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Karol wrote:

 the_scotsman wrote:

Karol wrote:

The design is very different comparing to the marine books where someone was doing a lot of copy paste stuff.

Couldn't be the fact that space marines have 5,782 choices for every conceivable unit role and at a certain point you just can't figure out a fething interesting datasheet for every single one, no sir.

Yes, but then it would be easier to build those above avarge builds out of all of the books, and besides WS it is not really happening for them. There is no 60%+ win rate marine army.

Uh....Good? So you're saying Space Marines are achieving the goal of where a faction ought to be in competitive play? Solid but not overwhelming performance with an extremely high playrate in competitive play?

So why do we need to worry about marines again?

(also, incidentally, very very few marine datasheets were actually copy-pasted from 2.0 to 3.0. Almost all saw some form of stat change, outside of extremely recent additions like the stuff from the 9th ed starter book and the few units that mount none of the updated weapons like Las-preds.)

Edit: Yeah no, las-preds got their extremely gakky would never use it under any circumstances smoke launchers replaced with a 1cp -1 to hit stratagem, kinda like the one all eldar had for 2cp that they said was the most broken thing ever had to be deleted completely utterly unfair except that it's 1cp instead.

 the_scotsman wrote:
kinda like the one all eldar had for 2cp that they said was the most broken thing ever had to be deleted completely utterly unfair except that it's 1cp instead.

To be fair we don't have stacking negatives anymore.

 Daedalus81 wrote:

 the_scotsman wrote:
kinda like the one all eldar had for 2cp that they said was the most broken thing ever had to be deleted completely utterly unfair except that it's 1cp instead.

To be fair we don't have stacking negatives anymore.

Also worth mentioning that Lightning Fast Reactions is now 1CP for DE, works in both melee and against shooting attacks, and isn't just limited to units with the correct keyword, unlike Smokescreen. And negative modifiers should stack, if one or more are coming from self caused sources, IE: moving with heavy weapons, advancing with assault weapons, hitting with a weapon with built-in -1 penalty like power fists and chain fists, etc, etc. You shouldn't be able to dodge penalties you caused yourself.

 Gadzilla666 wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:

 the_scotsman wrote:
kinda like the one all eldar had for 2cp that they said was the most broken thing ever had to be deleted completely utterly unfair except that it's 1cp instead.

To be fair we don't have stacking negatives anymore.

Also worth mentioning that Lightning Fast Reactions is now 1CP for DE, works in both melee and against shooting attacks, and isn't just limited to units with the correct keyword, unlike Smokescreen. And negative modifiers should stack, if one or more are coming from self caused sources, IE: moving with heavy weapons, advancing with assault weapons, hitting with a weapon with built-in -1 penalty like power fists and chain fists, etc, etc. You shouldn't be able to dodge penalties you caused yourself.

TIL Drukhari BIKER, Drukhari VEHICLE, or Drukhari BIKER wtihout the <haemonculus coven> keyword is not keyword-limiting.

I count 15 different units that can use Lightning Fast Reactions from Codex Drukhari that don't already have -1 to hit built-in making it functionally pointless.

There are 25 units in Codex Space Marines with the SMOKESCREEN keyword without getting into any chapter-specific, legends, or forgeworld options.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
but again we're getting caught up on claims here. The claim was "waaah, space marine units (getting their third codex since 8th edition a year after their second codex) all got copy-pasted with no changes or redesigns while the xenos armies got full redesigns on all their units!" Which is completely untrue. Almost every entry in space marine 3.0 has had some kind of redo, at least to the same extent as the entries in codex drukhari (many of which were only changed in terms of a redesigned weapon or two that is shared with other units, like the Razorwing Jetfighter, which got the updated dark lances and splinter cannon similar to how many space marine vehicles only got updated via having the new Heavy Bolter or Multi-Melta or whatever on them.)

 the_scotsman wrote:

Spoiler:

 Gadzilla666 wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:

 the_scotsman wrote:
kinda like the one all eldar had for 2cp that they said was the most broken thing ever had to be deleted completely utterly unfair except that it's 1cp instead.

To be fair we don't have stacking negatives anymore.

Also worth mentioning that Lightning Fast Reactions is now 1CP for DE, works in both melee and against shooting attacks, and isn't just limited to units with the correct keyword, unlike Smokescreen. And negative modifiers should stack, if one or more are coming from self caused sources, IE: moving with heavy weapons, advancing with assault weapons, hitting with a weapon with built-in -1 penalty like power fists and chain fists, etc, etc. You shouldn't be able to dodge penalties you caused yourself.

TIL Drukhari BIKER, Drukhari VEHICLE, or Drukhari BIKER wtihout the <haemonculus coven> keyword is not keyword-limiting.

I count 15 different units that can use Lightning Fast Reactions from Codex Drukhari that don't already have -1 to hit built-in making it functionally pointless.

There are 25 units in Codex Space Marines with the SMOKESCREEN keyword without getting into any chapter-specific, legends, or forgeworld options.

It doesn't work for INFANTRY? Guess my source on that is wrong. Are you just annoyed that some Space Marine vehicles have a similar strategem to Eldar? Because I'll gladly give it up on mine if they can have T9 back. Have fun shooting those S8 Dark Lances and Heat Lances at that.

 Eldarsif wrote:

Marin wrote:
I think everyone knows that warhammer is not designed to be competitive game.

I actually disagree with this as GW has shown clear indication of wanting to monetize the interest in a competitive game environment much like many video games before and that the design team seems to be aiming for competitive play. The problem is that they kinda want to have the cake and eat it too as they don't want to abandon their narrative/casual gamers while still wanting the larger stage that competitive play gives them. Because the success in recent years is very much thanks to competitive play as it creates awareness and clout that results in increased sales. Add on that that they don't have a proper testing team to test their balance suggestions.

People need to keep in mind that a lot of video games didn't start off as competitive avenues, but grew over time to be ones. Warhammer is definitely on that road as competitive play is where the big money lies. At the moment it feels like they are stumbling like any other video game company in seeing how best to approach this.

What you want and what you do are different things. I could want to be on top shape, but what i do is eat junk food and not do sports.
GW want to have competitive scene, because it make the game more popular and people more interested, but yet they are not having payed dedicated balance team and good release schedule.

Karol wrote:

Marin 797783 11122001 wrote:

How do you balance this ? You simple can`t and this is not video game, not everyone can switch to what is working and drop the things that are not optimal, so we have local mettas that certain things can overperform or underperform just because people use different things and play different.
Even the most tournaments are joke from competative standpoint, you trow bronze and gm players in one pod and wait to see the result. After that you calculate winrate, mix the results together from different tournaments(that could have environment) and hope they are not skew, so you can use the results to balance the game.

So we are not playing competitive game and wanting everything to be between 45-55% is not reasonable and will not happen soon.

there is a difference between not all armie being at 50% win rate. And two or three armies being so way ahead of others that they are a tier of their own.

And by the way, if one excluded the harlequins and now the DE, 9th had a ton of armies sitting around the 45-55% win rate. And the bad armies were bad, because of either being bad in 8th or because they were based around 8th ed core rule sets that no longer exist. GW could fix those in a PDF, but then they would have to give it to some people for "free", because of piracy.

hmm, leds see if you are right. Go to 40kstats select only dates 2021 and what i see:
6 armies with over 55% WR
7 armies under 45 % WR

Excluded Titanicus there are 31 armies, so almost 42% of all the armies ARE NOT IN THE 45-55% DREAM ZONE. There is no such thing like only 2-3 factions are ahead, having in mind that it`s easier to be in 45-55% the numbers are showing that the game was never in your perfect state.
The data is also corrupt from the start, simple because new players are playing vs vetterans and full time 40k players. It`s like saying that zerg is unplayable, because in bronze zerg have 30% WR.
Watched clip where John Lennon said, that SM are much better than the numbers are showing, but alot of new players or less experience players are playing SM, so they tank their WR.
For instance WS are considered to be top army by top players, yet they had like 40% WR before drukhari release.
But you could say "you dont have the data to prove that statement is correct " and you will be right, i don`t have it.
Since warhammer is not competitive game players don`t have MMR or other metric that have in mind player skill, we don`t have the data needed to analyze the game.

 Gadzilla666 wrote:

 the_scotsman wrote:

Spoiler:

 Gadzilla666 wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:

 the_scotsman wrote:
kinda like the one all eldar had for 2cp that they said was the most broken thing ever had to be deleted completely utterly unfair except that it's 1cp instead.

To be fair we don't have stacking negatives anymore.

Also worth mentioning that Lightning Fast Reactions is now 1CP for DE, works in both melee and against shooting attacks, and isn't just limited to units with the correct keyword, unlike Smokescreen. And negative modifiers should stack, if one or more are coming from self caused sources, IE: moving with heavy weapons, advancing with assault weapons, hitting with a weapon with built-in -1 penalty like power fists and chain fists, etc, etc. You shouldn't be able to dodge penalties you caused yourself.

TIL Drukhari BIKER, Drukhari VEHICLE, or Drukhari BIKER wtihout the <haemonculus coven> keyword is not keyword-limiting.

I count 15 different units that can use Lightning Fast Reactions from Codex Drukhari that don't already have -1 to hit built-in making it functionally pointless.

There are 25 units in Codex Space Marines with the SMOKESCREEN keyword without getting into any chapter-specific, legends, or forgeworld options.

It doesn't work for INFANTRY? Guess my source on that is wrong. Are you just annoyed that some Space Marine vehicles have a similar strategem to Eldar? Because I'll gladly give it up on mine if they can have T9 back. Have fun shooting those S8 Dark Lances and Heat Lances at that.

It works for infantry. You can pick any infantry, vehicle or biker that is not a Haemonculus Coven unit.

 vict0988 wrote:

It really cannot be that hard to set up a functional playtesting and balancing system.

It takes money and it takes professional experience, which I don't think truly exists when it comes to the realm of tabletop gaming*, for debatable improvements. Sure professional testing would increase the quality of the game, but increased quality does not necessarily means more profit, and companies think in terms of profit.

*I mean, I googled it and it is all about amateur playtesting, apparently there is no such thing as professional tabletop testing.

 Gadzilla666 wrote:

 the_scotsman wrote:

Spoiler:

 Gadzilla666 wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:

 the_scotsman wrote:
kinda like the one all eldar had for 2cp that they said was the most broken thing ever had to be deleted completely utterly unfair except that it's 1cp instead.

To be fair we don't have stacking negatives anymore.

Also worth mentioning that Lightning Fast Reactions is now 1CP for DE, works in both melee and against shooting attacks, and isn't just limited to units with the correct keyword, unlike Smokescreen. And negative modifiers should stack, if one or more are coming from self caused sources, IE: moving with heavy weapons, advancing with assault weapons, hitting with a weapon with built-in -1 penalty like power fists and chain fists, etc, etc. You shouldn't be able to dodge penalties you caused yourself.

TIL Drukhari BIKER, Drukhari VEHICLE, or Drukhari BIKER wtihout the <haemonculus coven> keyword is not keyword-limiting.

I count 15 different units that can use Lightning Fast Reactions from Codex Drukhari that don't already have -1 to hit built-in making it functionally pointless.

There are 25 units in Codex Space Marines with the SMOKESCREEN keyword without getting into any chapter-specific, legends, or forgeworld options.

It doesn't work for INFANTRY? Guess my source on that is wrong. Are you just annoyed that some Space Marine vehicles have a similar strategem to Eldar? Because I'll gladly give it up on mine if they can have T9 back. Have fun shooting those S8 Dark Lances and Heat Lances at that.

sorry, no, I just typed BIKER twice becuase my brain broke.

I'm not annoyed at all, it's a perfectly fine stratagem for imperial stuff to have. Mostly, I was responding to the claim that 'SMOKESCREEN is keyword limited but LF React is not' by pointing out that you can use Smokescreen on more units than you can use LF reactions on.

And originally, I brought up Smokescreen to point out that no, space marine stuff wasn't just copy-pasted from codex 2.0 to codex 3.0. Almost all units were redesigned in some way, even if that way was pretty subtle like giving predators a 1cp -1 to hit stratagem in place of the utterly useless on them Smoke Launchers rule.

Kind of like how the redesigns on many drukhari units were subtle, like Reaver Jetbikes, which just got their Fixed Strength 4 melee weapon exchanged for Strength User+1 so you can benefit from boosts to Strength. Or Razorwing Jetfighters, which were unchanged except for getting the new Dark Lance and Splinter Cannons.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Marin wrote:

Watched clip where John Lennon said, that SM are much better than the numbers are showing, but alot of new players or less experience players are playing SM, so they tank their WR.

Imagine all the people,

playing...space...marineeeeees

whoo-hoo, hooooo you may say, that I'm a daemon,

but I'm not the only one.

 Tyran wrote:

 vict0988 wrote:

It really cannot be that hard to set up a functional playtesting and balancing system.

It takes money and it takes professional experience, which I don't think truly exists when it comes to the realm of tabletop gaming*, for debatable improvements. Sure professional testing would increase the quality of the game, but increased quality does not necessarily means more profit, and companies think in terms of profit.

*I mean, I googled it and it is all about amateur playtesting, apparently there is no such thing as professional tabletop testing.

Thorough playtesting would be nigh-on impossible.

You have, what, a ballpark figure of about 25 different factions in 40K - individual codexes plus major supplements that used to be codexes, like wolves, dark angels, blood angels. You really want to test each codex against each faction, probably at least a couple of times to avoid freak results, and at different points levels too. Lets say 3 games at each of the army size levels mentioned in the rule book. So that's 3 x 3 x 25 = 225 or so test games you want to play. Assuming 3 hours per game play-time plus some sort of analysis afterwards, that's 675 hours, or 16.875 UK 40 hour work weeks - for 2 testers at least, as it's probably not ideal to just play against yourself...

But even then you're not necessarily covering every possible unit in that army, or every different sub-faction or combination thereof. Dark Technomancers for instance is probably fine if you have a fluffy Realspace Raid detachment with maybe 1 unit of Wracks and a Talos. It's another matter if you have an entire 2000 points of liquifier Wracks, Liquifier Grots and Liquifier Taloseses.

How far down the rabbit hole do you go?

^
This kind of testing would take a lot of time and yet give you only a very vague idea of the situation.

You need around 60 games from each faction against all other factions to have a better picture.

Plus, after each game you need to compile the results and think about a new list to test. Total time for each game is around 5 hours.

Marine chapters have to be tested as individual factions since they have their owndatasheets, their chapter traits, relics, powers, warlord traits and stratagems. This means that there are 32 factions.

5x60x32 = 9600 hours of 2 testers is the real figure to test ONE codex.

With a team of 20 testers is takes around 8 months to test a single codex (and around 300k dollars)

There are ways to reduce that, a lot of testing methodologies meant to optimize it because no one wants to do exhaustive testing.

But that still means professional testers that know such methodologies.

Spoletta wrote:
^
This kind of testing would take a lot of time and yes give you only a very vague idea of the situation.

You need around 60 games from each faction against all other factions to have a better picture.

Plus, after each game you need to compile the results and think about a new list to test. Total time for each game is around 5 hours.

Marine chapters have to be tested as individual factions since they have their owndatasheets, their chapter traits, relics, powers, warlord traits and stratagems. This means that there are 32 factions.

5x60x32 = 9600 hours of 2 testers is the real figure to test ONE codex.

With a team of 20 testers is takes around 8 months to test a single codex.

Yea 4 to 5 hours a game seems appropriate.

And this is why the community says, "Why couldn't GW see this beforehand?". Because we play more games collectively in one day then they could manage for the time they have to playtest. These community playtesters have other jobs as well.

The process could potentially be made better by allowing the wider community in on it, but given some of the perceptions of posters here I wouldn't bet against some people poisoning the well - either out of spite or misguided opinions.

Wider community testing will never happen.

Testers have access to a lot of sensitive information and you cannot put the wider community under a NDA. I know because I'm a tester and I know I would get my balls legally removed if I disclosed anything of my work.

 Tyran wrote:
Wider community testing will never happen.

Testers have access to a lot of sensitive information and you cannot put the wider community under a NDA. I know because I'm a tester and I know I would get my balls legally removed if I disclosed anything of my work.

Other companies make public playtesting work fine. The content needed for playtesting is only sensitive as a matter of corporate policy.

The sort of testing that 40K would reasonably require could easily be done. It wouldn't even necessarily require playing any games (it's not necessary to move a model physically, or roll dice, to know how an interaction will take place).

We perform far more complex testing with small teams, under very tight schedules, for safety critical software systems.

Setup would need some time initially, after that it's just iterating.

 catbarf wrote:

Other companies make public playtesting work fine. The content needed for playtesting is only sensitive as a matter of corporate policy.

Different companies, different products, and it is extremely hard to change corporate policy.

 Tyran wrote:

 vict0988 wrote:

It really cannot be that hard to set up a functional playtesting and balancing system.

It takes money and it takes professional experience, which I don't think truly exists when it comes to the realm of tabletop gaming*, for debatable improvements. Sure professional testing would increase the quality of the game, but increased quality does not necessarily means more profit, and companies think in terms of profit.

*I mean, I googled it and it is all about amateur playtesting, apparently there is no such thing as professional tabletop testing.

I don't believe it takes money and professional experience, a buddy of mine set up playtesting for his game. Got together people, watched them play and asked them questions about their experience. Playtesting is not freaking rocket science and excusing GW for not doing it properly while saying it is rocket science is anti-consumer gak. GW has had decades to improve, the fact they haven't is proof they don't want to because they don't care about their consumers. The design team is bad, I could do better with a cat for proofreading, a couple of interns for data entry, an indian mathematician hired on Fiverr to check mathematical balance and loaning the Warhammer World janitorial staff on weekends for playtesting.

Crispy78 wrote:
Thorough playtesting would be nigh-on impossible.

You have, what, a ballpark figure of about 25 different factions in 40K - individual codexes plus major supplements that used to be codexes, like wolves, dark angels, blood angels. You really want to test each codex against each faction, probably at least a couple of times to avoid freak results, and at different points levels too. Lets say 3 games at each of the army size levels mentioned in the rule book. So that's 3 x 3 x 25 = 225 or so test games you want to play. Assuming 3 hours per game play-time plus some sort of analysis afterwards, that's 675 hours, or 16.875 UK 40 hour work weeks - for 2 testers at least, as it's probably not ideal to just play against yourself...

But even then you're not necessarily covering every possible unit in that army, or every different sub-faction or combination thereof. Dark Technomancers for instance is probably fine if you have a fluffy Realspace Raid detachment with maybe 1 unit of Wracks and a Talos. It's another matter if you have an entire 2000 points of liquifier Wracks, Liquifier Grots and Liquifier Taloseses.

How far down the rabbit hole do you go?

400 army lists, that's 200 games. 10 playtesters playtesting 5 games every week, that's 40 weeks. I assume the janitorial staff at Warhammer World must be at least 10, so even accounting for Christmas vacation I just need them to come in on Saturdays and play a game of 40k.

You don't need to playtest liquifier spam against every army to find out it is busted.

 Tyran wrote:

 catbarf wrote:

Other companies make public playtesting work fine. The content needed for playtesting is only sensitive as a matter of corporate policy.

Different companies, different products, and it is extremely hard to change corporate policy.

Maybe, but it would still be better if the game did use community testing

Crispy78 wrote:
Thorough playtesting would be nigh-on impossible.

You have, what, a ballpark figure of about 25 different factions in 40K - individual codexes plus major supplements that used to be codexes, like wolves, dark angels, blood angels. You really want to test each codex against each faction, probably at least a couple of times to avoid freak results, and at different points levels too. Lets say 3 games at each of the army size levels mentioned in the rule book. So that's 3 x 3 x 25 = 225 or so test games you want to play. Assuming 3 hours per game play-time plus some sort of analysis afterwards, that's 675 hours, or 16.875 UK 40 hour work weeks - for 2 testers at least, as it's probably not ideal to just play against yourself...

But even then you're not necessarily covering every possible unit in that army, or every different sub-faction or combination thereof. Dark Technomancers for instance is probably fine if you have a fluffy Realspace Raid detachment with maybe 1 unit of Wracks and a Talos. It's another matter if you have an entire 2000 points of liquifier Wracks, Liquifier Grots and Liquifier Taloseses.

How far down the rabbit hole do you go?

This isn't how testing works. It may be how the playtesting team is trying to go about things, but it's not remotely how you approach targeted testing.
If you're testing a video game for example, you invariably aren't playing it. One member of test might perform a playthrough if there is time for the sake of sanity, near a projects conclusion, but it isn't necessary.

Exhaustive testing is never even attempted for almost any software, as it's considered a practical impossibility from the get go.

 vict0988 wrote:

You don't need to playtest liquifier spam against every army to find out it is busted.

Exactly right. You don't even need to pick up a dice to spot and check interactions like this.

 Dysartes wrote:

Insectum7 wrote:^The only difference between the Predator Annihilator and the Predator Destructor is the turret weapon.

So, contrary to Slayer's claim, not just the sponson?

Gonna hang your hat on that? . . . Well I look forward to your upcoming IG codex with separate datasheets for each Leman Russ turret weapon.

 vict0988 wrote:

I don't believe it takes money and professional experience, a buddy of mine set up playtesting for his game. Got together people, watched them play and asked them questions about their experience. Playtesting is not freaking rocket science and excusing GW for not doing it properly while saying it is rocket science is anti-consumer gak. GW has had decades to improve, the fact they haven't is proof they don't want to because they don't care about their consumers. The design team is bad, I could do better with a cat for proofreading, a couple of interns for data entry, an indian mathematician hired on Fiverr to check mathematical balance and loaning the Warhammer World janitorial staff on weekends for playtesting.

Testing may not be rocket science, but it is a professionally researched field.

The rest is irrelevant, no company runs on caring, that's why the videogame industry is full of lootboxes and gacha games that make 40k look consumer friendly.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

Maybe, but it would still be better if the game did use community testing

To us it would be. It is debatable if it would be better for GW executives.

 Tyran wrote:

 vict0988 wrote:

It really cannot be that hard to set up a functional playtesting and balancing system.

It takes money and it takes professional experience, which I don't think truly exists when it comes to the realm of tabletop gaming*, for debatable improvements. Sure professional testing would increase the quality of the game, but increased quality does not necessarily means more profit, and companies think in terms of profit.

*I mean, I googled it and it is all about amateur playtesting, apparently there is no such thing as professional tabletop testing.

I think it's pretty obvious GW us making enough money to do more than they're doing right now, regardless. The real question is are they motivated to do it? The answer appears to be "no".

Crispy78 wrote:

 Tyran wrote:

 vict0988 wrote:

It really cannot be that hard to set up a functional playtesting and balancing system.

It takes money and it takes professional experience, which I don't think truly exists when it comes to the realm of tabletop gaming*, for debatable improvements. Sure professional testing would increase the quality of the game, but increased quality does not necessarily means more profit, and companies think in terms of profit.

*I mean, I googled it and it is all about amateur playtesting, apparently there is no such thing as professional tabletop testing.

Thorough playtesting would be nigh-on impossible.

You have, what, a ballpark figure of about 25 different factions in 40K - individual codexes plus major supplements that used to be codexes, like wolves, dark angels, blood angels. You really want to test each codex against each faction, probably at least a couple of times to avoid freak results, and at different points levels too. Lets say 3 games at each of the army size levels mentioned in the rule book. So that's 3 x 3 x 25 = 225 or so test games you want to play. Assuming 3 hours per game play-time plus some sort of analysis afterwards, that's 675 hours, or 16.875 UK 40 hour work weeks - for 2 testers at least, as it's probably not ideal to just play against yourself...

But even then you're not necessarily covering every possible unit in that army, or every different sub-faction or combination thereof. Dark Technomancers for instance is probably fine if you have a fluffy Realspace Raid detachment with maybe 1 unit of Wracks and a Talos. It's another matter if you have an entire 2000 points of liquifier Wracks, Liquifier Grots and Liquifier Taloseses.

How far down the rabbit hole do you go?

I don't want to be offensive but you have no idea of playtesting if you really believe thats how it is done in... any kind of testing facility for whatever it is: videogames, products, software, etc...

Now I'll say that I doubt GW can, even if they want, make a really profesional playtesting facility for their rules. But they can improve a TON, without that much great of an inversion. They just dont need to do it.

 vict0988 wrote:

 Tyran wrote:

 vict0988 wrote:

It really cannot be that hard to set up a functional playtesting and balancing system.

It takes money and it takes professional experience, which I don't think truly exists when it comes to the realm of tabletop gaming*, for debatable improvements. Sure professional testing would increase the quality of the game, but increased quality does not necessarily means more profit, and companies think in terms of profit.

*I mean, I googled it and it is all about amateur playtesting, apparently there is no such thing as professional tabletop testing.

I don't believe it takes money and professional experience, a buddy of mine set up playtesting for his game. Got together people, watched them play and asked them questions about their experience. Playtesting is not freaking rocket science and excusing GW for not doing it properly while saying it is rocket science is anti-consumer gak. GW has had decades to improve, the fact they haven't is proof they don't want to because they don't care about their consumers. The design team is bad, I could do better with a cat for proofreading, a couple of interns for data entry, an indian mathematician hired on Fiverr to check mathematical balance and loaning the Warhammer World janitorial staff on weekends for playtesting.

Crispy78 wrote:
Thorough playtesting would be nigh-on impossible.

You have, what, a ballpark figure of about 25 different factions in 40K - individual codexes plus major supplements that used to be codexes, like wolves, dark angels, blood angels. You really want to test each codex against each faction, probably at least a couple of times to avoid freak results, and at different points levels too. Lets say 3 games at each of the army size levels mentioned in the rule book. So that's 3 x 3 x 25 = 225 or so test games you want to play. Assuming 3 hours per game play-time plus some sort of analysis afterwards, that's 675 hours, or 16.875 UK 40 hour work weeks - for 2 testers at least, as it's probably not ideal to just play against yourself...

But even then you're not necessarily covering every possible unit in that army, or every different sub-faction or combination thereof. Dark Technomancers for instance is probably fine if you have a fluffy Realspace Raid detachment with maybe 1 unit of Wracks and a Talos. It's another matter if you have an entire 2000 points of liquifier Wracks, Liquifier Grots and Liquifier Taloseses.

How far down the rabbit hole do you go?

400 army lists, that's 200 games. 10 playtesters playtesting 5 games every week, that's 40 weeks. I assume the janitorial staff at Warhammer World must be at least 10, so even accounting for Christmas vacation I just need them to come in on Saturdays and play a game of 40k.

You don't need to playtest liquifier spam against every army to find out it is busted.

Problems:

1) Owning the models
2) Be competent enough to understand the difference between a listbuilding and a player loss.
3) Have enough variety in playtesting opponents so that you don't play hard counters ( e.g. DG vs DE w/ DT )

Not all DE wins are blow outs. They DO have a harder time winning against many opponents. Such outcomes may not warrant slamming the panic button in playtesting.

Also that isn't enough iterations to tackle most matchups and I can't tell if your '40 weeks' comment is sarcasm or not, because it highlights the issue.

 Galas wrote:


I don't want to be offensive but you have no idea of playtesting if you really believe thats how it is done in... any kind of testing facility for whatever it is: videogames, products, software, etc...

Now I'll say that I doubt GW can, even if they want, make a really profesional playtesting facility for their rules. But they can improve a TON, without that much great of an inversion. They just dont need to do it.

Yep. They could absolutely do it, they just don't want to because there's no need. More balanced rules don't sell better, and they like their current amateur playtesting program as a carrot they can dangle in front of influencers, and it costs them literally nothing. So why make any changes?

I would assume you'd do what the community does when the codex leaks come out:

-theorycraft to try and find a few powerful combos (e.g. liquifier wracks in dark tech, Obrose Kabalite warriors with 30" range rapid fire poison, Black Heart or Obrose 5-man blaster squads, test of skill hellions, CoS razor succubus

-Test those models in a skew list and in a tac list against some common competitive builds, and provide some feedback.

you don't have to test every option on every unit in every subfaction. the strong combos are generally fairly clear from the get.

 Tyran wrote:
Wider community testing will never happen.

Testers have access to a lot of sensitive information and you cannot put the wider community under a NDA. I know because I'm a tester and I know I would get my balls legally removed if I disclosed anything of my work.

What are beta rules? Wide community testing, woah!

Testing may not be rocket science, but it is a professionally researched field.

So is the making of ice cream, making ice cream isn't rocket science either.

The rest is irrelevant, no company runs on caring, that's why the videogame industry is full of lootboxes and gacha games that make 40k look consumer friendly.

The second you stop caring about the consumer is the second you start going downhill. Gambling is not inherently unfriendly to consumers assuming the data on the mechanics of the gamble is available and people are given warnings not to spend more than they can afford. I am in no way advocating for GW to sacrifice profits, I am saying that the silly designers need to sacrifice their pride and put in a tiny bit of directed effort to make a more balanced and profitable game.

 Daedalus81 wrote:

Spoiler:

 vict0988 wrote:

 Tyran wrote:

 vict0988 wrote:

It really cannot be that hard to set up a functional playtesting and balancing system.

It takes money and it takes professional experience, which I don't think truly exists when it comes to the realm of tabletop gaming*, for debatable improvements. Sure professional testing would increase the quality of the game, but increased quality does not necessarily means more profit, and companies think in terms of profit.

*I mean, I googled it and it is all about amateur playtesting, apparently there is no such thing as professional tabletop testing.

I don't believe it takes money and professional experience, a buddy of mine set up playtesting for his game. Got together people, watched them play and asked them questions about their experience. Playtesting is not freaking rocket science and excusing GW for not doing it properly while saying it is rocket science is anti-consumer gak. GW has had decades to improve, the fact they haven't is proof they don't want to because they don't care about their consumers. The design team is bad, I could do better with a cat for proofreading, a couple of interns for data entry, an indian mathematician hired on Fiverr to check mathematical balance and loaning the Warhammer World janitorial staff on weekends for playtesting.

Crispy78 wrote:
Thorough playtesting would be nigh-on impossible.

You have, what, a ballpark figure of about 25 different factions in 40K - individual codexes plus major supplements that used to be codexes, like wolves, dark angels, blood angels. You really want to test each codex against each faction, probably at least a couple of times to avoid freak results, and at different points levels too. Lets say 3 games at each of the army size levels mentioned in the rule book. So that's 3 x 3 x 25 = 225 or so test games you want to play. Assuming 3 hours per game play-time plus some sort of analysis afterwards, that's 675 hours, or 16.875 UK 40 hour work weeks - for 2 testers at least, as it's probably not ideal to just play against yourself...

But even then you're not necessarily covering every possible unit in that army, or every different sub-faction or combination thereof. Dark Technomancers for instance is probably fine if you have a fluffy Realspace Raid detachment with maybe 1 unit of Wracks and a Talos. It's another matter if you have an entire 2000 points of liquifier Wracks, Liquifier Grots and Liquifier Taloseses.

How far down the rabbit hole do you go?

400 army lists, that's 200 games. 10 playtesters playtesting 5 games every week, that's 40 weeks. I assume the janitorial staff at Warhammer World must be at least 10, so even accounting for Christmas vacation I just need them to come in on Saturdays and play a game of 40k.

You don't need to playtest liquifier spam against every army to find out it is busted.

Problems:

1) Owning the models
2) Be competent enough to understand the difference between a listbuilding and a player loss.
3) Have enough variety in playtesting opponents so that you don't play hard counters ( e.g. DG vs DE w/ DT )

Not all DE wins are blow outs. They DO have a harder time winning against many opponents. Such outcomes may not warrant slamming the panic button in playtesting.

Also that isn't enough iterations to tackle most matchups and I can't tell if your '40 weeks' comment is sarcasm or not, because it highlights the issue.

1) Proxy, that's how it's done in card games. LOL it's how people do it when they playtest a unit at home to figure out whether it's worth buying.
2) I figure my janitors will be able to tell after a year or two of playing a game a week with a focus on providing feedback and determining this. "Pro" 40k players should be able to get this from day 7.
3) I figured the janitors would borrow the Eavy Metal display armies to playtest, that should give access to every army. The current lot of playtesters have access to at least 6 armies per team.

I am fully serious about the 40 weeks comment. That would be for playtesting the entire edition. As Scotsman said you would of course be directed with list-builds and not tell people specifically to avoid building skew lists (as GW has done in the past). As others have pointed out you often don't even need to roll dice sometimes, which is where my Fiverr Indian comes in.

 the_scotsman wrote:
I would assume you'd do what the community does when the codex leaks come out:

-theorycraft to try and find a few powerful combos (e.g. liquifier wracks in dark tech, Obrose Kabalite warriors with 30" range rapid fire poison, Black Heart or Obrose 5-man blaster squads, test of skill hellions, CoS razor succubus

-Test those models in a skew list and in a tac list against some common competitive builds, and provide some feedback.

you don't have to test every option on every unit in every subfaction. the strong combos are generally fairly clear from the get.

This is pretty much what I'd expect what we'd call 'exploratory testing' to look like in 40K. That's testing outside of a script, using experience of a product, environment, engine, game, whatever to find issues in a more unstructured manner. It's not great in terms of making sure you've covered everything, but it's useful for finding 'defects' that might otherwise be missed or are unusual interactions.

It's what I'd hope the playtesting group are doing, as I can't see them having any real structure or organisation.

 StrayIight wrote:
It's what I'd hope the playtesting group are doing, as I can't see them having any real structure or organisation.

Yep. "Here's the book. Play it a few times and let us know what you think."