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if we're talking lead times, the upcoming tyranid knight scale miniature was being designed in 2017. I have no idea what it looks like, because at the time I found out about it, there were a number of designs under consideration. (source- happy coincidence on a flight out from Birmingham airport when the young lad next to me looked at my white dwarf and said- "my dad designed that!"

tneva82 wrote:

Smaug wrote:

Did Nick and Stu just say the quiet part out load in the last interview? That they gave up on 9th a year after it was released and have been working on 10th for the last two years?

Surprised? Lead times. They have fixed edition/3 years which means they have to start work early. 9e work started about year into 8th and 11th will start next year.

You need to read what lead times are they are now working on last 10th codexes most likely.

Most likely around 2 years ago is when they sat down and said "what are we going to do for 10E rules?" then started discussing the pros and cons of continuing with 9th or throwing it all in the bin. Note that we got the big survey late 2021, which will have helped to steer between the different options that were being considered.

However work on the models for this edition almost certainly began much earlier than that. I bet they had concepts and model prototypes for new Tyranids while most people were still unboxing their copy of Indomitus.

My biggest hope is they abandon trying to appeal to the tournament crowd. Opening a can of worms here but that's a big thing which hurt 9th IMHO. Secondary objectives are trash, the missions are incredibly boring and terrain keywords were overly complicated for what should have been intuitively simple, and to top the smelly pile the accepted terrain layout is the most bland, boring, and uninspiring thing I've ever seen since everything is completely mirrored.

If Gw actually appealed and worked for the Tournament setting it would be a net good thing for the game rules in general.

The problem is GW never caters for tournament players.



The recommended min table size was not based on what tournaments had; it was based on what base size GW could put into existing boxes.
Many events had to adjust to adapt to that (even then they don't have to, the min rec size is only a suggestion, but they have anyway).

The rules are not clearly written in an efficient easy to read format - heck with the bloat and the way GW does rules right now its distinctly anti tournament

The rules are, well, they are not balanced and whilst GW has made improvements their "throw it all out every 3 years" policy means that whatever gains they make during an edition is very short lived.
This isn't like MTG where you've the same rules for 20-30 years which are refined over that time period.

 Overread wrote:
I
The recommended min table size was not based on what tournaments had; it was based on what base size GW could put into existing boxes.
Many events had to adjust to adapt to that (even then they don't have to, the min rec size is only a suggestion, but they have anyway).

ITC&Co adopted it happily when they realized it leads to bigger profits for them as they can cram more players to same room.

The 9e is been very much tournament edition with the tournament organizers affecting missions and rules.

Balance is going to be wonky regardless of who is in charge though as balance leads to less ££££££ under profit margin.

tneva82 wrote:

 Overread wrote:
I
The recommended min table size was not based on what tournaments had; it was based on what base size GW could put into existing boxes.
Many events had to adjust to adapt to that (even then they don't have to, the min rec size is only a suggestion, but they have anyway).

ITC&Co adopted it happily when they realized it leads to bigger profits for them as they can cram more players to same room.

The 9e is been very much tournament edition with the tournament organizers affecting missions and rules.

Balance is going to be wonky regardless of who is in charge though as balance leads to less ££££££ under profit margin.

The whole "Balance results in less profit" I think is something people throw around a lot but honesty look at GW's core earnings. When they were at their most unbalanced under Kirby with zero attention to anyone and when an FAQ/Errata could come as the edition ended; they profits were VASTLY less than when they released a new edition with everyone getting updated rules at the same time for once.


The argument is that a balanced game means that people don't have to chase the meta and buy the latest and coolest thing.
That might work in some markets; it doesn't work in wargames.

The overwhelming majority of GW's customers are not tournament players.
Of them those who chase the meta regularly talk about how to save money doing it and are often buying secondhand models and, if anything, its best for the paint commission market. The serious meta chasing tournament player isn't buying and building an army over years and keeping that army around; they are buying it as cheaply as they can to use until that meta ends then they sell it on and buy another as cheaply as they can. They are 100% feeding the secondhand market more htan GW's own market.


Secondly the majority of customers don't meta-chase. They buy a one to a few armies and focus on them and them alone. If that army doesn't get updated in ages or is rubbish on the tabletop - those players don't automatically buy another army. If they do they might get one from another GW game system or they might try another "better balanced" game system where their army of choice isn't totally useless or nerfed into oblivion or only has one viable build. They are invested into their armies they aren't chasing meta as cheaply as they can.
GW's core market are army-loyal customers and sure many might have several armies; but they aren't building the latest and greatest every two or three months.


Better balance where most armies can compete on an even footing means more active customers engaging with their armies of choice. Armies that have better internal balance means that GW's sales within an army are more spread out and means that people have more reason to keep investing into their chosen army to increase their diversity and choices. If an army only has one good build then that's the only one people will make and once they've got it they are done; other models won't sell.




Again better balance builds a better system for all in the wargame market. Because the purchases, armies, customer loyalty to them and all are all long term. It's not like a card game where people are happy to rebuild their entire collection every year.

I’d rather the game is fun and accessible first.

I’ve held off getting back into the gaming side due to 8th and 9th, and needing to get your head round stratagems.

They add an extra layer, and I’m not saying the concept is bad. But the execution was well off. If you didn’t spec your list around stratagems, you were at a significant disadvantage. And I’m not fond of that kind of imposed restriction on my List creativity.

Worse? For someone so long out of practice I’m pretty much a NooB, I’m not sure games would last long enough under such conditions for me to actually learn the ropes. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying “if I am not win second game, game are the faulty”. I accept the learning curve can be steep.

But like X-Wing, if the learning curve is too steep between Beginner and Experienced? I’m gonna be put off. My free time is precious, and I’m none too keen to spend chunks of it being slapped around like something that gets slapped around without me having a chance to understand the why.

Perhaps some of that is GW Till Monkey Legacy. I used to teach the basics, and even provide coaching once someone was more established - when asked of course. But that I don’t think is reasonable to demand from an average opponent. It would be gratefully received, but not everyone is willing or able to do that sort of stuff.

Maybe I’ll take the plunge with 10th. Lord knows I may not have been playing, but I’ve still be collecting. If the army selection is good and straight forward? That’s the first step.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
I do wonder how the new edition will handle allies.

Likely unpopular opinion? Other than Chaos, I hope they just don’t. And I make that concession because it’s long established I don’t like Chaos being broken down as they are into faction and sub faction, and not a riot of choices.

While I think the no Allies option is indeed possible (especially out the gate), I suspect it will be something more similar to AoS since they seem to be drawing a lot of inspiration for 10th from that.

 kodos wrote:
one problem is still that they don't play their own game, so good chance lessons learned are all about writing and not about the game itself

So when the community says there are too many stratagems, so GW reduces stratagems...
And when the community says there are too many rules, so GW reduces the possible ways you can stack rules...
And they say USRs need to come back, so GW brings them back...
And that morale shouldn't be just losing more models, so GW does that, too...

Those are not lessons about the game itself?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

tneva82 wrote:
Nah. They got new PR folk.

Doesn't change rule development but they are more able to sell the game as best thing ever to the guillible people.

See the things noted above are just PR and not actual rules?

 Overread wrote:
The problem is GW never caters for tournament players.

9th Edition might as well have been renamed Warhammer 40,000: Tournament Edition.

It was endless catering to the tournament crowd.

 Daedalus81 wrote:

 kodos wrote:
one problem is still that they don't play their own game, so good chance lessons learned are all about writing and not about the game itself

So when the community says there are too many stratagems, so GW reduces stratagems...
And when the community says there are too many rules, so GW reduces the possible ways you can stack rules...
And they say USRs need to come back, so GW brings them back...
And that morale shouldn't be just losing more models, so GW does that, too...

Those are not lessons about the game itself?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

tneva82 wrote:
Nah. They got new PR folk.

Doesn't change rule development but they are more able to sell the game as best thing ever to the guillible people.

See the things noted above are just PR and not actual rules?

The thing is those are problems that GW is fixing based on user feedback; but they are problems GW's rules writers created in the first place.

This is the core of the issue; GW can react to feedback and are more on the ball with it now than in the past; BUT; at the very core they've got a rules writing system that promotes a casual style of writing and rules production which can easily result in issues. From broken balance to systems that are just clunky.
A good example is go back to a 3rd edition codex and see how the information is laid out. Now go look at some 7th and later codex. Notice how the game isn't actually much more complex than it was but that the way GW conveys information changed. Even before you hit them expanding content in expansion books ,the core presentation is messy and that's 100% on GW themselves.

Then you factor in the 3year edition rotation where each time they do it they make big shifts which means all the balance adjustments they performed get thrown out the window. Each new edition basically tries to fix some of the issues of the previous one, whilst often introducing their own.

This is a dance 10 editions old now and many of us are used to the style, quality and nature of what kind of rules GW makes. IT doesn't mean we don't hope that they might have an attitude change ;that managers might realise that sales improve with better rules; that MTG shows how top rules can result in a great system that prints money; that GW gets sales spikes whenever their rules improve; that one of the most quoted reasons for people leaving is to get better rules. etc....
But many of us are realistic with our expectations when the managers, system and staff are the same.


Now it works, GW are BIG, but they are not big because their rules are top rate and there are clear issues with the formal design and testing of their rules systems. Things have improved and perhaps GW are just going to make slow improvements with a really drawn out period; possibly not making big strides unless new skilled staff take over from established ones in key roles (this isn't just the writing staff, but also managers who allocate resources and schedual timescales and such)

tneva82 wrote:

 Overread wrote:
I
The recommended min table size was not based on what tournaments had; it was based on what base size GW could put into existing boxes.
Many events had to adjust to adapt to that (even then they don't have to, the min rec size is only a suggestion, but they have anyway).

ITC&Co adopted it happily when they realized it leads to bigger profits for them as they can cram more players to same room.

The 9e is been very much tournament edition with the tournament organizers affecting missions and rules.

Balance is going to be wonky regardless of who is in charge though as balance leads to less ££££££ under profit margin.

Don't forget FLG conveniently saying right after they just so happened to be ready to sell mats in that exact size AND that ITC was going to exclusively use that size... so the "minimum" became the "default" because, as per usual, tournament standard infests the locale and subsumes everything else.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Overread wrote:
The problem is GW never caters for tournament players.

9th Edition might as well have been renamed Warhammer 40,000: Tournament Edition.

It was endless catering to the tournament crowd.

I mean yeah, it pretty much was 40k if designed by the ITC.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
A group of people who don't understand the game they've written? Yes. That's exactly what I think.

But let me pose another question to you: Do you know the definition of insanity?

Pretend you're a manager of a project and you gave your team ( GW ) the feedback you give here. Did they listen? I am sure they didn't do everything you would have wanted, but did they listen?

I know people want to put the cart before the horse here - at some point GW will try something silly or execute something poorly. What matters is that there's communication and a path to remediate.

Personally I can't imagine trying to build a product that pleases every facet of people in this hobby. If often feels like people praising HH do so as if some different company made it.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

Wayniac wrote:
My biggest hope is they abandon trying to appeal to the tournament crowd. Opening a can of worms here but that's a big thing which hurt 9th IMHO. Secondary objectives are trash, the missions are incredibly boring and terrain keywords were overly complicated for what should have been intuitively simple, and to top the smelly pile the accepted terrain layout is the most bland, boring, and uninspiring thing I've ever seen since everything is completely mirrored.

I love the missions as they are, but I would like to see fewer secondaries. Also, terrain definitely needs a glow-up. I am hopeful they did something smart with cover to make more types of terrain feasible. At the same time with the presumed reduction in lethality terrain doesn't have to shield as much.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

tneva82 wrote:
ITC&Co adopted it happily when they realized it leads to bigger profits for them as they can cram more players to same room.

The 9e is been very much tournament edition with the tournament organizers affecting missions and rules.

Balance is going to be wonky regardless of who is in charge though as balance leads to less ££££££ under profit margin.

*sigh* Being able to have more players in a room is good for players and people at home can play on any size they want. Running a tournament is NOT a money making venture.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Overread wrote:
The overwhelming majority of GW's customers are not tournament players.

Just look at Golden Demon. People make dioramas out of $500 of product and those things will never see a table.

GW doesn't cater to the tournament crowd, the community caters to tournament play.

9th edition had several mission releases that had nothing to do with tournaments (crusade, warzone, boarding actions, Tempest of war, etc.)

But everyone plays the tournaments packs with tournament dataslates, and that isn't GW's fault.

Core of the game is very much designed around the whims of the US tournament scene in 9th edition, the fact that Crusade exists doesn't really change that. Boarding actions have only been out for five minutes.

Billicus wrote:
Core of the game is very much designed around the whims of the US tournament scene in 9th edition, the fact that Crusade exists doesn't really change that. Boarding actions have only been out for five minutes.

Variant play formats have always kind of been an edition's death knell, like the various versions of Cityfight, Apocalypse etc...

 Overread wrote:
The thing is those are problems that GW is fixing based on user feedback; but they are problems GW's rules writers created in the first place.

There's that eternal struggle of a 'beer and pretzels' game and this relatively new strive to be a modern game. There are groups of people here that won't one or the other or seemingly more often -- both.

GW still has that 'beer and pretzels' blood in them and it's that sort of stuff that gets really cool things, but lacking restraint.

Then you factor in the 3year edition rotation where each time they do it they make big shifts which means all the balance adjustments they performed get thrown out the window. Each new edition basically tries to fix some of the issues of the previous one, whilst often introducing their own.

I don't see 10th as a huge shift from 9th. It's doing quality of life housekeeping. Balance is out the window, yes, but this setup offers GW a lot less volume of rules so when you look at a faction you can better judge what exactly the problem might be.

that MTG shows how top rules can result in a great system that prints money

MTG has to continually obsolete product to keep it's rules from creating absurd scenarios. Commander reveals some of that, which is why it struggles to be more than a beer and pretzels format itself.

But many of us are realistic with our expectations when the managers, system and staff are the same.

There's a lot of new blood in there. Stu and the often reviled Brandt seem to be pretty strong voices. In no edition prior did you ever have a GW representative on video saying 'these are the things that were wrong and this is what we're doing to try and fix those things'.

Now it works, GW are BIG, but they are not big because their rules are top rate and there are clear issues with the formal design and testing of their rules systems. Things have improved and perhaps GW are just going to make slow improvements with a really drawn out period; possibly not making big strides unless new skilled staff take over from established ones in key roles (this isn't just the writing staff, but also managers who allocate resources and schedual timescales and such)

Yea I would say GW is popular for it's models over it's rules still. 8th and 9th did a lot to draw in new players and those players have a voice. I still don't think GW could ever manage to properly schedule and release codexes on the timelines the accountants want unless they hire a ton more people, but hopefully the replacement rules strategy helps keep that under control.

 Daedalus81 wrote:
Those are not lessons about the game itself?

no, those are reactions to feedback
if someone had learned had learned a lesson about the game, non of those would have been there in the first place

so if this is what the designers learned, nothing will change as they are going to add those kind of "features" for 10th and remove them by user feedback in 11th

 Daedalus81 wrote:

MTG has to continually obsolete product to keep it's rules from creating absurd scenarios. Commander reveals some of that, which is why it struggles to be more than a beer and pretzels format itself.

Actually I'd argue that MTG doesn't obsolete rules, it does that with cards.

The actual rules by which the cards function have remained fairly steady. New ones come along, but the very core of the game still plays the same as it did many years ago. A few have been refined over those years and had subtle shifts in how they are described and put into practice - often to avoid new mechanics/cards from creating game breaking situations.

So the actual rules aren't removed, its the cards that are shuffled around - which in Wargame terms is more like shuffling models around whilst keeping the core of the game the same.


This is the issue with GW; their core rules don't stay the same.
Now granted there are complicating factors - for example Wargames typically grow over time in terms of army diversity and collection size. So you do end up with the number of models on the table going up as your buying market matures. Every so often GW do clamp down on this with an edition (current AoS edition did this a lot with troops) as otherwise it can create a barrier to entry.


By all means its not all bad from GW rules and they have improved since changing their operations and approach since Kirby stepped down along with some other shuffles around at GW.
But GW are in a position where they could do and achieve so much more

 Dysartes wrote:

tneva82 wrote:
They have literally said army building is pick faction, pick warlord, choose any units you want(max 3 of each except battleline 6), choose relic, done.

They didn't say max 3 of each unit, they said max 3 of each "type" - and have yet to define what they mean by "type".

Is "type" based of battlefield role, off a keyword, off something else entirely? Are the Gladiator variants one type or three? Is "Aspect Warrior" a type?

What happens with units that are 1/detachment today? Are they suddenly fine to field 3x?

I got the impression that detachments are no longer a thing.

If you look at the example Termagants datasheet... There is no battlefield role icon or keyword (e.g. Troops or Battleline).

I'm starting to fear that we're going to see 7th ed. formations again.

 Daedalus81 wrote:


Pretend you're a manager of a project and you gave your team ( GW ) the feedback you give here. Did they listen? I am sure they didn't do everything you would have wanted, but did they listen?

I know people want to put the cart before the horse here - at some point GW will try something silly or execute something poorly. What matters is that there's communication and a path to remediate.

Personally I can't imagine trying to build a product that pleases every facet of people in this hobby. If often feels like people praising HH do so as if some different company made it.

Let's get the scenario right, though. I am the manager of the project and I have a team with decades of experience and history working for me. While yes, I'd expect the team to listen to my requests and fix what is broken, I'd also expect them to use their experience, history, and context to not simply turn 90 degrees and do the exact opposite of what they did before. I would expect the magnitude of the mistakes to decrease. I don't think that's the case with GW.

tneva82 wrote:

They have literally said army building is pick faction, pick warlord, choose any units you want(max 3 of each except battleline 6), choose relic, done.

Does this mean we're moving to the joys of AoS army building?

"You can customise one character twice or two characters once."

I can almost feel myself nodding off with excitement.

 oni wrote:

 Dysartes wrote:

tneva82 wrote:
They have literally said army building is pick faction, pick warlord, choose any units you want(max 3 of each except battleline 6), choose relic, done.

They didn't say max 3 of each unit, they said max 3 of each "type" - and have yet to define what they mean by "type".

Is "type" based of battlefield role, off a keyword, off something else entirely? Are the Gladiator variants one type or three? Is "Aspect Warrior" a type?

What happens with units that are 1/detachment today? Are they suddenly fine to field 3x?

I got the impression that detachments are no longer a thing.

If you look at the example Termagants datasheet... There is no battlefield role icon or keyword (e.g. Troops or Battleline).

I'm starting to fear that we're going to see 7th ed. formations again.

TBH I thought formations were great as shopping lists. They got out of hand because they couldn't balance them (surprise, surprise) and you had crap like the Decurion and Gladius detachments. But being able to be like "I just bought unit X, if I buy a second box and then unit Y, I can use them together to have a little bonus" was good.

What's more amusing to me is that 7th had Unbound and everyone and their mother HATED it, lambasted it, and laughed at it. But AOO and now 10th edition looks to be going to basically that. Pick what you want, with minimal restriction, and play.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Gene St. Ealer wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:


Pretend you're a manager of a project and you gave your team ( GW ) the feedback you give here. Did they listen? I am sure they didn't do everything you would have wanted, but did they listen?

I know people want to put the cart before the horse here - at some point GW will try something silly or execute something poorly. What matters is that there's communication and a path to remediate.

Personally I can't imagine trying to build a product that pleases every facet of people in this hobby. If often feels like people praising HH do so as if some different company made it.

Let's get the scenario right, though. I am the manager of the project and I have a team with decades of experience and history working for me. While yes, I'd expect the team to listen to my requests and fix what is broken, I'd also expect them to use their experience, history, and context to not simply turn 90 degrees and do the exact opposite of what they did before. I would expect the magnitude of the mistakes to decrease. I don't think that's the case with GW.

How many people on the 40k team have been there for years though? I mean sure, the "greats" are gone, but I'm pretty sure they have at least a few people on the team who have been there for years (Cruddace if he's still around?). You would THINK they'd have more of an idea about what works/doesn't work when they've seen the game go from 6th to 7th to 8th to 9th or whatever. Even if it was just 8th to 9th, that should give SOME insight to what works well, what didn't work, etc. But with GW it's really like they never learn from the past.

The problem with totally unbound is that people spam broken stuff.

You can also end up with a situation where armies are built "wrong". Eg all leaders and no troops and such. Which whilst mechanically fine; can start to erode the mental picture of armies doing battle and such.


AoS has been a bit too heavy I feel. I constantly wish they'd break troops up and give cavalry their own slot and a few features and also add some artillery to most factions (its almost a waste of a slot right now).

AoS also doubled down hard this editoin on cutting out big infantry blocks which has both good and bad points to it.
They've also started making alternate weapons very similar to identical, which lowers barrier of entry but at the same time means that you lose some flavour. Your spears and swords do basically the same thing so that cuts down on variety and such.


Thing is 40K has a lot of alternate parts in most kits; so cutting out options isn't really as easily done. That said I could see armies like Tyranids losing some weapon combos on Warriors and Carnifex if just because, certainly the carny, has other options in the army that do those jobs better.
Actually considering the screamer killer is getting its own model kit I'd wager a carnfiex with 4 scything talons is going to be removed

 Overread wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:

MTG has to continually obsolete product to keep it's rules from creating absurd scenarios. Commander reveals some of that, which is why it struggles to be more than a beer and pretzels format itself.

Actually I'd argue that MTG doesn't obsolete rules, it does that with cards.

The actual rules by which the cards function have remained fairly steady. New ones come along, but the very core of the game still plays the same as it did many years ago. A few have been refined over those years and had subtle shifts in how they are described and put into practice - often to avoid new mechanics/cards from creating game breaking situations.

So the actual rules aren't removed, its the cards that are shuffled around - which in Wargame terms is more like shuffling models around whilst keeping the core of the game the same.


This is the issue with GW; their core rules don't stay the same.
Now granted there are complicating factors - for example Wargames typically grow over time in terms of army diversity and collection size. So you do end up with the number of models on the table going up as your buying market matures. Every so often GW do clamp down on this with an edition (current AoS edition did this a lot with troops) as otherwise it can create a barrier to entry.


By all means its not all bad from GW rules and they have improved since changing their operations and approach since Kirby stepped down along with some other shuffles around at GW.
But GW are in a position where they could do and achieve so much more

Right - they obsolete product.

Another thing about magic - they have to continually add new mechanics and they do so frequently. People don't want the same thing with just new art. The need new and interesting themes and rules to build a deck around.

From today's WarCom article: "We are releasing revamped, restatted, and reconsidered datasheets for every single unit in the game – all free to download at launch and ready to go. You’ll also be able to buy inexpensive packs of these cards at launch'' - I wonder what price will be?

 kodos wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:
Those are not lessons about the game itself?

no, those are reactions to feedback
if someone had learned had learned a lesson about the game, non of those would have been there in the first place

so if this is what the designers learned, nothing will change as they are going to add those kind of "features" for 10th and remove them by user feedback in 11th

That feels pedantic and we're sort of getting to the point where we're trying to divine the minds of the people designing rules. Neither of us know if they learned a lesson. What we can see is that they agreed with the feedback and made a change. The difference between the two is totally negligible if the outcome is true and they can stick to it.

Nothing about what I am saying is determinative of the future. I fully realize GW can screw things up in so many ways. This game is a massive juggernaut and the volume of armies now is getting unwieldy. I don't envy anyone trying to make all of this work, but at least I can see they take feedback and act on it.

Regarding the new detachment system (or lack thereof), I find myself wondering what problem they were trying to solve.

The outcome seems barely different from the Arks of Omen detachment they just introduced. I guess if you really, desperately need an army that's nothing but fast attack or heavy support units you can do that now. Yay?

See, I could maybe see this working if they went with the Warmachine system - with each unit being allocated a maximum number that can be included in an army (or unlimited for troop equivalents).

Instead, though, every unit is either max-3 or max-6. Thus, the citizens of a dying race are exactly as plentiful as guardsmen sent to die by the billion, or as the swarms of tyranids that can outnumber the enemy's bullets.

I can't help but be reminded of all the praise people gave for GW making everything bespoke rules in 8th, because it gave them the ability to tweak individual units as needed . . . and then all they ever did was make sweeping changes.

 Gene St. Ealer wrote:
Let's get the scenario right, though. I am the manager of the project and I have a team with decades of experience and history working for me. While yes, I'd expect the team to listen to my requests and fix what is broken, I'd also expect them to use their experience, history, and context to not simply turn 90 degrees and do the exact opposite of what they did before. I would expect the magnitude of the mistakes to decrease. I don't think that's the case with GW.

I think people should reflect more on the history of GW from 3rd to 7th. It isn't as rosy as nostalgia makes it. That 'experience' was during a time when GW took NO feedback and barely ever attempted to maintain the game through an edition even before the debacle of 7th. The community constantly had to make their own FAQs and point adjustments. Remember comp scores?

There's a lot of new blood on that team based on job openings.

 Daedalus81 wrote:


Another thing about magic - they have to continually add new mechanics and they do so frequently. People don't want the same thing with just new art. The need new and interesting themes and rules to build a deck around.

The past several years have been them more rotating mechanics rather than adding new ones. As the cycle goes, you see a certain mechanic become less frequent until the full cycle goes and there's a different set of meta mechanics. It helps that instead of having several similar but different rules, they codified the vast majority of rules(Hexproof, Cycle, Champion, etc. instead of 12 cards having slightly different wordings to do the same thing), almost like USRs.