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To be honest I actually believe FW many times adds rules bloat because they make slighly different variations of things that already exist.

But GW does that some times, I'm not attacking FW here.

But for example, the eartshaker cannon shouldnt exist. Is just a Basilisk that doesn't pay for things that it does not use, so its mathematically better at his role.

Is like doing Primaris Psyker MK2 that is basically a Primaris Psyker without any weapon that cost half the points. Yeah, is a different option, but it shouldn't exist because it makes the previous unit obsolete.

One can argue the same thing about Primaris but as they are very limited in options, etc... they actually fill different roles, for example Intercessors vs Tacticals.

 Galas wrote:
But for example, the eartshaker cannon shouldnt exist. Is just a Basilisk that doesn't pay for things that it does not use, so its mathematically better at his role.

This is a good example. In 5th edition the two units were very different in function, the Basilisk could move and had vehicle stats while the towed guns were fixed units that could never fire outside of a 45* cone from their initial deployment and had weak crew that were much easier to kill. In 8th edition, where vehicles and artillery have the same stat line and firing arcs no longer exist the two units are redundant, and one of them should be removed.

I'm fairly certain the game would be the most balanced if everyone's army was identical.

We should remove all list-building options and just give people manufacturer-designed lists they have to use. We could also just paint the armies black and white, to avoid confusion, and replace movement speeds with squares on a board, to avoid measuring shenanigans ("does bending a tape measure make it longer?!").

"Balance."

 Crimson wrote:
Redundant as defined by you. Obviously people who want to use those options do not see them as redundant.

Only because some people have an obsession with making every piece of plastic on the sprue have its own separate rules. If you accept an Epic-style mentality of units being defined by their role rather than minor details about which plastic pieces you used to build them then those options are redundant.

Furthermore, I really don't think that Vanquisher cannon and twin-linked lascannon are similar enough weapon systems that they should share rules.

But what exactly is the difference? And if you have to make a special effort to create a difference for the sole purpose of justifying them being different are they really different, or are you just stubbornly determined to give every piece on the sprue its own rules?

Reasonable options. A titan weapon is not a reasonable option for a lone space marine.

Ah yes, and I suppose your definition of "reasonable" is the one that matters, where all the weapons you want to take are considered "reasonable".


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 Unit1126PLL wrote:
I'm fairly certain the game would be the most balanced if everyone's army was identical.

We should remove all list-building options and just give people manufacturer-designed lists they have to use. We could also just paint the armies black and white, to avoid confusion, and replace movement speeds with squares on a board, to avoid measuring shenanigans ("does bending a tape measure make it longer?!").

"Balance."

Do you really need to resort to absurd straw man arguments like this? Nobody is arguing for identical armies, nor is that required for a balanced and interesting game.

 Lance845 wrote:

Haha. Ok come up with some rules to make all that true.

If I were a paid full time game designer, I would!

 Peregrine wrote:
Do you really need to resort to absurd straw man arguments like this? Nobody is arguing for identical armies, nor is that required for a balanced and interesting game.

Just as soon as you stop giving Volcano Cannons to Guardsmen and calling it "not a straw man."

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
I'm fairly certain the game would be the most balanced if everyone's army was identical.

We should remove all list-building options and just give people manufacturer-designed lists they have to use. We could also just paint the armies black and white, to avoid confusion, and replace movement speeds with squares on a board, to avoid measuring shenanigans ("does bending a tape measure make it longer?!").

"Balance."

No! White is still op! Plz Nerf!

What have I done? Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.

 Daedalus81 wrote:
What have I done? Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.

There's no difference between Death and Life except in the fluff, so really you're just the Death-pattern Life.

 Peregrine wrote:

But what exactly is the difference? And if you have to make a special effort to create a difference for the sole purpose of justifying them being different are they really different, or are you just stubbornly determined to give every piece on the sprue its own rules?

The whole point of 40K is to create rules representations for things that exist in the fictional setting.

Ah yes, and I suppose your definition of "reasonable" is the one that matters, where all the weapons you want to take are considered "reasonable".

We are not going to pretend that equipping space marines with infantry melee weapons and titan scale weapons is somehow equally reasonable and merely a matter of taste.

 Crimson wrote:

 Lance845 wrote:

Haha. Ok come up with some rules to make all that true.

If I were a paid full time game designer, I would!

Why not. you can put pretty much anything on kickstarter and make bukobucks.

 Crimson wrote:

 Lance845 wrote:

Haha. Ok come up with some rules to make all that true.

If I were a paid full time game designer, I would!

If YOU were a paid full time game designer you would work for GW and nobody would notice.

 Lance845 wrote:


If YOU were a paid full time game designer you would work for GW and nobody would notice.

Nah. You'd notice the marked increase of character customisation options!


But are you seriously saying that it is impossible to make melta and flamer to work? That if you were in charge of things you'd just delete them?

 Lance845 wrote:

 Crimson wrote:

 Lance845 wrote:

Haha. Ok come up with some rules to make all that true.

If I were a paid full time game designer, I would!

If YOU were a paid full time game designer you would work for GW and nobody would notice.

Oh no, Dakka would notice and begin howling for Crimson's blood due to incompetence.

 Lance845 wrote:

Champion of Slaanesh wrote:
So since you want to remove my ability to take biker lords and sorcerors as well as those on daemonic steeds what are you gonna replace them with? Since you seem to want to remove flavourful options

Nothing.

You should get what you get for the current edition of the game. GW should be balancing the army in it's codex. You get your codex. If the codex isn't balanced then you should be writing to GW to fix the codex. Fluff has nothing to do with crunch and it's not a 1 for 1 trade of loose an option gain an option. Before last year when the index came out you would have just gotten a new codex and if the units wern't in there then you didn't have the unit any more. Suck it up.

Suck it up?

No one is asking for the legacy options to be "good". We just want them to exist so that we can continue to use models we bought and have enjoyed for years.

in your example: game contains 36 guns. 10 of those are balanced for serious play. the other 26 are underpowered and purposefully non-competitive but there for the people that may want to use them for some particular reason or other.

you can make a tight game with options bloat just fine as long as you and your playerbase realize that some "sentimentality" options will never be the same level of performance as the things that are being seriously balanced for comp.

Edited by Manchu

 Crimson wrote:

 Lance845 wrote:


If YOU were a paid full time game designer you would work for GW and nobody would notice.

Nah. You'd notice the marked increase of character customisation options!


But are you seriously saying that it is impossible to make melta and flamer to work? That if you were in charge of things you'd just delete them?

No i have ideas for how i would do it. Part of which is restricting which weapons can be taken by which units more than now so that different units gain more specialized utility.

But im not the one who wants everything to be able to take everything. You are. So YOU need to figure out how to make all these options viable across all the units in every army. Or do you maybe see how bloat is a problem now?


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 WindstormSCR wrote:

 Lance845 wrote:

Champion of Slaanesh wrote:
So since you want to remove my ability to take biker lords and sorcerors as well as those on daemonic steeds what are you gonna replace them with? Since you seem to want to remove flavourful options

Nothing.

You should get what you get for the current edition of the game. GW should be balancing the army in it's codex. You get your codex. If the codex isn't balanced then you should be writing to GW to fix the codex. Fluff has nothing to do with crunch and it's not a 1 for 1 trade of loose an option gain an option. Before last year when the index came out you would have just gotten a new codex and if the units wern't in there then you didn't have the unit any more. Suck it up.

you can make a tight game with options bloat just fine as long as you and your playerbase realize that some "sentimentality" options will never be the same level of performance as the things that are being seriously balanced for comp.

No. You cant.

 Lance845 wrote:

 Crimson wrote:

 Lance845 wrote:


If YOU were a paid full time game designer you would work for GW and nobody would notice.

Nah. You'd notice the marked increase of character customisation options!


But are you seriously saying that it is impossible to make melta and flamer to work? That if you were in charge of things you'd just delete them?

No i have ideas for how i would do it. Part of which is restricting which weapons can be taken by which units more than now so that different units gain more specialized utility.

But im not the one who wants everything to be able to take everything. You are. So YOU need to figure out how to make all these options viable across all the units in every army. Or do you maybe see how bloat is a problem now?


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 WindstormSCR wrote:

 Lance845 wrote:

Champion of Slaanesh wrote:
So since you want to remove my ability to take biker lords and sorcerors as well as those on daemonic steeds what are you gonna replace them with? Since you seem to want to remove flavourful options

Nothing.

You should get what you get for the current edition of the game. GW should be balancing the army in it's codex. You get your codex. If the codex isn't balanced then you should be writing to GW to fix the codex. Fluff has nothing to do with crunch and it's not a 1 for 1 trade of loose an option gain an option. Before last year when the index came out you would have just gotten a new codex and if the units wern't in there then you didn't have the unit any more. Suck it up.

you can make a tight game with options bloat just fine as long as you and your playerbase realize that some "sentimentality" options will never be the same level of performance as the things that are being seriously balanced for comp.

No. You cant.

Its been done in the arena of game design several times, notably in competitive arena shooters, because the companies that make them know that trimming down to just a bare minimum option set would make a "perfect game" but would lose them sales to the crowd that isn't interested in everything being as good an option as everything else and perfect design.

is the result a perfect game? No. it can still be a "good" game, and perfect as you advocate is the exact enemy of good.

Trimming options heavily, especially existing options and models, alienates customers that have invested into those options and models. GW found this to its cost with the changes from index to codex, and the designer commentary is a response to that issue.

Trimming options might be more palatable IF GW were vastly more rational about it, if it was consistent, and if it was done for a decent reason beyond " Screw the conversion bits market"

Currently it is none of those things, and until it is, my response to anyone advocating removal of the DC will be summarized as "Get Out"

I agree thats gws method of "it doesnt have bits so it doesnt get rules" is bad. Wysiwyg is not a rule and hasnt been for a long time. Its a bad reason to give something the axe.

But, again, allowing everything always stagnates which is worse. At least if gw makes the decision to leave the index stuff behind they have a core base line to adjust, cut, and build from. But as long as their stance is "you can always use everything willy nilly" then its done. The game will never get out of the bog its in.

 Crimson wrote:
Even that whole Annihilator/Vanquisher overlap if FW's doing.

Especially when you consider that the Vanquisher may have started as a FW vehicle, before jumping to the main line. I'm about 90% confident in saying that, though I don't have my 3rd ed IG and IA books to hand to double-check.

 Lance845 wrote:
The imperium looks at missile launchers, melta, plasma, and las cannons and they go... which is best for which situation. And now nobody ever takes a Melta. Because it has no real place. It's niche is so niche that it's unreliable or just plain worse then the other options. It's all plasma and las cannons. because too many things are trying to do the same job. Bloat.

I'm pretty sure people have acknowledged that plasma is a problem - it seems to be too strong at everything, which is why people are confused as to why it is cheaper than melta weapons in the same category. Switch the points costs, though, and people at least talk about having to think about which one to take.

Not bloat - poor design/pricing.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:


Again, that is nonsense. FW does not necessarily create rules bloat just because they create new units. For example, my Vulture with punisher cannons is a unit that is clearly different from anything in the IG codex.

Nah, just rename it to "Vulture-pattern anti-infantry Valkyrie" and give it the same stats as the missile pods of the Valkyrie.

This is exactly what Peregrine is advocating, I am glad you understand.

Just run the Vulture as a counts-as "Fluff-pattern Valkyrie" and run the punisher cannons as MRPs. That's the same as using a Vanquisher as an Annihilator or an Eradicator as a basic Russ. Fundamentally, it's the same as using a Guardsman as a Space Marine, because after all, the only difference in wargear is fluff-based and we wouldn't want that to get in the way of a balanced game.

Except... your conclusion is the opposite of what Peregrine is saying in the quote at the root of that quote chain?

(As he himself pointed out in a later post...)

 Peregrine wrote:
If you accept an Epic-style mentality of units being defined by their role rather than minor details about which plastic pieces you used to build them then those options are redundant.

If you want a wargame like that... go play Epic, perhaps?

 Lance845 wrote:
Wysiwyg is not a rule and hasnt been for a long time. Its a bad reason to give something the axe.

I skipped a few editions - when did WYSIWYG stop being a thing, at least for weaponry (I appreciate it was never a thing for minor upgrades, like frag/krak grenades, or some Nid bio-morphs)?

There was no rule requiring wysiwyg in 6th 7th or 8th. So when did 6th come out?

That being said its never actually been possible. Gw never once made a bit for any relic.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
I'm fairly certain the game would be the most balanced if everyone's army was identical.

We should remove all list-building options and just give people manufacturer-designed lists they have to use. We could also just paint the armies black and white, to avoid confusion, and replace movement speeds with squares on a board, to avoid measuring shenanigans ("does bending a tape measure make it longer?!").

"Balance."

Until you realise White automatically get's the first turn alpha strike every game.

White is OP, nerf please

 Dysartes wrote:
If you want a wargame like that... go play Epic, perhaps?

8th edition 40k is Epic. And that's the problem with options bloat, GW is still treating it like a 5-model skirmish game where every piece of plastic on the sprue needs to have its own special rules when they should be acknowledging that they've made Epic in 28mm and applying appropriately streamlined rules.


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 Crimson wrote:
The whole point of 40K is to create rules representations for things that exist in the fictional setting.

No it isn't. The point of 40k's rules is to represent the setting as a whole, not to give every tiny fluff detail its own special rule. The fact that the fluff mentioned a guy with a power axe one time instead of the typical power sword doesn't mean that swords and axes need different rules, that part of the setting is adequately represented by the general concept of power weapons and you can just build your model with whatever aesthetic option you prefer. Same thing with the Annihilator vs. Vanquisher issue, from a gameplay point of view they're units that are 95% identical so they don't need distinct rules. Rules-wise they can be represented as "this is a Leman Russ Tanksmasher, an anti-tank specialist armed with some kind of powerful low-RoF gun" and the player can decide whether to use a lascannon array or a massive projectile cannon or some kind of lost-tech plasma weapon or even a tech-heresy with a stolen Tau railgun bolted to the turret. They can all use the same stat line because the tiny differences between them fluff-wise are not significant enough to result in different numbers in the D6 system, just like space marines and IG veterans are both BS 3+.

Well if they want to make a simple game...then lets go whole hog.

you can get super detailed in 2nd ed.

Since 3rd it has been more about units and not models.

I say make a tactical unit for one army behave the same as another.....sure marines are better at it than guard...but they all get the same type of attack.

So all tanks are light tanks, medium tanks, heavy tanks. They all have similar stats no matter the faction.

Those Basilisk and Manticores....they just count as Artillary units. Sure the fluff is different...but in the game they would all have a variation of the Artillary unit stats.

If they approached the game like that, keeping it simple....then it don't matter much what your model is equipped with as it wont matter much....its about the unit and the units role....and how and when you implement it.

With a game design approach like that then the big 2000 point battles would probably go a bit faster and fit into the game they are looking for.

Sure it might be bland for some. They can play a new updated 2nd ed game made for today with a skirmish fight in mind,(facing, knives and bayonettes, rear armor, etc)

The mish mash of the current game and its legacy is trying to make a newly designed shoe with the pieces of an old one.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Dysartes wrote:
If you want a wargame like that... go play Epic, perhaps?

8th edition 40k is Epic. And that's the problem with options bloat, GW is still treating it like a 5-model skirmish game where every piece of plastic on the sprue needs to have its own special rules when they should be acknowledging that they've made Epic in 28mm and applying appropriately streamlined rules.


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 Crimson wrote:
The whole point of 40K is to create rules representations for things that exist in the fictional setting.

No it isn't. The point of 40k's rules is to represent the setting as a whole, not to give every tiny fluff detail its own special rule. The fact that the fluff mentioned a guy with a power axe one time instead of the typical power sword doesn't mean that swords and axes need different rules, that part of the setting is adequately represented by the general concept of power weapons and you can just build your model with whatever aesthetic option you prefer. Same thing with the Annihilator vs. Vanquisher issue, from a gameplay point of view they're units that are 95% identical so they don't need distinct rules. Rules-wise they can be represented as "this is a Leman Russ Tanksmasher, an anti-tank specialist armed with some kind of powerful low-RoF gun" and the player can decide whether to use a lascannon array or a massive projectile cannon or some kind of lost-tech plasma weapon or even a tech-heresy with a stolen Tau railgun bolted to the turret. They can all use the same stat line because the tiny differences between them fluff-wise are not significant enough to result in different numbers in the D6 system, just like space marines and IG veterans are both BS 3+.

It doesn't seem like 40k's rules represent that at all, it seems like something you want it to represent.

Having seen your idea's in the past, it seems like you entirely believe 40k should be something else that it really is not.

 BaconCatBug wrote:

tneva82 wrote:
No. What needs to be done is GW to put the damn rules back into codex. But nope. They don't care about making a good game so they don't.

Agreed. GW need to stop hiding behind their piss-poor excuse of "it confuses new players". They don't want to have any competition, so they can't have options they don't make the models for. I think GW could have just said, officially and in the rulebook, "Sorry, no more legacy support, use your old models as 'counts as' " and be done with it.

However, this half and half approach is the worst solution they could have done. The big "competitive" tournaments need to ban index entries and wargear for codex armies IMHO and leave the index entries/combos for casual play.

I'm sorry but "they don't want to have any compeition" is bullocks. GW has compeition. it's compeition is FFG's X-wing, PPs Warmachine/hordes etc Third party bits manafacturers are NOT compeition. Compeition, economicly speaking, is when two products compete they produce a competing product, and one offers the better one, and the other if it can't match it goes out of busniess. Thing is, thrid party bits manafacturers cannot do that. If GW goes under (because everyone is buying the third party bits) the third party bits sellers likely go out of busniess too. they're not competators so much as, essentially their relationship with GW is parasitic in nature (please note I am not saying the third party bit manafacturers are bad)

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:
Having seen your idea's in the past, it seems like you entirely believe 40k should be something else that it really is not.

You are correct. I believe 40k should be a well-designed and well-balanced game. GW believes it should be a minimal-effort dumpster fire where they yell FORGE THE NARRATIVE BEER AND PRETZELS as an excuse for being too lazy and/or incompetent to make a better game.

 Peregrine wrote:

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:
Having seen your idea's in the past, it seems like you entirely believe 40k should be something else that it really is not.

You are correct. I believe 40k should be a well-designed and well-balanced game. GW believes it should be a minimal-effort dumpster fire where they yell FORGE THE NARRATIVE BEER AND PRETZELS as an excuse for being too lazy and/or incompetent to make a better game.

Thank you for admitting that everything you've said thus far isn't apart of the actual game itself despite your posts previously trying to assert such.

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:
Thank you for admitting that everything you've said thus far isn't apart of the actual game itself despite your posts previously trying to assert such.

I don't see where I've ever refused to admit that GW is guilty of terrible design. In fact, I think that's a statement I make fairly often.

(Nor do I really see why "this isn't what GW does" should be a compelling argument in a thread about what third-party groups should do in their events.)

 Lance845 wrote:
I am not a competitive player. I play very casual. I mostly try to avoid even playing actual 40k without a host of house rules because it's just not as engaging and fun as it should be.

But I AM a game designer by hobby and have a BA in game design. When I say they need to trim the fat it's not because I am looking for a cut throat competitive game. It's because I am looking for a clean fun game.

There is a thing in game design called options bloat. Consider a shooter video game with 3 dozen guns in it. Now certain guns are going to rise to the top in different situations. The rocket launcher has few shots but devastating damage. The carbine is super accurate at a decent range. etc etc.. But in most situations most of the guns are just going to be not as good and thus kind of crap. How much does it cost to design, code, build the graphical assets, etc etc... for about 20 guns that will be shot once and never used again.

I could build out their classes in a day, and download prebuilt assets in an evening, for next to nothing dollar-wise. They'd mostly be using the same animations, possibly played at different speeds, but perhaps different reload actions, depending on what I'm doing. Sound design would actually be the most time intensive, but there's literally thousands of gunshot sfx libraries. It'd be fine. And some players would appreciate the variety. The "Rifles" section in CS isn't just the M4 (or whatever it's called these days, I don't even look) Do you know how much money has been made off of hats. HATS!!?

How "bloated" is a game like Fallout 4 in your mind? How "bloated" is GTA?

An elegant clean game with limited options fine, in theory. But games are also products, and big products are designed to punch in many ways, to many customers. Some of us actively enjoy "bloat" and call it "well developed with a rich background". Lots of people play 40k for the background, and the wealth of options helps that. Lots of people enjoy listbuilding, and finding unique stratagies, and lots of options helps that. Lots of people enjoy modeling, or converting, and more options helps that.

There's a multitude of reasons why cutting options is potentially harmful to the overall product.

I think PAYDAY 2 is up to about a billion weapons also. Some of them are somewhat better than others, but somehow in spite of that everyone I know has several favorites in their rotation with very little overlap.