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Slipspace wrote:

 BaconCatBug wrote:
They tried that when GW killed off WHFB, it was called The Ninth Age and it was Dead on Arrival.

You might want to tell all the ETC players that 9th Age was DoA, the hundreds of them that show up each year don't seem to have got the memo. I'm no big fan of the 9th Age system but to claim it's DoA is pretty wildly inaccurate.

There Dozens of us! DOZENS!

Compared to the size of the playerbase pre-AOS I can assure you the T9A playerbase is a negligible blip, the vast majority of WHFB players simply quit or sucked it up and moved to AOS.

Beta rules are a fantastic way and I hope they continue doing it!

 BaconCatBug wrote:

Slipspace wrote:

 BaconCatBug wrote:
They tried that when GW killed off WHFB, it was called The Ninth Age and it was Dead on Arrival.

You might want to tell all the ETC players that 9th Age was DoA, the hundreds of them that show up each year don't seem to have got the memo. I'm no big fan of the 9th Age system but to claim it's DoA is pretty wildly inaccurate.

There Dozens of us! DOZENS!

Compared to the size of the playerbase pre-AOS I can assure you the T9A playerbase is a negligible blip, the vast majority of WHFB players simply quit or sucked it up and moved to AOS.

There's a difference between not having the playerbase of the predecessor game and being DoA. All the evidence points to quite a few thousands of people playing 9th Age, mainly in mainland Europe. Personally I think the system is clunky and devoid of any character whatsoever but it clearly has appeal for a large number of gamers. I suspect the playerbase for it is quite a bit bigger than a lot of "proper" wargames on the market right now.

 BaconCatBug wrote:


Compared to the size of the playerbase pre-AOS I can assure you the T9A playerbase is a negligible blip, the vast majority of WHFB players simply quit or sucked it up and moved to AOS.

I think that depends a lot on the country. AoS was not recived the same way it was in UK or US.

I really like them, too.

The smaller the intervals between rules changes the better in my opinion. Beta Rules can be released to quickly address problems that otherwise would have persisted until the next CA or FAQ.

 Karhedron wrote:

Darsath wrote:
Paying for Beta rules is very silly. There really isn't much of an argument as to why players should be expected to pay to playtest new rules.

As far as I can tell, all Beta rules are available online. I know Bolter Discipline is in WD but it is available online as well.

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2019/01/21/21st-jan-introducing-better-beta-boltersgw-homepage-post-4/

Yep - although you do have to pay for the Sisters beta dex

I personally don't mind the Beta rules. I think they are interesting ways to add changes in, and being of the old guard I remember when they used to do this in White Dwarf back in the day too.

What I'm not too keen on, but also don't really mind, is that the community immediately accepts Beta rules as gospel rather than try them out as Beta rules. I'm sure some people do that but most everyone I talk to seem to assume it will become official later and just treat it as official even when it's still Beta.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 BaconCatBug wrote:

Slipspace wrote:

 BaconCatBug wrote:
They tried that when GW killed off WHFB, it was called The Ninth Age and it was Dead on Arrival.

You might want to tell all the ETC players that 9th Age was DoA, the hundreds of them that show up each year don't seem to have got the memo. I'm no big fan of the 9th Age system but to claim it's DoA is pretty wildly inaccurate.

There Dozens of us! DOZENS!

Compared to the size of the playerbase pre-AOS I can assure you the T9A playerbase is a negligible blip, the vast majority of WHFB players simply quit or sucked it up and moved to AOS.

That's the sort of logic that brings up the "GW has no competitors" BS, if you consider any game that can't match the size of GW's as being "Dead on Arrival". There seems to be a solid following for T9A and Kings of War as replacements for actual WHFB (and I think Warlord Games is coming out with their own game based on the Bolt Action/Gates of Antares rules)

I think they're necessary.

Remember, when GW are play testing, they're doing so with a finite group over a finite period of time.

As soon as a rulebook or codex hits the market, it's seeing far more hours of play. That quickly throws up oddities and confisions. FAQs and Erratas can help here and there, but a Beta rule is, on occasion, warranted.

And that Beta rule is again expose to the widest possible set of playtesters - Us Nerds. Remember, they're actively looking for feedback. Is the rule just right? Does it need a tweak? Is it perhaps just way out, either not fixing the problem, missing the problem altogether, or swinging the pendulum too far in the opposite direction?

They're an important part of a healthy dialogue between players and writers.

Sumilidon wrote:

Don't get me wrong, beta missions and scenarios wouldn't be so bad, but look at some of the major impacts previous rules have had / are having:

Deepstriking was heavily nerfed
Spamming units was nerfed
Fly units were nerfed

They're good. You forgot a major beta rule: Smite nerf.
See when Smite Nerf was a Beta Rule it affected *ALL* armies.

When it went live, the rule was changed that THOUSAND SONS and GREY KNIGHTS ignored it.

(Tzeentch Daemons should too imo, but that's neither here nor there)

Without the player feedback Smite nerf COULD have gone live where GK and TS were horribly gimped until the next CA / major FAQ where it *MIGHT* have gotten fixed.

Yeah, THAT is what made Grey Knights bad.

Sumilidon wrote:
Morning all,

I don't know about you but I find GW's idea of adding beta rules into White Dwarf to be a really terrible idea for several reasons:

It adds to the "bulk" of books to bring
They are mostly untested and could be really overpowered vs existing model cost (that Bolter one for example is a massive boost)
It can cause friction in games

The latter point being for example where you are playing at a club, you want to play your new beta rule because it's a huge advantage and your opponent doesn't. It's a good way to cause friction in a game where the rules should be a constant.

Don't get me wrong, beta missions and scenarios wouldn't be so bad, but look at some of the major impacts previous rules have had / are having:

Deepstriking was heavily nerfed
Spamming units was nerfed
Fly units were nerfed

Ultimately, the above have arguably helped to balance the game, but at the same time demonstrated how such beta rules can have a major impact

What do you guys think?

I don't think your post makes sense. Presumably you want the game to get better? If so that is going to need some kind of growth mechanism. Beta rules are that current mechanism.

Beta rules are a great idea. The community gets a chance to change the rules before they're finalised.

 BaconCatBug wrote:
Considering we're up to eighty eight documents (at the time of writing) I really wish GW would consolidate stuff.

Beta Rules especially should be all in one place, online for free.

Agreed. Having to search through multiple Warhammer Community articles to find them isn't good enough.

tneva82 wrote:

Sunny Side Up wrote:

Not sure how a White Dwarf realistically adds to the "book burden" either. The last roughly 500 games I played against people bringing a FW unit (including at large tournaments), I don't think a single person actually had a FW index book for rules reference along for the game. It was all just Battlescribe or maybe a fishy print-out, if you're lucky.

You don't have rules with you, you won't play vs me. No battlescribe is not enough. Too much errors there and top of that it's not like they are closed where only select few can alter them. If you disagree have fun playing with my unit that shoots heavy 20 S10 -4 D6 shots. Honest! Look at this battlescribe print!

The misinformation and baseless hyperbole of this comment is an affront to decency. You should be ashamed of yourself for spreading lies.

Wish they called them "play test rules", i.e. make it explicit in the name these are for testing, with advice to say include one such rule and see what difference it makes.

Would be nice if they also published a play test report form for feedback.

if maybe 0.1% of players used it then it still is worth while and making it explicit these are for testing only and expected to have balance issues avoids problems whereby everyone wants them included.

how times change, remember the curious little fantasy game GW used to have? where if it wasn't mission #1 it didn't exist? remember the 4th & 5th edition expansions for 40k that may as well not have been printed?

The idea of beta testing rules with the community is a good thing.

The idea that marines are essentially a few extra bolter shots away from being fine isn't.

Yeah, I do wish that it was clear these were meant for testing, not "assume this will become official so start using it every game" which is what happens. Although a major part of that is ITC seems to immediately jump onto making these rules official so with their influence most games tend to use it

topaxygouroun i wrote:

tneva82 wrote:

Sunny Side Up wrote:

Not sure how a White Dwarf realistically adds to the "book burden" either. The last roughly 500 games I played against people bringing a FW unit (including at large tournaments), I don't think a single person actually had a FW index book for rules reference along for the game. It was all just Battlescribe or maybe a fishy print-out, if you're lucky.

You don't have rules with you, you won't play vs me. No battlescribe is not enough. Too much errors there and top of that it's not like they are closed where only select few can alter them. If you disagree have fun playing with my unit that shoots heavy 20 S10 -4 D6 shots. Honest! Look at this battlescribe print!

You must be fun at parties.

Not believing people freely? Look it's real simple. IF you want to play with game you are supposed to have the rules. Show them.

Do you play without codex? Forgeworld unit or GW unit is irrelevant. You need to have rules for them. Battlescribe is NOT replacement. a) it has tons of issues even I have spotted and I don't even go through it carefully. If I have already noticed casually lots how many others are there? b) it's...easy...to...cheat...with...battle scribe. It's not hard to edit those. I can do that in a heartbeat and I have only done minor things with it. I can create any stats I want for unit there. So if you accept battlescribe as valid source for rules from your opponent you basically accept ANYTHING HE WANTS.

Battlescribe has full of errors and is easy to cheat with. It's not replacement for book. Especially if you are just cheapskate who can't be bothered to buy rules. Don't get the model. If you get model but not rules it's clear you are just WAAC'ing there for power. And quite possibly even trying to cheat.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Lemondish wrote:

tneva82 wrote:

Sunny Side Up wrote:

Not sure how a White Dwarf realistically adds to the "book burden" either. The last roughly 500 games I played against people bringing a FW unit (including at large tournaments), I don't think a single person actually had a FW index book for rules reference along for the game. It was all just Battlescribe or maybe a fishy print-out, if you're lucky.

You don't have rules with you, you won't play vs me. No battlescribe is not enough. Too much errors there and top of that it's not like they are closed where only select few can alter them. If you disagree have fun playing with my unit that shoots heavy 20 S10 -4 D6 shots. Honest! Look at this battlescribe print!

The misinformation and baseless hyperbole of this comment is an affront to decency. You should be ashamed of yourself for spreading lies.

What lies? That there are errors? I have seen them myself. That you can edit files as you wish? In case you haven't noticed it BATTLESCRIBE PROVIDES YOU EDITOR TO EDIT THE FILES.

You don't need to do any fancy things. You just need to use VERY SIMPLE graphical interface tool and you can DO WHATEVER YOU WANT to the files.

Hell why even settle to that. Assault 40 shots, 0 pts, D12 reroll to hit and wound. No problem. Whatever you want it's dirt easy to do. Even kid can do that no problemo. Seriously look outside from your marble tower if you haven't noticed that tool.

Wayniac wrote:
Yeah, I do wish that it was clear these were meant for testing, not "assume this will become official so start using it every game" which is what happens. Although a major part of that is ITC seems to immediately jump onto making these rules official so with their influence most games tend to use it

Because the playtesters are tightly coupled with the guys running the ITC. They help GW test. So, they implement the beta rules and give a lot of feedback.

Without the ITC GW would have basically no way to get feedback short of having some programs crawl people's email response spam. Which isn't as constructive.

 Marmatag wrote:
The idea of beta testing rules with the community is a good thing.

The idea that marines are essentially a few extra bolter shots away from being fine isn't.

Baby steps. Better a series of modest corrections rather than a sudden swing that breaks balance everywhere else.

The problem with Marines is that they are the "squeezed middle". Too expensive to spam in hordes but not effective enough to compete with truly elite armies.

Wayniac wrote:
Yeah, I do wish that it was clear these were meant for testing, not "assume this will become official so start using it every game" which is what happens. Although a major part of that is ITC seems to immediately jump onto making these rules official so with their influence most games tend to use it

I don't think the ITC has anything to do with it in all honesty.

My group don't give a flying crap about what ITC are doing, but we automatically take up any beta rule immediately. And it's not because it's not clear it's a test rule. It's the new shiny, so everyone wants to do it.

Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:I think they're necessary.

Remember, when GW are play testing, they're doing so with a finite group over a finite period of time.

As soon as a rulebook or codex hits the market, it's seeing far more hours of play. That quickly throws up oddities and confisions. FAQs and Erratas can help here and there, but a Beta rule is, on occasion, warranted.

And that Beta rule is again expose to the widest possible set of playtesters - Us Nerds. Remember, they're actively looking for feedback. Is the rule just right? Does it need a tweak? Is it perhaps just way out, either not fixing the problem, missing the problem altogether, or swinging the pendulum too far in the opposite direction?

They're an important part of a healthy dialogue between players and writers.

I'm not opposed to community playtesting, my issue comes from the fact that GW gives themselves X amount of time with X amount of people to play X amount of match ups to test balance issues and what not. How fast did 6th to 7th 40K happen? There couldn't have been ANY meaningful playtesting done, really. 8th was almost as bad, and it was essentially a new system.

You look at each edition as the collation of the playtesting of the previous edition, and you have to wonder why it took so long to get from 3rd Ed to 4th, then to 5th. Thought went into it. Plug and play beta testing isn't the answer in the wild as you will immediately get 3 drastically different feedbacks: WAAC, CAAC, and all the normal gamers. How do you even translate that?

Beta rules and community playtesting are a good thing. GW's execution could use work, some serious condensing of sources, but these are way better efforts than we have seen in the past from GW.

tneva82 wrote:

topaxygouroun i wrote:

tneva82 wrote:
You don't have rules with you, you won't play vs me. No battlescribe is not enough.

You must be fun at parties.

Not believing people freely? Look it's real simple. IF you want to play with game you are supposed to have the rules. Show them.

What a shame you play people you think are trying to cheat. Perhaps I'm fortunate, but my friends and those I play at my local gaming group don't try to cheat. I agree that everyone should have a codex for their army (BattleScribe doesn't have all the rules you need) though. I use BattleScribe and have my codex as a reference if I need it (and since I bought datacards the codex usually remains shut). Nobody I've played has ever had a problem with that.

tneva82 wrote:
In case you haven't noticed it BATTLESCRIBE PROVIDES YOU EDITOR TO EDIT THE FILES.

I can use a pencil and write in whatever numbers I want also. Unless you're actually going to take the time at the beginning of the match to thoroughly check each other's points, this is simply a trust issue with your opponent.

That being said, you should always have your Codex on hand, although chances are, even if you don't have your codex, I do.

Tbh I know the game well enough that I know the rules outside of some really obscure Forgeworld Unit (which is presumably not very good, otherwise it would get used more).

I have occasionally pulled the "can we check the codex" card when I know someone is talking rubbish - but that's usually because they are not that into the hobby rather than deliberately trying to the cheat. (The old, "I think this unit has this special rule - sure, back in 5th edition" problem).

 Vaktathi wrote:
Beta rules and community playtesting are a good thing. GW's execution could use work, some serious condensing of sources, but these are way better efforts than we have seen in the past from GW.

Ok, so players give GW feed back that GK cost too much and they units are inefficient unless they are draigo or NDK GMs, that prior general nerfs hit them a bit too strong comparing to other armies . Then GW does what? They drop points on draigo and NDK GM in CA. So either they don't get feedback, they don't read it or they don't care about feedback and it is just a PR thing. I mean could have anyone imagined that the CA changes to GK is going to be GM NDK getting cheaper, but the normal NDK staying at same price?

Karol wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
Beta rules and community playtesting are a good thing. GW's execution could use work, some serious condensing of sources, but these are way better efforts than we have seen in the past from GW.

Ok, so players give GW feed back that GK cost too much and they units are inefficient unless they are draigo or NDK GMs, that prior general nerfs hit them a bit too strong comparing to other armies . Then GW does what? They drop points on draigo and NDK GM in CA. So either they don't get feedback, they don't read it or they don't care about feedback and it is just a PR thing. I mean could have anyone imagined that the CA changes to GK is going to be GM NDK getting cheaper, but the normal NDK staying at same price?

I strongly suspect the beta bolter rules may well have had something to do with the likes of GK and regular Tacs not getting a drop in CA. Whether that was the correct decision or not is up for debate, but it provides a possible reason for the lack of points changes to things that were obviously overcosted.

Beta rules are probably the single best addition to 8th... Rules that get thosands/10s of thousands of reps (far more then playtesting ever could) before final implementation

I mean we could go back to the gold old days where when you got a busted rule or unit you could just wait a decade and hope it gets sorted out

Another issue I have with the way GW does beta rules is their beta rules are the result of data, which is good, but their data is often months old by the time they get around to it.

What they really should do is something like Privateer Press' CID (Community Integrated Development) where they frequently look at things and do adjustments, then put forth those adjustments as a public beta test with a way to get feedback, and then take that feedback and decide what to adjust.

tneva82 wrote:

topaxygouroun i wrote:

Battlescribe has full of errors and is easy to cheat with. It's not replacement for book. .

Just how is is it easy to cheat with? You have your own presumably up to date Battlescribe right there to check up on it...