I think it’s very worth mentioning on this specific point that bugs in the app and rules interactions are not fixed by the same people, and the one person doing bug fixes in the app is also the one person making new features for the app like the highly-requested PC version and printing. So it’s not as simple as “go fix the app with this time instead” because that’s not something that everyone can do.
But it should be. Fixing a stat typo in the app should literally just be updating a number in a database. Text changes too.
However, communication between receiving the error and sending it to be updated could cause delays.
I’m missing something, I suppose. Is the objection over the door versus the roof hatch, or over the fact that different groups could choose to play it differently?
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I think it’s also worth pointing out that “hey you could stick to halves together to make a big bunker” is written in the article as a neat little bonus thing, not a core feature of the terrain. So I’m not sure I see a reason it needs to have hard-coded rules for use that way. The rules are for the default layout and if you want you could use two to make some other weird terrain. Kinda like how you could use two halves of a Guard Tower to make two small structures but they aren’t in the rules.
You know, people keep claiming that on social media, but I have yet to see a single quote from an official source that says that. 
Matt Wilson (Hi Matt! Sorry if this is going to get weird because you’re participating in this thread, but I’m also about to quote you from almost a year ago) made the reasons for MK IV pretty clear in the MK IV announcement article:
You can go read it yourself, but the reason for MK IV’s existence seemed pretty clear to me, namely: “Companies need to sell things to stay in business.”
(With apologies, Matt; I know am really bottom-line oversimplifying what you said.)
The article goes on to say that, given that MK IV was going to happen for the above reason, it made sense to streamline points of friction observed in previous editions. The most relevant, pertinent quote is:
“We have streamlined several aspects of WARMACHINE in an effort to help the game play faster and to reduce the amount of rules players must remember.”
Please note that “streamlining” and “simplifying” are not the same thing. “Streamlining” here is pretty clearly related to making the game play faster, with less of a mental burden. The game can still be complex and have interesting interactions while still playing faster than before.
“Simplifying” – the way people on social media people seem to be making the claim – means a straight-up reduction in of the volume of rules, regardless of how that affects complexity. It’s perfectly possible to write a small number of very simple rules that still make for hideously complex interactions.
On this specific case:
I think the rules on these two terrain pieces really aren’t very cumbersome, especially when compared to the dozen or so pages of rules content already removed in MK IV. (Such as: half a page of cavalry rules, about half of the movement rules, a full page about unit leaders, officers, field promotions, ranking officers, half a page of facing rules, etc., etc.)
I feel like people can remember how models enter or exit a Guard Tower a lot more easily than they can remember all the various “gotchas” and corner-cases and weird interactions around all those other rules that are now gone.
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The rules say you enter through the door, but when combined there is no door.
Well, again, the easy button there is to treat the center point where the two horse shoe bunkers fit together as the access point. If that is too difficult to manage, then my best suggestion for the moment is not to use the bunkers in that double configuration. We thought it was a neat way to get some additional variation with the building once we had it in our own hands and were playing with it, and I think a lot of people are going to find it a pretty easy thing to say, “That’s where the the guys climb in and out, right?” “Right!” But if you have concerns around that sort of interaction, then best to stick with the single bunker configuration that has the dedicated rules.
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I think that’s an oversimplification. None of us outside of PP knows what the backend of the app actually looks like, but generally you don’t want people who aren’t software people to just be messing around in the database unless you’ve designed a GUI that has controls in place to make sure people don’t break anything. I work with other software engineers and they still don’t just go in to the database of my app and change stuff, they ask me to do it unless I’ve taken the time to make a GUI for it.
Given that, again, the app is being developed by one person, I have to imagine that such backend functionality is low on the priority list compared to user-facing features.
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‘Tons of known issues?’ I’m going to push back on that as a bit of hyperbole. I think that considering we’re in an edition that has barely been out for six months, with a constant stream of new content in that time, and literally hundreds and hundreds of model conversions, with hundreds more in constant development — our track record isn’t so bad. And if you’ve played a previous edition of WARMACHINE before, then you know it wasn’t perfect either, but we always, always, always work to improve and fix anything we can.
I suppose it’s easy to forget that there are actual human beings on this side that make everything, and when it comes to the rules, there are just a few of us. But it’s true. We’re human and prone to mistakes.
Nothing is ever going to release perfect. Heck, the biggest video game publishers in the world with budgets of tens of millions of dollars, years of development time, armies of programers and testers, can’t manage to release a game without bugs. But it doesn’t make me miss the good old days of Pong. Chess has been around for 1,400 years and those guys still can’t manage to fix the second player disadvantage issue. Give us a little time!
If you hold us to a minimum standard of perfection then we can’t ever do anything new. We won’t be able to innovate. We need a little slack to be able to figure out how things work, and I’m hoping we have earned the confidence of players who know that if there’s something wrong, we’re going to do our best to fix it. But even correcting a typo in a data base takes time, and when there are only a few of us and we have a lot of different things we’re doing, it can’t all happen at once. One of the biggest reasons we chose to publish the game through an app, though, is so that we have the ability to correct mistakes, because we know they’re going to happen, and we don’t want anyone to have to refer to an errata document. So give us the time, and we’ll get as close to perfect as we can.
But where do you want us to focus? (That’s a rhetorical question, because I already know where we need to focus.) It’s very hard to thread the needle of, ‘We want all our rules right now!’ and ‘Don’t release anything until it’s perfect!’ While I would love to be the first company in history that manages to do the latter, I’m afraid that right now, all we can continue to do is our best. Sometimes we’re going to hit the mark and sometimes we’re going to miss it, but I’ll be the first to apologize for making a mistake and we’ll always do our best to correct and improve what we can as expeditiously as possible.
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Aha. That was what I did not understand.
I thought you were talking about the bunker created by the two small bunker pieces, not the one created by the two big bunker pieces.
For what it’s worth: I thought the trap door on top was the door, but I can see how the lack of a ladder could lead to confusion. 
The upside is that when you put the two smaller pieces together, you have TWO doors! So, we’re golden there, right?
Or, are we… 
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Chess has been around for 1,400 years and those guys still can’t manage to fix the second player disadvantage issue. Give us a little time!
Go has been around even longer. Both games are symmetrical as well! Still handling that.
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A large part of it comes down to two main things I believe.
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There seems to be an increase in typos and missed things in MKIV compared to previous editions. Missing stats, misspellings, rules text which is wrong (Vayl1 still has Tether targeting a Horror vs Cohort model, Sentry Stone/Void Engine number of models, and more).
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Many of the errors and problems feel fairly obvious and not corner case. Running and Disengagement, towers and sprays, as two quick examples. These were all questions seen by the community, and it causes questions on how they made it that far without being caught.
I’ve been playing the game since MKI, and this edition thus far has stood out as seeming to have more bugs than usual (and yes I remember MK2 launch).
Also, thanks for jumping in and answering questions here.
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It’s a combination of working as fast as we can to get information into the app with a limited amount of resources. Our team is Jason — lead designer who does the rules. Loren who overseas play test and does most of the data entry in the app. Erik who monitors the feeback@privateerpress.com email. And me, who floats in and out of development as I can make time.
Today, Jason is actually doing a bunch of the typo clean up. But while he’s doing that, he’s not working on converting Legacy model rules. So, there’s always a tradeoff.
And I’m not trying to downplay the errors, but at the end of the day, they’re correctible. And we will correct them. Previously, we could’t do that.
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I love all the hard work you guys are doing! Thank pp team.
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I think Malkav has pointed out the tip of the iceberg about the known issues. As my supplement, does the instant win on turn1 when playing narrative league and journeyman league scenarios count?
Where do I want you to focus? A steady and reliable basic rule set I can use to teach new players how to play this game correctly, and don’t need to tell them some part of rules are uncertain, we’re still waiting for an errata, or overthrow the rules you just have taught them last week.
Play WARMACHINE since July 2011 and consider this is the game I’m looking for. It has brought me a lot of fun and good time already. After reading your reply about resource arrangement I guess if I keep asking more that would be too harsh to you. Wish you good luck and catch up with your original roadmap, and let me see how long players in our LGS can brace and last.
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I wanted to add one other thing, because I’ve seen this sentiment crop up more than once:
To which I respond (with a link):
The good old days weren’t as good as you think they were.
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So, I’ll point out the obvious here too. I’m not trying to pick on you or single you out, obviously.
But, anyway: presumably, we’re all playing this game to have fun. If a rule – especially one in a narrative scenario – is so obviously out-of-square that it truly does cause an instant turn 1 win by the strictest reading of the rules, then change the rule.
As for specifics, well:
The narrative scenario you mean is presumably the one with the watchtower that the invaders need to destroy, yes? If so, the Watch Tower’s new +4 ARM versus ranged attacks rule should help that out. Additionally, if somebody is just gunning it down with Armor Piercing shots (as was widely touted on social media by certain folks when it released), then the Guard Tower is not a model, it’s terrain, and Armor Piercing only affects models.
As for the Journeyman League… I have no idea where you’re getting that. You need to score 9 points to win, and I see no way to score more than 6 on turn 1, and only if you’re “gaming the system” to score some of those. Specifically, it would be possible to place terrain such that you could do the following:
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Move a model through rough terrain (perfectly plausible)
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Move a model over an obstacle (also perfectly plausible)
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Place a model into cover (plausible, but I kinda think you need to specifically place your terrain so you can do this. But honestly, if you’re getting technical and trying to game this, I’d game right back and say “Okay, where’s your place effect in your battlegroup?”
) -
Charge an enemy model (You can game this and fail-charge something, but, because this is literally geared toward new players, I think the “Successfully” part of “charge an enemy model” is implied)
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Boost an attack or damage roll (I doubt the opponent will be in range for either, and you can’t target your own models, so…)
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Cast a spell (perfectly plausible)
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Execute a power attack (Possible, but, again, fail-slamming or trampling on turn 1 is gaming the system, and you should strongly read that as “succesfully execute a power attack” or maybe “hit with a power attack.”)
Unless there’s some MK I-style uber-shenanigans that I’m seriously missing, I don’t see how anyone auto- wins on turn 1.
I also remember the Mk I days - I started playing during Escalation. I remember being able to call PP when we had rules questions during games (the rules have never been perfect).
Looking back, players always lamented the new thing - Character warjacks ruined the game. Hordes ruined the game. The sky has fallen innumerable times and I have continued to enjoy the game.
I understand that people keep getting hung-up on Rules As Written, but this is - for all intents and purposes - a beta phase for the game. Enjoy it and try not to get hung up on the minutia. If that minutia is what you live for, maybe look somewhere else for the time being?
My wife and I have enjoyed getting back into the game after years of hiatus. The game became such a bloated mess. The MK IV ruleset really is better than all the preceding versions. We’re looking forward to the new “hordes” factions coming out over the next few months.
Matt - thanks for keeping the game alive and shout-out to the team for continuing development of a fun game system.
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The Tower in that scenario is not a Building. It’s a Structure. Structure doesn’t get +4 ARM against ranged attack if I read the rule correctly.
It’s the 4th week scenario. I linked the post I made yesterday and maybe it would explain my concern.
https://community.privateerpress.com/t/journeyman-league-scoring-timing/1379
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