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I'd say just link the thread(s) where this is being discussed and let those dogs go there.

The real issue behind that, save the poor writing on GW's part initially, is not having a singular point of discussion which could be readily addressed by a 40k rules author. If that existed, then the amount of rules disputes on the table and on the internet would greatly diminish.

 Gunzhard wrote:
Well I don't want to beat a dead horse, but I really can't understand this one. Your master level says how many powers you HAVE not how many you can cast. That said, a single psyker cannot cast the same power twice, so the number of powers he has (which is dependent on his mastery level) - is also the number of powers he can cast per turn.

It really couldn't be more clear...

I would recommend checking out the threads discussing it, then, because it's not as clear as you seem to think.

But a psyker by himself is still a psyker unit.

A psyker unit is a unit with the psyker rule. An IC psyker joined to a non-psyker unit is the only model in the unit with the rule. Is that sufficient for the unit to count as a psyker unit? We don't have any way to tell. Likewise, an IC Psyker joined to a psyker unit - they count as a single unit. So when it comes time to count mastery levels, or cast powers, they would be counted as a single psyker unit.

Again, I would recommend checking out the discussion threads for more detail on this, because this thread isn't really the place to have those arguments again.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 TheKbob wrote:
The real issue behind that, save the poor writing on GW's part initially, is not having a singular point of discussion which could be readily addressed by a 40k rules author. If that existed, then the amount of rules disputes on the table and on the internet would greatly diminish.

One thing I loved about the WotC Star Wars Miniatures game was WotC's habit of recruiting rules experts to help out on their forums. People were vetted for their knowledge of the rules, and specific people authorised to give more-or-less official answers to rules questions on the forums. Any recurring questions, or anything too thorny for the volunteer guru to answer himself were passed on to the design team to be included in the next round of FAQs.

GW had the opportunity to do something similar back when they had their own forums. Instead, they had a Games Development forum where the designers would pop in every couple of weeks to answer a couple of random questions and then vanish into the mist again.

And then they closed the forums down when people started getting progressively more strident in the belief that they weren't being listened to...

 insaniak wrote:


And then they closed the forums down when people started getting progressively more strident in the belief that they weren't being listened to...

And from the miasma, the fan forums crawled forth.... I think a lot of perceived negativity, including my own at times, would be completely gone if they at least put effort forth on par with their competitors before trying to charge what they do. And that's why GW "can't win" right now. Less for more.

 PhillyT wrote:
They will never please everyone one nor should they try. Most fans are illiterate in terms of the business side or biased in terms of the gaming side towards what they think the game should be.

This is another one of those glaring over simplifications.

Listening to your community does not mean you have to implement every single change suggested by the community. Listening to the community doesn't mean you try and make everyone 100% happy and take on board all the ignorant comments alongside the valid ones. A few random points:

1. Things like balance issues can be massively improved if you start listening to the community to see what units and options might be broken and have a closer look at them.

2. Rules that are massively unclear can be tightened up and clarified.

3. The overall direction of the rules may be harder to deal with as opinions will vary more widely. But even there listening to the community opens you up to ideas and potential flaws that can push your rules set to something a larger set of people are happy with. It will help you move to a rules set that creates less division in the community.

I feel like you are hitting on point 3 with your "you can't please everyone" mindset, but GW can't even get past points 1 and 2 to reach point 3.

Back when GW had forums, they would have gone a long way to employ someone to accumulate common questions, present them to the dev team and spend a day from time to time just sorting them out and offering feedback instead of just going "wow, too many people are unhappy, we best close all communications so we can't hear anything negative, because negative comments are terrible in how they help you grow and improve, we don't want to do anything crazy like that!".

People love to complain and whine. No matter what

 44Ronin wrote:
People love to complain and whine. No matter what

People love to be reductive of another's viewpoint when it doesn't suit their own. No matter what.

 insaniak wrote:

 Gunzhard wrote:
Well I don't want to beat a dead horse, but I really can't understand this one. Your master level says how many powers you HAVE not how many you can cast. That said, a single psyker cannot cast the same power twice, so the number of powers he has (which is dependent on his mastery level) - is also the number of powers he can cast per turn.

It really couldn't be more clear...

I would recommend checking out the threads discussing it, then, because it's not as clear as you seem to think.

But a psyker by himself is still a psyker unit.

A psyker unit is a unit with the psyker rule. An IC psyker joined to a non-psyker unit is the only model in the unit with the rule. Is that sufficient for the unit to count as a psyker unit? We don't have any way to tell. Likewise, an IC Psyker joined to a psyker unit - they count as a single unit. So when it comes time to count mastery levels, or cast powers, they would be counted as a single psyker unit.

Again, I would recommend checking out the discussion threads for more detail on this, because this thread isn't really the place to have those arguments again.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 TheKbob wrote:
The real issue behind that, save the poor writing on GW's part initially, is not having a singular point of discussion which could be readily addressed by a 40k rules author. If that existed, then the amount of rules disputes on the table and on the internet would greatly diminish.

One thing I loved about the WotC Star Wars Miniatures game was WotC's habit of recruiting rules experts to help out on their forums. People were vetted for their knowledge of the rules, and specific people authorised to give more-or-less official answers to rules questions on the forums. Any recurring questions, or anything too thorny for the volunteer guru to answer himself were passed on to the design team to be included in the next round of FAQs.

GW had the opportunity to do something similar back when they had their own forums. Instead, they had a Games Development forum where the designers would pop in every couple of weeks to answer a couple of random questions and then vanish into the mist again.

And then they closed the forums down when people started getting progressively more strident in the belief that they weren't being listened to...

Hah so ignore what to me is the obvious and certainly the most reasonable interpretation, that also works just fine; and instead bang my head against the wall... for what?

The "psychic phase doesn't function", I guess if you don't want it to.

The old GW forums closed because they were filled to the brim with (mostly ridiculous) negativity; they had become a running joke by then. Insaniak I see now why you use your mod power to police people pointing out negativity - but not the actual negativity which literally exists here in HEAPS.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 PhillyT wrote:
They will never please everyone one nor should they try. Most fans are illiterate in terms of the business side or biased in terms of the gaming side towards what they think the game should be.

This is another one of those glaring over simplifications.

Listening to your community does not mean you have to implement every single change suggested by the community. Listening to the community doesn't mean you try and make everyone 100% happy and take on board all the ignorant comments alongside the valid ones. A few random points:

1. Things like balance issues can be massively improved if you start listening to the community to see what units and options might be broken and have a closer look at them.

2. Rules that are massively unclear can be tightened up and clarified.

3. The overall direction of the rules may be harder to deal with as opinions will vary more widely. But even there listening to the community opens you up to ideas and potential flaws that can push your rules set to something a larger set of people are happy with. It will help you move to a rules set that creates less division in the community.

I feel like you are hitting on point 3 with your "you can't please everyone" mindset, but GW can't even get past points 1 and 2 to reach point 3.

Looking at other competitive games, though not wargaming games, the mindsets still apply. People howled for balanced in SCII, WoW PvP, MtG, Dota 2, LoL on a weekly basis. Players see something that is considered "op" and the community comes together to howl about what is "op". companies then put in patches with nerfs to whatever was perceived to be "op". A few days later, people notice that by "balancing" one thing, they broke another and made something else "op". It got so bad in some games that they flat out stopped listening to the player bases complaints about certain things being "op". Case in point, LoL, probably the most played E-sports game right now, Riot consistently nerfs things they believe to be OP because they have data to support their conclusions, the players though feel otherwise, hence the running joke, X Champion is op, better nerf Irelia.

SCII had and has horrible issues with balance and with all the nerfs/buffs to everything, entire units have been made absolete and never see competitive play anymore.

WoW, for years Rogues were considered op, but in reality it was players not knowing how to deal with vanish and backstab, they nerfed this, Rogues completely fell off the competitive scene.

When you listen to the opinions of the players when it comes to balance issues, what you really see are people who think something is overpowered because they haven't found a way to deal with it or because they want things to be more "balanced" a term that nobody has ever been able to really define or apply to a competitive game.

These are video game examples I realize, but the issues of balance is the same in all

 TheKbob wrote:

 44Ronin wrote:
People love to complain and whine. No matter what

People love to be reductive of another's viewpoint when it doesn't suit their own. No matter what.

YOu're being the opposite of reductive

I was simply agreeing with OP, no need to expand.

 Gunzhard wrote:


Hah so ignore what to me is the obvious and certainly the most reasonable interpretation, that also works just fine; and instead bang my head against the wall... for what?

Quoted, emphasis my own.

You see, in better written games, there is little to no "to me" interpretations like there is in Warhammer 40k. And if there is, it's usually addressable in some official means or fashion. So again, if you want to disagree with the general discussion, go to YMDC and enlighten the folks with your winning logic.

 Gunzhard wrote:


The old GW forums closed because they were filled to the brim with (mostly ridiculous) negativity; they had become a running joke by then. Insaniak I see now why you use your mod power to police people pointing out negativity - but not the actual negativity which literally exists here in HEAPS.

This made me laugh. Forums across the internet have closed down because of so much negativity, it's become a more common thing actually. I can see why GW closed their forums, unhappy people just venting their frustrations all day, I'd close the forums too honestly.

People expect too much from a company who cares more for their bottom line than a percentage of unhappy players.

 44Ronin wrote:

YOu're being the opposite of reductive

I was simply agreeing with OP, no need to expand.

I'm using logic and reason to provide facts and thought processes to define my stance on a subject and have even gone as far to provide how GW could "win". So, how am I being reductive in any stance of someone else or their argument unlike yourself?

Interesting.

 TheKbob wrote:

 Gunzhard wrote:


Hah so ignore what to me is the obvious and certainly the most reasonable interpretation, that also works just fine; and instead bang my head against the wall... for what?

Quoted, emphasis my own.

You see, in better written games, there is little to no "to me" interpretations like there is in Warhammer 40k. And if there is, it's usually addressable in some official means or fashion. So again, if you want to disagree with the general discussion, go to YMDC and enlighten the folks with your winning logic.

I only say, 'to me' because it's clear there are lots of entirely unreasonable people making entirely unreasonable trouble about nothing for no good reason. Fortunately they are just mystery strangers on the internet 'to me' and I don't have to play games with them.

Something I thought of in regards to the OP's thread title:

"Sometimes, I feel GW can't win."

I thought about this for a bit and came to a conclusion:

Why should they "win"?

And winning implies that someone else doesn't win, and who would that be in this context? Us?

At the end of the day, GW is a business and needs to make money, and to do that they have to create a product that we want to buy and is worth buying. By implying that GW should some how "win", isn't that a bit like saying they should get a free pass sometimes no matter what they do?

If they're writing bad rules (which they do) and further increasing the barrier to entry (which they have) and are litigious bullies (which they are), then at what point does "winning" become something that any of us should either allow or even celebrate?

I operate under a credit where credit's due policy, which mostly applies to their miniatures (because their rules sure don't deserve credit - FW aside, that is - their rules are often silly, but at least they seem to give a damn about internal consistency). At what point would I give GW a "win" when they continue to release extremely bad products? I'll sure as hell give 'em credit for a great new set of miniatures (I love pretty much the entire new Ork release - the Flash Gitz are amazing!), but making good models in no way entitles them to a free pass on all the other bull gak they pull.

 TheKbob wrote:

 Gunzhard wrote:


Hah so ignore what to me is the obvious and certainly the most reasonable interpretation, that also works just fine; and instead bang my head against the wall... for what?

Quoted, emphasis my own.

You see, in better written games, there is little to no "to me" interpretations like there is in Warhammer 40k. And if there is, it's usually addressable in some official means or fashion. So again, if you want to disagree with the general discussion, go to YMDC and enlighten the folks with your winning logic.

You have failed to realize that 40k has allowed "to me" situations to exist, its right there when you start reading the rule book. Players can freely interpret and change things to fit how they play the game and GW is okay with this.

Why exactly is this a problem? If you and an opponent agree to change things, what's the big deal? If you and an opponent decide to read what is literally written and don't try and interpret anything, what is wrong with this?

The answers to all those questions is nothing, there is nothing wrong with it. It's one of the more encouraging rule sets I have seen in some games. Other games I will admit have things set in stone and that is fine for them, but the amount of lore and history the entire universe this game has, leaves no room for a rigid ruleset.

 Gunzhard wrote:


I only say, 'to me' because it's clear there are lots of entirely unreasonable people making entirely unreasonable trouble about nothing for no good reason. Fortunately they are just mystery strangers on the internet 'to me' and I don't have to play games with them.

Are they unreasonable for any other reason than they disagree with you and have an equally valid and lexical interpretation of the rules? Or do you have solid logic and/or evidence on how the rules are to be specifically interpreted?

I'm going to go off a hunch here and say it's the former. If it's the latter, than I'm both wrong and we get to finally lay to rest those matters in question; therefore a win-win. So please, your move. See you in YMDC.

 Gunzhard wrote:
I only say, 'to me' because it's clear there are lots of entirely unreasonable people making entirely unreasonable trouble about nothing for no good reason. Fortunately they are just mystery strangers on the internet 'to me' and I don't have to play games with them.

Does an insane person always know he's insane?

To put it another way, you're calling them unreasonable people. From their perspective you could be the unreasonable one.

Or to simply restate what TheKBob said: If the rules weren't junk we almost wouldn't have this problem. A clear, concise and consistent set of rules would minimise this issue significantly.

 Lobomalo wrote:


You have failed to realize that 40k has allowed "to me" situations to exist, its right there when you start reading the rule book. Players can freely interpret and change things to fit how they play the game and GW is okay with this.

Why exactly is this a problem? If you and an opponent agree to change things, what's the big deal? If you and an opponent decide to read what is literally written and don't try and interpret anything, what is wrong with this?

The answers to all those questions is nothing, there is nothing wrong with it. It's one of the more encouraging rule sets I have seen in some games. Other games I will admit have things set in stone and that is fine for them, but the amount of lore and history the entire universe this game has, leaves no room for a rigid ruleset.

So I'm going to bring Fateweaver and we will now roll off for every rule in the game (using Fateweavers reroll in my favor) until they are so slanted in my favor that I win.

It's in the rules, so I'm playing by them.

(Taking your logic to it's illogical conclusion, by the way. Before you think I'm serious and reply)

 TheKbob wrote:

 44Ronin wrote:

YOu're being the opposite of reductive

I was simply agreeing with OP, no need to expand.

I'm using logic and reason to provide facts and thought processes to define my stance on a subject and have even gone as far to provide how GW could "win". So, how am I being reductive in any stance of someone else or their argument unlike yourself?

I never read your comments in this thread. So....?

How about this thing called human subjectivity? You presume everyone can be pleased.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

Or to simply restate what TheKBob said: If the rules weren't junk we almost wouldn't have this problem. A clear, concise and consistent set of rules would minimise this issue significantly.

Or a singular resource that was actively cultivated by the company to address the concerns quickly and efficiently.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Something I thought of in regards to the OP's thread title:

"Sometimes, I feel GW can't win."

I thought about this for a bit and came to a conclusion:

Why should they "win"?

And winning implies that someone else doesn't win, and who would that be in this context? Us?

At the end of the day, GW is a business and needs to make money, and to do that they have to create a product that we want to buy and is worth buying. By implying that GW should some how "win", isn't that a bit like saying they should get a free pass sometimes no matter what they do?

If they're writing bad rules (which they do) and further increasing the barrier to entry (which they have) and are litigious bullies (which they are), then at what point does "winning" become something that any of us should either allow or even celebrate?

I operate under a credit where credit's due policy, which mostly applies to their miniatures (because their rules sure don't deserve credit - FW aside, that is - their rules are often silly, but at least they seem to give a damn about internal consistency). At what point would I give GW a "win" when they continue to release extremely bad products? I'll sure as hell give 'em credit for a great new set of miniatures (I love pretty much the entire new Ork release - the Flash Gitz are amazing!), but making good models in no way entitles them to a free pass on all the other bull gak they pull.

I like your analysis. But I have my own answer to the op.

GW cannot win because the players want too much. They want them to accommodate to their every issue, solve problems for them, make the game cheap and affordable for everyone. These aren't impossibilities, they're simply not an issue for them from a business perspective.

Hobbies are expensive, especially ones where you build and assemble things yourself. Hell I had model planes as a kid that cost more than a Titan from FW, Dad had a cow when I bought it, but sold it when I graduated HS and made double his money so he was happy in the end.

If players want GW to care, they need to give them a real reason to. Sadly, the only way to do it is profits, but not enough players have stopped buying to do anything more than a temporary glance or shudder. We'll see in the next year or two how the stocks hold up and can make an accurate judgment from there, but as long as players keep buying and playing. there is no reason for them to fix anything.

 Lobomalo wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 PhillyT wrote:
They will never please everyone one nor should they try. Most fans are illiterate in terms of the business side or biased in terms of the gaming side towards what they think the game should be.

This is another one of those glaring over simplifications.

Listening to your community does not mean you have to implement every single change suggested by the community. Listening to the community doesn't mean you try and make everyone 100% happy and take on board all the ignorant comments alongside the valid ones. A few random points:

1. Things like balance issues can be massively improved if you start listening to the community to see what units and options might be broken and have a closer look at them.

2. Rules that are massively unclear can be tightened up and clarified.

3. The overall direction of the rules may be harder to deal with as opinions will vary more widely. But even there listening to the community opens you up to ideas and potential flaws that can push your rules set to something a larger set of people are happy with. It will help you move to a rules set that creates less division in the community.

I feel like you are hitting on point 3 with your "you can't please everyone" mindset, but GW can't even get past points 1 and 2 to reach point 3.

Looking at other competitive games, though not wargaming games, the mindsets still apply. People howled for balanced in SCII, WoW PvP, MtG, Dota 2, LoL on a weekly basis. Players see something that is considered "op" and the community comes together to howl about what is "op". companies then put in patches with nerfs to whatever was perceived to be "op". A few days later, people notice that by "balancing" one thing, they broke another and made something else "op". It got so bad in some games that they flat out stopped listening to the player bases complaints about certain things being "op". Case in point, LoL, probably the most played E-sports game right now, Riot consistently nerfs things they believe to be OP because they have data to support their conclusions, the players though feel otherwise, hence the running joke, X Champion is op, better nerf Irelia.

SCII had and has horrible issues with balance and with all the nerfs/buffs to everything, entire units have been made absolete and never see competitive play anymore.

WoW, for years Rogues were considered op, but in reality it was players not knowing how to deal with vanish and backstab, they nerfed this, Rogues completely fell off the competitive scene.

When you listen to the opinions of the players when it comes to balance issues, what you really see are people who think something is overpowered because they haven't found a way to deal with it or because they want things to be more "balanced" a term that nobody has ever been able to really define or apply to a competitive game.

These are video game examples I realize, but the issues of balance is the same in all

As I said, you don't have to implement all the changes the community suggests for balance fixes. Simply using it as a magnifying glass to inspect why people might be complaining.

Of course you're never going to achieve perfect balance and people are always going to complain that it is unbalanced, but GW is so far from a balanced game it's laughable. Many things are blatantly obvious, even within a given codex you can often see without even playing a game "wait, what's the point of X unit when Y unit exists and is obviously better".

When we reach the point of only small nuances of imbalance I might start agreeing with you that the community is just whinging... but we're not even close.

I also notice you ignored my 2nd point, the concept of rule clarity, something which really has no excuse for not listening to the community and coming out with fixes. It's not 40k I know, but still GW, the Lizardmen Army Book has been out for ages (about a year now I think?) and still has issues that are being debated and we still don't have a FAQ/errata for it.

 44Ronin wrote:

How about this thing called human subjectivity? You presume everyone can be pleased.

You presume that they couldn't be doing better and the displeased are a minority. I have facts to back up my stance, where are yours? Or are we doing the illogical dance of the person who says "we can never know anything, so therefore you're wrong?"

 TheKbob wrote:

 Gunzhard wrote:


I only say, 'to me' because it's clear there are lots of entirely unreasonable people making entirely unreasonable trouble about nothing for no good reason. Fortunately they are just mystery strangers on the internet 'to me' and I don't have to play games with them.

Are they unreasonable for any other reason than they disagree with you and have an equally valid and lexical interpretation of the rules? Or do you have solid logic and/or evidence on how the rules are to be specifically interpreted?

I'm going to go off a hunch here and say it's the former. If it's the latter, than I'm both wrong and we get to finally lay to rest those matters in question; therefore a win-win. So please, your move. See you in YMDC.

"If it's the latter, *then* I'm both wrong" ...while trying to sound intellectually superior you've made some pretty funny flubs.

They are unreasonable because you have to go out of your way to allow those interpretations. The obvious interpretation, and not just obvious to me, already works. At least in the case of the "psychic phase doesn't function". Admittedly in every 40K rulebook there have been issues of questionable interpretation; but amongst people that can actually communicate like human beings are capable of on occasion - it all works out fine.

 Lobomalo wrote:

GW cannot win because the players want too much.

Players want at least what other, smaller companies, with less fiscal resources than Games Workshop, provide for free or at a much reduced price. That would be great start and no one would be opposed to that. So your argument doesn't have merit.

 Lobomalo wrote:
GW cannot win because the players want too much.

I'd like this hypothesis tested. Perhaps GW should start fixing things and we'll see how much the complaining reduces.

 Gunzhard wrote:

 TheKbob wrote:

 Gunzhard wrote:


I only say, 'to me' because it's clear there are lots of entirely unreasonable people making entirely unreasonable trouble about nothing for no good reason. Fortunately they are just mystery strangers on the internet 'to me' and I don't have to play games with them.

Are they unreasonable for any other reason than they disagree with you and have an equally valid and lexical interpretation of the rules? Or do you have solid logic and/or evidence on how the rules are to be specifically interpreted?

I'm going to go off a hunch here and say it's the former. If it's the latter, than I'm both wrong and we get to finally lay to rest those matters in question; therefore a win-win. So please, your move. See you in YMDC.

"If it's the latter, *then* I'm both wrong" ...while trying to sound intellectually superior you've made some pretty funny flubs.

They are unreasonable because you have to go out of your way to allow those interpretations. The obvious interpretation, and not just obvious to me, already works. At least in the case of the "psychic phase doesn't function". Admittedly in every 40K rulebook there have been issues of questionable interpretation; but amongst people that can actually communicate like human beings are capable of on occasion - it all works out fine.

Take a ten minute tour of YMDC and you see people arguing over the definition of words and how they are used in the rulebooks, all while trying to find a conclusion that makes sense to them.

 Gunzhard wrote:

"If it's the latter, *then* I'm both wrong" ...while trying to sound intellectually superior you've made some pretty funny flubs.

They are unreasonable because you have to go out of your way to allow those interpretations. The obvious interpretation, and not just obvious to me, already works. At least in the case of the "psychic phase doesn't function". Admittedly in every 40K rulebook there have been issues of questionable interpretation; but amongst people that can actually communicate like human beings are capable of on occasion - it all works out fine.

The role of "Grammar Nazi" is cute, but borderline Ad Hominem attack. It doesn't make my point any less valid given the fact I am not a literary powerhouse. So stick to the topic.

And no, they don't. Again, go to YMDC and drop your logic bombs; your literary prowess you want to so endow us with. If they are so obvious, connect the dots. Again, either give proof, or you're simply puffing up and saying "I'm right because I am right." Which is not an actual argument.

 TheKbob wrote:

 Lobomalo wrote:

GW cannot win because the players want too much.

Players want at least what other, smaller companies, with less fiscal resources than Games Workshop, provide for free or at a much reduced price. That would be great start and no one would be opposed to that. So your argument doesn't have merit.

See, if people didn't keep buying, and playing, and buying, and playing. You would have an actual argument. But players do, so you don't.

Smaller companies need to do these things because otherwise, they are merely copies of GW and nothing more. If your argument had merit, more would be leaving in droves to play other things rather than 40k, but this simply isn't true.

 Lobomalo wrote:

 TheKbob wrote:

 Lobomalo wrote:

GW cannot win because the players want too much.

Players want at least what other, smaller companies, with less fiscal resources than Games Workshop, provide for free or at a much reduced price. That would be great start and no one would be opposed to that. So your argument doesn't have merit.

See, if people didn't keep buying, and playing, and buying, and playing. You would have an actual argument. But players do, so you don't.

Smaller companies need to do these things because otherwise, they are merely copies of GW and nothing more. If your argument had merit, more would be leaving in droves to play other things rather than 40k, but this simply isn't true.

The January financial report says otherwise. We can discuss this further come July for the end of year report, which is already considered a poor to grim outcome from those educated in the world of economic and business matters.

The other half of your argument implies strongly that GW can be lazy just because they've been a large incumbent. And I think you're missing the forest for the trees. Folks are leaving in droves or greatly curtailing their purchases. Again, please review the financials for one piece of evidence.