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As I read more codexes and listen to podcasts that rate them there always seem to be those units nobody takes because their rules are awful, their stats are awful, there are better selections in the same slots or for whatever other reason they are the orphans of a codex and it seems almost every one I've read or listened to on a podcast has them. Examples include Pyrovores, Swooping Hawks and Mandrakes (Old DE codex)

Added to the orphans issue is the question of wonky special rules. For example, The Doom of Malanti - you mean to say that GW never thought that perhaps units embarked, especially in light of the current metagame - would not be an issue with this special rule? it smacks of someone writing these things down and just never actually playing the rules out to their logical conclusion. I don't think play testing is going to feret out every little issue but things like how it effects embarked units, whether the DE character's special rule means that they get a bonus even if their opponent's WS is higher, etc could be spotted the minute you tried to play it out.

And then finally less so is the issue of play balance and cost. I get that you want to sell Vendetta/Valkyrie models but does that mean you cost it to a point where it doesn't make any sense in relation to similarly kitted models in other dexes? BA Assault marines get a 35 point vehicle discount so why would I ever field regular tacticals? Again this may not be as big of an issue but it still is something that came to mind when thinking about play testing.

It makes me wonder whether GW actually puts these models on the table and plays them after writing the rules.

They'd have to play test them i'd assume. But whether or not they think of scenarios that other players might come up with is an entirely different story. They might just assume players won't do that, and then they do and it breaks the game.

That or they have multiple people play testing different units and they don't communicate too well. So it ends up with some units being redundant or terrible.

I have no dount they play test them, but how many play testers do they have really since it entirely in house. Thats a very small group I imagine. What I wonder is how in the world they assign point costs? i can imagine 3 guys sittign around a table having a smoke and arbitrarily assiging point costs. For instance, Devastators anyone? SM devs cost 150 points for 5 with 4 missile launchers. BA ones cost 130 with the same load out but with the potential to have Furious charge and Fearless. Long Fangs with 5 missile launchers cost 140 points. Same function as one another with the cheaper ones have more and better special rules in some cases.

I'm gonna go with the arbitrary smoking theory, nothing else makes sense.

From what I have herd, GW doesn't listen to the play testers. Basically if anything comes up and GW doesn't agree, they ignore or even fire the play testers.

GW doesn't take criticism very well. Hence why they have very shoddy written codices and rules.

I think we have got to remember that GW exists to make money. If there are some units that are better or havr a better point value than others, GW can be pretty sure that the unit will be selling a lot. Then they can make the unit more expensive, and make more lovely money.

I mean, look at non-BR deffkoptas, virtually every competitive ork list fields deffkoptas, which are basically glorified jetbikes, yet GW sells them for a massive £20!!!

They WANT you to buy the better units! It's all a conspiracy!

.... well thats what I think anyway

They do indeed have playtesters. However the Doom's case, it's a gimmick unit that had unforeseen side effects that they never caught. The Doom might have been put up against a standard army, not a mech or mass infantry one, so it's point cost was calculated accordingly.

And GW does indeed try to push the newer models with more popular rules. While the Carnifex and Lictor are still viable, they are largely reduced to niche roles and to satisfy existing lists so people dont start a shitstorm about how their armies are rendered invalid. This is only evident with the nids though imo, since the marine codexes have so little new unit sculpts that it's irrelevant to try and push any of the models (well, until the Storm Raven is released), and the Guard instead went in the other direction, started pushing for more units rather than newer ones, and all of the DE's stuff are completely new.

Yes, but not well.

I say this as someone who has been involved in the playtesting of a rather large variety of titles--though none in the same medium.

If folks in our QA department let as many issues through as GW does they would be fired--or the person responsible for ignoring them would be.

They used to have lots of external playtesters. Unfortunately a few of them were responsible for leaking the entire codexes onto the net.

GWs response was to essentially shut up shop - take it inside the studio.

Maybe eventually they will trust more people with their developing IP. FFG certainly do, and it shows in the quality of the books.

They had external playtesters in the past (I did some).

In my experience, they had some ideas in their heads that were set in stone. No matter how much we complained/suggested about some things, it never mattered.

And then some trivial thing would get put in the final product. The whole ordeal was perplexing.

I don't think they play test them right. I think they play some friendly games to test the rules.

They should be playing as cut-throat & competitive as possible looking for every exploit they can find. Take a hint from engineering & test things to the point of failure whenever possible & practical. In the case of rules, this is all the time.

Brutii11 wrote:I think we have got to remember that GW exists to make money. If there are some units that are better or havr a better point value than others, GW can be pretty sure that the unit will be selling a lot. Then they can make the unit more expensive, and make more lovely money.

I mean, look at non-BR deffkoptas, virtually every competitive ork list fields deffkoptas, which are basically glorified jetbikes, yet GW sells them for a massive £20!!!

They WANT you to buy the better units! It's all a conspiracy!

.... well thats what I think anyway

Say what you will about it being a conspiracy but I believe it.

A battleforce for Necrons in Canada is $108. That's 28 warriors, 3 destroyers and 7 scarab swarms. I purchased two of those and now I want to round out my destroyers to make it an even 10, so I need to buy 4 more. Destroyers are $24 a pop. $96 for 4. Why wouldn't I just buy another battleforce and get all of those other units for a mere $12 more. Sure I'd have to buy one more destroyer, but it just doesn't seem feasible to charge so much money for ONE unit.

It's almost tempting to get the battleforce and do this scratch build to make some immortals:

http://heresy-online.net/forums/showthread.php?t=17821

Cause god knows, immortals are $17 each lol

I think it's a case of GW testing but not as well as players would like.

If only GW had some kind of "Open Beta" testing before new codices/rules are published. I think a lot less issues would occur if more people were involved in testing (other than a small batch of interns).

I'm sure they do some. But look at this from a business perspective. The more time they play test, the more people they must pay and the longer it goes before they can release a product that makes them money. The flip side is that this might drive players to other game systems, but for now, GW has a good enough system to pull this off. Most of the rules work, the rarer ones are just magnified by the internet.

I think the problem with both the codexes and the rulebook is that they aren't proof read by someone that wasn't involved in the development. As such, there are things omitted or not explained well because everyone involved knew how it was supposed to work.

e.g. the almost total lack of rules or guidance relating to deployment.