Can Age of Sigmar 2 be a competitive game?

[Skabnoze]

4 hours ago, Nin Win said:

It's not public knowledge.

What people are generally going by is things going out of stock both in their local stores and on GW's online stores.  And I suppose you could also get a sense of it on the used market as ebay buy it now items get snapped up and so on.

Basically there's a shallow pool of pretty much every product GW sells.  GW doesn't want to pay money for endless warehouse space full of models so they tend to make what they think will be enough.

And then add in competitive players often buying single items in multiples whereas a more casual player might want one of this, one of that and so on.  Now add in a consensus of what is the new hot thing and it would take a very small proportion of the players of a given faction to go through the available supply.  GW's sales channels will only get resupplied as their production schedule permits and the secondary market will require people deciding to sell those very items from their collection.

Online bits-sellers are often another indication of where a GW game is at.  You can get a good idea of the generally preferred units and equipment load-outs simply by looking at the prices that the individual bits get set at.  Heavily in-demand bits get sold at higher prices and higher volumes and the less popular items often drop to really low levels (good to browse for conversions!).

[Skabnoze]

12 minutes ago, stratigo said:

40k is in an odd place that the meta changes literally every month of not more since they are rolling out codexes constantly and most armies in the game are able to mix in a broad manner.

 

AoS usually (for a given definition of usually considering it's only been a few years) changes yearly. They might be more active in plugging bad exploits, but I suspect the balance we have now is what will last out the year

I expect that 40k is going to slow down a bit since they have most of the codexes out now and most responses will be to the yearly point updates and the occasional faction releases.  Age of Sigmar I think will probably speed up a bit since GW seems to have finally got a good handle on what they want the standard format for Battletomes to be.  If the new NightHaunt and Stormcast books set the standard then they will probably want to rework a whole lot of the older books to fit this standard (add in some endless spells - etc).  In addition, Age of Sigmar still has a lot of factions that are left to address either through their own Battletome books or Legions of Nagash style anthology books.  Every one of these book releases will impact the "meta" to some degree.  Each will cause some amount of juggling.

[Nin Win]

An Archaon + Slaves to Darkness battletome in the style of Legions of Nagash would be very, very bad for my wallet.

If 2nd edition AoS is followed up by anything approaching the release rate of 40k codeces, I'll be impressed.   Even revisiting the earlier battletomes at a third of that rate would be amazing.

[Richelieu]

6 hours ago, stratigo said:

I think AoS 2.0 has changed it so that only a very narrow number of factions and lists are viable actually.

I think we need much more data before coming to this conclusion.  Off the top of my head I can think of at least a dozen factions that have the potential to be competitive:

Fyreslayers

Daughters of khaine

Idoneth deepkin

Seraphon

Stormcast (many completely different competitive builds)

Tzeentch (yes, I think they are still quite good)

Nurgle

Archaon garbage 

All 4 legions of nagash

Nighthaunt

Ironjaws (maybe? Cogs are a massive boost for them, especially since a weirdnob can get +2 casting easily)

Of course it would be great if there were more, but that's a lot of lists that can put up a solid fight against every other competitive faction.  

 

[swarmofseals]

On 7/4/2018 at 12:10 PM, sirbrokensword said:

 I want to have a competitive experience.  

 

I don't need perfect balance, but I'm very concerned with what I've seen so far in the 3 games Ive watched, skeleton hordes with 5 attacks each, deepkin eels with crazy attacks, etc.  

I've read through a good bit of this thread and find myself both agreeing and disagreeing with a lot of what has been said. Rather than argue with specific people point by point I'm just going to put my view out there.

My frame of reference for competitive tabletop gaming largely comes from Magic: The Gathering. While I've played Warhammer titles off and on since the mid 1990's, I've played M:TG much more consistently and have played at a level that's basically borderline Pro Tour caliber for about 10 years. I've never been good enough to be "on the gravy train" so to speak, but definitely good enough to qualify occasionally. I'm going to be drawing a lot of parallels between Warhammer and Magic, which I think stands as a pretty clear success as a competitive game despite having its fair share of problems.

Thoughts on Faction Balance

Spoiler

 

First and foremost, I want to say that I do not think that all factions need to be "balanced" at any given time in order for Warhammer to be a successful competitive game. There are simply too many factions and too many warscrolls for everything to be relatively equal at all times. In Magic, the vast majority of cards in each set don't see tournament play at all. In fact, I wouldn't be at all surprised to find that the majority of rares and mythic rares never see tournament play. In Warhammer, the "hit rate" is honestly far higher.

I'd also argue that not all factions have to be competitively popular at all times in order for the game to be competitive overall. Ideally, all four Grand Alliances should have something that's competitive at any given point at time, and this is IMO the biggest weakness of Age of Sigmar so far. Until recently both Death and Destruction were just not there competitively, and now Death is better off but Destruction is still very likely lagging behind. I'm confident that will change. It's also worth noting that if we consider the last two years or so (from the release of the first GHB until now), nearly every major faction has had competitively viable lists and most have been top tier at one point or another. The only ones that have never really put up a competitive showing are legacy WHFB armies that haven't had any updates, and even these armies have still had units show up in top tier lists. Just to give a general rundown:

• Ironjawz: Ironfist (GHB2016) and to some extent pig spam in early 2017
• Bonesplitterz: Kunnin' Rukk
• BCR: Thundertusk/Stonehorn spam (usually mixed destruction)
• Grots: the other half of the mixed destruction list
• Sylvaneth: Kurnoth spam (GHB2016), lots of other viable/tier 2 lists, looks strong in 2018
• SCE: Too many to list
• High Elves: Dragonlord Host, major part of Phoenix lists
• Empire: major part of Mixed Order Gunline (mostly GHB2016 but some in 2017 as well)
• Fyreslayers: various options (GHB2017)
• Daughters of Khaine: many viable lists (GHB2017), looks good for 2018 too
• Idoneth Deepkin: too early to tell but looks promising
• Kharadron Overlords: Clown Car Endrinrigger spam lists
• Seraphon: Thunderquake Starhoast, Kroaknado, looks amazing in 2018
• Tzeentch: LOL, do we even need to start?
• Khorne: Murderhost, Sayl Bomb, possibly Gore Pilgrims
• Nurgle: not super familiar but they had some good finishes since their tome came out, look very promising for 2018
• Skaven: Sayl Stormfiends, Gautfyre Scorch lists, major component of some successful Nurgle lists
• Death: Tomb Kings (GHB2016), lots of potentially strong Legions lists with some promising early results. Loots good for 2018
• Nighthaunt: Too early to tell but looks promising

So the main stragglers here are Wanderers, former Dark Elves (other than DoK), former Dwarfs, and Slaanesh. Sure there are some very narrow factions that haven't done anything, but I don't think it's quite fair to count every microfaction individually. Also, I'm pretty sure Wanderers and particularly Slaanesh have put up some at least peri-competitive finishes. Regardless, that's a pretty remarkable hit rate.

In Magic, it's not uncommon to go for several months or even a year or more where one color or another is only minimally represented in high tier tournament decks. It's also not uncommon for one (or maybe two) colors to be dramatically over-represented in a given metagame. People certainly complain from time to time about color balance, but basically nobody claims that this stops Magic from being a competitive game.

I think the same goes for Warhammer. Factions will rise and fall and go through cycles of being top tier and cycles of being non-competitive, but as long as there is good variety at the top and things don't get overly static I don't see it being a barrier to Warhammer as a competitive game.

 

Thoughts on Competitive Variety

Spoiler

Over the course of the last couple years, I think there has generally been an expansion in top tier list variety. Even at a "low point" though there have been at least 4-6 top tier lists and twice as many tier 2 lists. Even within these lists there has been a lot of variety -- it's not like everyone was taking the same Changehost or Skyfire Spam list. In Magic, a metagame with 4-6 top tier decks and 10 or so tier 2 decks would be considered very healthy.

I'm sure Warhammer will go through phases where the developers make a mistake and the metagame becomes unhealthy. That said, the GHB and FAQ system all but ensures that this can be corrected quickly.

Thoughts on Gameplay

Spoiler

The question of luck vs. skill is a very important one, and there is no doubt that luck is a big factor in Age of Sigmar. Luck is also a big factor in Magic, and I'd argue it might actually be bigger in Magic than it is in AoS simply because the number of points of randomness in AoS is much larger and therefore overall outliers will be less common over the course of a game (and or tournament).

People certainly complain about the luck factor in Magic all the time but few people seriously think that the game doesn't also have a huge skill element.

Deckbuilding is very, very skill intensive, and even if you steal a known-competitive deck card for card choosing the correct deck for the metagame of a specific tournament and a deck that matches your skillset (not everybody who is a good Magic player is a good control player, for example) is a lot more substantial than people give credit for. The same is true in Warhammer when it comes to listbuilding. 

In terms of gameplay, Magic is also extremely skill intensive. Even the most skilled and consistent pro players regularly make errors. Playing optimally requires knowledge of probabilities, sound strategic development, understanding of your deck AND your opponent's deck, ability to adapt strategy on the fly, lots and lots of resource allocation decisions, and ability to anticipate your opponent's decisions despite hidden information. There are other layers of skill as well but those are probably the most obvious ones. The flow of any given game is often complex enough that even very good players don't necessarily realize that they've made mistakes in hindsight.

It's also worth noting that Magic skill development is definitely not remotely linear.  If a player works at it, he or she can likely develop to a substantial level of skill fairly quickly. After this point, gains are very incremental but it's exactly those increments that separate the pros from everyone else and the top pros from the rest of the pack. If a player can manage a 60% win rate against a professional field, that player is likely one of the best in the game.

Of course, Magic is not competitive if one player is bringing a high tier tournament deck against someone else's casual kitchen table deck/theme deck/whatever. 

When played with proper scenarios and against an opponent who is bringing a list of similar power level, I think Warhammer has the potential to be at least in the same ballpark as magic skillwise. Part of the problem though is that the incremental edges in Warhammer are even often times even subtler than in Magic, and the decisions far more complex. Some of this is theory talking, but I think there is a tremendous room for skill in the movement aspect of Warhammer. Unfortunately, it's even harder to analyze movement decisions (and detect mistakes) because there are simply so many possibilities to what you can do. To simplify things though, I think that battlefield positioning and formation are two important dynamics that I rarely ever see discussed. 

A lot of gameplay decisions in Magic are probabilistic. Your lines of play are influenced heavily by the probability that your opponent has a certain card in hand or will draw that card within an estimated number of draws. Movement in Warhammer has a similar dynamic, as influenced by the randomness of run and charge rolls. When you move your models, you have to consider a ton of different possibilities, particularly in the early game. Moving your models 1" can dramatically influence the chance that your opponent will be able to charge you in the following turn (or the turn after), as well as dramatically influence your own ability to get a charge off in a following turn. You have to balance these odds carefully when moving your models. You also can consider the potential value of baiting your opponent into a low probability charge or influence your opponent's movement by your own positioning. 

I see even less discussion of formations. Most players I see just blob their units on the table either tightly packed together or spread out as much as possible. You also often see conga lines or bubble wrap, but that's about the extent of it. People seem to not really realize the potential of careful formations to allow you to reduce the number of enemies that can reach your unit while maximizing your ability to strike back (particularly when you have a unit that has a larger than normal pile in distance). 

If you accept that formations can be helpful, then suddenly relative facing matters as well. While we don't have actual flanking bonuses, flanking actually does matter in many situations. A simple example:

                                Y 

Y ->       XXXXXXXXXXX

In this example, the X's represent a large enemy melee block with a wide but shallow formation. Lets say you are attacking with a monster, Y. Attacking from the front will allow your opponent to pile in much more easily and get more models into contact while attacking from the flank minimizes your exposure.

There are many more examples, and they can get a lot more complex than this one.

Anyway, my point is this: there are a lot of opportunities in Warhammer to get small edges over your opponent. Sometimes the dice will lean hard against you and all those edges won't matter. Sometimes you will just draw a bad matchup and despite excellent play you will still lose. The same is true in Magic -- sometimes you play perfectly but your opponent draws hot while you flood out. But over time, luck will normalize and the player who plays better will win more games.

EDIT: I wanted to add that the new command point system also adds a major skill dimension. Knowing when to use CPs and when to hold back will be very important. A lot of armies have really nasty command ability combos, but sometimes you really need to use that CP to prevent battleshock or reroll a charge. Knowing when to do what will be a key skill.

Thoughts on Misperceptions of Imbalance

Spoiler

One thing that I have noticed a lot is that Warhammer players tend to point to warscrolls that do big things and cite that as a reason that balance is poor. You are falling into that trap by calling out big hitting eels, skeletons with 5 attacks etc. I won't deny that these things are powerful. The thing is, there are MANY things in this game that can have a dramatic impact. Points costs matter. There are plenty of things that are very efficient on offense but have ****** defense and vice versa. That's not to say that there aren't warscrolls that are clearly a bit overtuned -- but that's an ongoing part of balance. Also, sometimes certain warscrolls being overtuned is acceptable because of the larger picture of that factions strengths and weaknesses. 

Those 5 attack skeletons are crazy slow (the value of movement is hugely underrated) and can just get outright deleted by a Gaunt Summoner, Drycha or other horde buster. Similarly, you can march into them with a 2+ rerollable save and laugh at those Rend 0 attacks. Even if your faction of choice doesn't have these things going for it, you almost certainly have access to a high offense unit that is faster than the skeletons, allowing you to do major damage before they strike (and thus dramatically reduce the amount of attacks they get). Or you might have your own unit that is just as efficient. 

Basically, context is critical. Single units can be overpowered and even undercosted without the game being too imbalanced for competitive play. What matters is that either everyone gets similarly broken tools (in which case are any of them really that broken?) OR that counters exist. I'd argue that both of these factors are largely true in Warhammer.

EDIT: I'd also argue that units like these are necessary for the appeal of Warhammer. Personally, I want big dramatic things to happen in my fantasy game. If I wanted a bunch of variations on vanilla I'd play historicals. 

Thoughts on the Peculiar Impact of This Being a Miniatures Game

Spoiler

One thing that makes the dynamism of competitive Magic work is that it's relatively easy to switch decks. As long as you have the resources, buying or trading into a new deck is not difficult. 

Miniatures games are a bit of a different animal. The cost of a Warhammer army and a competitive Magic deck are at least reasonably similar, but the additional time commitment of painting it is a huge factor. Unless you are willing to spend for commission painting (which is tremendously more expensive than the army itself), are an excellent speed painter, or are willing to dramatically sacrifice quality then it's quite challenging to get into a new army for tournament play. 

All I can really say about this is that if the hobby aspect of the game is a cost to you rather than a benefit, then this is not the right game for you. That has nothing to do with whether or not the game can be competitive or not. 

I do think there are things that GW could do to alleviate this problem substantially, but whether or not they will do so remains to be seen.

 

[swarmofseals]

2 hours ago, Richelieu said:

I think we need much more data before coming to this conclusion.  Off the top of my head I can think of at least a dozen factions that have the potential to be competitive:

Fyreslayers

Daughters of khaine

Idoneth deepkin

Seraphon

Stormcast (many completely different competitive builds)

Tzeentch (yes, I think they are still quite good)

Nurgle

Archaon garbage 

All 4 legions of nagash

Nighthaunt

Ironjaws (maybe? Cogs are a massive boost for them, especially since a weirdnob can get +2 casting easily)

Of course it would be great if there were more, but that's a lot of lists that can put up a solid fight against every other competitive faction.  

 

Don't sleep on Sylvaneth, Slaanesh, and Order Draconis. I also wouldn't be totally surprised to see some mixed order list emerge or a good Khorne list.

[Richelieu]

4 minutes ago, swarmofseals said:

Don't sleep on Sylvaneth, Slaanesh, and Order Draconis. I also wouldn't be totally surprised to see some mixed order list emerge or a good Khorne list.

I also think Flesheater courts will be good and Darkling Covens could be a sleeper.  Three units of 30 Black Guard should be a thing with their new point cost.  

[swarmofseals]

27 minutes ago, Richelieu said:

I also think Flesheater courts will be good and Darkling Covens could be a sleeper.  Three units of 30 Black Guard should be a thing with their new point cost.  

Yeah, I forgot about FEC. They definitely have a shot. DC is interesting, although I'm not sold on it yet. Black Guard are decent now but I don't think they are good enough to carry the faction. I don't really see the advantage of what DC has to offer over, say, Idoneth Deepkin. That said they could be a perfectly viable choice, I just don't see them being better than a marginal tier 2.

[Richelieu]

40 minutes ago, swarmofseals said:

Yeah, I forgot about FEC. They definitely have a shot. DC is interesting, although I'm not sold on it yet. Black Guard are decent now but I don't think they are good enough to carry the faction. I don't really see the advantage of what DC has to offer over, say, Idoneth Deepkin. That said they could be a perfectly viable choice, I just don't see them being better than a marginal tier 2.

You're probably right, but black guard have a 2" reach and 25mm bases, so in a unit of 30 you're usually getting all 60 attacks.  Factor in the very solid DC allegiance abilities and the ability for Sorceresses to get +2 to cast when they need to get off cogs and I think they could easily be at the top of tier 2.

[Tiriom]

@swarmofseals

I really appreciate the time and effort you put into your reply to this discussion. I very rarely see a post with as much thought , consideration and quality. It can be very painful to read people’s thoughts on balance in any game most of the time, you see a lot of this everywhere but your post was a joy to read. 

I only wish those who would contribute let’s say less thoughtfully would be able to read your post first and think twice before posting.

 

[KevenM]

10 hours ago, swarmofseals said:

I've read through a good bit of this thread and find myself both agreeing and disagreeing with a lot of what has been said. Rather than argue with specific people point by point I'm just going to put my view out there.

My frame of reference for competitive tabletop gaming largely comes from Magic: The Gathering. While I've played Warhammer titles off and on since the mid 1990's, I've played M:TG much more consistently and have played at a level that's basically borderline Pro Tour caliber for about 10 years. I've never been good enough to be "on the gravy train" so to speak, but definitely good enough to qualify occasionally. I'm going to be drawing a lot of parallels between Warhammer and Magic, which I think stands as a pretty clear success as a competitive game despite having its fair share of problems.

What an excellent post! I loved reading your discussion on balance! 

Thanks!

[AaronWilson]

I think currently, the balance of the game is very off whack. I'm not sure GW fully understood the implications of allowing you to stack a command ability, warscrolls overiding core rules OR just how crazy good some of the realm artefacts are. 

[Tiriom]

5 hours ago, AaronWIlson said:

I think currently, the balance of the game is very off whack. I'm not sure GW fully understood the implications of allowing you to stack a command ability, warscrolls overiding core rules OR just how crazy good some of the realm artefacts are. 

What makes you think this?  I believe quite the opposite. They are well aware.  I don’t believe they want a static super balanced system, honestly I know some people love that type of game and they are out there but I personally find them very boring. 

As long as all armies have these flavorful options I see no issue. It’s not really op or out of wack imo if everyone has access to them in some form or other and crazy things you can do is fun and interesting IMO. That’s not to say there are no mistakes that won’t need to be brought down a little but i think this is ok in today’s world of FAQs etc. No disrespect of course

[InvalidUsername]

4 minutes ago, Tiriom said:

What makes you think this?  I believe quite the opposite. They are well aware.  I don’t believe they want a static super balanced system, honestly I know some people love that type of game and they are out there but I personally find them very boring. 

As long as all armies have these flavorful options I see no issue. It’s not really op or out of wack imo if everyone has access to them in some form or other and crazy things you can do is fun and interesting IMO. No disrespect of course

The thing about doing 'crazy' things is that it tends to only be 'fun and interesting' for one player. Kroak doing 100 mortal wounds in a turn is 'crazy' and 'fun and interesting' for the person using it, it's stupid garbage for the guy that has to scoop his whole army at once. And yes, that is a thing that can happen.

[Tiriom]

1 minute ago, InvalidUsername said:

The thing about doing 'crazy' things is that it tends to only be 'fun and interesting' for one player. Kroak doing 100 mortal wounds in a turn is 'crazy' and 'fun and interesting' for the person using it, it's stupid garbage for the guy that has to scoop his whole army at once. And yes, that is a thing that can happen.

Which is why I said some things will need to be toned down, or did you choose to disregard that section of my post?

[JackStreicher]

Dice Games aren‘t suited to be competetive. AiS has too much variety to be perfectly balanced and in the end the competetive scene tends to make a game sour.

 

this - like any GW game is super fun if you have games with friends in which you try to field strong lists while not maxing out the entire army. If you feel like sth. Is to strong: don‘t use it - the game is supposed to be fun for both parties, close games are the best and people only playing to win are the worst.

[Infeston]

1 hour ago, JackStreicher said:

Dice Games aren‘t suited to be competetive. AiS has too much variety to be perfectly balanced and in the end the competetive scene tends to make a game sour.

 

this - like any GW game is super fun if you have games with friends in which you try to field strong lists while not maxing out the entire army. If you feel like sth. Is to strong: don‘t use it - the game is supposed to be fun for both parties, close games are the best and people only playing to win are the worst.

I do have to agree with the "the competitive scene tends to make a game sour" - statement. At least for me it often went this way. Every other game which I played casually was made sour for me, because of the competitive scene or an overly competitive mindset. For every game that exists, also exists a competitive scene. The problem is that in every forum the competitive crowd always dominates the discussions and everything focusses on balance and competitive play. 

I have seen this with all the games I played before. As soon as I visit the subreddit of a game I get dragged into this very often. I also wanted to stay away from subreddits and forums for AoS, because as soon as I visit the internet to research everything about a game I very often find discussions about what is good and what is bad. There is a meta for every game.

And sometimes it happens that you can feel yourself excluded, because you might not have the right list or you don't play the right character with the right combos. AoS is a game where I try to flee from this mindset, which I always have to face with other games. 

Don't get me wrong. I also have games which I solely play with a competitive mindset and where I embrace the competitive nature of the game.

But AoS is the game, which I treat more like an RPG or like Dungeons and Dragons. The storytelling and forging a narrative is far more important for me than the competitive side. But thankfully GW tries to cater to different tastes by providing something for every playstyle. I for myself got so much stuff and special rules to create my own battles with the new books. It's fantastic!

[Nin Win]

I tend to approach warhammer like it's an RPG where everyone playing is a game master.  

That said, I have come to a greater appreciation of what goes into the competitive side of things.  It's definitley a real skill testing arena for those looking for such a thing.  I used to think that a game being often decided in list building was a bad thing, but now I think it allows for those who don't want to do the competitive thing to have a very, very easy method for not bringing it into their games.  When you have to really try to assemble a top tier list and design your allegience abilities, available command abilities, magic, unit abilities, think about battalions and your drops and the role of the double turn given your options in army building, the odds of someone accidentally making a list like that is next to zero.  If someone brings a tournament level army to a non-competitive game they did so on purpose.  And they can just as easily decide instead to take some things that have been sitting neglected on a shelf because they're not "viable in the current meta" or whatever and have some fun with them instead.

In short, I now see the greater the difference in effectiveness between an intentionally designed army and one not the better.  It helps people bring an army that is appropriate to the game in question.  It's a feature, not a bug that the competitive players have to silo themselves off into a fraction of the available models for a given faction.

[Ravinsild]

Personally it feels like DOTA balance philosophy to me instead of, say, League of Legends. In League of Legends Balance changes are made just for the sake of it, and things are always brought down to parity, a lot of things are nerfed, and it sort of dilutes everything into just being luke-warm without any outliers. 

In DOTA, everything is OP so nothing is OP. Like in my Skaven game, they have so much shooting and mortal wounds it began to feel really cheap and unfair, but then as Ironjawz I got a double turn and triggered smashing and bashing 6 times between the turns deleting 6 entire units from the board, so that was OP and fun for me, but probably cheesy and crappy for my opponent. LoL balances things in mind that, "This is anti-fun, it's not fun to be the target of this kind of thing" but DOTA doesn't care. 

I think AOS is like DOTA, and every faction or army has a niche OP trick it can do that's absurd, but it's ok because everyone has one. 

[swarmofseals]

3 hours ago, JackStreicher said:

Dice Games aren‘t suited to be competetive. AiS has too much variety to be perfectly balanced and in the end the competetive scene tends to make a game sour.

...If you feel like sth. Is to strong: don‘t use it - the game is supposed to be fun for both parties, close games are the best and people only playing to win are the worst.

I completely disagree with the first statement, although I say so with the caveat that I'm not entirely sure what your reasoning is. I'm guessing that it has something to do with the randomness inherent in dice games. If that is indeed the case, I disagree based on a couple of reasons. For one, I don't think dice games are inherently higher variance than other games. Surely they have higher variance than games with no random element, but they can have a range of variance that is equal or less than any other luck-based mechanic. Dice games that involve very small numbers of roll (eg: craps) are not suited to be competitive and have enormous variance, while games like AoS that involve a LOT of dice rolls can actually be relatively low variance. Card games like MTG and poker have a huge amount of variance in them. Tile games can also have a lot of variance. And yet there are tons of competitive card games and tile games. 

I disagree with the second statement on the grounds that perfect balance isn't needed for the game to be a good competitive game. I agree that there is too much variety for perfect balance, but that is fine.

Most importantly, I totally agree with the idea that the game is supposed to be fun for both parties. I think AoS has a lot of room to appeal to a wide swathe of gamers. Like @Infeston and @Nin Win have said, it can be played with an RPG approach and be a great game. Personally I enjoy AoS across the whole range, from totally narrative to hardcore competitive. That said, this thread is a discussion of whether AoS can be a competitive game, not whether it should be played competitively by any given person. If you aren't into competitive, then don't play competitive! That's totally cool. It's also totally cool for people to play the game competitively, and it shouldn't interfere with your enjoyment unless your specific opponent comes expecting one thing and you come expecting something different. This is why I think the heart and soul of what GW was pushing with the release of AoS -- that for the game to be good you have to talk to your opponent and come to an understanding -- remains totally valid today. 

Personally I have no problem with WAAC players (as long as "all costs" doesn't include cheating or unsportsmanlike conduct). What I do have a problem with is players who are inconsiderate and pay no attention to what kind of game their opponents want. The guy who insists on bringing a hard as nails tournament list to a casual club game is being a ****** and is totally That Guy. The guy who brings a casual list to a tournament and complains the whole time about any strong lists brought by others is equally being a ****** and is also That Guy.  I would hope that we can all aspire to never be That Guy, and that 100% begins with respecting the fact that other people like to play the game differently from the way you do.

12 hours ago, InvalidUsername said:

The thing about doing 'crazy' things is that it tends to only be 'fun and interesting' for one player. Kroak doing 100 mortal wounds in a turn is 'crazy' and 'fun and interesting' for the person using it, it's stupid garbage for the guy that has to scoop his whole army at once. And yes, that is a thing that can happen.

This is an important point, and it underscores a fine line that any game designer will find challenging to walk. As to whether Kroak is in itself across the line is not something I can really comment on (it can totally wipe out your army all at once, but it's also very disruptable and isn't even that good against certain builds). You want stuff that does big, cool things. But it only works if it goes both ways. 

13 hours ago, Tiriom said:

I don’t believe they want a static super balanced system, honestly I know some people love that type of game and they are out there but I personally find them very boring. 

 

18 hours ago, AaronWIlson said:

I think currently, the balance of the game is very off whack. I'm not sure GW fully understood the implications of allowing you to stack a command ability, warscrolls overiding core rules OR just how crazy good some of the realm artefacts are. 

I don't know about the realm artefacts. Some are crazy good, but I think it tends to be more the defensive ones. I could be wrong though. CA stacking though is absolutely problematic, and my earlier comments on AoS being competitively viable very much hinge on GW deciding not to allow things like a unit of Longstrikes shooting 10 times on the first turn. It's such an easy fix and so obvious that I'm very confident that these kinds of shenanigans won't persist. Summoning balance is very easy to tune with points adjustments. For stuff like CA stacking, point adjustments are not a very elegant solution. That's why I think it'll get errata'ed sooner rather than later. I surely agree that they don't want a "static, super balanced system" but I don't think that things like the most egregious CA spam are needed to keep things from being too static.

[Xasz]

Everything that is played against another person is competitive by nature. 

Man, even freakin' mobile games are played in grand tournaments and then broadcasted on twitch...

Tabletop, Wargaming and AoS  are no exceptions to that, if you like it or not. The question is only how much control and actual skill a certain game can convey.

In case of AoS and its genre, it's situated near some TCGs, CCGs and the (semi-)competitive boardgames but obviously with a certain distance to them, as they often give the players more control over things. AoS2.0 inevitably will help competitive play, as GW seems to navigate towards a clearer ruleset (with currently mixed results... but there is some faith).

On another note, this thread is most likely nearing its end, as the original question can only spark an argument and it's already devolving into the good ol' "muh narrative, muh competitive" viscous circle. 

Maybe let everyone enjoy the game their way? AoS is a stellar game on both fronts...

[Infeston]

1 hour ago, Xasz said:

Everything that is played against another person is competitive by nature. 

Man, even freakin' mobile games are played in grand tournaments and then broadcasted on twitch...

Tabletop, Wargaming and AoS  are no exceptions to that, if you like it or not. The question is only how much control and actual skill a certain game can convey.

In case of AoS and its genre, it's situated near some TCGs, CCGs and the (semi-)competitive boardgames but obviously with a certain distance to them, as they often give the players more control over things. AoS2.0 inevitably will help competitive play, as GW seems to navigate towards a clearer ruleset (with currently mixed results... but there is some faith).

On another note, this thread is most likely nearing its end, as the original question can only spark an argument and it's already devolving into the good ol' "muh narrative, muh competitive" viscous circle. 

Maybe let everyone enjoy the game their way? AoS is a stellar game on both fronts...

I disagree with your statement. But only at one point. 

You said "Everything that is played against another person is competitive by nature". I don't think AoS is meant to be played against someone but more "with" someone. It depends on your mindset. 

And AoS in its core seems to be intended to be played "with" someone and not against. I would say it depends on the mindset. 

 

I would say "Yes, AoS can be competitive. But to unleash the full potential of AoS you should play narrative or open play". 

 

[Lousy Beatnik]

1 hour ago, Infeston said:

I disagree with your statement. But only at one point. 

You said "Everything that is played against another person is competitive by nature". I don't think AoS is meant to be played against someone but more "with" someone. It depends on your mindset. 

And AoS in its core seems to be intended to be played "with" someone and not against. I would say it depends on the mindset. 

 

I would say "Yes, AoS can be competitive. But to unleash the full potential of AoS you should play narrative or open play". 

 

Yup, well said. 

Warhammer and Rogue Trader/40k started out exactly like that, and they went back to it with AoS.

[Xasz]

This is another thing, there seems to be a widespread misunderstanding about the use of "against" in tabletops and boardgames.

There is way too much emotional baggage put into the use of this word. It's not like I'll kick your dog, hate your guts or be an overall ****** when we play. To some extent it's just another word to imply the 'non-cooperative' or 'semi-cooperative' state of a game. It's a factual statement about how many players or factions can win a given game. Nothing more, nothing less.

Nevertheless, even if we play "against" we are still playing the same game, on the the same table... ergo we are playing together but only one of us can win. (this holds true for the vast majority of narrative scenarios)

People on this board have to detach themselves from the stereotype of "that one guy" in context of everything that sounds remotely competitive... even if some people make rather harsh judgments about tournament performance or playability of units and whatnot,  opinions from the interwebs are usually exaggerated and do not reflect the usual experience.

[Infeston]

Mhmmm. I understand your point @Xasz. But I don't agree with the statement that only one side can win in narrative scenarios, because the narrative approach is very different. But I also can't speak for every narrative gamer. I would say narrative gameplay also includes that you don't necessarily need to pick a side. Narrative gamers want the battles to be entertaining and exciting. And they propably want many random things happening on the board. But if I play narrative scenarios I don't always want my army to win. It is more about telling a story. So I wouldn't directly say that one player "wins" a game. In a lot of narrative scenarios I maybe want my army to loose, because I the other side fought gloriously and have proven to be worthy of a victory. But in a truly narrative setting you don't really play to win, but to see a story being told in the front of your eyes with every dice roll. Mhm I think I am failing to describe what I mean. I just think that the mindset is inherently different for narrative play than competitive play and that concepts such as "winning" don't really fit in the narrative mindset. 

The thing with the competitive mindset is that it wouldn't be such a big problem if competitive discussions weren't dominating 90% of all AoS discussions. Every discussion I read is about balance and everything which isn't about competitive play is often ignored or undermined. I for myself sometimes fear that this competitive mindset will shape the game in a way which I don't like. 

To make a game truly competitive you often have to remove things which would be fluffy or cool, because of balance. 

Before the introduction of points and competitive play there were many people writing interesting narrative battle reports or trying different scenarios. Now you don't read things like that very often anymore. 

I also think there should be something for every kind of player. But my problem is that the discussions about balance, competitiveness, lists etc. are dominating all discussions across all AoS boards. You can't start one topic without people always talking about points, list, etc.