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Wayniac wrote:
No the problem with GW is that they can't write rules and think "Hey this would be cool" without actually understanding what role it plays. They provide options for modeling purposes that are useless in game, perhaps under the delusion that people will assemble what they want and not care how it performs (which is usually untrue for most people).

A lot of the writers now were designers before, as others have mentioned. It's mainly that they want to provide a ton of options to present the illusion of tons of various choices (a common laurel 40k is given is "variety of options" when most of the options are worthless and might as well not exist), while in reality they kind of just throw things together without even seeing how they interact with other things.

It's a combination of things really but the crux of the issue is that GW doesn't seem to simply be able to look at the stats of a weapon and judge if it's too good (i.e. there's never a reason to not take it over other choices in most cases, for example Grav) or too situational/useless (i.e. you almost never want to take this option because chances are it won't be as good as the other choices except in rare cases). If they could fix that simple fact and actually be able to look at something like Grav and go "You know, this weapon can deal with virtually everything in the game, it's probably a little too good since it will be the default choice to pick", there wouldn't be half these problems. Instead it's "Hey we need to give Space Marines a new gun since the model team put one on the sprue. Let's see... I know, we'll call it a Grav Gun. What should it do? Oh! It would be cool if it wounded you based on your armor save, so it's like a Plasma Gun! And how about if it immobilized a vehicle on a 6! Yeah, that would be neat!" and not actually look at how it impacts everything else, there would be less of these problems.

I've said time and time again, the reason we have these new things becoming "the default choice" is simply because they've spread existing material around too much.

Change Plasma Guns for one book, it changes every single book.

 BBAP wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:
Because missile launchers were already supposed to fill that role: adequate against a wide variety of targets, but not the best weapon against any of them. Grav weapons break that rule and are great against most targets, with the only real weakness (low-save hordes) being compensated for by having lots of bolters on the best grav units.

"All weapons and units must be mediocre" is not a rule. Missile Launchers cost too much and suck too hard to justify that cost. That's not a problem with Grav weapons. Similarly, in an army rocking a maximum of 50-60 infantry models at 1850pts, having those models be effective at shooting down more or less anything that comes at them is perfectly fine.

I don't see the validity of this complaint, and even if it were a valid issue it doesn't affect the functionality or flow of the game at all and hence is not relevant here.

I think they're an inevitability of the design process regardless of the skill set your writers employ

And you're 100% wrong. A good process with skilled writers doesn't have rule problems because they playtest sufficiently to catch everything before the rules are printed.

... which means I'm 100% right. Writers will make mistakes. The playtesters catch these mistakes, and then send the rules back to the writers to fix them. Test, re-write, test- rewrite, until you have a polished finished product. That's one way to do it. The other is to put the product out to gamers and patch any issues that arise. That's the direction GW seem to be taking with their game system.

If it didn't usually take forever for them to FAQ something, and even then only FAQ a tiny percent of the problems, and then a lot of times the FAQ just says "play it how you want" or introduce new issues in the FAQ, You might have a point.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Rismonite wrote:
There are games that recieve balance changes every week that have balance problems. Warhammer can never hope to have that kind of attention to rules you can simply stop wasting your effort. Popular RTS/1st person shooters/Dota-LoL type games with large followings are always nerfing buffing remaking and can never get it right. Even when they get it close something silly crawls into the ech chamber of complaints

One thing I have come to enjoy about 40k is that my buddies space marines rarely change much. And I don't feel like I am playing with a different set of Ork rules each week. WoW and LoL every 1st person shooter I have played could feel like a different game every week.

Again I'm not talking balance, I'm talking poorly written and broken rules. In your analogy what I'm talking about is if the game crashed to desktop.

 Kanluwen wrote:

Wayniac wrote:
No the problem with GW is that they can't write rules and think "Hey this would be cool" without actually understanding what role it plays. They provide options for modeling purposes that are useless in game, perhaps under the delusion that people will assemble what they want and not care how it performs (which is usually untrue for most people).

A lot of the writers now were designers before, as others have mentioned. It's mainly that they want to provide a ton of options to present the illusion of tons of various choices (a common laurel 40k is given is "variety of options" when most of the options are worthless and might as well not exist), while in reality they kind of just throw things together without even seeing how they interact with other things.

It's a combination of things really but the crux of the issue is that GW doesn't seem to simply be able to look at the stats of a weapon and judge if it's too good (i.e. there's never a reason to not take it over other choices in most cases, for example Grav) or too situational/useless (i.e. you almost never want to take this option because chances are it won't be as good as the other choices except in rare cases). If they could fix that simple fact and actually be able to look at something like Grav and go "You know, this weapon can deal with virtually everything in the game, it's probably a little too good since it will be the default choice to pick", there wouldn't be half these problems. Instead it's "Hey we need to give Space Marines a new gun since the model team put one on the sprue. Let's see... I know, we'll call it a Grav Gun. What should it do? Oh! It would be cool if it wounded you based on your armor save, so it's like a Plasma Gun! And how about if it immobilized a vehicle on a 6! Yeah, that would be neat!" and not actually look at how it impacts everything else, there would be less of these problems.

I've said time and time again, the reason we have these new things becoming "the default choice" is simply because they've spread existing material around too much.

Change Plasma Guns for one book, it changes every single book.

True Grit says "Hi"...

 Peregrine wrote:

 BBAP wrote:
Wrong again. The Missile Launcher functions perfectly well - its rules are fine. If it cost 20pts less than a Grav Cannon it'd be a reasonable alternative - you get less firepower per model, but more models, and thus more weapons. It doesn't, though. It costs the same, so it's obsolete. GW has always had issues with consistency of points values. I think I said as much a couple of replies back. You can call this a "rules" issue if you want - and technically it is - but lumping everything from mechanical faults to twisty-ass point costings under the header of "rules issue" creates an argument so broad as to be useless.

Broken point costs are still broken rules

That's exactly what I said - but interpreting broken points costs as an inability to write rules is facile and unhelpful, particularly not when other aspects of the rules function perfectly well.

and still a failure of game design

I don't disagree - but we weren't discussing points costings. We were talking about the mechanical fitness of the rules, which is a distinct issue.

They still come from the same failure to care about writing good rules and playtesting sufficiently to catch problems before they are published.

And again, that's not the only way to fix a game system. You can also release the product, bugs and all, then patch it post release. That's what GW are doing at the moment - if you dislike that approach then find another game to play, but either way, recognise that you're whining about a non-issue.

Danny slag wrote:
If it didn't usually take forever for them to FAQ something, and even then only FAQ a tiny percent of the problems, and then a lot of times the FAQ just says "play it how you want" or introduce new issues in the FAQ, You might have a point

I agree that GW's implementation of the system is poor at present, but the system does work, and it's easier and cheaper to implement than an in-house QC step. That suggests it's the direction GW will be taking, so bleating about a lack of playtesting and stomping your little booties because some Codexes have ruels issues on release is just going to frustrate you.

Missile launchers have been bad since 3rd ed. It can't engage 2+ armor. Fail. It can't engage hordes because the small blast sucks. Fail. Even with the introduction of hull points, it only gets one shot. Fail.

Martel732 wrote:
Missile launchers have been bad since 3rd ed. It can't engage 2+ armor. Fail. It can't engage hordes because the small blast sucks. Fail. Even with the introduction of hull points, it only gets one shot. Fail.

So why was everyone taking buckets of Long Fangs with them in 5th?

Ruin wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Missile launchers have been bad since 3rd ed. It can't engage 2+ armor. Fail. It can't engage hordes because the small blast sucks. Fail. Even with the introduction of hull points, it only gets one shot. Fail.

So why was everyone taking buckets of Long Fangs with them in 5th?

Because they were absurdly cheap and SW's didn't have access to Autocannons.

That said I don't think ML's were as bad as they were made out to be by some, and were a weapon of choice for many 4E armies, but they've been poor choices for a while for most units.

 Vaktathi wrote:
Because they were absurdly cheap and SW's didn't have access to Autocannons.

... plus by "bucketful" we mean "3x3 Long Fangs with 2 MLs apiece". Which is a pretty small bucket. I don't think lack of autocannons was a factor though. Missile Launchers were always the fence-sitter's heavy weapon of choice - cheap, versatile, and mediocre, useful for annoying vehicles and infantry alike. Not bad, not good, just... meh.

Well, usually it was 3x6 longfangs with 15 missile launchers for 420pts with a split-fire capability, which was pretty ridiculous.

ML's were pretty solid in 4th due to the vehicle damage table (though non-skimmer vehicles were largely garbage as a result), but they started trailing off in 5E where they either got more expensive for some armies, or alternatives became cheaper, or the role just wasn't as necessary. For example, ML's for IG were a good choice in 4E, but then the vehicle rules changed and made ML's less capable and Autocannons became cheaper, so the ML disappeared from IG armies as a result.

 Vaktathi wrote:
Well, usually it was 3x6 longfangs with 15 missile launchers for 420pts with a split-fire capability, which was pretty ridiculous.

Not in the tournament lists. The MLs were, at best, an annoyance - most of the firepower of 5th Ed Wolves lists lay in the Grey Hunters, Razorbacks, Dreadnoughts and Rune Priests, all of which hit a lot harder than the Fangs and were more mobile. The Fangs were just turrets and Razorback vectors. The Split Fire thing was a red herring too - the Fangs had no ablative Bolter dudes like Devs get, so the Pack Leader was always the first man down and with him went Split Fire. Don't think I ever split my fire once in all the 5th Ed games I played.

just about every 5E SW tournament list I can recall ran the 3x6 dudes with 5 ML's for a 15 missile alpha strike, most SW lists I faced back then ran them that way, the razorbacks were definitely there, but the Long Fangs were a major headache and there's a reason they got hit with the nerfbat later.

Martel732 wrote:

Davor wrote:

Martel732 wrote:Not really. 2nd was a dumpster fire.

So is 7th.

I saw more one turn tablings in 2nd than all other editions combined. There is no dumpster fire as big as the supernova dumpster fire of 2nd. The Tyranids could kill half your list before the game started and a piece of wargear could kill an entire IG list. Marines saved shuriken cannons on 6+ and shuriken catapults and sonic blasters on 5+. After people figured out how to exploit the game, I never saw an IoM list win. Oh, and Pulsa Rokkits. You don't get to play.

Does it really matter what edition is a worse dumpster fire? They are both dumpster fires. Just because one is worse gives a pass for the other? That is like saying the bully punches you in the gut and steels your lunch money and the bully punches you in the gut but doesn't steal your lunch money. They are still both horrible people. You don't get a pass because you do less bad or evil.

 Vaktathi wrote:
Well, usually it was 3x6 longfangs with 15 missile launchers for 420pts with a split-fire capability, which was pretty ridiculous.

ML's were pretty solid in 4th due to the vehicle damage table (though non-skimmer vehicles were largely garbage as a result), but they started trailing off in 5E where they either got more expensive for some armies, or alternatives became cheaper, or the role just wasn't as necessary. For example, ML's for IG were a good choice in 4E, but then the vehicle rules changed and made ML's less capable and Autocannons became cheaper, so the ML disappeared from IG armies as a result.

"Jack of all trades" troops and weapons I think have always suffered in comparison to their more specialized counterparts. The only other parameter for competition would be points but if ML's end up paying for their fire modes, then they become uncompetitive and disappear. The small blast has been of dubious benefit compared to the autocannon's higher number of shots.

Of course if a jack of all trades was good at all things and reasonably cheap then it becomes the default choice for everything. Such was the case for the Eldar Starcannon of 3rd edition.

Davor wrote:

Martel732 wrote:

Davor wrote:

Martel732 wrote:Not really. 2nd was a dumpster fire.

So is 7th.

I saw more one turn tablings in 2nd than all other editions combined. There is no dumpster fire as big as the supernova dumpster fire of 2nd. The Tyranids could kill half your list before the game started and a piece of wargear could kill an entire IG list. Marines saved shuriken cannons on 6+ and shuriken catapults and sonic blasters on 5+. After people figured out how to exploit the game, I never saw an IoM list win. Oh, and Pulsa Rokkits. You don't get to play.

Does it really matter what edition is a worse dumpster fire? They are both dumpster fires. Just because one is worse gives a pass for the other? That is like saying the bully punches you in the gut and steels your lunch money and the bully punches you in the gut but doesn't steal your lunch money. They are still both horrible people. You don't get a pass because you do less bad or evil.

I know it's depressing but you should watch the news sometime.
This world revolves around that kind of distinction, not to mention the double standards.

 BBAP wrote:
That's exactly what I said - but interpreting broken points costs as an inability to write rules is facile and unhelpful, particularly not when other aspects of the rules function perfectly well.

But the point is that both of them come from the same core problem: GW hires incompetent and/or lazy rule authors, and has a "we don't give a about making good rules" attitude. This isn't a 5% power level difference in need of some fine-tuning or an obscure interaction that a reasonable person could overlook, grav weapons are a complete failure at a conceptual level. The rules for grav weapons technically function in that you can complete a game with them, but they're clearly broken in a way that even low-talent game designers can immediately recognize as a problem.

And again, that's not the only way to fix a game system. You can also release the product, bugs and all, then patch it post release. That's what GW are doing at the moment - if you dislike that approach then find another game to play, but either way, recognise that you're whining about a non-issue.

Releasing a broken product and eventually patching it is bad game design. The fact that other companies do similarly bad things is not an excuse.

If the novelists are writing the rules, then the game designers must be the ones writing the fluff, because that's also been an absolute mess for some time as well. Bolter porn where every named character is an unstoppable "badass" gets quite tiresome after a short while.

 Peregrine wrote:

Lord Kragan wrote:
.... Shouldn't visors count as not having issues with eyes?

Visor =/= eye. Now, it's certainly obvious what the rule was intended to be and easy to fix the problem in real games, but RAW was obviously broken and you had to be reasonable about house-ruling it to something that made more sense if you wanted to have an enjoyable game. And it certainly disproves the idea that RAW is fine and all of the issues are from players not paying enough attention to RAW.

with all due respect anyone who actually tried using that arguement on me I'd walk away from the table having dimissed them as too stupid to play 40k anyway. there are a lot of flaws in 40ks rules no doubts there but let's not demand the writers assume we're total morons.

BrianDavion wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

Lord Kragan wrote:
.... Shouldn't visors count as not having issues with eyes?

Visor =/= eye. Now, it's certainly obvious what the rule was intended to be and easy to fix the problem in real games, but RAW was obviously broken and you had to be reasonable about house-ruling it to something that made more sense if you wanted to have an enjoyable game. And it certainly disproves the idea that RAW is fine and all of the issues are from players not paying enough attention to RAW.

with all due respect anyone who actually tried using that arguement on me I'd walk away from the table having dimissed them as too stupid to play 40k anyway. there are a lot of flaws in 40ks rules no doubts there but let's not demand the writers assume we're total morons.

When writing game rules you're supposed to assume your players are morons because morons will eventually play your game

 Peregrine wrote:
But the point is that both of them come from the same core problem: GW hires incompetent and/or lazy rule authors

That's your interpretation of the situation. Mine is that GW doesn't playtest, hence oversights that inevitably arise as part of the development process are going to end up in releases, If these oversights are patched, that's fine by me - and while the quality and timeliness of their FAQs needs to improve, GW does patch these issues.

and has a "we don't give a about making good rules" attitude.

Indeed they do. They've said repeatedly that they're not interested in competitive; they're interested in fun. Their failure here is not managing the expectations of people like you, who want MTG-style competition when GW are quite clearly building a D&D-style game system. In that respect I don't know what to tell you. Find another game system to play. Maybe make your own.

This isn't a 5% power level difference in need of some fine-tuning or an obscure interaction that a reasonable person could overlook, grav weapons are a complete failure at a conceptual level. The rules for grav weapons technically function in that you can complete a game with them, but they're clearly broken in a way that even low-talent game designers can immediately recognize as a problem.

It's not a problem, though. Grav Cannons are not "OP" or whatever - they're just a better HW option than Missile Launchers. I don't see why this has so many people so annoyed.

Releasing a broken product and eventually patching it is bad game design

... in your opinion. You need to recognise how subjective and personal these arguments are. You don't like how things are going down. That's your perogative. Fact still is, this is the way things are going down. If you don't like it then it's maybe time to go and play MTG or something.

In my opinion I end up with a finished product either way, so I'd rather the company do whatever's cheapest and easiest for them. I'm unhappy with how GW has implemented their design philosophy, but that's not to say it can't work if they do it properly.

 BBAP wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:
But the point is that both of them come from the same core problem: GW hires incompetent and/or lazy rule authors

That's your interpretation of the situation. Mine is that GW doesn't playtest, hence oversights that inevitably arise as part of the development process are going to end up in releases, If these oversights are patched, that's fine by me - and while the quality and timeliness of their FAQs needs to improve, GW does patch these issues.

and has a "we don't give a about making good rules" attitude.

Indeed they do. They've said repeatedly that they're not interested in competitive; they're interested in fun. Their failure here is not managing the expectations of people like you, who want MTG-style competition when GW are quite clearly building a D&D-style game system. In that respect I don't know what to tell you. Find another game system to play. Maybe make your own.

This isn't a 5% power level difference in need of some fine-tuning or an obscure interaction that a reasonable person could overlook, grav weapons are a complete failure at a conceptual level. The rules for grav weapons technically function in that you can complete a game with them, but they're clearly broken in a way that even low-talent game designers can immediately recognize as a problem.

It's not a problem, though. Grav Cannons are not "OP" or whatever - they're just a better HW option than Missile Launchers. I don't see why this has so many people so annoyed.

Releasing a broken product and eventually patching it is bad game design

... in your opinion. You need to recognise how subjective and personal these arguments are. You don't like how things are going down. That's your perogative. Fact still is, this is the way things are going down. If you don't like it then it's maybe time to go and play MTG or something.

In my opinion I end up with a finished product either way, so I'd rather the company do whatever's cheapest and easiest for them. I'm unhappy with how GW has implemented their design philosophy, but that's not to say it can't work if they do it properly.

With respect though, I think the crux of the matter is GW has shown time and time again that they can't do it properly. Either because they just don't want to, or because they mentally are unable to do what is necessary. They show that they point things seemingly at random, without any sort of formula, so you end up with things that are way underpriced or overpriced. They midway through a game edition decide to change how they do armies (this more applies to AOS right now) and then plod forward widening the gap between armies that came before the design change and armies that came after, because they never stop and go back to update the ones that didn't get part of this change. Nearly every new book has a 50% chance of being way more powerful of whatever came before, or balanced, or underpowered, it all depends, again precisely because their game design seems to be "This sounds good" without any actual guidelines to say if it's appropriately balanced or not. That might be fine if it was an online game or something where you can easily hotfix things rapidly if necessary, but not when an army is lucky to get one codex update every couple of years (unless you're Marines of course) so if they feth up on balance, you're stuck waiting and using poor balanced things because they'll never go back and fix it, they just keep moving forward because they already sold the kits for your army, now time to make the next big thing to sell those kits too.

This is especially true with a game with as "passionate" fans as GW has. I have never ever seen any other tabletop game where people were so eager to eat up every single release the company put out, waiting with anticipation for it to go live and with the same "Omg new shiny buy buy buy" sort of thing I see from Warhammer/GW fans. That's not to disparage them, but it seems to be a unique phenomenon to the GW ecosystem where they know their fans will eat up anything they release, so they can get away with doing the minimal effort necessary because all they have to do is say "New releases!" and they will sell out almost instantly. It makes for a weird situation where GW can get away with a lot of things because they know it wont matter. Very similar to Apple (which GW has stated they feel themselves close to), where the same thing happens. All they have to do is release a new iPhone, even if it's basically the same as the old, and legions of fans will line up in droves waiting to buy it because it's "new".

That's the biggest problem with GW: Everything that they do revolves around pushing product, and not making sure the game that said product is sold for works well. It's in their best interest to NOT put any effort at all in rules or the game, just do enough to get the new kits flying off shelves and then move on, and who cares if the faction you just released isn't as good as the one coming up, because the one you just released already was sold, now you have to make sure the one coming up gets sold too. It's an absolutely crazy way to run a business.

Jacksmiles wrote:
I can get behind the idea, but find it incredibly arguable that their writers are good at fiction. I find them "okay" at best, most of the time.

I bought the Rynn's World novel because of my love of all things Crimson Fists. While the writing was plodding most of the time, the moment I gave up on the novel was when the writer couldn't get a character death right when referenced a few chapters later. Kantor identifies the Ork Warboss as the one that killed Captain Alvez, but it was Captain Drakken who died at the Warboss's hands. I can get botching a reference to another novel, but the same novel?!?!?!?! And did nobody edit it before it got released? There were tons of grammatical errors as well, but it pretty much soured me on ever buying a novel from them again. And if that is the kind of writer that is making the rules now? Well, I guess that explains a LOT.

I used to be in 2 minds about the rules -they seemed fun but somewhat illogical. The more I've analysed other rulesets and then revised 40k, the more absurd and illogical the game seems. Novelists writing the rules or not, they've stuck themselves in a rut by clinging to a core set of rules that lack detail for elements that matter, and on the other hand swamped with needless complication from rules and mechanics that don't contribute to making it a better game. Furthermore the amount of publications is so expansive that doing a serious re-write would be a mammoth task. Yet that's the only way forward for the game.

 BBAP wrote:
That's your interpretation of the situation. Mine is that GW doesn't playtest, hence oversights that inevitably arise as part of the development process are going to end up in releases, If these oversights are patched, that's fine by me - and while the quality and timeliness of their FAQs needs to improve, GW does patch these issues.

Not playtesting is incompetence. I don't know why you think "GW isn't incompetent, they're just incompetent" is a compelling argument.

Indeed they do. They've said repeatedly that they're not interested in competitive; they're interested in fun. Their failure here is not managing the expectations of people like you, who want MTG-style competition when GW are quite clearly building a D&D-style game system. In that respect I don't know what to tell you. Find another game system to play. Maybe make your own.

The things that make 40k a bad competitive game also make it bad for casual/narrative/etc players. GW doesn't give a about making good rules for anyone.

It's not a problem, though. Grav Cannons are not "OP" or whatever - they're just a better HW option than Missile Launchers. I don't see why this has so many people so annoyed.

IOW: "grav cannons aren't OP, they're just OP".

... in your opinion. You need to recognise how subjective and personal these arguments are. You don't like how things are going down. That's your perogative. Fact still is, this is the way things are going down. If you don't like it then it's maybe time to go and play MTG or something.

Nope. Game design is not always subjective, and this is an issue with a pretty clear answer. Releasing a half-finished product and patching it later is lazy and incompetent game design. It sucks when GW does it, it sucks when video game companies do it. It generates bad publicity for the company and drives away customers who don't want to pay lots of money for a defective product. And it benefits absolutely none of the customers. The only people gaining anything are the shareholders, who might get a little more profit out of cutting development costs to the bare minimum.

 BBAP wrote:
If these oversights are patched, that's fine by me - and while the quality and timeliness of their FAQs needs to improve, GW does patch these issues.

And you don't see that as a problem? Even when GW is arsed to put out a FAQ, it often doesn't answer the questions people want answered, answers questions no one was even asking, or answers questions in such a manner that it raises even more problems than the original question did.

They've said repeatedly that they're not interested in competitive; they're interested in fun. Their failure here is not managing the expectations of people like you, who want MTG-style competition when GW are quite clearly building a D&D-style game system.

Ok, fine, GW wants the game to be more D&D-style, then give us a fething DM/GM so that they can deal with issues as the game plays out. No one is asking for GW to make any game as competitive as MTG is, what we are asking for is for GW to write rules as well as MTG's are written. That's the fething great thing about a well written rule set. It can be played at the highest levels of competition or the lowest levels of kitchen table play and still function just fine. GW rules do not function on ANY level, competitive or not! Just about every FLGS I've been to, there have been "local" house rules for 40k just to work. That has never been the case for MTG.

Grav Cannons are not "OP" or whatever - they're just a better HW option than Missile Launchers. I don't see why this has so many people so annoyed.

The problem is that Grav Cannons, and Grav weapons as a whole aren't just better than Missile Launchers, they are better than every other weapon period. Maybe if points costs were adjusted to reflect the fact that Grav weapons are objectively better than every other weapon available to Space Marines, then maybe they wouldn't always be taken or at least it wouldn't be an automatic "choice". But alas, that is not the case.

 Evil Lamp 6 wrote:

 BBAP wrote:
If these oversights are patched, that's fine by me - and while the quality and timeliness of their FAQs needs to improve, GW does patch these issues.

And you don't see that as a problem? Even when GW is arsed to put out a FAQ, it often doesn't answer the questions people want answered, answers questions no one was even asking, or answers questions in such a manner that it raises even more problems than the original question did.

They've said repeatedly that they're not interested in competitive; they're interested in fun. Their failure here is not managing the expectations of people like you, who want MTG-style competition when GW are quite clearly building a D&D-style game system.

Ok, fine, GW wants the game to be more D&D-style, then give us a fething DM/GM so that they can deal with issues as the game plays out. No one is asking for GW to make any game as competitive as MTG is, what we are asking for is for GW to write rules as well as MTG's are written. That's the fething great thing about a well written rule set. It can be played at the highest levels of competition or the lowest levels of kitchen table play and still function just fine. GW rules do not function on ANY level, competitive or not! Just about every FLGS I've been to, there have been "local" house rules for 40k just to work. That has never been the case for MTG.

Grav Cannons are not "OP" or whatever - they're just a better HW option than Missile Launchers. I don't see why this has so many people so annoyed.

The problem is that Grav Cannons, and Grav weapons as a whole aren't just better than Missile Launchers, they are better than every other weapon period. Maybe if points costs were adjusted to reflect the fact that Grav weapons are objectively better than every other weapon available to Space Marines, then maybe they wouldn't always be taken or at least it wouldn't be an automatic "choice". But alas, that is not the case.

This, exactly. GW's FAQs are, often, a joke. They very rarely answer anything worthwhile, they answer nonsensical questions (like what fething moron actually asked if they could take an entire army of just fortifications, and why did GW even justify that level of idiocy with an answer?) and a lot of times the FAQ ruling either directly contradicts what the actual book says, or is answered in such a vague manner that it doesn't answer the question, because even in their FAQs they refuse to actually write like they are writing a rulebook.

People seem to always ignore the fact that a well-written, clear and concise set of rules benefits everybody, while a set of rules that are vague and don't explicitly state what you can/cannot do benefit nobody except the rules-lawyers and WAAC types who can easily interpret things in weird ways to try and game the system. GW may not want the game to be competitive, but that doesn't excuse writing awful rules that often are written in such a way as to require interpretation to what it's actually saying. GW is like the only "wargame" that does that sort of gak when it comes to writing rules; they are often unclear, can be interpreted several ways, and to top it off you get things like the Alpha Legion formation/Cultist formation interactions where it was left up to interpretation and how much of a jerk you wanted to be how you played it, whereas a solid set of rules would have had it be the same rule from two sources so it was clear it didn't stack. Or take the issue with I think the Skitarii start collecting, where some sheets said one unit and some said the other unit; GW's answer? "use whichever". That's not an answer. Even at such a small level of play it shows a lack of actually caring, because they constantly show they are incapable or unwilling to write rules that specifically state what is and isn't allowed, and instead write in this weird conversationalist tone, and often contradict themselves later on depending on who answers the FAQ.

It would be one thing if they had a system like the Infernals for Privateer Press, where you can ask a question, and someone can get in touch with the designers to actually clarify it, at which point it becomes official (although might be errated later; the Infernal only states what the interaction is, not if it's good/bad). But they don't. And that's a problem when they write rules the way they do.

As for D&D vs. MTG in game styles, GW isn't making a D&D style game. Nothing about the game encourages narrative play or character development or any of the things that make roleplaying games fun. In fact, GW has been moving away from those elements over the past few years. All of the sections about how to design your own missions have been removed from the core rulebook, the narrative-focused expansions (Planetstrike, etc) have been stripped down to nothing more than a different maelstrom objective table to roll on, and random tables have been used instead of player choices about their characters for things like warlord traits and psychic powers. The only way that 40k diverges from competitive-focused games like MTG is that the rules are garbage.

 Peregrine wrote:
Because if an option is just plain bad and obsolete then it should be removed from the game to simplify the rules.

Taking this to its logical extreme: Therefor, we should play chess instead of 40k.

 Melissia wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:
Because if an option is just plain bad and obsolete then it should be removed from the game to simplify the rules.

Taking this to its logical extreme: Therefor, we should play chess instead of 40k.

No no no, the logical extreme would obviously be to do away with all rules, as the simplest rules are a total absence thereof.

We should be playing with green army men in a sandbox instead.

Obviously.

 Peregrine wrote:
Not playtesting is incompetence. I don't know why you think "GW isn't incompetent, they're just incompetent" is a compelling argument.

Because there's more than one way to skin a cat. You either playtest the faults out, or you patch the faults out. Either way the faults are removed. You dislike the latter approach, but what you like or dislike is irrelevant.

The things that make 40k a bad competitive game also make it bad for casual/narrative/etc players. GW doesn't give a about making good rules for anyone.

The things that make 40k a bad competitive game are a lack of cohesive, centralised yardsticks by which to measure unit/ wargear power and thus assign point costings. GW manifestly *can* make rules that function, because the ruleset they've put out functions in thousands of games every week.

IOW: "grav cannons aren't OP, they're just OP".

This is just histrionic straw-clutching. "Better than Missile Launcher" is an exceptionally low bar to set for "OP".

Nope. Game design is not always subjective, and this is an issue with a pretty clear answer. Releasing a half-finished product and patching it later is lazy and incompetent game design

No it isn't. I realise you dislike this model, but nobody cares what you like or dislike. If it leads to a finished product then it's a competent approach.

It sucks when GW does it, it sucks when video game companies do it. It generates bad publicity for the company and drives away customers who don't want to pay lots of money for a defective product.

Manifestly untrue. Skyrim was abominable at launch, and for the first year after release. There are still bugs in the game now after nearly 6 years. If what you're saying is true then Fallout 4's release should've bankrupted Bethesda. Is that what happened?

And it benefits absolutely none of the customers. The only people gaining anything are the shareholders, who might get a little more profit out of cutting development costs to the bare minimum.

GW, like all other private enterprises, doesn't exist to provide "benefit" to you; it exists to generate a profit for the people running it and a dividend for the shareholders. If they want to cut development costs - which they do, because they need to squeeze every penny out of their flat-lining sales - then they're not going to playtest in-house. If they believe they can expand their consumer base with a less "competitive", more "casual" game system, then that's what they'll make.

 Peregrine wrote:
As for D&D vs. MTG in game styles, GW isn't making a D&D style game.

They're making a game that you sit down with a group of friends to have a laugh over, rather than one you get salty about because someone "beat" you. The game's the thing. Competition is secondary. That's what D&D is. It's what 40k is trying to be.

 BBAP wrote:
Because there's more than one way to skin a cat. You either playtest the faults out, or you patch the faults out. Either way the faults are removed. You dislike the latter approach, but what you like or dislike is irrelevant.

One of them involves selling a finished product and not upsetting your customers. The other involves selling a defective product, getting bad PR and potentially losing customers who won't make the mistake of buying your products again, and hoping to salvage the situation at some future point. I think it should be obvious which is the correct choice.

The things that make 40k a bad competitive game are a lack of cohesive, centralised yardsticks by which to measure unit/ wargear power and thus assign point costings. GW manifestly *can* make rules that function, because the ruleset they've put out functions in thousands of games every week.

And those things are bad for casual/narrative/whatever games as well. This is not a case of GW choosing to make a better casual/narrative game at the expense of competitive play, it's GW failing at game design.

This is just histrionic straw-clutching. "Better than Missile Launcher" is an exceptionally low bar to set for "OP".

It's still a design failure. If A is simply better than B then you have a failure of design, because auto-take and never-take options are bad. Whatever the magnitude of the failure's impact on the game as a whole it's still incompetent design. Good game designers would not have produced grav weapons.

Manifestly untrue. Skyrim was abominable at launch, and for the first year after release. There are still bugs in the game now after nearly 6 years. If what you're saying is true then Fallout 4's release should've bankrupted Bethesda. Is that what happened?

That's a blatant straw man. I never said it would destroy the company, I said that it generates bad PR and drives away customers. And it does. "Skyrim is a buggy mess" was a story on release, as was "Fallout 4 is a buggy mess". And there are people (such as myself) who are reluctant at best to buy a Bethesda open-world game soon after release because of these things. That is not a thing that you want to see as a company.

GW, like all other private enterprises, doesn't exist to provide "benefit" to you; it exists to generate a profit for the people running it and a dividend for the shareholders. If they want to cut development costs - which they do, because they need to squeeze every penny out of their flat-lining sales - then they're not going to playtest in-house. If they believe they can expand their consumer base with a less "competitive", more "casual" game system, then that's what they'll make.

None of this changes the fact that GW's game designers are incompetent. It may be better for the shareholders to hire incompetent morons to write the rules and save money over hiring people with more talent, just like a fast food restaurant serves barely-edible garbage because it's cheaper than paying for quality ingredients to make a $1 hamburger. But we still recognize that they are putting out a low-quality product, even if selling garbage to people with low standards is profitable sometimes.

They're making a game that you sit down with a group of friends to have a laugh over, rather than one you get salty about because someone "beat" you. The game's the thing. Competition is secondary. That's what D&D is. It's what 40k is trying to be.

And the things that make 40k bad for competitive play also make it bad for that kind of gaming. Making a bad competitive game doesn't make it great for casual play by default, nor does "casual" mean "have low standard for the things you buy". You have to earn that praise and GW has not.

And I notice you omitted the explanation of why 40k doesn't include D&D-style narrative design, presumably because you have no response to that.