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Karol wrote:

 Ordana wrote:

The exodus of players during 7th edition would seem to suggest otherwise.
There is a point where rules become bad enough that people simply quit.

Wasn't this how WFB died? Long streaks of no updades, gigantic entry barrier with single units being made out of 4 boxs or more, and unbalanced that big that some armies weren't worth to be played outside of heavy comp settings?...

WHFB died because GW decided they wanted to be able to charge 40k prices for basic infantry ($50/10 models, up from $25/10 models), and then they either by accident or design wrote an edition where huge core infantry blocks were the only playable units (cannons made monsters/HI unplayable, the horde rule made cavalry unplayable, so all that was left was hundred-model blocks grinding together in the middle of the table) and the game ran 100% on who managed to get a big spell off first when the magic phase was carefully mathematically calibrated so on average rolls nobody would successfully cast anything. It was a slow build-up of bad decisions, "no we need to burn this down and make fantasy Space Marines" didn't just come out of the blue.


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 aphyon wrote:

Aenar wrote:Imho AA:
- it is too much bookkeeping (tokens to remember which unit did what, ...)
- it slows the game down (with IGOUGO you plan during your opponent's turn and act quickly when it's your turn)
- it doesn't work well with amounts of units that are different in size (I activate one unit, a 5 pts infantry squad, and then you activate a 600 pts knight)
- it doesn't work well with very different amounts of units (5 units in a knights army vs 25 in a guard army)
- wouldn' fix much because IGOUGO is not the reason for a lack of balance in 40K. Power creep and poor playtesting are the main reasons for that

As somebody who plays DUST 1947 regularly that is an alternating activation game with a reaction mechanic that is also scale with 40K i can say from experience that you are wrong on every single point.

1.there is no bookeeping
2.the game is actually faster
3.unit size is irrelevant
4.different army wide unit size also doesn't matter
5.it fixes alpha strikes and keeps both players actively playing even when it is not their activation.
6.bonus-the rules are much better written and balanced than current 40K.-Andy Chambers is just a better game designer than anybody currently working on GW.s flagship game

As someone who plays Bolt Action/K47 (another alternating activation game with a reaction mechanic on 40k scale built by an ex-GW designer) I can say from experience that the game is perfectly playable, but the people who shout about how 40k should embrace alternating activations would hate its guts, because you fundamentally can't do alternating activations with units doing 5-7 things a turn without causing horrendous bookkeeping issues, so the big chunk of the playerbase that insists everything in the game needs to be able to do everything at full effectiveness every turn would be screaming their heads off about not being able to shoot/charge in the same turn.

 AnomanderRake wrote:

As someone who plays Bolt Action/K47 (another alternating activation game with a reaction mechanic on 40k scale built by an ex-GW designer) I can say from experience that the game is perfectly playable, but the people who shout about how 40k should embrace alternating activations would hate its guts, because you fundamentally can't do alternating activations with units doing 5-7 things a turn without causing horrendous bookkeeping issues, so the big chunk of the playerbase that insists everything in the game needs to be able to do everything at full effectiveness every turn would be screaming their heads off about not being able to shoot/charge in the same turn.

Agree. AA works just fine. The screaming & ranting that'd result if 40k were to ever adopt AA though? That'd be glorious.

Well, since 40k will NEVER become AA, I guess we will never know, will we ?

 addnid wrote:
Well, since 40k will NEVER become AA, I guess we will never know, will we ?

Don't underestimate GW - they're more than capable of adding AA against the wishes of the players while butchering the implementation so badly that even its most ardent defenders won't be able to stomach it.

Lets see...the dumbest AA system ive ever played was a ww1 game where nothing stopped you from selecting the same dude over and over and over and you got 3d6 activations in a turn. Plus how many attack dice you got was based on tank so the winning strat was to take your general and sprint him effortlessly across no mans land to clear the opposing trench with his pistol that got as many shots as a heavy machine gun fired by a normal soldier.

So gw would just do that.

VladimirHerzog wrote:

Karol wrote:

I can't imagine someone spending 800$+ on a w40k army to never play it. And if people exist that have such money there are better looking models and armies that cost less then those in w40k. And even if there were people that just bought armies to have them and do nothing with them, they would never generate as much income as those who have to buy 15 centurions and 3 new walkers because it is THE way to play their factions, only to be forced to rebuy the army or buy another army 6 to 9 months later.

You don't need to be rich to collect minis.
Some people's hobbies are to collect or paint minis, not to actually play the game.
"better looking models" is purely subjective.
The number of purely casual players greatly outnumbers the number of competitive players that chase the best army.

Bingo

Speaking of WFB the community had been in decline for a while before 8th ed came along and really crapped the bed with the horde rules. I remember there being a large grognard component online who constantly insulted 40k as being the "dumber" game just because you didn't have to wheel units or worry about unit facings on anything that wasn't a tank. Plus as GW kept dropping points the community didn't lower the points they were playing at to make the game more friendly to newer players.

I'm not absolving GW for what they did wrong, but the community did itself no favors either. It only grew worse (at least online) as the active player base began to fall in 8th which did not help new players who thought about joining a community that had grown increasingly elist (again, at least online).

Kirby brushing off all problems with WFB as "it's fine we sell models not games" didn't help either.


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 the_scotsman wrote:
Lets see...the dumbest AA system ive ever played was a ww1 game where nothing stopped you from selecting the same dude over and over and over and you got 3d6 activations in a turn. Plus how many attack dice you got was based on tank so the winning strat was to take your general and sprint him effortlessly across no mans land to clear the opposing trench with his pistol that got as many shots as a heavy machine gun fired by a normal soldier.

So gw would just do that.

Sounds like that guy should be named Audey Murphy or something if he's doing that much by himself every turn.

 kirotheavenger wrote:
Why the dislike of AA?

In many ways I'd rather stick needles in my eyes than sit through 45 minutes of having my opponent walk all over me with nothing to do as is standard for a 40k game.

IMO a dislike for AA is only half the picture, if that. It is the portrayal of AA as a magic bullet to fix all the problems that people resent. Such suggestions also often come with an implied (or outright) statement that igougo is inherently bad, which just further rubs people the wrong way.


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 addnid wrote:
Well, since 40k will NEVER become AA, I guess we will never know, will we ?

You could devise your own system or seek the experience of those who have.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:

 kirotheavenger wrote:
Why the dislike of AA?

In many ways I'd rather stick needles in my eyes than sit through 45 minutes of having my opponent walk all over me with nothing to do as is standard for a 40k game.

IMO a dislike for AA is only half the picture, if that. It is the portrayal of AA as a magic bullet to fix all the problems that people resent. Such suggestions also often come with an implied (or outright) statement that igougo is inherently bad, which just further rubs people the wrong way.

Dark Gods, should I have just not said Grimdark Future was AA? Has SlayerFan annoyed enough people that AA is a pejorative on DakkaDakka?

Seriously, though, AA or no, GDF is pretty good 40k-lite, and plays a lot faster. I've ended games with enough energy to be excited about victory, which is more than I can say about all but one of my 9th games.

If 40k adopted AA I hope it'd take some.of it's own notes from Apoc and adopt the wounds mechanic from it so that units could still act if they were wounded until the end of the game turn when casualties were resolved, and that it'd even the playing field between first and second activation more.

My personal opinion on the state of the game is that I think 9th core rules are the best set they have made (I loved 8th and 9th is just 8th but with more refinement). The basic game is much easier to teach new players than 3-7, the new models coming out are almost always great looking, and games play much faster than previous editions. But my favorite thing about it is I think it is better balanced then previous editions (although I will admit I have not played against the two newest books).

I say that with a cavet. It is much better balanced than previous editions, when everyone involved is not building the most competitive "best" lists from the codex. For casual or even semi-competitive games (good list but not spamming only best units type thing) the armies seem to be much better balanced. In previous editions, you could take a casual list for something like 6th edition Eldar and absolutely curb stop even competitive lists from armies like CSM. 8th and 9th seem like if both sides are not going super competitive, you usually have a pretty good game, especially if there isn't heavy spamming of units. At the tournament level are there broken lists? Sure are. But that has always existed in 40k. And other than maybe the Iron Hands debacle, I don't think I have seen anything in 8th or 9th that is nearly as bad as 5th edition IG leaf blower lists, 5th edition grey knights, 6th edition necron flyer spam, 7th edition Eldar bike lists, and I could probably give you a bunch more (5th edition White Dwarf modified Flamers of Tzeentch were probably the most broken unit to every exist). I left during 7th because of how bad the rules were and 8th brought me back in and I am really glad. So personally I think 40k is in a good state.

Also anyone who lived though the "it takes 5 years to get a new codex, FAQs like once every 3 years, point adjustments never" knows how quick the 8th and 9th updates really are. In previous editions much of the really bad stuff would exist in the meta for years. So that alone is a huge improvement. This is just my point of view.

 ClockworkZion wrote:
If 40k adopted AA I hope it'd take some.of it's own notes from Apoc and adopt the wounds mechanic from it so that units could still act if they were wounded until the end of the game turn when casualties were resolved, and that it'd even the playing field between first and second activation more.

That might happen. But I'm curious:

One of the things that people complain about all the time is the lack of tactical decision making that's left in the game that ISN'T strats (because for some reason, people don't consider picking which strat to use when a tactical decision- something that always confuses me).

It feels like the system you describe is one which removes target priority as a strategic consideration.

Granted, I haven't used the Apocalypse rule set, though I'm sure it'd be fun. Maybe someone can explain how target priority is still a thing in a game where you don't have to pick which target is bigger threat (often at an opportunity cost) because nothing dies until the end of the round anyway.

PenitentJake wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:
If 40k adopted AA I hope it'd take some.of it's own notes from Apoc and adopt the wounds mechanic from it so that units could still act if they were wounded until the end of the game turn when casualties were resolved, and that it'd even the playing field between first and second activation more.

That might happen. But I'm curious:

One of the things that people complain about all the time is the lack of tactical decision making that's left in the game that ISN'T strats (because for some reason, people don't consider picking which strat to use when a tactical decision- something that always confuses me).

It feels like the system you describe is one which removes target priority as a strategic consideration.

Granted, I haven't used the Apocalypse rule set, though I'm sure it'd be fun. Maybe someone can explain how target priority is still a thing in a game where you don't have to pick which target is bigger threat (often at an opportunity cost) because nothing dies until the end of the round anyway.

It both does and doesn't. Basically during the Action Phase (where both players take turns activating all their units) units accumilate damage and the more damage the more likely they are to be destroyed. So you still want to focus on units you want destroyed, but you can't prevent them from activating before they get removed from the table as the entire turn is playing out at the same time.

Basically it abstracts time differently than regular 40k and you still want to focus on target priority but you don't find out if they're removed right away or not.

Apoc uses a different save system though that might need to be implimented to make it work with the Apoc phases.

As someone who plays Bolt Action/K47 (another alternating activation game with a reaction mechanic on 40k scale built by an ex-GW designer) I can say from experience that the game is perfectly playable, but the people who shout about how 40k should embrace alternating activations would hate its guts, because you fundamentally can't do alternating activations with units doing 5-7 things a turn without causing horrendous bookkeeping issues, so the big chunk of the playerbase that insists everything in the game needs to be able to do everything at full effectiveness every turn would be screaming their heads off about not being able to shoot/charge in the same turn.

DUST solves this problem by giving every unit 2 actions that can be combined in any order-move/shoot, shoot/move, move/move again(run), shoot/shoot again(twin link weapons), move/melee combat attack, or any combination of the above with a unit special action like spetznaz having camouflage as a skill. still some other units like dedicated CC units gain the "charge" special skill that allows them a hidden 3rd action to swing in close combat if they use both move actions to get into B2B with an enemy. quite reasonable considering most of those units do not have a shooting weapon to begin with. It should also be noted that once a unit activates for the turn it has used up all its actions until the next turn so you can't just keep spamming one mini/unit through the entire player turn.

VladimirHerzog wrote:
You don't need to be rich to collect minis.
Some people's hobbies are to collect or paint minis, not to actually play the game.
"better looking models" is purely subjective.
The number of purely casual players greatly outnumbers the number of competitive players that chase the best army.

Yeah I know the not being rich part. But we are talking here about income created, not what ever someone who has a hobby budget of 10$ per month can buy stuff for w40k. People that play the game buy more stuff, and can be made to buy more of the expensive stuff. As I said. There aren't many painters that buy 15 centurions just because they like to paint stuff. On the other hand there was a ton of RG players that did buy them, to have a functional list in 8th ed. And few months later, not a single centurion pops up in peoples lists.

Also the idea that , what ever a casual player suppose to be, do not buy based on efficiency is at best only partially true. I have yet too see mass foo DE lists being posts or space marine armies with 30 scouts, because someone likes the models, posted in any list section.

 ClockworkZion wrote:
Speaking of WFB the community had been in decline for a while before 8th ed came along and really crapped the bed with the horde rules. I remember there being a large grognard component online who constantly insulted 40k as being the "dumber" game just because you didn't have to wheel units or worry about unit facings on anything that wasn't a tank. Plus as GW kept dropping points the community didn't lower the points they were playing at to make the game more friendly to newer players.

I'm not absolving GW for what they did wrong, but the community did itself no favors either. It only grew worse (at least online) as the active player base began to fall in 8th which did not help new players who thought about joining a community that had grown increasingly elist (again, at least online).

Kirby brushing off all problems with WFB as "it's fine we sell models not games" didn't help either.


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 the_scotsman wrote:
Lets see...the dumbest AA system ive ever played was a ww1 game where nothing stopped you from selecting the same dude over and over and over and you got 3d6 activations in a turn. Plus how many attack dice you got was based on tank so the winning strat was to take your general and sprint him effortlessly across no mans land to clear the opposing trench with his pistol that got as many shots as a heavy machine gun fired by a normal soldier.

So gw would just do that.

Sounds like that guy should be named Audey Murphy or something if he's doing that much by himself every turn.

Mostly, what I would just advise anyone frustrated with the quality of GW's rules to do is head on down to a con that has a lot of historical gaming, and play a few game systems touted as 'the best, most historical, most revolutionary game system EVARRR' by senile beardy weirdos.

My friend and I have a long tradition of heading up to VT for a con with my dad who has always been a "unopened star trek action figures on the wall" old school gamer, and we have a tradition of picking one of the days to get absolutely hammered and trying to find the worst conceivable historical game system to play.

So far the top contenders are that WW1 game, which we can't really rate as the worst because everyone at the table was just cackling and laughing and having a phenomenal time, and a roman game system where it was like

-infantry move 12"
-cavalry move 16"
-bows shoot 4"
-attack dice were by model, so an infantry legionnaire base with 10 guys on it got 10 dice, while a unit of elephants with 2 models got 2 dice

Oh, and a WW2 system that was phenomenal simply because 'Roll to spot the target' was like the first step in the attack process, but there were ZERO modifiers for range or whether the target was in or out of cover, so we had antitank guns 2" away from enemy tanks completely out in the open routinely failing to see them.

Oh, yeah, wargaming geezers who think game design stopped evolving after Kriegspiel (and those who dare to tamper with "roll dice to see what happens and then consult some tables" philosophy break some kind of a taboo) are indeed a thing

 the_scotsman wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:
Speaking of WFB the community had been in decline for a while before 8th ed came along and really crapped the bed with the horde rules. I remember there being a large grognard component online who constantly insulted 40k as being the "dumber" game just because you didn't have to wheel units or worry about unit facings on anything that wasn't a tank. Plus as GW kept dropping points the community didn't lower the points they were playing at to make the game more friendly to newer players.

I'm not absolving GW for what they did wrong, but the community did itself no favors either. It only grew worse (at least online) as the active player base began to fall in 8th which did not help new players who thought about joining a community that had grown increasingly elist (again, at least online).

Kirby brushing off all problems with WFB as "it's fine we sell models not games" didn't help either.


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 the_scotsman wrote:
Lets see...the dumbest AA system ive ever played was a ww1 game where nothing stopped you from selecting the same dude over and over and over and you got 3d6 activations in a turn. Plus how many attack dice you got was based on tank so the winning strat was to take your general and sprint him effortlessly across no mans land to clear the opposing trench with his pistol that got as many shots as a heavy machine gun fired by a normal soldier.

So gw would just do that.

Sounds like that guy should be named Audey Murphy or something if he's doing that much by himself every turn.

Mostly, what I would just advise anyone frustrated with the quality of GW's rules to do is head on down to a con that has a lot of historical gaming, and play a few game systems touted as 'the best, most historical, most revolutionary game system EVARRR' by senile beardy weirdos.

My friend and I have a long tradition of heading up to VT for a con with my dad who has always been a "unopened star trek action figures on the wall" old school gamer, and we have a tradition of picking one of the days to get absolutely hammered and trying to find the worst conceivable historical game system to play.

So far the top contenders are that WW1 game, which we can't really rate as the worst because everyone at the table was just cackling and laughing and having a phenomenal time, and a roman game system where it was like

-infantry move 12"
-cavalry move 16"
-bows shoot 4"
-attack dice were by model, so an infantry legionnaire base with 10 guys on it got 10 dice, while a unit of elephants with 2 models got 2 dice

Oh, and a WW2 system that was phenomenal simply because 'Roll to spot the target' was like the first step in the attack process, but there were ZERO modifiers for range or whether the target was in or out of cover, so we had antitank guns 2" away from enemy tanks completely out in the open routinely failing to see them.

I am not really surprised honestly. A lot of historical games have weird biases too where they make certain armies better based on public perception of how good something is (largely thanks to Hollywood exposure) rather than trying to be historical accuracy. I don't even want to guess the number of games that made their Spartans like those in 300 after that movie came out.

Till the run in with the Sacerad Band of Thebes, Spartans were considered more or less unbeatable unless horribly outnumbered.

Cyel wrote:
Oh, yeah, wargaming geezers who think game design stopped evolving after Kriegspiel (and those who dare to tamper with "roll dice to see what happens and then consult some tables" philosophy break some kind of a taboo) are indeed a thing

The worst though are the ones who expect a historical scenario to play out exactly how it went in real life.
Ages ago, in our early college days, a buddy & I were in such a game at a con. It was an American Civil War game. Beautiful & accurate terrain. FANTASTIC looking minis. 100% accurate historical.
The rules were explained & weren't terrible.

So play began & my buddy & I immediately deviated from the historical script. After all, we knew how the actual battle had gone (:() & what with 150 years of hindsight should've/could've been done....
Plus we could SEE how the enemy models were deployed.

Boy did that not go over well.

Apparently the only variance these guys found acceptable was the amount of casualties the dice would yield THIS time, following the historical script.

This was not a fun game.
And it turned out to be tediously slow.....

Meanwhile? About 50ft away there was a game of giant mechs blowing the crap out of each other on a table full of simplistic terrain. And people dropped in/out every hour.

So, after our 3rd turn (about 4 hours of play, nowhere near finishing the game, & receiving constant crap for deviating from history), we bid the ACW guys farewell & jumped into a giant Battle-Tech game.
And had alot more fun.

I was excited about 8th edition! Finally the cumbersome mechanics could be redone, the balance done properly and the bloat reset.
The next edition would fix everything!

It became clear quite quickly once the new codexes started coming out that GW had never intended to balance any Warhammer. The bloat was a result of the churn and power creep that they use to sell more models.
Making a good game was not an objective or even a value.
It was always going to be waitng for the next edition/codex/FAQ to improve things and always being dissapointed when it came.

Which is fine. GW may do with thier product whatever they wish and are a public company; so are legally obligated to deliver return on investment.

I don't have to buy it if I don't like it though and I do not intend to buy or play anything form GW ever again.
There are companies and game designers who do value making a good game. There are more great games than I have time to play without GW.

 DarkBlack wrote:

It became clear quite quickly once the new codexes started coming out that GW had never intended to balance any Warhammer. The bloat was a result of the churn and power creep that they use to sell more models.
Making a good game was not an objective or even a value.
It was always going to be waitng for the next edition/codex/FAQ to improve things and always being dissapointed when it came.

I think an actual GW designer fills in better on this than I could (I don't have the exact timecode on hand but around halfway the video he talks about balance in the game):


I feel like the designers do shoot for balance and fun but are also working with a top down development system where they're trying to match rules to the models and the lorr surrounding those models instead of starting bottom up and writing the rules first and having the model team make something that fits the rules instead.

40k began its life as an RPG and honestly a lot of the game seems to be built more around telling stories about cool things that happened (for example I had an Exorcist get immobilized in 5th edition and after waaay too many 6++ Shield of Faith saves passed my opponent managed to shoot the storm bolter off too) than being a crunchy experiance where we all go 9th dimensional chess galaxy brain on each other.

Now there has been an upswing in competetive play that has lead to a shift to tightening the rules and playtesting rules but it's clear that GW still writes rules that "feel right" for the things they're attached to over ones that make sense for crunchy game play.

I'd buy that if it wasn't so easy, and so common, to spot obviously dysfunctional rules in a new codex just from the read-through. Yeah there are always people claiming the sky is falling but once one looks past the fools and gets to experienced players with reasoned positions the predictions made on release have a very strong tendency to pan out in reality. And that is without any playtesting.

 ClockworkZion wrote:

I feel like the designers do shoot for balance and fun but are also working with a top down development system where they're trying to match rules to the models and the lorr surrounding those models instead of starting bottom up and writing the rules first and having the model team make something that fits the rules instead.

Pretty much every wargame uses a combination of top down and bottom up design. Most of them manage to have passable balance though.

40k began its life as an RPG and honestly a lot of the game seems to be built more around telling stories about cool things that happened (for example I had an Exorcist get immobilized in 5th edition and after waaay too many 6++ Shield of Faith saves passed my opponent managed to shoot the storm bolter off too) than being a crunchy experiance where we all go 9th dimensional chess galaxy brain on each other.

Games do not have to be crunchy for balance. Crazy rolls happen in any game with dice.
While I prefer well balanced games; games with passable balance that might struggle if taken too seriously are also fun (eg: Gaslands).
GW games are not even on that level though. It's so abysmal that I have tabled people with no effort with a list that I didn't think was hard.

Now there has been an upswing in competetive play that has lead to a shift to tightening the rules and playtesting rules but it's clear that GW still writes rules that "feel right" for the things they're attached to over ones that make sense for crunchy game play.

Not good enough.
If they wanted to even a little they could do far better. I know because other (much smaller) companies do AND they have cool units that "feel right".

I haven't even touched on how ridiculously expensive Warhammer (both) is. For that kind of money I expect the best possible, not frustration and disappointment.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
I'd buy that if it wasn't so easy, and so common, to spot obviously dysfunctional rules in a new codex just from the read-through. Yeah there are always people claiming the sky is falling but once one looks past the fools and gets to experienced players with reasoned positions the predictions made on release have a very strong tendency to pan out in reality. And that is without any playtesting.

It's easy to say that but people think about rules differently. The rules designers are thinking about how they intend the rule to play and mentally fill in gaps much like how we can mentally fill in gaps when we make mistakes in our own written work. There was an interview with the chap who wrote Warhammer Underworlds. IIRC he has a background that lends well to technical writing and even after all his work to try and make the game super tight and balanced for competetive play it still needed fixing and refining.

Plus there is a limit on dev time. The longer something spends in development and the more it costs and the less money it can make back, meaning at some point you need to release it or kill it off and move on from a business perspective. The Dev team is working under a time limit with every project and can't just keep refining things until they're perfect, so we're always going to have some issues that players who are good at spotting those kinds of things will find.

And before someone says "more playtesting", playtesters don't always have the final version of the rules. Sometimes the issues playtesters point out can lead to a change in the rules which causes new unintended problems as well.


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 DarkBlack wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:

I feel like the designers do shoot for balance and fun but are also working with a top down development system where they're trying to match rules to the models and the lorr surrounding those models instead of starting bottom up and writing the rules first and having the model team make something that fits the rules instead.

Pretty much every wargame uses a combination of top down and bottom up design. Most of them manage to have passable balance though.
GW has gone on record many times stating that they write rules based on what the design team produces. There was a Jervis Johnson article in a White Dwarf that talked about giving a model the ability to fly because he had a winged belt buckle that could be magical as an example.

40k began its life as an RPG and honestly a lot of the game seems to be built more around telling stories about cool things that happened (for example I had an Exorcist get immobilized in 5th edition and after waaay too many 6++ Shield of Faith saves passed my opponent managed to shoot the storm bolter off too) than being a crunchy experiance where we all go 9th dimensional chess galaxy brain on each other.

Games do not have to be crunchy for balance. Crazy rolls happen in any game with dice.
While I prefer well balanced games; games with passable balance that might struggle if taken too seriously are also fun (eg: Gaslands).
GW games are not even on that level though. It's so abysmal that I have tabled people with no effort with a list that I didn't think was hard.
I disagree. I believe GW games are passable for balance. They do well in casual enviroments were people play the game to win, but have a goal of just having fun rather than winning tournaments. I'm not faulting competitive players, I'm saying that GW games fall apart when you take them too seriously and start looking for those edge case rules that help you win harder and faster.

Now there has been an upswing in competetive play that has lead to a shift to tightening the rules and playtesting rules but it's clear that GW still writes rules that "feel right" for the things they're attached to over ones that make sense for crunchy game play.

Not good enough.
If they wanted to even a little they could do far better. I know because other (much smaller) companies do AND they have cool units that "feel right".
I assume you're not responding with the assumption that I'm saying the rules are as good as they should be, because I'm not. I'm just trying to present a literal "state of the game and how it's developed based on information we know." No matter how good a game is, it could always be better.

I haven't even touched on how ridiculously expensive Warhammer (both) is. For that kind of money I expect the best possible, not frustration and disappointment.
I agree that something needs to be done about the cost, but then again I also argue something needs to be done about wages in general since price is outpacing wage increases far too regularly. I feel like this is a problem from two sides of the same mess, but I don't want to get into an economics debate so I'll just say "yes, it needs to be more afforable" and leave it at that.

I didn't want to deal with quote tagging, so responses are yellow.

 ClockworkZion wrote:
I disagree. I believe GW games are passable for balance. They do well in casual enviroments were people play the game to win, but have a goal of just having fun rather than winning tournaments. I'm not faulting competitive players, I'm saying that GW games fall apart when you take them too seriously and start looking for those edge case rules that help you win harder and faster.

yes GW rules do well when players are experienced enough to know what works and what does not and also have certain knowledge about the what the other player is going to place on the table
this has nothing to do with competitive games/rules but with players knowing to ignore the background when choosing their army and and knowing what they are up against

also the casual environment does not work well if both players have no clue about how strong some of the units are, just bring it what they think is a well rounded army list (by the fluff provided in the books) and don't tell the opponent what faction and type of list they are going to play because this is not needed for a well rounded list
and than one gets stomped

casual games for just having fun needs better rules and balance than tournaments

because tournament players don't care if a faction has only 1 unit that is worth taking or if there is only 1 faction that can win the event, if they want to win the event they play that faction
tournaments don't care of the rules are not tight, balance between factions is off etc. if needed they add a tournament FAQ and if everyone turns up with the exact same list and the exact same battle ready paint job, no one cares

yet the casual player who just uses units were he likes the fluff or the look, needs good balance having no chance to win the game by taking what you like and spending hours to build/paint and you are told to just by the "right" stuff the next time, is not a fun casual experience


I don't know were this comes from, but casual play needs the good rules and balance
tournaments find their way to play a game, no matter how bad the rules are written or how much the balance is off, in the worst case, tournaments make their own version of the game to keep things going, were the casual player just stops playing it
this is what we have seen during 6th/7th of 40k and late 7th/8th Warhammer Fantasy


casual players don't care about balance as long as the game is fun, yet if the balance is too much off the game stops being fun
hence why GW tries to make the outcome of the game as random as possible, so everyone in a casual environment can win the game with a random event no matter how bad the balance is
problem is just that when "winning" is not the point if the game was fun or not but the gameplay it self, no matter the outcome, and this is were GW games are getting worse again and the designers don't understand why (because they just never played their own game)

 ClockworkZion wrote:
I disagree. I believe GW games are passable for balance. They do well in casual enviroments were people play the game to win, but have a goal of just having fun rather than winning tournaments. I'm not faulting competitive players, I'm saying that GW games fall apart when you take them too seriously and start looking for those edge case rules that help you win harder and faster.

In 8th pre-PA I would have agreed with you as my group are almost all casuals. I still go to games of 40k my group has because it's nice to be social but I've yet to see them play a game where they enjoy the GAME rather than the social interaction. Every game I've seen the player whose turn it is is noticeably having less fun than the players who is getting to talk to their friends. What actually killed the game for me was that I realised that I don't remember the last time both I and my opponent enjoyed the game. Usually someone would have the advantage at the end of the first round and the losing player would go through the motions of putting up a fight while the opponent rolled dice to see what order the loser put his stuff away in.

Passable isn't good enough for a company that's been at this for this long.

 kodos wrote:

yes GW rules do well when players are experienced enough to know what works and what does not and also have certain knowledge about the what the other player is going to place on the table
this has nothing to do with competitive games/rules but with players knowing to ignore the background when choosing their army and and knowing what they are up againstalso the casual environment does not work well if both players have no clue about how strong some of the units are, just bring it what they think is a well rounded army list (by the fluff provided in the books) and don't tell the opponent what faction and type of list they are going to play because this is not needed for a well rounded list
and than one gets stomped

But it is not always the case. The real problems are , I think, only with armies that can't really make a flexible 50/50 lists. Stuff like harlequins where the list writes itself, because of how few units the faction has and how optimised, or unoptimised if we considerd 8th ed, happens less often. So a new player very much can build a close tournament level army without even trying. Same thing happens when the options really hit you on the head with how good or how bad they are. It really didn't take a genius or checking other lists, to know that for a long time in 8th scouts were the preferable troop choice for marines or that dark reapers are really good if you play Inari. At the same time if you looked at the GK techmarine cost and stats, even without knowing any rules, you knew that the NDK GM is better. In fact you knew that he was better then any other character, and only later one you learned that Draigo ain't so bad either.

 ClockworkZion wrote:
It's easy to say that but people think about rules differently. The rules designers are thinking about how they intend the rule to play and mentally fill in gaps much like how we can mentally fill in gaps when we make mistakes in our own written work. There was an interview with the chap who wrote Warhammer Underworlds. IIRC he has a background that lends well to technical writing and even after all his work to try and make the game super tight and balanced for competetive play it still needed fixing and refining.

Plus there is a limit on dev time. The longer something spends in development and the more it costs and the less money it can make back, meaning at some point you need to release it or kill it off and move on from a business perspective. The Dev team is working under a time limit with every project and can't just keep refining things until they're perfect, so we're always going to have some issues that players who are good at spotting those kinds of things will find.

And before someone says "more playtesting", playtesters don't always have the final version of the rules. Sometimes the issues playtesters point out can lead to a change in the rules which causes new unintended problems as well.

If we were talking a few minor things that need tweaking or a few typos then what you're saying would probably be acceptable. My beloved Mantic Games makes those kind of mistakes and have reasons like that. Everyone makes mistakes.

The rules and balance for 40k is a fething gak show though. Excuses like those don't cut it for how bad of a job they do with rules.
These are professionals working for a large corporate company; yet indy game designers and small companies manage better.
If GW wanted to they could, but they don't.

 DarkBlack wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:

It's so abysmal that I have tabled people with no effort with a list that I didn't think was hard.

I disagree. I believe GW games are passable for balance. They do well in casual enviroments were people play the game to win, but have a goal of just having fun rather than winning tournaments. I'm not faulting competitive players, I'm saying that GW games fall apart when you take them too seriously and start looking for those edge case rules that help you win harder and faster.

I suppose that I could have been clearer. My point was that it is not passable even for casual games.
I tabled someone when I thought I was bringing a fair list. It was not fun for either of us or even the people who stopped by our table.
He lost a game horribly for no other reason than that his Chaos Space Marines codex was that far behind my 6th edition daemon codex; while we were playing 7th edition.
Games of AoS with no points were more balanced than any other Warhammer games I have played!

They kept with the same business practices and design decisions that led to that with 8th, which is why I sold all my GW and moved on to better games from other companies.
Everything I hear about 9th edition 40k (and 3rd edition AoS) suggests that this has not changed and GW never intend to change it.

I am curious, do you play any wargames that are not GW games?
If yes, how does the balance compare?