My experience providing GHB feedback to the design team and my thoughts on GHB2019

[Sleboda]

The ones in question at the time most certainly were. Don't know the current crop.

[gjnoronh]

Also for what it's worth I know that some of the current  playtesters for AoS /40K  are the head TOs for the largest  highest stakes events for those systems in the world.  At least two of them have a podcast and one of them talked pretty in depth about his playtest experiences during their podcast review of an army book.  No I'm not going to say which podcasts - or events but if you are a serious competitive player you've absolutely heard about their events and probably tried to parse their rules set and results.

Maybe those guys running those events don't understand the top levels of competitive play - but having heard them talk through their thoughts about books I think they've got at least as good of a grasp (and far better then 99% of people) then anyone else I've heard/read talking about it.    

 

Edited June 18, 2019 by gjnoronh

[blueshirtman]

Durning playtesting is the focus put on new armies, or are old armies like BCR or dissposed other mentioned, play tested too?

[FlatTooth]

4 hours ago, Sleboda said:

Don't know the current crop.

Won’t stop you from stirring that pot, though. 

[prochuvi]

6 hours ago, Sleboda said:

Just a thought for you and @prochuvi

Getting a book is not the miracle cure some folks think. Khorne is on its third (I think) and it's still a joke. 

I think the book vs. non-book gap is overblown. It's really about well designed vs. steaming pile, regardless of where you find the rules.

I wouldnt say that khorne is a joke,they are 100% balanced.

This photo show the tiers,with botton tier being 100% non batletome armys

 

So we have those tier and armys in botton tier as dispossesed got a nerf to a batteline unit,minir buff to heroes and a buff to one unt and that it is,they needed changues to warscrolls with per example huge buffs as double wounds for every model to start to can go up  in ranks,but no,gw only did some  minor buff 100% negated by other nerf  that let dispossesed as they were before this gh.

For me god tier and the trash tier cant exist,a big game as warhammer must do hotfix or we call them faq in 1-3 months to nerf armys in god tier and buff armys in trash tier,then gh and tomes can balance mid tiers.

I dont get how they have tye face to sell us this joke gh with 0 work after it.

 

This gh havent done NOTHING to balance the game,nerfs of 10 points to units that needed a nerf of 40 points and buff of 10 points to units wont changue nothing.

I know i am bad with english and words,but as new player that chosen dispossesed as my army is a personal attack(after the invest of money done on dwarfs)see how after 3 years they havent done nothing to balance dispossesed but meanwhile they have release 3 tomes for khorne and stormcast and 3 gh and dispossesed are trash tier yet and seem the gap only increase on time

 

Edited June 19, 2019 by prochuvi

[Sleboda]

34 minutes ago, FlatTooth said:

Won’t stop you from stirring that pot, though

Your point?

Edited June 19, 2019 by Sleboda

[Dead Scribe]

I think tiers are very useful, and I find the graphic above to be fairly accurate in terms of difficulty level for armies.  Thats what tiers are.  The difficulty level you can expect to face if you and your opponent are both playing as hard of armies as you can construct with the rules.

I'd definitely say Daughters (my army), FEC, and Skaven are super easy mode.  Thats why I play them.  Because they give me the best shot at winning tournaments.  

I'd definitely say the trash tier that they have identified is indeed a non playable tier of forces that players should avoid at all costs unless they are hobbyists that like painting those models.  If they like the game at all, they need to avoid the trash tier, and I'd say the "D" tier as well unless they just really like a hard challenge.  Some people do so thats good on them, but people caught unaware that find models in the trash or D tier are usually angry a month or so into starting because they find out that their armies are grossly outmatched.

Matched play they say is about balanced games, but I haven't found that to be true, and I have accepted that and embraced that and collect whatever they have decided to make super powerful so that I can enjoy my tournament experience.  I think matched play is really more about a structure to build powerful forces within, and I think thats why the initial AOS failed so hard, it had no points to build forces within.  Balance I think in this game is a pipe dream and I think the sooner people accept that and learn to love that, the better off they will be.

 

Edited June 19, 2019 by Dead Scribe

[Belper]

Oh my god, I've been looking for words to describe why certain models are useless right up until they're broken for years and you finally gave them to me.

 

Example: The old Black knight warscroll was useless at 80pts. If you dropped their points though, people still wouldn't take them EVER...right up until the exact tipping point where they go from no one takes them.to everyone maxes out on them and you start seeing literally HUNDREDS.

 

It's because points change the efficacy of offense and defense at the same time. With the old black knights having less damage in a 5 man unit than a single liberator prime, balancing out the points to where the offense wasn't actively detrimental would have broken them DEFENSIVELY.

[Barkanaut]

This gives me hope for ko again.

[Belper]

2 hours ago, prochuvi said:

I wouldnt say that khorne is a joke,they are 100% balanced.

This photo show the tiers,with botton tier being 100% non batletome armys

 

So we have those tier and armys in botton tier as dispossesed got a nerf to a batteline unit,minir buff to heroes and a buff to one unt and that it is,they needed changues to warscrolls with per example huge buffs as double wounds for every model to start to can go up  in ranks,but no,gw only did some  minor buff 100% negated by other nerf  that let dispossesed as they were before this gh.

For me god tier and the trash tier cant exist,a big game as warhammer must do hotfix or we call them faq in 1-3 months to nerf armys in god tier and buff armys in trash tier,then gh and tomes can balance mid tiers.

I dont get how they have tye face to sell us this joke gh with 0 work after it.

 

This gh havent done NOTHING to balance the game,nerfs of 10 points to units that needed a nerf of 40 points and buff of 10 points to units wont changue nothing.

I know i am bad with english and words,but as new player that chosen dispossesed as my army is a personal attack(after the invest of money done on dwarfs)see how after 3 years they havent done nothing to balance dispossesed but meanwhile they have release 3 tomes for khorne and stormcast and 3 gh and dispossesed are trash tier yet and seem the gap only increase on time

 

BCR has a battletome.

 

Also, that list is Suspect AF.  Stormcast are A tier in Pjetski's wildest fever dreams and GG aren't that low.

[RuneBrush]

+++ MOD HAT +++

Just had to tidy up some posts on here that are completely inappropriate and showed a massive amount of negativity.

As a reminder to everybody, if you read a post that riles you, you find offensive or breaks forum rules - use the report button to flag it up to the mods and we'll deal with it.  Please don't respond to it with an equally negative post as that will simply get you into trouble too.

[Mirage8112]

@swarmofseals As I’ve said before, I always enjoy seeing you show up on the forum. Even when don't show your work, I know you’ve put a lot of work into forming an opinion and have enough math behind you that your word carries a fair amount of weight and I’m quite glad that you’vebeen Able to lend some of that expertise to the gamer designers. Well done sir.

16 hours ago, swarmofseals said:

If you look at most tournament players though they really don't think this way. Combat efficiency is important, but mobility is king. Most players, in my experience, still overly focus on the combat stats

 
Dear God. So much this. I cant express how many times I’ve tried to change wrong headed opinions on this very subject. Good call +1,000 internet points to you sir. 

[Forrix]

10 hours ago, Belper said:

Also, that list is Suspect AF.  Stormcast are A tier in Pjetski's wildest fever dreams and GG aren't that low.

Yeah, as someone who plays Fyreslayers and Nurgle those armies absolutely do not belong on the same tier. I'd put Nurgle in the B tier and maybe bump Fyreslayers to AA.

[swarmofseals]

21 hours ago, Primes said:

@swarmofsealsI agree with everything you say but dont really get one thing: Why are the discounts on armies who obviously wont get a new book soon so conservative. Mainly thinking of Stormcast and Nurgle.

Whats the WDR of Plaguebearers and Plaguedrones? Does a GUO seem a little expensive? Are Blighlords worth it for 200pts?

I may Sound salty but I would honestly love to be proven wrong from a mathematical standpoint.

Again thanks a lot for your work!

I think GW prefers to take a conservative approach in general, although this is one case where I disagree with them. I do think they need to be more aggressive in changing points for non-competitive warscrolls that aren't likely to get updated soon (but then again, I really have no idea what will or will not get updated. I wouldn't have predicted another Blades of Khorne book, so another Maggotkin book doesn't seem out of the question).

Plaguebearers have a really poor WDR (.032) but their defensive efficiency is quite good. I do think they could stand to see a small drop, perhaps down to 100/270. That would push their defensive efficiency beyond the current top end, but their offensive efficiency is low enough that this is likely fine. The way the warscroll is designed they will never have efficient offense because they are a defense first unit.

Plague Drones have a respectable .0783 WDR as long as they have locus active. They also scale really well with extra attacks. Their defensive efficiency is fine but unspectacular. They could likely stand to drop down to the 150-180 range IMO.

I don't think Blightlords are worth it at 200 and they could likely be dropped down quite a bit further as well.

All that being said, I don't think Nurgle is in a terrible place as a faction. Nurgle's winning % is currently at 47.7%, which is a tad low but definitely within reasonable tolerances. And that's before all of the top dogs get nerfed. I can't speak to the changes to the newest battletomes but we know that almost all of the warscrolls that were really over-represented at the top tables have gotten trimmed down. I'd be surprised if the same didn't hold true for the supplementary points changes as well. I would expect Nurgle to improve some just by virtue of the top dogs getting worse.

20 hours ago, Forrix said:

My main concern with the GHB is for factions that have had updates recently but are significantly behind the new power curve i.e. Maggotkin of Nurgle, Nighthaunt, and Gloomspite (Gloomspites are a bit of discussion and we haven't seen their GHB changes yet). What happens to them? Poor Rotigus is just over a year old and is pretty much restricted to just praying to the dice gods that he can actually get his spell off and stomp some Nighthaunt heroes.

Maggotkin are currently sitting at 47.7% match win rate, Nighthaunt at 45.6%, and Gloomspite at 43.3%. All of these numbers could stand improvement, but they aren't really that bad. Maggotkin and Nighthaunt are within tolerances, while Gloomspite is a bit below. Like I said above though, with the top contenders getting nerfs that alone should bring up these factions a bit. I also think that Gloomspite are a bit of a weird case. They have some really powerful options, but I think that their best options and their most popular options are basically opposite. There have been plenty of examples of people doing well with grot focused lists, but I see a lot more people trying to play trolls or squigs. Trolls are a bit undertuned imo, while squigs are just not the kind of thing that are going to be great in a tournament setting because of their random moves. 

19 hours ago, Zanzou said:

The huge part simply says that players will be mad at points going up IF a battletome actually finally comes out, so instead they are completely ignoring that they are useless in the mean time.

I don't mean to be rude or combative either, but it makes sense that the prior poster you are referring to wouldn't be satisfied with that as an option.  Players are ALREADY "livid" that their faction has been dumped on for YEARS, so for those players these continued excuses are, well, inexcusable as GW has failed to meet expectations for those players as of yet (STD PLAYERS, RIP).

I get this. I really do. I played Wood Elves in Warhammer Fantasy. I went NINE YEARS without an update, and when my book finally came out the End Times started within three months and the entire setting was over in less than a year. If you look at all faction updates for WHFB from 6th edition on, the average time between army books was about six years. 

I'm certainly not suggesting that players should be satisfied with their army being non-competitive right now, and I'm not saying that GW couldn't have done a better job with points modifications for some of these factions. 

My argument is that the drastic points changes that would be needed to make these factions viable right now are simply not a viable option right now. Enfranchised players who already own thousands of points of these factions would be happier, no doubt. Any new customers buying in though would be in for a huge shock and would feel massively betrayed when the points values inevitably increase. 

So while I empathize with those players that are frustrated with the current state of affairs, I can also understand why GW made the decision that they did and I really can't disagree with it.

That said, a more modest slate of buffs would likely have been doable and I'm honestly not sure why GW didn't.

[Zanzou]

1 minute ago, swarmofseals said:

I played Wood Elves in Warhammer Fantasy. I went NINE YEARS without an update, and when my book finally came out the End Times started within three months and the entire setting was over in less than a year. If you look at all faction updates for WHFB from 6th edition on, the average time between army books was about six years. 

I'm certainly not suggesting that players should be satisfied with their army being non-competitive right now, and I'm not saying that GW couldn't have done a better job with points modifications for some of these factions. 

My argument is that the drastic points changes that would be needed to make these factions viable right now are simply not a viable option right now. Enfranchised players who already own thousands of points of these factions would be happier, no doubt. Any new customers buying in though would be in for a huge shock and would feel massively betrayed when the points values inevitably increase. 

So while I empathize with those players that are frustrated with the current state of affairs, I can also understand why GW made the decision that they did and I really can't disagree with it.

That said, a more modest slate of buffs would likely have been doable and I'm honestly not sure why GW didn't.

I can agree on the severe point change band-aid solution could cause more issues than it solves, but they are definitely ignoring the myriad of other options they have had to fix these problems: 

-First of all as you said even modest buffs to the bottom-performers have been missing for YEARS for no explicable reason.

-Allegiance rules in the new GHB could have given MASSIVE buffs to old factions without running into the issue of buying far too many models

-I am not going to shy away from the fact that I am also one of the few users on here of the opinion that all factions should be up-to-date to the current rules BEFORE ever moving to the next expansion of AoS.  Although boxsets and new models are fantastic, there does not need to be a fancy model release and big boxset every time a faction receives a battletome or support. They keep pushing forward to new editions of AoS with races and factions as big as StD being ignored despite being sold as an "AoS" official army from the beginning.   I am very glad to see they are doing more updates now, but until I see the old factions actually being kept up to date with the rest of the range, I will continue to be skeptical of the order and timeliness of rule updates.

[swarmofseals]

13 hours ago, Mirage8112 said:

Dear God. So much this. I cant express how many times I’ve tried to change wrong headed opinions on this very subject. Good call +1,000 internet points to you sir. 

Thanks for the kind words! It's been a long journey for me from WHFB 5th edition until now. Back then we just played kill points pitched battles, and my Khorne Lord on Juggernaut with a Chaos Knight unit would just obliterate anything that it touched. Getting there faster was nice, but ultimately it was that insane combat efficiency that seemed to matter the most.

Now we play objectives, and even in casual level play it's clear how much mobility matters. I find a very simple game illustrative. I was playing a small casual game with my Legions of Nagash against his Khorne. His only "fast" units were a lord on Juggernaut and a Khorgorath or two, while I had some Dire Wolves and a unit of Morghasts.  The entire game came down to a very basic maneuver that any chess player will recognize. I had bottled up his faster units, and was able to threaten both his center objective and his right flank objective with my Morghasts. He had a unit Wrathmongers that I really didn't want to face with my Morghasts, but he could only cover one of the two objectives with it. My superior mobility allowed me to "fork" him and take whichever objective his Wrathmongers weren't covering. He cheated his Wrathmongers toward center, so I charged right flank, crushed the Blood Warriors there and took the objective for long enough that he couldn't catch up.

I love that example because it shows how in a battle between two close combat armies, the only thing that really mattered was speed.

Anyway, I'm very much aware of the biases present in my mathhammer approach, so I really try to keep up with as much tournament level analysis (lots of great podcasts out there!) as I can to keep up my understanding of how the game actually plays, not just on paper.

[Carnelian]

Thanks for the thoughtful original post @swarmofseals

(but of a shame how quickly this thread devolved) 

It's good to hear about your experience. I think it helps others understand how the process works. 

[BobbyB]

EDIT: delete pls, quoting error

Edited June 20, 2019 by BobbyB

[BobbyB]

On ‎6‎/‎18‎/‎2019 at 7:49 PM, PrimeElectrid said:

Well the writers play (and podium) at UK tournaments, so yeah.

eh? which writers are these?

[PrimeElectrid]

3 hours ago, BobbyB said:

eh? which writers are these?

Ben Johnson?

[BobbyB]

11 minutes ago, PrimeElectrid said:

Ben Johnson?

Ben Johnson is not a rules writer

[Dead Scribe]

Ben Johnson is the AOS lead designer.  I would imagine that means he has a hand in writing rules, unless lead designer does something that completely confounds me.

[BobbyB]

Have you got a source for that? Before the the split to separate teams he was always described as a product developer, now more ambiguously as megaboss (ie in the WH Fest program).  He wasn't involved in the rules team seminar at WH Fest either.  It's always been my impression that his role is more about co-ordination of the products and team than having an active role in any rules design

[Dead Scribe]

My source would be several people have called him the lead designer, the twitch stream called him the lead designer, and twitter posts have called him the lead designer in the past.  

[BobbyB]

do you have a link then? because his twitter bio says product developer for a start

Edited June 20, 2019 by BobbyB