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 H.B.M.C. wrote:
It always impresses me when we find people ready and willing to defend things like the 5-Avenger box price increase. Amazing really.

Same thing when GW increased the prices for LotR miniatures by more than 100%. Some people are mere apologists who lovingly and blindly embrace anything GW does, grasping for straws, pulling reasons out of thin air.

For the record an excerpt from the Legion of the Damned Codex:

When you choose an army, the Legion of the Damned may be taken as a primary
detachment or as a special form of allied detachment known as a Legion of the Damned
detachment.
If you take the Legion of the Damned as a primary detachment, use the Legion of the
Damned Force Organisation chart instead of the primary detachment Force Organisation
chart. Alternatively, an army may include a Legion of the Damned detachment in addition
to any other detachments. Other detachments, such as allied detachments, additional
primary detachments and fortifications can be taken normally. So, for example, you could
field an army with a Blood Angels primary detachment, an allied detachment of Imperial
Guard, and a Legion of the Damned detachment. You can include two Legion of the
Damned detachments in your army if you wish, but one of these must be the army’s
primary detachment. (By the way the mistakes in spelling are not mine. )


Correction: I have never seen organization spelled that way before, so believed it to be an error at the time. It has since been pointed out it is the correct spelling in England and Australia.


There is a mission rule in the glossary that could fix the whole issue if a FAQ allowed pure LotD to use it.


Aid From Beyond
All units from the Legion of the Damned detachment arrive from Reserve at the start of
the Legion of the Damned player’s Turn 1. These units must enter play via Deep Strike as
normal.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Throt wrote:
Is that an error or a design decision to not allow Legion of the Damned to be played as a primary force.? I don't know, do you and what evidence do you have?
The flamer worked. It was just crappy. You could not move and shoot it.

Again, "it is possible to play the game" is not a relevant standard. Both of those examples are situations where RAW functions, but the outcome is completely absurd. So either GW's rule authors are complete idiots and deliberately create rules that work in stupid ways, or the rules were intended to work differently and were broken.

I don't think that you are understanding the idea that all of this is subjective. You dislike the things that you dislike and you believe that it is broken because of this dislike. That's ok. Stupid to you is good to someone else. Blaming GW for your decision to play a game with rules that you hate so much...well your choice. Many others have no problems with the rule set and we are just as right as you are.
possible to play the game is a relevant standard. Because it is entirely subjective.
Do you play FPS or RTS the 'good' game is up to you.
This truly is a circular argument, and I assume we all know that.

I remember he references cancelling Games Days as a sign, but if they are not turning a profit or making a noticeable difference in market than it makes financial sense to stop them. Does it suck for gamers...hell yes (well in the old school ways anyway) but for business it makes sense.

Well yes, and that's exactly the point: Games Day should be a profitable event that improves GW's prestige, keeps players involved in the community, and builds excitement about new releases. All of these things should lead to improved profits, at a fairly reasonable cost. The fact that GW was unable to make a profit on them (or was short-sighted and canceled the events based on total ticket sales vs. cost instead of considering the indirect benefits) is a bad sign.

You would have to look at the data. Costs could have played a major factor. Many off site events are losses. If the losses are too high you cancel. And it is not necessarily bad business that causes this. I don't know why they were cancelled.
Bad for us sure but it does not mean the sky is falling.

In what bizarre alternate universe is increasing the cost of a model kit, cutting the number of models in half, and putting it in a new box not a drop in value? Does a shiny new box that ends up in the trash within a few minutes of opening it magically make up the drop in value caused by paying more than twice as much per model for the exact same models?

Again, because it is subjective.
My wife saw a Coach purse it was $300, she doesn't like coach that much so there was no value to her. It's still a purse. Yet people buy the purses because they see value in it. People pay $150 for nike tennis shoes that cost $5 to make in Malaysia.
Companies cut package sizes and raise prices often. Is it right? Not really. If you don't feel that you are getting a value you have to look at your options or don't invest. You may not buy, and others might.
People pay millions for artwork that they see value in the $15 paints and $30 canvas.

 Throt wrote:
You dislike the things that you dislike and you believe that it is broken because of this dislike.

No, I believe that it is broken because the rules as-written do not function in anything remotely resembling a sensible way. Models wearing helmets being unable to shoot or charge is broken, period. It is not a matter of personal preference, the rules obviously are not doing what they're supposed to. And you know why? Because GW doesn't bother to write clear rules.

And no, the fact that you say "this is obviously stupid" and allow models in helmets to shoot (by drawing LOS from their eye lenses) does not mean that the problem doesn't exist. It just means that you fixed the problem yourself, despite GW's failure to do so.

You would have to look at the data. Costs could have played a major factor. Many off site events are losses. If the losses are too high you cancel. And it is not necessarily bad business that causes this. I don't know why they were cancelled.

It's like you didn't even bother to read the post you quoted. I'm not disputing that GD lost money. My point is that it should have been a net profit. Either:

1) GW managed the event badly (removing the games you could play, not dealing with the problem of long lines, etc), allowed it to become unappealing enough (especially compared to third-party gaming conventions and similar events) that only the hardcore fans bothered to attend. The decline in GD attendance is indisputable fact, and the reasons for it are pretty obvious. So it's not a surprise that the event would become a net loss and GW would finally put it out of its misery. But the fact that finally ending it was a sensible decision at that point does not excuse GW's failures in allowing it to reach that point.

and/or

2) GW was incredibly short-sighted, compared the cost of running the event to the total ticket sales, and declared it a net loss without bothering to consider the indirect benefits and how much profit they might be providing. Since those benefits won't appear until later and will probably never have definite numbers attached to them it's easy to cut GD and tell the shareholders how "responsible" you are being by removing that loss, trusting that none of those shareholders know enough about the hobby to realize what is actually happening. It makes the next financial report look a bit better, at the expense of long-term success.

Either way the fact that GW canceled GD is a bad sign. The reasons WHY a company does something are just as important as the act itself, and either interpretation of GW's actions suggests bad things about the health of the company. And it's especially a bad sign once you stop looking at it in isolation and consider the context. Canceling GD alone might not be a bad thing, but in the context of analyzing GW's current situation it seems to be more desperate cost cutting without much concern for its impact on future growth beyond the next financial report.

Again, because it is subjective.

No, it really isn't. If the models cost $X for 10 in the recent past and now cost $(X+Y) for 5 then the box has decreased in value. If you consider that "subjective" then your definition of "subjective" does not match the one found in the dictionary.

 Crimson Devil wrote:
(By the way the mistakes in spelling are not mine. )

Are you saying that "organisation" is spelt incorrectly?

I've played GW games on and off for the better part of 20 years. I like the miniatures, the ambiguous nature of the back ground provides ample opportunity for me to personalise my force, and my ever improving modelling skills are allowing me to depict my own vision of what my army should be.

During My formative years i was a power gamer of epic beardy proportions. i didn't cheat (except when playing blood bowl) and i would exploit ridiculous items combinations in both warhammer and 40k for hillarious outcomes. And, being in a naturally competitive group, everyone else did roughly the same thing. We all found the 'Quest for the unbeatable army' article by Allesio to be fantastic, and none of us even thought of the Snotling pump wagon/ goblin shaman combo that ultimately won. We generally all performed well in local and regional tournaments and GW produced enough different games that we could play a different game every day if we wanted to.

I've mellowed out somewhat since. I can still spot the more obvious combos in books during the first read, it took me all of an hour to spot the Orikan + Writhing worldscape combo when the necron codex dropped. and it took me the same amount of time to spot the problem with the 'repair barge' rule (i.e, unless i've missed a FAQ, its broken) I'm prepared to accept that its a distinct possibility that the rule allowing court members to join units was added after most of the book was finished and 'play tested' but the fact that it hasn't been clarified at all says that GW doesn't care (yes or no is irrelevant, just clarification would be nice).

More reasonable pricing would be nice, but i earn enough that i can buy what i want, when i want. iniature quality has been improving, although they do let some absolute stinkers through QC occasionally, and the finecast debacle was ridiculous,

The rules have been evolving over time, and i've not come across a rulebook yet that didn't have typos in it, however 40k suffers from not knowing what kind of game it wants to be. or rather, 40k players choosing to play the game as what they want it to be, rather than what it is. I've found that the sweet spot for 40k is around the 750 - 1250 point mark. However personal opinion of the optimal game size aside, 40k has the most awful army balance issues of any game i've played.

Ideally a player should be able to choose an army using whatever criteria they want (looks, play style, historical accuracy, take all comers) and still have a good game against any other player without having to discuss beforehand what type of game you expect.

Flames of war achieves this. Infinity Achieves this. neither game has a massive divide between 'fluffy' and 'competitive' gamers. those labels in my experience only exist when applied to GW games. Its this divide that causes most of the grief in 40k.

I phoned up a FLGS that i was visiting for the first time. I asked what they played, and i also asked how competitive the group was. 40k was played, and 'Very Competitive' came the answer. I decided to go for wraithwing because of my armies thats the only one that was remotely built for burying opponents(and mostly painted) suffice to say, my definition of competitive, and their definition of competitive were not the same. and the point is i shouldn't even have had to ask, all i need to know with any other game is, what it is, and how many points, thats it!

As to rules? well, the only problems i have with non GW rules is getting them wrong when i'm learning, possibly misunderstanding them. ask a question in infinity, and sure enough someone will point out the page and thats it. for 40k on dakka dakka you have the YMDC forum. that in itself shows how badly playtested, badly worded and badly thought out a lot of rules are.

GW is a big company, they have a lot of loyal fans. they make awesome miniatures. they could go the route a lot of other companies do and have the community help with playtesting the rules, and the armies. they don't, so we have what we have. a badly worded ruleset, badly balanced armies, and a divided community.

But hey, at least the models are nice!

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Crimson Devil wrote:
(By the way the mistakes in spelling are not mine. )

Are you saying that "organisation" is spelt incorrectly?

I hope not.. .

 motyak wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Crimson Devil wrote:
(By the way the mistakes in spelling are not mine. )

Are you saying that "organisation" is spelt incorrectly?

I hope not.. .

Well the more common spelling, and one that the spell checker corrects to is Organization.

Personally, I find that the community can be pretty harsh to GW.

I mean yes there some very sore points, ones that I dislike also but as you said people are just being too complacent.

The faster release schedule I feel is better as it keeps things exciting in the sense there's something to look forward to every week.

The new WD I also think is slightly better because you can pick it up when there's something of interest to you rather than sifting through a whole load of stuff like in the monthly one (tho I didn't mind that either).

And if anyone has checked GW's YouTube channel as of late, they've begun uploading some painting videos also. I mean, of course no one is going to paint Ork skin with 13 different paints for just table top standard, but I feel it shows GW is trying to re-connect with the community a bit and good on them for that.

So yes there are many bad points about GW that could easily be fixed if they just listened to customers a bit more, however I dislike hearing all the slander and complaining about them.

Basically it just comes down to the fact that you can't please everyone but you can try your best and I feel GW is TRYING to do that, not saying they're exactly succeeding but they are trying.

No, I believe that it is broken because the rules as-written do not function in anything remotely resembling a sensible way. Models wearing helmets being unable to shoot or charge is broken, period. It is not a matter of personal preference, the rules obviously are not doing what they're supposed to. And you know why? Because GW doesn't bother to write clear rules.

I agree. Problems with GW rules are not subjective. If someone sold us a car and it wouldn't work , then the fact that the car can be moved by pushing or towing doesn't mean it is only broken subjectivly for us only.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Lobomalo wrote:
It is too early to tell, you would need to find a trend to support the theory, so I will give you until the next report, if it shows a decline, you're right, but I doubt it will.

There's already a trend. Prices go up, profits don't go up faster than inflation. Conclusion: GW is selling a smaller number of boxes for a higher price per-box. GW cuts costs everywhere and brags about it in their financial reports, profits don't go up faster than inflation. Conclusion: GW's cost cutting is covering up weak sales, and eventually GW is going to run out of things to cut without sacrificing quality in obvious ways. GW sees a big drop in profits in the period that includes the christmas shopping season (in an industry that should see lots of sales at that time). Conclusion: sales were really bad, and only the christmas spike saved them from a worse disaster.

And as for the next report, it's about more than just the final profit number. Remember that this next report will include the major cash cow of a new 40k edition, which means a lot of extra sales that GW can't easily repeat for a while. To consider the report an optimistic one GW can't just avoid a decline, they need to see a meaningful increase in profit. And they need to do it through legitimate sales increases, not just cost cutting and other short-term business tricks that cover up the real numbers.

Profits at GW have been good and increasing for several years, actually. It is revenues that are relatively static.

The interim report of Dec 2013 was a shocker because of the sudden drop in revenue and profit. The end of year report will show if GW recovered from that.

There are various ways to interpret the figures.

Like them hiting the wall of what people can pay for a starting w40k army vs playing in an taudar enviroment. I think that is why they made the new edition , so everyone has to buy new rulebooks , drop their tau ally , drop their taudar and stock up on things few people bought a lot.

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:

 motyak wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Crimson Devil wrote:
(By the way the mistakes in spelling are not mine. )

Are you saying that "organisation" is spelt incorrectly?

I hope not.. .

Well the more common spelling, and one that the spell checker corrects to is Organization.

You mean the more common spelling...in America, with an American English spellchecker.

 Lobomalo wrote:
Okay, I now know for sure that you are not a competitive MtG player at ll. Mono blue works by exploiting the rules, its the only way it truly functions in some formats. EDH also works by exploiting every loophole a player can, otherwise a deck couldn't run 9 different ways to pull of infinite turns with only two colors.

Can you give me a single example?
Mono-blue might "exploit" the rules, but it doesn't "exploit" errors and loopholes in the rules.

In MtG the 'problem' is that two cards have synergy/combo into something extremely powerful.
In WH40k the problem is that two models create situations that aren't explained in the rules.
The problem in WH40k is that they write rules that don't even work at all!

In MtG I hardly ever have to take out the BRB because with thousands of cards and interactions things are never unclear.
In a well written WH40k I would only have to take out the BRB to check on tables, profiles and effects on Special Rules because I cannot memorize them all.

And to continue with this:

 Throt wrote:
Do you want/need a 700 page rule book cover everything?
Half the things in YMDC are insanity. There was a Fantasy thread that went for 18 pages because of the line that says 'round fractions up' and how it is divided in 1999 point games. Does GW have to write a breakdown of every subtle nuance and possible situation that might arise.
I guess they do for some.

Yes, I want a 700 page book to cover everything!
The reason I want this is because I spend a lot of money on this game:
60 euro for the 7th Edition BRB.
40 euro for a Codex or 130 for a Limited Edition.
40 euro for a supplement.
5-15 euro for Dataslates.
4 euro for a WD with rules.

When my Blood Angels are released I will buy WD if it has rules, I will buy dataslates and supplements. I will get a Codex and I will have bought the BRB.
By the time I have everything I will have spent over 150 euro for all the rules!
Can you understand that some people would like those rules to actually work without a problem?

Sim-Life wrote:

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:

 motyak wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Crimson Devil wrote:
(By the way the mistakes in spelling are not mine. )

Are you saying that "organisation" is spelt incorrectly?

I hope not.. .

Well the more common spelling, and one that the spell checker corrects to is Organization.

You mean the more common spelling...in America, with an American English spellchecker.

I think that is what he meant, yes.

Makumba wrote:
Like them hiting the wall of what people can pay for a starting w40k army vs playing in an taudar enviroment. I think that is why they made the new edition , so everyone has to buy new rulebooks , drop their tau ally , drop their taudar and stock up on things few people bought a lot.

Which is what they do too often. A good unit today may be garbage tomorrow to force a treadmill of buying. Not in itself bad (WM/H does this too) but then GW compounds it with their insane pricing + quantity scheme. Paying $50 or slightly more for a new unit is one thing. Needing to buy 2+ boxes at $50+ to make a complete unit is not because the cost is multiplying.

 Throt wrote:
Again the no eye =no los groups had a problem, no one I know did. It did not need any discussion. There was no problem to go away. No problem to fix. Nothing to overlook. Because you had a problem doesn't mean it DID exist.

So how did you draw LOS from models without eyes without creating a house rule?

It appears you do. Let's look at the no eyes issue. Since you seek clarification then we must have a list of all models with out eyes and what point on all the models we draw line of sight from.

You need no such thing. There are multiple, really simple ways to fix the problem. One is the solution that GW finally went with: Stop drawing LOS from the model's eyes, and just let players use any part of the model.

Another option would have been to just add a caveat to the original rule for models without eyes and/or heads, to tell you to draw LOS from somewhere else.



You're making it into a far bigger issue than it actually was, though. For the vast majority of players, a workaround was easy enough that many players didn't even consider it a workaround, as appears to be the case for you. But that doesn't change the fact that it was a basic situation that was not covered by the rules for multiple editions, and that should have been.

The whole point of having a set of rules is to tell you what to do when a given situation arises.


The bit I can never figure out in these discussions is why people go to such great lengths to insist that having a badly-written ruleset is actually a good thing. As it stands, if the rules are unclear, or have a bunch of things that they just don't cover, then the players who don't mind filling in the gaps won't mind, while the players who want a clear, workable ruleset are going to be unhappy with it.

By contrast, if the rules were written in a clear, concise manner that actually covered the entire game, that first group of players would still be fine (in most cases they wouldn't even notice a difference other than perhaps that the rules were easier to read) and the second group would also be fine. Everybody wins... which makes it, to me, seem like the no-brainer option to aim for.

Rules, especially $85 rules (more than everyone else for seemingly no reason other than "We can") should not have ambiguity like that. If the rules state "Draw LOS from a models eyes" then they need to say what to do if a model doesn't have eyes, or else not have that rule. The fact it was simple to house rule just means GW was completely lazy. Therein lies the problem: they seem to assume you WILL house rule or at least come to an agreement with your opponent and keep rules ambiguous as a result (or they really want an impartial third player as GM). That is NOT how to write rules. Even D&D, which DID require a GM for virtually everything, needed concise rules with the GM to arbitrate things that fell outside the rules since accounting for everything a player might do would be impossible. 40k has no such limitation within the rules of the game.

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:

 motyak wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Crimson Devil wrote:
(By the way the mistakes in spelling are not mine. )

Are you saying that "organisation" is spelt incorrectly?

I hope not.. .

Well the more common spelling, and one that the spell checker corrects to is Organization.

In your country perhaps. In England - coincidently the place where this book was written - spelling tends to differ. So the was unwarranted.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:

 motyak wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Crimson Devil wrote:
(By the way the mistakes in spelling are not mine. )

Are you saying that "organisation" is spelt incorrectly?

I hope not.. .

Well the more common spelling, and one that the spell checker corrects to is Organization.

In your country perhaps. In England - coincidently the place where this book was written - spelling tends to differ. So the was unwarranted.

Yeah? Thus the more common issue he thought of.

The spelling point is off topic.

Throwing my thoughts on GW. I think the rules were never meant to be written as 'perfect' as what the customer expected. Its better business sense to in this case to have a few flaws in the product for 2 reasons. People will take advantage of the flaw and purchase models (ie Heldrake, deamons). second, to leave a few desired rules change in each and every book. It gives customers anticiaption for the next edition of their codex and rulebook.

Imagine if your codex and 7th ed ruleset is 'perfect'. You are more likely to dread the next edition instead to hoping GW makes the right changes.

I actually had no issue with the pricetag on the new rulebook (I'm returning to 40K after big hiatus). I expect to pay $50 for a decent sized rulebook of the quality GW puts out. However, the extra books made the $85 reasonable to me since I no longer have anything 40K related (got rid of it all, fluff, galleries etc). I can see this as a problem for a 6th Ed gamer since it was so close and you probably have all the fluff/pictures you could ever want. But from a "new" gamer perspective, the value of the books is certainly close to the $85 mark.
I also find some of the units reasonably priced too. I could say 5 wraithguard are expensive at $50 a box ($10 a model) then I look at my FOW tanks that are $58 for 5 and are not as large a model, so the comparison is fine. Character models are a joke though, $20-25 for a single model is outrageous unless it is a hulking model. And that leads me to my biggest gripe with 40K currently. I've walked into the local GW store many times recently, the manager is a very cool dude and personable (GW Scottsdale), However, sometimes I just want to spend $10-15 on a model as a casual purchase, not invest in an entire unit. I've always liked buying that way and it often leads to an entire army investment. One small purchase. That is no longer possible in the GW environment as those models no longer exist so I often walk away empty handed with cash in my pocket. I just don't see a $50 purchase as a casual buy I'm afraid and therefore won't do it.
So for me, GW can do a lot of things right, but still drop the ball on some of the marketing decisions they have made over the years. As for the rules, I haven't played enough games with enough people to see if 7th Edition works for me yet. I like it through reading, and have 2 armies balanced against each other (Dark Angels vs Iyanden......but I had to really retailor the DA to be competitive) but I have no idea how they would stack up vs my buddy's forces or those at a FLGS. I expect to lose many games until the learning curve is surpassed, but i hope I don't get to the point where I find out it's not a tactical issue but an army purchase issue and have to put models back on shelves to have a chance at a good game.

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:

 motyak wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Crimson Devil wrote:
(By the way the mistakes in spelling are not mine. )

Are you saying that "organisation" is spelt incorrectly?

I hope not.. .

Well the more common spelling, and one that the spell checker corrects to is Organization.

Acording to Google, its spelled different depending on where you live.
For me, its spelled wrong.

I think this topic has really gone so far off topic and a lot of personal attacks are being made that we need to get back to discussing what it is about.

I don't think anyone is saying there are absolutely no redeeming qualities about 40k, some are saying there are no redeeming qualities of GW, but that doesn't make people whinners for disliking a lot of what is going on with their hobby.

In the spirit of good will, these are the things I enjoy about this game and this hobby;

The fluff is fun and interesting, it isn't the best written but it certainly has its appeal in the over the top characters and the parody grim dark setting.
The models ARE really nice and fun to work with, even if they are not the best and considerably expensive.
The armies are unique and varied, even between Space Marine chapters you can easily tell the differences and it makes for a lot of interesting games.
The allowance of such customization of your army, to personalize every aspect of it if you desire.

But I have a major problem with the following, because it seems that every step forward GW takes they take two steps back;

The accelerated release schedule, many armies are not getting the attention they need in order to push of codices faster. Tyranids suffer a lot because of the copy and pasting from past editions that have left many units unusable even in a casual setting. You can not tell me that even casually the Pyrovore has any viability. I have not seen the Ork codex yet but from talking with people who have it is in much the same boat. Taking into consideration that these two armies both suffer greatly from the core rules favoring shooting heavy armies it is disheartening to see our favorite armies left behind and it seems that we are being ignored.

Part two of my problem with the accelerated release schedule is that they aren't releasing more rule sets, they are just breaking down the rule sets they made and selling them of piece by piece as opposed to making larger more thought out releases.

Part three is that MANY of their choices seem to be blatant money grabs and regardless of GW being in the business of making money it is disrespectful to your customers.

The rules ARE ambiguous in many areas, more so than in many competing games and while those defending GW may be right and part of it may indeed be because of the scale difference then I would have to argue that GW needs to reconcile their expectation of the game with the rules. If you are going to give us skirmish level rules, make the game skirmish level. If you want the game to be larger scale, modify the rules to reflect this. I have played so many competing games at this point that to me the GW method or rule writing seems archaic and a relic of a day when they were the only game on the scene. I am not asking GW to reinvent the wheel, but it isn't a bad thing to learn something from your competition.

Finally, the pricing. I know many people will say jump on this but I don't mean at large,I mean in a few specific cases. Paying $5-$10 for individual infantry is ridiculous, I am not talking about Terminators I am talking about Dire Avengers and Dark Elf Witch Elves. By and large GW products are priced a little higher than the competition and that is okay, but there are some REAL outliers than need to be addressed. Also, supplements. There is NO reason to charge codex prices for a couple of pages of fluff and about two pages of rules. These things need to be made less expensive seeing as how you already need a codex to play them in the first pace.

wufai wrote:
Throwing my thoughts on GW. I think the rules were never meant to be written as 'perfect' as what the customer expected. Its better business sense to in this case to have a few flaws in the product for 2 reasons. People will take advantage of the flaw and purchase models (ie Heldrake, deamons). second, to leave a few desired rules change in each and every book. It gives customers anticiaption for the next edition of their codex and rulebook.

Imagine if your codex and 7th ed ruleset is 'perfect'. You are more likely to dread the next edition instead to hoping GW makes the right changes.

Anticipation, or frustration? Right now, it feels like roulette with each new edition where models will fluctuate wildly in use, in a way that has nothing to do with their actual points costs. People already dread new editions or codexes, and seem to have given up on the notion that balance might improve. The attitude largely seems to be "Don't screw my army up too badly." with each new update.

 Elemental wrote:

wufai wrote:
Throwing my thoughts on GW. I think the rules were never meant to be written as 'perfect' as what the customer expected. Its better business sense to in this case to have a few flaws in the product for 2 reasons. People will take advantage of the flaw and purchase models (ie Heldrake, deamons). second, to leave a few desired rules change in each and every book. It gives customers anticiaption for the next edition of their codex and rulebook.

Imagine if your codex and 7th ed ruleset is 'perfect'. You are more likely to dread the next edition instead to hoping GW makes the right changes.

Anticipation, or frustration? Right now, it feels like roulette with each new edition where models will fluctuate wildly in use, in a way that has nothing to do with their actual points costs. People already dread new editions or codexes, and seem to have given up on the notion that balance might improve. The attitude largely seems to be "Don't screw my army up too badly." with each new update.

The problem here is that because of how they market, GW basically has to shake things up constantly. They're basically trying to change up the meta like how MtG works, but failing miserably at it. PP does this too but it's nowhere near to the level GW does, where things can go from really good to total garbage with every release. Their model seems to be what is good now needs to be made bad, so people will buy something else and therefore spend more money, and then the cycle continues next time around. IMO that's a pretty piss poor way to run a business.

In an ideal world, GW's rules writers would be like neurosurgeons, each new codex or edition subtly shifting the weighting of player choice, slightly emphasising or de-emphasising a unit's capabilities, not to the point where they're utterly eviscerated and no longer viable. Alongside that, they'd introduce new units which brought new things to the table for a particular faction, or an alternative way of occupying a specific battlefield role.

Alongside that, the design dept would be producing the occasional new kit, but also taking advantage of the passage of time generating new creative ideas and technologies to implement them to re-issue redesigns of old models that we'd gladly buy because they're were massively more pleasing models to own/paint/build.

But alas, in reality, instead of neurosurgeons, we have chimps with mallets.

I'd be happy if everything just had a place in the army, and you weren't penalized JUST for picking the wrong unit. I find it very ironic that they continually push this crap about building your collection and buying what you think is cool or what you like the fluff for, when units aren't equal.

In an ideal game, and what other games do, each unit represents a specific tactical choice with pros and cons that add up to an overall force. There should never be a choice that is so good that taking it is always better than any other choice, regardless of the type of army you build or the other units you have, and there should never be a choice that has absolutely no reason other than "I like how it looks" to be taken because it's bad at everything. 40k has both of those.

WayneTheGame wrote:
I'd be happy if everything just had a place in the army, and you weren't penalized JUST for picking the wrong unit. I find it very ironic that they continually push this crap about building your collection and buying what you think is cool or what you like the fluff for, when units aren't equal.

In an ideal game, and what other games do, each unit represents a specific tactical choice with pros and cons that add up to an overall force. There should never be a choice that is so good that taking it is always better than any other choice, regardless of the type of army you build or the other units you have, and there should never be a choice that has absolutely no reason other than "I like how it looks" to be taken because it's bad at everything. 40k has both of those.

Except that's how it is in most games. You pick either what you like or what is best. Every unit has a place in the army, it may not always be the best place in an army but they all have one. It isn't on the game designers that certain things are looked down upon by the players, especially once you look towards the competitive scene. There, in every game is where you see the most trimming of the proverbial fat in a players army and things are flat out left behind because they won't offer a quick victory.

For example, why bother with melee units in a gun line?

Why invest in bikes if your army focuses more on assault?

Depending on how you want to play your army, certain things are going to be tossed out, but that is on you as a player, not the game designer.

The best example I can think of off the top of my head is SCII. Specifically Terrans. No matter how many buffs, nerfs or new units, the best thing a Terran army can do is MMM death balls. There are strategies to counter them but simple micro allows the Terran player to outplay the counter and still pick up a win. The way MMM is played, so many things get left behind.

Zerg Roach rush uses a combination of 2 or three units depending on what you are playing. You end up with units and buildings that never get built because they are not useful for that strategy. Not that they are not viable, but the player has an idea in mind as to what they are trying to do.

The same holds true for 40k. Players choose to build towards top tier lists as if they are going to be competitive players in tournaments all around, in reality, the bulk are casuals who think they are competitive and they emulate the strategies created by those who are competitive.

It's a choice, a preference and something that is entirely the fault of the players.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

WayneTheGame wrote:

The problem here is that because of how they market, GW basically has to shake things up constantly. They're basically trying to change up the meta like how MtG works, but failing miserably at it. PP does this too but it's nowhere near to the level GW does, where things can go from really good to total garbage with every release. Their model seems to be what is good now needs to be made bad, so people will buy something else and therefore spend more money, and then the cycle continues next time around. IMO that's a pretty piss poor way to run a business.

Except the meta for MtG doesn't change too much until blocks rotate out. For example, Esper control has continued to be mainstream meta since Alara launched as has Jund aggro. They've never actually been balanced and they have been top tier since the concepts came out years ago. Wizards tried to shift the meta away from this idea of Esper/Jund when they relaunched Mirrodin and Ravnica, but players still found ways to update these ideas with modern cards.

Magic is also a great example of a company that continuously pushes out a product from which the bulk of the cards are not even played. Most top tier decks run 12-13 cards (3-4 copies of each) out of a set with hundreds of cards in them. Standard generally keeps everything within the last two years as legal for tournament play, everything else goes into Extended, Legacy and EDH. So you have two years worth of cards, from which you will rarely see more than 20 different cards in each players deck.

Why is this? Because they are not as useful to the idea the players have gone for in the competitive scene. EDH and Legacy pick up a crap ton of the cards that never see Standard competitive play which helps alleviate the issue, then you have the Cube format and Pauper EDH which picks up all the commons/uncommons nobody wants to use. But only Standard has the international tournaments and even they ditch so many cards its sad.