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 H.B.M.C. wrote:
No.

Upgrades should cost points.

Period.

This.

Brewing is dead for me with 10th. I will stay with earlier edition(s) now.
Also hate the removal of force organization categories, removal of HQ wargear options, general game wide removal of meaningful choices in list design. The whole thing has been dumbed down to the point I have no interest in this new game.

Also for everyone who hated power rating this is exactly what 10th is pushing on us. Points are now equivalent to power rating.

dominuschao wrote:

Also for everyone who hated power rating this is exactly what 10th is pushing on us. Points are now equivalent to power rating.

Yah. They basically got rid of points, multiplied PLs x10, and then called it "newer, smarter points". They've pulled a complete BS maneuver and expected somehow that it wouldn't matter. Or it'd be met with praise?

There's something awfully dysfunctional, cynical, or just stupid behind it.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
No.

Upgrades should cost points.

Period.

This! What is the point of having weapon options when only the best will be taken as they are free? What is the point of listing wargear as an option when it is free, and why would I not take it?

Allow me to soapbox for a minute, dakkaites...

My first thought was that these army comp and points changes were an attempt at a cashgrab by appealing to normies. But the more I think about it, the less likely I think it is to work, because:

Does the dumbing down actually grow their customer base? I see the points changes and I think the only people that benefit are people with low IQ and children. Usually, people that aren't so smart don't make a ton of money, and so wouldn't have the extra income to throw at GW's expensive luxury products. And children are at the mercy of their parents anyways. Parents won't care about the dumbing down. In fact, as a parent, I'd be less inclined to give GW money because there's less of an incidental educational benefit with the new, stupid rules.

Additionally, with no points levers to pull, GW gets less money out of established and competitive gamers also. As has been pointed out, for basically every squad, there's an optimal build now. You spam it and get 3 of them, you're done. The rules are fixed and won't change with codexes. And GW can't do fine-grain adjustments to weapon points because that's out the window. So when CA rolls around, what can GW do to get you to buy more stuff? I guess they can swing balance back and forth at the squad level, but that seems less likely to work.

I can't remember where I saw it but the New Coke analogy is a good one for this edition. There's very little with the new rules to make existing players happy, and they're going all in for the new playerbase. But I don't think the execution was good enough to move the needle for bringing in new players, so I don't see how this succeeds. I could be wrong, GW has done well in spite of itself for decades... but this seems like a big mistake. For my sample size of n=1, I have canceled my Leviathan preorders and am pretty uninterested in playing the new edition. I have over 10k of Nids so I've obviously given GW plenty of money over the years, but my buying and playing days are over for the foreseeable future.

 Gene St. Ealer wrote:
Usually, people that aren't so smart don't make a ton of money

Sweet summer child...

 AtoMaki wrote:

 Gene St. Ealer wrote:
Usually, people that aren't so smart don't make a ton of money

Sweet summer child...

Heh, I know I guess my serious response is that even with the decreased cognitive load of, uh, addition, there are still much more significant barriers of entry to the "unwashed masses" mass market that GW wants to break into. So I just don't see this bit of streamlining doing them any good.

It seems to be simply laziness, unless they have cut the 40k studio to the bone and there is only two or three persons writing all the rules. It's perfectly possible that is some demented order from middle management to "improve" the game. I have wondered sometimes whether they work under insane briefs from people that don't understand the product they are selling.

No, this increasing trend towards less granularity and fewer options under the guise of optimisation is something I vehemently disagree with.

Or it's an excuse to sell more granular codexes later.

 Insectum7 wrote:
Or it's an excuse to sell more granular codexes later.

That will be interesting either way, they have to update the field manual anyway with each new codex to include the new units, it remains to be seen if they do general balance updates at the same time. And on what basis.

 BertBert wrote:
No, this increasing trend towards less granularity and fewer options under the guise of optimisation is something I vehemently disagree with.

Thing is fixed squad sizes and no options CAN work. Warmachine at its peak was like this and it was great because the rules had depth and there was lots of interactions and possibilities. Unfortunately 40k is NOT a deep game and GW don't seem interested in making a deep game. This isn't an issue either really because I would hesitate to call previous editions deep but they DID allow a great degree of customization and personalization of units (or what people refer to as Your Dudes). Unfortunatly 10th is also getting rid of Your Dudes. So now we're left with the worst of both worlds.

 Gene St. Ealer wrote:
Does the dumbing down actually grow their customer base?

one thing is, a large part of the GW customer base does not play the game or just play 1-2 games per Edition
those people collect and paint and for them it does not matter if the better option is free or cost points, they just need an excuse to buy something and than build the loadout they like most.
and for those people we get that kind of points, because they buy an army, build and paint and as they like out of the box and than want to play that and therefore need a list that fits what they have and can be played against everyone else
(past edition there was the problem that those people did as GW told, had their boxes build with Powerlevel and found out that they cannot play because their collection was not a legal 2000 point list)

we don't know how many people actual play but given different surveys in the community (youtube, reddit, facebook) it is about 50% that played only a 1-2 games last edition or did not play at all

so those that want to have a working game are not the favoured customers by GW but those who just want to collect Space Marines (and the rules are written to fit their needs)

For a brief moment I had optimism that 10th would be a step in the right direction. To restart the core rules so shortly after 8th was at least them appearing to realize that there were fundamental flaws in the system that needed to be addressed. A lot of the initial changes generally appeared positive in my opinion but there was always that feeling that something was wrong, when they started the faction focuses I could already see that they hadn't learned a damn thing.

The moment I saw that points no longer matter I knew that I had no interest in anything 10th had to offer anymore.

Too early to tell.

Yes, we have the cards and points. But nothing from an actual Codex.

Any time we’ve had Get You By rules? Codecies have presented a more in-depth experience. And right now, whilst I’m happy to admit I’m wrong in due course, we’ve no real reason to believe 10th won’t follow suit.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Too early to tell.

Yes, we have the cards and points. But nothing from an actual Codex.

Any time we’ve had Get You By rules? Codecies have presented a more in-depth experience. And right now, whilst I’m happy to admit I’m wrong in due course, we’ve no real reason to believe 10th won’t follow suit.

It is emphatically *not* too early to tell whether the 10th approach to unit upgrades works. You can be okay with it, you can be on the fence about it, you can hate it... but the information is there now, codexes aren't changing that particular aspect.

They could change if enough players black ball this thing. GW caved last time they tried PL why should we accept it this time around?

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Too early to tell.

Are you for real?

"We don't have full rules yet. It's too early to tell!"
*GW releases rules*
"Well we don't have any army rules yet. It's too early to tell!"
*GW releases Tyranids and Marines*
"Well we don't have all the army rules yet. It's too early to tell!"
*GW releases all the remaining army rules*
"Well we don't have the points yet. It's too early to tell!"
*GW releases all the points*
"We we don't have the Codices yet. It's too early to tell!"

At what point do you get tired from carrying the goalposts so damned far?

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Too early to tell.

Are you for real?

"We don't have full rules yet. It's too early to tell!"
*GW releases rules*
"Well we don't have any army rules yet. It's too early to tell!"
*GW releases Tyranids and Marines*
"Well we don't have all the army rules yet. It's too early to tell!"
*GW releases all the remaining army rules*
"Well we don't have the points yet. It's too early to tell!"
*GW releases all the points*
"We we don't have the Codices yet. It's too early to tell!"

At what point do you get tired from carrying the goalposts so damned far?

Hopefully not too tired, as he's still got 'We don't have enough games with [x] Codex yet', 'We don't have all the Codices yet' and '[x] Codex was "designed with 11th in mind"' to get through.

I like the directon. Been saying sigmars point system is what 40k needs for a while among my play groups.

Grainular 1pt 2pt upgrades were acceptable back in 4th edition. But as the new editions rolled out the scale of the game kept creeping larger. I play many other wargames of the same size or so as 40k and they have all moved away from the grainular system. Leave the individual custom point microing to the small skirmish games imo

Tittliewinks22 wrote:
Grainular 1pt 2pt upgrades were acceptable back in 4th edition.

This isn't the difference between a unit of Sigmarines taking Swords or Spears. What works in AoS doesn't neccessarily work with other games (and I think this is demonstrably true with the crap GW put out last Friday).

And we're not talking about 1 or 2 point upgrades. We're talking about the difference between a Marine with a Bolter and a Marine with a Lascannon, a whole squad with BP/Chainsword vs a whole squad with Plasma Pistols and Power Weapons.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

Tittliewinks22 wrote:
Grainular 1pt 2pt upgrades were acceptable back in 4th edition.

This isn't the difference between a unit of Sigmarines taking Swords or Spears. What works in AoS doesn't neccessarily work with other games (and I think this is demonstrably true with the crap GW put out last Friday).

And we're not talking about 1 or 2 point upgrades. We're talking about the difference between a Marine with a Bolter and a Marine with a Lascannon, a whole squad with BP/Chainsword vs a whole squad with Plasma Pistols and Power Weapons.

What is a sigmarine?

*shrug* You get what you paid for?

Honestly, GW has never really been good evaluating points as it is. And the mathhammer folks have been too good at squeezing every ounce out point disparities as it is. This rules and balance thing isn't GW's main gig, they just want you to buy (lots) of their cool models.

Now the pressure is on not to optimize too hard. If you do with the current point scale, you're going to run out of people who want to play against you mighty quick. It's an insidious but ingenious way to force the community to not take the game too seriously.

(Though GW is definitely fighting an uphill battle on this. The community has trained itself against this for so many years)

 Stormonu wrote:
*shrug* You get what you paid for?

Honestly, GW has never really been good evaluating points as it is. And the mathhammer folks have been too good at squeezing every ounce out point disparities as it is. This rules and balance thing isn't GW's main gig, they just want you to buy (lots) of their cool models.

Now the pressure is on not to optimize too hard. If you do with the current point scale, you're going to run out of people who want to play against you mighty quick. It's an insidious but ingenious way to force the community to not take the game too seriously.

(Though GW is definitely fighting an uphill battle on this. The community has trained itself against this for so many years)

I see where you are coming from but I think you are optimistic in your outcome. People are not just going to "not want to play you" they are just going to give up on playing more likely. I remember in 5th building a Tyranid list to fight a newer player, lots of Warriors and Gaunts but not much in the realm of monsters. I knew it wasn't a great list but it was to give him a chance to kill a whole lot of stuff. The new player didn't show that day and I had a guard player offer to play me instead; knowing this guard player I said sure on the condition that he didn't bring a bunch of battle cannons. He got mad and started going off about me asking him not to play guard the way they are meant to be played and how I should just play with no monsters then (My list had like...2 Carnifexs I think.) I gave in, we played one turn where his battle cannons insta-deathed most of my army. The guard player was apologetic as they realized that I was trying to make the game actually playable but at that point I had no desire to play that night.

I think that most people don't go into a game to break it, they go in to play what they think is fun like they are supposed to according to GW, the problem is that there is such a huge powerful differential in armies that we can already see that just playing for fun is going to be one sided. People are not going to want to play if they know the outcome of the battle before it starts, it is why invisible death stars of 7th pretty much killed the game.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
I did like the old fluff distinction with regards to sponsons - sponsons were typically on the slow infantry support russes or on the fire support russes (like exterminators) while maneuver russes tended to omit them.

This meant that armored companies, who depended on tanks for maneuver and for fires, would often have more sponsonless tanks than sponsons, while siege regiments or infantry regiments with tanks in support would often include them.

Now? Eh. You can leave the sponsons off if you want. You could also just "counts as" invisible sponsons, too. WYSIWYG is dead.

I like the idea of sponson free Russ's getting more speed/boosts/whatever.

Give them an "invisible" gear like Supercharged Engines that does something. +4" move, a 5++ "jink save", what have you... that then gets traded for the now visible sponsons.

So you take the current Russ:

M10, T11, W13 etc. Less guns and a 5++.

Add Sponsons and it turns into
M6, T12, W14, more guns.

 Stormonu wrote:
*shrug* You get what you paid for?

Honestly, GW has never really been good evaluating points as it is. And the mathhammer folks have been too good at squeezing every ounce out point disparities as it is. This rules and balance thing isn't GW's main gig, they just want you to buy (lots) of their cool models.

Now the pressure is on not to optimize too hard. If you do with the current point scale, you're going to run out of people who want to play against you mighty quick. It's an insidious but ingenious way to force the community to not take the game too seriously.

(Though GW is definitely fighting an uphill battle on this. The community has trained itself against this for so many years)

What's incredibly bang-head-on-wall-inducing about this post is that Power Level already existed for those that didn't care about points. You already had a solution.

But no, building lists and optimising wargear and fine-tuning with little choices is apparently "not the right kind of fun" (even though it provides a huge amount of solo/asynchronous engagement for many of us), and GW will not provide for this wrong kind of fun.

And oh yeah, hey this is supposed to be casual even though there are huge tournaments which generate a lot of buzz around the product. Sure.

 Insectum7 wrote:
Or it's an excuse to sell more granular codexes later.

This is how combi-weapons can still win

 Arachnofiend wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:
Or it's an excuse to sell more granular codexes later.

This is how combi-weapons can still win

If that happens the internal conflict of some posters is going to be unbearable to see play out.

Love it! Always liked PL better than points too, happy everyone is forced to using PL now. If other players get existential crisis when they think about either "cheesing the list to 11" or "nerfing their list on purpose by not taking the best upgardes", well, that is sad, but I don't make the rules. I pick the best looking options for my models, roll dice like always, win or lose

But please spare us with the "this dumbing down of the details is for idiots". It's for players who dont want 40K to be an excercise in mental gymnastics, this does not imply anything else about their intelligence, just about their preference for "hi brow/low brow" entertainment. All people, from the smartest to the dumbest, have a right to enjoy whatever brow they feel like at the moment

 tauist wrote:
Love it! Always liked PL better than points too, happy everyone is forced to using PL now. If other players get existential crisis when they think about either "cheesing the list to 11" or "nerfing their list on purpose by not taking the best upgardes", well, that is sad, but I don't make the rules. I pick the best looking options for my models, roll dice like always, win or lose

Sooooo.....you "like it' that everyone is forced into playing with your preferred system? Instead of offering both systems, as was offered in 8th/9th? Really like that "my side wins" feeling, don't ya?

 Gadzilla666 wrote:

 tauist wrote:
Love it! Always liked PL better than points too, happy everyone is forced to using PL now. If other players get existential crisis when they think about either "cheesing the list to 11" or "nerfing their list on purpose by not taking the best upgardes", well, that is sad, but I don't make the rules. I pick the best looking options for my models, roll dice like always, win or lose

Sooooo.....you "like it' that everyone is forced into playing with your preferred system? Instead of offering both systems, as was offered in 8th/9th? Really like that "my side wins" feeling, don't ya?

Ahh, I believe I already had this discussion with another regular user on here? I like to write polarizing, baity snipe replies to hot topics, but rarely feel arsed enough to reply or discuss my opinions further. That's all you get from me this time. I have spoken.