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 ThePaintingOwl wrote:

 Arschbombe wrote:
The mistake you're making is assuming that the goal is to improve the game. It is not. The goal is to increase revenue. We like to think that if GW could just focus on making the best game they could, then things would be like Field of Dreams. If they build it, we will come. But that's not their goal. That's why the game design goes in circles. Simplification followed by needless bloat and complexity followed by another redo. Each one promising that they've really listened this time and got it right. They never have and they never will. The only thing that matters is generating revenue and their methods, for all of the frustration they cause in the community, work.

Making a quality game is more profitable than making a dumpster fire and hoping the addicts will keep playing, especially in the era when anything GW publishes will be up on wahapedia 15 minutes later

The first part is an assumption, one that many share. If only GW would make the most bestest rules we could have gaming nirvana. It's also contradicted by the second part. If piracy is the norm, then it doesn't matter how great the rules are and only a few will actually bother paying. So it would seem that printing rules would start to become a money loser for GW. And yet they still do it, edition after edition. As long as the rules cow can be milked, GW will milk it. I think it's why they've put out so many campaign books and supplements. None of those make for a better game, but people buy them anyway.

Anyway, the signs are all there. GW tells us they're a model company not a game company. We know the group think in the design studio is quite different from the approach by the customer base at large. Remember, GW hires for attitude and fit, not aptitude. The rules are usually sloppy and full of holes. When players point out errors the studio will often respond with something along the lines of "we didn't think anyone would do that." It's not intentional dumpster fires. We can see some attempts to catch up to where other companies are in rules presentation. It's just that they are making money doing sloppy work and they don't perceive a monetary incentive to do any better.

hardly anyone buys the rules anymore.

Somebody is. Otherwise GW wouldn't bother putting out the new books every few years.

 Arschbombe wrote:
Remember, GW hires for attitude and fit, not aptitude.

That sums it up right there: GW prefers an incompetent yes-man over a highly skilled professional who won't tell management what they want to hear. When that is GW's openly stated preference you can't make the assumption that rules are an important product because if nobody bought them GW would stop making them. All it takes is one person in management who thinks it's still 1980 and paper rulebooks are vital and everyone has to go along with it because attitude matters more than being right.

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:

 Arschbombe wrote:
Remember, GW hires for attitude and fit, not aptitude.

That sums it up right there: GW prefers an incompetent yes-man over a highly skilled professional who won't tell management what they want to hear. When that is GW's openly stated preference you can't make the assumption that rules are an important product because if nobody bought them GW would stop making them. All it takes is one person in management who thinks it's still 1980 and paper rulebooks are vital and everyone has to go along with it because attitude matters more than being right.

You're right, willingness to risk your job heckling a manager over whether they choose print your work in a book is definitely a sign of competence and something you can judge fairly with no insider info.

Honestly, are you just out to throw insults at someone because you don't like something? Do you think the game designers deserve to argue themselves into unemployment purely because the upper management make questionable decisions? I know some on here consider that their reasonable expectations.

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:

Dudeface wrote:
I've no want or need to die on any hill, it's a fact of corporate life, the minions get given criteria to work towards and they will get overridden. If they're crunched for time, mistakes will happen, same is true of everyone in any role. Fully rewriting and rebalancing the game in their 2-3 year window can't be easy whilst also having to create content for the current edition and potentially other projects.

Ok, I'll grant that maybe you can pass the blame up the chain because someone who could be doing better work is forced to print garbage because their boss demands it. But that doesn't change the fact that someone at GW is incompetent. For example, insisting on a complete re-write of the game every 2-3 years is a profoundly stupid way of doing things and whoever insists on doing it that way is clearly incompetent.

10th isn't a complete rewrite, they changed the things they saw people complain about in 9th. Flyers were too strong, terrain was too complicated, too many Stratagems, I got outplayed in the Fight phase please remove all skill from the game, the competitive missions are boring, adding up one digit numbers is too hard, tanks die too easily to anti-infantry, AP proliferation has gotten out of hand. Most of those were super reasonable issues to solve, like the lethality and vehicle durability thing, an edition change with the release of indexes is the best time to do it to avoid having Space Marines with T9 Rhinos and Chaos Space Marines with T7 Rhinos.

Mozzamanx wrote:
GW have no incentive to develop a perfect ruleset because then they don't get to sell you a new wave of rulebooks.
By keeping the game in a permanently flawed state, they're keeping people hooked on the hope that the next ruleset will finally get it right.

There is no such thing as a perfect ruleset because different groups have different preferences. GW can go back and forth on different things and always have different things to try and change, they can make different versions of 40k that appeal to more or less people. There are many versions of 40k that would appeal to different majorities, no reason to make stupid decisions like PL. Making Flyers too terrible is just a question of the rules not being playtested and the designers not playing the game.

Dudeface wrote:

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:

 Arschbombe wrote:
Remember, GW hires for attitude and fit, not aptitude.

That sums it up right there: GW prefers an incompetent yes-man over a highly skilled professional who won't tell management what they want to hear. When that is GW's openly stated preference you can't make the assumption that rules are an important product because if nobody bought them GW would stop making them. All it takes is one person in management who thinks it's still 1980 and paper rulebooks are vital and everyone has to go along with it because attitude matters more than being right.

You're right, willingness to risk your job heckling a manager over whether they choose print your work in a book is definitely a sign of competence and something you can judge fairly with no insider info.

Honestly, are you just out to throw insults at someone because you don't like something? Do you think the game designers deserve to argue themselves into unemployment purely because the upper management make questionable decisions? I know some on here consider that their reasonable expectations.

You don't think there's a middle ground between a yes-man and someone that argues themselves into unemployment? You don't think a culture of complete yes-men could negatively impact the quality of the product released? We know that the designer who released broken S D Wraithknights wanted to playtest said as much and we know that when management said that wasn't required he didn't make an argument that broken Wraithknights might increase Wraithknight sales they might undercut sales in other lines and cause people to ragequit because of the imbalance. Wanting to work for a company where you get fired for respectfully putting forth your expertise on the subject you were hired to use your expertise for is insanity.

Dudeface wrote:
You're right, willingness to risk your job heckling a manager over whether they choose print your work in a book is definitely a sign of competence and something you can judge fairly with no insider info.

Where are you getting "heckling" from any of that?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 vict0988 wrote:
10th isn't a complete rewrite

Sure, you can make that argument depending your personal line between a significant re-write and a complete re-write. But I was replying to someone who claimed that it is a complete re-write so the part you quoted exists in that context.

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:

Dudeface wrote:
You're right, willingness to risk your job heckling a manager over whether they choose print your work in a book is definitely a sign of competence and something you can judge fairly with no insider info.

Where are you getting "heckling" from any of that?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 vict0988 wrote:
10th isn't a complete rewrite

Sure, you can make that argument depending your personal line between a significant re-write and a complete re-write. But I was replying to someone who claimed that it is a complete re-write so the part you quoted exists in that context.

Because if they're not a "yes man" what are you expecting the employee to do differently?

10th isn't a complete rewrite, they changed the things they saw people complain about in 9th

 vict0988 wrote:
You don't think there's a middle ground between a yes-man and someone that argues themselves into unemployment? You don't think a culture of complete yes-men could negatively impact the quality of the product released? We know that the designer who released broken S D Wraithknights wanted to playtest said as much and we know that when management said that wasn't required he didn't make an argument that broken Wraithknights might increase Wraithknight sales they might undercut sales in other lines and cause people to ragequit because of the imbalance. Wanting to work for a company where you get fired for respectfully putting forth your expertise on the subject you were hired to use your expertise for is insanity.

I very much do believe in a mid ground, the problem in here is the staff being branded "incompetent yes men" because they didn't picket line the management into certain decisions. They can be the best designer in the world but unless they somehow either quit on principle or overthrow their boss they're incompetent yes people in here.

Dudeface wrote:

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:

Dudeface wrote:
You're right, willingness to risk your job heckling a manager over whether they choose print your work in a book is definitely a sign of competence and something you can judge fairly with no insider info.

Where are you getting "heckling" from any of that?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 vict0988 wrote:
10th isn't a complete rewrite

Sure, you can make that argument depending your personal line between a significant re-write and a complete re-write. But I was replying to someone who claimed that it is a complete re-write so the part you quoted exists in that context.

Because if they're not a "yes man" what are you expecting the employee to do differently?

I'm expecting them to tell their supervisors something might be a bad or dumb idea?

If you have problems speaking up, that's on you.

Dudeface wrote:
Because if they're not a "yes man" what are you expecting the employee to do differently?

You do know there's a whole range of options between "heckling" and meekly agreeing to whatever your boss says, right?

ThePaintingOwl wrote:

Dudeface wrote:
Because if they're not a "yes man" what are you expecting the employee to do differently?

You do know there's a whole range of options between "heckling" and meekly agreeing to whatever your boss says, right?

EviscerationPlague wrote:

Dudeface wrote:

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:

Dudeface wrote:
You're right, willingness to risk your job heckling a manager over whether they choose print your work in a book is definitely a sign of competence and something you can judge fairly with no insider info.

Where are you getting "heckling" from any of that?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 vict0988 wrote:
10th isn't a complete rewrite

Sure, you can make that argument depending your personal line between a significant re-write and a complete re-write. But I was replying to someone who claimed that it is a complete re-write so the part you quoted exists in that context.

Because if they're not a "yes man" what are you expecting the employee to do differently?

I'm expecting them to tell their supervisors something might be a bad or dumb idea?

If you have problems speaking up, that's on you.

Ok, so whilst you're both on here dumpstering their teams for being incompetent yes men, can you categorically prove they didn't raise concerns or objections?

Dudeface wrote:

Ok, so whilst you're both on here dumpstering their teams for being incompetent yes men, can you categorically prove they didn't raise concerns or objections?

Obviously I can't prove it, I've even suggested the alternative that the designers themselves are just incompetent. I was responding to the specific claim that "I know the guys at GW they're smart" and therefore the bad rules must be the right of management dictating how things will be and these brilliant writers having no choice but to comply with the demands. But we know that the bad rules exist, and we know that GW prefers to hire yes men.

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:

Dudeface wrote:

Ok, so whilst you're both on here dumpstering their teams for being incompetent yes men, can you categorically prove they didn't raise concerns or objections?

Obviously I can't prove it, I've even suggested the alternative that the designers themselves are just incompetent. I was responding to the specific claim that "I know the guys at GW they're smart" and therefore the bad rules must be the right of management dictating how things will be and these brilliant writers having no choice but to comply with the demands. But we know that the bad rules exist, and we know that GW prefers to hire yes men.

Well maybe we can stop calling people incompetent yes men then, given that you also don't know anything of their working parameters, whether they spoke up or if they're happy with the end result even?

By all means criticise the product and if someone comes on record going "err yeah I made that, I wanted a sandwich so I just copied and pasted some stuff wrong", then by all means give them your thoughts. Bit unfair without knowing what their thoughts or process are though.

Dudeface wrote:
Ok, so whilst you're both on here dumpstering their teams for being incompetent yes men, can you categorically prove they didn't raise concerns or objections?

You're right, it's been the knife-ear podcasters that forced GW to create bad rules all these years despite everyone at GW doing their best to thwart them.

 vict0988 wrote:

Dudeface wrote:
Ok, so whilst you're both on here dumpstering their teams for being incompetent yes men, can you categorically prove they didn't raise concerns or objections?

You're right, it's been the knife-ear podcasters that forced GW to create bad rules all these years despite everyone at GW doing their best to thwart them.

You're right, there's a forum full of stiff spined expert game designers who take no gak from anyone and who wouldn't let their work get published even though it was rushed and under funded, you all know better.

Dudeface wrote:
You're right, there's a forum full of stiff spined expert game designers who take no gak from anyone and who wouldn't let their work get published even though it was rushed and under funded, you all know better.

Damn straight, ptooey /sarcasm. You still haven't proven that management or aliens wanted PL for 10th. A home cook of 10 years can correct a Mcdonald's line cook of 20 years on how to make a good burger. Now if your dear son wanted to be called something other than an inept yes-man he should not have put five cucumber slices in my cheeseburger. Defending your dear son on the internet when people say that McDonald's workers aren't skilled chefs is just absurd.

Dudeface wrote:
Well maybe we can stop calling people incompetent yes men then, given that you also don't know anything of their working parameters, whether they spoke up or if they're happy with the end result even?

If you don't like the "yes man" bit then take it up with MongooseMatt, who claimed that he knows the GW writers and they're smart people who had to have been forced by management to write all the bad rules GW publishes. If that claim is true then, combined with GW's explicit desire to hire yes men, the conclusion is that hiring yes men results in all of management's bad ideas getting printed.

Not that it really matters. The end product speaks for itself, there is incompetence somewhere at GW even if we can't agree on exactly who is responsible for a particular piece of poor quality work. If GW's writers genuinely think they're doing good work or if they know it sucks but won't stand up to management the end result is still the same.

Dudeface wrote:

 vict0988 wrote:

Dudeface wrote:
Ok, so whilst you're both on here dumpstering their teams for being incompetent yes men, can you categorically prove they didn't raise concerns or objections?

You're right, it's been the knife-ear podcasters that forced GW to create bad rules all these years despite everyone at GW doing their best to thwart them.

You're right, there's a forum full of stiff spined expert game designers who take no gak from anyone and who wouldn't let their work get published even though it was rushed and under funded, you all know better.

Am sorry. But when you hire explicitly for attitude then you have an issue regardless of buisness.
Further, it's also questionable how aware management actually is torwards what they produce. That the designers can run rampant without concern from balance and only now GW hires someone atleast to check in on the comp scene and specifically for matched play is a dead giveaway, that there is a lack of oversight.

Dudeface wrote:
You're right, there's a forum full of stiff spined expert game designers who take no gak from anyone and who wouldn't let their work get published even though it was rushed and under funded, you all know better.

A bunch of enthusiastic amateurs find all the mistakes in GW's stuff within a day if it being released. We don't need to be stiff-spined expert game designers (even if some of us have been).

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:
Where are you getting "heckling" from any of that?

The barn, where all the straw is kept.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

Dudeface wrote:
You're right, there's a forum full of stiff spined expert game designers who take no gak from anyone and who wouldn't let their work get published even though it was rushed and under funded, you all know better.

A bunch of enthusiastic amateurs find all the mistakes in GW's stuff within a day if it being released. We don't need to be stiff-spined expert game designers (even if some of us have been).

I don't dispute that, but it's also not fair to critique the character of people they know nothing of just because they don't like the rules.

Regards the proving someone other than the game designers made the decision, it's entirely normal (from my experience in a few different industries) for the sales/marketing team to speak to stakeholders, decide they want a product that does ABC and want it by reasonable-time/2, that'll go to a high level planning with a management team who are largely out of touch with the reality of the work, maybe grumble a bit but then pressure their staff into doing what the top managers want in order to look like they're in control. This high level statement/design will get an initial keypoint draft from someone senior on the team that tries to match the confines of the ABC but ends up being CDE at this point, likely stating it's not the best, they can try something but it'll take longer, or list risks regards the time scale. This then gets approved by said higher ups who don't care about the finer issues and assume the staff with "dig deep to pull through", the line staff then get given a dumbass idea with impossible deadlines they have to try and figure out and work around, which yes they no doubt grumble about, but at the end of the day they'll have a deadline to meet and there's a requirement set at the start of the process they'll meet to a minimum level.

To translate that across some bigwig who doesn't design games or be that involved with the customer base goes "I see a lot of numbers an options that people complain about, make those go away and I want the next version to be simpler so it's easier for kids to get involved". By the time you hit the designers/developers they have half the time they need to do a good job balancing to a goal they're not happy with. They can't do half the game to a good quality, they instead need to do all of the game to the same quality, which is likely not high due to time/staff constraints.

In those sorts of work environments, the best employee in the world can't suddenly make the end product not what the bigwigs want.

This also should put the "can't they release all the codex at once" conversations, because it would be this, but worse. The first year would be getting those books to an "ok" state while fending off the changes from introducing new stuff for armies as the edition continues.

Dudeface, don't forget to consider turnover.

Folks are promoted/sidemoted or leave for new opportunities, contracts expire/are not renewed etc. Wouldn't surprise me if half the staff involved at the start of a project are away by the end. There's also a thousand other daily responsibilities and activies in any office/corporate field that need to be managed.

And as you rightly point out - shipping/manufacturing/printing schedules will also be a constraint on any actions.

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:

If you don't like the "yes man" bit then take it up with MongooseMatt, who claimed that he knows the GW writers and they're smart people who had to have been forced by management to write all the bad rules GW publishes.

My friend, I fear that is a point being made in bad faith, as at no point did I mention management. That was someone else who brought them into this conversation. I do not know the current crop of design staff, the last of the gentlemen I knew left a year or so ago. I had the opportunity to talk with some of what might now be called the Old Crew on a fair few occasions, had the privilege of playing some games (including a White Dwarf battle report at one point!), and did some (very) small amount of work with them. I may have some small amount of insight which I felt might be useful here, and I have tried to be careful to highlight when I have been speculating and drawing conclusions.

If you are really interested in where GW is coming from with new editions/core markets/that 90-10 rule, I can point you to a recent YouTube video made by some ex-staffers. It is an hour-odd long, but it is quite fascinating and comes from a period in the company after my conversations with designers.

I would also very much want to point out that, at no time, have I said that you or anyone pushing forward the 'granular points' side of things is wrong. Of course you aren't. Granular points are a perfectly valid way of doing things. As is the current 10th edition method for list building. Both can result in a perfectly fun game with little soldiers doing cool things on the tabletop. They are just different ways of doing things with slightly different goals.

One thing that might be worth considering - you might have started moving outside of GW's 'trumpet', as they put it. What you are looking for in a game might be no longer what GW are considering their core market today, at least as far as 40k is concerned (something 'older school', like current Heresy, might be closer?).

However, I would also suggest that simply presuming that stupidity is the cause of something you do not like is quite... lazy, and it does not gel with my own experiences.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Deadnight wrote:
Wouldn't surprise me if half the staff involved at the start of a project are away by the end.

It is my understanding that the design lead is fairly static in terms of turnover - my information on this is at least a year old, but given GW's lead times on projects, I would assume it still applies to 10th edition.

Deadnight wrote:
Dudeface, don't forget to consider turnover.

Folks are promoted/sidemoted or leave for new opportunities, contracts expire/are not renewed etc. Wouldn't surprise me if half the staff involved at the start of a project are away by the end. There's also a thousand other daily responsibilities and activies in any office/corporate field that need to be managed.

And as you rightly point out - shipping/manufacturing/printing schedules will also be a constraint on any actions.

Precisely so, there's a great many business driven decisions that risk the quality of a product other than just "staff R dumbzzz" which is what we tend to see banded about on dakka.

MongooseMatt wrote:


If you are really interested in where GW is coming from with new editions/core markets/that 90-10 rule, I can point you to a recent YouTube video made by some ex-staffers. It is an hour-odd long, but it is quite fascinating and comes from a period in the company after my conversations with designers.
.

I'd genuinely be interested in this as well Matt, thank you.

Back home I knew a few guys who got their names in the 'special thanks' sections of the 40k rulebooks and a few others who knew the designers at pp well enough to be occasional drinking buddies and met jervis once at a convention - nice guy. I do quite enjoy these insights into game design.

Deadnight wrote:


I'd genuinely be interested in this as well Matt, thank you.

It is actually 2 hours long (!), but they go through the process GW used to select and develop their hobby items and the criteria used to choose what products to go ahead with. You'll hear about the 90/10 rule and their 'trumpet', which may be relevant to the discussion here and why GW take the approaches they do.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-63A7cDkOm8

Grab a coffee and settle in

Deadnight wrote:

met jervis once at a convention - nice guy.

Jervis is officially known as the Nicest Man in Gaming

Deadnight wrote:

MongooseMatt wrote:


If you are really interested in where GW is coming from with new editions/core markets/that 90-10 rule, I can point you to a recent YouTube video made by some ex-staffers. It is an hour-odd long, but it is quite fascinating and comes from a period in the company after my conversations with designers.
.

I'd genuinely be interested in this as well Matt, thank you.

Back home I knew a few guys who got their names in the 'special thanks' sections of the 40k rulebooks and a few others who knew the designers at pp well enough to be occasional drinking buddies and met jervis once at a convention - nice guy. I do quite enjoy these insights into game design.

The Painting Phase with Peachy? Those were quite eye opening. They also pretty much prove the incompetence at GW.
It was also rather interesting that GWs main customers are 50+ year old women. Keep that in mind, guys. The reason the rules aren't perfect is because moms and wives don't care about buying rules. End of discussion.

Other fun facts:
'Eavy Metal has been using Vallejo purples the entire time. They actually say the painting studio is mostly lies lol.
The studio painting space is basically a walk in closet.
It took 5 years for Contrast Paints to get developed.
GW almost closed it's doors in 2014 or 2016... They actually locked up and couldn't pay employees. Contrast Paints saved the company.

Dudeface wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

Dudeface wrote:
You're right, there's a forum full of stiff spined expert game designers who take no gak from anyone and who wouldn't let their work get published even though it was rushed and under funded, you all know better.

A bunch of enthusiastic amateurs find all the mistakes in GW's stuff within a day if it being released. We don't need to be stiff-spined expert game designers (even if some of us have been).

I don't dispute that, but it's also not fair to critique the character of people they know nothing of just because they don't like the rules.

Regards the proving someone other than the game designers made the decision, it's entirely normal (from my experience in a few different industries) for the sales/marketing team to speak to stakeholders, decide they want a product that does ABC and want it by reasonable-time/2, that'll go to a high level planning with a management team who are largely out of touch with the reality of the work, maybe grumble a bit but then pressure their staff into doing what the top managers want in order to look like they're in control. This high level statement/design will get an initial keypoint draft from someone senior on the team that tries to match the confines of the ABC but ends up being CDE at this point, likely stating it's not the best, they can try something but it'll take longer, or list risks regards the time scale. This then gets approved by said higher ups who don't care about the finer issues and assume the staff with "dig deep to pull through", the line staff then get given a dumbass idea with impossible deadlines they have to try and figure out and work around, which yes they no doubt grumble about, but at the end of the day they'll have a deadline to meet and there's a requirement set at the start of the process they'll meet to a minimum level.

To translate that across some bigwig who doesn't design games or be that involved with the customer base goes "I see a lot of numbers an options that people complain about, make those go away and I want the next version to be simpler so it's easier for kids to get involved". By the time you hit the designers/developers they have half the time they need to do a good job balancing to a goal they're not happy with. They can't do half the game to a good quality, they instead need to do all of the game to the same quality, which is likely not high due to time/staff constraints.

In those sorts of work environments, the best employee in the world can't suddenly make the end product not what the bigwigs want.

This also should put the "can't they release all the codex at once" conversations, because it would be this, but worse. The first year would be getting those books to an "ok" state while fending off the changes from introducing new stuff for armies as the edition continues.

"We didn't expect players would use Stratagem A that buffs flamers in the new Salamanders supplement with Stratagem B that buffs flamers in the new Salamanders supplement at the same time."

Being a good designer means putting yourself into the head of different kinds of gamers and ensuring your target demographic has a good time. If you are designing a PVP zone for a multiplayer roleplaying game then it doesn't matter that you as a designer personally prefer PVE content, you have to design PVP content that is fun for people that enjoy PVP content. As a GW designer don't like balanced pickup games and tournament games you have to be able to put yourself in their shoes and ask what are people going to do when I make sponsons free or when I put two flamer Stratagems in a new supplement, well they'll take those sponsons or be mad they can't and they'll try to combo those Stratagems to get more from the combo than the sum of the parts.

I don't care whether you think it's wrong to call people inept, I don't see a reason why I shouldn't, you can say that it's against your personal moral code to ever call someone inept but let's just agree to disagree if that's the case. If you can present me with evidence that GW designers are not inept, bring it forward because I have heaps to prove that they are. I've read and listened to their interviews, read the designers commentary, etc, etc. Calling people inept hopefully wakes them up to the fact that they need to learn. Watch a video on Youtube on how to make a good burger, read about how to do mathhammer, become a better 40k player so you can analyze problems before you write rules.

Take from the most recent interview "we worked hard to make sure gambits weren't coinflips". How in the Eye of Terror did one of them turn out like "roll 2D6 and add X if you roll 12+ you get Y VP"?

MongooseMatt wrote:
I would also very much want to point out that, at no time, have I said that you or anyone pushing forward the 'granular points' side of things is wrong. Of course you aren't. Granular points are a perfectly valid way of doing things. As is the current 10th edition method for list building. Both can result in a perfectly fun game with little soldiers doing cool things on the tabletop. They are just different ways of doing things with slightly different goals.

You are disagreeing with points being objectively superior to PL. By saying they're equal but different, you are saying we are wrong. The question isn't whether 40k can be fun with PL, you can have fun skipping rocks, that doesn't make rocks into playing cards usable in MTG.

 vict0988 wrote:

You are disagreeing with points being objectively superior to PL. By saying they're equal but different, you are saying we are wrong.

I am sorry, my friend, I am not saying you are wrong with wanting granular points. What I would question here is your use of the word 'objectively' because if a game system is working well for one group of gamers but not for another, it cannot be objective.

I do understand where you are coming from because I have been a proponent of granular points in the past and have happily used them. But our gaming journeys are all different and we are obviously at different places - this is not a surprise as damn near every group, of any game, plays it differently. That is just one of those things in creative games, that are capable of covering such a massively broad base.

I am not even really trying to convince you of anything, you should approach these games in the way that gives you the most satisfaction. I just want to put a counterpoint forward and maybe get people thinking about different approaches.

Problems arise when people start throwing around words like 'objectively' or phrases like 'end of discussion', because there are just too many people involved in different aspects of the hobby for any one answer to have a decent chance of being the right one.

At the end of the day... can we all not just get along without a presumption of being utterly correct or calling people stupid? Let's apply some sportsmanship to the conversation, as if we had just met across the tabletop.

the difference why it is working for one group but not for another might be the units used

because not all units are treated equal in the indices hence why we call the designers lazy or incompetent as they have given up on doing their job after ~1/3 of the units

so if your group only uses those were the necessary effort was put in to make PL, there is no problem

PS: and to put it simple, if the game is impacted by a 5 point difference for a Landspeeder if that one carries a Missile Launcher or Assault Cannon and therefore needed 2 Datasheets with different point costs

saying there is no impact to the game on weapons that are >5 points but given to units for free instead of making a new unit with its own points makes no sense

so either the designers did not thought it thru or they stopped after they realised how much work it is of done well

so we are back that they might wanted to do 90/10 but ended with 10/90 and those people playing the 10% that work are happy and don't understand what the problem of the other 90% is

MongooseMatt wrote:

 vict0988 wrote:

You are disagreeing with points being objectively superior to PL. By saying they're equal but different, you are saying we are wrong.

I am sorry, my friend, I am not saying you are wrong with wanting granular points. What I would question here is your use of the word 'objectively' because if a game system is working well for one group of gamers but not for another, it cannot be objective.

I do understand where you are coming from because I have been a proponent of granular points in the past and have happily used them. But our gaming journeys are all different and we are obviously at different places - this is not a surprise as damn near every group, of any game, plays it differently. That is just one of those things in creative games, that are capable of covering such a massively broad base.

I am not even really trying to convince you of anything, you should approach these games in the way that gives you the most satisfaction. I just want to put a counterpoint forward and maybe get people thinking about different approaches.

Problems arise when people start throwing around words like 'objectively' or phrases like 'end of discussion', because there are just too many people involved in different aspects of the hobby for any one answer to have a decent chance of being the right one.

At the end of the day... can we all not just get along without a presumption of being utterly correct or calling people stupid? Let's apply some sportsmanship to the conversation, as if we had just met across the tabletop.

but the work/doesn't work argument only exists, because some armies don't have any upgrades are are super agressivly costed . Yeah a necron or eldar player doesn't have any problems with the point costs there are now or how upgrades work. It is not the same if someone plays an army that does have them. On top of that GW is super inconsistent in how they treat various armies. They are saying they have to streamline stuff, but they only do it for some armies. When they designed my army, they removed all offensive options from it. It has bad melee and even worse shoting. At the same time other armies kept they powerfists, various melee weapons etc For some reasons stats of same level models from other armies are lower, and the rules that are "per phase" somehow ended up being "per battle" for my army. And I would maybe understand it if this ment my army was cheaper. More elite units, better stats, higher costs and vice versa. But this ain't the case, my dudes are point costed like custodes and custodes kill more then max size of models I can have in a unit. This is an objective thing. Same points or higher point cost, weaker rules. Purgators, weaker rules then sm desolators. much weaker weapon and they can only have 4 of them in a squad, when desolators each carry one, somehow my dudes cost more. And this is before adding any buffs, characters joing the unit , which my army doesn't have, oath of the moment etc. Just a unit per unit comperation. Someone clearly made a mistake here, because right now playing the army is as fun as it was in 8th ed.