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 ZebioLizard2 wrote:

 Farseer_V2 wrote:
Which makes it even funnier that he typed that because up until very recently GW has done 0 market research on its own customer base so has had no knowledge of the make-up of competitive vs. basement group players. So effectively he was (like nearly everything he writes) inserting his own headcannon into the situation.

Very recently... How long ago do you think Kirby was in charge?

Pre 2015. And it isn't as if as soon as Rountree took over they immediately began moving into things like research, community outreach, etc.

Now I might be making this up but wasn't there a statement or something from a former GW person saying that they expected players to just like whatever was put out therefore no research was needed?

Prior to the Rountree era that was effectively their mantra. They did no market research and their customers were interested in their models only.

Most GW rules go to print without seeing the table once.

 sfshilo wrote:

Wayniac wrote:
while they might not be at GW's level for miniatures (YMMV due to aesthetics) they blow GW out of the water when it comes to rules that are both thematic of the army and well-balanced.

This myth needs to die a painful death. Name me one game right now that doesn't suffer from that at all. Chess? GO?

My five year old can play 8th edition. We played last night. Dropfleet? Nope. Dropzone? Hahaha. X-wing? Don't get me started. Armada? Death by tokens. Dreadball? yawn.

Games live and die by fluff and rules. It takes a fantastic amount of work to balance both.

This stupid rage that people have over the Tau and Necrons codices is getting out of hand, the game isn't supposed to get broke by new codices remember? Your codex should NOT be overpowered. Maybe the way YOU want to use the unit you bought is not the way the game designer wants you to use it.

The game is more balanced then it's ever been, yet people still find a way to complain. Boo hoo, go play another game system and let me know how that works out for you when you find out it's not perfect either.

The game is just as broken as its ever been, just in different areas, no one is asking for broken but people ARE asking for flavour, something 8th is severely lacking in, lastly, you seem to be the one raging lol

beast_gts wrote:

Silver144 wrote:
But, due some harsh backfire from playerbase (I heard there even was a rude personal mails)

"rude personal mails" - no, there were death threats.

And, almost a year old but still relevant:

Not much truth there - think about in cities there will always be some tourney players.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 lord_blackfang wrote:
Most GW rules go to print without seeing the table once.

Can you offer any proof?

Tournament VS Causal:
Tuomas Pirinen:
We not only paid attention, we ran the Grand Tournaments ourselves! We really wanted to see what worked, and what the top players in the world were doing. Both me and Alessio were also Tournament players, and wanted to see what army compositions players came up with. This helped us to balance the armies.

 Primark G wrote:

Can you offer any proof?

James Hewitt:
When I first started, playtesting was a bit of a dirty word; there was a real disdain for "balance" among the higher echelons of management. Silver Tower, for example, was playtested almost entirely in my own time, unpaid, using unpaid volunteers

others said similar things, first rules draft was printed in the books because the management did not want to waste more time and point costs were based on the amount of models they wanted to sell per army

What you said - the two things - they conflict with each other.

I have known some people who play tested for GW (40k). I am not going to comment on the quality of their work or it had any major affect on the actual rules but over the course of the game rules have been externally tested.

 kodos wrote:
Tournament VS Causal:
Tuomas Pirinen:
We not only paid attention, we ran the Grand Tournaments ourselves! We really wanted to see what worked, and what the top players in the world were doing. Both me and Alessio were also Tournament players, and wanted to see what army compositions players came up with. This helped us to balance the armies.

Note that neither of these individuals work for GW anymore, and at least one (Alessio; not sure what Tuomas is up to these days) works for their competitors. IIRC both of them left prior to 6th edition, so right around GW's desire to be a "toy company" and not a game company.

 Primark G wrote:

Can you offer any proof?

James Hewitt:
When I first started, playtesting was a bit of a dirty word; there was a real disdain for "balance" among the higher echelons of management. Silver Tower, for example, was playtested almost entirely in my own time, unpaid, using unpaid volunteers

others said similar things, first rules draft was printed in the books because the management did not want to waste more time and point costs were based on the amount of models they wanted to sell per army

I don't expect playtesters to catch everything and TBH this is overall a very tight ruleset. Most belly aching is in regards to army(s) power level(s).

 Primark G wrote:

Automatically Appended Next Post:

 lord_blackfang wrote:
Most GW rules go to print without seeing the table once.

Can you offer any proof?

I will offer up the Flash Gitz formation in 7th as strong evidence that no sane person has every played out a shooting phase with that 21 Flash Git unit before putting it to print. Its a unit of 21 gitz armed with mastercrafted snazzguns (assault 3, each weapon can reroll 1 miss). That means your rolling 21 sets of 3 dice and able to rerolling 1 miss for each weapon.

Never remenber anyone ever running it.

@Wayniac
I know, but my point was that the Designer themselves said that tournaments helped to balance tha factions
So people arguing that tournaments in general are bad for balance is just wrong
It is only bad for the game if the designer take the wrong conclusions from tournament. Don't blame the event but the designer/company for bad balance


@playtest
It is different now, but it is also something new for GW and how to test a game to get the information you need is not straight forward.
eg, if the feedback from playtesting is like "unit x is too cheap, and unit b need better buffs" it is useless, as those should be the conclusion the designers make from several battle reports.


I don't know how exactly the process work and what possibilities are there to change stuff but looking at the Codex release, GW is not able to stick to a concept and you say a learning curve between 2 books which also means they did not know how 40k should look like at the time they wrote the core rules.

 Primark G wrote:
Never remenber anyone ever running it.

And why do you think that is?

 Primark G wrote:

 lord_blackfang wrote:
Most GW rules go to print without seeing the table once.

Can you offer any proof?

I have another few:
- The storm boyz formation that was a unit of minimum 46 models (up to 91) which could only arrive via deep strike.
- The stikkbomb chukka upgrade for vehicles in 7th which gave stikkbombs to units charging out of transports - despite every single model in the codex already being equipped with stikkbombs, except for the weird boy.
- The Council of da Waaagh!, which gave Thrakka three additional warlord traits from a table which only had two with any effect on him.
- 'Naut Transport capacitiy.
- 7th edition Mob rule on exploding transports.

Actually, scratch that. I'd argue the entire 7th edition ork codex and the supplement that shall not be named have not seen play before going to print.

GW staff regularly attend UK tournaments, often times doing very well. Ben Johnson for example is a famous tournament player who did very very well in tournaments prior to joining GW. People like Jeremy Vetock have also done well in tournaments.

Also we know for a fact that rules are playtested currently*. There are clearly a lot of uninformed people.

*Whether their process for doing so is the most effective is a different question.

Last I checked Ben Johnson was on the AOS team not the 40K team. And funnily enough AOS seems to be better balanced than 40K

 Jidmah wrote:

 Primark G wrote:

 lord_blackfang wrote:
Most GW rules go to print without seeing the table once.

Can you offer any proof?

I have another few:
- The storm boyz formation that was a unit of minimum 46 models (up to 91) which could only arrive via deep strike.
- The stikkbomb chukka upgrade for vehicles in 7th which gave stikkbombs to units charging out of transports - despite every single model in the codex already being equipped with stikkbombs, except for the weird boy.
- The Council of da Waaagh!, which gave Thrakka three additional warlord traits from a table which only had two with any effect on him.
- 'Naut Transport capacitiy.
- 7th edition Mob rule on exploding transports.

Actually, scratch that. I'd argue the entire 7th edition ork codex and the supplement that shall not be named have not seen play before going to print.

The only thing I could nitpick is that the Stikkbomb Chukka also gave the vehicle Stikkbombs, so you could throw a baby blast from a Trukk. You could honestly do far worse for 5 points.

-In 6th edition, Codex: Legion of the Damned required the entire army to start in Reserves. The only problem? Having no units on the table was an auto-lose.
-From Traitor Legions, one of the Warlord traits for Iron Warriors was Fearless. This was despite the Chaos Lord (most common Chaos Warlord) being Fearless by default. Another Warlord Trait gave all nearby vehicles IWND, despite all Daemonforge vehicles already having it by default. One of their artifacts gave a Warpsmith situational Instant Death in challenges (why are you putting a Warpsmith in a challenge?), while one of the artifacts let you "give" a Chaos vehicle Daemonic Possession (which as written could debatably be 'downgrade'). Likewise, the Iron Warriors Grand Company (Decurion analogue) let all Ordnance and Barrage weapons in it reroll to hit. The punchline of course is that Chaos Space Marines didn't have any Barrage Weapons besides Forgeworld options, and the Grand Company was codex-units only.
-Siphon Magic from Wrath of Magnus had hilariously bad RAW. The spell was a blessing, cast on the Psyker. Anytime a friendly Psyker within 18" of the Psyker successfully cast a spell, that Psyker gained a die on a 2+ which could be spent "like an additional Warp Charge." As written, the spell was potentially useless for level 1 Psykers, since it would be their only power for the turn. RAW, it was unclear if Siphon Magic worked for the Caster's own spells (or even if it came into play immediately upon being cast), it could "multiply," (3 Sorcerers have Siphon Magic up. A fourth Sorcerer casts Psychic Shriek; each of the Sorcerers rolls to see if it gets a token), and you could argue that the power could store dice across multiple turns (since it wasn't "a Warp Charge that could only be spent by the Psyker," similar to what Yvraine and Neurothropes got, but "a die that can be spent like a Warp Charge," and 40k has no standardized rules for how tokens work). All in all, it was a really sloppily-written rule.
-If you took Typhus in your army, you could upgrade any Cultists to Plague Zombies for free. They couldn't take any other options, except upping their unit size. The problem? Death Guard required all models that could to take the Mark of Nurgle. RAW, Typhus wouldn't be able to actually make Zombies for his own legion, since the "must" takes precedence over "may." However, you could ally Typhus alongside a detachment of another Legion (say, Alpha Legion) to get sneaky ninja-zombies.
-In 8th edition, Flamers don't work as an assault deterrent, despite GW hyping them up. The problem is you can assault from DS, you DS from > 9" away, and flamers have range 8".
-There are many assorted oddities about 8th, from the FAQ contradicting itself, to the usage of the Scunthorpe Problem to determine how abilities and stratagems work (so that Horrors of Tzeentch can plug themselves into a fuel relay), to oddities like Tau Focused Fire working best when you don't focus.

GW probably just doesn't play with any degree of rigor, or they forget their own rules. Case in point, in the twitch game for Wrath of Magnus, they let Space Wolves assault from their Rhinos and even after said Rhinos moved, but the Thousand Sons got tabled in three turns, leaving about 45 minutes of awkward silence for the whole event ("uhh...that's luck of the dice I guess.")

 Vector Strike wrote:
There is only one constant among the GW designers: Phil Kelly gets to write Eldar and that's that.
The others scramble every edition for different codexes

Wouldn't it just make the most sense that the same person/persons write all the codex?

I see a lot of nit picking here this morning.

The designers arnt WAAC players... I don't see anything wrong with this? 40k is and always will be a none competitive game no matter how much people push it as competitive. What gw rule designers do get wrong is making every unit in a force playable. Even in narrative games I would like to play different forces and units and still give the opponent a challenge (even if as DM i want them to win).

The competitive players sit there and tell you that the game should be for everybody but then start yelling a hypocritical rant about how their version of the game is good for everybody. They're the definition of the Imperium going up to a random friendly planet and saying "Nah, you way of life sucks... Exterminartos!". They are exsactly how that comment says. They think they are better and know what is good for everybody but really have no clue. Seriously, if gw made all your armies unplayable then sell them and go to another game... it's that simple. There is difference between complaints and what I have seen over the last few days... just a bunch of spoilt brats who never grew up from the looks of it.

Why does a designer need to be a WAAC player to write good rules?

 kodos wrote:
Why does a designer need to be a WAAC player to write good rules?

Because they have to understand the cheese in the first place to write it out.

Martel732 wrote:

 kodos wrote:
Why does a designer need to be a WAAC player to write good rules?

Because they have to understand the cheese in the first place to write it out.

They dont have to be a Waac to understand Waac

But they should try to understand waac to defeat waac because nothing is funnier than a waac that cant waac and goes wack

Martel732 wrote:

 kodos wrote:
Why does a designer need to be a WAAC player to write good rules?

Because they have to understand the cheese in the first place to write it out.

Is that an opinion or a fact based on actual studies of all the games ever created? I'm pretty sure monopoly was created by someone who was super against monopolies.

 Desubot wrote:
But they should try to understand waac to defeat waac because nothing is funnier than a waac that cant waac and goes wack

Once you've gone WAAC...

Not being a total dunce is about all that is required to write legitimate/relevant rules.

The numbskull that decided to make an ultramarines stratagem that allows a unit to reroll 1's when standing next to a dreadnought is just asinine. Outside of Guilliman/Calgar how give even better buffs even a standard captain does reroll 1's. The same can be seen in the tau codex with countless methods to reroll 1's. These are examples of complete idiots writing rules. How dumb do you have to be to keep repeating the same rule over and over - and it's useless rule to boot.

If they don't understand what is good or bad in the game, how can they balance it?

Martel732 wrote:
If they don't understand what is good or bad in the game, how can they balance it?

Whether they care for balance is one thing. its clear its not top priority.

even if they do it doesn't mean they can. there are definitely other factors that prevent the devs from actually doing their jobs. to start you cant forget that pretty much all books are done and are sent to be printed well ahead of release some times years. often times people cant fix gak because bean counters push out the books because a book that isnt published isnt making them money. all the demand for free free free codexes isnt actually making these dinosauric upper management any money so they dont actually care for it. especially considering 40k its one of their BIGGEST IP vs Aos.

There are diminishing returns to fully balanced games according to some gw rules writer on an reddit AMA where the difference between 50% to 75% balanced is pretty significant while 75 to 90% wont be noticed nearlly as much. its a good chance that this is one of the internal policies to keep gak from getting delayed.

 Xenomancers wrote:
Not being a total dunce is about all that is required to write legitimate/relevant rules.

The numbskull that decided to make an ultramarines stratagem that allows a unit to reroll 1's when standing next to a dreadnought is just asinine. Outside of Guilliman/Calgar how give even better buffs even a standard captain does reroll 1's. The same can be seen in the tau codex with countless methods to reroll 1's. These are examples of complete idiots writing rules. How dumb do you have to be to keep repeating the same rule over and over - and it's useless rule to boot.

I use the stratagem to rerrolls 1's with my Dreadnoughts all the time... is very usefull with my venerable dreadnought with heavy plasma cannon, that normally walks towards the enemy deployment zone from one of the sides of the battle alongside a tac squad with 2 plasmas. It allows me to overcharge, with Azrael and my actual company master doing other things in other parts of the battlefield.