Threads like this make me wish there was an Unlike This button to inform people you don't like their terrible posts.

Threads like this make me wish there was an Unlike This button to inform people you don't like their terrible posts.

Awesome, nice to know someone dislikes what I posted.

Oh, no, I didn't mean you. It's good to hear there are FFG people reading these forums. Well, good and bad, considering some of the terrible posts some people make about their work. I trust FFG won't pander to the awful elements on these forums and focus on making a solid game. I'm liking what I've seen so far and am really excited about the fact that DH2 exists.

Fair enough, no hard feelings.

Of course they read. The question is if they listen.

Because if they'd listened from the beginning, this entire debacle could've been avoided.

I'd guess you were a playtester if I didn't know better. I've heard this song from a few of them in private.

While I'm not going to say ';JUST' OW... it is much better than this and backward compatible with existing lines. We're on beta update 2 and the wound system remains broken as far as Fire goes, and it's still possible to set up chain reactions of exploding people.

I hate to say it but abandoning the previous system is a big mistake here. I know they want to expand in ways the previous system did not permit, but frankly this threw the baby out with the bathwater and are alienating a lot of players based on the posts on many forums, and there even being negativity here, usually a bastion of 'FFG can do no wrong'.

I also want to draw attention to the very low number of posts that seem to be going on, and the relatively high volume of them from the same handful of people. I've seen more life in the Battlefleet Gothic forums than this when a rules revision was proposed.

Can we stop with the constant complaining about how the new system is an utter mistake? I understand your points, and they're totally valid, but we've beaten this subject to death already, let's stop kicking a dead horse. It's obvious people don't like this move, and that's fine, but it's painfully obvious that FFG have no intention of going back on these changes, so how about we cut the idle bitching? It's not achieving anything.

There are people who like the direction the system is going. Myself included. It's far from perfect but I like a lot of things the 2nd edition beta brings. As per TC post, let's not debate over spilled milk. We have a chance to influence the 2nd. Let's use it and make it a better system.

There are people who like the direction the system is going. Myself included. It's far from perfect but I like a lot of things the 2nd edition beta brings. As per TC post, let's not debate over spilled milk. We have a chance to influence the 2nd. Let's use it and make it a better system.

Many of us have tried! Generally, when we offer ideas we are tagged as haters and malcontents! Believe it or not, we would not be on these forums if we weren't interested in making the product better! Unfortunately; where any RPG shows it's core quality is in it's combat system. And guess what; This ones' broken! Was DH1 or OW perfect? Of course not! But this is worse! I got bad news for ya TC and dholda: If the majority of your core customer base dislikes a product they will not buy it. If that happens, said product will fail! I realise that there are a number of very interesting ideas in the DH2 beta. For a lot of us though, The lack of any backwards compatibility combined with an inferior system add up to a deal-breaker. That doesn't make me or the Baron haters or whiners (Over spilt milk)! It just makes us concerned enough to voice our opinion (Repeatedly if need be!). BTW: Has it occurred to those of you who consistently call the critics "naysayers" that maybe we too care enough not to let the "yaysayers" write a bunch of sycophantic tripe without being challenged? You cannot call the critics "whiners" while admitting that the system needs work! (Read: Does not work well!)

I don't know where you got the impression that the 'majority' of the core userbase dislikes the new system. It's maybe 50/50 on these forums, if that, and these forums are hardly representative of the entire DH fanbase.

And my issue isn't with people complaining, it's with people complaining without purpose . Constantly sounding the death knell of the system without any form of constructive criticism is useless. All it tells us is that you don't like the system. We already know that, and it wasn't overly helpful in the first place.

I am giving my feedback and that's it. Because, as I see it, for the designers is more at stake than for us gamers. It's their career and they gotta do what they think is best. I'll have my say, make my case and that's all.

Alex

I started this thread to simply state that they were doing their best to read the forums and take feedback. Not turn it into another 2nd Ed. hate/don't hate thread. I really feel bad for the guys that have to read this stuff daily and try to siphon through all this.

You either like the Beta or you don't. If anything just wait until the finished product and make your final decision on whether you want to play it then.

It's hard to even keep replying on forums when they turn into this ALL THE TIME.

No, I've seen quite a few people expressing a wish that they would've preferred a new edition of Dark Heresy that was based around the same general ruleset as Only War. That's a far cry from saying "the Only War rules and nothing else".

Obviously, the rules should've been worked on, again, just like they've been for every iteration.

Not to be rude, but I think you're being a bit pedantic about what was being said initially.

The point was more that you struck the poster as someone who would complain even if they had used the [insert most popular idea for rules update here]. With an implied notion that any change/new edition would not be sufficient for you.

Given your hostile tone, its hard not to side with them.

I'm not being pedantic, I was deflating a strawman argument that purposefully misrepresented and ridiculed the position of many of those that question the new direction.

As for hostility... que?

[...]

I hate to say it but abandoning the previous system is a big mistake here. I know they want to expand in ways the previous system did not permit , but frankly this threw the baby out with the bathwater and are alienating a lot of players based on the posts on many forums, and there even being negativity here, usually a bastion of 'FFG can do no wrong'.

[...]

I've heard this mentioned a few times, but I've yet to see a real argument on it. What precisely was it that they wanted to expand or branch out into, that was prohibited or inhibited by the previous system?

I just don't see it. What is it that they have done under the new system that is so much better, that allows them to do things that they could not do in the previous?

To me, while not every single change in Dark Heresy 2nd Edition is specifically bad, I've yet to see anything specifically good or better, either. It seems arbitrary and mostly needless; change for the sake of changing things up, as to sell a new system as something fresh.

Maybe I'm being obtuse, but I just don't get it. There's such a wealth of things in the previous system, and people have been clamoring for more interchangeability, more cross-campaign setting (counting each Core Book in the WH40kRPG line as a campaign setting) support, and updated rules for older systems (specifically Dark Heresy) for years, with a unified mechanics rulebook, armory and combat books being at the top of many a discussion on what people want.

And then they do this?

I just don't get it. To me, it's Games Workshop -level alienation of the customer base and the community.

I don't know where you got the impression that the 'majority' of the core userbase dislikes the new system. It's maybe 50/50 on these forums, if that, and these forums are hardly representative of the entire DH fanbase.

I didn't present that as a factual argument. If you read the rest of my post I said IF that happens... But the way I'm reading the forums I'm seeing it as at LEAST a 50/50 possibility! Kind of a big risk margin for the company when they've obviously sank a lot of development dollars on it! Especially if it's an unnecessary risk!

I find it puzzling that some posters are appearanly awful elements making terrible posts - just because they decide to take part in the DH2 beta and criticize parts of the system that they don't like and think could be improved.

[...]

I hate to say it but abandoning the previous system is a big mistake here. I know they want to expand in ways the previous system did not permit , but frankly this threw the baby out with the bathwater and are alienating a lot of players based on the posts on many forums, and there even being negativity here, usually a bastion of 'FFG can do no wrong'.

[...]

I've heard this mentioned a few times, but I've yet to see a real argument on it. What precisely was it that they wanted to expand or branch out into, that was prohibited or inhibited by the previous system?

I just don't see it. What is it that they have done under the new system that is so much better, that allows them to do things that they could not do in the previous?

Unlike you I like a lot of what I think I see in the new edition (still haven't played it), but man... Not making it open-ended is some pretty spectacular fail.

To me, while not every single change in Dark Heresy 2nd Edition is specifically bad, I've yet to see anything specifically good or better, either. It seems arbitrary and mostly needless; change for the sake of changing things up, as to sell a new system as something fresh.

Also: they killed hit points & Half-arsed-actions! Hugs for the dev team!*

Maybe I'm being obtuse, but I just don't get it. There's such a wealth of things in the previous system, and people have been clamoring for more interchangeability, more cross-campaign setting (counting each Core Book in the WH40kRPG line as a campaign setting) support, and updated rules for older systems (specifically Dark Heresy) for years, with a unified mechanics rulebook, armory and combat books being at the top of many a discussion on what people want.

And then they do this?

But as much as I - like you - want a unified version of the WFRP2e system that makes all five 40K versions fully compatible, no house rules required, I want a new edition more.

Looking at things like Gumshoe, GURPS, Burning Wheel, Traveller & Reign, there's just so many things a new edition could do, and do elegantly, to far better facilitate the 5 themes of the old edition.

Unfortunately this new edition barely tries at all. Mostly it just does a better job of integrating subsystem stuff from the last edition. Often mindlessly so. Notice the asterisk above? Allow me to explain:

* While hit points Wounds are gone, they're not actually gone, they've just been complexified into inanity so the system now kind of uses HP and kind of uses a health track, and kind of also uses another kind of HP. The whole thing feels like one of those first draft things you quickly jot down when someone lists a bunch of things they'd like to see mechanics for. You know, the kind of Monster of Clunk sane people iterate on 5-10 times with a friend or two on hand to help, before even thinking about playtesting it. I guess maybe I should be glad this new edition almost doesn't do anything new.

The half-arsed-action AP system is a fine example of the better integration of stuff that was. It is essentially exactly the same as the system in the old edition, but slightly more logical and with slightly better flow. It should have been open-ended, just like the system as a whole, and for the exact same reason: to facilitate scaling. But... I guess that was too ambitious.

Stuff the new edition ought to have brought:

• Dynasty mechanics
• Mechanically seamless rules for space combat, atmospheric combat, massed combat & skirmish combat.
• A 5-roll-resolution narrative version of the combat system
• Proper mechanics for interacting with the Warp (from sorcery to ascension to travel of all kinds to corruption)
• A suite of mechanics for everything Agent-related (stealth, intrigue, subterfuge, infiltration, clues, contacts, etc)
• A proper mission system - all the game lines more or less explicitly assume mission based play, and all of them do a very poor job of facilitating it, if they try at all.
• A proper economic system scaling from a lasgun clip to trade empires
• GM helper stuff like tools for generating everything from a bar to a star system, ditto for people, factions & societies, and tools for running factions and NPCs.

I'm sort of baffled by the phrase, open-ended. Could you explain it to me please? I'd like to understand.

Also, I suspect that there will be a lot of people who will love DH2. Every edition has it's grognads.

No, I've seen quite a few people expressing a wish that they would've preferred a new edition of Dark Heresy that was based around the same general ruleset as Only War. That's a far cry from saying "the Only War rules and nothing else".

Obviously, the rules should've been worked on, again, just like they've been for every iteration.

Not to be rude, but I think you're being a bit pedantic about what was being said initially.

The point was more that you struck the poster as someone who would complain even if they had used the [insert most popular idea for rules update here]. With an implied notion that any change/new edition would not be sufficient for you.

Given your hostile tone, its hard not to side with them.

I'm not being pedantic, I was deflating a strawman argument that purposefully misrepresented and ridiculed the position of many of those that question the new direction.

As for hostility... que?

[...]

I hate to say it but abandoning the previous system is a big mistake here. I know they want to expand in ways the previous system did not permit , but frankly this threw the baby out with the bathwater and are alienating a lot of players based on the posts on many forums, and there even being negativity here, usually a bastion of 'FFG can do no wrong'.

[...]

I've heard this mentioned a few times, but I've yet to see a real argument on it. What precisely was it that they wanted to expand or branch out into, that was prohibited or inhibited by the previous system?

I just don't see it. What is it that they have done under the new system that is so much better, that allows them to do things that they could not do in the previous?

To me, while not every single change in Dark Heresy 2nd Edition is specifically bad, I've yet to see anything specifically good or better, either. It seems arbitrary and mostly needless; change for the sake of changing things up, as to sell a new system as something fresh.

Maybe I'm being obtuse, but I just don't get it. There's such a wealth of things in the previous system, and people have been clamoring for more interchangeability, more cross-campaign setting (counting each Core Book in the WH40kRPG line as a campaign setting) support, and updated rules for older systems (specifically Dark Heresy) for years, with a unified mechanics rulebook, armory and combat books being at the top of many a discussion on what people want.

And then they do this?

I just don't get it. To me, it's Games Workshop -level alienation of the customer base and the community.

Flexibility is what this system does better. I can build a character in DH 2 that can do anything, provided I cram in enough experience. Our first session saw one of my players build a chiurgeon who came from the adeptus telipathica. He zapped people with bio-lightning and set the rest on fire with his flamer. The other guy played a creepy psyker assassin. (We were testing out the new psyker rules, if you couldn't tell). Character creation and progression in DH 2 are light-years more interesting than they ever were in DH 1.

Combat is also better. The AP system and wound system made for the single most interesting series of combat encounters I have ever had in a game. The combat seemed far less predictable (one moment, the surgeon was fine, the next round, he had taken 4 hits from the same enemy off one bad roll on an autogun), and the wounds were terrifying. Rather than sitting on our thumbs, waiting for various enemies to run out of HP or running away when the heroes were low on HP, the heroes were trying to decide whether to stay or run after the surgeon's arm was disabled and the medicae tests to treat the wound failed. Spectacular descriptions of injury effects aside, HP is a terribly boring mechanic, and I think the new wounds system offers a very interesting alternative. It was also a great time to watch my players mull over how they should spend their APs. The half action system of DH 1 was pretty straightforward. The new AP system allows for a wide variety of responses to different situations.

This is the first time that combat in a RPG didn't cause my eyes to glaze over.

I'm glad they went for something new rather than something that was interchangable with the other systems. While I love DH and RT (those are the only games I've played from the 40k rpg line), I have to admit that many of the core mechanics of those two lines were not particularly good. The character creation rules for those two systems are among the worst of the main RPGs on the market. The skills system was bloated. The traits were fairly boring as they were part and parcel to certain careers or classes or whatever DH and RT called them. You might as well have taken the traits out and replaced them with class abilities. The only things that really made those RPGs shine were the setting, the gritty combat, and the interesting special rules (especially the ship and economy rules of RT).

Rather than interchangability, we have a system that is robust. The current itteration of Dark Heresy now has the hutzpah to serve as the "core game" everybody has been hounding FFG about for so long. It would be so easy to build new classes (or roles or whatever the hell they're called) for the other games, and to do so without worrying about unbalancing the game. Space Marines could come about as a result of elite advances (like the inquisitor).

This system has so much potential over the old one, it boggles my mind that so many people hate it.

I guess I'll stop mindlessly rambling now. It's retardedly late here, and I should probably go to bed.

Peace out.

LoO

I'm sort of baffled by the phrase, open-ended. Could you explain it to me please? I'd like to understand.

Certainly. But let me just say that I agree almost entirely with your post. The new damage mechanics strike me as waaay too heavy in the bookkeeping department, but then again... Anything is better than HP. And I haven't actually tried the new edition yet, so it might not be as horrid as it seems. Anyway...

An open-ended system has no upper limit (or, I suppose, lower limit. But why would anyone do that?) on the values it uses.

In either DH, the upper limit is 100 (from 0 to 99). It's a closed system (talking RPGs here, not thermodynamics). You can't have a character with, say, 200 Strength. It would crash the system.

By comparison, in D&D there is no upper limit on the values used. Granted, the official content is written with a limited range of values in mind, but in principle a character with 50 billion Strength will work just as well as one with 15 Strength.

This matters when it comes to scaling. DH (either) has all sorts of trouble handling lowly Acolytes alongside veteran Space Marines, and neither are anywhere near the extremes of the setting. Just look at all the weird and unwonderful official hacks that gets tagged onto anything that falls outside the min-to-max level PC power scale (disregarding Ascension here, because it is absolutely stuffed with such hacks).

D&D has no such issues. Dragons and farmers run perfectly well alongside each other without need for a sack full of hacks. Simply because it's an open-ended system.

If you're unsure what I mean by hacks, Unnatural Characteristics is, I believe, the most infamous example. But half the Traits and a fair few Talents also exist solely to work around the fact that the closed nature of the core mechanic acts as a brick wall against drastic differences of capability.

How well the DH approach of fixing symptoms as they arise through pages and pages worth of hacks is, I guess, arguable. But it is an absurdly complicated way to go about things, and it requires far more of both developers and players, than simply solving the problem by using an open-ended system.

This goes for AP too, by the way. Consider for a moment the main cast of xenos and warp entities in the setting. Quite a few of them have drastically different capabilities than humans. The AP limit basically guarantees we'll need another pile of hacks for the various critters to be able to behave on the table as they do in the fluff.

Without having the time to respond to the entire thing, I'd like to single this out, if I may:

Flexibility is what this system does better. I can build a character in DH 2 that can do anything, provided I cram in enough experience. Our first session saw one of my players build a chiurgeon who came from the adeptus telipathica. He zapped people with bio-lightning and set the rest on fire with his flamer. The other guy played a creepy psyker assassin. (We were testing out the new psyker rules, if you couldn't tell). Character creation and progression in DH 2 are light-years more interesting than they ever were in DH 1.

[...]

While I love DH and RT (those are the only games I've played from the 40k rpg line)

Reading comprehension helps.

An open-ended system has no upper limit (or, I suppose, lower limit. But why would anyone do that?) on the values it uses.

In either DH, the upper limit is 100 (from 0 to 99). It's a closed system (talking RPGs here, not thermodynamics). You can't have a character with, say, 200 Strength. It would crash the system.

While I love DH and RT (those are the only games I've played from the 40k rpg line)

Also, the quote you made seems to have nothing to do with what you wrote yourself. Did you just mess up, or were you just throwing a random insult (although not necessarily one, it might be interpreted as a passive-aggressive insult, if nothing else) against LegendOfOld ?

Or what does reading comprehension have to do with only having played Dark Heresy or Rogue Trader?

Fgdsfg,

TC was saying that if you'd read LoO's post, you'd have seen that he only has experience with DH and RT, so your question of "Have you SEEN OW?" kind-of answered itself.

Ergo: "Reading comprehension helps."

I just wanted to report that I got a very nice reply to my question/suggestions I sent to mr. Huckleberry including feedback comments. Thanks Tim! I do appreciate it!

In either DH, the upper limit is 100 (from 0 to 99). It's a closed system (talking RPGs here, not thermodynamics). You can't have a character with, say, 200 Strength. It would crash the system.

By comparison, in D&D there is no upper limit on the values used. Granted, the official content is written with a limited range of values in mind, but in principle a character with 50 billion Strength will work just as well as one with 15 Strength.

How exactly does 200 strength crash DH in a way that doesn't also apply to D&D ?

Sure, tests with a fixed modifiers become to easy in DH, tests that you can only fail because natural 100 is an automatic fail. But D&D has the same problem, if you need to get a total of 10 on a test (say, to resist a poison) but your stats give you 20 plus whatever the dice shows, you are in the same situation.

The only difference is that D&D expects the GM to keep increasing the DC of tests thrown the players way.

Or there are tests where, as your stats increase, the GM increases the stats of the enemies to keep your hit chance about the same. As your BS/WS goes up in DH, the enemies evade can go up to match. The same goes for increasing stats in D&D along with the increase of the enemies AC.

In either DH, the upper limit is 100 (from 0 to 99). It's a closed system (talking RPGs here, not thermodynamics). You can't have a character with, say, 200 Strength. It would crash the system.

By comparison, in D&D there is no upper limit on the values used. Granted, the official content is written with a limited range of values in mind, but in principle a character with 50 billion Strength will work just as well as one with 15 Strength.

How exactly does 200 strength crash DH in a way that doesn't also apply to D&D ?

Sure, tests with a fixed modifiers become to easy in DH, tests that you can only fail because natural 100 is an automatic fail. But D&D has the same problem, if you need to get a total of 10 on a test (say, to resist a poison) but your stats give you 20 plus whatever the dice shows, you are in the same situation.

The only difference is that D&D expects the GM to keep increasing the DC of tests thrown the players way.

Or there are tests where, as your stats increase, the GM increases the stats of the enemies to keep your hit chance about the same. As your BS/WS goes up in DH, the enemies evade can go up to match. The same goes for increasing stats in D&D along with the increase of the enemies AC.

It's not so much that it crashes a system but that a system can't represent it properly. Sure it's fine to cap some things out such as shooting someone with a gun. Once you can hit them between the eyes reliably, it's not like there's anywhere from there you can go. But some things do keep scaling. Suppose you have someone with a Strength of 100 and another someone (or more likely some thing ) with a Strength of 200. They both make an Opposed Roll both succeed, yet one is an elephant and the other a large guy. It usually crops up in one form or another in percentile-based games. For example, Eclipse Phase has the Elephant vs. Man problem I just gave.