What should GW do to balance AoS?

[Mosquito onthe TenthFloor]

5 minutes ago, Dead Scribe said:

I'd say that the view point I am expressing is definitely not in the minority and that the viewpoint I am expressing is backed by a large number of competitive players that I interact with weekly that participate and pay thousands of dollars a year for to GW for producing a product that we engage with.

The attendance at the larger conventions also proves what game directions are popular and which ones are not.

To be fair, GW has never aimed at competitive players nor have they ever stated that this is their aim. Quite the opposite, in fact, as the oft repeated message is that they aim for casual players and free 'n easy playing.

Competitive people may claim to spend more (dubious claim, as no evidence) and be louder, but the fact remains that they just aren't the intended audience in mind when the rules are created.

[Dead Scribe]

Quote

Competitive people may claim to spend more (dubious claim, as no evidence) and be louder, but the fact remains that they just aren't the intended audience in mind when the rules are created.

Is there a link to a developer interview that states this?  Specifically with design intent as it pertains to AOS?

[Mosquito onthe TenthFloor]

4 minutes ago, Dead Scribe said:

Is there a link to a developer interview that states this?  Specifically with design intent as it pertains to AOS?

Not 100% on AOS, but its been stated many many times over the years as the studio approach, yes. Go and have a look. Its okay, we'll wait here for you

[Overread]

7 minutes ago, Dead Scribe said:

Is there a link to a developer interview that states this?  Specifically with design intent as it pertains to AOS?

I think the biggest hint is the Age of Sigmar launch. Granted that was also bolted onto the attitude of "we make models not games" taken into the extreme end of things. That said, it has been quoted many times by them but I don't have ready links to the info (its not info I've marked as wanting to go back too so  read and moved on)

 

Also you can see it in how in the past each army used to get a codex and each time it came out they were the BEST army ever. GW back then (only 1 edition back and before) would maybe roll out a handful each year. Each one twinned to a big model release for that army. The thing was this meant that they had such a huge investment in that army that it had to be good, really good and then just a little more, to ensure high sales volume. This was even more the case because the last time that army got an udpate might have been one or two rules editions ago - so their player base and market was already dwindling and reducing. In the extreme armies like Dark Eldar missed 2 whole rules editions - they were running on rules that didn't even exist in the core rules of the game any more - twice over. 

And all through those eras GW was bleeding customers and the other companies were growing. Kickstarters were generating millions; there were loads of new companies getting started. GW relaunched with a bigger focus on balance - releasing (in 40K) the Indexs all at the same time so all armies were on an equal footing for a new edition. Their sales went insane. Gw became the biggest stock increase on the UK stock market. 

This is all after they tried abandoning balance and points and such through the launch of AoS. 

[Dead Scribe]

11 minutes ago, Mosquito onthe TenthFloor said:

Not 100% on AOS, but its been stated many many times over the years as the studio approach, yes. Go and have a look. Its okay, we'll wait here for you

There is no evidence to support that the AOS designers are writing for casuals or competitive players.  There is no evidence supporting anything concrete.  Interviews that take place in past versions of WHFB or even 40k are irrelevant to AOS because they are often different design teams entirely or those people don't even work there anymore.

The problem with hints and what not without direct quotes is that we all want to believe what we want to believe in.  

I know that AOS with no points and no tournament structure was an entirely failed game.  I know that the balanced games out there don't really sell.  I know that listbuilding games, from FFG's X Wing as an example, to games like Magic the Gathering have a huge commercial success rate because of the listbuilding elements.    I know that AOS with points and a healthy tournament scene have resulted in a lot of success for GW.

So I'm going to stick with that until GW does an interview with the design team that states that their primary audience are narrative casuals.  At that point I would reconsider my stance.

[SwampHeart]

Just now, Dead Scribe said:

There is no evidence to support that the AOS designers are writing for casuals or competitive players.  There is no evidence supporting anything concrete.  Interviews that take place in past versions of WHFB or even 40k are irrelevant to AOS because they are often different design teams entirely or those people don't even work there anymore.

We butt heads pretty often but this is 100% accurate. What old design teams or different design teams have said isn't relevant to AoS's design or progression at all. 

[JPjr]

ok, just throwing this out there... others may disagree but whilst a general nod in the direction of 'balance' (whatever that actually means) is a good thing doing it on a game that has 20+ wildly different factions, some of which are brand new and designed with the latest rules in mind and many which are older than the hills and only exist to appease players who have spent a lot of time & money on their toys and, fairly, want to use them AND who all also have to in some way fit with their entirely made up lore is going to be next to impossible to do without starting from scratch.

whilst they should make minor course corrections when things seem totally game breaking  (and they are) there's probably just  too many variables, too many odd interactions, too many loopholes and exploits (of course whilst also constantly shovelling more new things on top of the existing pile) to neatly fix it at an army level (if that's even the goal).

So isn't the (or at leats an) answer then to look at something a lot simpler that with a bit of creative tinkering could have a much more dramatic effect on a game result without needing to wholesale nerf factions or rewrite books, that is the battleplans? if DoK, for example, are steamrolling everyone at the moment is it beyond our capabilities to come up with some scenarios and victory conditions that in some way mitigate the most obnoxious, overused lists?

One of the arguments for using Realm Rules was that adding in some unpredictability would push people towards more balanced lists, so likewise if you have 5 games at a tournament and there's at least one battle plan that might, for example, not suit a mono-build army of 90 Witch Aelves or Grimghasts or whatever that might encourage more variety.

 

 

 

 

[Mosquito onthe TenthFloor]

2 minutes ago, Dead Scribe said:

There is no evidence to support that the AOS designers are writing for casuals or competitive players.  There is no evidence supporting anything concrete.  Interviews that take place in past versions of WHFB or even 40k are irrelevant to AOS because they are often different design teams entirely or those people don't even work there anymore.

I take it you haven't looked then?

[Dead Scribe]

4 minutes ago, Mosquito onthe TenthFloor said:

I take it you haven't looked then?

I've looked plenty.  Please provide the link because I can't find what you are referring to.  If you link to a video please provide the quotation so that I don't watch the video and mistranslate or miss the quote entirely that is the basis for your thesis.

[Mosquito onthe TenthFloor]

*edit* never mind.

[Dead Scribe]

Ok.  When you have a quote or something that I can refer to I'll consider your argument that GW is writing primarily for narrative casual players.  Until that is provided, I cannot consider changing my stance at least on where GW's actions seem to indicate what they are writing for in regards to AOS.

[Ollie Grimwood]

7 minutes ago, Dead Scribe said:

Ok.  When you have a quote or something that I can refer to I'll consider your argument that GW is writing primarily for narrative casual players.  Until that is provided, I cannot consider changing my stance at least on where GW's actions seem to indicate what they are writing for in regards to AOS.

Well they certainly write a whole lot more content for Narrative/open play than they do for Matched Play.  Though given Matched Play’s existence they clearly have some interest in customers who prefer more structured balance to their games  

 

[Mosquito onthe TenthFloor]

13 minutes ago, Dead Scribe said:

Ok.  When you have a quote or something that I can refer to I'll consider your argument that GW is writing primarily for narrative casual players.  Until that is provided, I cannot consider changing my stance at least on where GW's actions seem to indicate what they are writing for in regards to AOS.

Mate, you weren't considering changing it no matter what people say. And whatever links I post isn't going to meet your particular criteria, I expect. 

Hence "never mind" as I see a circular discussion happening.

[Dead Scribe]

If you had an actual link I'd definitely consider it if the AOS developer stated that they were primarily concerned with narrative casual play or something to that effect.  None exists though because no AOS developer has gone on public record to state that and when they are asked at conventions that very question, they dodge it or give a political answer to writing for all three modes equally.

Well they certainly write a whole lot more content for Narrative/open play than they do for Matched Play.  Though given Matched Play’s existence they clearly have some interest in customers who prefer more structured balance to their games  

They do write a lot of content for narrative play, but that doesn't mean they write primarily for narrative/casual play.   Their convention answers are that they write for all three modes equally.  

[Mosquito onthe TenthFloor]

*edit* never mind.

[Eevika]

@Dead Scribe You do realize that one thing being OP is the opposite what competitiveness is. Winning without trying is not very competitive. Most competitive games are trying to be as balanced as possible. Dota, LoL, MtG, Hearthstone... All some of the most competitive games there are and also very balanced.

[michu]

I'm with @Overread. Armies should have multiple possible ways of building. One OP option in battletome or codex - that's what really boring. When people first got a look on Gloomspite Gitz Battletome they were discussing the multitude of possible options and that they all are quite viable. You can take squigs or infantry or spiders or troggoths and nothing looks (so far) truly terrible. That's far better than "play only these units or you can already concede" army.

 

[Dead Scribe]

If only one thing was OP that would be true but its not in AOS.  There are several things OP.  Its just that not all factions have an OP option so if you like a certain faction you may not get to use it because it can't be viable against the OP lists.

If all factions had an OP combo the complaining about the balance would certainly lessen because then all factions could come to the table viably.  

Winning without trying is not very competitive

Professional level AOS involves everyone at the upper tables using OP lists.  You literally cannot win without trying, you have to compete and compete hard.

The only place winning occurs without trying is taking a tournament list against a casual list.  Which I am not for at all.

[Eevika]

2 minutes ago, michu said:

I'm with @Overread. Armies should have multiple possible ways of building. One OP option in battletome or codex - that's what really boring. When people first got a look on Gloomspite Gitz Battletome they were discussing the multitude of possible options and that they all are quite viable. You can take squigs, or infantry or spiders or troggoths and nothing looks (so far) truly terrible. That's far more better than "play only that units or you can already concede" army.

  

This is the thing. I believe Gloomspite book is actually almost a perfect battletome. I already have plans for 2-3 different armies and they dont all just seem like memes like it felt playing a Squig army before the book came out. 

[Ollie Grimwood]

3 minutes ago, Dead Scribe said:

 

They do write a lot of content for narrative play, but that doesn't mean they write primarily for narrative/casual play.   Their convention answers are that they write for all three modes equally.  

But the reality is they write more for Narrative/Open. For example there’s 150+ Battleplans less than 10% of those are for Matched Play.  How many pages in Battletomes are taken up by exclusive Matched Play content 1 or 2 pages of pitched battle profiles? 

 

[Overread]

3 minutes ago, Dead Scribe said:

If only one thing was OP that would be true but its not in AOS.  There are several things OP.  Its just that not all factions have an OP option so if you like a certain faction you may not get to use it because it can't be viable against the OP lists.

If all factions had an OP combo the complaining about the balance would certainly lessen because then all factions could come to the table viably.  

And now what if instead of just one list combo that is OP we instead balance it so that there's 5 or 10. By having better balance (and not basing it around specific combos) you widen the number of potential choices. That's far more fun to build with when you can vary your built and still win. Surely that's way more exciting and way more interesting 

 

You say one of the most fun things for you is finding good lists. If there's only one OP list then once you've found it you've - well - done it. If instead balance is more even then there's multiple choices and there might not even be any single OP list. that means you've got way more fun in finding new lists; trying them out; tweaking it and trying again etc..

[Eevika]

Just now, Dead Scribe said:

If only one thing was OP that would be true but its not in AOS.  There are several things OP.  Its just that not all factions have an OP option so if you like a certain faction you may not get to use it because it can't be viable against the OP lists.

 If all factions had an OP combo the complaining about the balance would certainly lessen because then all factions could come to the table viably.  

But that would still be boring as then all factions only had one way to play. just like @michu said the Gloomspite book is great becouse there is a lot of potentially good armies in there and everyone is hyped over the same book but about playing totally different armies. Thats what I want. 

[Skreech Verminking]

I don’t have a my prove, but I’m guessing that Gw is writing for all players.

may it be open, narrative or match play.

Like already mentioned i don’t have any prove but only assumptions, of events that happened in the past.

go a few month back and we see that they were asking all people around the globe, if there was anything they wanted a bit changed in the points.

This was something where literally everybody could answer.

of course there were possible many competitive tournaments player among this people, but probably also open and narrative players.

I don’t think that Gw has any intention, of favoring a certain group and they’re playstyle,  but rather are interested in keeping all kind of player groups happy, in some way.

also to go back to topic, I believe how they are changing the points and sometimes slight warscroll changes, is the right way to go.

its better then nerving a faction to the ground.

 

 

 

[Dead Scribe]

Matched play doesn't need a bunch of battleplans.  In fact I'd say matched play people largely do not want there to be a lot of battle plans to optimize for.

They do put a lot of time writing narrative and open battle plans and thats great.  The core of matched play is not narrative and open battle plans though, nor is it a lot of battle plans in general, it is a standard set of battleplans that don't really change.

[michu]

@Dead Scribe I meant one OP build in army not one OP build in whole game. It goes that way - if only 4-5 units in the army are good why others even exist?