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happy_inquisitor wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:

 Thud wrote:
With the amounts of salt in here already, I wonder what the reaction is going to be when you find out that the primaris bikers are about 40 points each.

Some of us are thinking around 50, but some are claiming they'll be 35, but I suspect that's more the salt talking.

Currently two bikers are 46 points. If you take them with chainswords for a choppy chapter they get the same number of attacks on the charge, more attacks when charged and twice as many bolter shots albeit at AP0 instead of AP-1.

At 8th ed rates they would need to be less than 46 points each to be even barely relevant. If everything goes up by 10% they still need to be less than 50 points to be able to compete with a unit that hardly anyone takes competitively because its just not very good.

Bikes issues in 8th are less to do with the bike stats and how keyword interact with terrain. When everything in tournaments is a ruin and bikers can't enter magic boxes they don't bring anything to the party. Gw assured us that Terrain will be better and more interactive and FLG magic boxes are gone, so bikers etc are more viable, undercosting the new Primaris version just because no-one took a unit screwed over by terrain rules that are changing is going to result in a broken unit.

Ice_can wrote:

 addnid wrote:
So that +2 attacks on the charge, nothing has confirmed this rumor to be true right ?

It's no roumer it's straight from Stu on the GW Live stream it's as official a rule can be before we get the marine 3.0 Ninth edition codex.

It's less an official rule and more a bit of a mechanic. We don't know for sure how they plan on executing that for example.

happy_inquisitor wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:

 Thud wrote:
With the amounts of salt in here already, I wonder what the reaction is going to be when you find out that the primaris bikers are about 40 points each.

Some of us are thinking around 50, but some are claiming they'll be 35, but I suspect that's more the salt talking.

Currently two bikers are 46 points. If you take them with chainswords for a choppy chapter they get the same number of attacks on the charge, more attacks when charged and twice as many bolter shots albeit at AP0 instead of AP-1.

At 8th ed rates they would need to be less than 46 points each to be even barely relevant. If everything goes up by 10% they still need to be less than 50 points to be able to compete with a unit that hardly anyone takes competitively because its just not very good.

You forgot the ungodly pistols that are technical heresy era tech but he, who cares.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 addnid wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:

 Thud wrote:
With the amounts of salt in here already, I wonder what the reaction is going to be when you find out that the primaris bikers are about 40 points each.

Well , you'd enter the justifyable nerdrage sphere, because such Bikers would be horrendusly unfair.

Witness salt turning into gun powder, and then the powder keg that is this forum, previously just a salt mine, blowing up ! A tankbusta's dream !

before said tankbusta get's a swift primaris astartes chainsword into the face by said bikers and consequently will restart the salt mining.

happy_inquisitor wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:

 Thud wrote:
With the amounts of salt in here already, I wonder what the reaction is going to be when you find out that the primaris bikers are about 40 points each.

Some of us are thinking around 50, but some are claiming they'll be 35, but I suspect that's more the salt talking.

Currently two bikers are 46 points. If you take them with chainswords for a choppy chapter they get the same number of attacks on the charge, more attacks when charged and twice as many bolter shots albeit at AP0 instead of AP-1.

At 8th ed rates they would need to be less than 46 points each to be even barely relevant. If everything goes up by 10% they still need to be less than 50 points to be able to compete with a unit that hardly anyone takes competitively because its just not very good.

I kind of hope they aren't that cheap. They compare really well against Custode bikers at a whopping 90 points a pop! And if my custodies army increases by any significant % of points, it may aswell be legends at that point since they already struggle unless I ether A) Buy tons of Forgeworld. B) Run up, jump on objective and wait out turns. And that strategy died when Doctrines became a thing on 3W T5 and 2+/4++ became NOT durable.

I have no words for that.

I'd just like to remind people that chaos has gotten non HQ choice recently that isn't footslogging and that our biker HQ options just got legended.

I am just waiting for the Dark eldar inevitable dismissal of the archon HQ choice.

Voss wrote:

 Argive wrote:
Well.. Stop gap Edition 8.5 certainly seems more and more like a stop gap edition 8.5 with each passing say. As in we saw the power creep.. we noticed the power creep. But then we decided to keep the power creep.

I have to admit, I lean more toward 8th feeling like the 'early access' version for 9th.
With indexes being the alpha stage, codexes being the beta stage, and then SM codex v2 being the release candidate stage followed by a lot of crunch time (PA) to drag everything up to the finish line before release, regardless if they're completely ready or not.

To put it in a less negative perspective - developing software in stages of alpha, beta, release is a pretty dated way of doing things. Even most big gaming companies only pretend to still do things this way because of the marketing effect that "beta phases" have.

In reality, you (should) start with a MVP(minimum viable product). A MVP is a something that already provides enough value and can be released on its own. After you have released your MVP, you keep improving the product and adding features to it. In software this is often delivered through patches, some of them within days of the release.

If your transfer this to 8th, it was a complete re-rewrite of the rule-set becoming completely incompatible with anything before, a new product.
The MVP for 8th was the BRB and the indexes - you literally can't play the game with less. This is their version 1.0, consisting of core rules 1.0 and army rules 1.0.
When a codex was released, they updated the army rules of that army to 1.1, the following FAQ and errate updates them to 1.2
When a big FAQ was released, they updated the core rules to 1.1
CA then updated both the core rules to 1.2 and all the army rules
This cycle repeated three times now, effectively ending us up with core rules 1.7 and codices 1.8 or 1.10 for CSM or marines. Note that I'm ignoring Vigilus and PA for simplicity's sake.
With the release of 9th, they will be replacing the core rules with something new, so a version 2.0 for the core rules, which will eventually be incremented by CA and the big FAQs.

What you are perceive as being exploited as beta-tester is just modern way of developing complex systems. Staying in an ivory tower and "finishing" a product has been proven not to work over and over again.
What does work is creating a minimum viable product with as little bells and whistles as possible and go from there, generating and collecting feedback as early as possible to incorporate it in your product.
If they hadn't released 8th and instead worked 4 years to prefect was is now 9th, it wouldn't have improved the quality of the product one bit, quite the opposite.

The only problem with this approach is that continuous improvement doesn't mix well with printing your system in books.

TL;DR: GW isn't exploiting players as beta testers, they are just continuously improving their system based on feedback as professionals should.

 Jidmah wrote:

Voss wrote:

 Argive wrote:
Well.. Stop gap Edition 8.5 certainly seems more and more like a stop gap edition 8.5 with each passing say. As in we saw the power creep.. we noticed the power creep. But then we decided to keep the power creep.

I have to admit, I lean more toward 8th feeling like the 'early access' version for 9th.
With indexes being the alpha stage, codexes being the beta stage, and then SM codex v2 being the release candidate stage followed by a lot of crunch time (PA) to drag everything up to the finish line before release, regardless if they're completely ready or not.

To put it in a less negative perspective - developing software in stages of alpha, beta, release is a pretty dated way of doing things. Even most big gaming companies only pretend to still do things this way because of the marketing effect that "beta phases" have.

In reality, you (should) start with a MVP(minimum viable product). A MVP is a something that already provides enough value and can be released on its own. After you have released your MVP, you keep improving the product and adding features to it. In software this is often delivered through patches, some of them within days of the release.

If your transfer this to 8th, it was a complete re-rewrite of the rule-set becoming completely incompatible with anything before, a new product.
The MVP for 8th was the BRB and the indexes - you literally can't play the game with less. This is their version 1.0, consisting of core rules 1.0 and army rules 1.0.
When a codex was released, they updated the army rules of that army to 1.1, the following FAQ and errate updates them to 1.2
When a big FAQ was released, they updated the core rules to 1.1
CA then updated both the core rules to 1.2 and all the army rules
This cycle repeated three times now, effectively ending us up with core rules 1.7 and codices 1.8 or 1.10 for CSM or marines. Note that I'm ignoring Vigilus and PA for simplicity's sake.
With the release of 9th, they will be replacing the core rules with something new, so a version 2.0 for the core rules, which will eventually be incremented by CA and the big FAQs.

What you are perceive as being exploited as beta-tester is just modern way of developing complex systems. Staying in an ivory tower and "finishing" a product has been proven not to work over and over again.
What does work is creating a minimum viable product with as little bells and whistles as possible and go from there, generating and collecting feedback as early as possible to incorporate it in your product.
If they hadn't released 8th and instead worked 4 years to prefect was is now 9th, it wouldn't have improved the quality of the product one bit, quite the opposite.

The only problem with this approach is that continuous improvement doesn't mix well with printing your system in books.

TL;DR: GW isn't exploiting players as beta testers, they are just continuously improving their system based on feedback as professionals should.

That this approach just so happens to also be incredibly monetizable is just a coincidence then?

well you can take a gander at the game industry and yes it is.

Ein Schelm wer böses denkt.

stratigo wrote:

Spoiler:

 Jidmah wrote:

Voss wrote:

 Argive wrote:
Well.. Stop gap Edition 8.5 certainly seems more and more like a stop gap edition 8.5 with each passing say. As in we saw the power creep.. we noticed the power creep. But then we decided to keep the power creep.

I have to admit, I lean more toward 8th feeling like the 'early access' version for 9th.
With indexes being the alpha stage, codexes being the beta stage, and then SM codex v2 being the release candidate stage followed by a lot of crunch time (PA) to drag everything up to the finish line before release, regardless if they're completely ready or not.

To put it in a less negative perspective - developing software in stages of alpha, beta, release is a pretty dated way of doing things. Even most big gaming companies only pretend to still do things this way because of the marketing effect that "beta phases" have.

In reality, you (should) start with a MVP(minimum viable product). A MVP is a something that already provides enough value and can be released on its own. After you have released your MVP, you keep improving the product and adding features to it. In software this is often delivered through patches, some of them within days of the release.

If your transfer this to 8th, it was a complete re-rewrite of the rule-set becoming completely incompatible with anything before, a new product.
The MVP for 8th was the BRB and the indexes - you literally can't play the game with less. This is their version 1.0, consisting of core rules 1.0 and army rules 1.0.
When a codex was released, they updated the army rules of that army to 1.1, the following FAQ and errate updates them to 1.2
When a big FAQ was released, they updated the core rules to 1.1
CA then updated both the core rules to 1.2 and all the army rules
This cycle repeated three times now, effectively ending us up with core rules 1.7 and codices 1.8 or 1.10 for CSM or marines. Note that I'm ignoring Vigilus and PA for simplicity's sake.
With the release of 9th, they will be replacing the core rules with something new, so a version 2.0 for the core rules, which will eventually be incremented by CA and the big FAQs.

What you are perceive as being exploited as beta-tester is just modern way of developing complex systems. Staying in an ivory tower and "finishing" a product has been proven not to work over and over again.
What does work is creating a minimum viable product with as little bells and whistles as possible and go from there, generating and collecting feedback as early as possible to incorporate it in your product.
If they hadn't released 8th and instead worked 4 years to prefect was is now 9th, it wouldn't have improved the quality of the product one bit, quite the opposite.

The only problem with this approach is that continuous improvement doesn't mix well with printing your system in books.

TL;DR: GW isn't exploiting players as beta testers, they are just continuously improving their system based on feedback as professionals should.

That this approach just so happens to also be incredibly monetizable is just a coincidence then?

Hey atleast the FAQ's were free if GW was EA they would have been behind a micro transaction paywall of $5 an FAQ.

Because what people love is being sold an unfinished product with half it's "launch features" hidden behibd paywalls and not released for 6 months.

Not Online!!! wrote:

happy_inquisitor wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:

 Thud wrote:
With the amounts of salt in here already, I wonder what the reaction is going to be when you find out that the primaris bikers are about 40 points each.

Some of us are thinking around 50, but some are claiming they'll be 35, but I suspect that's more the salt talking.

Currently two bikers are 46 points. If you take them with chainswords for a choppy chapter they get the same number of attacks on the charge, more attacks when charged and twice as many bolter shots albeit at AP0 instead of AP-1.

At 8th ed rates they would need to be less than 46 points each to be even barely relevant. If everything goes up by 10% they still need to be less than 50 points to be able to compete with a unit that hardly anyone takes competitively because its just not very good.

You forgot the ungodly pistols that are technical heresy era tech but he, who cares.

You mean the heavy bolt pistols that nobody will ever use unless they are locked in combat because twin bolt rifles will always be better?

Or did you think all the new Primaris get that new pistol the Lt gets?

stratigo wrote:
That this approach just so happens to also be incredibly monetizable is just a coincidence then?

Not by coincidence at all, it is a matter of project management.
The old approach would generate costs without generating income for six years and the resulting product is very hit-and-miss. We all know GW, the rules aren't going to be better just because they worked longer on them.
The new approach aims to start generating value (in the case of 40k: money, customer happiness) as soon as possible and either end up with a successful product or bury the thing before it consumed to much money.

Normally product coming out of second approach cost less money(for the company), as you don't have to invest large amounts of money into a product that might fail. However, we all know GW doesn't transfer those savings to us

Less abstract, the new attempt vastly improves the quality of the game we are playing because things that make people unhappy are corrected faster and not built upon for further development. Which is good for everyone.
Keeping the game behind closed doors longer and polishing it inside the ivory tower will not result in a better game, as previous editions have proven.

Ice_can wrote:

stratigo wrote:

Spoiler:

 Jidmah wrote:

Voss wrote:

 Argive wrote:
Well.. Stop gap Edition 8.5 certainly seems more and more like a stop gap edition 8.5 with each passing say. As in we saw the power creep.. we noticed the power creep. But then we decided to keep the power creep.

I have to admit, I lean more toward 8th feeling like the 'early access' version for 9th.
With indexes being the alpha stage, codexes being the beta stage, and then SM codex v2 being the release candidate stage followed by a lot of crunch time (PA) to drag everything up to the finish line before release, regardless if they're completely ready or not.

To put it in a less negative perspective - developing software in stages of alpha, beta, release is a pretty dated way of doing things. Even most big gaming companies only pretend to still do things this way because of the marketing effect that "beta phases" have.

In reality, you (should) start with a MVP(minimum viable product). A MVP is a something that already provides enough value and can be released on its own. After you have released your MVP, you keep improving the product and adding features to it. In software this is often delivered through patches, some of them within days of the release.

If your transfer this to 8th, it was a complete re-rewrite of the rule-set becoming completely incompatible with anything before, a new product.
The MVP for 8th was the BRB and the indexes - you literally can't play the game with less. This is their version 1.0, consisting of core rules 1.0 and army rules 1.0.
When a codex was released, they updated the army rules of that army to 1.1, the following FAQ and errate updates them to 1.2
When a big FAQ was released, they updated the core rules to 1.1
CA then updated both the core rules to 1.2 and all the army rules
This cycle repeated three times now, effectively ending us up with core rules 1.7 and codices 1.8 or 1.10 for CSM or marines. Note that I'm ignoring Vigilus and PA for simplicity's sake.
With the release of 9th, they will be replacing the core rules with something new, so a version 2.0 for the core rules, which will eventually be incremented by CA and the big FAQs.

What you are perceive as being exploited as beta-tester is just modern way of developing complex systems. Staying in an ivory tower and "finishing" a product has been proven not to work over and over again.
What does work is creating a minimum viable product with as little bells and whistles as possible and go from there, generating and collecting feedback as early as possible to incorporate it in your product.
If they hadn't released 8th and instead worked 4 years to prefect was is now 9th, it wouldn't have improved the quality of the product one bit, quite the opposite.

The only problem with this approach is that continuous improvement doesn't mix well with printing your system in books.

TL;DR: GW isn't exploiting players as beta testers, they are just continuously improving their system based on feedback as professionals should.

That this approach just so happens to also be incredibly monetizable is just a coincidence then?

Hey atleast the FAQ's were free if GW was EA they would have been behind a micro transaction paywall of $5 an FAQ.

Because what people love is being sold an unfinished product with half it's "launch features" hidden behibd paywalls and not released for 6 months.

Even EA produces free patches man.

I mean the joke is, GW is hilariously more expansive and exploitative in pricing than EA is even with all of EA's horrible microtransaction and live service policies. EA whales dump a few hundred bucks on average. GW whales dump a few thousand. A grand's about the buy in for a GW mainline, sixty for EA. People can't be okay with GW and not with EA's pricing and marketing schemes without being all sorts of hypocritical.

 Jidmah wrote:

stratigo wrote:
That this approach just so happens to also be incredibly monetizable is just a coincidence then?

Not by coincidence at all, it is a matter of project management.
The old approach would generate costs without generating income for six years and the resulting product is very hit-and-miss. We all know GW, the rules aren't going to be better just because they worked longer on them.
The new approach aims to start generating value (in the case of 40k: money, customer happiness) as soon as possible and either end up with a successful product or bury the thing before it consumed to much money.

Normally product coming out of second approach cost less money(for the company), as you don't have to invest large amounts of money into a product that might fail. However, we all know GW doesn't transfer those savings to us

Less abstract, the new attempt vastly improves the quality of the game we are playing because things that make people unhappy are corrected faster and not built upon for further development. Which is good for everyone.
Keeping the game behind closed doors longer and polishing it inside the ivory tower will not result in a better game, as previous editions have proven.

I mean... I'm not entirely sure that follows. The old GW process also included extremely limited playtesting. If they playtested as extensively, there'd likely have been way less issues with the old method. They simply refused to invest to properly create a product. Not that it is impossible to make a higher quality more finished product on release.

Honestly I think the profit motive came first and the benefits of the method are incidental to the ability to monetize more aggressively and cut costs of development. A 'good' product is incidental. This method doesn't, in my opinion, produce better products in any appreciable higher quantity ratio than older methods. You can't look at aggressive monetization schemes in gaming and go "yes, NBA2k has certainly benefited from being aggressively monetized as a live service". Some products using this method are good quality, some are bad. It just creates different incentives for how a company measures cost benefits. Sometimes it means the development is responsive. Sometimes it means the product is made to intentionally waste time and force grinding to sell time savers. For the case of GW, I'd be shocked if there wasn't some strong incentive to NOT fix things so that the next cycle has something to be worked on and sold, and that there is a push to buy the new hot overpowered unit this cycle, which will get nerfed next cycle to push a different product. And that's on top of genuine errors and mistakes GW writers make. GW isn't just regularly upping their prices, they are pushing you to buy and trade out books and units at an increased pace too.

The one benefit of the development cycle you describe is one that GW, being a fair sized corporation, doesn't enjoy. It lowers the cost of entry for developers, as seen in a proliferation of small gaming companies, both in miniature gaming and video gaming. But, again, not something that is applicable to GW, since GW isn't small and it has the money to invest development that doesn't require getting a product out now or it goes bankrupt.

Whilst I have been miffed with most on here, especially in regards to play testing discussion, I must admit that the article posted yesterday is an absolutely awful indication of the direction of travel for this edition.

Playtesters being allowed to play in a style that fits their fairly obvious bias (I absolutely bet he was already using(abusing) thunder fire cannons and drop pod devs in 8th edition, and didn't fancy buying/painting new models) is just poor control by GW. What is the point in having absolutely endless information about thunder fire cannons and playing a peek a boo style, it does not address the general landscape, it just skews, again. Then letting the guy write an article, F me... Seriously? Talk about skewing the direction of travel even further.

The hilarious thing is, TF cannons and devs aren't going to be around by next edition you would presume (in their current iteration anyway).

Really poor article, and why they decided to only highlight already used strats in this current edition is beyond me...

Lets hope some of the other play testers were doing their job properly, such as TTT.

endlesswaltz123 wrote:
Whilst I have been miffed with most on here, especially in regards to play testing discussion, I must admit that the article posted yesterday is an absolutely awful indication of the direction of travel for this edition.

Playtesters being allowed to play in a style that fits their fairly obvious bias (I absolutely bet he was already using(abusing) thunder fire cannons and drop pod devs in 8th edition, and didn't fancy buying/painting new models) is just poor control by GW. What is the point in having absolutely endless information about thunder fire cannons and playing a peek a boo style, it does not address the general landscape, it just skews, again. Then letting the guy write an article, F me... Seriously? Talk about skewing the direction of travel even further.

The hilarious thing is, TF cannons and devs aren't going to be around by next edition you would presume (in their current iteration anyway).

Really poor article, and why they decided to only highlight already used strats in this current edition is beyond me...

Lets hope some of the other play testers were doing their job properly, such as TTT.

If you were a new player wanting to know what will be good in 9th based on what marines have access to currently, that article wasn't too far off the mark. But again they're probably told what to write more or less. I can't see gw letting them gush over how good the new marine supplement/codex is that's 6 months out, or how this generic strat that the GW team haven't previewed yet makes predators amazing or w/e. They'll have been told to stick to the confines of what people already have, mention a specific singular new thing and move on.

Dudeface wrote:

endlesswaltz123 wrote:
Whilst I have been miffed with most on here, especially in regards to play testing discussion, I must admit that the article posted yesterday is an absolutely awful indication of the direction of travel for this edition.

Playtesters being allowed to play in a style that fits their fairly obvious bias (I absolutely bet he was already using(abusing) thunder fire cannons and drop pod devs in 8th edition, and didn't fancy buying/painting new models) is just poor control by GW. What is the point in having absolutely endless information about thunder fire cannons and playing a peek a boo style, it does not address the general landscape, it just skews, again. Then letting the guy write an article, F me... Seriously? Talk about skewing the direction of travel even further.

The hilarious thing is, TF cannons and devs aren't going to be around by next edition you would presume (in their current iteration anyway).

Really poor article, and why they decided to only highlight already used strats in this current edition is beyond me...

Lets hope some of the other play testers were doing their job properly, such as TTT.

If you were a new player wanting to know what will be good in 9th based on what marines have access to currently, that article wasn't too far off the mark. But again they're probably told what to write more or less. I can't see gw letting them gush over how good the new marine supplement/codex is that's 6 months out, or how this generic strat that the GW team haven't previewed yet makes predators amazing or w/e. They'll have been told to stick to the confines of what people already have, mention a specific singular new thing and move on.

The point is, every unit should be 'good', and viable (not game breaking, but worthwhile bringing, yeah some units will be more effective, but the line should be thin). We already know TF cannons and drop pod grav devs are fairly decent units in the current edition, how about finding out how they are making reivers viable? That's because the play tester probably hasn't checked....

stratigo wrote:
I mean... I'm not entirely sure that follows. The old GW process also included extremely limited playtesting. If they playtested as extensively, there'd likely have been way less issues with the old method. They simply refused to invest to properly create a product. Not that it is impossible to make a higher quality more finished product on release.

This is a misconception, not limited to 40k or games, but all projects of such complexity. You cannot test everything, there will always be something that you missed. In addition, both the testing process and processes for incorporating tester feedback can have systematic flaws (or worse, no defined processes at all). In addition, testers are pretty likely to become routine- or system-blinded as they become absorbed by a companies' philosophy and organizational structure. The problems of Conway's law also apply to play-testing.
In the end, you are creating a product for your customers, only the customer knows what they want. Testers aren't customers, but part of the company.

Honestly I think the profit motive came first and the benefits of the method are incidental to the ability to monetize more aggressively and cut costs of development. A 'good' product is incidental. This method doesn't, in my opinion, produce better products in any appreciable higher quantity ratio than older methods.

I honor your opinion, but the old method has been proven to not work. Blindly developing a complex system for a long time without continuously integrating customer feedback might yield a great product if you get lucky, but most of the time simply fails to do so.
Windows 8 is a great example of large project that failed because of the lack of customer involvement.

You can't look at aggressive monetization schemes in gaming and go "yes, NBA2k has certainly benefited from being aggressively monetized as a live service". Some products using this method are good quality, some are bad. It just creates different incentives for how a company measures cost benefits. Sometimes it means the development is responsive. Sometimes it means the product is made to intentionally waste time and force grinding to sell time savers. For the case of GW, I'd be shocked if there wasn't some strong incentive to NOT fix things so that the next cycle has something to be worked on and sold, and that there is a push to buy the new hot overpowered unit this cycle, which will get nerfed next cycle to push a different product. And that's on top of genuine errors and mistakes GW writers make. GW isn't just regularly upping their prices, they are pushing you to buy and trade out books and units at an increased pace too.

Two things:
1) GW already tried the aggressive monetization in 7th approach, selling dozens of single datasheets for 10€ and it clearly didn't work out well. Their current goal clearly seems to be to provide just enough product to keep everyone buying.
2) In the gaming industry, providing an objectively good game with few pain points for your players has proven to be the best way to earn money with your game in long term. Not fixing your game or intentionally breaking it has proven to hurt your sales and eventually will cause your game to die.

The one benefit of the development cycle you describe is one that GW, being a fair sized corporation, doesn't enjoy. It lowers the cost of entry for developers, as seen in a proliferation of small gaming companies, both in miniature gaming and video gaming. But, again, not something that is applicable to GW, since GW isn't small and it has the money to invest development that doesn't require getting a product out now or it goes bankrupt.

That is not how it works. The old models generates unnecessary risks, which will turn into losses. If you polish and test for six years and then release an edition that everyone hates, and then it takes you another six years to release the next one, even GW will be facing financial troubles.
Taking small steps and adjusting your direction when you need is superior to blindly steering towards a set goal for years.
And I also disagree that GW is too large for such an attempt - companies ten to a hundred time their size use this approach to develop their products.

If you like to continue this discussion, I suggest creating a thread somewhere else and PM me a link. This is nowhere near the topic anymore.

Jidmah gets it.

Except he thinks GW is trying to improve it. GW has never cared about improving game. Just changing in sidestep to ensure people buy new stuff to replace old stuff. Hordes sold enough, time to kill off hordes and promote elites and monsters. That's not improving game. If they were improving both playstyles would be valid but GW is throwing light infantry off the rail because market is already saturated with them. Time to go for elites and solo models.

GW isn't interested in game balance. What they are interested is that what's best constantly changes so people buy new models to replace previously good models that are now junk. That sells them.

Feel free to provide proof for your theories.

tneva82 wrote:
Except he thinks GW is trying to improve it. GW has never cared about improving game. Just changing in sidestep to ensure people buy new stuff to replace old stuff. Hordes sold enough, time to kill off hordes and promote elites and monsters. That's not improving game. If they were improving both playstyles would be valid but GW is throwing light infantry off the rail because market is already saturated with them. Time to go for elites and solo models.

GW isn't interested in game balance. What they are interested is that what's best constantly changes so people buy new models to replace previously good models that are now junk. That sells them.

Your fundamentally error here is assuming that 'improve' is an objective goal.

Of course they want to improve the game, because a better game means more customers, they just frequently define improve differently than you.

The software thing is an interesting one, the issue with applying the logic to GW is that typically in software, a development results in simply a product bigger than the last, a feature etc and there are patterns in place to manage dependencies and whole books on user experience etc.

For GW they add features but they are tightly coupled to others to use programming lingo, that is to say the change or adding of one thing often changes or has effects on the rest (something in programming you generally want to avoid).

If i add a CSV export feature to my invoice system it does not effect generating invoices and it certainly does not effect system users (unless they need permissions to export csvs, but this is just more adding stuff in)

If GW add in primaris bikers with OP rules it effects the entire marine army as you'd be daft not to take them and therefore all armies that fight against them are effected and therefore the whole product morphs so the user experience changes.

So if 40k were software i'd have unit tests up the wazoo, human testers at all stages of development and still expect my support queue on release to be full within hours. So we are not much beta testers so much as users finding bugs because the system is so tightly coupled it's impossible to do anything new that wont result in unexpected behaviors, however much you test.

 Jidmah wrote:
Feel free to provide proof for your theories.

there are 2 possibilities, either GW wants it that why, or they don't know what they are doing


problem is, that the game is on update 1.8 while some armies are still waiting for update 1.2
it is one of the only game companies were factions are on a different level of updates for a very long time

either they don't want to stick to a basic game design and don't care to update everything in time to the same level (core rule patch 1.8 breaks 3 factions but this will be solved by itself wit core rule update 2.1 in 2 years so no need to take care about it)

or they just change things for the sake of change and don't know their own game

 Latro_ wrote:
The software thing is an interesting one, the issue with applying the logic to GW is that typically in software, a development results in simply a product bigger than the last, a feature etc and there are patterns in place to manage dependencies and whole books on user experience etc.

For GW they add features but they are tightly coupled to others to use programming lingo, that is to say the change or adding of one thing often changes or has effects on the rest (something in programming you generally want to avoid).

If i add a CSV export feature to my invoice system it does not effect generating invoices and it certainly does not effect system users (unless they need permissions to export csvs, but this is just more adding stuff in)

If GW add in primaris bikers with OP rules it effects the entire marine army as you'd be daft not to take them and therefore all armies that fight against them are effected and therefore the whole product morphs so the user experience changes.

So if 40k were software i'd have unit tests up the wazoo, human testers at all stages of development and still expect my support queue on release to be full within hours.

You clearly haven't ever worked in a sufficiently complex software system. At my previous employer, I can assure you could take the whole company out of business for a day by doing as much as touching the CSV export
The whole balance thing very much works like developing a UI. For example, if you would build a new version of dakkadakka and you let the Gallery button cross the rubicron primaris to increase its size by 2, it would most likely mess up most of the design.
Note that this also proves my point that "finishing" the game without constantly integrating feedback is all but impossible.

If anything, creating rules for a game is a lot less complex than creating software, but they clearly lack the tooling support that is taken as granted when developing software.


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 kodos wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:
Feel free to provide proof for your theories.

there are 2 possibilities, either GW wants it that why, or they don't know what they are doing

I'm fairly sure it is the later. The entire disaster surrounding the first big FAQ and tau commanders/hive tyrants clearly demonstrated the disconnect between GW and their customers.
However, it is quite likely that they use sales as one metric to determine which units are doing well and which aren't since terrible units tend to sell bad unless they have an exceptionally great model. It doesn't take a genius to find out whether the squigbuggy or the scrapjet sold more.

problem is, that the game is on update 1.8 while some armies are still waiting for update 1.2
it is one of the only game companies were factions are on a different level of updates for a very long time

either they don't want to stick to a basic game design and don't care to update everything in time to the same level (core rule patch 1.8 breaks 3 factions but this will be solved by itself wit core rule update 2.1 in 2 years so no need to take care about it)

This is not game design. This is basic system design as part of any sufficiently large project with the ability iterate. Everything I wrote applies as much to games as it does to software, management projects, machinery construction , building a mall or subdivision or going to space. They don't blow up these rockets every other month because more testing would have solved their problems.
From a technical point of view, there is nothing wrong with updating modules at different speeds, as long as you make sure they still work well with each other.

 Latro_ wrote:


So if 40k were software i'd have unit tests up the wazoo, human testers at all stages of development and still expect my support queue on release to be full within hours. So we are not much beta testers so much as users finding bugs because the system is so tightly coupled it's impossible to do anything new that wont result in unexpected behaviors, however much you test.

Excellent annalogy. As a Dev myself I had alway thought the same thing.

There are so many moving parts that until it gets to the wider community it's physically impossible to test everything. There just isn't the man hours.

If I am running a test suite on my code I can have it run through thousands of permutations in seconds and I will almost certainly still have bugs.
40k can only really test through actual games played and it just can't cover anything more than the tip of the iceberg,


Would be an interesting project to try and write some sort of AI that could play millions of games of 40k and work out all permutations though. How cool would that be for trying to create a balance?

The point was about the actual result of development tending to be 'adding' not 'changing'. The business would not fall over if you released a new PDF export on top of the CSV where there was not one before e.g. a new button. You obviously from a back-end have been good and have business logic and design patterns in place so the PDF is a few lines of code different from the CSV and they share 99% of their code so you'd never 'touch the csv code'. If the adding of the button did have massive business issues then yes i guess complexity is interwoven here with scale of use but thats not my point.

With GW 'adding' and 'changing' to 40k are more often not mutually exclusive factors. If i add anything to 40k its ripples in some way effect the entire system as although you might not experience issues the whole thing is evaluated and developed as a whole.

I'm on board with your point, they should do small and often releases. In fact i think codex books are too monolithic a release for 40k for the entropy that is introduced as soon as they change anything.

I dont see how game rules are less complex than software, i think they are different skills. Game dev is the acceptance of some entropy whereas software is the outright revulsion of it. GW are in the position where they are releasing a pdf export, a xml export, a json export etc etc and all these pieces of code are coupled to each other so if you change one it effects the other.

this is it in my brain anyway

 Argive wrote:
This suggest we pretty much seen the main core changes. reverse CP generation, a command phase, and ITC terrain rules.

And being able to fire in close combat for vehicles and monsters, and new blast weapon mechanic, and no more -1 to shooting for moving with heavy weapon on not-infantry, and point change across the board, and new missions.
And the flyer new stuff, I don't care much about it I have no flyers.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:
do you expect a marketing article to lead with "marines actually kind of suck now that X has been nerfed"?

No, I expected an article to talk about how Space Marines work in 9th, not "There is a new rule that everyone gets, meaning it also works with Space Marines! WOW!" meaningless drivel.

If the marines have not received new rules, then everything new about marines is how the rules that everyone get affects them. I don't understand what you want to read from those.
I am betting that when the faction focus for Sisters will come, they will tell us about how blast rules make the exorcist anti-infantry version even better, how exorcists are more mobile now that the -1 to hit is gone, and stuff like this. It's going to be all about the rules we already know about, that affect everyone, because there are no other new rules, so they don't have anything else to talk about. With the occasional new info being only about which weapons are confirmed to be blast, or giving away one new point value.

I think it is easy for GW to spot HUGE shifts in the game they can generate when reasing new stuff.
If they used the custodes bikes as a metric to give points to the new primaris outiders, they would have gotten the point cost more or less right.

Honestly anyone who has played like 30 games of 8th ed can give you a more or less accurate balaced point cost for outriders.

Custodes (they are comparable, honestly how can one say they are not ?) are 90, so outriders should be 60-75 points. Who can honestly dispute this (I hope I am not being too bold with this assertion hah hah) ? Yet most of us here believe they will be less. I hope GW proves us wrong, us salty fools, but They will pop out at 50 or perhaps 55 points. Why would that be if not to sell tons of them ?
An "honest" mistake because you can't test everything ?When you have the perfect custodes bike as a metric (and in a lesser relevant way perhaps, ass cents) ? Nah...

To be clear though for codex release or edition release i do believe indeed there is too much for bugs not to appear -if not many bugs-. But here we are talking about a few new units

 Latro_ wrote:
The point was about the actual result of development tending to be 'adding' not 'changing'. The business would not fall over if you released a new PDF export on top of the CSV where there was not one before e.g. a new button.

My point was that I have worked for an actual company with a profit of about three millions a year which would have to shut down all its operations for an entire day should you touch their export module because it is just that fragile, badly designed, undocumented and no automated tests - much like GW's balance model
Now guess why they are my former employer

With GW 'adding' and 'changing' to 40k are more often not mutually exclusive factors. If i add anything to 40k its ripples in some way effect the entire system as although you might not experience issues the whole thing is evaluated and developed as a whole.

I'm on board with your point, they should do small and often releases. In fact i think codex books are too monolithic a release for 40k for the entropy that is introduced as soon as they change anything.

Agree, but a lot of these problem stem from them needing to print changes in books instead of just pushing new stuff once a week/month.

I dont see how game rules are less complex than software, i think they are different skills. Game dev is the acceptance of some entropy whereas software is the outright revulsion of it. GW are in the position where they are releasing a pdf export, a xml export, a json export etc etc and all these pieces of code are coupled to each other so if you change one it effects the other.

It's math really. You can easily program the 40k rulesset as a piece of software of the same complexity (if you can't, you have a broken ruleset), but you would have to add extra code to cover all the things which are not explicitly called out by the rules.
Therefore game rules would always less complex than software doing the same thing.

this is it in my brain anyway

I truely appreciate your thoughts

 addnid wrote:
I think it is easy for GW to spot HUGE shifts in the game they can generate when reasing new stuff.
If they used the custodes bikes as a metric to give points to the new primaris outiders, they would have gotten the point cost more or less right.

Honestly anyone who has played like 30 games of 8th ed can give you a more or less accurate balaced point cost for outriders.

Custodes (they are comparable, honestly how can one say they are not ?) are 90, so outriders should be 60-75 points. Who can honestly dispute this (I hope I am not being too bold with this assertion hah hah) ? Yet most of us here believe they will be less. I hope GW proves us wrong, us salty fools, but They will pop out at 50 or perhaps 55 points. Why would that be if not to sell tons of them ?
An "honest" mistake because you can't test everything ?When you have the perfect custodes bike as a metric (and in a lesser relevant way perhaps, ass cents) ? Nah...

To be clear though for codex release or edition release i do believe indeed there is too much for bugs not to appear -if not many bugs-. But here we are talking about a few new units

oh yea i'm not saying GW dont intentionally break units to sell product...

I'v been playing 40k for 25 years, this has always been the case we should not be shocked by this.

Just as companies release game breaking DLC for online games for a cost, then tone it all down 6 months later GW are the OG's of pay to win and were doing it in 1995

 Latro_ wrote:

 addnid wrote:
I think it is easy for GW to spot HUGE shifts in the game they can generate when reasing new stuff.
If they used the custodes bikes as a metric to give points to the new primaris outiders, they would have gotten the point cost more or less right.

Honestly anyone who has played like 30 games of 8th ed can give you a more or less accurate balaced point cost for outriders.

Custodes (they are comparable, honestly how can one say they are not ?) are 90, so outriders should be 60-75 points. Who can honestly dispute this (I hope I am not being too bold with this assertion hah hah) ? Yet most of us here believe they will be less. I hope GW proves us wrong, us salty fools, but They will pop out at 50 or perhaps 55 points. Why would that be if not to sell tons of them ?
An "honest" mistake because you can't test everything ?When you have the perfect custodes bike as a metric (and in a lesser relevant way perhaps, ass cents) ? Nah...

To be clear though for codex release or edition release i do believe indeed there is too much for bugs not to appear -if not many bugs-. But here we are talking about a few new units

oh yea i'm not saying GW dont intentionally break units to sell product...

I'v been playing 40k for 25 years, this has always been the case we should not be shocked by this.

Just as companies release game breaking DLC for online games for a cost, then tone it all down 6 months later GW are the OG's of pay to win and were doing it in 1995

Maybe, maybe as an institution they do this; but I cannot imagine the rules devs genuinely operate this way on purpose.