Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

wraith wrote:
Spoken like someone who doesn't or hasn't played Wolves. Iron Priests come default with Helfrost pistols and Tempest Hammers

And Space Wolves 'Techmarines' have those as options in the Marine Codex.

beast_gts wrote:

wraith wrote:
Spoken like someone who doesn't or hasn't played Wolves. Iron Priests come default with Helfrost pistols and Tempest Hammers

And Space Wolves 'Techmarines' have those as options in the Marine Codex.

I did not know that they had the same load-out in the codex, as I don't have it yet. My apologies and I stand corrected.

 Super Ready wrote:

Voss wrote:
The 'over a year' complaints are just amusing. Does no one else remember 5-10 year turn around for some armies?
I'm not sure if people are being unreasonably optimistic (and are going to be disappointed) or if GW made some promises I didn't see.
Updating the army books are traditionally an edition-long endeavor. Settle in.
Waiting for army updates is part of the Warhammer cycle, good or bad, its neither new nor surprising.

The problem is... GW have now shown us multiple times that the wait needn't be that long.
First up, everybody got an Index at the start of 8th, followed by new Codexes for everybody within 3 years (and most well within 2). That's with an update to the new datasheet system and to brand new power-levels, which meant a complete rework of the army lists for each faction.
While we're now in a new edition, the studio should be familiar enough with datasheets that you can't really use that as an excuse for slowing down.
Lastly, they've just shown us that Codexes can in fact be released two at a time - and full Codexes too, not supplement size. And speaking of supplements - we now know that a full 4 books that would previously have been full Codexes, will now be supplements instead - so that's got to free up a lot of room in the schedule.

It's true that rushing the Codexes out that fast may well have been a big reason for some of those Codexes being lackluster and underpowered (*cough*ELDAR*cough*ORKS*cough*DAEMONS).
But it remains that not only can Codexes be released quicker than the old days... people will now expect it to be quicker.

See I consider that last point (rushed, lackluster and underpowered) the key bit. They shouldn't be doing this churn and burn, and players shouldn't want it. Its terrible, and people are actively wasting money on things like the PA garbage.
Quality, not quantity should definitely be king. I'd love to go back to a 5 or 6 year cycle. Settle down with an army or two and expect consistency for a good long while.

As for two codexes simultaneously... I rather suspect that's a Covid delay, not an intentional release plan.

Yes, the supplement conversion will help, but consider for a moment, that we've got two (potentially backlogged) books in October. Another full codex before years end (Death Guard) and the next full codex is an unnamed Xenos Codex in 'early 2021.' (Which I'd guess as Feb). That's 4 in ~5 months. Even if they keep that up, are they really going to get the rest done in a year? Skipping a few small imperial sub-subfactions (assassins, inquisitors, sisters of silence), I make that to be 18, assuming Ynnari will actually get one of their own. So.. 20-22 months as an estimate? If they push?

And don't forget they have other games and a new 'PA style' series for AOS, and we're just now finally getting through the Spring/early summer releases for AoS (Elves were aimed at April, with Giants to follow 'soon'). There's a backlog there, and it will likely impact other releases.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
-------
Slight update: the pdfs (at least the ones I checked) have been corrected.

plasma pistols get 'unmodified 1' and
twin heavy bolters are back down to S5.

Meanwhile in the T.Sons side of the river, a cultist flamer is 12" but a Rubric warpflamer is 8". A Defiler twin heavy flamer is 12" but a heavy warpflamer is 8".

An aspiring sorcerer with his staff is str 7 but Ahriman with his staff is str 6.

Swear to god the design team of GW are in fact three racoons in a trenchcoat.

Yes, the supplement conversion will help, but consider for a moment, that we've got two (potentially backlogged) books in October. Another full codex before years end (Death Guard) and the next full codex is an unnamed Xenos Codex in 'early 2021.' (Which I'd guess as Feb). That's 4 in ~5 months. Even if they keep that up, are they really going to get the rest done in a year? Skipping a few small imperial sub-subfactions (assassins, inquisitors, sisters of silence), I make that to be 18, assuming Ynnari will actually get one of their own. So.. 20-22 months as an estimate? If they push?

Here's a shocking thought: Release ALL new codexes at the same time as an edition launch. One big go for everything, then every 6 months do balance faqs.

Start designing ALL the 10 ed codexes NOW, keep re-designing while getting feedback from 9th edition games and tournaments. This way nobody feels left out, even if their codex is sub par they hope to get their faq every 6 months to address the issues, and you avoid power creep in the first place.

Imagine that huh?

topaxygouroun i wrote:
Meanwhile in the T.Sons side of the river, a cultist flamer is 12" but a Rubric warpflamer is 8". A Defiler twin heavy flamer is 12" but a heavy warpflamer is 8".

You haven't got a new Codex yet. That's why you don't have new rules.

topaxygouroun i wrote:

Start designing ALL the 10 ed codexes NOW, keep re-designing while getting feedback from 9th edition games and tournaments. This way nobody feels left out, even if their codex is sub par they hope to get their faq every 6 months to address the issues, and you avoid power creep in the first place.

Good for players, bad for GW's pocket lines as their sale stratagem relies on impulse purchaces. You don't impulse purchace anybody to start 5 armies at once. You can get them start 5 armies spread longer with full on hype each time...

Guessing which way GW goes isn't hard.

It also creates a massive workload imbalance, geared towards crunching, rather than spreading the work out for the team over an edition's lifecycle. Not to mention, that leaves you much less room to take onboard feedback from tournaments etc for what can be improved from this edition.
I don't believe anyone who seriously thinks crunching out the Codexes in one go has ever come close to running a successful business.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

topaxygouroun i wrote:
Meanwhile in the T.Sons side of the river, a cultist flamer is 12" but a Rubric warpflamer is 8". A Defiler twin heavy flamer is 12" but a heavy warpflamer is 8".

You haven't got a new Codex yet. That's why you don't have new rules.

Yes I know that. My remark is on GW taking its well known inconsistency and booming it up a whole new level.

 Chamberlain wrote:
Such a stupid way to handle it.

Just put a thing in the FAQ with the updated profile and points cost. A paragraph in three different PDFS that they are *updating anyway* is all it would take.

This whole edition just feels bungled so far.

This is the way I look at it, and honestly I don't think the Rona is to blame for bad rules.

I sold one of my 40K armies for an Imperial Armada for SWA and that game is hella better than this pile of trash we're seeing for 9th. I'm considering bailing on 40K period so that I can pick up the other three SWA factions.

 Super Ready wrote:
It also creates a massive workload imbalance, geared towards crunching, rather than spreading the work out for the team over an edition's lifecycle. Not to mention, that leaves you much less room to take onboard feedback from tournaments etc for what can be improved from this edition.
I don't believe anyone who seriously thinks crunching out the Codexes in one go has ever come close to running a successful business.

No it doesn't. That's why I said, start developing the 10th edition codexes NOW. Go slowly, got all the time ahead and several years worth of feedback to gain knowledge and re-adjust. Where's the crunch in that?

It also leaves you MUCH MORE room to take feedback from tournaments. Right now the tournament results are being used (perhaps) to enrich 9th edition, but nothing is being done towards the 10th.

Since it is definite that a 10th edition will be coming, create a business line now, start building it slowly, learn and adapt from 9th, get all the time in the world to develop all the codexes, and finally (the horror), be able to release one fully fledged version in one go.

You know, like every other freaking product in the world does.

Imagine going to the croccery store to get some orange juice, then the dude goes: "sorry sir, you can only take the bottle right now. The orange juice we still need to develop. But rest assured, when it comes it will be fully optimized!"

Would you buy the bottle and wait for the juice? So why would you with warhammer?

 NinthMusketeer wrote:

tneva82 wrote:

Spoletta wrote:
So much for "Designed with 9th in mind".

PA was really short lived.

Who believed that anyway? When it had rules made irrelevant with 9e. Even sisters codex was taunted as "9e in mind" yet had special rules made 100% useless and virtually useless as well.

Which sells better? "Buy this book despite new edition in horizon. It's designed it in mind!" or "buy this book! It will be invalidated in few months time!"

People keep assuming "designed with 9th in mind" means "designed with 9th in mind, at a far higher quality level than normal". Misbalanced and error-ridden rules that get and/or need errata which may or may not totally change how a rule is played, that is how GW rules for a current edition work. If PA was designed with 9th in mind but also to actually function in the edition they were released this is exactly what I would expect to see.

I'm almost positive "Designed with 9th in mind" is marketing speak that literally was just gibberish designed to distract you from the change over. To be honest I actually forgot that PA even happened, and as far as I can tell all the rules from those books that were "good" only saw extremely high level play. I certainly have yet to see anything outside of some of the new model data sheets used on the tabletop.

Have the Assassinorum Power Swords been updated ? I can't find them in the article.

topaxygouroun i wrote:
No it doesn't. That's why I said, start developing the 10th edition codexes NOW. Go slowly, got all the time ahead and several years worth of feedback to gain knowledge and re-adjust. Where's the crunch in that?

People join and leave companies, if you take years to update everything, then some people working on them towards the end may well not know what was intended by people who started them.
And if you try to tell me "that should be documented" - you've clearly never run an actual project.

It also leaves you MUCH MORE room to take feedback from tournaments. Right now the tournament results are being used (perhaps) to enrich 9th edition, but nothing is being done towards the 10th.
Since it is definite that a 10th edition will be coming, create a business line now, start building it slowly, learn and adapt from 9th, get all the time in the world to develop all the codexes, and finally (the horror), be able to release one fully fledged version in one go.

That means that all the feedback you get, will be for rules that you already know will be outdated. Meanwhile, you get absolutely no feedback on the changes you're planning. If you wind up with a dozen Codexes that have Ynnari/Riptide/Eradicator level balance problems, that aren't spotted before the rules leave the studio, then that's suddenly a lot of problems you take on all at once - so, either more crunch, or an awful long time before they're fixed (and let's face it, we know GW, it'd be the latter).

You know, like every other freaking product in the world does.
Imagine going to the croccery store to get some orange juice, then the dude goes: "sorry sir, you can only take the bottle right now. The orange juice we still need to develop. But rest assured, when it comes it will be fully optimized!"
Would you buy the bottle and wait for the juice? So why would you with warhammer?

You're seriously comparing Warhammer to orange juice?! There are a thousand other examples of products you could have gone with, but the most relevant ones (other wargames) don't follow your example.

Again... I have serious doubts that you've ever done anything like running a business, and it shows. You're talking about an idea that would be great for the customer, but just isn't feasible to keep a company going long-term.

topaxygouroun i wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

topaxygouroun i wrote:
Meanwhile in the T.Sons side of the river, a cultist flamer is 12" but a Rubric warpflamer is 8". A Defiler twin heavy flamer is 12" but a heavy warpflamer is 8".

You haven't got a new Codex yet. That's why you don't have new rules.

Yes I know that. My remark is on GW taking its well known inconsistency and booming it up a whole new level.

Same with 9 inch plague spewers which are basically a flamer with a the added plague weapon re-roll

 Super Ready wrote:
That means that all the feedback you get, will be for rules that you already know will be outdated.

Uuuh...They already are outdated. There's stuff already coming making feedback now rather pointless except for errata's. Which doesn't change either way.

 Super Ready wrote:
If you wind up with a dozen Codexes that have Ynnari/Riptide/Eradicator level balance problems, that aren't spotted before the rules leave the studio, then that's suddenly a lot of problems you take on all at once - so, either more crunch, or an awful long time before they're fixed (and let's face it, we know GW, it'd be the latter).

If GW's rules writers weren't incompetent, there wouldn't be Ynnari/Riptide/Eradicator level balance problems.

So, will we be getting the FAQs for fw units today?

 Super Ready wrote:

People join and leave companies, if you take years to update everything, then some people working on them towards the end may well not know what was intended by people who started them.
And if you try to tell me "that should be documented" - you've clearly never run an actual project.

People joining and leaving companies is irrelevant. Every project has a roadmap, and the roadmap is being generated in program level based on marketing input. Who types the keyboard is irrelevant. As is irrelevant if X faction will get Y or Z functionality, as long as both of them serve the roadmap.

That means that all the feedback you get, will be for rules that you already know will be outdated. Meanwhile, you get absolutely no feedback on the changes you're planning. If you wind up with a dozen Codexes that have Ynnari/Riptide/Eradicator level balance problems, that aren't spotted before the rules leave the studio, then that's suddenly a lot of problems you take on all at once - so, either more crunch, or an awful long time before they're fixed (and let's face it, we know GW, it'd be the latter).

So how short sighted actually do you expect a development team to be? Most rules don't get outdated, as most editions have a well 70% carry over. Most of the rules that change are actually tweaks which can be developed perfectly well by data collection and building models for them. Entry new units (eradicators) can be tricky indeed, but with 6 month update plans the balance problem will be fixed sooner than it will take to address it on next christmas with a silly point change which most often achieves nothing. Also, you end up with Eradicator level balance problems more often when you have 6 months to build a codex rather than when you have 3 years to do it.

You're seriously comparing Warhammer to orange juice?! There are a thousand other examples of products you could have gone with, but the most relevant ones (other wargames) don't follow your example.

What example would you prefer?

Again... I have serious doubts that you've ever done anything like running a business, and it shows. You're talking about an idea that would be great for the customer, but just isn't feasible to keep a company going long-term.

I work the semiconductor industry. The company I work for makes products with a 250 million price tag. Some of these products are not going to be on the market for several years ahead. We still have departments the size of ~1000 people working on them for 3 years ALREADY. It's a glorious black hole of burning research funds and it has been the model of the company for the last 20+ years. It has also put us light years ahead of the competition and has given us a 88% market share. The company celebrates 45 years soon. I'd say this qualifies as long term.

No I haven't run a business. But I have been involved in one that thrives because it puts quality and development to the top pedestal.

I don't know what kind of company you run, but if you agree with the model of GW I wouldn't see myself being your customer. As I have stopped being a GW customer for a good 2+ years now, and wish I would have done that sooner.

topaxygouroun i wrote:
I work the semiconductor industry. The company I work for makes products with a 250 million price tag. Some of these products are not going to be on the market for several years ahead. We still have departments the size of ~1000 people working on them for 3 years ALREADY. It's a glorious black hole of burning research funds and it has been the model of the company for the last 20+ years. It has also put us light years ahead of the competition and has given us a 88% market share. The company celebrates 45 years soon. I'd say this qualifies as long term.

Fair enough! It sounds like you guys have your projects under MUCH better control than GW, or indeed most companies...

What example would you prefer?

As I say, other wargames would be a good start. I'm not aware of one that releases rules for all its factions in one go, unless it's a brand new game that needs to drop multiple factions at once.
It's just not a good way to keep the money flowing while you're putting in all that work to be able to drop the updates later, and most wargames wouldn't survive the three years you suggest.
Maybe GW could pull this off by dipping into cash reserves to do it? But good luck convincing the shareholders, and not getting yourself "amicably parting ways" when they see the first year's profit drop.

 Super Ready wrote:
I'm not aware of one that releases rules for all its factions in one go, unless it's a brand new game that needs to drop multiple factions at once.

This is a fairly common practice with medium-small companies, including multiple editions in, not only because they need to get things rolling but because once established it keeps everyone interested, since you know you're getting some kind of new toy when the next expansion book hits.

This is harder for something like 40k with a vast number of large armies. But, for instance, Necromunda could have theoretically maintained a model where every so often a book drops, and everyone gets their new specialist unit and veteran option and there's a new gang added, and they played with that before with the Kill Team commanders expansion, for instance. And chapter approved kind of follows this model. It's also kind of what GW seems to be doing with their campaign books, they've just (as they tend to) cluttered things by driving exciting new rules and power shifts in a way that led to a new edition. If they'd done a slow burn it could have easily lasted them much longer.

If you have a stable enough game, you can do slow and spread out releases, but that's not (regardless of my opinion of this choice) GW's MO.

 Super Ready wrote:

topaxygouroun i wrote:
What example would you prefer?

As I say, other wargames would be a good start. I'm not aware of one that releases rules for all its factions in one go, unless it's a brand new game that needs to drop multiple factions at once.
It's just not a good way to keep the money flowing while you're putting in all that work to be able to drop the updates later, and most wargames wouldn't survive the three years you suggest.
Maybe GW could pull this off by dipping into cash reserves to do it? But good luck convincing the shareholders, and not getting yourself "amicably parting ways" when they see the first year's profit drop.

Games Workshop was able to do this. Quite recently in fact. And I'm not talking about some temporary update to make things work in a new edition, but simultaneously updating the core rules and every single profile in the game at that time. Now, their Middle-earth game may not consist of quite as many unique entries as 40k, but then again they can have many more people working on it - much of the Middle-earth work was done by one guy as far as I'm aware. I also don't think it would generate as many sales as incrementally updating books over and over again. But dang, the Middle-earth game was among the best GW produced in their entire history, and after the update it was in a better place than it had ever been. By updating everything at once, any likely rules interactions could be spotted and clarified, similar aspects could be updated across the range, some semblance of balance could be implemented. Of course, with it being a continually supported game, new things will be added, but those can be measured against the standard of "everything else", rather than the latest/strongest/average power level of existing things. For the quality of the game, it's the best choice I'd say, and one that appears absolutely feasible. If that's what they'd want. Which it isn't.

 Super Ready wrote:

topaxygouroun i wrote:
I work the semiconductor industry. The company I work for makes products with a 250 million price tag. Some of these products are not going to be on the market for several years ahead. We still have departments the size of ~1000 people working on them for 3 years ALREADY. It's a glorious black hole of burning research funds and it has been the model of the company for the last 20+ years. It has also put us light years ahead of the competition and has given us a 88% market share. The company celebrates 45 years soon. I'd say this qualifies as long term.

Fair enough! It sounds like you guys have your projects under MUCH better control than GW, or indeed most companies...

What example would you prefer?

As I say, other wargames would be a good start. I'm not aware of one that releases rules for all its factions in one go, unless it's a brand new game that needs to drop multiple factions at once.
It's just not a good way to keep the money flowing while you're putting in all that work to be able to drop the updates later, and most wargames wouldn't survive the three years you suggest.
Maybe GW could pull this off by dipping into cash reserves to do it? But good luck convincing the shareholders, and not getting yourself "amicably parting ways" when they see the first year's profit drop.

Warmachine is probably the biggest wargame in terms of rules and models which used to update all factions at the same time when a new edition hits but... let's say that it didn't exactly make the balance or the rule's quality better...

I think the issues with the launch don't require them to do all the armies at once to fix.

They said all the weapons are changing so they can just go through and find all the ones that have flamer like rules and change them. Put it in the FAQ file you are updating anyway.

They said marines are getting +1 wound and that tacticals are going up 20% in points as a result. So just put a similar points increase in the FAQ file you are updating anyway. So what if it's way off? It's always way off and then tweaked months later.

If you tell people on a warhammer community article that there army is getting it too, just do it. Put it in the FAQ.

 Chamberlain wrote:
I think the issues with the launch don't require them to do all the armies at once to fix.
[...]
They said marines are getting +1 wound and that tacticals are going up 20% in points as a result. So just put a similar points increase in the FAQ file you are updating anyway. So what if it's way off? It's always way off and then tweaked months later.

Good point! Yeah, they totally could have done a stop-gap, "these units are going up 1 w; here's their new temp cost," and yeah it's not esp. stable, but things already aren't stable and this at least makes them closer to even.

The current inconsistency is just strange, especially in a system that so heavily emphasizes narrative blah blah blah.

I'm glad they remembered to update the Tau flamer, a bit disappointed they forgot about the fusion blaster. Giving me cool flashbacks to when we were stuck with 12" meltas while the imperial counterparts were all 18".

I would suspect that for the weapons that didn't get updated, there might be different things in store for them to reflect their faction.

Quasistellar wrote:
I would suspect that for the weapons that didn't get updated, there might be different things in store for them to reflect their faction.

Ah to not be as synical as I am I suspect they will get the same rules as their imperial counterparts just they aren't being FAQ'd so their is actually a poor boost to make you want the codex.

Should have done 9th Edition Indexes for all but Marines and Necrons (with new codexes)

 Super Ready wrote:
It also creates a massive workload imbalance, geared towards crunching, rather than spreading the work out for the team over an edition's lifecycle. Not to mention, that leaves you much less room to take onboard feedback from tournaments etc for what can be improved from this edition.
I don't believe anyone who seriously thinks crunching out the Codexes in one go has ever come close to running a successful business.

Ever heard if the video games industry?

Very good point - I am in fact a frequent customer of it.
Though, I'm glad that the crunch environment publishers have taken for granted for so long is getting backlash.

...of course, you could take the analogy a step further, and liken the thousands of possible PC combinations making quality control and bug-fixing very difficult - together with the balancing act of multiplayer games - and apply that to balancing hundreds of units, weapons and stratagems across multiple factions. ...it's actually a really good analogy, well played.