Can GW really fix the problems that repeat with every edition of 40k?

[Kastor Krieg]

They can. They won't. I don't care anymore, I've waited since 4e.

[Emperor Ming]

They manged to balance guard subfactions

 

 

[crimsondave]

On 2/10/2023 at 6:59 AM, Halandaar said:

Yep, we were already clamouring for all the Codexes at once at the start of 9th Edition. 

 

The problem IMO isn't that Codexes drive sales and therefore they must be spaced out to keep revenue consistent (because obviously not every faction's fanbase is equal in size anyway), but that models releases which DO drive sales are still attached to Codexes because of the whole "no rules without models to show" thing.

 

They could easily write and release all the Codexes in one go at the beginning of an edition, but that would require them either to leave out all the rules for upcoming kits (which would suck if those kits came out relatively soon afterwards), or have the rules there along with products photos of kits that could be 1-2 years away from release Neither is ideal and both would piss people off in different ways.

 

Putting units in the codex that don’t have models would make 3rd party manufacturers a lot of money.  Can’t see GW doing that.

[Evil Eye]

It's shareholders/investors. That's literally it; the demand for eternal growth and ever-rising profits are all on them. It's the same with a lot of companies; the people who run the company are basically at the whims of the investors. Of course, exactly how one could get rid of this problem I'm not sure short of either the shareholders dropping down dead or GW getting taken over by a maverick who tells these people where they can stick their investments and shuts the company to public trading, but the point is that stocks are the source of the problem.

 

I still disagree with the idea of the all-digital route, but that's largely because I think a huge part of the problem with the current system is the current stream of content invalidation and the hugely volatile game ecosystem disguised as a "living system" with "balance updates". Do away with that and it wouldn't matter whether the rules were books or digital.

[2PlusEasy]

"what makes a tabletop game good?" is also a relative question: each person you ask will have a different opinion because each person plays games for different reasons. Enjoyment after all is subjective. This has been demonstrated in this thread already. Like everyone else, I have my own.

 

For board games / tabletop wargames, I simplify them down to three general categories: "easy to learn but hard to master," "quick, clear, concise, fun" and "immersive."

 

An example of "easy to learn, hard to master" is Mantic's Firefight or Parra-bellum's Conquest.

 

An example of "quick, clear, concise, fun" is onepagerules.

 

An example of "immersive" is Frostgrave, Battletech Classic, or if you need one GW title in the list, Necromunda.

 

Every game has its flaws, but what matters is that it sets out to achieve what it aims to do: that is good game design. I respect Mantic Games, because Mantic's game systems achieve what their designers set out to do: have 90 minutes of fun and an extra round at the pub afterwards. I respect Parra-Bellum and Corvus Belli for the same reason. I respect FASA (and now Catalyst Game Labs) because the antiquated Battletech Classic is still doing what it set out to do 40 years ago.

 

So what category is 40k as far as game design is concerned? The simple answer is that GW is a miniatures company and 40k's design is to sell miniatures. In this respect, it is highly successful.

 

But as far as actual game design goes? In my opinion, 40k doesn't have one: it's not easy to learn, difficult to master because it's not balanced or innovative. It's not quick, clear and concise because it requires 4 books and 2+ hours to play. It tries to be immersive, but in truth it's not.

 

If there's no game design goal to achieve, then how can it be fixed? And with GW achieving their goal of selling miniatures, do they even care about fixing something that in their opinion isn't broken?

 

 

 

Edited February 12, 2023 by 2PlusEasy
Edited the last paragraph

[Jorin Helm-splitter]

I don't think GW wants to fix the issues. First of all, their status quo is a very profitable one. I also think part of why they've emphasized tournaments so much since 8th is that they recognize that competitive crowd while a small portion of the player base, also has quite a few of the hobby's' whales (big customers). IMO power creep is a feature not a bug for GW and I also don't like they decided transports and vehicles should largely stink this whole edition, but I get that it created churn (which again is a negative for me, positive for them). The worst part about though is that I think I would've bought more of their stuff over the years without the creep & churn.   

 

At this point I consider Battletech my primary game, I like both of their systems alpha strike is quick concise game, and classic has the crunch. I don't know how either system would fare if they became big tournament games, but neither is really designed for it both of them have a lot of optional rules that add flavor. That means that talking to your opponent and compromising to get in a game where both sides are happy is an expectation, which is refreshing.

 

@2PlusEasy - That was a great post.

 

 

 

 

[Tyriks]

 =][= Keep the political talk out of the discussion or this will have to be locked down. =][=

[Evil Eye]

I mean, the other guys got their posts removed too, so...

 

Anyway. Topic.

 

I reckon the problem is that we are suffering from an acute case of "Big Wargame"/market monopoly. You see this with a lot of markets; one franchise completely overtakes the market to the point it becomes "self-feeding"; people buy into the franchise because it's popular, and it's popular because people buy into the franchise, thus creating this feedback loop of any possible competition being compared to and strangled by the "big one", thus continually shrinking the potential market whilst inflating its influence within the market. The bigger the monopolizer gets, the more it can get away with, thus exponentially increasing the rate of the process.

 

Similar examples would be the MMO market with WOW and the RPG market with D&D. However, these two examples illustrate something important; this cycle isn't sustainable and eventually collapses. WOW is stagnating and dying (not helped by Blizzard's meteoric fall from grace), and the recent D&D smegup was bad enough that even the most ardent defenders of WOTC were outraged. Both franchises have suffered massive blows to popularity and have opened the door for potential alternatives. And ironically their popularity has worked against them to cause their bad press to circulate even faster.

 

GW is, like any company, not immune to this. It does have the advantage of a much stronger, deeper IP behind it (D&D is more or less a playground for people's settings at this point, and whilst I'm not hugely up on WOW lore IIRC it's gone through a significant decline in quality) but that could work against it too; after all, the more people care about something the more angry they will be to see it mistreated. Whilst GW hasn't made a catastrophic goof yet (the closest they've come IMO was AoS 1.0, which did eventually become something pretty neat, and Finecast, which came around the time a lot of stuff was moving to plastic anyway) there's always time, and if GW did something stupid enough that they managed to upset the average Joe, it could open up a path to an actual genuine competitor. Assuming GW didn't just cease to exist, this would be good for both GW's IPs AND the wargaming market as a whole. GW learning that they can't get away with anything and no longer being the only game in town would hopefully cause them to approach their products with more thought, and having more options on the market is always a good thing. The problem is a lot of attempts at competitors are just WHFB/40K with the serial numbers filed off (see Ravaged Star) and/or are made with the intent of being The Next Big Thing rather than just being something the creator likes and wants to share. That said? If someone made something of sufficient quality and broad appeal that it challenged GW's dominance, I think the whole industry would be better for it.

 

TLDR: GW needs a bloody nose if they're ever going to learn, but I wouldn't rule out the possibility of that happening...

[Reskin]

43 minutes ago, Evil Eye said:

I mean, the other guys got their posts removed too, so...

 

Anyway. Topic.

 

I reckon the problem is that we are suffering from an acute case of "Big Wargame"/market monopoly. You see this with a lot of markets; one franchise completely overtakes the market to the point it becomes "self-feeding"; people buy into the franchise because it's popular, and it's popular because people buy into the franchise, thus creating this feedback loop of any possible competition being compared to and strangled by the "big one", thus continually shrinking the potential market whilst inflating its influence within the market. The bigger the monopolizer gets, the more it can get away with, thus exponentially increasing the rate of the process.

 

Similar examples would be the MMO market with WOW and the RPG market with D&D. However, these two examples illustrate something important; this cycle isn't sustainable and eventually collapses. WOW is stagnating and dying (not helped by Blizzard's meteoric fall from grace), and the recent D&D smegup was bad enough that even the most ardent defenders of WOTC were outraged. Both franchises have suffered massive blows to popularity and have opened the door for potential alternatives. And ironically their popularity has worked against them to cause their bad press to circulate even faster.

 

GW is, like any company, not immune to this. It does have the advantage of a much stronger, deeper IP behind it (D&D is more or less a playground for people's settings at this point, and whilst I'm not hugely up on WOW lore IIRC it's gone through a significant decline in quality) but that could work against it too; after all, the more people care about something the more angry they will be to see it mistreated. Whilst GW hasn't made a catastrophic goof yet (the closest they've come IMO was AoS 1.0, which did eventually become something pretty neat, and Finecast, which came around the time a lot of stuff was moving to plastic anyway) there's always time, and if GW did something stupid enough that they managed to upset the average Joe, it could open up a path to an actual genuine competitor. Assuming GW didn't just cease to exist, this would be good for both GW's IPs AND the wargaming market as a whole. GW learning that they can't get away with anything and no longer being the only game in town would hopefully cause them to approach their products with more thought, and having more options on the market is always a good thing. The problem is a lot of attempts at competitors are just WHFB/40K with the serial numbers filed off (see Ravaged Star) and/or are made with the intent of being The Next Big Thing rather than just being something the creator likes and wants to share. That said? If someone made something of sufficient quality and broad appeal that it challenged GW's dominance, I think the whole industry would be better for it.

 

TLDR: GW needs a bloody nose if they're ever going to learn, but I wouldn't rule out the possibility of that happening...

I'd like to continue the discussion as you make some great points, but the mods have sucked the life out of it now. And I can't be bothered having to repost things 5 times.

[Arikel]

The new article on Goonhammer ( https://www.goonhammer.com/hammer-of-math-win-rates-are-great-data-points-to-look-at-theyre-definitely-not-enough/ ) prompted me to revive this topic.

 

As it stands right now, I think inherently that it would be near impossible for 40K to be fully balanced , even if all the codexes and other rules were released at the same time.

There are simply too many factions to account for everything. 6 Imperial, 3 Chaos and 8 xenos  is 17 different factions without accounting for the subfaction rules found in every group, several of which have their own codex or codex supplement.  It could certainly be better, but to really make a balanced rule set you would need to cut down the factions, and that almost certainly won't happen.

[Inquisitor Eisenhorn]

I just use One Page Rules now.  It's essentially addressed all of my issues with GW's rules model and I don't play in GW stores and so I've been actually playing 40k games above a skirmish level again!

 

Quote

But as far as actual game design goes? In my opinion, 40k doesn't have one: it's not easy to learn, difficult to master because it's not balanced or innovative. It's not quick, clear and concise because it requires 4 books and 2+ hours to play. It tries to be immersive, but in truth it's not.

 

If there's no game design goal to achieve, then how can it be fixed? And with GW achieving their goal of selling miniatures, do they even care about fixing something that in their opinion isn't broken?

 

Exactly, this "open, narrative, competitive" ways of playing model is a failure because it's trying to make the game be everything to everyone.  If you want to have 3 ways to play, make 3 new games for your miniatures. 

Edited March 7, 2023 by Inquisitor Eisenhorn

[Ahzek451]

There have already been a few insider info drops on how GW operates in regard to rules. Peachy was kind enough to share a lot of it on his channel. In short, GW uppers find that it is little value to invest more time and resources in game design, balance, and testing. 

 

To no surprise:
They have short deadlines, restrictions, and occasionally are forced to keep or drop rules that would mess with the balance from higher ups that don't know the game as well as they should. It's like when a hollywood producer for a movie forces a change in a movie because they thing its bad, but more often then not these are bad calls because they are just producers, not the film/story makers. 

GW has made some big changes, but in some ways they have changed little. Since 8th ed and there return to the public forum, I will totally agree they have made improvemnts. But they know, we know a large portion of it is for show. They clearly take input, but not as well as they could be. Just enough time and effort to catch the big issues. 

 

 

[Doghouse]

I think it's intentional as a business model. If they make everyone happy with a system that works and balanced codexes then there is less need for a new edition and reselling us all the same stuff again. It'd be nice but I doubt it'll ever happen.

 

But this is why I stopped buying into late edition stuff like the space hulks thing because it's all going to be an old edition in six months or so.

[MegaVolt87]

GW could make less work for themselves by doing two things-

 

Release all codexes at the beginning of a new edition.

Don't release any NEW units at the beginning of an edition. 

 

This way, initial balance will be quite even and manageable. New units should be delivered via new campaign books so those actually sell and are relevant. You don't need new unit releases at the very start of an edition change. The fact its the new standard forces sales anyway, you are just wasting new releases in that window. It also tidy's up the tail end of any new releases from the prior edition, 6-12 months prior with a new edition codex. New edition marketing posts should be based around the newest releases from the prior edition and how they changed to make the community feel good about recent purchases, to secure consumer confidence for the next new release via new units in the first campaign book, which should be teased right away to keep people talking on socials after you have previewed all the factions article series. 

Edited March 8, 2023 by MegaVolt87

[ThePenitentOne]

The problem with dropping all the codexes at once is that it floods the market.

 

GW's plan for 9th was 1 dex/ month, with 2 dexes delivered at the drop of the edition. At that rate, it isn't so bad... but unfortunately, Brexit, a global pandemic and an international supply chain crisis got in the way, leading to the unfortunate circumstance that WE, Votann and Guard are all going to end up with mere months of play before the next ed drops.

 

Personally, I think what needs to happen going forward is withholding ALL Campaign content until all the dexes are out. If you think about it, we've had campaign content for both KT and 40k since both editions dropped. If all of that had been withheld until the end of the codex cycle, it would double the lifespan of the edition and ensures that even late era dexes are capable of fully participating in the edition's entire campaign cycle. Finally, it ensures that everyone gets a reasonable amount of time with their dex, even if it drops late.

 

Of course, my TRUE preference is persistent edition... But the shareholders could never risk that.

[MegaVolt87]

1 hour ago, ThePenitentOne said:

The problem with dropping all the codexes at once is that it floods the market.

 

GW's plan for 9th was 1 dex/ month, with 2 dexes delivered at the drop of the edition. At that rate, it isn't so bad... but unfortunately, Brexit, a global pandemic and an international supply chain crisis got in the way, leading to the unfortunate circumstance that WE, Votann and Guard are all going to end up with mere months of play before the next ed drops.

 

Personally, I think what needs to happen going forward is withholding ALL Campaign content until all the dexes are out. If you think about it, we've had campaign content for both KT and 40k since both editions dropped. If all of that had been withheld until the end of the codex cycle, it would double the lifespan of the edition and ensures that even late era dexes are capable of fully participating in the edition's entire campaign cycle. Finally, it ensures that everyone gets a reasonable amount of time with their dex, even if it drops late.

 

Of course, my TRUE preference is persistent edition... But the shareholders could never risk that.

 

New codexs need to drop at the start, dropping campaign books and codexes at the same time every month doesn't really solve any problems we have now. It just dosn't work and never has. GW markets accessible, straightforward rules but gives convoluted ones instead. They have a better shot at balance if all the codexes are upfront, 1st FAQ + pts revision, then 1st campaign book with new crop of units. Why should I have to wait 2+ months to play my army ? GW is delusional if they believe many people will start a new army right away into a new edition at the current prices as well. Edition churn is 3 years average, if you have to wait 8+ months for a codex, you have missed out on a third of the edition already pretty much. 

 

Edit- not to mention the issues of new edition codex comparability + balance vs armies stuck in the past edition against each other etc. 

Edited March 8, 2023 by MegaVolt87

[Orange Knight]

I mentioned this in another topic, but it drives home my frustration.

 

My chapter hasn't received a sniff of rules or model support in 9th edition. No updated abilities, stratagems or crusade rules. Nothing.

 

Meanwhile, Azrael of the Dark Angels has just received the THIRD set of new rules in the 9th edition cycle. He got a new 9th edition PDF at the start of 9th, he then got updated rules in the 9th edition supplement, and now he has a shiny, new Primaris datasheet.

 

 

[Redcomet]

1 minute ago, Orange Knight said:

I mentioned this in another topic, but it drives home my frustration.

 

My chapter hasn't received a sniff of rules or model support in 9th edition. No updated abilities, stratagems or crusade rules. Nothing.

 

Meanwhile, Azrael of the Dark Angels has just received the THIRD set of new rules in the 9th edition cycle. He got a new 9th edition PDF at the start of 9th, he then got updated rules in the 9th edition supplement, and now he has a shiny, new Primaris datasheet.

 

 

Your chapter is? 

[Orange Knight]

Imperial Fists in 40k

 

Not exactly a niche sub-faction lol

[2PlusEasy]

The problem with one codex per month from a gameplay perspective is the three year edition cycle GW insists upon: By the time the codex cycle has finished, half of the edition has disappeared, leaving 18 months before the next edition and it all starts again. When combined with the 3 - 6 monthly updates and then the seasons, the game never actually has time to settle.

 

which ties in to what I've said earlier: what's there to fix if there's no game design principle to aim for?

[Bryan Blaire]

52 minutes ago, 2PlusEasy said:

what's there to fix if there's no game design principle to aim for?

While this is a good question, I think the more fundamental one to answer is “What is there for GW to ‘fix’ when GW doesn’t view it as having a problem?”

[crimsondave]

18 hours ago, Ahzek451 said:

There have already been a few insider info drops on how GW operates in regard to rules. Peachy was kind enough to share a lot of it on his channel. In short, GW uppers find that it is little value to invest more time and resources in game design, balance, and testing. 

 

To no surprise:
They have short deadlines, restrictions, and occasionally are forced to keep or drop rules that would mess with the balance from higher ups that don't know the game as well as they should. It's like when a hollywood producer for a movie forces a change in a movie because they thing its bad, but more often then not these are bad calls because they are just producers, not the film/story makers. 

GW has made some big changes, but in some ways they have changed little. Since 8th ed and there return to the public forum, I will totally agree they have made improvemnts. But they know, we know a large portion of it is for show. They clearly take input, but not as well as they could be. Just enough time and effort to catch the big issues. 

 

 

I don’t understand how GW upper management can’t think game design and testing are huge in making the game popular.  The game was an absolute dumpster fire at the end of 7th.  A guard player (others too but I’m guard) didn’t need to unpack their minis if they were going to play Eldar, Necrons, or Marines.  8th, especially early, was so much more balanced.  Guard were initially OP with conscript blobs but they balanced it with an update.  Look at the price of the stock in that time frame!  8th made GW a different type of financial company.  It seems obvious.  If people want to play your game you make more money than if they don’t.

[Ahzek451]

1 minute ago, crimsondave said:

I don’t understand how GW upper management can’t think game design and testing are huge in making the game popular.  The game was an absolute dumpster fire at the end of 7th.  A guard player (others too but I’m guard) didn’t need to unpack their minis if they were going to play Eldar, Necrons, or Marines.  8th, especially early, was so much more balanced.  Guard were initially OP with conscript blobs but they balanced it with an update.  Look at the price of the stock in that time frame!  8th made GW a different type of financial company.  It seems obvious.  If people want to play your game you make more money than if they don’t.

You would think. Having watched GW make the same mistakes over and over since 2nd edition. GW does make effort to make the game function, but only just enough. Not enough to make it as good as it could be, with the caveat that it will never be perfect. That is an endless goal, the difference being how much effort you put in to make it as close as you can. When 8th rolled around, it was truly the biggest shake-up to the game I had ever seen. In general, I've never really seen a big issue with the core rules themselves. It's always come down to how they go about the codex books. GW has yet to change in this regard. 

[ThePenitentOne]

2 hours ago, 2PlusEasy said:

The problem with one codex per month from a gameplay perspective is the three year edition cycle GW insists upon: By the time the codex cycle has finished, half of the edition has disappeared, leaving 18 months before the next edition and it all starts again. When combined with the 3 - 6 monthly updates and then the seasons, the game never actually has time to settle.

 

 

Which is why I ALSO suggested tacking the campaign cycle on to the END of the codex cycle. We're coming up on the end of a three year campaign cycle; if that only began once all the dexes were out EVERYONE, even the last codex released gets 3 full years of campaigns to play through. Perhaps that wasn't clear in my previous post, but that's what I meant.

 

It's true that the two dexes that drop at the beginning of the edition will get an extra 18-24 months, but when everyone gets the full 3 years of the campaign cycle, it's a bit less of an issue. The other thing this does is prevent the overlapping of seasonal rules updates with dex releases and their associated FAQ's, which makes them more manageable. It's the same amount of rules updating, but it is spread over a period that is twice as long.

 

Having all of the dexes available on day one would absolutely lead to a loss of sales, and certainly it would erode the consistency of incoming revenue, making things swingy for the company. It's an approach that's great for folks that collect one big army, or even two. It's certainly not ideal for a guy like me who would much rather have four 500 pt armies than one 2k point army. 

 

 And I am also against the 100% digital transition. Don't get me wrong- a digital system is essential, it just shouldn't be mandatory for the player base to use it if they don't want to. I am frustrated with the modern era where you don't exist unless you have a cell phone.

 

 

 

 

[Scribe]

3 minutes ago, ThePenitentOne said:

I am frustrated with the modern era where you don't exist unless you have a cell phone.

 

The day I no longer need to be 'on call' for my work, is the day I cancel my cell plan and go back to just a land line.

 

When I inform my now graduated son of this he cannot fathom it. "How will I reach you?!" as if the world didnt exist before cell phones.