Concerns with the development of AOS 2

[Ravinsild]

8 hours ago, svnvaldez said:

I loved mixed armies but felt I was in the minority. Now I don’t play them them at all because tome armies are “easier”.

Mixed armies were an amazing way to build my collection and get my friends into the game. I just had to buy a few different units from the different destruction factions and had a strong army and a bunch of different random stuff I liked.

Now I feel pressured to complete each faction such as Bonesplitterz and Gloomspite and buy a few kits I don’t love.

Why though? In my case I love Khorne Mortals, but I hate all Khorne demons except for Bloodthirsters and the doggos. I will not run skullcannons, bloodletters or any heroes that aren't Bloodthirsters or Karanak. 

I have no summoning to speak of, essentially, and I basically acknowledge I am handicapping myself and only playing with half the available army, but I'm fine with that. I love Khorne Mortals and I always play the same battalion that makes my favorite units even better. I feel no pressure. I don't play tournaments. I manage alright. 

[amysrevenge]

There are some cracks showing around the edges in my local store league right now - it's a bunch of competitive mindset, mostly 40k players, without bottomless wallets or extensive collections of fantasy models, and so many of them are using old or second-hand armies.  There are some frustrations cropping up when, for instance, mixed GA:Chaos is coming up against netlist Witch Aelves.

Everyone is having a nice enough time, but when the league wraps up at the end of the month, I don't think we'll have many long-term converts to AoS.  It will go back to the same pre-league population of AoS players (who are awesome) while the bulk of the club moves on to Killteam, and then 40k, and  doesn't touch AoS again until next winter.

[Overread]

@amysrevenge to be fair that might change come next year when more tomes are out and the armies are more shored up across the board for AoS. Heck even this coming Winter it should be a very different ballgame for AoS than it was this past winter. 

That said yeah if they are cobbling together general alliance armies then chances are they won't eb doing as well. 

 

Personally I hope GW either lets General Alliance armies remain as they are or only get modest attention - its not that I hate the idea of them, its that balance tends to fly out the window once your'e allying together factions purely on lore and when the factions are not "made" to be allies. It can seriously mess with the balance to the point where you can end up with super powerful min-max combos. 

[Dead Scribe]

I suspect that as long as gw lets the game sit in a state with obvious parity as it stands today that that will be common unless you're willing to buy whats viable and ignore the factions that are not.  That doesn't appear to be that big of a problem though for them.

[Dead Scribe]

Quote

It is immersion breaking and doesn‘t make sense. Especially the breaking of the player immersion should be avoided. So I should look for a simulation because of a bad game design? 🤣 funny.

I have seen this argument before from some people, mainly on facebook or on other forums like bols or dakka.  Essentially as is told those people who complain about immersion, this game is not a simulation and immersion isn't really a game design point for the designers.  

If immersion was one of their primary factors, then they'd need a whole different game because igougo, double turns, sparse terrain rules, lack of a weapon skill component for the models, the ability for war engines to drop castles on both enemy and friends alike that only hurt the enemy, etc... these are all enemies of immersion.  

If you are after an immersive game, I would say AOS is probably the last game I'd point to as being fun for you.  Its a game that embraces gamism and gamist philosophies that borrows heavily from board game and card game mechanics.  Its a GAME that uses a lot of abstractions to make fun mechanics that drive the GAME. 

Immersion is more in the realm of simulations.  

I find the GAME that is AOS is great game design, not bad game design, but I am also not looking or interested in simulations or immersion I'm looking for easy mechanics that are fast and get me through a game quickly with rules for pick up tournament style matches, which AOS gives us.

[Requizen]

3 minutes ago, Dead Scribe said:

I suspect that as long as gw lets the game sit in a state with obvious parity as it stands today that that will be common unless you're willing to buy whats viable and ignore the factions that are not.  That doesn't appear to be that big of a problem though for them.

At every panel for the last like 4 months, they've said that the push this year is to get Battletomes out as fast as they did 40k Codexes last year. Remember when they were dropping 3 at a time every month or so?

There are currently 25 factions in the game, per GW. 11 of them have AoS2 Battletomes (Black Label, much of the recent things like wholly within, etc), and they're going to announce at least one if not more at ACon. If they do 1-2 Battletomes per month until the end of the year, they'll have updated every single faction to AoS2, or sometime early next year if it goes a bit slower.

I would have a bit more patience before saying things like "GW is just letting things sit". They've released 4 Battletomes this year and it's not even April. I have a lot of confidence that we'll see the whole range be at a similar power level before you even know it, and then this board will need to find new things to complain about.

[Skabnoze]

10 hours ago, svnvaldez said:

Even Gloomspite, nothing wrong with using old metal squigs now

There was something wrong with using metal squigs in the past?  I never got that memo...

[King Taloren]

28 minutes ago, Requizen said:

I would have a bit more patience before saying things like "GW is just letting things sit". They've released 4 Battletomes this year and it's not even April. I have a lot of confidence that we'll see the whole range be at a similar power level before you even know it, and then this board will need to find new things to complain about

QFT

Note that this is the first time in 30+ years of business that Games Workshop has EVER released so many books in such a short amount of time. Previously we would be like three years or maybe more down the line to have all these factions with battletomes as we do now.

And some would never even see an update til Sigmar 4.0 if they were lucky. Necrons in 40K didn’t get an update from their 2nd edition tome until the end of 5th edition. Almost fifteen years, Dark Eldar were very much in same position as well.

I’m  not saying it was a good business practice. But just calm down a bit they are still very new to this whole increased pace of production.

[Carnivore]

It might be right, that GW finally tries to get everything right. That's a good thing!

But, imagine what happens, if you stretch a bubble gum further and further...it will just snap.
That's what I would complain about. AoS just feel like it is getting so much new stuff, over and over again, and the rework of the Battletomes is behind that.
Cool thing, that they'll rework them. But in order to get those done, there might be a bigger and even bigger gap to the older books and the newer books, that will have to be balanced.
That's a thing I would concern about. With "Forbidden Powers" we don't even know, if anything new comes to the game. What if it is a new cathegorie of endless spells? Or new units? Or a new army? I don't know what it will be. But what is for sure, IMO, is the fact, that there will be even more to be balanced out for the older books. And maybe even the older new books might fall behid, or even all of them.

It would have been better, to entirely flesh out the existing game first, than releasing new stuff over and over again.
GW is a little naiv there..

And it stretches...and stretches. The gap gets bigger and bigger.

[SwampHeart]

8 minutes ago, Carnivore said:

It would have been better, to entirely flesh out the existing game first

Releasing books is how they flesh out the existing game. 

[Ointagru]

1 hour ago, Dead Scribe said:

I have seen this argument before from some people, mainly on facebook or on other forums like bols or dakka.  Essentially as is told those people who complain about immersion, this game is not a simulation and immersion isn't really a game design point for the designers.  

If immersion was one of their primary factors, then they'd need a whole different game because igougo, double turns, sparse terrain rules, lack of a weapon skill component for the models, the ability for war engines to drop castles on both enemy and friends alike that only hurt the enemy, etc... these are all enemies of immersion.  

If you are after an immersive game, I would say AOS is probably the last game I'd point to as being fun for you.  Its a game that embraces gamism and gamist philosophies that borrows heavily from board game and card game mechanics.  Its a GAME that uses a lot of abstractions to make fun mechanics that drive the GAME. 

Immersion is more in the realm of simulations.  

I find the GAME that is AOS is great game design, not bad game design, but I am also not looking or interested in simulations or immersion I'm looking for easy mechanics that are fast and get me through a game quickly with rules for pick up tournament style matches, which AOS gives us.

A GAME without immersion  doesn't need painted models. In fact it doesn't need models at all. If it was  only about fun mechanics, it could and should be played with cardboard tokens. It also doesn't need backstory or artwork, which contribute nothing to the game as a GAME.  But these things exists, and they are what drives sales (people could make their own tokens instead of spending money on expensive models) so it seems that for a majority of players it is ALSO about immersion.

[Requizen]

32 minutes ago, Carnivore said:

It might be right, that GW finally tries to get everything right. That's a good thing!

But, imagine what happens, if you stretch a bubble gum further and further...it will just snap.
That's what I would complain about. AoS just feel like it is getting so much new stuff, over and over again, and the rework of the Battletomes is behind that.
Cool thing, that they'll rework them. But in order to get those done, there might be a bigger and even bigger gap to the older books and the newer books, that will have to be balanced.
That's a thing I would concern about. With "Forbidden Powers" we don't even know, if anything new comes to the game. What if it is a new cathegorie of endless spells? Or new units? Or a new army? I don't know what it will be. But what is for sure, IMO, is the fact, that there will be even more to be balanced out for the older books. And maybe even the older new books might fall behid, or even all of them.

It would have been better, to entirely flesh out the existing game first, than releasing new stuff over and over again.
GW is a little naiv there..

And it stretches...and stretches. The gap gets bigger and bigger.

Yeah, what if they started selling models that spontaneously combusted after a month?! Dang GW, you're really dropping the ball. Everyone get your pitchforks!

😫

How about instead of assuming the entire hobby is about to explode, we just look at the fact that they've been doing a pretty freaking good job in the past couple years or so and give them the benefit of the doubt that they maybe know what they're doing. 

[Dead Scribe]

15 minutes ago, Ointagru said:

A GAME without immersion  doesn't need painted models. In fact it doesn't need models at all. If it was  only about fun mechanics, it could and should be played with cardboard tokens. It also doesn't need backstory or artwork, which contribute nothing to the game as a GAME.  But these things exists, and they are what drives sales (people could make their own tokens instead of spending money on expensive models) so it seems that for a majority of players it is ALSO about immersion.

If it were truly a majority of players that required immersion, I would expect AOS wouldn't be as successful as it is right now, because AOS does not really cater to immersion in the first place and has never catered to it in its short lifespan.

[JackStreicher]

2 hours ago, Dead Scribe said:

Essentially as is told those people who complain about immersion, this game is not a simulation and immersion isn't really a game design point for the designers.  

Are you serious? Immersion is the most important part about game design, where by Sigmar did you get the idea about it not being important? Just read any article about game design, get informed by the name of Grungni.

and stop your talk of simulators, it makes no sense. Simulators don‘t automatically immerse you (speaking of video game-Simulators). 

but ofc the drastically increasing amount of STORY is NOT because they actually want immersion. Armies are NOT designed to fit in a unique lore-friendly playstyle. Do you know what immersion means?

https://giphy.com/gifs/mashable-l3q2K5jinAlChoCLS

#Triggered

#JustStop

 

do you forget the time while playing?

are you absolutely focused on the game and what‘s happening?

—> then you Are  immersed.

it‘s highly subjective when s.o. Might be immersed.

immersion in games does not mean that you feel like you are physically there and I‘d argue you cannot enjoy games if you are not immersed to some degree. Immersion goes hand in hand with enjoyment concerning games. 

[Kramer]

1 hour ago, Dead Scribe said:

I have seen this argument before from some people, mainly on facebook or on other forums like bols or dakka.  Essentially as is told those people who complain about immersion, this game is not a simulation and immersion isn't really a game design point for the designers.  

If immersion was one of their primary factors, then they'd need a whole different game because igougo, double turns, sparse terrain rules, lack of a weapon skill component for the models, the ability for war engines to drop castles on both enemy and friends alike that only hurt the enemy, etc... these are all enemies of immersion.  

If you are after an immersive game, I would say AOS is probably the last game I'd point to as being fun for you.  Its a game that embraces gamism and gamist philosophies that borrows heavily from board game and card game mechanics.  Its a GAME that uses a lot of abstractions to make fun mechanics that drive the GAME. 

Immersion is more in the realm of simulations.  

I find the GAME that is AOS is great game design, not bad game design, but I am also not looking or interested in simulations or immersion I'm looking for easy mechanics that are fast and get me through a game quickly with rules for pick up tournament style matches, which AOS gives us.

I’m with you on a lot of points in this thread but this is weirdly backwards. 

They design models first rules later based on what they feel the models should do.  So immersion comes first they make it a playable game after. Sources being the recent stormcast podcasts and the White Dwarfs this year. 

Where is your source for immersion not being a point for the game designers? 

To your second point, yes immersion is subjective. So where for you the suspense of disbelief is broken when a shooting attack only hits enemies when they are close together, for someone else it’s that the goblins have a tunnel in every. single. Battlefield... that’s what breaks mine. Magical missiles, no problem. A mage dragging a meteorite out of the sky that lays there hurting things around it, fun with me. But for me bloodhound carrying a bronze throne around to every single battle all of the sudden with no previous mention in the lore. That breaks mine. Now terrain feels like a gimmick, just to sell more. 

But anyway, sorry for going of track, your argument of it not being one or the other is a attempt to make something subjective objective. It simply true. Immersion is subjective so everybody will, and should, draw their own line where they think is the breaking point. 

Last point about the game. Totally with you. Except I’m also looking for immersion as said above. 

[Overread]

If immersion isn't important go spend half an hour talking to some Skaven players and dare them not to "skaven speak". You'll get drowned in double words and double meaning words being thrown at you every which way like mad. 

Immersion means different things to different people and lets remember that a tabletop 35mm game is going to be representing things differently to a 15mm wargame and both are worlds away from what a top end computer game can achieve. 

Warhammer Fantasy 35mm tabletop had rank and file and formations - Warhammer TW does too. But only in TW do you get even anywhere near the realistic representation of rank and file battles; and even then most are still tiny (in real armies one can easily start talking about thousands to hundreds of thousands and for Fantasy you could be talking many hundreds of thousands or even millions for an army like skaven). 

 

So in the end there's certainly a point at which one has to use ones imagination. I'd argue that, yes, at launch AoS wasn't so good with that. The lore was weakly defined (after Old World); the setting was still finding its feet; GW weren't giving clear direction either and you can see that in the BL novels that came out and how things have shifted from those early tales. Whence the realms were nearly infinite now they are finite; where once they had almost no boundary now they do etc... Furthermore we are setting the lore deepen.

 

It's crazy to think that GW didn't plan this out better, but honestly I think its due to the nature of how they launched AoS under the banner that all that mattered was the models; lore, rules; background etc.. were all not ranked as important enough next to models. Things have changed now and the BL authors and the Battletome teams are really pushing the setting forward and getting things firmed up here and there. 

 

[Carnivore]

49 minutes ago, Requizen said:

Yeah, what if they started selling models that spontaneously combusted after a month?! Dang GW, you're really dropping the ball. Everyone get your pitchforks!

😫

How about instead of assuming the entire hobby is about to explode, we just look at the fact that they've been doing a pretty freaking good job in the past couple years or so and give them the benefit of the doubt that they maybe know what they're doing. 

Where is the hostility coming from?

Do you actually have to defend GW? Why can't you just aknowledge someone's concern and maybe not point the finger on that one, complaining he might just be kind of stupid?

[Requizen]

10 minutes ago, Carnivore said:

Where is the hostility coming from?

Do you actually have to defend GW? Why can't you just aknowledge someone's concern and maybe not point the finger on that one, complaining he might just be kind of stupid?

I never said anyone was stupid. But there's no need to take seriously a concern that has no basis in reality. 

[Sleboda]

2 hours ago, Requizen said:

Black Label

Mmmm. Just had some a few hours ago. Prefer the Double Black, though.

[Carnivore]

29 minutes ago, Requizen said:

I never said anyone was stupid. But there's no need to take seriously a concern that has no basis in reality. 

And obviously you're the one to judge, what is worth concidering and what is based in reality.

Congratulations.

[Requizen]

7 minutes ago, Carnivore said:

And obviously you're the one to judge, what is worth concidering and what is based in reality.

Congratulations.

I mean yeah, like I said earlier in the thread, it's an open forum, so if you put your opinion on here, it's for anyone to judge. 

Look, your comments in this  thread have only been to complain about how pointlessly bad the game is balanced and how it's only going to get worse in the future, despite people trying to give you reasoned arguments and contradictions. It's really hard to take one seriously if all they do is complain and ignore everyone else who doesn't align with them, especially once you start making hyperbolic statements about how every release this year is just going to break the game further, despite the fact that this hasn't been the case for anyone actually paying attention to the game. 

[Ravinsild]

3 hours ago, Dead Scribe said:

I have seen this argument before from some people, mainly on facebook or on other forums like bols or dakka.  Essentially as is told those people who complain about immersion, this game is not a simulation and immersion isn't really a game design point for the designers.  

If immersion was one of their primary factors, then they'd need a whole different game because igougo, double turns, sparse terrain rules, lack of a weapon skill component for the models, the ability for war engines to drop castles on both enemy and friends alike that only hurt the enemy, etc... these are all enemies of immersion.  

If you are after an immersive game, I would say AOS is probably the last game I'd point to as being fun for you.  Its a game that embraces gamism and gamist philosophies that borrows heavily from board game and card game mechanics.  Its a GAME that uses a lot of abstractions to make fun mechanics that drive the GAME. 

Immersion is more in the realm of simulations.  

I find the GAME that is AOS is great game design, not bad game design, but I am also not looking or interested in simulations or immersion I'm looking for easy mechanics that are fast and get me through a game quickly with rules for pick up tournament style matches, which AOS gives us.

It’s definitively NOT Age of Sigmar, but it is at least somewhat based on fantasy of old, but any of the rules supplements for Blood Bowl are written as though it were an in universe magazine with interviews with star players, all of whom are not real people or a real world magazine. 

All of their games have a lot of lore, even Warhammer Underworlds (I read the story about Shadespire), hell even Warhammer Quest Silver Tower is lore rich and is meant to represent your hero getting plucked right out of where they were and transported inside the literal Silver Tower to try and defeat it for glory and power. 

All of their games are meant to be immersive. AoS is meant to feel like you are commanding an army like it plays in the books and other stories (Battletomes). That’s why they have themes at all and are easily recognizable at a glance for what they are. You see red, blood, skulls and axes and you immediately know it’s khorne. You see pale Aelves riding sea animals and without a doubt it Idoneth.

why do you think Sylvanath summon woodlands everywhere? They’re basically druids. 

[Carnivore]

And that's exactly my concern.

That the game might get worse in the future, altough Battletomes are being rushed out. I am not the only one stating that.
To some extend the game went already worse for some players, because terrain and the endless spells have been released.

I am with them on that opinion. It just doesn't feel right to have summonable terrain, that acts like units. The Magic phase became so powerful, it causes debalance, and might cause it in the future.

To just generalize, that everything went betters, because GW releases new Battletomes is too easy imo. We shall not forget, that some armies do also get more attention than others.

[JackStreicher]

 

Well all I can say for now is that my AoS Enthusiasm (which I had since the DoK were announced) received a heavy blow once the new MW Spam reached new heights with the BoK book. 
Before that I actually looked forward to play against other armies. But now...
I don't see why I should play against Clan Skyre or Blades of Khorne, it seems plainly devoid of fun if all you do is remove models due to mortal wounds.  What am I playing for if not for fun and immersion? You can't even defend against those Khorne spells and Skyre just puts out MWs at range... not very entertaining. (though I would rather play against skyre than BoK).

(and then there is the magically appearing solid steel altar appearing in every ****** battle...)

 

Overall the endless spells are a good concept. Most of them are just badly priced and or one sided (X mortal wounds, Y Mortal wounds) etc. If thesy added some creative effects like random teleports? Or having to run 6" if you are hit. I wished for simply more fun and interesting effects instead of plain damage.
This whole concept was utterly destroyed with the prayers which have no setback. can't be unbound, can't be despelled and are all rather cheap in points and have a good powerlevel. All they have in common with endless spells is that they have a model.

 

The same goes for terrain. I loved it with the idoneth, Sylvaneth and Gloomspite but al lof the rest seems forced to me.

[Gaz Taylor]

+++ Mod Hat On +++

Just a gentle reminder that this forum is for everybody as some of the posts seem to be getting passionate.

If you have concerns about AOS, please give feedback on the Sge of Sigmar Facebook page as the studio do read that. Also, if you can, please try and attend an Open Day, Warhammer Fest or events like Adepticon. The people from the studio are approachable but just remember that they are gamers like you, so don’t rant at them. Please be constructive.