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 Testify wrote:
See my above post, which was ignored in all the *hilarity* ensueing a joke about dolphins.

There are a lot of people on dakka who insist that 40k's rules are a pile of crap. Seems weird that 40k is so popular really

Racing is one of the least successful football clubs in recent history in my area, immensely popular thou, popularity is not directly related to quality.

xxvaderxx wrote:

 Testify wrote:
See my above post, which was ignored in all the *hilarity* ensueing a joke about dolphins.

There are a lot of people on dakka who insist that 40k's rules are a pile of crap. Seems weird that 40k is so popular really

Racing is one of the least successful football clubs in recent history in my area, immensely popular thou, popularity is not directly related to quality.

Or alternatively, you've just revealed your arrogance in equating your personal subjective taste with objectivity.

Bravo.

They just don't have the management or game design talent to handle their own product. It's as simple as that. Management isn't willing to risk turning people away from the hobby by making major changes to the rule set, and the game designers aren't talented enough to build a consistent and balanced rule set that accomodates the old codecies that are still in use.

Nate668 wrote:
They just don't have the management or game design talent to handle their own product. It's as simple as that. Management isn't willing to risk turning people away from the hobby by making major changes to the rule set, and the game designers aren't talented enough to build a consistent and balanced rule set that accomodates the old codecies that are still in use.

So the game designers are too incompetant to build a completely new rules system, while making nothing obsolete? Your standards are far too high.

 Testify wrote:

xxvaderxx wrote:

 Testify wrote:
See my above post, which was ignored in all the *hilarity* ensueing a joke about dolphins.

There are a lot of people on dakka who insist that 40k's rules are a pile of crap. Seems weird that 40k is so popular really

Racing is one of the least successful football clubs in recent history in my area, immensely popular thou, popularity is not directly related to quality.

Or alternatively, you've just revealed your arrogance in equating your personal subjective taste with objectivity.

Bravo.

Sure dude, what ever floats your boat...

 Testify wrote:

Nate668 wrote:
They just don't have the management or game design talent to handle their own product. It's as simple as that. Management isn't willing to risk turning people away from the hobby by making major changes to the rule set, and the game designers aren't talented enough to build a consistent and balanced rule set that accomodates the old codecies that are still in use.

So the game designers are too incompetant to build a completely new rules system, while making nothing obsolete? Your standards are far too high.

Apparently not for Privateer press, but what ever, lets not mention the big elephant in the room.

Nate668 wrote:
They just don't have the management or game design talent to handle their own product. It's as simple as that. Management isn't willing to risk turning people away from the hobby by making major changes to the rule set, and the game designers aren't talented enough to build a consistent and balanced rule set that accomodates the old codecies that are still in use.

I don't think it's possible, to put it bluntly. It's easy to armchair design, but with as many variables as 40k has with codices that span multiple editions from multiple designers from different eras? I hate to pull this card, but I'd like to see you do it.

Should they have let it get to this point in the first place? That's debatable. But working with what they have now, it's not a question of talent.

 Vaktathi wrote:

rigeld2 wrote:

 Trondheim wrote:
because they are a model firm first, gaming firm second

People keep saying that when it's been demonstrated that they make rules that don't have any existing models - and wait literally years before making those models.
If models came first, that would not be the case.

They come right out and say that's exactly what they are in their report to shareholders. A model company. The fact that they don't immediately have models but have rules wasn't an issue as it was for future expansion, until others started filling the gaps and threatening their copyright.

Yes, they absolutely say they're a model company. That's a meaningless statement. If Nike made the statement to their shareholders that they were a video game company, it would be similarly meaningless.

They certainly don't push models over the game.

 Testify wrote:

Nate668 wrote:
They just don't have the management or game design talent to handle their own product. It's as simple as that. Management isn't willing to risk turning people away from the hobby by making major changes to the rule set, and the game designers aren't talented enough to build a consistent and balanced rule set that accomodates the old codecies that are still in use.

So the game designers are too incompetant to build a completely new rules system, while making nothing obsolete? Your standards are far too high.

No, I'm saying their bosses won't let them throw the old stuff out, and they're not good enough to make the old stuff work.

But their incompetence goes beyond that, because they're also completely unable to make a consistent rule set.

xxvaderxx wrote:

Apparently not for Privateer press, but what ever, lets not mention the big elephant in the room.

Probably because it's incredible obscure? I don't think I've ever met anyone in the UK who's heard of it.

However feel free to *back up your point* by comparing and contrasting it to 40k.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Nate668 wrote:

No, I'm saying their bosses won't let them throw the old stuff out, and they're not good enough to make the old stuff work.

But their incompetence goes beyond that, because they're also completely unable to make a consistent rule set.

So you want them to make stuff obsolete? Just so we're clear, you're knocking GW for not invalidating millions of pounds of peoples' models? And you think this makes them a bad company?

Pfft, if everyone went back to 2nd Ed then the world be a nicer place......

Nate668 wrote:

 Testify wrote:

Nate668 wrote:
They just don't have the management or game design talent to handle their own product. It's as simple as that. Management isn't willing to risk turning people away from the hobby by making major changes to the rule set, and the game designers aren't talented enough to build a consistent and balanced rule set that accomodates the old codecies that are still in use.

So the game designers are too incompetant to build a completely new rules system, while making nothing obsolete? Your standards are far too high.

No, I'm saying their bosses won't let them throw the old stuff out, and they're not good enough to make the old stuff work.

But their incompetence goes beyond that, because they're also completely unable to make a consistent rule set.

What would you do to do it 'competently'?

Its funny they want to sell the "we are a miniature company" pr BS and will not adopt a digital "FAQing" model to reset the units point costs, when necessary. For a miniature company they sure put selling the game first.

Evertras wrote:

Nate668 wrote:

 Testify wrote:

Nate668 wrote:
They just don't have the management or game design talent to handle their own product. It's as simple as that. Management isn't willing to risk turning people away from the hobby by making major changes to the rule set, and the game designers aren't talented enough to build a consistent and balanced rule set that accomodates the old codecies that are still in use.

So the game designers are too incompetant to build a completely new rules system, while making nothing obsolete? Your standards are far too high.

No, I'm saying their bosses won't let them throw the old stuff out, and they're not good enough to make the old stuff work.

But their incompetence goes beyond that, because they're also completely unable to make a consistent rule set.

What would you do to do it 'competently'?

At a minimum, use words consistently. Remove From Play vs Remove From Play As A Casualty. Or define them if you're going to use them.
Don't ignore things for multiple editions that are literally just sloppy writing (Seriously - 6th edition vehicles still can't make invul saves) (Also - FNP vs other "unsaved wound" abilities).
Read through YMDC and the long threads - a few extra minutes spent on the rule set would've avoided 99% of them.

rigeld2 wrote:
At a minimum, use words consistently. Remove From Play vs Remove From Play As A Casualty. Or define them if you're going to use them.

Totally agree on this. There's a line when things get too 'legalese', but clarity and consistency should be used.

Don't ignore things for multiple editions that are literally just sloppy writing (Seriously - 6th edition vehicles still can't make invul saves) (Also - FNP vs other "unsaved wound" abilities).
Read through YMDC and the long threads - a few extra minutes spent on the rule set would've avoided 99% of them.

This is a little fuzzier. Hindsight is always 20/20.

Evertras wrote:

Nate668 wrote:

 Testify wrote:

Nate668 wrote:
They just don't have the management or game design talent to handle their own product. It's as simple as that. Management isn't willing to risk turning people away from the hobby by making major changes to the rule set, and the game designers aren't talented enough to build a consistent and balanced rule set that accomodates the old codecies that are still in use.

So the game designers are too incompetant to build a completely new rules system, while making nothing obsolete? Your standards are far too high.

No, I'm saying their bosses won't let them throw the old stuff out, and they're not good enough to make the old stuff work.

But their incompetence goes beyond that, because they're also completely unable to make a consistent rule set.

What would you do to do it 'competently'?

I would love they FAQed codexes to adjust point costs when necessary. If costed appropriately the age of the codex is not really relevant.

xxvaderxx wrote:
I would love they FAQed codexes to adjust point costs when necessary. If costed appropriately the age of the codex is not really relevant.

There's a nice simplicity to being able to look at your book and go "Ok, that's what this is." And leave it at that. The potential problem with too much FAQ tweaking is you're adding more complexity. With a PC game patch, everyone's automatically brought up to the current version. With FAQs floating everywhere, things get muddier.

That being said, I do agree in general. It's just easy to make things worse if they're not careful.

Evertras wrote:

Don't ignore things for multiple editions that are literally just sloppy writing (Seriously - 6th edition vehicles still can't make invul saves) (Also - FNP vs other "unsaved wound" abilities).
Read through YMDC and the long threads - a few extra minutes spent on the rule set would've avoided 99% of them.

This is a little fuzzier. Hindsight is always 20/20.

Hindsight? Sure, in 5th *maybe* I could see it - but that's what Errata and FAQs are for. Note that they never addressed either of those things throughout the course of 5th edition nor in the 6th edition book nor in the 6th edition FAQs.

The Night Scythe - it should take all of one playtest game to see how its interaction with the rule is messed up. And by playtest I mean - don't "assume" you know the rules, literally use the book for every step of the game. You're not out to "have a good time" or "win a game" you're out to find holes in the rules.

Gonna stop quoting because it's getting lengthy and I have two people to respond to.

Testify, don't put words in my mouth. I'm not suggesting that they obsolete all of the models, just all of the current rules.

If I were in charge of the game design team, I would tell them to throw out all of the current codecies and rulebooks and start over. Try to keep the original "feel" of the game as much as possible, but build it from the ground up.

And how would I do it competently? Use consistent wording and definitions when describing rules. It's not too much to ask, and it makes a huge difference in keeping a rule set tight and unambiguous.

This is what Privateer Press (they make Warmachine and Hordes) has done, and they are making huge gains in the tabletop gains market since doing so, because while they alienated some of their original players by completely changing the rule set and making all of the old books invalid at first, they now have an excellently balanced and consistent rule set, and that attracts gamers.

And if you haven't heard of Warmachine and Hordes, I suspect you will soon. My FLGS from college switched over from mostly 40k players to mostly Warmahordes players while I was there, and my current FLGS is quickly moving in the same direction.

xxvaderxx wrote:
1- Balance issues all over the place. Done on porpoise to boost sales mostly i know.
2- Rules that don't add up or have consistency issues.
3- Obvious lack of important rules like what actually are "small" and "large" terrain pieces.
4- Painful rules to apply while gaming like removing guys from the front when it applies to a 20+ piled in unit.

Well 1 I can give you to some degree on the "the better a new codex is, the more likely someone will buy the new army minis" front, but in general balance issues are more a primary symptom of the fact that I don't believe that GW's writers have any clue as to how to balance anything. The simplest thing in the world should be to base the costs of units and options in specific chapter marine codex books off of the vanilla marines book, but they can't even do something as simple as that. So instead we end up with Long Fangs, cheaper weapon options, ability to split fire and other abilities all for less than a devastator model would cost. That is just stupid and very poorly done. Simple situation: Take the baseline vanilla codex when writing the next chapter specific book. If the unit is BETTER than the equivilant in the vanilla book then it costs more. If it is worse then it costs less. All weapons should cost the same across the board as well. So a heavy weapon marine pays the same for his heavy weapon whether he is a space puppy, dark angel or imperial fist. Again, they can't even do that, which would be incredibly simple to do if they just tried. After they had that in place they could extrapolate those costs for individual models and unit options across to other armies and generally get the per model cost based on model stats and unit options relatively consistent across the board. Again, since they can't even do it with space marine chapter codecies this is impossible for them.

2) It irks me after all these years and rules versions that GW still has no clue how to make tighter rules and actually IMPROVE their rules instead of just changing them apparently on a whim. Edition X has too much power in the hands of shooting units, so in X+1 instead of balancing more towards shooting and melee being on par they usually go the complete opposite direction and make melee king. Then in X+2, they swing back to shooting after all the player complaints. Thus every edition people's armies have to change. How annoying, but it does sell more minis. Meanwhile if they balanced it more no specific army build would dominate from a given codex and more options would see time on the table top in my opinion.

3) I don't necessarily consider small and large terrain designations to be important rules, but I do agree that somethings just are not included at times or even spelled out clearly enough to make even the slightest sense. My fav was the marking of Nobz, Wolfguard and Paladins as characters in the update lists in the back of the new rule book leading many to believe that meant they now had full units of characters who could all issue challanges and the like. Only the space wolf FAQ specifically mentioned a ruling that made this seem unlikely, but since GW is not consistent across its books of course no one accept that as to likely apply to the other units. Eventually it came out in the main rulebook FAQ that they were only characters when leading a unit. So the leader of a Nobz squad was a character, but the rest of them weren't.

4) In any game there is some abstraction that is necessary to simulate a fight. Personally I think it makes sense that when your models are being killed from a certain direction then the models on that side of the unit should be taking casulaties. It isn't the fault of the rules if you play a horde force and need to move more things forward. I disliked that you could easily target an opponent's special weapon and heavy weapon models, though I also disliked the change to targeting that pretty much meant those models *always* survived until the very end as well.

People will use the reasoning that other game companies' rulesets are not perfect as an excuse for how GW does things. Other ruleset writers actually *fix* their rules issues eventually, though and that is an area where GW has long failed. The only game I feel that they succeeded with is Bloodbowl, which has been updated through the years, but its basic concepts have remained the same and been refined through the years. The game play is effective, consistent and also fun. Meanwhile each new edition of 40k and WFB plays slightly differently from the last, is inconsistent within itself and while fun can be darn frustrating and annoying at the same time. I find I play less 40k these days simply due to the fact that I have much more fun fighting agaisnt my opponent than fighting against the rules first to get to my opponent. I'll always play 40k, but I would be happier about it if GW would make a real effort to make their rules better.

Skriker

My experience with 6th so far has been fair.
I think the main rules overall are fine but the problem and over a lot of problems come from out of date codex’s where there are many components don’t even work (command control node lol) I think there would be a lot less complaints if they would at least write all the codex’s at the same time per new edition and actually balance them together. They won’t do it because they are a “model firm” first and instead we get a bunch of individual authors that have wildly different concepts of balance. This is all an opinion though I has no clue how they write internally.

Nate668 wrote:
They just don't have the management or game design talent to handle their own product. It's as simple as that. Management isn't willing to risk turning people away from the hobby by making major changes to the rule set, and the game designers aren't talented enough to build a consistent and balanced rule set that accomodates the old codecies that are still in use.

Well this would really be tough given the lack of consistency in the codex books themselves too. It will be hard to make a ruleset today that would put the old tau codex on par with the current Grey knights codex. The books are just written so radically different from each other in power level it would be hard. Honestly if the codex books were made more consistent with each other it would make the overall rules issues less painful because you wouldn't be fighting inconsistent rules and codex power creep at the same time.

Either way it has to start somewhere. The shift from 1st edition of Flames of War to 2nd editon Flames of war was a bit dramatic, but necessary to establish some new standards for the game. This meant that the shift from 2nd to 3rd edition was less dramatic and actually significantly improved those areas of the rules that were not as robust and that bothered players a lot. Just the fact that Battlefront focused a lot of its fixed for 3rd edition in those areas their customers had been having issues with regularly also bespeaks to a company that is paying attention to the wants and needs of its player base and not just walking around with the "we are the best game company out there and know better than everyone" approach that GW uses at times.

Skriker

 Desubot wrote:
My experience with 6th so far has been fair.
I think the main rules overall are fine but the problem and over a lot of problems come from out of date codex’s where there are many components don’t even work (command control node lol) I think there would be a lot less complaints if they would at least write all the codex’s at the same time per new edition and actually balance them together. They won’t do it because they are a “model firm” first and instead we get a bunch of individual authors that have wildly different concepts of balance. This is all an opinion though I has no clue how they write internally.

I agree that i dont think/know if doing all codex at once is viable. How ever what they could very well do, is errata the point cost of the units, so you dont get Witches that are T3 armor 5 cost 10 points a pop will likelly die in the now even more fragile vehicles and will have to withstand a round of rapidfire before getting into combat.

Here's a huge shocker; GW doesn't give a flying rat's fart about writing a 'competitive tournament' style rules set like Privateer Press does.

GW themselves have said for years and years that their games are ment to be 'beer and preztals games between friends'.
They tried to make a comprehensive competitive rules set in 4th, and it sucked hard core. Remember how the game turned into nothing but 'Nidzilla or SW's or Flying Circus Eldar with a smattering of 3.5 CSM's? Because that was really fun.

If you want a super ballsbusting hardcore competitive rules set, then go play Warmahordes and be happy. The majority of 40k players aren't tourny players, but somehow, the vocal minority insist that their way is the right way and GW are dumb@$$es for thinking otherwise...

Experiment 626 wrote:
Here's a huge shocker; GW doesn't give a flying rat's fart about writing a 'competitive tournament' style rules set like Privateer Press does.

GW themselves have said for years and years that their games are ment to be 'beer and preztals games between friends'.
They tried to make a comprehensive competitive rules set in 4th, and it sucked hard core. Remember how the game turned into nothing but 'Nidzilla or SW's or Flying Circus Eldar with a smattering of 3.5 CSM's? Because that was really fun.

If you want a super ballsbusting hardcore competitive rules set, then go play Warmahordes and be happy. The majority of 40k players aren't tourny players, but somehow, the vocal minority insist that their way is the right way and GW are dumb@$$es for thinking otherwise...

You can have a tight rules set and not give a flying fart about tournaments. No one brought up tournaments before you really...
It's not about wanting tight rules for competitiveness. It's about not wanting arguments about something that should be easy to read and figure out.

Having a tight rules set leads to the potential for a competitive environment, but (obviously) it's not required.
Solid reliable consistent rules help everyone. Loose rules piss people off (both competitive and not).

Experiment 626 wrote:

They tried to make a comprehensive competitive rules set in 4th, and it sucked hard core. Remember how the game turned into nothing but 'Nidzilla or SW's or Flying Circus Eldar with a smattering of 3.5 CSM's? Because that was really fun.

4th was my favorite edition so far.

Solid reliable consistent rules help everyone. Loose rules piss people off (both competitive and not).

This, pretty much. I'm not planning on ever doing a tourney, but I'd like things to be as clearly stated as possible. I can still have a beer and pretzel game just as well without the "Wait, what?" moments.

Experiment 626 wrote:
Here's a huge shocker; GW doesn't give a flying rat's fart about writing a 'competitive tournament' style rules set like Privateer Press does.

GW themselves have said for years and years that their games are ment to be 'beer and preztals games between friends'.
They tried to make a comprehensive competitive rules set in 4th, and it sucked hard core. Remember how the game turned into nothing but 'Nidzilla or SW's or Flying Circus Eldar with a smattering of 3.5 CSM's? Because that was really fun.

If you want a super ballsbusting hardcore competitive rules set, then go play Warmahordes and be happy. The majority of 40k players aren't tourny players, but somehow, the vocal minority insist that their way is the right way and GW are dumb@$$es for thinking otherwise...

Super Ballbusting Competitive and Consistent are not the same thing, nor are they mutually exclusive. All I'm asking for is a rule set that is well defined and consistent, so that it's possible to get through a game without a rules dispute. If somebody has a question about a rule, you should be able to look it up and say "here, this is what the book says," but with 40k, it's "here, this is what the book says," followed by 10 minutes of discussion about what it actually means, or a random roll-off to decide who's right.

Experiment 626 wrote:
Here's a huge shocker; GW doesn't give a flying rat's fart about writing a 'competitive tournament' style rules set like Privateer Press does.

GW themselves have said for years and years that their games are ment to be 'beer and preztals games between friends'.
They tried to make a comprehensive competitive rules set in 4th, and it sucked hard core. Remember how the game turned into nothing but 'Nidzilla or SW's or Flying Circus Eldar with a smattering of 3.5 CSM's? Because that was really fun.

If you want a super ballsbusting hardcore competitive rules set, then go play Warmahordes and be happy. The majority of 40k players aren't tourny players, but somehow, the vocal minority insist that their way is the right way and GW are dumb@$$es for thinking otherwise...

This is like selling a 3 wheel car because you know, it is not supposed to be a "racing" car...

 sarpedons-right-hand wrote:
Pfft, if everyone went back to 2nd Ed then the world be a nicer place......

Bite.

Your.

Tongue.

(Flashback to the half hour 'blind grenade phase' that started every turn)

xxvaderxx wrote:
1- Balance issues all over the place. Done on porpoise to boost sales mostly i know.
2- Rules that don't add up or have consistency issues.
3- Obvious lack of important rules like what actually are "small" and "large" terrain pieces.
4- Painful rules to apply while gaming like removing guys from the front when it applies to a 20+ piled in unit.

Alright. Well don't play the game then.

But, I must answer your points...
1. A corporation trying to make money?!?!!!!? The Mayans were right, the world is ending.
2. Because humans are, ya know, perfect beings that create perfect products.
3. Er, where in the rules does this matter? It doesn't say "Place X large and Y small terrain pieces on the battlefield" or anything. You just place terrain based on what looks cool and is relatively fair for both players.
4. So common sense is painful. Hrm. No wonder it's such a rare trait (myself included at times).