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I keep hearing "Beta rules" here and there. What are people refering to?

Typically they are referring to the rules being published being ina broken or incomplete state, so they say that the rules are in a "beta phase". One that we the customer pay for.

 auticus wrote:
Typically they are referring to the rules being published being ina broken or incomplete state, so they say that the rules are in a "beta phase". One that we the customer pay for.

Or just the literal beta rules that GW put up which includes the Smite change.

It's funny how ones perception changes how they interpret words.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
You can find the Custodes Beta rules here:

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2018/02/13/adeptus-custodes-forge-world-beta-rules-and-codex-faqgw-homepage-post-4fw-homepage-post-2/

And the core beta rules here:
https://www.warhammer-community.com/2017/12/15/the-future-of-faqs-and-chapter-approved-dec-15gw-homepage-post-2/

GW announced a type of schedule a few months back, with the plan being.

1) An FAQ/Errata will follow each codex about 1-2 weeks after release.

2) Major game changes will occur twice a year, namely around Christmas with a yearly Chapter Approved, and around March-May with a large "FAQ", released by PDF I'd imagine.

The 'beta' rules are game-impacting rules GW is planning to release in one of these two larger updates each year, but are basically hinted/released before then so tournaments and players can get used to what's coming up - players with tournaments near a large update can plan ahead, etc.

Overall GW has been really sloppy with their first crack at a "living" ruleset, but the alternative is an extremely poor written game which doesn't get fixed for 2-3 years. Some people seem to prefer to piss and moan about it rather than appreciate that something is being done (rather than nothing - the alternative).

GW has never written a concise and well written ruleset, and it's unlikely to expect them to do so in the future. This is our alternative.

My local group is already playing with 'Beta' smite rules, etc. Once released, we use them.

 auticus wrote:
Typically they are referring to the rules being published being ina broken or incomplete state, so they say that the rules are in a "beta phase". One that we the customer pay for.

All the beta rules so far released for 8th edition have been either announced to the customer for free, or simply released in a free FAQ. We haven't had to pay for any of them.

Bharring wrote:
I keep hearing "Beta rules" here and there. What are people refering to?

Pretty sure they are referencing the "pending" changes for the FAQ that they spoiled ahead of time to "play test" them.

I think the biggest changes were:

After the first cast of smite for the turn, each subsequent cast of Smite that turn receives a -1 to its cast roll.

Characters no longer count other characters for the purposes of being able to target characters with shooting attacks. You cannot put a dog pile of characters in the middle of the field and require the opponent to only shoot at the closest one. If two or more characters are the closer than any non-character units, the shooting units can decide which character they want to shoot at.

I'm pretty sure those are the big ones people are referencing.

the_scotsman wrote:

 auticus wrote:
Typically they are referring to the rules being published being ina broken or incomplete state, so they say that the rules are in a "beta phase". One that we the customer pay for.

All the beta rules so far released for 8th edition have been either announced to the customer for free, or simply released in a free FAQ. We haven't had to pay for any of them.

He means that people perceive the non-beta rules we have as unfinished and that GW has forced us into being beta testers.

That has been the norm for 20+ years now yes, people referriing to the non beta rules as unfinished and that GW has forced us into being beta testers.

That there are now beta rules officially is cool, I was not aware of that. I just read up on 40k now, I don't actually participate until they start hammering the balance issues out.

Well this be pretty normal nowadays in the gaming industry.

Doesn't bother me so long as it is getting updated.

competitive online games literally are never 100% finished. especially with additional new content shaking thing up every single patch.

Should GW follow this kinda system? maybe?

 auticus wrote:
That has been the norm for 20+ years now yes, people referriing to the non beta rules as unfinished and that GW has forced us into being beta testers.

That there are now beta rules officially is cool, I was not aware of that. I just read up on 40k now, I don't actually participate until they start hammering the balance issues out.

Yeah. I've noticed that as peoples' play frequency goes down, the amount of negative opinions tend to follow as they're only exposed to the purely theoretical 'internet reality' of 40k along with the ultra competitive tournament scene that gets discussed.

I'm curious what edition you'd consider a "finished product" then, if this has been the norm for 20+ years? Because I play quite a bit of 2nd ed with some hometown buddies of mine, and....ooohh ho ho boy, the kinds of opinions you'd get out of the internet if rules like those ever got published today.

the_scotsman wrote:

Yeah. I've noticed that as peoples' play frequency goes down, the amount of negative opinions tend to follow as they're only exposed to the purely theoretical 'internet reality' of 40k along with the ultra competitive tournament scene that gets discussed.

I'm curious what edition you'd consider a "finished product" then, if this has been the norm for 20+ years? Because I play quite a bit of 2nd ed with some hometown buddies of mine, and....ooohh ho ho boy, the kinds of opinions you'd get out of the internet if rules like those ever got published today.

But...they did the math! They. Did. The. Math. *sobs quietly into pillow*

20 years ago, it was not as easy to touch WIDE portions of your playerbase with a minor set of rules.

They'd have to print up a package, hire writers and editors, internal play testers, and then ship it all over the place. In excess, because you don't want to run out... and then feedback would be much more difficult to receive and parse.

Now... just release the rules, let your community go at it with easy access to the internet. It costs you a few hours to write a shoddy PDF that gets the point across. And the feedback rolls right in. Probably costs them more to weed out the exaggeration in feedback than it does to distribute the beta rules any more.

Purifying Tempest wrote:
20 years ago, it was not as easy to touch WIDE portions of your playerbase with a minor set of rules.

They'd have to print up a package, hire writers and editors, internal play testers, and then ship it all over the place. In excess, because you don't want to run out... and then feedback would be much more difficult to receive and parse.

Now... just release the rules, let your community go at it with easy access to the internet. It costs you a few hours to write a shoddy PDF that gets the point across. And the feedback rolls right in. Probably costs them more to weed out the exaggeration in feedback than it does to distribute the beta rules any more.

Just cracked open my 2nd ed rulebook to see some of that amazing, highly edited, non-beta rules content that GW used to put out in the good ol' days...

We start with Fifteen Steps To Set Up a Game, including "agree on points" "determine mission" etc.

Then we go into Characteristics. We outline the basic characteristics, and what happens when they hit 0. Then, for some reason, we have the rules for Buildings. Buildings have certain numbers of structure points that the two players determine by agreeing what material the building is made out of. I don't know what the Strength value of my space marine does at this point, but I do know if I have a tent or an inflatable structure on the battlefield, that thing has five hit points, and I am now fully equipped to argue with my opponent over whehter a building is made of armaplas or rockcrete.

Next, we have some stuff like victory points. Gotta know how to win the mission, sure. Also, three pages of special stratagem cards I can use, full of words I don't know yet because I don't know what any stats do.

Weapon rules are next! Whats the first section of weapon rules? Armor saves!

Any time a model is hit, make an armor save, if you make the armor save, you don't get hit. Great! Ok, so how do I hit? I don't know yet.

Wounding: Roll a wound on this table vs toughness for every hit scored against a model to see if you wound it. Do I do this..before, or after I've done the armor save? The armor save section said every hit, and I ignore some hits, so then I wound? But the wound section said to do this for every hit scored! Also, how do I hit GW???

Next section: Catching on fire.

I don't know how to score a hit or what my spce marine's strength does, but I am now equipped to know what to do when that tent or inflatable structure from earlier catches on fire.

Next section: Force weapons. These weapons add the users psychic mastery level to the users strength during hand to hand combat, automatically wound daemons, and the daemonic aura save doesn't apply. I have no idea what ANY of that means, but sure, is the next section going to tell me how to hit?

Nope, ON TO THE MOVEMENT PHASE!

Darn flammable cammo cloaks! Killed many-a-guardsmen.

Funny story, though, we still do rules for buildings during deployment. Does it block LOS to units inside, capacity, can units fire out, how many W, what T, etc. etc.

Led to many a scenario that revolved around demolishing specific buildings as an objective.

Come to find out Chaos is less interested in holding the building than they are in destroying it... who would have thought?