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Lord Royal wrote:
Dynamic list matching? Is that even possible with miniatures?
Wouldn't it be easier to built in balancing tolerances or similar for the weaker side to compensate against a much stronger opponent?
I think of trapping the battlefield with C4 or give your troops supersteroids.
I imagine that some kind of levelling system could work with that, too: "So your Eldar Army is all level 1, but my Sly Marbo is OVER 9000!!!"

With app support? Theoretically it is perfectly doable albeit difficult. But such approach is really the only one that can meaningfully handle special rules like poison or haywire, which value depends entirely on opponent choices.

And I think I should clarify - I don't mean opponent matching like in online games, I mean dynamic point values. You personally don't know what your opponent is choosing so it is not tailoring against specifics, but the app does and can adjust point costs accordingly. Suddenly point costs no longer need to be universal, can be nonlinear and "vs faction" specific with much greater detail than blanket handicaps are. But this changes listbuilding paradigm from current static, premade 2000pts against everyone to something akin to "fluid sideboard" chosen just before game time and all prior discussions about balance lead me to conclusion, that it would be wasted effort as it would be met with fierce and amassed opposition.

So it doesn't write you an automatized list and forces you to pick specific models but each model has different point cost against each opponent... okay, I like that... but phew, that is a hell of work... And I think that there are easier ways to accomplish overall balancing.

You can for example devide the weapon's damage output and the opponent's sustain, so your weapon has a static effectiveness so does the opponent's sustain. AoS did this in some way. You don't have a dynamic ToWound-Roll. Tough guys just have more HP. Through that way every model has a static damage potential. What I mean is: You don't need dynamic pointcosts if you built your system around it being static. You can design a game to be more controllable. 40k7th for example wasn't.

Lord Royal wrote:
So it doesn't write you an automatized list and forces you to pick specific models but each model has different point cost against each opponent... okay, I like that... but phew, that is a hell of work... And I think that there are easier ways to accomplish overall balancing.

You can for example devide the weapon's damage output and the opponent's sustain, so your weapon has a static effectiveness so does the opponent's sustain. AoS did this in some way. You don't have a dynamic ToWound-Roll. Tough guys just have more HP. Through that way every model has a static damage potential. What I mean is: You don't need dynamic pointcosts if you built your system around it being static. You can design a game to be more controllable. 40k7th for example wasn't.

Any sufficiently complex game system is dynamic and there is no workaround for it, even in chess point values of pieces are dynamic and dependent on game state. Your goal is only approximately achievable in small and quite bland systems with very samey or near identical factions with quite strict build archetype restrictions. Static point costs are just that much constrained. But my proposition was strictly about "how we can benefit from automatisation" and IMHO this is the best use for app based aid. And yes, this is hell of a lot of work to do and I don't really think anybody will invest in it.

Well, if I think about it. It's not that much work. You clearly need a cost formula for aiming at least nearly the right price. I experienced with my formula that I have to guess an average target defence... I didn't think of the possibility to make them dynamic... so it was a weak point.

But besides that you think, that there is no use for an electronic component? Think of random tables for weather effects... always cool but often forgotten, day and night cicle... a mess to manage it without an app, detailed random events with interlacing parts... of course doable with cards but impracticable because you would need more than one deck with additional subdecks.
There are plenty of things an app could make practicable.
I think of lingering effects like burning or bleeding for example. This mechanic is only found in skirmishers because you would need too many markers in an army game like ie 40k. With an app you could have micromanagement without care about it manually. Each of your troops can get out of ammo, loose limb, bleed or starve to death. You can freak out without taking the number of models on the board into account AND without letting it stop the game flow. I think it's a great tool to design wargames with a much deeper experience.

Oh, but of course there are plenty of uses for app aided add-ons to the core concepts of wargaming. I was just focusing more on which existing design elements could be vastly improved by app aid and balance is one of the most pressing concerns.

If I recall correctly some of concepts you have listed above were marketed as selling points for Microsoft Surface or similar interactive large area screen with token driven imput acting as „intelligent tabletop”.

nou wrote:
If I recall correctly some of concepts you have listed above were marketed as selling points for Microsoft Surface or similar interactive large area screen with token driven imput acting as „intelligent tabletop”.

Uh... there comes a cloudy memory to my mind. The screen substituted the board and you was forced to use special models, right? I wonder why it didn't work out quiet well... *cough* I think one essential parts of a tabletop is the possibility to use any model you like and customize 'em... for me it's the most essential part. But you don't need to go that far to gain the benefits of that "method".

But back to the dynamic lists cause I still don't entirely understand how it works exactly. Isn't it quiet complicated to reach the same pointlevel or just to talk about points. And what if allies are used? That's a bunch of "Ifs" to take into account for a little bit more balancing and I'm sure that through minmaxing a list can still lead to evil matchups.

Lord Royal wrote:

nou wrote:
If I recall correctly some of concepts you have listed above were marketed as selling points for Microsoft Surface or similar interactive large area screen with token driven imput acting as „intelligent tabletop”.

Uh... there comes a cloudy memory to my mind. The screen substituted the board and you was forced to use special models, right? I wonder why it didn't work out quiet well... *cough* I think one essential parts of a tabletop is the possibility to use any model you like and customize 'em... for me it's the most essential part. But you don't need to go that far to gain the benefits of that "method".

But back to the dynamic lists cause I still don't entirely understand how it works exactly. Isn't it quiet complicated to reach the same pointlevel or just to talk about points. And what if allies are used? That's a bunch of "Ifs" to take into account for a little bit more balancing and I'm sure that through minmaxing a list can still lead to evil matchups.

The crux here is that what we now understand as points is only the user end output of such app (some form of normalized points in this case). The app itself can weight various parameters directly (as with beam balance weighting) - e.g. force A aggergated damage output vs force B aggregated survivability and vice versa (or do it by unit types and check if force A has enough antitank to manage force B vehicles within given turn limit, etc...) It can cost force multipliers directly, that is apply multiplier to actual buffable portion of the force and provide a true normalized value for such combination. Basicaly, the app is low fidelity simulation (or alternatively you can call it high complexity mathammer calculator). The true output of the app is balance tolerance between forces (in percentage) and game size (presented in normalized points or estimated play time, whatever). Now if you apply this iteratively or incrementally you can then balance two simultneously built armies against eachother with much better results than modern static universal points (or "tailor" second army to first, benchmark army within desired tolerance). Basically what the app does is what people already do with cross-tailoring for narrative purposes or when mathhammering for tournament advantage, but automatically and for both forces simultanously. And yes, that is a lot of processing power and data but not above modern smartphones level and you can scale fidelity of such approach to suit your needs. I don't remember the name of the system at the moment, but at least one wargame utilizes separate point values for offence, defence and overall and even such simple non-linear approach is much, much better than linear point systems.

But with all of that, what fundamentally changes is that you cannot use two static, predefined lists for it, so it is useless for modern PUG or tournament culture as in such context it only gives you a prediction of which force is more likely to win a match and the very reason for existence of such app is acknowledgement that static, universal balance is unachievable, which a lot of people deem heresy

[edit for clarity] The rough simulation part can be as simple as cumulative degradation projection throughout desired number of turns and leftover mobility for objective grabing purposes. Anything really gives better estimate of comparative list power than simple points do.

I don't think that this works in practice. For example: I have an infantry battallion of light Infantry that is effective against light infantry and with very very little tank damage potential. You have a pure tank army no infantry only strong armoured vehicles. The app now tells me, that I should take some antitank models which I don't have cause I don't like what the models look like. And the app tells you that you can't play pure vehicles, but you don't have any infantry... maybe a handful cause your tanks need a crew. How could an app solve that problem? Answer is, it can't.
Point is: this sounds like a very good idea. but as there is a miniature component (buying them, bulding them, converting, painting them). The analog part of the game can't react fast enough for that kind of listbuilding.

And there are more than one other ways to work around that problem: StrategyGames almost always have a rock paper sciccors system. Each faction is able to either go rock, paper, sciccors or a healthy mixture out of them. And there's nothing wrong with it. Problem is if you make a faction all pure rock... it blasts every sciccors army but always loses against paper... that was the case in 40k7th for example. And it's the easiest thing ever to avoid that: Don't be a faction pleaser and test you games. Have all faction have the same ammount of synergy potential (as it is the true power of a faction), have all units take their special abilities from the same pool with only a few very special units (ie Characters) or not so powerful abilities in exception. GW didn't do that at all in the past years they just recently start with that in 8th, but that doesn't change the fact that they don't have the best game designers ever. I can remember former CEP Tom Kirby saying: We don't do playtests and we don't do any market research!
THAT is the problem.
I know other games that don't have those problems and don't use an overcomplicated unpracticable dynamic point system. And those still have very unique factions. Dark Age by CMON is (or sadly was) a terrifique good balanced game for example... near to perfection. What did they do? They balanced their system so that most rolls where had a 50/50 chance for success. And they built in a tolerance through very creative secret missions that you could fit to your warband with plenty of no-kill options so that even the worst and cheapest models had a purpose and could be a decisive factor for victory.
Hell even the concidered best balanced strategy game (starcraft) doesn't need a dynamic cost system. And I never heard of a game that uses it.

Thing is: There's a reason for some ideas never been released in a game. Either it just don't work at all or the effort/benefit relation isn't worth it. But almost never because noone thought about it. I think there's just a better option to cope with that issue than to "destroy" tournament culture and overall practicability.

Or can you name at least one game (analog or digital) that used some kind of dynamic costs? I almost would bet that you can't.

Lord Royal wrote:
I don't think that this works in practice. For example: I have an infantry battallion of light Infantry that is effective against light infantry and with very very little tank damage potential. You have a pure tank army no infantry only strong armoured vehicles. The app now tells me, that I should take some antitank models which I don't have cause I don't like what the models look like. And the app tells you that you can't play pure vehicles, but you don't have any infantry... maybe a handful cause your tanks need a crew. How could an app solve that problem? Answer is, it can't.
Point is: this sounds like a very good idea. but as there is a miniature component (buying them, bulding them, converting, painting them). The analog part of the game can't react fast enough for that kind of listbuilding.

And there are more than one other ways to work around that problem: StrategyGames almost always have a rock paper sciccors system. Each faction is able to either go rock, paper, sciccors or a healthy mixture out of them. And there's nothing wrong with it. Problem is if you make a faction all pure rock... it blasts every sciccors army but always loses against paper... that was the case in 40k7th for example. And it's the easiest thing ever to avoid that: Don't be a faction pleaser and test you games. Have all faction have the same ammount of synergy potential (as it is the true power of a faction), have all units take their special abilities from the same pool with only a few very special units (ie Characters) or not so powerful abilities in exception. GW didn't do that at all in the past years they just recently start with that in 8th, but that doesn't change the fact that they don't have the best game designers ever. I can remember former CEP Tom Kirby saying: We don't do playtests and we don't do any market research!
THAT is the problem.
I know other games that don't have those problems and don't use an overcomplicated unpracticable dynamic point system. And those still have very unique factions. Dark Age by CMON is (or sadly was) a terrifique good balanced game for example... near to perfection. What did they do? They balanced their system so that most rolls where had a 50/50 chance for success. And they built in a tolerance through very creative secret missions that you could fit to your warband with plenty of no-kill options so that even the worst and cheapest models had a purpose and could be a decisive factor for victory.
Hell even the concidered best balanced strategy game (starcraft) doesn't need a dynamic cost system. And I never heard of a game that uses it.

Thing is: There's a reason for some ideas never been released in a game. Either it just don't work at all or the effort/benefit relation isn't worth it. But almost never because noone thought about it. I think there's just a better option to cope with that issue than to "destroy" tournament culture and overall practicability.

Or can you name at least one game (analog or digital) that used some kind of dynamic costs? I almost would bet that you can't.

In your example the app doesn't fail, it shows you that playing the game with such matchup is pointless as it has list imbalance reaching nearly 100%.

And yes, I can name games with dynamic point systems - I have already mentioned chess and all more elaborate Bridge bidding conventions are dynamic. Within wargames even such old game as original Necromunda has dynamic elements to it like underdog bonus and non-linear xp cost for advances. Even 7th ed 40K had an elaborate dynamic point cost system in form of austrailian community comp, though this one was limited to single force nonlinearity and did not account for matchup. And electronic games like e.g. GWs own Freeblade utilize dynamic strenght matching to keep randomly generated missions difficulty near static with your Knight progress. Startcraft's core mechanics reliant on build times and simultaneous damage resolution is dynamic enough in itself to provide a lot more desing flexibility at game time than static points. The whole iterative approach to establishing point values in the first place is exactly this, just not used in the scope of single match but entire system.

I don't really see why you are so wind up because of this concept as I have never stated that this is the only reasonable way to improve balance as all kinds of non-point based balance tools are incorporated in almost every existing miniature wargame. Just that it is another, not yet utilized and clearly resource heavy tool that just approaches practicality recently because of computing power saturation due to mobile devices.

Now I think I said all I wanted in this thread, so thank you for discussion. Cheers!

Ah, ok. So underdog bonusses count as dynamic points... okay, now I can sign it, too.
I thought you mean every model and every piece of equipment having different costs in relation to the opponent's army.
With underdog mechanics you can even manage evil matchups like the one mentioned... for example anti tank mines and some special guerilla tactics. That would create a very griddy game full of suspense. Wanna play a game light infantry vs a knight titan? No problem, as you get steel wires and grappling hooks, explosives and limpet mines through underdog bonuses and you're good to go. Main thing is to bring your uneffective weapons through additional tools some effectiveness. I think about an imperial veteran using wires and grappling hook to swing himself onto the knight, open up the cockpit and shoot the pilot with a lasgun.
That kind of thing is already on my ToDo-list and will be managed through handcards. You can actively specialize your card deck against a specific enemy. As an underdog you simply get bonus card ressources and cards to start with. More cards in your deck and in your start hand and more "start mana". Additional that adds an element of surprise and bluffing. Secret values generally is a thing I often miss in wargames but I always love to deal with. That's why I loved Zone Mortalis games with radar blips. You know what values are in the game, but you don't know when they come to effect.

Lord Royal wrote:
Ah, ok. So underdog bonusses count as dynamic points... okay, now I can sign it, too.
I thought you mean every model and every piece of equipment having different costs in relation to the opponent's army.
With underdog mechanics you can even manage evil matchups like the one mentioned... for example anti tank mines and some special guerilla tactics. That would create a very griddy game full of suspense. Wanna play a game light infantry vs a knight titan? No problem, as you get steel wires and grappling hooks, explosives and limpet mines through underdog bonuses and you're good to go. Main thing is to bring your uneffective weapons through additional tools some effectiveness. I think about an imperial veteran using wires and grappling hook to swing himself onto the knight, open up the cockpit and shoot the pilot with a lasgun.
That kind of thing is already on my ToDo-list and will be managed through handcards. You can actively specialize your card deck against a specific enemy. As an underdog you simply get bonus card ressources and cards to start with. More cards in your deck and in your start hand and more "start mana". Additional that adds an element of surprise and bluffing. Secret values generally is a thing I often miss in wargames but I always love to deal with. That's why I loved Zone Mortalis games with radar blips. You know what values are in the game, but you don't know when they come to effect.

Everything choosable at gameplay time is dynamic mechanism - stratagems of Zone Mortalis are perfect example of dynamic mechanism and it is sad, that 8th ed implementation is so poor in comparison. Every model having different point cost in relation to opponent's army is just one more dynamic tool to utilize. It has wider usability than static point costs but as you have shown with your infantry vs vehicles examples even it has it's limitations. You could implement app driven mission generation though - for any given two static army lists app generates mission layout and win conditions that provide equal chalange for the players.

Yapp, I have something like that with scenarios. But I go even further and let every player choose doable winning conditions for his army. So every warband has a clear individual reason why it fights on the table and killing units isn't inevitably a point for winning the game. Though killing is always an option though as it avoids your opponent to fulfill his victory conditions.

Lord Royal wrote:
Yapp, I have something like that with scenarios. But I go even further and let every player choose doable winning conditions for his army. So every warband has a clear individual reason why it fights on the table and killing units isn't inevitably a point for winning the game. Though killing is always an option though as it avoids your opponent to fulfill his victory conditions.

You can expand on this by attaching win conditions to certain more unusual/stronger unit choices,so that inclusion of specific unit grants your enemy a choosable (probably partial) win condition that is designed to balance it out.

Exactly that I'm going to do

Could always create a handicap mechanic? Newer players get bonus points, free upgrades or the like. Golf has been doing that for hundred of years.

In regards to tournaments and the like, I mean.

*facepalm*
I really googled for "golf tabletop wargame" XD
Then I realized that you meant actual golf...

Actually most of the GW games have some variation of that. But it would be quite difficult to find an exact definition for a "new player" in the context of balancing tournament play. The point of tournaments is to find out which player has the best skills in listbuilding and tactics. To give new players an advantage blurs that imo. And I think a tournament is the worst place to start ANY game. Maybe my opinion is wrong, I never was that much into tournament play.
But handicaps or bonuses could be a great thing in campaign play... with building fortifications and arms factories to ensure supply. So in course of the game those modificators are built up through doing special supply run or conquer scenarios. I think of it a bit like the campaign map of Total War or the like.

Lord Royal wrote:
*facepalm*
I really googled for "golf tabletop wargame" XD
Then I realized that you meant actual golf...

Actually most of the GW games have some variation of that. But it would be quite difficult to find an exact definition for a "new player" in the context of balancing tournament play. The point of tournaments is to find out which player has the best skills in listbuilding and tactics. To give new players an advantage blurs that imo. And I think a tournament is the worst place to start ANY game. Maybe my opinion is wrong, I never was that much into tournament play.
But handicaps or bonuses could be a great thing in campaign play... with building fortifications and arms factories to ensure supply. So in course of the game those modificators are built up through doing special supply run or conquer scenarios. I think of it a bit like the campaign map of Total War or the like.

Yes and no... If you've never played in a tournament, you're a new player. Listbuilding really isn't part of it imo - thems your boys and they live or die at your command. If you choose to play an army you have never fought with before, you'll probably fail - epically. Reminds me of a game I played in 7th (or 6th, whenever it was) after DE got their new codex. I knew the DE player was misreading the rules but he was insistent, so I just tabled myself. Hadn't played in years and it really soured me from the hobby altogether.

But what if the "new player" plays since a decade, is experienced af knows the rules in sleep. He just didn't do any registered tournaments. That's a thing too btw: you have to register ALL tournaments only for telling whether a new player is actually new.
Take me for an example: I'm in the Hobby since 18 years... I did an unregistered tournament once and won't do it ever again (at least with the proparbly worst tournament system ever... 40k).
I played every weekend and more than sometimes with part time tournament players (never had fun with them... this playstyle just wasn't my thing). I would NEVER EVER consider myself as not experienced or let alone new. I knew my army I knew my units and I knew how to handle them to kick some arse.

But in your model I would get the handicap bonus for new players. WTF? I mean okay, more wins for me... but that wouldn't just be fair. And don't think that I'm a rare species. I knew more non-tournament playes than tournament players, they were all experienced knew their faction, just didn't want to rush a 1850pts game in less then 2 hours.

I'm afraid you get not a bit more balancing through that. It's just a vast ammount of work to get it run... and then it's just for one game or one day. That can be abused very easily. See the results of the last official Blood Bowl League. The winner had 300+ wins and no losses, 150 kills but not a single death. The rest of the Top 20 were not much difference. There was one who played a 1000 (THOUSAND) games during a timespan of 3 weeks. There's not even a possibility to play THAT much.

Always think of the possibility that everyone tries to hose you... cause in most cases it's true.

I mean: The idea is cool, but doesn't work with real people (that you don't know) if there's something to win... even if it's just the honour to show off one's big hairy coconut balls of steel with spikes.

Gorkamorks had a good system for mismatched games, in that the experience gained by the game (Gorkamorka was very campaign based) was dependant on who you faced.

So, if you were new, and fought the top mob, who had all the bells and whistles, and lost horribly, you still got more XP than if you fought someone on your level and won. If you fought the top dogs and won, then you got tons of XP. Conversely, the top dogs would get very little XP winning against the weaklings.

I think that you could have "win conditions" as an in-game mechanic to do handicaps. If the opponent is bigger or better than you, then you can get victory points in more ways. Think of it as the arrogance of the commander of your force - the weak ones will be happy to just kill something, the powerful ones will think it a failure if even one of the enemy is still alive.

In the right game, this could easily be attributed to model count - it's a fair assumption that having less models means that your army is more elite. If the game plays stronger for elite armies (or horde armies) then you can put in a handicap chart which compares model count, and subsequently dictates the winning conditions for each army.

EG 5 elite guys vs 20 horde models + leader, in a game which favours hordes, the "kill" VP for the horde needs all 5 to die, whereas the "kill" VP for the elites might only need 10 + leader to die.

That sort of thing.

Killing is always an advantage and should therefore be strongly limited for VP purposes. Imo Dark Age made a great job in that manner. There you have a mission card deck similar to maelstorm cards in 40k but you choose your 12-Card MissionDeck out of 30 Cards that can be chosen by everyone. Every Mission is unique and can be chosen only once. There are 15 Kill conditions (ie "Kill the model with the highest point value" or "Kill a model with a lower point value" or "if an enemy dies you can take its head off. Carry that head to the next mission token and put it on a stake") and 15 non-kill conditions (ie "Have a model in the enemy deployment zone" or "have 3 or more models on 3 or more different mission tokens").
So a horde of gretchin would choose against an elite force only few kill missions (ie "kill an enemy model with 3 or more friendly models in base contact") and fill the gap with non-killing stuff.

But you don't get more VP just because you killed a lot of stuff. Killing already gives you the advantage by preventing your opponents from fulfilling their VP conditions. For example you should not automatically win if you table your opponent. The game just ends and recent VPs are compared to declare a winner.

It almost guarantees a more exciting game than the ordinary "Hold your ground" or simply "Kill! Kill more! Kill even more!" kinda stuff. Because you can choose your cards before every battle and can specialize against certain lists. I experienced it as a great way to have some kind of balancing tolerance mechanic. And even the most bashy forces do no-kill related stuff from time to time. I found it very much more compelling as you have to change your play style during the game as you can't repeat a win condition. There's no purpose for massacering your opponent apart from teabagging him but that doesn't and shouldn't win you a game.

I like the idea that 'killed' models be recycled back into the game. Some of my favourite games of 40k were in 7th edition where hordes of Tyranids would be wiped out and then recycled back onto the board.

Lord Royal wrote:
Killing is always an advantage and should therefore be strongly limited for VP purposes. Imo Dark Age made a great job in that manner. There you have a mission card deck similar to maelstorm cards in 40k but you choose your 12-Card MissionDeck out of 30 Cards that can be chosen by everyone. Every Mission is unique and can be chosen only once. There are 15 Kill conditions (ie "Kill the model with the highest point value" or "Kill a model with a lower point value" or "if an enemy dies you can take its head off. Carry that head to the next mission token and put it on a stake") and 15 non-kill conditions (ie "Have a model in the enemy deployment zone" or "have 3 or more models on 3 or more different mission tokens").
So a horde of gretchin would choose against an elite force only few kill missions (ie "kill an enemy model with 3 or more friendly models in base contact") and fill the gap with non-killing stuff.

But you don't get more VP just because you killed a lot of stuff. Killing already gives you the advantage by preventing your opponents from fulfilling their VP conditions. For example you should not automatically win if you table your opponent. The game just ends and recent VPs are compared to declare a winner.

It almost guarantees a more exciting game than the ordinary "Hold your ground" or simply "Kill! Kill more! Kill even more!" kinda stuff. Because you can choose your cards before every battle and can specialize against certain lists. I experienced it as a great way to have some kind of balancing tolerance mechanic. And even the most bashy forces do no-kill related stuff from time to time. I found it very much more compelling as you have to change your play style during the game as you can't repeat a win condition. There's no purpose for massacering your opponent apart from teabagging him but that doesn't and shouldn't win you a game.

Isn't VP usually determined by mission parameters? It's been a while since I've played, so I'm probably a bit fuzzy on current missions cards, or whatever. As I recall - search and destroy was the mission where you got VP for wiping out your opponent's units. Seize and secure? I think it was, was the variety with mission objectives placed on the table by both sides and only troops could secure objectives. Like the poll from the main page stated, 40k just needs to be rewritten and rebooted. As it stands, it's like a inky bukkake of gamedesigners trying to sway the meta one way or another

Inky Bukkake XD I finally found a name for my company^^

Jokes aside... The problem with 40k is the fact that somethings didn't change since the 90s, while other things changed drastically. For a long time GWs design policy was implement new rules and mechanics to fix the old ones. That's like a car mechanic that repairs a motor by adding a second motor. The old one is still broken, but your car works again though it now needs more fuel cause it's heavier. So it works, but worse than before.

The problem is GWs distribution. You can't change your system if the editions have to be almost compatible due to the codexes you want to sell. If GW would have free online rules for every unit, they could patch it more frequently. Physical books are just too static for a ever growing game. GW cannot react fast enough to balancing issues due to their distribution methods for their rules. The most recent issue: Chaos Obliterators... are their costs a copy/paste error? We don't know till GW releases a new book. That's just bad.

Dark Age WAS (I'm so sad) a great example for a fixed skirmisher version of 40k. Their faction books were almost fluff only. You had Unit rules though, but a few months later, they were dated already, cause every faction had a patch at least once a year. That would be sooooo cool for 40k (and proparbly would get me back playing it). But a major part of GWs revenue comes from their books... so I don't think they will do something against 40k's biggest issue.

Lord Royal wrote:
Inky Bukkake XD I finally found a name for my company^^

Jokes aside... The problem with 40k is the fact that somethings didn't change since the 90s, while other things changed drastically. For a long time GWs design policy was implement new rules and mechanics to fix the old ones. That's like a car mechanic that repairs a motor by adding a second motor. The old one is still broken, but your car works again though it now needs more fuel cause it's heavier. So it works, but worse than before.

The problem is GWs distribution. You can't change your system if the editions have to be almost compatible due to the codexes you want to sell. If GW would have free online rules for every unit, they could patch it more frequently. Physical books are just too static for a ever growing game. GW cannot react fast enough to balancing issues due to their distribution methods for their rules. The most recent issue: Chaos Obliterators... are their costs a copy/paste error? We don't know till GW releases a new book. That's just bad.

Dark Age WAS (I'm so sad) a great example for a fixed skirmisher version of 40k. Their faction books were almost fluff only. You had Unit rules though, but a few months later, they were dated already, cause every faction had a patch at least once a year. That would be sooooo cool for 40k (and proparbly would get me back playing it). But a major part of GWs revenue comes from their books... so I don't think they will do something against 40k's biggest issue.

Exactly - it's too hodgepodge and mishmash to be viable as what it is supposed to be - a wargame. If I were GW, I'd come out with a new edition main rulebook and a core group of all the popular armybooks - SM, Orks, Eldar, IG, CSM and... SoB? WH? Whatever, half and half is the point. Playtest the new edition with those corebooks, then expand on them after release. And I think you're a bit off on the rulebooks being their main source of income... Unless absolutely no one is buying new minis - they definitely make more from their sales.

A few years ago a GW employee told me, that the half of their revenue (after deduction) was made through books.
But that was in the era of Lord Kirby, sinister master of "We are a miniatures producer not a game developer" and before the golden age of roundtree. Even before WHFB Endtimes. So that information is quiet old, but if it was true it can simply mean that the return of investment of miniature production is worse than the return of books. I think there are many players, that already have all the models they wanted to have. Those players are still buying the recent books (rules, codexes etc.)... at least this is MY extrapolated explanation.

GW also works at a scale where all the artwork and layout and whatnot in the books can be done in an affordable (and profitable) way. Plus they're onto something producing books of rules and fluff, so both sides of the Eternal Divide get something they want.

 Nurglitch wrote:
GW also works at a scale where all the artwork and layout and whatnot in the books can be done in an affordable (and profitable) way. Plus they're onto something producing books of rules and fluff, so both sides of the Eternal Divide get something they want.

Yea, but it's not the best thing for the game.

Lord Royal wrote:

 Nurglitch wrote:
GW also works at a scale where all the artwork and layout and whatnot in the books can be done in an affordable (and profitable) way. Plus they're onto something producing books of rules and fluff, so both sides of the Eternal Divide get something they want.

Yea, but it's not the best thing for the game.

Maybe? I'm not an expert, and from where I stand I'm pretty envious of the amount of content in the game, the level of support GW brings to it, and the income they make off of it. I've come to suspect that they may know what they're doing when it comes to managing a product like 40k.

Managing a product has nothing to do with game design. Monopoly is the best selling game since ever... but it's the best example for the worst game design.

The thing is that GW don't do (enough) playtests. They tend to rush things. GWs focus cleary aren't the rules their focus are exceptional minis and economic growth. Playtests are slowing down your revenue, but if you don't want to put effort into them it results in a worse game. It's that simple.

But if you do that, make sure that you can patch your system easily. GW can't, because they're selling their rules, so they have to print a new version rather than just upload a corrected one. It has nothing to do with books that are too expensive or so... GW is listening now to their customers but their reaction is a two to four year cycle. So if there is a problem in the system it takes upto 4 years to be fixed. That's just too long. In that time your younger customers get into adulthood. Okay, it's faster than the reaction time of the catholic church, but not much...

Let's just see how long it takes them to fix the recent Obliterators. I would almost bet on it, that it'll be corrected in the following codex in 3 years...

Agree to disagree I suppose. I can't help but feel like managing a product has something to do with the design of that product.