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 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 Azreal13 wrote:
No, I don't know how many GW products have been sold, but I'd guess it's less than $5bn, which is the total monopoly revenue at $20 a box.

Monopoly is not a hobby that requires large amounts of time and energy like 40k does. Short of reducing 40k to Monopoly levels (lol), it is bound to never have the same appeal.

As for balancing, how does one balance a player who has 3 Baneblades vs a player who only wants to run Flyers? There's too much diversity in this game to balance it without taking some of the options out.

You're drawing a false equivalency there. I didn't say it was a hobby, it was held up as an example of how keeping the rules the same "doesn't work" and I was merely pointing out that in fact Monopoly has been phenomenally successful for decades while doing exactly that.

@Peregrine -- he's been at it for 20+ years I think he said, so quite possible David has spent a fair amount on rules.

By the way, all of my gaming buddies own all or nearly all of the codex/hardcovers (some cheated on IK, escalation, etc and photocopied the few rules pages). If you buy the codices as they come out, at discounted prices, it's like $40 every few months.

This is a fallacy though. If an item (of any stripe, not just in this context, but anything in life) is overpriced, then finding a way of reducing or deferring the cost does not make the item less overpriced.

All you're doing is finding ways to justify paying a high price for something you want to yourself.

@Talys.
So you enjoy playing your version of 40k. This is good enough for you, so you are prepared to pay GW prices.

Why would you not want more people to enjoy playing 40k?

How could clearly defined rules ,(appx half the number of pages ,) that deliver twice as much game play.Along with better balanced force lists be bad in any way?
People could just turn up , play the R.A.W with ANY list from the allowed F.O.Cs and have a fun game .(No arguments or negotiating how to interpret the rules.)
The player pool would expand , a wider variety of armies and challenges and narrative would evolve naturally , enriching all aspect of the hobby.

@Peregrine.
I agree with you that writing good rules would be the most productive thing that GW plc could do.
However, there are two points I think we differ on.

1)The GW dev team are just making the best of a bad situation.They may not be the best game developers in the world.But the massive hindrance that the sales department and corporate management impede them with is the largest factor in play.

'Make the game better, but do not change anything too much.if we do not hit the next quarter sales forcast, we will be wanting to know why you did not do enough to inspire sales.'

They have 2 options toe the company line or leave.(Lots have left GW !).

2)People who have different expectations do not necessarily have 'low standards,' just different ones.
So I would say that GW plc are actively targeting the easier to please customers.

Those that are happy to pay more for GW product , and do not care about the quality of the rules , have different standards to us.
But from GW plc perspective they are easier to please.
They are not asking for well written rules focusing on game play , and more balance in the army lists.
They are not asking for better value from their purchases.

However, this is the point many seem to have missed.
Despite raising retail prices well over the rate of inflation for over a decade, GW plc are loosing sales volumes , and this is eating in to GW profits now.

More people are being priced out.And as the dwindling customer base is squeezed even more for more cash, even more customers will drop out.

So unless GW plc increase sales volumes,they will continue to loose profit , to the point where they are not in a position to counter it.

So GW plc NOT improving rules is bad for absolutely everyone long term,(Apart from Tom Kirby who is so rich he does not care at all.)

 Peregrine wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
As for balancing, how does one balance a player who has 3 Baneblades vs a player who only wants to run Flyers? There's too much diversity in this game to balance it without taking some of the options out.

Two things here:

1) You're taking for granted that removing options is a bad thing. In reality there's nothing wrong with imposing limits, as long as there's still enough depth within those limits for the game to be interesting. Why should an army of all Baneblades or all flyers be possible? In the "real" world you'd rarely, if ever, have an army consisting of three superheavy tanks with no support, and an all-flyer army is just an airstrike that has no story potential beyond "they dropped their bombs and returned home".

2) It's still possible to balance this situation. For example, the game might be about whether the flyers have the ability to kill the Baneblades fast enough to prevent them from scoring all of the objectives and winning without ever firing a shot at the flyers. This would probably be a boring game (which is why such absurd armies should not be possible), but you could still give each side a roughly 50% chance of winning.

The way to balance it is rock-paper-scissors. The classic scheme where each type of inot is strong again certain types of units but weak against others.

For instance, air could be very strong against armor, moderately strong against infantry, but very weak against antiaircraft (and unable to hold objectives).

So, 100 points of air could defeat 400 points of tanks, 200 points of infantry; but die to 25 points of antiair.

100 points of armor could defeat 400 points of antiair, 200 points of infantry, but die to 25 points of air.

And so on. The point is to make no unit a jack of all trades and vulnerable to none, which if I had a single criticism of 40k would be the most significant. For instance, TWC is not particularly weak against a whole lot, and it's quite good against many opponents, making it a must take. Ditto for Dante, dreadknights, riptides, FMCs, etc.

40k would be a better game if these units all had an accessible Achilles heel, to force armies to be more varied and strategic, instead of making it so that players who want to field varied armies do so because they want to create interesting conflicts against one another.

[quote=

Making a perfect game isn't easy, or something that happens just because you spend a lot of time on it. GW could spend another 50 years on the rules for 40k and they wouldn't have a perfect game unless they change their approach and make fixing the rules a priority. So the fact that they haven't fixed everything yet doesn't mean that they're deliberately sabotaging their own product.

That would means for people like me and many who have more than 2 or 3 editions of books in the basements, we wouldn't have spent 1,000 of dollars on new editions.

You haven't spend thousands of dollars on new editions, unless you're one of the very few hardcore collectors willing to buy every single thing GW publishes. The average customer spends about $2-300 on a new edition at most, $75ish for the main rulebook and $50ish each for the codex for the 1-2 armies they play. And that's at current prices, previous editions were cheaper. That's barely enough to reach $1000 in rules if you've been playing since the beginning. And if you've been playing that long you've probably spent way more money on models that don't have anything to do with new editions.

If GW perfected the game back in the 80s I might have stop playing in the 90s because I am bored with the game.

I think you're the minority here, for two reasons:

1) Good games don't disappear because their rules never change. Chess hasn't changed significantly in hundreds of years and yet people still play it.

2) A game like 40k doesn't depend on new rules to keep offering new things. Remember, the story is supposed to be important, and even if the core rules never change you can always create new missions, play against new opponents, etc. The ongoing story of your army and characters doesn't end just because you don't get a new rule for how to roll the dice.

Think about games like Monopoly. It is a perfected gaming system for that game. We all play them once in a while but it couldn't be a hobby because it is stagnant. A Hobby must be fluid and ever changing so hobbits can keep enjoying the hobby.

No, we rarely play Monopoly because it's a terrible game that drains all the fun out of your existence. And you're making a big mistake here by comparing board games for children to hobby games. Most people don't play games like Monopoly very often because there's nothing to get invested in. No fluff, no customizing your own force, and no real gameplay depth. The 10000000th time you play a game of Monopoly is just like the 10th time you play it. And that's fine, because those games are meant to be something you do to spend time with your kids or have an excuse to invite your friends over for beer. But that's not at all the case with a game like 40k, where there's just so much more to invest in and so much more return on investing a lot of time and money. Even if the rules never change and you never start a second army it still takes a long time to build a complete army, and then there's an almost endless number of stories to tell about your characters.

@Lanrak - I don't disagree with you. Better rules would be an all around win. All I'm saying is that the rules as written doest detract from my fun.

Also: Hanging around FLGS, the #1 complaint about 40k is NOT rules. In my area, the top detractor for new players is the high cost of entry. Unequivocally.

In fact, many younger players start and abandon 40k because they find out that to be competitive, they need to spend a thousand bucks, and that's more than they can afford, and more than they expected getting into the game.

I think they should perfect the game for casuals and competitive players (because the divide is artificial anyway) and then use the money they'd give from a product people want to invest in other games, like Necromunda and Epic and even more. That's how they'd continue to get more money, diversify...the exact opposite of what they are doing.

 Azreal13 wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 Azreal13 wrote:
No, I don't know how many GW products have been sold, but I'd guess it's less than $5bn, which is the total monopoly revenue at $20 a box.

Monopoly is not a hobby that requires large amounts of time and energy like 40k does. Short of reducing 40k to Monopoly levels (lol), it is bound to never have the same appeal.

As for balancing, how does one balance a player who has 3 Baneblades vs a player who only wants to run Flyers? There's too much diversity in this game to balance it without taking some of the options out.

You're drawing a false equivalency there. I didn't say it was a hobby, it was held up as an example of how keeping the rules the same "doesn't work" and I was merely pointing out that in fact Monopoly has been phenomenally successful for decades while doing exactly that.

I use monopoly as an example of a perfect game... and that is all.

GW games like WH and 40K are hobby games and not box game like monopoly. SpaceHulk is more like Monolopy.

Hobby need new things or it will die out. Example.. golf... perfect game..rules (for players), but they keep making better equipment.. so the company can continue. If a Golf equipment can change the rules of golf and players will keep buying their products.. why stop it?

GW will never stop making new edition because they can. Golf pro equipment maker can't do that. So they just keep making new and better equipment.

GW will keep making better models and change the rules because they can and it makes them more money.

@david choe - you are right about rules changes. I went out and snapped up all the flayed ones in town with the new necron book, and a third stormraven with the BA Book (and a lot of other stuff.. I was just saying that as an example)

david choe wrote:
just that when you have one life time already.... 30+ years is life long career for some... and you can't get it right? I call it as I see it. When GW can't get it right for over 30 years... I think it is intentional. This "intentional" makes them money.

Except, again, time doesn't matter. You could spend 100 years making a game and if your process sucks your game won't be any better than when you started. The problem is that GW's entire approach to game design is fundamentally broken and will not produce good results no matter how many years old the game is. You don't need to resort to claims of intentional sabotage to explain it.

New Edition cost me an average of about 1,000.

Then you aren't a typical customer. Most people aren't spending $1000 on a new edition. They might spend $75 on the new rulebook or $50 on the new codex for their army, but they aren't going to make huge investments in new models unless they were willing to buy those models under the old rules.

Chess... we play many times, but do we buy anything new for Chess?

No, but that has nothing to do with the rules changing. You don't buy anything new for chess because you can buy everything there is to buy for $20. Maybe if you really love chess and want to decorate your house you buy a nice chess set to display, but then your purchases end. With 40k (and similar games) the cost to buy everything is much higher, so only a tiny minority of customers will even come close to running out of things to buy.

Are you going to be buying new GW stuff for the new Edition in the future?

No. I might buy new models, but the new rules aren't the reason why. I already have a list of what I want to buy for the foreseeable future, and it's unlikely that a new edition will change that significantly. Unless of course the new edition sucks so much that I give up on 40k entirely.

How many times have you buy new models because of rules changes?

Very rarely, and when new rules do motivate me to buy a new model it usually just replaces some other model I was going to buy instead, for a net gain of $0 for GW.

That money are cash that GW will never have if they perfected the game.

Sure, that specific money wouldn't be in GW's bank account, but right now GW is missing a lot of potential money because people know the rules suck and don't buy GW games. Is it better to get a relatively small amount of additional money from existing customers, or to get completely new customers who have to make all of the $500+ new army purchases?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Talys wrote:
In fact, many younger players start and abandon 40k because they find out that to be competitive, they need to spend a thousand bucks, and that's more than they can afford, and more than they expected getting into the game.

And guess what: that's a complaint about the rules. If the rules didn't suck then the cost of "being competitive" wouldn't be any higher than the cost of playing the game any other way. Only in badly designed games do you have problems with players having to spend additional money to play competitively.

david choe wrote:

 Azreal13 wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 Azreal13 wrote:
No, I don't know how many GW products have been sold, but I'd guess it's less than $5bn, which is the total monopoly revenue at $20 a box.

Monopoly is not a hobby that requires large amounts of time and energy like 40k does. Short of reducing 40k to Monopoly levels (lol), it is bound to never have the same appeal.

As for balancing, how does one balance a player who has 3 Baneblades vs a player who only wants to run Flyers? There's too much diversity in this game to balance it without taking some of the options out.

You're drawing a false equivalency there. I didn't say it was a hobby, it was held up as an example of how keeping the rules the same "doesn't work" and I was merely pointing out that in fact Monopoly has been phenomenally successful for decades while doing exactly that.

I use monopoly as an example of a perfect game... and that is all.

GW games like WH and 40K are hobby games and not box game like monopoly. SpaceHulk is more like Monolopy.

Hobby need new things or it will die out. Example.. golf... perfect game..rules (for players), but they keep making better equipment.. so the company can continue. If a Golf equipment can change the rules of golf and players will keep buying their products.. why stop it?

GW will never stop making new edition because they can. Golf pro equipment maker can't do that. So they just keep making new and better equipment.

GW will keep making better models and change the rules because they can and it makes them more money.

So why do the rules need to be bad? Why can't they just be new? Why can't they release a new edition every decade or so, which exists purely to do housekeeping and consolidation (once they've cracked it of course, not the current mess) and spend the rest of time expanding on different ways to play, campaign sets, new factions etc etc?

Nothing about what you suggest inherently requires an intentionally poor ruleset or to not keep producing new material.

 Azreal13 wrote:
Yes, the world would be an awesome place if nobody ever cared enough to want things they love to change for the better and just walked away.

Oh, hang on..

No.

While it isn't exactly women's rights or racial equality in terms of scope or import, if people keep articulating their frustrations, who knows where it ends up? What if a GW employee reads someone's comments and thinks "actually, fair point, perhaps we could do more" or someone who is currently happily emptying their wallet into their local GW store every week stops and thinks "perhaps I could be a little more discerning in my purchases, because I'm not as happy with everything as I could be" and then starts spending less/elsewhere.

Things don't change by people giving up and walking away.

Sure. But things also don't change when the people making them have no interest in changing them.

The point wasn't that you can't want things you like to be better. The point was that if you're unhappy with the way GW writes the 40K rules, hanging around waiting for them to change is an exercise in futility, because GW are making the game they want to make, and have absolutely no interest in what you or I want the game to be.

The 40K rules being full of holes isn't a new thing. The current state of the rules is no worse than, say, 2nd or 4th edition was.

It's not going to change just because you want it to. And eventually, sitting around complaining about the state of the rules and hoping they'll change just starts to feel a little silly.

 Peregrine wrote:

david choe wrote:
just that when you have one life time already.... 30+ years is life long career for some... and you can't get it right? I call it as I see it. When GW can't get it right for over 30 years... I think it is intentional. This "intentional" makes them money.

Except, again, time doesn't matter. You could spend 100 years making a game and if your process sucks your game won't be any better than when you started. The problem is that GW's entire approach to game design is fundamentally broken and will not produce good results no matter how many years old the game is. You don't need to resort to claims of intentional sabotage to explain it.

New Edition cost me an average of about 1,000.

Then you aren't a typical customer. Most people aren't spending $1000 on a new edition. They might spend $75 on the new rulebook or $50 on the new codex for their army, but they aren't going to make huge investments in new models unless they were willing to buy those models under the old rules.

Chess... we play many times, but do we buy anything new for Chess?

No, but that has nothing to do with the rules changing. You don't buy anything new for chess because you can buy everything there is to buy for $20. Maybe if you really love chess and want to decorate your house you buy a nice chess set to display, but then your purchases end. With 40k (and similar games) the cost to buy everything is much higher, so only a tiny minority of customers will even come close to running out of things to buy.

Are you going to be buying new GW stuff for the new Edition in the future?

No. I might buy new models, but the new rules aren't the reason why. I already have a list of what I want to buy for the foreseeable future, and it's unlikely that a new edition will change that significantly. Unless of course the new edition sucks so much that I give up on 40k entirely.

How many times have you buy new models because of rules changes?

Very rarely, and when new rules do motivate me to buy a new model it usually just replaces some other model I was going to buy instead, for a net gain of $0 for GW.

That money are cash that GW will never have if they perfected the game.

Sure, that specific money wouldn't be in GW's bank account, but right now GW is missing a lot of potential money because people know the rules suck and don't buy GW games. Is it better to get a relatively small amount of additional money from existing customers, or to get completely new customers who have to make all of the $500+ new army purchases?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Talys wrote:
In fact, many younger players start and abandon 40k because they find out that to be competitive, they need to spend a thousand bucks, and that's more than they can afford, and more than they expected getting into the game.

And guess what: that's a complaint about the rules. If the rules didn't suck then the cost of "being competitive" wouldn't be any higher than the cost of playing the game any other way. Only in badly designed games do you have problems with players having to spend additional money to play competitively.

Enough with your theory of how to make a perfect game. Common sense tells me that if you can build a nuke bomb in 30years...paper and pencil game can be done under 10 years. Nobody is debating with the method of making good games, I am saying GW is not incompetence so, they are doing this intentionally because it is better for them.

New edition last about 5 years, in that 5 years I can spent over 1000 becuse of new edition only. Not talking about new minis update like Tac SM squad. I am talking about flyers and anti air unit as an example. New edition always require more cash for the new mini to stay competive...in the basic level. I am not even talking about power gamer.

I remember when I started out, let's don't talk cash becuse in the 90s it was way cheaper. I was in my youth and not a lot of cash. I have a standard army. Then new edition. I buy new rules and my codex. And minimum of new stuff for my army. It cost me about 30% of my old army.
So every new edition, average army update will cost that person about 30%.

I will say this, I want perfect game but it will never happen.

Like my other example....if GW own the rights to basketball and all court and ball products and fans follow GW blindly GW will change the game of basketball every few years because players will buy new smaller or bigger ball, new require court size or paint job,etc

I think our analogies are getting out of hand.

 Azreal13 wrote:

david choe wrote:

 Azreal13 wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 Azreal13 wrote:
No, I don't know how many GW products have been sold, but I'd guess it's less than $5bn, which is the total monopoly revenue at $20 a box.

Monopoly is not a hobby that requires large amounts of time and energy like 40k does. Short of reducing 40k to Monopoly levels (lol), it is bound to never have the same appeal.

As for balancing, how does one balance a player who has 3 Baneblades vs a player who only wants to run Flyers? There's too much diversity in this game to balance it without taking some of the options out.

You're drawing a false equivalency there. I didn't say it was a hobby, it was held up as an example of how keeping the rules the same "doesn't work" and I was merely pointing out that in fact Monopoly has been phenomenally successful for decades while doing exactly that.

I use monopoly as an example of a perfect game... and that is all.

GW games like WH and 40K are hobby games and not box game like monopoly. SpaceHulk is more like Monolopy.

Hobby need new things or it will die out. Example.. golf... perfect game..rules (for players), but they keep making better equipment.. so the company can continue. If a Golf equipment can change the rules of golf and players will keep buying their products.. why stop it?

GW will never stop making new edition because they can. Golf pro equipment maker can't do that. So they just keep making new and better equipment.

GW will keep making better models and change the rules because they can and it makes them more money.

So why do the rules need to be bad? Why can't they just be new? Why can't they release a new edition every decade or so, which exists purely to do housekeeping and consolidation (once they've cracked it of course, not the current mess) and spend the rest of time expanding on different ways to play, campaign sets, new factions etc etc?

Nothing about what you suggest inherently requires an intentionally poor ruleset or to not keep producing new material.

Bad or good is not important , just new. How many new edition have bad or worst rules than the last Ed?

I just told you why they keep making new edition (new does equal good or bad), because more money.

6th was bad and they didn't make as much money as they wanted, so they rushed out 7th too soon and chased away players, losing them more money.

I'd say 'bad' is important to the subject.

david choe wrote:
Enough with your theory of how to make a perfect game. Common sense tells me that if you can build a nuke bomb in 30years...paper and pencil game can be done under 10 years. Nobody is debating with the method of making good games, I am saying GW is not incompetence so, they are doing this intentionally because it is better for them.

Sigh. Once again, you can easily make a good game in 30 years if you have the right approach for making it. If you start with a coherent vision for what you want your game to be, make good design a high priority, and invest the required time into serious playtesting then you will get good results. If, like GW, you publish whatever random thoughts you have without testing anything or even bothering to sit down and decide what you want your game to be before you start writing then it doesn't matter how many years you spend, you'll never get a good product.

New edition last about 5 years, in that 5 years I can spent over 1000 becuse of new edition only. Not talking about new minis update like Tac SM squad. I am talking about flyers and anti air unit as an example. New edition always require more cash for the new mini to stay competive...in the basic level. I am not even talking about power gamer.

Again, you are not a typical customer. Most people do not spend an additional $1000 on a new edition. They buy the rules, and maybe they adjust their purchase decisions a bit, but they don't massively increase their budget. And GW doesn't gain anything from selling you a $50 AA unit instead of the $50 tank you would have bought if 6th edition hadn't added flyers.

Like my other example....if GW own the rights to basketball and all court and ball products and fans follow GW blindly GW will change the game of basketball every few years because players will buy new smaller or bigger ball, new require court size or paint job,etc

Except "fans follow GW blindly" is an incredibly stupid assumption to base your business on. Most people aren't blindly loyal fanboys, and going from one broken edition to a slightly different broken edition is not a good way to generate additional sales from most customers.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also, this whole "GW has to keep the game broken to make you buy new stuff" argument fails badly when you try to explain things like the DA flyers. If GW deliberately changes the rules to make you buy new stuff then why weren't the DA flyers given powerful rules to encourage you to buy them? Why are the only good units in the codex the bikes and terminators that every DA player already owned?

 Peregrine wrote:
Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Talys wrote:
In fact, many younger players start and abandon 40k because they find out that to be competitive, they need to spend a thousand bucks, and that's more than they can afford, and more than they expected getting into the game.

And guess what: that's a complaint about the rules. If the rules didn't suck then the cost of "being competitive" wouldn't be any higher than the cost of playing the game any other way. Only in badly designed games do you have problems with players having to spend additional money to play competitively.

No, that isn't what I meant at all.

Even if you know exactly what you want and have no waste, it costs $1,000+ to field 1,850 points that looks like something you'd be proud to show off. That isn't because of bad rules, that's because models aren't cheap, and you need a lot of models to field 1,850 for most factions.

When I say, "competitive" I don't mean winning the next tournament. I mean, going and playing a game with *anyone* and not having embarrassing units simply because all you own is a DV starter box and two $50 add-ons.

My point: the top reason potential players at my local stores don't start 40k is because they are smart enough to do the math, and see that fielding an army will cost them hundreds of dollars, and that isn't an investment they want to make. Even with a perfect set of rules, it would still cost them hundreds of dollars, and at that price, they'd rather get a new Xbox One, PC, make a mortgage payment, or whatever.

 Talys wrote:
When I say, "competitive" I don't mean winning the next tournament. I mean, going and playing a game with *anyone* and not having embarrassing units simply because all you own is a DV starter box and two $50 add-ons.

But that's also a rules complaint. If the rules weren't broken then a new player could show up with their starter set and two $50 add-ons and play a 500-1000 point game (or whatever point total those units add up to) and have a fun game. The only reason that's embarrassing for the new player is that the rules are broken in general and even more broken in small games. Fix the rules and this isn't a problem.

 Peregrine wrote:

david choe wrote:
Enough with your theory of how to make a perfect game. Common sense tells me that if you can build a nuke bomb in 30years...paper and pencil game can be done under 10 years. Nobody is debating with the method of making good games, I am saying GW is not incompetence so, they are doing this intentionally because it is better for them.

Sigh. Once again, you can easily make a good game in 30 years if you have the right approach for making it. If you start with a coherent vision for what you want your game to be, make good design a high priority, and invest the required time into serious playtesting then you will get good results. If, like GW, you publish whatever random thoughts you have without testing anything or even bothering to sit down and decide what you want your game to be before you start writing then it doesn't matter how many years you spend, you'll never get a good product.

New edition last about 5 years, in that 5 years I can spent over 1000 becuse of new edition only. Not talking about new minis update like Tac SM squad. I am talking about flyers and anti air unit as an example. New edition always require more cash for the new mini to stay competive...in the basic level. I am not even talking about power gamer.

Again, you are not a typical customer. Most people do not spend an additional $1000 on a new edition. They buy the rules, and maybe they adjust their purchase decisions a bit, but they don't massively increase their budget. And GW doesn't gain anything from selling you a $50 AA unit instead of the $50 tank you would have bought if 6th edition hadn't added flyers.

Like my other example....if GW own the rights to basketball and all court and ball products and fans follow GW blindly GW will change the game of basketball every few years because players will buy new smaller or bigger ball, new require court size or paint job,etc

Except "fans follow GW blindly" is an incredibly stupid assumption to base your business on. Most people aren't blindly loyal fanboys, and going from one broken edition to a slightly different broken edition is not a good way to generate additional sales from most customers.

I am not sure if you are doing this on purpose.....nobody is arguing with your THEORY of how to make perfect game. Time is the evidence here. You keep saying GW Is doing wrong...and I am here to tell you they had the time and fund to correct their error by now. If your theory is correct, you don't think they can figure it out by now?

Are you saying that we all are better than GW at designing games? The answer is yes we are. You are proofing my point. If you can figure it out, why can't GW. They have and they know that keep making new edition and keep making more money. They CHOOSE not to make perfect game.

If I give 20 of us here 100,000 dollars each and 2 years to perfected 40k... I know we can do it. At worst ...it would be new edition....GW spend over 10 millions in development and 30 years and all we got is this crap....

I speak from experience and you can look up history of GW....they will always keep giving us new edition even if 10 TH is perfect, they will give us 11 which is 10-1 bad, and then 12 Ed will be 11+1 good....the system is always back and forth delete some and add some...it is fluid always.

david choe wrote:

Spoiler:

 Azreal13 wrote:

david choe wrote:

 Azreal13 wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 Azreal13 wrote:
No, I don't know how many GW products have been sold, but I'd guess it's less than $5bn, which is the total monopoly revenue at $20 a box.

Monopoly is not a hobby that requires large amounts of time and energy like 40k does. Short of reducing 40k to Monopoly levels (lol), it is bound to never have the same appeal.

As for balancing, how does one balance a player who has 3 Baneblades vs a player who only wants to run Flyers? There's too much diversity in this game to balance it without taking some of the options out.

You're drawing a false equivalency there. I didn't say it was a hobby, it was held up as an example of how keeping the rules the same "doesn't work" and I was merely pointing out that in fact Monopoly has been phenomenally successful for decades while doing exactly that.

I use monopoly as an example of a perfect game... and that is all.

GW games like WH and 40K are hobby games and not box game like monopoly. SpaceHulk is more like Monolopy.

Hobby need new things or it will die out. Example.. golf... perfect game..rules (for players), but they keep making better equipment.. so the company can continue. If a Golf equipment can change the rules of golf and players will keep buying their products.. why stop it?

GW will never stop making new edition because they can. Golf pro equipment maker can't do that. So they just keep making new and better equipment.

GW will keep making better models and change the rules because they can and it makes them more money.

So why do the rules need to be bad? Why can't they just be new? Why can't they release a new edition every decade or so, which exists purely to do housekeeping and consolidation (once they've cracked it of course, not the current mess) and spend the rest of time expanding on different ways to play, campaign sets, new factions etc etc?

Nothing about what you suggest inherently requires an intentionally poor ruleset or to not keep producing new material.

Bad or good is not important , just new. How many new edition have bad or worst rules than the last Ed?

I just told you why they keep making new edition (new does equal good or bad), because more money.

Not important to whom? It's bloody well important to me. It'll be bloody important to GW too, if people stop playing and buying because the game's gak.

There's not even strong evidence that a new edition does generate a massive amount of cash anyway, at least not for 6th or 7th, so if you're assumption is they're doing it to fluff sales is correct, they're failing at making good rules and making money.

But then, I'm old fashioned and I was always taught that the best way to succeed in business is to offer a quality product people want at a decent price, not to hurl half arsed gak at an increasingly jaded and shrinking customer base while jacking up prices and slashing your costs so that the diminishing returns are disguised for as long as possible, so what do I know?

@david choe -- I thought about your thought a little bit, and perhaps you're right, in a different way.

Instead of saying that the game is purposely broken, say try this theory on for size:

Games Workshop increases the relative value of some units to encourage the sales of models that don't sell well.

That sounds more plausible than GW wanting the game to stay broken, and amounts to the same thing. Buff unit x, people buy unit x. Unit Y sales doing poorly? Buff unit Y.

It sounds kind of cold-hearted and cruel, but it's pretty common in video games too, where the life of a video game is extended by giving buffs to unpopular classes and skills in order to encourage players to try something new (take Diablo, for instance).

The question is, do I mind? I'm not sure that I do, because being someone who would really like to own and have painted all the models of a faction I play anyhow, it just encourages me to try new things.

However, if I didn't enjoy collecting the faction and wanted to just play for years with one static army, then yeah, this would kind of suck.

david choe wrote:
Time is the evidence here. You keep saying GW Is doing wrong...and I am here to tell you they had the time and fund to correct their error by now. If your theory is correct, you don't think they can figure it out by now?

No, I don't think they can figure it out because their process is fundamentally flawed. No matter how long GW spends working on 40k with their current methods it will never produce good results. So the absence of good results is not proof that GW is maliciously sabotaging their own product.

If I give 20 of us here 100,000 dollars each and 2 years to perfected 40k... I know we can do it. At worst ...it would be new edition....GW spend over 10 millions in development and 30 years and all we got is this crap....

Well yes, that's because GW is an incompetently-run company. They hire rule authors who aren't very good at what they do and then place them in an environment that is almost guaranteed to make them fail. That doesn't mean they're deliberately sabotaging their own product, it just means they're incompetent.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Talys wrote:
When I say, "competitive" I don't mean winning the next tournament. I mean, going and playing a game with *anyone* and not having embarrassing units simply because all you own is a DV starter box and two $50 add-ons.

But that's also a rules complaint. If the rules weren't broken then a new player could show up with their starter set and two $50 add-ons and play a 500-1000 point game (or whatever point total those units add up to) and have a fun game. The only reason that's embarrassing for the new player is that the rules are broken in general and even more broken in small games. Fix the rules and this isn't a problem.

Dark Vengeance is perfectly fine as long as you use only the units that come in the box, and nothing else.

Nobody has a cost issue playing a 500 point game. But the people who have an issue with cost don't want to play Kill Team. They want to play 2,000 point games, and also realize that in order to know the game reasonably well, they need to buy at least a half dozen books. They also realize that those beautiful models sitting in showcases are beyond their patience to achieve, and move on.

And by the way, if you limit it to low point rules like Kill Team (and models permitted therein), the game is actually pretty balanced and fun. It's just not what people think of when they think 40k.

But we're getting away from my point: NEW players, who have never read the rules, look at the price stickers at hobby shops or GW stores, and don't start. They don't know if the rules suck, or if they're the best written, most internally balanced zen in the universe. Even if the Yin and Yang were in perfect harmony, they would still be scared of the price stickers and vast amount of boxes on the shelves.

I just wanted to add that creating 40k perfectly balance is not rocket science. It is a paper and pencil that anybody can do, but will take time....2 years time of 20 people like us gamers can do it. I mange if we have 2 or 3 professional designer in ther too? This is not rocket science...it is not a holy Grail quest....GW had 30 years with millions in it....they still can't do it is because they choose not to.

They choose not to because of incompetence or because new edition makes money?

Ther are only two reasons why we have so many editions.
1 GW is incompetence
2GW choose to do this to make new edition for more money

 Peregrine wrote:

david choe wrote:
Time is the evidence here. You keep saying GW Is doing wrong...and I am here to tell you they had the time and fund to correct their error by now. If your theory is correct, you don't think they can figure it out by now?

No, I don't think they can figure it out because their process is fundamentally flawed. No matter how long GW spends working on 40k with their current methods it will never produce good results. So the absence of good results is not proof that GW is maliciously sabotaging their own product.

If I give 20 of us here 100,000 dollars each and 2 years to perfected 40k... I know we can do it. At worst ...it would be new edition....GW spend over 10 millions in development and 30 years and all we got is this crap....

Well yes, that's because GW is an incompetently-run company. They hire rule authors who aren't very good at what they do and then place them in an environment that is almost guaranteed to make them fail. That doesn't mean they're deliberately sabotaging their own product, it just means they're incompetent.

As I said in my last post, perhaps GW buffs units to sell nice models that didn't sell well last time around (because they were underpowered), and to give it a little more oomph, they overcompensate. I wouldn't call that maliciously sabotaging their own product, nor incompetence. I mean, they didn't accidentally make anni barges sucky and wraiths and flayed ones great, y'know? And I'm sure they didn't do it to wreck the game either. But you know how many spiders and wraiths have sold at my store? O.o

Manipulating their customers into spending money, now, that I can run with

The manipulation in power levels of unit types could be considered a deliberate ploy (such as the swing in the power of MC from 5th-6th) but then how do you account for things like the Psychic Phase is barely playable RAW (because, RAW IC Psykers attached to a non psychic unit cease to be psykers) or how the Tzeentch Burning Chariot did not function as all but the most ardent contrarian would consider it was meant to?

There's manipulation of the rules to manipulate the players, and then there's writing rules that simply don't work properly, or have multiple, equally valid interpretations. That's not evil, it's just stupid.

david choe wrote:
I just wanted to add that creating 40k perfectly balance is not rocket science. It is a paper and pencil that anybody can do, but will take time....2 years time of 20 people like us gamers can do it. I mange if we have 2 or 3 professional designer in ther too? This is not rocket science...it is not a holy Grail quest....GW had 30 years with millions in it....they still can't do it is because they choose not to.

They choose not to because of incompetence or because new edition makes money?

Ther are only two reasons why we have so many editions.
1 GW is incompetence
2GW choose to do this to make new edition for more money

Look at how many editions there are for Dungeons and Dragons. People like new stuff, so I think even if units were all really well balanced, people would still buy the new editions.

Also, there is game escalation. Since you've been around for a while, you must remember that when 40k first started, the number of models on a table were fewer, and the number of non-infantry models were very few. In Rogue Trader, there weren't even official lists, per se -- people had to make them up themselves. In time, there were bigger and bigger models -- in 1990 we would not have imagined Thunderhawks, Flyrants, Imperial Knights, Wraithknights, and so on, on the same table as space marines and aspect warriors.

This isn't just 40k -- WMH just announced a bunch of Garguantuan models like large flyers. One way of getting people to open up their wallets is definitely, "bigger and better!"


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Azreal13 wrote:
The manipulation in power levels of unit types could be considered a deliberate ploy (such as the swing in the power of MC from 5th-6th) but then how do you account for things like the Psychic Phase is barely playable RAW (because, RAW IC Psykers attached to a non psychic unit cease to be psykers) or how the Tzeentch Burning Chariot did not function as all but the most ardent contrarian would consider it was meant to?

There's manipulation of the rules to manipulate the players, and then there's writing rules that simply don't work properly, or have multiple, equally valid interpretations. That's not evil, it's just stupid.

Yes, I certainly won't disagree with that There is unit manipulation, internal balance issues, and escalation to manipulate people to buy more models, and in a separate category, rules that are weird or apparently stupid.

 Talys wrote:
Look at how many editions there are for Dungeons and Dragons.

Not that many actually. D&D is older than GW and still only on its 5th edition, and not all of those new editions involved major changes. But yet somehow D&D still makes lots of money by selling campaign settings, new classes, etc, to add on to the core rules. They don't need to make a new edition for the sole purpose of making everyone buy the rules again.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Azreal13 wrote:
The manipulation in power levels of unit types could be considered a deliberate ploy (such as the swing in the power of MC from 5th-6th) but then how do you account for things like the Psychic Phase is barely playable RAW (because, RAW IC Psykers attached to a non psychic unit cease to be psykers) or how the Tzeentch Burning Chariot did not function as all but the most ardent contrarian would consider it was meant to?

There's manipulation of the rules to manipulate the players, and then there's writing rules that simply don't work properly, or have multiple, equally valid interpretations. That's not evil, it's just stupid.

This.