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 DanielBeaver wrote:
I always point to Magic: The Gathering as an example of a game that is similarly very open-ended, while supporting very fun competitive AND casual play. I very much enjoy the competitive circuit of Magic, and it's a very demanding game (requiring impeccable deck building and play if you want to stand a chance).

But importantly, Magic has good support for just thrown-together amateur decks - it's fun to just slap-dash a couple of decks together, or to build a weird silly concept deck, and then have at it. More often than not, these un-optimized decks are workable and there's room for interesting play against each other.

40k by comparison just falls down on it's face when it comes to both competitive and casual play. Just last night I was watching two new players play, and one dude was just unwittingly dominating the game, and eventually tabled his opponent with minimal losses. When I was talking to them post-game, neither really understood why that had happened - and that's really symptomatic of bad game design.

The key advantage Magic has is that if you play, you're likely to have a decent back catalogue of cards (I had boxes and boxes when I played, and I only really played for two or three years) so if you wish to build a new deck, you're only looking at a few hours to pull all the cards, stick them in some protectors and you're ready to go.

A 40K army, while arguably a similar financial investment to a top level Magic deck, represents hundreds, if not thousands of hours, potentially, of your time.

That's an awful lot of wasted time if your list turns out to be bonk. (Or, as I've been caught out before, codex or edition changes suddenly screw you half way through.)

For all that, WOTC do seem to be a good reference for a company that actively manages it's game and try to maintain as balanced a format as possible.

 Blacksails wrote:
And what about all these wargames on the market growing by leaps and bounds that are far more balanced than 40k?

The ones I've barely heard of that don't have their own store? Great, when they actually overcome the crushing monopoly GW has and offer regular games I might actually care.

Local wargames club plays several non-GW games, but they're pretty much all historical, which is almost an entirely different market.

changemod wrote:

 Blacksails wrote:
And what about all these wargames on the market growing by leaps and bounds that are far more balanced than 40k?

The ones I've barely heard of that don't have their own store? Great, when they actually overcome the crushing monopoly GW has and offer regular games I might actually care.

Local wargames club plays several non-GW games, but they're pretty much all historical, which is almost an entirely different market.

What does that have to do with anything?

If you've not heard of them, that's your failing.

If they don't have their own store, good, because you're paying for GW's stores when you buy their product whether you use one or not (and they cost GW a LOT)

My local club plays multiple systems, with 40K being the main one as you'd expect, including Historicals, Warmahordes, Fantasy, X Wing and Infinity. Anecdotal evidence is anecdotal.

changemod wrote:

 Blacksails wrote:
And what about all these wargames on the market growing by leaps and bounds that are far more balanced than 40k?

The ones I've barely heard of that don't have their own store? Great, when they actually overcome the crushing monopoly GW has and offer regular games I might actually care.

Local wargames club plays several non-GW games, but they're pretty much all historical, which is almost an entirely different market.

Whether or not you care about them is irrelevant to the point.

You made a point that one game went from being poorly balanced to well balanced and lost customers. I'm saying other games are far better balanced than 40k and are growing rapidly. Meanwhile, GW has been in a slump and recently took a hit to their revenue.

Its irrelevant if your local area plays other games or not for the point I'm making.

*Edit* Azrael beat me by 17 seconds.

changemod wrote:

 SlaveToDorkness wrote:
Perfect balance isn't necessary. Writing units to where one isn't the obvious choice to take and others are ridiculously less useful isn't hard at all. You just have to care about more than your customers' wallet.

When it is common for people to snigger at people using certain units from a codex because they "suck" compared to the optimal choice, there's something wrong with the game.

Isn't hard at all? Sure. A good idea to lazily do so? Nope.

Dungeons and Dragons 3rd edition had six million players, and was horrendously unbalanced between magical and non-magical characrers.

Dungeons and Dragons 4th edition was very finely balanced by comparison... And lost over 80% of the customer base. It was a complete disaster that threw out everything that came before in the pursuit of "balance", and the results were catastrophic.

Really? I'd say it failed because it changed the game too much. It failed because WotC failed at marketing research and didn't realize their customer base was very conservative and large changes would upset them. It also failed because WotC shared a basic system for designing RPGs that created their largest competition, said competition then used promises of familiarity but better balance to woo people into playing their game.

In addition I can't recall anyone saying, "Damn 4e sucks because I'm not an omnipotent god wizard lording it over my plebian fighter friend". I heard complaints like "Everything is too samey", "The skill system sucks", "Fighting takes too long".

And since I know it'll be brought up because I said the S word. Balance can be achieved by sameness, but is not the only way to achieve acceptable balance (see Starcraft).

 Azreal13 wrote:

changemod wrote:

 Blacksails wrote:
And what about all these wargames on the market growing by leaps and bounds that are far more balanced than 40k?

The ones I've barely heard of that don't have their own store? Great, when they actually overcome the crushing monopoly GW has and offer regular games I might actually care.

Local wargames club plays several non-GW games, but they're pretty much all historical, which is almost an entirely different market.

What does that have to do with anything?

If you've not heard of them, that's your failing.

You're saying Games Workshop is being "Ruined" by their management.

They have a near absolute monopoly, good fluff and models, and rules it's quite easy to learn and have fun with so long as you don't have to deal with a few fringe player types.

Besides the costs being pretty nasty, and there are a few mitigating factors there if you use online discounts, battleforces and conversions, (Even moreso if you play outside the store and can mix and match model sources) there's not a hell of a lot of issues actually worth getting this worked up about. Like I said, the main issue is their clumsy business practices, not the system itself. And the idea that "balance" is an ideal more important than diversity and enjoyability is an illusion I lost when D&D imploded and lost everything that made it fun.

So yes, what reason have I to look into alternative games and sink a few hundred pounds to get far less guaranteed games against a much smaller pool of players?

changemod wrote:

 SlaveToDorkness wrote:
Perfect balance isn't necessary. Writing units to where one isn't the obvious choice to take and others are ridiculously less useful isn't hard at all. You just have to care about more than your customers' wallet.

When it is common for people to snigger at people using certain units from a codex because they "suck" compared to the optimal choice, there's something wrong with the game.

Isn't hard at all? Sure. A good idea to lazily do so? Nope.

Dungeons and Dragons 3rd edition had six million players, and was horrendously unbalanced between magical and non-magical characrers.

Dungeons and Dragons 4th edition was very finely balanced by comparison... And lost over 80% of the customer base. It was a complete disaster that threw out everything that came before in the pursuit of "balance", and the results were catastrophic.

I'm fairly certain you are oversimplifying the issues of the DnD 3rd to 4th changes. They changed it into more of a miniature based video game than any attemp at "balancing" it. The issues players had stemmed more from the sweeping changes than heavy handed balancing.

Plus, DnD is a cooperative game which really isn't comparable to 40K. Unless your point is that GW would completely lose their market share if they actually tried to balance their game. Which is laughable.

changemod wrote:

 Azreal13 wrote:

changemod wrote:

 Blacksails wrote:
And what about all these wargames on the market growing by leaps and bounds that are far more balanced than 40k?

The ones I've barely heard of that don't have their own store? Great, when they actually overcome the crushing monopoly GW has and offer regular games I might actually care.

Local wargames club plays several non-GW games, but they're pretty much all historical, which is almost an entirely different market.

What does that have to do with anything?

If you've not heard of them, that's your failing.

You're saying Games Workshop is being "Ruined" by their management.

Actually, I'm saying 40K is being ruined by their mismanagement of the game, whether that lies with management or the designers can only be speculation at this point.

They have a near absolute monopoly, good fluff and models, and rules it's quite easy to learn and have fun with so long as you don't have to deal with a few fringe player types.

Actually, given the overall size of the market, and the many numerous small players, it's possible they don't hold a monopoly in any sense, let alone an absolute monopoly. Unless you're defining the market as 40K (and even then, there's plenty of third party bits and counts as model makers taking a percentage of that market to undermine any argument of "absolute" monopoly.)

I also refuse to acknowledge that gamers who play a game to win are in any way a "fringe."

Besides the costs being pretty nasty, and there are a few mitigating factors there if you use online discounts, battleforces and conversions, (Even moreso if you play outside the store and can mix and match model sources) there's not a hell of a lot of issues actually worth getting this worked up about.

There are a lot of issues. If you think I'm getting worked up, you're projecting, I'm just disagreeing with you, because this is a discussion and I don't agree with much of what you're saying.

Like I said, the main issue is their clumsy business practices, not the system itself. And the idea that "balance" is an ideal more important than diversity and enjoyability is an illusion I lost when D&D imploded and lost everything that made it fun.

Not really, it's an irreconcilable mix of the two. The 40K psychic phase, for instance, has two valid ways of being played, neither of which appears to work as intended. We are months from publication and this issue is yet to be addressed.

Balance is not the enemy of diversity, both are possible.

So yes, what reason have I to look into alternative games and sink a few hundred pounds to get far less guaranteed games against a much smaller pool of players?

That's becoming less and less of an issue as better games gain greater traction and GW fail to react appropriately. If this was 2001, I'd agree that there weren't really any valid alternatives, but now there's plenty, several of which are cheap enough to get into to make getting two factions perfectly viable, meaning all you need is someone willing to give it a go to have a game.

The problem with comparing DnD to 40k is that DnD has a DM, and there are no winners or losers in DnD. So imbalance is not that much of an issue because a DM can modify rules on the fly or tailor the scenario for the players, and the players aren't trying to "win" at DnD anyway: it's a cooperative effort.

Imbalance on a game with winners or losers are a different subject matter.

Yea, before every game we still have to ask "Can a psyker cast as many powers as he knows? Or as many as his mastery level?"

It's the most frequently asked 40k question, but no FAQ :(

 Azreal13 wrote:
If they don't have their own store, good, because you're paying for GW's stores when you buy their product whether you use one or not (and they cost GW a LOT)

I think that's mostly speculative. Your only paying for GW's stores if the stores aren't making enough sales to pay for themselves. It's like when people complain about having to "pay" the huge amount of money AAA video game publishers put in to advertising... except the advertising increases sales numbers so in reality it's probably reducing what you might be paying if the advertising wasn't there. I think of GW stores much the same way.

Though these days I don't think their stores mean as much as they used to. I got in to 40k because of a friend and an FLGS.... but if it wasn't for the local GW I wouldn't have stayed 40k, so in reality it made a lot of money off me (even if I wasn't always buying direct from it). Not sure how much that applies these days though.

Personally, I think the big problem lies in how tournaments have evolved from what they used to be when GW first organised them...

Back when I attended my very first Grand Tournament, there were no prizes beyond some shiny trophies. And you had trophies not just for the 'Best General', but also for the painters, the 'nice guys', an overall title and even a trophy for the most inept luckless wonders who couldn't roll a 3+ for the life of them! (admittedly, I came top 3 for Murphy's Luck every single year I played... )
This gave EVERYONE a reason to drop money on the event, as every aspect of "The Hobby" at the time was represented. Guys who were highly competitive and loved to win games would duke it out for the Best General award, while the painters would vie for the Best Appearance award. The majority of us who went just to enjoy a weekend of gaming had the Sportsmanship and even the dreaded Murphy's Luck awards to aspire to.
Eventually the system even added in some additional awards for a player-voted 'Best Army', 'Best Single Model' and even an award for the best looking army list! (ie: one of the winners was a Space Wolf player who did their list up in a fur-bound tome, while another winner was an IG player who built their own dataslate!)

Nowadays though, prize support tends towards product or even actual cash, which has only fostered a very cutthroat mercenary mentality among players. This is easily the absolute worst thing that has happened to the game.
Once people see actual monetary value is on the line, they become entirely different. Now winning is the absolute only thing that matters, because there's a visible form of profit to be made by being as filthy & underhanded as is possible within the rules to win.


As a personal experience, the last time I went to the LGS's 2.4k Fantasy 'Tournament', the prize for 1st place was $75 of store credit, 2nd was $25 and 3rd was $10. That was it.
It was easily the most miserable time I've ever had gaming. My Daemons faced off against 2 HE Light Covens toting their obnoxious BotWD, while my 3rd game was against an angry WoC who was just p-off he'd lost his first two games and had, "wasted his whole day for no profit."
It was pathetic and sad. Every filthy trick imaginable was pulled, rules were bent unless you caught it and called an opponent out. Sportsmanship was non-existent.

Now Fantasy is all but dead at this store because only the most ruthless @$$hats are left, practicing endlessly for their imagined pro-circuit 'Tournament' competitions.

Then there's Astronomi-con, the last 40k event I attended.
The prize support for it is trophies, with hardware for all the old GT categories, and even a 'Best Terrain' award for those guys who help out and provide the tables & battlefields for the weekend! Best of all, the product itself is simply raffled off as door prizes. (good-bye mercenaries looking to make a buck!)
Sure there's still the Competitive types who vie for the Generalship & Overall awards, but the atmosphere is so much more relaxed and friendly than any of the other events I've been to over the past 6-8 years.


TL;DR: Offering monetary prizes/profit is what's ruining the game, because it fosters and even encourages people to be d-bags to eachother.

Experiment 626 wrote:
TL;DR: Offering monetary prizes/profit is what's ruining the game, because it fosters and even encourages people to be d-bags to eachother.

Except the problem extends well beyond tournaments. I don't attend tournaments at all (at least not for many many years) and I still see the balance as a problem.

And since you're talking about Fantasy... 8th killed fantasy around this area. Like a bullet to the head of a wounded animal, 8th ed killed whatever semblance of life Fantasy had.

 Sir Arun wrote:
Okay. We all know GW is at fault for not being able to produce codexes with perfect internal balance, where each unit is worth considering. But we all know blaming GW will get us nowhere. If we, as a community want to do our part in fixing 40k, aka actually changing stuff, we need to really change our mentality.

Honestly, this actually seems like a terrible idea to me. If people stop buying 40k stuff until GW improves its rules, then that might actually be enough to make them come out of their bubbles and do some actual market research.

However, if we just fix their game for them, what is their incentive to actually improve their rules?

changemod wrote:

Dungeons and Dragons 3rd edition had six million players, and was horrendously unbalanced between magical and non-magical characrers.

Dungeons and Dragons 4th edition was very finely balanced by comparison... And lost over 80% of the customer base. It was a complete disaster that threw out everything that came before in the pursuit of "balance", and the results were catastrophic.

This seems like a really awful comparison.

Yep, D&D3.5 had a lot of balance issues. However, and this is really important, it wasn't a competitive game. The players cooperated to complete an adventure - rather than competing against one another. Furthermore, there was also a impartial judge who could alter the adventure on the fly to take account of any disparities in the power levels of the characters.

Also, it wasn't just that 4th was balanced, it was that it was an entirely different game. It played like a World of Warcraft RPG. And, there was so little freedom - virtually every spell and ability was "Zap" in one form or another (most had no functional difference to melee or ranged attacks). Monsters lost all customisation - with no spells, feats, templates or any such. And, none of this was necessary to balance the game. I'm not even convinced it was about balance, so much as boiling down the classes to WoW archetypes (tank, healer, damage dealer etc.) and adding "cool" new races, like those stupid dragon things.

In addition, it also destroyed a ton of classic D&D fluff. I can't remember all the details, but I know several classic settings were either destroyed or changed completely (so, most of the people who liked D&D's background weren't happy either).

Finally, other companies had made games based on the d20 system - with ones like Pathfinder even being entirely compatible with D&D3.5. So, Wizards effectively ended up competing with themselves - because 4e was not compatible with the multitude of 3.5 supplement books people had bought, but Pathfinder was.


Please don't pretend that the only problem with D&D4e was that its balance was too good.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 Azreal13 wrote:
If they don't have their own store, good, because you're paying for GW's stores when you buy their product whether you use one or not (and they cost GW a LOT)

I think that's mostly speculative. Your only paying for GW's stores if the stores aren't making enough sales to pay for themselves. It's like when people complain about having to "pay" the huge amount of money AAA video game publishers put in to advertising... except the advertising increases sales numbers so in reality it's probably reducing what you might be paying if the advertising wasn't there. I think of GW stores much the same way.

Though these days I don't think their stores mean as much as they used to. I got in to 40k because of a friend and an FLGS.... but if it wasn't for the local GW I wouldn't have stayed 40k, so in reality it made a lot of money off me (even if I wasn't always buying direct from it). Not sure how much that applies these days though.

Not especially speculative, GW list their cost of sales as approx 23% of revenue - that's design, manufacture etc..

Their net profit, based on the last report, would have been somewhere in the region of 12%.

That means somewhere in the region of 65% of GW's revenue is spent on things other than designing and making the things they sell. Outside of Nottingham, there really isn't much else that they can be spending it on.

This is relatively consistent if you go back too, so it isn't like things like fancy webstore redesigns are throwing this out significantly. The stores represent a significant cost for GW.

The D&D comparison isn't even useful, as you are comparing a refereed, cooperative, open-ended game with a non-refereed, competitive, single match game.

Balance in D&D isn't even considered between the players and the DM'ed opposition, as there is no rule preventing the DM from attacking the players with 12 Balors at 1st level.

People who want a 'narrative' game, or 'cooperative' play, or who want to play more free-form, less rules driven, less 'competitive' games can always simply ignore parts of a more balanced, better constructed rules set. It's trivially easy to agree to play a game with no points limits, or uneven points limits, or without even paying attention to the points, or allowing unit composition that isn't in the rules.

Taking a game that is poorly balanced and constructed and coming up with rules with your opponent to make the game more competitive is hard. That is why, in fact, we have game designers.

It would be possible to play 40K by just using the models and constructing a narrative between the two players. "My Space Marines run over here from that ruin to the cover of this burning Chimera." "OK, I try to pick them off with my shuriken catapults as they cross the open ground."

That game would give you maximal narrative freedom, but I wouldn't expect people to pay for the rulebook.

On the other hand, a rulebook which was well-balanced* and well-written** could be used by competitive and casual gamers alike, and the casual gamers would find it trivially easy to disregard rules as necessary. I've never seen any rulebook that prevented you from taking uneven forces or making up special characters in your own personal games.




*I'm not sure why anyone takes a poster seriously who talks about perfectly balanced rules. Nobody expects a game with 'perfectly sculpted models' or 'perfectly written novels', but for some reason, the absence of 'perfectly balanced rules' is an argument against rules balance.

**It also seems to be the case that many people assume that a well-constructed, comprehensive rule set must also be a huge, intimidating, confusing wall of text. You can have a poorly written rule set no matter how tight (or loose) the rules are. Attempts at game balance don't immediately result in impenetrable rules-weaving.

I hate fluffy players man, they are ruining the game.
All I want is a hard well faught game where tons of things die and who can win goes back and for back and forth. But how can I be blamed when the bring Vanguard Veterans and I a Knight? Ofcourse Im going to win. But they just whine when they loose despite bringing a subpar list.
Its kinda sad really.

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
I hate fluffy players man, they are ruining the game.
All I want is a hard well faught game where tons of things die and who can win goes back and for back and forth. But how can I be blamed when the bring Vanguard Veterans and I a Knight? Ofcourse Im going to win. But they just whine when they loose despite bringing a subpar list.
Its kinda sad really.

So if the Knight had worse rules, you wouldnt have invested £85 to get it, am I correct?

I love when people talk about all these other games that are way better than 40k... which ones are those again?

Warma-hordes and Infinity have some aspects that are leaps and bounds better - but overall neither game can hold a candle to 40k; especially when you consider the depth and breadth of the game.

FoW and Xwing are cool - if you are into that sort of thing, I'm not, but now we are really talking apples and oranges.

As for "GW is ruining 40K" ...that's just ridiculous. GW is 40K, and the game has evolved over decades now into an awesome and fun game that people enjoy all over the world. It has flaws, it ALWAYS had flaws... if you think they are "ruining" it now, then you've not been paying attention because it's always been like this and if that doesn't work for you, fine, but there was no 'golden age' of perfect 40k if it's not now. That said, yeah it is ridiculous priced and I totally understand that gripe, but it has literally never been 'cheap'.

I love it when people post a bunch of opinions in a manner to suggest they're anything other than one person's view.

I'd say 40K is GW right now, rather than the reverse, I mean Fantasy has been in the toilet for years, and they clearly have little interest in doing anything with the LotR licence now but fleecing collectors.

Now, who is responsible for the state of those two games?

What depth and breadth does 40k that other games don't? Care to elaborate?

 Sir Arun wrote:

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
I hate fluffy players man, they are ruining the game.
All I want is a hard well faught game where tons of things die and who can win goes back and for back and forth. But how can I be blamed when the bring Vanguard Veterans and I a Knight? Ofcourse Im going to win. But they just whine when they loose despite bringing a subpar list.
Its kinda sad really.

So if the Knight had worse rules, you wouldnt have invested £85 to get it, am I correct?

Yes, but it would go in my display case, Along with Khan on foot, My Incubi, Lylyth, Vanguard Vets, Captain in Terminator armor and the severed head of the last guy who touched my minis.

'Better' games is subjective. I think Infinity is a much better game, as is Warmahordes.

 Blacksails wrote:
What depth and breadth does 40k that other games don't? Care to elaborate?

Are you serious? ...for one - background; how does warma-hordes or infinity compare? ...not even on the same continent. How about number of factions? ...nope; hope about unit variety? ...nope? How about scalability? ...nope (sure Infinity does small scale way better but that's all it does).

C'mon I get it - you hate GW, but seriously you needed me to answer this?

 vipoid wrote:


Yep, D&D3.5 had a lot of balance issues. However, and this is really important, it wasn't a competitive game. The players cooperated to complete an adventure - rather than competing against one another. Furthermore, there was also a impartial judge who could alter the adventure on the fly to take account of any disparities in the power levels of the characters.

While technically you are right, in a cooeprative RPG people are still competing gainst each other, for spotlight time and story agency. Everyone (or almost) wants to be King Arthur, not the squire who carries his weapons and grooms his horse.

Nobody hates anything.

Find another word.

 Azreal13 wrote:
I love it when people post a bunch of opinions in a manner to suggest they're anything other than one person's view.

I'd say 40K is GW right now, rather than the reverse, I mean Fantasy has been in the toilet for years, and they clearly have little interest in doing anything with the LotR licence now but fleecing collectors.

Now, who is responsible for the state of those two games?

Yeah cuz I'm the "one person" playing 40K all over the world at all times. And Fantasy is not in the toilet either, it's really gaining momentum here, even prior to the End Times stuff it was really picking up, but End Times has been a big hit - worldwide. I agree about LotR though...

What "State of those two games" are you referring to?

 Gunzhard wrote:

 Blacksails wrote:
What depth and breadth does 40k that other games don't? Care to elaborate?

Are you serious? ...for one - background; how does warma-hordes or infinity compare? ...not even on the same continent. How about number of factions? ...nope; hope about unit variety? ...nope? How about scalability? ...nope (sure Infinity does small scale way better but that's all it does).

C'mon I get it - you hate GW, but seriously you needed me to answer this?

Infinity and WMH backgrounds are both very very in depth. 40k has like 10-20 years head start, but lately it's not been anything special. Number of factions, again, years head start. Infinity and WMH has the same, if not more units per faction. 40k doesn't scale well either.

 Gunzhard wrote:


Are you serious?

I am.

background;

So nothing to do with gameplay. Further, background is entirely subjective. Some of 40k's latest additions have been subpar, to say the least.

How about number of factions?

Why is number of factions important? Counting all loyalist marines as one faction, we have 11 factions, plus Knights and Sisters as sadly underdeveloped. Firestorm Armada has over 15.

unit variety?

Well, variety is going to be hard to quantify. Are you counting every variant of a marine in power armour as a different unit? If so, then sure. If not, well things start to even out among the different games available.

How about scalability?

Not sure what you mean, unless you mean how 40k can be played between 500 and 3000pts regularly? If so, other games can scale quite well too. Firestorm Armada can played from a handful of frigates up to a dozen batteships and dreadnoughts per side.

C'mon I get it - you hate GW, but seriously you needed me to answer this?

C'mon I get it - you love GW, but seriously you need to be such an ass about answering a simple question?

I don't hate GW. I dislike a lot of what they do currently, and I feel like they're harming 40k, but that doesn't mean you should dismiss anything I have to say because you think I hate something.