10th edition wishlisting/"How do we fix this mess?" thread

[Scribe]

Just now, Special Officer Doofy said:

Too easy. Do that other thing and launch something into orbit.

I mean...I'll take the budget for that as well if you like, then I'll (not) see you somewhere tropical. :D

[BLACK BLΠFLY]

I’m going to take a hard pass as I need every spare penny for paints and brushes. 

[Petitioner's City]

It's an excellent video

I'm not sure I fully fully agree, but its nice to have a prominent voice about this. 

Edited September 30, 2022 by Petitioner's City

[DesuVult]

18 minutes ago, EnsignJoker said:

Ash from GMG has a great video today about GW needing to stop apologizing. I completely agree with his take.
 

For me, the current cycle is unsustainable. A new army releasing, places like Goonhammer pushing the echo chambers onward of what’s broken and what’s not, and printed, expensive books being changed and altered days or weeks after release, only for the next army to come and the whole thing starts again. I’d argue the erratas and FAQs are harming my enjoyment of this expensive hobby way more than a busted weapon or mechanic ever has. Now people are being rewarded for griping and moaning long and loud enough of things they don’t like or their army doesn’t get. Drukhari, Custodes, Ad Mech, etc should be restored to their full, playtested power, and the only things that get fixed/errata’d are things that are truly broken in terms of misprints or mechanical oversights. 
 

This stuff is expensive, and it’s being treated like it’s trivial oopsies. 

I feel that instead of blaming the community for complaining about broken mechanics it maybe it is GW's fault for publishing broken mechanics.

[Scribe]

33 minutes ago, EnsignJoker said:

Ash from GMG has a great video today about GW needing to stop apologizing. I completely agree with his take.
 

For me, the current cycle is unsustainable. A new army releasing, places like Goonhammer pushing the echo chambers onward of what’s broken and what’s not, and printed, expensive books being changed and altered days or weeks after release, only for the next army to come and the whole thing starts again. I’d argue the erratas and FAQs are harming my enjoyment of this expensive hobby way more than a busted weapon or mechanic ever has. Now people are being rewarded for griping and moaning long and loud enough of things they don’t like or their army doesn’t get. Drukhari, Custodes, Ad Mech, etc should be restored to their full, playtested power, and the only things that get fixed/errata’d are things that are truly broken in terms of misprints or mechanical oversights. 
 

This stuff is expensive, and it’s being treated like it’s trivial oopsies. 

Its absolutely too expensive to just errata/faq and move on. In that regard I agree. I dont think GW should get a pass for their terrible rules however.

[HanShotFirst]

Personally, I know this is a long shot, but I wish 40k had a more Star Wars legion take. Maybe do that but increase the army sizes to feel more 40k. My wish is alternating activations.

as for models, I’m a Black Templar player so primaris terminators would be cool.

[Halandaar]

Although I don't agree with absolutely everything in it, i think it's a pretty good take from Ash.

I certainly don't miss the "here's the product, deal with it" approach he mentions, that used to leave armies stuck with a very strong or very weak Codex for multiple years (or even multiple editions), but I do feel that the pendulum has swung too far in the other direction over the last few years. Between new Codexes, mission packs, FAQs, erratas, balance dataslates and so on, updates to the game (even to the core systems) happen so regularly now that it feels almost like it's different every time I play it.

Perfectly illustrating the "too many changes too often" problem is the fact that we've already seen Codexes arrive this edition and be nerfed after community complaints, only to be un-nerfed when the books they were designed to play against release later on down the line. The competitive scene clearly isn't prepared to put up with things being out of whack for any length of time, but have also somehow hijacked the entire discourse around 40k to the point were GW no longer has the inclination to say "just wait". 

I've said it before, but the game of 40k was never historically about being a tightly balanced wargame; the entire tournament/competitive scene (and specifically the ITC way of doing things) is effectively a community mod of the base game - it's fine that it's popular, but the issue is that it has somehow come to take over in the GW studio as the default way to play the game and the entire product now feels like it's being designed to accommodate that. 

[BLACK BLΠFLY]

Here is the Glacial Geek weighing in on the topic:

 

[Valkyrion]

Just because you enjoy or agree with a video it doesn't make it good, or right, or correct. 

[Noserenda]

I think GMG raises some good points, but i think as a self confessed competitive fanatic during some of those times he might not appreciate how tedious and oppressive some of those eras were, either for specific factions or anyone dealing with the problem children of that time, and i was fairly competitive myself at points then, (though still a bit obsessed with weird stuff :D )  but if nothing else it just gets so boring fighting the same Iron Warriors or Eldar week after week.

Id also point out Warmahordes' downfall was down to a whole bunch of things, though the pandering to the competitive crowd definitely contributed, never had anywhere near as many arguments about 1/4 inches and such, sometimes even with folks who were fine playing a different game! 

So yeah, remember you have other player types, but a broadly balanced game is great for everyone who plays, and it really isnt the thing driving off more casual players over some of their style choices.

[Khornestar]

3 hours ago, Valkyrion said:

Just because you enjoy or agree with a video it doesn't make it good, or right, or correct. 

True, but are you addressing anything in particular? Some commentary or opinion you could add to explain the relevance? Seems like the people discussing the video did so while acknowledging they didn’t fully agree with it.

[BLACK BLΠFLY]

Geedub did what they had to albeit sooner than later. Personally I agree with Phil’s assessment and this is one faction that does not interest me.

[Malakithe]

To be honest there is no 'fix' for GW's terrible business practices unless the entirety of the community pulls a Germany and just starts banning :cuss: left and right. The community needs to be angry and upset about whats happening. I dont buy any books anymore cuz I feel like im wasting my money. Models are one thing but physically written documents are a whole other thing.  The only times an organization/company makes meaningful changes is when the people who are affected by them get angry and find ways to protest.

GW needs to go digital and they need to actually beta test their stuff. If not then the cycle will continue for the foreseeable future.

[Lexington]

I think a lot of that video’s specific points are kinda boneheaded - the practices he pines for are the same thing that sent GW into a deeply harmful spiral a few years back - but I can get behind the idea that GW needs to pull back from the competitive scene. Not in the way that GMG is suggesting here, necessarily, but the urge to make 40K into something gamey and overly complex is driving far too much of its rules design these days. There’s definitely a tournament mentality in how much of the game revolves around secondary objectives and secondary systems like CP, Grudges, etc. It’s supposed to give it a deep, multidimensional feel, but it’s really just made the game into an incomprehensible mess.

Keep the regular updates and rebalances, sure, but also make sure you have a game that doesn’t regularly require them to stay playable.

Edited October 1, 2022 by Lexington

[phandaal]

 

13 hours ago, Noserenda said:

Id also point out Warmahordes' downfall was down to a whole bunch of things, though the pandering to the competitive crowd definitely contributed, never had anywhere near as many arguments about 1/4 inches and such, sometimes even with folks who were fine playing a different game!

Warmahordes came down to Privateer Press' aggressive mismanagement and disdain for their customers, and a drop in the quality of their miniatures. Hell, they even blamed their customers for their own bad rules at one point by saying the community did not give them the right feedback during open play testing.

GW seems to be aiming for a combination of things their employees simply cannot achieve. Good community perception that 40k is a balanced game, new books packed full of cool rules, customers feeling like models are worth investing in, and a seasonal release model.

This latest mess with Squats tells me someone higher up finally took notice. Hence why we got a South Park "we're sorry" skit and a half baked rule/points change fired off less than a week after Squats officially released. That certainly is not something the minions would choose to do on their own.

By this point 10th edition has to be well into development, but maybe something from this latest blow-up will carry over into the edition's life cycle.

[BLACK BLΠFLY]

The points hike is consistent with Drukhari, Tau, Tyranids, Custodes, Harlequins, etc. 2000 point tuned lists going up to 2500 points. Probably had those numbers ready just had to use them earlier than expected.

[Emperor Ming]

And some factions like nids and harlequins got away lightly with the points hikes

[Evil Eye]

5 hours ago, Lexington said:

I think a lot of that video’s specific points are kinda boneheaded - the practices he pines for are the sand thing that sent GW into a deeply harmful spiral a few years back - but I can get behind the idea that GW needs to pull back from the competitive scene. Not in the way that GMG is suggesting here, necessarily, but the urge to make 40K into something gamey and overly complex is driving far too much of its rules design these days. There’s definitely a tournament mentality in how much of the game revolves around secondary objectives and secondary systems like CP, Grudges, etc. It’s supposed to give the game a deep, multidimensional feel, but it’s really just made the game into an incomprehensible mess.

Keep the regular updates and rebalances, sure, but also make sure you have a game that doesn’t regularly require them to stay playable.

Whilst I'd still prefer that the "living system" nonsense was dropped altogether and the game returned to a traditional analogue format, and that if the game is healed to a degree it doesn't require them to be playable then it doesn't need them at all, I 100% agree that the push to turn it into a miniatures-based tabletop eSport (tSport?) is the root of a lot of the game's woes. Not all, but a lot, and I'd argue that pushing away from that particular direction would help undo the damage. Unfortunately I'm not sure what will persuade them to commit to that short of a catastrophic disintegration of the competitive playerbase (and thus their market).

Warmahordes was as mentioned not helped by PP's atrocious mismanagement, though I feel there was a bit of "Live by the powergamer, die by the powergamer" going on there. They absolutely marketed that to the tourney/comp crowd hard (IIRC their attitude to conversions was considerably worse than even GW is now!), and the "play like you got a pair" nonsense seemed like a direct opposition to The Most Important Rule to me at least. And if you're going to market your game to aggressively picky and fickle types such as meta-chasers, you need to make sure you do it perfectly because one false move and...well, look what happened.

[Toldavf]

I mean here's the thing, you don't have to play competitive but even outside of that particular scene armies should be balanced and if play tested properly they would be. So for the casual pick up game scene where you take a list where not every option is the most efficient but you still have a battle plan, a theme and some synergy with your choices everyone should have some fun in your game and there are certain dexes you would not have gotten that against. The game should have back and forth and each game should provide an enjoyable tactical challenge. If one side is tabled turn 2 then there is something deeply wrong

 

Should workshop reconsider it's playtest practices? Certainly, it would be much easier to balance anything new if it is play tested against things army's that already exist rather than testing in a pool and finding out later that the pool while balanced within its self is massively over/undertuned. That to me seems like common sense and I'm surprised it wasn't the method used in the first place. 

Balance is obviously not an immensely easy thing to achieve but they would be far less wide of the mark and would suffer less community backlash if they play tested a wider array of existing army's.  

[Inquisitor_Lensoven]

I really hope AP-2 or better becomes much more rare, and any weapon that is 4+ damage gets a reduction in damage.

I think so many more units in many armies would become much more viable (maybe not great but viable) if they did that.

AoC could be done away with along with special rules like ramshackle etc.

[BLACK BLΠFLY]

There’s a long story how 40K progressed to where it is today. A long time ago geedub ran the GTs and a lot of emphasis was put on appearance and sportsmanship. For me that was a golden age. Over time someone who shall not be named said these were hobby events, not truly competitive. A schism was created. Geedub stopped running events and it fell into the hands of groups like the ITC. There was a shift away from appearance and sportsmanship to your overall win loss record. Next the ITC developed their own FAQ to govern their events. 7th edition was in the shambles with destroyer weapons and formations amongst other things - ITC emerged as a ruling body for competitive events. Eighth edition was break point for Geedub to reconcile differences and was extremely popular bringing many players back into the fold, however the ITC still had a big say regarding the rules and their missions were used. Ninth then came along and geedub picked back up the reigns again - it was the end of third parties governing the rules for competitive play for the most part. So here we are now. I am glad geedub finally stepped up to the plate again… this seems seems the most legit to me.

Supposedly all of the play testers for ninth edition were let go. Leaks are rampant and some content creators are professionals. There must be a balance and the final say should reside with geedub, not third parties. Moving forward they would be best served providing the rules digitally. It will be interesting to see where things go.

[Bouargh]

"How do we fix this mess?" Are we allowed to do some provocatives answers or comments ?

Fist of all, starting with the easy part, does it needs to be fixed? I mean that I feel like most of the complaints are raising from the competitive scene or gamers using thie results of the meta (how much do I hate this concept) as the ultimate guideline for their hobby. What is the percentil of the gamer population affected by the tournaments, I mean, really affected? Shall the game be amended to satisfy a gaming base that represntes, well, mainly itself? I used to be fine with all rule sets until they were re-edited.

Second, considering that from all the arguments given, the everchange of the rule, yearly adjustments, special issue armylists, supplements... is indeed an issue, would fixing be fixing anyting? Just have a look: we are thinking of 10th ed, not off the "ultimate" edition. Rule design, its evolution and obsolecence  in the 40k galaxy, IS the normal way. We will not fix anything as it is done by design in order to collapse and justify some rule reboots. I even suspect that the now free point update are so, not because of a supporting policy to the customer base, but because it might otherwise be considered as programmed obsolence (which migh be penaly opposed to our favourite game manufacturer (apply favourite to game of manufacturer or both, feel) in many countries).

I will let it there for the so-called provocations of mine .

If I refocus on the question, what I would like would be a game being the fruit a designed process. It should be based (in my most exquisite dreams) on a game mechanic relying on statistical approach, letting the dice challenge/deny these statistics. The base line would be established from perfiles. Looks familiar - damn close to 7th ed nope? In order to work it means a couple of (key) adjustments:

1. stop the special rules galores - not every entry in army list needs to be that special. Just as an example, Havocs are CSM devastator, why should they have extra rules such as claws to be firmly set on ground? 
2. army wide rules shall be based on (strategic) archetypes - for me the best example of what I would like are armies with specialized fighting style (shooty, HtH berserk, ambush, mass infantery, fast attack...).
3. get rid of items that are free (these were more or less solved now that relics are treated), or unrelated to any point value (stratagems) or too faction specifics (secondaries...). I do not necesary wish stratagems to disapear but, 90% of them should be common to all armies. 
4. it needs a level of granulosity (dice system and resolution tables) that the current edition is not allowing. The previous ones neither (probably)

Let´s be fair, this will not happen. If sometimes the game looks like being designed by 10 y.-o. kids it is because this is part of the market segment: I remember when I started, barely older than that, we all wanted some thing special for our army: a top mini with top cool rules, spending times to design über-characters or wishing for it to come true.

Is it possible?

Yes it is, because it once used to be, but after a stabilization of the game (3rd Ed I would say) this started again in a progresive yet infernal spiral with pimp-my-ride speeders for DA, frost weapons for SW, a special vehicle and/or unit for any Main SM Chapter... And it keeps going on like that. I guess this is because the mechanism underneath is that rules are meant to support the sales of new minis (GW stated it clearly some years ago, in a glorious yet full of controversy statment that they are a miniature design company and not a game design company). Now that they are  a miniature PLUS an editing company, guess what?, it will stay as it is now.

And I don´t care, I am addicted.

So what could we dream of now?: let rules (full rules) be free (But without  background and fluff). It will not solve anything but will make the flaws easier to accept. We will so still have to move tons of paper or copies (even electronics ones) but at least it will be less problematic than paying 50 € for a book invalidated a couple on weeks after because in some German/British/North American tournies (select) the army behaved too well or too bad.

Am I off topic?

[phandaal]

22 minutes ago, Bouargh said:

Fist of all, starting with the easy part, does it needs to be fixed? I mean that I feel like most of the complaints are raising from the competitive scene or gamers using thie results of the meta (how much do I hate this concept) as the ultimate guideline for their hobby. What is the percentil of the gamer population affected by the tournaments, I mean, really affected? Shall the game be amended to satisfy a gaming base that represntes, well, mainly itself? I used to be fine with all rule sets until they were re-edited.

I have played against some of 9th's stronger (or just plain OP) armies in "casual" games and can confirm it affects more than just the tournament scene. Pre-nerf Tyranids, for example... It was so busted I just had to roll my eyes. The other guy was not even really trying to be super meta or play like a pro, it was just obviously not designed well.

31 minutes ago, Bouargh said:

If sometimes the game looks like being designed by 10 y.-o. kids it is because this is part of the market segment: I remember when I started, barely older than that, we all wanted some thing special for our army: a top mini with top cool rules, spending times to design über-characters or wishing for it to come true.

That was about the age I got into the hobby as well. Back then it was more like "this space marine has a power fist?? awesome!" or "my warboss has a big choppa and a cyborg body!!" Never once crossed my mind that they needed even more special rules and turn-based interactions and whatnot.

To use the example of pre-nerf Tyranids - when I was playing that game a kid watched us for a while saying how cool the giant planet-eating bugs were. Not once did he comment on any rules or express any interest in strategems or mortal wounds or whatever.

Then again, he did ask if my Dark Angels were Chaos Space Marines...

[Bouargh]

42 minutes ago, phandaal said:

Never once crossed my mind that they needed even more special rules and turn-based interactions and whatnot.

You are a Saint. I must confess at the time I was spending my time trying to advocate that I always needed more...

43 minutes ago, phandaal said:

The other guy was not even really trying to be super meta or play like a pro, it was just obviously not designed well.

It is a kind of background feeling I can buy easily - I wished the game main requirement would be solved through a process of design... But I am really not sure it is part of the objectives of revamping/updating editions. 

I am convinced that if the sales driving force is the cool factor, then you need guarantees that the coolness will be on the table. And so to give rules (even if OTT or biased) that supports/helps the representation of the mini on tables. not a dead-end per se but sure a bias that encourages problematic rule desequilibrium and/or inflation.  

[Inquisitor_Lensoven]

2 hours ago, Bouargh said:

"How do we fix this mess?" Are we allowed to do some provocatives answers or comments ?

Fist of all, starting with the easy part, does it needs to be fixed? I mean that I feel like most of the complaints are raising from the competitive scene or gamers using thie results of the meta (how much do I hate this concept) as the ultimate guideline for their hobby. What is the percentil of the gamer population affected by the tournaments, I mean, really affected? Shall the game be amended to satisfy a gaming base that represntes, well, mainly itself? I used to be fine with all rule sets until they were re-edited.

Second, considering that from all the arguments given, the everchange of the rule, yearly adjustments, special issue armylists, supplements... is indeed an issue, would fixing be fixing anyting? Just have a look: we are thinking of 10th ed, not off the "ultimate" edition. Rule design, its evolution and obsolecence  in the 40k galaxy, IS the normal way. We will not fix anything as it is done by design in order to collapse and justify some rule reboots. I even suspect that the now free point update are so, not because of a supporting policy to the customer base, but because it might otherwise be considered as programmed obsolence (which migh be penaly opposed to our favourite game manufacturer (apply favourite to game of manufacturer or both, feel) in many countries).

I will let it there for the so-called provocations of mine .

If I refocus on the question, what I would like would be a game being the fruit a designed process. It should be based (in my most exquisite dreams) on a game mechanic relying on statistical approach, letting the dice challenge/deny these statistics. The base line would be established from perfiles. Looks familiar - damn close to 7th ed nope? In order to work it means a couple of (key) adjustments:

1. stop the special rules galores - not every entry in army list needs to be that special. Just as an example, Havocs are CSM devastator, why should they have extra rules such as claws to be firmly set on ground? 
2. army wide rules shall be based on (strategic) archetypes - for me the best example of what I would like are armies with specialized fighting style (shooty, HtH berserk, ambush, mass infantery, fast attack...).
3. get rid of items that are free (these were more or less solved now that relics are treated), or unrelated to any point value (stratagems) or too faction specifics (secondaries...). I do not necesary wish stratagems to disapear but, 90% of them should be common to all armies. 
4. it needs a level of granulosity (dice system and resolution tables) that the current edition is not allowing. The previous ones neither (probably)

Let´s be fair, this will not happen. If sometimes the game looks like being designed by 10 y.-o. kids it is because this is part of the market segment: I remember when I started, barely older than that, we all wanted some thing special for our army: a top mini with top cool rules, spending times to design über-characters or wishing for it to come true.

Is it possible?

Yes it is, because it once used to be, but after a stabilization of the game (3rd Ed I would say) this started again in a progresive yet infernal spiral with pimp-my-ride speeders for DA, frost weapons for SW, a special vehicle and/or unit for any Main SM Chapter... And it keeps going on like that. I guess this is because the mechanism underneath is that rules are meant to support the sales of new minis (GW stated it clearly some years ago, in a glorious yet full of controversy statment that they are a miniature design company and not a game design company). Now that they are  a miniature PLUS an editing company, guess what?, it will stay as it is now.

And I don´t care, I am addicted.

So what could we dream of now?: let rules (full rules) be free (But without  background and fluff). It will not solve anything but will make the flaws easier to accept. We will so still have to move tons of paper or copies (even electronics ones) but at least it will be less problematic than paying 50 € for a book invalidated a couple on weeks after because in some German/British/North American tournies (select) the army behaved too well or too bad.

Am I off topic?

When the rules for armies are being changed based on feedback from the tournament scene, it affects everyone.

so yes it needs to be fixed.