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So let me start by saying that this is not a "blame the players" post or a "rage against the Eldar post." this is stemming from something I noticed when the new necron 'dex came out and now I'm feeling even more confident of my assessment as the I'm looking at all the new Eldar stuff. Here's my theory:

GW is trying to listen to the player base, and that's the problem.

Follow me here, and please keep in mind that this is all speculation using anecdotal evidence meant to give you an idea of how I came to his conclusion.

In the dark days of 6th edition there was plenty of rage and froth at the unbalanced armies. GW decides to release 7th, a questionable move at best, but one that would allow them to shed the stigmata of 6th. With this comes the new codex design and the three first major codex releases are accompanied by supplements (which actually include more than a single page of rules and some artifacts) while the Blood Angels get a sort-of-supplement in the form of Shield of Baal. Throughout this process however, there's a constant undertone among the player base: The new books are bland and boring without any flavor. The supplements return some of that but then the complaint is that you're compelled to buy the supplements in order to play to the true strength of the army. Also, and here's what really convinced me that GW was taking it's cue from the internet outcry, the format wasn't good anymore and the removal of separate unit entries and their art in the fluff section was disappointing.

Fast forward to Necrons.

First off, they added separate unit entries back into the books and i was a little surprised at how little attention this got since it was a topic of conversation for at least a week a few months back. Second, they added the Composite Formation Detachments, which add a lot of flavor and were essentially what you got in a supplement but turned into a single detachment. Now you can make an army the way you want to represent a particular tomb world, craft world, daemonkin band or whatever by picking and choosing from among the various formations, and not only the but they give you bonuses for doing so which represents the synergy among the various units for playing along the fluff lines of their army. And one thing you certainly can't say about the three most recent books is that they are bland or tow the line for middling power. In fact, these new books look more like a codex and a supplement combined into a single source than the previous ones. And again, I just keep thinking back to those posts and those conversations and comments that asked for exactly these types of things.

Now, to be fair, it does seem a little ham-fisted to thrust this at the community. And I won't deny that new Eldar look pretty scary on paper and that they may be our new overlords (though I have a sneaking suspicion they'll be restricted in tournaments and that that will filter down through the community). However, what I see is that the codexes have unit entries again, new art, are certainly not boring, have more flavor, and rules are more in line with the fluff, which is what a lot of people have been asking for even if they weren't thinking we'd get something along the lines of the new Eldar book. So have we made this bed ourselves?

And please please please don't turn this into an argument about the new Eldar dex or whether or not GW is an incompetent mega corp trying to bleed the players dry, I'm really sick of reading posts about that. This is meant to be a discussion on whether or not we are influencing the game more than the community seems to believe we are.

Does the usual timeline in having books written and printed line up with your theory?

No, not our fault.

The correct procedure is to take on board feedback, then run it through the filter of your own (allegedly) superior knowledge and experience and represent it to the players modified in a way to make it fair, or to do it in a way that pleases the most or offends the fewest.

Equally it is also on the company to pick a direction and stick with it. If the game is meant to be a finely honed tactical exercise, then make it that. If the game is essentially supposedly a battle scale pseudo RPG, make it that. If you're after balance, do it, if you're going to make it a pantomime, do that. What you don't do is start off in one way, do a total 180 halfway through the update cycle, piss everyone who is on the wrong side of the about face off, launch a new edition and do the same thing again.

 Eldarain wrote:
Does the usual timeline in having books written and printed line up with your theory?

I'm not sure, tbh, I do know that they recently started doing printing either in house or locally in the UK so I would think that they would have a little more control on being able to change up the books quicker. And I do know that the sense of "bland and boring" along with "mandatory supplements" started around the time of the Dark Eldar book so there would have been plenty of lead time to play with formatting if they were so inclined.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Azreal13 wrote:
No, not our fault.

Let me reiterate, I'm not trying to say this is the player's fault. IF I'm right (and I don't think we'll ever truly know) then obviously GW is doing it in such a fashion that they're not delivering what we want. But are we the starting point for the change?

The idea that GW is listening is what I find absurd.
6th was unpopular because it was a mess of imbalance and rules bloat. So they fix it by making it more unbalanced and bloated?
It didn't sell so they knew something was wrong. Since they don't listen or do market research, they don't know why. So they come out with 7th which is what they think people want, (more ridiculous than evar!!) And guess what, people still don't like it.
The newer dexes came out and didn't sell. Since they don't know why they think it's because they weren't OP and not because they were just bland and lifeless.
So we get Necrons and Eldar.
It's entirely GW's fault.

 MWHistorian wrote:
The idea that GW is listening is what I find absurd.

I'm not taking a stance on the way things are going, however since the new Necron codex included nerfs to everything Necron opponents were claiming was OP in the last codex, as well as buffs to just about everything Necron players said was overcosted or underpowered, it would seem to me that at least some market research was done.

Either that, or the designers of the codex had opinions that were coincidentally in line with the predominant group-think of the player base.

 jasper76 wrote:

 MWHistorian wrote:
The idea that GW is listening is what I find absurd.

I'm not taking a stance on the way things are going, however since the new Necron codex included nerfs to everything Necron opponents were claiming was OP in the last codex, as well as buffs to just about everything Necron players said was overcosted or underpowered, it would seem to me that at least some market research was done.

Either that, or the designers of the codex had opinions that were coincidentally in line with the predominant group-think of the player base.

Like buffing wraiths?

 jasper76 wrote:

 MWHistorian wrote:
The idea that GW is listening is what I find absurd.

I'm not taking a stance on the way things are going, however since the new Necron codex included nerfs to everything Necron opponents were claiming was OP in the last codex, as well as buffs to just about everything Necron players said was overcosted or underpowered, it would seem to me that at least some market research was done.

Either that, or the designers of the codex had opinions that were coincidentally in line with the predominant group-think of the player base.

Or, they realized that Flayed Ones, Praetorians, Destroyers, ext weren't selling, and decided to make them better, and give them formations so you'd have to buy more of them?

 MWHistorian wrote:

 jasper76 wrote:

 MWHistorian wrote:
The idea that GW is listening is what I find absurd.

I'm not taking a stance on the way things are going, however since the new Necron codex included nerfs to everything Necron opponents were claiming was OP in the last codex, as well as buffs to just about everything Necron players said was overcosted or underpowered, it would seem to me that at least some market research was done.

Either that, or the designers of the codex had opinions that were coincidentally in line with the predominant group-think of the player base.

Like buffing wraiths?

Exception to the rule. That was a questionable move, and I can;t imagine Necron players would have been remotely dissappointed if Wraith T remained where it was.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 krodarklorr wrote:

 jasper76 wrote:

 MWHistorian wrote:
The idea that GW is listening is what I find absurd.

I'm not taking a stance on the way things are going, however since the new Necron codex included nerfs to everything Necron opponents were claiming was OP in the last codex, as well as buffs to just about everything Necron players said was overcosted or underpowered, it would seem to me that at least some market research was done.

Either that, or the designers of the codex had opinions that were coincidentally in line with the predominant group-think of the player base.

Or, they realized that Flayed Ones, Praetorians, Destroyers, ext weren't selling, and decided to make them better, and give them formations so you'd have to buy more of them?

Hehe...or this . Prime example IMO is Tomb Blades. I don't know why the presence of Tomb Blades would boost RP by 1, except that its time to start selling some Tomb Blades!

 krodarklorr wrote:

 jasper76 wrote:

 MWHistorian wrote:
The idea that GW is listening is what I find absurd.

I'm not taking a stance on the way things are going, however since the new Necron codex included nerfs to everything Necron opponents were claiming was OP in the last codex, as well as buffs to just about everything Necron players said was overcosted or underpowered, it would seem to me that at least some market research was done.

Either that, or the designers of the codex had opinions that were coincidentally in line with the predominant group-think of the player base.

Or, they realized that Flayed Ones, Praetorians, Destroyers, ext weren't selling, and decided to make them better, and give them formations so you'd have to buy more of them?

I would think that too if it wasn't for the fact that they re-introduced unit entries in the fluff sections. I would think that that has little to no impact on model sales, so that seems more like something they would have seen somewhere or through actual customer feedback. Maybe I'm putting too much emphasis on that, but it was just so odd to very suddenly add them back the way that they did.

A single example of Necrons is not a strong enough basis to assert that GW is even trying to listen. Every other codex or book runs directly against that argument.

I'd believe GW were listening if Chaos received legion rules. Or Sisters get plastic kits. Or any number of incredibly common requests or incredibly simple things to include in books.

No, GW doesn't listen, and has admitted they do no research. Their actions more or less prove this, as their only consistency is their inconsistency.

Finally, no, its not the players fault. I don't know why people think forums are a terrible place for companies to received feedback. There's certainly garbage and gakky posts that should be ignored, but I'd also hope people with enough intelligence working for these companies would be able to discern the valid criticisms from the useless rage and idiotic nonsense.

Its no coincidence that most successful games, tabletop or otherwise, use dedicated teams of testers and draw on the community for more feedback. GW does not do these things.

Stop making excuses for incompetence. Jetbikes didn't get 3x the firepower to make the codex more fluffy and exciting, its simply because the design team is bad. The aspect warrior changes actually were interesting without horribly unbalancing the codex.

If GW had spent five minutes on this forum floating the proposed jetbike changes, they would have gotten a near unanimous and extremely clear message about how foolish they were. This wasn't about complex interactions of rules from multiple codexs , it was a single glaring failure obvious to almost everyone here. When the average forum dweller is more knowledgeable about the product than the people making it, that is a serious problem.

scimitar wrote:
Stop making excuses for incompetence. Jetbikes didn't get 3x the firepower to make the codex more fluffy and exciting, its simply because the design team is bad. The aspect warrior changes actually were interesting without horribly unbalancing the codex.

If GW had spent five minutes on this forum floating the proposed jetbike changes, they would have gotten a near unanimous and extremely clear message about how foolish they were. This wasn't about complex interactions of rules from multiple codexs , it was a single glaring failure obvious to almost everyone here. When the average forum dweller is more knowledgeable about the product than the people making it, that is a serious problem.

I think it's far more likely that the new Jetbike sprues were designed & cut well before any of the rules writing took place. Hence, if each sprue already contained all 3 weapon options, then the rules would thus be forced to allow players to represent their own units with every option available.

Yes the bikes are undercosted, but they're not going to be I-Win buttons that allow bad players to play the game on autopilot either.

Experiment 626 wrote:


Yes the bikes are undercosted, but they're not going to be I-Win buttons that allow bad players to play the game on autopilot either.

While I agree with this statement, since they're nowhere near as durable as Wave Serpents in their old book were, it's still ridiculous that they not only kept them in the Troop section (which allows for easy CAD manipulation) but gave them better firepower than any other armies troops.

GW doesn't listen, and because of this, we'll never see these toned down. The only thing that they'll "listen" to is their plummeting sales of their new Jetbikes and other models, but since people want to "I auto win" option, they've been eating up these Jetbike kits. So, nothing will ever get accomplished.

Experiment 626 wrote:
I think it's far more likely that the new Jetbike sprues were designed & cut well before any of the rules writing took place. Hence, if each sprue already contained all 3 weapon options, then the rules would thus be forced to allow players to represent their own units with every option available.

This. The manufacturing team drives the rules team, so they push something out and the devs have to make rules that'll make it sell. As for the rest, it's just the effects of random game design -> the results will be random. People will randomly love it or hate it because there is no rhyme or reason to why it's done, other than to churn sales. The alternative being to try and improve the existing rules instead of just randomly change them. The only fault that lies with the customers is continuing to do business with games workshop, which is viewed as endorsement of their practices.

Well every CSM player I know got exactly what we were asking for! I mean, look at all the legion rules....and err.

But the legion supplements....oh wait....

 MWHistorian wrote:
The idea that GW is listening is what I find absurd.
6th was unpopular because it was a mess of imbalance and rules bloat. So they fix it by making it more unbalanced and bloated?
It didn't sell so they knew something was wrong. Since they don't listen or do market research, they don't know why. So they come out with 7th which is what they think people want, (more ridiculous than evar!!) And guess what, people still don't like it.
The newer dexes came out and didn't sell. Since they don't know why they think it's because they weren't OP and not because they were just bland and lifeless.
So we get Necrons and Eldar.
It's entirely GW's fault.

Yeah, I agree.

Either they saw that the new codexes didn't drive sales and did a 180 back to power creep town or they have 2 design team who don't talk to each other or they actually design the tabletop randomly.

I mean... it went AM, Orks, SW, GK, DE, BA and then 'crons and eldar

 Blacksails wrote:
A single example of Necrons is not a strong enough basis to assert that GW is even trying to listen. Every other codex or book runs directly against that argument.

I'd believe GW were listening if Chaos received legion rules. Or Sisters get plastic kits. Or any number of incredibly common requests or incredibly simple things to include in books.

No, GW doesn't listen, and has admitted they do no research. Their actions more or less prove this, as their only consistency is their inconsistency.

Finally, no, its not the players fault. I don't know why people think forums are a terrible place for companies to received feedback. There's certainly garbage and gakky posts that should be ignored, but I'd also hope people with enough intelligence working for these companies would be able to discern the valid criticisms from the useless rage and idiotic nonsense.

Its no coincidence that most successful games, tabletop or otherwise, use dedicated teams of testers and draw on the community for more feedback. GW does not do these things.

It''s not just the Necron book though, it's the new layout, the combination of what were previously supplement rules with the base codex. the addition of new armies that people have been asking for such as harlies and admech, the new chaos book allows daemons and space marines to join the same units and removes randomness, and the increase in power actually seems to better reflect the fluff in the rules (except for the price of the WK, think they undercut that one by about 100 points). I feel like all this is a bit too much of a coincidence to say that GW just so happened to have it in the pipe.

And again, for the third time, I'm not blaming the players. GW is the one who took whatever information they got and created the product that we have, but let's not pretend that forums are a good source of intelligent and measured discourse resulting in constructive criticism. They are good places to judge what's bothering the community but an awful place to find solutions. I feel that it's more likely that GW is drawing information from store managers who are speaking with customers who play at GW stores.

Again though, this is all speculation on my part, I'm just seeing a little bit of a pattern here wherein GW is trying, however imperfectly, to give us what we want. I'll leave the question of whether or not they've succeeded to other, more hyperbolic threads though as I suspect that we all already know what the answer to that would be.

 Grimdark wrote:
Yeah, I agree.

Either they saw that the new codexes didn't drive sales and did a 180 back to power creep town or they have 2 design team who don't talk to each other or they actually design the tabletop randomly.

I mean... it went AM, Orks, SW, GK, DE, BA and then 'crons and eldar

It's less random than you might think. They generally tend to escalate power of codexes/army books towards the end of an edition cycle.

I predict soft and chewable codices with non-toxic crayons to colour in the happy Orks.

GW hear my plea.

Akiasura wrote:
Well every CSM player I know got exactly what we were asking for! I mean, look at all the legion rules....and err.

But the legion supplements....oh wait....

I didn't say people got everything they asked for, but there's been a lot of stuff coming out recently that reflects what people have asked for, however imperfectly. Also, legion rules are currently being produced, they're just through FW and set in 30k. If rumors hold true that may be bleeding over into 40k proper at some point, but I don't see them coming out with 40k codexes for those. Again, just thoughts.

The only players they listen to are the GW inhouse players.

aka the writers

and they dont play like everyone else.

I think GW's sales and design department sends out a memo to the person(s) writing the rules for a particular army with a few notes to hit. "Sales of lychguard is too low, make them more attractive", "we are making this new unit so create rules to get them into people's collections". GW doesn't really care about balance so long as the design notes are touched upon. Sometimes the writer of the rules tries to keep things under control without rocking the boat too much (7th edition Orks, space wolves for example) and others are either incompetent or have strong favoritism (7th Eldar). Play testing is a very low priority.

I do think somebody in sales came up with the idea of the "decurion" system to force certain models into armies and instructed that the benefit of these to be substantial. So an army with relatively good balance like the core necron book becomes broken with the strong decurion benefits. The addition of these special formation FOCs might be made well after the unit rules are made. The push to get LoWs into the game is a push from sales to get those big models onto the tables.

GW doesn't listen to the consumer base beyond what impacts their sales numbers. Their changes are too unrelated to the wants of the gaming community and moreso related to pushing short term sales numbers.

CKyle80 wrote:

Akiasura wrote:
Well every CSM player I know got exactly what we were asking for! I mean, look at all the legion rules....and err.

But the legion supplements....oh wait....

I didn't say people got everything they asked for, but there's been a lot of stuff coming out recently that reflects what people have asked for, however imperfectly. Also, legion rules are currently being produced, they're just through FW and set in 30k. If rumors hold true that may be bleeding over into 40k proper at some point, but I don't see them coming out with 40k codexes for those. Again, just thoughts.

I'll hold my breathe.

Though after all these years you think I would have passed out by now....



I'm just saying, if GW remotely listens to their fanbase, they would not have denied CSM Legion rules and given Chapter rules to SM right after. It was a slap in the face

Akiasura wrote:

CKyle80 wrote:

Akiasura wrote:
Well every CSM player I know got exactly what we were asking for! I mean, look at all the legion rules....and err.

But the legion supplements....oh wait....

I didn't say people got everything they asked for, but there's been a lot of stuff coming out recently that reflects what people have asked for, however imperfectly. Also, legion rules are currently being produced, they're just through FW and set in 30k. If rumors hold true that may be bleeding over into 40k proper at some point, but I don't see them coming out with 40k codexes for those. Again, just thoughts.

I'll hold my breathe.

Though after all these years you think I would have passed out by now....



I'm just saying, if GW remotely listens to their fanbase, they would not have denied CSM Legion rules and given Chapter rules to SM right after. It was a slap in the face

or maybe tafter CSMs came out they did listen "ohh gee people want ruels for their own semi-factions within the codex, we should do something with the next one!"

CKyle80 wrote:
So let me start by saying that this is not a "blame the players" post or a "rage against the Eldar post." this is stemming from something I noticed when the new necron 'dex came out and now I'm feeling even more confident of my assessment as the I'm looking at all the new Eldar stuff. Here's my theory:

GW is trying to listen to the player base, and that's the problem.

Follow me here, and please keep in mind that this is all speculation using anecdotal evidence meant to give you an idea of how I came to his conclusion.

In the dark days of 6th edition there was plenty of rage and froth at the unbalanced armies. GW decides to release 7th, a questionable move at best, but one that would allow them to shed the stigmata of 6th. With this comes the new codex design and the three first major codex releases are accompanied by supplements (which actually include more than a single page of rules and some artifacts) while the Blood Angels get a sort-of-supplement in the form of Shield of Baal. Throughout this process however, there's a constant undertone among the player base: The new books are bland and boring without any flavor. The supplements return some of that but then the complaint is that you're compelled to buy the supplements in order to play to the true strength of the army. Also, and here's what really convinced me that GW was taking it's cue from the internet outcry, the format wasn't good anymore and the removal of separate unit entries and their art in the fluff section was disappointing.

Fast forward to Necrons.

First off, they added separate unit entries back into the books and i was a little surprised at how little attention this got since it was a topic of conversation for at least a week a few months back. Second, they added the Composite Formation Detachments, which add a lot of flavor and were essentially what you got in a supplement but turned into a single detachment. Now you can make an army the way you want to represent a particular tomb world, craft world, daemonkin band or whatever by picking and choosing from among the various formations, and not only the but they give you bonuses for doing so which represents the synergy among the various units for playing along the fluff lines of their army. And one thing you certainly can't say about the three most recent books is that they are bland or tow the line for middling power. In fact, these new books look more like a codex and a supplement combined into a single source than the previous ones. And again, I just keep thinking back to those posts and those conversations and comments that asked for exactly these types of things.

Now, to be fair, it does seem a little ham-fisted to thrust this at the community. And I won't deny that new Eldar look pretty scary on paper and that they may be our new overlords (though I have a sneaking suspicion they'll be restricted in tournaments and that that will filter down through the community). However, what I see is that the codexes have unit entries again, new art, are certainly not boring, have more flavor, and rules are more in line with the fluff, which is what a lot of people have been asking for even if they weren't thinking we'd get something along the lines of the new Eldar book. So have we made this bed ourselves?

And please please please don't turn this into an argument about the new Eldar dex or whether or not GW is an incompetent mega corp trying to bleed the players dry, I'm really sick of reading posts about that. This is meant to be a discussion on whether or not we are influencing the game more than the community seems to believe we are.

GW is not listening to us in the sense that it should, even if you assume they are trying to (which I think is unconfirmed). GW listens to money. It is that simple.

However, if they are listening to the fan base, they aren't listening properly. What most people are complaining about, when it comes to rules, is imbalance. If indeed they are listening, they aren't hearing that it is an overall problem, they are only hearing complaints in regards to smaller issues. If they want to listen, they need to hear the entire voice of the community, which is generally that the game should have an aim at making things at least somewhat balanced. As opposed to Eldar compared to DA or CSM.

I disagree that they are listening to our problems, and that is why so many are upset. If they were listening for the last 2 years, then they would not have released Eldar the way it is. What likely happened is that every power gamer, combined with the people that actually like Eldar for fluff, bought a gak load of wave serpents in 2013 and 2014. They know that book has a huge following, so when they updated, they didn't want to piss off the Eldar players, so they did a minor nerf to the WS (not to make it balanced, but to make it so that there were better things out there, without making people mad). Then they buffed gak that doesn't sell or that sells for a lot (like jet bikes, that will require different weapons). They know there are plenty of Eldar players, so making units that people will buy, and don't already have, is a good way to make money. To hell with everyone else.

And what was their master plan with the assassin codex? The one released with zero new model support. That one.

My fear is that formations will be the nail in the coffin, they weil cement the last death throws of any semblance of army construction and usher in the final phase we've been enduring, the death of 40k and it's rebirth as forced apoc for all. It's not a stretch either, this is the same company that thinks bundling 3 of something for 3 times the price is somehow an incentive and that allowing a knight in a 500pt game is a reasonable thing.

This isn't a bed of our own making, it's more of a bloated cow expertly force fed by jervis all while sporting the biggest gak eating grin in existence. A game that in 5th was as easy as deciding on a point level is now a political minefield where any misstep will leave you either labeled as the enemy of fun or a waac tfg. Almost like leaving everything up to the player is stressful and a fantastic cop out they can use at any time.

I say don't hate the player, hate the game.

BrianDavion wrote:

Akiasura wrote:

CKyle80 wrote:

Akiasura wrote:
Well every CSM player I know got exactly what we were asking for! I mean, look at all the legion rules....and err.

But the legion supplements....oh wait....

I didn't say people got everything they asked for, but there's been a lot of stuff coming out recently that reflects what people have asked for, however imperfectly. Also, legion rules are currently being produced, they're just through FW and set in 30k. If rumors hold true that may be bleeding over into 40k proper at some point, but I don't see them coming out with 40k codexes for those. Again, just thoughts.

I'll hold my breathe.

Though after all these years you think I would have passed out by now....



I'm just saying, if GW remotely listens to their fanbase, they would not have denied CSM Legion rules and given Chapter rules to SM right after. It was a slap in the face

or maybe tafter CSMs came out they did listen "ohh gee people want ruels for their own semi-factions within the codex, we should do something with the next one!"

Ah, that would explain the immediate release of all the legion rules via formations and data slates that I would have gladly paid for!

They wouldn't just re-release the codex as Black Legion, making it worse somehow, and then releasing some minor warbands nobody cared about, because that would be silly

Akiasura wrote:

CKyle80 wrote:

Akiasura wrote:
Well every CSM player I know got exactly what we were asking for! I mean, look at all the legion rules....and err.

But the legion supplements....oh wait....

I didn't say people got everything they asked for, but there's been a lot of stuff coming out recently that reflects what people have asked for, however imperfectly. Also, legion rules are currently being produced, they're just through FW and set in 30k. If rumors hold true that may be bleeding over into 40k proper at some point, but I don't see them coming out with 40k codexes for those. Again, just thoughts.

I'll hold my breathe.

Though after all these years you think I would have passed out by now....



I'm just saying, if GW remotely listens to their fanbase, they would not have denied CSM Legion rules and given Chapter rules to SM right after. It was a slap in the face

I hear you on that, I play Black Templars, Sisters and Grey Knights so I have my own gripe with the release schedules and design studio, but I think that the daemonkin stuff may be trying to address that. It's not legions obviously, nor close by any sense of the word, but it is some chaos love at least, and if they do end up releasing separate books for each then you've practically got World Eaters, Thousand Sons, Death Guard and Emperor's Children with daemonic support right there.

Daemonkin wasn't chaos love, it was buy our new bloodthirster model. Fluff is cheap and crunch is minimal, with most of the work being copy/pasted. Put a hefty pricetag on it and it's win/win spend/spend.