Dumbing Down the Codex

[Kbaughb]

Has anyone else noticed the annoying trend that has taken root in the Codex system? The dire loss of an armoury is a little depressing and slightly disturbing. What happened to have a truely unique army? Lightning Claw sergeants are going to be a thing of the past... that's gonna suck. Just thought I'd get some of my thoughts out there.

[SteveBerenyi]

it has been hapening since the DA dex appeared, and yeah, i hate it.

[DeAd_cOmMaNdO]

just because there isnt a dedicated armoury doesnt mean there isnt one.

yes weve lost some very cool and characterful (yet ultimately useless) stuiff like auspexes and bionics and so on, but the important stuff remains, just not in the form of an amroury.

orks and eldar actually got more stuff in their recent army books than they had in previous ones.


howver...

having said that i do think they are being dumbed down a bit.

[Prince of the Night]

I think that generally most of the wargear is still available as before, give or take an item or two from each of the codecies, but I believe they were trying to make it easier for newer players to put together lists, not having to look in the armoury to find items to take, but now in there entry list. For us vets it sucks a bit, because I still have a tough time navigating thru the new style codecies.

[Drax]

i prefer it personally - it beats the hell out of having to go from one page to another - its all in the list entry these days

and yes you cannot make truly unique characters anymore - but as DC states, most were useless anyway.

further more, how unique were those characters anyway? take marines for instance: vet sgt w/ Bolt pistol, Powerfist, not much else. whats changed? not a lot.

even characters tended to follow a set build - especially since so many more people were taking advice from online.

so really all in all i don't think the game has suffered from the loss of the armoury.

(i have just realised that over the last two days i seem to be siding with new over old - not sure why that is)

[experiment 626]

you can't blame GW for the fact that today's youth in general are getting dumber and dumber than the previous generation...
hell, half the kids i deal with in the 12-17 age range still can't even navigate the current codicies!!!

thank god we don't have those armoury pages anymore! the last time i sold a smurf 'dex to a 14-year oold, it took me 15 fething minutes trying to explain how the army list works!

so yes, the simpler codicies are a god-send... though as is being proven time and time again, they still aren't simple enough for everyone.

cheers!

[DeAd_cOmMaNdO]

Originally Posted by experiment 626

you can't blame GW for the fact that today's youth in general are getting dumber and dumber than the previous

hear hear!



i started playing this game when i was 8 a few months before the death of rogue trader and i had no problem understanding the rules and tables that found their place in the game...

are kids these days just stupid or lazy? is it that were so used to living in a spoon-fed generation that no one can be half-arsed to do something by himself anymore?

honestly i think its because of the way GW markets the games more than anything else. its like the hobby is a throwaway craze to over 50% of gamers. if i had to take many of the regulars to my local store during my heyday (when i was about 8-18), id say well over 50% of them dropped out after a few years of not-even-serious-gaming in favour of computer games or some other craze (like mtg or pokemon) that theyd no doubt drop in a few years. of the remaining 25%, id say many have had to stop due to so called real-life commitments, even though its not like the few who remain solidly in the hobby dont have families and lives of their own.

and, since many gamers nowadays are not lifers, and just craze people, they dnt care so much about the game, rather than spending their parents' money. so to keep them around maybe GW thinks theyre better off simplifying the game.

i think 2 things of this: 1) keeping the game more complex encourages more of the really interested people (ie those more likely to become lifers) to play. but then again im just a pleb off the street, so im probably wrong

and 2) deep down the core of the games are the same and when comparing 1st ed to 4th (and now 5th), the removal of all those tables and charts cannot be a bad thing, and this, coming from me (an advocate of complex cames) is saying something.

ahem... rant over.

[SteveBerenyi]

i agree DC. i love this game because of the complete hobby. i have since i started. (rogue trader even though i believe 2nd was already out) more than anything else, i believe GW has lost sight of what truly brought people to this game to begin with.

[Mart007]

I agree in the fact they lost sight, but I think over the last couple of years they have been trying hard to put it right, and I find myself not laying into them much now. The Dex's are back on a par with the 2nd ed one, and dare I say better? The new rules look as though they are going to be a classic ruleset imo, i think things are looking good IMO. The simplification in some ways isnt that bad, you did get bogged down in charts a bit!

[masterofweirdness]

I like the changes. I have codex space marines, and while I liked the central armory list because (I just memorized the whole thing... I don't understand why all the other 14 year olds couldn't do it... I did! Heck, I even tried memorizing the 'nids army list and biomorphs!) it was easier if you knew the whole thing.

However... when I got Codex CSM... it wasn't to bad... ya, not all my sergeants can get lighting claws... but I wasn't going to give them LCs all the time anyways... I never had a copy of the 3rd ed. codex CSM but I do know that I liked this codex a LOT better than Codex Space marines... it had flexibility and lots of options (perhaps not as many option as the 3rd ed. codex though) and I could still give my sergeants and HQs what weapons I wanted to...

Also, some good things have happened... regarding LCs... yes, no LCs on CSM normal squads, but my aspiring champion for my Chosen gets LCs cheaper than before! VERY NICE! I now have as many LCs in my Chosen squads as I can... as well as other places... ya... one less bolt pistol... but I think that Lighting Claws are worth it.

Regarding the whole complicated versus simple rules, stupid generation and all that I'll say this: I've never played anything other than 4th edition, I was perhaps 12 when I first heard of 40k and 14 when I first got enough money/made the decision to buy the Battle of Mcragge... I'm now 16 and have no intention of quitting this amazing hobby... I LOVE it. Maybe its just the way I think, but when I get a hobby, its all or nothing. I memorize as much of the rules as possible and despite my hate of painting (at least, when I started painting my first models I did) I have done everything that most hobbyists do... I've bought, assembled, converted (a little) and painted my models... I've gotten my friends into the hobby, with one of my friends now having a nearly good 1.5k Black Templars army and the other a 1000pt Necron list...

As for dumbing down the rules, maybe GW has, I can understand and believe D_C and Steve when they say they have, but, consider this... 40k was supposedly very complicated and all those rules slowed down the game... even today 2.5K games take a LONG time to play... 1.5k games take 3-4 hours (or something like that... maybe faster or slower). GW wants us to buy models and the best way to do that is to make the game faster, IE simplifying the rules. And, I like it, ya, getting a 1.5k, even if you buy smart, build army lists with money in mind, use Ebay and Online retailers, isn't cheap. And most people (myself included!) have grand dreams of Apoc and entire chapters/regiments/Chaos Fleets and the like...

So ya, its an expesnive hobby, but so are lots of hobbies now... video games... you have to buy a computer/console (lets say an xbox elite... 500 dollars?) 3 more controllers... 150 dollars... 3 games... 180 dollars... 830 dollars... and you have to pay for Xbox Live every month. THAT is a lot of money... with that money I could buy a good sized 40k army, plus paints and modeling supplies.

In all honesty, I see no excuse for someone who can't build themselves an army list using a codex... its a simple prodecure really...

[hairyyahoo]

as a mate once said to me "people ain't getting dumber, we just get less tolerant of stupidity as we grow old!"

and i dont really see that codices are getting simplar. i recently had a chance to see some of the old 2nd ed books again and i couldn't believe how basic they were! very few unit options to speak of and all character wargear was on seperate cards that listed their rules and points on them, so you didn't even have to remember what stuff did!!! so all you had to do was find the cards you wanted and keep them to hand

by comparison 3rd and 4th were a bit more complex, as you had to flip through the dex to add up the points for a single hero, and 5th is the most complicated yet as all the rules for wargear are spread through out the book rather than being listed on a few easily found pages. sure the stuff is easier to pay for but finding out what it all does mid game involves much more page flipping!

[Drax]

Originally Posted by hairyyahoo

as a mate once said to me "people ain't getting dumber, we just get less tolerant of stupidity as we grow old!"

it all sounds a bit "in my day..." to me

however, if it is the youth getting dumber, then you can hardly blame GW for adapting to cater for it - they are a company after all, and god knows they need to see some black in that ledger sooner or later!

[Mart007]

The thing is as well, it isnt just younger people that prefer a faster game. My gaming bud Drax ^ will tell ya as well, we dont game that often so it is nice to have a faster ruleset so we stand a chance of getting through one or two games on our gaming days, because they are rare and it's nice o finish!!

Rose tints are a hard thing to fight off when you get a bit crusty, kids aint any different than they were, products and markets have changed, that is all!

[SteveBerenyi]

speaking of.... anyone got a set of sustained fire dice they no longer need?