I believe rules need to take competive players in mind

[bad dice]

I think they do keep ppl in mind but there are three factors that make it hard to make rules that are totally abuse proof.

One it is very very hard to improver your own writing cause you know what you mean. And every time you read your own rules back your are going to see that meaning

A other thing is that there are literally millions of players so when a book comes out a group properly 100.000 time larger then the test team go in and try to break the game (cause that is what gamers do). Then we scream and rage about it on the inter webs and in no time everyone knows about it.
OF course GW could try to hire more ppl but that would be insanely expensive and the game is also a bit to big to do a open test whit the comunity that would just generate a completely clusterF of data that nobody in a right state of mind would want to take on.

Third think is Hindsight is 20/20

Also to every one who thinks they can do better. I dare you to come up whit a rule for a unit that needs to cover a nice fluffy interaction
Then post a topic about it and see how many ppl find a way to break it.

[Rated_lexxx]

I think they do keep ppl in mind but there are three factors that make it hard to make rules that are totally abuse proof.

One it is very very hard to improver your own writing cause you know what you mean. And every time you read your own rules back your are going to see that meaning

A other thing is that there are literally millions of players so when a book comes out a group properly 100.000 time larger then the test team go in and try to break the game (cause that is what gamers do). Then we scream and rage about it on the inter webs and in no time everyone knows about it.
OF course GW could try to hire more ppl but that would be insanely expensive and the game is also a bit to big to do a open test whit the comunity that would just generate a completely clusterF of data that nobody in a right state of mind would want to take on.

Third think is Hindsight is 20/20

Also to every one who thinks they can do better. I dare you to come up whit a rule for a unit that needs to cover a nice fluffy interaction
Then post a topic about it and see how many ppl find a way to break it.

This is all true, but there should be more then one person reading what your wrote.

To me it's mentality that "well most people play casual and don't need or care about balance and precise rules they should know what we mean" ala geared towards beer and pretzel crowd.

You need the mindset that people are going to abuse any loop hole they can find so you need to think what competitive people are going to try.

They need to change there mindset

[Vipoid]

One it is very very hard to improver your own writing cause you know what you mean. And every time you read your own rules back your are going to see that meaning.

*cough* Editor *cough*

[yabbadabba]

You need the mindset that people are going to abuse any loop hole they can find

And what happens if you know that, and are happy with that?

[ChaplainCharlie]

How exactly should the rules be fitted to a more competitive audience? If there are "broken" combos, then that's competitive too as long as they are legal. I mean, the only "casual" rule in the entire book is that people should have fun and not be a prick. But isn't that a good rule in any competitive setting?
Heck, I think GW knows this issue and has 0 motivation to change it, because as long as there are power play codexes, ie the new ones, they have a steady flow of "WAAC" gamers who just HAVE to buy the newest army to remain competitive. If that means model prices in other armies remain low, that's splendid news for me! XD

Thing is, at least to me, that this is a self-created issue. Because gamers insist on using broken combos, they choke themselves. Do you really NEED to have 3 psyrleman dreads in all your GK builds? Not neccessarily. You can be competitive without them too. Not AS competitive, sure, but viable still.
Even with perfect rules, there would be "perfect builds" that players could exploit. Hence, I would rather look at your own gaming scene and sit down to talk about how competitive we want to be at that level. Then, in real tournaments, people can spam GK, Necron and SW lists like there's no tomorrow.

In a game of chance, the armies with the highest reliability would still be prefered over other ones, no matter the rules. This reflects why the 3 top tier armies are what they are...

[Vipoid]

This is all true, but there should be more then one person reading what your wrote.

To me it's mentality that "well most people play casual and don't need or care about balance and precise rules they should know what we mean" ala geared towards beer and pretzel crowd.

You need the mindset that people are going to abuse any loop hole they can find so you need to think what competitive people are going to try.

They need to change there mindset

Agreed.

Also to every one who thinks they can do better. I dare you to come up whit a rule for a unit that needs to cover a nice fluffy interaction
Then post a topic about it and see how many ppl find a way to break it.

Out of interest, are you asking people to come up with their own rules, or are you asking them to see if they can rewrite existing ones to make them more clear.

If it's the latter, why not pick a few rules that you consider unclear? I'm sure several people here would be happy to give it a go.

[Wishing]

How exactly should the rules be fitted to a more competitive audience? If there are "broken" combos, then that's competitive too as long as they are legal. I mean, the only "casual" rule in the entire book is that people should have fun and not be a prick. But isn't that a good rule in any competitive setting?
Heck, I think GW knows this issue and has 0 motivation to change it, because as long as there are power play codexes, ie the new ones, they have a steady flow of "WAAC" gamers who just HAVE to buy the newest army to remain competitive. If that means model prices in other armies remain low, that's splendid news for me! XD

I think there are two issues to be aware of.

The first is the question of imbalance, which is the one you comment on here. You say, I think, that lack of balance is not an issue for competitive players, because they like the fact that there are broken armies for them to buy into. I think you are wrong about this, personally. I feel that competitive players would like the armies to be more evenly balanced, simply because it would make the competitive game more interesting to have a variety of powerful (and reliable) options, rather than only a few powerful options (since competitive players will not use non-powerful options).

The second is the question of rule quality, for lack of a better word. This isn't about whether models are balanced or unbalanced, but simply about how well the rules work as written. If rules are ambiguous, have internal conflicts or don't make any sense unless you look at it from a certain implied perspective, then they are not good for competition. In competitive gaming, fixing gaps and ambiguities in the rules by saying "roll a D6 for it" is usually seen as being very unsatisfying. So the rules could be fitted to a competitive audience simply by making them tighter and less full of ambiguity and omission.

[ChaplainCharlie]

Considering that the way the current edition is made to be "cinematic" there are obvious omissions to strict rules. That's a company policy...
With true line of sight comes many issues, just as an example, and the only rule to "fix" that is a generalist statement against competitive modelling.
The thing is, GW has a history of casual playing and I doubt they want to further cut-throat competitiveness. I agree that balance would be a good thing, but GW makes money on imbalance, so there's no incentive. Besides, chess is competitive and only has two armies to choose from with only one build. Yet, it is very popular. GW offers about 3-4 armies for the WAAC gamer and about a dozen builds combined... And competitive gamers should know the loopholes anyway, so that's not a loophole anymore. Loopholes are only an issue if the other side is unaware of them, are they not? Otherwise they're normal rules.

I agree that balance would be nice, but consider this: Models have points values that are based on average performance against other units within and without their codex. With so many codexes and so many units, how are you going to balance them all within a point? The issue is that if you want a tight, compact package without much fear for abuse, you can forget about variety. A new Marine flyer has to be judged in efficiency against about a hundred units to decide its points value. This takes lots of time and testing and even then won't always go right.

The reason chess is so incorruptable is because the rule makers KNOW the limits of their game and the armies playing it. That's why I think it's good enough that we have those 3-4 competitive armies around. Hey, if things go well, we'll see the next released army be good too, but not so good as to dethrone one of the current best ones. Then we'd already have some 5 competitive armies. That's quite a bit already...

[AlphariusOmegon20]

I think the first thing they need to do is just start with the concept of building rules with competition in mind. From there just start building up with clear and balance rules. This process could take years but it has to start sometime.

Mtg was like that when it first came. Rules were unclear a lot and cards ran from very powerful to awful. As time went rules were made more clear and balance. They do get cards the are over the top and and rules are unclear but it's better then it use to be

MTG is a perfect example of where the competitive crowd (admittedly, along with the Card Collectors) ruined a perfectly good beer and pretzel game. The problems were not with anything being unclear. At first, everything was VERY clear and quite balanced, as how a combo was resolved was spelled out in the basic rules. It was later, after the competitive crowd got a hold of the game, that everything went to hell in a hand basket concerning clarity and balance.

[Spell_of_Destruction]

My take on it is that it would be easy to rewrite the game so that is (a) is simpler, easier for new players to pick up and more intuitive and (b) has a much higher level of tactical depth.

I think the problem is that GW would see it as too much of a business risk to overhaul the entire system. When they did this with 3rd edition I think the game was in a transitional phase and moving away from its hobbyist beginnings (and the release of 3rd ed was a big part of that transition). That's not to say there aren't things they could do to improve the system without a radical overhaul.

[Mikial]

Considering that the way the current edition is made to be "cinematic" there are obvious omissions to strict rules. That's a company policy...
With true line of sight comes many issues, just as an example, and the only rule to "fix" that is a generalist statement against competitive modelling.
The thing is, GW has a history of casual playing and I doubt they want to further cut-throat competitiveness. I agree that balance would be a good thing, but GW makes money on imbalance, so there's no incentive. Besides, chess is competitive and only has two armies to choose from with only one build. Yet, it is very popular. GW offers about 3-4 armies for the WAAC gamer and about a dozen builds combined... And competitive gamers should know the loopholes anyway, so that's not a loophole anymore. Loopholes are only an issue if the other side is unaware of them, are they not? Otherwise they're normal rules.

I agree that balance would be nice, but consider this: Models have points values that are based on average performance against other units within and without their codex. With so many codexes and so many units, how are you going to balance them all within a point? The issue is that if you want a tight, compact package without much fear for abuse, you can forget about variety. A new Marine flyer has to be judged in efficiency against about a hundred units to decide its points value. This takes lots of time and testing and even then won't always go right.

The reason chess is so incorruptable is because the rule makers KNOW the limits of their game and the armies playing it. That's why I think it's good enough that we have those 3-4 competitive armies around. Hey, if things go well, we'll see the next released army be good too, but not so good as to dethrone one of the current best ones. Then we'd already have some 5 competitive armies. That's quite a bit already...

This is really sound reasoning and I agree with you.

I know some people may choose an army solely based on if they think they can win most of the time with it, and that's fine if that's what blows your skirt up. For myself, I choose which army to build next by how much the background appeals to me, how fun they are to model (such as orks), or simply because they appeal to me for some reason. For example, I play IG because I was a tank officer in the Army and I love tanks. I know they, and the crunchies that run around with them, will get shredded by any close combat army that gets too close to them and several hundred points worth of tanks will be trashed by a single hero or demon or monstrous Nid or . . .

Truly competitive games start both players out on a level playing field, with the same resources to draw upon, then test them solely against each other not against how well they choose their army or build a Magic deck. If you want true tactical competitiveness based only on your ability as a player; play Go. You will never be able to balance all the units in a game as diverse as 40k to within a few points of each other.

As for GW and the 40k/WFB game systems, I know this may make some people angry at me for saying, but I have played them since each of their first editions and seen a lot of other games come around that people said would kill GW over the years. None of those games are still around but WH is. Why? Great background, nice models, and playable rules. Notice I didn't say perfect rules, just playable ones. Do I wish they were better, clearer, more balanced in places . . . yup. But . . . hey, whad'ya want . . egg in yer beer?

[bad dice]

Agreed.



Out of interest, are you asking people to come up with their own rules, or are you asking them to see if they can rewrite existing ones to make them more clear.

If it's the latter, why not pick a few rules that you consider unclear? I'm sure several people here would be happy to give it a go.

Of course its the former. Like I said improving on what has been done is the easy part. Cause hindsight is 20/20.

[Vipoid]

Of course its the former. Like I said improving on what has been done is the easy part. Cause hindsight is 20/20.

You don't need hindsight to generate well-written rules - that's what Editors and Playtesters are for.

[Egaeus]

You don't need hindsight to generate well-written rules - that's what Editors and Playtesters are for.

Plus GW has the "hindsight" of (currently) 5 editions of the game...really, how hard is it to look at the rules and the FAQs (past and present) to determine what kind of wording is unclear?

As I've mentioned before there are dozens if not hundreds of alternate rulesets that one could use with 40K so it's obviously not an issue of people being unable to produce a "better" ruleset. It's the mentality that these other rulesets aren't "the official ones" and the fact that one would have to get a consensus of players (even if it's just a local gaming group) to use these rules. Additionally you have the fact that GW has set themselves up as a "one stop shop" for "the GW hobby" so the ability to introduce alternate rules to some players is limited.

It's like claiming McDonald's makes the "best" burgers because they sell more than anyone else.

[Haravikk]

I'd just like to add that army books released for 8th edition of fantasy have been much more balanced, both internally, and against other books. There's still an issue of the new stuff getting the biggest slice of the attention, often leaving older units neglected, so some stuff remains uncompetitive.

However, if GW can hit the same, or even better, level of balance in 6th codexes then I'd be extremely happy. If that could go hand in hand with reigning in on the cartoony aspects that certain marine books (Blood Angels, Space Wolves and Grey Knights all spring to mind) then 6th edition could be absolutely perfect, as none of the 8th edition books are boring by any stretch.


8th edition fantasy books do have some strong combos, but nothing like the broken builds of 7th edition where it was practically impossible to play many of the armies in any competitive setting. So it's been a great trend so far.

[RandomThoughts]

Considering that the way the current edition is made to be "cinematic" there are obvious omissions to strict rules. That's a company policy...

My issue with statements like these are, that I find the supposedly gamey Warmachine far more satisfying on the narrative/immersive side as well.

I had a huge post about this before (in this very thread), but a game in which unarmored Orks riding unarmored buggies are invulnerable to basic weapons (i.e. Lasguns) that mow down the same Orks riding Bikes, weapons designed to punch through heavy armor plates bounce off like rubber bullets if the AP or strength is slightly wrong (Missiles against Terminator armor, Powerswords against Dreadnoughts and Witchblades against Terminators), the only reaction possible to a successful assault is for the charged unit to throw away their guns and charge in, even if that means getting slaughtered even faster and the epic grimdark of the fluff, with Imperial Commissars ordering artillery fire on extended melees and Orks firing on their own guys if they get bored, getting turned around towards "you may never ever fire at a model locked in melee or if one of your models might get in the way!", I just don't find 40K very cinematic.

Funny how our group usually gets more epic / suspenseful games out of a ruleset decried for being too much geared towards WAAC tournament play. In my honest opinion, GW didn't sacrifice good gameplay for more epic experiences, they are simply bad at creating both. Which is sad, as it means my Eldar gather more and more dust...

My take on it is that it would be easy to rewrite the game so that is (a) is simpler, easier for new players to pick up and more intuitive and (b) has a much higher level of tactical depth.

I think the problem is that GW would see it as too much of a business risk to overhaul the entire system. When they did this with 3rd edition I think the game was in a transitional phase and moving away from its hobbyist beginnings (and the release of 3rd ed was a big part of that transition). That's not to say there aren't things they could do to improve the system without a radical overhaul.

That's probably the real issue. I concur.

Of course its the former. Like I said improving on what has been done is the easy part. Cause hindsight is 20/20.

You don't need hindsight to generate well-written rules - that's what Editors and Playtesters are for.

Or how about they reevaluate their rulebooks and codices once every year? Just fix the real issues, small stuff, try to fine-tune everything, before the next massive overhaul throws the baby out with the bathwater? Might be just me, but I believe that every big overhaul leads automatically to a myriad tiny new imbalances, that need to be fixed by fine-tuning the rules and stats and point values. Which means multiple tiny steps, just to get equilibrium after a rehaul.

Actually, something like their FAQs, but ... just more or better..

[yabbadabba]

Actually, something like their FAQs, but ... just more or better..

You mean like what they are currently doing? Don't forget when it comes to some areas of judgement here, "better" is entirely subjective.

[RandomThoughts]

You mean like what they are currently doing? Don't forget when it comes to some areas of judgement here, "better" is entirely subjective.

Possibly. I'll have to make he time and really read the most recent ones!

[althathir]

MTG is a perfect example of where the competitive crowd (admittedly, along with the Card Collectors) ruined a perfectly good beer and pretzel game. The problems were not with anything being unclear. At first, everything was VERY clear and quite balanced, as how a combo was resolved was spelled out in the basic rules. It was later, after the competitive crowd got a hold of the game, that everything went to hell in a hand basket concerning clarity and balance.

I don't think the competitive crowd really broke magic at all. If you look at magic from the perspective that we look at warhammer it was very poorly balanced from the start. Blue was the best color for most of the early sets, the rules were clear, but some of the cards were just so over the top. What hurt magic was that it isn't a contained game, and cards from different blocks had some interactions that were unintended, and it took them a while to figure out ways to combat that a bit (and also how to tone down the power level in standard without releasing a crappy set)

I'd just like to add that army books released for 8th edition of fantasy have been much more balanced, both internally, and against I other books. There's still an issue of the new stuff getting the biggest slice of the attention, often leaving older units neglected, so some stuff remains uncompetitive.

However, if GW can hit the same, or even better, level of balance in 6th codexes then I'd be extremely happy. If that could go hand in hand with reigning in on the cartoony aspects that certain marine books (Blood Angels, Space Wolves and Grey Knights all spring to mind) then 6th edition could be absolutely perfect, as none of the 8th edition books are boring by any stretch.


8th edition fantasy books do have some strong combos, but nothing like the broken builds of 7th edition where it was practically impossible to play many of the armies in any competitive setting. So it's been a great trend so far.

I'm not the most familiar with fantasy but it seems part of why 8th is so balanced is that they're fixing 7th. Besides GK there really isn't a fraction in 5th that is OTT the difference between the 4th & 5th edition books has more to do with quality of troops and thats why the 4th books seem so weak. In 6th the updates should be more xenos centric with tau, eldar, orks, and nids (have been updated every edition) which should level the playing field quite a bit.

[bad dice]

Plus GW has the "hindsight" of (currently) 5 editions of the game...really, how hard is it to look at the rules and the FAQs (past and present) to determine what kind of wording is unclear?

As I've mentioned before there are dozens if not hundreds of alternate rulesets that one could use with 40K so it's obviously not an issue of people being unable to produce a "better" ruleset. It's the mentality that these other rulesets aren't "the official ones" and the fact that one would have to get a consensus of players (even if it's just a local gaming group) to use these rules. Additionally you have the fact that GW has set themselves up as a "one stop shop" for "the GW hobby" so the ability to introduce alternate rules to some players is limited.

It's like claiming McDonald's makes the "best" burgers because they sell more than anyone else.

No kidding
They want to be the only one selling and producing for their own product shocking.