What went wrong?
>>47554324
>Sales are falling because our prices are to high
>Better raise our prices to compensate
>>47554324
Everything
>>47554324
1) People complain about balance
2) Better make a new OP codex/unit that can counter what was causing that problem
3) This new thing became the balance problem
4) Repeat
>>47554383
>constant power and price creep
>plastic crack addicts keep buying anyway
I don't see the problem.
>>47554324
Poor balance, reduction in the quality of artworks and big multikits (just compare the carnifex kit with the more recent tyranids monsters) and lastly change for change's sake risking to ruin the 30k (explanation of the Horus heresy) and the 40k fluff (risking to fall in the same errors of fantasy)
It's mainly balance
>>47554324
kirby
formations + LoW/Superheavies
total disregard for competitive play
>>47554426
Indeed, and they stayed in business thanks to hardcore fans.
But then you have high prices and people complaining about balance all the time, and wonder why new people don't come into the hobby?
Such mystery!
It must be the Lore, is a little too grim, better dilute it with sci-fi and heroes-plain-as-a-table bullshit.
I never understood why GW doesn't make all codex with great rules. The actual problem with w40k is not the cost of stuff, not the basic rules, but the fact that somehow GW thinks that eldar or marines should be sharing the same edition with something like Imperial Guard or Orcs.
The only explanation I can think of why they write their books like that is that somehow they think that people play 5-6k pts games with multi factions and multi codex and obligatory FW. Which means that all places in the world where the "normal" game is 1500pts suffer from non viable units or even whole army books.
>>47554515
Part of the reason for the balance gulf is what armies the designers play. Somebody plays Eldar, so they get a lot of attention and special rules. Nobody plays Orks, so they get options gutted and lazy rules.
It would not be hard to bring everyone to a somewhat even level. You'll never get it perfect, but even bringing everyone to a level between say, Imperial Guard and Necrons, would be a massive improvement. As long as the outcome of a game isn't basically predetermined by army choice, the balance will be fine.
>>47554601
But that would be super improffesional. A firm that makes models should want to sell as many models as possible. They should give most, if not all, models rules which would want people to buy them. And not make something like the CSM codex where the army is limited to 4-5 units, out of which one have no GW models. All books should be like the eldar one, where almost every option is good, and sooner or later one wants to buy it.
I realy do not get them realy. Make new models for something like ogryns, invest in to molds etc and then give them shit rules, so no one will ever buy them. They even put rules that will make them suck more or less for ever, unless they decide to remove ally in future editions.
Other than helping to kill Fantasy Battle simply by being the new Golden Egg for GW, and having extremely high miniature prices, it's okay.
>>47554657
The problem is that designers often have an idea of how an army should operate, regardless of effectiness.
Take Orcs and Goblins in WHFB, for example. Someone decided they were supposed to be the bumbling idiots of the setting, ineffectual villains for the other armies to fight against. So they got a shitload of rules that actually make their army worse, and nothing to make up for it.
There's also the thing where someone goes "I think this would be an amazing model" and no one goes "Great, we should figure out good rules for it."
No, they go "Great, make it and we'll throw some bullshit together. The rules don't matter, the model itself is what's important.
>>47554657
But that's the thing. The Eldar got good rules because the designer who wrote the book played Eldar, so he knew what good rules for Eldar would look like.
If nobody plays Orks, then the designers don't have the best indication of what good Ork rules look like. What do Ork players want? They don't know, so they just default back to Ork stuff being made of scrap metal and therefore expensive garbage. Also BS 2 and I 2 because they have always been, ignoring any special rules that they used to have to offset that.
GW's balance issues are half intentional, and half incompetence. And it adds up to a full broken mess
How much profit for 40k comes from the wargame ?
How much comes from all the other things GW does with 40k ?
Things like licensing the IP to anyone wanting to make a video game.
>>47554686
I can't believe that. No multi milion company would let people influence their sells like that. I mean , if that is true, then this is kinder garden level acting shit.
As far as the BS2 goes, I get that, orcs don't aim etc. But that should mean that design should give them extra rules. make them real cheap, or give them FnP or t5 to represent how tough they are. Giving a faction handicaps just because it is "characterful" and then not giving the same army ways to play is beyond stupid. If it is true. I still think that, some people at GW maybe thinking that the normal sized games is 5-6k pts, and if your orcs happen to suck, you should just play 2k of good army X or Y to make them better or just buy some high priced FW unit.
>>47554324
>>47554324
They started taking the setting seriously.
>>47554731
But GW doesn't really want you to buy FW units, and the balance issues don't get better at 5000+ points or anything.
Again, the design team has been fairly insular. Rules are a vague enough concept that the business side of the company can't really see hard numbers backing up the sales related to 'good' or 'bad' rules.
They see that a new kit is selling well or isn't, and they won't think 'I wonder if this has good/bad rules'. They'll think 'Wow, these players must really like this sort of model'
There's nobody on the design team to view the big picture. They're just slowly meandering along focusing on what they're working on at the time, and sometimes not even then.
>>47554324
This is footage from an actual GW board meeting discussing Warhammer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ckVYO9oI8vc
>>47554657
>"We're a model company"
http://icv2.com/articles/markets/view/33912/top-5-non-collectible-miniature-games-fall-2015
>>47554831
>Non-Collectible
So what would a collectible miniature game be?
>>47554852
collectible
>>47554852
Probably pre-assembled and painted models that come in randomized packs.
>>47554875
Right, forgot stuff like Mage Kinght was a thing.
>>47554889
Wait, that's actually a thing? I was just kidding.
>>47554914
Yeah, for example multiple WizKids games that use the Clix system.
>>47554324
I say they tried taking themselves too seriously. It used to be satire.
>>47554803
kek
Shit fluff from every department except maybe Forgeworld
Increasing prices with decreasing quality in art and rules
Rules became to broad and shallow, where it was super complicated but players never made meaningful decisions, so games were decided entirely by lists and luck.
Models became impractically large, and quite a few just looked stupid.
Price increases outpaced inflation by an obscene amount.
New player wants in
buys low point army at huge expense
Only people who can afford to play generally are grognards who don't want to play low point battles.
New player shells out more than they can really afford on units to make up point gap, probably don't buy correctly cause they understandably don't know the game yet
Lose to Grognards experience and massive unit choice over and over again
Quit game because they lose all the time and there are no other new players, probably just keep getting told to buy more units which doesn't work because Grognards are competent enough to deal with the weekly changes.
time passes
A New player buys in at the minimum level
repeat ad infinitum
Unless the new players can find a really welcoming club that has at least one mother goose they're always going to be put off by the combination of high prices and stagnant playerbase
>It was expensive when I was a child
>It was expensive when I was a teenager
>It was expensive when I was a young adult
>It is expensive now that I am an adult
The tabletop is a rich person game and always was. They did well on going nuts on the literature. Their next step is to sell the whole thing to a movie studio like Marvel did to Disney.
>>47557938
>They did well
Did. Past tense.
>>47554324
>What went wrong?
"Let no good deed go unpunished."
- GW's mission statement
Every time a product proved a Hit instead of a Miss, they meddled with it until it stopped being a Hit.
"Every year brings a fresh crop of 12yos."
- GW's other mission statement
>>47554324
>Bad balance
>Scale bloat with both miniatures and amount needed
>Clunky core rules over all
>High price, and I am not neccesarily talking about the miniatures
>Formations shoehorning even more garbage in
What it does well
>Nice kits
>Fleshed out setting
>Large community
If they moved down to the scale of let's say Bolt Action and hired game designers who aren't morons I am sure that things could get better.
Constantly rewriting fluff and rules to sell the latest model and therefore invalidating all the older models that their customers had previously spent ages assembling and painting.
>make mech faction
>make them insanely powerful
>underpoint every model in the codex
>WAACfags flock to this faction
>continue to pump out dataslates and additional faction rules even more overpowered and under pointed
>even more WAACfags flock to this faction
it's a vicious cycle
>>47554324
Tau.
And this is coming from a Tau fan.
I haven't played 40k since 3e, but I nearly hit my head on the desk when I learned that GW decided to make 40k Epic at 28mm scale. Because nothing says a reasonable 28mm scale game like a herd of Trygons fighting a pack of Warhounds.
ITT: adjusted for inflation, space marines have been the same price for over ten years
>>47554324
They fired the old heads and hired new blood, who took the setting seriously and could not innovate, only imitate the works of their forebears.
>>47564826
but then they fired those people again and hired another new set of people
it remains to be seen what the fruits of their labor will be
>>47554368
Probably this.
>>47554324
I hit them all and bought a whole bunch of Louie shitBut I already had on a whole bunch of Gucci shit
Horus Heresy books.
>>47554324
>what went wrong
They went public. If they were still a private corporation, run by the owners, and not beholden to shareholders - things would be vastly different than they are now.
They started taking the setting way too seriously. Also, prices.
>>47564794
You realise the prices have been a running gag for well over 10 years, right?
Last time I actually bought them was around 20 years ago, and I thought they were ridiculous even then.
>>47554324
We've discussed this for decades. Scale creep. Power creep. Imbalance. Rules bloat. Army bloat. Fuckin' prices. Obsession with a handful of armies and failure to innovate with others. General lack of support or even insight into their customers.
However, this year is the first time in a very long while that GW has done some things right (Get Started sets, Deathwatch box, Warhammer Quest). Even Age of Sigmar, although cripplingly flawed, is an attempt to correct mistakes rather than just increase prices to compensate for them.
Yes, these things have been mixed with all the usual bullshit, but they are the first legitimate signs of improvement from GW for a very long time.
>>47554750
This.
>>47554750
Agreed.
>>47554324
>Took the setting seriously
>Removed the Squats
>Ramped up the Grimdark into Grimderp territory
>Increased the prices and put in less models and bits in things that supposed to have a lot of bits
>Didn't make certain OP units into LoW (I'm looking at you Tau and your Riptides)
>Glorifies some factions and nerfs others
>Disregards basic marketing elements and ruining competitive plays
>Thinks their all the people that are buying their shit buy it for modelling only
>Everything that Kirby did
And It's a wonder they are still around. Maybe now that Kirby is not in charge something will change.
What went wrong?, The fact I was not born in it
>tfw you will never die for the emperor of mankind, life is suffering
>>47574903
>removed squats.
This happened in fucking 2e. And lets be honest, they concept is retarded. Orks already have the biker angle covered, and covered better.
>>47575076
Anon, the same can be said about plenty of the older stuff. So much 80s.
>>47575179
I don't dislike the original vision of 40k. Finding a Rogue Trader at a halfprice back before you could easily just find it for download on the Internet was amazing. I'd read through it just for fun. And I prefer some of the things, such as Genestealers not being Tyranids. I always thought they worked better as their own thing.
I also wouldn't be adverse to neo-squats. I just agree with their own creators that the original concept of squats is bad.
>>47563599
This.
They should have kept the game a platoon-level conflict. 28mm is a SKIRMISH game. Having a Titan in a 28mm battle should a for a diorama at an event, not for actual use.
If they wanted to make fuckhuge battles, they should have stuck with Epic.
>>47575076
The same can be said about Orcs and Elves in space.
Why not Dwarves in space?
>>47575274
Orks and Eldar evolved enough quirks of their own to set them a little bit apart from the usual tropes. You can still recognise what they are, but they developed their own identity. Squats didn't. They were just Dwarves, with a bit of a biker motif stapled onto the side to try and make them feel different. They didn't feel like a natural, organic part of the setting, but felt like they were just included to fulfill the iconic Elf-Dwarf-Orc trio.
>>47575264
They pretty much killed Epic the same way they killed Man O War. Released a version of the game no one liked and then let it die.
Epic Armageddon is good, but it was sold online only and the only new models made for it were early Forgeworld releases.
>>47575317
Squats were miners and traders too. Don't forget that.
>>47575317
I'd add to this that I'm not against the idea of a "space Dwarves " faction being reintroduced to the game, whether that's in the form of a rebooted Squat army, Demiurg, or something completely new. It just needs to have a bit more forethought, and honestly a bit more genuinely love, put into it than the original Squats did.
>>47575361
>Squat army, Demiurg, or something completely new.
Not that anon, but I'm for both. May very well have the Squats renamed and fleshed out further from what they were originally and have the Demiurg fleshed out and given models.
>TL;DR
>>47554324
Anon, it doesn`t matter what GW does about 40k, because people will complain and throw shit at them anyway.
Examples?
These are the most complained about topics:
>prices
GW could lower the prices or even give them away for free and people would complain that their exclusive hobby suddenly is worth a shit and too many plebs would be able to buy and play it now.
>balance of the tabletop
No matter which changes or updates on the rules will be released, people will always cry about it. Let 1 million people that play the game write rules and codizes and you will get 1 million different versions. And everybody would claim that his version is the only real balanced one. And it is a smart business decision from GW to overpower armies with new codizes. Because they are a company that wants to sell new models and competative gamers will buy whatever is considered the most powerfull.
>miniature quality
Question: Where the models you bought 20 years ago better than today? Without flaws? Doesn`t FW and GW replace every damaged model instantly if you request it? And BTW: If you can`t handle Finecast, then don`t complain about it, but improve your skills.
>quality of the artwork and lore
Is always a matter of taste and that said it`s useless and stupid to talk about it. But maybe we became so spoiled by hundreds if not thousands of amazing pictures over the years, that now even Dali could draw a cover for 40k and we would cry and claim John Blanche back.
To the actual lore and the changes in the 40k history and background of the 40k universe itself: Yes, that`s stupid most of the time and I can not argue with that.
>general business decisions of GW
Like I said above: They don`t exist to make you happy. Making people happy is just a way to bound you to the company and squeeze your wallets. If you need a company that`s your friend, that cares about you and what you want, then I guess you`ll have to go and found your own.
I have spoken.
>>47554515
This is the first time I've heard of people playing under 2000 point games.
>>47575919
why would anyone WANT to play more than 2k? The game is a goddamn mess.
>>47575919
Not him, but since I mainly have access to 6x4 tables I never exceeded 1500 or so. When an 8x4 opens up you might see 2k or so.
>>47577259
>>47577542
Literally all the games I've played have been at least 2000 points. It's a bitch facing a shit ton of orks and bugs but I wouldn't have my day wasted any other way
>>47575712
I was actually just stripping my metal gorka morka and necromunda stuff today.
I'd say much of that is better than some modern kits.
That said some of the new stuff is very nice.
My problem with fine cast is more about the resilience of it rather than all the work you have to do to fix it. Plus metal just feels so good.
>>47577705
First: I respect your opinion. Honestly.
But may I remind you, that metal had the same flaws that people complain about today? And that "feels good" is just nostlgia in my eyes, because if it`s just for the weight, then just glue some coins at your base.
There isn`t one single metal mini that has more details, than finecast.
Name me one and I shall apologize.
So maybe, it`s just a matter of improving your painting skills and evolution in materials vs. nostalgia and feelings.
I have spoken again.
stagnant world and setting, outdated concept
need some new refreshment, their own Age of Sigmar. just follow the recipe that has already vastly succeeded
>>47577845
I'd take metal any day for the resilience of the material. They are game pieces that are to be used, not display pieces.
I'm a different poster, and I don't hate resin, but I'm thankful that many 3rd party manufacturers still use white metal.
>>47554737
More like pic related.
>>47578789
Those have been a thing since forever. Unless you mean their inclusion in a 28mm game, which is retarded.
>>47578698
If it is just for the sake of an everyday, playable army, then I say: Fuck the meterial. The paint will go off, no matter on what it`s painted, and if you decide to treat it like a football, then it doesn`t matter too.
But: Finecast gives you the opportunity to turn it into showpieces too.
I might add: A good painter can make a Space Crusade model look epic, while a pleb painter can have the best model out there and can`t do shit.
>>47578841
I do appreciate Resin for anything larger than an ogre. Metal dragons being a thing of the past is just fine with me.
>>47578821
Yeah I meant their role in base 40k. Gargatuan monsters, super-heavy vehicles and (to a lesser extent) are just so bonkers that it's hard to balance around them when there are much, much smaller models. Wraithknights are the best example of a shittily overcosted model. They were overcosted when they were a monstrous creature and now they're simply a joke.
This is what went wrong
>>47578821
no, those were eldar titans, and those were given the same silly high point cost of imperial titans.
Wraithknights are criminally undercost. 400pts would make them like the higher end Forge World knights that have similar power levels.
>>47579106
He's not in GW since 2014, but yeah he did his share of damage.
