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Fauk wrote:
The thing is there are some things that can`t be explained. I see that many people argue that new and shiny models need good rules too so that they sell well. Well, lets have a talk about the Ork Gorkanat and Morkanaut. New Models, gakky rules. Or the new dark eldar flyer. Again new model, super gakky rules.

And then you have just stupid designer, perfectly shown in the faqs right now. When you have a BRB FAQ that just says something that was ruled in another way in an earlier faq. So that you can see that the one who answerd that question has done no research at all. And then we have answers in the Blood Angels FAq that says A while the same Questions with the same content is asked for another Faction the FAQ Guys answer B. So this leads me to the conclusion that you have different persons answering different questions and no one talks to each other to get a coherent FAQ.

This inconsistency in the faq's does seem to confirm the fact that different people or teams work on different codices. Theyve probably only asked that individual who did the BA codex to answer that question while a different person who did the other codex answered the other similar question. It points to a lack of oversight. However they are answers to specific questions that are slightly differently worded. They probably assume everyone understands the generic rule in their heads and forget that their answers need to be framed in the context of the whole set of rules.

I forget if it was the current or former lead designer but they said they view play more as two directors reenacting a battle rather than two competitors fighting a match. That should give some indication of the mindset of the codex writers and why stuff can seem so hilariously unbalanced.

I also recall an anecdote around Warhammer back in 8th before AoS that they dropped the price of Calvary units across armies and couldn't understand why that didn't make them sell better. Well, Calvary in 8th sucked so no one wanted more but that fact was lost on them.

Don't get me wrong I don't want to play chess and I expect a certain level of mismatch. However I think there is a lack of understanding, or frankly caring, that players look for the strongest units and combos and buy accordingly for the most part.

 nurgle86 wrote:

Fauk wrote:
The thing is there are some things that can`t be explained. I see that many people argue that new and shiny models need good rules too so that they sell well. Well, lets have a talk about the Ork Gorkanat and Morkanaut. New Models, gakky rules. Or the new dark eldar flyer. Again new model, super gakky rules.

And then you have just stupid designer, perfectly shown in the faqs right now. When you have a BRB FAQ that just says something that was ruled in another way in an earlier faq. So that you can see that the one who answerd that question has done no research at all. And then we have answers in the Blood Angels FAq that says A while the same Questions with the same content is asked for another Faction the FAQ Guys answer B. So this leads me to the conclusion that you have different persons answering different questions and no one talks to each other to get a coherent FAQ.

This inconsistency in the faq's does seem to confirm the fact that different people or teams work on different codices. Theyve probably only asked that individual who did the BA codex to answer that question while a different person who did the other codex answered the other similar question. It points to a lack of oversight. However they are answers to specific questions that are slightly differently worded. They probably assume everyone understands the generic rule in their heads and forget that their answers need to be framed in the context of the whole set of rules.

U see? This is just what I meant. I don`t think that they are doing this gakky balance on purpose it is just that the boss comes in and says something like: "Bob you will do the next Blood angels codex, Phil you will do the next Eldar codex" then Bob goes away and designs the BA Codex while he has no clue what phil does with the Eldar.....

I could also think that they have a team where they all work together as the Orks, DE, GK, codexes where pretty balanced to each other but then something happened, and I don`t know who was responsibly for it, but well necrons, Formations, and Meta detachments happened.

 SolarCross wrote:

 General Kroll wrote:
No, some Armies are not intended to be "NPC's" i hate this whiny "my codex is deliberately being screwed over" envy rage nonsense that constantly gets posted here.

Yes it's annoying that the game isn't perfectly balanced and that some of the armies get more updates than the others. But that's pretty much always been the case, and hey that's life.

The fact is, there is probably a very small design studio that works based around a release schedule that's probably determined by sales. If Space Marines, Tau, and Eldar are selling well then the higher ups are probably leaning on the design studio to make more of those models, so the rules team need to make more rules for those races and so on.

It's just a cycle that repeats. The races like Chaos Space Marines that need a massive overhaul just keep getting pushed back, because they probably need such an investment of time and resources to do it justice so it's a larger project. Same with the Guard.

Then you have things like the Dark Eldar, Necrons, Tyranids, or Orks that have a pretty good model line, but varying degrees of good or bad rules, but don't sell in particularly good numbers so probably won't get the attention they need because the rules team won't be pushed in that direction.

There's probably not some grand master plan to screw anyone over here, or to make Tyranids into a "NPC" army. They are just a little out of date compared to the Tau.

Like most things in 40k at the moment, the game would benefit from a little bit of an overhaul, maybe a new edition where all the codices get an update at the start for the edition rather than a drip feed through the course of its lifespan.

Yes this ^.

Also it is clear GW basically sees the game as a fun way for hobbyists to show off their paint jobs, rather than some hard-nosed and po-faced competitive game. If it was supposed to be a game and not a model catwalk it wouldn't even be on an absurdly huge 28mm scale, it would be on a practical 6mm scale. It was only and always the players that made it into a competitive game. The AoS reboot of WHFB (as much as I dislike it) was clearly an attempt by GW to kick into touch what a 28mm hobbycraft "game" is supposed to be about: an excuse to get your models out of the display case and have a bit of silly fun with other hobbyists.

Combinatorics is what makes the game so hard to balance not malice, the more factions, the more different unit types, upgrades and combinations of the aforementioned the harder any game will be to balance. Balancing chess is easy, balancing 40k will always be close to impossible.

Tourney's ham-fisted attempts at making the game balanced for competitive play usually make things worse, because again combinatorics. An example: the game proper allows unlimited number of detachments and unbound, but many / most tourneys "balance" this by only allowing one detachment. This doesn't hurt armies whose playstyle revolves around few elites that are relatively effective without force multipliers such as HQs like Eldar, SM, Tau because you can fit a well rounded force in one CAD easily. Other armies like Orks really need to use multiple CADs to get a well rounded force for a given points. That in itself isn't a problem in the actual game, but is only down to the daft "balancing" of tourney organisers.

I'd like to add into that the fact that it's also likely that each rules team member probably has a faction or two they're particularly passionate about, and as a game designer they probably go into work each day and come up with neat rules that it would be awesome if their faction had.

One only needs to look at the quantity, uniqueness and quality of the rules that each individual eldar unit and piece of wargear got to see that the codex was the passion project of a huge fan of the Eldar.

Also, look at the quality of the rules in the Khorne Daemonkin book vs the main CSM 'dex from 2012. Someone clearly loved his Khorne, and worked with everything he had to craft unique and interesting rules for his particular little subfaction.

Then look at the 'new' waaagh ghaz, the new rules for the Wazbom, and basically everything orks have gotten since 7th. There is nobody with a passion for orks in particular in the design team currently, just a bunch of people who occasionally get an ork model down the pipeline and say "Ok, well...let's look here. This model seems to have this gun, and that gun, and those exist in the codex already so we'll give it that. And then it's got some bombs here, kind of a chaff thing. We'll make that...oh, a 5+ save. And her'es a kustom force field, that's also got rules! Great! We're done!"

There's no malice. Just passion, and lack thereof, in a small design team that isn't going to do any work they don't have to if there's nobody who really cares about the odd old units. If corporate is content to just let them re-print any old rules they want to, then they're not going to do anything major if nobody particularly cares.

 oldzoggy wrote:
I a part of me believes so, and it makes lots of sense.

We know that GW groups their customers in types, every GW store employee asks you the what do you get out of the hobby question when you enter. I don't know how GW groups their customers exactly but that doens't really matter. What does matter is that not all players like the same thing and GW might just give the players what they want ( at the cost of things they don't really care that much about)

players ho like to collect, model and play casual games are having a bast playing with orks. They can model all they want even have rules for looted wagons and have a brand new range of beautiful models. At the cost of being non competitive.

Players who like the fun of competitive play and don't really like to plaint hordes have armies like Eldar, Tau and Necrons to play. At the cost of making the models harder to convert / model it yourself

It sure is a bit more complicated then this, but it makes a lot of sense to make specialised armies for certain groups of players. Just think of it orks will sell regardless of their rules, while ugly outdated eldar models will sell as long as their rules are good enough.

I agree, it make sens. Don't forget that according to the global behavor GW shows, we do are likely to tend to such suspicions. The Survey method seems at least as likely.

I am reminded of the old saying.
'Never attribute to malice what can be explained by incompetence..'

GW senior management have no idea who their customers are or what they actually want.This is why GW are still loosing sales volumes, in a growing market.

I am sure if the devs were left alone to sort out the 40k rules and codex books , the game would be in a much better position than it is now.

Here's the different things that I believe impact how an army turns out. Note, I've ordered these from the sacrosanct to the willy-nilly. The earlier items are major contributing factors, but are also likely the safest items. Since they matter most, no one wants to mess with them. The later items are more likely to only be occasionally contributing factors, but are more and more likely to cause bigger problems, since everyone wants to mess around with them.

#1 - Nostalgia; Unit X has shown up before. Unit X needs to at least do Y. This is because all players know and expect Unit X to do Y. For example; A Tactical Squad is made of at least 5 Space Marines, they are armed with Bolters, can take 1 Heavy Weapon, 1 Special Weapon, and a Sergeant, and may take a Dedicated Transport. It doesn't matter what happens in the game, this needs to be kept the same. I might even go as far as to say that the Dedicated Transport has to at least be a Rhino.
- Example of Problem-Unit due to Nostalgia; Drop Pods (because they've become central to Space Marine's IP)

#2 - Fluff; Fluff really is king right now at GW. I don't think it directs their points costs, but it absolutely directs their design. The only reason this isn't #1 is that fluff can be changed. A Space Marine must be tougher than a Guardsman.
- Example of Problem-Unit due to Fluff: Culexus Assassin (mostly due to meta of Psykers being so good, a unit that's so good at taking on Psykers is itself a problematic unit)

#3 - Backwards-Compatibility; Almost always, with very rare exceptions, old boxes sold must be backwards-compatible with new ones. Since the Fire Dragon Exarch has been sold with a Fire Pike in the past, the option to take a Fire Pike must remain in just about every codex in the future.
- Example of Problem-Unit due to Backwards-Compatibility; I can't think of one that's actually problematic BECAUSE of this, but Flyrants, Scatbikes, and Gravguns will all remain potentially problematic for the foreseeable future because all these options will never be retired.

#4 - Points Trim; Oh god, I hate this one, but it's clearly something that happens, and everyone who shouts out "X unit/option should cost less points!" shares the blame. GW wants you to buy more models, and if you're playing with less points than your group, you'll have an extra incentive to buy more. A Termagant used to cost 8 points per model. Now they're half that. That means that for the same number of points, you can field twice as many Termagants, or you can use the points saved on Termagants to buy another model kit. However, until they start printing models with decimal points in their costs, there's a limit to how low you can go.
- Example of Problem-Unit due to Points Trim; Tomb Blades (the trim was definitely to help players come up with a reason to add these into their lists, but this just compounded other mistakes that were made)

#5 - Everything Old is New Again; Sometimes, especially if there's a product that's been out for a long time that everyone has, and those players already have a ton of them, you need to add something so that players will still buy it. Grav Guns didn't exist at the start of 6th edition, or at least, not in major numbers. The new box has Grav Guns in it. Even if you already had 100 Tactical Marines with every possible combination of weapons, you may be tempted to buy these new boxes just to get a hold of some of those sweet, sweet Grav Guns, even if you're just a collector.
- Example of Problem-Unit due to Everything Old is New Again; Grav Guns, Scatbikes, D-Scythes

#6 - The New Hotness; Appealing to new players, old players, and collectors, completely new kits are always going to make some waves. This is probably the most expensive thing for GW to do, since they have to diversify their product line even further, which eats into product runs and adds extra costs and chances for screw-ups. However, they don't seem to give a lot of thought to whether or not these will be good - they just want to get them out there. I think these are where the some of the more obvious mistakes happen, as they grossly over or under-estimate something's effectiveness. Looking at you Pyrovores.
- Example of Problem-Unit due to The New Hotness; Wraithknights and Imperial Knights (both seem to fall here, being far stronger than they likely anticipated.)

#7 - Codex-Centric Play Testing; It's sad that I'm ranking this so low, but it really does seem to be where Play Testing ranks here. GW seems to put more thought into making sure that a codex is internally balanced against other options in the codex. There are also a few exceptions where things are really just heads and tails better than everything else in the codex, but by and large there's often a real question as to whether or not to take Unit A or Unit B.
- Example of Problem-Unit due to Codex-Centric Play Testing; Flyrants

#8 - Sales; I really do think this ranks this low, and that Codex-Centric Play Testing is more important to GW rather than straight sales. I mean, yes, some of the stuff above is also related to sales, but in this column I mean pushing things for the sole purpose of making them better so players buy them. The rest above are really just accidents where something accidentally ends up being too good. This is where things are deliberately made to be too good in order to buff sales. I think this is where the real problems in balance come from.
- Example of Problem-Unit due to Sales; Gladius Strike Force's free transports

#9 - External Pay Testing; Last, and definitely least, is external play testing. I'm honestly not sure that GW does this at all, or if they do, they focus on the army being released rather than on the experiences of those playing against it, and without testing out how the army combines with allies.
- Example of Problem-Unit due to External Play Testing; Space Marines (I get it, there's too many Imperial factions to realistically go through all the combinations and price them accordingly, but it really feels like they threw their hands up in the air here and just pretended like other factions don't exist.)

 SolarCross wrote:

 oldzoggy wrote:

It isn't even about CAD's sure orks do better with multiple, but the real issue is where units, formations and armies fit in the point efficiency curve. Some armies are clearly designed to be above the curve and others are designed to be under it.

Point efficiency probably does vary a quite bit from codex to codex but I doubt very much this was done on purpose, by design. Combinatorics by itself explains this quite well enough. It varies also internally to a codex also due to combinatorics.

It also depends quite a bit on context: which is worth more points as an upgrade: an AP3 weapon or a weapon with the monster hunter special rule? Against an SM army the AP3 weapon is golden but the monster hunter is garbage, the reverse would be true against a tyranid army. So what points cost to give each upgrade? You could say well more people play SMs and few people play tyranids, so the AP3 will be more useful more often so it should be worth more. But then... you have nerfed that option against SMs while simultaneously making having 3+ armour stock more valuable so now should models with 3+ cost more? Round and round it goes.. balance is impossible in a game like 40k, there simply isn't enough super-computers simulations, genius level play testers you can throw together to continually keep an ever changing game with so many interacting factors balanced. I think GW does try, if only to reduce the hate mail they get from the crazys, but they will never get it good enough for competition without cutting out at least 2 out of 3 factions, removing most upgrade choices, and reducing the number of units down to about four or five and making all the factions more or less identical. More like chess in fact. It might be a serious game then fit for serious competition but it wouldn't be 40k anymore.

Except how do you explain CSM vs BA vs Tyranid vs Ork vs Sisters vs maybe DA vs IG all being reasonable matchups? The balance doesn't have to be PERFECT. It just can't be Eldar, Tau, Vanilla marine, Chaos Demons. How they made vanilla marines top tier is still one of the sloppiest things I've ever seen. Free transports! Invisible grav cents! Skyhammer death! The actual marines? Oh, they're garbage.

Lanrak wrote:
I am reminded of the old saying.
'Never attribute to malice what can be explained by incompetence..'

GW senior management have no idea what who their customers are or what they actually want.This is why GW are still loosing sales volumes, in a growing market.

I am sure if the devs were left alone to sort out the 40k rules and codex books , the game would be in a much better position than it is now.

Is that because I used it on page one? :p

Martel732 wrote:


Except how do you explain CSM vs BA vs Tyranid vs Ork vs Sisters vs maybe DA vs IG all being reasonable matchups? The balance doesn't have to be PERFECT. It just can't be Eldar, Tau, Vanilla marine, Chaos Demons. How they made vanilla marines top tier is still one of the sloppiest things I've ever seen. Free transports! Invisible grav cents! Skyhammer death! The actual marines? Oh, they're garbage.

If it is true that the former grouping is outclassed by the latter grouping then that looks like power creep to a great extent, which is still a variant of the combinatoric problem. One of the reasons for updating a codex is to include rules for new models that have been released, for example adding new units such as Stormsurges, Centurions, Ghostkeels. By adding new units you increase the combinatoric problem and you also make a codex stronger overall as now it has more options than it had before.

I'm not sure at all that the former groupings are such reasonable matchups, depending quite a lot on what units were picked for each side. Orks vs. Tyranids... Is that really a reasonable matchup? Allegedly the only good unit in the Tyranid book is the Flyrant, whilst Orks arguably have the best anti-flier unit in the game with their traktor cannons. If the Tyranid player turns up with a list leaning heavily on the Flyrant whilst the Ork player happened to take along a battery of cheap and cheerful traktor cannons then is that a reasonable match up? Maybe if the tyranid player was innocent of the internet meme that flyrants are the only unit in the codex worth a damn and the Ork player didn't happen to have any traktor cannons because he just thinks bikerz look way more cool so didn't buy any traktors, it would be reasonable match up. Maybe.

 Purifier wrote:
I'm pretty sure it's a mix of a few different factors:
1) Sales.
Need to sell a unit? Make it stronger in some way. Need a bump in revenue before the next fiscal year? Guess the next codex needs to be strong! etc. It's not all the same reason, but it all boils down to sales, so while they might show themselves differently, they are still all rooted in sales.
2) Personal bias by writers towards a certain army. Some writers seem to think that certain armies are awesome and should be strong as gak (Gav on GK) and think others are just cannon fodder and should be for anyone spending massive amounts of money on the army too (Gav on SoB.)
3) A complete disinterest by writers to actually write rules that are balanced. They just don't care. They've even come out and said in the past that it's not supposed to be balanced. It's that kind of attitude that created the mess of pointless (hehe, get it?) AoS.

I'm pretty sure that Purifier has it right, though I believe "Sales" are the last item on the list as can be represented by the awesome power of the Flyrant (an older model with a lower profit margin), or the 6th ED Wave Serpent when compared to the Gorkanaut or Maleceptor two new models with high profit margins that have really bad rules.

I am a software engineer by day, and a gamer by night. I think of things in terms of numbers and statistics. Mathhammer if you will. We have the wrong view on the GW rules team. They aren't like me. They are creative types. They aren't hired for their ability to write clear, fluffy, and fun rules, they are hired for their ability to write and create fluff. The rules are an afterthought, and a secondary responsibility for what they do, and they take an approach to it that is driving by "feel", and "inspiration" rather than logic or statistics.

I'll admit that I don't know all of the 40K rules, though I play frequently, and might know more than most. None of the GW writers play nearly as much 40K as I do. They don't know the rules that they aren't directly responsible for, and don't have a full understanding of the consequences of things like unit types and Ballistic Skill and combos and such.

These things regularly show up in interviews and writings with writers and former writers.

Notable is the discussion of Jervis Johnson. He was head of the Age of Sigmar design team that was working at the time that Blood Angels, Orks, IG, and Dark Eldar Codexes were in the development process. He returned to the helm of 40K rules writing at the point the Necrons were almost done, and then oversaw the development of Eldar (in his veiw the most "inspirational" army), Space Marines, and Tau. He has a vision of 40K that is directly at war with my vision of it as a friendly game where 2 people that don't know each other can have a fun pickup game at the Friendly local game store. Everything that is regularly quoted about how GW is clueless of its customer base, or hates them, or is generally unlikable with the morality of a Bond Villain can usually be traced back to something that Jervis wrote. Case in point: http://greenblowfly.blogspot.com/2015/07/40k-rant-travesty-that-is-jervis-johnson.html or this: http://www.40konline.com/index.php?topic=70533.0

Jervis is a bad dude that is vehemently disliked by former members of the rules team. One of the former writers (Matt Ward I think) described him in incredibly flowery terms like "Having the quality of a festering wart on the 2 week dead corpse of a rancid fish". I can't remember the exact quote, and can't find that blog post anymore, but I remember it being quite vivid imagery.

His vision of 40K is that it isn't driven by math (he hates math) or probability (Hates that too). It is about "Inspiration", which translates to rules that give very little thought to points and stats. Over the years he has had personality clashes with various rules writers, and eventually risen to a point where he is the boss and can dictate the design philosophy. He also appears to be the writer most interested in telling us how we should be playing and ridiculing us if we don't do it his way.

The good news is that Age of Sigmar was Jervis's magnum opus. He finally had complete authority over a rule-set with no oversight above him. He made Sigmar in the image of what he thinks games should be. It would seem that his plan was for 40k to follow once the "True Gamers" made sigmar a success. The failure of AOS might have discredited his design philosophy sufficiently that we might see fewer travesties like the Eldar Codex going forward.

Also, Jervis is something of a control freak which leads to him getting reassigned to specialist games frequently, and the relaunch of specialist games might keep him occupied so that he does slightly less damage to 40K moving forward. The most bothersome thing about Jervis to me is perhaps his most redeeming quality. He loves what he does. So despite being 60, and having made more money than he will ever spend, he would like to continue doing it as long as he can.

tag8833 wrote:

 Purifier wrote:
I'm pretty sure it's a mix of a few different factors:
1) Sales.
Need to sell a unit? Make it stronger in some way. Need a bump in revenue before the next fiscal year? Guess the next codex needs to be strong! etc. It's not all the same reason, but it all boils down to sales, so while they might show themselves differently, they are still all rooted in sales.
2) Personal bias by writers towards a certain army. Some writers seem to think that certain armies are awesome and should be strong as gak (Gav on GK) and think others are just cannon fodder and should be for anyone spending massive amounts of money on the army too (Gav on SoB.)
3) A complete disinterest by writers to actually write rules that are balanced. They just don't care. They've even come out and said in the past that it's not supposed to be balanced. It's that kind of attitude that created the mess of pointless (hehe, get it?) AoS.

I'm pretty sure that Purifier has it right, though I believe "Sales" are the last item on the list as can be represented by the awesome power of the Flyrant (an older model with a lower profit margin), or the 6th ED Wave Serpent when compared to the Gorkanaut or Maleceptor two new models with high profit margins that have really bad rules.

I am a software engineer by day, and a gamer by night. I think of things in terms of numbers and statistics. Mathhammer if you will. We have the wrong view on the GW rules team. They aren't like me. They are creative types. They aren't hired for their ability to write clear, fluffy, and fun rules, they are hired for their ability to write and create fluff. The rules are an afterthought, and a secondary responsibility for what they do, and they take an approach to it that is driving by "feel", and "inspiration" rather than logic or statistics.

I'll admit that I don't know all of the 40K rules, though I play frequently, and might know more than most. None of the GW writers play nearly as much 40K as I do. They don't know the rules that they aren't directly responsible for, and don't have a full understanding of the consequences of things like unit types and Ballistic Skill and combos and such.

These things regularly show up in interviews and writings with writers and former writers.

Notable is the discussion of Jervis Johnson. He was head of the Age of Sigmar design team that was working at the time that Blood Angels, Orks, IG, and Dark Eldar Codexes were in the development process. He returned to the helm of 40K rules writing at the point the Necrons were almost done, and then oversaw the development of Eldar (in his veiw the most "inspirational" army), Space Marines, and Tau. He has a vision of 40K that is directly at war with my vision of it as a friendly game where 2 people that don't know each other can have a fun pickup game at the Friendly local game store. Everything that is regularly quoted about how GW is clueless of its customer base, or hates them, or is generally unlikable with the morality of a Bond Villain can usually be traced back to something that Jervis wrote. Case in point: http://greenblowfly.blogspot.com/2015/07/40k-rant-travesty-that-is-jervis-johnson.html or this: http://www.40konline.com/index.php?topic=70533.0

Jervis is a bad dude that is vehemently disliked by former members of the rules team. One of the former writers (Matt Ward I think) described him in incredibly flowery terms like "Having the quality of a festering wart on the 2 week dead corpse of a rancid fish". I can't remember the exact quote, and can't find that blog post anymore, but I remember it being quite vivid imagery.

His vision of 40K is that it isn't driven by math (he hates math) or probability (Hates that too). It is about "Inspiration", which translates to rules that give very little thought to points and stats. Over the years he has had personality clashes with various rules writers, and eventually risen to a point where he is the boss and can dictate the design philosophy. He also appears to be the writer most interested in telling us how we should be playing and ridiculing us if we don't do it his way.

The good news is that Age of Sigmar was Jervis's magnum opus. He finally had complete authority over a rule-set with no oversight above him. He made Sigmar in the image of what he thinks games should be. It would seem that his plan was for 40k to follow once the "True Gamers" made sigmar a success. The failure of AOS might have discredited his design philosophy sufficiently that we might see fewer travesties like the Eldar Codex going forward.

Also, Jervis is something of a control freak which leads to him getting reassigned to specialist games frequently, and the relaunch of specialist games might keep him occupied so that he does slightly less damage to 40K moving forward. The most bothersome thing about Jervis to me is perhaps his most redeeming quality. He loves what he does. So despite being 60, and having made more money than he will ever spend, he would like to continue doing it as long as he can.

Dios mio that article that Jarvis wrote made me sad. Especially the point where he says he "bent the ears" of white dwarf writers who were playing points balanced games. What. The. Frack!? Just depressing to think he runs the show.

In short: I don't like how you play therefore it's wrong.

Dear jarvis: I don't want to spent 1.5 hrs before each game haggling over the point value of every model.

Martel732 wrote:
Dear jarvis: I don't want to spent 1.5 hrs before each game haggling over the point value of every model.

Jarvis doesnt want you playing pick up games. He wants you to play a scenario where there is a predetermined outcome and feel satisfied you forged a narrative. No really, from his article that seems to be his ideal game.

 buddha wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Dear jarvis: I don't want to spent 1.5 hrs before each game haggling over the point value of every model.

Jarvis doesnt want you playing pick up games. He wants you to play a scenario where there is a predetermined outcome and feel satisfied you forged a narrative. No really, from his article that seems to be his ideal game.

I mean what else would you do? Play a game!? Where ANYONE could win?! Don't be absurd.

I've read that article before, and god, reading it now just makes me feel so much better that Age of Sigmar is going back to points values and game organization. The idea of a points-less system has been a failed experiment, and I think it proves that players are ultimately playing games in order to have a test of skill between each other, rather than playing story games.

Now, just because a game can have a test of skill does not mean that this is what the game is all about. If that were true, gamers would do nothing but chess and tennis. But it's not, because gamers enjoy the setting of 40k too. Both are important. Just as a pizza in its base ingredients is rather unappealing (who wants to eat a tomato, some cheese, and a bunch of dried flour while drinking some water?), but becomes delicious once mixed, so too is 40k a unique blend of rules and setting. Take either away, and neither will hold up quite as well on their own.

Cant see it as incidental. I mean, they released near at same time the last ork supplement and the space marines ones. And the SM is cool border with OP while the ork is worst than kill a white rabbit xD.

Same with codex, the orks formations, special rules, options, etc are, in general, bad. then they release a supplement and it is bad...They didnt realiced that the codex was so bad and that need a decent supplement to compensate? of course they did, but decided ignore that.


All players realiced that and comment about that fact once they were released. There is 0% that GW people didnt see that difference.

 nurgle86 wrote:

Now I'm beginning to wonder if there is a conscious plan in the design team towards a less than subtle attempt to create deliberate imbalance based on an internal difficulty system much like a video game might employ. The logic being that certain armies that grab the attention of new players are deliberately easier to win with and the more experienced players gravitate towards other armies for a far more strategic or challenging approach to the game not the hobby.

After ranting at GW for years I came to accept the imbalance for what it is regardless of its cause and I now play CSM and Orks primarily because it is just harder to win with them and every win is that much more of an achievement as a result.

What are your opinions?

I think that you are vastly overestimating the amount of effort and thought GW puts into their rules. They are a model/miniatures company. They see the rules as a painful but (barely) necessary burden. The power creep is not a result of deliberate design, but rather the fact that the writers are simply throwing things into the codexes willy-nilly with no regard for what effect it might have on gameplay and balance. That's why the codexes are now full of formations that are just 15 dreadnoughts or 15 identical tanks. Doesn't matter if you're a traditional "winner" army like Marines or a traditional "loser" army like Orks. If they can come up with an excuse to make you buy 15 of the same tank, then in the codex it goes.

 Real News wrote:

I think that you are vastly overestimating the amount of effort and thought GW puts into their rules. They are a model/miniatures company. They see the rules as a painful but (barely) necessary burden. The power creep is not a result of deliberate design, but rather the fact that the writers are simply throwing things into the codexes willy-nilly with no regard for what effect it might have on gameplay and balance. That's why the codexes are now full of formations that are just 15 dreadnoughts or 15 identical tanks. Doesn't matter if you're a traditional "winner" army like Marines or a traditional "loser" army like Orks. If they can come up with an excuse to make you buy 15 of the same tank, then in the codex it goes.

I really want to like this argument because it justifies their poor record on rules HOWEVER if this were true they would be offering rules for free like most other companies and like AOS. They don't and from what they charge for rules (I'm not even talking about FW) they are pricing their rules for profit. So the argument that they're just a miniature company is a bald faced lie.

That Jervis is a and that article leads me to think that imbalance is deliberate!

 Nithaniel wrote:

 Real News wrote:

I think that you are vastly overestimating the amount of effort and thought GW puts into their rules. They are a model/miniatures company. They see the rules as a painful but (barely) necessary burden. The power creep is not a result of deliberate design, but rather the fact that the writers are simply throwing things into the codexes willy-nilly with no regard for what effect it might have on gameplay and balance. That's why the codexes are now full of formations that are just 15 dreadnoughts or 15 identical tanks. Doesn't matter if you're a traditional "winner" army like Marines or a traditional "loser" army like Orks. If they can come up with an excuse to make you buy 15 of the same tank, then in the codex it goes.

I really want to like this argument because it justifies their poor record on rules HOWEVER if this were true they would be offering rules for free like most other companies and like AOS. They don't and from what they charge for rules (I'm not even talking about FW) they are pricing their rules for profit. So the argument that they're just a miniature company is a bald faced lie.

That Jervis is a and that article leads me to think that imbalance is deliberate!

Not to mention that the first launch of the current BRB came in a three book-bundle where the other two books, one full of fluff and the other full of advertisement for their models, were forced on you if you wanted to get the rules at a premium cost. It was all "IT'S A GREAT PRICE FOR 3 BOOKS!" Well, it's a NORMAL price for 3 books, and I only want one of them, but sure, GW.

Even more annoying in the ipad format books where they pushed them all into the same book, so if you try to make a search for a rules term you get like 1 hit in the rules in the middle of 38 hits in the Battle of Hurtdeath fluff.

 Nithaniel wrote:

I really want to like this argument because it justifies their poor record on rules HOWEVER if this were true they would be offering rules for free like most other companies and like AOS. They don't and from what they charge for rules (I'm not even talking about FW) they are pricing their rules for profit. So the argument that they're just a miniature company is a bald faced lie.

GW also charges money for paint even though you can get better quality paint in larger quantities at cheaper prices elsewhere. They charge too much money for paintbrushes, glue, knives and tools that you can buy anywhere. They encourage you to model your own terrain while selling their own terrain in boxes. The only reason they don't slap a $500 price tag on a box of air is that they haven't thought of the idea yet. Their philosophy is "there's a sucker born every minute".

Meanwhile in the real world, nobody buys the rules. 90% of players are pirating now. GW knows this, which is why they don't make any effort to proofread or edit their writing anymore. Every single page of the BRB and every page of every codex contains some form of misplaced word, typo, misspelling or punctuation mistake.

When it comes to models and miniatures, GW still cares about making a quality product on some level. They still have some form of QC, flawed though it may be.

By the way, they do charge money for Age of Sigmar's rules now. The free rules were an incomplete prototype ruleset, no matter how you spin it. If you want the REAL game, you gotta pony up the cash for the new books.

 nurgle86 wrote:
They are either deliberately or accidentally creating imbalance.

I honestly believe its deliberate

I've play tested for various RPGs and Miniatures Games over the years and I've come to a few thoughts about game designers:

Really creative people can have innovative ideas, but often just aren't strong on the math.
They'll have fluffy ideas that sound cool, but not stick the landing when it comes to writing the rules, or thinking about strange interactions with other rules, or just not grasp that they've created something subpar or uber.

People with a strong grasp on math and game balance can make well balanced games, that often lack innovation.
Sometimes they obsess over the math, balance, and possible interactions with the rules that the game is too restrictive and doesn't offer enough varitety.

Some designers think their poo smells like roses and will not listen to anything that contradicts this.
I was once assigned a unit to play test that at first glance I could tell had a fluff appropriate ability that was terrible in game play and the model was severely overcosted.
I spent 2 weeks running extensive play tests, documenting the results, broke down the math to show how over costed and ineffective the model was, and talked to the designer. What made matters worse was their was an existing unit with almost identical stats, and massively better ability, for the same amount of points in the game.
I offered that to be playable the unit either needed to come down in points, since it's "fluffy" ability actively handicapped it's effectiveness, or the "fluffy" ability be toned down mechanically. The designer thanked me for my work, and said he really liked the ability as is since it was "fluff" appropriate. I said well then it really should come down in points, since the other existing model was vastly better at the same role, with almost identical stats. He agreed, and asked me for my input on mow many points reduction seemed appropriate. I gave him my suggestion, backed up by math and play testing, and moved on to another project. Later it was released with no changes. After a few interactions like that I quit play testing.

Oversimplification can be a problem.
Some times someone has a great idea about how to stream line a process that speeds up game play 90% of the time and wrecks it when a power gamer, or anyone good at math, gets their hands on it.

Just noting that "GW writers don't understand their own rules" and "GW writers deliberately give some codexes better rules" are contradictory.

Intentional?

No. Just sloppily written to sell the new model(s) with no forethought of balance internally or externally.

I've never really believed that theory.

I only post facts and just the facts, ma'am.

I believe Codex imbalance is intentional, in a way. Not specifically to rotate sales, but intentional in the sense that rigorous balance play testing is not a prerogative.

I tend to not believe in conspiracies. It's far more likely that the imbalance is unintentional and simply a result of either bad practice or bad testing. This kind of thing happens in other games constantly. Game balance is not easy.

Should GW get off the hook for it? Not at all. They should be putting forth every effort to make the game fun for everyone, and I'm sure they are at least trying.

Is it some grand conspiracy to sell more products? I think you're giving them way too much credit.

They make too many new kits with terrible rules.