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Yet we always hear "they should release all codex on day 1". Well, imagine this but worse.
Just because GW is incompetent doesn't mean frontloading all the codexes isnt a better format for the consumers.
I think the issue is that GW simply doesn't have enough writers to do all at once.
Also the best format would be full digital release, no paper.
Nah, three years is plenty of time. Remember this is these guys full time job. Presumably they're working 9-5, five days a week for 48 weeks of the year (I think 4 paid weeks off a year still standard for a UK job, might be different these days).
The question is how much info do they have on edition cycles and when they learn they have ANOTHER full reboot. Ideally all the codexes would be written and tested at the same time but we know thats not true and that new books are only tested against the strongest most recent books. It wouldn't surprise me at all if the decision to reboot 40k again was decided like 6 months ago.
Most skilled professionals (however much anyone mat grumble at the term here) would expect 25 days + Bank Holidays for 32 days.
We also don't know how many testers/designers they have, nor what else they do. They likely also have to work on a combo of 40k, 30k, AoS, KT, warcry and 4+ specialist games at any given time to some degree.
GW will 100% be woefully ill-equipped for those testing demands, it's likely not worth hiring too many more because they'd basically work themselves out of a job once the backlog was cleared and they're not in a position to break the work patterns without an influx of time/people.
Not sure about the other systems, but I'm fairly sure that 30k has its own dedicated team, just based on the different design philosophies and approaches to the game. I can't imagine that the same people behind late 40k's dedication to "what's in the box" design also being behind the 30k approach that actually encourages conversions and customization.
If GW reigned in the actual changing of the rules to a polish every 3 years with minor adjustments to the core rules then they'd at least create an environment where they can steadily polish things and where greater resource investment would likely pay off.
This is what I'd hoped would happen in 8th and why I defended it. I figured there was no way they'd set themselves up with the ideal system to tweak and fine tune the rules on an individual unit basis and then not use it. Then they GW gunna GW and I just packed it in. They're never going to change and hoping for them to be actually competent at game design is a fools errand.
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2023/08/11 01:16:40
Stu Black clearly understands he's not allowed to say it's gak, but he says a tonne of intelligent things in the podcast, if you're a fan of 10th edition and you want a blue pill I suggest listening to it.
Overread wrote: If GW reigned in the actual changing of the rules to a polish every 3 years with minor adjustments to the core rules then they'd at least create an environment where they can steadily polish things and where greater resource investment would likely pay off.
That is exactly what GW did, minor adjustments to core rules. 10th is not like 8th where everything was changed, 9th was also broken and also just had minor changes. I just skimmed an article on the top 10 changes for 10th edition, only 3 of them were core rules changes. 40k could have been balanced at launch if it wasn't GW doing it or if they just take a 6 month break from 10th in 12 months and learn how to actually do balance instead of relying on the ole' dartboard. The fact that every faction was updated at once should make things easier, not harder because we know GW are completely gak at running releases of balanced codexes, the running balance in 9th was all over the place. It's not editions being 3 years that is the problem, it's GW that is the problem. It takes them 4 tries to balance something usually, which isn't insane or anything when you're starting from dartboard points, the whole problem is that they are. I would have done the pts foundation myself over the summer for 10th if I liked the rules. GW could have hired an Indian on Fiverr to do the math for them, they don't need someone with statistics PhD. That no one with an interest in mathhammer has fallen into the team on accident through the years is baffling given how many in the community like to talk about efficiency of this or that or combos and stuff like that, instead its all feelings and dartboards from the team.
I'm not saying I want to boil down 40k to make it more competitive, I don't like Grimdark Future, I like wacky and fluffy rules, but wacky does not have to mean terribly balanced.
That no one with an interest in mathhammer has fallen into the team on accident through the years is baffling given how many in the community like to talk about efficiency of this or that or combos and stuff like that, instead its all feelings and dartboards from the team.
Is it really that baffling though?
You said it yourself, the mathhammer types love to talk.
So I'm betting they're pretty easy to weed out during the interview process.
Is it really that baffling though?
You said it yourself, the mathhammer types love to talk.
So I'm betting they're pretty easy to weed out during the interview process.
Sounds par for the course for a design team phobic of accountability.
Is it really that baffling though?
You said it yourself, the mathhammer types love to talk.
So I'm betting they're pretty easy to weed out during the interview process.
Sounds par for the course for a design team phobic of accountability.
vict0988 wrote: The fact that every faction was updated at once should make things easier, not harder
but only if the people doing it talk to each other
the Indices have the very same problem as the Codices had, people not talking to each other or skimming over each others work before it is released
they did not even agreed on which order the units are listed in the documents before they wrote them, no way that there was talk about balance except for very basic design goals of the higher ups like "less lethal, more fun"
Harry, bring this ring to Narnia or the Sith will take the Enterprise
Yet we always hear "they should release all codex on day 1". Well, imagine this but worse.
Not quite sure how it gets worse(since it's cesspool bad currently) but fair nuff
Nah, it's a bad faith argument from Dudeface.
Yes it's bad faith that they managed a complete mess with 1/7th of the possible detachments etc out on release day. Having them release the whole game on day 1 in the exact same timeframe etc would certainly go better.
The only perk is you wouldn't have the rolling power curve as books drop, instead just 2 years of them slowly having to tweak all factions simultaneously.
Yes it's bad faith that they managed a complete mess with 1/7th of the possible detachments etc out on release day. Having them release the whole game on day 1 in the exact same timeframe etc would certainly go better.
The only perk is you wouldn't have the rolling power curve as books drop, instead just 2 years of them slowly having to tweak all factions simultaneously.
They "managed" a complete mess not for lack of capability, but for lack of willingness. They're a 5+ billion dollar company. They can afford to pay a few people 6 figures to do serious game design. But they won't.
The big problem is 10th launched without any proofreading, never mind balancing. The initial Index releases had typos, missing/extra wargear choices and in some cases entire abilities that made no sense. It's pretty clear it was rushed out of the door before it was ready because this is bad even for GW.
I'd like to see a deeper dive in these Metawatch articles but I'm not convinced GW is actually doing that so it seems unlikely. Even just things like noting the overall win rate and the win rate without the mirror matches included would be a good start. That's especially true if you have a few factions absolutely dominating the top of the meta as we have now since we'll be seeing a lot of Eldar vs Eldar or GSC vs GSC matches and by definition they reduce the winrate in those matchups to 50%. I also think the start of an edition is a pretty good time to make a bunch of emergency fixes to try to at least get some extra data on what works and what doesn't. I suspect we'll see the new points system cause them major problems as they try to adjust balance using points changes going forward, and we see a load of unintended consequences from nerfs and buffs as we've already seen with things like melee Wraithknights.
Yes it's bad faith that they managed a complete mess with 1/7th of the possible detachments etc out on release day. Having them release the whole game on day 1 in the exact same timeframe etc would certainly go better.
The only perk is you wouldn't have the rolling power curve as books drop, instead just 2 years of them slowly having to tweak all factions simultaneously.
They "managed" a complete mess not for lack of capability, but for lack of willingness. They're a 5+ billion dollar company. They can afford to pay a few people 6 figures to do serious game design. But they won't.
The salary or competence of the staff is not the only factor at play, nor will hiring more help necessarily. The Indexes were previously written very quickly without due time, releasing them as full codex rules with ~6-7 times the number of detachments, relics and Enhancements wouldn't have stood any better chance.
The business driven decisions and timescales are more of a problem than the salary. Also they won't hire a 6 figure salary in GBP because that'd be ridiculous by any metric.
What I think you mean to say is "hire more staff, pay better, give them more time and allow more community input" which simply isn't on the agenda right now.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2023/08/11 07:45:27
the only way to fix 40k is by making it no longer 40k, the concepts that worked ok for half a dozen units with one or two characters and maybe one of those units as a vehicle of some sort (stuff like IGOYGO) fall over with larger forces, ditto the 28mm scale doesn't work very well as forces grow
its fixable, but since it still sells why would they bother?
Dudeface wrote: Yes it's bad faith that they managed a complete mess with 1/7th of the possible detachments etc out on release day. Having them release the whole game on day 1 in the exact same timeframe etc would certainly go better.
Or, instead of this farce of a three year edition cycle, you take the time to do it right. The indices are a mess because they're an obvious rush job that you aren't supposed to use once you get your real rules, not because releasing a well designed and balanced complete game at the start of an edition is an unreasonable task.
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Dudeface wrote: Also they won't hire a 6 figure salary in GBP because that'd be ridiculous by any metric.
Why would that be ridiculous? A six figure salary is what a software developer with 2-3 years of experience is making working on F2P loot box shovelware, surely GW can afford to at least match that for the right people. If it's ridiculous it's only because we know GW doesn't value competence and would rather lowball their employees and rely on them being so desperate to participate in their hobby that they'll accept the offer.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2023/08/11 08:03:39
Dudeface wrote: Yes it's bad faith that they managed a complete mess with 1/7th of the possible detachments etc out on release day. Having them release the whole game on day 1 in the exact same timeframe etc would certainly go better.
Or, instead of this farce of a three year edition cycle, you take the time to do it right. The indices are a mess because they're an obvious rush job that you aren't supposed to use once you get your real rules, not because releasing a well designed and balanced complete game at the start of an edition is an unreasonable task.
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Dudeface wrote: Also they won't hire a 6 figure salary in GBP because that'd be ridiculous by any metric.
Why would that be ridiculous? A six figure salary is what a software developer with 2-3 years of experience is making working on F2P loot box shovelware, surely GW can afford to at least match that for the right people. If it's ridiculous it's only because we know GW doesn't value competence and would rather lowball their employees and rely on them being so desperate to participate in their hobby that they'll accept the offer.
A software developer in the UK with 2 years of experience is on 35-40k. The average salary for an experienced game designer of the board nature is apparently 45-60k. 100k+ in the UK is a director/ceo level salary.
Again, not relevant, but stop applying US standards to UK job markets. Yes they could upheave their entire development cycle and I think we'd all be for giving them more time, but they're not in a position to do so currently. They'd have to let 10th pan out for 5+ years to get the lead time for 11th.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2023/08/11 08:20:54
Dudeface wrote: A software developer in the UK with 2 years of experience is on 35-40k. The average salary for an experienced game designer of the board nature is apparently 45-60k. 100k+ in the UK is a director/ceo level salary.
Cool. Then pay $150k and get your choice of any game developer in the entire country. Poach whoever you want from any UK company and there's no way they're turning down the offer. Do that 3-5 times and you have the single best design team in the entire UK, and you've still spent a trivial amount of money compared to GW's total revenue. And if you stop assuming you can only recruit from a single country and pay market rates for your biggest market you can have your pick of game designers out of the entire world. GW has the money to easily afford to hire the best possible talent, they choose not to because they have an idiotic belief that attitude matters more than skill and choose to hire cheap yes men instead.
(And seriously? $100k is CEO level? Who would ever want to be CEO of a UK company when 100 times that in the US is a low-end salary for the job)
Yes they could upheave their entire development cycle and I think we'd all be for giving them more time, but they're not in a position to do so currently. They'd have to let 10th pan out for 5+ years to get the lead time for 11th.
Sure, now that they've completely botched the handling of 10th they have problems for the future. That doesn't mean doing 10th correctly was an impossible task.
Dudeface wrote: A software developer in the UK with 2 years of experience is on 35-40k. The average salary for an experienced game designer of the board nature is apparently 45-60k. 100k+ in the UK is a director/ceo level salary.
Cool. Then pay $150k and get your choice of any game developer in the entire country. Poach whoever you want from any UK company and there's no way they're turning down the offer. Do that 3-5 times and you have the single best design team in the entire UK, and you've still spent a trivial amount of money compared to GW's total revenue. And if you stop assuming you can only recruit from a single country and pay market rates for your biggest market you can have your pick of game designers out of the entire world. GW has the money to easily afford to hire the best possible talent, they choose not to because they have an idiotic belief that attitude matters more than skill and choose to hire cheap yes men instead.
(And seriously? $100k is CEO level? Who would ever want to be CEO of a UK company when 100 times that in the US is a low-end salary for the job)
Yes they could upheave their entire development cycle and I think we'd all be for giving them more time, but they're not in a position to do so currently. They'd have to let 10th pan out for 5+ years to get the lead time for 11th.
Sure, now that they've completely botched the handling of 10th they have problems for the future. That doesn't mean doing 10th correctly was an impossible task.
I'm sure that GW knows how to run their business better than you think you know how to run their business.
But you know what? You should email them your ideas on these subjects.
leopard wrote: the only way to fix 40k is by making it no longer 40k, the concepts that worked ok for half a dozen units with one or two characters and maybe one of those units as a vehicle of some sort (stuff like IGOYGO) fall over with larger forces, ditto the 28mm scale doesn't work very well as forces grow
its fixable, but since it still sells why would they bother?
Lots of truth to this. I'm sort of hoping that one of their smaller scale games (probably Combat Patrol) will eventually mutate into basically a more streamlined version of an older edition. That is, I'm hoping we get a tighter ruleset designed around fielding fewer units at once where they focus in on making the gameplay interesting without needing a ton of strats and special rules and such. I like what I've heard about the current Combat Patrol, but the lack of flexibility in army creation is keeping me away for now.
ATTENTION. Psychic tests are unfluffy. Your longing for AV is understandable but misguided. Your chapter doesn't need a separate codex. Doctrines should go away. Being a "troop" means nothing. This has been a cranky service announcement. You may now resume your regularly scheduled arguing.
ccs wrote: I'm sure that GW knows how to run their business better than you think you know how to run their business.
That table of win rates at the start of this thread says they don't. Do you have anything to add here besides asserting that GW must know what they're doing because GW is doing it?
leopard wrote: the only way to fix 40k is by making it no longer 40k, the concepts that worked ok for half a dozen units with one or two characters and maybe one of those units as a vehicle of some sort (stuff like IGOYGO) fall over with larger forces, ditto the 28mm scale doesn't work very well as forces grow
its fixable, but since it still sells why would they bother?
Lots of truth to this. I'm sort of hoping that one of their smaller scale games (probably Combat Patrol) will eventually mutate into basically a more streamlined version of an older edition. That is, I'm hoping we get a tighter ruleset designed around fielding fewer units at once where they focus in on making the gameplay interesting without needing a ton of strats and special rules and such. I like what I've heard about the current Combat Patrol, but the lack of flexibility in army creation is keeping me away for now.
a good step would be to take combat patrol size and have models act and move either individually or in small groups, but with a bonus to working together, at present you have too few units, but the basic idea is actually sound
Anybody else felt it was a weird phrasing from the accompanying mail?
"The heavy weights of Warhammer 40.000", "Play with the winner" and "Pick your army based on their competitive performance". Showing some armies having a below 40% win rate. Right above an article called "Crazily balanced games".
Reminds me of the phrase "What is satire allowed to do?", really.
Dudeface wrote: Interesting question to lobby, say they got every unit in the game fairly balanced and in a stable spot. Then what?
The exact same as what GW is doing now minus the codex books. Just release new models or remake old ones. Some faction dice and expansions.
Designer's Note: Hardened Veterans can be represented by any Imperial Guard models, but we've really included them to allow players to practise their skills at making a really unique and individual unit. Because of this we won't be making models to represent many of the options allowed to a Veteran squad - it's up to you to convert the models. (Imperial Guard, 3rd Edition)
It does not matter how many people are there or much they get paid, as long as they are not allowed to talk to each other or other design teams until rules are released you will get a bad product
Harry, bring this ring to Narnia or the Sith will take the Enterprise
if GW ever end up in a place, by pure luck, where essentially every faction is pretty well balanced, with a set of scenarios that are workable for pretty much all factions there will only be one possible solution
Dudeface wrote: A software developer in the UK with 2 years of experience is on 35-40k. The average salary for an experienced game designer of the board nature is apparently 45-60k. 100k+ in the UK is a director/ceo level salary.
Cool. Then pay $150k and get your choice of any game developer in the entire country. Poach whoever you want from any UK company and there's no way they're turning down the offer. Do that 3-5 times and you have the single best design team in the entire UK, and you've still spent a trivial amount of money compared to GW's total revenue. And if you stop assuming you can only recruit from a single country and pay market rates for your biggest market you can have your pick of game designers out of the entire world. GW has the money to easily afford to hire the best possible talent, they choose not to because they have an idiotic belief that attitude matters more than skill and choose to hire cheap yes men instead.
But why? That makes no business sense in the first place. In the UK, if you wanted to outbid the competition you'd be able to do it for around £50-60k, so you're already going in too high. The main problem is what your expected ROI is here. You're talking about doubling (or more) the salaries of your designers, along with the one-off costs of getting rid of the current team. Does better balance lead to a significant enough increase in profit to justify the extra spend? Does the extra spend actually guarantee you get people in capable of balancing a tabletop wargame? There are similarities between video game design and TTG design, but there are also massive differences that mean the skills are not necessarily the same between the two groups.
Paying lots more money to a bunch of people is not the answer to getting better balance, IMO. What's needed is a corporate shift to make balance a priority. You can have the best experts working for you, paid top salaries, but if the company doesn't value the job they do it doesn't matter.
(And seriously? $100k is CEO level? Who would ever want to be CEO of a UK company when 100 times that in the US is a low-end salary for the job)
It depends on the company. Obviously massive multinationals based in the UK will pay internationally competitive salaries easily in the 7 or 8-figure range plus bonuses. But most companies are smallish organisations. The UK average CEO salary is apparently around £200k according to Glassdoor. Bear in mind that includes everything from corporate giants to mid-size companies with fairly small turnovers.
I don't think people actually want balance as much as they simply want change.
Tell that to my wife. She started playing 40k with me right at the end of 9th and liked Votann so I bought her a 1,000 point list. She just got her hekaton finished last night and then we watched this video. Her immediate reaction was "Of course I play Votann and now they're the worst army in the game". She's not competitive at all. She will never play in a 40k tournament in her entire life. Even for casual games, seeing that your army has a 30 something % win rate is disheartening. This is why balance is important for garagehammer players probably even more than competitive players. I travel to tournaments and have played since 1999. If my army is that bad, I will switch to a different one or build a new one for a big tournament. My wife is not going to abandon her freshly painted first army to build eldar for kitchen table hammer.
Necromunda is hilariously broken. We play a campaign about every 6 months and have every gang represented. Van Saar with plasma, Corpse Grinders, and Goliaths abusing gene smithing just run away with it every single time. You have to house rule the absolute hell out of that game or come to a gentlemen's agreement about not taking half of the good stuff for your gang to make it remotely balanced. It's also crazy how the campaign scales. Someone did a really good writeup with all the math on how broken Necromunda campaigns are even compared to other GW games. The gangs that win their first few games get all the credits, XP, upgraded weapons and armor, while the losers get no credits and sometimes lose XP from guys dying post game. Every campaign I've ever been in fizzles out before the end because a few people are so far ahead that nobody else can touch them.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2023/08/11 11:13:29
A combination of letting people having their pet projects, too few people and wanting to run a game like you did when you had 100k buyers, when you have a few milions. Will end up with the results we get everytime. Because there is only one thing that can make GW work fast and in depth on their game, and that it is only when it gets in the way of profit, And I don't even think that is a bad thing. I just wish GW was more open about it. Or made clear distinction this are the studios own armies, this will get fun cool rules and are safe to play, those are armie we have to update because there is community of buyers for it, they can be fun or can not. And then there is a group of stuff we do out of obligation, don't expect anything good for them aside for accidents making it so.
Peachy had an interesting interview with a guy that said that unless something creates a 100k money swing for GW, they will not even look at the project. And looking at a project doesn't mean that GW will do something, and even less that it will be a good thing. With cutting costs and the way they do things, comparing to how people play their games, the end effect just has to end bad.
All the hire stuff, change core rules etc Won't matter if the higher ups will ignore testing or if who ever is the eldar super fan at the studio doesn't get reigned in with his rules writing for the faction. They could higher 20 dudes pay each 200k per year, and the end result would not be much different.
If you have to kill, then kill in the best manner. If you slaughter, then slaughter in the best manner. Let one of you sharpen his knife so his animal feels no pain.
Really surprised SM are that low. Maybe it's tournament players not playing them, but OOM is really strong for taking out big centerpieces in my experience.
Guard are in a rough place. The army feels like it should work, but a lot of its really good buffs are contingent on staying still, which is not the name of the game in most scenarios.
The thing about 40k is that no one person can grasp the fullness of it.
ccs wrote: I'm sure that GW knows how to run their business better than you think you know how to run their business.
That table of win rates at the start of this thread says they don't. Do you have anything to add here besides asserting that GW must know what they're doing because GW is doing it?
winrates don't matter for the company tho, its all about profit. So even if the balance is terrible, if 40l keeps selling more than the last quarter, from the company's point of view, its working properly
