CB and their development cycle

Moran has to at least 25 points. What the hell is 17pts?
Asawira apspitfire has to be at least 45 points
Fidays have to be 32 points
Kiss has to loose a pitcher maybe both.
either takeout diggers or make them cost 4 points more.
Thyreos specialist profiles must gain repeater and minelayer
Pupniks have to be like at least 2 points maybe 3pts.
Bran da Castro is a monkey so please let him climb. he can be more expensive i dont mind.
Any HI infantry with higher Arm values has to be 1-2 points less. Wuming-Suntze etc.
Penty still has to cheaper.
Proxy mk1 seems still very cheap. Why not taking out arm and mimetism.
Polar bears have to 4-5 points more.
Take Jaan star out of tohaa and make it spiral exclusive.
Unknown ranger takeout mimetism, make 1 arm less and keep same price.
Giving pano troops need some tricks. I am ok even they have bs16 on some troops. They seem expensive to me as a whole.

This is my point of view. If these changes happened what would you say ?

 

I think that any point of view that mixes math with feelings is a point of view that is respectable but need to be taken with caution.

Look. I myself for a long long time was blaming the Bronzes as overcosted in comparision with Hoplites, Karakuris and Volkolaks. And essentially took them as cool models that were dammed with a bloated profile and therefore not being fit enough for the table. I even suggested some heavy discounts for them, in the likes of 5+ point discount or so. But it was not necessary, as CB proved it to me. All that was needed to become the Bronzes table worthy was a just 2 point discount, together with a 1 point CC value increase, combined with improving their link options (duo into Haris, adding Sekudroid profile) and specially adding a HMG profile.

Now the Bronzes can be seen in the tables. And maybe those changes that CB finally included were better for the game than my own point of view that was heavily weighted by my own feelings.

 

These complaints often come from spoiled kids who can't appreciate what they have here and with little understanding on how to run a miniature business...

 

I realy want to open my post on that note.

Spoiler: Prelude, anecdote, tl;dr

I worked for a company a little while ago that that selled very personalised items to costumers, meaning, you had to speak and listen to every costumer very carefully so it works for them. Due to the nature of the product it was VERY important for them to work properly, That´s for the background.
Every employee had to work after one big philosophy: You are the costumer! Meaning: you treat every costumer how you want to be treated. Not working with that in mind could lead to beeing fired.
What happened was: Costumers abused that. You can find you tube videos that explain how u can abuse the companies costumer-orientated way to get freebies, discounts, extras, and so on. The company as a whole did not care, cause ...well....in this industry the margin is stupidly high, so you basicly dont care if you just sell enough. But my store did make red numbers for years. So head´s been changing. The new leadership made a meeting with all the employees to basicly ask one question: What are we here for?`
All of us answered with the companies philosophy; You are the costumer, we belive our costumers, we do what the costumer demands.
Boss just shook his head.
We - are - here- to - make -money!
If the costumer is happy, if our products are great, our consultation is pin-point, production fast, emploees friendly? I don´t give a fuck. As long as we make money. If all of the above leads to that goal? Fine. but thats not why we are here.

No company is here to be "nice". No company exists for the sole purpose to make costumers "happy".
If satisfied costumers make them spend money, thats great. If they are pissed and still spend money? Also great.
Most companies did learn that happy costumers are paying costumers. But "happy" does not pay bills.
Still i experienced CB as a (imho) costumer orientated company. That´s very subjective, but I see not few things I like about CB.

the question I found asking myself a lot (especially with the two threads about balance and stuff) is: Has every modell in the game has to be competitive.
There are Units that are staples. You pick them and you cannot do anything wrong having them in your list. Thats what i would call a "competitive profile".
Then there are units that fill a niche or are highly situational, but IF the shine, they shine all the brighter.
And then there are units that are... well...let´s call it "lover´s choice". You play them, because you like the modell, or the fluff, or the profile. Whatever.
Is there a need for every unit and loadout to be a highly competitive choice? Is this even possible? Who the fuck plays the damn combi rifle loadout of any HI?

Sometimes, and especially in this forum, I think people forget that not everyone is playing challenging tournaments. There are a lot of people playing this game for fun with defenetly not optimized lists and they have a lot of fun with it (which, imho, is the main purpose of a game).
Yes, balancing is IMPORTANT. But there comes not one single game to my mind that has exclusivly perfectly balanced units in every way. There are companies out there, where playing successfully is a matter of how big your wallet is, and we all know at least one company that works that way (or at least does at a certain time).
The user of this forum (especially the more active ones) are mostly people playing on a very high level. Either they play a lot, or (extremly) competitive or both, otherwise they would not spent their extra free time not playing the game to debate about it.

Which leads me to

N4 was a bless. The rules are SO EASY NOW that people can actually start playing the game, even if they never rolled a die before (then, ofc, C1 is the way to go). And bringing new players to the game is something we all (and especially CB) wants to happen. Every month new stuff is coming, every couple months something "big" is happening, either a revamp or a big box or a starter set or new ITS .... and if you are not playing tohaa chances are good that there´s something in it for you.
Other equaly sized companies do more, some less. Some are faster, some slower.

100% agree. If you tell them you are not paying attention makes them angry, cause you don´t listen. If you tell them that you ARE paying attention, they get angry for the same reason. It´s loose-loose. Keep them in the dark.

It is not healthy for anyone to spend time reading comments about you or your work on social media novadays, unless you are in dire need of creative ways to kys.

I am not sure if it is that easy to just cycle people in a company. Especially if they work in different departments. I think modelling Sci-Fi modells all day can become repetetive and make you dull and uninspired (maybe thats why we are gifted with such inovative poses as in the Wildcat/EVA-box ;-) ) and doing something else like treemonsters or elves with bows can bring some needed variety to someones work. The Aristeia!-range seems to be an indicater that designers sometimes just want to do something different.
And just getting new people.... maybe helps, but are new employees always better? Do they do the job properly/as good as the actual worker or even better? CB is still a small company in a niche industry. I don´t know if good modell-designers grow on trees.

Is that so? The only company I recall repeating this like a prayer wheel is the one from Nottingham that acutally SELLS their Core rules for 50 bucks and every of their 43 subfactions special rules for additional 40 bucks.

That´s also what I recall. I think at the end of the day it´s a little bit of both, because CB wants to sell Miniatures. The rules are a vehicle for that, and a good game sells more miniatures.

I agree with that. On the other hand I don´t know how happy I would be if I had to double check once per month all the lists I played last week are still legal due to shifting point costs. To be fair, personal comfort should not stand above overall balance, but too much change, especially small ones that do not instantly meat the eye can be problematic for the so called casual players.
I think i would prefer a regulary change (maybe twice or thrice a year) with a "big" wash up and a nice changelog.

I also remember this nerf triggering a now 9 page long discussion of how insulting it is, including at least 1 Moderator intervention because boiling emotions. If thats not a motivation to do this more often, than nothing is

 

Ah, the Games Workshop defense!

 

Yeah, i am a player too, and only a player, but that doesnt allow or grant me the skills to make a game

 

Really? I never touched a GW product, but in my perception, they are just the opposite

 

I am guilty of the both. But there is another explanation, they're so engaged with the game that they're willing to spent their extra free time consuming and creating content about the game. Debating about the game is also a form of content creation, and therefore reading such debates is a form of consuming content.

And this is the way that we treated in my previous job all social media and the forums. It was content that keep our customers engaged with our worlds, our characters and our games. And an engaged customer is a customer who has a higher chance of spending their money in our products.

I personally know people who are extremely engaged with the grimdark world of a certain British company who has cero intention of playing their game... but consume their Black Library products with a passion, and even purchase miniatures with the sole intention of having them because they're rad and cool.

My experience would tell me otherwise. You attend them, you do indeed tell them you're paying attention. And you answer the engage of your community with your own company engaging with the community. The conversation this engagement produces gives you a pulse of what your community feels and thinks of your actions, and allow you to comunicate back to them why you're doing what you're doing in their terms and words. Sometimes it evens allow you to realise something that may have been missed otherwise in one side or the other of the conversation. And example of this can be found in this very forum in the Army bugs thread. And another example we as customer got was the development team notes in the latest FAQ, giving us insight in why they did certain changes.

Acknowledging this is the healthy approach. Although this should not stop us making suggestions and giving ideas for the game. While the old saying of 'too many chefs spoils the food' is true, giving suggestions to the chef that the food is too salty, or too sweet for our tastes is adequate.

 

Agreed, defenetly forgot about that, especially with me beeing one of those:

But this group does not care too much about balancing the game or if a certain Charakters linkable to a certain piece of anti-hacking mechanism is priced in properly or how playable Jayths are. Maybe thats why I did not think of them. But still, you´re right.

Here i defenetly lack your experience for i never worked with social media from this direction. My service-contact always was a more direct one. But I defenetly can see the advantage a properly running social media platform can give you as a company. How you explain it to me it sounds every company should do that, the question is, why don´t they?

Yes and no; posting bugs is something very objective. There is obviously a mistake, I post it, they get rid of it (hopefully). There is no emotion or subjectivity involved. And now lets start discussing point costs and useability of units

 

The Knight of Justice, Asawira comparison is an excellent example of "perceptions" versus "perceptions"

I have seen multiple comparisons and whatever differences the models have that are not deemed "important" by the people comparing the profiles are brushed off, the fact KoJ has heavy Pistol and Asawira has Normal one is ignored by everybody, likewise the fact they compare the profiles with DA CCW for the knight and Shock CCW for the Asawira, and other differences like ARM 5 v 4 been brushed off as unimportant.

I can understand that from some metas perspective all these are not important or people genuinely do not care about them, but they are there and add up.

 

Those kinda things "add" up, but the important stuff "multiplies" up. A better CC weapon on a model that shouldn't be CCing 99% of the time is technically better, sure, but it's a drop in the ocean compared to stuff that combines well together - like having two wounds AND regeneration, which makes both individual traits considerably better. Or having BS14 AND a good ranged weapon. Or 14 WIP AND being a specialist AND having doctor+3, all of which together are so much better than the sum of their parts. Each one of these additions becomes so good that yeah, doing double damage on CC attacks you probably shouldn't be bothering with anyway does become effectively worthless in comparison.

As for the pistol I feel a more fair comparison is the shotgun on all bar one of the asawira profiles, which is better than the heavy pistol as well.

 

Everything little bit adds. For example having ARM 5 instead of 4 and being assured that you won't lose your partial cover mod to FtF neither to your saves ever thanks for not being in Frenzy. The Spitifre KoJ does not only havea a DA weapon, he is wielding D-charges who happen to be Explosive and Ap 14 damage weapons. D-charges are not cheap. The Spitfire KoJ is a threat in long range and in CC to anyone except the very most dedicated CC specialists or Total Inmunity troops. The Spitfire Asawira has indeed Berserk +3, but is only wileding a shock weapon and therefore his range of enemies that can feel threatened by him in CC is much reduced. The Spitfire Asawira in the other hand can not destroy neither AC2 units not Servers for those missions that are required.

If the comparison is the Spitfire Asawira with the Spitfire KoJ then we need to compare these two profiles loadouts. It happens to be that the Spitfire Asawira does not have a shotgun.

A fast answer for this is that it is costly and requires having skilled people dedicated to it. Also that engagement is a 'soft' metric in the cost/profit equation and therefore easy to be dismissed by management when looking to reduce costs. Finally that the very best engagement is being produced by those people who actually understand the product and the community because they're already engaged themselves in both. A good example for this was Jeff Kaplan for OW in his prime.

 

They made the exact same excuse a long while back, I think about 5th or 6th edition for 40k in response to heavy consumer criticism about their (lack of) game balance and tournament support. They were primarily a miniature company that happened to make a game system to go along with their miniature range and that people shouldn't complain because of that.

IIRC this was during Tom Kirby's run as chairman.

 

Absolutely, a quick change is not always a high-priority change, and switching tasks has a cost.
IMO, the game is currently in a healthy state that justify current time window between units balancing.

But it is hard to wait, as we are all deeply involved in this game haha

(And la pause repas de 2h le midi est sacrée)

 

Dear lord. You don't take your artists and put them in charge of community management, you employ community manager for those roles. They're the specialists in community engagement, steering, and communications. They're your "shit filter" to the artists so to speak. This is part of your media strategy.
You can definitely have a media strategy that says "one-way communication only", but don't be surprised if your company gets a reputation for having a... rogue... community.

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I don't think the comparison between KoJ and Asawira was meant to be a discussion about the finer differences between the two considering how high the discount on Frenzy's dialled. You can discuss the finer details all you like, Frenzy's hulk-smashing the differences to pieces. I'd personally compare to the Crane as there's fewer finer points to misdirect the conversation to, but hey.

 

@AmPm agreed to the battle dance, but there is not just the "i stand here and hold my gun veeery seriously" and the "Jumpy jumpy it gets humpy" poses, but a lot of in between. Ofcourse it´s a lot of personal taste involved, but 3 minis at once is a little much for me in that case. For example i love the upcoming Makhai Missle launcher. Having a calm pose with the missle launcher shouldered on a strap is something i cannot recall seeing before in the infinity range, comparable to the Fusilier ML. Calm is not bad. Repetetive is something else. But as said: personal taste.

 

Haha my bad, thanks everyone for pointing out why the Koj is fine. As you were--sounds like we don't need CB to look at updating the game more often or looking at lesser-used profiles at all!

 

I keep saying this again and again, but sometimes one personal feelings may make heavily weight on the perception oh how much of an uplift a given unit needs to “perform competitively” or see the game tables. It happen to me with the bronzes. Do the KoJ needs some adjustment to perform better? Chances says so. Do it need to cost exactly as the Asawira cost now? I doubt so because of all the extras things that are not being taken in account… specially frenzy. And the presence of DA weapon and D-Charges on the KoJ Spitfire. Maybe, like it happened with the bronzes, an small point reduction couple with some lateral changes is all what the KoJ Spitfire needs.

Really. Frenzy and Impetous discounts really skews things a lot in this game. One close example is the Orc Multirifle vs the Knight Hospitalier Multirifle. Thanks to the Frenzy discount the KH has 6 more points of CC, one more point of WIP, 3 more points of BTS, Martial Arts lvl2, Stealth, Religious Troop and a DA Cc weapon. All of that at the same cost of the Orc thanks to the frenzy discount.