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I think I may have sounded like a Gw apologist but I was just trying to see if I can understand their side. Still, I do also feel that there could be balance issues especially once you start opening up allies. Controlling combos would be harder. Tactical objectives also brought too much randomness to a game where army composition in each army is driven by different factors.

Unfortunately, it is also correct that GW can choose to do what they like because they are creating it. It disgruntled players because they have started 40k previously in a welcome edition but it has now morphed to something which was not what they liked in the first place. So probably, whatever balance we may want, would have to be player created balance, because if it is true that GW has the metaphorical hand over their ears, no amount of feedback to gwplc will change anything.

Player created balance such as limiting your own list. Or house rules. Or restrictions on known star builds (maximum reroll able invulnerable save to be 4++ etc) these seem like a good start. I know many have already been doing it, or even playing previous editions.

One of the good suggestions which actually came up during this discussion which is interesting is computer modelling. I can't even program in C for nuts, let alone attempt anything like this. These days we can use Excel for mathhammer, but perhaps in future, this may be more available to us as players to finally help to balance things somewhat. What with technology improving so rapidly


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And I'll probably pick up the rules for those other games where balance seems to have been achieved, just to see the difference. I've only been playing 40k so I probably can't see the draw of the other games.

 Swastakowey wrote:
You remind me of angry old people who try use a computer. The point was being made that the product isnt designed for people like you, and they dont have to design it for people like you. No reason to get mad because its not tournament friendly.

You are exactly like one of my bosses.

Doesnt understand why someone wont use a brick phone over a smart phone. But he likes the idea of a smart phone. Gets angry at his smart phone, blames the smart phone creators because he cant use it the way its intended. Then doesnt understand why other people would pay the smart phone companies for "garbage that wasnt made properly" and anyone who says otherwise doesnt understand and is just failing to see the big picture.

You are definitely gonna be one "of those" elderly people when you advance in your years.

You know this is one of the most mild mannered posts i have ever seen on a forum, and yet he got banned for this ( a 2 day ban, ad i know this because i know him and he told me elsewhere), and yet Peregrine was far more insulting and condescending in his post and yet wasn't banned. Dakka mods, what is up with this?

The answer is they used too. I had to sign an NDA agreement to participate.

 Runicmadhamster wrote:

 Swastakowey wrote:
You remind me of angry old people who try use a computer. The point was being made that the product isnt designed for people like you, and they dont have to design it for people like you. No reason to get mad because its not tournament friendly.

You are exactly like one of my bosses.

Doesnt understand why someone wont use a brick phone over a smart phone. But he likes the idea of a smart phone. Gets angry at his smart phone, blames the smart phone creators because he cant use it the way its intended. Then doesnt understand why other people would pay the smart phone companies for "garbage that wasnt made properly" and anyone who says otherwise doesnt understand and is just failing to see the big picture.

You are definitely gonna be one "of those" elderly people when you advance in your years.

You know this is one of the most mild mannered posts i have ever seen on a forum, and yet he got banned for this ( a 2 day ban, ad i know this because i know him and he told me elsewhere), and yet Peregrine was far more insulting and condescending in his post and yet wasn't banned. Dakka mods, what is up with this?

Site policy is not to discuss moderation of individual cases except with the people involved.

 Runicmadhamster wrote:

You know this is one of the most mild mannered posts i have ever seen on a forum, and yet he got banned for this ( a 2 day ban, ad i know this because i know him and he told me elsewhere), and yet Peregrine was far more insulting and condescending in his post and yet wasn't banned. Dakka mods, what is up with this?

Now, now, mate, let's not turn it into a crusade for justice and derail the topic from playtesting to ad hominem attacks and personal.. differences. Let's just stick to the subject that was discussed here, shall we?

So! Playtesting, huh? Such a bright idea. I think that a limited version of it could be applied, but as the simple mathhammering in the first post proved, it'd be impossible to try all the varying combos, army types and crap like that, so either check a few combinations and hope nothing else was touched by the change... which not always is the case, as you can imagine. So let's think about other options. Like.. open testing. I see two issues, not necessarily bad or good, just existing - first is the thing that GW really loves to act like a backyard magician with all their UNEXPECTED RELEASES! And little spoilers and crap like that. Obviously a new book that everyone both knows AND playtested through and.. you know what I mean. There won't be any curiosity or OOMPH! when it hits the shelves. But the other issue at hand is that... it's actually hard to listen to a community so big. There will always be few different huge crowds that'll send conflicting feedback and whenever you decide to please one group, the other will say the game is broken and gakky and that it needs to be rewritten or that they're leaving. I know that there always will be some patterns with the most OP gak being really over the top day one, and while daemon factory is a good example that -anyone- could've came up with after just seeing the rules, some things are harder to predict and they'd be perfect targets for...

...a FAQ. Yuuop, a FAQ. GW has recently launched new ones and it'd be a matter of a few minutes to edit them and add an entry that will mercilessly smother any cheesy idea in the crib. That'd take a bit of effort and listening to people on forums but yeah. They're paid to make a game after all, so it's not even going an extra mile - that's their job! BUT. Just remember that some things that people whine about actually get worked around and turn into a part of the game sooner or later(flyers or allies, anyone?), so GW can't just cut everything people cry about, because after a moment they'll turn out as actually playable.

 Klerych wrote:

 Runicmadhamster wrote:

You know this is one of the most mild mannered posts i have ever seen on a forum, and yet he got banned for this ( a 2 day ban, ad i know this because i know him and he told me elsewhere), and yet Peregrine was far more insulting and condescending in his post and yet wasn't banned. Dakka mods, what is up with this?

Now, now, mate, let's not turn it into a crusade for justice and derail the topic from playtesting to ad hominem attacks and personal.. differences. Let's just stick to the subject that was discussed here, shall we?
.

Fear not for i come not to derail your threads!!! Its gone to a PM discussion so no more off topic banter from me

 Peregrine wrote:

 Swastakowey wrote:
The point was being made that the product isnt designed for people like you, and they dont have to design it for people like you. No reason to get mad because its not tournament friendly.

Which is a terrible point, because that's not what's happening. This isn't a case of GW designing an amazing narrative game at the expense of making it less than ideal for tournament play, it's a case of GW publishing garbage and using "forge the narrative" as an excuse for why you should buy it anyway. 40k is actually a pretty bad narrative game, GW (and their white knights on the forums) have just created a marketing concept that a good casual/narrative game is entirely defined as "bad for tournaments", and turned all of their failures into "successes". It's a brilliant bit of marketing, but it doesn't change the fact that they're still publishing and selling garbage.

Doesnt understand why someone wont use a brick phone over a smart phone. But he likes the idea of a smart phone. Gets angry at his smart phone, blames the smart phone creators because he cant use it the way its intended. Then doesnt understand why other people would pay the smart phone companies for "garbage that wasnt made properly" and anyone who says otherwise doesnt understand and is just failing to see the big picture.

Except that's not a good analogy because 40k doesn't function well for ANY intended customer. The better analogy would be if your boss was complaining about the new iphone coming with a cracked screen, constant software bugs that never get patched, and no phone service without a $500 upgrade that doesn't even work half the time. And meanwhile the white knights would still defend the iphone and insist that you're TFG if you want a screen that works because all decent people use voice commands instead.

Sometimes, Peregrine just nails it better than anyone. +1


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 Runicmadhamster wrote:

 Swastakowey wrote:
You remind me of angry old people who try use a computer. The point was being made that the product isnt designed for people like you, and they dont have to design it for people like you. No reason to get mad because its not tournament friendly.

You are exactly like one of my bosses.

Doesnt understand why someone wont use a brick phone over a smart phone. But he likes the idea of a smart phone. Gets angry at his smart phone, blames the smart phone creators because he cant use it the way its intended. Then doesnt understand why other people would pay the smart phone companies for "garbage that wasnt made properly" and anyone who says otherwise doesnt understand and is just failing to see the big picture.

You are definitely gonna be one "of those" elderly people when you advance in your years.

You know this is one of the most mild mannered posts i have ever seen on a forum, and yet he got banned for this ( a 2 day ban, ad i know this because i know him and he told me elsewhere), and yet Peregrine was far more insulting and condescending in his post and yet wasn't banned. Dakka mods, what is up with this?

Meh in this situation Peregrine was well within Dakka rules, driving a point home harder and with more logic is not equivalent to being condescending, just because it makes you feel silly. Peregrine wasn't at all rude in this post I think your friend was quite demeaning and insulting. The other guy is obviously your friend though so maybe it will help ease the confusion as to how this ruling is fair if I point out that it probably looks unfair only due to your personal bias.



OT, whiteknighting GW's rules when you know they are lacking, with the reasoning that it's aimed at a different audience - why do people do this? Is it just to be a contrarian? What gain is there from it, you want the rules to remain bad competively? How does this affect your "narrative"? Is it impossible to admit that improving one could only improve the other, not make it worse?

Lets keep from talking about the ban as the MOD and other party has mentioned it's a PM discussion.

As for white knighting, I think the term may be too easily used in this case. Different parties can have views and opinions about Gw. Even though the dislike GW community is so vocal, it does not mean that everyone agrees. A person may actually like GW and like 7th Ed and we should agree to disagree on their opinion. If we discuss it and see each others point, that would be good. But to say one is supporting GW because they are trying to be contrarian for the sake of it, it might offend, if they truly believed the game to be balanced, in their view.

Ultimately, everyone is entitled to their own opinion. Just that in a forum where words may not convey the right emotions, one should be careful in phrasing.

 SHUPPET wrote:
OT, whiteknighting GW's rules when you know they are lacking, with the reasoning that it's aimed at a different audience - why do people do this? Is it just to be a contrarian? What gain is there from it, you want the rules to remain bad competively? How does this affect your "narrative"? Is it impossible to admit that improving one could only improve the other, not make it worse?

I think it happens for two reasons:

1) Reluctance to accept that something is simply broken. Some people find it hard to accept that GW are lazy and incompetent and the rules they paid $150 for are garbage, so they'll embrace any alternative explanation that lets them avoid that answer. It's not incompetence and bad design, it's just different design. If 40k is bad for tournament play, as it indisputably is, it must be because it's great for something else. You'll often see a similar thing happen with bad units, whenever most people recognize that a unit sucks there will be a small but vocal minority insisting that you're just using it wrong and there must be something good about it. They'll fight to the death to defend the idea that every unit has a purpose, and never accept that sometimes (or often!) GW just screws up and publishes a weak unit.

2) "Casual at all costs". Some people aren't interested in competitive play, don't care very much about winning, and therefore just play some casual non-tournament games with whatever they feel like using. Other people go far beyond mere lack of interest and decide that caring about winning is objectively wrong, and people who play competitively are all sociopath TFGs. They define themselves and their hobby by how much they don't care about winning, and define the perfect game as the one that is as bad as possible for competitive play. Casual/narrative play doesn't just tolerate bad rules, it requires bad rules. So every balance problem and unclear rule GW publishes magically makes the game better for casual/narrative play, simply because it makes it worse for tournament play.

Thankfully most people fall into the first category, and the second is a small (but incredibly obnoxious) minority.

The "problem" with any type of open testing is that GW is a company that values secrecy and hates publicity SO MUCH that no one even knows their products are coming out until a week or two before release. If they have this backwards attitude about information about products they sell, why would they ever let any type of open playtesting occur at all,? Let alone for the months and months that would be required to make a good ruleset?

That being said, I also think the attitude some people have of making a playtest team of exclusively "competitive" players is backwards also. While those players are good at finding and exploiting rules holes, they also will only test using the best 2 or 3 armies in the game. Which leads to another huge problem with the game in general. No amount of playtesting will ever make a game close to balance when specific factions in the game are constantly changing entirely within the system. If they are writing a ruleset in 2014, they are writing it for the armies that aleady exist in game. What happens in 2015 when new codices are vomited out? Imbalance occurs again.

I also can't believe it's 2014 and there's no rules templating in 40K. They just word abilities however they please, which leads to insane scenarios where two contradictory abilities have no resolution other than rolling a D6 or waiting for an FAQ to tell you which trumps which. The FAQ by the way will have no logic other than picking one of the abilities to win, and they will often be internally inconsistent with very similar calls they make on other things because again... no templating. It's just basic stuff like that, things that companies have been doing for years that provide huge value in a ruleset that GW just ignores entirely. The worst part is that they could probably make it an initiative to rework all their codices to use templating and spell out clearly how the rules work and interact with each other, and sell a new codex to every single player of every single army and make a lot of money. But that is work and they'd rather just continue to put out terrible rules.

The issue is - they used to playtest with peopel ouside the company. Those people then leaked the rules, etc out - even with the NDAs - to others, letting punters know the upcoming armies in advance of when they should.

For a cyclical release cycle hobby model, which is what GW have, this hurts sales (a bit like Apple controlling iPhone news as long as possible - they cannibalise existing (more profitable, usually) sales as people wait for the new shiny) of their existing line. It can also lead to, if people only leak / see a portion of the rules, wildly inaccurate discussions on the power level of the new books, etc. Can be very damaging.

So, as the community showed they couldnt be trusted*, GW turned inwards. And while they absolutely DO internal playtesting, they have a lowturnover of staff (which can be a good and bad thing - bad for this) who suffer from the same issue all low change groups suffer - not seeing the wood for the trees. Theyre too close to it.

PP et al can do a beta test, as they splash out all armies at once, meaning they dont have the same hobby cycle issues.

Now, is it GWs fault they are in htis situation? Almost certainly, yes. However they *did* try external playtesting, and it bit them - hard. So, like elephants with a long memory, theyre loathe to try it again.

They do get the occassional external - Dreadball creator being one recent example - rules guys in, but really they need to be more formalised in their testing, almost with dev, test and prod guys. Regression testing is a must

*as a whole no, on an individual or even wider group level yes - trouble is, I think we're seen as one "blob"

 Blacksails wrote:
The Heldrake example has two schools; those who wanted the nerf because its a pretty powerful unit, while those think it was too strong because the rest of the chaos book isn't that great.

Continuing with the example, if GW listened to feedback (they don't), they'd find that the solution to the Heldrake problem was to nerf it, but simultaneously buffing several other units and otherwise improving on the codex's internal balance.

Its not a simple answer, but that's the whole point of having a beta test team. Further, you don't listen to what everyone has to say. Some people are more right than others. When someone claims that X is OP, while another claims that X is UP, you weigh the arguments and test. You don't throw your hands up and claim the community is too conflicted to ever help balance anything.

Exalted. There's a difference between "listen to your community" and "mob rule".

Amen.

It's scary how I agree with everything Peregrine wrote on this thread, considering that my opinions are usually the complete opposite of his.

Currently the most successful German P&P system is being remade (The Dark Eye, English versions have also been called Tales of Arcania in the past) with lots of involvement from the community. They realized that balance is an important thing for everyone, role-players, powergamers, convention player and hack&slay players alike. It's a game all those people enjoy, otherwise they wouldn't have invested so much money and time into it. They way to improve the system is not to kick hack&slay players and powergamers into a well, but rather ensuring that everyone can have fun at the same table. Make sure the powergamer can't break the game hard enough to outshine the role-player, while he can still enjoy finding those feats which are 2% more efficient than others. Make sure that the hack&slay player can still enjoy slaughtering enemies with with their range of abilities while keeping the game system simple enough to enable shot adventures during conventions.
To achieve this hard, but not impossible task, they did something unexpected: They simply put out the entire beta rules, four adventures to play and a bunch of drafts for expert rules out to the community and are processing feedback right now.

The same has to be done for WH40k. GW needs to close the gap between competitive, casual and fluff gamers. A fluff player shouldn't be force to chose between fielding a fluffy army and winning. A competitive player shouldn't be able to create armies that reliably evaporate non-competitive armies. They desperately need a competitive viewpoint in their design team. Someone that points out that some unit is strictly worse than another. Someone that tells them that no one would ever consider a certain unit to be useful. Someone that points out that the rules don't do what the designers intended them to do. Either they employ people to do that job, or they get the community to do this, like forgeworld does.

 Jidmah wrote:
Amen.

It's scary how I agree with everything Peregrine wrote on this thread, considering that my opinions are usually the complete opposite of his.

Yeah same, I usually find he's overly cynical (after a long day of arguing on the forums I guess) to the point that it even detracts from his point of view. He has been very concise and logical in here and not over the top at all, shame he's not always like this.

nosferatu1001 wrote:
The issue is - they used to playtest with peopel ouside the company. Those people then leaked the rules, etc out - even with the NDAs - to others, letting punters know the upcoming armies in advance of when they should.

Question because I'm unaware - where those people punished according to the NDA? If there's no teeth it's a worthless agreement.

For a cyclical release cycle hobby model, which is what GW have, this hurts sales (a bit like Apple controlling iPhone news as long as possible - they cannibalise existing (more profitable, usually) sales as people wait for the new shiny) of their existing line. It can also lead to, if people only leak / see a portion of the rules, wildly inaccurate discussions on the power level of the new books, etc. Can be very damaging.

FWIW Apple doesn't hold back information on the new iPhone because of it potentially hurting sales - since they always announce new products at WWDC their sales dip around then no matter what.
They hold information back because they don't want other phone/software/pc companies to take their ideas and run with them before the public has them.

So, as the community showed they couldnt be trusted*, GW turned inwards. And while they absolutely DO internal playtesting, they have a lowturnover of staff (which can be a good and bad thing - bad for this) who suffer from the same issue all low change groups suffer - not seeing the wood for the trees. Theyre too close to it.

Even that would be fine if they'd address issues they let slip through the cracks. After releasing a codex it's okay to say "... Oops. We didn't think of that." and errata it. The goodwill gained from admitting it would far outweigh the negatives of "You let this through!?"

 Peregrine wrote:

 Swastakowey wrote:
The point was being made that the product isnt designed for people like you, and they dont have to design it for people like you. No reason to get mad because its not tournament friendly.

Which is a terrible point, because that's not what's happening. This isn't a case of GW designing an amazing narrative game at the expense of making it less than ideal for tournament play, it's a case of GW publishing garbage and using "forge the narrative" as an excuse for why you should buy it anyway. 40k is actually a pretty bad narrative game, GW (and their white knights on the forums) have just created a marketing concept that a good casual/narrative game is entirely defined as "bad for tournaments", and turned all of their failures into "successes". It's a brilliant bit of marketing, but it doesn't change the fact that they're still publishing and selling garbage.

Doesnt understand why someone wont use a brick phone over a smart phone. But he likes the idea of a smart phone. Gets angry at his smart phone, blames the smart phone creators because he cant use it the way its intended. Then doesnt understand why other people would pay the smart phone companies for "garbage that wasnt made properly" and anyone who says otherwise doesnt understand and is just failing to see the big picture.

Except that's not a good analogy because 40k doesn't function well for ANY intended customer. The better analogy would be if your boss was complaining about the new iphone coming with a cracked screen, constant software bugs that never get patched, and no phone service without a $500 upgrade that doesn't even work half the time. And meanwhile the white knights would still defend the iphone and insist that you're TFG if you want a screen that works because all decent people use voice commands instead.

To be fair to GW, the one thing that 40k does well is that it has an expansive and well filled out range for a lot of armies. That may not be relevant to having good rules, but it is relevant to having a good game and why I'm sure many people stick with 40k despite the bad rules. If all you want is an expansive universe and expansive range of miniatures to go with it, it can be the best game even with subpar rules.

nosferatu1001 wrote:
The issue is - they used to playtest with peopel ouside the company. Those people then leaked the rules, etc out - even with the NDAs - to others, letting punters know the upcoming armies in advance of when they should.

For a cyclical release cycle hobby model, which is what GW have, this hurts sales (a bit like Apple controlling iPhone news as long as possible - they cannibalise existing (more profitable, usually) sales as people wait for the new shiny) of their existing line. It can also lead to, if people only leak / see a portion of the rules, wildly inaccurate discussions on the power level of the new books, etc. Can be very damaging.

So, as the community showed they couldnt be trusted*, GW turned inwards. And while they absolutely DO internal playtesting, they have a lowturnover of staff (which can be a good and bad thing - bad for this) who suffer from the same issue all low change groups suffer - not seeing the wood for the trees. Theyre too close to it.

This is the same argument that music companies made for not wanting free music to be played on the radio or, many years later, streamed. The false belief that people will not pay for something if they can sample it for free. The reality, of course, is that it's free marketing and the product will usually sell better if people know something about it in advance. To extend your analogy, similar to the way Apple is alleged to have faked a developer leaving a prototype iPhone in a bar -- it creates hype.

I'm not disagreeing with your analysis of GW's logic, just pointing out that from a business standpoint, it's pretty much backwards thinking. From GW? Go figure.

This is also the exact same reason it would be a good idea for them to do an open beta, and the mentality that keeps that from happening.

nosferatu1001 wrote:
The issue is - they used to playtest with peopel ouside the company. Those people then leaked the rules, etc out - even with the NDAs - to others, letting punters know the upcoming armies in advance of when they should.

That's definitely a problem, but it still doesn't account for the fact GW completely ignore community feedback. Even if they released their hunk of junk rules because they don't want things leaked, it shouldn't stop them from treating the first release as a paid beta and then updating it with actual improved rules.

GW game designers seem to love their random tables so much that they treat rule design the same way. Just give the game a random shake up, make some things more balanced, some things more unbalanced, overall don't improve things.

Even if they don't have a huge pre-release playtest, which I can totally understand not wanting to do, it doesn't explain why we are in our 7th edition of 40k after 27 years and the rules are still a pile of poo.

That is because GW are not interested in perfecting the rules. Their business model is to keep ringing minor changes to avoid the effort of developing a new fluff backround and rule system.

The way they work, everyone has to buy a new set of books every few years and they can keep releasing updated or new models that fit into the existing system without major changes.

If GW finished the rules, got them as good as they could be, which certainly could have been done by now, then they would have to invent whole new games.

how is people knowing stuff in advance a bad thing , unless maybe if you make bad rules , but why would you do that.

I play warmachine for a year and I was told that when they were switching from one edition to another , they did public testing and gave rules to all people and later if something was raported as too good , they changed it.

I also don't understand when people say that w40k has bad rules , because it is casual , what ever that suppose to be considering the game always had clear win conditions.
IMO it is the opposit. If someone would be interested only in tournaments , then buying something like a eldar+ally army for 6th was awesome. At the same time someone who plays a non optimal army , be it because of his style or cash he has for an army , can either steam roll other people or get steam rolled and it doesn't depend on his skill. I have no idea why they make it possible for armies like Raven wing and sm biker lists in the same edition. There should be one biker army and not one good and one bad , but both using the same models .

I get that GW is insulated in their own little world, but they are a business and their goal is to make money. So what I don't understand is why are they actively chasing away a large percentage of their player base? They know that there are competitive and fluffy players and the spectrum in between that most players fall into. But why purposefully push away one group of people and lose all their business when they could just as easily market to both? If I was a suit in the corporate board room, I think I'd question that strategy. It's like Coke saying "We're only making diet Coke now. We're a healthy company now!" And then lose all the customers that like Coke but don't like diet Coke.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
That is because GW are not interested in perfecting the rules. Their business model is to keep ringing minor changes to avoid the effort of developing a new fluff backround and rule system.

The way they work, everyone has to buy a new set of books every few years and they can keep releasing updated or new models that fit into the existing system without major changes.

If GW finished the rules, got them as good as they could be, which certainly could have been done by now, then they would have to invent whole new games.

I don't really mind GW mixing up the rules to keep things fresh, I'd be happy enough to see them do errata or more minor releases that actually improves the game then every 4-6 years release a whole new edition that mixes things up. Really, the game hasn't changed all that much since 3rd edition, it's just been a juggling of things from one edition to the next with no meaningful change.

They could also do what they did back in the day and release other games like Necromunda, GorkaMorka, Epic 40k and so on to keep the core systems of 40k and WHFB from becoming stale.

 MWHistorian wrote:
I get that GW is insulated in their own little world, but they are a business and their goal is to make money. So what I don't understand is why are they actively chasing away a large percentage of their player base? They know that there are competitive and fluffy players and the spectrum in between that most players fall into. But why purposefully push away one group of people and lose all their business when they could just as easily market to both? If I was a suit in the corporate board room, I think I'd question that strategy. It's like Coke saying "We're only making diet Coke now. We're a healthy company now!" And then lose all the customers that like Coke but don't like diet Coke.

Two reasons, both driven by limiting their investment and running as lean as possible:

1. Rules are a cost center, or, at best, marketing material. They seek to minimize their investment in development (including playtesting) as much as possible.

2. Similarly, the optimal customers for them to target are new ones, who will purchase the most in the shortest period of time. To them, there are an infinite number of new players, and the investment of pursuing those players is lower than trying to get existing players to buy more.

It's not that they don't want you to keep buying their stuff, it's that it's not as efficient for them to try and get you to buy more as it is for them to try and get new people to buy more. So they're not going to be bothered with keeping you happy because it would cost them more than they believe it's worth.

In their eyes, they could either up their investment in rules tenfold to get you to buy 20% more models a year, or they could leverage that funding elsewhere to come out with a bunch of new giant model kits that will appeal to both existing and new players. The later, which is the one that makes them more money, is the route they choose.

 Peregrine wrote:

 SHUPPET wrote:
OT, whiteknighting GW's rules when you know they are lacking, with the reasoning that it's aimed at a different audience - why do people do this? Is it just to be a contrarian? What gain is there from it, you want the rules to remain bad competively? How does this affect your "narrative"? Is it impossible to admit that improving one could only improve the other, not make it worse?

I think it happens for two reasons:

1) Reluctance to accept that something is simply broken. Some people find it hard to accept that GW are lazy and incompetent and the rules they paid $150 for are garbage, so they'll embrace any alternative explanation that lets them avoid that answer. It's not incompetence and bad design, it's just different design. If 40k is bad for tournament play, as it indisputably is, it must be because it's great for something else. You'll often see a similar thing happen with bad units, whenever most people recognize that a unit sucks there will be a small but vocal minority insisting that you're just using it wrong and there must be something good about it. They'll fight to the death to defend the idea that every unit has a purpose, and never accept that sometimes (or often!) GW just screws up and publishes a weak unit.

2) "Casual at all costs". Some people aren't interested in competitive play, don't care very much about winning, and therefore just play some casual non-tournament games with whatever they feel like using. Other people go far beyond mere lack of interest and decide that caring about winning is objectively wrong, and people who play competitively are all sociopath TFGs. They define themselves and their hobby by how much they don't care about winning, and define the perfect game as the one that is as bad as possible for competitive play. Casual/narrative play doesn't just tolerate bad rules, it requires bad rules. So every balance problem and unclear rule GW publishes magically makes the game better for casual/narrative play, simply because it makes it worse for tournament play.

Thankfully most people fall into the first category, and the second is a small (but incredibly obnoxious) minority.

I think for some people, they see people who enjoy being competitive and because they don't relate to this as something fun in and of itself, seek explanations other than that for why people would engage in such behaviour. And they then commonly turn to the idea that it's about proving you're better than other people, propping up your own ego, all that rot. I have seen exactly that attitude turned on me in some cases from some of the less pleasant posters (which thankfully are a minority). But I believe that to be a common reason for this attitude.

But there are no infinite number of table top players. If anything the market for new young players that impulse buy is getting smaller.

I think for some people, they see people who enjoy being competitive and because they don't relate to this as something fun in and of itself, seek explanations other than that for why people would engage in such behaviour. And they then commonly turn to the idea that it's about proving you're better than other people, propping up your own ego, all that rot. I have seen exactly that attitude turned on me in some cases from some of the less pleasant posters (which thankfully are a minority). But I believe that to be a common reason for this attitude.

You know I just thought that maybe it is the same mechanism you seen in schools or work places or families. The over achiver is always branded the most. Nothing you do will get you more hate at school then saying that the thing most failed at was easy.. The person that does 150% of norm at work is the one who will have no friends. Being bad is ok , it is never your foult. Being mediocre is the goal. I have a friend who went to piano lessons with me. I did ok , but she was briliant , her mother cut the lessons for her by half , because , and am not kidding you those were her exact words , she didn't want other children to dislike her for being good at something . And then send her to tenis lessons she hates.

Brother Gyoken wrote:
That being said, I also think the attitude some people have of making a playtest team of exclusively "competitive" players is backwards also. While those players are good at finding and exploiting rules holes, they also will only test using the best 2 or 3 armies in the game.

Two things:

1) Nobody wants playtesting exclusively with competitive players. What we want is for GW to stop pretending that competitive play doesn't exist and use that resource. Obviously this should be supplemented by casual/narrative/etc players to make sure the game works well for those groups, even if they don't provide much useful balance feedback.

2) There is no issue with competitive players only testing the best units/armies because that's not how playtesting works. You don't just give someone the rules and say "have fun", there's a formal structure to it. You have models for every army, and you say "this month you're playing orks". Or you want feedback on a specific new unit, so every single game your playtesters play has that unit in it somewhere. And even if you do see that your competitive playtesters are favoring certain units/armies when they have a choice of what to use (and remember, you're documenting all of those choices) that is incredibly useful feedback, as it tells you that you need to look carefully at the power level of those units/armies and make sure that they aren't being over-used because they're too good.

nosferatu1001 wrote:
For a cyclical release cycle hobby model, which is what GW have, this hurts sales (a bit like Apple controlling iPhone news as long as possible - they cannibalise existing (more profitable, usually) sales as people wait for the new shiny) of their existing line. It can also lead to, if people only leak / see a portion of the rules, wildly inaccurate discussions on the power level of the new books, etc. Can be very damaging.

This only happens if, like GW, you publish garbage at vastly inflated prices and depend on impulse buys from people who might not buy a new product if they have time to think about it. If you publish a quality product that people are going to want to matter how much time they have to think about it then leaks aren't as much of a problem, and probably just help build excitement for the new release.

 MWHistorian wrote:
So what I don't understand is why are they actively chasing away a large percentage of their player base?

Because, in GW's opinion, it isn't a large percentage of their player base. They think that their target market is two groups:

1) Dedicated Hobbyists™ who love Buying™ Citadel™ Miniatures, and don't really care about the rules.

2) New customers, especially kids, who are recruited through a Games™ Workshop™ Hobby™ Center™ and buy lots of intro products. Since most of them won't ever make it to the point of playing a game the rules don't really matter, as long as there's the idea of playing a game with their new toys to get them to buy stuff.

So why put effort into developing better rules when your target market doesn't care about them? Just throw something together as quickly as possible and start bringing in sales.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
Even if they released their hunk of junk rules because they don't want things leaked, it shouldn't stop them from treating the first release as a paid beta and then updating it with actual improved rules.

3rd and 6th Editions were essentially payed Betas, they just didn't call them that.

nosferatu1001 wrote:
The issue is - they used to playtest with peopel ouside the company. Those people then leaked the rules, etc out - even with the NDAs - to others, letting punters know the upcoming armies in advance of when they should.

But why is foreknowledge bad? One way or the other you're going to give the rules to the players- the only debate here is the state and quality you give them out in. If you go 'Here's some playtest rules' and get back 'this is broken/poorly worded/unclear' you can shrug and go 'well it is a beta...' then fix them. No one is going to be upset over glitchy playtests and betas. The same is not true of final product.

Can you imagine the confidence you'd have in 40k if it'd had an open beta playtest? To say nothing of how many issues may have been caught?

nosferatu1001 wrote:
Now, is it GWs fault they are in htis situation? Almost certainly, yes. However they *did* try external playtesting, and it bit them - hard. So, like elephants with a long memory, theyre loathe to try it again.

How exactly did it bite them? I mean what was the damage?

 MWHistorian wrote:
I get that GW is insulated in their own little world, but they are a business and their goal is to make money. So what I don't understand is why are they actively chasing away a large percentage of their player base? They know that there are competitive and fluffy players and the spectrum in between that most players fall into. But why purposefully push away one group of people and lose all their business when they could just as easily market to both? If I was a suit in the corporate board room, I think I'd question that strategy. It's like Coke saying "We're only making diet Coke now. We're a healthy company now!" And then lose all the customers that like Coke but don't like diet Coke.

The obvious answer is that GW's management think they have got the better strategy that way.

Time will tell.

 Kojiro wrote:
But why is foreknowledge bad?

Because GW is obsessed with impulse buys. They want your first knowledge of a new product to be when you see it on the shelf at your local GW store, preferably with a "limited edition, buy now!!!!" sign on it, so that you'll have the obvious "wow that is awesome" reaction and then buy it immediately. They're afraid that if you have time to think about it and more information about the new product you'll realize that you don't really want it after all. From that perspective playtesting leaks are terrifying, they give out information far in advance of release day, and they're an obviously unfinished product that might make the new release look bad and make it even less likely that you'll buy it.

Now, obviously this demonstrates a very low level of confidence in their own products, which suggests that GW's management know they're publishing garbage that doesn't deserve confidence. Companies with better products don't worry about this as much, since they know that learning more about a new product will only add to your desire to buy it, and impulse buys are a lot less important. In fact, they'll "leak" information in their own previews to build interest in a new release. And since their customers know the final product will be awesome it's not a big deal if unfinished rules leak, because everyone knows they're unfinished and the problems will be fixed in the final product.