or did they?

So far from memory:

Scum and Villainy

Official only playmats

Push the Limit

C3po

Phantoms

Turrets

Have all allegedly made the game unplayable and 'ruined' it... yet from where i'm sitting i see a game going from strength to strength, getting more diverse, allowing more playstyles.

So can we all just wait a few weeks to *try* any new changes before we all declare that whatever new things FFG do has ruined the game and storm off in a strop ?

The phantom and more importantly the Falcon Plague it caused arguably were a bit of a problem. Broken? No, but they were a bit better than everything else.

Thing is, there's nothing this forum likes if not repetition, so it's been looking for a new broken in every release. One has yet to materialise.

Oh i know, i'm just trying to add a little levity after two threads spanning ten pages with people who are totally unaffected by the playmat ruling being up in arms about it.

And even though the play mat ruling, which affected almost none of them (I recall one person complaining being a TO) has now been adjusted so that everything is pretty much the same as before, they're all still moaning. This is called 'nothing can please us' syndrome.

I very much suspect that these are the same people who moan incessantly about how overpriced/horrible/worse than it used to be everything that GW does is, yet still queue up to buy ten of everything on launch day.

Back when i was in GW events there used to be a particularly militant 'anti gw' forum that was supposed to be for discussion of GW games but generally had a very vocal crowd of guys who just slated everything we did.

I got in touch with them and said 'look i know you dont like the way stuff is done, would you like to come up to head office, i'll give you a tour, you can talk to some of the dept managers and while we're at it... games day is in three months. How about you guys put on a game there and show us how you want the game to look and be played?'

They took me up on the offer, moaning stopped pretty much overnight as i think they felt they 'had a voice' and GW *was* listening and they even ran a game for us at the show.

Sometimes you just, as a company, need to reply to people directly.

At risk of wandering briefly off topic, that's kinda the issue with GW these days - there's no sense that they care much about anyone who isn't in love with what they are doing. And that's their perogative, that's fine. But it does mean that their original fan base feels more isolated over time, and they end up relying purely on the churn of new players. I can't honestly see that being a viable long term strategy for growth and success but what do I know?

All I do know is that FFG seem to have got all this kind of stuff dead right for the last few years.

Oh agreed.

Slighty off topic still but when i was at GW it was predominantly still people who were hobbyists first and business people second.

Most the senior management had been there since the 80s and were the original gamers who had risen through the ranks to be directors etc.

It was GWs blessing and curse. In some ways it was great as everyone played the game to a degree, understood being a mad keen collector/gamer and was in touch with the customer. On the flipside it meant that some really incompetant people were running entire sections as 'they'd been there for ages and were daves mate'. It also meant that when we started a new project up like lets say 'mulitmedia gaming', rather than recruiting someone who really *knew* what they were doing they would generally assign it to the person 'least likely to mess it up'. Like 'oh dave plays skyrim, let him manage the warhammer adventure game'.

About half way through my time there GW started to recruit real business proffesionals who made some broad sweeps and cut away a lot of the 'old guard' of managers, started looking at what made most money and focussing on that and cutting away fun stuff that wasnt profitable (makes sense they are a business after all). But this alienated the old players.

if you look at the management structure these days very few of the 'greats' of old are there any more (Rick Priestley, John Stallard etc, both amazing guys are gone to start their own games/companys).

I'll never forget this though, this is classic.

Once GW had an outside marketting expert come in to assess profitability and they discovered that 'black spray paint' was the most cost effective sale. Its buy in price to the sale price was brilliant and we sold a *lot*

There advice was that GW should focus on selling more spray paint... it took some kind words to explain to them that the spray paint wouldnt sell without the models to paint.

Thats what happens when you have 'experts' totally divorced from the subject matter in niche hobby business.

Sometimes you just, as a company, need to reply to people directly.

Squeaky wheel gets the oil hey!?

It's a shame that thousands of other heroes have devoted countless hours of painting and playing, ridiculous amounts of coin and an immeasurable chunk of their hobby to the game .. true fans .. yet never get offered that kind of experience. An experience which I'm sure would be a memorable one.

Ah no, not really.

I managed Uk organised play for GW between about 2001 and 2006 (before that i was in black library as an editor)

I was also semi part of the 'community' team. So basically whenever anyone came to visit i usually did the studio and factory tours for them.

Pretty much *hundreds* of people got to visit the studio with me while i was there.

We started a system called the 'gaming club network'. Any local club that had a proper membership (treasurer, secretary, president, regular venue and a consitituion) could join. A couple of times a year we'd invite members of the clubs up to warhammer world, take them out for dinner, play some games with them and listen to how they thought the game was going.

We'd support them running their own events and lend them kit, we'd donate old warhammer world tables to the club etc.

We'd arrange for them to have a 'seminar' with the designers.

All these things were not done because they were loud moaners, they were done because they were the guys providing safe and friendly venues for people to get together and play the games if they were not fortunate enough to have a local store. even towns that did have a local store got gaming club network support as we felt it was important that we as a company didnt 'micro manage' the way people played the game.

Honestly i must have taken hundreds of people round group and uk studio, casting and manufacturing over those years, so much so that i know we had to cut down on doing it a bit as at peak times it could be disrupting to have say Ali Morrison and Mark Harrisons office stop work for 30 minutes every couple of days as i brought in some wild eyed gamers to chat to them about sculpting minis.

It worked both ways too on occasion. An old army pal of mine who played once took some of us from Uk and group studio down to the warmister school of armoured warfare and let us play around on challenger II main battle tanks, trained us on the gunnery simulators and then put on a 'firepower' demonstration where we watched and armoured battle group demonstrate *every* weapon they had to bear with close air support.

If you've never seen a *real* anti tank mine go off , well its something memorable.... not like the movies.. much, much, much more impressive.

or did they?

So far from memory:

Scum and Villainy

Official only playmats

Push the Limit

C3po

Phantoms

Turrets

Have all allegedly made the game unplayable and 'ruined' it... yet from where i'm sitting i see a game going from strength to strength, getting more diverse, allowing more playstyles.

So can we all just wait a few weeks to *try* any new changes before we all declare that whatever new things FFG do has ruined the game and storm off in a strop ?

Every time I see the doom and gloom threads I cannot help but think how horribly broken Warhammer Fantasy and 40k has been at times (and still is). X-wing, at it's very worst level of 'broken', shines as a veritable star of fairness and balance in comparison to that.

So that Fat Han is getting you down? Don't you worry, Warhammer Fantasy Chaos Knights could literally not be hurt by basic level troops in some editions. Whisper feeling a bit overpowered? Try engaging a double frenzied Khorne general equipped with Helm of Many Eyes and Hydra Blade. I don't remember how many attacks that 'effer got but he easily dispatched a regiment per turn while striking before anyone else.

Exactly that !

4th edition WFB a 4th level dark elf sorceror with 'cloak of mist and shadows', 'amber amulet' and 'forbidden rod' was a one man army!

The cloak made you immune to non magic attacks, etherial and able to move abotu 50 inches a turn.

The forbiden rob let you cast the most devastating spells in a way they could not be negated... but you took a wound.

But that was ok because you had four of them and the amber amulet healed one back at the start of the next turn.

You didnt need the other models in your army!

Xwing has never had any ludicrous combos like that.

2nd ed 40k was as bad. A tech priest with a powerfield, jump pack and graviton gun could jump 24 inches a turn, had a 2+ invulnerable save and hit anything he shot at on a 2+ and the target was 'auto killed' (it was alive but out the game as it weighed too much to move or shoot)

The funniest thing to me is how much everyone had been moaning that the Phantom was broken and had ruined the game and now it seems almost as many people are moaning that it's been 'nerfed' by a minor rules tweak.

Some people just gotta moan. It seems that most of them live on forums.

The funniest thing to me is how much everyone had been moaning that the Phantom was broken and had ruined the game and now it seems almost as many people are moaning that it's been 'nerfed' by a minor rules tweak.

Some people just gotta moan. It seems that most of them live on forums.

Welcome to the interwebz.

No, what broke the game was the Core set. If it wasn't for the Core set, none of this ever would've happened.

Thing is if you don't moan there's zero chance of the problem being looked at.

If the community hadn't moaned about the tie advanced would it have got a fix? If we hadn't as a group moaned about turrets would we have got Autothrusters?

Not all moaning is valid but it's also not all invalid either ffg has demonstrated they can filter the invalid stuff out and addressed the real issues.

GW has on the other hand chosen to not listen at all and has brought about its current decline.

I've been a tabletop gamer for two decades. This is the first game I have ever bothered to attend competitive tournaments to play. It's that well-balanced, fun, and well-designed.

Nothing about it is 'broken' as far as I am concerned. Except maybe the Scum HWK which one-shotted my tooled up Soontir Fel in my last game

Oh, come on! Quit ruining the fun! I want to see everyone run around like a chicken sans head. Maybe we won't see Phantoms for a few months. Then, someone will do well at Worlds with a Phantom (or a few will) and then we will see them again. It's like the cycle of life. Don't mess it up.

or did they?

So far from memory:

Scum and Villainy

Official only playmats

Push the Limit

C3po

Phantoms

Turrets

Have all allegedly made the game unplayable and 'ruined' it... yet from where i'm sitting i see a game going from strength to strength, getting more diverse, allowing more playstyles.

So can we all just wait a few weeks to *try* any new changes before we all declare that whatever new things FFG do has ruined the game and storm off in a strop ?

Technically speaking, the Phantom just got a rule change, so maybe FFG also thought that the Phantom broke the game. From that perspective, maybe those that complained about the Phantom pre-FAQ weren't entirely wrong to do so. I did not personally shared their view, but I won't discredit it either, because at the end of the day, FFG thought that it was best to revisit the Decloaking rule after all.

you forgot the most broken thing in the game

gravity

****** killed my Defender and I didn't even get to role green dice

now I gotta invest $ for the superglue upgrade card just to counter it. That's just bad game design

you forgot the most broken thing in the game

gravity

****** killed my Defender and I didn't even get to role green dice

now I gotta invest $ for the superglue upgrade card just to counter it. That's just bad game design

Oh son of derpfender is happening! Derpfender two electric bugaloo.

you forgot the most broken thing in the game

gravity

****** killed my Defender and I didn't even get to role green dice

now I gotta invest $ for the superglue upgrade card just to counter it. That's just bad game design

Oh son of derpfender is happening! Derpfender two electric bugaloo.

yeah I had flashbacks to that

fortunately, the apple fell far from the tree. For some reason, the only damage it sustained was that the little plastic bit that connects the ship to their stands just snapped clean off.

Thing is if you don't moan there's zero chance of the problem being looked at.

If the community hadn't moaned about the tie advanced would it have got a fix? If we hadn't as a group moaned about turrets would we have got Autothrusters?

Not all moaning is valid but it's also not all invalid either ffg has demonstrated they can filter the invalid stuff out and addressed the real issues.

GW has on the other hand chosen to not listen at all and has brought about its current decline.

Disagree entirely. Moaning is entirely unhelpful in any context.

Constructive criticism != moaning. Moaning gets disregarded out of hand. Constructive criticism gets acknowledged and reviewed. Data is even better.

So far FFG have a pretty strong track record of dealing with *actual* issues, not just whatever gets moaned about.

Thing is if you don't moan there's zero chance of the problem being looked at.

If the community hadn't moaned about the tie advanced would it have got a fix? If we hadn't as a group moaned about turrets would we have got Autothrusters?

Not all moaning is valid but it's also not all invalid either ffg has demonstrated they can filter the invalid stuff out and addressed the real issues.

GW has on the other hand chosen to not listen at all and has brought about its current decline.

Disagree entirely. Moaning is entirely unhelpful in any context.

Constructive criticism != moaning. Moaning gets disregarded out of hand. Constructive criticism gets acknowledged and reviewed. Data is even better.

So far FFG have a pretty strong track record of dealing with *actual* issues, not just whatever gets moaned about.

Yes but someone who disagree's with you will always class your complaint as moaning wont they?

I advocated for a modification to help tie interceptors against turret ships and was told to stop moaning turrets are fine, now obviously i did have a valid stance and FFG agreed with me and others but still it was called moaning.

or did they?

So far from memory:

Scum and Villainy

Official only playmats

Push the Limit

C3po

Phantoms

Turrets

Have all allegedly made the game unplayable and 'ruined' it... yet from where i'm sitting i see a game going from strength to strength, getting more diverse, allowing more playstyles.

So can we all just wait a few weeks to *try* any new changes before we all declare that whatever new things FFG do has ruined the game and storm off in a strop ?

You forgot hammers

Yes but someone who disagree's with you will always class your complaint as moaning wont they?

I advocated for a modification to help tie interceptors against turret ships and was told to stop moaning turrets are fine, now obviously i did have a valid stance and FFG agreed with me and others but still it was called moaning.

The thing is, interactions of this nature are not absolute, and there are many ways to deal with the same problem.

Part of the issue I have with a lot of the complaints on game balance is that they don't address the real issue.

"Turrets are OP" - is not the problem. That turrets are dominant in the meta, and more accurately that 1 particular turret ship is dominant is closer to the problem.

No one complained about ORS, or Chewie, or Lando, but they all have turrets. No one complained about Y-Wing or HWK turrets.

So what's the actual problem then? Turret is strong against arc dodgers, PS 9 is the easy answer for the other dominant ship who also happens to be an arc dodger, MoV rewards expensive durable ships, and certain defensive cards have a much higher value if you put them on expensive ships. The problem is all of these at the same time.

Just because interceptors needed a little nudge when dealing with Han doesn't mean Han is overpowered, in means that particular match up is more heavily favours Han than the designers would like. It's a pretty important distinction.

So yes, if someone says "Turrets are OP, Nerf!", it is moaning, and it is entirely unhelpful. If that same person says "I'm not playing my interceptors while Han is on the table, it's too hard a counter", that's much better statement to make.