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So, for the first time in a long time, I find myself agreeing with The Long war Podcast. I'd suggest, before you comment here, you wastch this video first:




However, I want to know what everyone else is thinking. Did points go up on units nobody buys but points on units selling well stayed the same or went down? This is, from what I gathered, the people on this podcast are really suggesting.

Personal opinions: as an Ork player I can't help but agree. Boyz went up because GW can comfortably adjust them without sales being affected. Really, boyz should have gone up 1pt while elite units like burnas, lootas, heavy wepaons, etc... should have had a sizable pts drop or rules change. Yet, this did not happen. However, as many people argued when the codex dropped, other units in other factions were predicted to also be going up. I remember being told to "shut up and wait for CA" where I would be proven "wrong" and everyone's troops will have gone up to balance out why Orks didn't get expected and suggested drops. We now know that hasn't happened and cultists (a unit already nerfed several times through rules changes) were the only troop to have now gone up which has had no change at all for chaos players lists. All while lists that have won, I would estimate from my own experience, over 50% of tournaments, both locally (in my viewing from going out to town when I need paints, 100% of games I watched with soup just smashed opponents) and internationally, have gotten cheaper.

I think it's just that since GW writes books months out instead of moving to digital, they are responding to meta events from 8 months ago. So technically, Chapter Approved is already out of date as GW is responding to the ITC meta, but the ITC meta of the past. And that's not even getting into the fact that ITC is essentially playing a different game with their custom missions that GW aren't taking into account at all (reasonably so).

It's not so much that it's a marketing move, it's that they wrote it with information that's now out of date.

Well there is probably a correlation between under selling units and under powered units. People are less likely to spend money if a unit is over pointed. So figuring out motivation becomes difficult.

Wayniac wrote:


It's not so much that it's a marketing move, it's that they wrote it with information that's now out of date.

This is it.
Untill GW gets with the times and puts things in a easily updated digital form the game will suffer, and other orginizations will continue to make up their own house rules that dont really go along with how GW has made the game.

I am sure most players would be willing to pay some kind of monthly fee to have a digital rules app that is regularly updated.

I also find it highly implausible that it takes 8 months to make CA. Is there only 2 people at GW working on this?

The game is constantly play testing itself with GT's and Majors every couple of weeks, it is not hard to see what is broken or op, and needs a little tweek.

If things were in digital document everyone had they could release updates every few weeks, it doesnt need months of play testing to determine how many points something should drop, you see something is weak or op and you adjust the points just a little, wait for a couple of tournaments to pass and see how it effected things and then adjust again. Do this incrementally untill things are were they should be.

Short answer:

No.

Nastavious wrote:

Wayniac wrote:


It's not so much that it's a marketing move, it's that they wrote it with information that's now out of date.

This is it.
Untill GW gets with the times and puts things in a easily updated digital form the game will suffer, and other orginizations will continue to make up their own house rules that dont really go along with how GW has made the game.

I am sure most players would be willing to pay some kind of monthly fee to have a digital rules app that is regularly updated.

I also find it highly implausible that it takes 8 months to make CA. Is there only 2 people at GW working on this?

The game is constantly play testing itself with GT's and Majors every couple of weeks, it is not hard to see what is broken or op, and needs a little tweek.

If things were in digital document everyone had they could release updates every few weeks, it doesnt need months of play testing to determine how many points something should drop, you see something is weak or op and you adjust the points just a little, wait for a couple of tournaments to pass and see how it effected things and then adjust again. Do this incrementally untill things are were they should be.

I also think they should take something good that Privateer Press did with their CID; put out beta test rules from time to time and encourage people to test and give feedback. They've done this a little bit with the FAQs but I think they need to be more frequent. For instance they might put out a beta updated datasheet for a unit or two (or even an army) and take like 2-3 months or so to get feedback from it, and then adjust it again later based on that.

Why not both?

Yes chapter approved was just a marketing hoax. Regular Marines are the obvoious offenders. Collectors allready have loads of them.
Cries for some semblence of balance with points reduction or rules has been heard since day one of 8th. Such balance would not sell miniatures and therefore primaris was given a point drop instead.

It's barely about the game enjoyment at all. They are just trying to steer players into buying the new kits.

 Trickstick wrote:
Well there is probably a correlation between under selling units and under powered units. People are less likely to spend money if a unit is over pointed. So figuring out motivation becomes difficult.

My impression of CA is that it was mostly about internal balance within codexes, not between them. I think it will result in more different units seeing play, which is nice, but it won't do much else.

Wayniac wrote:
I think it's just that since GW writes books months out instead of moving to digital, they are responding to meta events from 8 months ago. So technically, Chapter Approved is already out of date as GW is responding to the ITC meta, but the ITC meta of the past. And that's not even getting into the fact that ITC is essentially playing a different game with their custom missions that GW aren't taking into account at all (reasonably so).

It's not so much that it's a marketing move, it's that they wrote it with information that's now out of date.

Matters aren't helped either with the fact that custom missions, custom requirements for # of Detachments, etc all exist.

Look at Drukhari for example. They get a benefit for fielding multiple Patrols...which let's be frank here, can't be done in tournament formats.

It would require the belief that GW has a desire to make Warhammer in to a competitive game series like WarmaHordes or Magic: the Gathering.

At best, I think they want it to be a sufficiently competitive game so it doesn't languish in certain markets unlike AoS' launch did.

At worst, I think that any "balance" addressing is more about how to get people to buy the crack that sits on shelves.

Either way, the timing of how they produce these things indicates a poor process over all, as Wayniac said.

Whether GW does or not, Reece and the ITC seem determined to make it that come hell or high water.

I forget which part of the episode they discussed it "i watched on twitch" but they talked about how irresponsible it was to release CA and vigils in the middle of the Christmas season because people are waiting for point changes before they buy and I have to say I 100% agreed. They really should release a change like this about a week or 2 before Black Friday.

As for increasing or decreasing units that nobody is buying to "sell models" i agree and disagree. Yes if they get cheaper they will get better and more likely you will sell more but at the same time units that never get taken don't get taken because they are typically overcosted so they should get a points decrease.

The answer is yes, but for a reason that is not what these guys (or many people on the forum) love to insinuate.

GW Either does not modify units' rules to push sales, or does so so incompetently that the net effect is essentially negligible. New units that get released are actually ridiculously OP at such incredibly low rates that it almost perfectly mirrors the chance of a unit being OP from an older kit with a rules change (i.e., roughly 5-10% of units overall)

Look at a few recent major releases.

Nurgle Daemon Release
Slippity Slipslopper, Gnarlmaw: OP
Great unclean one, named great unclean one, other characters: Bad.

Primaris Marine Release: All bad.

Custode Release: Jetbikes OP, everything else bad.

Ork buggy release: Deffkilla/skrapjet half decent, everything else bad. Squigbuggy offensively terrible.

Their average is so incredibly inconsistent that people have to look back to EARLY SEVENTH EDITION to point a finger to one release of TWO kits where everything released was super OP.

Now, with that gak debunked, is this a marketing decision? You better freaking believe it is. People have a completely different idea of how games should be released and balanced in the E-sports video game era, people want balance to be constantly shuffled back and forth. The best way to get that little endorphin high of "a new thing is good!" is by buffing, rather than nerfing, and not buffing a TON. that's exactly what GW is doing in CA, the paid supplement. historically in 8th ed, buffs are in CA (paid), nerfs are in FAQs (Free).

They maybe get better, if the unit was not so bad to begin with or the army can carry a weaker model.

GK changes are a bit odd, they are to best GK units and this means free points. Only those free points don't really have a good spending target. Can't take more draigos or NDKGMs, because both rule of 3, and the drops aren't that big to begin with.

Now expectations are another thing. Am not sure about other GK players, but I thought that after the last CA, that GW is really planning to fix the army. Right now, with the leaks for next year releases, it looks that GK will maybe get updated in 2020 or 2021. And am not even sure they plan codex so far in advance.

I do agree with CA being some sort of seson pass. And I can even imagine that for people with good armies, the changes bring more options, specially for non tournament games. For everyone else, am not sure it is worth the money. Playing with a cheaper draigo and cheaper NDK is not really going to improve my army, and am not buying any more GK till GW fixs them. Worse thing that could happen for me, is me getting money from somewhere, spending it on more GK, the expiriance still being bad and then GW doing something like removing the army or turning it in to primaris.

Of course it marketing the dev team are hopelessly out of their depth when trying to make a balanced game.

Updating twice a year does not a living edition make, not when your pushing out codex after codex so fast.

Other companies have gone digital and provide official ways to build your army there's no excuse for the biggest company to lag behind so badly.

Robin literally just confirmed that IK wasn't in the wild when they started working on CA.

The conspiracy stuff is really obnoxious.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

hobojebus wrote:
, not when your pushing out codex after codex so fast.

And we have...two left now? Last year was pretty exceptional in terms of releases.

Just a little something: There was no way Ork points costs were going to change in CA, the codex was way too recent for that.

the_scotsman wrote:
The answer is yes, but for a reason that is not what these guys (or many people on the forum) love to insinuate.

GW Either does not modify units' rules to push sales, or does so so incompetently that the net effect is essentially negligible. New units that get released are actually ridiculously OP at such incredibly low rates that it almost perfectly mirrors the chance of a unit being OP from an older kit with a rules change (i.e., roughly 5-10% of units overall)

Look at a few recent major releases.

Nurgle Daemon Release
Slippity Slipslopper, Gnarlmaw: OP
Great unclean one, named great unclean one, other characters: Bad.

Primaris Marine Release: All bad.

Custode Release: Jetbikes OP, everything else bad.

Ork buggy release: Deffkilla/skrapjet half decent, everything else bad. Squigbuggy offensively terrible.

Their average is so incredibly inconsistent that people have to look back to EARLY SEVENTH EDITION to point a finger to one release of TWO kits where everything released was super OP.

Now, with that gak debunked, is this a marketing decision? You better freaking believe it is. People have a completely different idea of how games should be released and balanced in the E-sports video game era, people want balance to be constantly shuffled back and forth. The best way to get that little endorphin high of "a new thing is good!" is by buffing, rather than nerfing, and not buffing a TON. that's exactly what GW is doing in CA, the paid supplement. historically in 8th ed, buffs are in CA (paid), nerfs are in FAQs (Free).

I have to agree that GW doesn't intentionally make OP rules for new releases but more so that their ability to figure out balance without vocal feedback from the player base is quite abysmal. If you want to see what blatant "rules to boost sales" looks like then just flip back to the Necron codex of 7th and the codex/supplement releases followed. There efforts to stimulate sales with blatant power creep (it sure as heck worked for those Necron sales) was slowly killing the game and 8th is the (unfortunate) byproduct of GW trying to fix the mess they themselves created. I think GW is aware of the risk/reward of OP releases but as long as the sales figures look good by acting like balance matters and not resorting to blatant power creep then they won't go down the selling power route too heavily (paying money for CA to get points decreases does signal that selling power is marketable). If numbers stagnate or drop then I would expect to see some of those more extreme changes to keep the numbers looking good for investors.

I do think that the way the community seems to buy basically anything GW puts out is sending them the message that putting out gak with their brand slapped on it will sell well enough to justify its production.

Daedalus;
But I think he means it will always be that way.
As before CA 2019 comes out, we will have had two new remaining codexes, then new versions of how many? 4-6?

Chapter Approved 2018 was a massive disappointment because it doesn't address huge problems:

Marines still suck
Chaos Marines still suck, but are flatly superior to loyalists.

Guard are still OP
Knights are still OP
Ynnari is still OP

Tyranids were big winners really, and that's about it. Maybe Necrons, but i doubt it.

I don't think GW is nearly subtle enough to introduce the changes they have done the Chapter Approved in the interest of selling certain model kits. If that was their goal, I think they would have been far more blatant about it. I just don't see them having a light touch about that kind of thing. More of a Hanlon's Razor thing.

Honestly, I think GW just doesn't want to see Chaos Cultists being the default only troop choice used in CMS armies. Which I agree with as a CMS that doesn't like to use cultists often. At the same time, the design confines of regular space marine units (Chaos and Loyalists both) limits marines effectiveness to the point that they don't really compete nearly as well as cultists even after the point increase in many cases.

Now, that could be in the interest of selling Primaris kits. I don't know. It still seems like GW would have made Primaris better than they are. I still get the impression the designers I trying to make a balanced game, just struggling to do so with some elements likely because they have some sort of framework (read: marines can't be less than XX points, must not have traditional stat changes, CA shouldn't really change stats/special abilities often, etc.) they want to maintain.

I less inclined to give GW the benefit of the doubt that CA wasn't a marketing move. I don't really appreciate the idea of paying money for what is in reality a game patch. You want to buy the book, fine that cost money. But the CA changes to should be available for no cost in an electronic format.

I think CWE were the big winners in CA.

Our most OP gak got tuned down (not enough, but some).

Our terrible units got buffed a ton (not enough to change our best lists, but now they're usable).

None of the stuff that was good is unuseable. Much of the stuff that wasn't good is better.

 Marmatag wrote:
Chapter Approved 2018 was a massive disappointment because it doesn't address huge problems:

Marines still suck
Chaos Marines still suck, but are flatly superior to loyalists.

Guard are still OP
Knights are still OP
Ynnari is still OP

Tyranids were big winners really, and that's about it. Maybe Necrons, but i doubt it.

Tau, IMO. Several new suits being viable really helps their ability to deal with diverse threats.

I think it'll remain to be seen if ALL marine equivalents suck. The more elite marines (Deathwatch, vanilla vets, thousand sons, plague marines) seem like they got pretty substantial boosts.

While we don't know for sure the effect that Chapter Approved will have on meta armies and army balance as a whole, when you consider the 8 month hiatus that they can't respond to, I could see CA having more of a marketing impact than a balance impact.

 Vankraken wrote:


I have to agree that GW doesn't intentionally make OP rules for new releases but more so that their ability to figure out balance without vocal feedback from the player base is quite abysmal. If you want to see what blatant "rules to boost sales" looks like then just flip back to the Necron codex of 7th and the codex/supplement releases followed. There efforts to stimulate sales with blatant power creep (it sure as heck worked for those Necron sales) was slowly killing the game and 8th is the (unfortunate) byproduct of GW trying to fix the mess they themselves created. I think GW is aware of the risk/reward of OP releases but as long as the sales figures look good by acting like balance matters and not resorting to blatant power creep then they won't go down the selling power route too heavily (paying money for CA to get points decreases does signal that selling power is marketable). If numbers stagnate or drop then I would expect to see some of those more extreme changes to keep the numbers looking good for investors.

I do think that the way the community seems to buy basically anything GW puts out is sending them the message that putting out gak with their brand slapped on it will sell well enough to justify its production.

Lets say they did have a reverse creep in mind when they started 8th ed. It would have been ok, if they kept the style. But somehow they have IG or eldar and GK in the same game. I don't think they are fixing anything, the book seem too random in power level. The gaps in power are so big, that something crazy like designers writing armies they like with better rules as better, seems possible. And that would be crazy considering this a huge company.

I think it'll remain to be seen if ALL marine equivalents suck. The more elite marines (Deathwatch, vanilla vets, thousand sons, plague marines) seem like they got pretty substantial boosts.

What did the plagu marines or 1ksons get? Serious question, I only seen the leak, and it didn't look as if anything got cheaper.

Everything GW does is, at least in part, a marketing move.

This is not nefarious. They are a business. They exist to make money.

So they don't want to sell GK kits? They want all GK players to buy a new army? If they do, then why don't they say it, that they are slowly phasing out the army or don't plan to support it, and don't do those stunts where GK are mentioned as fixed, along side a SoB codex and all the narrative/open stuff.

Danny76 wrote:
Daedalus;
But I think he means it will always be that way.
As before CA 2019 comes out, we will have had two new remaining codexes, then new versions of how many? 4-6?

What reason would they have to update any current books? The only purpose would be a big model splash for Primaris and that's it.

 Daedalus81 wrote:
Robin literally just confirmed that IK wasn't in the wild when they started working on CA.

The conspiracy stuff is really obnoxious.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

hobojebus wrote:
, not when your pushing out codex after codex so fast.

And we have...two left now? Last year was pretty exceptional in terms of releases.

This is no excuse! They should have delayed CA until they had a clear idea of how everything interacts. Right now it feels like they're trying to patch a game version that came out 7 or 10 updates ago while the current updates are bringing lots of bugs with them.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Pandabeer wrote:
Just a little something: There was no way Ork points costs were going to change in CA, the codex was way too recent for that.

Nobody here said they were... we were hoping that the codex would take into account CA as they were probably wrote at the same time but obviously they didn't has PK and now more expensive than PF and so are several more weapons of the same profile. We know GW wants them to be the same price as they have changed them to be the same twice now.