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Dudeface wrote:

AngryAngel80 wrote:

 Ghaz wrote:
A little insight into GW's playtesting from their Facebook page:

Warhammer 40,000 wrote:So, we have an internal rules team and around 20 playtesters. Lets say, they all play 3 games a week with a new Codex. That's around 40 games being played a week. So, perhaps 100-120 games get played in the playtest period. They catch LOADs of things that need tweaking, and discuss points values, how rules work together, the way they interact with various enemies etc.

Release day rolls round. We sell (picking a number out of the air) 50,000 copies of Codex: Orks. That means 50,000 games being played on day one. Maybe another 50,000 games being played day 2.

In 2 days, the community has played 100,000 games or more, against every possible enemy, and every possible scenario. They spot a few things our playtesters didn't (it's a vast and complex game after all!) and pass it on to us at 40kfaq@gwplc.com.

Our rules writers, eager to make sure everyone's gaming experience is as good as it can be, take those questions and produce these FAQ documents.

For our rules team and playtesters to get through 100,000 games, they would need to play 3 games a week for almost 5 years. We reckoned you guys didn't want to wait that long, you see!

So some seemingly obvious things slip through. Is it due to incompetence, lack of due diligence, work load or some other reason? I do not know.

So is that to mean that 3 games a week is really all they can stomach of the game they play test ? As well I call total BS on some of that PR hot air. Some of these things, on their face just scream OP and they did from game 1. I'm talking core rules and not just the marines supplements. Maybe they should find the time to play like a game a day for the week ? That I think might help a little bit.

Well 20 people each using the new codex 3 times a week is 60, so not sure how they got 40 there. But that post is in response to new books, specifically the most recent release.

Bear in mind those 20 playtesters will work across all gw games probably and need to also regression test the older factiona for balance ch ages or new rule adjustments ala chapter approved. I agree 40 a week with the new product is fairly low for what you imagine, but when the reality of normal working hours and other factors like other games come into it, that's a decent effort.

It's lazy effort when being play testers is part of their job, do some over time to grind out them games. Hire more play testers with all the super expensive new kit money they are pulling in. If they want to say they put out a quality top tier product they should actually put out that level of effort in all the quality. Not say how they give an ok effort to try and kind of half heart it so it's ok. Their prices aren't ok prices.

I suggest they use some of that money they save by not having an editor to hire more play testers who actually want to work hard at it.

AngryAngel80 wrote:

Dudeface wrote:

AngryAngel80 wrote:

 Ghaz wrote:
A little insight into GW's playtesting from their Facebook page:

Warhammer 40,000 wrote:So, we have an internal rules team and around 20 playtesters. Lets say, they all play 3 games a week with a new Codex. That's around 40 games being played a week. So, perhaps 100-120 games get played in the playtest period. They catch LOADs of things that need tweaking, and discuss points values, how rules work together, the way they interact with various enemies etc.

Release day rolls round. We sell (picking a number out of the air) 50,000 copies of Codex: Orks. That means 50,000 games being played on day one. Maybe another 50,000 games being played day 2.

In 2 days, the community has played 100,000 games or more, against every possible enemy, and every possible scenario. They spot a few things our playtesters didn't (it's a vast and complex game after all!) and pass it on to us at 40kfaq@gwplc.com.

Our rules writers, eager to make sure everyone's gaming experience is as good as it can be, take those questions and produce these FAQ documents.

For our rules team and playtesters to get through 100,000 games, they would need to play 3 games a week for almost 5 years. We reckoned you guys didn't want to wait that long, you see!

So some seemingly obvious things slip through. Is it due to incompetence, lack of due diligence, work load or some other reason? I do not know.

So is that to mean that 3 games a week is really all they can stomach of the game they play test ? As well I call total BS on some of that PR hot air. Some of these things, on their face just scream OP and they did from game 1. I'm talking core rules and not just the marines supplements. Maybe they should find the time to play like a game a day for the week ? That I think might help a little bit.

Well 20 people each using the new codex 3 times a week is 60, so not sure how they got 40 there. But that post is in response to new books, specifically the most recent release.

Bear in mind those 20 playtesters will work across all gw games probably and need to also regression test the older factiona for balance ch ages or new rule adjustments ala chapter approved. I agree 40 a week with the new product is fairly low for what you imagine, but when the reality of normal working hours and other factors like other games come into it, that's a decent effort.

It's lazy effort when being play testers is part of their job, do some over time to grind out them games. Hire more play testers with all the super expensive new kit money they are pulling in. If they want to say they put out a quality top tier product they should actually put out that level of effort in all the quality. Not say how they give an ok effort to try and kind of half heart it so it's ok. Their prices aren't ok prices.

I suggest they use some of that money they save by not having an editor to hire more play testers who actually want to work hard at it.

Wow, who says they dont work hard at it, who says those playtesters aren't full time playtesters? You have more of an issue with the price than the rules it seems.

Imagine you have to play 1 game of sigmar narrative 1 game open play and 1 game of matched, then a meeting engagements game. Oh then do the same with 40k, an open, a narrative and then a matched play with an army, then an apoc game, then a kill team game. Then do that for all armies, on a 37.5 hour week.

Dudeface wrote:
Wow, who says they dont work hard at it, who says those playtesters aren't full time playtesters? You have more of an issue with the price than the rules it seems...

The fact that the IH codex got through the playtesting in that state tells us that their playtesters are either not doing their jobs, or are laughably incompetent. There isn't another explanation beyond "we don't have playtesters".

w1zard wrote:

Dudeface wrote:
Wow, who says they dont work hard at it, who says those playtesters aren't full time playtesters? You have more of an issue with the price than the rules it seems...

The fact that the IH codex got through the playtesting in that state tells us that their playtesters are either not doing their jobs, or are laughably incompetent. There isn't another explanation beyond "we don't have playtesters".

There's at least one other explanation - they didn't listen to their playtesters. There's probably more, too, but I don't want to get in the way of a good hyperbolic vent.

 Drachii wrote:

w1zard wrote:

Dudeface wrote:
Wow, who says they dont work hard at it, who says those playtesters aren't full time playtesters? You have more of an issue with the price than the rules it seems...

The fact that the IH codex got through the playtesting in that state tells us that their playtesters are either not doing their jobs, or are laughably incompetent. There isn't another explanation beyond "we don't have playtesters".

There's at least one other explanation - they didn't listen to their playtesters. There's probably more, too, but I don't want to get in the way of a good hyperbolic vent.

Why would they spend money on playtesters to subsequently not listen to their playtesters? That is a waste of money, and if there is one thing I absolutely cannot see GW doing (or any company for that matter) is throwing away money for no reason.

I think we can safely discount the possibility of GW just "not listening" to their playtesters. Although I will admit to the possibility of there being a miscommunication between playtesters and GW, which sounds much more plausible.

w1zard wrote:

 Drachii wrote:

w1zard wrote:

Dudeface wrote:
Wow, who says they dont work hard at it, who says those playtesters aren't full time playtesters? You have more of an issue with the price than the rules it seems...

The fact that the IH codex got through the playtesting in that state tells us that their playtesters are either not doing their jobs, or are laughably incompetent. There isn't another explanation beyond "we don't have playtesters".

There's at least one other explanation - they didn't listen to their playtesters. There's probably more, too, but I don't want to get in the way of a good hyperbolic vent.

Why would they spend money on playtesters to subsequently not listen to their playtesters? That is a waste of money, and if there is one thing I absolutely cannot see GW doing is throwing away money for no reason.

The problem is that if the internal testers only got chance to play with a small number of games with a small variety of units as is likely the case with their sample size, but find an issue and raise it but then a miscommunication comes in from the external playtesters to the contrary (i.e. the tourney scene), who do they listen to?

Obviously something went wrong and there isn't enough testing done, but we don't know enough of their processes to criticise someones work.

Dudeface wrote:
The problem is that if the internal testers only got chance to play with a small number of games with a small variety of units as is likely the case with their sample size, but find an issue and raise it but then a miscommunication comes in from the external playtesters to the contrary (i.e. the tourney scene), who do they listen to?

Obviously something went wrong and there isn't enough testing done, but we don't know enough of their processes to criticise someones work.

If external testers and internal testers give conflicting information, you sit them (representatives) down and have a meeting to discuss the conflicts and get them resolved. That is like a couple hours tops, how is this rocket science to people?

I don't need to be a chef to know when food tastes like gak.

w1zard wrote:

Dudeface wrote:
The problem is that if the internal testers only got chance to play with a small number of games with a small variety of units as is likely the case with their sample size, but find an issue and raise it but then a miscommunication comes in from the external playtesters to the contrary (i.e. the tourney scene), who do they listen to?

Obviously something went wrong and there isn't enough testing done, but we don't know enough of their processes to criticise someones work.

If external testers and internal testers give conflicting information, you sit them (representatives) down and have a meeting to discuss the conflicts and get them resolved. That is like a couple hours tops, how is this rocket science to people?

I don't need to be a chef to know when food tastes like gak.

No but someone who co-ordinates the information from external play-testers likely present their findings on their behalf which may happen after the in house testers have finished their first pass. It might be the person they present it to preferred the external playtesters data/suggestions even if they were incorrect.

The point is it's incredibly easy for people to come on here and state how easy it is to run these departments and product cycles in multi-million international companies, but the truth is we don't know how they're currently operating and just blindly stomping feet and saying "work harder" when they're not contracted to the community isn't going to yield results.

w1zard wrote:

Dudeface wrote:
Wow, who says they dont work hard at it, who says those playtesters aren't full time playtesters? You have more of an issue with the price than the rules it seems...

The fact that the IH codex got through the playtesting in that state tells us that their playtesters are either not doing their jobs, or are laughably incompetent. There isn't another explanation beyond "we don't have playtesters".

But that can be said about almost every codex GW makes. If it comes out broken, as in not working within the rules of the edition and other armies, then testing was wrong. If the codex comes out and suddenly the best counter to it, is playing the same codex or unit and getting first turn, then the testing done was wrong too.
Maybe they just don't do testing at all. Or testing for GW is something drasticaly different. I mean it happens with a lot of things. A politician says he is all about lowering taxs, and in the end it somehow ends up as taxs going up for the bottom 90% of population. Maybe it is something like that. Or maybe army testing for GW means how well someone can paint a pre set number of models.

Dudeface wrote:
The point is it's incredibly easy for people to come on here and state how easy it is to run these departments and product cycles in multi-million international companies, but the truth is we don't know how they're currently operating and just blindly stomping feet and saying "work harder" when they're not contracted to the community isn't going to yield results.

Nobody is saying that "its easy" to run a department at GW or that coordinating a project is simple. What we are saying is that paying customers have a certain expectation of quality, which GW have not met, and we don't need to be experts in the field to criticize a system that yields sub-par results. The fact that the system is yielding sub-par results is proof enough that there is something wrong.

Once again, I don't need to be a chef to know there is something wrong with my food when it tastes like gak.

Nobody cares about the particulars of what is going wrong, we just want it resolved so we get a quality product.

w1zard wrote:

Dudeface wrote:
The point is it's incredibly easy for people to come on here and state how easy it is to run these departments and product cycles in multi-million international companies, but the truth is we don't know how they're currently operating and just blindly stomping feet and saying "work harder" when they're not contracted to the community isn't going to yield results.

Nobody is saying that "its easy" to run a department at GW or that coordinating a project is simple. What we are saying is that paying customers have a certain expectation of quality, which GW have not met, and we don't need to be experts in the field to criticize a system that yields sub-par results. The fact that the system is yielding sub-par results is proof enough that there is something wrong.

Once again, I don't need to be a chef to know there is something wrong with my food when it tastes like gak.

Agreed, nobody can debate something that went wrong, but the post I replied to earlier whose answer was "they charge too much for kits, hire more and make them do overtime" isn't contributing to resolving the issue. Customers expect a degree of quality, which the kits meet imo irrespective of the rules. The rules need some work but we can't know or change how GW does testing.

People need to feed back to them about the problems with the rules so they know they need to alter procedures, not just vent on forums how GW doesn't know what they're doing.

Youdon't need to be a chef to know something tastes like gak, but you do need to provide them useful feedback and suggestions so they try a new recipe.

Dudeface wrote:
Agreed, nobody can debate something that went wrong, but the post I replied to earlier whose answer was "they charge too much for kits, hire more and make them do overtime" isn't contributing to resolving the issue. Customers expect a degree of quality, which the kits meet imo irrespective of the rules. The rules need some work but we can't know or change how GW does testing.

Apologies, I was referring specifically to the quality of the rules.

w1zard wrote:

 Drachii wrote:

w1zard wrote:

Dudeface wrote:
Wow, who says they dont work hard at it, who says those playtesters aren't full time playtesters? You have more of an issue with the price than the rules it seems...

The fact that the IH codex got through the playtesting in that state tells us that their playtesters are either not doing their jobs, or are laughably incompetent. There isn't another explanation beyond "we don't have playtesters".

There's at least one other explanation - they didn't listen to their playtesters. There's probably more, too, but I don't want to get in the way of a good hyperbolic vent.

Why would they spend money on playtesters to subsequently not listen to their playtesters? That is a waste of money, and if there is one thing I absolutely cannot see GW doing (or any company for that matter) is throwing away money for no reason.

I think we can safely discount the possibility of GW just "not listening" to their playtesters. Although I will admit to the possibility of there being a miscommunication between playtesters and GW, which sounds much more plausible.

It happens all the time in businesses all over the planet. It happened with one of the Dark Elf army books for WH when the playtesters clearly identified the problem but the guy in charge at the time apparently ignored them because it would "ruin his vision of the army" or something. Cue DE being one of the most overpowered armies in the game. I've had people outright ignore the results of testing I've done at work because they "don't believe it" even when presented with overwhelming data (with predicatable results).

I work, at least partially, in web design, and one of the techniques used in that field is user testing, which is basically playtesting but for websites and apps. There's a well-known relationship between the number of testers you have and the number of problems you find. More testers = more problems found, but there are diminishing returns and those returns diminish very quickly. Finding the big problems normally takes no more than 5-6 people testing your site/app and the same applies to pretty much anything. So many of the IH issues are so obvious there must have either been a huge miscommunication somewhere or GW simply didn't listen, or they lack the competence to fix them. Corporate politics or personal ego are two plausible reasons why feedback may not have been listened to. Maybe GW even acknowledged the problem but couldn't find a suitable fix before publication? That touches on the other issue of playtesting. It's not enough to test, you also have to iterate. It's pointless to identify a problem if you don't then work towards a solution.

I completely understand specific broken combos slipping through, especially if they involve FW units. But not noticing massive pile of bonuses that affect pretty much everything making the army OP is inexcusable and I really have hard time understanding how this could happen.

And the playtesters are really, really, REALLY incompetent if they don't catch quite a few issues before even playing. As it is players know what's broken before codex is even released...How on earth these playtesters can't do same?

The FAQ's are up - Iron Hands & Raven Guard.

tneva82 wrote:
And the playtesters are really, really, REALLY incompetent if they don't catch quite a few issues before even playing. As it is players know what's broken before codex is even released...How on earth these playtesters can't do same?

I remember reading about how the problematic slings managed to slip past the Mordheim rules team. The game was based on WHFB, slings were terrible in WHFB, so it never even occurred to the play-testers that something like the grotesquely strong skaven sling wall would even be a thing, nevermind a problem. GW playtesting clearly needs to be more robust, but I think this is a really interesting and illustrative example of how something super strong can slip through because the play-testers simply never thought to use it the same way the community did.

WOW Now i know why it took them so long. The FAQs for them are very extensive

I feel safer now.

 p5freak wrote:
WOW Now i know why it took them so long. The FAQs for them are very extensive

I mean, that's a joke right?

PLease tell me that is a joke.

Not Online!!! wrote:

 p5freak wrote:
WOW Now i know why it took them so long. The FAQs for them are very extensive

I mean, that's a joke right?

PLease tell me that is a joke.

It is a joke indeed.

beast_gts wrote:
The FAQ's are up - Iron Hands & Raven Guard.

I like that they bothered to answer whether Korvidari Bolts make a weapon count as a relic for the Marksman Honors warlord trait when the trait itself explicitly says that it works on relic weapons.

Why are you surprised ?? GW is all about selling their stuff. Nerfing SM, their cashcow, wasnt very likely to happen. It would have been good for balance, but it would sell less SM.

Well, then i guess my mates, laughing his behind off and switching back to codex 2.0
Thankfully, else my poor R&H sods would just cease to exist

The Newman wrote:

beast_gts wrote:
The FAQ's are up - Iron Hands & Raven Guard.

I like that they bothered to answer whether Korvidari Bolts make a weapon count as a relic for the Marksman Honors warlord trait when the trait itself explicitly says that it works on relic weapons.

The trait specifically states applies to ranged weapons but it does not work on grenades or relics. But the argument is that the weapon itself is not a relic, just the ammunition.

Jesus that's bad. What the feth took them so long?

 Crimson wrote:
I completely understand specific broken combos slipping through, especially if they involve FW units. But not noticing massive pile of bonuses that affect pretty much everything making the army OP is inexcusable and I really have hard time understanding how this could happen.

I think we are taking for granted what the playtesters are actually given. Thinking about it, when the "no turn 1 deep strike" beta rule was first introduced there were a bunch of exceptions that were granted in a facebook pdf of all things that was "clarifying intent." Instead of fixing the text to match their intention, they just waved their hands, uttered a few magic words to make the problems go away, and "Don't worry the final version will be fixed." I don't think its too much of a leap to assume GW does this kind of stupidity for internal testing as well.

If the final version isn't being tested as a direct result of "testing for intention" it can effectively negate a lot of the playtesters feedback, leave extra room for basic errors, and outright eliminate precision for how abilities interact. "Testing for intent" would explain a lot of things like the Tiger Shark AX-1 being unable to fire its main gun on a technicality. This is a prime example why "Rules as Intended" is a cancer that needs to be eliminated as much as possible.

 Crimson wrote:
I completely understand specific broken combos slipping through, especially if they involve FW units. But not noticing massive pile of bonuses that affect pretty much everything making the army OP is inexcusable and I really have hard time understanding how this could happen.

still of the view that much like history consultants for telly or movies that the external playtesters are there for GW to 'prove' the are taking feedback, its ignoring the feedback for whatever reason thats the problem

Imma start collectin' Iron Hands. Woot!

 Ratius wrote:
Imma start collectin' Iron Hands. Woot!

Buyer beware. They're going to get nerfed one way or another.