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Dudeface wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:

Dudeface wrote:

The_Real_Chris wrote:
Possibly back tot he topic. The confused launch, suspicion about stat lines and similar has kept me out of 10th. Liked 8th after ages, skipped 9th due to the chaos at the time and then the masses of changes, but now I have a legacy of suspicion about all that errata and changes combined with suspicion about stat lines and other quibbles. Hard to bother again and not play Necro, Blood Bowl or something else.

Would you say that you'd prefer a more static game with fewer changes then? That the balance passes, mission packs and rules updates in 9th/10th are the big detractors?

Howabout more sensible updates, rather than knee-jerk whiplash inducing updates. Smart decisions rather than dumb ones. That'd be nice.

Care to elaborate with an example or two? The only one I can think of for 10th is the towering issue resulting in some odd points changes.

GW over the last 6 years have simultaneously been to fast and too slow, gone too far and not far enough, all in the same updates. Always interesting to see which individual chunks bother people most.

8th Edition lasting three years.
9th lasting three years too.

Dudeface wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:

Dudeface wrote:

The_Real_Chris wrote:
Possibly back tot he topic. The confused launch, suspicion about stat lines and similar has kept me out of 10th. Liked 8th after ages, skipped 9th due to the chaos at the time and then the masses of changes, but now I have a legacy of suspicion about all that errata and changes combined with suspicion about stat lines and other quibbles. Hard to bother again and not play Necro, Blood Bowl or something else.

Would you say that you'd prefer a more static game with fewer changes then? That the balance passes, mission packs and rules updates in 9th/10th are the big detractors?

Howabout more sensible updates, rather than knee-jerk whiplash inducing updates. Smart decisions rather than dumb ones. That'd be nice.

Care to elaborate with an example or two? The only one I can think of for 10th is the towering issue resulting in some odd points changes.

GW over the last 6 years have simultaneously been to fast and too slow, gone too far and not far enough, all in the same updates. Always interesting to see which individual chunks bother people most.

10th is young. I'm sure there will be plenty of problems. But right off the bat, finally giving nice rules to Scout Snipers and Assault Squads, and then removing them from the codex. And no longer paying points for upgrades is just a bad move, causing all sorts of other knock-on issues. The current Wraithknight status where one build is much more competetive than the other, but it only having a single point value is a nice example of that. Also, why are my Tyranid Warrior squads only limited to six models? Dumb, unnecessary stuff. Combi-weapons.

9th? Ok, removing points for wargear costs on a lot of units in late 9th too. Such as Sternguard Squads, where they were an absolute bargain when equipped with all Combi-Weapons. Back when they were real combi weapons.
Armor of Contempt appearing as a rule for SM armies, and then disappearing half a year(?) later. The Tyranid Codex having a bunch of really cool options in it when it releases, only to get nerfed within weeks (?). Leagues of Votaan with a similar experience with it's power level. The Guard Infantry rule where they fish for mortals using Lasfire.

8th? SM Codex 2.0.+ supplements. Rule of 3 being introduced as a hack-fix. There's plenty there if you go fishing.

 JNAProductions wrote:
8th Edition lasting three years.
9th lasting three years too.

Yeah, that.

I started in 2nd edition, which lasted 5 years. 3rd lasted 6, and 4th was a pretty incremental tune-up of third, lasting another 4. A big tweak for 3rd ed was Terminators getting a 5++ save. Of course 3rd was a big shakeup early on, but was overall pretty stable once it got going even though a number of new armies were introduced.

Dudeface wrote:
Care to elaborate with an example or two?

Insectum covered a bunch already, but hey, here's some more:

1. Ork and AdMech armies dominating (as in Turn 1 wipeouts) in tournaments because of their aircraft. GW's solution? Limit all aircraft across the game to 2 per army. Knee jerk blanket solution to a specific problem.
2. Indirect Fire weapons proving to be quite dangerous in 10th. GW's solution? Just up the cost on everything with Indirect fire, even if that means that units that don't have the Indirect Fire rule suffer as a result (yes, I'm talking about this).

Im not really into it. The simplification is a turn off for me. I don’t mind the rules being a little faster, but I miss psychic powers and the psychic phase (I want my librarian to have choice). I want vanvet weapons back. I want variety in my combi weapons. I want more choice as to what type of character can lead a unit.
I don’t like the significant loss of the older models, even though we knew it was coming, most of the replacement models are dog crap.
So put all this together and I’m almost at the point of sitting 10th out and focusing more on other game systems.

Insectum7 wrote:10th is young. I'm sure there will be plenty of problems. But right off the bat, finally giving nice rules to Scout Snipers and Assault Squads, and then removing them from the codex. And no longer paying points for upgrades is just a bad move, causing all sorts of other knock-on issues. The current Wraithknight status where one build is much more competetive than the other, but it only having a single point value is a nice example of that. Also, why are my Tyranid Warrior squads only limited to six models? Dumb, unnecessary stuff. Combi-weapons.

The vast majority of those fall into what I think you brand as "dumb" which is subjective. I'm with you on wraithknight and the paying for upgrades (largely because they left some choices as straight upgrades for some reason).

Squad sizes, combi weapons and the marine range being trimmed back is going to be subjective.

9th? Ok, removing points for wargear costs on a lot of units in late 9th too. Such as Sternguard Squads, where they were an absolute bargain when equipped with all Combi-Weapons. Back when they were real combi weapons.
Armor of Contempt appearing as a rule for SM armies, and then disappearing half a year(?) later. The Tyranid Codex having a bunch of really cool options in it when it releases, only to get nerfed within weeks (?). Leagues of Votaan with a similar experience with it's power level. The Guard Infantry rule where they fish for mortals using Lasfire.

8th? SM Codex 2.0.+ supplements. Rule of 3 being introduced as a hack-fix. There's plenty there if you go fishing.

Rule of 3 was a needed knee jerk and is now 5 years old, it was introduced and kept. There's a mixed bag in that nids and votann were poorly balanced at time of writing, so getting nerfed in weeks should be praised in that instance, rather than letting it stew.

Some of the other stuff is subjective and the marines supplement structure makes sense on one hand but not on others. I see what they wanted to address but caused more problems.

JNAProductions wrote:
8th Edition lasting three years.
9th lasting three years too.

Understood, but by the 3 year mark, on both occasions people were ready for/asking for a change. More with 9th than 8th admittedly.

H.B.M.C. wrote:
1. Ork and AdMech armies dominating (as in Turn 1 wipeouts) in tournaments because of their aircraft. GW's solution? Limit all aircraft across the game to 2 per army. Knee jerk blanket solution to a specific problem.
2. Indirect Fire weapons proving to be quite dangerous in 10th. GW's solution? Just up the cost on everything with Indirect fire, even if that means that units that don't have the Indirect Fire rule suffer as a result (yes, I'm talking about this)

Full agree on the blanket points changes, it's the same thing as with the towering points hikes. The flyers thing again, it wasn't well or evenly applied, it's a recurring issue for flyers though and I think they are a problem in that they maybe shouldn't exist to be honest, but that's subjective.

Thanks for the comments, I was looking for examples relevant to 10th ideally but I didn't spell that out too well, so that's on me. But a chunk of things listed are thing people wanted at some point, so it's hard to really say if they're a bad knee jerk or not.

You can dismiss a lot of complaints as subjective if you like, but a whole bunch of those complaints are shared by many others. Being subjective doesn't also make something immune to being dumb either.

Example: the rule of three being kept-knee-jerk-rraction doesn't make it not incredibly dumb.

But the greater point is that it's been a roller coaster, often quite unnesessarily.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Dudeface wrote:

JNAProductions wrote:
8th Edition lasting three years.
9th lasting three years too.

Understood, but by the 3 year mark, on both occasions people were ready for/asking for a change. More with 9th than 8th admittedly.

Yeah. . . Reason being the roller coaster of lousy design. The hope is always that GW will clean it up and make it better, but instead they just shift the lousy parts around a bit and ask for more money.

Needing to massively nerf books within weeks of release isn't a positive...

 Insectum7 wrote:
You can dismiss a lot of complaints as subjective if you like, but a whole bunch of those complaints are shared by many others. Being subjective doesn't also make something immune to being dumb either.

Example: the rule of three being kept-knee-jerk-rraction doesn't make it not incredibly dumb.

But the greater point is that it's been a roller coaster, often quite unnesessarily.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Dudeface wrote:

JNAProductions wrote:
8th Edition lasting three years.
9th lasting three years too.

Understood, but by the 3 year mark, on both occasions people were ready for/asking for a change. More with 9th than 8th admittedly.

Yeah. . . Reason being the roller coaster of lousy design. The hope is always that GW will clean it up and make it better, but instead they just shift the lousy parts around a bit and ask for more money.

Being subjective simply means it's based on personal feeling, I'm not saying it's not shared by many, I'm saying it doesn't make it objectively bad or dumb.

I don't consider the rule of 3 dumb, beyond singularly perfect balance between units, there is never a disincentive for spamming a particular unit if it holds even a marginal advantage.

There is an element of the GW roller coaster, I'd argue it felt less bad in older editions because there was the understanding that things took a long time to be resolved. If you got a dodgy book or an iffy rule, you knew that's what it was going to be like for the next 4-12 years depending on context and you learned to live with it.

With the pseudo-online-game balance cycles we have now, there's a bigger expectation on larger changes with a faster turn around. So dumb or otherwise you're seeing the changes they used to make every half a decade to decade and a half, every 3-18 months now.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Lord Damocles wrote:
Needing to massively nerf books within weeks of release isn't a positive...

Yeah hopefully it's a thing of the past, but I doubt it given their publishing process. The new design paradigm, if adhered to, should help mitigate it.

Dudeface wrote:

Being subjective simply means it's based on personal feeling, I'm not saying it's not shared by many, I'm saying it doesn't make it objectively bad or dumb.

A lot of it is just dumb. I'd argue that within the framing, possibly objectively so. But I'm not going to bother with that convo now.

I don't consider the rule of 3 dumb, beyond singularly perfect balance between units, there is never a disincentive for spamming a particular unit if it holds even a marginal advantage.

Rule of 3 is isn't dumb because it addresses a problem. It's dumb because it does it in the most ham-fisted way possible. In a "You can't take more than three Scout squads because people were spamming Hive Tyrants that we undercosted." kind of way. Also in a "I can take an army of nearly all Land Raiders, but not more than 3 squads of Tyranid Warriors with ranged weapons" kind of way.

There is an element of the GW roller coaster, I'd argue it felt less bad in older editions because there was the understanding that things took a long time to be resolved. If you got a dodgy book or an iffy rule, you knew that's what it was going to be like for the next 4-12 years depending on context and you learned to live with it.

Now we're back to the originating point. It's not that updates are bad. It's the way they are handled.

With the pseudo-online-game balance cycles we have now, there's a bigger expectation on larger changes with a faster turn around. So dumb or otherwise you're seeing the changes they used to make every half a decade to decade and a half, every 3-18 months now.

But is there really an overwhelming demand by players for "larger changes with faster turnaround"? Is this just a "kids these days" statement? I question the assumption being made here. I think what's happening is more a marketing-cycle drive than some sort of grass roots desire for monthly balance chaos.

 Lord Damocles wrote:
Needing to massively nerf books within weeks of release isn't a positive...

Yeah hopefully it's a thing of the past, but I doubt it given their publishing process. The new design paradigm, if adhered to, should help mitigate it.

How much faith should I have that they'll adhere to a design paradigm? I don't give it much.

Yeah. Marines can, ignoring special ones like the Excelsior and FW variants, can take 9 Land Raiders.

But perish the thought of taking a fourth unit of Genestealers. Such overwhelming power!!! *clutches pearls*

Rule of 3 is another one of those blanket solutions. It exists because of Tyranid players taking 5 Winged Tyrants from the Supreme Command detachment at the start of 8th. Winged Tyrants have been paying for it ever since, and the Rule of Three was a (typically GW) unthinking reaction that lacked any nuance or understanding of the basic problem itself.

This is why I regard their "metawatch" articles as pure comedy. They are the gameplay equivalent of phonetical singing: They can say the words, but I don't think they really understand what they mean.

 Insectum7 wrote:

With the pseudo-online-game balance cycles we have now, there's a bigger expectation on larger changes with a faster turn around. So dumb or otherwise you're seeing the changes they used to make every half a decade to decade and a half, every 3-18 months now.

But is there really an overwhelming demand by players for "larger changes with faster turnaround"? Is this just a "kids these days" statement? I question the assumption being made here. I think what's happening is more a marketing-cycle drive than some sort of grass roots desire for monthly balance chaos.

There was a slew of posts, topics, videos, threads about how "10th was already dead and would be the end of 40k" because of Eldar prior to that balance dataslate. So yeah, it's certainly a recurring message in the wider community, including the "famous" players refusing to attend events for 40k until Eldar were nerfed, starting from about 6 weeks into the edition.

Every balance dataslate there were cries of "It better be [insert faction]'s turn to get buffs due to X% winrate" followed by complaints they might need to wait 3-6 months for another turn. This is why we got Armour of Contempt in the first place, due to people wanting radical changes to prop up marine win rates.

I'm also tired of people celebrating point cuts whilst I'm on that rant as well, I don't think being asked to field more gak and subsequently buy more gak is a good thing generally. It definitely erodes some of the elite-ness of some armies and leads to stuff like the issue with sisters as seen in the other thread. Much rather have solutions that make them worth their value rather than a race to the bottom.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Yeah. Marines can, ignoring special ones like the Excelsior and FW variants, can take 9 Land Raiders.

But perish the thought of taking a fourth unit of Genestealers. Such overwhelming power!!! *clutches pearls*

Rule of 3 is another one of those blanket solutions. It exists because of Tyranid players taking 5 Winged Tyrants from the Supreme Command detachment at the start of 8th. Winged Tyrants have been paying for it ever since, and the Rule of Three was a (typically GW) unthinking reaction that lacked any nuance or understanding of the basic problem itself.

This is why I regard their "metawatch" articles as pure comedy. They are the gameplay equivalent of phonetical singing: They can say the words, but I don't think they really understand what they mean.

its the same thinking that lead to the "no special characters" bans that thankfully are now a thing of the past, a few caused trouble so out they all go

I mean, I thought no special characters or, rather, "with your opponents permission" was a great thing for the game...

I think the community doesn't expect quick-turm balance patches.

I think the community expects balance out of the gate.

No one goes into an MMO or RTS and says "if they don't patch every 3 months it's dead". Games stabilize over their lifetime, and many players prefer the polished, finished product over rounds of patches.

The problem with GW is that the game's churn IS THE POINT. Rather than being necessary to prevent BSODs or CTDs or ensuring compatibility with the latest NVIDIA drivers, the churn is just churn like meat in a grist mill.

Thank you for your elaborate answer. We'll see what the Codizes bring. Sounds cynical, but my Orks and DG lost many options in prior editions already, I don't think the Codizes can hurt them anymore (DG still has some Chars left that don't have specific DG models, they could be chopped I guess, since we lost Possessed in this round).

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
No one goes into an MMO or RTS and says "if they don't patch every 3 months it's dead". Games stabilize over their lifetime, and many players prefer the polished, finished product over rounds of patches.

Uh... there's a few cases where perhaps this isn't the case - but overwhelming yes, if an MMO or RTS isn't receiving regular content updates, then it will tend to be considered dead or at least dying.

The issue with 40k - which I think applies just as much to MMOs and RTS games and anything really - is that there's a massive divide between people who are playing every week and people who get in one game every 6 months. GW taking 3 months to fix a balance problem feels like an age to the first group, while the second scarcely notice.

But even a relatively balanced game can grow stale, if the equivalent of the 55% faction is *always* the 55% faction, and vice versa with the 45% faction. Players tend to adapt as a consequence.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
I think the community doesn't expect quick-turm balance patches.

I think the community expects balance out of the gate.

No one goes into an MMO or RTS and says "if they don't patch every 3 months it's dead". Games stabilize over their lifetime, and many players prefer the polished, finished product over rounds of patches.

The problem with GW is that the game's churn IS THE POINT. Rather than being necessary to prevent BSODs or CTDs or ensuring compatibility with the latest NVIDIA drivers, the churn is just churn like meat in a grist mill.

You have not met the aoe 3 de community, or even the aoe community in general?

Yes, psychic attacks doing mortal wounds only was lame. But I liked the system. Make your test, enemy tries to deny, handle effect. Nice and simple and not just another shooting attack or unit ability. For me it would have sufficed to turn all these mortals into usual attacks without a hit roll.

Ah. See, I didn't like having to do a psychic test because no one in the lore ever randomly fails to activate their powers except maybe especially untrained humans. Like, librarians never raise their hands to shoot lightning and then accidentally fart instead.

Similarly, I feel like the ability for enemies to deny the witch has been overemphasized for a while now. Very specific factions like Sisters or Space Wolves having anti-psychic wargear options made a certain amount of sense back in the day. Letting anything with Adamantium Will have a slim chance to deny in 6th was an okay little nod to the idea. But then from 7th onward, every psyker out there was busy just straight up making psychic effects not happen. To the point that in recent editions, tau and necron players were annoyed that they couldn't join in on regularly shutting down psychic effects like it's just an expected thing that you should semi-reliably be able to make the librarian fart instead of shoot lightning.

The current version reigns in the potency of powers a bit but also makes them more reliable. To each their own, but I prefer that, personally.

Also, sorceror's changing their spells depending on which armor they wear is... strange.

Totally agree with you there. Seems like it would be really simple to just list a few powers psykers can choose from. Preserve some of the customization that recent editions have been removing.

That said, I do see where tighter control over the powers a psyker has can be useful. For instance, my warlock on foot can Quicken (extra Move) his unit, but a warlock on bike can't. So this means that you don't get something like the double-moving shining spear/jetbike shenanigans that we saw in 8th and 9th.

I like the way HH handles Psi stuff, low level thats automatic, and a higher level you take a test for with the risk of failure

So like 10th handles it. Most powers are automatic, but some require you to not roll a 1 on a d6 to succeed.

 alextroy wrote:
So like 10th handles it. Most powers are automatic, but some require you to not roll a 1 on a d6 to succeed.

well except HH has the stat line of the wizard matter, and has three outcomes (1. it works, 2. it doesn't work & 3. you hurt yourself) in place of it working or it hurts. and its a 2d6 roll not a 1d6 so a bit more predictable.

plus you can generally get a half decent result with the lower power version, which isn't always "I do mortal wounds", and take the risk when it matters

so similar but not quite the same

oh and you have a range of powers to pick from, not just whatever is written on a stat card, so tends to be a lot more flexible with powers that are more than just a fancy way of resolving a shooting attack

10th doesn't really have "psychic powers" though.

Most psykers have a shooting attack with the "Psychic" tag, a tag that is only a bad thing (it has no value beyond making some targets less vulnerable to it).

Other psychic powers are abilities that stop working the moment the psyker doesn't have any more friends.

Is a mechanic that's 2+ to succeed, or BS 3+ so different from 2D6 6+ that it makes them no longer considered psychic powers?

In other words, what is the definition of a psychic power mechanic that is considered missing?

The only thing I can see that's relatively unique is the perils aspect. This is represented by the hazardous rule.

Having it's own phase is completely arbitrary, in universe they happen alongside everything else happening. There's not distinct about them that requires they happen all at the same time.


from 3rd onward psychic powers were either innate (warlock autopowers), or a psychic test but they happened in specific phases.

Then they created a power type list, when you break them down, they're shooting attacks, melee attacks, buffs or debuffs.

IMO there's no reason that psychic shooting or melee shouldn't happen in the shooting or melee phases.

Or that you need a special separate dice roll to generate it.


Hazardous reflects perils. If you need them to explode or something and affect the unit they're in, you could put a dot point in the hazardous rule:

Hazardous
- psychic - if a model is destroyed by a failed hazardous roll caused by a psychic tagged effect, the unit they are with also suffers 1D3 mortal wounds.

 Hellebore wrote:


In other words, what is the definition of a psychic power mechanic that is considered missing?

The biggest mechanic that's missing is that now all identical datacards must have identical psychic powers.

Previously, taking two Terminator Librarians in an army allowed you to extend the portfolio of psychic abilities available to your army, now it does not. That alone makes the current system VASTLY inferior.

The second mechanic that's missing is power diversity. As HBMC mentioned, most buff powers now only apply to a unit the psyker leads; once they die, the psyker isn't really a psyker anymore... Or at least that power becomes useless. In 9th, these buffs could be auras, or they could be a single, targeted friendly unit. Having both possibilities provided additional diversity and depth, but either one would be better than what we have now, by virtue of being useful for the entire lifespan of the psyker, rather than the lifespan of their bodyguards. Debuffs also get a hit in 10th- there still are some, but not like there were.

The third mechanic that's missing is deny the witch. This is the bread and butter of SoB, SoS and Ordo Hereticus narrative gaming.

Perils of the warp, as you mentioned is another issue...I mean, once you'e taken all the flavour out of a smite attack by simply making it another gun, you might as well take more flavour out of psychic warfare by making perils nothing more than overheated plasma.

Those are four mechanical reasons why 10th edition psychic rules are a great big greasy steaming pile of kroot poop.

But that's not even the worst of it. Psychic phenomena is one of the narrative underpinnings of the game; it is a manifestation of the warp- it sustains daemons, it is a vector for chaos and it permits space travel; arguably the greatest achievement of the Emperor himself is the maintenance of the astronomicon, and the thousands of "innocent" psychic rounded up in the Blackships and sacrificed daily to it's sustenance is one of the grimmest, darkest elements of the game known for being grimdark.

Now psychic powers are a bodyguard buff or another gun. Big fething deal.

Thanks Jake.

I think that covers everything.

Not trying to play contrarian, I'm just personally not interested in bespoke rules for the sake of it.

The point of USRs is to provide a standardised framework within which all concepts are represented.

Devestating wounds for example is a generic rule that covers a wide range of phenomena. The warp vortex effect of a distort weapon is conceptually very different to the massive volley of fire from an assault cannon, but the rules abstract that into the same ability.

For the four points raised I agree in principle to a few.

The first 2 though - identical powers and no freedom to choose I think are deliberate design choices to 1 disincentivise spamming and 2 balance all the different instances of a psyker by giving them distinct niches.

If you can fill every psychic niche with one model, there's no reason to take the other versions. This is definitely an abstraction but I see the thinking behind it.

I do think that Buff psychic powers should be usable outside a unit and some psykers can do that (farseers for example) so it's clear they're fine with the concept, they just seem to have a clear vision for psykers in each army that is distinct.




As for perils and deny, those two are definitely important to the concept of psychic powers. Although from a game balance perspective, adding a negative on top of the chance to miss with an attack is pretty harsh. So then you're left with a decision, is the fact you get a psychic attack enough of a bonus to offset perils, or do you need to over pump the psychic attack to make it worthwhile. This was one of the reasons psychic powers were mortal wounds - powerful attacks offset by powerful downside.


But as said before, within the framework of the USRs perils can be represented by hazardous and they've clearly decided the ability needed to be buffed to make the risk worth it, hence the split profile.

With Deny, that one I think is affected by the buff concept not being an aura as much so the need for a deny aura is gone, making it more unit vs unit denial.

Within the current USR framework you've got 2 options to represent deny - an invulnerable save or FNP against psychic attacks.

You can also extend that to a psychic ability active on a unit that interacts with one of yours. Ie, Phobos librarian shrouding. With sobs you could have in act of faith have a rule that says they ignore an ability active on an enemy unit on a 4+ or whatever.

So a unit wants to target them and rolls a 4+, ignoring shrouding.

 Hellebore wrote:
Not trying to play contrarian, I'm just personally not interested in bespoke rules for the sake of it.

10th is riddled with them. GW's song and dance about the apparent "return" of USRs was utter hokum.

 Hellebore wrote:
The point of USRs is to provide a standardised framework within which all concepts are represented.

And maybe one day GW will actually start doing that. Or, rather, the 40k team will, 'cause the HH team seems to have it down pat.

But Psykers are a problem in 10th with the way powers are set. There's zero choice involved whatsoever. It's most apparent with Eldar, where what power your Farseer has is determined by whether he's sitting on a Jetbike or not. That's as much of a problem as powers that cease working when there's no one standing near him.

I mean, if, for example, the Librarians 4+ Invul save power:

A). Always worked on himself even when he was by himself.
B). Could be cast on any unit within 6", but would only be a 5+ Invul save (ie. either 4+ on him & unit, of 5+ on someone else) then there'd be some choice there.

Tyel wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
No one goes into an MMO or RTS and says "if they don't patch every 3 months it's dead". Games stabilize over their lifetime, and many players prefer the polished, finished product over rounds of patches.

Uh... there's a few cases where perhaps this isn't the case - but overwhelming yes, if an MMO or RTS isn't receiving regular content updates, then it will tend to be considered dead or at least dying.

The issue with 40k - which I think applies just as much to MMOs and RTS games and anything really - is that there's a massive divide between people who are playing every week and people who get in one game every 6 months. GW taking 3 months to fix a balance problem feels like an age to the first group, while the second scarcely notice.

But even a relatively balanced game can grow stale, if the equivalent of the 55% faction is *always* the 55% faction, and vice versa with the 45% faction. Players tend to adapt as a consequence.

Not Online!!! wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
I think the community doesn't expect quick-turm balance patches.

I think the community expects balance out of the gate.

No one goes into an MMO or RTS and says "if they don't patch every 3 months it's dead". Games stabilize over their lifetime, and many players prefer the polished, finished product over rounds of patches.

The problem with GW is that the game's churn IS THE POINT. Rather than being necessary to prevent BSODs or CTDs or ensuring compatibility with the latest NVIDIA drivers, the churn is just churn like meat in a grist mill.

You have not met the aoe 3 de community, or even the aoe community in general?

I suppose I differentiate between "patches" and "expansions".

Patches to fix core game bugs is what I meant (or constantly reworking core mechanical functions).

Expansions to add new content is different.

If every 3 months, the necromancer class in an MMO went from the low mobility ranged healer to the mobile dps summoner to the area control tank, I think that the players who chose Necromancer for the flavor and play style might die of whiplash.

And if after 3 years it decided to be an FPS instead and all magic classes found themselves using guns with "THIS IS MAGIC" spray painted on the side, I doubt it would go over well.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

If every 3 months, the necromancer class in an MMO went from the low mobility ranged healer to the mobile dps summoner to the area control tank, I think that the players who chose Necromancer for the flavor and play style might die of whiplash.

And if after 3 years it decided to be an FPS instead and all magic classes found themselves using guns with "THIS IS MAGIC" spray painted on the side, I doubt it would go over well.

Those are redesigns equivalent to releasing a new codex. If you want a modern example, look at the diablp 4 release process and all the bad press it gets from the community who stopped playing. No expansions, just balance patches being scrambled due to unpopular updates

one of the main complains with D4 start on was the full reset each season
and that it is a boring grind once you are done because there is nothing to do

comparing to 40k, you get the reset once you finished building your army gameplay gets boring because there is nothing exciting to do (because playing the same lists with the same people will lead to the same outcome)

so you get similar complains that there is story content/gameplay missing and it is mainly a "start from scratch" with each reset.
some people like that because it means they get something to do while other don't

like for 40k, people appreciate new units/items, new story campaigns, new scenarios and don't like resets, changes to the core mechanics, no new content outside the very same thing slightly changed and that is very similar to the problems with D4