A Return to Simplicity

[werewalrus]

Way back in the day, when I first started playing this game, I kept hearing the same thing from the veterans at the hobby shop. At the time, 3rd edition was well established, and I was having a good ole time learning the various aspects of this universe that GW created. One thing you can be assured of is this...once you get those vets going about the state of the game....they always get nostalgic on ya. I kept hearing how cool 2nd edition was...and how there were so many options to play your plastic heroes. However, despite the coolness factor of some of the wargear options....all of the vets were on the same page in regard to the idea that the game was sorta broken. Certain options were just too good...etc. They would then explain how 3rd edition was a simplified version of what the game used to be...and for the most part...was a better game because of it. At least...that's what I remember them saying....about 15 years ago. Thus...my recollection could be totally inaccurate.

Here's my question to you. IMO, the game is getting more complex. More than ever, you have a ton of options in regard to customization, be it through wargear or army list composition. For the most part....these are all fun/good things. However, I can't help but wonder if we're reaching a threshold in which the cliche "too much of a good thing" can apply. Do you think that the game should revert to a more simplistic model...much like transition from 2nd to 3rd edition? Or if my recollection of that transition is incorrect, do you think that the game should be simplified period? 

When I remember 3rd edition...here I go being nostalgic....it seemed as if the troops has some means by which to actually carry out a battlefield role. In 6th, its almost a taboo to take a standard trooper...when a cheaper alternative exists due to the relatively ability to survive on the battlefield. With the plethora of ap2/ap3 weaponry...why take a chaos marine when you can take a cultist...especially when they have the same save in cover? Its almost as if a good portion of your army is a bunch of bystanders...who happened to be in a place where the gods of combat run amok. Granted...3rd edition had its share of beat sticks...but I don't remember it being like it is now. Then again....maybe I'm looking to the past through some rosey tinted glasses. Iron warriors...as I recall...were maybe too good. in 3rd

Or perhaps the game can never revert to a simpler state ever again. After all, we all just bought all of those cool fortress pieces...the titans....and the force fields. Perhaps its too late since GW has discovered a new business model that it will simply refuse to give up. It may be simply too profitable to keep the game as is...with its plethora of options. 

Please keep in mind...I love all of these new toys that GW is currently giving us. However, during my 45min commute to school everyday, I spend a good portion of it listening to about 10 or so podcasts...and they all have one thing in common....and its complaining. Even the positive ones are expressing their trepidation in the current edition. So I can't help but wonder if a change is gonna come...and when it does....what will it be like?

In the spirit of change...here's some Sam Cooke. 

[Inquisitor Stingray]

I haven't been around for as long as you (or many others on this forum), but I will say that the pace of releases can be kind of breath-taking in an not all that positive way. But I find that, aside from spewing all sorts of products out, Games Workshop are also encouraging me, the player, to play the game how I want and so I can pretty much want to skip out on the things that don't appeal to me. Of course, if my friends want to bring their new Imperial Knights, Formations, Allies or what have you, then that will up the ante and to a certain degree 'force' me to also indulge in these supplements, but the bottom line is that most, if not all of the releases we are seeing these days are optional, one way or another.

There will obviously be a 7th Edition Rulebook at some point and I for one kind of welcome it. It may not necessarily change the game for the better, but ideally it would at least collectively assess all the various elements of the game. I know a lot of people right now who are confused about Escalation, Formations, Apocalypse, Super-heavies and so on, and I think the actual rulebook would go a long way to address some of this confusion.

At the end of the day, if I could trade in the many additions and supplements for a greater sense of community between developers and players, better rules, actual FAQs and Erratas on regular basis, etc, I would do it in a heartbeat. I greatly dislike how codices (well, maybe it's just ours) have become rather bland, with the go-to-spice-it-up-solution being taking allies, formations, dataslates, forge world or something else that you of course have to pay for. But then again, maybe I'm seeing things through rosey tinted glasses as well, naively hoping for Phil Kelly to one day recreate the glory of the 4th edition codex.

[WestRider]

I started during 2nd, and the switch to 3rd was one of the best things to happen to the Game. 3rd had its problems, but 2nd was just a mess 9 ways to Sunday. Awkward to play, lots of broken stuff, lots of little things that almost never did anything, but you had to roll for them all the time anyhow. Yes, 6th has started to give me flashbacks to it in some way.

There's more to it than just the matter of complexity, too. Points values keep dropping, leaving less and less room to differentiate between Units, and creating a larger pool of upgrades that are cool, but just not worth a whole Point per Model. There are also issues with Units pushing the limits of the Game System itself. We've got Units that can go the length of a 6x4 Table in a single Turn now, Weapons that are more powerful than S10, Scoring AV13 Super Heavies, and 2+ re-rollable Invul Saves.

I've been saying since sometime in 5th that GW is heading for the point where they're going to need to do another 2nd=>3rd style hard reset, and I think that's just become more apparent over the last few years.

Even maintaining the Flyers and such, I think there is a fair amount of room for simplification, especially if they can get things written more clearly and with fewer contradictions and holes, but one of the biggest things I think would help would be completely rejiggering the Points system, roughly doubling all the costs and then tweaking from there, and changing the "standard" Game size from 1500-2K to 3-4K.

[Hunger]

I have been playing this game since it was called Rogue Trader. 2nd Edition is so highly praised and fondly remembered because it was such a drastic change; RT had elements of RPGs, and a whole set of disparate rules which were spread over many conceptual mechanics systems. 2E condensed the rules into a streamlined and cohesive system featuring the Rulebook and the Wargear book. The Dark Millennium supplement was the cherry on top, completing the holy trinity.

I love 2E above all other editions, but it was quite flawed. Its main issue was that it was very much 'Hero-hammer'; the options for taking wargear meant you could customise a hero with loads of gear and make him an absolute monster, and there were a couple of broken wargear items like the Vortex Grenade which every army took (every army except Tyranids had access to the same pool of wargear. Some cards had restrictions like Orks Only, but most were available to all races).

Having said that, the competitive scene was unheard of at this point. The internet was a new idea. The moment a new codex was released, thousands of players did not immediately start calculating the odds of kills per turn versus MEq using a particular unit, or debating individual clauses in the rules in order to circumvent the intention of the rules. From my perspective, everything was clear enough that we could interpret the intention and that was enough.

This may seem like a foreign concept to a player who gets into the game today. 2E was a much smaller game. Two or three squads, plus a leader, plus a vehicle made a standard army. WD187 featured a battle report (the greatest battle report ever in my opinion) of the demise of Lord Varlak, a rogue psyker and orator, in which the studio team used every tank they had - a whopping total of 11 between the two armies. An IG army had roughly as many troopers and tanks as a Space Marine army. Two Chimeras and a Leman Russ was an exceptional sight to see on a battlefield. There was also less choice for each army; the current thing of having one auto-include unit which was clearly superior to all others in its FOC slot was uncommon. There were good options and not so good options, but most people could afford armies that included all the options in a codex, so the game felt much more varied. There weren't a few current netlists trashing everything until a new codex was released, everybody's army was interesting and varied and the game felt much more personal because of it.

When 3rd edition came around it was hailed as a cure for the grossly-unbalanced 2E, however it felt like a very different game to me. I didn't have an issue with the 2E mechanics, but I liked the fact that troops were put more in the spotlight in 3E. This was the best change they made for me. The tank or tooled-up hero you had gave your army some bite in one part of the battlefield, but storming those forbidding ruins with a squad troops out on the flank was also a focal point of the game. It did feel like GW had wiped out much of the fun of customising your army, but every force suddenly became much more individualised which was a good thing.

There were three things that contributed toward the ruination of the game for me: The aforementioned growth of the ultra-competitive tournament scene was one. The internet was another. GW's sales strategy was the third. During 3E GW started to move its production media toward plastic. This meant that people could increasingly afford to buy armies with lots of miniatures. In 1994, a 10-model squad or a tank was £10. Metal troopers were £1 and heroes or larger metal models (such as terminators) were £2-3 depending on their bulk. Abaddon was released at £4, which caused quite a stir. This was a lot of money for 1 figure 20 years ago. My pocket money was £5 a week when I was 10 years old, and my parents were generous.

Then GW released the multipart Chaos Warriors fantasy regiment, which contained 16 warriors for £12. We thought it was Christmas. Most basic troops boxes in fantasy and 40K followed suit over the next few years. Then GW started hitting us with regular year-on-year price hikes, presumably to pay for tooling for its new plastic moulds. That box of warriors quickly rose to £15. Other new plastic kits came out at £15. Suddenly you needed two or three units at £15 a go just to make the core of your army. The metal blisters went through the roof. By 2000 they had roughly doubled in price.

The points systems were also changed with the advent of 3E. The cost of everything halved in points, which I have always regarded as a subtle and brilliant move by the company, at least from the point of view of its money-grabbing sales team. All the players I knew had 3000 point armies (standard 2E game size), but when 3E was introduced, instead of seeing a 1500pt army as now being the standard size, everyone I knew still viewed the 3000pt army as standard, meaning the game size doubled. We bought more miniatures and grew accustomed to having loads of miniatures on the board. I expect this happened all over the place.

In the pursuit of selling lots of models, GW then went bananas designing loads and loads of different models. Rather than address the ever increasing disharmony with rules, GW simply introduced new units, and each new unit inevitably started to crowd the FOC slots, which were introduced in 3E. I lost interest totally before 4E was released, and when I returned in 5E I immediately saw that GW had simply continued its strategy of releasing more and more new things. The advent of FW and their disparate and unbalanced books further added to the chaos. The level of entropy in the game has just increased and increased and increased.

For a long time I hoped the company would have realised what they've allowed to happen to their game, and with each upcoming codex release they would try to make an army that was balanced and would just try to give the units that already exist some sort of unique battlefield identity so they don't simply do the same as the other units in that FOC slot but worse. Instead we just get handed a unit that has an even more powerful weapon or special rule. Today's game is a straightforward extrapolation of this; as WestRider points out, we now have D-strength weapons on units that can be taken in standard 40K games, 2+ double invulnerable saves and a host of other super-weapons and super-units that obliterate half the enemy army while everything else hides in 5+ cover. We are back to the hero-hammer of 2E, but now the heroes aren't customisable by the player, they are simply handed to us by GW, and cost £50 apiece.

A hard reset is exactly what is needed. GW needs to rethink how each unit should function, and tone down the power level of the crazy stuff. Troops should play a more significant part of the game than simply sitting on objectives. I would like to see a situation where I have a few different equally-reliable options for my FOC choices. The average killing power of one unit should statistically match the average killing power of another unit if those two units are the same points. If one unit has 50% more killing power, then that unit should be 50% more expensive than the other. Any mathematician of modest skill knows that the average killing power can be easily measured against a set of constants we already use (MEq, GEq, TEq, AV10-12 etc). The unit's average effectiveness versus the mean of all these situations a standard by which all armies and units should be measured. I tells you how useful the unit is against everything else in the game. Just applying this common-sense approximation across the codices should go some way toward better overall balance. I'm surprised that a corporation as large as GW doesn't invest heavily in producing THE BEST wargame rules in the world, after all its whole business rests on them. Declining rules quality and declining revenue surely correlate?

If two units cost the same (and therefore have the same average killing power), then they need to be distinguished by two special rules that are valuable in equal measure in two different situations, for instance, one unit may have Endless Swarm while the other has Outflank. How do you tell whether ES and Outflank are roughly equal in value? By playtesting. Have your team of 100 playtesters play 20 games each and note the performance of the unit. How many kills did it average, how many turns did it survive and so on.

This is a pretty reductionist way of doing things, but it will yield some statistical data which will assist the decision to cost the special rule. Information on the current meta will again make this estimation more accurate - if 50% of the armies on the tables during a random sampling of FLGSs are based around MEq stats, the MEq is assigned a 50% weighting when it comes to playtesting. Or the playtesters simply play half their games against MEq. This goes for internal balance between units in a codex, and for cross-codex balance as well. The player should have four or five equally effective options to choose from, and the choices they make will be based on their preference for how they want their army to fight, rather than which units simply have the best direct damage output:cost ratio of all the units in their FOC slot. I get the impression (though I can't support it) that none of this goes on when drawing up rulebooks and codices. Some units are absurdly overcosted for what they do that it gives the distinct impression that the writer writes the first draft of the rules using his own judgement, then there is a little bit of playtesting, then a bit of final tweaking and it is published without any analysis of how it will change things.

TL:DR? GW = Lazy with rules, ferocious with sales and chooses to turn out new models rather than address the rules balance of existing models. The rules balance of existing models should be addressed as a priority, as should the mechanics of the core rules. The next edition should be a reset, and should move toward prioritising troops over super-units; super units should be toned down so that all units can participate equally in the game, a point which is directly related to the rules balance of all models in the game. Codices should be balanced, which is eminently achievable with statistical analysis and playtesting.

On a final note, I would personally like to see a reduction in the size of the average game back to 2E standards. Squad-level skirmish games are so much more engaging than trying to pack hordes of figures on the table and firing at each other across the board because you can't move. A 1000 point game gives so much space to move around in that the game feels much more tactical - you can outflank or avoid a unit if you are crafty, and each unit really is important.

[Deleted]

Adding a tier of complexity to a game always opens the door for imbalance. It's evidenced in tons of gaming systems especially in the MMO realm.

People who love pure pvp games that aren't first person shooters tend to love games like Bloodline Champions, league of legends, forge, and other similar games. A lot of those gamers(and games) were birthed out of the unhappiness that grew out of the World of Warcraft community. I mention those games first(before Warcraft) because for the unfamiliar they operate with VERY few abilities. Like 2-8. It makes the gamers much more relatively happy with perception of balance. 

Pre-expansion, the game(Warcraft) had limited options as to what you could take. There was some accepted imbalance, but overall it was considered in some form balanced. Every expansion though added more new abilities and powers. New pieces of gear. And every expansion created a new struggling effort to balance the game that time and time again the player community has overall dubbed insufficient(at least in the online community that voices their opinion).

The cause? Too many options and abilities. So blizzard tried to normalize things. They started making the abilities of different classes(for the sake of comparison, class can be exchanged with army) literally do the same thing. provide the same buffs, do the same effect. It was to reduce the overall number of options and try to cut back on the insane amount of wtf in the game. The player community was not amused. It was received as lazy, and compromising of the flavor of each class.

I haven't played WoW in quite some time, but I read an article about their upcoming expansion where blizzard has acknowledged(again) that they've messed up in giving too many options and abilities, and with the new expansion they plan on grossly revamping everything and reducing overall number of abilities, removing many entirely from the game, and trying to give back each class it's own unique flavor while aiming towards a simpler character platform-one developer interview I read said the fact some classes have like over 30+ abilities hotkeyed/macro'd and then only use like 10 because they're the only valid 10 options out of the whole class(codex *cough*).

Games like 40k, and class based MMO's that try to add sufficient complexity will always have this problem in varying degrees.

40k though? 40k is a huge offender of what I've described in the complexity over balance problem. People like complexity. it's challenging, stimulating, and gives more individuality to your army. I'm not convinced the business tactics are the exclusive reason for GW's more recent marketing behavior though I do feel it's a strong motivator.

I think on some level the dev's are thinking "OH MAN people would have so much fun running this combo(from a fluff perspective or otherwise)" and then are failing to test the longterm implications of their changes. I mean, if I had a chapter of space marines I feel like as a fluffhead I would love the idea of them having conscripted a SINGLE imperial knight. But that's not how the rules were written, they wrote in allies which allows people to mix an match 1-3 armies and effectively cherry pick top units and minimize areas of weakness of their primary force.

In videogame terms, that's like telling a damage dealing class like a rogue/assassin "hey you can have high end damage output, and the ability to heal yourself, and the ability to wear the most resilient armor in the game". Like....why in a competitive setting would a player choose to not run that? How the flying &%$# did GW not conceive that would be the outcome? I truly don't understand.


Like with my WoW allusion about how the developers want to take a new direction with the upcoming expansion, I agree with hunger. A major overhaul is needed. A hard reset. Anything less is going to be putting a bandage you'd use on a papercut on a bullet wound.

[Hunger]

Apr 10, 2014 15:44:53 GMT @nidsinrva said:

People like complexity. it's challenging, stimulating, and gives more individuality to your army

Totally agree. Complexity isn't a problem. I love complexity. It is balance that is the problem in 40K. The necessity of the balance stems from the tournament scene; the competitiveness of tournament play is inevitably going to creep into friendly club play, because most people do not enjoy (or can't afford to waste hard-earned money) handicapping themselves with sub-optimal units. Taking inspiration from the current tournament-topping lists is natural, and can give a player a good guide to building an army that going to perform well. The issue is that the balance of power levels between units and codices is all over the place, leaving only a few obvious choices to build a powerful list. Players inevitably default to using a power list because nobody likes get beaten week after week at their FLGS.

This isn't something that is going to go away, so the rules need to be as watertight and fairly balanced as possible so that everyone can enjoy them game regardless of their setting or preferred level of competition. But it is not the case. GW strategy is simply to give us a new, unstoppable unit or two in each codex that wreaks havoc until another codex trumps it. That is lazy. There are two routes to go down to fix it, either spend the time balancing everything carefully - which seems unlikely, given GW's track record - or reboot, tone down and de-clutter the game. The latter is the less lazy of the two solutions. I doubt it will happen though - why would they bother? They've never listened to the voice of the community before.

Apr 10, 2014 15:44:53 GMT @nidsinrva said:

I agree with hunger. A major overhaul is needed. A hard reset.

This really was WestRider's statement, to which I agreed and added my thoughts.

[Sensei]

I agree completely with everything that's been said - a hard reset is necessary. Everything has been getting stronger or tougher or more wounds or a better save etc etc etc.... I haven't been around for as long as a good number of people on here (only since 4th for me), but I remember even back then that the 4 wound, 4 attack carnifex was the biggest baddest monster around. Now, it's just another MC, one of the smaller ones available (wounds and model size), and is often dwarfed by other MC abilities.

I understand what Hunger is saying above - they have the option of either take the time to balance everything relative to each other (let's be honest, not going to happen...) or they go the other route and dial everything back a bit and knock things down a power level. In theory this latter option totally makes sense, but how can they do this in reality?

With the way their releases go, how would they accomplish a hard reset that effected every army at the same time? The rulebook would be a great start, but once they started implementing the resets for new codexes, unless they do a mass publishing of every codex, a lot of codexes will be depowered to the point that they will become unplayable until the rest get their reset as well.

My other issue is that when they did the reset for 3rd, most of the amries (if not all) had fewer unit options, and those units cost a fair amount less money than they do today. If GW implements a hard reset and declutters things by eliminating units, there are going to be a lot of very upset customers who put a significant financial investment into the models that are no longer available (look at the number of people who were upset at the loss of Doom or spores and they didn't even have an official model, so the scratch built models probably had a much lower monetary cost even if there was more time invested in making them). I'm sure losing the zoats was something a number of people were upset about because they had purchased the models and put in the time and effort to build and paint them, but the financial investment of those models was significantly less than the models people are purchasing from GW today. If say, tyrannofexes (a completely unncessary addition IMO, and as Hunger said above falls into the category of shoving somthing new at customers rather than focusing on existing products) disapeared from the codex as a result of a reset, at $70 Canadian per model, that is a lot of monetary investment that becomes completely obsolete as a result of the reset.

Granted I wasn't around at the time of the 3rd reset, but there are significant barriers to GW repeating the same kind of reset today.

Mainly:
- Higher cost of models, so eliminating a unit option entirely is potentially damaging to its customer base, sales, mould/machine/modeling investment and a lot of unhappy people
- Increased number of codexes (and growing with new "armies" such as the knights/tempestus etc) so the ability to reset each army is becoming an increasingly more difficult, costly and lengthy process, whether they implement a reset all a once or one codex at a time
- The competitive scene; resetting codexes one at a time will unbalance the game in and of itself unless it's done all at once
- Sales; Does GW even want a reset? With a reset, if done as suggested by increasing points values and lower power, will most likely net a drop in sales. Due to the increased, almost frantic release schedule as of late, most people have a large number of models to be able to field the size of armies typical to a game. A reset will mean people will not need to buy as many models, and this is something GW is probably very unwilling to give up.

So here's my question to the veteran players who were around for the 2nd to 3rd reset: How will GW be able to pull it off today? Is there a way GW can accomplish a reset in today's economy and the position they've built themselves into? Can any of the veteran players explain how the reset was implemented in 3rd? Was it all at once/ rulebook only/ one codex at a time?

I'm interested to know if any of the verteran's out there can see a practical implementation of a reset across a much vaster range of products available today than was available for the 2nd/3rd reset. It worries me to think the game has reached a point where a reset is necessary because of power creep, but that the momentum of output and increasing power GW has forced itself into is what is prohibitive of a reset.

[WestRider]

The reset from 2nd to 3rd included Army Lists in the main Rulebook for all the Armies out there at the time. A number of Units lost weapon options (Warriors with Boneswords now just had ScyTals, and my SM Scout with Multi-Melta no longer existed) or were consolidated together (Ork Artillery), but very few Units were entirely removed (Stealer Cult, Harlequins, Exodites, Boar Boyz). Well, assuming they'd gotten an actual 2nd Ed Dex. Squats and (largely) Adeptus Mechanicus faded out during this transition.

Then Codexes were added in one at a time. Some Armies held up against the new Dexes better than others with their BRB Lists.

There was a great deal of whining and complaining, especially before the release, when incomplete leaks came out, showing things like the Leman Russ's Front Armour dropping from (IIRC) 23 to 14, but not the changes in the Armour Penetration rules that made that reasonable, or pics of the Baal Predator before the massive nerf to Assault Cannon (in 2nd Ed, a Baal would have been taking a full Tac Squad off the table every Turn) was known. Once it actually dropped and people got used to it tho, it took off pretty well.

They did much the same thing with Fantasy in the transition from 5th Ed to 6th Ed, with all the basic Army Lists released in a supplement (I think) included in White Dwarf called Ravening Hordes.

[Silegy]

Why is everyone calling for skirmish size?

Firstly, you have kill team rules.
Secondly, you have combat patrol rules.
House rules, small tournament rules, missions,...
Then there is Infinity.
Then there are many other skirmish games.

Seriously, this is what makes 40k so unique as a tabletop. It's amazingly cinematic. I don't know other game where I can play a standart size game and feel like I am leading an army. Not 4 dudes bashing one another. An army. Giant **cking army.

[gigasnail]

The kill teams and zone mortalis rules are pretty cool. It's a shame they don't advertise them any. Zone mortalis is even free.

[gauntlet]

There is a way of avoiding a hard reset.
They could solve all these problems VERY EASILY by publishing genuine monthly or quarterly errata and guidance for balanced games.

Something similar to the FAQs published when 6th Edition BRB was released or the Tyranid Dataslate rule changes.

Along the lines of ... We now believe to rebalance the rules following the Eldar Codex release, we would like you to accept the following.
Wave Serpent Shield is range 6" not 60".
Venom Cannon is now assault 3, no blast and has poison 4+
Lictors should have Infiltrate.
Warriors broods can have mixed weargear.
Broodlord has Fleet.
Flyers are only grounded if they take a wound, not just hit.

They could even make it fun, by publishing interviews with playtesters in White Dwarf as to reasons they have made the latest erratas. They don't have to openly admit they got the initial design wrong.
They could even profit by occasionally boosting the rules for under selling armies.
It would make the games more alive and people would regularly talk about the latest improvements in balance.
Players could choose whether to play with, Codex as printed or play with the latest errata.

But anyone who has worked for an employer realises this can never happen. It completely goes against the culture of denial of responsibility in ALL companies and in all departments.
Instead companies have to make petty and subtle work arounds, by implying the rules are commonly misinterpreted, like the current FAQs. As we know major alterations cannot be encompassed by that means and has to wait for the next Codex release.
Have you noticed in the FAQ they never alter the points cost or focus on redressing a balance.

[Deleted]

whoa now gauntlet, we can barely get GW's writers to deliver irregular updates ;P


But I agree entirely. Though you still see with platforms(videogame based) that have more regular updates balancing is still challenging to achieve. That being said though more regular updates certainly curtails the degree to which balancing goes awry.

[gauntlet]

The frequency and timely production of errata is important.
However more important is the intention to honestly correct mistakes and minimise future problems. And maybe disregard the possibility of making your employer look foolish, but showing some caring ethics and transparency in the production of toys for children may earn some respect from the parents who ultimately are paying for product.

An example, Points for the Tyranofex and the Carnifex have decreased significantly but the rules have not changed much. Why did the change of points have to wait for a new codex release. Because someone would have had to face public disgrace if it had been done in an errata?

I would love GW to simply admit they made a mistake with the Wave Serpent shield and Knights and publish a points cost errata or just publish a completely different unit rules which are optional if you wish to play a balanced game.

[Inquisitor Stingray]

Indeed, you would think Games Workshop would want to go that extra mile and update units periodically to maintain interest in them. Like giving Hive Guards access to a Skyfire weapon, adjusting prices on less popular/useful units and so on. Dataslates, however nice, are exceedingly rigid in this way; and they don't change the basic rules for the units that desperately need some TLC. No amount of dataslates would make be buy a new box of Warriors, but lowering their prices by 5 points each, giving them access to a new weapon or some other subtle tweak just might.

[Hunger]

Apr 12, 2014 6:08:57 GMT Sensei said:

So here's my question to the veteran players who were around for the 2nd to 3rd reset: How will GW be able to pull it off today? Is there a way GW can accomplish a reset in today's economy and the position they've built themselves into?

I'm interested to know if any of the verteran's out there can see a practical implementation of a reset across a much vaster range of products available today than was available for the 2nd/3rd reset. It worries me to think the game has reached a point where a reset is necessary because of power creep, but that the momentum of output and increasing power GW has forced itself into is what is prohibitive of a reset.

Okay, I've had some time to think about this question now, and I have an answer. My solution is halt the evolution of the game across all codices and rulebooks and do a single, final blanket rewrite. 40K Final Edition will encompass the whole 40K universe as its source of 'must buy' models. I've considered it from many different angles, and this solution presents the least turmoil to the competitive scene, expands the overall variety within the game (to keep players like me happy) - both of which increase the revenue potential for the company. Let me explain in greater detail:

The codices we have today are - in my opinion - a disparate, shambolic hash-together of ideas that lack conceptual congruity. additionally, there is a vast goldmine of lore which is simply not represented in the codices, and which should be seen on the tabletop. GW's continual output of new super-models for existing armies is their chosen system for generating new revenue streams. I HATE this business model with a capital H-A-T-E: every new release introduces yet more entropy into an already unbalanced system. The models themselves are becoming more and more absurd - that stupid looking tracked pig-truck is a classic example of a totally daft model that doesn't fit into the aesthetic of 40K at all, but which is such a useful £50 addition to your IG army that you have to get one to remain competitive. The power creep of these units has reached a point at which we are now pushing the lid off the established limits with D-weapons and what not.

These things can easily be sorted - just dial down the OTT stuff. D-weapons have no place on anything other than a titan killer, and should not be in the 'core' game. S10 should be scarce. In the 2nd --> 3rd reset, some weapons (notably the autocannon) lost a point of strength. This could easily happen again at the top end of the scale, which is now crammed full of S8+ weapons. Adding a point of AV to all vehicles across the board could achieve a similar effect; infantry like hormagaunts then cannot scratch open a tank - you need an anti tank weapon with approproate strength to do that.

My solution calls for there to be no more rotating codex updates. Currently we have the situation where a new edition is released, and then codex one is released, then codex two, then codex three and so on, with each codex trumping the last one, or falling flat. Then, sometime later, some FAQs appear and change things again. The game is in a constant state of flux. This flux is bad. The reset would involve EVERY codex plus the rules being released ON THE SAME DAY. Three months later a compiled book of FAQs for all armies and the main rulebook is released. Maybe this happens every three months for a year. The final product is the finished game.

Q: How is GW going to make money from new lines then?

A: They need to incorporate into the Final Edition codices options for armies that already exist in the universe; 'counts as' armies should be redundant, because you now have all the rules to make a Genestealer Cult, Harlequin Troupe or Grot Insurgency. Each codex would allow the player to build many CONCEPTUALLY different armies. By 'conceptually different' I mean what we would call a different army. Orks and Tyranids are different because they have different units. A Genestealer Cult should be differentiated from an IG army, an Adeptus Mechanicus army and a Traitor Guard army by the units it has access to and its army-wide special rules. The allies it can take should also be a factor of the codex, not a matrix that enables the player to pick anything from the allied codex. A Khorne warband that picks up some Orks along the way should not be able to include a Wyrdboy, for example.

There are 9(?) first founding SM chapters, 9 Chaos legions, several IG variants, several Eldar variants, several kinds of Ork warband etc to develop into seperate armies. New units here and there would provide plenty of opportunity for new model lines. FW could also do its add-on stuff, but the core of the game would be clearly distinct from FW lines. When you visit a GW shop (which also need resetting/rethinking, but that's for another discussion) you know you are going to be playing the core game.

FW lines are likewise released in a simlar way - everything at once. No longer do we have several different books listing the same unit with different rules, no more hodgepodge IA updates, hastily thrown out books full of spelling errors and no evidence of playtesting etc. Now we have less material turned out, and instead we have a smaller quantity of well thought out material, released maybe once or twice a year so that every army has an equal number of new, balanced, units. It is made clear across all platforms that FW material is not part of the core game. The key is that it is done together - rather than redo a codex and release it, redo the rulebook, then each codex in turn and then release everything together.

Q: Is this business model going to generate enough revenue though?

A: Obviously I can't speculate on that because I don't have nearly enough information to comment in a meanigful way, but in my view the constant releases of new uber-models and the continual cycle of some codices being good, then getting left behind as the cogs in the corporate machine turn too slowly is to the ultimate detriment of the game. GW has everything it needs to supply us with interesting variations on the armies we already love, and has the capacity to revise and playtest the game as one unified item until it is once again in a fit state for human consumption. Personally, I'd be happy to wait as long as it took - even if the company took a decade or more. This game deserves it, and but is sadly circling the toilet as we speak.








(Apologies for the scattered ideas in this post, I have had almost no sleep since friday and am having trouble marshalling the words into sentences.)