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 Tyran wrote:
The disconnect started the moment codex creep started. People have been playing to win since forever, codex creep just made the tools to do so very blatantly obvious.

EDIT: and while relatively tame compared to what would come after, codex creep really got going during 5th.

Maybe it would help if GW released all codices at the same time.

As opposed to over a period spanning multiple years, which seems to involve locking the respective writers in separate basements and whipping them if they're ever caught trying to talk to one another.

found when running a campaign having teams, not individuals helps, the campaign generates conflicts, teams can nominate whoever to fight the battle (helps if people have reasonably similar forces available in terms of factions) so if Fred say can't get down to often he always gets a game but not being there doesn't slow things down too much.

a good campaign feels like you are doing something, but doesn't become a millstone

seems also very important not to tie progression too much to the results, like you are part of something larger, an important part but in a way that stops an early winner running away

 vipoid wrote:

 Tyran wrote:
The disconnect started the moment codex creep started. People have been playing to win since forever, codex creep just made the tools to do so very blatantly obvious.

EDIT: and while relatively tame compared to what would come after, codex creep really got going during 5th.

Maybe it would help if GW released all codices at the same time.

As opposed to over a period spanning multiple years, which seems to involve locking the respective writers in separate basements and whipping them if they're ever caught trying to talk to one another.

Then how would they stretch out purchases for the years? Seriously this would have been the best thing for them to do. And then release supplements with EXTRAS, not redo codexes. once again they had the perfect chance to do that with 10th, and went right back to selling codexes that are outdated the minute they release anyway.

Wayniac wrote:

 vipoid wrote:

 Tyran wrote:
The disconnect started the moment codex creep started. People have been playing to win since forever, codex creep just made the tools to do so very blatantly obvious.

EDIT: and while relatively tame compared to what would come after, codex creep really got going during 5th.

Maybe it would help if GW released all codices at the same time.

As opposed to over a period spanning multiple years, which seems to involve locking the respective writers in separate basements and whipping them if they're ever caught trying to talk to one another.

Then how would they stretch out purchases for the years? Seriously this would have been the best thing for them to do. And then release supplements with EXTRAS, not redo codexes. once again they had the perfect chance to do that with 10th, and went right back to selling codexes that are outdated the minute they release anyway.

I mean, this was the privateer press approach and it didnt exactly stop.power creep either...

It's also very much a thing that might work at year 0, but considering the current games size - in terms of workload for a design team to simultaneously produce 30 (?) Codices for a simultaneous release, let alone the printing resources for that many well as manufacturing requirements... and try and plug the leaks on this while you're at it...

Dont get me wrong, its a Nice and fairly feasable idea for a new start and a small game, but its a pipe dream for a mature game with a large roster of things. Even pp abandoned this approach midway through mk3 with a 'codex-esque' approach to new factions and rules

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Grimtuff wrote:
B-b-b-b-bingo! You see it all the time on various places like Reddit and even here. Mentions of "official" base sizes, a thing which does not, and hasn't ever existed in 40k. People asking things like if their opponent would frown on them to use a HH Rhino in 40k, the aforementioned example showing how it has permeated its way into newer players without them ever having been exposed as to "why" they were told to think that was even a question they had to ask. The list goes on...

Our own Breton made a post talking about how he would check old Sternguard and new Sternguard vs the terrain on the table to see whether he'd be fine using old Sternguard over the newer models, lest the few mm shorter Marines give an advantage.

That's where we're at.

Meanwhile, i'm putting my latest Chaos Lord With Jumpack (RIP, found out yesterday he's not even in legends anymore ) on a 50mm base lol


Automatically Appended Next Post:

chaos0xomega wrote:
To this day I've still never actually seen someone play Crusade, and only know one person irl who has any experience with the format. If not for threads on dakka I'd assume it was not really a successful format.

Theres a local group that plays it, i tried it for a few games and it's just more bookkeeping. And being "stuck" playing the exact same list isn't something i enjoy that much.

There are two issues that keeps GW tied to the codex system.

The first one is that you kinda want to stretch out your releases. It creates a more stable income base, keeps investors happy and keeps your IP relevant. Also it mitigates the risk of cannibalizing your own sales.

The second one is that GW can barely write an index release, I don't believe they can write all the codexes at the same time.

So when they first presented crusade as a concept, they kind of advertised it as a one-man campaign system. As in you didn't have to play it with just one group or in a league format, but instead you could link your narrative games with all your different opponents together and have your army progress and level up, etc. regardless of whether or not your opponents were all tracking to the same group and whatnot. And that sounded cool, and if it worked that way it would be great, and in theory if it was an app-enabled system and/or functioned like the D&D adventurers league it could actually work.

But thats not... not how it works. Not how I've seen anyone actually use it anyway.

 VladimirHerzog wrote:
Theres a local group that plays it, i tried it for a few games and it's just more bookkeeping. And being "stuck" playing the exact same list isn't something i enjoy that much.

A nice house rule around that is to start with bigger Order of Battle than the games you are planning to play.

 Tyran wrote:
There are two issues that keeps GW tied to the codex system.

The first one is that you kinda want to stretch out your releases. It creates a more stable income base, keeps investors happy and keeps your IP relevant. Also it mitigates the risk of cannibalizing your own sales.

The second one is that GW can barely write an index release, I don't believe they can write all the codexes at the same time.

GW does codexes in a series of loose batches/wave. I.E. they are doing design and playtest on an average of 2-4 books at a time, each of those 2-4 books might start work at the same time, but they are finished one at a time in sequence, and they start the next batch before they finish up the previous batch, so there is some limited crossover but not a lot. They never playtest a codex against every other codex in the game, instead they only playtest it against the other books that are currently in batch development at the time. This is part of where codex creep comes from. If batch 1 was space marines and tyranids for example, they put tyranids out the door and were finishing up space marines when they started batch 2 which is Ad Mech and Necrons, so those two books will get played against Space Marines but probably not Tyranids, which means they are balanced in the context of one faction but not the others, etc. Then when batch 3 hits, Nids and Marines are fully out, maybe they catch the tail end of Ad Mech, and Necrons are in for a bit. So they are balancing "progressively". They rely on very limited external playtesting to contextualize books outside of what they are currently working on but whether they incorporate that feedback is hit or miss (and more often miss from what i've been told by some of the external playtesters ive met). Early books are not often put in context of later books internally, and if a book in between an early book and a "current" book has a power skew it sets a trend for the subsequent books. Sometimes this results in a few books being relatively underpowered vs the books that came before, rather than overpowered, as "creep" is not truly a linear process in the direction of being increasingly overpowered but fluctuates over time a bit. Oh, and the quarterly balance updates and bi-annual points updates they do screw everything up too, as the first couple books released after one of those updates are not typically playtested in the context of those updates, lead-times being what they are.

Wayniac wrote:

leopard wrote:
think campaigns, in any game, have a huge problem,, the need to have a group who can meet up and play them on a regular basis and players who won't lose interest if they are not on a winning streak.

it is interesting how the gameplay gets very different when preserving you own force and minimising casualties becomes a further objective (which is why the why Flame of War scores normal games is interesting). This also creates side missions regardless of the game system, e.g. the desire to splat that hard to replace unit and a willingness to take casualties to do it

Yeah the biggest potential issue I have found in both leagues and campaigns is not limiting games per week. People who can only play once a week feel there's zero reason to bother because the guy who can play 3+ times a week just keeps getting ahead. Even if it's a Crusade or narrative and there's no prize, people tend to lose interest if it feels like they can't "win" just due to not having the time. Even in a system like Crusade which, I'm pretty sure, has ways to give a bonus to someone who is playing with a less experienced force against someone with more, it's the fact of "he can play more than me so he's going to be just better".

I think this is a very solvable problem for Crusade though. They basically just need to make the "rubber band" rules more potent for when one player has significantly more Crusade Points than their opponent. Off the top of my head:
* Mission-specific benefits/special strats that you unlock by being at a big enough disadvantage.
* As above, but tied to faction instead of mission.
* Make accumulating scars more impactful so that your high XP units are also carrying around some built-in drawbacks.
* Have players track their recent wins/losses as part of their Crusade force's stats. Grant opponents increasing advantages based on how many wins you've had recently.
* Maybe just give opponents even more bonus CP and take off the limits on how many times they can use strats each phase/turn if there's enough of a CruP difference.

chaos0xomega wrote:So when they first presented crusade as a concept, they kind of advertised it as a one-man campaign system. As in you didn't have to play it with just one group or in a league format, but instead you could link your narrative games with all your different opponents together and have your army progress and level up, etc. regardless of whether or not your opponents were all tracking to the same group and whatnot. And that sounded cool, and if it worked that way it would be great, and in theory if it was an app-enabled system and/or functioned like the D&D adventurers league it could actually work.

But thats not... not how it works. Not how I've seen anyone actually use it anyway.

I'm sort of trying to transition to playing games this way. The biggest hurdle for me is just feeling comfortable asking my opponent to play Crusade instead of a "normal" game.

Tyran wrote:

 VladimirHerzog wrote:
Theres a local group that plays it, i tried it for a few games and it's just more bookkeeping. And being "stuck" playing the exact same list isn't something i enjoy that much.

A nice house rule around that is to start with bigger Order of Battle than the games you are planning to play.

I'm really surprised that GW hasn't been releasing more Crusade support in the form of different styles of campaigning. For instance, a system where you start with a larger OoB and then lose units more easily over time to represent a diminishing veteran force seems obvious. Plus, I'm still waiting for a good mechanical reason to not use my same, strongest veteran units over and over. Rules like that would be awesome to see in a codex or even as a separate supplement that covers all factions.

Not Online!!! wrote:

 vict0988 wrote:
The more random the inputs the more statistical bias, that's why I said it's a problem.

So why do all statistics that are worth anything at all randomise the people they question as much as possible from their datapoint in a specific set of people ? Even when it is a specific field and therefore the subset of questioned people get's restricted?

That's different, it's to remove bias and get a representative sample. If you want to know whether 40k players like the Tau Empire faction you would have to ask a random subset of 40k players, if you asked a random subset of Tau Empire players you would instead be finding out whether Tau Empire players like the Tau Empire faction.

If you give me two normal distributions A and B.

A (10 numbers, mean of 10, standard deviation 1, less random): 9.23, 9.37, 9.93, 10, 10.09, 10.09, 10.26, 10.35, 10.98, 12.08.

B (10 numbers, mean of 10, standard deviation 2, more random): 6.8, 7.53, 8.37, 9.23, 10.78, 10.88, 11.27, 12.23, 12.77, 13.15

I would be able to more accurately guess the next number in A. Playing with random dragon attacks that cause Death Guard to beat Eldar once in a while will make it harder to guess the true mean win rate (more like B) instead of ITC missions where every mission is basically the same and only the core game mechanics and faction randomness plays a role will make the data closer to 1.

I think it's fun to have randomness play a role in games and be on your toes seeing what's going to happen next, but it's not fun for me to lose a competitive game because of that randomness. The solution is simple, have multiple mission sets, the competitive one will be the most balanced, the casual and narrative missions will be less balanced but randomness will even things out (Orks might be gak in Tempest but they can win if they get a bit lucky with the missions) and if you are playing casually or narratively winning the game becomes less important.

Ro3 was a Bandaid solution to units that were a problem in the ITC sphere but a lot of these weren't an issue in non ITC standardised formats. It didn't help that we are talking about GW for which 3+ Veterans = 3+ Badmoons planes. Something that would've been more than obvious to GW if it had actually sat down and tested the far less restricted detachment system with any ammount of it. feths sake it was obvious from merely reading the rules.

The cultist nerf was: because in ITC standardised formats you saw only cultists in 8th -9th instead of CSM for comp CSM lists. So clearly Cultists were a problem, except they weren't their mainline competitor that was even better, was picked plentifully and the endresult was that a comparative worse unit got a higher Pts pricetag. Whilest they still pushed CSM out due to opportunity cost provoked by internal factors thanks to a fethed up wound table and doubleshooting nonsenery.

Just looking at the ITC system hasn't done realistically anyhting, it merely highlights which units in which factions perform good enough in these circumstances, and those are far too small due to the pool of terrain and mission design to be accurate enough to solely square balance on it. Indeed the lack of list variety provoked by that small specific set of missions is the key reason as to why it is a problem to draw data from it exclusivly as is done, because GW is lazy.
Arguably a lot of wrong takes from it would be avoidable if GW had better internal and more flexible testing in it's forces and built the balance from there, instead of post release on the fly adaptation from an overly specific subset of the player population that is the issue.


For the record, i still think competition data is worth more than casual data, however, we can't ignore that the current competitive data pool comes from a specific set dictated by specific parameters that differ far too much to draw deciscive conclusion out of it in many cases.

I don't believe for a second that spam wasn't a problem in non-ITC games, not to mention it looks bad and feels bad to play against regardless of the mission set. I don't know where I'd go to find competitive early 8th edition non-ITC lists.

I don't think Cultists were OP in ITC maybe at certain times, they've been nerfed a lot of times I feel like, I also don't think people were building the kinds of lists GW wanted them to build in other formats were they? Wouldn't Cultists be even more of a problem in other formats?

9th saw a tonne of list diversity despite the missions being very similar, a lot of lists also didn't even include 3 copies of units, just 1-2. I don't see how mission diversity promotes list diversity, it might make certain lists garbage because of a certain roulette mission making horde lists unviable or might make psykers mandatory for factions that can include them for another roulette mission, but that's the opposite of promoting diversity.

Dudeface wrote:

 vict0988 wrote:

Why most people in the US preferred ITC doesn't matter, most people preferred it, there was no silent majority wanting to play UK Frankenmissions. If you want a loud minority to actually decide then there needs to be a silent majority that disagrees.

Of course it matters. If it becomes the de-facto game format in your store, it doesn't make it your preferred game method, it makes the only one you have assured access to. The efforts GW have gone through to bake those preferences/habits into the game are directly impacting the "soul" as described repeatedly over the last few pages.

We get it, you like ITC mission, you don't like randomness in your games. It sounds like GW has moved the game forwards towards your preferences. But I'd also take stock of the fact you are the vocal minority in this thread at this point.

Timmy enters store gets told to be a big boy and play ITC despite it being very complex, Timmy sucks it up and learns to play but has a rather bad time of it because this is not what he hoped 40k would be. Friendly dude Facundo tells him "psst, ever heard of Tempest of War?" Timmy gives it a shot because it might improve on his bad experience with the game. Tempest of War is exciting and fun. While Timmy still mainly plays ITC he and Facundo play Tempest of War together once in a while and over time get a couple of others to join them in the fun.

Spike enters store gets told to be a big boy and play ITC and immediately dives into it and loves the complexity. Victor tells him "psst, ever heard of Tempest of War?" Spike says he's not interested in that type of game because he wants complexity and doesn't like the randomness in the mission set. Victor approaches him several more times and eventually Spike agrees, Spike doesn't like Tempest of War, Victor is shocked and claims Spike has been brainwashed by the evil ITC Youtubers but Spike is not Timmy, they have different tastes, regardless of what Youtubers or club members say. Of course, it'd be harder if one club was open to trying everything once and the other club was on board the Crusade hate train, but the ITC has never supported hating on other game modes and you can find tonnes of competitive Youtubers doing casual content half the time because casual and competitive is a Venn-diagram with a lot of overlap in the 40k community.

chaos0xomega wrote:
So when they first presented crusade as a concept, they kind of advertised it as a one-man campaign system. As in you didn't have to play it with just one group or in a league format, but instead you could link your narrative games with all your different opponents together and have your army progress and level up, etc. regardless of whether or not your opponents were all tracking to the same group and whatnot. And that sounded cool, and if it worked that way it would be great, and in theory if it was an app-enabled system and/or functioned like the D&D adventurers league it could actually work.

But thats not... not how it works. Not how I've seen anyone actually use it anyway.

see that would have been really cool. What's funny is they actually had a campaign thing like that in a white dwarf for bone reapers in AOS. It was a campaign narrative for your army but had a note that basically said you could play against anyone whether or not they were also doing a narrative thing. You just had to track what you did for your story but it didn't matter if you were playing in a path to glory or a matched play game.

It was a really neat idea. So of course they never did it again. Although I'm pretty sure that's something maybe it was path to glory has a section where it says you can play against people not doing it just obviously you can't use any of the special stuff you get unless they are also playing it

 vict0988 wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:

 vict0988 wrote:
The more random the inputs the more statistical bias, that's why I said it's a problem.

So why do all statistics that are worth anything at all randomise the people they question as much as possible from their datapoint in a specific set of people ? Even when it is a specific field and therefore the subset of questioned people get's restricted?

That's different, it's to remove bias and get a representative sample. If you want to know whether 40k players like the Tau Empire faction you would have to ask a random subset of 40k players, if you asked a random subset of Tau Empire players you would instead be finding out whether Tau Empire players like the Tau Empire faction.

If you give me two normal distributions A and B.

A (10 numbers, mean of 10, standard deviation 1, less random): 9.23, 9.37, 9.93, 10, 10.09, 10.09, 10.26, 10.35, 10.98, 12.08.

B (10 numbers, mean of 10, standard deviation 2, more random): 6.8, 7.53, 8.37, 9.23, 10.78, 10.88, 11.27, 12.23, 12.77, 13.15

I would be able to more accurately guess the next number in A. Playing with random dragon attacks that cause Death Guard to beat Eldar once in a while will make it harder to guess the true mean win rate (more like B) instead of ITC missions where every mission is basically the same and only the core game mechanics and faction randomness plays a role will make the data closer to 1.

I think it's fun to have randomness play a role in games and be on your toes seeing what's going to happen next, but it's not fun for me to lose a competitive game because of that randomness. The solution is simple, have multiple mission sets, the competitive one will be the most balanced, the casual and narrative missions will be less balanced but randomness will even things out (Orks might be gak in Tempest but they can win if they get a bit lucky with the missions) and if you are playing casually or narratively winning the game becomes less important.

But that is a misnomer because A is a specific controlled environment that overall can be considered as far less representative as a B, which if we take our exemple here, being Tables + mission structure aka ITC for A which is not representative of a "semi comp" game that is a normal table or normal missions on an ITC table, which is far removed from actual game environments of 40k. That is my argument.

I don't believe for a second that spam wasn't a problem in non-ITC games, not to mention it looks bad and feels bad to play against regardless of the mission set. I don't know where I'd go to find competitive early 8th edition non-ITC lists.

I don't think Cultists were OP in ITC maybe at certain times, they've been nerfed a lot of times I feel like, I also don't think people were building the kinds of lists GW wanted them to build in other formats were they? Wouldn't Cultists be even more of a problem in other formats?

9th saw a tonne of list diversity despite the missions being very similar, a lot of lists also didn't even include 3 copies of units, just 1-2. I don't see how mission diversity promotes list diversity, it might make certain lists garbage because of a certain roulette mission making horde lists unviable or might make psykers mandatory for factions that can include them for another roulette mission, but that's the opposite of promoting diversity.

Spam was always a problem but became more pressing due to a combination of issues not least of which are found in the core rules, the aftermentioned to wound table being chief among them. The issue with cultists was that they got nerfed undeservedly in many ways since it was a worse guardsmen after the nerfs costing more than a guardsmen. Which dind't solve the issue of seeing no CSM in CSM armies at all.
9th saw also a lot of variety because GW decided to intervene heavily multiple times and because the meta had to react to the permanent releases of GW: So list diversity is saying preciscly zilch because GW also had a rather fascinanting power creep issue overall in 9th..

I was in the camp that the soul of 40k is drained in 10th.

But I think I'm coming around. The Soul of 40k has been consistent through every iteration and seems to be chugging along strong as ever.

The soul, of course, is the incessant need to nit-pick and complain about how a rule set isn't to ones own preference.

Spam became a problem because you got an incredibly permissive FOC. Want to take 10 of the same option? Well now you can. Arguably this was an issue before 8th - see lists with 5 flying dakka Hive Tyrants, or all Reaver Jetbike DE lists - but said the factions taking advantage of it were bad, so it didn't seem as much of a problem.

GW not unreasonably recognised they were increasing the rosters - and a not great system of "you can take 3 of the 4 HS choices" broke down completely when it became "you can take 3 of 10". Unfortunately they never imagined people would go "okay, here's 5 Stormravens, or all Hive Tyrants/Tau Commanders/Assassins" etc.

I mean the Ro3 came in just before the DE 8th edition book, but give 3 buffed up Dissie Ravagers could table Marine armies in a few turns, I'd have loved to have seen what 12-13~ would have done.

10th feels like it has more soul than most editions to be honest. There's a lot more of the iconic weaponry in things and everything has more of that hat on a hat on a hat feel you get from the novels and animations and games and stuff. I'm quite enjoying it overall.

Deadnight wrote:
It's also very much a thing that might work at year 0, but considering the current games size - in terms of workload for a design team to simultaneously produce 30 (?) Codices for a simultaneous release, let alone the printing resources for that many well as manufacturing requirements... and try and plug the leaks on this while you're at it...

I'm sure it would be a lot of work. But the point is that you'd be working on it during the previous edition. It's not like the game has to sit in a void between editions.

Hell, you could even do what other companies do and let players test the beta rules and give feedback on them. This could both generate interest/hype for the new edition and also, at the very least, help root out some of the exploits and complete failures of design that the design/playtesting teams are apparently unable to spot even when they're 10-stories tall.

As for printing costs, perhaps GW could check their calander and finally realise that it's not 1990 anymore. Thus, it's possible to release rules on digital media like (horror of horrors) PDFs. They could release all the rules at once in digital formats and then have a staggered release for the physical books (which could focus more on the fluff/hobby side), if they're even needed at all.

Deadnight wrote:
...It's also very much a thing that might work at year 0, but considering the current games size - in terms of workload for a design team to simultaneously produce 30 (?) Codices for a simultaneous release, let alone the printing resources for that many well as manufacturing requirements... and try and plug the leaks on this while you're at it...

Dont get me wrong, its a Nice and fairly feasable idea for a new start and a small game, but its a pipe dream for a mature game with a large roster of things. Even pp abandoned this approach midway through mk3 with a 'codex-esque' approach to new factions and rules

So...how did they do the 8e or 10e Indexes if the game is so big that it's completely infeasible to update everything at once?

Badly, both 8th and 10th indexes were blatantly rushed with tons of errors and no play testing whatsoever.

Unit A has value A1 in game mode 1 and value A2 in game mode 2. Game mode 1 has less randomness, therefore you can look at stats from game mode 1 and say unit A is very likely good/bad in game mode 1, game mode 2 is more random, therefore if you look at stats from game mode 2 you have less certainty when you say that A2 is somewhat likely good/bad in game mode 2.

But if game mode 2 is more popular than game mode 1 then I can see why you'd say "all this analysis of game mode 1 is unrepresentative garbage". Which to a degree is true, but I think my view is not just looking at game mode 1 and 2, but also game mode 3-7 in a world where nobody really knows the distribution of the different game modes except that most people agree that the combined amount played in 2-7 is larger than that played alone in game mode 1.

Logically we can deduce game mode 1 is the most likely to produce repeatable results which lets us determine the value of A1 and then we can say that with some caveats A1 is roughly equal to A2, A3... A7 because all missions are about a combination of stand there, kill that and push that button and the unit has the same datasheet.

Balance will necessarily be lesser in A2-A7 compared to A1, but not necessarily lesser than in a world where A1 is not analyzed. What we need isn't perfect balance, but anti-tank weapons need to be better at killing tanks than anti-infantry weapons and no unit should be auto-include or a paper-weight and no factions should win much more or than any other faction over all.

I would also argue that sometimes game mode 7 is not meant to be balanced, I might not want you to show up with an armoured column in cityfight missions, I might want the meta of my low gravity rules to focus on mobile units that aren't tracked (so tanks and bikes are bad using the rules). Comparing the rules of 1 and 7 allows players to expect the differences in the battles that will take place using the rules.The only way to get around this is to balance points individually for each mission type, like making armoured columns cheaper in cityfight missions such that the narrative becomes that numerically weak infantry force fights back numerically strong armoured column using cityfight rules to its advantage.

 vipoid wrote:
[

I'm sure it would be a lot of work. But the point is that you'd be working on it during the previous edition. It's not like the game has to sit in a void between editions

Uh huh. In the real world, that's spending the next three years writing for a hypothetical 11th edition game state. Thats a lot of work. Thats a hundred thousand rulebooks and codices to be written, printed and stored - no business would deal with those storage fees. Not even touching the manufacturing requirements for said thirty codices to be simultaneously released or the logistical nightmare that would be a part of getting it out into peoples hands. And again, storage costs. And what happens when some jerk gets in there with a camera?

And in the mean time for tenth, is there anything going on? The game is not 'sitting in a void', as you say so presumably you mean you still need to keep up with the release schedule for the current edition because the simple truth is the constant flow of new releases is what actuslly brings in 90% of the revenue. So who is writing these? Glutting the market with 30 codices at once won't translate to an equivalent 30-codex spike in revenue. People don't have that much money.

I'm.not even gonna touch the possibility that there are errors/issues in all of these codices. Because let's face it.... gw.

 vipoid wrote:
[

Hell, you could even do what other companies do and let players test the beta rules and give feedback on them. This could both generate interest/hype for the new edition and also, at the very least, help root out some of the exploits and complete failures of design that the design/playtesting teams are apparently unable to spot even when they're 10-stories tall.

Interest/hype or just noise?

You describe a unicorn :p i mean, have you met the 40k grumpies and haters in the community? I wouldn't expect what you're hoping for here.

Cheek aside, Pp did what you suggest back in mk2 ( 4 factions, and a much smaller game- i still have the pdfs) and my contacts told me they'd never do it again. Valued player feedback that made it through was miniscule compared against the noise.

In mk3, when they tried the 'living rulebook' model incorporating player feedback (cid) it ultimately went down like a lead balloon. It was hated. Players want a 'fixed' or 'settled' game, not a 'demo' game or a game constantly in flux. And this was for pp. Imagine a community who is orders of magnitude bigger and more obsessive .

 vipoid wrote:
[

As for printing costs, perhaps GW could check their calander and finally realise that it's not 1990 anymore. Thus, it's possible to release rules on digital media like (horror of horrors) PDFs. They could release all the rules at once in digital formats and then have a staggered release for the physical books (which could focus more on the fluff/hobby side), if they're even needed at all.

Sure, it's possible. But not smart if you ask me. Smaller, newer games? Sure, maybe.

Call me skeptical but Digital media isnt necessarily a solution here imo. It souvds like double the workload to me. And Plenty folks play tabletop games to get away from phones and tablets. Dead tree > image on a screen for a lot of people.

Deadnight wrote:
Players want a 'fixed' or 'settled' game, not a 'demo' game or a game constantly in flux. And this was for pp. Imagine a community who is orders of magnitude bigger and more obsessive .

The near-universal praise for GW's quarterly balance updates rather than letting factions languish for years like they used to does not suggest that players want a fixed, static, unchanging game.

Corvus Belli has a living rulebook available online along with all the faction rules and an army builder. Catalyst has a Master Unit List for all the units across all the factions in Alpha Strike, and a built-in army builder as well.

This isn't uncharted territory. The digital rules model is well-established at this point. GW's just historically very conservative, and I imagine loathe to give up the profits from print media or the codex release FOMO hype cycle, particularly when there doesn't seem to be much impetus to make a better game.

 catbarf wrote:

Deadnight wrote:
Players want a 'fixed' or 'settled' game, not a 'demo' game or a game constantly in flux. And this was for pp. Imagine a community who is orders of magnitude bigger and more obsessive .

The near-universal praise for GW's quarterly balance updates rather than letting factions languish for years like they used to does not suggest that players want a fixed, static, unchanging game.

Corvus Belli has a living rulebook available online along with all the faction rules and an army builder. Catalyst has a Master Unit List for all the units across all the factions in Alpha Strike, and a built-in army builder as well.

This isn't uncharted territory. The digital rules model is well-established at this point. GW's just historically very conservative, and I imagine loathe to give up the profits from print media or the codex release FOMO hype cycle, particularly when there doesn't seem to be much impetus to make a better game.

Agreed. Maybe I mispoke. Let me rephrase.

I'm not saying permanently unchanging. Quarterly is ok, twice a year offers better balance imo. But I am still somewhat skeptical. My experience with pp's cid and from those that played it trended negatively for the most part.

But lets not forget we are not talking errata. We are talking beta. That's what I was referring to when I says unsettled. Again, I remember wmh mk2s beta. As much as I enjoyed it, it was a lot of work for pp to manage. And iirc their sales at the time took a hit, a lot of folks stopped playing and stopped buying until they knew the shape of what the meta was going to be.

As you say gw are conservative. From a business pov, they're not likely to think lightly of that

Market wise, being conservative is usually better [insert unrelated political derail]

Experimentation and taking risks is good, even necessary, when you are trying to create your base and niche within the market.

But it is not viable for a business the size of GW and much less for their cashcow flagship product.

If experimentation isn't viable for a business the size of GW why do they keep burning down their game and starting over with the beta of a new game every three years?

 AnomanderRake wrote:
If experimentation isn't viable for a business the size of GW why do they keep burning down their game and starting over with the beta of a new game every three years?

That's not experimentation, that's just their business model.
If they really wanted to experiment we would see a complete change to the game, not some rewording and reprinting.
Something like dropping the IGUG turns, adding more than D6s, more layers to turns and more phases would be experimental. Changing how combi-weapons works isn't an experiment.

Yeah. I mean it is kinda hilarious that Marines have been BS/WS 3+ T4 Sv3+ and Guardsmen have been BS/WS 4+ T3 Sv5+ since 3rd I believe?

GW "burns down" their game only to build it over as pretty much the same thing with a new coat of paint.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
direct correlation

We all know what correlations are worth (nothing). The shape of the game today is caused by 1. the playerbase having a preference for balanced games over unbalanced games and 2. awful business practices and balancing decisions from GW. Anyone who thinks that the current shape of the game is what tournament players want is simply not involved in the tournament player culture.

 AnomanderRake wrote:

it's being blamed for the game turning into what, to some of us, is an ever blander and blander exercise in grinding balls of numbers against each other that doesn't make any concessions to narrative or immersion

You don't have tournament play to blame for that, you have GW balancing to blame for that, because for years GW put out absolutely dogshit rules and then tried to justify those dogshit rules by saying "uhhh 40K is not a competitive game these rules are fine because you should be fOooOrGinG the nArRaTiVe!".

The point that you're missing is that you are conflating the desires of tournament players with the desires of the playerbase as a whole. 8th Edition's slogan was "the most playtested edition", and it completely slaughtered every prior edition and put GW back on the map as the dominant wargame company because the community overall- not just tournament players- was hungering for a more balanced and competitive game. Having people like Reecius, Tabletop Titans and other pros front and center was PR to demonstrate GW's dedication toward making a tighter ruleset.

- - - -

For everyone who asserts that the heckin tourny players are responsible for the state of the game today, I challenge you to explain why games like AoS and Infinity have managed to consistently be more balanced and competitive than 40K while also retaining their narrative depth.

 AnomanderRake wrote:
If experimentation isn't viable for a business the size of GW why do they keep burning down their game and starting over with the beta of a new game every three years?

You mistake experimental for churned rubbish.

The lure is because these new games/editions that people are buying are Official rules, not experimental.

Don't mistake the power of the draw of the 'official' tag when it comes to ttgs. The dogma is too strong.

 BlaxicanX wrote:
And my point is that you don't have tournament play to blame for that, you have GW balancing to blame for that, because for years GW put out absolutely dogshit rules and then tried to justify those dogshit rules by saying "uhhh 40K is not a competitive game these rules are fine because you should be fOooOrGinG the nArRaTiVe!".

The point that you're missing is that you are conflating the desires of tournament players with the desires of the playerbase as a whole. 8th Edition's slogan was "the most playtested edition", and it completely slaughtered every prior edition and put GW back on the map as the dominant wargame company because the community overall- not just tournament players- was hungering for a more balanced and competitive game. Having people like Reecius, Tabletop Titans and other pros front and center was PR to demonstrate GW's dedication toward making a tighter ruleset.

For every tournament player there are 5x casual collectors/players. Been all over the US and have witnessed most people who joined from 3rd-5th are very chill and took the "forging a narrative" as the main draw to the game as opposed to cutthroat competitive games like TCG's.

I believe "the most play-tested edition" slogan was for 9th not 8th. It has a stigma among both casual and competitive groups as the "tournament edition" barring a few outspoken dakkanauts here.