General Chat Thread

[Starfyre]

28 minutes ago, Sarouan said:

It has nothing to do with "rules done right", though. The reason why GW keeps changing things because of "balance" is to keep having engagement for the competitive players, just like in online video games. They look at the datas, see what kind of lists / units are at the top or bottom and tweak rules to try to change that. That's something that can only be done if they have actual playing data they can analyze and use, and thus only when the game is released and played with enough numbers (meaning nothing at the level of mere playtesting).

I think it absolutely does. 

The 40K rulebook has had the movement phase rewritten. That book will be sold for 3 years and it's out of date.

Command abilities in the 3rd Edition Stormcast Eternals book were changed about 4 weeks after the book was published in an FAQ. Warscrolls like the Stormdrake Guard were changed. 

If I bought the Nighthaunt faction pack, that is now different to what's on the PDF version. 

Dynamic components like points can be digital, that makes sense to adjust based on player data for internal and external balance. I'm fine with that.

What I'm not fine with is having some of the contents of my £37 book being outdated and invalidated a few weeks after it was published. When actually, a bit more care and attention and actually yes, more thorough playtesting, would catch some of the things that make it into print. How quickly did the community latch on to the fact that Hexwraiths were control 2, which I believe was different to any other 3W cavalry unit (to my knowledge, without checking), or how abusable manifestations were. Some of this becomes apparent just by playing the game once or twice. There's instances I believe of units missing keywords or having the wrong keywords. Sure, there are a lot of units, but it's not like these units are new - these are errors that have been introduced. They have done a tremendous job with 4th edition, so something like manifestations stands out as not having the same level of care and attention, and now they are retrospectively making changes, and outdating parts of the core book and general's handbook 3 months after they've been bought. What do I do, take a highlighter and put sticky notes to my expensive books?

Online video games are one thing, because it's live. Nothing's invalidated. That's different with physical media. 

I do appreciate them tidying things up, but I don't love feeling like the book I bought is outdated before I even open it. No-one wants to do a bad job, there's a lot to like about 4th Edition, and I don't think the changes are made to anything that's intentionally meant to be bad or incorrect or abusable. But it would be better if it was done right in the first place in my opinion.

For me it creates doubt. I will not buy a physical Battletome as a result.

So yeah, I believe in getting the rules right, create some certainty and stop changing things. 

[Sarouan]

A physical book can only show what was written at the time it was printed. That's its inherent limitation. Mistakes do happen, but there's also the time allowed to designers / readers to check everything was written / expressed right. Can't do much about that.

But the current "metabalance" system GW introduced has really nothing to do about that. Though it may have as an effect not to allow as much time as before on the prior game design since they will keep "balancing" it once it's released anyway.

It's just not really appropriate to a physical book release, IMHO. Feels like it's unavoidably pushing towards a "full digital" policy in the future...one that can be monetized behind paywalled applications that can be removed entirely whenever they need (like a new edition, rendering impossible to use anything from the previous ones since books can always be retained by their owner).

[Starfyre]

Except I don't think it will be pushed toward a full digital policy because there's too much revenue and margin in the print versions of the books.

Until digital can prove it can outpace that, physical books will remain. 

It's also why there won't be a 'hobby' book and a 'rules' book, because they learnt in 1st AOS that releasing a book without rules content (or having rules content freely available online at the same time), means the books don't sell in enough volume. That why the free warscrolls went away. 

So as long as they continue to sell, the current army book format will remain. 

In my opinion, some of the changes that have been made to address the meta are just some of the things that should have been done right to begin with. I'm happy with them tweaking points because Bladegheist Revenants, Reikenor The Grimhailer etc. have proven to be too good in a Death Stalkers faction. I'm happy with changes between a Faction Pack and a Battletome. If I wanted to start Lumineth atm for a tournament, I'm not sure I'd be buying Huraken Windchargers because they're likely to get nerfed despite the faction pack I'd buy telling me they're great in the game. 

I went to a tournament 2-3 years ago and had to tell the Sylvaneth player who was just reading from his book that he couldn't re-roll the 1's he kept re-rolling because I thought it'd been FAQ'd (which it had).

It's nice that they try and keep the meta fresh, but I'd prefer it limited to dynamic points changes rather than printed core rules changes.

[Grimrock]

@Starfyre makes a good point. GW is essentially trying to run their games like they're fully online while doggedly insisting on printing purely physical media like it was 20 years ago. They want to have their cake and eat it too. They want to skimp and save money on playtesting because they know they can put an errata/FAQ later, but they also want the big profit margin of a physical book and the insane prices they've come to justify for that. That's why this all feels so bad.

If they absolutely insist on having physical media going forward, they need to do a better job with making sure that the rules are a high enough quality that they don't get changed in 3 weeks. We need books that are solid enough for the whole edition and beyond without changing a single word. Otherwise people will continue to disengage from them and resort to other options online to find their rules for free.

If they want to farm the engagement and revel in the simplicity of letting their players find the balance for them they need to shift to a digital format. Drop the $70 dollar wastes of paper and give us a good accessible system online. 

Edited Tuesday at 03:27 PM by Grimrock

[Tonhel]

1 hour ago, Grimrock said:

@Starfyre makes a good point. GW is essentially trying to run their games like they're fully online while doggedly insisting on printing purely physical media like it was 20 years ago. They want to have their cake and eat it too. They want to skimp and save money on playtesting because they know they can put an errata/FAQ later, but they also want the big profit margin of a physical book and the insane prices they've come to justify for that. That's why this all feels so bad.

If they absolutely insist on having physical media going forward, they need to do a better job with making sure that the rules are a high enough quality that they don't get changed in 3 weeks. We need books that are solid enough for the whole edition and beyond without changing a single word. Otherwise people will continue to disengage from them and resort to other options online to find their rules for free.

If they want to farm the engagement and revel in the simplicity of letting their players find the balance for them they need to shift to a digital format. Drop the $70 dollar wastes of paper and give us a good accessible system online. 

Well said! Especially for their main games it's pointless to buy BT's/Codexs. It feels like throwing money away (Wahapedia and New Recruit is the best solution for it).

That said, I will 100% buy the new edition book and supplements for MESBG, but as with TOW these books will not be invalidated in a couple of weeks (or even days) after its release.

Edited Tuesday at 04:31 PM by Tonhel

[Hollow]

Only a few short years ago people complained incessantly online about a lack of errata, FAQ and updates to rules. Now the scales have shifted and people are complaining about the speed at which they are addressing issues. GW are damned if they don't, damned if they do. 

4 hours ago, Starfyre said:

It's also why there won't be a 'hobby' book and a 'rules' book

I have mentioned this as a potential product release route for the future because I think it is a way to please the most people, whilst potentially increasing revenue. It's not just personal preference. It's a logical conclusion to a currently unsustainable situation.

It would allow for the rules to be sold twice. (Once behind a subscription paywall and in physical form) as well as having a large-margin publication that would remain relevant and desirable with a much longer shelf life.

We are already seeing baby steps being taken towards this. (The removal of the limited edition and introduction of a gamer edition) I could easily see the "Gamer Edition" making the next step of being an even cheaper-to-produce "rules-only" booklet with cards, next edition. That's the "rules only" part done. (I could even see them reprinting these multiple times throughout an edition including updates) 

Then 5th edition launches with an "ALL RULES AS PART OF AN SUBSCRIPTION" model which would be seen as a win by those lamenting the current situation. 

How do you please people, whilst increasing revenue? This is the way. 

Hobby Book - Expensive, High margin, Multiple year shelf-live product. (It could include some Narrative, Non-competitive and campaign based rules) 

Rules Pack - Cheap to produce, high-margin physical copy.

Generals Handbook - including updates for the faction rule packs (Sold Annually) 

Subscription - To access the physical rules digitally. 

Subscription + A higher tier of Sub with additional benefits. 

Edited Tuesday at 07:12 PM by Hollow

[Ejecutor]

6 minutes ago, Hollow said:

Only a few short years ago people complained incessantly online about a lack of errata, FAQ and updates to rules. Now the scales have shifted and people are complaining about the speed at which they are addressing issues. GW are damned if they don't, damned if they do. 

I have mentioned this as a potential product release route for the future because I think it is a way to please the most people, whilst potentially increasing revenue. It's not just personal preference. It's a logical conclusion to a currently unsustainable situation.

It would allow for the rules to be sold twice. (Once behind a subscription paywall and in physical form) as well as having a large-margin publication that would remain relevant and desirable with a much longer shelf life.

We are already seeing baby steps being taken towards this. (The removal of the limited edition and introduction of a gamer edition) I could easily see the "Gamer Edition" making the next step of being an even cheaper-to-produce "rules-only" booklet with cards, next edition. That's the "rules only" part done. (I could even see them reprinting these multiple times throughout an edition including updates) 

Then 5th edition launches with an "ALL RULES AS PART OF AN SUBSCRIPTION" model which would be seen as a win by those lamenting the current situation. 

I really doubt they will be reprinting books just to keep them up to date.

[Hollow]

3 minutes ago, Ejecutor said:

I really doubt they will be reprinting books just to keep them up to date.

If you have a spiral-bound booklet you could include an update page for each faction in the general's handbook which could be unbound from its spiral binding and inserted into the spiral binding of the rule pack booklet. They wouldn't be reprinting entire books. 

Edited Tuesday at 07:15 PM by Hollow

[Starfyre]

51 minutes ago, Hollow said:

Only a few short years ago people complained incessantly online about a lack of errata, FAQ and updates to rules. Now the scales have shifted and people are complaining about the speed at which they are addressing issues. GW are damned if they don't, damned if they do. 

My opinion is slightly warped given that I started the hobby in WHFB and the Hordes of Chaos book, before it was split into Warriors of Chaos and Beasts of Chaos. There was no changing core rules and altering the contents of my books back then. 

I do also appreciate the errata and FAQ where things need clarifying or something was unintentionally missed. To me, this literal changing of even the core rules is a relatively new thing in the grand scheme of things, and it gets me because I don't want to feel like my purchase is invalidated. It's not necessarily a reasonable response - I can absolutely play with the books as they are, just as I can play with my sacrosanct models - but it doesn't feel great knowing it's out of date or invalidated. It's not an inconsiderate amount of money to spend on something that's deemed not to be correct - because it's needed changing, errating or FAQing. Now I do appreciate doing it for the good of the meta so that a dozen or so people who bought 20 Hurakan Windchargers also get to feel bad about spending £160 on Elven Kangaroos, and everyone else gets to feel slightly better.

59 minutes ago, Hollow said:

I have mentioned this as a potential product release route for the future because I think it is a way to please the most people, whilst potentially increasing revenue. It's not just personal preference. It's a logical conclusion to a currently unsustainable situation.

Nothing against it, I think it's a neat idea and a cool solution but I don't think they'll take the risk when they make so much money from books as they already do, but that's just my opinion. 

It'd be neat to have a big hobby book, but I think there's a reason that they don't and that's because they've not been able to prove that it'll sell yet.

[brocktoon]

15 hours ago, Starfyre said:

I do also appreciate the errata and FAQ where things need clarifying or something was unintentionally missed. To me, this literal changing of even the core rules is a relatively new thing in the grand scheme of things, and it gets me because I don't want to feel like my purchase is invalidated.

This is really the qualitative difference. Once we get to rewriting core rules, what's the point in buying a book at all? The rapidity of edition shift plus constant large scale changes to the army lists already has me sitting out army book purchases this edition, except my two or three most played factions (I have 10 AoS armies large enough to do some play with). I can find unnamed alternatives for that one off Idoneth game I play.

I'd warn against cheering too hard for a living rulebook gated by GW's ruthless policing. We've already seen where analog games go once a games company turns into a platform company with WotC's execrable practices around D&D. You'll end up paying more via subscriptions and "DLC". Those old editions will disappear in favor of an eternal gaming present (this sort of ethos is already in their marketing material, where everything is best ever). I like AoS, I enjoy most of GW's games and minis, so this isn't a hater statement. But we don't need to do the intellectual heavylifting for the platformization of their rules. I'd much rather see community created and run living rulebook documents and/or stronger demands that the rules actually work more or less out of the box. Those things will be accompanied by some hard discussions about the nature of competitive play in AoS and whether it's desirable as an emphasis at all.

[Sarouan]

16 hours ago, Hollow said:

Only a few short years ago people complained incessantly online about a lack of errata, FAQ and updates to rules. Now the scales have shifted and people are complaining about the speed at which they are addressing issues. GW are damned if they don't, damned if they do.

It's not the same people who are complaining, though.
 

16 hours ago, Ejecutor said:

I really doubt they will be reprinting books just to keep them up to date.

If they didn't before, they have no reason to start now. Especially because the issues are the same than in the past : stock of outdated books get useless, and retailers are never happy with books they can't sell anymore because they have no longer relevant (see what happens with each new edition in the shops still having old edition books).

A fast release pace like in video games works because video games can be done fully digital and online. You can't do the same pace with physical books in miniature games, you have to go digital for it to really work. Feels like we're in a transition period at this point.

Edited Wednesday at 12:00 PM by Sarouan