't appeal to a large number of people, they just don't allow for people interested in fluff to carve out their own niche.

They will never get rid of formations because they're the ultimate key to selling models that would never sell otherwise. Oh that vyper sucks compared to literally everything else in your codex and you're never going to waste your time and money to buy and paint one? Guess what? Now that model is mandatory if you want to effectively spam scat bikes and wks. You have a fire prism? Now you need 3 for the formation bonus. Oh crap, everyone already has as many rhinos/drop pods as they'll ever need but we want to sell more. Guess what? Now they're FREE! GO BUY MORE!

Whatever the lowest selling kits for a particular army are, GW will make them mandatory in the next super formation or encourage spamming the hell out of them.

 carldooley wrote:
I think that GW saw what PP did with warmachine and hordes, making everything balanced by making it all over powered.

PP balanced?

That game has ton's of balance issues as well. Some warcasters are, simply put, better than others. They also play the 'pay to win' game by releasing slightly better models with each supplement so you need to buy them to be competitive.

There is nothing wrong with this. They are a business and need to earn a profit. But lets not delude ourselves and say that PP games are 'balanced'.

1- No GW can't.
2- They don't want to.
3- No one else can while 40k still exists.

If GW goes all End Times / AoS on 40k, then you might see the community commitment and cooperation necessary to put together some sort of 9th age style fan-made edition based on whatever past edition the fans who make it think was the best, but even then good luck finding local communities willing to run it.

like so many other game that have so much choice, you run into the issue of its almost impossible to balance everything.

A large part needs to come from GW yes, but additionally, if there is to be true balance, then the community will need to accept that there will never be a jack of all trades armies. Maybe space marines.

But the community will need to accept that each army should have one good thing, but pretty much suck at the rest. As is stands GW is trying to make rules for armies so that they can do anything the player want, which is just not very good.

Probably it has been said before, but something that xould help a lot to have agood ruleset woud be if GW created an app/ebook/something techy where they published all of their rules. Instead of buying the rulebook (£50) plus a couple of codexes (£60-£70) You paid (£110-£150) for a lifetime access to all rules/ codexes. Alternatively they could charge £30-£50 for a year subscription this might be better due to lower entry cost. This would be a lot easier to update too, everyone would get the updates instantly without having to search for them in the White Dwarf/webpage etc...

Besides being a lot more friendly to updates and modern times it would also leave us with more money for what we want in the first place... our plastic crack!!! And fielding larger armies/models would be more common.

And for the die hard fans of paper they could still print some special edition codexes with extra art, short stories and the like...

So, to answer OP's question.. can 40K be fixed by GW? certainly... Will it be done? Not very likely

Are they not selling enough models? Isn't that the priority?

Lanrak wrote:
However, the insistence by GW of using skirmish sized minatures in a battle sized game has cause so many disconnects and disjointed perspectives.A complete and total re-write focusing on the intended game play.(What ever this is supposed to be.)
Is the only way to fix 40k.

That, matched with a coherent vision for the armies that you play the game with. There's no point writing a tight, functional ruleset if every damn unit's gonna have special rules.

But I don't think either GW or the fanbase would go for the level of abstraction that a good game (of this type and scale) needs. They'd see it as simplistic and limiting if all these hundreds of guns didn't have slightly different rules.

I think just fixing the crap codexes will bring a new level of balance. Orks, Chaos, IG are a few exemple of codexs that have internal issues. Fix them and we'll most likely see a decrease in balancing issues.

But GW is a model company, so release op stuff, and people will buy it. They just want to sell gak, so I doubt they're going to do anythign about it.

If they make the older codexs into new op ones like everybody else, then everybody will be op so game will be balanced. Easier hen to nerf all the recent codexs. Not saying it's the thing to do, but it's a quick n easy sort of fix.

Regarding the rules - I also agree that it's a complete re-write. I think this COULD be done, but it would invalidate all current publications and force GW to stop releasing stuff for a while as it's prepared.

I think you could certainly still include Formations, or Flyers and Superheavies / GMC size models if you like, but they just need to be massively toned down. Your Baneblade is now a 9HP Leman Russ. That's it. No split fire, no ignoring this and that damage effect, etc, etc. No D weapons. But yes, a total rules re-write from the ground up with minimal special rules and massive simplification of how models/units interact.

Will they actually do this? - doubt it. At the moment they seem to be doing well with their one-week special rules laden marketing splashes. I agree that they need to see the game as an essential part of the hobby before they change it, and even though it would definitely be a good thing to start again, a million players will whine when their books become invalid.

Regarding alternate rules - I don't think any fan-written alternative has a hope as long as GW are still publishing 40k. It's just much, much easier to get people to play a game if they know what they're playing. We see this problem with fandexes - only the author ever plays them.

WHFB 9th has a boost because WHFB changed so much, but in my regular club I've seen a drop in players of 9th as people realise that either AoS is actually a pretty viable and fun game, or that KoW is a much faster, simpler way of doing a mass battle game.

 Byte wrote:
Are they not selling enough models? Isn't that the priority?

You would think if they made a better game, people would be more willing to keep playing.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 ArbitorIan wrote:
Regarding alternate rules - I don't think any fan-written alternative has a hope as long as GW are still publishing 40k. It's just much, much easier to get people to play a game if they know what they're playing. We see this problem with fandexes - only the author ever plays them.

A similar problem exists in the programming world.

You might write an amazing piece of code, but if it's very specific to your company then finding someone to manage the code is hard. Using third party products ensures you can find support for the systems, even if the managing engineer leaves. Sure, that third party code might not be as good, and it might be more expensive -- but the ability to do a linked in search for that specific toolset is very helpful for employers.

In a similar way, I know 40k is overpriced and the rules are unbalanced. However, I know I can go to a tourney and play with a group of new people with a common ruleset. Modifications of that ruleset are found (ITC rules, NOVA rules, Adepticon Rules) but even they still provide common enough ground to where I can drive to a different state and be playing the same game.

It's all about accessibility.

Regarding the rules - I also agree that it's a complete re-write. I think this COULD be done, but it would invalidate all current publications and force GW to stop releasing stuff for a while as it's prepared.

I think you could certainly still include Formations, or Flyers and Superheavies / GMC size models if you like, but they just need to be massively toned down. Your Baneblade is now a 9HP Leman Russ. That's it. No split fire, no ignoring this and that damage effect, etc, etc. No D weapons. But yes, a total rules re-write from the ground up with minimal special rules and massive simplification of how models/units interact.

Will they actually do this? - doubt it. At the moment they seem to be doing well with their one-week special rules laden marketing splashes. I agree that they need to see the game as an essential part of the hobby before they change it, and even though it would definitely be a good thing to start again, a million players will whine when their books become invalid.

Regarding alternate rules - I don't think any fan-written alternative has a hope as long as GW are still publishing 40k. It's just much, much easier to get people to play a game if they know what they're playing. We see this problem with fandexes - only the author ever plays them.

Pretty much this for me.

Im wondering with the lack of actual bonified codex releases of late are they quietly ramping up for 8th. Whether thats (another) retweaking of the basic ruleset with a new machnaic/dynamic thrown in or a complete rewrite who knows.
I'd like to think they take a punt ala AoS and gut the ruleset (not the fluff) but with 40k still being their safe bet and go to flag bearer probably not.

First let me say that I do believe that GW has slowly begun to move in a more positive direction. More rapid codex releases was positive, recent board games where the models could be used in 40k, and much to everyones surprise GW rebuilding an online presence; even going to far as to ask for FAQ's. That said there is a great deal more that they could do to significantly improve the actual 40k game itself.

Clearly GW uses the 'rules' to improve sales of certain models, so I won't rehash those comments. The question being is, can 40k be fixed by GW? I believe it can.

However, I think what GW needs to change their approach to writing rules. Right now they are all over the place. Chaos gets rehashed supplement's with mostly sub par recycled Apoc formations. While Space Marines get a swath of new awesome Psychic powers. It is this kind of approach that hampers any chance of seeing a better, more streamlined, and balanced game coming any time soon.

Fundamentally they can't scrap the current rules because it isn't realistic, it just isn't feasible that GW will do one huge release of codex's to go along with a new edition. So with that in mind, what can they do?

They need to focus on Codex's. GW needs to be consistent going forward. They need a truly dedicated team of rules designers who have a vested interest in creating a "Whole Game". They have to stop 'shifting gears' all the time. If they could maintain a steady hand when it comes to updating codex's then I think that over time they could begin to advance in a direction where the Whole Game can improve. It really doesn't matter if they want to ramp up the power levels, include Super Heavies, or tone things down. What is important is that they be consistent in what they do.

If they could apply this method to updating every codex in the future, until ALL codex's were updated; then perhaps they could re-examine the core rules.

 Byte wrote:
Are they not selling enough models? Isn't that the priority?

Sales of models dropped by 15% last year according to their financials, so they must not be selling a whole lot of extra models. If 3 people quit for every 1 guy that buys 12 rhinos, GW didn't gain anything. They probably took a net loss because the 3 guys that quit started spending money with GW's competitors and then each told 10 other people not to start 40k because it's a horrible, unbalanced mess.

not a chance they have completely the wrong design philosophy the only hope would be if they got ffg or another company to do the rules.

The only way for them to fix the game truly would be to start from scratch and come with a concept for the whole game. There is too much content to do it all at once. So they would need to think of ways to expand from the beginning and how they want to do it. Like perhaps, a system of campaigns that are technically self contained and play somewhat differently. If people then want to mix and match everything , they could but if things start to break, that truly isn't GW's fault then.

GW did create a department just for their board games, so I guess it's not entirely impossible to see something similar with 40k, but I just don't see it happening. It would make sense for the company to separate the models and rules though. That way they could even go ahead and make collector only items alongside stuff that has actual function in game. It would require too much restructuring and commitment for them to go through with it though.

 ArbitorIan wrote:

Will they actually do this? - doubt it. At the moment they seem to be doing well with their one-week special rules laden marketing splashes. I agree that they need to see the game as an essential part of the hobby before they change it, and even though it would definitely be a good thing to start again, a million players will whine when their books become invalid.

I'm legitimately curious when this culture of "we're a model company, not a games company" started. When you listen to guys like Rick Priestley and Andy Chambers talk, they're always very respectful, but they also state that at some point the Studio was subordinated to the business side of the company. This seems to have been the time when we started to see a significant downturn in the quality of the rules writing.

Regarding alternate rules - I don't think any fan-written alternative has a hope as long as GW are still publishing 40k. It's just much, much easier to get people to play a game if they know what they're playing. We see this problem with fandexes - only the author ever plays them.

It saddens me some, but I'd have to agree. There are some folks out there who really write some flavorful, balanced fandexes. I've enjoyed some of your batreps that featured the Adeptus Arbites. If anything, good fandexes tend towards being underpowered, much how the FW guys used to write some of their earlier Imperial Armour books. They were hobbyists, and they weren't interested in gaming the system to put a favored unit on the tabletop. They just wanted to make something cool.

I think we have quite a bit of unrecognized talent in the community, and a fan rueset could easily be better than what the professionals produce at that big building in Nottingham.

WHFB 9th has a boost because WHFB changed so much, but in my regular club I've seen a drop in players of 9th as people realise that either AoS is actually a pretty viable and fun game, or that KoW is a much faster, simpler way of doing a mass battle game.

That's interesting. I don't play Fantasy, but Ninth Age seemed like it would edge out Mantic's offering. But, again, it may also be that Mantic is an established company with a full-colored, printed book that can be purchased in most gaming stores. Ninth's Age, even though it's designed to be more familiar to WFB players, just doesn't have that polish and expansive reach that an established publisher can muster.

 IllumiNini wrote:

Grief wrote:

 IllumiNini wrote:

Grief wrote:
Thats the whole point. Starve GW out. Put them out of business.

But in the context of the OP's question, this is one of the worst things that can happen. We're taking about dishing out the rights and ability to make a coherent, balance Rule Set to a Third Party, not "Starving GW Out" to the point where they don't even make the models anymore. What would be the point in that? We would have a company that isn't making models or rules anymore because it no longer has the capacity to do so. Also, I doubt any Third Party will create a Rule Set to pair with a set of models that is no longer in production.

Whether or not GW can be successful by simply making games on a digital platform has nothing to do with what the OP asked. Absolutely nothing.

As long as people give money to GW, GW doesn't have to fix the game.

Only when GW cant make money off of wh40k then they can scrap wh40k and stop making models. There is enough wh40k modes floating around on ebay and 3rd party resellers.

Only then can wh40k can be fixed by making rule without the intentions to sell the models.

3rd Party Re-sellers of models aside: You want GW to give up what they do best (Creating models) because they can't do rules (Which - I'll remind you again - is something that is secondary to models for them)?

And you want to get better rules for the models they create by driving them from the tabletop industry entirely? Which, mind you, could send them bankrupt. I'm not talking "Our tabletop division is flopping - let's stick to other platforms and games", I'm talking flat out, 100%, GW doesn't exist anymore bankrupt. That won't help W40K, it will destroy it.

But what if somebody else picks up the IP? My bet is that it will take them years to bring it back up to speed. And what's to say that if somebody else pick up the IP, that they won't make the same sorts of choices and mistakes that GW have?

What you're suggesting we do is essentially destroy a company in the hopes that the MIGHT pull their act together in some way or another and eventually allow for a better version of the game to be born. I feel very confident in saying that your idea will NOT work.

And in all honesty, I'd rather a hobby centered around a set of models with a set of broken rules than a hobby centered around buying used models and outdated rules off of online stores that are overpriced because it's a discontinued line of products.

Draco wrote:

Grief wrote:
Thats the whole point. Starve GW out. Put them out of business.

30K/40K is very good. GW is done good except in gaming. You can fix these by using different rules. Lore and models are good IMO. Setting is superb.

You can use old rules if you want. But it is not easy because other people uses different rules, we need a strong gaming community if we want use a other rules than current gw rules.

I agree with this. Everything apart from the rule set is fantastic. Obviously due to the scope, there's always going to be elements that I do and don't like, and any other given person isn't going to necessarily agree with me, but such is the way of things with such a big fictional universe. But as I have said repeatedly - they are a model company above all else, and realistically, that's the only thing we can almost surely trust them to get right.


Also, take any person: If they are in this hobby for the gaming while at the same time they find the rules unbearably broken, then this is not the hobby for you. Period.

Giving them your money has worked out so well hasn't it?

Grief wrote:
Giving them your money has worked out so well hasn't it?

If you don't want to give GW or FW your money, that can be your agenda. Why you seem to insist that we all follow your lead and at the very least drive GW and FW out of the industry is beyond me. Would you mind explaining exactly how you see this panning out, and how exactly everyone refusing to be ongoing customers is going to fix the rules? Because I don't see the customer base diminishing to next to nobody ever leading to GW and FW going "Oh wait... let's make better rules."

On your point of me giving them money working so far, might I remind you of something I said in the very post you quoted:

 IllumiNini wrote:
And in all honesty, I'd rather a hobby centered around a set of models with a set of broken rules than a hobby centered around buying used models and outdated rules off of online stores that are overpriced because it's a discontinued line of products.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

zerosignal wrote:

 IllumiNini wrote:

I don't think their rule writers are bad per se, but I think the writers need to take a step back and take a look at the big picture of what they've created. I reckon @MrMoustaffa isn't very far off the mark at all when (s)he says that they need to look at the very core rules, restructure or rewrite them, and then work from there. But I honestly don't think they're going to do anything remotely like this. A Third Party might if the writing of rules was outsourced to them. It'd definitely be easier for a Third Party to do it as well. I mean, you remember looking over your maths homework or your english essay and finding no problems, but the minute somebody else looks at it, they pick out all the problems and help you fix it? That's what it will be like, but the Third Party won't be helping GW fix it, the Third Party will be doing it themselves.

That brings up the question though: If it's only a matter getting an outside perspective, why don't GW do that? Or listen to its fans/customers? Simple - for whatever, reason, that's not really how GW works in the grand scheme of things.

They could do themselves a huge favour by outsourcing their games design to WotC or FFG.

Yep, most definitely. Shall we take wagers on how long it will take GW to do something like this? I have $10 on never haha

GW is not responsible for this mess. Munchkin gamers will always arise, eventually, in any system that has been around this long.

The fact that people blame GW is hilarious and a self serving cycle. These people whine and complain at GW, and at the same time, praise and admire people who take the obvious 2-3 toughest units in a codex and fit as many as possible of said units as they can into a list... (not all, but generally from my experience).

...and you call these people champions? It's no wonder that this is what GW gave you.... it's what you showed them you wanted. Not a game that we can realize amazing sci-fi stories with, but like the reality of insecure people themselves, an arms race where we can use our societal leverage (money) to gain traction against everyone around us.

We ALL messed this up, not GW. Blame them all you want, but I've been passive on this board watching many of you jump amongst the strongest meta army time after time, with your dollars actually winning games for you. Its funny. Now, after the game is reaching the point where those same people can't spend enough to keep ahead of the meta, the complaints of brokenness have risen drastically. Ha!!! You created this.

Disclaimer... I've played mech Tau since 3rd. I had fielded a riptide during 6 and 7th on 3 different occasions, each a single one in those games. I have never used riptides in any but those three. My win ratio was at about 40% at that time with draws happening frequently as well. Don't let munchkin gamers intimidate you. They are too afraid to try to face you in a fair match, and are the ones who complain, as their ego has a vested interest in 40k, instead of their imagination.

(Edit...I will admit that the players that switch armies to play to the current meta are a large driver of GWs total sales, so in a weird paradoxical way their method of playing is also one of the main things that keeps the game afloat.)

 labmouse42 wrote:

 carldooley wrote:
I think that GW saw what PP did with warmachine and hordes, making everything balanced by making it all over powered.

PP balanced?

That game has ton's of balance issues as well. Some warcasters are, simply put, better than others. They also play the 'pay to win' game by releasing slightly better models with each supplement so you need to buy them to be competitive.

There is nothing wrong with this. They are a business and need to earn a profit. But lets not delude ourselves and say that PP games are 'balanced'.

And yet mk3 Warmachine was just announced, and the stated purpose of that was that PP felt balance needed addressing. They are rebalancing EVERY UNIT IN THE GAME.

GW have never released a new edition with the purpose of addressing the problems in the last, they release new editions because they want to sell you a new book.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

spacelord321 wrote:
GW is not responsible for this mess. Munchkin gamers will always arise, eventually, in any system that has been around this long.

No.
Just no.

GW are writing the rules, and the rules are clearly flawed. Therefore GW is at fault, plain and simple.

 IllumiNini wrote:

Grief wrote:
Giving them your money has worked out so well hasn't it?

If you don't want to give GW or FW your money, that can be your agenda. Why you seem to insist that we all follow your lead and at the very least drive GW and FW out of the industry is beyond me. Would you mind explaining exactly how you see this panning out, and how exactly everyone refusing to be ongoing customers is going to fix the rules? Because I don't see the customer base diminishing to next to nobody ever leading to GW and FW going "Oh wait... let's make better rules."

On your point of me giving them money working so far, might I remind you of something I said in the very post you quoted:

 IllumiNini wrote:
And in all honesty, I'd rather a hobby centered around a set of models with a set of broken rules than a hobby centered around buying used models and outdated rules off of online stores that are overpriced because it's a discontinued line of products.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

zerosignal wrote:

 IllumiNini wrote:

I don't think their rule writers are bad per se, but I think the writers need to take a step back and take a look at the big picture of what they've created. I reckon @MrMoustaffa isn't very far off the mark at all when (s)he says that they need to look at the very core rules, restructure or rewrite them, and then work from there. But I honestly don't think they're going to do anything remotely like this. A Third Party might if the writing of rules was outsourced to them. It'd definitely be easier for a Third Party to do it as well. I mean, you remember looking over your maths homework or your english essay and finding no problems, but the minute somebody else looks at it, they pick out all the problems and help you fix it? That's what it will be like, but the Third Party won't be helping GW fix it, the Third Party will be doing it themselves.

That brings up the question though: If it's only a matter getting an outside perspective, why don't GW do that? Or listen to its fans/customers? Simple - for whatever, reason, that's not really how GW works in the grand scheme of things.

They could do themselves a huge favour by outsourcing their games design to WotC or FFG.

Yep, most definitely. Shall we take wagers on how long it will take GW to do something like this? I have $10 on never haha

If you like what GW is doing then give them money. If you or anyone else dont like what GW is doing then dont give them your money.

When do you think they would even consider re evaluating their business?
When it is still making money, Or would they make a last ditch effort to save their own IP when sales plummet and flat line? Would they do something drastic like realize a large majority of , "Collectors," of ,"Miniatures," and ,"Novels" actually buy these things to play a game? Would they finally get the notion that they need to improve the game rules to revive sales?

GW is not going to go bankrupt if it loses wh40k on the table top. GW will still be in business.

Grief wrote:

GW is not going to go bankrupt if it loses wh40k on the table top. GW will still be in business.

I was going to challenge that assertion, instead I made this thread to test my theory, that the game is all that's holding GW up: http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/687513.page

 jonolikespie wrote:

 labmouse42 wrote:

 carldooley wrote:
I think that GW saw what PP did with warmachine and hordes, making everything balanced by making it all over powered.

PP balanced?

That game has ton's of balance issues as well. Some warcasters are, simply put, better than others. They also play the 'pay to win' game by releasing slightly better models with each supplement so you need to buy them to be competitive.

There is nothing wrong with this. They are a business and need to earn a profit. But lets not delude ourselves and say that PP games are 'balanced'.

And yet mk3 Warmachine was just announced, and the stated purpose of that was that PP felt balance needed addressing. They are rebalancing EVERY UNIT IN THE GAME.

GW have never released a new edition with the purpose of addressing the problems in the last, they release new editions because they want to sell you a new book.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

spacelord321 wrote:
GW is not responsible for this mess. Munchkin gamers will always arise, eventually, in any system that has been around this long.

No.
Just no.

GW are writing the rules, and the rules are clearly flawed. Therefore GW is at fault, plain and simple.

No. GW is making models, but, because it sells exponentially better, they make rules to cater to insecure gamers, in the same way that drugs sell to self envisioned embattered folks. (See the "don't spend money!" thread).

Those same codex junkies that get a false feeling of self accomplishment every time they can rightly guess the three new best units in a codex and spam them. This is where you and I differ. I despise these people. I blame the electorate, not the politicians.

Grief wrote:If you like what GW is doing then give them money. If you or anyone else dont like what GW is doing then dont give them your money.

That's always been my standpoint and I have made it abundantly clear that I will still be giving them my money, whether it's $10 a month or $1,000.

Grief wrote:When do you think they would even consider re evaluating their business?

I have no idea, though I'd be willing to be that they would if they started losing money hand over fist. In any case, GW is not likely to make the exact changes you specifically are looking for simply because they're losing money hand over fist. They might, but that's a very, very big IF.

Grief wrote:When it is still making money, Or would they make a last ditch effort to save their own IP when sales plummet and flat line? Would they do something drastic like realize a large majority of , "Collectors," of ,"Miniatures," and ,"Novels" actually buy these things to play a game? Would they finally get the notion that they need to improve the game rules to revive sales?

That's hard to say. I honestly don't know the circumstances in which they would "See the Light", but as I've said before - starving them out of the industry isn't the way to do it. The results are too unpredictable.


All this being said, I think it's fair to say that starving GW out of the industry is a bad idea and have nothing more to say on the matter. Feel free to practice what you preach by not giving GW and FW any more money, but my involvement in this is done and I will continue to support both companies.

Grief wrote:GW is not going to go bankrupt if it loses wh40k on the table top. GW will still be in business.

That is an oversimplification at best. There would be a whole set of circumstances during the decline of W40K resulting from a diminished customer base that could very well lead to bankruptcy. There are so many "What Ifs" that nobody here can properly predict that could lead to the downfall of the company. Similarly, there's nothing stopping them from withdrawing from modelling and tabletop gaming and still being a successful company in other industries. There's too many factors we can't predict; and my best guess is that if they lost W40K, the circumstances surrounding its demise would likely lead to bankruptcy.

 jonolikespie wrote:

spacelord321 wrote:
GW is not responsible for this mess. Munchkin gamers will always arise, eventually, in any system that has been around this long.

No.
Just no.

GW are writing the rules, and the rules are clearly flawed. Therefore GW is at fault, plain and simple.

I humbly disagree. I think SpaceLord321 has a point. As a non-competitive player who has no interest or knowledge in tournament play and competitive play in general, I think (s)he's made a good point that many people (or at least myself) haven't previously considered. Also I think the only thing that SpaceLord321 is missing on is that GW is partially at fault here because their sample size is people in tournaments and other competitive players, and not the wider community as well. [SpaceLord321 - Forgive me if I misread or misinterpreted your post.]

spacelord321 wrote:
GW is not responsible for this mess. Munchkin gamers will always arise, eventually, in any system that has been around this long.

The fact that people blame GW is hilarious and a self serving cycle. These people whine and complain at GW, and at the same time, praise and admire people who take the obvious 2-3 toughest units in a codex and fit as many as possible of said units as they can into a list... (not all, but generally from my experience).

...and you call these people champions? It's no wonder that this is what GW gave you.... it's what you showed them you wanted. Not a game that we can realize amazing sci-fi stories with, but like the reality of insecure people themselves, an arms race where we can use our societal leverage (money) to gain traction against everyone around us.

We ALL messed this up, not GW. Blame them all you want, but I've been passive on this board watching many of you jump amongst the strongest meta army time after time, with your dollars actually winning games for you. Its funny. Now, after the game is reaching the point where those same people can't spend enough to keep ahead of the meta, the complaints of brokenness have risen drastically. Ha!!! You created this.

Disclaimer... I've played mech Tau since 3rd. I had fielded a riptide during 6 and 7th on 3 different occasions, each a single one in those games. I have never used riptides in any but those three. My win ratio was at about 40% at that time with draws happening frequently as well. Don't let munchkin gamers intimidate you. They are too afraid to try to face you in a fair match, and are the ones who complain, as their ego has a vested interest in 40k, instead of their imagination.

(Edit...I will admit that the players that switch armies to play to the current meta are a large driver of GWs total sales, so in a weird paradoxical way their method of playing is also one of the main things that keeps the game afloat.)

That's not how it works. If you create a situation that gets out of hand, YOU will be held responsible for the outcome.

Say for example you give a monkey a gun. If he shoots somebody, the police are not going to arrest the monkey. They're going to arrest you. In your case; GW gave a bunch of monkeys guns. You got shot and now you want to go all Charlton Heston on them.