I feel there is a vicious cycle in rules writing currently.

[Ironbreaker]

6 hours ago, Dead Scribe said:

Its actually not that expensive. 

I chase the meta, but I don't pour a ton of money into chasing the meta.

When I sell my current army I try to do so before it is fully nerfed, thus getting a pretty high sell value out of it.  That money does not fully cover buying the new army unless the new army is second-hand, but it covers a good portion of it.

The key is not getting attached to anything.  You don't play armies you like the look of, you play armies you know are statistically powerful.  When it comes time to sell them, you sell them. You don't hang on to them.  

So do you paint your armies? This is such an alien concept to me as someone in it for storytelling and "my dudes". It honestly makes me sad to think about it, it feels so dead and empty. 

[Myrdin]

34 minutes ago, Sleboda said:

First off, thanks for changing the tone from civil to insulting. For a moment there I thought the internet was surprising me. Turns out nah. Same old same old. 

Second, I've been in it for 34 years, give or take a few months. This includes a time as a playtester (can be verified by checking credits in several older books) and a nearly 12 year stint as a GW employee, some of which was spent in trade sales, where I was involved in meetings where we strategized our sales plans, and another stretch in IT where I had access to all US sales data.

I've also been a winning GT player with a range of armies that were usually not the New Hotness.

I have no agenda. I'm not blind. I'm not stupid.

I'm experienced and have insight.

 

Also thank you for being frank here. I do appreciate that. However as far as my perspective goes, the conversation is still civil. If I name possibilities and you choose to associate with one or more of them,  and choose to be insulted, then maybe there was some merit behind such an assumption.

The reason I stated how long I`ve been around is to play an open hand. Its been long enough to see the game shift and evolve quite a lot, but its not like I`ve been around it since forever. I will absolutely admit that there are people > you included > who have several decades of Warhammer experience under the belt. However the changes in this last decade were off considerably bigger magnitude. Just the shift from WFB to AoS was one that shook the community to its core, and being around that does give me a decent idea and look on how things progress and turn out in the end.

From what you wrote its clear that you do not see the power creep since there is an agenda. Clearly you have been affiliated with GW, meaning your agenda is covering for the company. Why you would do that I do not know nor does it matter, as no one is attacking GW here. But as I said, its like trying to persuade someone that something thats been clearly observed to happen is not happening.

As for your experience > while I do not devalue them, it is experience and opinion of one person. I myself know people who played armies like Beastmen and Bretonia when they were the bottom of the barrel, and did win tournaments with them, and they will freely admit that the armies were garbage when compared to the current new releases, and they took them just to see how far they can bring them facing of the "new hot stuff".

Your experience is not devalued by the experience of others, but nor does it devalue theirs. However when a majority of the people who are all experienced and have insight come to a mutual consensus It means there is a merit to what is being said and we can draw a pretty decent conclusion from it.

I will leave it at that as I do not wish to partake in this conversation anymore to avoid unintended escalation (I will read and acknowledge your response should you choose to write one though). No direct offense was meant against your person, and if you interpreted it that way I do offer my apology. I have no desire insulting other fellow hobbyist for his opinion, despite  inadvertently wording my response in a more crude way. I will however not back down on my reasoning, seeing how things always ended up with both 40K, WFB and now AoS armies so far from what could have been observed over the years.

[Sleboda]

21 minutes ago, Myrdin said:

However as far as my perspective goes, the conversation is still civil. If I name possibilities and you choose to associate with one or more of them,  and choose to be insulted, then maybe there was some merit behind such an assumption.

 

From what you wrote its clear that you do not see the power creep since there is an agenda. Clearly you have been affiliated with GW, meaning your agenda is covering for the company.

You can't just accuse someone of stupidity and then say it's only bad to do so if the person you insulted feels insulted. But I'm not sure there are words that could explain that to you, so that's all I'll say on that.

As to the but about covering for GW, it's not the case. You are making assumptions and leaps with insufficient knowledge. A mind predetermined is hard to penetrate, though.

Suffice it to say, if you had any interest in learning before attacking and judging, you would know I've been harshly critical of GW in numerous instances. 

The only "agenda" I have here is to to engage in honest and informed discussion, a plan that clearly is at odds with your approach, I I don't believe engaging further with you would be productive.

 

 

Edited September 26, 2019 by Sleboda

[Moldek]

@Myrdin you have to admit that, even if you didn't mean it like that, implying that your interlocutor might be "blind, stupid, or have an agenda" comes across as insulting in most contexts. I recommend keeping that in mind because that doesn't help constructive discussion about toy soldier games.

I'm not weighing in on the issue itself, as it seems that you and @Sleboda just have a different definition of power creep.

It's funny how often this type of discussion ends up with people either mad or completely boggled by each other's opinions. Personally I don't feel too affected by power creep as I don't play competitively, but I feel that the issues get somewhat exagerated on the internet. In my opinion, a thread about counter strategies to OP armies would be a much more interesting read; although I do enjoy reading about more seasoned players' experiences

Edited September 26, 2019 by Moldek
punctuation

[Dead Scribe]

1 hour ago, Ironbreaker said:

So do you paint your armies? This is such an alien concept to me as someone in it for storytelling and "my dudes". It honestly makes me sad to think about it, it feels so dead and empty. 

I don't paint my armies no, I pay to have someone paint my armies.

[stratigo]

8 hours ago, Dead Scribe said:

It seems a few of you should probably look into playing a different game, so that you can enjoy your time more.

It is so very bizarre to see competitive players argue against their game being balanced in AoS. Like, that's the exact opposite of what I see in 40k. Even the big names go "Yeah, I'm using this OP BS, but I know it is OP BS and want GW to nerf it".

 

 

What army are you playing again? Are you just trying to maintain the current state of the meta for your own benefit?

 

AoS is NOT a good competitive game and people who care about competition won't be supporting the current state of the meta. 

[stratigo]

7 hours ago, Sleboda said:

If by "known for" you mean "assumed without actual facts to back up" then sure.

There have been periods where ex GW designers have gone, flat out "Yeah, the corporate suit at the top told me to make this unit overpowered"

 

Like, this happens man. I'd like to think modern GW is no longer falling prey to this sort of design philosophy, but I'm not entirely sure they've learned to not hand army book writing off to people who are too passionate about an army and want to load it up with rules, and then handed a next book about an army they don't care about and they give it very little.

[Dead Scribe]

11 minutes ago, stratigo said:

It is so very bizarre to see competitive players argue against their game being balanced in AoS. Like, that's the exact opposite of what I see in 40k. Even the big names go "Yeah, I'm using this OP BS, but I know it is OP BS and want GW to nerf it".

 

 

What army are you playing again? Are you just trying to maintain the current state of the meta for your own benefit?

 

AoS is NOT a good competitive game and people who care about competition won't be supporting the current state of the meta. 

I'm not arguing against the game being balanced, I just realize that GW will never balance the game and so if thats the rules, that the game will never be balanced, you play by the rules and stay on top of the imbalance, thats all.  

People constantly say 40k and AOS is not a good competitive game but then they are ignoring that 40k and AOS events are full at capacity and grow every year and that there are now tournaments for 40k that have $10,000 or more first place prizes.  There is a tournament for 40k that has a $10k first prize in Atlanta in December.  

If it was not a good competitive game that should be driving people away in droves, it certainly isn't working lol.  Its only growing as a competitive game.  If a good competitive game that was supposed to attract players was a balanced game, then I'd expect to see the kings of wars and 9th ages dominating the tournament scene.  Reality is - thats not even close to the reality.

Its not a deep game by any stretch of the imagination but I don't think its supposed to be a deep game.  Its a probability and statistics game where you maximize your dice probabilities with pretty models.

Edited September 26, 2019 by Dead Scribe

[stratigo]

59 minutes ago, Dead Scribe said:

I'm not arguing against the game being balanced, I just realize that GW will never balance the game and so if thats the rules, that the game will never be balanced, you play by the rules and stay on top of the imbalance, thats all.  

People constantly say 40k and AOS is not a good competitive game but then they are ignoring that 40k and AOS events are full at capacity and grow every year and that there are now tournaments for 40k that have $10,000 or more first place prizes.  There is a tournament for 40k that has a $10k first prize in Atlanta in December.  

If it was not a good competitive game that should be driving people away in droves, it certainly isn't working lol.  Its only growing as a competitive game.  If a good competitive game that was supposed to attract players was a balanced game, then I'd expect to see the kings of wars and 9th ages dominating the tournament scene.  Reality is - thats not even close to the reality.

Its not a deep game by any stretch of the imagination but I don't think its supposed to be a deep game.  Its a probability and statistics game where you maximize your dice probabilities with pretty models.

GW is, at least in regards to 40k, clearly heavily invested in balance and fixing issues with the game. 40k gets balancing passes three to four times a year now. 40k now is more balanced than it has been in years. Maybe ever. Can 40k ever be a truly balanced game? Maybe not, but gw is certainly trying

 

does aos deserve less? Do you think gw shouldn’t even try?

i mean I can tell you which of the two systems is more popular and grows faster and has larger tournaments. It is the one with a very clear emphasis on regular balancing updates

 

every post you make just doesn’t make sense to me from the perspective of someone interested in competitive gaming. Really. Gw does care about balance

[Dead Scribe]

My friend, I have no ability to balance the game.  There are no other game systems that have the same volume of players in tournaments that AOS or 40k do.  

AOS will always play second-fiddle to 40k, even if 40k was following the design ethos from a few years back simply because in north america the tanks and guns are vastly more popular.

So as a tournament player, my choices are to play AOS competitively, or not to play games competitively because I am not interested in the 40k genre.  The more balanced fantasy style games out there have next to no tournament community anywhere near me and even at Adepticon have low numbers compared to AOS. 

As such I choose to take it on the chin and ride the meta because not playing is not a current option for me and to stay on top you have to make sure your army list is the most powerful list you can construct.

Edited September 27, 2019 by Dead Scribe

[stratigo]

19 minutes ago, Dead Scribe said:

My friend, I have no ability to balance the game.  There are no other game systems that have the same volume of players in tournaments that AOS or 40k do.  

AOS will always play second-fiddle to 40k, even if 40k was following the design ethos from a few years back simply because in north america the tanks and guns are vastly more popular.

So as a tournament player, my choices are to play AOS competitively, or not to play games competitively because I am not interested in the 40k genre.  The more balanced fantasy style games out there have next to no tournament community anywhere near me and even at Adepticon have low numbers compared to AOS. 

As such I choose to take it on the chin and ride the meta because not playing is not a current option for me and to stay on top you have to make sure your army list is the most powerful list you can construct.

You don’t take it on the chin though. You actively argue against ways to balance the game

[Battlefury]

Looking at the different "unique" rules setups, I don't know if GW is intentionally bringing those new rules into the Battletomes consistently.

Sometimes it feels like:

"Oh we got a new idea wich rules we could create...let us just do it for those new books now."

Wich absolutely will create Power Creep for sure, because they would not update old stuff until the next release.

[RuneBrush]

+++ MOD HAT +++

Sorry folks, this topic has very rapidly gone downhill so getting locked.

Probably a good point to highlight that we're all entitled to an opinion - we're entitled to defend, debate and even change that opinion.  Disagreement is something that makes us human.  However we (on TGA) will not tolerate insulting comments towards each other when somebody has a different opinion, even if we heavily disagree with it.