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.

So I've come to realise that the generic problem with 40k seems to be people take the game too seriously.
Just looking at the rules discussions I can't help but think are we really such rules lawyers that we can't just enjoy the game?

For example can a blast template hit models above and below a sky shield at the same time.
I for one don't care what the rules implicitly say, let's just throw a little common sense into the game and get over it.
I think a lot of people who post on here deliberately try and bend the rules when they're not 100% exact to every possible suggestion.
And then they moan about GW writing bad rules because they go out of their way to break or exploit rules that haven't been considered.

Maybe just me but I'm happy to agree with my opponent on usual issues if they occur.

Sorry for the rant.

Yes, it's totally the fault of the players that GW write unclear or poorly thought out rules. We should all have a long hard look at ourselves.

Boniface wrote:
So I've come to realise that the generic problem with 40k seems to be people take the game too seriously.

The problem with 40k (as I have said before and will say again) is that 40k players are playing an entirely different game than the people in the design studio. You can interpret that as 'taking things too seriously' or as the design studio 'taking things too lightly' or however you want.

In a lot of ways though, they just don't get the problems that occur.

Add into that a profit motive and you have a recipe for disaster.

You have to understand something, regardless of the stance most people take in YMDC, they generally play a much more relaxed mode (outside of tournaments of course).

For example, rigeld and I both take the stance that vehicles do not get saves against Grav weapons. I play that you do, he plays they can take invulnerable saves but not cover saves.

I'm actually very laid back. I've played against 20-boy mobs with Trukks, I've played against Chaos Daemon allies with 4 heralds. I've had a games where I cheered as I (somehow) failed a Strength check on a S6 MC causing it to get sucked into a Monolith.

40K is a beer and peanuts game. Its not to be taken competitively. That includes the player base needing to stop crying cheese because they didnt bring a strong list. Let the people bring whatever they want as allowed by the rules amd their codex...

Am I the only one who enjoys playing 40k these days?
And both casually and competitively too!

There are rules that are not clarified like the OP stated with the skyshield and then there are ones like releasing a "Codex" that auto loses on turn 1 if it does not take allies or knights moving through cover and which side armor gets hit from barrage when the shield is on one side or the other. Some rare things you expect to pop up and work out with your opponent some are not rare at all and should of been caught play testing even a couple games.

I don't pretend the rules are perfect but you're basically emphasising my point exactly.

Also I would like to apologise for creating this thread, I did so in a moment of frustration.

This was aimed at insanik's sarcasm.

I'll say again what I've said before: 40k is exactly what you make it. If you take it seriously, the issues with balance, unclear rules and general conflict within the rules will become apparent. If,on the other hand, you take the rules as a framework to have a more structured game of Toy Soldiers than moving minis and shouting 'BANG!', then it works fine.

It's only when people try to break the game, either by exploiting every strong units at the expense of creativity and every rule at the expense of logic that 40k becomes a mess.

 pretre wrote:

Boniface wrote:
So I've come to realise that the generic problem with 40k seems to be people take the game too seriously.

The problem with 40k (as I have said before and will say again) is that 40k players are playing an entirely different game than the people in the design studio. You can interpret that as 'taking things too seriously' or as the design studio 'taking things too lightly' or however you want.

In a lot of ways though, they just don't get the problems that occur.

Add into that a profit motive and you have a recipe for disaster.

This is a really good summary of the problem, thanks pretre!

And as insaniak said, I feel like it is worth GW considering the complaints it gets. While not everyone fits any particular attitude towards GW/40k, leaving a portion of the customer base frustrated when IMO it would be easy enough to satisfy everyone at once (aka more research & development in the rules) does not seem the best plan for long-term growth.

40k isn't the only hobby where you can say there are people taking things too seriously. That applies to pretty much everything ever.

Casual 40k is still fine and lots of fun, you just need to play RAI and not RAW.

Competitive 40k is an utter joke right now and borderline unplayable.

40k is a super complicated game that gives players a huge amount of freedom to do a massive amount of stuff. The idea of comprehensive play testing in a game of this scope is absurd. Really, every possible combination of every rule is going to be tested? You could have a hundred play testers spend a year at it, and it would just scratch the surface.

With freedom comes responsibility. If you don't want to have to be responsible, play a game that gives you a lot less freedom. There's no rules lawyering in Chess, Yahtzee or Candyland.

Nor, of course, does there strictly need to be in 40k either. Responsible adults trying to have a good time can set up their own limits, and work things out themselves.

 Sigvatr wrote:
Casual 40k is still fine and lots of fun, you just need to play RAI and not RAW

As long as you and your opponent agree on the 'I' then agreed!


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Ailaros wrote:
40k is a super complicated game that gives players a huge amount of freedom to do a massive amount of stuff. The idea of comprehensive play testing in a game of this scope is absurd. Really, every possible combination of every rule is going to be tested? You could have a hundred play testers spend a year at it, and it would just scratch the surface.

No, that's why champions use FAQs, errata, community feedback and communication to catch the things that slip through the play testing.

Also it doesn't make sense to say that a game of this scope can't be playtested. If they were doing even moderate amounts of play testing they should have realized that ramping the game of the scale they are just isn't feasible. When it was the armies and allies play testing is feasible. Adding in formations, data slates, escalation, stronghold assault, and so on would be easily play tested had they paced the releases instead of dropping it all down at once. You can't just absolve GW of the responsibility of producing a quality luxury product that they claim to make because they have purposely exceeded their ability for quality control.

It's a convoluted mess and I don't think there's any way to really work around it. This is a game where I can bring anywhere between 2-9+ books for a single army. No "beer and pretzel" game should ever have a situation involving 9 books and if you insist on calling it that, then I'll have to question what you consider a beer and pretzel game.

 Ailaros wrote:
40k is a super complicated game that gives players a huge amount of freedom to do a massive amount of stuff. The idea of comprehensive play testing in a game of this scope is absurd. Really, every possible combination of every rule is going to be tested? You could have a hundred play testers spend a year at it, and it would just scratch the surface.

You don't have to play test very long at all to figure out that riptides are insanely undercosted, 2+ reroll invuln saves are ridiculous, and ignore cover shots all over the place removes any sense of immersion when you're removing handfuls of models that were hiding behind a wall with just their toes sticking out.
A single play tester could catch some of this junk inside of 10 games.

azreal13 wrote:No, that's why champions use FAQs, errata, community feedback and communication to catch the things that slip through the play testing.

Right, because all of the greatest games are ones that are designed by committee by their fan base. Dakka has shown enough people screaming cheese and coutercheese that relying on the community of players to have input into the game is nonsense. It's why, in reality, very few games that have a serious player base even listen at all, apart from a few technical glitches here and there (like how GW puts out FAQs for things they know are typos).

Game balance isn't something that's going to be successfully accomplished with crowdsourcing. Meanwhile, not everything that someone considers a glitch is, in fact, a glitch.

Gw could also release erratas changing rules after release based on things being too good/bad. Sure 100 testers might not find a problem but 10,000 players will.

40K is at it's best when played between two really good friends. Being on the same page about what you intend to get from a game of 40K is probably the most important thing that can possibly be done to make a game run smoothly.

Rules problems are bound to pop up, but when you both can step back and agree that "Yuck, that doesn't work very well and isn't fun" and come up with a good alternative, the game is going to be a really fun one for both players.

I personally think the rules issues are the largest with 6th edition, but everything i have said can be applied to every edition back to Rogue Trader. Hell, it's how everything was always SUPPOSED to be resolved, and in Rogue Trader was pretty much laid down exactly so in writing.

But when two nerds get competitive, everything changes.

Dalymiddleboro wrote:40K is a beer and peanuts game. Its not to be taken competitively. That includes the player base needing to stop crying cheese because they didnt bring a strong list. Let the people bring whatever they want as allowed by the rules amd their codex...

The problem is that there are units that are so bad that they're not worth taking at all.

As an example, I present the Howling Banshee. Fluff-wise, one of the more numerous Aspect temples. Historically, one of the iconic Eldar units. Ruined and unplayable due to inept game design.

Why is this a problem? Well, it's two-fold. First, I suppose we should make the assumption that most people do not like to lose over and over again. And, most people don't like wasting money, and many people fall into the 'fool me once, shame on me, fool me twice, shame on you' mentality.

Well, a competitive player can look at a unit like Howling Banshees, and take the five-ten seconds it takes to realize that a unit of t3 models that only deal damage in close-combat, that have no way to get into close combat without spending at least one shooting phase in the open (and then overwatch) isn't actually going to accomplish anything. And so the competitive player doesn't give them any more thought. To the competitive player, they're GWs problem; GW made a crappy unit, and GW will need to come up with warehouse space for them because they're not going to sell.

It's the casual player who suffers. Because the casual player reads the eldar codex, and sees that Howling Banshees are supposed to be awesome. And then the casual player buys them, and paints them, and goes to play games with them, only to see this unit get blown off the table over and over. Except, it doesn't just happen with Howling Banshees, it happens with a lot of units that aren't very good. And it's not just those units that get removed en-masse, it's the casual player's interest in the game. Because the casual player, even playing casually, will run into players who read the internet, and know that "good players" use wave serpents and wraithknights instead of Howling Banshees. And the casual player will eventually grow sick of losing, and turn to his friends, or a forum, and ask, what can I do to win, my Howling Banshees keep dying.

At which point the internet will point and laugh and tell him to put them on the shelf and that he should spend a few hundred more dollars on buying wraithknights and wave serpents instead. Because that's what the internet does.

Some people are bone-headed and stubborn enough to actually go and buy those wraithknights and wave serpents, just to win their casual game. But most aren't. Most then quit the game, even casually, and go and play something else where the models that they like the look of can actually be played with some reasonable expectation of performance.

That's the problem with 40k. It's that the rule design flaws have gotten to the point where you can make an army that, fluff-wise should do well, and that will stand no chance against even a mediocre army from a better codex. And, when the player seeks out the answer to why this is, they'll be told that they chose the wrong army, and that they bought the wrong units. The problem with 40k is that we've accepted the idea that "wrong units" are acceptable in a codex.

Boniface wrote:
So I've come to realise that the generic problem with 40k seems to be people take the game too seriously.
Just looking at the rules discussions I can't help but think are we really such rules lawyers that we can't just enjoy the game?

Who are you to decide that people take it 'too seriously'?

Bloody hell, it costs enough time, effort and money that one could argue not taking it seriously is a colossal waste of people's said time, effort and money.

I presume you are also quite willing to tell these people 'how' to enjoy 'their' game, how your way of enjoying things is more right, and morally superior, and theirs is wrong... Get off it bud.

It the hobby means a lot to someone, they have every right to be that serious about it. It's true, whether relating to 40k, racing, fishing etc. folks get serious about all these things...

Personally, give the the choice between my gaming club on a Wednesday, and boxing, I'll go with boxing

 Ailaros wrote:

azreal13 wrote:No, that's why champions use FAQs, errata, community feedback and communication to catch the things that slip through the play testing.

Right, because all of the greatest games are ones that are designed by committee by their fan base. Dakka has shown enough people screaming cheese and coutercheese that relying on the community of players to have input into the game is nonsense. It's why, in reality, very few games that have a serious player base even listen at all, apart from a few technical glitches here and there (like how GW puts out FAQs for things they know are typos).

Game balance isn't something that's going to be successfully accomplished with crowdsourcing. Meanwhile, not everything that someone considers a glitch is, in fact, a glitch.

So are you saying although GW charge a premium for their rules, the convoluted rules are too complicated to playtest? I think software coding is complicated as well, does that mean I shouldn't get complaints if there are bugs on my software?

sorry for the rant.... but I do think GW can spent more time on the rules and do better, like previous poster stated, releasing a codex that auto lose on its own is an easy catch. I'm still bitter about my DA codex where there are so many spelling mistakes and omissions (all my named HQ were missing boltguns) and I paid good money for it.

The problem is, GW plays games based on what kind of army they want to play, not what math-hammers into being a good list. The GW playtest group will, with a straight face, field Howling Banshees against MSU of Chaos Marines and think that it's a grand game.

They don't look at the codices and say "Ok, if I wanted to roflstomp someone, how would I do this with this book?".

They don't look at 2 codices and say, "What are the absolute best tools I can synthesize between these two books to create a truly unstoppable monstrosity?"

As mentioned in the thread, the way they playtest is not the way that people who are even slightly serious about the game play the game.

If someone disagree with me, I shoot them. With my fist.

Okay seriously though, everyone I play with plays by the rules, and if an issue comes up then we handle it like adults. By slapping models off the table and throwing dice across the room. Hey did you know that it really, really hurts when someone throws a large blast template like a shuriken at your head? If not, well it really, really hurts.

One time a guy I knew flipped the table mid game in a rage, but nobody thought that was cool because it was a nice table.

Actually what I'm meaning to say is: Oh...this thread again. Every single person I play with can more often than not figure out a good compromise when a discrepancy with the rules comes up. We roll off, we flip a coin ect. I see more rage about this game in these forums than I do anywhere else in person. Except for Matt Ward. I think everybody really does hate Matt Ward...

 Ailaros wrote:


Game balance isn't something that's going to be successfully accomplished with crowdsourcing. Meanwhile, not everything that someone considers a glitch is, in fact, a glitch.

I disagree. The best example is the ETC. Competitive players, in a collaborative effort that took years to bloom, came up with a WHFB ruleset that is vastly superior to the one GW offers and widely accepted. Successful to such a degree that pretty much every bigger WHFB tournament, even smaller, local ones, have adapted to these or similar rules.

It was a 100% community-driven effort that ultimatively improved the game as a whole for everyone.

wufai wrote:
I think software coding is complicated as well, does that mean I shouldn't get complaints if there are bugs on my software?

NASA is interested in hiring you if you can code otherwise.

The problem is that GW constantly changes the rules for long-standing units. There have been editions where Howling Banshees were pretty good.

GW keeps flying all over the place with army balance and how units fit with the rules.

 Sigvatr wrote:

I disagree. The best example is the ETC. Competitive players, in a collaborative effort that took years to bloom, came up with a WHFB ruleset that is vastly superior to the one GW offers and widely accepted. Successful to such a degree that pretty much every bigger WHFB tournament, even smaller, local ones, have adapted to these or similar rules.

It was a 100% community-driven effort that ultimatively improved the game as a whole for everyone.

Not me, I hadn't even heard of this until you mentioned it.

That's the biggest failing fan-rulings will never overcome.

There was some discussion on this in another thread. Ultimately, I say the same thing I always do:

I've watched or played in multiple games each week for the 6 years I have been a club leader. I have never once encountered these fabled unanswerable questions that break the game so utterly, as people are always describing.

I think people who think the game is unplayably broken because the rules don't go to laborious length to specify things they assume you are intelligent enough to know, are among the top issues with the game, personally.

I'll give you an example:

Player A: "You can only move in a straight line!"
Player B: "You can bend the tape and move however you want!"
Me: "What does the book say?"
Player A: "It says you move 6 inches!"
Me: "Is bending the tape 'moving 6 inches'?"
Player A: "..."

Common sense goes a long way.

 Ailaros wrote:

azreal13 wrote:No, that's why champions use FAQs, errata, community feedback and communication to catch the things that slip through the play testing.

Right, because all of the greatest games are ones that are designed by committee by their fan base. Dakka has shown enough people screaming cheese and coutercheese that relying on the community of players to have input into the game is nonsense. It's why, in reality, very few games that have a serious player base even listen at all, apart from a few technical glitches here and there (like how GW puts out FAQs for things they know are typos).

Game balance isn't something that's going to be successfully accomplished with crowdsourcing. Meanwhile, not everything that someone considers a glitch is, in fact, a glitch.

Kindly point out where I said anything about committee design?

No, the communication structures should be there to allow the designers to get feedback - the responsibility of identifying whether things are in fact a problem or simply a poor loser venting should still remain with the design team (which has been credited as the author of the last few books I believe? Almost the definition of design by committee I'd have thought.)

Then those things which do appear to be a genuine oversight, error or something that slipped through play testing can be acted upon.

Could you throw out a couple of examples of "games with a serious player base" who "don't listen at all" so I can be sure not to start playing them? Thanks.