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.

 DarkBlack wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:
It's easy to say that but people think about rules differently. The rules designers are thinking about how they intend the rule to play and mentally fill in gaps much like how we can mentally fill in gaps when we make mistakes in our own written work. There was an interview with the chap who wrote Warhammer Underworlds. IIRC he has a background that lends well to technical writing and even after all his work to try and make the game super tight and balanced for competetive play it still needed fixing and refining.

Plus there is a limit on dev time. The longer something spends in development and the more it costs and the less money it can make back, meaning at some point you need to release it or kill it off and move on from a business perspective. The Dev team is working under a time limit with every project and can't just keep refining things until they're perfect, so we're always going to have some issues that players who are good at spotting those kinds of things will find.

And before someone says "more playtesting", playtesters don't always have the final version of the rules. Sometimes the issues playtesters point out can lead to a change in the rules which causes new unintended problems as well.

If we were talking a few minor things that need tweaking or a few typos then what you're saying would probably be acceptable. My beloved Mantic Games makes those kind of mistakes and have reasons like that. Everyone makes mistakes.

The rules and balance for 40k is a fething gak show though. Excuses like those don't cut it for how bad of a job they do with rules.
These are professionals working for a large corporate company; yet indy game designers and small companies manage better.
If GW wanted to they could, but they don't.

I think you might want to take a step back and actually work out how many rules interactions there can be for a single codex. There is a lot more going on under the hood of the game than you're giving them credit for and I think that's a big part of where the bias is coming from.

 ClockworkZion wrote:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
I'd buy that if it wasn't so easy, and so common, to spot obviously dysfunctional rules in a new codex just from the read-through. Yeah there are always people claiming the sky is falling but once one looks past the fools and gets to experienced players with reasoned positions the predictions made on release have a very strong tendency to pan out in reality. And that is without any playtesting.

It's easy to say that but people think about rules differently. The rules designers are thinking about how they intend the rule to play and mentally fill in gaps much like how we can mentally fill in gaps when we make mistakes in our own written work. There was an interview with the chap who wrote Warhammer Underworlds. IIRC he has a background that lends well to technical writing and even after all his work to try and make the game super tight and balanced for competetive play it still needed fixing and refining.

Plus there is a limit on dev time. The longer something spends in development and the more it costs and the less money it can make back, meaning at some point you need to release it or kill it off and move on from a business perspective. The Dev team is working under a time limit with every project and can't just keep refining things until they're perfect, so we're always going to have some issues that players who are good at spotting those kinds of things will find.

And before someone says "more playtesting", playtesters don't always have the final version of the rules. Sometimes the issues playtesters point out can lead to a change in the rules which causes new unintended problems as well.

To put simply, if I can go out and balance the game better than GW as someone who does this as a hobby there is really no excuse for them not being able to do so themselves. While there are undoubtedly many factors at play here and I genuinely believe the devs do have good intentions, the only plausible explanation for GW having such crappy balance is because the company as a whole does not want to make it better.

Worth noting that this is much different than the ever-present conspiracy theory of 'GW intentionally makes new stuff OP to sell models!!!1' which has had no basis in reality for years at the least (I heard of some shenanigans like that happening back in 40k 7th with the wraithknight?). Instead it is simply GW accepting that the balance is bad and feeling the situation offers enough advantages to warrant keeping things as such.

 ClockworkZion wrote:
...I think you might want to take a step back and actually work out how many rules interactions there can be for a single codex. There is a lot more going on under the hood of the game than you're giving them credit for and I think that's a big part of where the bias is coming from.

Whose fault is that? They managed to keep the game going for, what, twenty-five years without trying to turn it into knockoff Warmachine without the technical competence to do the buff stacks correctly? They could have just not tried to turn it into knockoff Warmachine without the technical competence to do the buff stacks correctly.

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:
...I think you might want to take a step back and actually work out how many rules interactions there can be for a single codex. There is a lot more going on under the hood of the game than you're giving them credit for and I think that's a big part of where the bias is coming from.

Whose fault is that? They managed to keep the game going for, what, twenty-five years without trying to turn it into knockoff Warmachine without the technical competence to do the buff stacks correctly? They could have just not tried to turn it into knockoff Warmachine without the technical competence to do the buff stacks correctly.

The most egregious imbalances rarely come from some subtle nuance or obscure combo, they come from eradicators being 40 points a model.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:
...I think you might want to take a step back and actually work out how many rules interactions there can be for a single codex. There is a lot more going on under the hood of the game than you're giving them credit for and I think that's a big part of where the bias is coming from.

Whose fault is that? They managed to keep the game going for, what, twenty-five years without trying to turn it into knockoff Warmachine without the technical competence to do the buff stacks correctly? They could have just not tried to turn it into knockoff Warmachine without the technical competence to do the buff stacks correctly.

The most egregious imbalances rarely come from some subtle nuance or obscure combo, they come from eradicators being 40 points a model.

In view of codex creep, GW wants loyal Marines to be alive and kicking.

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:
...I think you might want to take a step back and actually work out how many rules interactions there can be for a single codex. There is a lot more going on under the hood of the game than you're giving them credit for and I think that's a big part of where the bias is coming from.

Whose fault is that? They managed to keep the game going for, what, twenty-five years without trying to turn it into knockoff Warmachine without the technical competence to do the buff stacks correctly? They could have just not tried to turn it into knockoff Warmachine without the technical competence to do the buff stacks correctly.

I'm going to say the studio is at fault for letting things like Marines get to the point that they have more datasheets than whole other factions do, but I've also witnessed the rather venomous push back to the idea that GW needs to prune the game.

And it's not a Warmachine clone. Christ the hyperbole is getting out of control in this thread.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
I'd buy that if it wasn't so easy, and so common, to spot obviously dysfunctional rules in a new codex just from the read-through. Yeah there are always people claiming the sky is falling but once one looks past the fools and gets to experienced players with reasoned positions the predictions made on release have a very strong tendency to pan out in reality. And that is without any playtesting.

It's easy to say that but people think about rules differently. The rules designers are thinking about how they intend the rule to play and mentally fill in gaps much like how we can mentally fill in gaps when we make mistakes in our own written work. There was an interview with the chap who wrote Warhammer Underworlds. IIRC he has a background that lends well to technical writing and even after all his work to try and make the game super tight and balanced for competetive play it still needed fixing and refining.

Plus there is a limit on dev time. The longer something spends in development and the more it costs and the less money it can make back, meaning at some point you need to release it or kill it off and move on from a business perspective. The Dev team is working under a time limit with every project and can't just keep refining things until they're perfect, so we're always going to have some issues that players who are good at spotting those kinds of things will find.

And before someone says "more playtesting", playtesters don't always have the final version of the rules. Sometimes the issues playtesters point out can lead to a change in the rules which causes new unintended problems as well.

To put simply, if I can go out and balance the game better than GW as someone who does this as a hobby there is really no excuse for them not being able to do so themselves. While there are undoubtedly many factors at play here and I genuinely believe the devs do have good intentions, the only plausible explanation for GW having such crappy balance is because the company as a whole does not want to make it better.

Worth noting that this is much different than the ever-present conspiracy theory of 'GW intentionally makes new stuff OP to sell models!!!1' which has had no basis in reality for years at the least (I heard of some shenanigans like that happening back in 40k 7th with the wraithknight?). Instead it is simply GW accepting that the balance is bad and feeling the situation offers enough advantages to warrant keeping things as such.

You aren't designing the rules the same way GW is. As I've mentioned they go "top down". Rules are written almost entirely to fit the look of the model and the lore blurbs they've written. They've started taking some bottom up feedback from playtesters and the competetive community but the design priorities of the competetive community are different so you're going to end up with different results. And even the best written game can have flaws that are obvious to a third party.

But frankly I'm just going to go back to lurking again. It's clear that people have decided that no matter what information is presented about the complexities of game design or how GW actually approaches it that they'll just keep pushing a narrative that GW "doesn't care" or that the game is somehow an unplayable mess despite being the most successful edition to date.

Then again, some of the people comparing it to 7th lately are coming off as employing the ol' Grognard classic of "old good, new bad" so maybe I shouldn't be shocked.

By now GW is taking ideas from other systems, but with the problem that they don't know why the specific rule is there in the first place and always go over the top with "having a crazy idea every 2 minutes that are implementing into the next Codex"


and all those things why GW rules are like they are, are reasons but not excuses

Playtester not getting the final rules to test, this is a reason why the rules are bad but not an excuse that you cannot do better

Rules written according to the fluff of a new designed model, no matter if this is what the army needs or if it takes over the role from another unit, or ot is just bad compared to what the faction already has
by this point we are not even talking about game design any more

 ClockworkZion wrote:

You aren't designing the rules the same way GW is. As I've mentioned they go "top down". Rules are written almost entirely to fit the look of the model and the lore blurbs they've written.

And once again the question becomes 'whose fault is that?'

There is no requirement that they work out rules in the worst and most obnoxious way possible. It's a choice that they make and one they are rightly getting criticised for.

ClockworkZion wrote:
I think you might want to take a step back and actually work out how many rules interactions there can be for a single codex. There is a lot more going on under the hood of the game than you're giving them credit for and I think that's a big part of where the bias is coming from.

Why is that though?
From 8th edition the core rules are not terribly complex (a good thing IMO btw). GW then heaps a load of stuff that seems like a good idea on top for each codex, but without any apparent consideration to how it compares to existing rules or how it might interact. In an attempt to give an illusion of depth from simply sheer quantity of special rules and meaningless choices (it`s often obvious which the best one is).

It is entirely possible (and has been done many times) to have a system in place within which units can be designed with maybe one or two unique special rules per army.

ClockworkZion wrote:Then again, some of the people comparing it to 7th lately are coming off as employing the ol' Grognard classic of "old good, new bad" so maybe I shouldn't be shocked.

That is ridiculous.The core rules are certainly better, it's what GW does with them that is atrocious.

Me: "I genuinely do believe the devs have good intentions'

ClockworkZion: "keep pushing the narrative that GW 'doesn't care'"

The hypocrisy in complaining about a lack of depth in people's viewpoints...


@Complexities of rules design. I am not talking about the rules I am talking about the points. Literally taking a battletome as written and massively improving the balance without touching any rules. But if we want to go into rules being written to fit the narrative they are bad at that too. Best displayed by the Death Guard, whose resilience against small arms fire is represented by a rule that does literally the exact opposite. But that is far from the only rule that flies directly against the fluff of what the unit is supposed to do.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
To put simply, if I can go out and balance the game better than GW as someone who does this as a hobby there is really no excuse for them not being able to do so themselves. While there are undoubtedly many factors at play here and I genuinely believe the devs do have good intentions, the only plausible explanation for GW having such crappy balance is because the company as a whole does not want to make it better.

Yes, you could balance the game better IF THAT WAS ALL YOU NEEDED TO DO. Any of us could.

Could you also do it in a way where 2 Codexes are released per month (because remember, that was the original design schedule- Brexit, Covid and shipping shenanigans aside, we'd have 4 more dexes out by now). Could you also do it so that people who play in all 3 ways are happy? Could you do it so that it works reasonably well for 4 sizes of game? Could you also do it so that people who have been playing for 30 years recognize the nostalgia cues that have kept them in the game so long without simultaneously alienating new players who don't recognize the history? Could you also coordinate that with a realtime story based campaign? Could you also do it in such a way that it supports a new series of novels that influence and are influenced by your range and release schedule?

Oh, and could you do it while making sure that the return for share holders not only remains constant, but actually continues to grow?

Because GW has, to a varying degree pulled off ALL of that. Yes, it means that not one of these dozen priorities is as perfectly executed as it could be if it were the sole focus of one's attention. But it means we have all of these things happening at the same time. For many players, some of these other priorities ARE more important than perfect balance.

Edit: This came in before I got my post up:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:

@Complexities of rules design. I am not talking about the rules I am talking about the points. Literally taking a battletome as written and massively improving the balance without touching any rules. But if we want to go into rules being written to fit the narrative they are bad at that too. Best displayed by the Death Guard, whose resilience against small arms fire is represented by a rule that does literally the exact opposite. But that is far from the only rule that flies directly against the fluff of what the unit is supposed to do.

Sorry to have it look like I'm piling on after you clarified your position Ninth. Consider my statement to be directed to @complexity of rules design in general as well, as it is clear that your original intent was to speak only to the points. Cheers!

PenitentJake wrote:
Could you also do it in a way where 2 Codexes are released per month

well if you want to have a balanced game, the basic codex design is already done shortly after you have finished the core
otherwise trying to balance stuff is pointless if you make the first books to work against stuff that will be outdated soon

and because making new models needs some time too, the design team should know what is coming up during that edtion and take that into account when doing the design

Karol wrote:

VladimirHerzog wrote:
You don't need to be rich to collect minis.
Some people's hobbies are to collect or paint minis, not to actually play the game.
"better looking models" is purely subjective.
The number of purely casual players greatly outnumbers the number of competitive players that chase the best army.

Yeah I know the not being rich part. But we are talking here about income created, not what ever someone who has a hobby budget of 10$ per month can buy stuff for w40k. People that play the game buy more stuff, and can be made to buy more of the expensive stuff. As I said. There aren't many painters that buy 15 centurions just because they like to paint stuff. On the other hand there was a ton of RG players that did buy them, to have a functional list in 8th ed. And few months later, not a single centurion pops up in peoples lists.

Also the idea that , what ever a casual player suppose to be, do not buy based on efficiency is at best only partially true. I have yet too see mass foo DE lists being posts or space marine armies with 30 scouts, because someone likes the models, posted in any list section.

You have a very skewed perception of what the consumer base is.
for every "competitive" player that goes to stores and chases the meta, theres at least 10 casual ones that dont play in stores and dont participate on the forums. These are the ones making most of GW's money because they often buy new boxes instead of scouring ebay for deals.

I mean let's be honest, the #1 place money made from selling one's miniatures on ebay goes to is more miniatures...

PenitentJake wrote:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
To put simply, if I can go out and balance the game better than GW as someone who does this as a hobby there is really no excuse for them not being able to do so themselves. While there are undoubtedly many factors at play here and I genuinely believe the devs do have good intentions, the only plausible explanation for GW having such crappy balance is because the company as a whole does not want to make it better.

Yes, you could balance the game better IF THAT WAS ALL YOU NEEDED TO DO. Any of us could.

Could you also do it in a way where 2 Codexes are released per month (because remember, that was the original design schedule- Brexit, Covid and shipping shenanigans aside, we'd have 4 more dexes out by now). Could you also do it so that people who play in all 3 ways are happy? Could you do it so that it works reasonably well for 4 sizes of game? Could you also do it so that people who have been playing for 30 years recognize the nostalgia cues that have kept them in the game so long without simultaneously alienating new players who don't recognize the history? Could you also coordinate that with a realtime story based campaign? Could you also do it in such a way that it supports a new series of novels that influence and are influenced by your range and release schedule?

Oh, and could you do it while making sure that the return for share holders not only remains constant, but actually continues to grow?

Because GW has, to a varying degree pulled off ALL of that. Yes, it means that not one of these dozen priorities is as perfectly executed as it could be if it were the sole focus of one's attention. But it means we have all of these things happening at the same time. For many players, some of these other priorities ARE more important than perfect balance.

Good point. If NinthMuskateer was a team of several people who were paid and spent a full time work day working on said rules. Don't pull that false equivalence crap. You know full well GW are fully capable of producing competant rules. They're the biggest tabletop game producer in the world by a very large margin and literal single people produce much better rule sets than they do.

 ClockworkZion wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:
...I think you might want to take a step back and actually work out how many rules interactions there can be for a single codex. There is a lot more going on under the hood of the game than you're giving them credit for and I think that's a big part of where the bias is coming from.

Whose fault is that? They managed to keep the game going for, what, twenty-five years without trying to turn it into knockoff Warmachine without the technical competence to do the buff stacks correctly? They could have just not tried to turn it into knockoff Warmachine without the technical competence to do the buff stacks correctly.

I'm going to say the studio is at fault for letting things like Marines get to the point that they have more datasheets than whole other factions do, but I've also witnessed the rather venomous push back to the idea that GW needs to prune the game.

And it's not a Warmachine clone. Christ the hyperbole is getting out of control in this thread...

So it's the community's fault that GW's approach to game design is to pile bloat on top of bloat on top of bloat until the game gets out of control and they need to burn it down and start over with a new foundation on which to pile bloat on top of bloat on top of bloat?

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:
...I think you might want to take a step back and actually work out how many rules interactions there can be for a single codex. There is a lot more going on under the hood of the game than you're giving them credit for and I think that's a big part of where the bias is coming from.

Whose fault is that? They managed to keep the game going for, what, twenty-five years without trying to turn it into knockoff Warmachine without the technical competence to do the buff stacks correctly? They could have just not tried to turn it into knockoff Warmachine without the technical competence to do the buff stacks correctly.

I'm going to say the studio is at fault for letting things like Marines get to the point that they have more datasheets than whole other factions do, but I've also witnessed the rather venomous push back to the idea that GW needs to prune the game.

And it's not a Warmachine clone. Christ the hyperbole is getting out of control in this thread...

So it's the community's fault that GW's approach to game design is to pile bloat on top of bloat on top of bloat until the game gets out of control and they need to burn it down and start over with a new foundation on which to pile bloat on top of bloat on top of bloat?

Never said it was the community's fault (well not entirely). The general community's resistance to change, even if it's for the better, is well known to anyone who spends more than 5 minutes around others. GW is well aware of this and tries to not rock 40k's boat too much.

 Sim-Life wrote:

Spoiler:

PenitentJake wrote:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
To put simply, if I can go out and balance the game better than GW as someone who does this as a hobby there is really no excuse for them not being able to do so themselves. While there are undoubtedly many factors at play here and I genuinely believe the devs do have good intentions, the only plausible explanation for GW having such crappy balance is because the company as a whole does not want to make it better.

Yes, you could balance the game better IF THAT WAS ALL YOU NEEDED TO DO. Any of us could.

Could you also do it in a way where 2 Codexes are released per month (because remember, that was the original design schedule- Brexit, Covid and shipping shenanigans aside, we'd have 4 more dexes out by now). Could you also do it so that people who play in all 3 ways are happy? Could you do it so that it works reasonably well for 4 sizes of game? Could you also do it so that people who have been playing for 30 years recognize the nostalgia cues that have kept them in the game so long without simultaneously alienating new players who don't recognize the history? Could you also coordinate that with a realtime story based campaign? Could you also do it in such a way that it supports a new series of novels that influence and are influenced by your range and release schedule?

Oh, and could you do it while making sure that the return for share holders not only remains constant, but actually continues to grow?

Because GW has, to a varying degree pulled off ALL of that. Yes, it means that not one of these dozen priorities is as perfectly executed as it could be if it were the sole focus of one's attention. But it means we have all of these things happening at the same time. For many players, some of these other priorities ARE more important than perfect balance.

Good point. If NinthMuskateer was a team of several people who were paid and spent a full time work day working on said rules. Don't pull that false equivalence crap. You know full well GW are fully capable of producing competant rules. They're the biggest tabletop game producer in the world by a very large margin and literal single people produce much better rule sets than they do.

It was a misunderstanding; he thought I was claiming I could do all that myself when I was actually talking about just the point costs. If I HAD been making that claim his response would not have been unreasonable. But no one was acting in bad faith here, it was just some good ole miscommunication.

 ClockworkZion wrote:
...Never said it was the community's fault (well not entirely). The general community's resistance to change, even if it's for the better, is well known to anyone who spends more than 5 minutes around others. GW is well aware of this and tries to not rock 40k's boat too much.

And yet they rock the boat more than any other game developer I've ever followed. I'd argue GW is a wildly successful scientific experiment proving that gamers are way less resistant to change than the popular perception insists, given that their wild swings in design direction result in a fractured community of angry people shouting at each other about which edition was the best rather than causing everyone to give up and leave because they changed the game once.

Very Negative

1. I actually feel bad whether i win or lose. Either because ive been absolutely shafted in the first two turns, or vice versa.
2. Theres a quite clear and distinct divide between the "competitive" players and the "casual" players. Both wanting or needing different things and taking the game in opposite directions. GW listens to one of these camps as their voice is deafening.
3. Codexes being released with gaps of potentially 2-3 years is not acceptable, not even debatable. Especially as the game really relies on balancing to have any semblance of fairness. They should all be released AT THE SAME TIME, left for a long period of time to garner feedback, and then updated.
4. CPs/Strats/Objectives/Secondaries/Rerolls/Aura Buffs/Wombo Combos have just muddied the waters of what should be a simple battle of minds between the players, where it should be about battlefield awareness and your units specific traits and abilities, not generic gotcha cards and meta builds.
5. Costs of models too damn high.
6. Order in which GW prioritize anything is baffling. My friends have Tau, Chaos, Nids and Guard...all left in the dust.
7. There seems to be no pattern in what unit gets what. By that i mean FNP's, Invulns, -s to hit etc. They just seem spread out to anyone at random for no real reason.

I could keep going but theres no point. Id either get told to go play something else entirely, play an older edition, get good, or make my own rules (which i did and posted here but of course that got blasted too because reasons). Shame because Warhammer 40K is definitely my favourite fantasy thing to follow. The boardgame just sucks so much, as do GWs practices.

EDIT: Oh, I will end by saying everyones experiences differ based on their groups and metas etc. For me, none of my friends will stray from playing Matched 9th because they "dont want to have to learn another ruleset". People will just gravitate to the easiest method. Nothing I can really do about that.

 Sim-Life wrote:


Good point. If NinthMuskateer was a team of several people who were paid and spent a full time work day working on said rules. Don't pull that false equivalence crap. You know full well GW are fully capable of producing competant rules. They're the biggest tabletop game producer in the world by a very large margin and literal single people produce much better rule sets than they do.

Ninth and I are cool, because we figured out our communication break.

But the point is that all of us are talking about the slice of the game that most concerns us. Most Dakkanauts lean competitive, which I'm cool with, but frankly I personally don't care about. You, Sim, as I know from previous conversations, aren't particularly concerned with Crusade, and might be likely to scrap it entirely in order to do your one man overhaul of the rules. Similarly, I've read the posts of Dakkanauts who just love that Open War deck, and they might be content to let us both burn.

In other conversations, folks have suggested that minimizing the number of factions or subfactions is the key to reducing bloat, and there is a lot of truth to that. I mean, the only Space Marines I'm interested in are the ones who function as Chambers Militant for the Inquisition, so if I wanted to reduce bloat, bye bye every Space Marine that isn't Deathwatch or Greyknights. The game I came up with would absolutely be less bloated, but it would kill the company in a week, right?

People have suggested games like Dust or X-Wing are better. From a certain perspective, they almost certainly are. And I'm sure I'd have fun playing them, and I might even have so much fun that I play more of them than 40k for a month, or even a year. I'd sing their praises, recognizing them for what they are- great games that I can play quickly and easily and have fun playing. But I'd always come back to 40k, and specifically 9th, because a game with a) 15+ factions b) with a minimum of five subfactions each, c) rules and d) plastic models for all of them and e) a progression system that f) links with at least 4 game sizes to encourage and support escalation is incredibly important to me. I personally rank all six of the things I listed as more important to me than balance. I fully recognize that I am a minority in this, especially on Dakka, but there are others with similar tastes, and there are still other groups with different priorities than yours or mine.

So yes, you can definitely find games that are better than 40k in the way that you want them to be better. If you can find one that does my six priorities better, please tell me what it is, but I don't think you can. And if any one of us thinks we can improve whatever it is that we most want to improve without making it worse for someone with different priorities, feel free to shout out.

What makes 40k so successful and gives it that broad player base is a combination of factors; inertia IS certainly a part of it, as is its effective distribution system (effective, that is, when the world isn't falling apart), and the strength of its IP; I'd be a fool to deny any of that. But it's also true that the fact that it caters to such a broad spectrum of interests and does so much more as a system than any one of us is likely to want or use is also a part of that success.

It isn't the best at doing any of the things it does, but it does all of them well enough that it attracts a huge number of people and it keeps many of us for decades. Suggestions that any of us can improve the game as a whole without compromising any of the various forms of play supported by the game, or any of the factions or subfactions within it seem to me to be unrealistic. This isn't to say that there might not be some of us who could... I've got to admit that's at least possible, otherwise I'm guilty of just as much bias as some of the other arguments I've read on Dakka (and no, I'm not referring to any one specific person here, so please don't take offense). But I do think it's far, far more complicated when we try to improve the game for all perspectives, rather than merely trying to improve it from our own.

If you take any of those games that you feel are better and you give them the same size team and the same resources that GW has, maybe they could do all of this better. But ask yourself, would you then like the game? If there were 15 + factions in Dust with 5 sub factions each, even if it ran more smoothly than 40k, would you like it? And again, though I'm replying to you, Sim, this question is for all the folks who are discontent. Because I get that feeling that what some of you like about those other is their lack of 15 + factions with 5 subfactions each, and that any game that included that, no matter how elegant or well designed might not be as enjoyable to you as a game with just five and no subfactions at all.

And if that's the case, that's totally cool- it takes all kinds, and I'm glad you still have dust and X-Wing so that you can all still find happiness or at least contentment. But it should be as clear to you as it is to me that no solution that I propose to the "problem of 40K" will ever make you happy as it is to me that no solution you propose could ever make me happy. This doesn't make any of us bad people, nor does it give any of us a good reason to attack each other. But maybe we'd all be a little more tolerant of different perspectives (myself included) if we finally just admitted that any change we might propose has the potential to break the game for someone else, and that as it is, it does whatever it is we like well enough that we haven't entirely abandoned it to the degree that we're willing to walk away from the forum, even if some of us have walked away from the game.

And to those of you who are discontent enough that you have walked away from the game, first off, I admire your conviction. When I suggest to you that you might be happier also walking away from a forum specifically dedicated to said game, I'm only doing so because I believe it might genuinely make you happier. Dakka is super cool that way because it probably has a forum for the game you DO like- it's not a dedicated 40k site. Talking about things I like tends to make me happier than talking about things I don't like.

I happen to like 40k in it's current state, which is why I keep coming back- talking about a thing I like, even when the conversation requires me to defend it against those who don't generally makes me happy. If tenth drops and they kill Crusade, you'll probably never hear from me again because I will hate the game and talking about it will no longer make me happy. I'll continue to play 9th with whoever wants to play it- many in my circle will, but I'm not likely to write about it here.

It's kind of fascinating to see the response to fan-made rules. GW is the worst, except for everyone else that has a crack at it!

Edit: In relation to that, a quote from someone on Twitter (attribution irrelevant): 'there was this one tumblr post that proposed that the reason why fictional media that’s considered average in quality consistently performs well with fandoms spaces is that people like projecting their ideas onto a concept they can improve,' and this reminds me very much of 40k in amongst other (bigger, more popular) fandoms.

Karol wrote:

SemperMortis 798472 11137137 wrote:For the first time in a long while I am rather hopeful. GW seems to be moving in a more customer oriented direction. Responding to criticism and errors in the game markedly faster than in previous editions. GW seems to have realized they overloaded the market with new Marine kits and has moved towards a more balanced approach, Orkz getting new kits, Necrons, SOB, Mech. Its honestly a golden age in comparison to 5-7th.

Ah yeah how customer oriented they are. People tell them for a year that they are late with updating various marines to the same statline, and their anwsers to this is, that because they have a 3 months delay and they need the big sellers out with new kits, at all costs, instead of puting out the books that should be out right now, they would rather update factions who are already doing fine or great in the game. Litteral golden age, when you have to wait for an update that could be writen by a clerk in lets say 3 days, if they said clerk was really lazy and took a lot of breaks, and the text had to be proof read and accepted by 2 different tiers of managment.

You might be too young to remember how bad it used to be, but getting a yearly FAQ and an errata is....basically unheard of by GW. Christ we used to go years without getting updated rules for anything, Orkz went 2 entire editions without getting a codex, sisters went 4 I believe. So again, compared to that, this is a golden age.

I'm negative on the game side of things, lore wise however I think Black Library has being really strong in its turnout although understandably they've struggled with delivery throughout the pandemic.

What I don't understand about GW is why they decided to release a new edition in the middle of a pandemic whilst the Psychic Awakening wasn't complete and then advertise it as the most fine tuned and balanced edition to date. This context coupled with the lack of communication and honesty from GW makes it a struggle to be positive.

It's not like GW needed a new edition to make more money, their performance in the last 18 months has being phenomenal just based on model sales.

GW doesn't have any excuses to fall back on for their piss-poor rules.

They're a company that's been doing this for decades, yet has not learnt a thing.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
GW doesn't have any excuses to fall back on for their piss-poor rules.

They're a company that's been doing this for decades, yet has not learnt a thing.

Oh they have learned, they know now that no matter what they do people will still buy their models/books -raise the prices absurdly high..yep still selling lets raise them some more/-design severe codex creep and rules/faction favoritism...yep people are still buying

IP inertia is keeping them going, at least until they price almost everybody out of the hobby.

 aphyon wrote:
Oh they have learned, they know now that no matter what they do people will still buy their models/books -raise the prices absurdly high..yep still selling lets raise them some more/-design severe codex creep and rules/faction favoritism...yep people are still buying

If that was the case there would be no bad units as everything would be continuously getting more and more powerful as they push to increase sales.

The (repeated) mistakes they make with writing rules don't speak to a company that has a firm grasp on creating a game.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 aphyon wrote:
Oh they have learned, they know now that no matter what they do people will still buy their models/books -raise the prices absurdly high..yep still selling lets raise them some more/-design severe codex creep and rules/faction favoritism...yep people are still buying

If that was the case there would be no bad units as everything would be continuously getting more and more powerful as they push to increase sales.

The (repeated) mistakes they make with writing rules don't speak to a company that has a firm grasp on creating a game.

I would think it’s just a large group of management with no idea what they are really doing with the game, and a dev team that’s left picking up and making a bunch of there whims work somehow on a tight deadline.

If a faction desperately needs something to really work, it seems they have to wait for some inspiration somewhere else in the company. As it feels they cannot even use minis that would work from other parts of the game to supplement a faction in the chance that they may get minis of there own to fill the position.

 VladimirHerzog wrote:


You have a very skewed perception of what the consumer base is.
for every "competitive" player that goes to stores and chases the meta, theres at least 10 casual ones that dont play in stores and dont participate on the forums. These are the ones making most of GW's money because they often buy new boxes instead of scouring ebay for deals.

Okey, but then we are starting to talk about a group no one sees, and now one can check if it exists and how it exists, because as you said it they are not on any forums. And saying that is 10times as large is then taken based on what? When I say that a lot of RG players bought centurions, I can give arguments for it. All around the worlds people started posting armies with centurions in their armies end of 8th. When IH, and marines in general, started running chaplain dreads, I can do the same. When someone like you says, and I am not saying you are wrong, that there is 10 times as many people who just buy random models, painted them and play at home, where is the proof of that?
People say that w40k became more gamy and tournament focused under ther 8th rule set. Now I don't know how the game looked before, as I did not play back then. But even if it s partially true. GW blew up sales wise when that became a thing. Meaning that at least some of sales have to be generated by the game being more about efficiency and that kind of playing the game.

A quick note on balance, player expectation and the outcome...

You can't balance 40k. There are too many minor variables. In a 2000 point game players want a choice of 5 point pistols on characters. Balanced games have far fewer choices because most are meaningless.

Combine that with lack of manoeuvre and traditional wargame tactics; and instead the reliance on CPs and stratagems for that sort of depth, and you have something that will always balance poorly.