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Sentient OverBear






Clearwater, FL

With the advent of 9th Edition, we're going to try a new format for the Warhammer 40k Tactics forum. Currently, each faction has a megathread for tactics discussion, much of which is now out of date. Within these threads, it's difficult to find specifics of any sort unless it's the current topic. It's also impossible to determine what specifically is being talked about unless you jump into the thread, and even then it's not easy to find the beginning of the discussion.

In order to make things easier to find, and hopefully spark more discussion, we'd like you to create threads that are focused on a specific topic. This could be faction specific (ie, Necron Close Combat, or How to Counter Space Marine Shooting), or in general (What's The Best Way To Hold an Objective).

An opportune time to start this is when 9th Edition is officially available. The current 8th Edition threads will be out of date at that point, and new discussions can begin.

As always, please be sure to keep all Army List discussion in the 40K Army Lists forum.

Please leave any comments below. Thank you!

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I understand the reasoning behind these new guidelines (I remember a thread in general discussion that raised similar concerns about the "mega threads"), though it does make me a bit sad all the same. Maintaining the GSC thread has been something I have found to be a very rewarding effort and I was planning on updating it as 9th edition information was officially confirmed.

I suppose will there be a cut-off point when we can expect the threads to be locked? If they will be closed immediately upon the new edition releasing then it won't do much good to update the main post with 9th edition info or analysis.

This message was edited 3 times. Last update was at 2020/05/30 18:47:00


 
   
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Just out of curiosity, why are you trying to implement this? There is nothing in the rules right now that say we must have a megathread or that we can't post individual tactics threads is there?

I feel like this should just be to how the userbase wants to post and discuss things and I'm not sure why there needs to be forum administration intervention on this. People create individual threads when needed, and use the general discussion threads when needed now.

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On moon miranda.

 Sasori wrote:
Just out of curiosity, why are you trying to implement this?
I'll expand on what Lorek posted above. The consensus the mod team came to was that the Tactics subforum was not as useful or functional as it could be as a result of the below issues with the megathreads.

1: They're difficult to navigate, search, and follow, and often have little discussion cohesion, especially for someone new to the thread (and may deter posting), and while something may have been covered in them, finding it 10 or 20 or 70 pages later is difficult and results in lots of duplicated posting or questions just not getting the same views and response levels they would as their own threads, especially if they may also be relevant to other factions.

2: A significant amount of posting in these threads ends up as more "Faction general discussion" than actual tactics (look at the last 5+ pages of the current Necron thread for instance, yes I saw you tried to address that, but it's a symptom in general of the Tactics subforum)

3: A lot of posting that's more appropriate to the Army List subforum gets sucked into the megathreads instead.

4: Significant portions of such threads have enormous numbers of pages and thousands of posts that may no longer be relevant in the current meta and just end up as noise that has to be filtered through. For example, how much of the first ~150-200 pages of the IG tactics megathread is of value today given a Codex Release, 2 CA updates, Psychic Awakening, and other metagame advances? How much of that is anyone going to read that didn't already do so 2+ years ago as a participant? Only the last 30 or so pages include the latest post-CA2019/PA-inclusive metagame.


In all fairness, these don't apply to each megathread equally, some are better than others, in a couple cases significantly moreso (Jidmah's continually updated and cohesive first post in the Ork thread springs to mind, whereas the current AdMech thread literally just has "placeholder" everywhere almost a year later, and the IG thread is just a couple links to GW's website and "lets talk about IG!"), but they're the problems we've become concerned with in general with the Tactics subforum.

If the megathreads were curated collections of high quality writeups (e.g. detailed unit reviews, cohesive explanations and updates that CA changes may have to the army, wargear breakdowns and where to use what and how, details and explanations of event winning lists and why they were successful against their opponents, in-depth writeups of different build concepts and subfaction strategies, links to other valuable threads, etc) I think they'd serve a much greater purpose. Whereas now, just taking a look at page 250 of the IG megathread, I see nine or ten distinct posts asking gameplay related questions, many that have probably been addressed at some point (some multiple times), 4 of them getting no responses all, and a couple that absolutely could be their own threads, while the bulk of the thread could be erased without probably any notice, and that's what we'd like to see change.

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Decrepit Dakkanaut




UK

I can agree with this - you've got a tactics section for tactical chat and that's really what it should be. Mega-threads are not bad and can be very entertaining, but they are very catch-all and often tend to lean far more toward casual chat than focused chat. Plus its possible for interesting and key topics to get fully overlooked or questions to get missed because everyone gets hooked on a casual conversation instead.


Personally I would say the megathreads are nothing bad and often quite good. I think people who want to seriously run then can continue to run them again (perhaps ina different section to better represent their more open nature). They can even use their first post to edit in and link to any important tactical conversations that arise in the tactics section. Thus keeping the mega-thread as a useful long term resource, whilst not deflecting the focus of the tactics section itself.

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I don't know how practical this would be but- could we maybe have a general tactics thread and then specific tactics threads for each army? For example if someone were to mathhammer the effectiveness of a weapons loadout on say a tank and post it that would be good general knowledge to have and I wouldn't have to look through all sorts of threads to find it. Meanwhile a discussion on how to dislodge unit X while using army Y's options would fall into a more general discussion.
   
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The best State-Texas

 Vaktathi wrote:
 Sasori wrote:
Just out of curiosity, why are you trying to implement this?
I'll expand on what Lorek posted above. The consensus the mod team came to was that the Tactics subforum was not as useful or functional as it could be as a result of the below issues with the megathreads.

1: They're difficult to navigate, search, and follow, and often have little discussion cohesion, especially for someone new to the thread (and may deter posting), and while something may have been covered in them, finding it 10 or 20 or 70 pages later is difficult and results in lots of duplicated posting or questions just not getting the same views and response levels they would as their own threads, especially if they may also be relevant to other factions.

2: A significant amount of posting in these threads ends up as more "Faction general discussion" than actual tactics (look at the last 5+ pages of the current Necron thread for instance, yes I saw you tried to address that, but it's a symptom in general of the Tactics subforum)

3: A lot of posting that's more appropriate to the Army List subforum gets sucked into the megathreads instead.

4: Significant portions of such threads have enormous numbers of pages and thousands of posts that may no longer be relevant in the current meta and just end up as noise that has to be filtered through. For example, how much of the first ~150-200 pages of the IG tactics megathread is of value today given a Codex Release, 2 CA updates, Psychic Awakening, and other metagame advances? How much of that is anyone going to read that didn't already do so 2+ years ago as a participant? Only the last 30 or so pages include the latest post-CA2019/PA-inclusive metagame.


In all fairness, these don't apply to each megathread equally, some are better than others, in a couple cases significantly moreso (Jidmah's continually updated and cohesive first post in the Ork thread springs to mind, whereas the current AdMech thread literally just has "placeholder" everywhere almost a year later, and the IG thread is just a couple links to GW's website and "lets talk about IG!"), but they're the problems we've become concerned with in general with the Tactics subforum.

If the megathreads were curated collections of high quality writeups (e.g. detailed unit reviews, cohesive explanations and updates that CA changes may have to the army, wargear breakdowns and where to use what and how, details and explanations of event winning lists and why they were successful against their opponents, in-depth writeups of different build concepts and subfaction strategies, links to other valuable threads, etc) I think they'd serve a much greater purpose. Whereas now, just taking a look at page 250 of the IG megathread, I see nine or ten distinct posts asking gameplay related questions, many that have probably been addressed at some point (some multiple times), 4 of them getting no responses all, and a couple that absolutely could be their own threads, while the bulk of the thread could be erased without probably any notice, and that's what we'd like to see change.



Vakathi, these are all very fair points, and I agree with most of them.

My main sticking point is that I don't think this is necessary. It seems like you are throwing the baby out with the bathwater so to speak. There is nothing stopping people from posting individual threads now, and it really sounds like this could be fixed with some tighter moderation and better guidelines for the megathreads. Perhaps picking a few of the posters, like Jidmah, to be the ones to start the Megathreads for 9th, so you don't end up like in the Adeptus Mechanics situation.

The Megathreads to me serve a purpose of not cluttering up this forum as much. I think it's going to be just as hard, if not harder to wade through a forum when you have multiple different posts about 20+ factions. You'll end up having the same problem that you are trying to fix by removing the megathreads, it will just take another form.

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Sticksville, Texas

Completely agree with Sasori, it is going to be a nightmare when each faction ends up with multiple threads in one section talking about different types of tactics for the same faction, with the potential of multiple tactics threads covering the same topic... since it will be harder for people to see what threads are covering what unless they make sure to use the search function (haha, that people tend to forget about) or go a few pages back in the tactics section to check what else has been posted.

Really think it would be easier to just delete posts in the mega threads that don't have army lists hidden by spoilers being used to discuss tactics, and to keep the mega threads relevant, just lock them after each Chapter Approved and let them restart after the book comes out.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2020/05/30 23:51:46


 
   
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I think big difference with multiple threads vs megathreads is that they're much easier to use the Search function effectively with, while attracting greater individual attention to specific topics (particularly as the meta changes) and allowing older outdated content to fall into history, and lessens the risk degenerating into "general discussion" or sucking in Army List feedback posts from that subforum.

We could just lock the threads every time a new CA drops and allow for a new ones to develop, but that only really addresses the issue of meta-irrelevance, and they still run into the other problems, especially if we don't have a dedicated Jidmah for every faction doing a solid basic faction/unit summary post.

However, we're open to feedback (it's why this thread is here ahead of time instead of just making it so), and if people have suggestions on handling the above problems by all means please let us know, but just be aware that moderator bandwidth for solutions, while not unavailable, is limited.

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The best State-Texas

 Vaktathi wrote:
I think big difference with multiple threads vs megathreads is that they're much easier to use the Search function effectively with, while attracting greater individual attention to specific topics (particularly as the meta changes) and allowing older outdated content to fall into history, and lessens the risk degenerating into "general discussion" or sucking in Army List feedback posts from that subforum.

We could just lock the threads every time a new CA drops and allow for a new ones to develop, but that only really addresses the issue of meta-irrelevance, and they still run into the other problems, especially if we don't have a dedicated Jidmah for every faction doing a solid basic faction/unit summary post.

However, we're open to feedback (it's why this thread is here ahead of time instead of just making it so), and if people have suggestions on handling the above problems by all means please let us know, but just be aware that moderator bandwidth for solutions, while not unavailable, is limited.


Has the search functionally been improved? I've tried to use it several times in the past, but it's always been very poor, unless there has been some recent overhaul I am unaware of. Not to mention getting people to actually use the search function is an all together different challenge. So using the search function as part of any justification for changes feels flimsy.

I really think the best course of action would be to still have the megathreads, but provide Guidelines for them. You could Sticky a post about them, and have them in the opening post of each one. There you can layout your list of "Please discuss lists in the list forum" "General Purpose Discussion goes in General" "Please start relevant threads for tactical advice needed" etc etc. Alerts can then be used to get them back on track if needed.

If you really want individual threads for all tactics discussion, then I think you need to have a general tactics forum and subfaction forums. This would at least make it easier to search and read up on what you need, as well as knowing the attention for your faction is there.


This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2020/05/31 01:12:27


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Here's an idea; how about opening up a subsection for "Megathreads" specifically. Call it 40K Factions or somesuch. You could allow it to be open for X number of days to allow community members for specific factions to start their own mega threads (which encourages those who have long term interests in managing them to step up first); then lock the section to new threads (merging or closing any duplicate faction threads).

The result would be a single subjection with the mega-threads contained within it. That keeps them out of tactics and general discussion; it keeps them separate. At the same time it doesn't encourage not discourage them, it simply lets them be and exist.



I think if that is done alongside beefing up at attention to tactics then the mega-threads become a useful one-stop resource for users for specific factions and a good way to have general "chatter" about factions. I think that general chatter, whilst sometimes being offputting to some to join in on; can also help reinforce a factions playerbase and help them interact with each other.




That way we preserve the history of megathreads and at the same time provide space for Tactics and general discussions to be their own things

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British Columbia

 Overread wrote:
Here's an idea; how about opening up a subsection for "Megathreads" specifically. Call it 40K Factions or somesuch. You could allow it to be open for X number of days to allow community members for specific factions to start their own mega threads (which encourages those who have long term interests in managing them to step up first); then lock the section to new threads (merging or closing any duplicate faction threads).

The result would be a single subjection with the mega-threads contained within it. That keeps them out of tactics and general discussion; it keeps them separate. At the same time it doesn't encourage not discourage them, it simply lets them be and exist.



I think if that is done alongside beefing up at attention to tactics then the mega-threads become a useful one-stop resource for users for specific factions and a good way to have general "chatter" about factions. I think that general chatter, whilst sometimes being offputting to some to join in on; can also help reinforce a factions playerbase and help them interact with each other.




That way we preserve the history of megathreads and at the same time provide space for Tactics and general discussions to be their own things

I like this a lot. It would also have a positive effect on 40k general by making that more about game wide issues/discussion. Would take some Mod interventions at first. Something as simple as a " This is more fitting for the ______ 40k faction thread" in the same way off topic threads closer to blog posts are shuttered.

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I opened a thread about this in General recently, so I'm really glad to hear about this direction. In that thread I argued against mega-threads and faction specific forum sections. There's a bunch of problems to consider.

Every time you partition the community, you decrease engagement. People just don't drill down into endless subcatagories unless they already know what they want, which is a Catch 22 for new or returning players. And even putting each faction-specific subforum on the top navigation level creates massive clutter and choice paralysis. Then there's the issue of sustaining subsections; are there actually enough people playing each faction to generate meaningful discussions frequently enough to keep people coming back to the site? People aren't going to consistently check every faction forum, they're going to settle into their favourite active one, and the unpopular factions will whither.

Likewise, I think mega-threads simply cannot be a one-stop-shop for information, because the people who actually need that information are exactly the people intimidated by its 300 pages. You have to lower the barrier to entry as much as possible. Plus there's the cultural aspect of mega-threads; they function like cliques. You're either up to speed with them and can participate, or you're not. And the fact of the matter is that other Tactics threads don't generate many responses, which can be discouraging for the poster.

Is there a good argument for mega-threads besides that they already exist?

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2020/05/31 01:58:45


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Please don't just do this without implementing some kind of replacement. The tactica threads generate the best form of discussion on game mechanics that exist on this site. I know if I want to browse some interesting tactical talk about my army, it's quite easy to browse through the last few pages of the relevant thread to find it. There's nothing else on the site that does this. It's not even that I'm looking for specific questions answered or anything, it's just good to be able to browse an army specific place for inspiration on new ideas re tactics. Frankly I'm not going to spend the time filtering through the huge list of topics of the entire tactics forum (which would at least double without the tactica threads btw) because it's unweildy and not worth the effort.

If you feel you must do this, please find some other way of breaking the tactics section up into different factions. Its such an excellent way of fostering general community and easily digestible discussion simply because you don't have to trawl through all of the irrelevant posts.

Edit:
I also don't agree with with the idea that partitioning the community discourages discussion. Take a look at the army list forum for example. I would say nearly half of the lists that people go to the effort of posting there receive no replies at all, with the majority of others being less than 5 replies. I haven't been there myself in a long time because it just doesn't seem to lead to any sort of interesting discussion regarding army composition. Like I've described above, the juice just isn't worth the squeeze.

The same thing might happen to the Tactics section if the mega-threads dissapear. Just like army building, tactics is not something you can have a one-size-fits-all forum for. It needs to be army specific because tactics depend entirely on the army you're playing with. If I start a thread discussing some element of tactics for my Grey Knight army, I won't get much discussion if the only people who click on it before it drops off the first page are an Imperial Guard player, a Chaos Space Marines player and an Orks player.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2020/05/31 06:21:53


 
   
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Well, I was quite satisfied with the current threads.
It allows to talk generally about Harlies or Craftworlds including experimental army lists, tactics and brainstorming.

Now you are going to split a larger topic into smaller ones, such as ''Necrons cc'' which seems pointless to me.
Necrons as a overall topic is fine but cc is just one tactical aspect.

When the threads become too specific, they may get deeply burried from being at the front page.
With a CW thread in general, I'm sure that I don't miss a comment and keep the overview as the thread is always at page 1 or 2.

Please rethink about it. Looks ridiculous too me.

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2020/05/31 08:58:49


Former moderator 40kOnline

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 wuestenfux wrote:
Well, I was quite satisfied with the current threads.
It allows to talk generally about Harlies or Craftworlds including experimental army lists, tactics and brainstorming.

Now you are going to split a larger topic into smaller ones, such as ''Necrons cc'' which seems pointless to me.
Necrons as a overall topic is fine but cc is just one tactical aspect.

When the threads become too specific, they may get deeply burried from being at the front page.
With a CW thread in general, I'm sure that I don't miss a comment as the thread is always at page 1.

Please rethink about it. Looks ridiculous too me.
Looking at the last couple pages of CW general thread, it kinda fits right into the pattern I posted above, there's some speculation on the next edition, some comments on pricing going up, a couple rules questions, and most of the rest of the posts are primarily army list feedback theorycrafting, much of it among players who already are intimately familiar with the army, for which we have an entire dedicated forum. It doesn't so much have issued #4 I posted above since the thread is relatively recent, but issues #1-3 are definitely present.

Now, there's a place for all that, it's not without value, don't get me wrong, but when someone asks an actual direct tactics question "how do Eldar deal with knights and tanks" (as an example of something that could be its own thread), there's one semi detailed response listing Eldar AT units that ends with a link to another webpage for an actual in depth breakdown and another that's "doom and jinx". For someone looking to get into Eldar and learn about the army, the OP post largely just tells you what books have which datasheets and an extremely brief overview of Craftworld traits, and then the thread jumps right into advanced list theorycrafting/feedback, trying to find useful information on how the army actually works, what units do what, the basics of what one should look to include in an army to accomplish certain tasks and how to utilize them, etc in any coherent manner from the thread is going to be extremely difficult, and as noted earlier, the answer seems to be to find that information elsewhere unless one already has a list for feedback.

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2020/05/31 10:02:37


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More focused threads for tactics sounds like a really nice idea! I always found it a pain to trawl the 'mega-thread' to find discussion on the particular topic I was thinking about that day.
   
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Hamburg

 Vaktathi wrote:
 wuestenfux wrote:
Well, I was quite satisfied with the current threads.
It allows to talk generally about Harlies or Craftworlds including experimental army lists, tactics and brainstorming.

Now you are going to split a larger topic into smaller ones, such as ''Necrons cc'' which seems pointless to me.
Necrons as a overall topic is fine but cc is just one tactical aspect.

When the threads become too specific, they may get deeply burried from being at the front page.
With a CW thread in general, I'm sure that I don't miss a comment as the thread is always at page 1.

Please rethink about it. Looks ridiculous too me.
Looking at the last couple pages of CW general thread, it kinda fits right into the pattern I posted above, there's some speculation on the next edition, some comments on pricing going up, a couple rules questions, and most of the rest of the posts are primarily army list feedback theorycrafting, much of it among players who already are intimately familiar with the army, for which we have an entire dedicated forum. It doesn't so much have issued #4 I posted above since the thread is relatively recent, but issues #1-3 are definitely present.

Now, there's a place for all that, it's not without value, don't get me wrong, but when someone asks an actual direct tactics question "how do Eldar deal with knights and tanks" (as an example of something that could be its own thread), there's one semi detailed response listing Eldar AT units that ends with a link to another webpage for an actual in depth breakdown and another that's "doom and jinx". For someone looking to get into Eldar and learn about the army, the OP post largely just tells you what books have which datasheets and an extremely brief overview of Craftworld traits, and then the thread jumps right into advanced list theorycrafting/feedback, trying to find useful information on how the army actually works, what units do what, the basics of what one should look to include in an army to accomplish certain tasks and how to utilize them, etc in any coherent manner from the thread is going to be extremely difficult, and as noted earlier, the answer seems to be to find that information elsewhere unless one already has a list for feedback.

Splitting it up into specific questions like ''how do CW deal with Knights'' makes not much sense to me.
Then you'll get hundreds of threads of this kind.

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 wuestenfux wrote:
 Vaktathi wrote:
 wuestenfux wrote:
Well, I was quite satisfied with the current threads.
It allows to talk generally about Harlies or Craftworlds including experimental army lists, tactics and brainstorming.

Now you are going to split a larger topic into smaller ones, such as ''Necrons cc'' which seems pointless to me.
Necrons as a overall topic is fine but cc is just one tactical aspect.

When the threads become too specific, they may get deeply burried from being at the front page.
With a CW thread in general, I'm sure that I don't miss a comment as the thread is always at page 1.

Please rethink about it. Looks ridiculous too me.
Looking at the last couple pages of CW general thread, it kinda fits right into the pattern I posted above, there's some speculation on the next edition, some comments on pricing going up, a couple rules questions, and most of the rest of the posts are primarily army list feedback theorycrafting, much of it among players who already are intimately familiar with the army, for which we have an entire dedicated forum. It doesn't so much have issued #4 I posted above since the thread is relatively recent, but issues #1-3 are definitely present.

Now, there's a place for all that, it's not without value, don't get me wrong, but when someone asks an actual direct tactics question "how do Eldar deal with knights and tanks" (as an example of something that could be its own thread), there's one semi detailed response listing Eldar AT units that ends with a link to another webpage for an actual in depth breakdown and another that's "doom and jinx". For someone looking to get into Eldar and learn about the army, the OP post largely just tells you what books have which datasheets and an extremely brief overview of Craftworld traits, and then the thread jumps right into advanced list theorycrafting/feedback, trying to find useful information on how the army actually works, what units do what, the basics of what one should look to include in an army to accomplish certain tasks and how to utilize them, etc in any coherent manner from the thread is going to be extremely difficult, and as noted earlier, the answer seems to be to find that information elsewhere unless one already has a list for feedback.

Splitting it up into specific questions like ''how do CW deal with Knights'' makes not much sense to me.
Then you'll get hundreds of threads of this kind.


That's the idea. Instead of one big mess, you get specific questions that leads and encourages greater discussion on that specific topic. Instead of getting or two replies in a mega-thread to "how do I deal with knights" before someone goes "oh hey I just made really good bit of art look" and everything changes. Instead you get a much more active thread that might run for a page or more just on how to deal with Knights.
It encourages a higher and more detailed level of discussion to take place on specific topics.




The mega-threads aren't bad, they just aren't the best for getting specific questions answered in depth. Furthermore whilst they are popular with long time members, they can be confusing and intimidating for newer people to join in.

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Hamburg

The mega-threads aren't bad, they just aren't the best for getting specific questions answered in depth. Furthermore whilst they are popular with long time members, they can be confusing and intimidating for newer people to join in.

A discussion about tactics for a particular faction should not be scattered over tens of threads.
I totally disagree here.

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Unless your going to either consolidate alot of threads I can see a lot of content going almost utterly unanswerd as the churn and burn on the first page will be massive and most poster's I would say aren't likely to be searching for posts/threads or questions to answer.

The mega threads while intimidating are knida like impromptu faction specific mini forums where you can ask any question and you get faction relevent answers.

I have seeen people post questions in tactics are and you try to answer them but they get derailed because the topic is how do I counter X unit and you get answers from 3 factions that aren't the factions the poster plays so those posts add zero value to the OP.

If anything this kinda says the community is already self splitting and while I get the mods not wanting to dictate that the comunity should be devided I think lists posts etc might get more responses if they were grouped in a faction area for tactis and lists
   
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My biggest worry is also tons of topics on 1st page and plenty gets forgotten to 2nd page. 20+ factions, multiple topics each...

Would faction specific forums in addition be any good? So you don't have to wade through n0+1 threads from other factions to find one you look.

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UK

tneva82 wrote:
My biggest worry is also tons of topics on 1st page and plenty gets forgotten to 2nd page. 20+ factions, multiple topics each...

Would faction specific forums in addition be any good? So you don't have to wade through n0+1 threads from other factions to find one you look.


I'd say try it and see. If anything a lot of "tactical" talk often focuses on the same themes within factions and much gets caught in army list sections already. I'd say see if the tactics section got overrrun as that would prove that there's a growing need for some/all factions to get their own section. Eg it might be as simple as having a separate Xenos and Imperial tactics section or it might be each Xenos faction needs its own etc....

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Unfortunately, setting up sub-forums is a non-trivial task for Legoburner, and wouldn't be something we can just implement to try out.

Wuestenfux, I understand your points, but I have found the megathreads to be very difficult to interact with. This is all in my experience only, but I saw that it was almost exclusively the frequent posters that were replied to; I had a number of questions ignored, and saw others in the same boat. It came across as insular and unfriendly.

The megathreads also encourage participation by those with the time to keep up, which is a significant time commitment. I'm not willing to spend 15 minutes going through the last 20 pages of a thread to see if a topic has been covered; I'd rather just scan down the thread titles for the past few pages, which takes MUCH less time.

This is very much just something we want to try out. If it ends up not working, then we'll revert to how things are now. The current faction megathreads will be locked the first day 9th Edition is available; it'll all be old news by that point anyway.

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Having ITC and non-ITC tactics threads be separate seems like a good idea, if only to stop the 2+ page diversions every time it comes up in the megathreads.

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Only way I see this working is to sub-categorize the Tactics thread with each faction, then people can add their specific thread in that category. Last thing I want to see is a thread on Howling Banshees melee tactics that gets dropped to page 4 in a matter of hours as more individual tactic threads get added. At least with sub categories, if I want Eldar tactics, I can go to that subsection and browse without having to sift through hundreds of articles with titles such as "how to make the best out of pistols in close combat".
So count me in the not too keen on the idea category.
   
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The best State-Texas

 Lorek wrote:
Unfortunately, setting up sub-forums is a non-trivial task for Legoburner, and wouldn't be something we can just implement to try out.

Wuestenfux, I understand your points, but I have found the megathreads to be very difficult to interact with. This is all in my experience only, but I saw that it was almost exclusively the frequent posters that were replied to; I had a number of questions ignored, and saw others in the same boat. It came across as insular and unfriendly.

The megathreads also encourage participation by those with the time to keep up, which is a significant time commitment. I'm not willing to spend 15 minutes going through the last 20 pages of a thread to see if a topic has been covered; I'd rather just scan down the thread titles for the past few pages, which takes MUCH less time.

This is very much just something we want to try out. If it ends up not working, then we'll revert to how things are now. The current faction megathreads will be locked the first day 9th Edition is available; it'll all be old news by that point anyway.



Why don't we first try to address the problems by fixing the megathreads themselves, before just removing them all together?

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I think everyone is seriously over-estimating the amount of churn there'll be on the front page. By the time a topic sinks past the first page, it'll mean that the discussion is not active. It's okay if a week later another player asks a similar question. Nobody is going to ask the same question; the discussion is going to be different and worth engaging in by different people. You're not going to get multiple threads on the same topic active at the same time, and in the uncommon instance it does happen it'll be pointed out and locked.

Now it is very likely to be the case that there isn't always a thread active for a faction. For example, despite all the news about a new expansion focused on them, the Imperial Knights mega-thread just had its first post in over three months. Similarly, the Grey Knights mega-thread is dead. As are the Tempestus, Renegades and Heretics, and Thousand Sons threads. It's already not the case that multiple discussions are active for every faction, and that's okay. If you have something you want to talk about, you just start a new thread.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2020/05/31 17:24:59


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 DarkHound wrote:
I think everyone is seriously over-estimating the amount of churn there'll be on the front page. By the time a topic sinks past the first page, it'll mean that the discussion is not active. It's okay if a week later another player asks a similar question. Nobody is going to ask the same question; the discussion is going to be different and worth engaging in by different people. You're not going to get multiple threads on the same topic active at the same time, and in the uncommon instance it does happen it'll be pointed out and locked.

Now it is very likely to be the case that there isn't always a thread active for a faction. For example, despite all the news about a new expansion focused on them, the Imperial Knights mega-thread just had its first post in over three months. Similarly, the Grey Knights mega-thread is dead. As are the Tempestus, Renegades and Heretics, and Thousand Sons threads. It's already not the case that multiple discussions are active for every faction, and that's okay. If you have something you want to talk about, you just start a new thread.


So you don't think there's going to be even TWO thread per faction? Especially when whole edition changes and there's going to be everything being new?

Sheesh. You have pessimistic view on how 9th ed will affect tactics talk Such a death of topics...

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