Switch Theme:

Do they just completely make it up as they go along?  [RSS] Share on facebook Share on Twitter Submit to Reddit
»
Author Message
Advert


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.




Made in au
Owns Whole Set of Skullz Techpriests






Versteckt in den Schatten deines Geistes.

Whenever people like Irbis say things like "Then why did Primaris suck at the start?" I'm amazed that they never stop to think what the obvious answer is: Because GW are terrible at writing rules, so manage to fail even when trying to make things powerful.

 Irbis wrote:
People repeat this conspiracy theory again and again but it's just plainly wrong.
Conspiracy theory? I know game designers who have written about perfect imbalance. Designers I've worked with.

What's conspiratorial about it?

 Irbis wrote:
That is not a hot take. Literally every competent player says 5th edition was the best...
Literally, hey? I presume you can name all these competent players?

And if you think that an edition that contained Ward's GK Codex is a 'golden age', then, gak, there ain't nuthin' any of us can do to help you.

nou wrote:
Exactly what is baffling me in such discussions on dakka - the notion that a company that sells a game for 30 years and grows at a rapid rate is somehow led by incompetent morons - it is well, moronic itself.
You ain't never heard the term 'failing upwards'? You've never been in a situation, or simply witnessed a situation, in any business, where the wrong people get promoted? You think GW is immune to such things?

But as Unit1126PLL put it so succinctly on the last page: "They make a lot of money" and "They are idiot game designers" are not mutually exclusive, and in fact have no relation to each other whatsoever.

To put it another way, you cannot explain away terrible rules by going "Well look at their profits! It must be good!".


This message was edited 8 times. Last update was at 2022/01/15 05:12:23


Industrial Insanity - My Terrain Blog
"GW really needs to understand 'Less is more' when it comes to AoS." - Wha-Mu-077

 
   
Made in us
Powerful Ushbati





United States

Tiberias wrote:
I keep hearing that 40k codices are designed and written way before they are released....I've heard people say a year or more before release.
Now, I don't care about the exact time line but my point is that this insinuates a plan GW has made at some point.

I am just starting to doubt that they have any plan whatsoever regarding their codex design-process and philosophy. I would argue it's all completely reactionary and solely driven by time and budget restraints.

The new Stormsurge weapon previewed on Warcom is a good example of this in my opinion. I do not believe that gun to be too strong or that it will break the game. The damage is impressive, but it's likely very expensive, shorter range and does not ignore invulns.
But my point is that the comparison with that thing and the heaviest weapons Necron get access to for example, is just jarring.

What I don't understand is this: GW was able to grow their IP since 8th and especially since the pandemic in quite an impressive fashion. Yet they are seemingly unable to have a cohesive design philosophy through even one edition cycle.
I am not even talking about balance here, but starting out the edition with mostly D6 damage anti tank weapons, even on heavy platforms, and ending up with something that does flat 12 damage just seems so illogical.

Now again, I'm not arguing that the new Stormsurge gun is too powerful, that's not the point....but necrons having something like a tachyon arrow (which they can only shoot once per battle mind you) that does D6 damage, is ridiculous from a design standpoint.


It's not just that. The stormsurge gun isn't good. It will still spend at least a single turn getting into position, then a second turn anchoring meaning it might get a good stable shot on T3. I guarantee you that any Stormsurge on the field against a semi-competent player won't survive past turn 2. Woo 12 dmg that most likely will get to hit one thing one time. Just like with the Railgun, I think it's community overreaction due to perception of the rule, rather than testing. HH and SSurg can have D24 weapons, they're still going to get nuked by a squad of well placed (and well supported) obliterators, eradicators, firedragons, [insert infantry AA here]. Vehicles still blow, they still die to a stiff breeze.

The problem I see with rules in general is that they're all just thrown in a blender. Game was very lethal. So a lot of things got wound buffs. Then the lethality went up again, so things got -1 dmg. Now we're back to the mega lethal shots. Codexes from the first year feel very underwhelming, while newer books feel overpowered. When has moral tests ever mattered in now three editions?

For the health of the community and the game, we need 1 ruleset that is fixed as problems arise.

D&D 5E has been around nearly a decade and is just now these last 2 years getting very major updates to it's core rules. Most of which is record keeping, or changes to lore that is perceived to be problematic due to current political and societal leanings. The actual core rules haven't really changed all that much. If WoTC can do it, why can't GW?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
 Ventus wrote:
a_typical_hero wrote:
Bit of a bad example, given Firstborn are still around and Primaris came like 20 years afterwards (the modern plastic Space Marine)? Oh noes, GW will force me to buy Primaris 2.0 in 18 years.


Optimistic to assume Primaris Marines have an 18 year shelf life. Stormcasts have already been 2.0'd after only 6 years.

The squattings haven't happened yet but I doubt even GW can maintain an infinitely growing range of Marine units indefinitely.


A new unit type isn't primaris...

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2022/01/15 06:57:50


 
   
Made in au
Dakka Veteran





nou wrote:
You miss the point entirely - GW is not in the business of making a good, balanced game. GW is in business of providing excitement to a specific audience through an ever evolving gaming environment.

I've never seen it said so perfectly.

This current model is NOT losing them business it's keeping people hooked lol. Would the game be better if all dexes were released at once, and then GW kept the meta fresh by adjusting problems? Almost definitely. But it's less exciting than a constant shake up every month or so lol
   
Made in us
Powerful Pegasus Knight





Without codex creep, imbalance, and an ever changing meta, there is less incentive for customers to continue to churn through miniatures.
   
Made in dk
Loyal Necron Lychguard






 Togusa wrote:
D&D 5E has been around nearly a decade and is just now these last 2 years getting very major updates to it's core rules. Most of which is record keeping, or changes to lore that is perceived to be problematic due to current political and societal leanings. The actual core rules haven't really changed all that much. If WoTC can do it, why can't GW?

GW did do it and it was awful enough that tournaments had to invent their own rules to fix the game, which you have to do for D&D as well unless everyone agrees to keep it casual and focus on roleplaying. 40k is not a roleplaying game, it's a miniature wargame and if you tried to play D&D like a miniature wargame then you'll see how terrible it is at it.
 Sledgehammer wrote:
Without codex creep, imbalance, and an ever changing meta, there is less incentive for customers to continue to churn through miniatures.

If you could be sure your miniatures were worth using once you got done assembling and painting them then you'd buy, assemble and paint more.
   
Made in at
Second Story Man





Austria

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
To put it another way, you cannot explain away terrible rules by going "Well look at their profits! It must be good!".

you misunderstood, it is "look at the high prices, if they still sell well it must be good"

this is were all those conclusions come from, GW is the best at everything because they are the most expensive ones, no one would pay 100€ for rules if it would not be a good game, or were better rules would be free
or the big plastic models must be the best on the market, because something that costs the same as a perfect grade Gundam for sure must be equal in quality


Harry, bring this ring to Narnia or the Sith will take the Enterprise 
   
Made in us
Longtime Dakkanaut




 Sledgehammer wrote:
Without codex creep, imbalance, and an ever changing meta, there is less incentive for customers to continue to churn through miniatures.


Not totally sure it an immediate connection - although I think it would follow.

To my mind people engage with GW at a range of levels. You have people like posters here who follow every new release. Who follow the major tournaments. Who write about it on the internet. Who even play some games. They are quite vocal - and change keeps them vocal.

And I think this vocality does foster interest. Dakka can famously be kind of miserable - but if I go on any of the faction reddits, I can see a lot of people excited about their models, talking about the game etc. It makes me think I can be part of that. There's lots of places that encourage giving 40k a go - even if its just painting up your first 10 guys.

I feel the biggest concern for GW is if they released everything at once, the meta would "solved" in about 6 weeks (if not 6 days) - and that would essentially be that. The game would still run, people would still have fun throwing dice, but eventually it would get stale, as has happened any time one (or usually 2-3) factions rules the roost for such a long time. People would get bored and drift away.

And if people stopped talking about 40k, I think people would be motivated to buy fewer models. Because why be part of a shrinking community?
   
Made in pl
Wicked Warp Spider





 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Whenever people like Irbis say things like "Then why did Primaris suck at the start?" I'm amazed that they never stop to think what the obvious answer is: Because GW are terrible at writing rules, so manage to fail even when trying to make things powerful.

 Irbis wrote:
People repeat this conspiracy theory again and again but it's just plainly wrong.
Conspiracy theory? I know game designers who have written about perfect imbalance. Designers I've worked with.

What's conspiratorial about it?

 Irbis wrote:
That is not a hot take. Literally every competent player says 5th edition was the best...
Literally, hey? I presume you can name all these competent players?

And if you think that an edition that contained Ward's GK Codex is a 'golden age', then, gak, there ain't nuthin' any of us can do to help you.

nou wrote:
Exactly what is baffling me in such discussions on dakka - the notion that a company that sells a game for 30 years and grows at a rapid rate is somehow led by incompetent morons - it is well, moronic itself.
You ain't never heard the term 'failing upwards'? You've never been in a situation, or simply witnessed a situation, in any business, where the wrong people get promoted? You think GW is immune to such things?

But as Unit1126PLL put it so succinctly on the last page: "They make a lot of money" and "They are idiot game designers" are not mutually exclusive, and in fact have no relation to each other whatsoever.

To put it another way, you cannot explain away terrible rules by going "Well look at their profits! It must be good!".




Reread my post - I never wrote that GW are great game designers, I wrote that they are great businessmen. In business there is no other measure of success than profit, even the size is secondary. To the point where markets panic when the growth of profit stagnates, a first derivative of profit, not the profit itself. GW does a great job at convincing people, that their hobby will satisfy your need as a wargaming/modeling/painting hobbyist, and this is exactly what a successful business is required to do. And I write hobby because GW does not sell a simple game, but an encompassing and comprehensive pass time activity.

Also, to answer all those arguments about luck or periods of decline - as long as periods of growth outweight periods of decline and you react do periods of decline with constructive change, you are not lucky, you are good at making business in a changing environment. GW killed WHFB not because they broke it, but because the format got obsolete. It required 2000pts army to play and that meant a lot of models and time before the first game - no one except true geeks had a will to do that kind of initial investment. It was ok in times when wargaming and gaming culture as a whole was a narrow niche within a narrow geek culture. But between '80 - '90 and now, those niches went mainstream. Game mechanics had to follow. With WHFB GW killed the game, but ported all miniatures from that game to the new format. It is really not that different than transition from 2nd to 3rd, or 7th to 8th 40k. Both those times we got an entirely different games.
   
Made in us
Longtime Dakkanaut




nou wrote:
Also, to answer all those arguments about luck or periods of decline - as long as periods of growth outweight periods of decline and you react do periods of decline with constructive change, you are not lucky, you are good at making business in a changing environment. GW killed WHFB not because they broke it, but because the format got obsolete. It required 2000pts army to play and that meant a lot of models and time before the first game - no one except true geeks had a will to do that kind of initial investment. It was ok in times when wargaming and gaming culture as a whole was a narrow niche within a narrow geek culture. But between '80 - '90 and now, those niches went mainstream. Game mechanics had to follow. With WHFB GW killed the game, but ported all miniatures from that game to the new format. It is really not that different than transition from 2nd to 3rd, or 7th to 8th 40k. Both those times we got an entirely different games.


I don't think this is true - and certainly nothing GW couldn't have moved to have fix.

WHFB was essentially near abandoned for half a decade - with no regard for how the game was played. They very slowly rolled out army books with all the creep issues discussed in every game they ever do.
In an act of high Kirbyism (i.e. people want models because they look nice, screw the rules) AOS 1.0 was barely a game on release. It was only wall to wall ridicule (and declarations of undying hatred) that would see them come up with points in the General's Handbook a year later - and the evolution towards a game which is rather more similar to 40k in Fantasy than anything related to WHFB.

It could be correct (within reason) that the interest in "Fantasy Battles" - fought by units standing in rank and file - has lessened over the decades. But I'm not convinced on that. I think the evidence is that the End Times campaign fostered more interest in WHFB than had been seen for years. Lots of people were dusting off ancient armies, starting new ones, generally reconnecting. If they had done something similar to 7th->8th in 40k I think WHFB would have seen a new lease of life.

The fact these hopes were built up only to be entirely dashed is a further reason why the reaction to AoS was so hostile.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2022/01/15 14:21:34


 
   
Made in pl
Wicked Warp Spider





 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Whenever people like Irbis say things like "Then why did Primaris suck at the start?" I'm amazed that they never stop to think what the obvious answer is: Because GW are terrible at writing rules, so manage to fail even when trying to make things powerful.

 Irbis wrote:
People repeat this conspiracy theory again and again but it's just plainly wrong.
Conspiracy theory? I know game designers who have written about perfect imbalance. Designers I've worked with.

What's conspiratorial about it?

 Irbis wrote:
That is not a hot take. Literally every competent player says 5th edition was the best...
Literally, hey? I presume you can name all these competent players?

And if you think that an edition that contained Ward's GK Codex is a 'golden age', then, gak, there ain't nuthin' any of us can do to help you.

nou wrote:
Exactly what is baffling me in such discussions on dakka - the notion that a company that sells a game for 30 years and grows at a rapid rate is somehow led by incompetent morons - it is well, moronic itself.
You ain't never heard the term 'failing upwards'? You've never been in a situation, or simply witnessed a situation, in any business, where the wrong people get promoted? You think GW is immune to such things?

But as Unit1126PLL put it so succinctly on the last page: "They make a lot of money" and "They are idiot game designers" are not mutually exclusive, and in fact have no relation to each other whatsoever.

To put it another way, you cannot explain away terrible rules by going "Well look at their profits! It must be good!".




And re work promotions. Apart from professional skills you deem deserving a trully justified promotion, there are two other: self promoting skill, that is convincing other people that you are a competent specialist, regardless whether you are or you aren’t one; and social skill, that is how easy going you are, how fun you are, and who you drink with and who wants to drink with you. This last one is the single most important skill in many industries in Poland. If you (general you) dismiss those other two sets as unimportant to your career, then it is indeed less likely, that you will have a career. That is how the world works, because it is emergent on human psychology.



Automatically Appended Next Post:
Tyel wrote:
nou wrote:
Also, to answer all those arguments about luck or periods of decline - as long as periods of growth outweight periods of decline and you react do periods of decline with constructive change, you are not lucky, you are good at making business in a changing environment. GW killed WHFB not because they broke it, but because the format got obsolete. It required 2000pts army to play and that meant a lot of models and time before the first game - no one except true geeks had a will to do that kind of initial investment. It was ok in times when wargaming and gaming culture as a whole was a narrow niche within a narrow geek culture. But between '80 - '90 and now, those niches went mainstream. Game mechanics had to follow. With WHFB GW killed the game, but ported all miniatures from that game to the new format. It is really not that different than transition from 2nd to 3rd, or 7th to 8th 40k. Both those times we got an entirely different games.


I don't think this is true - and certainly nothing GW couldn't have moved to have fix.

WHFB was essentially near abandoned for half a decade - with no regard for how the game was played. They very slowly rolled out army books with all the creep issues discussed in every game they ever do.
In an act of high Kirbyism (i.e. people want models because they look nice, screw the rules) AOS 1.0 was barely a game on release. It was only wall to wall ridicule (and declarations of undying hatred) that would see them come up with points in the General's Handbook a year later - and the evolution towards a game which is rather more similar to 40k in Fantasy than anything related to WHFB.

It could be correct (within reason) that the interest in "Fantasy Battles" - fought by units standing in rank and file - has lessened over the decades. But I'm not convinced on that. I think the evidence is that the End Times campaign fostered more interest in WHFB than had been seen for years. Lots of people were dusting off ancient armies, starting new ones, generally reconnecting. If they had done something similar to 7th->8th in 40k I think WHFB would have seen a new lease of life.

The fact these hopes were built up only to be entirely dashed is a further reason why the reaction to AoS was so hostile.


You assume that neglect of WHFB came first and decline of sales came as the result. I don’t know the numbers, but I don’t suspect that is true. There was an overall turmoil in all areas of geek culture in the ’00, all sorts of old paradigm shifts everywhere, „the rise of casuals”. Just look at computer games and how genres changed and relative genre popularity shifted. When you compare WHFB to AOS you can see the same paradigm shift.

And regarding to Kirbyism - he was not really wrong about it. What he failed to see, was that those models need publicity, and publicity is provided by both marketing and people playing the game in public and expressing the excitement to their peers. For many, and IMHO the majority of GW consumers, rules are just an excuse to push their minis once every blue moon. Codices and Imperial Armour books do not exist solely to rely rules, but to build an immersive world through both lore sections and in-game parameters. That’s part of the reason why there is so much disconnect between the lore and how GW describes units and their rules, and how those rules actually work within the system. During my first period in the hobby, a year of 2nd ed, I have played just a couple of games, all of them in tandem, because I didn’t have enough minis to field an army on my own. But I was completely absorbed by the lore and the hobby, enough to branch into Necromunda when I got back couple years later (also just a few games of it), BFG (one game only) and contemplating Gorkamorka. In all those systems, the perceived awesomeness of the units and the lore behind it was more important than the actual in-game performance exactly because 99% of my time spent on the hobby was solitary. I was way more interested in rules during 7th, when I had ~200 games, but even then, the rules came second to the models and narratives I wanted to play out.

If your (general you) perspective on GW is „GW tries to satisfy hardcore players but due to being a band of morons it fails miserably every time” then you have to come up with some sort of alternative, sometimes even malevolent theories about why it is so popular. But if you shift your perspective to „GW tries to sell a hobby, which also involves a ruleset on the side for an occasional game” then all falls into a coherent explanation of why GW is so prosperous.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2022/01/15 15:18:18


 
   
Made in us
Longtime Dakkanaut




 Jayden63 wrote:
As the old saying goes... Follow the money. GW makes its money by selling plastic crack, not paperback. The new models defiantly get the better rules. Because that's where they need to get their investment back. Even the older models (usually the one offs or the units with lower model count) get codex upgrades once their turn comes around again because why not try to move older models and get a great return on investment. Its been this way with every codex release that had new models added to it.


not to beat up on you but this is patently false. I'll use orkz because...i'm me

7th Edition: Literally the worst edition for orkz....ever. We got the absolute worst codex, so bad in fact that the initial reaction from players on this very website was "Oh good, 7th is going to tone down the dmg output we saw in 6th" only for Space Marines, tau, Eldar and Necrons to crank it to 11. But what else happened for orkz in 7th? We got brand new Mek Gunz which were good, not broken, not OP but good and we got....ready for it? ORKANAUTS!!!!!!!!!! Those were so terribly broken it was ridiculous. I mean...remember when they used to solo knights which costed slightly more? Oh wait..no, they were the Ork version of Knights but they were crap in every which way possible. A knight could relatively easily take out 2 Orkanauts on its own so long as it got a few turns shooting in. Now lets skip forward to...

8th Edition: Not a bad edition for orkz and we also got out new and super OP Buggies! Oh wait, all of them were crap and the most competitive was the Scrapjet which only realy became competitive at the end of 8th with the Psychic Awakening campaign book which let it get 2 rounds of CC in. Something like 7 new models, only 1 of which was competitive.

9th Edition: Orkz are actually in a good place (supposedly until this CA comes out) we got decent rules, a good codex and a lot of cool new models. Lets go over the "new" models that are supposed to be broken or OP because new needs to sell.

1: New Boyz: Boyz are literally the worst unit in our codex right now.
2: Beastboyz: Like boyz but with polish on them, so they look shiny, but are still just crap.
3: Hunta Rig: I've actually never seen one...literally. I've been to dozens of tournaments since the codex came out and I have seen 0 Huntarigs or even Huntarig proxies.
4: Killrigs: These I have seen. They did cause a lot of commotion at first and that lasted right up until people realized they were too big of a model and not all that hard to remove.
5: Squighogs: Same price as Warbikes but less useful
6: KOMMANDOS!: This unit actually meets your criteria, they have a new model and the rules are pretty good. I don't consider them OP but they are competitive so I'll give you that. Here is the kicker though. They still haven't released the damn model for this unit yet except in the Killteam box set, and not many people are going to drop that much money for 10 models that they want. Supposedly the new models will be released soon but we also possibly saw a CA 2022 leak which says they are getting a 20% increase in points

Games Workshop is successful in spite of its marketing strategy, rather then because of its marketing strategy.

 Tomsug wrote:
Semper krumps under the radar

 
   
Made in us
Longtime Dakkanaut




nou wrote:
You assume that neglect of WHFB came first and decline of sales came as the result. I don’t know the numbers, but I don’t suspect that is true. There was an overall turmoil in all areas of geek culture in the ’00, all sorts of old paradigm shifts everywhere, „the rise of casuals”. Just look at computer games and how genres changed and relative genre popularity shifted. When you compare WHFB to AOS you can see the same paradigm shift.

If your (general you) perspective on GW is „GW tries to satisfy hardcore players but due to being a band of morons it fails miserably every time” then you have to come up with some sort of alternative, sometimes even malevolent theories about why it is so popular. But if you shift your perspective to „GW tries to sell a hobby, which also involves a ruleset on the side for an occasional game” then all falls into a coherent explanation of why GW is so prosperous.


I doubt we hugely disagree. To my mind GW tries to sell a hobby - with miniatures, with fluff, with rules. Sometimes its good, sometimes its not.
There's no grand conspiracy - just people who care about different elements.

I think where I disagree is in the detail. I think there was a paradigm shift in gaming around 2010 (certainly after 2012).
But I don't think this was a rise in casuals or anything like that - it was that Games Workshop's flagship games grip on the playerbase came under assault from Warmahordes, and perhaps more importantly X-Wing.
And GW's old approach of "here's an army book - if it sucks, or is boring, that's unfortunate, we'll look again in half a decade's time" was no longer acceptable. Some people obviously carried on - but many more said "this sucks, what else can we play" - and found a lot of people willing to play an alternative. This neglect weighed on both 40k and Fantasy - and for a while at least competitors seemed more responsive. Ultimately both games ended up wrecked on the inevitable bloat that happens because they have to sell new stuff. By contrast 8th Ed 40k was seen as simple and easy to get in to (and fun) and AoS 2.0 was quite a good game if you accepted it was a game and not whatever fantasies you might have had for 9th edition WHFB.

Like one of the big issues I think of WHFB - which you highlight - is that new players turned up, wanted to play Empire and were immediately told "buy 40 Halberdiers". Which is greatly dispiriting and that potential player going "you know what, I'll leave it". But that's because GW made the rules that way. They could have changed the game to avoid that issue.
   
Made in at
Second Story Man





Austria

nou wrote:

You assume that neglect of WHFB came first and decline of sales came as the result.

the neglect of WHFB came with the shift in how the company was run, and the main designers behind the game left the company
at the same time they started to move away from the community because of a panic reaction over fan fiction (that for fan fiction done outside the UK, IP laws of the country of origin apply and not UK law), removing community written articles and community supported online magazines, threatening forums to shut down if they allow direct quotes of rules or points and for whatever reason stopped doing FAQ/Erratas

because of 40k getting a new Edition, Fantasy saw the decline first as most people being upset moved from Fantasy to 40k, specially as with Black Reach starting was very cheap (and it was the better game), similar as now AoS is the better game and some 40k people move over

yet also 40k declined with 6th and 7th Edition, you could now say the decline in sales came before GW started doing strange things, but it happend to 40k as well after they did there the same

and the big turnaround came with the original AoS failed


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Tyel wrote:
Like one of the big issues I think of WHFB - which you highlight - is that new players turned up, wanted to play Empire and were immediately told "buy 40 Halberdiers". Which is greatly dispiriting and that potential player going "you know what, I'll leave it". But that's because GW made the rules that way. They could have changed the game to avoid that issue.

which was very different in the beginning, with the Army book having a 1000 point "how to start" list being:

Grandmaster
ASB
Wizard
5 Knights
16 Halbardiers
10 Crossbow
10 Muskets
Cannon

wich looks like a much easier to get into list than what we got in 8th, but than at the beginning of 8th they already knew that they would kill it, so changing the rules to get the most money out of those that still played

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2022/01/15 20:47:59


Harry, bring this ring to Narnia or the Sith will take the Enterprise 
   
Made in it
Waaagh! Ork Warboss




Italy

One of the reasons why WHFB died was because 8th edition encouraged blobs of 40+ models, also for elite armies. 40 man squads of dark elves warriors or black orcs were horrible game design. So were 50 man blobs of cheap chaff like goblins.

It wasn't a feature of older editions like 6th though, IMHO WHFB peak, when horde armies like empire typically brought 20 man blobs.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2022/01/16 08:21:58


 
   
Made in gb
Fixture of Dakka







Not to mention encouraging large units, then releasing expensive 10 model boxes of infantry - Goldswords and Witch Elves come to mind as egregious examples.

2021-4 Plog - Here we go again... - my fifth attempt at a Dakka PLOG

My Pile of Potential - updates ongoing...

Gamgee on Tau Players wrote:we all kill cats and sell our own families to the devil and eat live puppies.


 Kanluwen wrote:
This is, emphatically, why I will continue suggesting nuking Guard and starting over again. It's a legacy army that needs to be rebooted with a new focal point.

Confirmation of why no-one should listen to Kanluwen when it comes to the IG - he doesn't want the IG, he want's Kan's New Model Army...

tneva82 wrote:
You aren't even trying ty pretend for honest arqument. Open bad faith trolling.
- No reason to keep this here, unless people want to use it for something... 
   
Made in us
Longtime Dakkanaut




 Blackie wrote:
One of the reasons why WHFB died was because 8th edition encouraged blobs of 40+ models, also for elite armies. 40 man squads of dark elves warriors or black orcs were horrible game design. So were 50 man blobs of cheap chaff like goblins.

It wasn't a feature of older editions like 6th though, IMHO WHFB peak, when horde armies like empire typically brought 20 man blobs.


Again, they knew at the beginning of 8th the game was going to be canned, so they turned it into a "milk the whales" edition.
   
Made in us
Clousseau




Interestingly enough they encouraged big units in AOS and people were fielding 40 or 50 models.

So it can be done. It just requires things like rules support and new models and other items that generate excitement.

8th edition WHFB there was very little to be excited about. New things were few and far between. The End times books sold super fast as did the new models at the end of 8th because there was genuine excitement for the first time in years (and then we woke up one day in July of 2015 to find out that game no longer existed and was replaced with 4 pages of very abstract rules and no point system).

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2022/01/17 16:43:00


 
   
Made in us
Longtime Dakkanaut




 auticus wrote:
Interestingly enough they encouraged big units in AOS and people were fielding 40 or 50 models.

So it can be done. It just requires things like rules support and new models and other items that generate excitement.

8th edition WHFB there was very little to be excited about. New things were few and far between. The End times books sold super fast as did the new models at the end of 8th because there was genuine excitement for the first time in years (and then we woke up one day in July of 2015 to find out that game no longer existed and was replaced with 4 pages of very abstract rules and no point system).


Which leads me to believe that canning WHF was more about internal politics than anything objective; some suit had decided that WHF was dead and was gonna enforce that idea even if it had life in it.
   
Made in gb
Fixture of Dakka







WHFB didn't die of natural causes - it was abused, and then murdered.

2021-4 Plog - Here we go again... - my fifth attempt at a Dakka PLOG

My Pile of Potential - updates ongoing...

Gamgee on Tau Players wrote:we all kill cats and sell our own families to the devil and eat live puppies.


 Kanluwen wrote:
This is, emphatically, why I will continue suggesting nuking Guard and starting over again. It's a legacy army that needs to be rebooted with a new focal point.

Confirmation of why no-one should listen to Kanluwen when it comes to the IG - he doesn't want the IG, he want's Kan's New Model Army...

tneva82 wrote:
You aren't even trying ty pretend for honest arqument. Open bad faith trolling.
- No reason to keep this here, unless people want to use it for something... 
   
Made in nl
Longtime Dakkanaut





Hecaton wrote:
 auticus wrote:
Interestingly enough they encouraged big units in AOS and people were fielding 40 or 50 models.

So it can be done. It just requires things like rules support and new models and other items that generate excitement.

8th edition WHFB there was very little to be excited about. New things were few and far between. The End times books sold super fast as did the new models at the end of 8th because there was genuine excitement for the first time in years (and then we woke up one day in July of 2015 to find out that game no longer existed and was replaced with 4 pages of very abstract rules and no point system).


Which leads me to believe that canning WHF was more about internal politics than anything objective; some suit had decided that WHF was dead and was gonna enforce that idea even if it had life in it.
I have no problem accepting that at the time the decision to kill WHFB was made it was a small enough part of GW's income that it didn't make financial sense to keep alive and that they didn't expect End Times to be as popular as it was.
   
Made in us
Clousseau




Hecaton wrote:
 auticus wrote:
Interestingly enough they encouraged big units in AOS and people were fielding 40 or 50 models.

So it can be done. It just requires things like rules support and new models and other items that generate excitement.

8th edition WHFB there was very little to be excited about. New things were few and far between. The End times books sold super fast as did the new models at the end of 8th because there was genuine excitement for the first time in years (and then we woke up one day in July of 2015 to find out that game no longer existed and was replaced with 4 pages of very abstract rules and no point system).


Which leads me to believe that canning WHF was more about internal politics than anything objective; some suit had decided that WHF was dead and was gonna enforce that idea even if it had life in it.


Management hearsay incoming but at their manager's meetings leading up to AOS they had those big gatherings in Dallas where all of management came together every year and they had a big slideshow on this very topic. They wanted warhammer to be more in line with 40k as 40k sold massively and their marketing found that their target audience which has always been younger was not interested in rank and file as much as they were interested in the loose formations 40k offered as well as the huge centerpiece models masters of the universe style clashing like action figures.

I have to agree with them on that front - if their target audience (and from a capitalist standpoint, this has garnered them great profit so on that front this is winning and doing well) are the younger crowd, then the deep analysis and tactics required in rank and file games are largely missing the mark. Age of Sigmar definitely fits that masters of the universe action figure demographic.

End Times, per that management hearsay meeting - was a final farewell to whfb and a goodbye for the fans.

Deep rules and the like are not really wanted or required of a large portion of either 40k or AOS fan base, nor is great balance. We are seeing that reflected and its a very popular and successful business model.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2022/01/17 18:04:02


 
   
Made in us
Longtime Dakkanaut




 auticus wrote:
Hecaton wrote:
 auticus wrote:
Interestingly enough they encouraged big units in AOS and people were fielding 40 or 50 models.

So it can be done. It just requires things like rules support and new models and other items that generate excitement.

8th edition WHFB there was very little to be excited about. New things were few and far between. The End times books sold super fast as did the new models at the end of 8th because there was genuine excitement for the first time in years (and then we woke up one day in July of 2015 to find out that game no longer existed and was replaced with 4 pages of very abstract rules and no point system).


Which leads me to believe that canning WHF was more about internal politics than anything objective; some suit had decided that WHF was dead and was gonna enforce that idea even if it had life in it.


Management hearsay incoming but at their manager's meetings leading up to AOS they had those big gatherings in Dallas where all of management came together every year and they had a big slideshow on this very topic. They wanted warhammer to be more in line with 40k as 40k sold massively and their marketing found that their target audience which has always been younger was not interested in rank and file as much as they were interested in the loose formations 40k offered as well as the huge centerpiece models masters of the universe style clashing like action figures.

I have to agree with them on that front - if their target audience (and from a capitalist standpoint, this has garnered them great profit so on that front this is winning and doing well) are the younger crowd, then the deep analysis and tactics required in rank and file games are largely missing the mark. Age of Sigmar definitely fits that masters of the universe action figure demographic.

End Times, per that management hearsay meeting - was a final farewell to whfb and a goodbye for the fans.

Deep rules and the like are not really wanted or required of a large portion of either 40k or AOS fan base, nor is great balance. We are seeing that reflected and its a very popular and successful business model.


Sure, but it's probably difficult to know if that was an accurate assessment because the game was so hard to get into/inaccessible for so long. Where I'm at, the ASOIAF minis game is growing by leaps and bounds because people like fantasy rank and flank games that are easy to get into.
   
Made in us
Clousseau




R&F is my preference and always will be. And we had a huge warhammer community. They just didn't buy any new models because nothing exciting was really being put out.

But our community never failed to get us 24-30 players every year for our annual campaign (for warhammer fantasy battles).

And I know now that I promote Conquest (the fantasy R&F game) that its similar - we have a lot of interest.

So I agree with you - the market is there. The marketing speculation would be that its not as easy of a market but I'm not really a marketer and don't have their data so thats just my own speculation.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2022/01/17 18:17:22


 
   
Made in at
Second Story Man





Austria

why Warhammer stopped working:

rules did not match the background: if the core of the army in the background is unit A, but this being useless on the table and the real core is unit B, people don't get exited (and blaming the players for playing by the rules instead of playing by the fluff does not help but just creates a toxic environment)

rules were not updated and bad: the fact that community FAQ/Errata meant the game was popular enough to get people doing the heavy work, while GW itself markets game that do not get official support on a monthly bases are dead games
and not even pretend to try to solve problem and make the rules work, just solidified the impression

half the box content, double the prices and increase the unit size: this did kill LotR over night as well, but as Warhammer was so popular people kept playing it with alternatives, 3rd party models, unit filles etc where LotR lived from the original models no ones else was doing (and the community was less GW addicted, so the was no reason do not switch to something else, in fact some historical games here saw a big boost in players after that)

so the high entry level is not something natural for R&F, as are the high prices


all successful R&F games have common themes:
the rules work well and represent the background of the armies
units are cheap (either because of cheaper models or the possibility to use less models per unit, or both)
there is ongoing support for rules and/or models (either with new models for armies, new armies, new scenarios/campaigns etc)

Harry, bring this ring to Narnia or the Sith will take the Enterprise 
   
Made in us
Regular Dakkanaut





 kodos wrote:


all successful R&F games have common themes:
the rules work well and represent the background of the armies
units are cheap (either because of cheaper models or the possibility to use less models per unit, or both)
there is ongoing support for rules and/or models (either with new models for armies, new armies, new scenarios/campaigns etc)


I'm unfamiliar with the genre--are there many non-historical IPs in the R&F space aside from WFB and LotR that have a non-trivial customer base? I feel like the space is dominated by historical and pseudo-historical games, for which the product lines for rulebooks and models are not linked by copyright.
   
Made in us
Longtime Dakkanaut




Annandale, VA

Hankovitch wrote:
 kodos wrote:


all successful R&F games have common themes:
the rules work well and represent the background of the armies
units are cheap (either because of cheaper models or the possibility to use less models per unit, or both)
there is ongoing support for rules and/or models (either with new models for armies, new armies, new scenarios/campaigns etc)


I'm unfamiliar with the genre--are there many non-historical IPs in the R&F space aside from WFB and LotR that have a non-trivial customer base? I feel like the space is dominated by historical and pseudo-historical games, for which the product lines for rulebooks and models are not linked by copyright.


Kings of War might qualify, depending on your idea of 'non-trivial'.

   
Made in us
Clousseau




Kings of War purposely steers clear of a deep background because people often ignore background in favor of min/max, and Kings of War is a heavy tournament themed game. Thats from the mouth of the rules committee when they have discussed background and either A) why is there not a lot of background and B) for what background exists why do the armies still look like spam sessions. I am of course paraphrasing several years of responses into a sentence.

There is background, but people in Kings of War often ignore it in favor of whatever gets them the most output on their spreadsheeting.

In that instance, the rules and background of the armies are irrelevant.

Oathmark is another example of not caring about background - you can make it up as you go.

I've played Warhammer Fantasy since 5th edition and the armies never looked like their background counterparts. That was in the golden age of Warhammer as well. It may have looked MORE like the background in the golden era, but it was still all about tuning monster powerlists using 10% of the overall faction models available to you.

So I don't think the background and rules working well with the background really matters too much - most games I've ever played the rules and background rarely come together once you throw tournament style powerlisting in the mix.

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2022/01/18 17:49:51


 
   
Made in us
Regular Dakkanaut




What killed off WHFB for everyone in my playgroup was that 8th edition changed the standard game size from 2000 to 3000 points and simultaneously lowered the point cost of most things in the game.

Skaven slaves were even measured in half points... this was absurd.
   
Made in ie
Battleship Captain





Tittliewinks22 wrote:
What killed off WHFB for everyone in my playgroup was that 8th edition changed the standard game size from 2000 to 3000 points and simultaneously lowered the point cost of most things in the game.

Skaven slaves were even measured in half points... this was absurd.


Only if you gave them shields.


 
   
Made in us
Regular Dakkanaut




One thing that needs to happen to all GW games though is complete removal of fluff from the rules section.
Take the current 9th core rulebook. How many people actually read the entire paragraph on how something works instead of the paraphrased bullet points at the bottom. I'm surprised people haven't given them backlash for not being "green" enough by writing like a college student padding their term paper to make the word limit.
   
 
Forum Index » 40K General Discussion
Go to: