The Rumour Thread

[swarmofseals]

1 minute ago, AdamJ said:

Yes, that’s what it seems to imply. If that’s the case then they only had a few months between GHB19 and this going to print to evaluate any necessary point changes (expect the factions post Cities of Sigmar). Is this what always happens?

That's not quite accurate. Again, keeping in mind that the first release that is covered in this window came out in December, note that except in rare circumstances it takes a couple of months to develop real impressions of a battletome's balance. So the realistic evaluation window for Slaves to Darkness would be something like February or March at the earliest. All this implies is that the book needed to be finalized sometime before that.

If you look over the past couple of years GW has made public posts on fb and elsewhere soliciting feedback for the GHB. If you look for those posts and look at the dates that they want responses by you can get a sense of what the schedule probably looks like (keeping in mind that they surely need time to read through and digest community feedback before making final decisions).

[AdamJ]

1 minute ago, swarmofseals said:

That's not quite accurate. Again, keeping in mind that the first release that is covered in this window came out in December, note that except in rare circumstances it takes a couple of months to develop real impressions of a battletome's balance. So the realistic evaluation window for Slaves to Darkness would be something like February or March at the earliest. All this implies is that the book needed to be finalized sometime before that.

If you look over the past couple of years GW has made public posts on fb and elsewhere soliciting feedback for the GHB. If you look for those posts and look at the dates that they want responses by you can get a sense of what the schedule probably looks like (keeping in mind that they surely need time to read through and digest community feedback before making final decisions).

Thanks for the explanation. I had forgotten Slaves to Darkness was so late in the year.

I should just add this is not a moan. I find it genuinely interesting how these things get put together; it would take a lot more brain power than I have! I just wanted to get a feel of whether this was a possible typo. Your reply makes perfect sense.

[Raptor_Jesues]

Anybody knows if the hero maker thingy is going to be for matched play too? I sewar to nagash, if it is open play only im going to be mightly pissed 

[Mutton]

36 minutes ago, swarmofseals said:

Keep in mind that the first thing to come out after Cities of Sigmar was Slaves to Darkness, which released on December 15th.

Pretty sure Ossiarch Bonereapers and Ogor Mawtribes were directly after Cities. Then we had Slaves, Kharadron, Tzeentch, and Seraphon.

[swarmofseals]

7 minutes ago, Mutton said:

Pretty sure Ossiarch Bonereapers and Ogor Mawtribes were directly after Cities. Then we had Slaves, Kharadron, Tzeentch, and Seraphon.

Ohh, right you are. For some reason I had those flipped in my head. November 2nd then. Still looking at January/February as a reasonable point for having some data.

10 minutes ago, Raptor_Jesues said:

Anybody knows if the hero maker thingy is going to be for matched play too? I sewar to nagash, if it is open play only im going to be mightly pissed 

I don't think anything is absolutely certain but everything we know so far suggests that there will be a tool for translating your hero to a matched play points cost, but that this is not considered to be "matched play legal" at baseline and will require opponent's permission to use. So it's possible that some TO will make a tournament pack allowing custom heroes but I doubt it will be the norm.

[Raptor_Jesues]

1 minute ago, swarmofseals said:

Ohh, right you are. For some reason I had those flipped in my head. November 2nd then. Still looking at January/February as a reasonable point for having some data.

I don't think anything is absolutely certain but everything we know so far suggests that there will be a tool for translating your hero to a matched play points cost, but that this is not considered to be "matched play legal" at baseline and will require opponent's permission to use. So it's possible that some TO will make a tournament pack allowing custom heroes but I doubt it will be the norm.

this "customization is for narrative only unless everyone really wants to" thing really grinds my gears. I hope it is a standard thing for matched

Edited July 2, 2020 by Raptor_Jesues

[swarmofseals]

2 minutes ago, Raptor_Jesues said:

this "customization is for narrative only unless everyone really wants to" thing really grinds my gears. I hope it is a standard thing for matched

The problem is that the more complex the system becomes the harder it will be to balance. A balanced hero customizer for matched play would need to be quite limited in scope for it to be workable as a standard thing. As such, it would be a lot less fun for narrative play because the options would have to be much more restricted.

It's easy to see how broken a flexible hero creator would be by looking at artefacts as examples. Many factions have artefacts that are just fine or even poor in the context of their own battletome, but could easily be broken if given to the right character.

Imagine you build a hero with an attack profile that looks something like this: 10 attacks, 6+ hit, 6+ wound, no rend, 6 damage. That attack profile would actually be pretty crappy and not cost that many points. It'd only do 1.67 damage before saves on average. Now put that attack profile on a Lumineth hero and give him the Perfect Blade. Now suddenly his damage before saves jumps up to 26.67. That's a 16 fold increase in damage from an artefact, which is utterly broken.

But why not allow that attack profile for a narrative character? It would be perfect for something like a berserk but extremely drunk gargant.

As an aside, anyone who has played many tabletop RPGs knows how difficult it is to balance a character creator, and that's in a game where the players aren't typically directly opposing one another!

Back when I was pretty into White Wolf's World of Darkness games I remember stumbling upon a joke character profile that someone made for "Chuck Norris" to fit into that system. Basically it was utterly broken with comically high stats. But I was able to make a legal, starting level character that could easily wipe the floor with Chuck Norris in combat by abusing the character creation system to min max something absurd.

(in case anyone is curious and actually knows about what I'm talking about -- I forget the exact details, but basically it was a Mokole whose Archid form was the size of a city block, but with poisoned frog type skin. So the character's physical characteristics were through the roof and anything that came anywhere close to it would be paralyzed instantly and take massive damage in that game's equivalent of mortal wounds. "Huge Size," "Contact Venom," and as high Stamina as I could go. Basically if it transformed anything within a 100+ foot radius of it would be killed instantly. )

[JackStreicher]

48 minutes ago, Raptor_Jesues said:

Anybody knows if the hero maker thingy is going to be for matched play too? I sewar to nagash, if it is open play only im going to be mightly pissed 

It is for narrative and open play.

 

If it wasn’t every faction would figure out the most optimal hero and spam it in every list. This would make the entire tool redundant.

Edited July 2, 2020 by JackStreicher

[KingBrodd]

Trying to silently keep it together realising it may not be until September for the Sons to be released. Hopefully we get some Lore articles during the 9th Edition Pre Order weeks.

[dekay]

1 minute ago, swarmofseals said:

The problem is that the more complex the system becomes the harder it will be to balance. A balanced hero customizer for matched play would need to be quite limited in scope for it to be workable as a standard thing. As such, it would be a lot less fun for narrative play because the options would have to be much more restricted.

It's easy to see how broken a flexible hero creator would be by looking at artefacts as examples. Many factions have artefacts that are just fine or even poor in the context of their own battletome, but could easily be broken if given to the right character.

Exactly this. And for example: Infinity has optional character creation rules. Some tournaments allow them. There are a lot of options to choose from, theoretically you can gear your operative any way you like, there was a huge list of skills, weapons, plus modifiable stats. Every single example of actual use could have been boiled down to 'economy hacker/doctor with maxed ballistic skill and long ranged gun' or 'deep strike hacker/doctor to drop on objective last turn'.

People *will* find the best options, and then it will break the balance. Infinity tournament lists allowing those custom character ted not to include regular hackers or doctors because custom one is just better.

Tyranids in ye olde 3rd edition 40k and a similar system for building their big monsters, and 3/4 options were never used. There were 2-3 builds considered worth fielding.

So yeah, place of fully customizable characters is, sadly, in open play only because otherwise we'd break them.

[Souleater]

53 minutes ago, KingBrodd said:

Trying to silently keep it together realising it may not be until September for the Sons to be released. Hopefully we get some Lore articles during the 9th Edition Pre Order weeks.

Hang in there, dude. 👍

 

The time of the Gargants approaches!

[Evangelist of Cinders]

1 hour ago, KingBrodd said:

Trying to silently keep it together realising it may not be until September for the Sons to be released. Hopefully we get some Lore articles during the 9th Edition Pre Order weeks.

It'll be here soon, pretty sure the delay is about the logistics and manufacturing getting back up and running post shutdown, not due to the 9th edition release. Speculating though do to one just my own experience in manufacturing;but also the frustration on the official twitch channel at the wait describing all the work that goes into building an army, and then be delayed/restart some points of the process.

[OkayestDM]

1 hour ago, KingBrodd said:

Trying to silently keep it together realising it may not be until September for the Sons to be released. Hopefully we get some Lore articles during the 9th Edition Pre Order weeks.

Hang in there bud, we may yet be pleasantly surprised.

[KingBrodd]

18 minutes ago, OkayestDM said:

Hang in there bud, we may yet be pleasantly surprised.

 

59 minutes ago, Souleater said:

Hang in there, dude. 👍

 

The time of the Gargants approaches!

Thanks for the support guys!! Just itching for the big lads being this close and wanting all that Gargantuan lore!!

[Kramer]

3 hours ago, AdamJ said:

Yes, that’s what it seems to imply. If that’s the case then they only had a few months between GHB19 and this going to print to evaluate any necessary point changes (expect the factions post Cities of Sigmar). Is this what always happens?

Well might be a bit later. Maybe they decided that a book needs to be in rotation for at least X months before they have enough input to make points changes. 
So timeline could be release -> 3 months -> time to decide on the changes -> sent off for design and printing. 

[Kramer]

2 hours ago, JackStreicher said:

It is for narrative and open play.

 

If it wasn’t every faction would figure out the most optimal hero and spam it in every list. This would make the entire tool redundant.

or it is for matched play but you can't make anything powerful with it. Which would be just as bad  

[swarmofseals]

17 minutes ago, KingBrodd said:

 

Thanks for the support guys!! Just itching for the big lads being this close and wanting all that Gargantuan lore!!

Dude how can we not support you! I don't know if I've ever seen anyone as enthusiastic about anything in my life. GW should send you copies of the kits and battletome right now so you can write or make a video promoting them XD -- I doubt if anyone could make them sound better than you will.

[OkayestDM]

31 minutes ago, swarmofseals said:

Dude how can we not support you! I don't know if I've ever seen anyone as enthusiastic about anything in my life. GW should send you copies of the kits and battletome right now so you can write or make a video promoting them XD -- I doubt if anyone could make them sound better than you will.

Agreed! 

Additionally @KingBrodd, your one of the most positive "still waiting for my release" people I've ever seen. My interest in the Gargants is mild at best, but damn if I don't want to see them come out just so you can get your boyz!

[Cloudsworth]

One workaround for custom heroes in Matched Play and Tournaments is to have community  guidelines that restrict certain combos or builds that prove to be abusive. Perhaps have a banned list like

No Lumineth Heroes that give units +1 attack

No Kharadron Heroes can be wizards

 

[KingBrodd]

3 hours ago, swarmofseals said:

Dude how can we not support you! I don't know if I've ever seen anyone as enthusiastic about anything in my life. GW should send you copies of the kits and battletome right now so you can write or make a video promoting them XD -- I doubt if anyone could make them sound better than you will.

 

2 hours ago, OkayestDM said:

Agreed! 

Additionally @KingBrodd, your one of the most positive "still waiting for my release" people I've ever seen. My interest in the Gargants is mild at best, but damn if I don't want to see them come out just so you can get your boyz!

You guys are simply the best!! Thank you so much for these kind words they truly mean a lot to me!! I've never been a part of a community so welcoming and thoughtful in not only allowing me to gush over something I love but embracing it and urging me onwards with it!! I love this community and more importantly a massive shootout to @OkayestDM and @swarmofsealsfor these incredibly kind words.

[Vasshpit]

Get a room guys. 😜😄

[RuneBrush]

12 hours ago, Raptor_Jesues said:

this "customization is for narrative only unless everyone really wants to" thing really grinds my gears. I hope it is a standard thing for matched

There's going to be a way to work out the points value for a hero created using the Anvil of Apotheosis hero generator.  It's not been developed for matched play games because matched play is focused on creating a balanced play experience and the Anvil of Apotheosis has been written to create a cool thematic character for your army. 

There's nothing stopping you from using a custom character in a matched play game if your opponent agrees with it, but it's unlikely that matched play tournaments are going to be using those rules - it's hard enough validating army lists are legal without having to check custom heroes!

[EccentricCircle]

There are ways they can limit the options in the character builder to avoid the worst combos, or reduce the power of min maxing. In rpg terms something more like character classes or ability trees, rather than straight point buy of any ability. That said rpg studies show us that full customisation doesn't really work with balance and vis versa. I'm keen to try it out, but in a hyper competitive setting, people will power game. 

Some people power game in totally non competitive rpgs, you can be sure they will when there is something to win.

[Kasper]

Im so disappointed in the AoS community - How come the 40k guys can have massive leaks but we got nothing in regards to the GHB20? I need them pooooints dude! 😄😄

[Scurvydog]

45 minutes ago, Kasper said:

Im so disappointed in the AoS community - How come the 40k guys can have massive leaks but we got nothing in regards to the GHB20? I need them pooooints dude! 😄😄

9th edition leaked entirely over a week before preorders are even up, 21 days before it should actually hit stores. GHB2020, best guarded secret in all the duardin strongholds