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Breng77 wrote:

 Silentz wrote:
The thing is, the Nerf Hammer Swing method is by far the best way to "balance" a commercial game system, and dare I say it - the most fun.

Having a changing metagame over time is what stops these things becoming stale, and what makes people think "man I need to go spend my money on that new model/subscription/moba character/loot box/whatever"

We don't really want actual balance. We want dynamic balance.

The problem is that the changes are too fast at the moment, but they have already started to slow down.

Yup, changing frequently is actually pretty good because if it becomes apparent that problems will get fixed most (not all) people will be more inclined to build a balanced list and get good with that list rather than trying to chase a meta, spend a bunch of money and time only to have the new hotness nerfed quickly.

Except we don't see that. We DO see people chasing the meta and just moving onto the next OP hotness. If this was true, we would see more balanced lists at tournaments. Instead, when something is nerfed it's just the next best thing that gets spammed.

I would argue you will see more balanced lists in tournaments over time if GW is consistent. What you may not see is those lists winning tournaments, because someone who has the resources will always be able to chase. I'm not really convinced though that we have seen a ton of chasing going on based on any nerfs. Nothing Big has happened since the maelific lord nerf, the Conscript nerfs don't cause much change really in the models needed. I am talking about the average tournament player though, not necessarily your GT winner.

 Sherrypie wrote:

tneva82 wrote:

fresus wrote:
GW has a history of swinging a huge nerf hammer instead of trying to nudge things a little bit at a time (like we eventually saw with conscripts, or with malefic lords), but it looks like they want to switch to more subtle changes, which imho is the only way to balance a game with as many units as 40K. It's just impossible to get it right on the first try.
But they did lower Cawl's point cost in CA, which was already wreaking AM's internal balance

Problem here being you are assuming they are trying to balance and aren't just changing things around in the same swingy "this time unit X is broken, next we nerf them to oblivion and make unit Y the next hotness" they have been doing either by incompetence or by design last 30 years.

Which is the correct assumption, as can be surmised from insider sources like James Hewitt's AMA at Reddit few days ago. The current trend in the company is that the developers are gaining a bit more say in the matters, whereas the moneychasing cha-cha-cha that reigned few years ago is receding following management shake-ups.

Or is that smoke and mirror? So far GW hasn't showed ACTUAL improvement. Stuff like chapter approved released just this month was blatant marketing tool rather than genuine attempt to balance the game. It isn't even SUBTLE about being all about cash.

tneva82 wrote:

 Sherrypie wrote:

tneva82 wrote:

fresus wrote:
GW has a history of swinging a huge nerf hammer instead of trying to nudge things a little bit at a time (like we eventually saw with conscripts, or with malefic lords), but it looks like they want to switch to more subtle changes, which imho is the only way to balance a game with as many units as 40K. It's just impossible to get it right on the first try.
But they did lower Cawl's point cost in CA, which was already wreaking AM's internal balance

Problem here being you are assuming they are trying to balance and aren't just changing things around in the same swingy "this time unit X is broken, next we nerf them to oblivion and make unit Y the next hotness" they have been doing either by incompetence or by design last 30 years.

Which is the correct assumption, as can be surmised from insider sources like James Hewitt's AMA at Reddit few days ago. The current trend in the company is that the developers are gaining a bit more say in the matters, whereas the moneychasing cha-cha-cha that reigned few years ago is receding following management shake-ups.

Or is that smoke and mirror? So far GW hasn't showed ACTUAL improvement. Stuff like chapter approved released just this month was blatant marketing tool rather than genuine attempt to balance the game. It isn't even SUBTLE about being all about cash.

This is definitely an opinion, while not exactly what I was hoping for it did address some balance issues, and delivered a decent amount of content.

 AaronWilson wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:

 Matt.Kingsley wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:
If they are about to release beta rules....WTF rules are we using now lol.

Think of it more like the public beta of the next major patch, which is really what it is.
Video game companies often do the same thing, and if they don't then it's likely tested privately instead.

That's a pretty good point. Normally video game companies release reasoning for each change they make in a patch so you can get an idea of what they are doing.

I have no idea what videogame companies you are talking about. All the games I play just release a patch into the sea of piranhas they call a "community", and then that patch is ripped apart and simultaneously both too much and too little to fix the problem while not addressing other problems that aren't problems at all, obviously. They sometimes include Patch Notes which explain what changed, but never why.

They don't touch "reasoning" with a 10-foot pole, for obvious reasons.

League of Legends give designer notes with there patches, as well as World of Warcraft. The designer notes explain why they made the changes / what they plan to achieve with them.

To about the same degree GW does. I mean just read the article: https://www.warhammer-community.com/2017/12/15/the-future-of-faqs-and-chapter-approved-dec-15gw-homepage-post-2/

About the character change: "This rule means that characters can no longer be used to block characters, meaning Culexus Assassins are more likely to be used as the horrifying psyker-hunters they were always meant to be and not as elaborate human (or posthuman) shields." Neat, cool explanation. The other change was just an errata (less than 10 wounds to less than 10 wounds characteristic).

About the Smite change: "Meanwhile, this proposed change to Smite means that the power is still a great way to dish out mortal wounds, but one that you’ll only be able to cast (easily) a few times in a turn. Using multiple psykers is still a great way to go, but rather than relying on a single trick, you’ll benefit from using a wider pool of psychic powers to secure victory in your games."

That's essentially the same level of commitment to explaining changes that I've seen from most video game patch notes.

Pancakey wrote:

Chill out man.

It's clear from this thread that a lot of people are unhappy with these "fixes" and GWs overall lack of effort with current rules writing.

8th edition is fairly new and it's already collapsing under its own weight of ill conceived rules.

7th was a mess but at least it took some time to get there. People are concerend that 8th will end up in worse shape than 7th and at the current rate, their nightmare secanrio looks to be coming true.

I'm very chill man. I have better things to do than to rage on forums, and I assume that to be the case for most of us.

I disagree with your notion that 8th is failing. The fact that the content is selling so fast would tell me otherwise. The GW site has a constant list of items that are out of stock, you can't find half the bits you want on the second hand shops, and my local game shops have had a hard time keeping a good amount of product on the shelf. I understand that people are concerned, but lets be honest here. There is always going to be a small percentage of people that are unhappy with a change in rules. Let's not turn that into the sky falling.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Table wrote:

Honestly I am not making a dig at you or trying to throw shade. But your postings come off as a player that has little invested in the psychic phase and has been on the wrong side of a games with a psyker heavy force. I have two armies. Tsons and NIghtlords. My NL's have almost zero psykers while my Tsons are psyker heavy. I can tell you right now that my NL list is FAR stronger than my magnus smite "spam". Abusing the morale phase is the next big problem. Mark my words.

You would be 100% correct. My first army is Black Templar, and I have been on the business end of multiple games against smite spam. That being said, I am sure there are stronger lists out there, and I have been on the business end of worse beatings than what the spam horde did to me. Doesn't take away how powerful a smite spam list is.

tneva82 wrote:


Critics likely have played more than the handful GW designers have playtested these rules. And unlike GW testers critiques can actually read english and think logically so they can spot blindingly obvious faults like assault weapons that do not actually do anything that GW designers are still unable to fix. And critics aren't the one who have job of making rules that sell models. That meanwhile is GW's whole principle and balance can go to hell. GW doesn't CARE about balanced rules. They don't WANT them. They want to sell models in heavy handed ways like invalidating FW resin in favour of plastic in not even subtle cash grabbing style.

The Beta rules came out 4 days ago. The timeline doesn't support your "logic".

Your desperate need for GW to be an evil empire is unfortunate. I do wonder why anyone who believes what you do about GW would continues to support them. Maybe you're one of those people who enjoy being unhappy.

[quote=Pancakey 746710 9749248 null
Chill out man.

It's clear from this thread that a lot of people are unhappy with these "fixes" and GWs overall lack of effort with current rules writing.

8th edition is fairly new and it's already collapsing under its own weight of ill conceived rules.

7th was a mess but at least it took some time to get there. People are concerend that 8th will end up in worse shape than 7th and at the current rate, their nightmare secanrio looks to be coming true.